Moa 2011 - Poland, We Need Your Support

Xtreme Addict · #1 03-21-2011, 01:11

This topic is about MOA 2011 edition in Poland. On Friday we'll have live competition to raise the winner to represent Poland. But MSI-POLAND invited only TWO teams to fight. That's an EPIC FAIL. Going back to 2009 year, we had great big live competition of 5 best teams in Poland which were selected from online qualifications. In 2010 MOA in Poland was dismissed because ryba & Chaos had won EU finals in 2009 and they got straight ticket to EU finals in 2010. This year edition was really doubtful but "someone" ordered to organise MOA despite the fact that there was pushing to select only ryba (and he pushed the most on polish department). So polish department invited only two teams for a live show. How is it possible to organize competition, contest where chances are 50/50? They don't give a chance to new faces in this sport, and during 2 years everything changes. Selection was based on results from MOA 2009 year, they invited 2 first places: ryba + Borko and Team PCLab. During this 2 years everything changes. Old polish legends stopped overclocking and new overclockers appeared which are really good and compete with old dogs. I am not invited because on MOA 2009 I had been third. In 2010 in Poland had place two competitions: GOOC (I was 2, first was ryba) and Asus Championship of Poland (which I won on 29.10.2010), at this moment polish overclocking community regards me as the best overclocker in Poland, I don't claim that I am the best, I don't have on my account successes like ryba (MOA, GOOC) but now I am doing more results than my competitors and they don't beat me but I mainly publish on Polish forums. Everything changes. Moreover I try to help new faces, there are new big teams which started after MOA 2009 and they score really good, I am convinced that they will outrun us sooner or later, they are capable of doing this. It personally touched me, this whole situation and I admit it. I was apologized later by MSI -Poland and they admitted that it is really hurting me. But in that situation I want also to fight for others. In Poland it is very hard to promote self and to obtain samples to overclock, the only chance for more advanced users are contests. Asus in the end of 2010 proved that they are able to organise the biggest competition in Poland ever in 2 weeks.

MSI-Poland told me that MSI-Taiwan forbids to organise online competition in Poland without a reason. MSI - Poland got only budget for only 2 platforms, they couldn't organise 3 cheaper (for instance cheaper GPUs like GTX 560 Ti instead of 580 GTX) because they have to promote models which were chosen by Taiwan. Seemingly polish department was fighting to organise more budget from Taiwan, they were negotiating almost 3 weeks, even bosses from Taiwan arrived to Poland to discuss few things and also MOA.

They refused to organise more than 2 teams on live show.

Polished department opposed and then Taiwan told them to organise 2 team battle or to choose one team directly to EU finals.

My question is why? The idea of MOA is to emerge the best overclockers from all the country to represent further. Everyone should have the same rights, the same chances. It's organised in order to show some potential of products, to promote this mad sport

, to obtain some experience, to teach and learn. If those aspects are abandoned, is there any sense of arranging MOA?

MSI Taiwan wants only 2 teams in live contest, okay, but on god sake organise online eliminations! in order to give a chance to everyone! and two first places will struggle in live show... is that SO HARD!? Online contest doesn't cost, maybe a bit of effort, but it's worth of it!

Polish community is treated really badly by MSI Taiwan and MSI Poland isn't capable of dealing with it or they are afraid of Taiwan. We want to fight for our rights, in fact we are their customers, we promote them, we overclock or use their hardware. We are writing a petition to MSI Taiwan and to Polish department. In this sport we need fair play, I hope that all overclockers want to fight internationally with honesty and dignity and just competitions with the same chances. We are afraid, that the next year we will get the same script, teams which "struggled" in 2011 will fight face to face once again, or the winner of 2011 will get another direct ticket to 2012... We need some support from You, if more and more users will declare, more chances we have.

We are conscious that now it's too late (but we were informed on Friday) and nobody is able to change it without delays but they should if they care about customers. But in fact this sort of protest is to secure the future of MOA in Poland and to make everyone equal.

We just don't want to be treated like castaways, in fact Poland is a very big and important market for MSI and they should treat us rightly.

Polish community also integrates with for instance Spain, where there wasn't any MOA qualification ever. You can count on our votes.

d3mox · #2 03-21-2011, 02:29

It's not fair that the other overclockers in Poland can't participate in MOA 2011 qualifications. I wish, that the MSI will organize NORMAL qualifications for others ...

