I guess the most similar way to describe eSports is like ranked play, but with more consistent players, therefore increasing the challenge, if you want to get into eSports and the only previous experience you have is public matches, the best way to start easing yourself into it is ranked play and a website called gamebattles.

Gamebattles

[ Register or Signin to view external links. ] - Gamebattles is a website where people play games competitively in Singles (1v1), Doubles (2v2) and Team (3v3's, 4v4's, 5v5's etc), now I'm not going to go into too much detail but this is a great place to start as you can play on your own, in a team of 2 or in a full team. There is ladders for every console and almost every game that you can play competitively, for a tutorial on how to navigate and use the gamebattles site just google it or ask on the forums and a moderator will help you, however it's pretty self explanatory.

Not only on this website can you find matches with whatever settings you like on the game and ladder of your choice, but you can also navigate the forums and free agent/team recruiting features to help find new players to play with and meet new competitive players. On this site each game you win you will gain experience points (xp) both for your team and for your profile. The xp your team gains will go towards your team's ranking on the ladder (if you gain enough xp you will end up on the front page on the team rankings for all to see), and the xp you gain will go towards your MLG rank which players will be able to see when they view your profile and one of your teams. Gaining xp will give you a better MLG rank, and vice versa.

The final point I want to make is that you can use this website to organise scrims, this is like practice games for those who want to practice with their team or do tryouts for new members without risking losing xp, however because this is only practice, people might not be trying as hard as they will be in actual games so be wary of that, there will be scrims for various types of game modes e.g. mlg variant, s&d only etc.

Another similar website is ESL, simply go to [ Register or Signin to view external links. ] choose CoD as your game and go from there, you can use this to find free tournaments and cups.

If you're going to find a team or players, it's important to stick to 2 key rules - be honest and try and portray yourself professionally, by this I don't mean try and portray yourself to be a professional, what I mean is CAPITAL LETTERS and lots of exclamation marks with the text 'lookin 4 a team gr8 comp player add me on xb' isn't going to get you picked up by exactly the best of teams.

When applying for any team/posting to say you are looking for a team or players you should always take your time to lay out your message in the most professional manor you can using appropriate grammar/spelling and even punctuation where possible (hopefully like I have done in this post ), it's also helpful to make sure you use paragraphs to break up your message if it is rather long so it isn't just a wall of text.

You can find players all over the internet, with one place including this forum, however there is a much wider array of players of all skill ranges on websites dedicated to competitive gaming such as gamebattles as described in the insight to Competitive call of duty paragraph, simply just go on the forums, find the forum devoted to your game of choice (cod) and your console then just post a thread! Simple as that, or you can toy around with the free agent/team recruiting system on the ladders page.

Another alternative is to just search on google, there is an endless amount of ways to find players/teams for your game and console of choice. Just make sure when applying to teams you follow the advice above on how to apply to help maximize the chance of you being picked up and approached by other players, best of luck finding!

Here is a few general things you'll need if you're starting to play competitive;
Console (or gaming PC) - This is an obvious one, but you'll need a console or gaming PC to play on, however the PC ladders are nowhere near as popular as the console ladders.

Headset - Another quite obvious one as you'll need to communicate with your team, however you'll be at a great disadvantage if you can't hear game sound through the headset to soundwhore so it's important that you purchase a headset that enables you to hear both chat audio and game audio. Another point to consider is if you're going to be grinding for decent periods of time you'll also want to pickup one that's comfortable on your head/ears. Turtle Beach and Steel-series do a good range of headsets for all consoles ranging from cheap to expensive. For those who are serious and willing to spend a bit of money, look at the wired Astro a50 with mixamp as this is one of the best headsets out there that is commonly used throughout competitive CoD and at LAN events.

A team - You'll need to find yourself team mates, there are many places to do this, one of them being the TTG, however you'll find a wider array of players looking for teams on websites that focus specifically on competitive gaming, such as the gamebattles forums or free agent/team recruiting system. Remember when looking for team mates or looking to join a team to be humble and honest about your past experience as this will give you the best chance of finding team mates with an equal skill level, this is important as you will most likely have greater chemistry and stick together as a team.

You'll progress your skills much faster if you stick to one team rather than jumping from team to team so it's important to find team mates with a similar skill level as you have more chance of sticking together and improving as a team.

Online Tournaments - You'll probably want to start off with free tournaments to practice and see what it's like before entering any paid ones, so a good place to start is [ Register or Signin to view external links. ] . Simply follow the link, choose CoD as your game, choose your console and straight away you'll see some tournaments, choose one that picks your fancy and off you go, just make sure you check the rules of each tournament e.g. eSport rules or similar so you know which guns/perks will be banned and what game modes you will be playing as if you use prohibited guns/perks you will forfeit the map.

As you improve you may want to enter paid tournaments, the best place for this is the website described before gamebattles, there are a wide array of tournaments on this website, however 99% of the time they all have a fee to get in. The way the system works is you'll buy credits off the gamebattles and use these credits to enter tournaments, you will then play games and if you place 1st, 2nd or 3rd you will receive a prize of credits, if not you receive nothing apart from a better luck next time :mrgreen:, obviously the higher you place the more credits you receive.

There are more sites that offer free and paid tournaments, however these 2 are the most popular ones and the most trustworthy.

LAN events (offline tournaments) - This is a real life tournament, where you will go to play call of duty at an event, you'll have to purchase a ticket and travel to the venue with a team to play in this event, this is where you'll find all the professional call of duty players aswell, the ones who make a living off gaming are the ones who place very highly in these events. Since I'm from the UK I only know of events in the UK such as EGL and insomnia, however you can find all the popular ones by looking on websites such as gamebattles, esl and searching the internet in general.