Fortnite Chapter 2 has finally released, and players all over the world are finally diving into the super anticipated new map and are climbing the ranks of arena as we speak. With this new map, we also saw the reset of the entire loot pool, as it is now only a few weapons, much like Season 1 of Fortnite. The next event in Fortnite is Fortnitemares 2019, the highly anticipated Halloween themed event.
With the game drastically changed, and all mobility permanently gone Fortnite professionals are aiming to be amongst one of the first squads to qualify for FCS Finals in the looming weeks. Since the Fortnite World Cup, we have not seen an official LAN or have heard any rumors of one.
Fornite has only seen a few LANs within the esports scene, with DreamHack Winter 2019 being one of the few to look forward to; the lack of events has left fans puzzled as to why that is. With an esports scene that is still in the early stages, it seems like now or never for Epic Games to capitalize on this opportunity. We dive into why and how Epic can resolve the lack of events.
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Including Everyone
Perhaps the most stand out reason as to why Epic Games have not announced more LAN events in recent months, is due to their methodology of giving everyone a fair chance at qualifying. This was one of the reasons the Fortnite World Cup was invented in the first place, players from all across the world had the opportunity to qualify for the largest esports tournament event. Not only did professional players have the chance to qualify, but every player that was above the required arena points could compete in the open qualifiers.
Open qualifiers have always been the bread and butter of Epic Games and competitive tournaments in recent months. They have transitioned away from the invite method that they used at events such as Twitch Con 2018 and others. Although we will dive into why this method of solely open qualifiers needs to be fixed, it has led to some of the best storylines in all of Fortnite Competitive. During the Fortnite World Cup, we witnessed the story of King, the young Argentina was one of the stand out players in the solo portion and took the hearts of many.
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Using a Different Model
With no future talk of Fortnite events soon, except for the possible return of the Fortnite World Cup for Summer 2020, there may be a solution to fill the void in the meantime. Epic Games should look at other esports such as CS:GO, which has adopted a formidable format for its big events and how teams are qualified to it.
For premier tournaments such as Dreamhack Masters or ESL tournaments, they opt to invite some of the top teams in the world via the world ranking. As for the rest of the spots, they hold a round of open qualifiers and then they progress to the closed qualifiers with some invited teams to it.
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Adopting it to Fortnite
If Epic Games were to select this model of qualifiers from CS:GO, they could proceed somewhat like this. Build a world ranking for all competitive game modes they are using at the time, with results from the Fortnite World Cup for solos and FCS rounds for squads or trios. Doing so would give a large sample size for all of the players, and this would cater to the including everyone model.
Based on this ranking, if they were to host a tournament, they could have 2 heats, with the number of player slots allocated for each region schemed similar to how they did it for the Fortnite World Cup. Inviting some of the top teams in each region would allow the best teams to be rewarded for their dominance,
Filling in the rest of the spots would be comprised of inviting a separate number of teams to the closed online qualifiers set to be played before the tournament. And then the remaining spots will be filled by open qualifiers per as Epic Games opts for now.
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Finding The Perfect Model
It is tough to say whether or not Epic Games will ever adopt a different model then the online-only tournaments now, but there needs to be some middle ground for players hungry to play on LANs. We witnessed the success of the Fortnite World Cup, and it is moments like these are why players and fans are dying for more LAN's.
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Written ByNick Farrell@Nickfarrell91