Zeta198 · #3 03-21-2011, 08:31

Yep, this is not fair for other overcloker's from poland.

Leeghoofd · #4 03-21-2011, 09:11

MSI needs to pick up the pace (and that's in general) they have many more (un)organised compos going for MOA...

Would be good to have the same set of rules for everybody and not make a selection for the happy few...

At Cebit nothing for the competition was final for some countries... a far too late start in organising stuff...

Massman · #5 03-21-2011, 11:27

Hm.

I don't think HQ is dictating the Polish office on what to do with the local qualifier. The procedure is different in every country and largely depends on what the local office wants to do. The keyword in this issue is: budget. As far as I know, the local office gets the opportunity to do something for MOA, but they can decline (eg: Spain) if they don't have the time/money. In your particular case, I reckon HQ is indeed asking for the live finals to be held with specific hardware (they supply that hardware, maybe?) and only a limited quantity is available. The limited amount of teams is not the goal, but a consequence of the policy.

I don't know why there wasn't an online pre-qualifier, though. We've been doing this for quite some time now and it doesn't take that much effort to create a 3-stage online qualifier. Just need an email ...

Sam OCX · #6 03-21-2011, 11:33

These comps are never meant to be fair anyway, more of a marketing stunt

|ron · #7 03-21-2011, 12:51

I don't know what to think about MOA... here in italy, there was an online qualification session, the benches were 3dm11 and PI 32M, no hardware limits, no cooling limits, and the same website that hosts the competition also takes part to the qualifications with their clockers...
Me and my team, simply didn't take part in the qualifications, because we don't have a 980x, a gtx580 etc, so we were forced off that competition because we don't have loads of cash to buy top end hardware.
I proposed to adopt rules similar to France qualifications, with limited frequencies etc... it would have been more fair for everybody that doesn't have a 2.500euros rig to see who are the best clockers in tweaks and optimizations.
Theid said (the hosting overclocking website) to ask directly to MSI, because they didn't have any role in writing the rules.
So, here we are!
Maxi, I explained the situation we have Italy that it's quite different from you... do you think you can "merge" and add also our country to the petition, to see some changes for the next years?

Massman · #8 03-22-2011, 11:32

One important sidenote here is that this competition is not just about overclockers, but about 'extreme overclockers'. Basically, you want people representing your country that understand the system that is being benched on and that understand how liquid nitrogen works. There needs to be a balance between opening the qualifications for as much people as possible and not setting them up in a way basically everyone, regardless of experience/skill, can win.

An example.

In last year's MOA EU 2010, the hardware was 980X + GTX480. If you have no experience with liquid nitrogen, you simply can't do well in the competition due to the necessity of understanding coldbug/coldbootbug behavior. Also, someone with no X58 experience is doomed to fail: there's a delicate balance between the various voltages (vcore, vtt), frequencies (unc affect dram) and of course performance (low uncore means low performance). There needs to be a basic understanding of all this to be able to defend your country's honor in an international competition. Software tweaks and optimisations are nice, but the essence of 'overclocking' is not tuning the software, but increasing the operating frequencies.

That being said, I think it's not a bad idea to have mainstream hardware in the qualifications, as long as the competition is set up in a way that the skill to increase performance through overclocking is a significant part of the process. I do think open qualifiers are a must, but not in a way that any average-joe can win and represent the country in an international renowned competition.

|ron · #9 03-22-2011, 11:54

The "average joe" can qualify and go straight to the live national event... here, if he doesn't know what LN2 is, he will be beaten by the other guys who will then go on to the european stage.
Your thought is correct Pieter, but the fact is that we have a lot of experience with LN2 (almost 4 years now), but we simply can't buy high end hardware like 990x and gtx580 (I wrote "we", but I think that there are other people with the same problem arount the world

)
So we couldn't enter the competition, but an "average joe", with a good liquid cooling system and a 990x+gtx580, yes. We can put under ln2 our 2600K, our 5870, but there's no way to beat a 5ghz 980x and a beast like the 580 at 3DM11.
That is simply unfair I think.

Massman · #10 03-22-2011, 12:02

You have a valid argument, there

.

If you would've been in charge of the pre-selection in Italy, how would you have set up the rules? Taking into account that people who have skill, but not (enough) money would be capable of qualifying.