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Interview with dT|Nemesis on RTCW:CD

Posted by: rand0m (Sunday, February 23, 2003)

random: Hello dT|Nemesis

Nemesis: Hey!

random: First off, explain something about your self and where you stand in RTCW, and how much you feel you contribute to the RTCW community.

Nemesis: Well, I think I'm just the average joe. I've been wanting to do a tournament for a while now, and im just trying to keep rtcw alive.

random: Thats nice, sounds good sir. Second question, do you feel RTCW is slipping away or do you see it still gaining speed, or do you think its still in a normal state and doing fine?

Nemesis: I honestly dont know, there are alot of wolf players out there, but they just arent playing competitevely, so its normal I guess.

random: Ah, Next, there is a tournament you are heading, RTCW:CD, can you tell us about that and what it consists of?

Nemesis: Well, Rtcw: Continental Domination is an idea that was started by CaseyJones and well I put it in the works. It's a tournament where you represent your stateprovince, and it's mostly a "bragging rights" tournament. But, I hope for better tournament ideas, with prizes and a large involvement.

random: Sounds like fun! Next. Are there any prizes, and who are your sponsors as of now?

Nemesis: Well, at the moment it depends what you consider a sponsor, we have TsN - http://www.tsncentral.com - and GTV - http://www.geeteevee.com - covering it, but we are trying to get Activision - http://www.activision.com and nVidia - http://www.nVidia.com.

random: Does speakeasy allow you to use their servers, and give you ref pass rights?

Nemesis: Yes they do, thanks to citizen from team abuse and speakeasy. http://www.speakeasy.net - http://www.teamabuse.com

random: Is there some additional information, links to the website, and the player list, or anything else you wanna add that can inform the reader.

Nemesis: Well the tournament is 6v6 with 7 players per team. The link to the players that have signed up is here --> http://www.elbowrage.com/shaft/ thanks to cK-shaftian of cK and kapitol sports. And you can find a link to the site on the sig that is on that website.

random: Is there anything else you would like to add?

Nemesis: For more information, I can be reached in irc at irc.gamesnet.net #RTCW:CD as dT|Nemesis|cd in the official channel for the tournament.

random: Okay last question, Do you plan on having another season of this, or is this is just to boost some of the soldiers morales?

Nemesis: Well, I think I will continue to do this but it will be organized better. And with different ideas, but I hear there are other tournaments in the making, not just Battle of Beachead II

random: Anyway, dT|Nemesis

Nemesis: You're welcome

random: Thanks for your time, and I love you!

Nemesis: I love you too

Nemesis: danke

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How do I post predictions?

Posted by: (Sunday, February 23, 2003)

Posting predictions is really quite simple.

The first thing you must do is sign up on the site. A verified user is required to post predictions on this site.

Once you have one, contact an admin and tell them you would like to make predictions.

Once a staff member grants you access simply go to the admin page and scroll down until you see the Matches/League Maintenance section. In there you will notice a link to Post Predictions.

After you click on that link, it will ask you what league you would like to post predictions for. Select the league and then it will present you with a list of each match and allow you to select who you think will win and also post a short message as to why you made that choice.

Occaisionally match schedules will change after you post your predictions. In order to protect your predicting record the site will simply remove your prediction for any changed (or removed) matches. So if the schedule changes, you will have to go back and re-predict. Any unchanged matches will still show up how you originally predicted.

That's all there is to it!

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What is the results page and how do I use it?

Posted by: (Sunday, February 23, 2003)

The results page(s) of this site are an informal way for people to submit scores for a match. They allow each clan to post a little writeup along with the scores so you can get some background information on how the match went.

Most of the time people will explain how each round of the match went. They will indicate who won each round, if there were problems getting the round started or ping issues that occured, or maybe explain how well a team's defense or offense did.

It is very simple to submit a match result. Simply go to the admin page and towards the top you will notice a link to Submit or Modify Match Results.

First select which league the match was played for. From there you will be presented with a list of every clan you have administrative access to. Select the clan you wish to submit a result for. Next will be a list of every match that clan has played in that league. Simply select which match you are submitting for.

Enter in the scores and your writeup on the last page and hit Post Results. The result should be listed on the main results page now!

Sometimes people wish to post a URL to either screenshots or stats pages for the match. If you want to include a url and have it turn into a hyperlink, simply type in the url. The site will automatically turn it into a link for you! Optionally you may type [url=http://www.somesite.com/]Text[/url] and the hyperlink will say 'Text' instead of the actual URL.

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A Chat with Lynch from NARF

Posted by: Pravda (Monday, February 24, 2003)

Pravda: how long have you been in NARF

Lynch]NARF[: since the beginnin of season 3 when da_g decided to start it up again
Lynch]NARF[: picked up me and cyno from nyX

Pravda: thats cool, so how well do you foresee you guys doing this season in cal and who would you say is your biggest competitors

Lynch]NARF[: i see no reason why we can't repeat our performance from last year
Lynch]NARF[: winning cal main is still our goal for this season
Lynch]NARF[: as far as biggest competitors go...
Lynch]NARF[: well, with FH out of the picture, wicked and uprise have always been our strongest competition in the west
Lynch]NARF[: and obviously the east powerhouses are something to fear, but we don't have to worry about them till the finals

Pravda: who do you predict to win the east

Lynch]NARF[: dT
Lynch]NARF[: maybe D|S but right now
Lynch]NARF[: dT is gellin and playin really strong
Lynch]NARF[: wouldn't be terribly surprised to have a NARF vs dT rematch this season

Pravda: switchin gears a bit, what do you think of sponsorships in rtcw and is it a good idea to merge CS and RTCW clans?

Lynch]NARF[: eh...
Lynch]NARF[: I'm in favor of getting sponsorships and gettin wolf teams some more recognition
Lynch]NARF[: if that involves having to merge with a CS clan
Lynch]NARF[: it doesn't really bother me as much as it seems to bother other people
Lynch]NARF[: i wasn't such a big fan of LoT changing their tags there though, i like the }x{
Lynch]NARF[: =P

Pravda: hehe, thats why they're back =)

Lynch]NARF[: =)

Pravda: lets see, whats your favorite color

Lynch]NARF[: blue
Lynch]NARF[: =o

Pravda: as a NARF member do you do lots of drugs

Lynch]NARF[: actually, no, i'm one of the more straightarrow members of NARF =P
Lynch]NARF[: not that my clan members do anything illegal =o

Pravda: haha. whats a good question to ask yourself

Lynch]NARF[: uhh
Lynch]NARF[: i dunno, that favorite color question is kinda hard to top
Lynch]NARF[: how about, Lynch, how are you such teh awesome panzer? It requires such great aim and mad skillz!

Pravda: haha. k.
Pravda: Lynch HOW DO YOU WROK THAT PANZER like you do?

Lynch]NARF[: luck
Lynch]NARF[: =P

Pravda: who do you think of as good panzers

Lynch]NARF[: well, when i first started learnin i watched demos of warbringer
Lynch]NARF[: so i guess he's kind of my inspiration
Lynch]NARF[: but as for current panzerwhores
Lynch]NARF[: pretty much the default names
Lynch]NARF[: holly, cash, grym...
Lynch]NARF[: vatican's pretty good from what i've seen
Lynch]NARF[: but haven't really had to face him too often

Pravda: yeah hes gettin good at it

Lynch]NARF[: seems like a decent amount of people are startin to get good with it
Lynch]NARF[: every team wants a panzerwhore now =P

Pravda: whats narf's best map btw

Lynch]NARF[: hmm
Lynch]NARF[: base and village in my opinion...

Pravda: what do you think makes you guys good on those maps

Lynch]NARF[: communication
Lynch]NARF[: pretty much one of our strongest points
Lynch]NARF[: helps us a lot on maps like village where it's a bit chaotic
Lynch]NARF[: not sure why we're good on base
Lynch]NARF[: prolly cause da_g pwns ne tower =D

Pravda: in terms of strats do you see narf as a more innovative type or the more systematic basic type

Lynch]NARF[: well
Lynch]NARF[: we start off a little systematic, we're not gonna pull out all sorts of weird shit out of nowhere =P
Lynch]NARF[: but we change things a lot during the course of a week
Lynch]NARF[: see what works for us and what doesn't
Lynch]NARF[: strats have to be made according to what type of team you got and how your players play the positions

Pravda: whats the weirdest thing you guys have done in terms of strategy in a match?

Lynch]NARF[: hmmm
Lynch]NARF[: we ran 6 venoms against Amish on Tundra =P

Pravda: hahah did that work?

Lynch]NARF[: no haha
Lynch]NARF[: i think we were on offense

Pravda: LOL

Lynch]NARF[: kinda hard to plant without a neer =\

Pravda: so what do you recall as the closest game you guys have played

Lynch]NARF[: nameless and dt on ice
Lynch]NARF[: nameless definetly
Lynch]NARF[: gave us the biggest run for our money
Lynch]NARF[: we went down 2-0 real fast
Lynch]NARF[: lot on assault was pretty tough too
Lynch]NARF[: down 1-0 then had like 2 straight ties
Lynch]NARF[: uprise on ufo definetly a good one too =)

Pravda: haha
Pravda: WELP I DONT GOT ANYTHING LEFT

Lynch]NARF[: lol

Pravda: any shoutouts

Lynch]NARF[: shoutout to noodles, the greatest pub player ever

Pravda: alrighty, thanks for the time and interview

Lynch]NARF[: aight, well, gluck with planet rtcw, site looks pretty sweet from what animeman showed me

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What are these P2Ps I keep seeing?

Posted by: (Tuesday, February 25, 2003)

P2P - Person to Person Messaging system

Basically I wanted a method for people to be able to contact other user's on this site without resorting to email. Email is still the best method of contacting other people (and then of course IRC) but P2Ps can be quite handy.

The P2P system allows the website to email you about certain things. It will remind you to go post new predictions for a new week of matches. It will inform you of changes to your user access levels. This allows a much easier way to keep you, the user, informed of things on this website.


How Do I Use P2Ps

Using P2Ps is quite simple. Go to the admin page and you will notice a link to Send a Message to a User. Then you select who you wish to message, type in a topic, and then fill in the body and click Send.


How Do I Read P2Ps

You may read and manage your P2P messages from the P2P page. From there you will see your most recent P2Ps as well as any you have not already deleted. You can reply to any message or if you want, delete it.

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Chatting with Dot from Down Under

Posted by: Pravda (Wednesday, February 26, 2003)

Pravda: so how are you guys

dot|flare: im well thank you :)
dot|KOSMiX: I'm great!
dot|flare: vipz and ringo got colds tho :(
dot|tofu: university has started back up, i'm a bit tired
dot|tofu: but wednesday is my rtcw day
dot|flare: SaMe!!
dot|KOSMiX: I still got a week w/o uni :P
dot|ringo: SaMe
dot|flare: SaMe!!
dot|ringo: I skip work well, arrange it off for my cal fix

Pravda: hehe
Pravda: So when did Dot start up

dot|flare: last year? end of ga season 2
* dot|flare copy/pastes intro on our website
dot|tofu: well we were originally mostly in a clan called cD - coffin dodgers, back in season 1 of the aus ladder
dot|tofu: that was 8v8
dot|tofu: we voted to go 6v6, so i took the best guys from cd (basically) and a few other guys like ringo and whorky, and here we are

Pravda: what made you guys join CAL and how has it differed from Aussie leagues

dot|flare: certainly takes patience thats for sure
dot|ringo: antilag
dot|flare: like knowing u could have taken somebody down, but didnt cuz of ping
dot|ringo: and the prospect of bob2
dot|KOSMiX: yeah :(
dot|ringo: were big factors in joining cal
dot|flare: i think we banned the ping word on voice coms :P
dot|KOSMiX: lol
dot|tofu: we joined CAL because antilag was being tested, we joined up, it was fine - but then it was rejected by the admins, but since we'd established a lot of friendships in the US community we decided to stay
dot|KOSMiX: bob rocked
dot|ringo: oh yeah
dot|flare: with cal-m and cal-o wolftv addresses being spammed on gamesnet, i dont take notice as much as ausirc being my main network to chat on
dot|ringo: thats the real reason we joined cal
dot|ringo: battle of the beachhead

Pravda: So you guys are really looking forward to BOB2 huh?

dot|tofu: if bob2 is rtcw, we'll probably enter
dot|flare: no idea what bob2 is :\
dot|tofu: if its ET, we'll probably enter
dot|flare: im not helping!

Pravda: bob2 = battle of beachead 2

dot|KOSMiX: lol fla
dot|ringo: yeah

Pravda: ok, so in one word responses, what do you think when i say "cal took away antilag"

dot|tofu: understandable
dot|ringo: hat tofu siad :)
dot|ringo: yeah
dot|tofu: "understandable"
dot|KOSMiX: "pants"
dot|ringo: when they took it I was disappointed
dot|ringo: but I understood why
dot|ringo: and if I was one of the low pingers I'd have voted to same way
dot|KOSMiX: I wouldn't have
dot|KOSMiX: but I dont think we are worth changing the whole comp for

Pravda: Do you guys think there are any differences betweeen strats in Aussie teams and american teams?

dot|ringo: oh for sure
dot|flare: yeah
dot|flare: some differences and some similarites

Pravda: Like in what cases or what maps? Is it styles, skills?

dot|ringo: the three major different areas, europe aus and usa all have different styles of play, and different ways of looking at a map strategically
dot|tofu: american teams have a lot more other teams to practice, and have had a LOT more game experience to practice with so we notice US clans tend to gib better, faster, revive faster, and generally have better teamwork micromanagement
dot|tofu: on the strat level, most aussie clans try to take from us clans because of this expereince
dot|KOSMiX: I rkn from what I've seen, the europeans seem to have a lot of innovative strats
dot|ringo: well
dot|ringo: I think of usa as having much better medwork and general teamwork
dot|tofu: this season in australia we're trying out a lot of new ideas, and positions, and class layouts, so we'll see how that goes too
dot|ringo: euros have better aim and some interesting strats

Pravda: cool, i've been talking to a few euros on differences and they seem to say some similar stuff
Pravda: for predictions, who do you guys think will win Cal-M this season?

dot|tofu: in current form, Deathtouch
dot|flare: er, i onyl know narf :P
dot|KOSMiX: my first wolf heroes were d|s so I'll say them!!
dot|ringo: well I hope narf do :))) but as tofu said I personally think dT are looking very smooth atm
dot|tofu: if narf come back strong however, and scrim hard and fast, they can win
dot|tofu: narf tend to just own, and dt seem to own perhaps less 1v1, but seem to have better overall coordination

Pravda: Flare, I hear you're an excellent freestyle rapper, is this true?

dot|KOSMiX: haha
dot|ringo: lol

Pravda: if so, give us a taste of it

dot|ringo: flare rap some jiggle in ventrilo right now!!!
dot|tofu: i dont know where you heard that =P
dot|flare: 1 sec, sorry, just grabbed dinner
dot|flare: lol i hate rap

Pravda: ok we'll well come back to you at the end of the interview for the rap

dot|flare: although, pokemon rap is ok :P
dot|KOSMiX: hshsh
dot|flare: lol if anybodies the singer its fatphil

Pravda: so as Aussie players, do you guys get a lot of kangaroo/outback/hey'mate jokes

dot|tofu: yes.
dot|KOSMiX: not really
dot|flare: hehe ive heard a couple
dot|ringo: yeah
dot|KOSMiX: onyl at the start
dot|ringo: most of them we make ourselves tho
dot|flare: dont forget the boomarangs!
dot|KOSMiX: but now its all good
dot|ringo: yer mate gotta ride the roo to town and see the wombat for some advice

Pravda: haha yeah boomerangs are good too
Pravda: djideridu
Pravda: bet nobody mentions that ;)

dot|ringo: probably only cause they are to scared to try and spell it ;)
dot|flare: lmao
dot|flare: ive tried playing a dij 1 time, man its hard
dot|flare: i was young tho
dot|KOSMiX: its just like any brass instrument
dot|KOSMiX: not too hard
dot|flare: yer
dot|flare: nice spelling btw
dot|KOSMiX: can make a makeshift dij out of a vacuum cleaner tube

Pravda: Haha, okay back to RTCW, what do you think is dot's strong points

dot|flare: experience
dot|ringo: tofu!!!
dot|tofu: strong friendships, loyalty, smg skills, game knowledge, and true professionalism, we are the best
dot|ringo: tofurage!!!
dot|KOSMiX: hahahahah
dot|KOSMiX: tofi
dot|ringo: yeah our strong points include being the best ;)
dot|KOSMiX: I plike the proffessionalism bit

Pravda: okay, let's say all pings are the same, what is your record in cal-m now

dot|ringo: depends who we've played :)
dot|KOSMiX: what is aour record?
dot|tofu: that's an interesting question

Pravda: well hypothetically you guys have played the same exact games, what would your record be

dot|tofu: 7-0
dot|KOSMiX: yah
dot|flare: yeah 4sure
dot|ringo: in cal-o?? definately 7-0

Pravda: who's the best cal-o team right now

dot|KOSMiX: nfi (*author's note: this means 'no fucking idea' in Australian)
dot|flare: c4c :P
dot|flare: they just prawned us :|
dot|tofu: in CAL-m, narf, dt could beat us
dot|tofu: that is all
dot|tofu: and i stress 'could'
dot|ringo: c4c is a pretty tight outfit
dot|tofu: c4c and redeption are good teams
dot|tofu: redemption sorry

Pravda: so, if dot was located in the USA, they are pretty much up there in the best 4 teams?

dot|ringo: haven't seen enough of the other contenders, but i our division c4c for sure
dot|flare: id like to think so prav, at least in cal-o
dot|tofu: i think so pravda
dot|KOSMiX: I dunno
dot|tofu: in cal-m flare
dot|flare: oh
dot|ringo: well, imo we'd own cal-o, but cal-m would be a great challenge
dot|flare: yeah
dot|ringo: realistically we'd be a top 10 main team
dot|flare: dunno about
dot|flare: haha
dot|flare: what i was sayting
dot|KOSMiX: how many in o?
dot|ringo: but I reckon with the prac we could push top 5
dot|flare: dunno about top4 but pretty confident with top10

Pravda: do you guys think RTCW is growing or dying. There's been a lot of talk about rtcw dying because of recent clans calling it quits

dot|flare: hmm, i think its hard to grow, when so many new ppl always are getting errors
dot|tofu: it was dying for a little while, but with the news of cK, wSw coming back for bob2/qcon we may see it surge in popularity again
dot|flare: especially with pb
dot|ringo: rtcw isn't doing either imo, its alive as it ever was really, but I doubt its ever going to grow
dot|KOSMiX: with the top teams ita about the money too
dot|flare: recently we've had alot of new ppl on the aus forums, but its always about errors, and why they cant play

Pravda: are you guys looking forward to expansion RTCW and what other FPS games are you guys into?

dot|flare: i am
dot|ringo: yeah we're all looking forward to et
dot|flare: et hoorah!
dot|ringo: I'm a bit of a game whore, I play bf42 in the 2nd best team in aus :o and a bit of cs on the side mainly cause thats what most pros play.
dot|flare: i tried my fair share of other fps, not really into them but, i more prefer the odd rts and rpg on the off side
dot|tofu: i play ra3 (quake 3 mod) for fun on occassions
dot|tofu: but rtcw is teh only game i play competitively, or have a lasting interest in

Pravda: okay, which american rtcw player is most like yourselves?

dot|ringo: o0o0 hard one
dot|KOSMiX: dunno any
dot|flare: we're all unique!
dot|KOSMiX: lol
dot|KOSMiX: cheap answer
dot|flare: better than dunno :P
dot|KOSMiX: yeah but thats not an answer
dot|tofu: i wish i was more like shogun

Pravda: that's okay, flares still got that freestyle rap comin

dot|KOSMiX: tofu = 187 wannabe
dot|flare: omg
dot|flare: i so cant stand rap, worst music EVER
dot|flare: its like tofu music
dot|KOSMiX: aussie rap = THE WORST
dot|flare: man assosiating me with rap is almost an insult :P
dot|ringo: I dnot think I know any us players well enough to see if they're like me

Pravda: lol
Pravda: whats your favorite maps

dot|tofu: base
dot|flare: sub beach base
dot|flare: all time favs
dot|ringo: base, ice sub
dot|tofu: base & keep
dot|flare: sub beach base ice
dot|KOSMiX: all of the :(
dot|ringo: HEY dot|tofu YOU'RE OUT OF THE CLAN!!!!
dot|ringo: keep is soooo wrong
dot|KOSMiX: although ice beach base keep

Pravda: you guys think UFO belongs to competition play or not?

dot|KOSMiX: nah
dot|flare: not with buggy respawn times :P
dot|flare: and yeah generally no
dot|ringo: if they stop trying to f$%k around with spawn times yeah
dot|tofu: i dont like UFO's design either
dot|tofu: so no.
dot|ringo: just usual normal ones spawn camping happens no matter what

Pravda: are any of the GOTY maps competition level?

dot|ringo: I dont like ufo that much but its more suitable for competition play than say tram :)
dot|ringo: yep
dot|ringo: rocket and chateau
dot|KOSMiX: and keep!!
dot|tofu: keep chateau, perhaps rocket
dot|ringo: not keep
dot|flare: chateau id say
dot|ringo: definately not keep
dot|KOSMiX: keep!!
dot|tofu: no tram thanks
dot|flare: ha!
dot|ringo: rocket is maybe
dot|ringo: but chateau is a good map
dot|flare: only good thing about that tram map is tram rail riding

Pravda: Welp, I guess i'll end the interview with an important question: boxers or briefs

dot|flare: briefs and boxers
dot|ringo: I used to be a boxers man but now I wear briefs
dot|KOSMiX: flare knows the score
dot|tofu: i will only answer that to trillian on ventrilo thankyou.

Pravda: tofu: thongs

dot|flare: rofl

Pravda: finally, flare, you gonna freestyle for us
Pravda: or we gonna have to end this on a depressing note

dot|flare: hey Pravda, how about NO
* dot|ringo eggs flare on
dot|flare: hey ringo, how about NO
dot|flare: gfed :P

Pravda: ok, well you guys have any shoutouts

dot|tofu: yes we do
dot|KOSMiX: yeah hi to schnell!!!1
dot|flare: haha
dot|flare: was gunna say schnell
dot|KOSMiX: I win
dot|ringo: me to :)
dot|ringo: spike!!!!!!
dot|flare: STURDZ0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o
dot|ringo: my drunkard buddy :D
dot|tofu: shoutout to narf, they guys that kept us in cal, to c4c who owned us today on ice, all the other teams we've played
dot|tofu: huge shoutout to samantha for all the stuff she has done for dot
dot|ringo: and shoutout to all the guest stars we've had on dot ventrilo
dot|ringo: including praaaavda
dot|flare: shoutout to del for all the ggz!
dot|KOSMiX: and bubs for me!
dot|tofu: shoutout to nail, the most misunderstood guy in rtcw since shogun =)

Pravda: well that concludes the interview, thanks guys for the time =)

dot|KOSMiX: tanks
dot|ringo: npz dude
dot|flare: nps Pravda
dot|KOSMiX: fix up mah typos will ya prav? thakns
dot|tofu: thanks for the interview Pravda

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wSw back in action!

Posted by: EvilKiller (Thursday, February 27, 2003)

West Side Wolves started out as four friends: Exclusive, Elusion, Emaciator, and EvilKiller, who got together on the weekends to play RTCW in public servers with no intention to rise to the top of the RTCW community. As time went on, our desire to make something out of ourselves grew which eventually led to the formation of the clan wSw. We made a website, held a countless number of tryouts, and recruited many decent players, all who either quit or were kicked from wSw. wSw started playing everyday and began scrimming some of the top clans, Tip, D|S, and Narf.

After a few weeks of scrimming every night, we decided to join Cal-Main. At that point, we were a very strong Cal-Main team. We were undefeated and faced little resistance from the opposition. That is when one of the Cal-Invite clans disbanded and wSw, along with Narf, were invited to move up into the Cal-Invite division. We started out strong beating xil in a very close match on mp_ice.

At that time, phx began to have their differences and decided to disband. We picked up four of their members, Burnzone, Warbringer, Cash, and Excon, but had to pay a costly price. These four guys were used to starting for a clan that finished second in BoB 1 and would not accept the role as a bench warmer for a clan who had not yet established themselves as a top contender. We were forced to make a decision; the leaders of wSw, Exclusive, Elusion, Emaciator, and EvilKiller decided that we would have the best opportunity to win the Cal-Invite division with the old phx members starting in place of our other members.

Tension grew within the clan. Two private channels were made on IRC, one for the leaders and the phx guys and the other for the entire clan. At this point, everyone in wSw, except the leaders and old phx members felt betrayed and abused; some remained quiet, some remained as backups for wSw, but most quit. At this point, we barely had enough members on each night to scrim, but somehow we managed and began scrimming Empire 3-4 times a week.

We finished the regular season strong, only one lose to Empire on mp_beach if I remember correctly. We began playoffs and easily advanced to the championship round against Abuse on mp_base. Everyone, including some of our own members, favored Abuse to win 3-0. The match began very slow for us as Abuse easily held for the entire 15 minutes and then won on offense in only a few minutes. Everyone counted us out, even Cache did, who wrote that the match started out exactly how everyone thought it would, with Abuse taking control and living up to their name.

But we were not finished, we came back and tied 2-2 and started out the last round strong, blowing both towers under 4 minutes. We were thrilled, no one counted us to make it this far, but yet here we were. Our defense started out strong and abuse wasn’t able to push through to the first tower until about 2 minutes into the round when we made some crucial penalties and were caught out of position. Abuse ended up winning the match and went on to win Cal-Invite that season.

This was the beginning of wSw's fall. Most of us lost desire to play, some quit playing because of problems in real life. However, we some how manage to make it to the end of the summer where we made an appearance at qcon 2002. I was unable to attend as I was on vocation in Hawaii with my family. We only had 5 wSw members on our squad and were forced to pick up a ringer. We finished in a disappointing yet respectable 8th place. After qcon 2002, the wolves went into hibernation for the winter of 2002/2003.

Now with spring just around the corner and the power house of the 4 E wSw leaders, we hope to climb back to the top and win Bob 2 and Quakecon 2003.

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Everything you ever wanted to know about the Clans list.

Posted by: (Thursday, February 27, 2003)

This site maintains as accurate a list as possible of the current clans. This is achieved through the help of both the site admins and the users.

My clan isn't listed
If your clan isn't currently listed on the site then adding it is quite simple. Go to the admin menu and scroll down to the Clan/Guild Maintenance section. In there click the link to Sign Up Your Clan. On the following page fill out all the information and when you are finished click Add Clan. Once you do this, the clan will go into sort of a 'limbo' stage where it won't actually be visible on the site yet. An admin must then approve the clan. After an admin approves it, it will start appearing on the site.

I see my clan listed but I am unable to modify settings for it
This situation most likely occurs after an admin adds the clan to the site. Each clan on this site maintains a list of users who have full access to modify the clan's information and submit match results for that clan. By default, the owner of a clan is the person who signed the clan up. If an admin signs your clan up on the site, then that admin is the default owner of your clan. In this situation, simply contact a staff member and let them know that you are a leader of the clan and would like to gain ownership. After the admin updates the clan ownership list, you will have full access to your clan.

How do I edit my clan?
Go to the admin menu and scroll down to the Clan/Guild Maintenance area. Click the Modify Clans link. Then select which clan you wish to modify. It will then present you with the current settings for that clan and you may update them as needed. Click Update when you have finished.

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RTCWTools

Posted by: -doNka- (Friday, February 28, 2003)

RTCWtools is a mIRC script that is able to analyze your OSP stats over long periods of time. Unlike many log analyzers it doesn't work for just a single game and most importantly, it analyzes the accuracy stats generated by OSP. It doesn't have anything to do with HTML files. You can view your stats in a nice GUI and also report the results directly to the IRC channels.

The script is a remake of Q3Tools that came out 2 month ago, it looks just like new RTCW script, just take a LOOK.

Besides stats analyzer there are 3 very useful tools:

CfgSpy: on*TEXT little thingy that will report your cfg settings to your friends once they trigger it.

CfgComparer: Cool feature that helps you to compare the values of two various configuration files.

DJWheat personal spamBot: advanced spambot, what can I say...

RTCWTools-0.8c

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The Stocks system: explained.

Posted by: (Monday, March 3, 2003)

By now you have certainly noticed on the right side of every page a section titled "Top Stock Prices". Possibly you have even been over to view the Clan Stocks page. So what exactly is all this?!

Clan Stocks are a method of ranking clans. Instead of giving the rank points however, we use dollars. When you sign up on the website, it will give you a small amount of "cash" which you may use to purchase stocks in a clan. It is sort of like a real stock market. You want to buy low and sell high. There is also a page which will list the users with the most money. So in a way, it is like betting on clans. If you think a clan will win, you buy their stock. If you own stock in a clan and think they are going to lose, you would want to sell that stock.


How Do I Buy or Sell Stocks?

If you have already registered a user on the site, head over to the Clan Stocks page. Click the link to Modify your Porfolio. This page will list all stocks you currently own as well as your current cash reserves. From here you can Buy or Sell stocks. You may notice that when you go to buy (or sell) stock that the clan you were interested in is not listed. In order to prevent people from buying stock in clans that have completed a match and haven't been updated in our system yet, we will lock them. This prevents people from buying stock in a clan that just won a match (and hence, will most definately go up in value). Once a site admin enters in the official score of that match, the stocks will un-lock automatically and you may purchase or sell stock in that clan.


How does the site generate a stock price?

Clans start with a base stock price of $100. Clans only have one stock price, which is determined by every match they play in any league. There is not a separate price for each league. This forces clan to perform well in all leagues. After each match, a price change is generated. The formula for determing this change is quite complex. It takes into account factors such as how many points the clan won by, the map played on, how well the clan performed in relation to other clans in the same league and on the same map, how people predicted for or against that clan, and even the prices of the two clans involved. For example, if people predicted that the clan would lose and they ended up winning, they would gain considerably more than if they had been predicted by all users to win the match. If the clan they were playing has a stock value of only $50 and they currently are worth $200 one would expect them to win based on the fact that they are worth more (and supposedly better). So if they do win, the price change will not be as high. However if they lost, the price change will be considerably higher due to the fact that they were expected to win.

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Interview with OGG-Witchdoctor on the OGG Tournament

Posted by: Pravda (Monday, March 3, 2003)

Pravda: What exactly is OGG and what is your position in it?

OGG-WitchDoctor[MX]: ogg is the Online Gamers Guild. built to bring clan and players together in one forum
OGG-WitchDoctor[MX]: example.. players looking for clans.. clans looking for players
OGG-WitchDoctor[MX]: unholy and myself are co=owners but non profit at the momment

Pravda: How did the idea of this tournament come about and what were your initial goals with it?

OGG-WitchDoctor[MX]: the idea from the tournament was an online event with fun in mind. we wanted to do something for the RTCW community.. kinda like giving back. we wanted to run a fair tournament where anyone could play. we have 1 level to pro level clans.
OGG-WitchDoctor[MX]: you also mssed our 1 vs 1 and 2 vs2 mod matches all day yesterday

Pravda: Speaking of which, could you give a rundown of the different tournaments that were held?

OGG-WitchDoctor[MX]: sure.. we have a 1 vs 1 (started with 64 players) and a 2 vs 2 (64 players)
OGG-WitchDoctor[MX]: hold one
OGG-WitchDoctor[MX]: pls
OGG-WitchDoctor[MX]: sorry.. the 1 vs 1 was the first part of the day starting at 9am pst and running until apx
5pmpst we made a custom server config for he 1 vs 1 and 2 vs 2 we called it super soldier
OGG-WitchDoctor[MX]: this config gave you ammo heath dyno all at once
OGG-WitchDoctor[MX]: same for the 2 vs 2.. which ran from 5pm until about 1 am pst
OGG-WitchDoctor[MX]: day 2 was standard osp ab/ba ab/ba
OGG-WitchDoctor[MX]: for the clans

Pravda: How many clans participated?

OGG-WitchDoctor[MX]: 8 clans showed up but 10 signed up
OGG-WitchDoctor[MX]: 128 people for day 1

Pravda: What were the strong points and weak points of this tournament? Looking back, would there be any changes you should have made?

OGG-WitchDoctor[MX]: yes next time we dont do it in two days haha.. maybe spread it out over a few weekends
OGG-WitchDoctor[MX]: we also need to find a server donation to make it fair for the east coast guys.. our server dies on day 2
OGG-WitchDoctor[MX]: *died
OGG-WitchDoctor[MX]: but all in all it was a blast..

Pravda: When can we look forward to another tournament?

OGG-WitchDoctor[MX]: people loved it
OGG-WitchDoctor[MX]: we will try to do it every two months..
OGG-WitchDoctor[MX]: TRY..
OGG-WitchDoctor[MX]: its a lot of work

Pravda: Was there any particular reason you guys chose Chateau as the map for finals?

OGG-WitchDoctor[MX]: yea.. no one ever does.. if you saw it on wolf tv it was a fragfest. we tried to do it different then the other

Pravda: Any thanks you'd like to give to anybody for helping out with the tournament?

OGG-WitchDoctor[MX]: yes.. first off my partner OGG-Unholy could not have done it with out him. Also Spottyg-TRAM and the whole TRAM crew. been with us from the strat www.tramdesign.net and of course all of Murder X clan for helping us out with server configs. and all the OGG peeps who play marketgarden everynight!
OGG-WitchDoctor[MX]: oh of course INC aka mr irc
OGG-WitchDoctor[MX]: strat = start
OGG-WitchDoctor[MX]: sorry long day

Pravda: Well thanks for your time and hopefully the next OGG tournament will be even larger. =)

OGG-WitchDoctor[MX]: hope so! good for us all.. thx for the coverage Pravada and stay close for the next one.. maybe some inside scoops!

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A Short Chat with George from Doctors

Posted by: Pravda (Tuesday, April 1, 2003)

Pravda: hi george

CPL|George: Hey

Pravda: so lets make this official for planet-rtcw, doctors are back for rtcw?

CPL|George: We are back for BoB2.

Pravda: so what basically it's more or less a one-shot deal? you guys are back for the tournament only/

CPL|George: Yes, the competition that a tournament brings out is something we didn't want to miss out on.

Pravda: awesome! are all the doctors back from the last quakecon? are there any roster changes or new recruits going on?

CPL|George: As of now there's 3 Doctors from Quakecon who won't be playing. Wombat, Revenant, and Arkaine. So far it's myself, Gusto, Wiseguy and we're going to use 2 of our back up players from last year in Northman and Anomaly. We are currently unsure about a 6th starter.

Pravda: i think scheme wants to join
Pravda: april fool's! =D

CPL|George: :D

Pravda: anyway, there's a lot of talk about doctors not being what they used to be and probably not going to do as well at BOB2 because of their absence in RTCW
Pravda: what is your response to that?

CPL|George: I'm afraid it might be true from what I hear about the game changing so much. Other than anomaly none of us have played for 7 months so it will be interesting how fast we adapt and wear off all the rust.

Pravda: how are you guys preparing for the tournament? are you planning on scrimming hard or taking this more relaxed? what are your realistic goals for BOB2?

CPL|George: Our goal for anything is to win it or we wouldn't really bother playing but right now we are pretty relaxed about the whole thing because even if we don't win, we won't be devistated. It would be different if we never stopped playing RTCW, but that isn't the case. Half our team doesn't even have RTCW installed yet. We need to get scrimming!

Pravda: how often are you guys going to scrim? and when are all of you getting RTCW installed?!

CPL|George: Well I'm bothering the rest of our players to get the game installed so we can start scrimming. I'm hoping we can scrim 1-2 times a night but I'm sure that won't happen. We just don't have that competitive nature back in us yet but maybe that will change if we get further in the tournament. I predict us scrimming once a night Mon-Thur only.

Pravda: cool. since your absence in RTCW have you kept up at all with the teams or cal or anything? if so, what are your views on the current top teams in CAL?
Pravda: do you think today's top teams are as good as the top teams in your heyday?

CPL|George: Other than Anomaly telling us who's good and who's not I pretty much don't know that much about the top teams. I haven't really been following things.
CPL|George: Well if the top team right now was at Quakecon last August we would still crush them! :D

Pravda: =D

CPL|George: If we never stopped playing RTCW we would also be on top! =)

Pravda: i see you're wearing a CPL tag, what's your position in that and i'm assuming thats for counterstrike

CPL|George: That tag isn't for CS, but just for the CPL. I do a lot different things for the CPL but right now I mostly handle online coverage.

Pravda: so will the doctors be playing any games competitively after BOB2? any new games that you guys think might be the next competitive league-type game?

CPL|George: No, the Doctors are pretty much done after this. They might play SWG in the future but that's an MMORPG. I personally am not allowed to play CS anymore because of my position with the CPL so that's why we stopped playing that together.

Pravda: I noticed you guys have been pubbing lately on LoT, has the aim gotten better on the pub servers or are they all still noobs? =D

CPL|George: Well like I said before Anomaly hasn't stopped playing much and other than that it's just been Northman and myself pubbing to try and get our aim back. I'd say it's coming back nice but aim can only take you so far in a game as team oriented like RTCW.
CPL|George: nicely* :D

Pravda: good point
Pravda: did you see me playing?

CPL|George: Yes, pretty good medic!

Pravda: thanks! in one word, describe my pub play!

CPL|George: Teamplayer

Pravda: haha good enough =) I think that about concludes our interview
Pravda: any shoutouts or anything you'd like to add about doctors in rtcw?

CPL|George: Just good luck to all the teams participating in BoB2!

Pravda: alrighty thanks for your time george and good luck to doctors

CPL|George: =)

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Talking to NightFall from SI

Posted by: Pravda (Wednesday, April 2, 2003)

Pravda: Hi nightfall

NightFaLL\SI\: Hi :D

Pravda: Let's get something straight: Is Suicidal Intent the best CAL-O clan today?

NightFaLL\SI\: Of course :D

Pravda: I see you guys have a tough matchup tonight against Redemption, are there any keys to the game for you guys to win in terms of strategy?

NightFaLL\SI\: Well, although I give pretty much everyone a hard time, the (r) guys are the only clan in Open i've ever worried about in matches, really the key to us winning is just hoping that our strategy works well, and that we can adjust to anything they throw at us
NightFaLL\SI\: It could honestly go either way, but NF still predicts 3-0 SI :D

Pravda: So looking through the list of Cal-O clans, Redemption is probably your biggest competitor?

NightFaLL\SI\: Easily, yeah.

Pravda: If you guys win this next match, easy road to CAL O champs?

NightFaLL\SI\: I think so, yeah. Whoever wins out of (r) and SI tonight will win open, unless there is a huge upset, but I doubt one that huge will be pulled off.

Pravda: Do you see SI as a competitive CAL-M clan and you guys are joining CAL-M next season correct?

NightFaLL\SI\: I'm not sure, this may be our last season, we haven't really decided yet.. as for being competitive Cal-M, I think we could hang with some of the main clans, but we'd get dominated by the dT, Z, Narf, and such.. i'm not giving any props to D|S cuz warrior is a fag ;)

Pravda: What is your opinion of 1) the most underrated clan in CAL-O and 2) the most overrated clan in CAL-O

NightFaLL\SI\: Probably OPP as the most overrated, they're not necessarily a bad team, they're pretty decent, but people thought they were all that because they had a perfect record, but when you're in a division with little competition, that's usually what happens. :p
NightFaLL\SI\: that, or FF
NightFaLL\SI\: cuz the ff guys are extremely lame :o

Pravda: how come?

NightFaLL\SI\: Well, they just act really lame towards me and SI, even before I started giving them shit about it. ;)
NightFaLL\SI\: honestly, most underrated i'd have to say one of them is Team Counterfeit
NightFaLL\SI\: you never hear anything about them, but they're a pretty good clan
NightFaLL\SI\: and of course, SI :p
NightFaLL\SI\: we get predicted to lose pretty much every match, I think that's cuz they hate me, who knows :D

Pravda: Haha why the hate?
Pravda: Someone mentioned that you're a slag wannabe

NightFaLL\SI\: lol, slag is a newb, who thinks that because he wins duels in a video game, that he's good at it, and since he thinks video games = life, then slag = teh win, in his mind. We all know better.

Pravda: Okay, we'll whats your thoughts on c4c who seem to be another big competitor to win CAL o

NightFaLL\SI\: well we've scrimmed them a few times, but their pings were pretty ass, so I can't really say much, but I honestly don't know a whole lot about them. So I really can't say

Pravda: What's your predictions on the winners of CAL-M?

NightFaLL\SI\: well i've only been around a few months in wolf, but if I had to guess i'd say dT, just because they've got some really skilled players

Pravda: Well that about concludes this interview
Pravda: Have any last words, shoutouts, or thoughts about the upcoming match?

NightFaLL\SI\: Well, I'd just like everyone to know, I'm sticking by my thoughts that SI will win open, and even if we don't, I'll deny we lost and say it was all rigged.
NightFaLL\SI\: Oh, and for everyone out there, don't get mad when I talk smack to you, i'm just fuxing with you, I love you all.

Pravda: haha okay, thanks for your time NightFall and good luck to SI

NightFaLL\SI\: thanks ;)
NightFaLL\SI\: I'll hit a homerun for you
NightFaLL\SI\: err, wrong game :(

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DarkSide vs DeathTouch Pre-Game Chatter

Posted by: Pravda (Wednesday, April 2, 2003)

Questionaire

DeathTouch

1. How many of the past D|S vs dT matches have you played in?

DimmaK: Personally, I have only played in 2. Had some health issues that have held me back a bit.

Holly: 11-07-02 dT > DS 3-2 Beach CAL-M Season 3 (playoffs)
10-17-02 DS > dT 3-2 ICE CAL-M Season 3
09-13-02 DS > dT 3-2 Village CAL-M Season 3
05-12-02 DS > dT 3-2 ICE CAL-I Season

Decka: none

2. From the past matches the two teams have competed in, which has been the best or most memorable you've seen or played in?

Dimmak: I would have to say the Beach victory. Didn't get to play much leading up to the match. Enjoyed playing with the guys once again.

Holly: Beating D|S last season 3-2 on Beach was one of the most thrilling an exciting game I have ever played in. Demo here
http://www.cached.net/?go=%2A/demo/single/11455////textmatch/holly

Decka: I didn't start last season.


3. How much have you guys scrimmed in the past week as preparation for the upcoming match? Watched any demos?

Dimmak: Well we haven't changed much preparing for this match. We usually scrim up to 4 hours a night along with some much needed team discussions on strat. I personally don't watch demos. Hate to see all the bad habits and lack of skills most players have these days. I am afraid that might rub off on me.

Holly: We usually scrim 3-4 hours a night. We also have a warm-up practice before scrims to go over positions. During the week we will be playing a lot and getting our strats down and getting every one focused on this weeks match. We haven't watched any demos this week and don't plan on watching any demos.

Decka: I personally haven't been scrimming that much, im kinda "inactive" at the moment but the guys have been scrimming 2-3 times a night. I hop in every now and then but im having alot of comp problems.

4. What do you think is your team's strength on ice: defense or offense?

Dimmak: Our defense is always our best asset on any map. We take pride in our strat variations and being able to adapt. We have numerous defensive setups to chose from.

Holly: Defense on any map hasn't been our biggest concern. I know DS is more of a defensive team instead of offense. Offense is the biggest concern on Ice this week and not so much on defense. My goal is to not have any tied games this time and make sure D|S readies up on time, so the game won't last 3 hours. If it does last that long my girl friend turns into the devil and starts yelling at me because I' not spending time with her.

Decka: Probably a mix of both.. we try to keep things dynamic on both ends.

5. What do you think will be keys in the game in terms of strategy on defense or offense?

Dimmak: Obviously adaptation and execution.

Holly: Not giving out any info:). When the wolf community watches our game on wolftv this Thursday night, you will see us pull some crazy shit both on offense and defense. I think the biggest concern is for D|S to ready-up and stop delaying the game after every round. That is annoying to not only us, but the people watching wolftv.

Decka: I'd say whoever can get their offense going stronger because i expect both teams to bring really strong defenses

6. Has your team's strategy evolved significantly since past matches for Ice? How so?

Dimmak: Our strategies have evolved immensly. We all came from aggressive gaming backrounds. Hence, why most of our early strats were all made with the mentality of always pushing. Now we more or less let the opposing team come to us. I am not saying that all our strats are passive cause we do have some kick ass aggressive strats. RTCW requires less aggressiveness and more patience.

Holly: Last time we played ICE was vs. aN (elbows), week 6. During that time, Sunday, we really didn't have a good practice because during that time my video card got fried and couldn't really go threw our strats through. The whole week we didn't really didn't play up to our caliber. We really didn't have anything in sync and were pretty much relying on aim. On game day, we did fairly decent, shutting down aN on defense for two full holds I think, but our offense was a little sluggish only capping the docs around 6 minutes each time.

Decka: Yeah, we've changed quite a few things.. you'll see on thursday:o..

7. Who, in your opinion, is the most dangerous player on the opponent's team and one of the main people you
must stop?

Dimmak: Well RAmbo is tough cause he hates to move around. It is like yellowstone national park when he plays. Always looking to pitch a tent somewhere. Must be a cubscout.

Holly: I think the most dangerous person on D|S is chaoslord. If things aren't going his way he will start yelling and bringing down the teams moral. After that, they happen to lose composer and start to suffer.

Decka: I'm not worried about any of them individually

8. Who do you predict will be the MVP of the game and why?

Dimmak: No single player is MVP in my mind. It is totally a team effort.

Holly: My entire team will be Most Valuable Players. We have had a perfect season in CAL this year with out losing a single round. We were the only team to do that in CAL wolfenstein. We will not lose this game and I will guarantee victory on it.

Decka: I'd say holly because he does so many different things not to mention his pro strat calling hehe

9. Which team, in your opinion, has the better aim? Better teamwork? Better name?

Dimmak: If we didn't have the better aim we wouldn't be 10-0 right now. Our teamwork is superb. Name has nothing to do with it. We are making a name for ourselves.

Holly: D|S is very strong holding their positions on defense. They camp to the extreme not relying on much skill. Their cross fire is pretty good but they don't have the communication that we have.

Decka: Both teams have good aim.. I haven't really experienced D|S's teamwork since i don't really follow any of their games and we don't scrim much.. so I'll say us. And both teams have well established names in the North American Rtcw scene

10. Considering that Darkside has gone through several makeovers in terms of roster, what do you think is the biggest difference between this team and the past Darksides?

Dimmak: They rely solely on a single player. One of their starters doesn't play, they are done for. We played numerous matches this season with different lineups. Had no effect on the outcome. Still KO'd, & 3-0'd

Holly: I don't really know, don't really care. The one thing I see is they are very panzer dependant or one player dependant. If they don't have one of the starters playing they are done for.

Decka: Again I don't really know enough about that so I'll just guess.. their teamwork probably isn't as well developed as teams who have been together longer

11. Why will your team win in the end and what is your prediction of the final score?

Dimmak: We are a hard working team. We have team goals and want to attain the goals we set forth. We scrim alot, talk alot amongst each other and most of all, play well as a team under pressure. I predict an agonizing 3-0 defeat for D|S.

Holly: My prediction is dT 3 - D|S 1. We will send Chaoslord back to cooking the fine egg rolls at the local Suski Sushi bar this off-season.

Decka: Right now we are really meshing well as a team.. and it will push us over the edge.. 3-1 dT

Thanks for your time. Any final thoughts on this match you'd like to add?

Dimmak: Keep the wok's warmed up, and the chopsticks in hand. dT in the finals woohooooooo!!!! My opinions expressed here are solely mine and not that of dT. dT likes me muzzled. :-)

Holly: I'm glad that we didn't have to play D|S in the regular season this year. The hype of this game is almost has exciting of watching Dr. vs. Abuse back in the day. Many people have anticipated dT to play D|S this season and now it's going to happen. There is a lot riding on this game as terms of bragging rights and who is better head to head. The past 6 games dT and D|S have met, ending with the score of 3-2. The game should not be a lemon to watch. We have not played D|S in a match and only scrimmed one time since we last played them on Beach (11-07-02). The game should be highly exciting and fun to watch. Only thing I have to say to D|S is "Big country, "Ready your team the f*ck up!"

