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Features » The New Era Of Training

Author: Michael Kochav
Added on: March 27th '07

Training House

One of the most important factors of being properly prepared for tournaments is having the right practice. Different factors in training schedules could be more effective than others. Social life issues can directly affect skills. Intense training could cause stress, blackouts and ruin motivation. What is the right measure?

Several teams in the world moved to Gaming houses, to provide a better  professional environment for practice. How does it affect preparation, skill and results? What sacrifices are needed to be done to make this move and how do the different teams manage their social time and gaming time? We decided to take 3 teams that train more serious than any other teams in their region, eSTRO from South Korea, wNv from China and compLexity from USA.


eSTRO – South Korea:



South Korea is known to have the most established e-sports scene. With professional StarCraft leagues that are well organized, so are the teams. A lucky visit cleared many questions regarding this Korean way of  practice: strict rules and military style training is how eSTRO club produces StarCraft stars, recruiting new talents at very young ages and preparing them to a level no other training methods could do. The players all live together in a pleasant apartment. They sleep, eat, play StarCraft and do most of their social activities in the apartment too. Most of them don't have much belongings since they wear the club's shirts almost all the time, and don't have many activities to do besides training.




Discipline is the main factor in their training , and sacrifice takes a big part too. Once you are recruited, you lose your education and social life and must do several tasks that are part of the procedure of getting into the team. New recruits must do all house chores for a month to test their will and see how eager they are to succession. Most of the players are recruited at a very young age of 15 or 16 since their reflexes are still very sharp. Previous StarCraft experience is not a main factor since the coachs train them in the right way and mold them to be a professional StarCraft player. Older players are only recruited if they are already extremely talented in StarCraft, which is very rare due to the high level training and game play there is in the professional leagues.




They spend 60 hours a week in training, 10 hours each day divided into different activities to sharp different elements such as team play, motivation, focus and reflex. Physical exercise on daily basis sharps the players reflexes and provide solid focus. They also play soccer for two hours as another exercise, and spend the rest of the time playing StarCraft. Most of the time they train with each other, sometimes they play online to try new strategies against different players, and rarely they play against rivals to exchange and check new strategies.

Korea's StarCraft scene is so developed, that different leagues are broadcasted on television via 2 esports channels. Several professional teams takes training as serious as eSTRO does, some less.

wNv - China:



China is known to be the most populated nation in the world, with over 1.3 billion inhabitants in 2007. With such a number of residents, the amount of esport professional players from that country must be huge, though, only wNv.gaming made the move to professional training, scheduling their own bootcamp apartment located in Beijing. The practice routine is not as strict as in eSTRO, but they are very eager to practice as much as they can, using many different methods.

Alex from wNv.gm Counter-Strike says “We train with other professional teams, we stop playing when we do mistakes, we gather up and discuss the cause and how to fix it.”, “We mostly play with other Chinese professional teams, sometimes with wNv.cn” adds Jungle.

Training constantly could be very beneficial but still rise some problems, “I've been here for 3 months, the practice conditions here are much better than home since I waste time on other activites at home” says Fov, wNv's Warcraft III superstar, “over here I only play games” he added. Fov is Korean and rapidly made the move to China in order to train, “I miss my friends and did not see them for a long time”, they all left for the army, but Fov didn’t. “I am already 23 years old and its too late for me.”

All the players are very aware of the fact they sit in front of a computer all day long, “We do some exercise as professional players before and after each time we play.” Having the right preparation is very important for all players. For them its their highest priority. Aqi believes that “We must have good teamwork and trust each others in games”. Sakula add “Its very important to relax before the match, if we are not relaxed, we have no confidence in winning the match”. Fov has a different point of view for his most important factor “I need to have my gaming equipment and to know my opponent's game style before we play”.




All wNv members have very different personalities, beliefs and priorities, but even with all these conflicts, they manage to gather up minds and present a solid teamplay. “Its very important to communicate well together and make sure that everything is clear between all of us” said sakula. When they have time off from their busy training schedule, which consists of 8 hours of playing a day, 5 days a week, they are going out together and have plenty of social activities such as soccer, bowling, mountain climbing, karaoke and team photos. Appearance is also very important to these gamers. They are very popular, and like spending time to make sure they look good in front of an audience.

compLexity - USA:



The American Top Counter Strike team compLexity have made a move to serious training, with their move to CS:S. The need of the perfect training environment was a must so they can keep the level of the team up when its lineup changed, together with the game they play. “The main purpose of the house is to provide an optimal learning environment for the guys so they can pick up CS:S as quickly as possible” says Jason Lake, Manager of Complexity. Warden, one of the oldest members in complexity adds that “If a team can overcome the challenge of living together, this type of situation can be very beneficial. Its much easier to communicate when you're in the same room”. He still doesn't underestimate the quality of training at home “I don't think this is the only way to be successful. If you're dedicated you can make it to the top. Having a house might just cut the time needed to do so”. While having much more quality training, less time is needed to hold their quality position. Even though they are almost always together and available for practicing, they do other activities such as hosting over friends from the area, play console games, go to the movies, out to eat and getting pretty much serious in ping pong. According to Rambo “The house is like a hub of of social activity, so it's always fun here.”.

Even though they moved out of home to live together, it all fits really well for them. Warden says that “There really weren't many sacrifices as we all get along great and are having a lot of fun living together. It's not easy leaving home, but most of us are pretty close to our families”. Without any pressure of wasting time at home, the fact that they are almost always together helps them work on strategies during the night, having a great training environment. Warden adds that “Its also easier to discuss strategies when your leader can point to his monitor and go over certain things.”.

The house is located in Dallas, Texas, measure a size of 4,000 square feet and consists of 5 bedrooms. Their official training hours is between 6-10pm , Sunday until Thursday.

Most of the teams feel the need of training professionally and there is no doubt they have made one of the most serious moves in order to be prepared the right way. Hopefully in the future we will see more and more teams gathering together into an apartment, playing together daily, binding personalities and minds to reach the highest level of teamwork. Physical exercise is a main training factor as learned from wNv and eSTRO. Being eager to win is another key factor as it is known that the player or team that wants to win the most, will perhaps just be the winner!
              

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July 3rd '09