On November 5, the Hangzhou Asian Organizing Committee officially announced eight e-sports events for the 2022 Hangzhou Asian Games, namely League of Legends, Glory of Kings Asian Games Version, Three Kingdoms of Dreams 2, DOTA 2, Peace Elite Asian Games Version, FIFA Online 4, Hearthstone and Street Fighter 5. AESF/Migu-Mecha Master, AESF/Migu-VR Virtual Technology Sports entered the Hangzhou Asian Games as an exhibition event.
The events selected for the Hangzhou Asian Games e-sports project follow the traditional sports approach and include a variety of competitive types, not only the current popular MOBA and FPS event types, but also the introduction of various types of e-sports events including cards, fighting and virtual sports.
Among them, "League of Legends", "DOTA2", "Glory of the King Asian Games Version" and "Dream Three Kingdoms 2" are all MOBA events, and the popularity of this category can be seen. Compared with the other three esports competitions, "Dream Three Kingdoms 2" is not very loud, and even many young esports viewers have heard about this event for the first time.
Why is there Three Kingdoms of Dreams 2? This is an issue that has been hotly discussed since the announcement of the e-sports project at the Hangzhou Asian Games. As we mentioned earlier, the Asian Games will incorporate different types of events in the way of traditional sports, so that the presentation of e-sports events will be more abundant, and it will also promote the balanced development of the e-sports market, and will not rely on a single type in the past.
The significance of the selection of "Dream Three Kingdoms 2" is precisely to show more possibilities under the type of MOBA event.
At the same time, when we delve into the events of "Three Kingdoms of Dreams 2" and its e-sports system, we can find that "Three Kingdoms of Dreams 2" also has its own unique advantages and characteristics.
Multi-game content experience, "Three Kingdoms of Dreams 2" multi-dimensional exploration of playability
Let's first revisit what kind of game "Three Kingdoms of Dreams 2" is.
"Three Kingdoms of Dreams" is a real-time strategic online game independently developed by Hangzhou Electric Soul Network Technology Co., Ltd. that integrates RPG elements into MOBA online games, and was first released in 2009. The gameplay borrows from the competitive form of Warcraft RPG map DOTA, which is the moba type we now know.
But the difference is that the gameplay of "Three Kingdoms of Dreams" is more abundant, in addition to the gameplay including 5V5, players can also experience a variety of modes such as the Battle of Guandu 10V10.
For players who prefer other game genres, Three Kingdoms of Dreams also offers multiple types of quest modes built around the Three Kingdoms theme. In terms of gameplay alone, the innovation of "Three Kingdoms of Dreams" is not outdated until now, and it still has a high degree of playability.
In addition, the game content of "Three Kingdoms of Dreams" is based on the secondary creation of the elements of the Three Kingdoms, which contains a large number of traditional Chinese culture. The game content, including "Heroes" and "Maps", are all three kingdoms theme content familiar to Chinese players, and are a MOBA competitive game with Chinese characteristics.
In Dream Three Kingdoms 2, elements of the Three Kingdoms can be found everywhere
In 2009, when the first generation of "Three Kingdoms of Dreams" was released, the "League of Legends" national costume had not yet been officially launched, and MOBA games were also known as the era of DOTA-type games, and "DNF" and "Crossfire" were the most popular online games in major Internet cafes at that time.
With a variety of fresh gameplay, the Three Kingdoms theme content that players are familiar with has become a hit once it was launched, and it can be said that "Three Kingdoms of Dreams" was a national game at that time.
Launched in 2015 as a sequel, Three Kingdoms of Dreams 2 has further optimized the game's picture quality while retaining the core gameplay of the original generation, and the elements including maps and missions are presented more delicately.
Specific to the game content, "Dream Three Kingdoms 2" adds more fresh gameplay, MOBA mode adds 7v7 new competitive gameplay, one-way melee and similar unlimited fire form of "Guandu INBA" mode, as well as more competitive maps.