Decka: Should be gg's.. kinda pissed that my computer decided to screw me over around playoffs and BoB2 time but hey whatever gl everyone

DarkSide

1. How many of the past D|S vs dT matches have you played in?

Chaoslord: Three matchs, all last season, on village, then ice, then beach in the playoffs. (Though I have played vs dT with other teams.)

Herbal-Tea: I've played in the last three, all of them last season in Cal-M.

Rambo: 3


2. From the past matches the two teams have competed in, which has been the best or most memorable you've seen or played in?

Chaoslord: I would say for me, the ice match was the most memorable as a match, personal performance I did the best in the Beach match.

Herbal-Tea: Probably either of our matches last season on Ice or Village. Both were 2+ hour marathons with 3-2 scores and some tie rounds.

Rambo: The Ice match where there was a break in the action for a while b/c i had to go pick up chaoslords mom at the corner, she was hookin again.

3. How much have you guys scrimmed in the past week as preparation for the upcoming match? Watched any demos?

Chaoslord: Week just started =o.

Herbal-Tea: We're scrimming more than we normally do this week. There really isn't much sense in working to come this far and losing because the other team was better prepared. We'll probably have between 10-15 hours in before our match. As for demos, we never really watch them. We have a pretty good idea of what works for us and what doesn't. You really need to base your strat around the capabilities of your players, and watching demos won't help you with that.

Rambo: We scrim 3-4 times a night, on top of that we practice our strats. Yes i have watched some demos.

4. What do you think is your team's strength on ice: defense or offense?

Chaoslord: I would say our strength is defense, but that is true most maps, I try to make a strong defense and take some of the pressure away off our offense.

Herbal-Tea: Defense is probably our strong point. It almost always is. We normally get pretty long holds, which takes a lot of pressure off our offense, and gives us time to set up how we need to.

Rambo: Defense and Offense both very abusive.

5. What do you think will be keys in the game in terms of strategy on defense or offense?

Chaoslord: The key for us, is working well as a team, it will always be the key, has always been the key. As a team, I think we have the best guns in the game, but teamwork is something we need to get down more.

Herbal-Tea: Depends on the strats that are run. There are a lot of positions on ice to set up an effective defense, and different ways you need to go about breaking them.

Rambo: Me, I am the show, I think good communication and also if we work together as a team and not pub the map we should be fine.

6. Has your team's strategy evolved significantly since past matches for Ice? How so?

Chaoslord: I think every time you play a match your strat changes. We start off with something we have used before, then change it from there. People adapt, things change.

Herbal-Tea: Yeah, we've been changing/tweaking both our o and d some. As for how, well, you'll see :).

Rambo: Yes, added a 5 panzer defense plus 1 man playing medic with a knife.

7. Who, in your opinion, is the most dangerous player on the opponent's team and one of the main people you must stop?

Chaoslord: I don't think there is anyone player on dT we have to stop. When you get to this level, it's a team game. One man might shift the difference a little, but it all comes down the the quality of teamwork and execution of the strategies.

Herbal-Tea: Dimmak and Brian are probably their strongest players. All of them are good though, except Nail, who sucks. Hell, I think Lakai is a better player than he is.

Rambo: I think dT|Evil-Doer 2 should be playing on dT| 1 he is a 1 man team.

8. Who do you predict will be the MVP of the game and why?

Chaoslord: No way to know until the match is played, everyone has a chance of being the mvp. Only thing I am sure of, it wont be Rambo.

Herbal-Tea: No idea. All of the players on both teams are capable of making big plays. Probably whoever plays the most consistently.

Rambo: MVP = RAMBO, TO MUCH RAGE.

9. Which team, in your opinion, has the better aim? Better teamwork? Better name?

Chaoslord: I know we have better aim. I believe, at least for now, they have better overall teamwork. My name is the coolest thanks.

Herbal-Tea: Overall we definately have the stronger guns. They probably have better teamwork, but we've been focusing on improving ours. Better name? Depends on who you ask.

Rambo: Better name? D|S by far, come on now me and warrior and not to mention Herbal-tea have more 2v2 championships then anyone combined crazy aim. Teamwork thats a good question what is teamwork? Better name would have to go to Darkside just becuase i say so.

10. Considering that Darkside has gone through several makeovers in terms of roster, what do you think is the biggest difference between this team and the past Darksides?

Chaoslord: It's hard to compare. DarkSide at first, was a mass of people, with something like 20 members. Half those members left, went to cK, and the other half recruited a few but as members went inactive, it slowly fell into medocrity. At the end of the first CAL-Invite season I approached one of the overall leaders of D|S and talked to him about reviving and revamping the D|S team. The only clause in my joining was that I had total control over the team: members, strategies, lineups, etc. Then I went about recruiting and putting together a team of people I knew and trusted, and believed had the ability to be one of the best. The new D|S is smaller, more of a brotherhood than it was before. We really don't have members we don't trust, or don't need. We are a true team, as close to one as I have been envolved with during my RTCW career

Herbal-Tea: We're really a totally different team. The only original player still with us is Pharoah. Most of us have been playing together for a while though, as 2/3 of our starting team came from Hostile Inc. We're probably a tighter team than the original D|S, i certainly don't see half of our players leaving so they can be 'pros'.

Rambo: Darksides? We added Warrior and got rid of lee hockey.

11. Why will your team win in the end and what is your prediction of the final score?

Chaoslord: One word - Redemption : 3-1 D|S

Herbal-Tea: We'll win because we're the better team. My guess is it'll be another 3-2 game, hopefully without 3 tie rounds, i'd like to finish before midnight this time.

Rambo: 3-0 D|S domination. Because the paintrain will be running through ice on thursday night, No stopin the PAIN TRAIN!!!!

Thanks for your time. Any final thoughts on this match you'd like to add?

Chaoslord: GL to all, see you in the finals whoever wins in the west.

Herbal-Tea: Not really, just that it'll be ggs, and i'm looking forward to it, and thanks for the interview :).

Rambo: Id like to give a shout out to the pimpest clan NwT (niggas with triggas) BAD ASS!!!!

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Team Thorian Interview - Being Thorian has its perks

Posted by: c[_]`Wippuh (Monday, April 7, 2003)

I had a lot of fun doing the interviews back in the day, but got wrapped up in making fun of Jamandy there for a long time and forgot to do em. It wasn't until today, when I saw Team Thorian on the BoB2 roster, that I knew another interview HAD to be conducted.

I tracked down this team of legend, and easily odds on favorite to win BoB2, this afternoon while they took a break from smiling at their reflections in the mirror.

Team name, irc channel, when do you scrim, who are your members?

tTt-Thorian: #team-thorian on gamesnet. Scrim? Thorian doesn't need to scrim, I can make teams win. Current member list is, Thorian x 2, xil-thorian, Thor!na, tTt-Thorian, :: Thorian, ]cp[Thorian, Thorian]NARF[, f!thorian and w*thorian.

http://www.teamthorian.cjb.net

The_Wippuh: There's a lot of new n00bs out there who don't know who Thorian is. Tell us about yourself and how you came to form Team-Thorian.

xil-Thorian: How could someone not know who Thorian is? Thorian is the greatest player in every game ever played. Team Thorian was formed basicly because I realized that owning alone wasn't as fun as raging with other people.
tTt-Thorian: You n00bs don't know about thorian? There should be no introduction or anything, thorian is the myth the man the ledgend!
Thor!na: Thorian is teh l33t3st player that has ever lived.

The_Wippuh: Every team has that identity. DeathTouch is the dynamic strat team, NARF is the lan team, tell me what the identity is of Team Thorian?

xil-Thorian: Being Thorian has perks of course.
tTt-Thorian: Being thorian has it's perks.
Thor!na: The identity of Team Thorian is Thorian!! Cause, like, Thorian can make any team win

The_Wippuh: What's the typical day like being Thorian?

xil-Thorian: Its pretty awesome, I usually start off by reading my fanmail, maybe sign some autographs in our irc channel, and then go own me some n00bs on a pub server, i frequent pubs like unskilled players only and the like.
tTt-Thorian: Well, I get up in the morning, and go on irc and try to join teams that I haven't been in yet, and then after that go out to the store for coffee and avoid getting my ass kicked by nerds, then back to irc looking for more teams.
Thor!na: First I get up and make a hearty breakfast...Cant start the day out right without it. Then I spend all day pwning n00bs and being a jackass.

The_Wippuh: What do you look for when recruiting new people for Team Thorian?

xil-Thorian: We mainly look for people that have perks, if you dont have perks, you obviously cant be as awesome as Thorian because he has perks, so you really dont have a chance of making it in the team.
tTt-Thorian: We look for the biggest n00bs around who have no clue who thorian is, so they will like us, and then force that person into belief that we are rtcw gods!
Thor!na: They have to be high quality Thorians...and willing to dedicate their entire lives to playing!

The_Wippuh: Give 4 pieces of advice to new players to become more like Thorian.

xil-Thorian: 1. The first step to being like Thorian is having perks, this one is a must. 2. Second you have to have been in AT LEAST 5 clans in 3 weeks 3. You always have to remember that you are the greatest player ever so everyone should fear you. 4. You have to frequent places such as cached or planetwolfenstein and bitch about how awesome you are at all times.
tTt-Thorian: 1. Everyone is a bigger asshat then you are, remeber that. 2.No matter how many teams you've been on, there's always a handful that don't know who you are. 3. Flaming people on planetwolfenstein is a must! 4. And remeber being thorian, has perks.
Thor!na: #1 Play all day long, #2 Dedicate yourself to being the best, #3 Make a jackass of yourself in public all the time, #4 You need Perks.

The_Wippuh: What's the biggest influence on Team Thorian, what was that turning point where you just knew there was no one as good as you?

xil-Thorian: Uhh, wait a second here, a turning point? We are Thorian, we have always been the best and noone has ever been able to come close to our greatness, and we have always known that. The biggest influence would probably be my teammates, look at them, they are all awesome like Thorian!
tTt-Thorian: There was no turning point, thorian has always been better then every one else.
Thor!na: Biggest influence is Thorian but as far as a turning point: The first time we got on a server. We've always been the best.

The_Wippuh: With there being 6 Thorians on your team, what leagues do you plan on NOT dominating, and why not?

xil-Thorian: Hmmm, good question, its pretty obvious that every league we enter is gonna be dominated by us, so its really only a matter of how much time we can spend raging every week, I mean we are allready owning the twl 5 vs 5 ladder, and we will soon win bob2, its just a matter of time until we get invited to cal main because we are so awesome and then of course we will go undefeated there. I dont really see team thorian entering STA since we have our hands full with twl 5 vs 5 and cal main, and of course rumble in the desert which is an awesome league that we own.
tTt-Thorian: Well we just finished up dominating rumble in the desert, we were winning so bad that the admins decided to shut the league down.
Thor!na: For the greater good of mankind we have currently decided to ONLY play in TWL 5v5... As far as BoB2 is concerned...Welp Thorian is a professional gamer and must play for prizes

The_Wippuh: With the great power of being Thorian, also comes great responsibility. How do you keep yourself from just raging on all the n00bs and completely scaring everyone off from a game?

xil-Thorian: Well, first of all, I don't. Being Thorian has its perks, but it'd be no fun being alone and having noone around to rage, so I show the power of Thorian to one at a time, giving them time to recover from the awe of being in my presence while I humble someone else with my awesomeness.
tTt-Thorian: You mean I haven't been raging on n00bs all the time?
Thor!na: I dont stop myself. Let them leave no one wants anyone that isnt Thorian

The_Wippuh: There's been a lot of "wannabe's" out there. Shogun, Slag, Daniel, and lately Nightfall. What puts Thorian on a level that they can never hope to achieve?

xil-Thorian: Well first off, none of those guys have perks, I mean, when you think of Thorian, you think like, wow awesome, Thorian owns, but when you think of those n00bs its like elbow rage and no skills. It comes pretty naturally that none of those guys are near Thorians level of awesomeness.
tTt-Thorian: Well all those kids talk about is there elbows, elbows this, your elbow fits where now? As soon as they drop there elbows and play, then maybe they could touch me.
Thor!na: Welp as Thorian I have perks and like Thorian can make any team win Shogun rages all nice and stuff, SlaG and Daniel have some mad elbow power and NightFaLL makes a jackass of himself well enough...they just dont compare to Thorian though

The_Wippuh: What is the one thing you really see as the ultimate perk of being Thorian?

xil-Thorian: Well the fact that Thorian can make any team win is a great perk, so that is propably what i think is the ultimate perk.
tTt-Thorian: I think the name alone says more then enough, it strikes ph33r into n00bs around the globe.
Thor!na: well, like I can make any team win so...I'd have to say that

xil-Thorian: A Shoutout to all the people I have owned (basicly the whole wolf community) and remember n00bs, when you see players above your skill level on a server, think twice before joining.
tTt-Thorian: I wanna give some shout outs to all my fellow thorians in #team-thorian those gamecubes are as good as ours! Everyday life is tough in the thorian ghetto
Thor!na: Shout out to my female counterpart Aphrodite! and uhhhhh...well no one else is good enough to be recognized by Thorian

I'm not sure if I'll ever be able to conduct another interview that will live up to this one :/

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East vs. west, the battle continues...

Posted by: Kuniva (Sunday, April 6, 2003)

Two epic teams will be renewing acquaintances this Thursday as Narf battles Deathtouch for the Cyberathlete Amateur League Return To Castle Wolfenstein Main Division Championship. In a repeat of last year's nail-biting finals match, in which Narf prevailed over Deathtouch 3-2, these two teams will duke it out for bragging rights as the best team in North America.

The match many have been hoping for, is finally going to happen. Ever since the community witnessed last season's Main finals, the questions have been getting asked; "What if it had been another map?", "What if the pings had been fair?", "Was it a fluke?" All these questions and more will finally be answered, with Thursday’s match. Is Deathtouch out for blood? Or will they be leaving with a Narf footprint in their ass? Everyone who has ever heard of these two teams will be tuning in to Wolf TV on Thursday to find out.

Emerging last season as powerhouses on the west coast, and carrying the momentum of their championship into CAL season 4, Narf has been plowing its way through team after team, seemingly impossible to beat. In dropping only two rounds all season, they have proven, among other things, that “performance enhancing drugs”, doesn’t always mean steroids, and Deathtouch will be hard-pressed to find an answer to the enigma, that is Narf.

Deathtouch’s regular season was one of absolute perfection. They did not lose a single round as they systematically dismantled almost every main clan on the east coast. Their strong guns combined with flawless strategies, seemed to surgically cut through opponents with a deadly precision. As the playoffs rolled on Deathtouch kept up the hard work, and has found themselves in another CAL Main Championship match, but strangely after a strong regular season, Deathtouch has showed some minor dips in the past two weeks. Although they did defeat both the strong Darkside last week and the surprising Team Z the week before, they dropped single rounds in each match. Now many might see this as a problem that needed to be fixed, but it is actually perfect strategy execution by Deathtouch. When the opposing team found a weakness, and exploited it, they automatically shut them down, by adapting to the opposing teams offense. This is one strength of Deathtouch that sets them apart from other teams. The only way Narf will be able to defeat them, is if they can solve the adapting defense.

There is one other factor that adds an interesting twist to this match however, and that is the fact that Narf and Deathtouch, have already met during this CAL season. It was not in CAL however. Narf and Deathtouch met in the OGG Masters Tournament, with Deathtouch coming out with a 3-1 victory (correct me if I’m wrong), and an eventual tournament championship. What does this mean? Well it means that Deathtouch does have what it takes to beat Narf, it also means that they were able to execute the adapting defense vs. Narf. 3-1 was the final, in other words, Narf was able to solve Deathtouch’s defense for one round, but then Deathtouch adapted, and were able to shut them down. Should this happen on Thursday, Narf will be in for one hell of a bumpy ride.

Worlds will collide on Thursday, and a community of thousands will be waiting intently for the outcome. The title for North America is on the line, and only one team will rise from the battlefield to claim the title, but when that clock runs out on the final round, and one team is victorious, I will be watching, and I will be able to say that I saw one of the greatest matches, in Wolfenstein history…

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Interview with cD and dot - by LoA-MajikShoe

Posted by: .tofu (Monday, April 7, 2003)

CD - DOT INTERVIEW

by LoA-MajikShoe


The Australian Wolfenstein community will remember the first season of the Gamearena Ladder for many reasons - the undefeated Infantry, the raw skills of the fearsome ]nv[, and the much anticipated grand final. Everyone expected one of these two skillful clans to take the trophy after playing each other in the grand final, but seemingly coming from nowhere, Coffin Dodgers surprised all by beating ]nv[ in a semi final and took on INF for the title. Although they were defeated, it signaled a new powerhouse clan was emerging and was a looming threat for season 2.

After the wash-up of the grand final and the reduction of team sizes from 8 to 6, cD found itself over supplied. Six core players, mostly grand final members, decided to leave and start their own clan, known as Dot. Dot adopted arguably the most respected Hollywood actor, Chuck Norris, as their mascot and since then they have taken no prisoners, playing an important role in season 2's finals and threatening once again in season 3. Dot currently sit at the top of the ladder.

Meanwhile against all odds, cD regrouped and rebuilt during season 2, and after snaring some quality recruits have worked their way now once again to the upper echelon of Australian Wolfenstein. The departure of their leader (PhatHag) earlier this year has not seemed to hinder cD who now sit in third position in the current ladder standings.

After their split over 7 months ago, these two teams have never played each other in an official match. April 8 changes all that, and the much anticipated showdown is slated for 9pm Eastern Australian Time. One of these teams will sit atop the ladder after this game, and this match will sort it out.

Dot (Represented by Tofu, Ringo and Dozer)
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MS: It must have been difficult packing up and leaving a long established and successful clan to try your own. What was the reasoning behind Dot's formation and how did that affect the relationship between yourself and the remaining cD players?


TOFU: Well, when the ladder season moved from 8v8 competition to 6v6, basically .cD split into dot (led by myself) and (led by Phat Hag and Badass). Team dot split off with the harder core players, who wanted to play a professional career of Wolfenstein.

RINGO: I wasn't an ex cD'er as such but had left behind a great and well established clan in Screaming Eagles. At first there were some pretty annoyed people in cD that gave us some stick, but its all good now.

MS: Obviously the six cD players had played with each other for some time, but the other members had never played together as a team before. Most new clans take some time to gel and play as a team, did it take long for Dot to get some cohesion and how did you try to minimize the time needed to get everyone playing as a team?

TOFU: There were 6 from cD, tofu, delerium, flare, fatphil, kosmix and vippin. Ringo and Whorky fitted right in with us from the start, we started as a meccano set, and were put together very quickly much like a hobbyist puts together his new model within the space of hours - with great care and skill.

RINGO: On the gelling issue for sure there was problems at first, but we're all pro's and after a few pracs we started playing as a team. I think having such a small roster (8ppl at the time) helped immensely.

MS: Dot are currently competing in CAL-o and the only clan from Australia playing in that tournament. What was the motivation to take your gaming to a world stage, and how has it improved Dot's game play overall?

TOFU: Well we entered CAL due to antilag, but when they took it away we persevered and have since done quite well out of it. Consider Quakecon RtCW won by Team dot if we go this year. Our motivation comes from within, it's very spiritual, it's very positive - we want to tackle this thing head-on and get e-sports to be as high status as any other major sports in the world. Playing overseas competitions has greatly improved our teamwork and now we are an unstoppable force.

RINGO: The scene is Australia is small and the egos in the US big, it seemed like a good idea to get more practice while showing some Yanks how to play RtCW. We've had the chance to sample the best the USA has to offer, and know that they have no chance against our skill and raw emotion at QCon this year. In terms of improvement, playing with a 200+ ping and no antilag isn't pretty, you can’t rely on your SMG skills or even getting panzer shots off. So we learned how to work as a team more and as a result our medic skills have improved immensely.

DOZER: We decided to join the American scene because there was simply no competition in Australia for us, we needed something more to fulfil our destiny of greatness. Therefore we decided to join an American league to expand on our professionalism and be all that we can, and will be.

MS: Although Dot promised much, they were beaten in the semi finals by a determined Anarchy who went on to be defeated by O2 in the season 2 grand final. Considering Dot had beaten O2 3-0 earlier in the season, did this loss affect the morale of the team, and have you changed anything in your planning or preparation to try and avoid such losses in the future?

RINGO: Oh for sure, we went into the o2 match already lost, our preparation and attitudes were poor. The dead wood has been cut and the new saplings nurtured. Nothing and no-one can stand before us now, we are confident but not overly so our abilities will carry us over the line.

TOFU: We take losses with dignity, those two losses we did not prepare as well as we should have, but at no stage did the losses themselves shake the team's focus and dedication to winning. We started preparing for the season 3 finals the day after the season 2 finals were over, we're not too concerned with the inner rankings of the ladder.

DOZER: From the sidelines which I was forced to sit upon in the last season finals, Dot's morale did not stumble, with every defeat we've grown stronger. From those two games we gained valuable knowledge on each team and they will not beat us again. Also with myself and LoKnLoWd pulling triggers and elbow raging there is no longer room for loss, we will simply destroy every team we come across and take no mercy upon them.

MS: On to tonight’s game, Base is probably one of both team's strongest maps. Have you been preparing for long, and can we expect any surprises from Dot?

DOZER: Now look here Majikshoe, we both know that Dot prepare for every game that we play, to not do so would be unprofessional. And Base may be one of cD's strongest maps but every team’s strongest map is a map we are stronger on, the only surprise you can expect to see from dot tonight will be the responses to the record times dots going to set, and the 15mins dot holds. cD will be no match for us, its going to be an easy game as they all are. Someone try and prove us wrong. It’s not going to happen.

TOFU: We have no strongest map, we are equally dominant on all maps. Base is boring same old. I guarantee some surprises in store for cD and all the viewers coming by way of Team dot originality.

RINGO: Oh you better watch out tonight, we're coming to deliver a three course meal of ownage. For entree we shall blitz any defense they try to put together the speed of our service shall put them cowering in their spawn. Next up our defense will be exquisite, they'll keep on coming back for more but never finishing. Lastly, they will be confronted with the most blindingly delicious plate of pure f***ing prawnage they have ever seen.

MS: Considering it’s been quite a while now since the split from cD where most of your members are from, does tonight’s game have any significance to Dot as a team given your opposition, or is this just another game?

RINGO: Firstly its never just another game. Each encounter, while not being personal, is emotional.

TOFU: This is the first game the two sides have played against each other. I only hope we can end cD's misery as quick as possible, it's what any old friends would do. It's business.

DOZER: A bullet to the heart..

MS: Finally the question on everyone's lips, why Chuck?

DOZER: What a silly question, why not Chuck? Chuck is the epitome of professional. Who else (other then Jackie Chan) does his own stunts so elegantly, who else elbow rages tesus winmaen style? If you had seen Delta Force you would know what I mean.

RINGO: Have you seen Chuck getting emotional? It’s scary - fear the angry pro.

TOFU: Chuck is winmaen, need I say more?

Final Word:
DOZER: O2, im sure you can come out of retirement and bench half your clan for the next game guys, just so long as you reach us and give us the chance to rage your faces.


cD (Represented by BaDaSs and Nightwolf)
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MS: After four key members leave to form their own clan, many teams would fall apart and disband. What made cD different and how did the rebuilding process take place?


NWF: Hmm, tough question...I guess we always had PhatHag, and PhatHag is KNG, the rest of the people did very little in cD, i.e. the dot people, the main strat makers were Miggy and myself. So although they may have the raw talent, even now their strats are far inferior to cD's and only get close to us by stealing strats off US clans.

BAD: We had a big roster, and those dot fags thought they were too pro for us, but we will rage them tomorrow night and show that cD are KNGS!!!

MS: I recall reading one of PhatHag's posts soon after the split that cD were in the ladder for fun, which usually implies that there will be not be as much focus on winning. That went out pretty quickly with lots of good recruiting, practices and scrims, and cD were unlucky not to be in the top 4 at the end of season 2. Was it a conscious decision to get back to the top, or something that just fell into place?

BAD: The competitive nature of cD wouldn’t let us be in it just for fun. Hag was an awesome leader, and just inspired us to keep pushing to win. After a while I guess we started to gel and knew we could get close to the finals.

NWF: LOL, from mah perspective, I always had a terrible computer up till about half way through last season, and couldn’t compete. As soon as I got my new computer I sorta took a step up and things followed that. :p

MS: Its been a remarkable comeback, what are your thoughts on the last six months - are you happy with the direction cD is taking and where do you position yourself come finals time?

BAD: Recruiting has definitely help strengthen the squad with two awesome players in reso and smeagol. the knowledge they bring to cD along with myself owning, we will be number 1.

NWF: Along with Smeagol, Resolute, Diesel and grill returning to the ranks, cD has an opportunity to make its way to the finals without much trouble. Once finals comes however it will be a different story. Everyone will come over to nwf's place and cD will LAN for the entire period of the finals and prawn dot into oblivion...

MS: The map is Base, which is traditionally one of cD's strongest maps. It was cD who introduced the now standard "Abuse" style defense on the NE tower to beat the fancied NV in season 1's semi final. Should we expect any surprises in this game, or will it be another game won and lost at the North-East tower?

BAD: Zone 3 flamer pwns ! Seriously though, I don’t think either clan would have the balls to try anything different, but sif I'll give away l33t nwf and Smeagol strats

NWF: cD will not be revealing anything interesting for this game but as said in previous reply, expect the unexpected when finals time comes around.

MS: PhatHag was obviously an important leader until his recent departure. How did his leaving affect cD, and do you think his absence will make a difference during the finals?

BAD: Obviously we didn’t want him to leave, but NightWolf and Smeagol have stepped up into brilliant stratmaen roles, and I think we will have an excellent finals series.

NWF: Phathag is the winmaen, he’s a top bloke, but I don’t know how essential to our setup he was. I think he was the best medic in cD apart from Miggy, which we are now coming to terms with

MS: Considering its been quite a while now since the split, does tonight’s game have any significance to cD as a team or are you all just taking this as another game?

BAD: We really want to rage dot. Elbow pads are no where to be seen, and I reckon they gonna crap there dacks and disband when they go down 3-0

NWF: Nah, elbow pads are well and truly on, we are trying to lull Dot into a false sense of security.

MS: Now for something I've been wondering for a very long time, as has the rest of the Australian Wolf community. What do you prefer, red M&M's or blue M&M's?

BAD: Red peanut ones, they hurt more when you hit people

NWF: Red coz they remind me of Redknob!

Final Word:
BAD: Just a note to dot: pls don’t disband once we own you 3-0. We still want to use your Ventrilo server!

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Thursday's Weather at the Beach

Posted by: [u]Korollary (Tuesday, April 8, 2003)

Thursday's Weather at the Beach: Heavy artillery early on, followed by thundering panzerfausts, which will clear up once the docs are transmitted.

Even though focus has been much shifted over to BoB2 in general, there are two teams out there that are going to play one last Cal match just as the first round of BoB2 completes: NARF and dT. Just like at last season's final, but this time on mp_beach, which is also the finals map for BoB2 where these two teams may possibly meet again.

These two teams represent the highest degree of dedication, teamwork and possibly the deadliest arsenal in RTCW in North America today. It will be a spectacular match, where both teams will seek the rewards of hours and hours of practicing and scrimmage.

Predictions are already up, but the one thing everybody can agree on is that both teams will be well prepared with their ideal line-ups for this match. Pressure will be high, as this match will have international WTV audience and TSN coverage .

I thought about my past scrims and matches against these two teams, then I even watched the demo of the match they played at the OGG tournament this year. In my humble opinion, when I look at deathTouch, I see a well balanced team that can morph on the offense to find the weak spot of the defending side. They can be pretty stealthy and throw the defence off. That same balance on defense helps them recover really fast.

When I look at NARF, I see a brutal defense that can lay down the pain for long periods, thanks to Lynch. But their recovery is not as quick as that of dT. On offense, NARF is more straight to the point with heavy use of firepower.

As much as most of us would like to see this match go 3-2 either way, I don't think it's going to be like that. Deathtouch is more used to probing tough defenses than NARF is, because the pacific division has not been tough enough to NARF to prepare them for this kind of matchup. On mp_base, which is one of NARF's best maps (maybe the best), where the offensive routes to the objective are asymmetrical, NARF's defense shined when Lynch was overloading and overpowering the northeast tower. But dT was able to win it 3-1 on base. On mp_beach, where the offense can be more safely split, equally talented dT players will find holes and be able to jet to the radio room quicker than NARF will. The rounds will be close in the 6-7 minute range, the likelihood of a drawn round is low, and deathtouch will win it 3-1.

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NARF vs dT Pre-Game Chatter: Dem Fighting Words

Posted by: Pravda (Wednesday, April 9, 2003)

Holly's Interview

am|Pravda: hi holly

dT|holly: hiya prav

am|Pravda: so how has dT been preparing for this finals matchup against NARF?

dT|holly: We haven't been preparing good so far. Over the weekend I sat down in front of my computer and thought of some new strats for beach. I knew our defense was strong, but like D|S narf is mainly a defensive team. We had a lot of work cut out for us this week on offense. Thing is Sunday night I had to go to a concert
dT|holly: "planned out for over a month now"
dT|holly: so the team didn’t really have a good idea on how to rage the new offensive strats I made. Also with bob2 coming up, which is turning out to be a more of a hassle then it really should be, we have our match right before our match on Thursday.

am|Pravda: ok, would you say there is bad blood between NARF and dT? something of a rivalry?

dT|holly: not enough games for a rivalry. their is starting to get some bad blood brewing though

am|Pravda: where would you say it began and what happened?

dT|holly: probally this season when all they would do is join wtv, our irc channel and talk mad shit about us. They really got pissed when we raged them on base and won 3 - 1 when they were lanned.
dT|holly: btw,
dT|holly: im also enjoying my new motherboard, i won at that tournament :)

am|Pravda: was there some issues with scrimming with NARF that added to the tension between the clans?

dT|holly: yes, they would never finish the rounds with us, we haven't really scrimmed them a lot compared to other teams. We really didn't have any tension(s) from our scrims w/ narf
dT|holly: and also
dT|holly: they never RUP on time :(

am|Pravda: now going through the predictions on the site, i see that some people actually predict deathtouch to dominate narf, maybe even 3-0 them. do you see a game like that coming along? is this match tougher than the dT D|S match?

dT|holly: well last season even though narf beat us on ice for the finals, I still felt like D|S was the better team. D|S just plays us tougher and have much stronger guns then narf. The only reason narf is good, "especially on a map like beach" is they are lanned “since scrimming them when they are lanned and aren’t is like day and night” and because of lynch and looking at his other teams monitors to get a good shot off. I just wonder how much of a better team dT would be if we lanned as much as them. Now for a 3-0 match, it could happen if we play our best. Last weak vs. D|S, on ice, we played really
dT|holly: really sloppy. I felt like we weren't executing strats, bitching too much on ventrilo and just weren't playing our best game and yet we came out on top 3-1. If we are all focuses and on the same page this week and get off to a good start, we will take this 3-0.

am|Pravda: so you'd put a lot of NARF's success on the fact that they're lanned?

dT|holly: I don’t think all of narfs success comes just because they are lanned. They have dedicated players, good organization, and most of their players get along with each other (like most successful teams). Most of the wolf community knows that narf isn’t the same team if they don’t lan and when they do, like I said, it’s like day and night.

am|Pravda: okay, where would you say NARF's weakest point or weakest player is? the person that dT plans on abusing and exploiting throughout the match.

dT|holly: I don’t know each of narfs players individually that well “on what positions they play, who is the weaker etc…” I do know that the biggest shit talker on their team is obliv with immortal close behind. I hope to keep obliv in limbo the whole time so he can spec the game from the sidelines. I never seen a guy talk so much shit after losing a game then him.
dT|holly: They also relay on the panzerfaust (lynch) way too much

am|Pravda: okay well holly
am|Pravda: what we're going to do now, is do word association okay?

dT|holly: lol whats this ?

am|Pravda: i'm going to throw out a name, you give me your first impression or thoughts quickly
am|Pravda: tell me when yo'ure ready

dT|holly: ready

am|Pravda: holly

dT|holly: #1 duke player baby :)

am|Pravda: nail

dT|holly: hammer

am|Pravda: brian

dT|holly: air brians

am|Pravda: obliv

dT|holly: i will make him scream medic at qcon

am|Pravda: da_G

dT|holly: one fucked up config

am|Pravda: lynch

dT|holly: eggroll

am|Pravda: NARF

dT|holly: very whiney potheads, if they were so much of drug fanatics they wouldn't care what server they played on

am|Pravda: have any predictions for this match? anything out of the ordinary you see happening?

dT|holly: i say we can take them 3-1 if we get our shit together this week. I expect if dt wins or loses narf will still talk shit about us even though it was an epic battle vs. the two best teams in wolfenstein (north america) right now.

am|Pravda: ok cool, now what we're going to do
am|Pravda: is end this interview
am|Pravda: with a holly freestyle on the dT NARF match
am|Pravda: sound off holly

dT|holly: whadduppppp

dT|holly: that good ?

am|Pravda: thats your freestyle?

dT|holly: i dont have a freestyle ?
dT|holly: whats an expample

am|Pravda: haha ok
am|Pravda: that concludes the interview lol
am|Pravda: any shoutouts or thigns to add concerning the match

dT|holly: i got something writen up about it
dT|holly: but i dont know if u want to post it

am|Pravda: sure, post it up
am|Pravda: we here at planet-rtcw like to encourage brutal honesty at it's best

dT|holly: I don’t understand how people can say narf is good for the wolf community.
dT|holly: When they careered it last season, in the cal finals mp_ice 3-2, instead of being diplomatic about it they trash talk us on irc and on wtv.
dT|holly: After the ice game all we said to narf was “good games” and that was it.
dT|holly: I couldn’t believe during the ogg tournament that narf wouldn’t agree to play us on DFW, since that is where *ALL* east vs. west matches are played, and their response was, “we like advantages”, “it’s time for us to ping fuck you”. "Prizes are at stake!" They won nothing. Their individual skill lacks. NARF is all lan.
dT|holly: We played them that night and won 3-1 on base, decisive win on supposedly one of their two “best” maps.
dT|holly: And after the game all they complained about was “they weren’t prepared for base, was too aggravated with the server changing, and they said we ping fucked them.” First of all, we had the same amount of preparation of base as they did.
dT|holly: I don’t understand why they didn’t play in the best possible equal ping environment, DFW. Dallas is where East vs. West play and they still complained that we (dT) pinged 10ms less then them. The funny thing is after the match they kept trash talking us.
dT|holly: Time to put the trash talking behind them.


Obliv's Interview

am|Pravda: hi obliv

obliv]NARF[: hi sexy

am|Pravda: =D
am|Pravda: so with the cal-m finals coming up against death touch, how hard have you guys been preparing?

obliv]NARF[: well, lets see, today is sunday, and we just scrimmaged on mp_beach for 4 hours, and plan on doing the same the next 3 days, so id say pretty darn hard

am|Pravda: lets be honest now, with scrim problems and server selection problems in the past, would you say that there is bad blood between narf and death touch?

obliv]NARF[: let me just say one thing, if u scrim deathtouch, be prepared to ready up!

am|Pravda: haha why, what happened

obliv]NARF[: o we were trying to get our shit together on ice and they basically told us they would never scrim us again because we took too long to ready up, and we made fun of nails bad cooking.
obliv]NARF[: he's a housewife, what can i say!

am|Pravda: wow, nails been catching a lot of crap lately, did you read the D|S interview about him? he did respond nicely in the match though hehe
am|Pravda: would you also say that hes the weakest player on dT?

obliv]NARF[: nope, i personally dont know who teh weakest player is, i personally dont pay attention.. he's obviously pretty good, but still, i just give them all crap to see their lovely responses most of the time
obliv]NARF[: holly is the man!

am|Pravda: is that sarcasm i sense?

obliv]NARF[: well no, of course not, he runs the best team in rtcw, he creates strats all day!
obliv]NARF[: he's my hero pravda.

am|Pravda: =P
am|Pravda: with the addition of brian this season and a pretty impeccable cal regular season for dt, would you say they have improved dramatically and will pose a tougher challenge than last year?

obliv]NARF[: i dont know the challenge they poised last year, i wasnt in narf, brian is a hell of a great player, and dT is a forced to be wreckoned with, but everyone always talks about dT and brian, what about obliv and ]NARF[ ... yep.

am|Pravda: so let's talk about obliv and narf lol. what does obliv bring to narf from last year?

obliv]NARF[: nothing, cept an annoying rich jew bastard!

am|Pravda: haha
am|Pravda: how would you rank Beach on a list of NARF's best maps?

obliv]NARF[: o its our best map, just like every other map, i always notice when we win a game its because a) its our best map or b) we're lanned.. its quite humorous

am|Pravda: speaking of which, you're right, there is a lot of talk about how narf wins only because they are lanned, how would you respond to an accusation like that

obliv]NARF[: well, it definately helps... who really cares, we do it to hang out more than have an advantage, thursday nights at da_g's pad = NARF.

am|Pravda: wouldn't you say it also helps with communication a lot?

obliv]NARF[: well of course it does, having 22" flat screen monitors rules too (www.gamesessions.com) !

am|Pravda: i'm deleiting that plug later

obliv]NARF[: ahaha loser.

am|Pravda: okay, lets see, the predictions site says you guys are going to be major underdogs and some people even say sweeped, what's going on obliv?!
am|Pravda: and what are your predictions for htis match?

obliv]NARF[: well, predictions are blah, dT really hypes themselves a lot, and for some reason we are always the underdogs.. i dont know why considering we've had 0 losses in cal for almost 2 whole seasons now (it will be after thursday)
obliv]NARF[: i think it will be one of the closest matches the community has seen in a while, im sure we'll both be prepped for it, its all a matter of execution
obliv]NARF[: i cant really say who will win, but of course i am going in with the mindset that we are going to win 3-0

am|Pravda: do you guys have anything special planned in terms of strategy or are you going to be systematic

obliv]NARF[: none of our strats are special, they are watered down and simple.. over complication is hard on the minds of people in our clan.. we just roll with the punches

am|Pravda: mostly just roll

obliv]NARF[: only if ed is around.

am|Pravda: ah ok
am|Pravda: will you guys be a drinkin and a smokin for the match?
am|Pravda: pull a david wells on us?

obliv]NARF[: hrrm, i am under the legal age limit for consuming alcohol so i wont (:P) smoking? whats that!
obliv]NARF[: you talking about cigarettes?

am|Pravda: yeah cigarettes, of course =p

obliv]NARF[: werd then, ya

am|Pravda: let's play a game, word association
am|Pravda: i say a name and you come up with whatever is the first thought in your head
am|Pravda: tell me when you're ready

obliv]NARF[: i like games only when they require sp1ke man.. but alright ill play urs.
obliv]NARF[: go for it.

am|Pravda: obliv

obliv]NARF[: awesome
obliv]NARF[: best rtcw player in the god damn world

am|Pravda: da_g

obliv]NARF[: one bigass fool who likes breaking computers
obliv]NARF[: "compkilla" if u will

am|Pravda: holly

obliv]NARF[: shmuck

am|Pravda: dimmak

obliv]NARF[: cool name, bad player.

am|Pravda: nail

obliv]NARF[: best cook alive, good lord!

am|Pravda: pravda

obliv]NARF[: he joined am, what a fucking idiot.

am|Pravda: lol

obliv]NARF[: :)
obliv]NARF[: say dT!

am|Pravda: dT!

obliv]NARF[: GUNNA GET OWNED
obliv]NARF[: yar!

am|Pravda: you guys going to put up full holds? or cap in 2 minutes?

obliv]NARF[: both.

am|Pravda: haha
am|Pravda: any challenges you think that you will have to overcome to pull off such times?

obliv]NARF[: not really, we are proffessional.

am|Pravda: wait, isn't that clan kapitol? =p

obliv]NARF[: yea, they are too, good guys. very professional.

am|Pravda: so final questions about the match: who will be best player?
am|Pravda: and own everyone in sight

obliv]NARF[: you even have to ask? HOLLYWOOD OF COURSE BRO
obliv]NARF[: that guy is the best panzer alive, i swear

am|Pravda: who will get owned over and over on WTV?

obliv]NARF[: sp1ke... always happens to sp1ke

am|Pravda: haha, any final thoughts on this upcoming match?

obliv]NARF[: good luck dT, dont take our sarcasm to heart....
obliv]NARF[: cause u know
obliv]NARF[: ive been talking mad trash!

am|Pravda: great! any final shoutouts?

obliv]NARF[: i give a shoutout to team thorian, what a grand grand bunch of guys.
obliv]NARF[: best players ever.

am|Pravda: haha thanks for the interview obliv and good luck to NARF =)

obliv]NARF[: thx pravda, gl with ur new clan, and once again, good luck dT

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Interview with Warwitch from TSN

Posted by: Pravda (Friday, April 11, 2003)

1. How did you initially get involved with TSN and what drew you to the RTCW community?

Previous to my joining TsN I had been a part of a now defunct online radio station. Realizing that my future would best be served with the Team Sportscast Network I spoke with a couple guys from the management staff and arranged a telephone interview - that was fun. Anyhow, I got involved with them and since then I've never looked back. Previous to shoutcasting RtCW I broadcasted Tribes and Tribes 2. I was desperate for something new to break TsN and myself out of the box we were in. Return to Castle Wolfenstein was the perfect game. It's been a rollercoaster of fun ever since.

2. How has your shoutcasts evolved since your debut with TSN? How about your shoutcasting partners, from Justice to Trillian, etc? Any favorites?

Good questions. I listen to some of my first shoutcasts that I did years ago - they are really embarassing to listen to. I think if anythings really changed it's that I've just gained more of an understanding on how to transmit my enthusiasm for the game into my broadcast - or in short: I scream and shout a lot more *grin* As far as favorite shoutcaster partners, I love working with everyone in TsN.

Each shoutcaster brings a different flavor to each cast. Justice brings a real tactical element to the shoutcast that compliments my style - It's been Justice who's made most of the suggestions to me on how to better RtCW shoutcasting. He has a strong handle on what people want to hear. DeeAy is great to work with - real strong excitment and a great sense of humor. Her Axis cat is da bomb! Sabo does some great work, his casts are always worth checking out. Shoutcasting with Trillian is always a blast as well. And having Archvile as a co-partner is crazy stuff - you never know what the guy is going to say. Watch out for him!

BONUS followup: Ever heard EJ shoutcasting from the Australian ladder?

Hmmm - I may have once some time ago. Off hand however, I don't recall. I love to dial into other people covering games, escpecially RtCW.

3. You took a short break from shoutcasting to go to Europe and have mentioned this in shoutcasts before. What did you do in Europe?

Europe! My home from home! I have some dreams to move to London. I loved the country and the people. I was in Europe for an RtCW event called 'The Intel Masters'. I arrived to meet up with Coldshot, Wonderdog and Juno to bring game broadcasting to the public. It was an amazing experience - I've had enough of Rammstein though. You'd have to be there to understand just how much they played at the event. *laugh*

4. Speaking of Europe, you also do shoutcasting of Eurocup Clanbase matches. Are there any differences you see between European gaming and American gaming in terms of manners, strategy, etc? Which matches do you prefer to shoutcast?

In the past there was a huge difference in how the Euro teams played vs American teams. When Wolf first hit the market, the UK teams tended to play mp_wolf as opposed to stopwatch, so their strats would border on the heavily defensive as opposed to the wildly offensive.

Times have changed and gameplay is very similiar now. Some of the most notable differences is that Euro teams tend to play 2 maps instead of 1 in a match - but that alone doesn't make much of a difference. I really make no preference in the matches I shoutcast ... I have noticed however that the following for RtCW seems stronger in Europe at the moment.

5. As a shoutcaster, one is supposed to be somewhat neutral. Have you ever found yourself consciously rooting for a team in a match? Who is your favorite RTCW team?

If I do have a preference for a team to win, I keep it to myself. I mean, we all have opinions and such - but I try to stay as neutral as possible. That's a big reason why I never joined a clan. I wanted teams to feel that I could devote myself totally to the broadcast without them having any concerns that I might be checking out their strats in order to use some information against them. Even if I were in a clan, that would never happen - nor would anyone at TsN slump to that level.

As far as my favorite RtCW team .... well, I could tell you that but then - you know - I'd have to kill you *smirk*

6. What is or was your favorite team to shoutcast for RTCW and do you have any favorite or memorable matches that you shoutcasted?

I mention this one a lot on air. Empire vs High Voltage - BoB 1 - mp_sub. This game speaks for itself. People should dig it up in the TsN recording archive and give it a listen. The Quakecon final: Doctors vs Infensus is also another personal favorite of mine. We had upwards to 2000 listeners online and even more at Qcon. That was definately a high moment - you could feel the energy!

7. You mentioned that you will be shoutcasting RTCW at QuakeCon 2003. Does this mean there will be an official RTCW tournament there? Do you have any insider info to share with us? =)

I have very little information at all to be honest. As far as I know, Wolf will indeed be at Qcon 2003. It was a huge success last year and will continue to be so this year. I am told however that some people in TsN plan to show up to the event in costume. *shifts eyes* I just hope I don't get hung in Texas for being 'The Axis Shoutcaster'. *grin*

8. How often do you play RTCW? If so, do you alias? What servers do you play on? Ever considered joining a clan?

Editor's Note: Warwitch neglected to answer these questions and it can only be assumed that the answers are highly classified information on a need-to-know basis. For all we know, Warwitch has been aliasing as Thorian all this time. =x

9. Who's winning Quakecon, and BOB 2 this year? Have any predictions about any games?

I have a feeling that we'll see the classic RtCW teams make it to the final 4 of BoB2. Clan Kapitol, Deathtouch, Darkside, High Voltage -- all contenders for the finals IMO. As far as BoB 2 goes, I'm pretty sure we'll be seeing a European team in the finals again this year. Teams like 4Kings are really dominant. Good times are ahead - I'm looking forward to it!

10. Do you have any advice for people who wish to be shoutcasters?

Practice practice practice! I've been a DJ for years but it took time to find my radio voice. The best thing to do is to listen to sports radio. Watch sports on TV and listen to the broadcasters more than watching the game. Take notes on what they do to add excitement, how they speak, and the things they say. Sports radio has been a huge help for me ... I listen even now to pick up more hints and tips on how to better my own broadcasting. Beyond that, just keep at it. It's not easy but it's fun. Best of luck to those who give it a shot!

Thanks for your time Warwitch. =) Any shoutouts you'd like to make or any comments regarding RTCW or TSN?

I'd just like to thank you for the interview - and a huge thanks to all the people who support RtCW and TsN's broadcasts of the game. Without the community support, we wouldn't be here. Jawohl!

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BOB2 Predictions for Round2.

Posted by: Apoculos (Sunday, April 13, 2003)

The first week of bob2 is over and done with. Any major upsets? Nope not really. dT, D|S, Narf, and the other big names have survived mp_upset. Week 2 promises many more close matches than the previous week. cK vs fx, r vs c4c, d1g vs D|S, and LOT2 vs P shift just to name a few. We’re down to 32 teams and this is where it gets interesting. The map is the ever sexy village. For predictions I have Warkrime of Narf to add a little fun. We basically went went down the bracket predicting the matches trying to include some useful/useless info and then the other guy agrees or disagrees with his own little spill. Hope everyone enjoys! Schedules for this week should be out soon on the BOB2 website. Expect lots more wtv and tsn coverage!



NARF vs Mistreatment (Uncrowned Kings)

Apoculos says:

Last week I predicted narf to go down to wsw in an upset. Not only did that not happen, but according to the 3-0 score it wasn’t close. Narf then went out on Thursday and won the Cal-M championship (which I predicted not to happen). Good week for narf and bad week for me picking against narf. Narf faces another fairly tough team this week. uK is made up of some former D|S wolf dudes and some other quality players, but uK doesn’t have the experience or skill right now to hang with Narf on village.

Narf > uK 3-0

Warkrime says:

Gonna practice the week away looking for it to be a tough match. I see some big name in there.

