Category: Site News

D&D Newbie Sessions

It’s been awhile since I’ve written anything here. Over the past year, I’ve been focused on a new project called D&D Newbie Sessions (Dungeons & Dragons). It’s been an absolute blast and has stolen much of my attention from eSports, gaming, and VR.

D&D Newbie Sessions is kind of like D&D on-demand. New players and experienced players can join and sign-up for games that are happening every week. We mostly run one-shots which are great for introducing D&D to new players, but we also do ongoing campaigns via our Community Campaign series. Both of these offer countless hours of fun for people who want to test out D&D without committing to months of games.

We also train Dungeon Masters (or Game Masters) via our DM Training Program. This 2-3 hour training session provides hands-on experience running a game of D&D. It’s really fun and really effective at training newbie DMs.

If you’ve ever wanted to learn D&D or start playing again after a long hiatus, D&D Newbie Sessions is the group for you. It’s free, open to everyone, and super welcoming. Come join our community and explore some amazing fantasy worlds!

Gamer Meditation

Tonight I filmed a gamer meditation to help control rage and refocus the mind for domination! So sit back, close your eyes, and listen to the silky smooth sound of my voice as I pour wisdom into your ear canals, where it sloshes around until it soaks into your brain like a dry sponge. Enjoy:

Transcript:

Hello my friends, please come and sit with me.

Today we are going to increase our skills through meditation. It’s an easy process with great rewards, but it requires patience and practice.

We are going to start by closing our eyes and just taking a deep breath. Feel your physical body relax and your mind clear as you focus on the darkness behind your eyelids.

Clear all your thoughts, all your negative energy. Clear all anxiety and stress, and relax…just relax and release. Take another deep breath.

Clear all your thoughts, especially if you’ve just had a bad team in League and even though you were there for every fight and saved the lives of multiple teammates they’re still calling you out as a big piece of shit who sucks and the whole game was lost because of you. Don’t think about it!

Or maybe you’ve just been cheesed in SC2. Forget the game, forget the match, and just relax. That other guy was probably super bad and can only win by cheesing. Even though you’re diamond and he’s silver and you probably still should have won, but you screwed up a timing and it through your whole game off. Don’t think about it! Push it away from your minds eye.

And definitely don’t think about how good the other team was in CS:GO and how they were Brazilians and way too good at the game, but it’s actually probably because of some weird command their using to artificially lower their ping. And even though they probably weren’t hacking, you still suspect that they were at least walling, and everyone’s complaining in the forums, but it’s probably just that they’re better. Let it go man, find peace.

Is your mind clear? Are you not focusing on those things? Good, now calm your emotions and let all the negative energy flee from your body. No stress, no anxiety, no fear, no expectations, no comparing yourself to others, no worry, nothing, but calmness and peacefulness.

Find serenity within this vast universe and realize that life is good. Even though we lose a match sometimes, there’s always tomorrow. There’s always the next match. We will win and defeat our enemies.

Take another deep breath.

Oh great universe, give us the strength to continue fighting. Make our aim true and headshots plentiful. Give us the micro of demigods of South Koreans like Flash, Maru, and Life. Let us steal a baron buff and laugh maniacally like Dyrus. We will crush our enemies and top the leaderboards. We will hold that first place trophy and walk away awkwardly carrying a check that is much too large for normal banks. Let us stand on a stage before waves of nerds, triumphantly beating the odds and taking the next LCS or MLG or whatever you happen to be going to.

We will win. We will conquer. That is your mindset. That is your goal. You do not back down or get filled with anger for having lost a single match. It is in those matches that our greatest growth comes from. Winning is only for pride, losing is for progression. We will play match after match until we stand victorious! So queue up my brothers and sisters. Queue for the next match and destroy your enemies! Take the top of the chart with little care. Don’t get caught up in your wins and embrace your losses. Learn, progress, and succeed.

Take one final breath. Clear your thoughts, take control of your emotions, and focus. You are the best gamer in the world. Maybe not now, but you will be. Go now and dominate the world of eSports!

Namaste!

