Natural Selection 2 is played by people all over the world. The NS2 community contributes casting, maps, bugfixes, competitive players, art, playtesters and ideas from all corners of the planet.
Thanks to the tyranny of distance, all those wonderful people have never had an opportunity to play the game they love together, in the same room. Oceans, mountain ranges, rivers and valleys separte players who have formed friendships, teams and trust through the war between Frontiersmen and Kharaa. Until today.
This is the Natural Selection 2 World Championship. This is open to every player, every team, and everyone on Earth. Whether you play NS2 in Australia, Brazil, France, the United States, Singapore or anywhere else – This is your competition, and this is your chance to participate in the biggest event the NS world has ever seen.
Accepting any entrant, the tournament will run towards the end of 2013. A group round robin format will lead to four final teams. No matter where these four teams are on the planet, they will all be flown to Koln, Germany in March 2014 for a live studio finals series. Both the semi and grand finals will be played live in front of the cameras, on the front page of Twitch.TV, with casting by the best commentators in the NS2 community.
To make this happen, we need your help. Unknown Worlds, the developers of Natural Selection 2, have committed to directly paying for the ESLTV studio in Cologne, and the front page takeover of Twitch.TV. That is two of the three major expenses. The third is travel: And that is where we, the NS2 community, must come together and match the Unknown Worlds contribution.
To bring together twenty-four players and a handful of casters, we need to raise $30,000. Why so much money? Simple arithmetic. Players will be coming from every corner of the Earth. To fly and house a team from Australia, Brazil, or the United States will cost well over $1,000 per player. Not every player will cost that much – Many will be European, but even then the costs will be significant.
Raising $30,000 guarantees that we can fly every player to Koln, no matter what. Should we spend less than $30,000 on travel expenses, we will put every single unspent dollar into the event prize pool. Depending on where the four teams come from, this could yield a prize pool of thousands of dollars.
Contribute now. This is our chance to take the game we love to the world stage: To see South American take on North America, Australasia take on Europe – All with no lag, live on stage, in the same room. No matter where you are on Earth, this is our moment to unite as a community and produce an event like nothing the world has ever seen.
All funds are held by GoFundMe unless the funding target is reached – If the target is reached, the funds go directly to WasabiOne, Reddog and Zefram. They will then organise travel for the four semi-final teams!
http://www.gofundme.com/ns2worldchampionship
– WasabiOne, Reddog, Zefram and the rest of the NS2WC organisation team