AC vs dTII

Warkrime says:

I haven't had to many run-ins with both teams, but I do know AC has been actively looking for scrims as of late. dTII in my opinion has experience on their side.

dTII > AC 3-1

Apoculos says:

dTII has added some strength to their lineup recently, and as warkrime said have experience on their side. I will have to agree with him, but I'm predicting a 3-0.

dTII > AC 3-0

Aftermath vs 502

Apoculos says:

Both teams beat down their respective opponent last week on sub 3-0. 502 isn't a bad team or newbs, but aM have the skilled players and experience on their side that is needed to take them to round 3. aM is a new team with lots of former wicked dudes along with animeman and Pravda. They’ll be looking ahead of this match to likely hv next week on assault, or if I was them I would be : ).

aM > 502 3-0

Warkrime says:

Have to agree there, I don't see aM slipping up at all. They have a solid lineup of experienced players and I expect them to be a force in BoB2. Grym(Prevail) has one of the strongest Panzers in wolf and I expect 502 will be seeing a lot of it.

aM > 502 3-0

We Aren’t Trying vs High Voltage

Warkrime says:

Since the beginning of Season 4 CAL-Main HV has proved they can stand up to the best of them and having scrimmed them a couple weeks ago I have no doubt that they are a top team. Don't really know what Wat?(2002'qcon competitors) can bring since their return but I can't see it being anything close to what HV can.

HV > Wat? 3-0

Apoculos says:

Wat have been scrimming like madmen as of late. I’m always having to put up with their annoying spam :p. Anyways IMO Village is probably hv’s second best map behind Assault. I agree with WK, but I wouldn’t be too shocked if Wat Stole a round.

HV > Wat? 3-1

Team Z vs Dead Penguin

Apoculos says:

DP pulled a fairly big upset over Amish’s backup/inactive team full of quality players, but I don’t see anything of the sort happening this week considering they get to play a tough Z team on village. Z advances with ease.

Z > DP 3-0

Warkrime says:

All I have to say is best of luck to DP, but I wouldn’t want to be in their shoes right now. Z is a tough team by anyone's standard. I have to agree with you on that prediction.

Z > DP 3-0

Nyx vs Trinity (Wk’s MOTW)

Warkrime says:

MOTW in my opinion (Don't let me down) Having scrimmed against nyX recently I know that they have what it takes to compete with Trinity. Sharp's gun is a big + for nyX also. Trinity have added a few new quality players in MentholMoose and Tacoma which will keep things interesting. I'm hoping for a 3-2 match either way but Trinity takes it with experience.

.:. > nyX 3-2

Apoculos says:

Well I don’t see this being as close as WK does. Still should be a good match. tTt with their recent pickups should have added stability to their lineup, and will take this on village (where they took a round from the western powerhouse Wicked in the playoffs) 3-0.

.:. > nyx 3-0



Global Assault Team vs Team Arise

Warkrime says:

GAT vs Arise Finally a match where there are two CAL-Main teams battling it out. They didn't get to meet each other in the field during the CAL season but I have a feeling this will make up for it. I see the Global Assault Team coming out on top with a few bloody knives in hand and a 3-0 victory

GAT > Arise 3-0

Apoculos says:

Can’t wait to beat down mustynuts! Seriously should be a good match, we’ll be practicing!

Team Effect vs Clan Kapital (Apoc’s MOTW)

Apoculos says:

cK is back and we’ll find out how strong they are this week when they face a very solid efx team. Efx has many quality players and look to be scrimming often. cK is well cK. We’ll see if bloodspot’s cockiness (tsn before cal-m finals) has any truth to it at all when he said the only teams that worry ck are narf and dT. I don’t see ck losing, but it won’t be a blowout. Very close game imo.

cK > efx 3-2

Warkrime says:

I have to disagree with Apoc on how close this one will be. efx are a very good team with players from the Abusive Elbows gig and Flatline but cK are a team that confront any challenge put in front of them and do extremely well in the process. I have to give the nod to the third place QCon'2002 team cK but expect to see Vatican get a few good Panzer shots in there.

cK > efx 3-1

Darkside vs Digital Tactic

Warkrime says:

I see a few good players in the Dig lineup, such as Fuman and Slag, but see a great team in DarkSide. I really don't think D|S will be tested until a possible LoT meeting in a few rounds.

D|S > Dig 3-0

Apoculos says:

I disagree with WK on this one being an easy one for D|S. If Dig does their pushups I think on lineup strength alone they can pull out at least a round. I don’t see Dig winning, but I’m hoping its close!

D|S > Dig 3-1

Locked on Target 2 vs Paradigm Shift

Apoculos says:

Another close game woot! P shift’s first real test, as well as LOT2’s first test. P Shift returns to wolf after a long break, and haven’t had much time to prepare for BOB2. LOT2 is a team that came together for BOB2 (not sure if they are sticking it out afterwards or not). I don’t know if p shift is scrimming some or at all, but I see lot2 scrimming often. I also see them taking this match.

LOT2 > -P- 3-1

Warkrime says:

Kind of a difficult one for me to call. Without seeing both teams in action and no current records I have no clue where either one stands. I can place kinda place Paradigm through scrims my buddy told me about. Judging from past experience and ]NARF[ getting beat down by them in TWL back in the day I'm gonna go with -P- even though there is no Kow handing out the pain.

-P- > LoT2 3-2

Amish World Order vs Elements of Destruction

Warkrime says:

EoD proved themselves as a strong open team but the butter churning skills of the Amish are gonna be too much for them to handle.

AWO > EoD 3-0

Apoculos says:

Agree with WK here. AWO is much to sexy for eod to handle. Mad butter churning skillz baby.

AWO > EoD 3-0

Clan Casualty vs Locked On Target

Apoculos says:

Casualty is a top west team in cal open. LoT is a top 10 team in wolf. LoT with the added additions of a lot of quality players including George from dr. should win this game with ease.

LoT > + 3-0

Warkrime says:

With my long time friend Reno(Clone) in Casualty I would like to let him see a prediction of how Casualty will dominate, but thats not going happen. With the addition of new players from Dr's, Crucifix going back and the amount of experience LoT has they(LoT) will win decisively.

LoT > + 3-0

Team Uprise vs Violent Infantry Brigade

Warkrime says:

ViB got unlucky this week and I don't believe they will be advancing to the next round. Uprise finished up CAL West as the second best team and have all the momentum on their side.

[U] > ViB 3-0

Apoculos says:

Gotta agree with WK here. Uprise proved to be the one of the best in the west yet again. VIB is solid, but not solid enough to make this a close match.

[U] > ViB 3-0

HandOf vs Liquid

Apoculos says:

LQD should win this easily and I look forward to seeing an east power and a west power (besides narf and dt) battling it out next week on assault (uprise).

LQD > HandOF 3-0

Warkrime says:

I agree with Apoc, LQD should prevail in this matchup. Handof did tie Empire 3-3 a long time ago and were once a CAL-I Wolfenstein team, but those days are long gone unfortunately. Good Luck with the comeback HoD.

LQD > HandOf 3-0


Redemption vs Cause4Concern

Warkrime says:

Good matchup here. Redemption is in the finals for Cal-o, c4c almost made the finals but ended up losing to the Outsiders. Things get interesting here, (r) have to practice for the Cal-o finals tuesday while c4c get to practice their hearts out on village. This could be another MOTW in my opinion. I would predict (r) normally but under the circumstances im gonna go with c4c.

c4c > (r) 3-2

Apoculos says:

I agree a very good match here, but when it comes down to it the winner gets to face dT as a prize :p. c4c recently lost to Outsiders, who will play R for the cal-o championship. R will be preparing for beach more than village, but seeing beach only scrims will be next to impossible to find I see them going half and half and being decently prepared for village. Hard game to call here.

(r) > c4c 3-2

Operation Psycho Patrol vs Death Touch

Apoculos says:

dT should be able to take a much deserved week off after their loss to narf for the cal-m championship, and still be able to win this easily. Not to say opp is a bad team, but c’mon they’re playing dT on village.

dT > opp 3-0

Warkrime says:

I agree with Apoc 100% dT is the strongest of teams and would win 3-0 against just about any team out there today. I don't even see dT getting any sort of opposition for at
least 2 more rounds, maybe 3.

dT > opp 3-0

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BOB Round 2 Admin Clan vs Deathtouch 2 Pre-Game Chatter

Posted by: Pravda (Monday, April 14, 2003)

Evil-Doer from Deathtouch 2

1. What will happen in this match? What is your prediction for the final score?

I believe it's going to be a good match. I know AC is ready for us and I know we are ready for them, so with that said, I'm going to go in thinking we will come out 3-0.

2. How does Village rank along the other maps for your team? Why?

Villy would have to be our worst map along side Sub. We are working with a new roster and still have to elevate as a team. We have the individual skill but have to work more on the teamplay and discipline abit longer.

3. Have you made any roster pick ups specifically before BoB2? How will this person(s) aid you in the win?

The team has picked up Arachnyd and myself...I know for a fact that rach is a major add on to the team, he's skilled, coo guy and teamplay oriented. As for me, you make the call. >

4. What is your biggest worry for the match and how do you see the team addressing this worry?

I find dicispline the biggest worryment, if we don't play our area and play smart we will crumble, but if we have our game faces on, do our thing and play it like we are suppose to, it will favor us in the end. And the team knowing that NARF could be our next match up, pushes us even more to want to beat AC.

5. Since CAL-O, what changes have been made and what differences do you see from the BoB2 team and the CAL-O team?

Well, I wasn't around for the CAL-O team really...so that I can't answer. Alls I know is we are basically running a whole new lineup.

Tricome from The Admin Clan

1. What will happen in this match? What is your prediction for the final score?

In this match you will see alot of teamwork on our part. We've got alot of good players with good shots. Having good aim is an important thing but the way our clan communicates with each other just makes us that much better. Not to sound cocky or anything but i think that we will take this match 3-1. dT2 is no doubt a clan with alot of skill but weve been preparing for this match for alot of time and were pretty confident.

2. How does Village rank along the other maps for your team? Why?

I would say that our best map would be beach and our worst map would be Sub as you saw in Cal-O playoffs. Most of us enjoy playing village and I would say its one of our good maps. As i said before we communicate well with each other and we have good team work which is an important thing to have on a big map like village.

3. Have you made any roster pick ups specifically before BoB2? How will this person(s) aid you in the win?

We have picked up a few new people not just for BOB2 but also for Cal. We added to our roster JFreak which i cant say enough good things about. We also added DSTskillz and he is a great shot and he loves to knife people so watch out for a knife kill by him in the match. These 2 have really good shots and are very smart players.

4. What is your biggest worry for the match and how do you see the team addressing this worry?

Our biggest worry right now would probably be the experience the dT2 team has. Evil-doer is an ex invite player from hostile inc' they have recently picked up Arachnyd from GAT and they have Random from Imagine. Those three pose the biggest threat in my mind with their great shots and experience. The way we will adress this is to just play our game and hope that our strat and crossfires will take them out of their game.

5. Do you see DT2 as big a threat as they were in
Cal-O? Would they have won the CAL-O championship?


I think any team in the tournament would see dT2 as a threat in this tournament. They are an all around good team however I am confident in our team and think we will take them out. I didnt really follow the other teams in Cal-O to much so im not sure where they got taken out in the playoffs. Im pretty sure the lost to AS on sub. I think that dT2 would have gotten further if it werent for the map sub. I hate sub and I think that whenever a match is played on that map anything can happen.

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IRC Interview with Fatal1ty

Posted by: Pravda (Thursday, May 8, 2003)

Fatal1ty`: Sup guys.

[carn]crim|44: kansas city
nyX-BeEz: everyone who says ME should be kb'ed
fX-Apicide: wow
D|S-WarRi0R: omg omg omg
fX-Apicide: the tiger man
* D|S-WarRi0R faints
D|S-WarRi0R: wow
cylenc3R-187: haha

Fatal1ty`: haha... sup warrior.

D|S-WarRi0R: suip
* arch humps a leg
the-don: is that fatality?
[carn]x-facts|01: yes.
D|S-Illshot781: !
Ac|Squirts: suip
[carn]x-facts|01: =0

Fatal1ty`: Yeah, from Kansas City:)

[carn]x-facts|01: illshot.
a-Infect1on: em
[carn]x-facts|01: ;[
am|Prevail: haha
[CCCP]sF: john, look at all this trouble you caused
boh|Phuzzl: lol
a-Infect1on: i'm guessing
w-[cp]xil-thorian-ttt]narf[: fatality, join my clan(s)
cT|streifen: shogun just freestyle for us
arch: suip
D|S-WarRi0R: Illshot write your novel
a-Infect1on: fatal1ty does not play wolf

Fatal1ty`: Hey... Shogun is the instigator:)

Hexine: Fatal1ty, about a half a dozen people have joined pretending to be you. :P
LoT-odin: how did not having the fatpad effect your performance vs b100.death?
shogun-187: spam that
shogun-187: he is comming now
Jagobah: he's here

Fatal1ty`: You better come to the next FATlan:)
Fatal1ty`: I should hopefully have it scheduled soon.

[carn]x-facts|01: if someone who is used to playing without a mousepad will his gaming decrease, increase or stay the same with the fatpad?

Fatal1ty`: I can tell you just from my experiences with smaller mousepads.
Fatal1ty`: When I use to play Quake 3 back in the test days and when I ws shafting someone around the map.
Fatal1ty`: Occasionally I would run out of mouse space room... This limited me to how much damage I could do in the matter of 5 seconds.
Fatal1ty`: By having this extra space on my mousepad, I was able to deal a little more damage in that last couple seconds and possibly win the fight because of the bigger mouse pad.
Fatal1ty`: Wombat and I went head to head there at Frag3 all day in the practice area and once in the finals of the losers brackets.
Fatal1ty`: But Wombat came out ahead that time;)

[carn]x-facts|01: did it help you in cs as well as in q3?

Fatal1ty`: Definitely.
Fatal1ty`: With the bigger mousepad, it allows you to use a lower sensitivity.
Fatal1ty`: So you can become even more accurate and more consistent...
Fatal1ty`: I wrote up a little testimonial that should be a good read at www.fatal1ty.com/fatstore/testimonial.htm

shogun-187: what was up with astros dog?

Fatal1ty`: shogun, we shouldn' go there:)

cT|streifen: Fatal1ty`: are you going to qcon this year?

Fatal1ty`: Yes, I plan on attending this year at QuakeCON.

Hexine: Fatal1ty`: Do you have a girlfriend?

Fatal1ty`: No, I just go out clubbing and date girls now.
Fatal1ty`: I'll eventually have a gf again someday, but for now I enjoy dating. Its fun.

cT|streifen: Fatal1ty`: before tournaments how long do you practice?

Fatal1ty`: Well, before a major tourney, I'll train about a month or so solid.
Fatal1ty`: Sometimes more, sometimes less.
Fatal1ty`: Depending on what is going on at the time.

cT|streifen: like how many hours straight?
cT|streifen: like per day

Fatal1ty`: Well, shogun and I went for over 16 hours one day.

[carn]Walker: i want to ask him what he did with that ford focus he won/...sell it or keep it

Fatal1ty`: Keep it! I drive that car to all the clubs :) Its a great chick magnet too. Check out this pic... http://www.fatal1ty.com/fatgirls.htm

Jagobah: I wanna ask Fat if he prefers optical over ball mice, or ball mice over optical, and why

Fatal1ty`: Well, ball mice have one advantage over opticals. One being that ball mice are able to calculate and receive more DPI which allows you to aim more precisely and shoot long shots very well.
Fatal1ty`: Now opticals are great though at the sametime. Opticals are like never different. So everytime you swipe it one way or whatnot, its not based on how much dirt is built up in your ball mouse... Its always the same and consistency is nice!

Hexine: Have you ever tried Wolfenstein? Did you like it?

Fatal1ty`: Yes I've played Wolfenstein.
Fatal1ty`: I actually played with CCCP at MillionManLan last year and we won the tournament there. We won gamecubes and other Wolfenstein Gear...

Marauder[FH]: Fatal1ty: Does your infamous chronic masturbation hurt your aim? and a followup, which wallhack/aimbot is your favorite?

Fatal1ty`: Well, I really enjoy using the FATaimbot that I created with my own hands. But unfortunately this is not available to anyone else besides me.

shogun-187: a-Infect1on: Fatal1ty: If you would like to do a 1v1 with me anyday, bring it (PLZ PM ME BACK)

Fatal1ty`: gg
Fatal1ty`: Bad question:/

shogun-187: john do you really have a fatbot?

Fatal1ty`: Didn't you see my aimbot against you in San Antonio?

shogun-187: lol
shogun-187: you bad

Fatal1ty`: hehe, just kidding with ya.
Fatal1ty`: For all the people who don't know me. I joke around a lot with my friends and I like to have fun...
Fatal1ty`: shogun unfortunately is my friend:/

keen: Fatal1ty`: You've been the best at Quake 3, and now UT2003, What do you think will happen if Quake 4 or Doom 3 come out and you train at them and are not the best, will you drop gaming or wait for future games?

Fatal1ty`: No. I will keep moving along. I plan on to keep competing for as long as I can.
Fatal1ty`: I want to dominate Quake 4 and any other popular FPS game that comes out that is strong in 1v1.
Fatal1ty`: I'll also look into teams as well in the same game, but 1v1 is where its at.
Fatal1ty`: 1v1 shows the real skill.

Wat|Spike|HW_for_real: I want to ask him if he still plays tennis, and how good he was in high school

Fatal1ty`: Yeah I still play tennis occasionally. I'm a little rusty from where I was my senior year. I broke a school record for most double wins for my school and I placed 5th my Junior year at Districts and placed 3rd my senior year in Districts.
Fatal1ty`: My doubles team was probably one of the best teams in the state, but unfortunately in our district, we played the team who won state every year:/

ragh: Fat, are you competing in the WCG, and if so do you think you'll get raged by players such as CombatCarl and xs| Pain who were not at the CPL?

Fatal1ty`: Well, I think a lot of people already know they didnt show up at the first CPL because they weren't ready yet.
Fatal1ty`: I'll definitely attend WCG and probably face against both of them at WCG finals.
Fatal1ty`: They're both great players and we'll just have to wait and see what happens at the Finals.

Fragile: question: how do you think the MTV special went, and what do you think of those weird ass order of the light kids?

Fatal1ty`: Well, putting me up next to those guys really shows how professional gaming is getting.
Fatal1ty`: I want to show an image that people will grasp on to and make this sport become bigger.
Fatal1ty`: With Fatal1ty Inc, I'm trying to build the gaming community and help sponsor teams and players in the future to make this a reality for all of us.
Fatal1ty`: I'm really pushing for us gamers.

[carn]x-facts|01: if you had to bring one thing on an island, would it be your pc or a girl?

Fatal1ty`: I would have to bring a girl... A PC with no internet sucks.

redem-paper: i want to ask if anyone ever tried to fight him at a lan...

Fatal1ty`: Nah, no one has ever tried to pick a fight with me personally.

Wat|FireBlade: fata: when will you start to take apps for sponsorships?

Fatal1ty`: I'll be at E3 this year May 14th-16th at the Auravision booth and we'll be talking a lot about this.
Fatal1ty`: For right now, I don't really know.
Fatal1ty`: But I know thats our goals and its been one of my goals for a very long time now.

|pR|swift: did ck stop playin 2k3 or somethin u guys should get back into it

Fatal1ty`: I believe cK is going to wait till the next big game comes out and dominate it.
Fatal1ty`: I really look forward to Doom3 and Quake 4.

CombatCarl: Fatal1ty: Are you going to rage on me at WCG?

Fatal1ty`: CC, I'm a modest guy and I don't talk crap to scare you, I just show up and play my game.
Fatal1ty`: That should be enough:)

ICF|pure`143: have you thought about going rtcw?
ICF|pure`143: and do you remember a person by the name exzol` who fought with you on etg about how you wont be #1 anymore?

Fatal1ty`: I've had tons of people doubt me and say I wouldn't be number 1. I still have a post from back before RazerCPL that people said that I wouldn't be the best.
Fatal1ty`: I kept it to motivate me to prove that person wrong and everyone else.
Fatal1ty`: I'm not going to leave, I'm going to be here forever and keep competing in gaming for a very long time.

Icephoenix: How should I begin a gaming career and when do you usually practice your skills on normal servers?

Fatal1ty`: Well, I typically always practice on private dedicated servers.
Fatal1ty`: I do play on pubs every once in a while, but I'll always alias because half the time people don't even believe its me.
Fatal1ty`: So its pointless to have my name as Fatal1ty on servers...

Wat|FireBlade: Do you ever have fears (or have had some signs) of getting carpal tunnel?

Fatal1ty`: Well, to tell you the truth, when I was about 15-16 I use to use a small allsop mousepad, and I use to get horrible cramps in my arm.
Fatal1ty`: I use to have to use a towel to fix this problem so it wouldn't re-occur.
Fatal1ty`: But since I switched to the FATpad about 3+ years ago.
Fatal1ty`: I've never had this pain again.
Fatal1ty`: I game 8+ hours a day and never get pain.
Fatal1ty`: I wrest my whole arm on the mousepad so I don't have the weight of my arm pushing my wrist into the pad.
Fatal1ty`: It works great.

nyX-BeEz: Ask him the main question that everyone wants to know, why is he in a rtcw channle? is he going to promote it? Support teams? everyone wants rtcw to be bigger then it is now, so whats the deal?

Fatal1ty`: Well, I use to play RTCW and I wrote a guide for it back in test days, but mainly I'm trying to support everyone of course.
Fatal1ty`: I'm trying to grow the community as a whole.
Fatal1ty`: I want all of us in a couple years from now to actually be able to live off from competing in tournaments or at least raise the number who live off of there winnings right now.
Fatal1ty`: I want it to become an easier hobby to have and possibly make a good side ammount from playing games for fun.
Fatal1ty`: Just like what people do in golf.
Fatal1ty`: I'm not a Pro Golfer, but I can go to touranments in my area and possibly win 100-200 dollars on a weekend with a scramble team.
Fatal1ty`: Thats where gaming needs to get so at least you guys who like to game but don't have time, you can still make a little money from gaming possibly.

brett: ask him why he sucks so bad a basketball

Fatal1ty`: Brett is mad because I put on my Kobe Bryant jersey while he had his weak Iverson jersey on and I raged him 1on1.
Fatal1ty`: I coulda just wore my Fatal1ty jersey that I had on MTV :)
Fatal1ty`: Brett thinks he's god since he balls with high schoolers:)
Fatal1ty`: He doesn't know I use to ball regularly with friends around the hood.

Slugs-187: Fat, what advise do you have to the young childeren of the community who wish to fill your shoes one day as one of the greats?

Fatal1ty`: Just keep having fun...
Fatal1ty`: Thats what its all about, play the game to have fun, if you become a great player, take it to the next level and go to major competitions.
Fatal1ty`: But for now you should go to LANs in your area and whenever you get the oppurtunity to show up to a LAN where a great player is going to be, you should go and watch him play in the tournament.
Fatal1ty`: You'll learn a lot from watching top gamers compete.
Fatal1ty`: Its just like going to a baseball game or a basketball game and watching how the pros work as a team.


ICF|pure`143: what kind of music does he like, i like listening to retro music to get my adreanline pumping before playing. does he have any riutals?

Fatal1ty`: Actually, I really enjoy listening to all kinds of music before competing.

revenant: pantera ] *

Fatal1ty`: I like listening to music that relaxes me and gets me pumped up or calmed down.
Fatal1ty`: lol rev.
Fatal1ty`: Rev, you need to listen to this:) http://members.shaw.ca/zerobeats/fatal1ty.mp3

Amish_Maximal: Fatal1ty: Do you have long term plans as to going to college, or do you plan to be a pro gamer til' the day you die?
Amish_Maximal: Also, Fatal1ty, do u think astro is a loser?

Fatal1ty`: Right now my plan is to keep competing and run Fatal1ty Inc.
Fatal1ty`: Of course I have back up plans in case things don't go as planned, and I would possibly get involved in creating games and go back to college of course.

Slugs-187: Fat, do you find that some days when you play your head is lodged up your ass you just don't play the way you usually play and has this happend during any major matches in the past?

Fatal1ty`: Well, if I'm trying to have fun and don't care about dying or whatnot, of course I'm not playing my best game.
Fatal1ty`: Even I like to have fun and like to mess around in games, its just sometimes when I do that, people think they're improving and they're better than me now.

spetznaz-iCe: why most of the UT2 community thinks he sucks now
spetznaz-iCe: IE infinite, tex, vai etc

Fatal1ty`: Thinks inf, tex, and vai suck?
Fatal1ty`: Is that what ur asking?

Astro-187: he's saying they think you suck

Fatal1ty`: I doubt that.
Fatal1ty`: Astro, you don't know what he's asking.
Fatal1ty`: Silencer, repeat the question.

Silencer-187: [spetznaz-iCe]: why most of the UT2 community thinks he sucks now [spetznaz-iCe]: IE infinite, tex, vai etc

Fatal1ty`: ut2 community thinks inf, tex and vai suck?

kolt-187: UT2 Community thinks you suck.

Fatal1ty`: lol
Fatal1ty`: If I suck why did I win 10,000 dollars playing THEIR game.

Icephoenix: I think he is great and his modestly really adds to the respect i have for him

Fatal1ty`: Thanks a lot Ice.
Fatal1ty`: If you guys want, feel free to visit #fatal1ty on gamesnet or ETG and I'll try to get back to all of you.
Fatal1ty`: If you have personal questions u want to ask.
Fatal1ty`: I'll start getting to questions tomorrow.
Fatal1ty`: So feel free to drop by and hang.
Fatal1ty`: We talk a lot in #fatal1ty and is a lot of fun, especially on irc.enterthegame.com.
Fatal1ty`: Thanks for the interview and I hope I answered most of the questions.

g|krishtoff-187: Thanks so much John, was a pleasure having you as our guest tonight

Fatal1ty`: No problem was my pleasure.
Fatal1ty`: Was fun.
Fatal1ty`: Cya 187crew boyz later:)
Fatal1ty`: Later guys;) Peace... www.fatal1ty.com

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Team Z Talk with RoyalJelly

Posted by: Pravda (Thursday, May 8, 2003)

1. How did Team Z Unit initially begin and what is the meaning of the name?

z Unit was started by Riceboy and Doublex. After the break up of team 82nd which had 20 active members at one point. This break up help fill the rosters of two solid main teams fx and z Unit. The name z means "z".

2. Z has been criticized lately for their use of panzers. What is your view on that and on a possible panzer limit for league play?

I've seen a lot of criticism about our use of panzers, which is fine with me. People are free to say what ever they want. z is not worried about critics. We focus on winning matches. If it takes 6 panzers to win a match we'll use 6 panzers. Like wise if we feel 6 guns with win the match we'll use 6 guns. If a teams show up to matchs thinking we can shoot it works to our advantage. in my opinion i would like to see a 2 matches limit. Panzers takes the fun out of game. People on wolftv don't want to watch one shoot panzer kills or suicide panzers. thats just my opinion.

3. Last week Z was able to defeat cK with no panzers. Why was this strategy used and was it perhaps to prove something to the critics?

We used all guns because in our scrims we tryed panzers and it was not as effective as all guns. I don't think we really tried to prove anything.

4. As consistent underdogs against the top teams, where do you really rank Team Z among the top North American teams?

i would say z Unit is in the top 5.

5. What do you think will be the biggest challenge in this upcoming match?

winning the match.

6. Is Base a map that Z is comfortable with? What is the most important aspect of Base strategy-wise?

To play at this level you can't really have a bad map. z is comfortable on all maps, we scrim a lot and put a lot of work into our game play. The most important aspect of base strats would have to be. On offense not getting panzered good medics and controlling NE tower. On defense controlling NE tower, gibbing, communication.

7. What do you believe your odds are of defeating NARF?

I think we can stand a good chance of beating any team out there. This match will come down to which team makes the fewest mistakes. Every TK, poorly timed reload, missed revive, missed panzer shoot will add up. I think you'll see the team with the fewest mistakes walk into the finals. Should be fun to watch no matter what the outcome.

Any last comments or shoutouts? Thanks for the interview.

I'd like to give a shout out to all the teams that help us get ready for this match. Fx, -A-, cK, redrum, redemtion, D|S, the Hulk.

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BoB2 Finals - Rematch of NARF vs Affliction

Posted by: Pravda (Tuesday, May 13, 2003)

Talking to NAIL from Affliction

am|Pravda: 1. What has changed with Affliction since the CAL-M finals match for season 4 in terms of rosters, attitude, etc?

|a|nail: we got rid of our 2 best players, bio and dimmak
|a|nail: err, i mean cheerleaders
|a|nail: attitude, nothing really, we are more positive about matches and we dont whine on ventrilo as much anymore
|a|nail: the finals match was a wakeup call, and any other loss will be the same, a learning experience

am|Pravda: 2. What about your thoughts on beach? Have you guys grown to hate it or appreciate it more? Many strat changes since the last match or just small adaptations to the original strategy?

|a|nail: we've never liked beach, and after this week of scrimming we do not like it at all
|a|nail: we dont ever change our strats, we just work on outgunning people and winning the 1v3's like we know we can

am|Pravda: 3. NARF: Are they a better team today since the last match?

|a|nail: of course, they are always improving
|a|nail: in predictions people have picked them to win an easy victory over us, so be it
|a|nail: and some people say team lan : dt 3-0 or whatever
|a|nail: teams have to just accept the fact that they are lanning for big matches and not bitch about it

am|Pravda: 4. What do you think Affliction's attitude is toward NARF now after the loss? Anything changed since Holly's last interview with me?

|a|nail: what was the attitude during hollys interview?

am|Pravda: did you read it?

|a|nail: no

am|Pravda: bastard
am|Pravda: that hurst my feelings

|a|nail: we get along with them for the most part, they dont like us tho
|a|nail: because we make them readyup fast in scrims
|a|nail: we hurt their feelings when we do that
|a|nail: they get all emotional about it
* |a|nail shrugs

am|Pravda: 5. What is the difference today that will make Affliction beat NARF as opposed to last time?

|a|nail: we are going to play the game the exact same way we played in the cal main finals, and we'll win doing it
|a|nail: and we didnt eat any eggrolls before this match
|a|nail: last time we got sick off some bad MSG

am|Pravda: Okay, that concludes it since I know you guys got some preparation to go through. Thanks for the chat, any last comments/shoutouts?

|a|nail: preparation? we dont scrim for narf matches
|a|nail: ggs narf

am|Pravda: lol
am|Pravda: thanks nail


Talking to LYNCH from NARF

am|Pravda: 1. What has changed with NARF since the CAL-M finals match for season 4 in terms of attitude, confidence etc?

Lynch]NARF[: nothin, we're just as good, confident, and ready as we were entering the cal-m finals
Lynch]NARF[: only thing that's different is our opponent is sans Dimmak

am|Pravda: please don't use latin for this interview thx

Lynch]NARF[: sorry =(

am|Pravda: now i know what it means at least

Lynch]NARF[: =P

am|Pravda: 2. What about your thoughts on beach? Have you guys grown to hate it or appreciate it more? Many strat changes since the last match or just small adaptations to the original strategy?

Lynch]NARF[: eh, getting a little sick of it lately but exciting shit always seems to happen on it
Lynch]NARF[: the doc run is always exciting
Lynch]NARF[: as far as strat changes go
Lynch]NARF[: well, you'll see =P

am|Pravda: 3. Affliction/former Deathtouch: Are they a better team today since the last match?

Lynch]NARF[: hmm
Lynch]NARF[: well whenever a team loses a leader it's gonna hurt em, but it seems that holly has pretty much taken control of their crew
Lynch]NARF[: they'll obviously miss dim's gun, but i think decka is a fine replacement
Lynch]NARF[: i expect them to be just as good if not better than they were in the finals

am|Pravda: 4. What do you think NARF's attitude is toward Affliction now after the loss? Anything changed since Obliv's last interview with me?

Lynch]NARF[: oh, we're buddy buddy with affliction now, holly and obliv are pretty much the best of friends
Lynch]NARF[: i think all the bad blood
Lynch]NARF[: if there was any to begin with
Lynch]NARF[: has died out since the CAL-m finals really
Lynch]NARF[: we've scrimmed -a- a few times in the past couple of weeks and had ggs

am|Pravda: 5. Do you expect any type of different outcome today as opposed to the CAL-M finals?

Lynch]NARF[: nope
Lynch]NARF[: if i expected to lose i might as well just /uninstall right now

am|Pravda: Thanks for your time and I know you guys are on your way to GS as we speak, any last words/comments/shoutouts?

Lynch]NARF[: shoutout to cyno, our cheerleader and spiritual leader and noodles, the greatest pub player to have ever played the game

am|Pravda: thx
am|Pravda: lynch

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Match Format Change?

Posted by: Apoculos (Friday, May 16, 2003)

This is just an article to open the discussion more than anything else. As some of you know I’m an Euro wolftv whore and one of my favorite things about Euro matches is the fact that it’s always at least two maps.

If you’re not familiar with the European format allow me to lay it out for you. Take the match I watched today plan b vs. rewind (excellent match btw!). The first map was ice, they played two sets there and the score ended 1-0 rewind. One set was tied and just thrown out basically. On to the second map beach, where they also played two sets. This ended 1-1 with rewind getting a point and another full hold by both teams. I believe if this wasn’t the playoffs of Euro cup it would be called a tie and done with, but since it was the playoffs the way they handled the map choice was an admin gave a list of maps and each team eliminated a map they did NOT want to play until assault was left. Strange way of picking the tie breaker and maybe there should just be one preset. BTW rewind did win the match. While that description above was probably a bit to much hopefully it’ll give you an idea of how things work if you’re not already familiar with it.

I personally would like to try the two map format. I think it would make games far more interesting and much more exciting. I do disagree with the way Euros generally handle ties though. I believe there should never be a tied game. I want a winner damnit, who cares how long it takes. Just think if the bob2 final was beach and assault or any other map. Narf was getting tooled on beach, but would it not have been great to see if they could turn it around on a different map? Hell maybe just a two map format for playoff matches? It’s a shame a team can draw a map they are generally bad at and get knocked out so easily (yea they should learn how to play it I know: p).

There are definitely arguments that can be made against this. One most people will throw out there is probably match length. Well the way I see it its still 5 sets (two on map 1, two on map 2, and 1 on map 3). Yes changing the map will probably add a little more time, but overall Euro matches seem to go by just as fast as American matches in my experience. Another argument that is reasonable is scrimming, and being prepared for all the maps. I personally think it would be more fun to scrim more than one map for a week straight and maybe this would help with burnout. It would also add another element to your team’s preparation about which map(s) they should concentrate on for that week.

I’m personally not convinced either way after a little while of thinking about it, but I believe I’m leaning toward the 2 map format. I think its something worth experimenting with if nothing else. To me it adds more excitement to the people watching/listening. No more marathon 5 hour matches on assault. Yes still maybe 5 hour marathons, but not on the same damned map! Please leave your opinions and thoughts. I mostly wrote this just to open up the discussion and see what people thought.

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The RTCW Config Repository

Posted by: a//shatter (Monday, May 19, 2003)

Just wanted to get the word out for those of you that may not know about the site. The Config Repo is a community resource geared at storing/sharing configs for RTCW. There are more than 100 configs at the moment, ranging from your basic, stock wolfconfig_mp.cfg to the very advance (Da_G]NARF[ comes to mind.) Browse screenshots and when you find the look you are going for, download the config.

It's also a great way to make sure you never lose your config. Hard drive crash? Reformat and forgot to back it up? Make some changes, save the file and forget to back the old one up? Well, your config is always online and you can just go re-download it.

Plus, nothing beats pubbing and seeing your custom class binds being used by someone else because they are running your config.

Think my config sucks? Tell me in the comments of my entry. Every config can be commented on.

There is also a forum if you have questions/comments/suggestions/flames for me, the staff or anything else.

Submission is a snap, your files (configs and screenshot) are uploaded directly to the site and are posted upon approval from the staff.

The criteria to be approved is quite simple:

1.) Including a screenshot is required.
2.) The screenshot must be taken from the MG42 on the tower in mp_assault.
3.) Wolfconfig_mp.cfg doesn't help me know who it is that is submitting the file, name it accordingly.

Come check it out today, and submit your config: http://www.team-arise.com/config

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Playertracker: Nard

Posted by: Pravda (Thursday, May 29, 2003)

1) Thank you for this interview. First off, tell us some information about yourself:

wSw|nard: ima verbalize these chimpanzees
wSw|nard: Well i got a psycho ass woman of a girlfriend, whos extremely hot and owns as a panzer...i started TIP or The inner party whatever..we raged faces for months..until D|S grew to be a dominant threat.. Lethal, Sunstyle, Hollywood, and myself all grew to become talented players
wSw|nard: i joined D|S cause sunstyle and lethal did..and i was a pet monkey at the time wanting to follow the players that tought me
wSw|nard: i wish i never joined D|S
wSw|nard: i wish i was in wSw

2) How did you get your nick?

wSw|nard: my aunt used to call me a retard and when she got drunk she would just call me nard

3) How and when did you start playing RTCW?

wSw|nard: since test one, as soon as i stpped foot on mp_beach i had an instant boner
wSw|nard: ive played it ever since..
wSw|nard: prolly most exciting game to be apart of i think

4) If any, what event or player inspired you to play competitively?

wSw|nard: when i was like 14 my dad was like, "come here and see this" so i walked over to his computer and he was playing q2..i must have shit in my pants 5 times..i had no idea what was going on i was so excited..he let me play, and i swear for bout 3 years 12 hours a day thats all i did
wSw|nard: i steadily grew to get better..and then i got introduced to mIRC..and i got sucked into the hole

5) Who supports your gaming?

wSw|nard: my whole family, especialy my gf..who is playing wolf right now..
wSw|nard: when i lived at home
wSw|nard: i would get bitched at so much..when she would walk in on me with mIRC "ARE YOU TALKING TO GIRLS, WTF"

6) Does being a gamer affect your life?

wSw|nard: errr...not at all... i work on the weekends..got all my nights to scrim.
wSw|nard: i think over the years ive just fit it into my lifestyle

7) If any, what are all the tournaments/events you have won?

wSw|nard: ive only been to one lan and that was with D|S at qcon...i was never one of those lan kids...and we didnt win shit we had the gayest fucking lineup.
wSw|nard: i thought lans were scary
wSw|nard: and they are.
wSw|nard: i was onthe #1 q2 LMCTF team (PTH) we won Ragnorak Tourney..and beat ImageOmegas team like chumps for the championship.

8) How long do you play on any given day?

wSw|nard: we scrim 4 hours a night mon-thursday

9) How do you prepare yourself before a match?

wSw|nard: i take a shower..drink some water..sex on occasion...although that was only for our NARF match
wSw|nard: take a good shit before hand
wSw|nard: and turn on your AC
wSw|nard: cause my mp40 us fuckin hot

10) What is the best rtcw match you've ever played?

wSw|nard: aye! lots..i think the best matches ever were D|S versus dT anywhere....but it would have to be D|S versus the new cK (at that time) when all that shit went down...i remember we were attacking as axis on assault...and in our first rush we got owned..but jones snuck by as eng..and planted in under 3 mins held the tower himself. we wer eso fucking excited..even tho we got our asses kicked the rest of the way
wSw|nard: and when D|S played BOH on sub..and we broke OSP..
wSw|nard: they beat us by 2 frames
wSw|nard: took em almost 2 hours to though it all frame by frame

11) What do you think about the current e-sports scene?

wSw|nard: if it looks like CAL invite is doing..i dont know..but alot of good games ar due out soon, so they should boost the e-conomy
wSw|nard: i know alot of wSw is looking forwar dot q4
wSw|nard: forward to*

12) What is your computer like? (specs)

wSw|nard: Dog Shit: os Windows XP Professional (5.1 - 2600) ram: 2100 (Usage: 204/768MB (26.56%) cpu: (1-AMD , 1469MHz, 256KB) GeForce 3 Ti200 64ddr SGAM 19inch res (1152x864) hd: ( 22.78GB)
wSw|nard: time to upgrade, yah.

13) What headphones, mouse, mousepad do you use?

wSw|nard: sennheiser HD 500's, allsop mousepade , and a logi mx300

14) What are some of your hobbies?

wSw|nard: frisbee golf..laxin with my girl...fishing...buying new shoes...going to see my dogs at my parents place

15) What are some other games do you look forward to playing?

wSw|nard: quake 4 for sure... and half life 2 single player...

16) What is your average day like?

wSw|nard: wake up around 1pm...take the dog to piss and shit..go buy food...come back...eat...shit.....play some frisbee golf with my alcoholics...come back spend some time with gf...play some wolf at night
wSw|nard: weekends are pure work
wSw|nard: fri-sunday its work

17) What is your favorite food/drink?

wSw|nard: my moms lasagne and chicken and dumplings, with a dr.pepper

18) Any last thoughts/shoutouts?

wSw|nard: to West Side Wolves...im so glad they are back..id woulda liked to be apart of them back in the day..but things are good now..and we are looking more solid each night..coolest guys ive played with in a long time...we hope to make an impact at qcon this year. and to my girl shea, shes the best thing in the entire world to me. much love wSw and Shea, and thankyou to everyone that has supported our comeback..for scrimming with us so much..
wSw|nard: we really appreciate it
wSw|nard: and to pravda and animeman
wSw|nard: and be sure to add that i myself direct the Welcome Wagon..and is the Sole Proprietor of Facial DIstributing. DONT GET NEAR MY THOMPSON YOU DAMN CHIMPANZEES

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The truth is a hard to swallow pill.

Posted by: cK AnimeMan (Saturday, June 7, 2003)

In recent light of what Tapper has stated on cached (Cached Article ) I thought it was necessary to ask ColdShot, Head admin of TSN on his side to the story, here is what he had to say:


The truth is a hard pill to swallow for most people. Realizing any flaws or thinking that you are in the wrong to any degree is the most difficult admittance anyone can make. Finding an ethical business person is even harder to locate unless you are dealing with someone you implicitly trust, even then odds are they are out to ensure their best interest is in mind, no matter what yours is. Lately true colors of individuals and organizations have flourished, the trick to make this happen: add a touch of controversy.

The Team Sportscast Network owes a great deal of gratitude to OGL and Speakeasy. If it weren’t for them, the post Gameloft days would have ended up without a TsN in the industry. Tapper deserves a lot of credit for standing on the side of TsN on the deal and secured a future for eBroadcasting and the highest possible level. However, with any relationship in business, it will eventually end. This is where we find ourselves today.

The TsN, in its quest to continue growing and provide the best possible coverage, has taken innovative steps in the eBroadcasting industry, from the early days of dual casting to today’s TvSN for online gaming. We have constantly challenged ourselves to expand from one community to another and get blanket coverage of the games that matter, those now, and future. We have learned a lot of valuable lessons from just trying. From many failures there are also plenty of successes.

2002 was a pinnacle year for TsN. We covered six large events for various communities. From WCG Canadian/USA/World finals, to Quakecon, to the Intel Masters Championships; we produced the highest quality of LAN coverage ever done in this market. Our unique ability to increase sponsors marketing reach and today’s constant 140k + unique hits to our stream provide us with the title of #1 eBroadcast company for this industry. But, like I said earlier, it has to end.

TsN leading the industry is not ending. We are growing even faster than we can handle. We have plenty of innovative ideas in the testing phase that will secure that title for a long time. The truth of the matter is this market is still too small to be lucrative for anyone really, and to have warring factions is just plain ridiculous. In a recent interview on cached.net only one side of the story was revealed. This is the other. In order to find truth, you must know all sides. This is not the absolute truth; however, just another piece to fit in it so you can find the truth.

TsN entered the agreement with OGL/Speakeasy in a manner of independence. We were at one point exclusive to one league, and that dictated how we did business. This is the reason we almost went bust. TsN, in its own way, covered what it wanted and when it wanted as long as we promoted those two sponsors. We did that with the most enthusiasm even knowing that OGL was a mediocre league at best with all of the communities. Their shining point was, and still is, the fact they have the best-organized online tournament setup and staff that I have come across. We even went as far as to play OGL commercials during other leagues games, thus giving them cross promotion. I believe it is safe to say TsN has done more than its share to promote these sponsors and follow their guidance on coverage.

An opportunity, once out of reach, presented itself at the beginning of this year. Knowing our commitments for this year at that point was Quakecon and WCG, we felt committing to a third was not a problem. Then came the date releases recently for these events. The WCG being the same weekend and CPL two weeks prior set the stage for us to test our mettle. Having set TsN up they way I have, it would have been no problem at all from a logistical standpoint to properly cover all of them and at the same degree.

At this point I would like to state that I do understand the decision given by OGL. There is a lot of history between them and various organizations and sometimes those wounds never heal. TsN requires that it remain independent in order to grow and survive, and knowing OGL would not allow resources to be used for other events, we set up an arrangement that no OGL resources would be used for the other events. We would even go as far as to find alternative web hosting to provide for the other events leaving our main site as Quakecon only. This reasonable compromise would be snubbed because I guess sometimes history is too vivid in the memory.

In order for TsN to ever make any money to become self-sufficient we need to generate advertisement revenue. The only way to do that is to broaden our coverage to sell cross-promotional space. Why would iD buy space for Quakecon when those are the people that already have iD products? It would make sense to sell Quakecon space for Sierra. This is just one example of many models on how to make this a viable industry. Systemically, we had set up the ability for a cross promotion for Speakeasy to advertise across the other two events. They host the bandwidth, and WCG and CPL both agreed to that. So the inherent ability for OGL and Speakeasy to reach an audience that they would want to attract was set in place.

Quakecon will not fail because of a lack of TsN coverage. You will see more and more events happen as time goes on. With any luck you will see TsN at most of them, barring personal issues doesn’t stop progress of online gaming. One day the industry will grow larger than petty feelings, and the gamer and audience will dictate the successful events.

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Playertracker: Intact

Posted by: Pravda (Thursday, June 12, 2003)

1) Thank you for this interview. First off, tell us some information about yourself:

rew`intact: I am 21 years old. I live in Estonia, Tallinn. Play rtcw in a clan called rewind.

2) How did you get your nick?

rew`intact: It just sounds cool -_-
rew`intact: there is no story behind it

3) How and when did you start playing RTCW?

rew`intact: I started playeing rtcw in january 14, 2002. That whas the time when i got my internet connection. I saw the game at my friends place.

4) If any, what event or player inspired you to play competitively?

rew`intact: I saw quakecon last year on wtv, and got my inspiration form there.

5) Who supports your gaming?

rew`intact: My mother :D

6) Does being a gamer affect your life?

rew`intact: Yes it does. It takes lots of my time, that i could spend on "outdoor activities".

7) If any, what are all the tournaments/events you have won?

rew`intact: we have won 2 online tournaments so far. RTCW.No League: Premier Group Sesson IV- Scandinavians biggest League (Placed rank 1, 6.3.2003) and Clanbase Eurocup VII which is biggest online tournament in europe.

8) How long do you play on any given day?

rew`intact: 3-5 hours

9) How do you prepare yourself before a match?

rew`intact: i kick everyone out of the house, wash hands
rew`intact: etc

10) What is the best rtcw match you've ever played?

rew`intact: Best match was vs Septagon (old clan which consisted of snaps players) in rtcw.no league. When we just had recruited some new players and won the game 4-0.

11) What do you think about the current e-sports scene?

rew`intact: I think it is rapidly growing. Hope that cpl and other big leagues would cons

12) What is your computer like? (specs)

rew`intact: AMD1200, radeon 8500, mx300 mouse....

13) What headphones, mousepad do you use?

rew`intact: some old Kenwood headphones, ALLSOP mousemat.

14) What are some of your hobbies?

rew`intact: I have played soccer for 6 years. Before rtcw it was my biggest hobby. I am a big fan of Metal music.

15) What are some other games do you look forward to playing?

rew`intact: none

16) What is your average day like?

rew`intact: brrr....i just had my final day in the university, dunno how my day will look in the summer. Prolly wake up around 10am, then play some public, then go to beach, home around 18, then rtcw.

17) What is your favorite food/drink?

rew`intact: pizza/saku beer

18) Any last thoughts/shoutouts?

rew`intact: DeeAy and WW to Qcon.



