My experience with e-sports has been one of my most recent notable things I've done and I figured I want to get it all down before I start to forget anything. This is the last chapter and I haven't until now realised how lucky I am to have been able to compete at the event and to have a team that was willing to support me whilst I competed. Dreamhack is pretty much the biggest e-sport festival. It's been around for years now and is primarily held in Sweden. The fact that I'm from the UK made being able to attend this pretty difficult so I'm forever grateful to Awesome Gaming and more specifically to Anton and Tobias for arranging my travel.
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| Credit to Dreamhack |
So I've just come back from the Ministry of Win. I'm feeling confident about Starcraft but I'm beginning to hate it more and more. I was wary of my new team Awesome Gaming because they seemed to promise a lot of things which just seemed too good to be true. Everything that they promised so far, they'd actually followed through with. The last thing was being able to compete at a LAN event. Since they're a Swedish based company it was always pretty much established from the beginning it would be Dreamhack as Anton wanted everyone to meet up.
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| Credit to blogg.binero.se for the photo. |
He booked my flights for me whilst I was talking to him, these would come to about £200 I believe, then the bus tickets that I would need after arriving in Sweden. The reason for this is that Dreamhack is held in a city without an airport which seems pretty flawed for an international event but I guess they know best. So I would arrive at Gothenberg and then take a 2 hour bus to Jönköping where the event is held at the Elmia convention centre. The problem with the coaches is that the earliest I can take would arrive after I would need to check-in for the tournament. This means that I would need to leave the night before. I contemplated arriving really late the night before and just wondering the streets till the event starts the following morning but I would be completely dead to the world and in no shape to play. The next logical thing would be a hotel but Swedish hotels are pricey and it didn't seem like there was a chain of cheap hotels similar to like a Travel lodge in the UK. Being extremely poor at this point and pretty much relying on my pay from Awesome Gaming for food I knew I wouldn't be able to afford a hotel. I couldn't ask Anton because I felt cheeky considering he's already done so much.
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| The hostel was on the lake. Pretty fancy for a hostel. |
I was talking to Jimmy, a good friend of mine who has a keen interest in the e-sports scene and also plays Starcraft but at a casual level. I joked that he should go to Sweden with me and go to Dreamhack and surprisingly he was very open to the idea of it. It seemed like something he had been looking to do and now was his chance. We looked at flights and managed to get similar ones, the same flight to Amsterdam and then different flights to Gothenberg. After a day of thinking he booked it. I was very happy that he was coming, for one I've never been on a mini holiday with a friend before and I was also nervous about flying to Sweden and getting a coach on my own. Flying on my own I have no problem with, It's the finding the coach and venue that I would struggle on, I have no sense of direction. Now that there's 2 of us going we decided we could consider hotels, we booked a room at the cheapest which was classed as a hostel.
It was the night of the flight and I went to Jimmy's house which was near Manchester airport. The flight
was actually at 6am so we decided to set off at 3am and get their early. This meant that we both didn't
sleep that night. We flew to Amsterdam and then I flew to Sweden and waited the hour for Jimmy to
arrive. After arriving in Sweden we found that we could take an earlier coach so we bought new tickets.
It's surprisingly cheap to travel by coach in Sweden which was nice. The coach had WiFi but I slept
most of the way. We arrived at the final stop and got off, there was actually many pro gamers on the
coach which was interesting. Some League of Legends pros and a few Starcraft players from
Myinsanity. We walked about an hour dragging our bags behind us. we arrived at the hotel and checked
in, I didn't realise that hostels generally don't have bathrooms in the room you rent. I met one of my
team mates Moilanen and we went out to the a mall close by to eat. We went straight back to the hotel
and I crashed. I slept from about 6pm till about 5am. I got up and went downstairs to find a few people
sat in the waiting area to check in. I made small talk with them after I realised they were there for
Dreamhack. They were from Israel and I think these were the first ever Israelis that I've met which
I thought was awesome. We waited outside for a while because we thought Anton was picking us up but
because there was 4 of us, Babytoss was at the hotel as well, we decided to walk.
