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Author: concrete
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The future of competition in UT2k4 is a hot topic of speculation right now. Each major gametype (1v1, tdm, ons, ctf) is essentially re-evaluating itself to determine where it will go in the future. With the coming of fall, the first LAN season of ut2k4 is over (with pretty decent success), and eyes have turned to trying to predict what will come of the game in the future. I'm simply going to break down what my theories are here.
Team Deathmatch
The situation with the TDM scene is just full of different influences. The CPL is over, and after a tournament that can only be considered pretty successful (moreso than a BF one would have been at least), there's many things players must consider looking ahead.
Will the CPL host another UT2k4 TDM tournament this winter? In all honesty, I wouldn't have considered it a possibility a couple weeks ago. However, CPL recently announced that Nvidia said they would not sponsor another CoD tourney for this fall, although the decision was preliminary. Normally this would mean absolutely nothing to me or the TDM community. There's no specific reason to believe the CPL needs or wants to have a 3rd tournament going on at the winter event.
However, I have been shocked at the absence of a post on the CPL forums by an official discouraging people from getting their hopes up. At the very least I would have expected a "Well no definite decisions yet but don't be surprised if there's nothing happening." post. Maybe it's just supposed to be common knowledge, but not seeing it said so far is still surprising to me nonetheless. Add that to the sort of unofficial petition for a winter tourney located here and while it may not be a reason to expect good news, it's certainly not completely out of the question.
The odd thing about TDM is that it doesn't have an absolutely huge community. There's not thousands of players playing constantly on tons and tons of servers. What TDM does have, however, is a moderately sized community of extremely dedicated teams; the kind that could and would show up to lan events and act professionally. This somewhat odd characteristic of the TDM community (competitive nature without extreme #s) is what has kept it alive this long, and is its only hope to continue into the future, possibly with some help from more high profile competitions to increase exposure.
One interesting factor affecting the future of TDM is Doom 3. Being the only other major non-realistic style DM game around, people must essentially decide which side of the fence to stick to. The delayed announcement of Doom 3 as the CPL's World Tour game has also delayed the definitive decisions of many players. Of course, as of now the multiplayer (particularly tdm) aspect of Doom 3 has had a lackluster response, and the combination of only 2v2 being available out-of-the-box and many people finding their systems simply can't handle the game definately murks up the waters. One thing that is certain is that Doom 3 will not immediately incinerate UT2k4's TDM scene, and whether it even steals away too many 1v1 players will depend on some future developments.
So as of now, where does it stand? If (and that's a size=999 bold and underlined "if") winter cpl ends up picking up UT2k4 for a tourney, the medium-term future of competitive TDM in UT would be almost a given. Short-term, there has been much growth in interest from both existing teams and newcomers since CPL, and if this continues it can only mean good things for TDM.
Things aren't going to drastically change in the coming months. The majority of gamers in North America are going to continue to swoon to realism-based tactical games, leaving us crazy TDMers in the vast minority. However, if the community can keep its composure while continually trickling new players into the mix, it will still offer an interesting option to potential tournament sponsors: a tourney that can guarantee a moderate international turnout and will go off with maturity and professionalism throughout. CPL proved that this is certainly accurate, and while sheer numbers might still prevail, this characteristic may be the only chance TDM has to appeal to tournament hosts and sponsors.
Let's face it, hundreds of people aren't going to wake up tomorrow and suddenly realize that they love UT2k4 TDM, but as long as people enjoy 360 degrees of nonstop action and fighting tooth and nail from countdown to countdown, there will always be team deathmatch.
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