Pravda: how long has rewind been around and where are most of you guys from

rew`intact: rewind was created 3 years ago as a q3 clan, rtcw part joined it 9 months ago. most of the rtcw guys are from estonia (5), one danish, one norwegian and one swedish.

Pravda: have you guys ever played american clans in rtcw or watched demos of american clans playing

rew`intact: we have never played vs american clans, ping is the main factor here. i was a fan of infensus earlier and watched all their games from quakecon 2002

Pravda: do you think sponsorships in rtcw is important and do you like the idea of CS clans merging with RTCW clans?
Pravda: also, if you do know anything about american rtcw, do you think there are any differences between american and european rtcw styles of play or strategies?

rew`intact: sponsorship in rtcw is very important as in every online game i think. rewind is currently looking for sponsor. we have had offers from some big european cs clans, but havent decided on anything yet. i think merging with CS clans is good, coz it can attract more people to rtcw
rew`intact: i don't know much about american clans, but so much as i have seen their playing style/strategies are different than euros in some of the maps

Pravda: can you be specific? what exactly is different? some euro players say that europeans are better aimers and are maybe more aggressive with beach being their best map

rew`intact: maps played in euro and U.S are sort of different, in europe the accent is mainly on beach and base/village, when in U.S popular maps are ice and sub. don't think there is any big difference in aiming

Pravda: how many leagues are you guys in and which leagues are the most important or the ones you guys concentrate the most on?

rew`intact: rewind is participating in rtcw.no premier league ( http://www.rtcw.no/main/league/viewleague.asp?league=19 ) and clanbase euro cup. our main go is to finish top4 in ec. we also play in one short tournament, called ufo cup on the new map te_ufo ( http://www.swertcw.com/ufo ), but thats more like for fun...

Pravda: if american teams and european teams played with same ping, who do you think would win? and would it be close?

rew`intact: very hard to predict as i haven't seen any demos of US clans playing lately, think it still would be very close, but I would put my money on the euros ::

Pravda: how does ping work in europe? is the broadband connections there very good in general? are there problems for pings between diff countries?

rew`intact: the are very big differences between european connections. like swedish players have ping under 50 everywhere in europe, and guys on polish connections cant play outside their country.

Pravda: what about estonians

rew`intact: i can proudly say that estonain adsl is very good, ping under 50ms in finland, sweden and norway, little bit higher in other countries. under 100ms everywhere in europe. i am satisfied

Pravda: finally, is there anything you'd like to add that is important about european rtcw? leagues, gameplay, maps, strats, anything.

rew`intact: the only thing that bothers me is that clans dont last very long. even top players are changing clans all the time. european rtcw scene needs more stability.
rew`intact: thats all

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Playertracker: Vash

Posted by: Pravda (Thursday, June 19, 2003)

1) Thank you for this interview. First off, tell us some information about yourself:

Hi, my names David Meckin, I'm 20 years of age and from the North of England.

2) How did you get your nick?

I ripped it straight from a cult Manga flick named "Vash the stampede". I've never actually seen the movie before but I liked the name.

3) Tell us a little about All Guns Blazing.

All Guns Blazing was a team formed right at the beginning of wolfenstein, dominating the UK scene for about 18 months before retiring. We recently reformed with some old and some new players after about a 6-month absence. We hope to attend as many LAN's as we can and have a good time.

4) How and when did you start playing RTCW?

I started when the game officially came out. I hated the test. I got into it because the game I played previous(Kingpin: Life of Crime) was all but dead :-(

5) If any, what event or player inspired you to play competitively?

None really, anything I do that has an aspect of competition I do competitively, be it a video game or some real life shit.

6) Who supports your gaming?

Nobody anymore, I'm getting too old for it all. I guess I support myself financially.

7) Does being a gamer affect your life?

Yes. In a good or bad way I'm not entirely sure yet. The older I get the more I'm thinking my life's been affected in a bad way.

8) If any, what are all the tournaments/events you have won?

As an All Guns Blazing Player.

Thrustworld 2002 RtCW Tournament - Winner
i10 RTCW UK LAN Tournament - Winner
Highest position on Clanbase ( http://www.clanbase.com ) UK ladder :
Rank #1
(unbeaten for 18 months before retiring)
Clanbase Spring cup RTCW : Unbeaten & top in group
Games Domain LAN Championships - 3rd place (Winning £2000)

As a Four Kings Intel player:-

Intel masters gaming championships - Winner (Winning £6000)

9) How long do you play on any given day?

At the moment my team is playing catch-up as we just reformed so I'd say we're clocking around 4 solid hours of practice every night for about 5 days a week. On top of that I like to play abit of public and sometimes just go on a server with a few guys to work on tactics overall we're doing quite alot at the moment.

10) How do you prepare yourself before a match?

I listen to music(Metallica usually), get a drink. I always try to play some ctf_multidemo/badplace if it is an important game just to warm up the aim. I sometimes go out for some fresh air too depending on importance of the game.

11) What is the best rtcw match you've ever played?

Either Gamesdomain LAN championships last year, Semi-Finals vs. 4K on mp_sub stands out like a sore thumb because of the history of the two teams (massive rivals etc..) the game being 1-1 best of three, we attack first and set a time of 1:29. The place erupted(we had alot of support) and we were sure we'd win. 4K beat us with a time of around 1:27. very very very ouch.

Last years Quakecon qualifier vs. -SM- was pretty cool too. We went down 2-0 on mp_assault and it was looking pretty grim until we pulled out our clutch game and fought back to win the game 3-2. The shoutcast from TsN was pretty intense and we had alot of support from the UK community in our irc channel when the game was over, pretty nice.

Demo URL for 4K vs. agb | Games domain LAN championships:
http://www.rtcwnation.com/features.php?section=8&index=273
Demo URL for agb vs. SM | Quakecon 2002 Qualifiers:
http://www.cached.net/?go=%2A/demo/single/9894////textmatch/agb

12) What do you think about the current e-sports scene?

Messy. Everything seems like it's in some sort of limbo at the moment. All signs point to esports becoming the next big thing but it needs someone to step up to the plate and take it there. Fatal1ty is doing great things for esports.

13) What is your computer like? (specs)

I have a pretty sweet rig. Pentium 4 2.53 ghz, 19" Monitor, 512DDR and some other good shit. I don't know a whole lot about the hardware aspect of computers it bores the hell out of me. I got this system free from Four Kings too, I guess I should add that :-o

14) What headphones, mousepad do you use?

Plantronic headphones, Zydec mouse mat, Logitech mx300 mouse.

15) Have you guys ever scrimmed any American teams or watched demos?

Yeh we all have played and watched demos of American teams, we intend on playing with US teams more in the run up to Quakecon qualifiers so if you're clan is looking for a scrim, come and find me on irc :)

16) Do you see any differences in strategy between American teams and European teams? Do you see any differences between aim?

Europeans are more aggressive on both offence and defense, Americans seem to "play it safe" alot more and rely on panzers alot. You'd have to blind to not see have much better European aim is.

17) How do you feel about the current seedings in Quakecon and the ordeal with Rewind and Minions? How would you deal with it?

The seedings now are good but Quakecon shouldn't have released them until they were finalised. The re-seeds have been quite unfair some some teams and a degree of favoritism is shown towards certain teams.

18) How satisfied are you with your own team's seedings?

Yes, It's fine.

19) If you could change one thing about Quakecon, what would it be?

I'd rename it to LottoCon.

20) Who do you predict to win Quakecon?

Four Kings Intel.

21) What are some of your hobbies?

Other then gaming, I'm mad on football(soccer). I hardly play it anymore but I love watching it. I like to get to the movies when I can too. Gaming is my main hobby though.

22) What are some other games do you look forward to playing?

Blizzard games, I've been beta testing Warcraft 3: The frozen throne for months and it's pretty cool. I look forward to World of Warcraft too, it's an mmorpg.

23) What is your average day like?

Long.

24) What is your favorite food/drink?

You can't beat a hot cup of tea and a fry up.

25) Any last thoughts/shoutouts?

http://www.allgunsblazing.org
#allgunsblazing @ QuakeNET
vash@allgunsblazing.org

Sponsored by:-

http://www.everglide.co.uk & http://www.multiplay.co.uk

Newspaper scan of Vash:

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Playertracker: Astro

Posted by: Pravda (Thursday, June 19, 2003)

1) Thanks for the interview. First, tell us a little about yourself.

I'm astro, one of the origional members of an RA3 clan called the packet Kids. I played ra3 for q3 for a million years then discovered a game called Wolfenstein after pK-REM started playing and said it was fun, been hooked ever since, though I took a 6 month vacation to play ut2k3 for CPL.

2) How did you get your nickname?

Hah. When I was like 10 or 11 and I first got on irc, I joined some random channel and I started talking to these 2 really cool dudes from florida. One of them was named ScoobyDoo2, the other was Snoopy3. we made our own channel called like #doghousechat or something similar, and they were like "dude u need a cool cartoon dog name like us" so one of them suggested Astro, but it was taken so i used Astro1 instead, then it just became Astro once i started gaming cause obviously there's really no other Astro's in gaming except for one I know of in ut.

3) How and when did you first start playing RTCW?

As I said before, I bought the game when I discovered that REM thought it was a cool game and he was in D|S at the time, so I decided to play.. he also said there was a lot of cash to be made and all that so I thought it was worth the $40 :P

4) How has the transition from Q3 to RTCW been? Difficult/easy? How is it different?

Transition wasn't very difficult, Q3 strafe jumps with new weapons and all, took some getting used to but I most definately love RTCW - best team-based game in history IMO.

5) Have you won any tournaments or ladders? If so, which ones?

I've placed top 3 in a few local lans only ones that really come to memory right now are, Last saturday I got 3rd place in UT2K3 1v1 TexasLAN tournament after not playing since about March (I lost to *69|Lost-Cause and k|pen. Oh ya, me and Muzzy=-cD got 3rd in a 2v2 ra3 tournament at one of the TexasLAN's.

6) What do you do to prepare for matches?

I usually stop by #affliction and talk some shit, then make fun of someone on ventrilo and goto the server to play.

7) What is the greatest RTCW match you've ever played?

I honestly haven't played any high profile matches, so instead I'll say the best match I got to see was the cK vs D|S CAL match last year after D|S starters left. Only reason it was one of the best one's i've seen is because both teams all typed Welcome Aboard at the same time and it was funny to hear WarWitch say "Well.. it appears both teams have just welcomed each other aboard!"

8) How often do you play this game on a given day?

2-3 hours sometimes more or less just really depends on the day and what I have planned already.

9) Describe your average day.

Wake up, smoke a cigg, take a shower, eat some breakfast, boot up my pc and check irc/email for anything important, type like 2 lines of bullshit in #affliction or #packet-kids or wherever else and walk away only to come back 10 mins later and see everyone still talking and arguing about whatever i typed, clean the house, go out and hang with some friends, sometimes I would goto Spurs games! (GO SPURS GO! 2003 NBA CHAMPS!) and whatever else I feel like doing.

10) What is your favorite food/drink?

Favorite food would have to be baked boneless skinless chicken breast and a salad (gg low carb diet) drink - water. you can never get enough water.

11) What is your view on the e-sports scene?

v-sports my friend, v-sports. There's only a few real pro gamers out there, and that definately sucks, though I think by the time most of us are like 40 we will see gaming go main stream, though I don't think it will really be ready until there is a perfectly even playing field. They need to build a console type system that allows for keyboard and mouse hookups, and an internet connection that gives you 0 ping around the globe for it to be 100% even, but that probably wont happen for a long time, so for now, the v-sports scene is pretty good.

12) Has any event or any person inspired you to play competitively? If so, who?

Well the person who got me into gaming is pK-vex. he helped me install q3 onto my pc a few years ago and taught me how to play RA3. That got me started.
Then, I remember I went to quakecon 2001 and I saw all these kids hanging around some newbie with a stuffed tiger on his monitor. I turned to my friend adam and said something like "look at that fag with a stuffed tiger on his monitor and all those losers watching him play." then some guy watching him must have heard me and he was like "That's fatal1ty man he's a pro gamer he makes like $100,000 a year playing this game". That kinda got me wanting to learn to play games and compete more than anything. I think fatal1ty won that Quakecon but I don't remember cause I was awake like 84 hours playing q3 :P That's really all that got me into it.

13) What are your computer specs, mouse, and headphones?

Computer specs: Athlon XP 1800+, GeForce 4 ti 4400, 512mb DDR ram, SB Audigy Platnium, Microsoft Keyboard, Microsoft Intellimouse 3.0, for my mousepad I have a FATpad! jk, I have a Ratpad on top of the rubber base to a FUNCpad (it makes it not slip as much on my desk). Headphones, cheap sony headphones I got for like $20 at best buy.

14) Your recent appearance on MTV has generated a lot of reaction, negative and positive, in the RTCW community. Do you feel you were portrayed accurately by MTV?

Hah.. MTV was cool, It kinda sucked with that bright light in my apartment cause I really couldn't see the monitor after being blinded by that thing... I really wish MTV did a special on gamers and not morons who play pacman, golden tee, and nerds who miss work to play x-box. that makes us look like fat nerds who eat cheetos all day and sip coke. With all the footage they shot at my place, CPL, and at FAT's place up in KC, they could have done a whole show on his stuff and it probably would have been a lot better to see us talking shit to each other and just having fun playing games.
Overall it was a good experience - and I know people will find this hard to believe but ever since that show came out if I goto a mall there's almost always at least 1 person who asks "Hey aren't you that guy who was on that mtv gamer show?" That's always kinda cool :P I even had like 3 people ask for autographs lol. I promise i will give the my good pals in Assliction some pK shirts signed by me at qcon though :P

15) What is your relationship with John Wendell aka fata1ity?

Hah. I don't remember how I first started talking to John. I think I just messaged him and asked him to 1v1 and we played and I got beat badly. hmm.. he also idled in my old RA3 clan #K4H's channel on ETG one nite too after he beat me lol. After that, I didn't really tlak to him except to say hi occasionally if i saw him pop in a channel that I was in.
Then, when CPL was coming around, I invited Shogun Valdez Lethal and a few other people to lan and I think shogun told John about the lan and john in turned asked me what was up and I told him he was welcome to come. We got it all set and he drove down, hung out, built a computer (funniest thing i've ever seen BTW), and he made white boy burritos for us. (Has anyone else ever had a burrito with no beans in it? Cause in texas that's a sin). That's pretty much it as far as John goes.

16) What are your predictions for the upcoming Quakecon RTCW and Q3 competitions?

Well, I'd love to say my clan, pK, are going to win Quakecon's RTCW, but I honestly have my money on Affliction. I've given those guys so much crap since wolf started, but they're all really good guys so I'm saying Affliction Top 3 for sure, probably 1st place unless a euro team steps up.
As for Q3 1v1, I'd love to see Daler win. He lives about 45 mins from me and has came to our TexasLAN's a few times in the past. He's another really great guy who I'd love to see win the big show this year. As for the Q3CTF, I don't follow CTF so I really can't comment. The enemy territory tournament.. If I play, my team wins :)

17) Have you played or watched any Europeans play RTCW? If so, how big of a challenge do you think they will pose at Quakecon?

HUGE challenge! Euro's have their stuff down, the only thing that will stop them from playing their A game is the vast ping advantage, but that's the price you pay for playing in a NA based tournament :P I think iN has a really good change if they can get past us in the 2nd round >:) bobo

18) What is your reaction to the recent cancellation of TSN shoutcasting at Quakecon?

I've heard both sides of the story, and honestly I don't really care. On one side, I totally see where TSN is coming from, however, I understand Qcon/OGL's stance as well. The bottom line is - if the casters are doing this for the love of the game they would show up to qcon with their own pc's, their own equipment and cast as themselves and not as TSN staff.

19) Any other games you are looking forward to playing beside RTCW?

Doom3 Halflife2, Quake4. Enemy territory is great already, they've done a great job for a totaly free game and I salute id for this - giving back to the community with a great game that anyone can play.

20) How do you feel about the current seedings in Quakecon and the ordeal with Rewind and Minions? How would you deal with it?

Seedings... I would do euro vs euro matches, and americans vs americans. LuckyB was the MVP of that game for sure, he served up facials all nite and took no prisioners, even murdering innocent teamates if he so felt the need. LuckyB and Minions did everyone at quakecon a favor by raging rewind badly

21) How satisfied are you with your own team's seedings?

We're in a bracket with 3 euro teams so no matter what happens - win or lose - there will be mad shit talk :P if we beat iN 2nd round we will have "only won cause of our ping" if we lose we are "total newbs who lose to a team who has double your ping!" so we're screwed either way in that department :P

22) If you could change one thing about Quakecon, what would it be?

Hmm.. If your team qualified for qcon and didn't attend, I would make some rule about the team not being able tocompete for 2 yearss or something like that to stop teams who dont intend to go from signing up.

23) Thanks for the interview. Any final comments or shoutouts?

Shoutouts to the dudes in affliction, my long time friends in the old school pK as well as our new members, phildo karate, valdez, strych, steme, and a big whats up to the guys who were formerly in masters, now most of them are in pK - i've never had as much fun playing RTCW scrims and matches till I played with these guys they just have fun flat out. Also, big shoutout to pK-sh1fty and |a|nal for the late nite vent sex :o

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NARF vs Fear Factory Resist

Posted by: selfie (Monday, June 23, 2003)

Thursday the 2x CAL-M champions NARF are facing off against the up-and-coming Central-European Fear Factory - Resist. I had a short interview with binBASH from FF and Lynch from NARF.


FF|binBASH

SelfieP: First off. What do you think about the Qcon configs? Are they too strict or are you ok with it?
FF|binBASH: I think that QCon Config is quite nice. Only Problem for some Players with it is that cg_drawgun 1 is enforced. I personally have no Problem with it because I play with drawgun 1 all the time.

SelfieP: Allright. How much have you guys scrimmed in the past week as preparation for the upcoming match? Watched any demos?
FF|binBASH: We scrimed usually 3 Times a Day and watched the Demos we found on cached.net of our Enemies.
FF|binBASH: We scrim
FF|binBASH: btw. :)

SelfieP: If you do know anything about american rtcw, do you think there are any differences between american and european rtcw styles of play or strategies?
SelfieP Is there a difference in aim, as many say?
FF|binBASH: I didn't see any Difference in aiming yet but USA Clans use much different Tacs compared to European Tacs. The Ami Tacs sometimes look like parts from very old European Tacs.

SelfieP: What do you think about the current e-sports scene? The involvement of sponsors, rtcw clans and counterstrike clans merging, etc.
FF|binBASH: The e-Sports Scene is still developing and most RTCW Clans think it's easy to gain Sponsors if they merge with CS Clans, but to get Lan Sponsorings for eg. is still much harder to get than ordinary Server & Bouncer Sponsorings which most Clans will give to RTCW Squads. As a RTCW only Clan it's even harder than for CS Clans to get Sponsors, because CS is more popular.

SelfieP: What country(s) are you and your team members from?
FF|binBASH: We are at the Moment a Germany/Poland Clan.

SelfieP: I see. How do you see the future of RTCW after Quakecon?
FF|binBASH: I dunno how it will develop. But if RTCW will unfornately die we'll look for alternative decent Online Multiplayer Games.

SelfieP: Speaking of Online Multiplayer Gaming OMG!, how do you think their chances are against Team-Frontline?
FF|binBASH: I don't know what will be conditions for omg! vs. frontline. I mean omg! is a decent Euro RTCW Team. When Pings are equal I think omg! will win.

SelfieP: How well do you know NARF? Do you know any members in particular?
FF|binBASH: I don't know anything yet about the US Scene, but I was in contact with Da_G and Immortal. Arrogant People I think who need a lesson :>
FF|binBASH: You can add that Da_G tries to get the worse Match Times for Euro Clans ever. I mean we have to play Friday Morning 03:30 CET when most of our Players go to work @ 06:00 CET.
FF|binBASH: So you can understand our Situation

SelfieP: Did your team make any specific pickups for Quakecon? If so, how will they help you to win?
FF|binBASH: We had a special Pickup (soulreaper) but kicked him again because he didn't want to play Ladder Games like cb.int or so. Only QCon Games. But we need Ladder Games to gain Sponsor Contracts.

SelfieP: If any, what are all the tournaments/events you have won?
FF|binBASH: We are kinda new Squad (3 Months old) and didn't win in any Cups yet. But we have much power and are Top 5 German RTCW Squad.

SelfieP: When did you start playing RTCW, and when did you first get into competition?
FF|binBASH: I'm playing RTCW since mp_test2 and joined a Clan 3 Months after it. The MASH-Clan. It was fun team and not active in any Leagues. I started playing in Leagues 3 Months later with German Pale Killers (GpK-Clan)

SelfieP: What is the best rtcw match you've ever played?
FF|binBASH: Best Match I think was vs. Ocrana when I was at starComa. We trained some Weeks for it and beat much Clans in pracs (plan-b, majesty, [xi], etc.). All the Work didn't pay out finally when the official Game was lost. :P
FF|binBASH: But it made a lot of fun.
FF|binBASH: :>

SelfieP: What do you think will be keys in the game in terms of strategy on defense or offense?
FF|binBASH: In the Game vs. Narf?
SelfieP: yes
FF|binBASH: Our main Key will hopefully be good Medic revive work and gibbing of the enemy dead bodies. We gonna pull the Enemy into much infights because it's easier to aim their with that high Ping than on Distance.

SelfieP: How do you see your chances in the match? What do you think the score will be? After all, you're at a ping-disadvantage, and you're playing a team that's has not been defeaten in CAL for the last 2 seasons. The odds are definitely against you. Do you think you can pull the upset?
FF|binBASH: I think our Chances are not so bad at all. Our Teamplay has improved much the last Weeks. I don't wanna make bets at score btw. but I think we won't lose 4:0. We'll see what will happen. When they play like we've seen on their Demos I think they'll lose the game.


Lynch]NARF[

Mr.Selfdestruct: What do you think about the Qcon configs?
Lynch]NARF[: Eh, a little too dark in my opinion. I've had people who never seen wolf watch me play with the Quakecon config and they say they can't really see anything
Lynch]NARF[: I think most of the players have gotten used to it
Lynch]NARF[: but if they really wanted to make the config all nice and pretty for the spectators they could have allowed it to be a little brighter so that they could catch the action
Lynch]NARF[: I think you can raise the intensity a bit and still have the game look really nice
Lynch]NARF[: Other than that it's awesome, it's the first time in a long while I've been able to see the panzer and the airstrike explosions =)

Mr.Selfdestruct: I see. What are in your eyes the big differences between the European and the North-American RTCW scene?
Lynch]NARF[: I'm gonna go with the rest of the RTCW community and agree it's the panzerfaust
Lynch]NARF[: the US scene since the past Quakecon has evolved into a panzer-heavy game
Lynch]NARF[: more and more you see US teams building defenses/offenses around their panzers
Lynch]NARF[: it really hinders the heavy medic rushes you used to see

Mr.Selfdestruct: Yes. I noticed many Euro teams saying that the US teams used their tactics from 6 months back, but they seem to be overlooking the panzer.
Lynch]NARF[: and now the U.S. game is centered around spawncamps, big kills, and gibs
Lynch]NARF[: yeah, I think the Euro teams are in for a surprise if they think that the panzer strats aren't good
Lynch]NARF[: they're build solely for stopping the style of play European teams like to go with...

Mr.Selfdestruct: Ok. Any comments on the rew' vs MiN match?
Lynch]NARF[: yeah...
Lynch]NARF[: I think Quakecon screwed up in a few spots in their seedings
Lynch]NARF[: Plain and simple, they underestimated some of the U.S. teams
Lynch]NARF[: they obviously didn't think Minions had what it took to take out Rewind
Lynch]NARF[: same with carnage vs gamepoint
Lynch]NARF[: I think it's a shame that one of the top european teams will not be making it to quakecon because of poor seeding

Mr.Selfdestruct: Do you feel there should be separate NA / Aussie / Euro qualifiers, or should the OGL just pay more attention to seedings.
Lynch]NARF[:I hope that quakecon officials will learn from this mistake and fix next year's seedings either by simply reserving spots for euros and holding a euro tourney for the spots or whatnot
Lynch]NARF[: I think the separate qualifiers are the way to go =)

Mr.Selfdestruct: You talk about next year's Quakecon. I'm pleased to see not everyone is as pessimistic, what do you think about the future of RTCW (after Quakecon 2003)
Lynch]NARF[: I would be very surprised not to see some form of RTCW (stock/ET/whatever new might come out) not played at next year's Quakecon
Lynch]NARF[: I think for a few months after Quakecon
Lynch]NARF[: you will see a lot of teams dropping out
Lynch]NARF[: just to take a breather
Lynch]NARF[: but other teams will step up to fill the gap and eventually those teams that left will come back
Lynch]NARF[: and the competitive scene will go back to being as strong as it is today

Mr.Selfdestruct: How good is NARF on assault?
Lynch]NARF[: hmm, I'd say it's one of our stronger maps
Lynch]NARF[: we have a lot of offenses/defenses we can throw at you
Lynch]NARF[: and they all work pretty well to our strengths as a team

Mr.Selfdestruct: All right.
Mr.Selfdestruct: Great! Have you watched any demos of Fear Factory - Resist, or scrimmed any special (Euro) teams?
Lynch]NARF[: Haven't watched any demos of Fear Factory actually, I probably should get on that
Lynch]NARF[: as for scrimming Euro teams...
Lynch]NARF[: we've been meaning to do that but it's awfully hard with the time difference
Lynch]NARF[: we've scrimmed dot on occasion

Mr.Selfdestruct: I will pretend not to have heard you compare us with aussies =P j/k
Lynch]NARF[: hopefully we'll squeeze in a few good euro scrims to see what we should expect
Lynch]NARF[: haha
Lynch]NARF[: yeah, the aus competition is very different than the european scene =)
Lynch]NARF[: Aus play a style pretty similar to the US from what I can tell
Lynch]NARF[: on a side note I'd like to wish dot the best of luck in their match against wSw
Lynch]NARF[: I'd love to see those crazy aussies make it to qcon =)

Mr.Selfdestruct: I think we all do :>
Mr.Selfdestruct: About the match vs FF-R. What's the deal with pings and times? Where will the server be located, and at what time will the match be played?
Lynch]NARF[: Well, from what I know our match isn't until Thursday @ 7:00 pm pacific time...
Lynch]NARF[: I'm assuming we'll be playing on some east coast server like New York to make the ping difference as small as possible
Lynch]NARF[: NARF will be lanning as usual from our sponsor's lan cafe that you can see at (Link: www.gamesessions.com)www.gamesessions.com (shameless plug)
Lynch]NARF[: Our pings will probably be around 80-100
Lynch]NARF[: I have no clue what FF will ping like...
Lynch]NARF[: From what I hear it could be anywhere between 100-150
Lynch]NARF[: Hopefully the pings will be relatively equal and won't play a big factor in the outcome of the match

Mr.Selfdestruct: 4k-Zommy told me they (from UK) have found a NY server with 110 pings. Seeing as FF-R are located in Germany-Poland, I assume slightly higher (It must be said that the pollish connections are known to be horrible)
Lynch]NARF[: yeah =(
Lynch]NARF[: but i did watch FF play last week on wtv
Lynch]NARF[: and they were around 140-150 on an Atlanta server I believe

Mr.Selfdestruct: What are some other matches you're looking forward to in Round 2 of the Qcon qualifiers?
Mr.Selfdestruct: Any predictions? :>
Lynch]NARF[: haha, i just made a post about this about 30 seconds before you pmed me...
Lynch]NARF[: i'll just post the link =P
Lynch]NARF[: http://www.forumplanet.com/planetwolfenstein/topic.asp?fid=6001&tid=1080243
Lynch]NARF[: lots of other people's predictions on there as well
Lynch]NARF[: I'm mainly looking forward to the Euro vs US matches though
Lynch]NARF[: + dot vs wSw

Mr.Selfdestruct: Have you made any roster pick ups specifically before Qcon? How will this person(s) aid you in the win?
Lynch]NARF[: Nope, our roster has been the same since the start of this last CAL season

Mr.Selfdestruct: what do you think of sponsorships in rtcw and is it a good idea to merge CS and RTCW clans?
Lynch]NARF[: Can't hurt I guess, if it gets wolf teams some more funding and wolf itself more exposure I don't see the downsides
Lynch]NARF[: As far as sponsorships go...
Lynch]NARF[: I'd like to see more big name companies offering U.S. teams some nice sponsorships
Lynch]NARF[: I see nvidia and d-link and intel and other corporations giving Euro teams sponsorships
Lynch]NARF[: yet the top American teams get very little help from them

Mr.Selfdestruct: European clans are often sponsored by bigger corporations indeed.
Lynch]NARF[: But I guess it's the Euros that really need the money to get over to America
Lynch]NARF[: So I can live with our small, but awesome sponsors (shoutout to Metamule) =D

Mr.Selfdestruct: What do you think will be keys in the match vs FF-R in terms of strategy on defense or offense?
Lynch]NARF[: Well...me I guess
Lynch]NARF[: =P
Mr.Selfdestruct: Haha
Mr.Selfdestruct: Ok!
Lynch]NARF[: I don't really want to expose any parts of the strategy so I'll just leave it at hmm
Lynch]NARF[: everyone needs to do their role
Lynch]NARF[: and if we play together as a team
Lynch]NARF[: we should prevail =P
Lynch]NARF[: offense will defenitely be our main focus
Lynch]NARF[: i have the utmost confidence in our defense
Lynch]NARF[: but it's all useless if we can't blow that tower up right?
Lynch]NARF[: at least we're playing euros and won't have to worry about 5 panzer defenses and such =)
* Lynch]NARF[ knocks on wood

Mr.Selfdestruct: Any last shout-outs?
Mr.Selfdestruct: Thanks for your time and good luck in the match :>
Lynch]NARF[: well i'm out of sponsors to spot so I guess one big shoutout to all the teams left in the quakecon qualifiers. gg and gl
Lynch]NARF[: thanks =)

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4K-Zommy Interview - Four Kings vs Exodus

Posted by: selfie (Monday, June 23, 2003)

SelfieP: What do you think about the Qcon configs? Are they too strict or are you ok with them?
[4K-Zommy]: At first when I used them I was shocked at how crippleing they were, but after having a few weeks to adjust I am more than happy to use it... My old objection is that they are forcing drawgun, I wouldnt mind if it didnt have a retarded fire animation that took up the whole screen :(

SelfieP: Allright. How much have you guys scrimmed in the past week as preparation for the upcoming match? Watched any demos?
[4K-Zommy]: Yeh, we've actually done a hellava lot of prep work... At the moment we are playing 2 scrims a night and 4 on Sundays.

SelfieP: If you do know anything about american rtcw, do you think there are any differences between american and european rtcw styles of play or strategies? Is there a difference in aim, as many say?
[4K-Zommy]: We've tried to play every prac on US East servers to adjust to the ping/config, and tried to play as many USA teams as possible

SelfieP: I see :>
SelfieP: If you do know anything about american rtcw, do you think there are any differences between american and european rtcw styles of play or strategies?
[4K-Zommy]: We've played a few of the tier1 American clans now, and some of their strats seem fairly archaeic. We were doing them 6 months ago :-)
[4K-Zommy]: I know im gonna get flamed for it
[4K-Zommy]: but seriously
[4K-Zommy]: i mean teams still doing warroom defence on beach :)

SelfieP: Any comments on the rew' vs MiN match? Will we see any effects of this match in upcoming games?
[4K-Zommy]: Nope, didnt watch it. They shouldnt have played at 5am though, thats just crazy.

SelfieP: Were you able to work out a good time with -x-?
[4K-Zommy]: Yeh, we got our best server, and the best time (we could have got)... NYC / 7pm EST (11pm our time)
[4K-Zommy]: Our best server gives us 110 in game, which is fairly playable.
[4K-Zommy]: Our best server = NYC :)

SelfieP: Nice to hear the playing field will be evened as much as possible. What do you think of Team Exodus? Do you know know any of their members in particular?
[4K-Zommy]: We've tried to do some research in preparation, havnt come up with much. After speaking to a few tier1 US teams we arnt expecting them to be that great. But we've learned not to take anyone for granted and we will be going into it more than prepared. We saw there latest Qcon qual game, and they deffinatly have decent aim, more decent than I had hoped for given the ping disadvantage anyway.

SelfieP: What do you think about the current e-sports scene?
[4K-Zommy]: I myself have recently given up work to do a fulltime job in the "e-sports scene" working for Four Kings. We've got some really exciting plans to push e-sports in the UK in the coming months. I forsee a bright future :-)

SelfieP: Great! Are there any specific plans for Four Kings after Qcon?
[4K-Zommy]: Well, Four Kings is a multigaming team, so we have many plans pre and post Qcon. As far as the RtCW squad is concerned though, Depending on CyberXGaming and the then current ET scene, we may switch over to ET... Who knows.

SelfieP: I see. How do you see the future of RTCW after Quakecon?
[4K-Zommy]: As I say, with ET released and becoming ever popular its hard to tell. I think CyberXGaming will help push it on for another 6 months, but after that I think ET may take over. Hopefully we will see some great custom maps get accepted into the ET community as I feel the current mappool is kinda limiting.

SelfieP: Any thought on the failure of Wolf Tactics? Was it the release date, or the mod itself that caused it to disappear from servers quickly?
[4K-Zommy]: I never read much into it, I guess with both ET and Qcon dawning, it was never gonna get much attention though.

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Quakecon Qualifiers: tTt vs. Affliction

Posted by: Da_G]NARF[ (Tuesday, June 24, 2003)

OK so before I get into this, lets get the FACT's out of the way.

1.) The score was 2-1 (Lead favoring Trinity .:.)
2.) Trinity had 5 players on the tower base area + a sniper in the tower near the axis spawn.
3.) Affliction had no players on the tower base area.
4.) The game clock was on round 1 with about 4:30 on the clock

(All above facts are from memory from watching the match on WolfTV, please correct me if i'm wrong.)

At this time the OGL referee present (Lehmann) called a time-out when the player tTt-Opio went 999 due to an apparent accidental pressing of the ALT and ENTER keys. Up to this point all actions taken by the referee were perfectly valid. At this point the referee kicked tTt-Opio, citing 'incorrect assumptions' in this post on the main quakecon page. While this was all fine and well, it's OGL's administrative decision that I don't agree with.

OGL decided to give Trinity the rematch, which is indeed the 'right thing to do' given the situation, however they are in essence docking Trinity the 2 points they earned, as well as docking affliction the point they earned. There were no administrative errors made prior to this 999/timeout kick, so why are the previous 3 rounds being replayed? It is my feeling as a long standing member of the Wolfenstein community and having a fairly good amount of expierience playing this video game that a round replayed for no reason at all is never good; Both Trinity and Affliction earned the points they had prior to the administrative error and they should be allowed to restart their match from the point at which the error occured within reason; which would logically be to discount the 4:30 or so they had on the clock and start the match in round 4, at a score of 3-1. There is a poll located on planet-rtcw regarding this matter that I would encourage you to vote on as well, I'd like to get an idea of what the community thinks about the decisions surrounding this match.

Disclaimer: These are my opinions and mine alone, not the opinion of my team nor any other team competing in Quakecon. They are in no way intended as slanderous or otherwise aimed at any person place or thing in particular. If you have the urge to flame me or otherwise respond unintelligently and in an uncivilized manner to this article, feel free to smoke a load then come back when you're feeling a little more sane. :D

-Da_G, Leader, ]NARF[

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Playertracker: Zaf

Posted by: Pravda (Thursday, June 26, 2003)

1)Thank you for this interview. First off, tell us some information about yourself and your clan.

My names Tahir Zafar, im 20 and currently studying computing. I play for Gamepoint.amd (www.gmpo.de) and were off to Dallas :D

2) How did you get your nick?

In school, people shortend my second name to zaf. not to exciting i guess.

3) How and when did you start playing RTCW?

I was a very late starter to rtcw compared to other top european players. I was a quake 3 player before i picked up rtcw, and didnt want to give it up really. In about the febuary or march after rtcw was first released, my mate told me he had joined a clan called plotz and told me to come to the irc channel. In quake 3 my strongest weapon was my lightning gun, so the move over aim wise was really easy. I played the game a few times and found it really easy and the teamplay aspect really appealed to me (i was 1v1 q3 player). The rest is history.

4) If any, what event or player inspired you to play competitively?

hehe, alot man. I always wanted to reach "the top" in a game. Make a big event. I still wont believe im going till im in dallas and sitting at my pc. But as for inspiration, Blokey in quake 3 without a doubt. A uk player who made it big in esports and was all skill and no image. Gotta mention Fatality, i still remember the day i watched his demo from razer cpl where he won on q3dm13. Timing every armour to perfection. I remember thinking "god damn i wanna be that good". Event wise, well babbages cpl, where there was upset after upset and i just wished i was there. Also my good mate Raj "turbanator" Singh. Me and him had a HUGE rivalry in games, We went to school together and he always told me he would kick my ass at quake 3, so i practised hard and beat him 54 to -3 :)

5) Who supports your gaming?

For the last 9 months it has been me, but im moving house atm so living with my parents, So i guess them for 2 months. Money wise i support myself.

6) If any, what are all the tournaments/events you have won?

well, i won a local lan a few months ago! 1v1 q3 tourney. Only one other guy there played quake 3. but about 20 ppl entered. :D (www.badlanrising.com). Other than that, we won the te_ufo cup, came 3rd in eurocup (god damn it).

7) How long do you play on any given day?

Apart from friday and saturday, i play about 4 hours a day. Maybe more depending on how close it is to a tournement. For the qualifer game vs carn i was trying to hit about 6 a day.

8) How do you prepare yourself before a match?

Music Music and more music. I listen to about 5 songs every time to warm me up.
50 cent / g-unit- 8 mile freestyle
50 cent - poor lil rich
Gangstarr-who got gunz

+ which ever 2 im in the mood for :)

9) What is the best rtcw match you've ever played?

Well my set up at home is to crap for me to ever perform amazing (fps) but on lan ive played quite well. At the intel masters i played pretty welll in all my games.

10) What do you think about the current e-sports scene?

Fickle? I think thats a fair comment. its like, very hard to get sponsors, but even when you do, unless you sign legally binding contracts, then its unlikely you'll see much. Like 3d around 2 cpl's ago, sponsors pulled. Same goes for many other clans. As for competition wise, i think its great. But Apart from the satisfaction of being good, for the amount of time we put in, theres very little return.

11) What is your computer like? Headphones, mouse, mousepad? (specs)

Plantronics Nice Headset 2003 with mic , Logitech Duel Optical + Alsop.
Im currently on a 1.2 gig amd, geforce 4 4800. If you want to send me a new pc, feel free.

12) What are some of your hobbies?

I love to play football and Basketball. I play as much football as i can. Love going to the cinema with ma mates, have a ball every fri or sat night usually. Other than that, during my holidays i try to do as much charity work as i can. Marathon walks, feed the homeless and stuff. Its very self fulfilling :)

13) What are some other games do you look forward to playing?

Doom 3 and Half life 2. Mostly Half Life 2 from what ive seen. I love a good single player game and hl2 lookings amazing.

14) What is your average day like?

Wake up, go out, get back @ 4 hit irc. Hit a public 5-6. Scrim 6-10 then chill out after 10. For quakecon thats gonna change though. Looking at longer practise sessions :) (alot longer hehe)

15) What is your favorite food/drink?

Bottled Water man. Nothing beats mineral water. Food...hmmm. Curry?

16) What are your views on the recent upsets of SnapS by Last Chance and Rewind by Minions of Rage? Do you believe with SnapS and Rewind losing in the qualifiers that the two best teams in Europe are not represented in Quakecon?

Well Snaps losing to lc was their own fault. snaps didnt take lc seriously and Lc finished them off. Dont take anything away from Lc, they are a great team, and now that they are going they will go from strength to strength. Rewind... hmmm. Unlucky draw i guess, but still they could have played better.

As for them being the 2 best teams, i disagree. There is like a top 5 who can beat each other on any day / map (4k , Gmpo, iN, Rewind, Snaps). 1 of those is going, 2 are out, 2 are yet to qualify. If 4k and iN qualify then Eu will do v well @ quakecon. I think ocrana are through to, so another strong team. If amnesia beat amish, then you have another great team that will have the incentive to really start practising hard.

17) What is your opinion on the bracketing of Quakecon qualifiers this year? How satisfied are you with your own bracket? How would you do it?

They have been great. We all knew we had to play on usa servers, if you want to go to the best gaming event in the world, then you must be ready for the extra lag and adapt. The brackets are as far as you can get. Every bracket has 2 good teams in it. So its pretty fair.

18) If you could change anything about Quakecon what would it be?

More prize money! Oh and being able to stay warmed up during games would be good. Ive heard they are trying to sort this out though.

19) You guys handily defeated Clan Carnage on Assault. What do you think were the keys of that game that allowed your team to win in impressive fashion?

Well we made a pretty important change in swapping me with veracious. The defence was alot more stable when we switched, but it meant i only had 1 day to practise panzer. Not enough as im sure you could tell :P But the all round play, ramzi is just fantastic in officials. I mean you can be a most desperate of situation and he bails us out time and time again. Blaze is just crazy. When theres an important game, the guys like terminator. Refuse , Zemme and Veracious are brilliant medics, without them we would have got nowhere vs carn. Big shout out to refuse, who has had to wait to play for a LONG time due to eurocup rules. He waited for his chance, pracced with us solid for like 2 weeks and has been great.

Btw while im bigging us all up, special shout out to our army boy Alban. hes been a big part of the team for months and sadly had to go the army. Come back soon :D

20) Have you watched demos of or played many games against American teams? Do you see any differences in strategy or aim between European and American RTCW? If so, what?

Zommy said it already, American teams are using old tactics man, heavy panzer reliance and no aggresiveness. Maybe thats how you guys like to play. But i mean, if you switched the server rules around and american teams played on eu servers, im serious, every us team would have been well and truley smacked.

21) What are your predictions for Quakecon this year? Who do you think will be GamePoint's biggest competitors at Quakecon?

hmm, 4kings and Infensus. Narf if they dont smoke to much of the good stuff. We been scrimming Fx to, they seem to be using more aggrssive tactics and have the aim. They are my team to watch :)

22) Gamepoint is sponsored by several companies. How important do you think sponsorship is to RTCW gaming?

Right now its really important. Securing sponsership to go to quakecon is a big boost to anyone. gl to anyone looking sponsors!

23) Thanks for the interview. Any final comments or shoutouts?

Big up yo self to omg! Ninjai. my Xi buddies, Splitter, Montana, Logos, Blacklotus, Shiver, Phr3nzy. The 4k homofags Yilider, Hardnut, Explicit, Creamy, og and ofcourse my BEST MATE agb|insectsx.

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Amish Spawntimer Drama

Posted by: Amish Gigolo (Monday, June 30, 2003)

Well, we've had to keep quiet about this, due to a spawntimer drama :)
But, the 3-2 win over Amnesia on Thursday on mp_assault is now official and the Amish will be attending Quakecon 2003 in Dallas, Texas this coming August.

We've had to wait awhile to give our position on all of this, untill we heard officially from OGL. But, here is our side of the story...

Basically, this all stems from a conversation that aINail from Team Affliction had with Zay from the OGL.


[16:34:10] Zay|Away: You can bring your own keyboard and mouse.
[16:34:19] Zay|Away: And make sure you have your configs on cd or disc.
[16:34:23] Zay|Away: Cuz we'll load em up every time.
[16:34:25] a|nail: right, script configs are allowed
[16:34:30] a|nail: but not extrenal programs?
[16:34:30] Zay|Away: Yes.
[16:34:33] Zay|Away: No.
[16:34:35] a|nail: cause euros got like
[16:34:41] a|nail: 4 different external spawntimers
[16:34:43] a|nail: exe programs


In this log, Nail is asking about the rules for the LAN portion of the tournament. Where external spawntimers are NOT allowed.

Well Nail, in his infinite wisdom thinks that these rules are throughout Quakecon now, and he is wrong. External Spawntimers/ANY kind of spawntimer is allowed in the Quakecon ONLINE Qualifiers.

Quote by Zay in an email to both Amish and Amnesia...


Spawn timers will be allowed and were not specifically disallowed during the online portion of the tournament. This was discussed before the tournament and no rule changes to make spawn timers illegal was made. The rule that was quoted by Amnesia in 9.a. was concerning weapons, items and areas within each map that can be used as exploits, not as spawn timers.

The reason for this was threefold. 1) Spawntimers were allowed in previous competitions. 2) Spawntimers were discussed when a team brought it up before competition and no rule was made against them and 3) While "in game" spawntimers can be banned and seen to be banned, it would be easy to make a voice one that would do the same thing that is NOT traceable during online competition. Rather than try to ban something that could not effectively be banned, it was decided to allow it.


After our match with Amnesia, Nail pm's me and gives me "part" of the log of his conversation with Zay (below). And then tells me, we're fucked...we used an external spawntimer.


[16:34:25] a|nail: right, script configs are allowed
[16:34:30] a|nail: but not extrenal programs?
[16:34:30] Zay|Away: Yes.
[16:34:33] Zay|Away: No.
[16:34:35] a|nail: cause euros got like
[16:34:41] a|nail: 4 different external spawntimers
[16:34:43] a|nail: exe programs


This is the same thing that a|Nail evidently pm'd members of Amnesia, which led them to complain against us. His portion of the log, missing the whole "LAN" part of it. In those responses made by Zay, she was answering his questions about the LAN portion of Quakecon, not the online quali's.

Basically, during this whole weekend of "drama", we were upset with our name being dragged through the mud, with everyone calling us cheaters. For anyone/any clan that knows us well, they know that we are one of the most respectable, honest and fun clans in American RTCW. We're proud of the reputation we've built and the fact that our name was shit upon, this past weekend, hurt us more then any complaint filed by Amnesia.

The Amish World Order would like to thank members of the Wolf Community, who stood by us, while everyone else bashed us. Members of cK, a||shatter, wSw|emaciator, -x-pissclams and -x-cracker, The Wippuh, members of Office Space, [u]Nok and LoT-Odin, along with many other people and US Clans who supported us privately.

We'd also, like to give a big heartfelt "Fuck You" to all the European fans, who bashed us without A.) Knowing our Clan or B.) Knowing the true story. Also, to the European clans who jumped on the bandwagon and called us cheaters, a couple of which are going to Quakecon...we look forward to meeting you in the tournament.

A special one finger salute goes out to a|Nail from Team Affliction, for being the dumbass that started this all and forgetting that the conversation he had with Zay was about the rules for the lan event in Dallas. And on top of that, giving the log to Amnesia to try to get us Disqualified. It's refreshing to know, that one dumbass can drag an entire clans name through the mud and cause this much drama in the wolf community.

We realize this was most likely not intentional, and just Nail confused. But, regardless...his confusion caused us alot of crap the past 3 days and in hindsight, we wish he would have been a little more careful :)

GG Nail

- Amish Gigolo and the Amish World Order

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The REAL Amish spawntimer story!

Posted by: Kr#kc (Tuesday, July 1, 2003)

Okay I just read the article written by Amish|Gigolo on the whole issue. I feel I had to explain what REALLY happened, because Nail is now taking the blame for something he is not to blame for.

After we played the match against Amish we were just sad we lost since we really wanted to attend quakecon. Nothing was said though, and we just 'accepted' the fact that we didn't make it. Then the next morning when everyone in our IRC channel found out about the loss they started to download the demos submitted by the Amish players. Not to check for cheats or anything, but just to wacht the match.

Then one of the people in our IRC channel mentioned that Amish used an external spawn timer, and he said that this must have been illegal. Ofcourse this gave our depressed asses a little bit of hope. We checked the rules on the quakecon site and we thought we found something (in the already not-so-clear rules) that would disallow the spawntimer. We then wrote an email to Zay with a complaint about the spawntimer.

