26 Apr 2015, 00:55

[div style="text-align:center'"][img]http://i.imgur.com/LPfIrOJ.png" style="font-size:12pt'max-width:100%'"][div style="text-align:left'"][hr]I think we can all agree that 2015 has been a great year for AoE3 with the climax of AoE3 Spring Championships, and what a conclusion it was! I don't think any of us could have predicted just how close the final match between _H2O and BlackStar_OP would be, and I'm sure many of us nearly had heart attacks throughout! We would like to congratulate BlackStar_OP on earning the championship title, and throw out a big thank you to everyone involved in making this tournament a success!A big thanks to our tournament staff, _H2O, Stanley_Winston, Veni_Vidi_Vici_W, Edeholland, and Mitoe (hey, that's me! I'm allowed to thank myself right?), for organizing and running the tournament' and also to GoodSpeed for running an intense betting tournament. This tournament would not have been possible if not for their efforts.Another big thanks goes to our casters, who sometimes sacrificed entire days to cast these games for you guys, or even wake up at ungodly hours to make sure someone could witness some great Age of Empires: _H2O, Interjection, Veni_Vidi_Vici_W, Zutazuta, and Snowww!Let's not forget Garja and Aizamk! Garja made the majority of the maps for this tournament, and they certainly are great maps. Having great new maps that consistently spawn with equal resources for each player allowed us to ensure a competitive playing environment for our players, and bring a fresh feeling to a game that's been out for nearly a decade! And without Aizamk's UI, of course, our streams would not be nearly as informed or enjoyable!Lastly, a very special thanks to our sponsors: Mitoe, Interjection, Stanley_Winston, crjensen4, M. Schmauz, and others who contributed anonymously or made smaller donations. Without a prize pool, you can guarantee that we never would have had our players fight so vigorously to make it into the finals. ')[hr]For those of you still hungry for more, be sure to tune into Veni_Vidi_Vici_W vs Nagayumi tomorrow at 13 GMT at [a href=""]twitch.tv/ageofempires[/a]! You can find and catch up on all of the tournament replays and commentaries by visiting these links:[a href="http://eso-community.net/board/6/recorded-games"]http://eso-community.net/board/6/recorded-games[/a][a href="http://youtube.com/interjectionvideos"]http://youtube.com/interjectionvideos[/a][a href="http://youtube.com/venividiviciw"]http://youtube.com/venividiviciw[/a][hr]I am proud to announce that ESO Community will be hosting another tournament with an even larger prize pool in July and August, with sign ups beginning in June! We will release more details as the date draws closer, but let's go over what we know right now:[div style="text-align:center'"][/div][/div][/div]Fear not! Those of you who want a chance to steal BlackStar_OP's championship title from him, you'll get your chance come July and August! Sign up details will be available in June, so sit tight until then.First, let's talk about the prize pool. The AoE3 Summer Championship will boast a prize pool of $1000 USD, already surpassing our Spring tournament! However, the prize pool will likely not be any larger than that, as further donations will be put towards future events! Yes, you read that right, ESO Community has even more plans beyond the summer tournament!For the moment, our plan is to cap the prize pool for each event at $1000, and other donations will be put towards future events. This will allow us to consistently bring you some great Age of Empires 3, throughout the year!For the moment we will be accepting donations via Paypal at [email protected] , but we will soon be expanding our payment methods, so if you want to contribute and Paypal doesn't work for you, fear not! We will keep you updated with more details soon. If you're interested in donating, feel free to send a message to one of our administrators.[hr]So what did you think of the ASC tournament? Are you TOTALLY and ABSOLUTELY (HA, @interjection) HYPED for the summer tournament? Let us know what you think!