"Dream Three Kingdoms 2" has a lot of improvements compared to the original generation, whether it is gameplay or picture quality
Deeply cultivate the "entertainment star season" for ten years, and the electric soul builds the event ecology in an all-round way
However, compared with the diversified game content and gameplay, the original event that insists on operating for ten years may be the key to becoming an electronic sports project at the Asian Games.
As early as the same year that "Three Kingdoms of Dreams" was launched, Electric Soul launched the "Dianjiang Cup" and "Peerless Cup" layout e-sports competition. Then, in 2012, Electric Soul launched an esports carnival called "Electric Soul Entertainment Star Season (EESC)" around its popular product "Three Kingdoms of Dreams".
In the first "Star Season", "Three Kingdoms of Dreams" adopted a combination of online and offline competitions, and set up two types of events, individual competitions and team competitions, and explored the concept of national participation through zero threshold participation. From the perspective of time nodes, in 2012, when e-sports was still a niche entertainment, the way the electric soul held e-sports events seems to be novel enough today.
With the improvement of the scale, influence and professionalism of the event operation, in 2015, "Dream Three Kingdoms 2" was officially launched and a more professional MPL professional league system was built, forming a mature "Dream Three Kingdoms 2" professional event system through the combination with the star season.
The first is the MPL Pro League. The MPL is divided into two seasons, summer and autumn, and each season has a regular season, a promotion and relegation game, and a playoffs. The major teams compete in two seasons to qualify for the Entertainment Star Season Invitational.
In addition to the MPL Pro League, the MML Pro Team Invitational Tournament held during the Entertainment Star Season, Dream Three Kingdoms 2 also builds a sub-league with the pro league as the core. The tournament is also divided into summer and autumn seasons, and the best of them will advance to the MPL Pro League of "Dream Three Kingdoms 2" to cultivate reserve strength for MPL professional events.
At the level of mass events, "Dream Three Kingdoms 2" launched the "Peerless Cup" and "SOLO Elite Challenge". Through the opening of the low-threshold national selection competition, the blood transfusion of the event ecology of "Dream Three Kingdoms 2" continues. In the fifth edition of the Matchless Cup in 2015, 1,384 teams registered to participate, and the number of spectators of a single event exceeded 2.1 million. These event data have surpassed most esports events when put into perspective.
Through the design of the promotion and relegation channel, "Dream Three Kingdoms 2" realizes the multi-level connection of mass events, secondary leagues, professional leagues and entertainment star season invitational tournaments. Players at different levels can find a way to break through in this tournament system.
The playability of the game itself, the perfect event system, and importantly, "Dream Three Kingdoms 2" is still one of the few domestic games in the Asian Games e-sports project. From these perspectives, "Dream Three Kingdoms 2" already has the strength to enter Asia. At the same time, the national style attribute carried by "Dream Three Kingdoms 2" itself will further promote the development of traditional Chinese culture.
It is worth noting that the entertainment star season of Electric Soul is not a single event around "Three Kingdoms of Dreams 2". In addition to the "Three Kingdoms of Dreams 2" event, the events of the Entertainment Star Season also include a number of popular e-sports projects under the electric soul such as "Dream Three Kingdoms Mobile Game" and "Barbarian Battle".
So how does the entertainment star season perform? According to the data, the "2021 Entertainment Star Season" held recently, the popularity of the event on the live broadcast platform was as high as 4.17 million. From the perspective of event scale and event influence, the entertainment star season already has the conditions for e-sports head events.
The scene of the 2021 Electric Soul Entertainment Star Season
Through 10 years of deep cultivation of e-sports events, Electric Soul has built a complete event system, and in the process continues to expand the boundaries of the scale of events. With the addition of more popular e-sports projects, the entertainment star season will inject more vitality into the event brand and bring more fresh e-sports content experiences to event users.