We didn't want to go public with it before quakecon had given us a reply on the matter. I sent the email to some friends though to show them what was going on (stupid!). I specifically told them not to bring it out, which they didn't do (well at least not into the public). Then Nail heard from one of my friends and he spoke to me on IRC and he pasted the conversation he had with Zay. Nail just agreed with us that the spawntimer was illegal and that it was an unfair advantage Amish had over us. I'm not sure wether he knew Zay ment that the external programs would be banned on LAN only and not in the online portion of the tournament. Anyways he told me he really liked the Amish and he didn't do this because of them, but purely because he felt the spawntimer was unfair. This conversation made us feel more just about filing the complaint, but it sure as hell did NOT START the whole complaint issue.

Anyways when I told one of my American friends about the issue he was smart enough to paste the whole conversation in his private channel which was occupied by the two well known mediawhores Pravda and Animeman, who were shoutcasting at that very moment. As any other mediawhore would have done they spilled the beans and I had to deal with a lot of angry Amish fans on IRC.

Now did we really think the spawntimer was the reason Amish won the match? No, ofcourse the spawntimer wasn't the reason they won the match. Do we think the spawntimer has given Amish an advantage we didn't have during the match? Yes, we do think the use of a spawntimer is a (small) advantage and we surely would have liked to use one ourselves (but we didn't think they would be allowed).

I already spoke to some Amish people yesterday after we got the final decision from the quakecon officials. Once again I want to express that we never ment to drag the Amish name trough the mud. We have nothing personal against the Amish, we just really really really wanted to attend quakecon. If people have called them cheaters then that was their opinnion and one that wasn't shared by us since we feel that a spawntimer isn't a cheat, but just a helpful tool. We'd like to wish Amish the best of luck at quakecon and we hope that the quakecon officials have learned from this and will be more clear in their rules next time so that every team will know what is allowed and what is not.

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Playertracker: Warri0r

Posted by: Pravda (Thursday, July 3, 2003)

1) Thank you for this interview. First off, tell us some information about yourself and your clan:

Well, my name is Vinny Smith, I live on Long Island and im 15 years old. My first computer was the one im using now and rtcw was the first computer game I ever played. The clans I played in were old sk00l 82nd, then |LQD|, then LoT (for about a week, till I fucked over crucifix somehow, Then back to 82nd, yawn then Darkside and now fX. Some may say im a clan hopper but I had agreeable reasons for leaving everyone of them. FX Is a bunch of skilled and young players working there way up cal. We only have 2 loses under our belt. 1 in a bob2 match (yea the one wit the 3 panzers) and our 2nd pretty recent to wSw (http://www.geocities.com/dswarri0r/wswowns.jpg) just for a rough estimate of the pings.

2) How did you get your nick?

When I got this game I saw this server *laff* happy penguin and I was like awesome, a man 64 man server. The name I played as was EliteMarine22, which was pretty gheyz0r so, Nightwolf told me to use warrior. So I changed the name to what it looked good as and I got WARRIOR and eventually changed it to WarRi0R. That’s mad hotz0r.

3) How and when did you start playing RTCW?

I started playing RtCW around December of 2001..im pretty sure.

4) If any, what event or player inspired you to play competitively?

I had no knowledge of what a computer was till I got this leet Dell and I only played in happy penguin, so I guess you could say it just happened.

5) Who supports your gaming?

The only one that really supports my gaming is good ol’ mommy. After I started winning little prizes in those FnF tournys she was kind of happy I was atleast getting something (even if it was small).

6) If any, what are all the tournaments/events you have won?

Well the first tournament I was in was those FnF tourneys. I won quite a few of them..around 5 1v1 and 2 or 3 2v2s. I got around 50 bucks and a bunch of games and shizzle. Like I said nothing much, but your getting fo hizzie for the things you like. D|S prolly would of beat taf in bob2, but after our disappointing lose to dT, it was over. So I guess we ranked 4th bob2.

7) How long do you play on any given day?

Well I don’t really pub anymore, so I only play about 4 hours a day. But there are other games im starting to play even though there old.

8) How do you prepare yourself before a match?

The best way for me is scrimming and listening to Vaticans gh3y a$$ techno. Wow you would not want to be on voice with that freak while hes listening to techno/Kelly Clarkson/and Tatu. All u hear is high pitched squeals…

9) What is the best rtcw match you've ever played?

82nd vs xTc in cal open was an excellent match because 1) we won and 2) 82nd was down 2 rounds then came back to win 3-2. I would have to say the best match I played was the dT/-a- vs D|S in bob2. We totally had that game, but we definitely fudged up at important parts, which cost’ed us the game.

10) What do you think about the current e-sports scene?

Im not really sure of what this e-sport telefizzle is, but it has somewhat of a cool name 

11) What is your computer like? Headphones, mouse, mousepad? (specs)

Well I have a Dell pc (Ownage) 1.8ghz
512 SDRam
gf4 ti4200
Plantronics audio 90’s
Fatal1ty gaming pad aka fat pad
And the mx500
I got the fat pad because laws69 told me it was really good and it had a lot of space for movement. He was definitely correct…Im not here to advertise the fatpad but its %@#@%# big.

12) What are some of your hobbies?

I like long walks on the beach….

13) What are some other games do you look forward to playing?

Doom3, Halo for the pc, maybe even Quake 4

14) What is your average day like?

Wakeup around 1pm,eat,jump in pool,computer,work for a small amount of time ,eat,comp….repeat

15) What is your favorite food/drink?

Lobster owns all..i don’t care what anyone says
Ive been drinking a lot of water lately but I would have to say original MountainDew dents the facial region =x

16) If you could change one thing about Quakecon this year, what would it be?

One thing I would have to change is the lamers that threaten to beat up the 15 yrs old. People who say this must be real mature and really strong (I mean really strong, you just need to be) to even think about this. Haha I could picture it now….

17) What is your opinion on the whole qualifier bracket issue with Europeans? Do you think there was admin bias in favor of American teams?

I did read the post from one of those quakecon admins…it was his opinion or something like that…and I guess what he was saying was true. It would be nice for the euros to play the euros and the Americans play the Americans, maybe to get some of those known euro clans in,bahhhh I don’t know.

18) Which European teams, in your opinion, will be the toughest competition? Which American teams?

The toughest competition from the Europeans will be 4k and gmpo. Some of these guys can really shoot with a 100+ ping, just imagine a 10 ping.The tough American teams will be affliction and maybe taf. I really don’t think narf will be that good just because they have immortal and he thinks he is hot shizzie which he really isn’t . He knows exactly why I said that to 

19) What do you feel will make Team Fx the best team at Quakecon? How has your team prepared?

What would make us the best team is having the ‘Antidote Rage’. Somehow he sneaks by everyone and is able to plant TeH DyNoMiTe. None of our shoots are that bad, and they can easily take down 2-4 guys in one clip…..maybe heh

20) What is your response to players who have claimed that members of Fx have used hacks?

Hmm this is kind of a tough question, because I lanned with a lot of them, and no one didn’t have any hacks on. I know they definitely don’t hack in RtCW but those other games I have no idea, and I really don’t care. If there not hacking on the same team im on, in the same game, I really couldn’t give 2 cents.

21) What are your predictions for CAL Invite this season?

Well without my team being on the list I think its going to be
Narf
Wsw (don’t really like the guys, but they seem to have their shizzle together, they will prolly get 2nd or 3rd)
[taf] (Warmachine is a really messed up kid but taf will prolly get 2nd or 3rd in cal)

22) What future do you see for RTCW after Quakecon?

I really think RtCW is going to die after qcon but who knows. LET RTCW LIVE ON!!!!!!

23) Thanks for the interview. Do you have any shoutouts or final comments?

Thanks for the interview planet-rtcw and good luck to all the seeds in quakecon. O and also our irc has been moved to #fxgaming, peace


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Bring on the New Maps!

Posted by: c[_]`Wippuh (Tuesday, July 22, 2003)

Another season of cal/twl is about to end and a new one begin. Last season saw the inclusion of Frostbite and UFO into the rotations, bringing a lot of new and interesting gameplay.

A season or two back, TWL fooled with a 4 week preseason of custom maps. That was probably the most fun I've had in wolf in a month. The mappers were very interested in what we had to say and listened closely to those who returned intelligent feedback. Well, now TWL and CAL look at a new season and we don't have any suggestions for new maps.

So, lets get some ideas out there and see what people think. Perhaps NARF and LoT can be persuaded to include these maps in their rotation and we can play them. After all, who isn't tired of spawning on base, running to the lower halls to radar 2 and throwing a nade to catch withever asshat wants to leancamp that doorway.

I'll start up some ideas and we can go from there. Keep it civil people! If you love the 3-0-9 slugfests on Assault then just don't post here :P

MitchellDown - Played in the preseason mentioned, this has been released as a brand new seperate pk3! It eliminates the no plane/fog bug and includes water you can't see through! A small and simplistic map, it features a lot of 1v1 situations and wide open firefights!
http://www.rtcwfiles.com/file.info?ID=8601

Infamy - A map designed specifically for league play, this map was produced from a long list of requirements put forth from team players. I've heard nothing but good things about this one. I would highly rec' that it be checked out!
http://www.rtcwfiles.com/file.info?ID=14186

I know that there's been interest in Chateau with tweaked spawns and a map named Pacific which was made by a clanmate of the guy who made frostbite. If you know anything about those, chime in. If you know how Chateau, with 30 sec spawns for each team, could be achieved on the Speakeasy servers please say so :)

Maybe we can get 2 or 3 more maps selected for league play so we can make a te_mappack.pk3 and lessen the load of multiple downloads.

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fx vs NARF - Da_G and Vatican ze Interviews!

Posted by: c[_]`Wippuh (Tuesday, July 22, 2003)

So I was asked to do some interviews and write ups for the cal-i championship match. Thinking that I'd head to the gym tonight I instead changed my plans to do some hardcore researching and interviewing. Detered only by a stop by the grocery store to buy some food (hamburger meat and Miller High Life @ 5.99 for a 12, hello bachelor life), I came prepared to dish out the dirt on our two cal-i contestants! You'd have to be living on a bani server, or be named Zydoran, to not about these two powerhouses. From the very beginning of the season where Cal-I reformed it figured to be a great season. With 17 teams things looked strong.

At the end of the season apathy had run rampant due to BoB2/quakecon qualifiers and only 12 teams remained. At one end of the table was NARF. The undefeated champs for 2 seasons, they are the team everyone is gunning for. At the other end was the young upstarts in fx. One team playing an incredibly disciplined style and the other playing an aggressive, kill everything you can style. Both teams wanted that #1 spot that NARF has held for so long.

fx started the season with a tough 3-2 win over cK and then rolled the rest of the way. Powered by the larger than life player named Warrior, fx went through only dropping 1 round. that to Uprise in the playoffs on assault. This included a huge win over NARF on base. A 3-0 win no less. However no wtv was allowed, and no demos released. Hard to base a judgement off a game no one saw. Was NARF really playing or were they holding back for qcon? Was fx just that dominant? No one is sure.

Narf rolled seemingly through the regular season too. There were questions though as am (now cK) pressed them 2-3 both matches they met, and both TAF and CARN stole a round vs the beer boys. Not to mention the 0-3 loss to fx on base. Has NARF loss their touch? Have they gotten tired of wolf? Abuse lasted two seasons. Doctors lasted two seasons. No powerhouse team has even tried to go three seasons.

So Thursday night at 11est they meet up for the grand finale. A match watched world wide by the wolf community. Euros, forgoing baths yet again, will stay up late and see if NA has anything to offer up. NA players will shut that Euro smack down with the dreaded "who won last year?". We'll find out Thursday night who's gonna be the top rep out of NA, the hunted at qcon.

All I know is that those dirty Euros must be beat! Long live Freedom Fries!



NARF: Da_G tells it like it is.

(c[_]`Wippuh) Tell everyone who you are, what you do, how NARF started, all that good intro stuff.

(Da_G]NARF[) Well im this wierdo from southern california, some people call me "Gabe" some people call me "Da_G" and some people dont call me. I'm the leader of ]NARF[, have been for oh, since somewhere around the time Action Quake 2 came out (which was when I founded the clan of then 4 members). 2 of us had played serial-null-modem doom on LAN before playing Action Quake 2, but it was named something else at that time, heck if I can remember back that far :D


(c[_]`Wippuh) You guys are one of the few teams still around that played some of the original big boys. How do you think today's invite would stack up against The Doctors and Abuse of seasons past?

(Da_G]NARF[) I think the air surrounding the game is certainly very different these days... perhaps tied into the stagnation of strategy on the 'league maps' that have been played time in and out (and in, and out!) When Abuse and the Doctors were in the mix they were able to come up with alot of the strategies still used today.. Gun-wise, my memory isnt that great so I wouldnt be able to tell ya anything more than I probably got prawned by em :D


(c[_]`Wippuh) You guys have pretty much been the dominant team in wolf for a couple of seasons now. How do you prevent burnout and keep on going? How have you managed to stay successful for so long?

(Da_G]NARF[) Burnout.. well we've all taken vacations throughout the time we've been playing.. that helps :D And we do clan powwows every other weekend or so where we can get together around a bong and a blintz and discuss strategies and whatnotwhowhere.


(c[_]`Wippuh) Dante went to one of your lans and told me it was hella fun. Since you guys are so famous for being a lan team, describe the typical NARF lan.

(Da_G]NARF[) We tend to set our computers up first in the 'designated lan area' then make a trip to the store to grab some bieres and munchies and whatnot, have a session or two, then start playing when we get to the 3rd or 4th beer :D We tend to start around 7-9 PM and typically play well into the morning... the last person to fall asleep usually does so around 8 or 9 AM ;x
oh, and we dont only play RTCW... sometimes we rock other things like Command and Conquer Generals and that queermo gheyme CPMA... :D


(c[_]`Wippuh) Not trying to get any secrets here, but can you describe how you guys have been preparing for fx? What do you think of them? What will be the keys to the match?

(Da_G]NARF[) Mostly typical scrim schedule, trying some wierd things like flamers and dynamites and grenade juggling.. we might beat them in the show dept if we can get 2 panzers to collide at the pole from both doors in the flag room simultaneously celebrating our countries' independance while blowing anyone in there to shreds!
Or, we might not. You never know.


(c[_]`Wippuh) A lot is being made of the scene right now and all the smack talking going on. Demos being traded back and forth, players just bashing teams b/c of their age, etc... What do you make of all of this, and what do you think RtCW needs right now, if anything at all?

(Da_G]NARF[) RtCW needs... hmm, i wouldnt presume to know what RtCW needs right now, I took one too many bong hits earlier in preperation for scrimmaging.. "typical scrim schedule" as I said :D What I can say is that I'd prefer to keep out of all that hoopla.. im just here to have a good time :D


(c[_]`Wippuh) On the subject of trading demos and so forth, you guys release pretty much all of your demos. You let wolftv in on your matches and release your cfgs for people. What's the philosophy behind that?

(Da_G]NARF[) meh our strats are old and so is everyone elses.. ptooey. If someone comes up with something supar-l33t, im sure everyone would be using it soon enough anyway.. as far trading demos of scrims and whatnot goes, scrims are a different issue than matches and giving demos of that out is ghey =( not saying that anyone has or hasnt however :x


(c[_]`Wippuh) You've been around forever in the scene, and you've seen teams come and go. If you could give 3 pieces of advice to new teams on what to do in order to be successfull, what would they be?

(Da_G]NARF[) hmm advice.. practice as much as possible, but only within reason.. dont overdo it beyond the point of being able to go about your day-to-day tasks and feel stressed about things or you'll probably end up burning ourself out
get to know your teammates as well as possible and resolve any differences you may have between each other.. anything on your mind precluding your thoughts of the game is a detriment.
and have fun :D


(c[_]`Wippuh) You're on your way to qcon, with a possible #1 seed. What are your goals at qcon? Who are you looking forward to meeting? What kind of keg will you have (#1 question for the 'quickies' section)?

(Da_G]NARF[) Our goals are to kick ass and take names, trying not to get too faded the night before big matches (if we have a morning match omgorsh =( =( =( ) Looking forward to meeting everyone i've played online, if not to at least get a face to go with the name then to collect on some debts of beers people owe me (bwahahhaah) and slampound a few with the euro bastards :D
As far as the keg goes, that's top secret! it'll probably contain some sort of "strange brew", hold the hockey robots. But if anyone has any ideas how we can get it up to the hotel room without getting busted, im all ears :D If we cant we'll just have to bring up suitcases of biere.. BWAH!


(c[_]`Wippuh) Quickies, the quick questions sent in from IRC!

- (ryzer|HV) if you could have sex with one rtcw player who would it be!?

(Da_G]NARF[) ryzer.. if i could have sex with any rtcw player, it'd probably be kane! he's been our official leper for the longest time and a favorite little known mascot :D

- (arch) ask him what's the weirdest thing he's ever seen at a party

(Da_G]NARF[) arch.. the wierdest thing ive ever seen at a party was when there was a keg up the street from my house and it started raining, and everyone was determined to keep drinking... there were alot of girls there wearing heavy makeup and the rain made all their faces look like clowns.. they i dropped an acid blotter and started talking to the trees while running from the ugly clown-women.

- (a||rrc) what is his recommendation for an anti-dandruff shampoo?

(Da_G]NARF[) rrc, well, refer to 'there's something about mary'... that girl's got the right idea :p

- (Sir_Shaggy]NARF[) ask him about his dogbot...

(Da_G]NARF[) shaggy.. GAH! the dogbot. that's a good one. the other night we were scrimming and my cousin brought over his little purebred chiuahua, who was trying to get me to pick it up while we were scrimming.. anyway i kept ignoring it so it got more and more antsy, and headbutted my computer at full bore which crashed it making me invincible.. :x

- (opp-storm) there is a picture, in it da_g is (what looks like) getting his armpit licked by a teammate. Would you care to comment on this?

(Da_G]NARF[) storm.. that picture.. EH!!!! that's ed's fault.. we were drinking all day at a LAN.. what canI say :x oops scrims starting bye :D


(c[_]`Wippuh) Ok dokey, that's it. Any shoutouts, put them here :)

(Da_G]NARF[)





fx: Vatican tells us something.

(c[_]`Wippuh) Tell everyone who you are, what you do, how fx started, all that good intro stuff.

(fX|-Vatican) Well i'm Vatican, I came from LoT then joined Elbow$ for a few weeks then we got knocked out of the playoffs by HV. I thought slag and dan would be gone to sof2 for sure and I still wanted to play wolf. So I got wyld and impulse to come along with me and start the clan. We got some friends for Flatline and we merged with them. I'm the leader of fXgaming along with Bk2x for the wolf division.


(c[_]`Wippuh) You guys are a relatively new team formed from veteran players. With being such a new team, what's the biggest thing you've learn about the success of a team? What keeps you guys together?

(fX|-Vatican) Well winning is fun and all but we're all friends and close to the same age so we get along with each other very well
Success of a team comes from being friends with your teammates and knowing what they are gonna do and how they think.


(c[_]`Wippuh) fx has some very experienced players on your team. Guys have played on teams like 82nd, LoT, and d|s to name a few. How does that experience help you?

(fX|-Vatican) When you've played on big name teams in the big time competition, all your guys will know what it takes and what kind of people we're playing against.


(c[_]`Wippuh) Without a doubt you guys have a huge name on your team in WarrioR. Describe his contribution to the team, what does he bring? Also, with him being such a large name who do you think gets overlooked and why?

(fX|-Vatican) I'd have to say someone that gets overlooked is definately all of my guys. People know that they are good but they don't know how good they are. Impulse is one of the best guns in the game, wyldcard can do everything.
The two that get overlooked are wolve and antidote. They definately have some good guns and are very smart, people probably don't think they are any good.
Warrior brings his gun and knowledge of the game to my clan. He makes the strats most of the time.


(c[_]`Wippuh) Give me the goop (stfu HandofDeath), but can you describe how you guys have been preparing for NARF? What do you think of them? What will be the keys to the match?

(fX|-Vatican) Well as of now we have been scrimming hard because we know that NARF will be a tough team to beat.
Lynch is a very smart panzer and he'll bring his game.
The keys to our match will be how well our offense runs. If our offense is gelling then we have a great chance of beating NARF.
NARF all in all have all pros on their team, with da g, beaver, obliv, etc


(c[_]`Wippuh) NARF = lan to a lot of people, all their success is purely derived from the fact that Lynch gets a sneak peak for big pf shots. What do you think of that? Overrated, underrated?

(fX|-Vatican) Not too sure, I know that lynch is a very great panzer on the lan and off the lan. Sure looking at another persons monitor to see where they are is easy but you also have to have the knowledge and skill of how to shoot it. Panzering is a very tricky thing, it is definately very hard to be a good one like lynch is.


(c[_]`Wippuh) A lot is being made of the scene right now and all the smack talking going on. Demos being traded back and forth, players just bashing teams b/c of their age as I'm sure you know :(, etc... What do you make of all of this, and what do you think RtCW needs right now, if anything at all?

(fX|-Vatican) Well I know that we get picked on about our age and stuff, people tell us we have bedtimes, tucked in by mommy, etc. Doesn't hurt me or my team a bit, just funny to see them say that. As for demo trading, you'd have to talk to impulse on that. I wasn't even aware that we were handing out demos to other teams, if we were doing that. It only hurts us because that gives the other team that is watching it to see our positions and they'll know how to break it.
Every game has shit talk in it, cs, sof2, rtcw, you name it The way things look and what people are saying RTCW will die after qcon, so if anything maybe some more skilled teams that will bring top competition.


(c[_]`Wippuh) You guys look to be going into qcon with a very high seed and a team that the Euros praise. You've been destroying teams left and right. How do you keep your team level headed through all of that? Do you think all that talk can be bad?

(fX|-Vatican) We can get overconfident and talk all the talk and then not walk the walk and get raged by the shit talk.
That also gives us confidence maybe.


(c[_]`Wippuh) After Qcon, what's the plans for the team? RtCW? Other games?

(fX|-Vatican) I know there is talk that they want to be playing Halo, HL2, the new cs and stuff. I'm not sure if we'll be playing wolf but I will be and I'm probably going to be looking for a team to stay active while they are practicing for Qcon since I can't go because of school.


(c[_]`Wippuh) Quickies, the quick questions sent in from IRC!

- (Recon_Para) Ask Vatican what he feels the Catholic Church must do if it is to recover from the sex scandals that

have plagued them? Also, why the fuck do Catholics disavow the use of contraceptives, wtf is wrong with them?

(fX|-Vatican) Well being the head of the church I must consult God with this question as I have been since it first started.

- (operative) are they going to try a whole new way about thinking of a defense or stick to there normal defense, and trusting it will work time after time (you know people watch demos)

(fX|-Vatican) No we're using a brand new D, few flamers here and there, venoms, sten, the works.

- ([502nd]Col-Mustard) what was it like handing a loss to a team that hasnt been beaten in 3 seasons?

(fX|-Vatican) Well there were some server disputes at the start of the match where most of them pinged a solid 50 where we had no one below 60. But I don't want to get cocky but NARF brought a good game and was missing a few key starters in Lynch but Mark filled in for him and did a great job imo.
We were also missing Nightwolve.

- (Royal_Ally|TB) ask him if he's ever heard of teamburque and its legendary captains.

(fX|-Vatican) Yeah that's oldschool Amish.
Is rudy bega playing for them? I like his little picture with a santa claus or something.

- (c[_]`Wippuh) Best Alabama joke you've heard told to Antidote? Damn rednecks!

(fX|-Vatican) Well I'm from North Carolina and me and anti are both southerners.
When I try to crack down on anti he always thinks of something good and puts me down harder than I tried to put him down, that's what he does to everybody, you can't make fun of him.

([_]`Wippuh) Ok dokey, that's it. Any shoutouts, put them here :)

(fX|-Vatican) First off, a shoutout to kappa the alien, go spectator kappa, you aren't playing.
Second a shoutout to all my starters, warrior, wyld, impulse, anti, reaper who's filling in for wolve and wolve who's on vacation.
And also to the rest of the dudes in fXgaming.
Well shoutout to all the people in my old clans, the guys at lot, warmachine parcher dan slag tp, the elbow guys the

guys in redemption and the rest of the wolf community as well
shoutout to vexed who goes to my school and is in team damage
And of course, the friendly board guest over at Planetwolfenstein.

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-x- vs dh - warch1ld and reddevil ze Interviews!

Posted by: c[_]`Wippuh (Tuesday, July 22, 2003)

With the three teir format coming back to cal, there's been a very slack happy cal-i season. However, the same can't be said for main. Nothing but praise has been heard for the level of play that has been consistantly held there all season. We're now down to the finals and digital heresy (formerly Minions) face off vs Team Exodus. The top seeds in their respective divisions will put on their flannels and duke it out on mp_ice at 10est on Thursday night. TSN will be shoutcasting and WTV should be present too!

Thursday night looks to be wolfer's dream come true. Cal-m finals at 10, then Cal-i finals after that, all with ze axis goat, Sabo, and the one and only, Warwitch! Hot damn!

I went into the write up about NARF and fx knowing a good bit about their high profile teams. Cal-m posed a different problem. I didn't know much about either team. So I did some looking around and here's what I now know.

.dh is the old Minions. They've just come off a very big win over Rewind, the #1 team in Europe, in the quakecon qualifiers. After that dh went on to finish off Wat? on assault and secure themselves a spot at qcon. Being the
team that a lot of buzz is about, they've cruised through the regular season with a perfect record. Scares came at the hands of kinetic, arise, and deathtouch in 3-2 wins, but the rest were 3-0 romps, including a mid July matchup vs BYE on ice. A lot of people associate .dh with HCC as some former players make up their present lineup. I'm not sure who is who, but some big names do play on the team. Guys like LuckyB, RedDevil, Kuniva and Havoc pick up the slack that they surely endure with the inclusion of Yogi. dh looks to be the cal-m team poised to take the leap to the cal-i level of play.

Team Exodus is an old school team that has seen several different lineups. I really only knew them as the home of the MIDGET ABUSE!!!, but Maximal went to shack up with the damn dirty Amish and now the lineup consists of names like ABomB, fragile, Warch1ld, and Super Luigi! Exodus went 7-1 during the regular season. The lone loss coming on mp_coinflip to the Immortals. They had impressive wins along the way, including two over Trinity, the team that almost (should have?) knocked off Affliction in the qcon quali's. -x- didn't face off vs anyone during the regualar season on ice, but did eliminate UwF in the quakecon quali's before they met up with the British Powerhouse of 4k. A team notorious for their assault prowess.

A lot of questions look to be answered in this matchup Thursday night. Is dh all that they're suppose to be? What will -x- bring to the table on a map they haven't played a strong opponent on yet? A lot of pressure appears
to be on dh to dominate this match and prove that the win vs rewind wasn't a ping fluke. A loss here could damage their rep big time, with their seeding at qcon possibly taking a huge dive. Will dh just pull it off like the
Lakers vs the Nets, or will a 'hey, we have nothing to lose' attitude propel -x- to the cal-m championship?

.dh interview

(c[_]`Wippuh) Tell everyone who you are, what you do, how .dh started, all that good intro stuff.

(dh|RedDevil) Da RedDevil. Started playing when test2 came out and moved into full. First clan was in Europe called *GiB* then moved onto muppet labs and Lemmings. Joined the US scene right b4 QCon and met up with slaG who was in XoS at the time. He recruited me and when me and him started carrying the team constantly we decided to form Elbows with D@niel. blah blah blah elbow story is old then I made MiN with some 3rdtime HCC guys and We proceeded to merge with dh in euro for lots of reasons...

(c[_]`Wippuh) You guys are really known for your huge win over rewind. How did that win feel, what are the good/bad ramifications of that win?

(dh|RedDevil) The win felt good. About 2 weeks of preperation for it paid off. The win gave us confidence and that helped in the next round vs wat?.
Bad ramificcations.... All of Europe hating us. :/

(c[_]`Wippuh) What are your goals for qcon? Who are you guys excited to meet? How do you prepare for matches in a lan environment like that?

(dh|RedDevil) Oh man... Lets see... Goals: Stay drunk as long as possible without missing match time. Do our best in the tourney. We are very excited to crack brews with anyone and everyone we met along the way bc you never know when you will get that chance again. But slaG, D@N, next2u, fX, and most importantly my own clan... I am sure the guys have their own favs to meet but thats the overall crew we all in dh have in common...
Preparing for a LAN is like impossible unless u prac on a LAN... :/ Me and JT (Havoc) been lanning once in a while so we have an idea of what its gonna be like sitting next to the whole clan playing. But all in all we are just going to be scrimming like always.

(c[_]`Wippuh) You recently merged with .dh from the UK (Dusustin is THE sexy!), what do you hope to gain from that relationship? What do you plan to bring to it?

(dh|RedDevil) Man... We have allready gained a lot from the UK division. Lots of their strats are completely different then ours and they share all kinds of input when we scrim. Usually like 2-3 of em are speccing and watching us, giving tips. They played with all the Euro teams so they always tell us what to expect when we go to QCon and what to look out for. So we got an advantage allready. BUT most importantly we are bringing the dh
We sent out apps when the clan was just Minions and ATI was happy to sponsor us but bc we were not an established name they declined on that reason alone. So, we figure having the dh name and its long history as a clan would help us get sponsors. Plus the UK guys are funny as hell on voice. :)
We are going to maximize the exposure for the dh name in the US as they are doing the same in the UK/Europe. This way companies that sponsor us will get exposure around the world as apposed to just the US or UK/Europe.

(c[_]`Wippuh) Team exodus. What do you know about them and what will the keys for dh to win the match?

(dh|RedDevil) Lets see... We dont know much about exodus except that their rostor is nice... They got some good shots. We also heard that they like panzers... like 3-4 of em. :p I think execution of strat will win this one. We are prepared for whatever they throw at us... but spawn camping with 6 panzers is gonna be a problem.... :p

(c[_]`Wippuh) A lot is made of individual players lately. Guys like Warrior and Lynch really being match changers for a team. Do you think all the hoopla surrounding just 1 player like that can be bad? What kind of signal does this send out to new teams and new players?

(dh|RedDevil) hehe... Its not bad to praise one players abilities above the rest. But on my team we cant really say... if we did it would be Lucky but then again we had lots of matches where it was cky who took down 3 in a row or Havoc or Kuniva who sniped 6-7 in a row..
I dont think new teams and new players should pay attention to that. Working on teamwork is most important. Yeah its gonna help having an awesome shot so u can destroy a rush on ur own but then again if that was the case then play
the game 1v6.

(c[_]`Wippuh) Lately I'm hearing more and more smack talk. Not stuff or fun, but actual mud being slung left and right. What do you guys think of that? What do you think RtCW needs, if anything at all?

(dh|RedDevil) HAHA... Funny u should ask me that... Especially since when I was in elbows me and u never got along. I think its funny and I personally love to read it... but I *try* to stay out of it now... Not my thing anymore.
I think RTCW needs more competition... and I guess telling someone they blow will make em get stronger so that they show em up... maybe shit talking could be put to good use. :p

(c[_]`Wippuh) Say that you had the chance to take all of the guys out to eat with your mother at qcon. Who's the one teammate you would ditch and why?

(dh|RedDevil) umm would have to be... LuckyB If u come to QCon u will see what I am talking about. Dude has a mohawk
scarry as hell Wouldnt want my mom meeting him

(c[_]`Wippuh) What are the team's plans for after qcon?

(dh|RedDevil) Thats up in the air atm. The plan is to stay RTCW and play for the CyberX tourney but it looks shady atm. Plus we are like the only clan signed up for the NYC LAN so it also looks like not enough clans are interested. We are looking into new games and with Halo being released in Sept, or so I heard, that may be the next game for us since the guys are really into it on XBox.

(c[_]`Wippuh) Irc quickies

- (Zydoran[FH]) ask them if bears have pubes, and if they do, where does the hair end and the pubes start

(dh|RedDevil) oh man... yogi warned me. How do u even answer that? "You are an idiot." - Triumph

- (smokeSteeL) Has Kuniva ever assaulted someone during a CAL Match

(dh|RedDevil) umm Kunivas little escapade with the twinkie snatcher cost us a night of scrims. But no he NEVER abused anyone during a CAL Match.

- (@opp-Natas) why is yogi so FIRN

(dh|RedDevil) I believe he is FIRN bc he didnt get enough attention by Momma bear. Someone ate his cheerios I dont know.

- (nyX-Sharp) It has been known for exodus to run 1 or 2, maybe even 3 panzers in matches, how do you plan to overcome a panzer fest if one occurs

(dh|RedDevil) Gonna whine first... saying something like "Try using 5." Then we are gonna bind the "Eblow Pads removed" bind by every member and proceed to rage in a orderly fashion. But seriously if they do its just gonna be a diff strat adjustment. We got something for em.

- (dR|SykotyK_) ask em if reddevil yells on vent sometimes

(dh|RedDevil) haha yeah I yell all the time I need to keep ppl in check...
I learned from D@N who made LuckyB quit elbows bc he yelled ALOT. But its effective. :)

(c[_]`Wippuh) Shoutouts? Put em here!

(dh|RedDevil) hmm ALL of dh... we are a big family. Kinetic, Arise, Elbows (u have no idea), Frontline, wSw, fX.

.
.
.

-x- interview

(c[_]`Wippuh) Tell everyone who you are, what you do, how -x- started, all that good intro stuff.

(-x-warch1ld) I’m warch1ld, the leetest h4x0r in rtcw, and leader of Team Sexodus. Basically exodus started roughly a year ago when talent from several different clans merged together under the leadership of sexy essential. Several came from overdrive, xpk, mwk, and so on. After a year of breakups and reformations, here we are now.

(c[_]`Wippuh) Out of the 4 teams in the finals, you guys are the only ones who didn't qualify for qcon. What did you learn from that loss vs 4k?

(-x-Cracker) “Well, we learned a few things: (1) Never underestimate European teams. (2) Ping won't save your ass if you don't properly execute your strat. (3) Beer before liquor, never been sicker. (4) We played in a qualifying match?”

(c[_]`Wippuh) From my pov, this match has a lot of pressure stacked on top of dh to win, and to do so convincingly. How are you guys approaching it?

(-x-warch1ld) Same way we pretty much do every week, scrim hard and tweak our strat until we are somewhat satisfied with the results.

(c[_]`Wippuh) So tell me, what do you guys know about dh, what do you have to do to win this match?

(-x-warch1ld) We know that this match is going to be our toughest of the season. Dh is a very strong team, that has only improved throughout the season. To win were going to have to play our best, not make any noobish mistakes, and we’ve got to be able to adapt to anything they throw at us.

(c[_]`Wippuh) You've attained a lot of success this season. What 3 things would you tell a new team to do in order to achieve a high level of play?

(-x-warch1ld) To achieve a high level of success, you’ve got to want it very bad. That means you will practice, practice, and practice. Also, never give up. We were certainly the underdog quite a bit this season, but we pulled through and here we are at the finals. You have to stay focused on your goal to achieve success.

(c[_]`Wippuh) A lot is being made of the scene right now and all the smack talking going on. Demos being traded back and forth, players just bashing teams b/c of their age as I'm sure you know :(, etc... What do you make of all of this, and what do you think RtCW needs right now, if anything at all?

(-x-warch1ld) Honestly to me, all the bashing and so forth is ridiculous. This sort of thing only plagues the community, and sends a bad impression to new players. I think that rtcw needs to get over the trash talking and move on, the community would be so much better that way.

(c[_]`Wippuh) Piece together your uber team from the characteristics of the team's out there right now. Aim, fun, teamwork, etc...

(-x-warch1ld) It’s really a combination of aim, teamwork, and enjoyment you get out of the game. To me, the most important aspect is the fun you have playing with people you’ve known for some time now.

(c[_]`Wippuh) What do you hope to see happen in the RtCW scene in the future?

(-x-warch1ld) Hopefully rtcw will live on, I’d hate to see such a good game die off. As for exodus, we are done after this season, but dst is making clan bonar. So GL to all the teams and players that stick around after this season.

(c[_]`Wippuh) This is a question for Cracker. Many are curious about last year's qcon. It seems that there was a wetness in Amish DeviantDuck's backseat after your ride to Hooters. Would you care to tell us what that was?

(-x-Cracker) Well, I would like to take this opportunity to say that DeviantDuck is a really cool guy and he's very, very nice. However, my mother always told me not to lie. Yes, I did ride in the backseat. Yes, DeviantDuck drives like a goddamn lunatic. Yes, I was fearing for my life. Did I piss/vomit/cream/spit/or otherwise transfer fluid on the backseat? Hell no. If there was a wetness left on the backseat, I certainly wasn't aware of it until well after QuakeCon in some PlanetWolfenstein post by Gigolo. Maybe DeviantDuck and CrackFiend had an accident with their man-love and decided to blame it on me... who knows. But if you ask me (which you did), it's all just a bunch of h4x and lies.

(c[_]`Wippuh) Irc quickies

- (nyX-Sharp) ask em if sharp owns them :D

(-x-warch1ld) yes, on a daily basis

- (Amish_Maximal) exodus: Which one of you has the tightest abs?

(-x-warch1ld) besides me, that would be essential

- (es|Phaze) Which Olsen twin do you prefer, Marky-Kate or Ashley

(-x-warch1ldr) this is a tough one… both =] Jawohl

(c[_]`Wippuh) Shoutouts? Put em here!

(-x-warch1ld) First off, I want to personally thank Redrum for hosting our vent, and being so cool

with us. We couldn’t have made is this far w/o them.
As for individual shoutouts…
Fragile - sharp and decka =o
Dstskillz - love papa and clan bonar
Cracker - beer, titties, and Crackle The Ugly Crackwhore
Essential - Essential would like to shoutout to vienna sausage and all the fine single ladies out there
Warch1ld – apoc, essential, seric, viking, the Mario brothers, anarchist(my stalker), agentxzors,

rap1er, and everyone who I left out =P

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Qcon Seeding Predictions

Posted by: c[_]`Wippuh (Friday, July 25, 2003)

While listening to and watching demos of the matches last night, I couldn't help but think how these two cal matches would have an effect on qcon. Most of the week we listened to how fx and .dh were gonna go on to victories, with almost everyone I talked to saying that dh would win 3-0 while fx would escape with a close 3-2 or 3-1 victory. However the opposite was the case in both matches last night. exodus dominated dh in convincing fashion and NARF snuck off with their 3rd straight championship.

With a fx win, the qcon seedings would be very interesting to see. With NARF winning, they almost assuredly secure the #1 seed. Last year, Abuse got the #2 seed behind iN. With 3 straight seasons of having the top cal championship in their grasp, NARF has shown the consistancy and dominance that is needed for the #1 seed. There's no other team out there that can argue for their spot. Maybe iN can, but I've got the feeling that this year NA will get the #1 seed.

With the way fx came in and pushed NARF to the very limit, a #3 seed looks very possible. A win might have won a #2 seed, but a #3 seed is none to shabby and will take the pressure off of them and put it on NARF in the next few weeks while everyone prepares for qcon. If anyone can handle the pressure, it would probably be NARF. A few cases of beer and a gravity bong are a sure cure for any expectations placed on them.

The cal-m match threw some things in the air. WolfTV was full, but I listened on TsN and heard the commentary afterwards, things looked very poor for dh. This hurts them in their quest for a higher seed. With their loss to exodus, dh might have secured a bottom quarter of the bracket seed. A loss to exodus seems to negate the momentum gained from defeating Rewind and place them beneath 4k, whom beat exodus in the online qualifiers. This could be the proper motivation needed for dh. Now they can kick the bandwagon jumpers off and scrim again with the fury that got them the win over Rewind.

The biggest loser in all of this? Affliction. With no participation in cal and a rocky performance vs Trinity on assault, -a- has dropped from a possible 1 seed to anywhere from 5-9. The only team to challenge NARF the last 3 seasons, Affliction was poised to take the lead for NA RtCW and take a top spot at qcon. With the break off from dT and the loss of DimmaK, things have changed drastically. A lower bracket means tougher competition earlier in the tournament, and certainly tougher opponents on assault later on in their run. With only top 4 getting money, the move to dismiss cal this season looks to be proving costly.

These are just my opinions however, and I'm sure yours are different. Beneath are the brackets from last year, and what I see as the brackets for this year. Feel free to tear it apart and tell me why I'm a moron. Make sure if you do that, you tell everyone your 16 team seeding and why you disagree with me.

Qcon 2002 Seedings.
01. iN
02. Abuse
03. ocr
04. drs
05. mTw
06. P
07. cK
08. wSw
09. -a-
10. D|S
11. BoH
12. Wat?
13. Amish
14. DiY
15. HfH
16. TF

The_Wippuh's predicted 2003 Seedings.
01. NARF
02. iN
03. fx
04. ocr
05. wSw
06. gamepoint
07. -a-
08. 4k
09. cK
10. TAF
11. f|
12. awo
13. HV
14. amnesia
15. dh
16. lastchance

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Qcon Round One Predictions

Posted by: c[_]`Wippuh (Wednesday, July 30, 2003)

I found a post from Pissclams on pw.com about round 1 predictions. No doubt that a quality post like that will quickly be closed by the forum's mods or just disappear under the weight of "This n00b filed a complaint on me in ET" threads. So, I'm gonna steal Pissclam's predictions, and then post my own too. Lets hear what you think in the comments!

(1)Effect vs (16)Amnesia
PC: Effect is a sure pick to advance to the next round in the Winner's Bracket.
Winner: Effect

Wipp: fx on ice is scary. Amnesia showed some mean pf teamwork on assault vs Amish, but that won't matter here. If fx shows, this will be a win for them.
Winner: Effect

(8)4k vs (9)wSw
PC: No offense to my homies in wSw but 4k dented my cranium in the 2nd round of qualifiers, they made a believer out of me. Should be interesting to see how Laws compliments the wSw roster as he's proven himself to be a factor in big matches.
Winner: 4k

Wipp: There's a line I've drawn with my gaming. I can only go about 3 hours of scrims, but prefer 2. wSw prefers 5!!! If they keep their insane scrim schedule, they pull off a win here.
Winner: wSw

(12)dh vs (5)iN
PC: iN is the better team, dh may upset but I don't see it happening at the LAN.
Winner: iN

Wipp: dh scrimmed like madmen for Rewind and won 3-0 on ice. They then went and got properly destroyed by Exodus in the cal-m finals. I think iN's superior aim will overrun dh.
Winner: iN

(13)Lastchance vs (4)NARF
PC: For anyone who didn't believe NARF still had what it takes before last Thursday can't question that now.
Winner: NARF

Wipp: lc beat both one and snaps in quali's and may be getting overlooked, but I think facing off vs NARF on a map that they've shown to be extremely strong at is going to be an uphill battle.
Winner: NARF

(3)GMPO vs (14)Frontline
PC: Depending on how Frontline handles the LAN environment they may be able to pull off the upset, but after seeing GMPO rage in the pingfukd qualifiers, I don't see it happening.
Winner: GMPO

Wipp: This will be the must see match of round 1 at qcon. With Valdez, Rambo, Sunstyle and I think Sephy, frontline boasts a HUGE lineup of pure gunners. If they play strong with their strats they could be a potential sleeper team. They've toyed with some teams on ice making matches their own personal pub. I'm not sure who shows up but I notice that D@niel hasn't been flaming on boards in a long while, could he be buckling down with the rest of the frontline team?
Winner: Frontline

(6)HV vs (11)Affliction
PC: Will the time off from TWL/CAL league help or hurt Affliction? Seemed to hurt them against Trinity, however does HV have what it takes to defend that #6 seed?
Winner: Affliction

Wipp: This match will tell us a lot about Affliction. I don't know what happened, but I've been told that rok doesn't play for them anymore and that will be big. HV gets a big boost from Chaoslord, but I'm not sure how active they've been over the last few weeks. If Brian gets past the service door with the docs, it's all over.
Winner: Affliction

(10)cK vs (7)Ocrana
PC: cK has proven that they can play at a very high level when they want to peel chrome, it could be argued that Ocrana's seed was a little on the generous side.
Winner: cK

Wipp: I think that everyone is overlooking ocr. They're a very strong and consistant team from everything I've heard. cK is another one of those "We scrim all night long" teams. I think cK pulls it out here if they continue their scrim schedule.
Winner: cK

(15)Amish vs (2)TAF
PC: I'm not sure which Amish will be playing in this match, with the right line up they can hold their own with a very talented TAF roster. Could they pull another upset run at QCON?
Winner: Amish

Wipp: Putting Assault at the end of the tourney is only a blessing for the Amish as it's by far their worst map. If the Amish stop making fun of each other long enough on their ventrilo and scrim some, they will give TAF all they can handle. If you go to qcon, attend this match and watch Seed. The best pf that doesn't get any attention. But since it's against my instinct to pick the Amish to win anything...
Winner: TAF

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GLOW vs Comm - Dirty and Sureshot ze Interviews!

Posted by: c[_]`Wippuh (Tuesday, August 5, 2003)

Here you go, the cal-o championship interviews from Sureshot and Dirty. Fun stuff!

Commission

(c[_]`Wippuh) Give us the rundown on The Commission, where did you guys come from, all that good stuff.

(TheCom-SuReSh0t) we started as a split off of Toilet Paper. 5 members Enforcer, Sureshot,Silencer,Simple, and Xecutionr. We wanted a clan where people had a say in all matters. So we named the clan TheCommission. The heads of the 5 Families. We recruited strong and hard , but always followed our guide lines.
at one time we had 7 members on our team that were leaders of other clans. We like to play smart. Use our heads not our guns to win matches.


(c[_]`Wippuh) A lot has been made of Illshot and what he brings to Comm, tell me about all of the Mildorfs and what they bring to the team.

(TheCom-SuReSh0t) The Mildorfs give calm, collectiveness, and Determination to our Family


(c[_]`Wippuh) In preparing for a big match like this, what is the process you guys go through? Scrims? Demos? Practices?

(TheCom-SuReSh0t) Of course, We scrim hard. But we worry about working as a team in scrims/matches more than we worry about opponents. sometimes we just have internal scrims with are own people so loose scrims help out alot to


(c[_]`Wippuh) You guys have been around a long time it seems, yet have never been this deep into the playoffs, what is the difference this season?

(TheCom-SuReSh0t) We have doubled our old roster giving people more free time with the real life stuff. This has made it more fun than in the past seasons. And in addition to adding the Mildorf Triplets, we picked Envy and Reloaded back-up. They were always Commish but just had to find their way home.
The extra time in the Leagues help too


(c[_]`Wippuh) Give us the highlights of this cal-o season for the team.

(TheCom-SuReSh0t) We started season 5 out with the intend not to drop 1 round to anyone. We decided this after seeing everyones prediction of the teams that would win cal-o. The list did not have TheCommission on it. This struck us oddly. We new we could make the playoffs like we did every other year. But we wanted to strive for more.
One off the big matches for us was against [WS]. Alot of people picked them to beat us. That motivated us to work/scrim harder. We won 3-0.
The next Big one for was of course the SI match. I think one or three people picked us to win. After winning the SI match we were only worried about TH. TH is a team built like us and that scared us more than SI or WS combined. They have excellent teamwork. Teamwork wins matches hands down. The two matches we had with TH in cal, were the bloodiest. Kudos to TH


(c[_]`Wippuh) You're playing GLOW for the championship, what do you know about them and what do you expect?

(TheCom-SuReSh0t) We expect them to come out swinging their tassles. LOL. Really, what we know of them is that they are a class act. GLOW is 11-0 in CAL, that says it all.


(c[_]`Wippuh) Base has been broken down to a defense that is almost universal. From NARF to the newest cal-o team, everyone runs the exact same thing. Why do you think there's such a stigma against trying new things in terms of strats?

(TheCom-SuReSh0t) Hip has given us the key to life. KISS. Keep it Simple Stupid. We will just work as a team and watch each others backs. People don't like change in real life so it travel straight to "game life"


(c[_]`Wippuh) At the least you're going to be invited to play in cal-m next season. What are the various challenges you think this will present the team?

(TheCom-SuReSh0t) the biggest challenge is us. Can we scrim/prepare as much as needed for main. We like the laid back approach. TheCommish will not disband like so many other teams that move to main. It's not in our blood to do that.
but main means alot more time and dedication. Hats off to all teams that are in main and invite


(c[_]`Wippuh) Give us your pick to win qcon and why.

(TheCom-SuReSh0t) I would like to see Amish win it all. but my first pick was FX.


