A big shout out to our friends over at Hak5! We will be working together to run community events through Season 7. Check out their plug for the events in their latest episode on Revision3, the plug starts at 3:44 in episode 701.

Be sure to join our Steam Community to keep updated on upcoming events. Thanks again to Velocity-Servers for hooking us up with the game servers for these events.

It’s been a long time since our last update, and we have to start out with some unfortunate news. The new website that has been in development for many months is no longer in progress. The firm hired kept running into issue after issue, as the system we were trying to build was just too complicated for the back-end system it was being based off of. The system is still in an un-useable state, so we have gone ahead and asked the firm to stop development.

As a result, we are now exploring new options for a league management system. We were hoping to be able to announce that we have begun working on a new one by now, but we are still exploring options of whether to start from scratch or start working of a pre-built system again. We would love to be able to offer the full functionality promised in the original system, but at this time we are more interested in getting something that actually “works” from the beginning. Of course we will look for an option which will allow us to add additional functionality later, once the league is in motion.

So, let’s not look at this as bad news, but rather a learning experience. We now know in more detail what we are looking for, and can hopefully home-in on it soon so that we can get things rolling. On that note, we would like to have a fresh start with an updated name! The Varsity E-Sports League started at a time where there was no definitive title for competitive gaming. Today, we are happy to announce that the Varsity E-Sports League (VESL) shall now becoming the “Varsity eSports League” (VeSL)! This is a very recent chance, so feel free to give us a heads up if you still see references to the “E-“ version of our name.

As a side note, we should hopefully have an announcement soon regarding a partnership for on-going community events!

Best of luck with your studies in the new semester. We look forward to pwning you soon!

-The VeSL Staff

The demo is about to hit Steam, and we will be ready to rock the moment it’s available. The IP of the server is:

• 208.122.48.16:27015

We’ll update the game servers page with a proper link as soon as possible.

In other news, Taco Bell’s Full Up On Game Gear promotion is coming to an end soon, so go head to your local Taco Bell and win some great gear! I could use a pair of those Gunnar glasses since I’m going to be spending a few hours on end in front of my monitor when L4D2 comes out.

This year to raise money to combat this deadly disease, the charitable organization has an auction going on right now for The Beatles: Rock Band Limited Edition (for the console of your choice) and an Autographed T-Shirt signed by designers, artists, testers and other members of Harmonix, the makers of The Beatles: Rock Band, as well as a swag pack of stickers and pins to go with it.

On top of the shirt, our good friends over at Velocity-Servers have hooked them up with a year of game server hosting, also being auctioned off for the charity. It’s a wicked deal as it is for the game of your choice, includes 24 slots, and is boosted to 550 FPS.

Finally, if you have a craving for Game Gear, Taco Bell has a huge promotion going on for our friends up in Canada called Fill Up On Game Gear. The promotion consists of a contest and tour that is making stops across various Canadian cities. The contest offers up some fantastic prizes to be won including:

• 50 Nokia N95 8GB Phones
• 20 Headplay Personal Gaming Systems
• 50 Razer Carcharias Gaming Headphones
• 20 Razer Lycosa Gaming Keyboards
• 50 Razer Deathadder Gaming Mice
• 50 Gunnar Optiks Gaming Glasses
• 50 Amp Energy Gaming Jerseys (North of 49 – Canadian Pro Gaming Team)
• 192 Every Store Wins Prize Packs
• … and best of all…
• 1 redonkulous Emperor 1510 Gaming Station!

Best of luck in the auctions, and if you don’t win, feel free to make a donation to support the cause. I think I’m going to head to Taco Bell to try and win that Emperor 1510!

In terms of the status of the new VESL site… we’re working on it.

- [VESL] Uberman

We know the new site is taking a long time to get finished. In fact, our developers called us saying they were having too many issues with the match system, so they decided to scrap it and start from scratch. Hopefully we will have something soon, but don’t hold your breath.

Since things are taking so long, we have something that should help tide you over. We have been working with Toshiba for their online tournament, which is now open for registration. Head on over to their tournament page and check it out. We encourage any school teams to participate and win some cool prizes!

Another quick announcement; the folks over at ReDDoT Computers are offering 20% off to all VESL members in support of collegiate e-sports! They offer custom built PCs and other solutions. Check them out on our partners page.

We are going to try and update more often from now on. As well, let us know if you are interested in helping out with new site testing.

Have fun in the Toshiba tournament!

- The VESL Staff