Frequently Asked Questions
Q: I'm not a University student, but can I still attend and compete for the tournament?
A: Sorry you will not be able to compete however you can still attend the event and there is going to be loads of awesome stuff you can take part in (games consoles, sponsor stalls etc.)!
Q. Would we be able to play if our roster had to change significantly after the 15th of February matches? One of our players is unavailable on the 15th but would be available on the other days.
A. You can register up to 7 players so you can use 2 subs during the qualifiers. But only 5 players can play in the final so pick your best team!
Q. I would like to play but my University is JUST outside your cut off zone / why is my University not eligible to participate?
A. Contact [email protected] and we'll see what we can do. We're planning to handle location problems on a case by case basis and the restrictions were only in place to ensure all finalists could attend the LAN finals. As a rule of thumb if you can prove you will be able to attend, we will be more than happy for you to join the tournament!
Q. Can there be multiple teams from a University? If not, how is the representing team decided?
A. We are allowing up to 2 teams from each university to participate in each game
Q. Would you consider allowing people who do not attend the same university (or not a University student) to form a team if the majority of members are from the same University?
A. Unfortunately all members must be from the same University.
Q. You said that your aim is to “create an event that is accessible to everyone”, but the tournament is limited to selected regions. Why can we not participate as a team of students from different Universities?
A. We understand your concern and would love to have every team in the country playing however as this is the first time we, or any student group, has organised something on this scale we logistically cannot deal with that many teams. This is why we have to limit it to relatively few teams. With regards to limiting the teams to be from an individual university, our intent was to make this a University tournament so obviously players have to represent their university!
Q. How about opening it up to let alumni represent their university?
A. Anyone with a valid university email can sign up to theNuel to participate. To do so, they also need to be to access to their university IT services.
Q. Have you considered applying for money from your university to host this event instead of doing a Kickstarter?
A. Union funding has been cut so that each society get a maximum fund each academic year and this is based on how long they have been operating. The eSports Society being fairly new got nothing whatsoever. This entire event so far has been made possible by the incredible work of the committee and the amazing support of our sponsors.
Q. Most people that have disposable income are salaried men and women. If they could participate, I am sure that they will be more willing to contribute. Would you consider opening the tournament to more people and not limit it to students?
A. We are just a small team of passionate student; we do not have the capacity to run an event larger than that. That being said, the live event, which is our pride and joy, is open to anyone - students and non-students! That's the day with all the awesome activities and we would be happy to have all fans of eSports come.
Q. The LAN event is only 1 day - a lot of people won't want to travel very far for "only" 1 day.
A. This is true - we can't help it. We've primarily approached students in the North, and we expect that the vast majority of people will come from the north-west, Wales and Scotland. Having said that - if people can get up here even for an afternoon we want to see as many eSports fans as possible!
Q. Who's doing the casting, what's their experience of each of the 3 games?
A. We'll be testing out community casters (this is a community event after all!) at the qualifiers, at the best of those will be picked to cast the finals. There is a chance we will be using the NUEL's casters for the League of Legends finals.
Q. Is the event a Bring Your Own PC or is UoM providing PCs?
A. Top of the range gaming PCs will be provided by Fraggers gaming cafe for the finalists to play on. Players will also have sound proof headsets to use on the day. However you will need to bring your own keyboards and mice.
Q. I want some reassurance about the technical side of things - what's the internet connection like, what networking/power hardware have you got available? What's the spec on the machines you're being lent?
A. The players PC's will be ethernet connected to the university's internet services. We are in close talks with them and have been for several weeks in order to ensure that the service will suffice. The PC's we'll be using (including caster/streamer/observer) will be supplied by Fraggers Gaming Cafe in Altrincham, Manchester. They are brand new this year and top-class, but we're afraid we can't release the information yet (it'll accompany a larger announcement about Fraggers in upcoming weeks!). We have also ensured that we have spare PC's if anything goes wrong.
Q. Do you have someone who is confident about fixing stuff if things go horribly wrong with the PCs?
A. We will have support on the day from professional technical staff that usually run the University of Manchester's professional music venue: The Academy (http://www.manchesteracademy.net).
Q. Are you planning to stream it? Would we have to pay for a ticket to watch in game?
A. We will be using DotA TV. The ticket cost £0.59 - http://goo.gl/CFJV4c . In addition, the entire event will be streamed through twitch.tv. Keep an eye out on the Facebook page for channels we'll be streaming through!