A New Direction

A New Direction

As Ozon3 Gaming moves into a new chapter of its life, allow me to say, out with the old, in with the new. Over the last several months, Ozon3 has progressed from a basic organization with only two to four teams, all in the bronze/silver league through Compete League, to having six to eight bronze/silver teams, three gold/platinum teams (including two pending), a fresh new space-themed look, including a new logo, website (ozon3gaming.com), four brand-spankin’ new, organized Discord channels, and much more. Ozon3 Gaming is now monitored by volunteer staff, and has a hierarchy of members with power so as to run the organization as smooth as a company. Let’s take a dive into some of the details of these changes and what a few of the members in Ozon3 think of them.

The Teams

A select few might remember the old teams that have passed through Ozon3 Gaming (but probably only as a meme). Krypton, Ytterbium, Titanium, Lithium, Xenon, Cobalt. There might have been even more than this, but never at the same time. At max, there was only two teams running at once, and one could say they weren’t as stable as we would have liked. Only one remains today, and even that one has changed dramatically since its inception. Today’s Ozon3 Carbon was once Ozon3 Radium, and before that, just Ozon3. The first team. Believe it or not, there are several members who are still around since the first team, even if they did not play on it. I decided to ask one of them, 1HitWonderx, how he felt about all of the current changes happening.

“I think it makes the org better. It’s a step toward growing, now that they have an open discord that isn’t meant for just the teams. The biggest thing will be getting people to play in the Atmosphere discord and getting the awareness out there . . . I can’t wait for the time when there’s a hundred people and we don’t even have enough rooms.”

As he mentions the “open discord” and “Atmosphere” a couple of times, it is worth noting that these will be mentioned later on, but to summarize, they are the same thing and it is vital to the current Ozon3 Gaming organization. 1HitWonderx plays on Ozon3 Carbon today, and has worked his way up since joining the org.

As I mentioned earlier, Ozon3 now has six to eight stable bronze/silver teams, and these are slowly being dragged away from Compete League in order for Ozon3 Gaming to start its own league, named Galaxy League. The following teams will be participating in the new Galaxy League (this league will receive its own paper soon with all of the information related to it, so stay tuned): Ozon3 Sodium, Ozon3 Nitrogen, Ozon3 Carbon, Ozon3 Palladium, Ozon3 Requiem, and Ozon3 TBD. Several of these teams are undergoing a name change before Galaxy League, so don’t expect them to necessarily all have the same names.

Ozon3 is currently working on obtaining a total of three gold/platinum teams as well. These teams will not be participating in Galaxy League until they are decidedly stable and when gold/platinum acquires enough teams. Their names are: Ozon3 Havoc, Ozon3 Revenant, and the last has an undetermined name.

The New Look

The whole of Ozon3 has worked hard on a new image, one that would stick and would work for years to come. Whether it be through representing the org in a well-behaved manner, spreading the word of the org, or the physical work, many hours have gone into this portion of Ozon3 Gaming. However, it is difficult to say whether anyone other than Szmak have worked as hard on this. If you don’t know him already, Szmak is the Event Organizer and Graphic Designer for Ozon3 Gaming.

Szmak first came to Ozon3 as a diamond jungler around April of this year, on Ozon3 Lithium. However, even after this team fell apart, he saw potential in Ozon3. Since he has been with us, he has created the website we have today, special logos for each team in different formats (including some logos for specific players as well), which can be viewed on the website, and much more. Today, though he still coaches players, he has worked his way up to Head Management while also creating videos for the org, and he has only recently stopped coaching Ozon3 Nitrogen. With all this in mind, I decided to ask him what his future plans are with the org and how he wants to see it succeed.

“We can’t go into a large amount of detail, as a lot of it is in planning, but I am excited for Galaxy League, and we also have more ideas for the near future. We want to make the org bigger and better, and one our goals is to bring in higher elo teams and players. We look to be an org that LCS teams to go to in order to look for players, or even an LCS team. So, you could say we have pretty big ambitions.”

An Improved Voice-Chat

The next step to an improved Ozon3 was to work on the most complicated part of it all – the software. Not many people like just sitting down and working on buggy software that not many people know how to work. However, Harambe knew he had to do it. This was something that the org was putting off for awhile, as no one wanted to do it. But Harambe did it, and has since become the technical coordinator, as he’s the only one who has any clue on what he’s doing with Discord.

Harambe started out in Ozon3 Gaming around the same time as Szmak, but on Ozon3 Xenon. He, just like Szmak, saw potential in the org and stuck around even after his team disbanded. Today, he is the technical coordinator, head of public relations and marketing, and has made his way into Head Management. Thus, I also decided to interview him to see just what such an involved person in the org has to say about his plans for it.

“My future plans with the org are to continue to work to help it grow and succeed. We plan on doing this by continuing to organize events, bring in players, grow our community, and to focus on becoming an area for everyone to come to find a place to have fun.”

The new and improved Discord channels include Ozon3 Gaming (used for the teams), Ozon3 Atmosphere (used for the entire community, including outsiders, to come together and play any games), Ozon3 Tryouts (obviously used for any new tryouts coming into the org), and Ozon3 Administration (used for only management and higher-ups).

The Future of the Org

To conclude this long-winded essay of which I am becoming oh-so familiar with, I felt it was only right to interview the last Head Management member, Freelance. Freelance is the founder and co-owner of the org. He has been around Ozon3 for almost two years, working constantly, sometimes even with restless nights. This organization means the world to him, and he only wants to see everyone in it succeed with it. When interviewed, he gave an answer that I felt was satisfying to hear about the future of Ozon3 Gaming.

“I personally would like to see this as a full-time job; I’d like to get paid for this and spend as much time as I want and need to bring it to its full potential. For the org, I’d like it to be like an LCS level thing; I want it to be a place people come to learn and enjoy becoming better in. I’d like a good, core idea throughout all of this, that being it being a place for players of all skill levels to be involved in either our teams or just learn to be a better league player and person within a community that people are excited to be a part of and can feel comfortable in.

“Overall, I’m excited to see what the future holds for the org and I hope everyone enjoys their time here and that they never feel like they aren’t completely welcome here. Also, I’d like to say thank you to everyone for all they’ve done for the organization; from OtterlyLost and Sloppy Joe proof reading and writing amazing content to Szmak and Harambe both doing things that I couldn’t have done myself. It truly means a ton to me.”

As always, thanks for reading guys and gals.

-Joey “Sloppy Joe” McCausland and Taylor "OtterlyLost" Monteith