Two new pages: “The eSports Whitelist for Adblock” and “The Spawn Room eSports Shows”

Today I added two new pages to The Spawn Room’s main site: “The eSports Whitelist for Adblock” and “The Spawn Room eSports Shows“. These two pages share in detail two aspects of TSR content that have been around for over a year. The first, the Whitelist for Adblock, explains what it is and why you should consider using it. By adding the whitelist to your browser, you can use Adblock on over 99% of websites, while disabling it on eSports community websites like The Spawn Room, Team Liquid, Twitch.tv, and Major League Gaming. I understand that ads can be annoying and Adblock is like a gift from the programming Gods of awesomeness, but disabling it within communities you support is actually pretty helpful. And you may even be surprised that some ads within eSports are actually somewhat relevant and can lead to discovering cool, new content. Either way, consider supporting eSports by using the whitelist.

The second page lists off all the different shows The Spawn Room produces. Each section contains a description of what the show is, why you should watch it, and when it airs. It also has an embedded playlist for each series with the most recent upload ready to watch! You should definitely go check it out and see if there’s anything you’re missing out on. There also a section for sponsorship and advertising opportunities. If you have a show, event, team, or anything else you’d like to get recognition for, you can sponsor episodes of any series for very minimal cost, in fact one of the options is even free!

Well, that’s the site update for now. Be sure to keep an eye on the shows page or our YouTube channel for upcoming eSports interviews and next weeks eSports bulletins.

Quick Personal Update: This Week at TSR

Just a heads up that this week is a bit weird since I’m doing “real work” instead of eSports work. Like everyone else, I can’t work eSports full-time and every now and then I have to take a short break and make some money. This happens to be one of those weeks, but hey it’s almost over already! Tomorrow or Friday I will resume my eSports duties with some new content and hopefully get all caught up before the weekend ends. Next week won’t be nearly as hectic…or might not be at all, not sure yet. But expect new YouTube videos, blog posts, and programming within the next couple days. Can’t wait! :)

Shout Out: Heartland eSports

HeSA

Back in 2011 I was publishing posts under categories for teams, websites, and videos. They were known as Top Team Tuesday, Website Wednesday, and Feature Friday. Now that I’ve relaunched the blog and revamped its mission, I decided to do away with the corny titles, and simply publish “features“. These articles focus on single topics like a player, team, website, or podcast, and [hopefully] deliver relevant information about them. I plan on publishing these articles because I also want to share them in the eSports database.

For this first feature I want to cover a non-profit organization located in the Midwest. I discovered them last week via Reddit and decided they’d be perfect for the first feature of 2012. Here is a snippet from their about page:

“We are a volunteer-run, non-profit corporation based in Lincoln, Nebraska organized and operated by representatives of participating gaming communities throughout the Midwest who have joined together in HeSA to promote collaboration towards a single goal: promoting the growth of amateur and professional competitive gaming in the Midwest.” Source

Heartland eSports incorporated on August 4, 2011 in Lincoln, Nebraska as the Nebraska eSports Association (NeSPA). Their website, NebraskaEsports.org became a hub for promoting and hosting local tournaments, and educating people about competitive gaming. On May 21, 2012, it was announced that NeSPA would become part of the Heartland eSports Association, the newest vision to unite various gaming communities under a single banner. Soon other organizations like Kansas StarCraft, TP eSports, Razorback Gaming, Iowa Gamers Online, and the UNL Electronic Gaming Club would join forces to better support one another and spread the word about their tournaments and events.

So for fellow eSports enthusiasts living in the Midwest or those that like to support grassroots efforts, be sure to check out Heartland eSports (HeSA) and all the great work they’re doing!

