Massive congratulations to the University of Portsmouth Esports Society, home of the Portsmouth Paladins, on being chosen as October’s Society of the Month! From competing internationally in Rocket League, to taking 1st place in not one, not two, but THREE of this year’s spring NSE tournaments, it’s safe to say they’re a force to be reckoned with.
UoP Esports Society has also hosted a few very successful LAN events, including one at the end of last month. We got the chance to catch up with society president Kooliburra and find out a bit more about the event and the challenges the committee overcame on the day:
“Portsmouth Paladins held an esports LAN on the 29th of September at Unite Students. Freshers vs. reps, the biggest battle of them all! New vs. old... well that's what it was supposed to be. In normal esports fashion, we had many technical errors. These errors ranged from only two ethernet ports in the room, to the games only starting to download an hour before the event.
Luckily Unite Students were one of the best host buildings ever. In the earlier hours of the morning at 3.00am they were helping us with broken power sockets, all the way to the late hours of the next day bringing us drinks and helping us take it all down! With our president staying awake at the building for a total of 25.5 hours to set up the LAN, it hit 4 o'clock for us to start.
We had to cancel one or two games due to download speed but we made up for it with a viewing area, where students could watch the games happen live on the massive tv provided to us.
It was all streamed on Twitch and we even had our own casting booth! Students could also help themselves to food and Monster! 4-5.30pm was a help yourself to the PCs testing arena. However, at 5.30pm the real games started. A 5v5 of freshers v reps in Valorant. The battle had begun! The reps had a great start and were looking to end things quickly. One fresher had other thoughts... After dropping a game of 25-11, the fresher’s dreams were ended as an overtime match point was won by the reps. The freshers put on such a good show that the society just had to reward them (Pokémon plushies a Unite staff member bought and provided for us - shout out to Bobby!). A few more games took place till 10pm but none with the excitement given by the first game. After 10pm, the Committee and reps had pizza bought as a thank you from the president for helping to work it all out. With this final act, the Portsmouth Paladins took that #Palawin.
The Society would like to acknowledge that this would not have been possible without the great work from Reign providing most of the kit we used, Unite Students for allowing us to use their rooms, and last but not least NSE for giving us Monster and a comp we can perform in. The first stepping stone to something great in our esports future.”
Congratulations once again to the Portsmouth Paladins! #PALAWIN
Check out their website here.
FOLLOW NSE
Twitter - Instagram
