This weekend 425 gamers and nearly 1,000 attendees participated in a two-day long Clash of the Carolinas eSports event in Talley Student Union. The event ran on Saturday and Sunday and featured tournaments from 14 different teams in Counter-Strike: Global Offense, Hearthstone, League of Legends and Super Mario Smash Brothers.
The purpose of the event was to raise money for Operation Supply Drop, a charity organization dedicated to providing video games to soldiers abroad and at home. Operation Supply Drop was unable to comment as of press time about how much money was raised from the event, although that information will be available in a week on its website.
“We thought the event was a great way to bring veterans and civilians together to game,” said Ray Whitaker, the chief operating officer from Operation Supply Drop.
Seventeen students represented NC State in the Clash of the Carolinas eSports tournament. NC State came in first in Super Smash Bros. singles and crews. NC State came in second in League of Legends and University of South Carolina came in first. Appalachian State University came in first for Counter-Strike: Global Offense, while NC State came in second. In Hearthstone, UNC-Chapel Hill finished first. NC State finished second.
This was the first time that an eSports event of this scale was held at NC State, and it likely will not be the last.
“We are definitely having this event again, and it’s going to be a lot bigger and a lot better,” said John Ledford, senior studying materials science and engineering, president of the NC State eSports club, and one of the event organizers. “This was the first eSports event here. There were issues, but it’s only going to get better from here. I haven’t decided if I want to have the next one in August or January.”
The event faced some challenges at the start, with some of the tournaments getting delayed by one hour or two. Another challenge faced was setting up a live Twitch stream, which Ledford said took more setup than they had previously realized.
Although the event featured competitive teams, attendees could bring their own computers to the event and play games there. Kylie Graves, a senior studying science education, came to support her friend.
“My friend Evin Clapper is playing in a League of Legends tournament, so I came to support him and play some games and have fun,” Graves said. “I am really glad that these events are more popular and more prevalent around campus. I like being around people who enjoy this hobby, and it’s been nice to see it grow over the years.”
Other students, such as Joey Clark, a junior studying aerospace engineering, came to the event to compete and represent NC State. Clark is on NC State’s Counter-Strike: Global Offense team.
“It was just very exciting, and for a first-time tournament, it was a great experience,” Clark said. “We made it to the finals and unfortunately lost to App State, but it was a really close game. It was just a great experience overall.”
Clark also talked about the challenges faced while balancing schoolwork and competing professionally in eSports.
“It can be tough sometimes to balance school work and gaming,” Clark said. “It has been easy so far since it’s early in the semester, so I have been able to play a lot of Counter-Strike to prepare for the tournament. Later in the year when we get more projects or homework in general, we will probably have to skip some practices or practice less often, which is unfortunate. But school is what we came here for.”
Prizes were raffled away during both days of the event, with some prizes going as high as a $600 gaming chair. Smaller prizes included motherboards and various computer parts.
Attendees of the event also received one of two types of Loot Crates available. One Loot Crate featured a Fallout 4 bobble-head figurine and smaller Blizzard character themed Cute But Deadly vinyl figurines. The other Loot Crate was Marvel themed, and featured a large mug shaped like one of the Marvel villains. One thousand Loot Crates total were donated for the event.
Tyler Jania, a freshman studying exploratory studies, and Andrew Lamb, a junior studying business administration, participate in the second day Clash of the Carolinas in Talley Ballroom on Sunday, January 17th, 2016. Jania and Lamb are both part of the Wolfpack CS:GO team that made it to the final rounds of competitive "Counter Strike: Global Offense" against the team from Appalachian State. The Wolfpack CS:GO team entered the second day of competition undefeated and won the semi-final round, 21-15.