Website: http://heartlandesports.org

Twitter: https://twitter.com/HL_eSports

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/heartlandesports

Other Tags: Shoutout, LoL, SC2, StarCraft II, FGC, HLeSports, HL eSports

The NEW Spawn Room eSports Blog

Welcome to The Spawn Room eSports blog. After a year of inactivity due to working on the main TSR website, the eSports bulletin YouTube series, and other associated endeavors, I am back! Since everything else is flowing smoothly I am going to begin posting in here again, covering local and regional events, sharing my thoughts on important issues, and inviting new faces to publish content as well. Here is a breakdown of the projects I am currently working on:

  • The Spawn Room – the main website with its core feature being the database of players, teams, events, etc.
  • The eSports RSS feed – a section of the main website dedicated to sharing the latest news from the best sources.
  • The eSports Whitelist for AdBlock – updated every day or two, this whitelist allows fans and players to support eSports websites by disabling AdBlock ONLY on eSports websites (tutorial via YouTube).
  • The eSports Calendar – a regularly updated calendar of eSports events (probably one of the most updated and comprehensive calendars online).
  • The eSports Bulletin – a daily recap of all relevant eSports news (on YouTube).
  • The eSports VLOG – a series of videos that discuss topics of intrigue within eSports.
  • The Spawn Room Blog – the latest addition to the family, covering a variety of topics.

As you can see there’s quite a few projects being worked on right now. They all kind of integrate nicely with one another and I’ve been having a blast doing it. If you’re interested in the projects here and want to get involved, please let me know and I’ll get you set up. I’m looking for people interested in publishing articles about local and regional events, covering drama, gossip, or rumors in eSports, and sharing their thoughts on important topics like “dying communties”, “spectator experiences in FPS games”, etc.

If you have any questions or suggestions, please feel free to share them. In the mean time, please consider following on Twitter, liking on Facebook, or subscribing on YouTube. Each help tremendously and is greatly appreciated. Thanks for reading!

UPDATE: I’ve re-added old posts going back to January!

The Spawn Room v0.3.1

Welcome to the new Spawn Room website! I’ve spent the last few weeks redesigning and recoding everything to make it simpler, more accessible, and purpose driven. Before version 0.3.0 the website was designed to handle a wide variety of different features and ideas, but I realized it was too confusing. I had trouble explaining to people exactly what we did here.

So after sitting down and thinking about it, I decided to attack this project at a new angle. Rather than merging all my ideas into one site, I want to create an eSports Network that handles multiple websites under one user account. If you’re familiar with the Stack Exchange (with sites like Stack Overflow), you’ll be familiar with what I’m doing here.

This website specifically will focus on eSports data. The front page is now a search engine for finding players, teams, events, etc. Within these pages we track various stats, allow users to rate and comment, and if you own the page or earn the priviledges, can help submit and modify data. Think of this as the IMDB for eSports!

As with all updates on The Spawn Room, it is important to remember that bugs may exist. Since I code this project alone, I can only discover so much on my own. If anything looks or acts broken, it probably is. Please notify me via email, Facebook, or Twitter and I’ll take a look. If something looks funny, this is probably the CSS acting weird. You can usually solve those issues simply by refreshing the page (F5 on your keyboard). Again, if that doesn’t fix it, or breaks it even worse, shoot me a message.

Finally, I wanted to mention that some features, that existed in the previous versions, have been removed either temporarily or permanently. I will be analyzing each of them over the next few weeks to determine if they belong on this site or somewhere else. Please be patient as I continue to roll features and fixes out. I’ll try to get everything up to snuff as quickly as possible.

That’s it for now. Thanks for reading and feel free to share any feedback, suggestions, or criticism whenever you can! I’ll be listening. :)

EDIT: I forgot to mention that I’m currently working on SQL optimization to try and get queries running faster. But I’m also limited by my web host so…yeah. Eventually I want to move to dedicated hosting which will greatly increase the sites performance!

The Spawn Room v0.2.4

Quite a few changes have been rolled out this week as verison 0.2.4 nears completion.

Of these changes, the most important have been the minor visual alterations, the freedom of creativity expansion, and the addition of some new filters. I’ll update the Site Progress page once all the changes have been implemented.

Please check out the “Sample page” which shows how you, the event organizer, player, manager, or whatever, can style a page to advertise your…whatever it is. Wow, there’s probably a better way for me to have said that, but I don’t feel like erasing it.

Anyways, my next development focus will be on more filters and user abilities. Stay tuned!

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