(c[_]`Wippuh) Shoutouts

(TheCom-SuReSh0t) shout out to all of TP, and Deagle of LQD. aka Agentred. thanks for being there for us. peace out

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GLOW

(c[_]`Wippuh) Give us the info on GLOW, where did you guys come from, all the good intro info!

(GLOW|DirTy) Well, almost all of us from one life. When the competition started dying on the onelife ladder most of my clanmates from my old team, 01, started joining stopwatch teams. Dima joined c4c, stoned joined nyx, and we had just merged with the janitors. Some of them went to really good teams because they had played stopwatch before.
So me and spanish Red grabbed all the leftover oltl noobs and made glow ;)


(c[_]`Wippuh) GLOW was picked in the preseason to really go this far, how did you go into every match knowing that every team was bringing their absolute best at you?

(GLOW|DirTy) Nervous We faced some great old and new teams this season in cal open, gg's everyone! This being our second season we were able to not work as much on strats and spend our scrim time really getting them down.


(c[_]`Wippuh) I know that way back in the beginning it was Clan Crayola that really got me interested in team play. Just the way they had so much fun and were still competitive in q2 was something I admired. Is there anyone like that for GLOW?

(GLOW|DirTy) Most of us were in one life clans prior to GLOW. 01, rac, Extras, Janitors is where we started our teamplay. The oltl community was a great place to start for us all because when you're dead you just chat. So we all got to know eachother that way. The Quarks Challenge (the original oltl server) was a really great learning ground where people would give advice and such
Special thanks to gnomish, lambo, and the other [sm] folks for getting so many of us out of our training bras. I think [sm] was really my greatest inspiration for joining a team and playing in a clan. They flung lots of poo.
In glow we really wanted to be rediculously funny mostly as a reaction to all the tough named clans (you know who you are :o). We used pink alot and all named ourselves after GLOW girls.


(c[_]`Wippuh) The (.Y.) tag is quite an eyecatcher, give us your top 5 clan tags.

(GLOW|DirTy) Yours is cool. I like tags that draw something the best. Team dot from australia has a cool one, it's a dot. The new commsion tag is pretty cool, very dns style. But none others really stand out, sorry teams... time to get creative.


(c[_]`Wippuh) Give us the highlights of this cal-o season for the team.

(GLOW|DirTy) It's the tk's that stand out. I would have to say our best match this season was TV, they are definately the most improved team over the 2 seasons glow has been together. Kudos TV. I think our match with .com will definately be our toughest of the season.


(c[_]`Wippuh) What do you know about the Commission, and how are you preparing for them?

(GLOW|DirTy) The .com isn't one of our regular scrim partners, so we don't know much about their playing style. We haven't done anything different for this match, if it aint broke ...
We are just scrimming our usual schedule and hoping sl1k doesn't tk us all at either radar. I think it's better for us if we stay focused on what we can control (our team) and not get too heady about big matches like this one.


(c[_]`Wippuh) The match will be on Base. Who is the guy you need to have a strong game for you to be successful on this map?

(GLOW|DirTy) Definately our panzer, SpanishRed. We also on offense really put alot of faith in our medics, I just hope they don't feel too rambo tomorrow.


(c[_]`Wippuh) At the least you're going to be invited to play in cal-m next season. What are the various challenges you think this will present the team?

(GLOW|DirTy) Well, honestly I think we need to be prepared to lose. So far in league we've only lost 2 games out of 2 seasons in twl and one in cal. We have started scrimming tougher teams and I think that will be key to GLOW stepping our game to be competitors in main. Well, that and flashing our virtual boobs.


(c[_]`Wippuh) Give us your pick to win qcon and why.

(GLOW|DirTy) I think affliction probably has the best guns, but NARF has mad teamwork. I think if NARF has the proper level of narcotics they will pull it off, but if any of their starting lineup gets busted, affliction will have zero tolerance. (Lame pun)


(c[_]`Wippuh) Shoutouts

(GLOW|DirTy) Definate shoutouts to Da_G and Spike from narf, thanks for all your help. All our regular scrim partners, especially opp. I really enjoy this community and I really appreciate everyone that brings something positive to it. Love from GLOW


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Overall Impressions of Qcon

Posted by: c[_]`Wippuh (Monday, August 18, 2003)

With qcon over, there's a lot to look forward to and look back upon. The event was a big success and extremely entertaining to attend. If there's ever a chance that you can make it, do it. So here goes a lil' article with my experience and impressions at qcon. Hopefully this will shed some light on how the event was run, the stuff liked/disliked, and all that jazz.

The event was held at Adam's Mark. Super nice place, with plenty of room. Gigantic and laid out well, unlike the streets of Dallas! The BYOC computer room was huge and filled out. Getting from one point to another was easy, and there was a large food court only a short skywalk trip away. The biggest thing that was brought to mind upon seeing everything was that games generated more revenue last year than people going to the movies. It was apparent that the sponsors realized that they were marketing to a dedicated group, as they gave away anything and everything all the time! The first day, you didn't have to spend nearly any money. Free pizza was given away to everyone attending, and Bawls was practically forced on you! Not sure why Bawls doesn't mass distribute their drink more. It's not bad and definitely keeps you awake. Too bad the hotel's bar was a joke. $3.25 for a 10 ounce Bud Light, in a bottle that would make a tiny drink umbrella blush it was so girlie!

There were two games that were the buzz of Qcon. The obvious one was Doom3. If ut2k3 flopped b/c of graphics > game play, then Doom3 is going to bomb. However, we all know it won't, and that's because it's focused heavily on the single player portion. A mysterious lil' monkey gave a sneak peak at the game and their impressions on it. It's pretty, really pretty. That's about it though. The rest of the game is extremely slow; imagine playing wolf at a speed slower than walk, the ENTIRE time. There's no revolution in game play, as it's the standard find monster, shoot monster, type game. At such a slow speed, it got boring in a relatively short time. It will sell, and it will be fun to play through one time, but the game holds little to no replay value at all. Also, buy a new computer, this thing is a resource hog. Played on a TOP of the line computer at 800x600, with AA on, left the game with a slight choppiness. Further down the line, id will probably spend more time optimizing the game. Let’s hope that they get it where everyone won't need insane computer specs.

The second game, which came as a slight surprise, is Call of Duty. Made by the guys who developed MoH, this is a fun looking game. The single player was the only portion of the game on display. Written from a hybrid of the q3/rtcw engine, the game comes off as a kill em up fast paced single player game. You have hundreds of soldiers on maps at once, all working together and defending their spots. Extremely intense looking SP. This is a for sure buy, and maybe the multiplayer will be promising. There was little to no talk about the MP, and the developers were very closed mouth about it. The only thing that anyone was pretty sure of was that it wouldn't have classes like RtCW.

From the sponsor’s area, it's time to talk about the event from the view of a spectator extremely interested in Wolf. Half the time it was kick ass, the other half you would have wanted to /kill then and there. There was a spectator room set up with 3 large plasma screens. When matches would start, the gtv broadcast of it would be shown on the screens. This was probably the best part of the entire event. Alcohol wasn't prohibited, so everyone brought down their beer and liquor and cheered on their favored teams. The only bad part was that at 4pm everyday they booted everyone out of the room so they could spend 4 hours setting it up for a dinner? How hard is it to give the people interested in the tournaments a spectator room that they can watch all the matches in? Biggest disappointment in the entire week. From there you only had one choice, watch from the tournament room. If you like sardines and trying to view a game from 4 to 10 feet from the monitor, then you might have enjoyed this. Not to mention watching progamers toy with their refresh rates for 45 minutes before they played a 5 minute round. Simply not fun. Wolftv eventually made it to the BYOC, but wasn't widely known at all. During one match, Kith checked the number of specs, only to find that he was alone in viewing from the BYOC. Good thing that you could watch people playing DDR on the big screens in the BYOC though.

From the frustration that the spectating portion of the event brought on, it was nothing compared to the apparent frustration that the players had to go through. With new processors and new motherboards, the players got high fps. Watching the quality strafe jumpers use that to their advantage was incredible. However, it was a crapshoot if everything would work right. Not sure what the exact problem was, but every match seemed to have a person or two having major issues with equipment. This lead to a huge delay and no one ever knowing when matches were to be played. From the info gathered, there might have been a patch applied to the computer images. This in turn just wrecked more havoc on different people. Keyboards dying in the middle of matches and numerous complaints about mice being flakey on the mobo's were heard. I remember watching the cK vs Amish match on beach in the spec room. Redbird's headset would not work with ventrilo. They eventually replaced his computer. Still wouldn't work. They tried his headset in his teammate's computer and it was perfectly fine. Eventually he played the entire match without being on vent. It only took 45 minutes for him to get hosed by the supposed latest and greatest in technology. So disappointing to see so many players complaining about similar situations. Fo3twinny talked about how smooth the scheduling and so forth went last year. Why was it so horrible this year?

There was no mention of anything or anyone related to Xcast until some guy came into the BYOC on Saturday night at 2am to broadcast some q3 stuff to the BYOC (got boo'd off stage so people could listen to the music and not have their voices over the sound system). There was no way that Xcast could have stepped up and filled the Axis boots of WarWitch, but on RtCW's biggest stage they had a chance to leave a good impression and begin building their company. A giant step backwards.

Speaking of the BYOC, what a let down in terms of game play. There were a few RtCW pubs, but they were all Vanilla Wolf. There was no event driven OSP servers, so if anyone wanted to play OSP, you had to download the OSP .83a patch and run a server off of your box. With the connection in that place (sub 7Kb/sec), that was such a huge pain. And yes, the legends of the smell are true. Why some people don't bring fresh clothes to wear or even attempt to put on deodorant is beyond reasoning. There were some kids there that were simply disgusting, and obviously made no attempt at bathing. So gross.

The most worthwhile portion of the event, and the thing that would bring me back personally, is the people. Meeting everyone was great. Putting faces with names and talking with them was fun. Everyone was cool. Even the Affliction guys, who I pick against all the time, were polite. To see them getting ragged on by so many people is pathetic. Why be rude to the only team that saved face for NA? The rivalry between them and wSw is fine, but others seem to be hopping on a bandwagon that not all that many people are riding on. The only disappointments in terms of no shows were PissClams and the OPP gang. The Euros lived up to their high standards by pimping into Dallas with their Capri pants on and drinking Bacardi silver :o Could you pay 20k to any of the NA teams to do that :P The people who were not playing, but still made it were fun also. Good to see so many people attending just for the Wolfenstein portion of the event. Anyone who bought beer most likely gave the majority of it away, but got much more back in return. That is the reason you should attend qcon if you ever can in the future. The games, the sponsors, and everything else takes a backseat to meeting everyone. Good times.

Maybe the American teams learned something from the way Infensus played. Without a doubt, they should have. Great aim is nothing without great teamwork, and a plan for every map. They were the class of qcon2k3, and put themselves on a level that only the Drs can speak about. Teams like Frontline and wSw provide a great basis for NA at CyberX, if it happens for RtCW. When those teams go back and tweak their strats to incorporate the tidbits learned from the Euro side of things and strengthen their team play with more time together, they could very well do some major damage. Looks like Wolf still has some life in it can't wait to see what happens next.

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The Cons of Quakecon

Posted by: c[_]`Wippuh (Monday, August 18, 2003)

Submitted by -x-Cracker

QuakeCon 2003 was my 2nd QuakeCon to attend (I went last year as well), and I've got a few little problems I ran into. I just want to clear things up so that people who are planning to go for the first time next year aren't disappointed.

1) Lack of diversity in BYOC games:
Unless you go with a large group of people you know who are likely to agree to playing the same game, expect to play a lot of Quake 3. Do not, I repeat DO NOT go with expectations of playing RTCW. It's a dead game there. There were supposed to be dedicated servers running, but those didn't get up until Friday night (none were OSP). At any given time in the BYOC, there was an average of ZERO people playing RTCW. I played a few rounds of 5v5 for maybe an hour. Other than that it was playing by myself in a server, waiting/hoping for other people to join. Friday night was the only time I saw more than 14 people playing RTCW, when Da_G]NARF[ set up an osp server with a respawn time of 1 sec (yay) for a few hours. Strangely enough, it seemed that all of these RTCW community players (not competing) decided to come all the way to Dallas just to watch WolfTV in the spectator room. Can't you do that from home?

2) Smelly euros? More like smelly Americans:
Ok, so it was a little weird seeing Infensus stroll into QuakeCon with dyed spiked blonde hair and some heteroquestionable capri pants (they looked like true gaymers to me, but I hear they were pretty cool guys). But even after all the trashtalking about "Euros shouldn't come to qcon cuz they smell bad" blah blah blah... you know who stunk the most? All the little retard Quakers who think they don't need to shower after a 4 hour car ride and 4 days of gaming. I swear to god I caught some whiffs of B.O. that could have knocked out a horse. When you check into the BYOC for the first time, they hand you a name-tag, an Athlon 64 hat, and a ratpad mousepad... I think they should add a stick of RightGuard to the list.

3) Random Complaints:
I know all those volunteers try their best to make things work for everyone, but I can still bitch if I want. The two switches that my whole table (~60 computers) was plugged into had to be replaced after hours of complaining that they didn't work. Many people had issues with losing power to entire tables. Free vendor stuff is there for the taking, but if you want an actual QuakeCon shirt, you either have to be in the right place at the right time or tell the ugly girl that runs the place that you think her bowel movements smell like bakery-fresh cinnamon rolls (i.e. do a lot of sucking up). My biggest complaint is that they didn't give out the Doom III multiplayer tickets on a daily basis. They just kept giving them out for timeslots in the coming days as opposed to only giving out a day's worth at the beginning of each day. By around 5 o'clock on Friday, all of the Doom III tickets had been given out and I didn't get to play. Another thing that drove me crazy was all the damn BYOC announcements. I don't know about anyone else, but I don't like to play games with "ATTTTTTENTION BYOC..." ringing in my ears every five minutes. They let some absolute retards in control of the microphone a few times and I almost went postal. A few times I remember they actually played some music in the BYOC. The rest of the time it was the audio from fucking Dance Dance Revolution eating away at my soul as a crowd of over-caffeinated retards gathered around the projector screen to pound their feet to shitty music.

In the end I managed to have fun. I really just wanted to tell the community not to go with expectations of LANing RTCW. Throw a LAN in your town if you want that. I went this year hoping the RTCW scene would be better than it was last year, and I was wrong.

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The Flaws in the CyberX System

Posted by: c[_]`Wippuh (Monday, September 1, 2003)

There's no doubt that many people have been clamoring for a new tournament for Wolfenstein. The competitive community is great and continously sees high play acheived at the top levels. However, there's a lot of obvious flaws with the CyberX Tournament. Problems that will prevent them from reaching the targeted sixty-four team mark.

Initially when the tournament was first announced, it sounded like a great idea. $3000 for first place! Such a prize would help keep teams interested in the game, and bring back the fanfare associated with tournaments such as BoB and Qcon qualifiers. Upon closer inspection of the prize money, the doubt began to rise, and it began with the inclusion of the $20 per player fee.

$20 per person to enter the tournament is seemingly a fair price. BoB, BoB2, and Qcon didn't ask for such a fee, but CyberX is a business and is working on a business model. When you figure that sixty-four, six man teams at $20 a player comes out to equal $7680 in total player fees, you would believe that all of the money would be put back into the prizes. That's not how it works. The top four teams recieve $3000, $1000, $750, and $500. THat's $5250 worth of prize money being divided out between the winners. $2430 goes straight into the pocket of CyberX.

One is not foolish enough to assume that CyberX is not a business and not trying to make a profit off of such a situation, but pocketing $2430 (more if teams sign more than six players to their roster) with such a large amount of sponsors leaves a bad taste. Where does that money go? Since Speakeasy is not affliated with the tournament, it would appear that servers for a six week tournament could cost a lot of money, but SCI is a sponsor providing the servers. The admins are all TWL volunteers. The only apparent cost for the online qualifiers is the site being used to organize the tournament. Up until now, teamwarfare.com has been the main source of information for such, and it's a non-profit, suplemented by gamers site.

For the average gamer, it is a hobby, sometime to ease the stress of school, work, etc... There is nothing like logging onto a server with your friends and besting you opponent. In turn it is almost enough to make you want to give up when you face off vs the top teams. CyberX is asking the average gamer to put down $20 to be beaten soundly by these teams. As of now, there are thirteen teams in Cal-I. These are the cream of the crop teams in NA right now that are competiting. There's not a single Open team, and you can include the majority of Main teams also, that can hang with these teams. There's thirteen Cal-I teams and only four spots for money. For a Cal-O team what incentive is there for them to put down $120 to play once they see four teams of that level signed up? They know that money will go to what they see as some sixteen year old with an inflated ego who's vocabulary extends to "downgrade" and "bow". There's no incentive at all for them to play. There's no ideals of progaming for them. There's no thoughts of playing for money. To these players, the ones who truly keep Wolfenstein alive, the game is played for fun. CyberX is in direct opposition to those ideals. Once they see four teams they know they can't beat signed up, there's little chance that they will. THere may be a few "for the good of the community" teams around. Most teams however would rather save that $20 so they can keep their server up, or buy a case of beer. To many of the younger players, and even college students, $20 can go a long way, especially when they can get their two game fix each week in CAL and TWL, and not pay $20. There is simply no incentive present for them.

When you look at the arguments made for CyberX and their current setup, you see a lot of pointing at CPL. You cannot compare the two. The CPL is balanced upon thousands of crate camping kiddies who play a game that even a tweaked cfg is prettier than. When the CPL throws a tournament and charges a fee for playing, there is a huge market for them to pull teams from. When CyberX and TWL get together and charge a fee to play a Wolfenstein tournament, the pool is much smaller. IF you currently count every team in Cal you come with a number around ninety. CyberX is asking that more than two-thirds of the competitive community throw down their money that will ultimately go in CYberX and four invite teams' pockets? To quote the brillant Bill Lumbergh, "ummm yeah...".

The top sixteen teams going to Orlando is also being bantered about as a reason to join cXg's online qualifiers. Yes, the top sixteen NA teams get to attend Orlando and battle it out for the $22,000 first prize. How many teams dropped from Qcon's lineup? How feasible is it for a team from the midwest to travel to Orlando? If they cannot place in the top four of the NA qualifiers, what makes them think that spending hundreds of dollars to travel to Florida to play sponsored teams like Infensus will help their chances? Again, the incentive is not there.

In the end, CyberX is hitting on a niche community with a high level of gameplay at the top and trying to apply a business model used on much bigger scales. The solution is not easily found, but there seems to be several ways they could go. Put the enrollment fee back into the tournament. If the top twenty spots offered a type of prize, you would see attendence increase. Drop the huge prizes and sign up fee and offer smaller, more manageable prizes. BoB's gamecubes and other prizes were much smaller than CyberX's prize list, and the response for those tournaments was huge. Surely such money generated from the sponsors could provide these prizes and almost assuredly get them more exposure than they will get on the current course.

We've all been listening since the end of BoB on how the Wolfenstein community was dead. Always, new teams form and old teams come back to the game they love. With or without CyberX, the scene will continue to stay on course. Many see at least two or three more seasons of WolfTV and TsN goodness coming at us as we battle it out on the maps. CyberX may be the last big lan for Wolf, but at the current pace they're setting it's easy to see how they won't be the last big lan, simply the last lan. For now, one can only hope that Qcon 2004 will bring Wolfenstein back, as it continues to be the bar set for Wolfenstein competition.

Viva la Wolfenstein!

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Interview: Hollywood

Posted by: c[_]`Wippuh (Friday, September 5, 2003)

Tell everyone who you are, your background and all that good stuff

Name is Rob Fisher, I been playing RTCW since the beta days. First team I joined was teamtip, when that team folded I joined, deathtouch, around April 2002. In September 2002 I took command over deathtouch and turned them into one of the powerhouse teams in rtcw North America. I took unknown players that no one wanted and turned them into all-stars.

First cal season, (Cal Season #3), I commanded my team to the finals and lost 3-2 vs. NARF on mp_Ice. Shortly after I managed to win the 1v1 ogg tournament and my team and I came through and beat Animosity, Narf, and cK for the ogg 6v6 championship. During that cal season we never lost one round during the season and lost to NARF 3-1 on mp_beach in the finals. As battle of the beach II started I parted from deathtouch and took my team under Affliction. We won battle of the beach II over NARF in one of the most lopsided victories in rtcw history, 3-0. During Qcon2k3 we were the only non-sponsored team to reach the top 4 and were the highest placing North American team at the event.

Qcon, you placed 3rd in your first trip to a big lan. What was the experience like, do you think you would do things differently in the future, and did Brian's experience help at all?

Brian’s experience from quakecon2k2 helped a lot. This was my first big ‘lan event’. I remember during quakecon2k2, there was a lot of hype with tsn, and wtv. I figured the same thing would have happened this year but it didn’t seem that way when I got home. To be honest with you one week after the Trinity game in the online qualifiers the team and I almost agreed to stop playing rtcw. One of our best shots left our team for some personal reasons and we didn’t play/scrim with the same momentum. With 35 days left till quakecon2k3 we continued to play on with our backup player, Time-bomb, and suddenly just two week left until the main event, we were winning most of our scrims.

During this time of scrimming it was funny how most of the teams you faced in scrims used the same exact offensive strategies I came up with. I guess having all of your strats posted by same lamer on www.elbowrage.com/strats helps people run more coordinated offenses together as a team. We went to quakecon, playing with one backup player and having all of our strats posted on a web site and still managed to get third. We did this with basic fundamentals of the game and team work. No one predicted us to beat High Voltage the first round, and certainly not get past Frontline or GMPO in round two. In some ways I’m happy the way we performed at quakecon this year, but in other ways I knew we could win it. It seems like the way we got into quakecon is the way we got out. (Opio his alt-enter on his keyboard during the online qualifiers and decka’s keyboard locked up during the most crucial offensive push vs. Infensus, it most likely cost our team 12 Grand)

The European vs NA dynamic. What was it that allowed the European teams to come out on top of the NA teams, and how did Affliction avoid falling to that?


Map rotation. The two months before quakecon the NA teams were scrimming mad crazy to prepare for each other and the European teams. The problem was, many teams saw the quakecon seedings and only prepared on two maps, Ice and Beach. The North American teams upset 4Kings and GMPO (round one on Ice). 4Kings/GMPO got their revenge on Village, officially knocking NA out of the loser’s bracket. North American didn’t balance their time and prepare for all of the maps in this tournament. Too many times I saw NA teams scrim on Ice for maybe 2/3 weeks straight, which was a problem for my team, Affliction, because it was very hard finding a team to play another map besides ice. We really had no practice on Base to solidify our strats. At quakecon we beat HV, Frontline and TAF and were in the winner’s bracket finals.

We had to play Infensus on Base and we knew absolutely nothing about them. I’m sure they knew a lot about us the day of the game, right evilkiller? Verse Infensus, my offense was in ‘shock and awe mode’. We set a really good time in the first round and were able to hold. iN came back, set a low time and we were unable to beat it. In round 3 we set a 2:58 (or something) and weren’t able to hold Infensus off. Two of my players made two crucial errors. One made an mental error and got us both panzered in the conjunction room and the other TKed our PF. Infensus was up 2-1 now and our defense stepped up and held them 7:01. During the last round with about 4 minutes left, decka’s (our engineer) keyboard locked up when he would have planted radar1 (about the same likely hood of opio getting the plant on the tower during our trinity game). Leahmen made his return to take back the mistake he made during our qualifier game and we lost.

People flame us for challenging the rule of decka’s keyboard lockup. People don’t understand that if any other team were in our position, with 20 Grand on the line, they would challenge too. People will say, “he had no chance of a plant” and then people will see “he would have planted that shit.” Either way, like the trinity game, its all about ‘what ifs’. About two hours later we had the round replayed and got our asses handed to us. We didn’t play with the same momentum as the other 3 rounds on offense. The shock and awe campaign was over.

Tired and exhausted our team had to face gmpo on base. We were just out of steam. Gmpo just had one of the most remarkable comebacks vs. 4kings to beat them, and we just had one of the most agonizing loses in my life. Frustrated, burnt out, every reason why people stop playing wolf, is what I felt. I couldn’t command my team through a victory, but we continued to play anyways.

When we played GMPO we didn’t feel like moving our keyboards, mice and reinstalling our drivers on the other machines so we just decided to play right across from them. The first round, gmpo’s offense set around 4:12. Around the 2 minute mark we were on offense and we severely damaged most of their defense. Brian, yelled “Push Tunnel” and forgot to realize that GMPO could here us. During that time one of the GMPO players said to Ramzi, “watch tunnel”. And then all of a sudden Ramzi gets a 3 man pf kill. Either way it was our fault for not moving our computer equipment and taking time to setup on the other side of the room. During this time I was fed up with some of my players and their attitudes. The main thing that took us threw the tournament was gone (our teamwork).

Infensus won quakecon with teamwork. They have one of the best medic pushes I have ever seen, reminded me a little of the doctors. I have much respect for both Infensus and gmpo. They played extremely well and focused on each match, that is why they finished #1, #2.

What was up with the stuffed animals?

The stuffed animals were pretty much a joke idea to mock fatality. Nothing more, nothing less. But nails big ugly dog was a huge distraction when I played.

A lot of people, myself included big time, thought that Affliction taking time off from CAL last season would hurt your teamwork and drive. Maybe take a night off b/c you didn't have a match the next day, etc... How did you avoid situations like that? What was the thinking when you made the move initially?

I personally wanted to play in CAL. My team on the other hand didn’t want anything to do with it. Getting burnt from wolf was the main reason not to join cal. We figured cal would end around the same time quakecon would start. I figured what’s the point of playing CAL if we were to get to the championship game again and lose to NARF in the finals. Some other reasons were to focus solely on quakecon. Make new strats just for quakecon and make sure they don’t get on wtv. Once again, scrimming a team with slag playing under an alias of team “clan weed” still gets your demos on cached!

Beaver and Elusion beef up your roster for CAL and the upcoming CyberX. They come from teams that were traditionally viewed as rivals in NARF and wSw. How do you hope to see them contribute to the team and who do you see as your main competition this season in CAL?

Anytime this team goes into battle we know that there isn’t a team that can beat us. The only way we will lose a game is if we beat ourselves. TK’s, mental errors, and fundamental mistakes are the only reason we will lose a game. The other team will never out play us, nor will out strat us.

I’ve had a chance to have Beaver and elusion on my team for about a week. Elusion brings one of the best medic games that the game can bring. Having elusion and Brian on defense as two medics really solidifies our defense. It seems that having them two as medics feels like having a total of four medics on the team. Elusion has a very good gun and is very smart. I always knew Beaver was a great player, but since he’s been on my team I personally don’t think there is a better gun in this game. I’ve never seen a player gun down people from across the map and still manage to gib before their medic can revive. He is defiantly one of the most underrated guns in this game.

I got one of our old school players back, Rokrok aka “chrome”. I stole him from the peewee game ET and got him suited up to peel chrome. Our starting roster consists of BeavermanA, Brian, chrome, elusion, hollywood, and nail. (We lost decka and nard, two of the best players in wolfenstein, good luck to them and their new team.)

The problem I thought I would have before we recruited two players, (beaver and elusion) and getting the third out of the old wheel chair (chrome), was getting all of our players on the same page. Everyone knows how much aim can take you and I know how much teamwork can take you (3rd place at qcon). I figured I would try an experiment and take great players with great skill/aim and get them all gelled together. So far after our first week of scrimming I’m amazed by the way the team is quickly coming together. Ventrilo has been very professional with very little or no arguing. It helps not having Ernie in your vent channel too.

Teams generally have maps that they view as their strengths. wSw had beach, HV was seen as a strong Assault team. Affliction seems to have several strong maps. What do teams need to be successful on all the maps? What is the biggest pitfall that you see teams foolishly committing that keeps them from being great all around?

The main thing that teams struggle with is changing their shit up. Constantly I see teams keep trying to make a defense work when in doubt it never will. I remember back in the old day I was on team deathtouch. Back when Samstein led the crew, we would get to a climax point where we would no longer improve. We would be able to handle good teams but weren’t able to beat the top teams (ck, -a-, dr., a|). We would scrim 3-5 hours a night and still wouldn’t improve. What teams need to do is focus more on strats.

A lot of time scrimming for several hours a night won’t improve your game if you don’t come up with solid strats. I personally don’t like to pay a lot of attention to defense. Too many teams spend too much time focusing on defense. I like to develop more offensive strategies then defensive. I think of ways to penetrate defenses like I would like to penetrate slag’s vagina. If you know where the other team is positioned you can use Mortars, pfs and airstrikes to make get them out of position and see where you can penetrate their defense the best. Once you start to think like a strategist on offense you will be able to figure out the best defense for that map. Also, I see too many heroes or anyone who only care about ratios. Ratios mean nothing in this game.

Following that up, people have always seen Assault as a map that gives Affliction problems. How do you view that image and if true why is it? What about that map doesn't play to your strengths and how do plan on correcting that?

I’ve had a lot of theories that I’ve tried on assault. Assault seems to be one of my weakest maps of coming up with a decent offense and defense. Before the trinity game in the online qualifiers it seemed that we really solidified our game on that map. We worked hard and thought we found our perfect strats on defense for that map. We barely lost any scrims that week for preparing for trinity. During the trinity game we just played bad. We didn’t execute our offensive strats the way we wanted and are defense seemed to be scattering the whole game. Assault didn’t use to fit our playing strength as a team because no one on my old roster liked the map. Assault is a map where our strat game needs to work the most on for the upcoming cal season and cxg tournament.

As a member of the community for so long, what do see as the highest point for Wolfenstein so far, and of course, the lowest point.

The highest point in the community was no doubt bob1. So many teams signed up for that tournament and seemed like the community was massive compared to now. Tsn made its first appearance during this stage and never looked back. They really made the community come together.

The lowest points in the community were after both Quakcons. In my opinion if wolf wants to survive the game needs an update patch. The update patch must include osp so the beginner wolfenstein player can join an osp server. It seems a lot of players play wolfenstein but play them on either a “main or shrub mode” server. It seems that no “new” players are coming into our community because of osp.

The level of play that you compete at is so high. A lot of the teams you're playing scrims for 3 to 5 hours a night, yet the casual competitive team can't do that. With CAL-O teams like that, give us your advice on what they should focus on to become better.

Get 6 players on the same page. Play with people you enjoy play with. Watch demos of top teams to get an idea of good strats. Get the people that complain all the time off your team, like Ernie. You need a good leader to call out stuff and always be vocal on ventrilo. Every player needs to be vocal on voice. Remember to gib anything you kill. Think of it this way, if all 6 people kill one enemy each push and gib that one player, everyone has done their job.

At quakecon, many players forgot about using their basic fundamentals, (gibbing/reviving/calling shit out). So many teams didn’t gib what they killed and missed so many revives with the needle and this cost them the round or even the match.

A lot of people watch -a- demos and try to copy the strats that your team carries out. That's got to be pretty flattering. Who do you watch and keep an eye on in terms of strats? Is there a team/player out there that you think should get more props for how they do things?

I use to get a lot of my theories of strats from the doctors. George was a brilliant man when it came to strats. I know a lot of people watch my demos or copy our strats from scrims. But every time I make an offense or defense strat I always think of ways to beat it at the same time. Just in case we tend to see something down the road :). Sometimes it’s very annoying to see people copy your strats, and sometimes it’s actually funny. If they are running your strat you know what to do to beat it relatively quickly.

The thing I have a problem with is teams sending other teams demos of scrims. My team stopped playing teams in scrims because they were trading demos around of our scrims to other team we were going to play that Thursday. People say, “Well what’s the difference if they know your strat or not, it doesn’t make a difference when all teams do the same thing” my answer to that is not every team does the same thing. Usually a lot of tie rounds happen in the first rounds of a game because teams are feeling each other out. If one team knows what the other team is doing before they actually are playing the game that one team will have a huge advantage.

I think a lot of players out there that don’t get a lot of credit for what they do. I remember illumina used to always do the same thing over and over. Hold the same position day in and day out and never tried to be a hero. He always tried his best at holding his spot, never complained and never asked to try out a new position like PF or be sent where the action is. Teams need reliable players like illumina who never complain where you put them on the map.

What's next for you?

My biggest concern is to improve the teamwork portion of my team. We will be playing in this upcoming cal-invite season and possibly twl. Our main focus is 1st place and 1st place only at cyberxgames. For me I still need to concentrate on school, work and see my girlfriend in any spare time I have left. It isn’t an easy task to accomplish :(. We will be scrimming only at night from 11 pm est to 1 am est Sunday to Wednesday and always looking for weekly scrims.

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Four King's ZaF interview

Posted by: selfie (Sunday, September 7, 2003)

Salvat1on: Well, I'm not going to say a lot about Quakecon. You can't keep looking back with so many great cups, leagues, and LAN tournaments coming up. For those who are interested in your Quakecon stories, I will just refer to www.rtcwnation.com where you made you excellent write-ups.

I'm going to start with a couple of questions about the European RTCW scene after Quakecon. The gap between the top teams (iN, GMPO, 4K, rewind) and the subtop teams such as dh, omg, snaps, eye, amnesia, ard, unicon, death embrace, last chance, instant defeat, etc. seems to be decreasing. In the US it's exactly the other way round, teams like Affliction, Rewind.US and Redemption are miles ahead of their opponents, and it doesn't seem likely they will be catched up with anytime soon. Do you have an explanation for this? Have the top Euro teams decreased in skill, or are the other teams really stepping it up? And if so, why now? Why not earlier, what was holding them back?

[4K-ZaF]: The eu has a much deeper talent pool than in the us. We have alot of good players that are willing to make the step up to being great players. I wouldnt quite put the uk teams in the same bracket as amnesia, DE or snaps. European teams will only get better and we will be alot better prepared come cxg. Those teams have always been good (amnesia / de / snaps) but the qcon qualifier was on high pings and its always gonna be hard when you face a descent team. Hopefully for cxg there will be eu qualifiers and we can get all of our best teams their.

In the usa its very interesting at the moment. -a- will be shit hot come cyber x. beaverman and elusion really makes their lineup look formidable. They just chewed up 2 top na players, maybe that has something to do with the gap :)


Salvat1on: With such a competitive scene one big problem seems to be presenting itself. Every team will have to play "Match Of The Week"s every week, always facing a very solid and almost equally skilled opponent. Because it will be so hard to ease on the scrimming, won't the risk of burned-out players and teams be huge?

[4K-ZaF]: Yes the risk of burn out is very large. Especially when real life keeps poking its ugly head at you :) But the big tourneys and chance to travel the world and play american teams keeps me going. Match of the week every week is good. It keeps you on your toes and practising hard. I feel in some ways, the european teams have it alot better. We have about 10 brilliant teams to prac against, while in america you seem to have about 2 or 3 left. American teams are very organised though, so im sure they will be on top form come cxg.


Salvat1on: Focusing on the UK scene now, with Battle Of Britain 2 ahead, and later on the Intel Masters II LAN tournament. The finest British teams battling it out for that #1 UK spot. This spot has been strongly dominated by Four Kings for ages now, or so it appears. Do you see this changing, with the newcomers uniCon, the returning veterans of Digital Heresy, and the excellent people with so much potential in OMG!, recently picking up Cream?

[4K-ZaF]: Well as im now in 4K ofcourse i dont see that changing! hehehe. You can do anything if you try. But im confident that if we keep practising hard no uk team can catch up with us. We put in alot of time into wolf and we have a massive wealth of experiance. 5 of us having been in huge quakecon games, and the 6th (ninj) is an amazing player who will only go from strength to strength the more he plays with us.

The other teams are playing catch up, but you can only catch up if you prac more than the other team. We are making sure nobody does. If we begin to underestimate the uk teams and lay off our practise's then yes the #1 position can slip.


Salvat1on: How do you see the addition of yourself and Ninjai making up for Zommy, Explicit and Nataku going inactive?

[4K-ZaF]: Well zommy is a great leader and explicit is a awesome LT. I feel that i bring some experiance from gol / gmpo to 4K that will help. Ninj brings alot of enthusiasm to the team. Hes eager and willing to learn. We need time to gel yet though, ive been living at home for 3 weeks so our pracs have been a bit short :) I move out in 7 days though so we are hardcore practising from then. Im a full time LT and Ninj is a fulltime medic so we slotted in perfectly.

With Zommy going inactive we lose a natural leader in the team, but once i move out im sure i can help there and we have the UK team captain yilider running the show aswell. So in the short term its a loss as we need time to gel, but in the long term i only see great things :D

Why I left gmpo? I had a great time with them all in america so im not gonna air any dirty laundry in public. I hope to meet them at future events though. They are the most talented team out their, if they can get a professional attitude towards practises they will be amazing. I left for 4k because these guys have been friends for about a year. I have a great laugh with them and i need a bit more fun in my rtcw along with the competative side. I hope thats enough :)


Salvat1on: Looking further in the future, what are your goals concerning CyberXGames? How do you see the European teams matching up against Affliction, recently picking up BeavermanA and Elusion, according to some to be the best dueller and the best medic in the game? And Rewind.US, as most Europeans regarded fX as the biggest threat to European victory, prior to Quakecon?

[4K-ZaF]: haha rumoured to be the best medic and best dueler in the game. Thats the funniest shit ive ever read. I dont know what to think of the usa teams. GMPO played F ,HV, ck, Taf and -a- . Id say F had the best aim, the rest didnt really have much aim. the -a- game was disapointingly easy. So im sort of lost as to what to think about the american scene. I know we will be practising ice a bit more. The ice games were real close, i dont think we need to do to much work on it though.
Rewind.us will be good. Rewind.eu will without a doubt be helping them out with what the eu teams are up to. So they will be a threat. -a- , after adding 2 good players, will also be a big threat. Both continents would have learned alot from quakecon. We know the usa scene doesnt totally suck and the american teams learned how to play village and base. :D


Salvat1on: Ok that was it, thanks for your time. Any last shout-outs?

[4K-ZaF]: Shout outs to 4K (www.four-kings.com) and ma team. Si , Chris, Rob, Dan and Mike. A big hello to Zommy for being a great laff in germany and at qcon. Lots of love to kappa coz he rocks and HV who are the biggest and friendliest guys ive ever met. Hello to GMPO.qcon team. Soz i had to go but see you at the next one (*kiss* Blaze, zemme, Refuse, Verac, and maybe ramzi :P).
I could keep going, liiike Hi to warrior (say hi to your sister for me, we had a nice chat on the elevator, cant belive she’s 17!!) was nice prank calling you nightwolve and ummm hi civ... -_-

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A Fireside Chat With The_Wippuh...

Posted by: pissclams (Thursday, September 11, 2003)

Recently I was thinking about who in the NA community hadn’t been interviewed by our most famous interviewer, The_Wippuh, and I realized that he hadn’t been interviewed and thought it would be interesting for people to get to know him a little better, the following is my best attempt at being Barbara Walters. Personally, I’d like to thank Wippuh for all he’s done in helping move our community in the right direction, enjoy the interview…


Pissclams: Ok, first of all tell us a bit about yourself.

c[_]`Wippuh: My name is The_Wippuh, I just turned 26 and live in Birmingham, AL. Wolfenstein is my first real game that I've played online. I use to work with Landshark and he wouldn't shut up about how cool this demo was, so I looked at it and then realized that my best friend who moved in 10th grade was an artist on it, so I gave it a try.

Pissclams: How long have you been into gaming, computers, etc?

c[_]`Wippuh: Not long at all. I went to school for Industrial Design (product design) and graduated in 2000. One of the teachers was an ex grad who drove down every Friday to teach some photoshop/flash classes. I wanted to learn something different than just drawing and building models, so I enrolled in his class. Later I saw an internship open for his company in Birmingham, which did small websites and stuff. I went there and worked the entire summer 9-5 earning nothing. I had to work nights at Papa John's to support my concert habit, but it turned out for the best as they hired me before I even graduated. While everyone in my class was stressing over where to work the last quarter of school, I played basketball and drank beer all day.

c[_]`Wippuh: Been a Nintendo fan my entire life, loved Final Fantasy and all that!

Pissclams: Explain your nickname

c[_]`Wippuh: Hehe. Well, I took Japanese my 10th grade year of high school. I knew no one in there, and it was only like an 8 person class. There was this one kid who noticed I liked to draw one day and started talking to me. We became really good friends and use to sit in the class all the time and draw in our workbooks. Really demented stuff. We'd have these awful pictures of stereotypical japanese people in everyday situations and we'd throw in goofy stuff like turtles attacking them and so forth. Anyway, we created a character. He was a British soccer player who got knocked on the head and forgot who he was. He stuck a bunch of chicken feathers in his head, and fought crime with his soccerball and his sidekick. That was Wippuh! When trying to come up with a username years later in college for various things, I decided to use the name since it was unique and I didn't have to attach a 39172 to the end of it :P

I attached the "The" to it after watching The Rock on tv one day and thinking he was absolutely hilarious. The_Wippuh had a nice ring to it, so I went with it.

The guy who really came up with Wippuh was ]CC[-Turquoise of Clan Crayola (http://uvtek.net/crayola/crayolahistory.html), he's one of the artists who worked on Wolfenstein. I know that he eventually took the book he drew in all the time and chopped it in half with a samurai sword he had, haha. One of our friends still has it somewhere. His run through quake2 with Crayola Clan is one of the things that made me want to start gaming online one day.

Pissclams: What does The_Wippuh’s typical weekend consist of?

c[_]`Wippuh: Heh, well, I start off at work and leave around 6:00. I'm usually pretty tired so I go to the store, buy a bunch of beer and then go home and take a nap. When I wake up I play ‘till the wee hours with all the other guys of OS. Either FNM with the Distress guys or wc3 so that Kith can have someone to clear Expansions for him. On Saturday I wake up around 2 or 3 and then proceed to go over to my friend's place. We usually end up drinking till dawn (not bragging :/). If it's football season it's even worse b/c we all like the rivals :o Alabama vs Auburn, Mich vs OSU, Browns vs Steelers, etc....
Sunday = recovery, cleaning up, and then scrims.

Pissclams: Some people think that Olive Garden is a sub par Italian restaurant, I hear you feel otherwise, tell us your thoughts on the OG, and have you ever been arrested in the OG parking lot with nothing on and holding binoculars?

c[_]`Wippuh: I plead the 5th, my only statement on that subject is OG girl > *

Pissclams: lol

Pissclams: What's the history behind OS?

c[_]`Wippuh: Landshark and I eventually joined Pro after we got tired of pubbing. It was good and bad. I met a lot of great people in Pro. Guys like Abi, NurseEdna, Rystan, Sharp, Del3, Skynx, RRC, etc... We had a LOT of talent, including LadyLuck who I still to this day think is one of the most dominating pf's to ever play the game.

However, we didn't have good leadership. The idea for a strat was "defend radar 1". A lot of us argued continiously about that and begged for strats that had spots and definition, but no "don't wanna confine players", so we got beat up on a lot in Invite and got a rep as a subpar team even though we stuck it out and didn't bail like a bunch of other teams did. Playing teams like Abuse, Paradigm, III, that will humble you.

So eventually my computer got stolen, I couldn't play and our leader vanished. But we got to start putting in strats as the team became more democratic. The first scrim we really ever ran a "real" strat we went 3-1-1 with wSw the match before they had the classic with Abuse I think. I was really proud that Pro did that and thought we had a bright future. Then Sceadeau came back, got all pissy over various things and literally took all the talent and formed Nameless. They started running the strats he so wouldn't run with Pro and they got good press in Invite. Pro got hosed Tommy.

I was dating a girl at the time and I quit Pro to spend more time with her. After that Pro sorta stopped playing and Abi-Normal and Landshark started OS. They asked me to join, as a fun thing, no tons of scrims all that. So I did and we joined the 5v5 ladder with Abi, LS, Recon_Para, Kith, and myself.

We set up a kind of wishlist of players we wanted, and eventually we got them all! Orbyte, Doppy, Jamandy, and Skynx from Pro :) We added Roguer and LTP later on. The only two guys we didn't really know that we grabbed were Hellfox and Dante, and we made good choices on them. The mistakes in recruiting in Pro has made us really watch people in OS, and it's paid off as no one has ever hopped away. We recruit off of friendship and how you mesh with the existing members. Ratio and skill means very little. We're extremely proud of that. We might not be the best, but we have a ton of fun and we don't rotate our roster like so many others.

Pissclams: So your first clan experience was in the original Invite?

c[_]`Wippuh: yuppers

Pissclams: What is the future plans for OS in terms of RtCW? What games do you guys plan on playing in the near future?

c[_]`Wippuh: We plan to play Wolf until it's dead. We still have as much fun in matches (if I'm not mean to Kith that is) today as we did when we first started. When we play well and execute our offense/defense, our ventrilo is a great place to be.

We've tried to play ET and it just doesn't click with all of us, so I'm not sure if we'll go there when Wolf is over. Something will come up and we'll head there as a team, as I plan on going wherever the other guys go. I just have too much fun with all of them.

Pissclams: I’ve rang with your team on several occasions and was impressed with how well you stick to your team strategies, what is your philosophy on strat development and where do you get new ideas?

c[_]`Wippuh: Well, we've got several guys who have been playing for almost 2 years now, and all the rest have been together for a year. So the lingo is down and we all know who plays what well.

We know who to put in spots that never move, who will roam a lot no matter where you put them, etc... and we put guys in the classes they like and spots where their game is gonna work the best, that has been a big part. There's certain combos of players we know will work together and guys who are rl pals and like playing together. We try to keep that consistant so everyone is happy.

We use to run the same thing over and over and over and ram our heads into the wall in frustration. I was really the stubborn one on that and make it very not fun for a while. Then I saw some demos of teams doing CRAZY stuff, not having 3 meds all the time, not running a pf, etc...So we started to run goofy stuff and having fun, and it's really helped us... We run all sorts of stuff and learn from the results and I think that has helped a ton. Guys see more and cover their angles better.

A lot of the ideas come from that goofiness combined with demos (iN, NARF, dT/-a-, and Drs/LoT with George). We've got to thank the Amish a lot for all their help. They use to scrim us every week and show us what was up. We use a lot of their stuff, which was unique in my eyes.

Pissclams: For as long as I can remember you’ve been very active in the Wolf community, most notable are probably your interviews, but you’re a huge forum whore and now a reporter for Planet-RtCW, why spend the time?

c[_]`Wippuh: I like to read. I hope that others do too. Where I work I do a lot of imaging of computers and troubleshooting, installing os's and all that good stuff. During that time I'll browse the forums and read up on what's going on. I loved the old interviews that were getting done with Shaftian and Citizen all the time.

I thought it would be really cool to be interviewed and I bet others felt the same, so I set out on a quest to interview as many Cal-O teams as possible, b/c I knew some of those guys were interesting and would provide good stuff, and all I ever saw were "big name" interviews.

I remember interviewing OPP (omg, the spam even then) and HV back then :) I had a lot of fun doing it and kept on. Eventually it became too much work, it takes a lot to keep coming up with 10 good interesting questions, as I couldn't stand some of the stuff that would only get answers like "yeah, we won". I wanted to see questions that got guys giving long answers that were actually interesting to read and revealed some personality.

I quit for a while, and then one day I got a chance from planet-rtcw to send in news, and it got me interested in doing interviews again. So, I'll just keep doing it until it becomes more of a hassle than it's worth, or people just quit responding to them.

Basically it boils down to Wolf being such a great game and it has a great community (despite what you think). There's a lot of personality out there and I loved reading about it, so I want to keep it going.

Pissclams: I loved those Open interviews, the majority of players could really relate to what was said in those more so then when they read what Shaftian was talking about.

c[_]`Wippuh: yeah

Pissclams: That was Season 3 correct?

c[_]`Wippuh: I don't remember
c[_]`Wippuh: I was still in pro when I started I think

Pissclams: After nearly two years of league play, leagues have mandated stricter PB settings without any input from the players involved in league play. I have a 3-part question concerning the config.

Pissclams: 1)What are your thoughts on the config itself?

c[_]`Wippuh: It's fine. I think it's a shame uifullscreen is in there, b/c it basically nullifies a lot of what they were trying to do I think. I wish pf's were limited to 1 though.