And in this process, the electric soul is also gradually taking steps in the direction of global development. In 2016, the "Dream Three Kingdoms Mobile Game" Global Finals was held as scheduled in the Entertainment Star Season. Thanks to the influence of the mobile game itself in overseas regions, the global finals of "Dream Three Countries Mobile Games" attracted teams from different regions such as Chinese mainland, Taiwan, Vietnam, Thailand, and the Philippines.
In addition, as an esports carnival for the world, the Entertainment Star Season also attracts players including Southeast Asia to watch and participate. In Southeast Asia, which is still in the sub-developed e-sports market, the electric soul has precipitated many fans in overseas regions through its early forward-looking layout, laying the groundwork for its own globalization.
"Dream Three Kingdoms 2" national wind power competition into an important boost to the development of traditional culture
As one of the very few manufacturers in China to promote the development of "national wind power competition", Electric Soul has been committed to promoting the development of traditional culture in the form of digital cultural creation. This is not only reflected in the "Three Kingdoms Theme" of its projects, including the development of the urban cultural tourism industry, and the e-sports user content experience, etc., but also the electric soul has also explored and made breakthroughs.
On July 3 this year, Electric Soul established a strategic cooperation with Laojunshan Cultural Tourism Group and Luoyang Daily Newspaper Group. By relying on the existing scenes of Laojun Mountain View, the IP elements of the games and events of "Dream Three Kingdoms 2" are integrated into the offline real scene, and the cross-border cooperation model of "cultural tourism + e-sports" is deeply explored in the way of building an offline immersive experience scene, breaking the traditional sightseeing tour of the scenic spot, and setting a new benchmark for the integration of "scenic tourism interaction" culture and tourism.
At the same time, the electric soul also restored the scenery of the Laojun Mountain Scenic Area in the game, and introduced a new game for the game to deeply integrate with urban cultural tourism and traditional culture by implanting the famous landmark buildings of the cultural tourism scenic spot into the game scene, so as to promote the development of the urban cultural tourism industry and traditional culture.
In "Dream Three Kingdoms 2", Electric Soul added famous landmarks of cultural tourism, injected games and e-sports IP into the offline real scene, and added more interactivity to the cultural tourism industry from the perspective of digital cultural creation. This will attract more users to the line, help the urban cultural tourism industry to complete the digital upgrade, and will also explore richer creative linkages in the combination of games, e-sports IP and urban cultural tourism and traditional culture.
The game scene of "Dream Three Kingdoms 2" in the Laojun Mountain Scenic Area is restored
The Golden Hall of Laojun Mountain, which is integrated into the game of "Dream Three Kingdoms 2"
In addition, Electric Soul is also building a diversified national wind power content ecology to continuously deliver fresh experiences to players. From May to October this year, the "Three Kingdoms of Dreams 2" "Player Meeting" held by Electric Soul has traveled through 12 cities such as Chengdu, Luoyang and Zhengzhou. In the form of urban SOLO competition, planning face-to-face, MPL team water friend competition, live interaction and other interactive forms, it provides players with national wind power competition carnival in addition to the event.
Whether it is to help the development of the urban cultural tourism industry through e-sports digital cultural creation, or to launch a fresh experience of e-sports content brought about by player meeting, it is a strong evidence that E-Soul is committed to promoting the development of traditional culture and exploring the diversification of e-sports content ecology.
Through the continuous professional upgrading of the event, it will bring more diversified e-sports content experience and promote the development of traditional Chinese culture. E-Soul presents a very different e-sports ecology. It is not difficult to see that the reason why "Dream Three Kingdoms 2" can be listed at the Asian Games as a domestic original event stems from the all-round ecological construction of the electric soul for the event system, content ecology and e-sports empowerment of its events.
Riding on the east wind of e-sports entering Asia, the national style attribute of "Dream Three Kingdoms 2" will create more possibilities for the development of traditional Chinese culture on the stage of the Asian Games. At the same time, Electric Soul will also have the opportunity to enhance the influence of its events in the world, play the brand IP of "Entertainment Star Season", and build a larger-scale event system on a global scale.