We met with the people from the morning and we walked together to the event. The event has sleeping
halls so this was where myself and Jimmy planned on sleeping during the event. This meant we had
to take our bags with us and the trip to the event was further than I expect, this with the fact that It was
extremely hot made it a rough journey. Made me realise how out of shape I really was.
We arrived at the event and waited outside for Anton to come and get me, he had my pass. Jimmy joined
the queue to buy his ticket to get in. I put our bags in Anton's car and we went inside and explored the
event. I checked in the tournament and found out I was playing at 8pm. This meant I had 10 hours pretty
much until my games start. This was good and bad, I got to explore the event and relax for a while but
I also had to be nervous all day until my games. I had a really tough group so I was certain I was going
to lose anyway but it was the other factors that made me nervous like spectators, other pros, casters and
team mates.
We made a few laps around the event, saw all the big name pros and stalls set up with products and
sponsors. There was a food court area and a bunch of food stalls in the gaming halls also. I was shown
the twitch lounge. This was pretty much an area which is exclusive for players and management to
hangout between games and relax. There were free drinks, computers to use and practice on, a few TVs
with couches set up to watch the games and even a ping pong table. I got myself in there with Jimmy and
we spent a decent amount of time there relaxing.
It was time for me to play my matches, so far everyone else on the team had played there matches and
lost except for Babytoss who was playing at the same time as myself. I lost my first 2 series 2-0 which
sucked but Id expected it. My next opponent was TLO who at that time was Europe's best player.
I was already out of the tournament so I didn't have much to lose, so I just tried to have fun and I
ended up losing 2-1. Taking a single game was actually pretty nice. Jimmy was standing behind me the
whole time watching and so after my games I packed up and we left. We then made our way to the
sleeping halls. I have never in my life been to a festival and in my head I had thought a sleeping hall
would be located in a room, with soft carpet and I would just find a corner and fall asleep but It was
actually a very large hall, similar to an airport hanger with concrete floor which was god awful to sleep
on, when we approached the doors to go in we were made to stand in a queue. We were then taken
inside in group and put in little segments on the floor, presumably to maximise space.
Jimmy had sleeping tablets so he was okay but I actually found it pretty painful to sleep. With just a
cheap sleeping bag which didn't provide much warmth I had little to no sleep. I woke the next day at like
6am. After an hour trying to sleep longer and waiting to see if Jimmy would get up, I put my jeans on and
packed up my things and began wondering around. I found a seat in this mini film theatre which had
what looked like an independent Swedish film on. Was okay although I didn't understand anything they
said. I felt happier today because I had lost my games and I had no more pressure, this was it. Now I
could just enjoy the event. I eventually met up with Jimmy who just had a shower. I'm very self concious
so the option of showering at the event was non existent.
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| A very tired and sweaty me on the far right. |
We met up with a few of our team mates and watched a few different games such as World of Tanks and Dota 2. We had a mini photo shoot of the entire team which was nice although a little embarrassing. After this Anton went with Jimmy to buy some pizza for the entire team, just because he's an awesome guy. The next day we would be heading back to England so we had to sleep early and get to the bus station. I smelt and felt so bad at this point. I had only gone 1 day without showering but the walk to the event which caused me to sweat in the heat so much had taken its toll on me. I knew Tobias had a hotel room not to far from the event so I begged him If I could use his shower and thankfully he agreed. His hotel room was actually lovely and I was very jealous of it. The toilets were surprisingly cleanat the event compared to what I expected but It was still impossible to take a number 2 with the constant
queue that was outside so I took this opportunity. Tobias, If you're reading this, I apologise for what I did
to your toilet. This combined with the shower made me feel fantastic. We went back to the event and
watched the finals which were awesome. After we contemplated going to the after party but it was too far.
we went to sleep and woke up that morning and rushed to get a taxi as our ride had let us down, we
arrived just in time at the coach station and were on our way to Gothenberg. We got food at the airport
and I was very happy, the event went great and nothing bad actually happened. I had expected us to at
least miss one coach or something but everything went rather well. We arrived back in England and I
went home and slept for a good while. This pretty much wraps up the e-sports segment in my life.
If I think of anything else to add I will.