Pissclams: 2)What are your thoughts on the way the config was introduced?

c[_]`Wippuh: I have major problems with that. I think the admins made themselves look extremely bad, and I think the community should be more up in arms about it than anything else. Basically 4 to 6 guys have decided what is best for all of competitive wolf. If that's not a Thorian mentality, I don't know what is. I don't like the fact that those people are deciding what's best for me and everyone else without asking for our input

I was really disappointed with the response I got from some of those guys. I was voicing my opinion and not disrespecting anyone. Just making noise and getting the word out on why it was wrong. There were some nasty personal attacks and bullshit things said to members on OS. I won't forgot those.

Pissclams: 3)What are your thoughts on the overall sensitivity of league Admins to player’s concerns?

c[_]`Wippuh: I think it's sincere with some, and I think it's just for show with others. I believe a lot of them really care what the player's want and listen to them. I really think CAL did a great job in picking up Baby as an admin. She's maybe as in touch with the scene as anyone I've ever seen, extremely down to Earth and realistic. Others, I think they think like Thorian does. They know better, and they'll just make it happen and then put on a bunch of politician-like talk to dismiss it. I can't stand that.

Overall, they have a lose-lose job. Anything they do will get them criticism. I know I wouldn't be able to handle it, so Zed, TWL, Gill and the rest of the guys out there making things happen do a great job. More work than we'll ever know goes into what they do.

Pissclams: Sorry, I have one last question on this subject then we can move on-

Pissclams: In your opinion, why were the new PB limitations introduced now, after 2 years of league play?

c[_]`Wippuh: I'm not sure why they were introduced. You can't tell me that asthetics matter to the leagues. The cvars were in place so that no one can see through trees or gain an advantage. To think that they cared what my screen looked like is silly.
I think it was just a thing where TWL was trying to promote cXg more, and then cal just went along. I don't care what ClanBase was doing.

In the end they flipped it back so far that the really bad things like timenudge weren't even affected. They basically changed very little and only made a mess of things. If they would have talked to the players first, it would have been so much better I bet.

Pissclams: Ok, I have 5 more questions, need a break?

c[_]`Wippuh: I'm fine :)
c[_]`Wippuh: I'm getting to ignore Kith in the staffroom, it's driving him nuts :)

Pissclams: staffroom?

c[_]`Wippuh: Our priv channel
c[_]`Wippuh: #initech-staffroom
c[_]`Wippuh: If you're gonna have a theme, go super dork on it :)

Pissclams: Yar!

Pissclams: What were your impressions of Qcon, getting to finally meet the people you’ve played with, the overall feeling of the LAN, etc.?

c[_]`Wippuh: Oh man, it was great!
c[_]`Wippuh: I went down there, got to the hotel and tried to call Doppy and Kith. They were nowhere around, so I just went to the bar and drank a few beers. Eventually I got tired of waiting so I got up and walked around a little.

The first person I recognize is the Da_G. I introduce myself and 5 minutes later I'm shooting Jack Daniels and drinking beer in their hotel room. The NARF guys were super fun, Shaggy was chugging Jack Daniels like a pro and we were just shooting the shit.

It might have hurt me in the end though, as Gigolo makes a point to make fun of how drunk I got and how loud I was in cK's room making fun of Haas and Helmut. I was just so drunk and felt so at ease goofing off with the NARF guys that I really didn't watch it, hehe. I'm surprised that Haas didn't kill me now that I think back on it. I feel like shit about that. But overall it was great. Everyone I met was great, even the Affliction guys whom I really dogged on in predictions :/ I had only problems with a few people there and I'm not going to talk about them. They're getting what they deserve.

I highly recommend that you go if you ever get the chance. Meeting everyone in person and talking with them was a ton of fun. HandofDeath (/me SUPER high-fives HandofDeath), Lust, RedSaynt, Laws, the Amish, Burque (Psilo is scary), NARF, my teammates, all great people. Just make sure you don't look like a tool in any pics that get taken of you, throw the HV guys, SilentStorm, into that list too. I'm sure I'm forgetting a lot though.

Pissclams: European teams dominated Qcon, what did they do that teams from NA didn’t? Was it the Bootcamp (j/k)?

c[_]`Wippuh: Nah, I don't think the bootcamp did anything. I think the Euros won b/c they had their shit together on offense. The NA team that did the best was affliction, and that's where they excelled.

On defense the NA teams looked towards spam a lot more while the Euros went after the flag and let aim do the talking, with a big pf backing them up. I think it's a shame that NARF got knocked out by two NA teams b/c I think their super spam level and style of play, would have given the Euros trouble.

Also, Holly is right about the maps. The NA teams looked strong on beach and ice, but nothing after that.

I hope there is wolf at qcon next year (and what else would be there if you think about it?). I think the NA teams, if they paid attention, could come back very strong.

iN was heads and shoulders above anyone there. Simply incredible team.

Pissclams: So what you’re saying is that in your opinion NA teams play too conservative on Defense and rely too heavily on that defense, instead of getting more aggressive on D and also working new more flexible offensive pushes?

Exactly

Pissclams: Indeed, that's what I took from watching on WTV.

c[_]`Wippuh: I think NA teams did certain things better than the Euros. NARF could spam, frontline could aim, blah blah blah, but they couldn't put it together in one package like the Euros could.

c[_]`Wippuh: Affliction put together the package, but it just didn't happen for them.

Pissclams: What's your most memorable moment from QCON '03

c[_]`Wippuh: Meeting Kith and Doppy of course. Meeting Gigolo, the Amish and team Burque. Partying with NARF and ck, and trying to drink like Deisel (omgtequila!)

Pissclams: You get all of your clanmates together in real life, where's the first place you guys go?

c[_]`Wippuh: Oh man, lets see..
c[_]`Wippuh: We've got 3 underage guys, and Kith who is a straightedge llama, so that would eliminate the bar. I think what would happen is we'd go back to someone's place, buy a TON of beer and some mint Snapple for Kith. We'd do it on a Sunday so that 49er's and Bears are playing for Abi and Landshark. We'd get an igloo loveseat for LTP and Skynx so they could cuddle together the entire time and a pink mac, so Hellfox would feel at home. And then LAN up, play wolf and wc3 till we either beat the hell out of Kith enough to call an ambulance or had to drag Orby and Dante out of the place so their lil' girls didn't see them singing Disney songs together drunk. Beer = anything but Miller lite. We'd have a warm pack of Miller Lite set in the corner beneath Ann Coulter's newest book so that Recon would have something to drink while he read his favorite author, and probably a bunch of matchbox cars for roguer to play with

Pissclams: ROFL

c[_]`Wippuh: So it would end up Doppy and I drinking while we made fun of Jammy marrying a Wookie.

c[_]`Wippuh: :)

c[_]`Wippuh: We'd be blasting to Tom Jones and have pictures of Wombats hung on the wall too!

Pissclams: Well just to wrap things up a bit do you have some shoutouts and/or advice you would like to give clans or players reading this?

c[_]`Wippuh: Shoutouts, oh yeah

Pissclams: I believe it's a rap term or something =x

c[_]`Wippuh: To all of the guys in OS, it's freakish how much I enjoy playing with this bunch. Great group of guys, even Landshark, who may be the funniest man alive. To SumDumDood, Dusustin, DonKing, KillerMike, Burque, the Amish, Shaggy and NARF, Sharp (I own you at Soccer), you guys make #initech a fun place to be!!!

c[_]`Wippuh: To Zydoran and the rest of the guys in Team Thorian, representing the perks!

c[_]`Wippuh: To Laws, Slag, and NF, all hilarious guys at qcon. Visit our site at www.pcLoadLetterWTF.com we spend a lot of time to keep it updated. Visit planet-rtcw.com so we can keep a real community site alive, and keep playing Wolfie, the best game ever.

c[_]`Wippuh: I'd just tell everyone to make sure they have fun. Have some fun on Ventrilo, don't yell all the time. Ratios aren't everything. Remember to make fun of your teammate, and yourself, when they make a goofball mistake :)

c[_]`Wippuh: GL, HF, FSD, and also, Fear the c[_] !!!
c[_]`Wippuh: And don't forget the puddin' ahhhh yeah!
c[_]`Wippuh: LOCKNAR!

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Cal-O week 3 - mp_crapteau

Posted by: c[_]`Wippuh (Thursday, September 18, 2003)

Week 3 is upon us and while some teams have folded and headed home, there's some new teams showing up and the races look to be intense. As usual the preseason sandbagger teams are strugglin and the teams that didn't get any press are starting to be noticed. Week 3 gives us another week before mp_sub comes to town and then down the home stretch with the tried and true maps.

This week it's mp_crapteau and the spawn times are altered to 25/30. This helps the defense and makes the map more oriented towards the library, as it's some of the best mid range fighting you'll find. Take out all the lame doors, give the map something other than a straight hall EVERYWHERE, and you could see chateau becoming a somewhat reasonable map.

Coordinated offenses are big, but the pf can rock them. Look for teams with the better guns to win this week.

Onto the predictions.

Ufo Killers eastern (1-1) vs Commission (2-0)
UfoK brings an impressive roster, and Commission brings their team's rep from last season. Despite the fact that these are the two lesser divisions of two well known teams, they both can do considerable damage on their own. Look for Com to continue the winning ways here.
comm 3-1

The Sexy Guys (1-1) vs Total Konfuzion (0-0)
When you're wanting to figure out how seriously a team is wanting to get better, there's no better indicator than the good pubs. While scrimming can certainly help, the aim factor is huge. I've seen a tsg player or two pubbing it up on Narf/Locked Box, and that only says good things to me.
TSG 3-1

UnClan (2-0) vs Spookhouse (0-2)
Unclan has been doing well with their so far, unblemished record. The same can't be said for Spookhouse who is struggling at 0-2. The good thing for both cal and spookhouse is that the schedules will always find a way to reward you if you stick it out.
Unclan 3-0

Perfect Drug (1-0) vs Das Fuhrers (0-1)
pd comes off a VERY impressive win vs a strong team in AS. Das Fuhrers lost to a relatively new team in Ghetto Pimps.
pd 3-0

Order Thru Chaos (2-0) vs Absolute Synergy (1-1)
This is a big match for both teams. Otc can prove they're a team to watch out for, while AS needs a win here to say that the lost to pd was just Frostbite working its mojo. Both these teams bring considerable amounts of experience, expect a solid game.
AS 3-2

Ghetto Pimps (1-0) vs Cross Breed (0-2)
Ghetto pimps are new on the scene and scrim a good bit. They have a small roster so you know that they're getting the same 6 to 7 guys in and really working a good chemistry. This week they go off an experienced, but battered, team in CB. Look for CB to break out of the slump here and get back into the win column.
CB 3-2

eXcalibur II (1-1) vs Dead presidents Secret Service (0-2)
DPSS has had it pretty rough so far with 2 0-3 losses, but they come into this week with a match I believe they could win. I'm not sure they can do it vs the Mr and Mrs T combo, but they will be able to steal a round or two if they play well.
xII 3-1

Major Impact (0-0) vs FMJ Clan (1-1)
MI is just what RtCW ordered. A new team entering a league and ready to play with the big boys. This will be their first test as they get matched up vs FMJ. FMJ has some streaky shooters, who can roll through you if you're not careful. Chateau caters to that type of style and I think it will be MI's demise.
FMJ 3-1

Old SkOol Gamers (2-0) vs Team Envision (1-1)
Two very evenly matched teams here. Env still scrims a lot and osg are quietly making a name. I think that OsG continue the winning streak as the only common opponent these two teams have met up with (FMJ), equaled a win for osg and a loss for env.
Osg 3-1

Ufo Killers (2-0) vs 502nd PIR (2-0)
Could ufok possibly be match of the week 2 weeks in a row? Maybe, maybe not. These two are both teams that always come up during the argument of who should/shouldn't be moved to main. Between their four matches, they've lost a combined 3 rounds :o This should be a good one on a map that 502nd has traditionally been strong on. Look for the team that holds the flag longest at the onset of each round to win.
Ufok 3-2

Cult of Hands (0-2) vs Alliance of Soup Nazis (1-1)
Disgust, utter contempt, despise. All words I use to describe Handof now that they lost to the damn dirty penguins in week 2 of cal. But my logic, this makes them the worst team in cal since DP is so bad that I had previously placed them in that spot. asn comes off a brutal schedule where they played GFU two days in a row, both tough losses. Look for HandofDeath to change his name to BackofHand and stop giving his cult high-fives, but only bitch slaps as he gets them back into shape. Until this match is won by Handof I refuse to take Sokar off of ignore. No more cyber for you, scrim!
Handof 3-1

Blitz Taktikz (1-0) vs Cerebral Assassins Inc (2-0)
***MOTW!!!***
Want some respect c!a. Beat bt! c!a comes in with a solid 2-0 record, but bt comes in with some HUGE names and a huge win vs Superheros last week. This match will give us a better indication of just how far along c!a is. I've got a feeling it's pretty far, as distress gave them a lot of props for their frostbite match. But then again, Arch changed his name to Ari, and that's pretty damn firn.
bt 3-1

Dead Penguin (1-1) vs Ground Force Unit (2-0)
Somehow this band of salad tossing birds won a match last week. I'm going to call that a fluke and say it was because they played on a cold map. While Handof was all bundled up DP was running around in the nude and frollicking like the freaks they are. This week however, DP meets up with a map not so suited to them. Instead of ice, they get books! Since we all know that all of DP can't read, look for KillerMike and GFU to roll to a super easy victory as they deploy the dread of an all flamer strat. DP runs that strat all the time too, without weapons though.
GFU 3-0

distorted Reality (1-1) vs fuZion (1-1)
dR didn't like the sandbagger tag too much it seems, so they gave it to UfoK in a loss last week. Look for them to come back vs a fuzion team that is exactly what Cal-O is all about.
dR 3-0

Iron Warriors (1-1) vs Droog (1-1)
The sleeper of Central div, Droog is a team to watch out for. The original bad boys of wolf, they will talk the talk and then walk the walk. Their record is deceiving as their loss was b/c they couldn't field 5 in time for their match. However a 3-0 win vs RC says a lot about this team. If they bring their 6, watch out for them as the library defense falls right into the aim oriented, headshot focused style of play. IW is a great group of guys, and could possibly pull off an upset, but they'll have to tune the guns up if they want this one.
Droog 3-1


NY Clan (0-2) vs Murder X (0-2)
There's something about these two clans that everyone respects. They've been around forever and continue to battle it out week after week. They may not be the best, but they're hella fun to play with/against. Class acts. I've seen teams with tons more talent fold after losing a round, but not these two teams. Teams like this are the epitome of what wolf is all about. Playing with friends and having fun. Teams like MX and NY should be thanked by everyone for having a backbone and providing the base that allow leagues like CAL to continue on. I don't care what l33t players say, they all envy what these two teams have.
MX 3-2

Team Eclipse (1-1) vs Office Space (2-0)
Oh gawd, not our match. tE and OS happen to be scrim partners, which would probably help explain tE's lone loss. With OS removed from their schedule, they will have the chance to scrim a real team this week and improve, unlike their scrims with OS which only make them worse :( The only bright spot for OS is the possibility of a Recon Para sighting on pf. Then they may get 3 kills the entire match.
tE 3-0

Raiders Coven (0-1) vs SuperHer0s (0-1)
This match is an indicator for both these teams. Losing last week to very good teams in Droog and bT, it's time to see who's who. Was SuperHeros goofing off vs bT? Are they doing their best lemmings impersonation? Does RC still have last season's flair that got them all the praise? We'll find out.
$ 3-1

Stormtroopers (2-0) vs Team Burque (1-1)
SS comes in with an impressive 2-0 record. TB skips in with a 1-1 record. Look for Royal_Ally to craft some flaming hot, hot pants for the guys of TB to wear indoors. They'll all accessorize nicely, except for Twinny who will forget where all his clothes are b/c of memory loss. However, he'll be wearing his pf, and that's gonna be the big turning point in this match.
TB 3-1

Team Vote (1-1) vs Team SSI (1-1)
Not much is known about these two teams other than their records. F1 is a bunch of cfw members who split off to be more competitive. Sad to see that happen, as it usually ends up in flames, but they look good so far and keep that up here.
F1 3-0

Infernal Crisis (1-0) vs eVe of Domination (1-1)
!c brings a big pf with them vs eVe. This again, is another match that should guage each team's strength. I wouldn't be surprised to see eVe give !c a slight run as they're a good team that is coordinated on O. If !c doesn't make them pay for clumping up, watch for them to win here.
!c 3-1

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Wyldcard

Posted by: -a-WarRi0R (Wednesday, September 24, 2003)

Wyldcard…

You all know what happen with wildcard. The fact of the matter is, is that we met him in real life. We had a LAN at chaos’s and he played right next to me. I didn’t see him using any hacks and what not but you know they probably can be toggled. Truthfully wildcard was a friend and I know some of you guys wouldn’t just dump a friend right off a cliff. When we found out that he hacked in sof2, we knew he was just using it to have fun, we never thought he would try it in wolf. Then when the CAL Admins said it was serious, and then it definitely did get serious in our clan.

Now we come to the conclusion should we let him play or not, and of course we let him play. In the end it was a poor judgment on our part and now we face some consequences. But the only thing that comes to my mind is if you get caught hacking in one game why would you do it again, you took your chance? Now I know you all won’t believe me on this but, fx and rewind.us didn’t believe wildcard hacked. It’s kind of like if your clan member gets in a fight, won’t you back him up? So we backed him up in all his arguments. Here is another mistake we made and now is going to be haunting us forever it seems. “Wyldcard doesn’t hack, leave him alone you fags, I hate you, die, you’re a noob, get off your team ogl all-star” is what we said to back him up. Now that wildcard was caught with something I apologize to all the people I said that to, especially Yellow from LoT. Yellow would ban wyld from lot box and I would beg to get him unbanned, and Yellow wouldn’t do it. I told Yellow he doesn’t hack and all this other bullshit. I guess I was wrong. So once again my clan and I are sorry on that remark.

As a team we decided we would branch off rewind because we found it disrespectful that we are ruining a well known European clan’s reputation. We are also trying to show to the community that we do not harbor hackers. So we started off fresh but starting a new clan, which can be found at #stylez. We have banned wildcard from our voice server, IRC, public channel, and IRC private channel. Anywhere else we can ban him from? This is our way of showing the community that we can win without a cheater. Impulse, Vatican, Serbian, Nightwolf, Joker, Chaos, Kappa, Guerrilla and I would like the communities respect back but I know we aren’t going to get it for three reasons. A) We had a cheater on our team that we didn’t know about b) There are kids on our team that like to say things like fag and other 5 yr old words c) people like dimmak. We would like to sort out our odds and ends with people, so if you hate me or my clan, talk to me in irc. We don’t h8 =).

I have also seen screenshots of Serbian getting kicked for a video driver hack. I would like to say this is true that he did get kicked by this but, we did research and found out that some video driver hacks are because pb gets tripped by accident. I also remember seeing a while back (only an example LoT) that LoT-Noir was kicked from a public ET server for the same error. Now we know that the players in LoT are mature and well respected players, they don’t hack… so it’s obvious pb got tripped accidentally.

If you have any questions message me in IRC I would like to sort things out and yes the 2v2 tourney is still going on, but there have been some big modifications to the rules. The rules will be posted on the official Website and the Website will be coming out in a few weeks. Teams that already signed up will stay signed up unless you want to be removed.

UPDATE:

Once you get caught you don’t do it again. Also I was questioning wyld the same day did you play cs with chaos and he denied it and changed the subject immediately. Chaos and Impulse remembered that wildcard was playing cs. This is a tough call who to believe, but i believe this is what happened.

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Cal-O week 4 - mp_sub

Posted by: c[_]`Wippuh (Thursday, September 25, 2003)

The season is halfway over and here comes the first real map we've played in a long time. Teams that did well on chateau/frostbite will be good to go in this heavily gun oriented and communication DEMANDED map. People call it mp_coinflip, but sub may be one of the best maps to judge just how good a team is. It requires it all, on both offense and defense.

Onto ze predictions!

The Sexy Guys (2-1) vs Perfect Drug (2-0)
The Sexy Guys are flying under the radar still. With a near miss vs Unclan in week 1 on the very tough assault, these guys proved they could hang. pD has been rolling along with a clean record and I think they take this one too, in a very tight match.
pD 3-2

Team Envision (1-2) vs Convulsion (0-0)
Envision is experiencing the growing pains of a new team as they only have 5 guys on their roster right now. This week they get the honor of being Convulsion's first opponent. Convulsion features the almost pf magnet Vexed, along with Natas of ex OPP fame. Dakind and Infinite also chime in to make their lineup Main worthy imo. Look for them to roll straight into the playoffs, even with the late league start.
Convulsion 3-0

Cross Breed (0-3) vs Absolute Synergy (1-2)
AS is a good team and some of their losses boggle me. A close 2-3 lose to oTc on chateau is surely a heart breaker, but I think they get back on track vs Cross Breed.
AS 3-1

FMJ Clan (2-1) vs Ghetto Pimps (2-0)
Ghetto pimps are getting the job done with a perfectly clean record. FMJ has that big gun that will step up every round and get some kills, but I'm not sure if that will be enough to save them on the VERY comm heavy mp_sub.
Pimps 3-1

Dead presidents Secret Service (0-3) vs Major Impact (0-1)
DPSS comes in struggling at 0-3 and faces off vs a team that will surely be struggling if they lose to DP. I think DP gets their first win here as they've been together for a while, and sub offense is something almost anyteam can accomplish, but the more experienced teams seem to do better at.
DP 3-2

Das Fuhrers (0-2) vs eXcalibur II (2-1)
Das Fuhrers haven't had the best luck in scheduling with Ghetto Pimps and Perfect Drug. Excalibur II came out of the gate slow on assault, but has pulled off two quick wins on maps that play somewhat similar to sub, in Frostbite and Chateau.
eX II 3-1

Cerebral Assassins Inc (2-1) vs SuperHer0s (1-1)
MOTW
C!a has their tag all fubared up, it's not Cerebral Inc Assasins, which would dictate a c!a tag, but oh well, that's beside the point. They've pressed one of my early picks to do well, in bT, to the absolute line in a 2-3 loss. SuperHer0s is making a lot of noise on and off server as many believe that |Cool|Oldschool, who I think is also *SpY*LoyalGuard, is actually playin on this team of mismatched ex Spy/Saint players as Garfield or Roadrunner. That would be a BIG no-no since those nicks only bring up one term from the leagues. Banned!
With the addition of Scrilla from hel, and the fact that they did much better vs bT than $ did, the predict goes in ca!'s favor.
c!a 3-2

Team Burque (2-1) vs eVe of Domination (2-1)
Two teams go at it with matching records. eVe comes off a big win in beating !c 3-0. Team Burque escaped with a 3-2 win over SS. Now they meet up on sub. Burque is a lan team which both helps/hurts them. It's in their favor in that they can flex on sub a lot better. It hurts them in that they have a certain tendency to smoke a weeeeeeeee bit the whacky tabacky and make fun of Ally a lot. But making fun of Ally only helps in the end as we all know, so watch for TB to turn mp_sub into a huge gravity bong and have a good ol time with eVe.
TB 3-1

Murder X (1-2) vs Office Space (3-0)
Since this week's map is sub, that is currently OS's worst map without a doubt. Look for nothing short of the return of Recon "give me my pliers and let me destroy EVERYTHING" Para, to help OS out of a certain loss to MX. I see Hellfox having big problems on this map as he can't turn corpses into carrion beetles and let them attack MX for him, meaning that he might have to figure out how to bind an attack key :o
MX 3-0

Droog (3-0) vs distorted Reality (2-1)
Another excellent match coming up here. I'm nothing short of a droog fanboy when it comes to talking about their skill. They look at guys like Slag and Daniel and laugh at them when it comes to talking trash. dR got back on track last week by beating fuzion, but this week gives them another stiff test in a season that has been very unforgiving for them in terms of scheduling. This one comes down to who lets their guns do the talking the most, and I've seen Fire4ge on narf. Not a good sign for dR.
Droog 3-2

Beer is Good (0-2) vs Cult of Hands (0-3)
BiG has picked up a big player in Mikey of BYE fame. Look for his experience, especially in terms of strats, to really help BiG out. Handof is the best 0-3 team in the history of CAL. 3 narrow 2-3 losses to tE, DP, and 502nd shows you what happens when you let those nasty penguins beat you. I wouldn't be surprised to see Handof get pissed and run the table the rest of the season.
Handof 3-0

Dead Penguin (2-1) vs Team Eclipse (1-2)
Even a blight squirrel finds a nut and DP is proof that even stupid ass penguins can find a way to win matches. Codewarrior and his band of retarded penguins are stumbling and bumbling around CAL and severly hurting the progress we have all made towards e-sports becoming legit. They are the RollerBall team of e-sports. I wouldn't be surprised if b3e had some kneepads and rollerskates tucked away somewhere in his closet as he waits in anticipation for rollerball to make a comeback.
tE knows better though. They're hard and in charge as mouse has cracked the whip and brought in fenix of redemption fame. Look for this one to be a total blowout and tE laughs their way to a super easy victory.
tE 3-0

Ground Force Unit (2-1) vs Raiders Coven (0-2)
RC has gotten off to a rough start, and GFU had a rough week of matches on Chateau, where I honestly expected them to do much better. I think they get their stuff back together this week and pull out a super close win vs a RC team that has gotten the short end of the scheduling stick
GFU 3-2

fuZion (1-2) vs 502nd PIR (3-0)
502nd is 3-0 but has managed to drop some rounds. They've added the super duper stat whore in GAT-Nikon, and I expect to see him /kill himself into 32 second spawns consistantly as axis. The /kill rep on this guy is well deserved. Look for the rest of his team pick up the slack as they continue to march towards a long push into the playoffs.
502nd 3-0

Team SSI (1-2) vs Blitz Taktikz (2-0)
bT was my pick to win Open after seeing them dominate Superheros. GAT-ALien and TAF-Parcher could carry this team as far as they wanted I thought. Then they went and dropped 2 rounds to c!a on chateau and it maybe time for me to reconsider my predictions. bT will have to get their strats and teamwork a lot tighter as they've been shown that they're obviously not alone at the top of cal-o.
bT 3-0

Iron Warriors (1-2) vs Stormtroopers (2-1)
IW will have their work cut out for them vs a SS team that hung tough with a very good TB team on Chateau. Again, I think IW's experience will pay off for them here as they will be able to adapt and wing it on defense a little better than SS will.
IW 3-1

NY Clan (0-3) vs Team Vote (2-1)
This will not be a kind match for NY. Vote has reached my radar as this ex group of cfw players has been extremely impressive in their matches. Lots of people giving them kudos on their aim and teamwork.
Vote 3-0

Commission (2-0) vs UnClan (3-0)
OooOooo, another prime time matchup as these two undefeated teams go at it. Should be interesting to guage who wants it more. Look for the winner of this match to go extremely far in the playoffs. Going with unclan here as disrespect seems to fuel Com more than anything else.
UnClan 3-2

Spookhouse (0-3) vs Total Konfuzion (0-1)
I've heard that TK does nothing but forfiet their matches? Yup, seems they've dropped CAL, but are still scheduled. Hopefully CAL can find someone else to play Deffy and his band of spookies.
Spook 3-0

Old SkOol Gamers (3-0) vs Order Thru Chaos (3-0)
This final match is more of a battle for respect than anything. Both teams are 3-0 but lack that pizazz that makes me think they're an upper echelon cal-o team. Both are on the verge of being there, and a win this week will certainly help them get there.
oTc 3-2

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Cal Invite :: mp_sub Fleet Week Bitches

Posted by: laws_69 (Friday, September 26, 2003)

The first stock map into this Cal Invite season leaves 3 undefeated teams... Affliction, Trinity, and Immortals. Rewind, ergh Stylez, is now 1-2 after being forfeited their first two matches over the great hacking incident of '03. ICF, DH, DT, and 8 are all tied up with respective 2-1 records. Team Chrome is 1-1 IN MATCHES, while Kinetic's roster issues have brought a dismal 1-2 record. New teams returning or just forming are: Excuse (0-1), LQD (who forfeited early in the season, but is now back with a returned vigor), and GAT (a formation of First Edition and Redemption). On to this weeks matches.

Deathtouch vs. LQD

dT unexpectedly dropped from their match last week with Affliction. Whether this was chicken shit antics or an actual roster problem, it has not been sorted out yet (please clarify). LQD has just reformed and will need at least a week to jel before they can take a team like dT. Of course, if dT doesn't show...I guess LQD is jelled plenty to take the win...

If dT shows: 3-1 dT
If not: LQD in a barnburner 3-0


Digital Heresy vs. Affliction

Interesting matchup. Normally, 3-0 Affliction, but on mp_coinflip it has me scratching my head. With the right panzer action, clutch saves and grenade spam, dH could pull out this tough match. Then again, Affliction swims better than Greg Luganis and LOOOOOVES the waterplant. I expect show very fast times in this match.

Affliction 3-1


Intense Combat Forces vs. Chrome

ICF has a nice squad, one of the few Cal-Invite teams that can hang with the top dogs. Beez will try to distract the Nazi forces with donuts, cakes, cupcakes and pies, but to his dismay it still won't be enough.

ICF 3-2


Immortals vs. Trinity

A battle of undefeateds. Immortals brings almost the same lineup they had last season in Main, while Trinity broke out the broom and totally revamped. Speaking as a member of Trinity, we've not played a match yet that the other team didn't max out their panzer limit...I doubt that will change this week. Watch for Redbird and Chocula to showcase their synchronized swimming.

Trinity 3-2
(that's right, I'm jerk enough to predict my own match)


Raging Octopi vs GAT

Panzer happy GAT gets to play against an up and coming 8 squad. Gat wins purely based on Pissclams playing for 8.

With Pissclams, GAT 3-1
Without Pissclams, Tossup 3-2


Kinetic vs. Stylez/Rewind/FX/Flatliners/82nd

Won't be a nice week for Kinetic, roster issues and then having to play the accused hax0r majax0rs. I expect a lot of smg abuse in this one.

Stylez/Rewind/FX/Flatliners/82nd 3-1

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CAL Invite Predictions Week 4

Posted by: icf|r0b`GG (Friday, September 26, 2003)

A look at the matchups for week 4 of CAL Invite. The map: mp_sub

Deathtouch vs Liquid
The re-emergence of LQD will be one to see. With the same roster as they had before they took a lil RTCW vacation and along with some additions, LQD will look to come back strong. dT will look to continue to punish the opposition. However, with LQD back and fresh and not gone too long, the rust will quickly evaporate and this match will go down to the wire. But the constant play of dT will be the difference here.

dT > LQD 3-2

Digital Heresy vs Team Affliction

dh.na has now added the powers of the infamous Slag. Despite what you think of him, Slag is an instant play maker. With the already strong lineup that dh.na has, he will prove vital to their season and this match. Team Affliction is just on too much of a roll. The chemistry keeps getting better and better. It’s hard to stop what appears to be the best North American team in RTCW today.

Affliction > dh.na 3-1

Intense Combat Forces vs Team Chrome

In all honesty, even if I wanted to predict this one, I can’t. I really don’t know anyone from Team Chrome other than uber film maker Joey. Should be good games on this fast pace map.

The Immortals vs Team Trinity

Wow. This looks to be a very tight match. In my opinion, probably the most even of all matches this week. Trinity has definitely gotten stronger with the additions of Redbird, Maximal, and R3m. They are quickly gelling and look to make a strong show in Invite. Immortals on the other hand is at that point of their gaming careers. This match will be crucial as to how they do in Invite. Hartman, death, Warmachine, and company will be the x factors that will make this a match of complete and utter chaos, but with Trinity pulling it off by the smallest of margins.

tTt > i- 3-2

The Raging Octopi vs Global Assault Team

Apoc and Madness make a lethal combination. And with Seed on the panzer helm, there is no telling how many engineers he’s going to gib and blow to complete pieces. Hope Dez fired his ISP cause last week, it gave him too many troubles. Octopi is that team that doesn’t die. One that doesn’t go down easily. It will take a lot to bring them down. But GAT has the talent and the teamwork to do just that

GAT > Octopi 3-1

Kinetic vs Rewind US/Stylez

The name on the CAL website didn’t change. Anyways, with or without Wyldcard, Stylez still has the talent. The crossfire they bring works very good on a short map. However, K is still that team that people don’t talk about. Sort of the silent assassin. And if you don’t take them seriously, the consequences can be quite devastating. But Stylez is just too much on this map. Here, they go back on the path to regain those wins before the wyldcard situation.

Stylez > K 3-1

Redrum vs Team Excuse

The two newest Invite teams go head to head in their first week. Redrum has the talent. They have the players. Now they need the experience to play at this level. They will be a sleeper team. Team Excuse is just too much though. Too much experience on that team on how to win a crucial game. They know that a team must get on their winning paths quickly. And this match will be their first W.

Excuse > )r( 3-1

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Enemy Territories Weekly League Update.

Posted by: -opp bigbear- (Tuesday, September 30, 2003)

I will be doing a weekly Update featuring news and scores from the TWL and CAL ET leagues. Each week will focus on one league or the other and will contain scores from the most recent week and 3 highlighted matches from the week preceding that one. Also featured will be an interview each week and as the playoff picture starts to come together information on that. If you dont like ET or dont care stop reading now and dont bother with the pointless..."this is planet-RTCW posts and bs like that." This weeks focus will be CAL-ET.



Now to get started. Not all of Week 2's Results have been posted so I'll edit and fill them in later.
Week 1 Expanded Results.

Preeminence vs. Clan Casualty. Preeminence wins 2-0

Casualty is one of the original ET clans after having ported themselves over from RTCW and have shown some strength in competition so to some this result may seem like a surprise. But you gotta look at what they went up against in Preeminence...
Preeminence is made up of some pretty elite former RTCW players and will be a force to reckon with if they devote their time to ET...If this team scrims as much as the other top teams they could be in the finals at the end of the season...

smf vs AoP. smf wins 2-0

AoP another old RTCW is back and features the greatness of the Mildorf! Unfortunetly Illshot couldnt carry them to victory this week. My boy teh haximal and the other suave mofos stepped up and proved something in their return. With its new look lineup after briefly going inactive in ET smf is looking stronger then ever.

Team Ballz vs Arise. Ballz wins 2-0

The result of this battle of former RTCW teams kinda suprises me to be honest. I've had a lot of experience playing Arise in RTCW but I honestly dont know what they are capable of in ET. However the really only impressive name I see on Ballz is Cheese so I have to believe that Arise just wasnt ready for this match or didnt have its players. I'd like to see a rematch of this game, Arise might bring its A game next time.

Week 2 Results (incomplete so far)

Just Cause > Team 7 3-0
Clan Commission > Demonic Elite 3-0
Major League Killers > Suicidal Intent 3-0
WolfJaeger > Licensed to Ill 2-0
Rotators > Charters Phalanx 2-0
Alliance of Pain > GO 2-0
ILAN Addicts > Canadian Club 2-0
Team Arise > Team Default 2-0
Warpigs Clan > Digital Heresy 2-0
Fatal Attraction > Ghosts of War 2-0
Xtreme Chaos > Clan Cohesion 2-1
Ascend > Soldier Clan 3-0
20 Inch Dongs > Deviance 3-2
Omnipotent > Supreme Mercenaries 2-0
smf > StormTroopers of Death 2-0
Team Ballz > Broadband Wolf Corps 2-0

ON WITH THE INTERVIEW!

This weeks guest is Shatter from Arise.

[Blackj4ck] Give us a brief history of Arise and yourself as a gamer.

[a||shatter] well I started gaming back when Doom2 came out in '94 on bbs' and dwango then nothing again until i downloaded rtcw test1 so, rtcw is really my 1st online fps. I formed [WF] for bob1 and we got smoked in the 1st round by s62. Joined [Pro] and pRfor a while, then in Sept of 2002, decided I wanted my own gig again and started Team Arise with Nitemare and Ender from SST

[Blackj4ck] What do you see in the future for Arise?

[a||shatter] Well, we're talking about making the team larger and branching into other games. Halo2 and HL2 come to mind as possibilities. As does Quake4. I suppose we'll have to see what interest there is as we move forward. For now, it's mostly ET and we've recently started up the RTCW division again.
But the team is here to stay no matter what direction we head.

[Blackj4ck] How is ET Like/Unlike RTCW and what advantages disadvantages does Arise gain from these?

[a||shatter] Heh...That seems to be the raging debate lately

[Blackj4ck] lol

[a||shatter] ET is like RTCW in the team aspect mostly. It's very easy to change from one game to the other as far as basic tactics and gameplay. It is easier to aim in ET which REALLY helps us :)

[Blackj4ck] for sure

[a||shatter] spam isn't really an issue with all the great work that TWL and bani have done to produce etpro

[a||shatter] and although vanilla et isn't very geared for competitive play, etpro and the leagues have really turned it into a real competition game in my opinion

[Blackj4ck] So whats a typical night of scrimming like for Arise?

[a||shatter] Well, when we actually take the time to do it right, it's 3 hours a night mon-thu with matches on sun (cal) and mon (twl), however usually, since teams are new and we haven't had to worry too much, we'll usually do 2 hours on tues/wed and sometimes thurs just to get strats worked out.
At the moment, our biggest challenge has been our weekly scrim with Preeminence, not any matches we've played

[Blackj4ck] yeah they sound tough

[a||shatter] They are. If I were ranking teams now, they would be at the top

[Blackj4ck] What makes Arise special...What abilities and skills do you and your teammates bring to the table that seperate you from other clans?

[a||shatter] Special? I don't really think we're special. I do think that what seperates us from a lot of clans is that we realize that this is a game. And while sometimes people get angry and say things that may be taken the wrong way, at the end of the day, it's all in good fun. So many teams have roster issues because of egos bumping each other

[Blackj4ck] So with arise its all about the team. I would say that compared to many clans in both ET and RTCW that is something special

[a||shatter] Thanks. We try to make it as fun as possible. A lot of the time we'll all sit on ventrilo for 2 hours after a scrim and just talk about whatever. It's not a job, it's something that we all WANT to do

[Blackj4ck] Who do you see as the teams to beat in ET as of right now

[a||shatter] Preeminence, LoT, Rotators, Casuality and I guess Team Arise as far as NA I haven't been checking out the Euro scene at all yet.

[Blackj4ck] Now this is an article on CAL but I would like some feedback from you regarding both CAL and TWL seeing as your an admin for TWL and TWL was the innovator as far as ET leagues go. Which league do you feel is working harder for the community? Which league has a greater future? And should I start doing an update like this for TWL as weel as CAl?

[a||shatter] Well, first, I'm actually not a TWL admin anymore, I left to concentrate my limited time on the team and Warpath and Blue have done an outstanding job. As far as which is better? I don't like saying things like that usually, but in this case, TWL has far and above done the groundwork, the work with the modders, the community and the other leagues to get this game up and running as a valid competition game. CAL is great and we are in it as well, I just think that right now, TWL is the leader in running ET And yes, an update for TWL would be great

[Blackj4ck] Ok. Thx for the interview. Any last shoutouts?

[a||shatter] Ya. A shoutout to My entire team, sunstyle, warpath, blue, Zedsdead, the wippuh, and everyone else that makes the et community stronger

[Blackj4ck] Again Thank You. Goodluck the rest of this season in both TWL and CAL hope the see Arise deep in the playoffs.
Well thats it for me this week...Starting next week I may start doing a TWL review so that each and every week there is a TWL or CAL review. However, in my next CAL update 2 weeks from now look for an interview from Maximal of smf!!! the haximal is teh own.

*note next weeks interview WILL in fact be Maximal. Following Maximal I will have an interview with NightFall. Others I probably will interview before the season is over include; chilly (r), Warpath, Dashiva, CAL-ET|Moore (aka dh|badaxe), and if possible the entire SToP Clan.

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Cal-O week 5 - mp_beach

Posted by: c[_]`Wippuh (Friday, October 3, 2003)

Ah yeah, we're turning the corner for the home stretch. The quirky customs and mp_coinflip have provided some good matches, but the playoff teams will get sorted out in the next 4 weeks. We start out on mp_beach, a map where spam can rule you, but dominant guns can power their way to wins. Big pf's and clutch plays will be needed for wins, so onto the predictions!

Iron Warriors (2-2) vs Blitz Taktikz (3-0)
I know that IW just picked up a big player, but bT counters that with the pickup of an ex dT guy. With 3 ex invite players on their team, bT can corner camp their way to victory in the basement.
bT 3-0

NY Clan (0-4) vs Team SSI (1-3)
Two teams that have been around cal for a while now meet up in the middle of the season, looking to notch a win and get their teams turned around. Beach is a map where the offensive plan is a little crazy, and pubbing can actually work. Since the map has been pubbed to death, players instinctively find themselves working together.
NY 3-2

distorted Reality (3-1) vs Ground Force Unit (3-1)
dR put the smack down on Droog last week. GFU got another forfeit win as the schedule gods have not been kind to them so far. This week isn't any relief, but at least they'll have someone to play. GFU puts up a hell of a fight, but dR comes out on top. Keep the lookout for Kluv's Zima stand out near sniper hill in the sandbags. Kluv LOVES the girlie drinks, and he'll be giving them out all night long.
dR 3-1

eVe of Domination (2-2) vs SuperHer0s (1-2)
Superheros keep adding infamous names to their already questionable roster. I don't believe anyone is fooled by them, but look for them to get a win on beach as they pf their way through eVe.
$ 3-0

Office Space (4-0) vs Team Vote (3-1)
Wowsers, this has been deemed the match of the week. All I know is that our buddy KillerMike has nothing but absolute praise for F1 and what they bring to the table. Xported on pf looks to be a huge factor in this match. If he doesn't kill all of OS everytime they attempt to come up the beach, then the rest of F1 will have to stop reenacting the 4k cheese scene in the basement barracks and actually shank some OS goons.
F1 3-0

502nd PIR (4-0) vs Dead Penguin (3-1)
Nikon is absolutely going nuts for 502nd. Beach D allows him to /kill into 39 second spawns, and that's what he does best :P The tUx crew on the other hand is still a sad sight to see. Codewarrior and B3e will probably be seen taking long walks together in the sand instead of doing anything productive. Look for this match to be an easy winner for 502nd.
502nd 3-0

Team Eclipse (1-3) vs Droog (2-2)
Two teams that come of losses last week. I honestly expected fire4ge and company to do better against dR, and I'm let down in a BIG way that tE lost to the damn dirty penguins. However, the karma of letting the underpriviledged penguins win will come back to help them down the road.
tE 3-2

Murder X (1-3) vs Beer is Good (0-3)
MX is some of the nicest guys you'll ever meet. I see them putting another win under their belt vs BiG in some EXTREMELY good games.
MX 3-2

Team Burque (3-1) vs Cerebral Assassins Inc (3-1)
WTF, how has TB racked up a winning record? Fo3twinny spends more time writing backwards in their irc channel than they do scrimming. I guess that Ally is sewing up some nice new hotpants for Chili, and the rest of the team is so focused on them that they follow him wherever he goes. This week they run into one of the Cal-o powerhouses in ca! though. I wouldn't be surprised to see TB win this one as the 2002 qcon mojo comes back from Chili and Twinny, but I think they'll come up short vs the guns of Ca!
Ca! 3-1

Cult of Hands (1-3) vs Stormtroopers (2-2)
There's been a distinct lack of Sokar trying to cyber with whomever enters #handof the last week in irc. Looks like The Cult is pissed off and storming back. Look out as their modified Chevette roars up the beach powered by salsa and occupied by The Cult of Hands Mariachi band! If Cult of Hands goes back to the classic green and blue tags, phear!
Handof 3-0

Perfect Drug (3-0) vs Commission (3-0)
Reading Spiticon's posts in the twl forums is painful. The puncuation masta has a firm grasp on the IM culture. Fortuanately, the rest of his team is pretty good in wolf and they've gone undefeated so far. Both of these teams have had relatively easy schedules, but Comm took out a toughie in unclan last week. I think they'll be in better shape for this matchup.
Comm 3-2

UnClan (3-1) vs Das Fuhrers (1-2)
Das Fuhrers got their first win last week, and hopefully they can build off of that, but this week they meet up with Masters.. errr... Unclan. The aim differential will power unclan to a solid win on beach.
unclan 3-0

Total Konfuzion (0-2) vs The Sexy Guys (2-2)
TK has had it rough so far in cal, with their 0-2 start. TSG hasn't had it much easier, but have managed a .500 record. Look for TSG to get the win here over a team that is improving in TK.
TSG 3-1

Ghetto Pimps (2-1) vs Old SkOol Gamers (4-0)
OsG didn't like my prediction last week it appears and I got numerous "We get any respect now" pm's on irc. Of course you don't! This week they face off Ghetto Pimps, and while I think OsG will get out with the win, I've got to say that they get no respect from me :P
OsG 3-1

Order Thru Chaos (3-1) vs FMJ Clan (3-1)
oTc allowed OsG the chance to pm me, so they're now right above tUx and right below Kith in my book. That's a nasty place to be, with plenty of hate to go around. They pull out the win here, but I get to pm them all my OsG logs! muwahahahaha.
oTc 3-1

eXcalibur II (2-2) vs Major Impact (1-1)
I think MI's record is wrong as DPSS might have beaten them last week. Either way, I think xII is the stronger team here as MrsT makes up some quality bloody marys.
xII 3-1

Cross Breed (1-3) vs Dead presidents Secret Service (0-4)
DPSS is really 3-1 from what I hear, so this is the clash between 1-3 teams. Honestly, I thought CB would do better this season so far, but they have had a pretty brutal schedule so far. Look for them to inch closer to the .500 mark.
CB 3-2

Absolute Synergy (1-3) vs Spookhouse (1-3)
AS being 1-3 is very surprising. The Hammer is 2 Legit 2 Quit though, and this week they'll be able to get by Spookhouse. Look for AS to comeback on more familar maps as their team comes together faster on more traditional strat maps.
AS 3-1

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Cal-O week 6 - mp_base

Posted by: c[_]`Wippuh (Wednesday, October 8, 2003)

Onto week 6 as the playoffs look to take firmer shape. Some huge matchups on base this week.

Base may be the most intriguing map. It's so set in stone what teams do on defense, that offenses must try a multitude of things. This makes it a map where the action all happens in one place, and I believe that this might be THE map everyone talks about when they speak of burnout. It's like being a hamster, running the same path over and over and trying to eliminate mistakes.

Onto the predictions.

Cerebral Assassins Inc (4-1) vs Office Space (5-0)
When you have wins over TB, F1 and $ you know that you're a good team. Add in a near win vs one of the teams favored to win it in bT, and everyone else will notice too. This looks like a pretty swift loss for OS, but hopefully they can be on defense first so that they can hurry up and lose so they can play some wc3 afterwards. As a footnote, there have been rumblings of a certain c[_]`Steve, aka Recon_Para, returning for OS from his journey of selling mags (most likely of the pron variety no doubt) door to door. If that is the case, you can be sure of some roasty toasty c!a members as THE Ohio State University fan goes on mad rampages with his flamethrower. Won't matter though.
c!a 3-0

Dead Penguin (3-2) vs Beer is Good (1-3)
I'm assuming b/c of the 1-3 record, that CAL has gone ahead and helped BiG get an easy win by scheduling them vs the losers from up North. Beer is indeed good, and the penguins know this even though they're as dumb as Helmut after 23 Shiner Bocks. Look for BiG to laugh their way to victory as they observe DP trying to slip them money to go and buy them a 6 pack of Sharps.
BiG 3-0

distorted Reality (4-1) vs 502nd PIR (5-0)
MOTW imo. This one is a potential playoff matchup. dR is starting to look extremely strong with sweeps over Droog (now #) and GFU. 502nd is the team now. They're strong. Look for the pf's to be flying all over Base. Nikon and Insano will be rocking the hizzy fo shizzy, whatever that means. This match all comes down to dR and their ability to run relentless multiple attack formations.
502nd 3-1

Perfect Drug (3-1) vs UnClan (4-1)
These two teams share a common bond in that both of their losses come at the hand of 2-3 heartbreakers to Comm. I don't know a lot about either team other than that unclan doesn't like to be called Masters and gets in a hissy when you mention Masters. :P Unclan was rooting for OS on wtv this week and actually being kind to us, which is more than I can say about all the other wtv's I've watched where the idiots roam free.
Unclan 3-2

eVe of Domination (2-3) vs NY Clan (0-5)
I'm seeing more and more of Canadian Bacon on quality servers lately. I like that, it shows me a real will to improve as an individual in order to improve your team. That commitment has helped eVe come closer to a .500 record. This week I think they get it.
eVe 3-1

blitz taktikz (4-0) vs Stormtroopers (2-3)
What did SS do to deserve this? Not sure, but look for them to get hit hard by the half ex-cal-i, half making excuses for those ex cal-i guys, team. I see a lot of corner camping coming in this one :(
bT 3-0

FMJ Clan (4-1) vs Dead presidents Secret Service (2-3)
FMJ is quietly stepping it up with a great win over oTc last week. They should be able to move to a 5-1 record and securing a spot in the playoffs this week. Don't count DPSS out though. A team that many had left for dead, they have ripped off two sweeps in a row.
FMJ 3-1

Spookhouse (2-3) vs Team Burque (3-2)
I'm not dead yet! That's the rallying cry for Spookhouse, who many had been saying was a defunct team a week or two again. They returned though with two wins, and now face off vs Team Burque. The Chili should be cooking pretty intensly this week and Twinny will be running all over the damn place with his pf trying to find a bathroom. With Twinny's eratic runs (no pun intended), I suspect TB will get a win.
TB 3-1

SuperHer0s (2-2) vs Team Vote (3-2)
Team Vote is all they've been made out to be and more. I can see them running some very explosive defenses on base. Rev and his potato mashers look to have some big rounds. As for SpyHer0s, they like to create controversy. LoyalGuard has proved what kind of asshat he's been in the past, but they're fortuanate in having two dominate players in Ryan and Transit, who have brought the pain on base many a time before. I believe that if Vote scrims hard, and I know they do, they'll be able to pull this out vs the rumored pub like offense of SpY.
F1 3-1

Cross Breed (2-3) vs Old SkOol Gamers (5-0)
CB has finally gotten back on track, as the more familar maps seem to be a good thing for them. They run into the oSg this week, and it might not be pretty. oSg goes on to pretty much secure a playoff spot with a win here.
OsG 3-1

Das Fuhrers (1-3) vs Commission (5-0)
What does the schedule makers have against Das Fuhrers? This one hurts to think about :(
Comm 3-0

Absolute Synergy (1-4) vs Clan Nexus (1-3)
Two teams that I thought would do a lot better. Booch has spent the last week or so doing damage control over the DieHard and that might hurt them here vs an AS team that is much better than their record indicates. JaYtee is a big pick up for Nexus, and his experience can very well be the turning factor on this map. Toss up.
AS 3-2

Team SSI (2-3) vs Iron Warriors (2-3)
IW took a round from the very hyped bT team on beach. I know that IW can bring the pain, and do it right. Smart teamwork and strats power this team where others just try to get by on pubbing and guns. Look out if Bus Driver plays!
IW 3-1

Ground Force Unit (3-2) vs # (3-2)
A rematch of week 1 where # had to forfeit vs GFU b/c they only had 4 players. This can be an intense matchup, and I know that GFU will be ready on their favorite map. Watch for KillerMike to kick some guys pretty high, and Machine to be more than ready to show Droog that they're not the only good guns in this match. Turning point of this match is the pf's from both teams. Whichever one makes the bigger impact, wins.
GFU 3-2

Cult of Hands (2-3) vs Team Eclipse (1-4)
REPEAT! Another repeat, this match will be a great one indeed. I hate picking this map, because I like both teams a whole lot. tE is turning their game up a lot these last few weeks and I'll go with them since HandofDeath hasn't been seen in #handof for a few days. Going into #handof and it NOT smelling like salsa is an ill omen. Look for Shoeshine to spout off a bunch more of his 'l33t' vocab that he's so proud of lately.
tE 3-2

Major Impact (0-3) vs Order Thru Chaos (3-2)
MI is sticking with it after a late entry into the league, but this week doesn't look promising for them to get their first win.
oTc 3-0

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Cal-O week 7 - mp_village

Posted by: c[_]`Wippuh (Thursday, October 16, 2003)

Onto village as the teams square off in some playoff seeding matches. Cal needs to get that shiznit out! 16 teams is what I'm assuming for these predictions.

Village is probably the map I look forward to the most in the regular season, yet hate the most too. Long runs are made so tedious, and the drama can be high, but if the gold is returned, it's like a visit to the dentist's office. The map can be full of good firefights and clutch plays, or lamers running 2 pfs and suiciding you around every corner. It all depends on the team.

Onto the predictions!

502nd PIR (5-1) vs Office Space (5-1)
Without a doubt, the biggest surprise of last week's matches was 502nd losing to dR on base. dR must have their shiznit together on that map to take it from 502nd. Look for 502nd to get extremely angry and take this one from OS with relative ease. Lots of pf's from Nikon and company on this one for sure :(
502nd 3-0

distorted Reality (5-1) vs Cerebral Assassins Inc (5-1)
I haven't played dR, but I have played C!a and they have taken the coveted "Sticklers for Server" award that was previously held by Droog :P Good luck on getting these guys to play on any server east of California, hehe. All kidding aside, this match all depends on which dR shows up. If the team that beat 502nd shows, then C!a won't have the depth to cover the entire map and stop dR. If the team that narrowly escaped from the slippery clutches of those damn dirty penguins shows, then C!a will be able to run right though them.
C!a 3-2

Iron Warriors (3-3) vs SuperHer0s (3-2)
Jesus, I just wish $ would go away. Looking at their roster makes me wanna gag it's so lame with all of its Loyalguard like abuse of the English language. SuperHer0s can take all the shots they want to about twl beta and how they were kicked out because they were feared to take it. No one can really take them seriously seeing as they're sporting a 3-2 record in Open and don't look to be a true threat to even take Central. I give this one to IW on principle alone and feel free to call me a hata, b/c it's true, who isn't?
IW 3-0

Ground Force Unit (3-3) vs eVe of Domination (3-3)
GFU is one of the teams that I see on the fringe of the playoffs. Wins must come their way or else they may not make it. I see them getting this one as they can neutralize CanadianBacon.
GFU 3-0

Team Vote (3-3) vs Cult of Hands (2-4)
The 2nd biggest surprise of the week was seeing Handof fall to # on base. Handof, when on, can take it to anyone on base. Maybe the addition of LuckyB on pf for # is indeed as big as some believe, or maybe it's the loss of HandofDeath to Deportation (Sport your [HoD] tag in irc) is really bringing Handof down. Either way, I think F1 takes this one, as all the chip and salsa bowls around the Cult's liar are empty, sapping them of their mojo :(
F1 3-2

Team Burque (3-3) vs Team Eclipse (2-4)
tE has made the most of invite team's folding by picking up stiegl from GAT and fenix from redemption. Rumors have it that fenix came back for mouse, but we believe that it may have been for Cypher instead! Drama! Too little too late for tE as their record doesn't look good for them making the playoffs, who knows. They should take the rapidly improving TB on village though.
tE 3-1

Beer is Good (1-4) vs Team SSI (2-4)
BiG committed the cardinal sin of Cal-O last by losing to ze penguins! This does not make the Wolf gods happy! And while beer is indeed good, losing to tUx is not. Look for BiG to be plagued by 999's, their mice malfunctioning, lost sound and default cfg's being loaded as I DOS att.. errr... as the Wolf Gods show their fury.
SSI 3-2

blitz taktikz (5-0) vs # (4-2)
bT won't slip under the radar anymore, and this week they face off vs the team formally known as Prince, errr Droog. # is kicking the number system is seems by naming themselves 1,2,3, etc... All we know is that #0 is LuckyB and he is a HUGE addition in Cal-O. I'm not sure if # can pull it off, but I'm not sure that bT can be beat until the late late rounds of the playoffs. This is the "corner camper" special of the week in Cal-O.
bT 3-2

Stormtroopers
(2-4) vs Dead Penguin (4-2)
4 and 2. The number of Big Macs and large chocolate shakes that each penguin orders at McDonald's everyday for lunch? Probably just the number of Windows (4) and Linux (2) monitors in each penguin office as they work on their radiation tans. No doubt it cannot be their actual cal record. Stormtroopers are walking talking badasses encassed in plastic and will show cal's least likeable team what it's all about to smacked around.
SS 3-0

NY Clan (0-6) vs fuZion (1-3)
The only fuzion I found in cal-o was listed in the unassigned division :(
NY 3-0

Commission (5-1) vs FMJ Clan (5-1)
Comm lost to Das Fuhrers? What's up with that? Was an actual match played? Did Comm underestimate their opponent and take the week off? I'm not sure. Either way I think they take this match vs FMJ. This is a match that will really tell us what FMJ is made of.
Comm 3-1

UnClan (5-1) vs Old SkOol Gamers (5-1)
Both of these teams have had relatively quiet schedules. This week they meet up to clear up some playoff seeding and it should be a great eastern matchup. Unclan comes with oldschool Shifty from Rogue Warriors and OsG counters with Skeeball from Chuck E Cheese. Now as much as I've bugged Shifty, he's never given me any love, while Skeeball has provided me with many a ticket over my lifetime, which I've used to buy cheap plastic crap with. This is the matchup of the week in the Eastern Conference, and I see it being a complete tossup. I'm going to go with unclan as they swept PD last week, while OsG took a very surprising loss to CB.
Unclan 3-2

Cross Breed (3-3) vs Spookhouse (3-3)
CB came up HUGE last week vs OsG and got a 3-1 win. Spookhouse also came up large and got the win vs those damn goons in Burque (no more trivia questions for you guys). I've seen Spookhouse scrimming like mad already for this one, so no one should take them lightly as they look to be pushing for a playoff birth in the East. Good matchup, it all comes down to which team can run the gold better.
CB 3-1

Order Thru Chaos (4-2) vs Perfect Drug (3-2)
PD started out strong, but have hit a bump with 2 losses in a row. OtC gave MI a loss last week, but took a loss to FMJ the week before. This is a very difficult match for me to pick but I think the chemistry of PD from their NCG days will help them in the all critical doc runs that village is built upon.
PD 3-2

Dead presidents Secret Service (2-4) vs Das Fuhrers (2-3)
DPSS is coming off several losses in a row while Das Fuhrers is coming off the biggest upset of the season vs Comm. I don't see how I can't pick DF to win here. Also, I like the name Boomstick, makes me think of Army of Darkness. Shop smart, shop S Mart!
DF 3-0

Clan Nexus (1-4) vs Absolute Synergy (2-4)
Ouch, the cal admins need to check their schedules a little better. neXus and AS played last week. Looks like Astro, pro gamer extroidanaire couldn't carry enough elbows into battle to escape from a loss to AS. I don't think it would change here, as I haven't seen a team ever pick up Astro and do better. Too much bad mojo encased in the guy for some reason.
AS 3-2

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Is Las Vegas Good?

Posted by: c[_]`Wippuh (Tuesday, October 21, 2003)

This is a quick article written up a few days ago upon the announcement that cXg was moving locations.


The Cyber X Games recently switched their location from Orlando to Las Vegas. With all the hype surrounding the event, cXg could possibly become a great step for video games as they proceed to take ever so small steps towards the mythical esports category. Helping video games to be accepted and promoted like they are in such cultures as Korea's. There are several large lans each year. The CPL holds many each year, with extensive cash prizes. WCG also provides a setting that cXg is trying to emulate. Qcon is the final big lan that occurs yearly. Will Cyber X Games succeed and prove to be another step forward that all of the aforementioned events have? That is up for debate, especially if you compare and contrast cXg to Qcon, the event that RtCW players can most easily identify with.

The most obvious and glaring problem with cXg is the apparent wishy washy attitude they have attached themselves to. Declaring for months that their final event would be held in Orlando, they have had players book vacation time, plane tickets and hotel rooms. Signifigant investments have been made by many to get themselves to Orlando, only to be trashed by a quick switch to Las Vegas. THe date change also takes them to a timeframe in which school will be back in session. This again eliminates the chances that many had to attend. Why target a younger demographic and then place the event in Las Vegas while the majority of them will be in school? While Las Vegas is certainly more centrally located that Orlando, how many people will lose faith in a company that had very little to spare? It was just in the last few days that they've regained control of their own site to make updates! cXg is not making the favorable first impression with any actions so far and losing players money and disrupting thier plans does not help either.

The quick switch is a big problem for cXg and how they can regain and reaffirm their client's trust, if they even can, will be interesting. The bigger issue than the quick switch, is the attention that the event will draw. If you're not aware, it seems that cXg intends to hold their event during the middle of the Consumer Electronics Expo. Over 2000 exhibitors and 110,000 plus attendees figure to focus their attention on this even during the same time and location, the Las Vegas Convention Center. In Dallas, the entire focus of the hotel was on Qcon. In Las Vegas, the cXg will be a much more difficult to notice. Press will not be covering cXg, they will be covering the CES. The most valuable resource that the path to esports needs, and for such massive lans to be successfull, is exposure. There needs to be coverage that will allow people and sponsors to see that there is a substantially sized market of a dedicated demographic that is growing. cXg has been swallowed in the event that is CES, and will be extremely easier to miss among the crowd than if 2000 individuals converged in one place by themselves.

Ah, one place by themselves. With over a hundred thousand people attending CES, the hotel rooms will be packed, and if there is one event in Las Vegas that could possibly inflate room prices it's the CES. This is probably the single most positive thing that Qcon has for it. Qcon allowed for a weekend of everyone being in one hotel. Everything one could want could be found within walking distance of the event. This led to a very friendly and definate gamer environment. Mix 2000 gamers into 100,000 other people in the same convention center, and then add a large city that was built on entertainment. Is this a benefit or a drawback? Will players be able to find each other and hang out as easily as Qcon? The overwhemling positive from players attending Qcon was the environment created. A place that was nothing but other people who enjoyed the very same thing that they did. Video games. Many attend it yearly just on that very fact. Forcing the players to scatter across the city and providing them with so many different options for entertainment could become a massive fault with cXg. Will cXg assume a personality that will draw gamers to it year after year, or will it fade away as the hassle of CES and lures of the casinos overpower any chance of it establishing its own identity?

In the end, cXg has the potential to be a great event, melding many different subcultures of gamers into one. Have they already shot themselves in the foot with the quick switch, or will the timing of the event hurt it even more? Can they overcome the odds that they have stacked against themselves? It's sad to see so many questions about an event that could have easily been a major boon to all of those wishing to see more prize events for playing video games. Right now cXg appears as a business that's being run haphazardly. Hopefully it will go off well and become another lan that can be counted on to provide the exposure needed to turn video games into the same sort of genre that it is in Korea. Hopefully cXg will learn from this year and still have the power to survive a potentially poor event, to return next year.

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Cal-O week 8 - mp_ice

Posted by: c[_]`Wippuh (Wednesday, October 22, 2003)

Rawr, the final week of the regular season, and we're rewarded with a great map in mp_ice. This week there's still plenty of playoff spots up for grabs with 5 to 6 wins looking to be enough to get in possibly. In the Central Conference, it looks like OS, C!a and bT have locked up spots. 502nd, tUx, dR all look pretty secure, while $, GFU and # fight it out for the last two spots! 10 points (5 wins) looks to be the cutoff point for the Central! In the East Comm, unclan and oTc have all distanced themselves and secured spots. FMJ and OsG are also looking good with Spookhouse, DF, pD, CB, and AS all fighting it out for the final spots. 8 points (4 wins) looks to be the decisive point total needed for the playoffs in the East. Lots of good matchups to look at this week, and I'll dive into the playoff implications of the matches where needed.

After looking at the way the seedings are done, and assuming it's a 16 team bracket, a lot of the seeding will boil down to teams who manage to grab rounds in losses. A lot of teams are right there with each other and the determing factor for 3+ teams tied in points is round win differential.

Onto the matchups!

Office Space (6-1) vs distorted Reality (5-2)
There's only a few things that really piss me off. One of those things is outkast. Not the rap group (Bowtie RULES!), but the fairy Big 12 fan who likes to put jolly ranchers in his Zima and prance around while he pretends he's rpc. Ok, enough for the ranting as that has little to do with the match, as Kluv can't afford Zima (his fav beer) so he buys Bacardi Silver b/c he saw iN drinking it at Qcon and wants to be l33t. OS smells the reak of bitch beer on dR before they even get near the Allied Stronghold and start tk'ing each other out of common courtesy.
dR 3-0

Iron Warriors (3-4) vs Team Burque (3-4)
A 3 game losing streak has not been kind to TB. I think it's because of this that Chilifiend crashed our ventrilo server last night causing all sorts of problems for OS as I couldn't hear Kith's beautiful voice and ask him to sing to me anymore. This is Burque's first return to Ice since the infamous Qcon qualifying match where Mr.Bean did the seemingly impossible. Playing in his first wolf game ever, he bypassed the mouse entirely and aimed with his keyboard! That right there is l33t3r than anything any of us will ever do. There's not enough /kill monkeys out there that can /kill fast enough to be that l33t. Rumor also has it that upon realizing this, Stylez withdrew from Cal, knowing they were outclassed. Expect a name change to Team Bean for them at cXg.
Bean is l33t, however Ally is not.
IW 3-2

Team SSI (2-5) vs Stormtroopers (2-5)
Two teams with matching records step up this week to duke it out. SS has had an absolutely BRUTAL schedule the last 4 weeks. First they got IW, then Handof and bT. To top it off, CAL insults them by matching them with tUx and SS probably forfeited the match in disgust. These two teams met up in week 2 of the season with SS getting away with a 3-0 win on Frostbite. I think the same happens here.
SS 3-0

Old SkOol Gamers (5-2) vs Commission (6-1)
OsG was flying high with a 5-0 record by ran into trouble with CB and then unclan. That's really hurt them a ton in potentially grabbing a high playoff seed. I still think they make the playoffs, but they get hit hard here with a Comm team that has been rolling pretty much all season long.
Comm 3-1

Order Thru Chaos (5-2) vs UnClan (6-1)
This match has already been reported!!! I'm not sure wtf is up with that, but supposedly unclan won 3-1. I'm going to assume that it is a mistake and act like they haven't played it yet. No way did they find out at 2:30 est that they played each other and in turn took off to the server with 12 guys to duke it out. I've got a sneaky suspicion that unclan will win this match, making us look at the rules to determine which team should be #1 in the east.
unclan 3-1

Absolute Synergy (3-4) vs Cross Breed (3-4)
Two teams that have had seemingly disappointing seasons, meet up for some braggin' rights. CB got the 3-1 win in week 4 and I'm betting that AS will be chomping at the bit to show them that ice isn't sub and that the loss was a fluke. Potentially great matchup here with plenty of friendly smack to be talked. I see Virus and Hammer getting tied at the wrist and each given switchblades and jackets with lots of zippers to go at it in the north service halls.
AS 3-2

Spookhouse (4-3) vs FMJ Clan (5-2)
There's something spooky about Spookhouse. They started off 0-3 and have stormed back for 4 straight wins? Only losing 1 round during that streak too! Hold on, is that Sharp "I wish I could play Soccer" Shooter on their roster? Looks like Spookhouse has some players hidden among that roster. I think they continue their streak and beat FMJ.
Spookies 3-2

Das Fuhrers (3-3) vs Perfect Drug (3-3)
.500 is the theme here, as one team goes home with a winning record and the other goes home with the losing record. pD benefited from the invite trend of playing on open teams with 50cent pimping his way onto their team, but I'm not sure if it will be enough for this match. DF has looked awfully impressive the last few weeks and have gained a swagger.
DF 3-1

Major Impact (1-4) vs Dead presidents Secret Service (2-5)
I hear nothing but good things about MI lately. Getting lots of love in the 'friendliest clans' thread. Good to see that there's still teams out there like that. THey've struggled this season and their only win is from a forfeit vs neXus. DPSS has also struggled, but has managed to get 2 wins. I see DPSS winning this one, and both teams doing a LOT better next season in open as hopefully the admins will make the sandbaggin free agent teams move up finally.
DPSS 3-1

NY Clan (0-7) vs Clan Nexus (1-5)
NeXus took a forfeit loss on village and I see that Astro is recruiting for a pK RtCW division. That spells bad things for neXus, but I bet Booch will keep truckin'. Unless they show up, I don't see a reason why they won't forfeit this match also.
NY 3-0

eVe of Domination (3-4) vs Team Vote (3-4)
Team Vote has hit on hard times. 3 of their 4 losses are 2-3 and vs playoff teams. They had the unfortunate task of meeting up with Handof on village last week. With some ex LBL players, I wouldn't be surprised if they now knew what a mouser can do to an offensive rush :/ I look for Team Vote to rebound strongly in the final week of the season and be a potential powerhouse for next season. On a side note, eVe has showed extremely well this season in CAL. Good work.
F1 3-0

# (4-3) vs Ground Force Unit (4-3)
# baffles me. If they show up, they can hang with anyone. Two of their losses have both been by forfeit. This week they get their week 1 matchup again in GFU. It was a forfeit too. The winner of this match has a great chance at making the playoffs. I really want to see this match be played as it would be a shame to see # take 3 forfeit losses in a 4 loss season, and it would be bad for GFU to go into the playoffs on a 2 game forfeit win streak. If they all show, this one will be a goodie.
# 3-2

Cerebral Assassins Inc (6-1) vs blitz taktikz (6-0)
bT, if they would have gotten in during week 1 could have possibly been 7-0 going into this match and already have the top seed locked up. However, they have to beat C!a this week in order to get it now. Winner of this match will be the #1 seed in the Central Conference. I'm not sure, but I think C!a can match up with bT's guns. This match should go the distance, and it will all boil down to adjustments made by each team. I think C!a comes away with the huge upset win this week and beats bT.
C!a 3-2

SuperHer0s (4-2) vs 502nd PIR (5-2)
Nikon and Insano are nasty pfs but $ has some nasty pfs to counter with. This match will come down to big plays by big guns on big doc runs. I bet the service halls will be like that flash cartoon where you put the frog in the blender and hit "PF". The addition of Havoc is huge for 502nd and pushes them into the playoffs with a very experienced player. This is a barnburner. Whoever loses this match will point at missed opportunities with their pfs.
$ 3-2

Dead Penguin (5-2) vs Cult of Hands (3-4)
5' 2" is the hieght of all the tUx players when you stack them on top of each other. That way you can take a baseball bat and go down the tower whacking them into a brick wall. Which, of course, is the only way to treat dirty ass penguins. I see Handof giving sUx the Hand and two Z snaps in a relatively easy victory. O HandofDeath where art thou?
Handof 3-0

Team Eclipse (3-4) vs Beer is Good (2-4)
Could tE possibly sneak into the playoffs with a win here? It would give them 8 points and put them in a logjam with a ton of other teams. tE is NOT a team I want to face in the playoffs. Madness and Steigl, plus the team's experience, would make them extremely scary. They'll win this match and then wait for the chips to fall to see if they get to go onto round 1.
tE 3-0

Predicted Playoff Seedings

Central
1 C!a
2 bT
3 dR
4 OS
5 502nd
6 tUx
7 $
8 #

West
1 Comm
2 unclan
3 oTc
4 OsG
5 FMJ
6 Spookies
7 DF
8 AS

Seedings and Tiebreakers are determined as follows:
1. Points
2. Wins
3. Head to Head Competition (2 Way Ties Only)
4. Round win differential (3 + Teams tied)
5. Strength of schedule based on forfeits. (Least number of forfeit wins)

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Ventrilo Karaoke Challenge Round 1: Arch versus FuZion

Posted by: !SoS! Arch (Thursday, October 23, 2003)

**I moved this from news to an article because long ass posts like this are unappealing on the front page. Arch/Ari/Dumbass gets off this time because he's retarded :P**

i copied this from my post on PW forums. it was great fun, and i invite everyone to hear us on tuesday night for the rematch!

we had a blazin' round of karaoke challenge on team Convulsion's ventrilo tonight.

contestant 1: Ari aka distress!arch
contestant 2: Colin aka [c]-FuZion
referee: p-Mortal

we split it into categories so it would be easier... Mortal picked a song genre and we each sang to a song from that genre

round 1 Country:
Ari - hound dog by elvis
Colin - i forgot what he sang =/
winner: colin

round 2 Pop:
Ari - whole new world from aladdin
Colin - i want it that way by backstreet boys
winner: draw

round 3 White Boys Rapping:
Ari - what's my name by snoop dogg
Colin - ice ice baby by vanilla ice
winner: ari

round 4 Foreign Language:
Ari - sweet home alabama by lynyrd skynyrd
Colin - bailamos by enrique iglesias
winner: colin

round 5 Female Pop Stars:
Ari - you drive me crazy by britney spears
Colin - beautiful by christina aguilera
winner: ari

round 6 80's music:
Ari - sweet child o mine by guns n roses
Colin - eye of the tiger by survivor
winner: ?

Round 6 White Boys Rap Again:
Ari - nuthin but a g thang by dr. dre
Colin - what i am by eminem
winner: ari

we had about 20 spectators... not too shabby for some high school amateur videogame losers heh

NEXT TUESDAY around 7-8pm EST ROUND 2 KARAOKE CHALLENGE...

we will be presenting another karaoke battle between colin and ari, tuesday night on a yet to be determined ventrilo

meet us in #distress or #convulsion on gamesnet on mIRC tuesday night for ventrilo info :D

that is all :D

edit: per popular demand we will be taking requests...
edit2: if we get bored we'll take challenges too. yeah that's right. you think you got it goin' on? bring it baby!

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Cal-O Unofficial Playoff Seedings

Posted by: c[_]`Wippuh (Wednesday, October 29, 2003)

These are the unofficial seedings for the Open playoffs. CAL has in their rules that seeds are based off of the following order. 1)Points 2)Wins 3)Head to Head (2 way ties only) 4)Round win differential (3+ teams tied) 5)Strength of Schedule based on forfeits (least number of forfeit wins).

So here's how they look when figured out by planet-rtcw's thinktank of lemmings.

Central
1. bT - 7 wins
2. dR - 6 wins +12 Round win differential
3. c[_] - 6 wins +10 Round win differential
4. C!@ - 6 wins +7 Round win differential
5. $ - 5 wins +7 Round win differential
6. 502nd - 5 wins +5 Round win differential - head to head win vs DP
7. sUx - 5 wins +5 Round win differential - head to head loss vs 502nd
8. # - 5 wins +3 Round win differential


Atlantic
1. Comm - 7 wins - head to head win vs un
2. unclan - 7 wins - head to head loss vs comm
3. OSG - 5 wins +7 Round win differential - head to head win vs FMJ
4. FMJ - 5 wins +7 Round win differential - head to head lose vs OSG
5. oTc - 5 wins +7 Round win differential - head to head losses vs OSG and FMJ
6. SH - 5 wins +5 Round win differential
7. PD - 4 wins +5 Round win differential
8. CB - 4 wins -3 rd

These seeds line up some interesting matches for Round 1 of the playoffs on assault.

Central
bT (1) vs # (8)
c!@ (4) vs $ (5)
c[_] (3) vs 502nd (6)
dR (2) vs sUx (7) - Rematch of week 1!

Atlantic
Comm (1) vs CB (8)
FMJ (4) vs oTc (5)
OsG (3) vs Spook(6)
uN (2) vs pD (7)

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Why isn't serbian banned?

Posted by: stiegl (Monday, November 3, 2003)

I had the following e-mail correspondence w/ Even Balance. Cal/Twl haven't bothered to ban him or the team (with two confirmed cheaters on it).


Hello *****,

This violation states that some driver was used that allows for
cheating. This can either be a usual video driver which has been
changed/altered in some way, it could be a video driver which allows for cheating
"out of the box", and it can also be a opengl driver which allows for
cheating.

There are NO known false positives with this violation except the ones
noted on our website for each game - if no false positive statement
exists for a violation number, then it is considered valid.


-Bjoern

Even Balance, Inc.
www.evenbalance.com

Note:
Please attach any past correspondence with your reply, do not remove
any
text from the email.
Failing to do so can result in replies taking longer and not being
correct
as crucial information may be missing.
The information contained in this email is for the recipient only and
may
not be made public unless otherwise stated.

Your email from Thursday, September 25, 2003 7:50:29 PM to
support@evenbalance.com:

> Even Balance Support,

> Has there been any official release from Even Balance concerning
video driver hack #90007 (http://members.cox.net/ecjoens/haxors.JPG) in
relation to Return to Castle Wolfenstein. I wasn't able to
> find any information concerning it in the player's manual, admin's
manual, faqs, or news and release notes. Any information you could
provide would be greatly appreciated. Thank you for your time.

> Sincerely,

> ********

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RTCW Nastalgia

Posted by: astro* (Monday, November 3, 2003)

Everyone is talking about RTCW dieing. RTCW is dead. RTCW will die soon without tournaments. Well, uncle Astro says this game isn't going anywhere. I'm tired of everyone complaining about how the game is dead, there's no competition etc, so I've decided to do a lot of digging, and what I've come up with is quite unique :)

Does anyone here, besides me, remember the old days? The season 1 days... Where Darkside reigned Supreme, they looked so damn unstopable, then one day, they dropped the biggest bombshell of them all: The Darkside starters joined cK. There was a lot of arguing going on in IRC, lots of drama, but RTCW was still fun! It created a huge rival within the same base clan. Think about it, the team that won the tournament that helped shape RTCW, BoB, decides to leave to cK to be more professional. It was a business deal, no? Well, we all had our share and our thoughts on that, however, I've decided to post some things such as my interviews from the "old days" on cached, as well as my personal file of famous Shogun quotes. Upon re-reading over this, I'm laughing at myself, and at everyone involved. It was so incredibly stupid, yet people bought into it and it helped hype the match up for the battle that was Assault, Darkside vs clan Kapitol. WOW What a match up! Check out the links and post your comments on cached, it would be nice to compare comments then and now.

http://cached.net/?go=main/eventcoverage/single/745 - cK-shogun and D|S-ioneye pre-match interview.

Below are some shogun quotes I've found on my hard drive, they're very funny, espically if you can actually remember when he said many of them :) Kid's a pro, what can I say.

(cK-shogun) maybe you some skills and play me sometime (D|S-ioneye) Maybe you some english and talk to me sometime
(cK-shogun) im a true capitalist and im taking the socio economic strategy i developed in college and making it a reality
(cK-shogun) i never posted my demo seeing my demo would be to dangerous, thats where i draw the line
(cK-shogun) we will be cK clan for life, we will make our own team within cK int he near future my team will be made up of all locals
(cK-Sho187) you notice that i get the docs a lot? i can get the docs/gold anytime i want. im just that abusive
(cK-Sho187) we all have an order of operations. ill know by august how pro our team is and ill submit to the team style thats best. as of now im all about pushing our guys to be warriors
(cK-shogun) im not a moron im going to make gaming all it can be thats it (cK-shogun) then ill move on to bigger things
(cK-shogun) we could have avoided doctors and abuse and left them to learn RTCW themselves
(cK-shogun) im saying that gaming doesnt have to be sold as the next professional sport. it is better sold as entertainment/drama (K4H-Astro) so are the irc shananagans part of that drama? (K4H-Astro) kinda like in wwf where they have the shit talk before matches (cK-shogun) of course, the next step is a pro circuit similar to golf
(cK-shogun) i dont even think i should be on this earth, the world is not ready for a prodigy like myself
(K4H-Astro) So should i expect to see you on 'The Screen Savers' instead of fatal1ty next time they have a 'pro gamer' on? (cK-shogun) im to cool for those dorks
(cK-ShoGun187) id think being in new york would have opened your mind more a clan should be as if solo. 1 unit 1 being 1 unstopable force i am a puzzle piece
cK-shogun187: no I consider team cK to be one entity, not just the team but also the fans, we do this for the kids. and yes it is kinda like the matrix with these undercover agent lees they are so downgraded and they think they can abuse us but its just not going to happen bro. Welcome aboard3
(cK-ShoGun187) i think being so exclusive makes the clan look bad our own fellow gamers are holding down gaming. i was probably one of the best cs players in the world but i wasnt given a chance becuase of bullshit politics.
(cK-ShoGun187) cK tag means something to people cK tag should mean your worthy it should not be an exclusive club their should be a cK starting team and that is the exclusive club people should be given the opportunity to prove themselves always otherwise we are just a pack of communist bitches
(cK-Sho187) my beach is emotional kids would hate life if we used my beach
(cK-Sho187) we are going to write a book on rtcw like x3 did with cs but ours will be more professional the game alone makes it more professional.
(cK-Sho187) i just like to run around investigating the enemy and my team then in the big games i end shit with an atomic elbow drop
(cK-shogun) i am the epitome of professional and wolfenstein no longer deserves the glory i bring to it.

After reading all of this, everyone needs to realize it's a game, the players are what will decide it's fate. Look at quake3, there's really no more major tournaments for it, but people play it because it's FUN! RTCW IS FUN!!!!!!!! Don't quit playing, join a clan, make a clan, have fun, its the best game I've ever played and I hope some of you can agree! Astro out.

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Interview: Warri0r

Posted by: c[_]`Wippuh (Sunday, November 9, 2003)

Warrior was kind enough to take the POW with a good attitude and after speaking with him a bit on irc, I found the idea of an interview with him to be interesting. Usually, with someone who has been so profiled before, the interviews are just rehashes of the same ol same ol, so some different questions were asked and hopefully everyone will enjoy what turned out to be a more in depth look at Warrior.

c[_]`Wippuh: Tell everyone who you are and all the good intro stuff. How you choose your name, your first team, how you got to wolf, blah blah blah... Also, your irc channel, when your team scrims, and who to contact for scrims.

[fe]Warri0r: Well, my name is Vincent Smith, Im on team Full Effect, #fulleffect on gamesnet. My team fX, rewind, stylez, Flatline, 82nd, whatever you want to call it, just merged with, the sof2 team, Full Effect. No more changing names :( such a sad time :P. The members of Full Effect have been together for a while and have competed in many events. We ranked 1st in the seedings for Quakecon 2003 but were unable to attend because of financial issues as well as our age. 2-3 of our members were unable to go and we felt we didn’t want to recruit/or start playing with benchers 2-3 weeks b4 the event. So we disbanded, and returned after Quakecon. The rest of our accomplishments can be found at www.teamfe.file-arena.com under the RtCW section, then results page. Personally, I was on a bunch of teams (L). It started out as Old school 82nd, LQD, LoT, 82nd again, DarkSide, fX, Frontline for quakecon, then Fulleffect. The only reason we changed names a lot is because we didn’t like the name except for rewind. But that’s a long story :o. Fulleffect is looking for scrims or weeklys anyday from 8pm to 10pm. Hit me up on irc whenever you can, if so. Actualy im beggin, WE NEED SCRIMS TO PRACTICE FOR CXG HELP US!!!!

c[_]`Wippuh: Wolf has become a very individual oriented game. Elusion, Beavermana, etc... are as recognizable as any team. You've become perhaps the biggest name in the NA Wolf scene. When was the first time you really realized that recognition, and how do you deal with it now?

[fe]Warri0r: There was really no one time I realized I was good, there were people that kept saying wow your really good in pubs and such, but the true beginning of my wolf career was when I was recruited into LQD. I begged for a tryout and during the tryout I scrimmed against stickmen. We played mp_base and there was really no northeast tower strat. Me and warpath watched low2 and we held it for 15 minutes. I later learned that stickmen was a Cal I team and since I did so well Tsunami recruited me. It was actually a very exciting time.

c[_]`Wippuh: 82nd is a team that defies today's traditions of sandbaggin' and so forth. Where a team today would win main and then disband so they wouldn't have to play in invite, 82nd and the later variations of it, pretty much ran through open and went straight to the top without pause. Why are teams so scared to do that now and what drove 82nd to excel so fast?

[fe]Warri0r: Im really not sure why teams dropped out so fast. Seems like teams do good in Cal Open, get moved up and disband, thinking that it will ruin there matches record. Then your saying wahhhh now sponsors wont look at you because you have a bad record. All I see is the euros getting the sponsorships :o. There also can be a lack on interest in that yay we had fun beating noobs, and not trying, now we are in a higher degree in Cal and we actually have to make strats. The reason 82nd grew so successful is because we played everyday for a decent amount of time. Our skill kept growing and we kept making more and more detailed strats. Since we had more skill and better strats it helped us work our way to where we are today.

c[_]`Wippuh: You've had a pretty distinguished run team wise in wolf. Two of those teams were d|s and f|, who had 2 big name players in chaoslord and valdez. Tell me how those two teams differed, and what the experience was like with each.

[fe]Warri0r: I was in D|S right after 82nd went inactive for a bit. Even though I was still young in the game I understood how it had to be played. When Chaoslord was leading D|S we were serious. We played our spots and never moved which helped to build a great crossfire. Chaoslord and Herbal Tea were the only people that commanded D|S. D|S didn’t have the best shots but we had decent teamwork which helped us get into the CAL I playoffs. In Frontline I only joined 2-3 weeks b4 Quakecon. We really didn’t have much time to prepare for it and we didn’t scrim as much as we should have b4 the event. Frontlines outlook on it was lets throw bows baby! We really didn’t have the time to get our $hit down, and many people would talk on voice at numerous times commanding different shit. Almost all of our players were good shots with the exception of 2 (if you know who I mean). We had horrible teamwork which cost us the game at the end. If you watch the affliction vs frontline match at Quakecon you will see I had a pistol the whole game and our panzers would shoot blank panzers into nowhere :x. This ultimately cost us our Quakecon chances.

c[_]`Wippuh: You didn't play in the ice match vs GMPO at qcon b/c of your team's rotation. Why was ice, vs what many considered the #1 team in Europe, the map that you rotated out on? Also, what do you think seperated the European teams from the NA teams? How did Affliction get by that while the others suffered?

[fe]Warri0r: The reason I rotated out vs GMPO was because before I came into Frontline they scrimmed that map a lot. They felt that was there best map with there best people in on it. Although I feel it could have been better it did its job, winning first round at Quakecon. What separated the European from the NA teams was there strats and med work. I wasn’t impressed with there shooting but they always had a medic behind them. 2 heads are better then one :o. If you saw any Infensus match or 4k match you will see what I mean about strats and med work. What separated Affliction from the NA teams was that they were together for so long. They had the teamwork, they had the strats, and they had decent guns.

c[_]`Wippuh: What was the biggest surprise of Qcon to you? What did you enjoy
the most about it?

[fe]Warri0r: The biggest surprise at Qcon would be NARF losing so early and TAF coming out in a rather decent spot. I guess I overestimated NARF and underestimated TAF. Or maybe it was because of the seedings. I think if the seedings were rearranged in a different order (because of the teams that couldn’t go, and there subs) the outcome would have been different. The reason for this is because you will play different people on different maps.

c[_]`Wippuh: You're planning on hitting cXg up. How do you prepare yourself and your teammates for the event? What did you learn from qcon that you think will really help you in Vegas? Do you believe that the NA scene has any chance of placing high with the recent slump in the high level competitive scene?

[fe]Warri0r: No one will scrim Full Effect. Either there is no competetion, people still believe we hack, or we get the response “we aren’t at your skill level and don’t want to get raped”. How could teams even say that when they haven’t played us once? We really cant prepare ourselves for cXg just yet for 2 reasons. 1) CoD is a very addicting game 2) There are no teams that will scrim us. Although I hear some teams will come the month before cXg I still think that is doubtful. With no scrimming, it will definitely hurt our performance at cXg, but I still think we will place high. The reason being is that we have better guns then the euros, and we know that. All the Europeans have on us is that teamwork. If we can conquer their teamwork I think we will get a top place at cXg.

c[_]`Wippuh: Developing your skill is a major factor in wolf. Rather through pubbing on good servers or scrimming a lot. What do you look for when trying to gauge yourself? What advice would you give that player looking to improve on what to look for or pay attention to? Finally, what is the most overlooked part of the individual game aspect of Wolf?

[fe]Warri0r: What I found that really helps me playing wolf is playing a quick round of Q3 CPMa. The movement is so much faster compared to wolf and when I track people in Quake then go to wolf it is so much easier. I keep my mouse steady and I keep it at head level. What I recommend for people trying to get better is to imagine where the opponent’s head would be. If you hear an enemy working near by you want to keep it at head level. If you are in a common spot where people like to crouch lower it down a bit, but if you see them standing all you have to do is move it up slightly. Another good pointer is you don’t have to be the fastest one. Save your sprint and strafe like a mofu66a when you see them. The most overlooked part of the individual game of wolf would be centerview. Lets be serious here, that really couldn’t of helped anyone. People are just better then some, and those people cannot take it. They’re in denial and have to blame it on something. Oh well that’s just my 2 cents.

c[_]`Wippuh: What has been your favorite moment in RtCW so far. Both as an individual player, and as a member of a team. Also, what has been the lowest moment for both?

[fe]Warri0r: My favorite event in rtcw personal would be the FnF tournaments. I won a lot of them and it was really a fun time, playing people 1v1 and 2v2. As a member as team my favorite moment would be winning Cal Open way back when. Even though it might not seem something to big it really was. 82nd was virtually nothing and that whole season we built our way up to the top. The lowest moment I faced would be the time Vatican and Wyldcard told me they couldn’t go to Quakecon. I really wasn’t sure to use benchers, recruit, or leave and try to jump on another team. Hopfully this time the kiddies will get there tickets!!!

c[_]`Wippuh: If you had to pick 5 guys to team with, that you've never been on a team with before, who would you pick and why?

[fe]Warri0r: The players I would pick to be on my team would be brian, elusion, beavermana, lynch, and hollywood. That team would just be melon farming.

c[_]`Wippuh: Shoutouts

[fe]Warri0r: Shoutouts to mah homeeeeee dawgggggs in fulleffect. #fulleffect gamesnet
BTW *****As soon as my website is done, really should be soon (chad from affliction is coding it) the 2v2 RtCW tourney will still be on. Die hard hasn’t been around so the servers as a prize is gone, but there still are fatpads and webspace. I do not have any servers so if anyone has any servers and wants to help me out, msg me in irc. Im also gonna have a CoD tournament for fun shortly after. That’s about it for now.
DON’T BE HATIN!!!

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Unity: As One Stand Together.

Posted by: -opp bigbear- (Friday, November 21, 2003)

When I first thought about writing this article I planned on pulling on your patriotic heartstings to try to get my message across but thats just to fucking played out. So I'm gonna bring this shit straight from the Hood IronM!ke style. The Return to Castle Wolfenstein North American Community is now a crew of punk ass niggas pretending to be gangsta up in here. None of you can kick it OG style. Ok now that the kiddies know what I'm talking about lets grow up here and talk about something for a little while. Why has this community become so fragmented and splintered? Why have teams moved to back to CS and back to q3? Why have teams moved on to CoD and ET? We only have ourselves to blame fellas.

Shogun was fun. He added an attitude to the game that gave it some personality. However, he was always a pro about it. When it came down to it even Shogun gave teams and players the respect they deserved. Now it seems that all we have is a bunch of little Shogun wannabes running around with a bastardized/hybrid version of his schtick. "Downgrade" this and "OMG CAL-O noob" that. An abrasive personality is fine, it makes the game fun and interesting but don't take the pseudo-anonymity of the internet as a license to become a total piece of shit. There is a fine line between Shogun and Thor!an people and no one wants to be Thor!an now do they.

Strong personalities are healthy for a game in small doses. So maybe these immature or bored loudmouths can't be blamed for all of what the community has become. You wanna know what gets the most annoying about RTCW sometimes? It's not that we play the same maps over and over again, it's that everyone uses the same fucking strats on every map over and over again. Talent and innovative thought mean very little to this game anymore and now it's all about which team plays the system better. People may say; "Abuse was succesful because they played the system" but you have to remember that Abuse created that system. Teams still use Abuse strats over one year and four seasons since they last played RTCW. It's time for an imaginative team to step up and revolutionize the way people strat RTCW. Unfortunetly there aren't very many teams left to do this.

Which brings up another point. What teams are going to carry on the RTCW banner into 2004? The Full Effect is going to be around at least until CyberX is over as are the infamous $uperheros and OPP will never die. However, what other Invite/Main teams are going to stick together? Which open clans are going to develop into powerhouses? Sure the outlook doesn't look good right now but have some faith. When Abuse and almost all the other "Invite" teams left shortly after Qcon2002 people wondered if the community was dead. That next season 82nd won CAL-O and NARF started its run of CAL M/I dominance. Members of 82nd would later fill out key roster spots in such top teams as z/[TAF] and fx

Even though in the past teams have stepped up we may not see that this time as new blood is no longer entering the community and when it does it wastes away playing shrub. We no longer have high quality and high class clans like Abuse and Dr so incoming players dont have a positive paradigm to base their behavior off. Pubbing isnt fun anymore because of how people play (/kill, corner camping, ridiculous spam, and childish behavior), stats dont matter just have some fun. Do me a favor and go on a 30+ man server and play for 30mins without using your /kill bind and without camping corners or spamming arty everywhere. Play depot, play trenchtoast, play destruction and have some damn fun...isnt that what this game is about? To solve these problems we need to work together a little more and not alienate each other.

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Interview: Gigolo

Posted by: c[_]`Wippuh (Friday, November 21, 2003)

To start off a run of a bunch of interviews that are planned for the site, we're gonna start off with one of the most well known guys around in Amish Gigolo! Enjoy!

c[_]Wippuh: Amish Gigolo. Tell everyone how you got into gaming, how you met the Amish and eventually ended up playing Wolfenstein. We need ze background info! Nick, all that good stuff!

Amish Gigolo: How I got into gaming is pretty gay, I could lie and make up something manly...but thats not my style :/ I started with Diablo/Ultima Online, with the guys that are now Team Burque mostly...we played as a serious clan, then as "Amish" as a non-serious, "just for fun" clan. Took a long break, but always kept in touch with the members, found out they were playing Wolfenstein, we didn't really have a cool clan name, so we decided to reserrect Amish for it. Wolf is my first FPS, other then just farting around with the original Quake for like an hour when it first came out.

c[_]Wippuh: The Amish are one of the most recognizable teams in all of Wolf's history. Lately the team has gone on an extended hiatus. Tell us what all of the Amish are doing now.

Amish Gigolo: We basically just burned out, but a few of us are still around and kicking. Myself, Helmut, AtomicFish are all trying to start a clan for Enemy Territory (we're that bored). Seed's playing ET with smf, Redbird just finished the CAL season with Trinity/3DO (we're trying to lure him to ET), JimmyJack/DeviantDuck are playing Halo and Haas is MIA. We have no idea where Haas went, so if anyone has seen a short, surly looking bald guy who likes fruity umbrella drinks, tell him to stop by #awo. We miss him :P

c[_]Wippuh: Cal-O was the first stop for the Amish, but before anyone knew what happened, you were participating in the qcon qualifiers and then you were playing in Qcon placing in the money. How did the Amish get so good so fast? What were the strengths of the team that allowed them to do so?

Amish Gigolo: I'll be honest, we didn't get good that fast. We got into Quakecon 2002 as a non-Qualifier...we had 6 guys there, they needed teams to sub in and we were chosen. Because we were a sub team, we got raped by the Doctors in the 1st round, beat Clan Wat? in Round 2, got raped by Infensus in Round 3 and had a huge upset against Paradigm Shift in Round 4 to qualify for some cash. Basically, all the -P- guys were cocky and took us for granted somewhat and we surprised them (3-1)...end of story :P Justice ever since, crapped on us in every single shoutcast he ever did with us...3> Justice.

c[_]Wippuh: There's a generation gap in wolf. You can classify one with Abuse and the Drs, and the other with NARF and dT. The Amish are one of the few teams that have bridged that gap and actually played both of the invite scenes. What's your thoughts on the differences between the two? Would anyone be able to hang with Abuse if they decided to come back?

Amish Gigolo: Current teams could take Abuse, definitely. I'll take shit for this, but so what...Abuse was a good team back in the day because they were ahead of the times, cvar wise. Wonder why Citizen/Wombat were such good snipers? r_uifullscreen, Low Framerate scripts etc. I'd take any of the newer invite level teams (-a-, Narf) against any of the older teams any day of the week.

c[_]Wippuh: Of course, being one of the teams that bridged the gap, how did you avoid the burnout that took so many other teams down?

Amish Gigolo: Well we didn't :) We took a small break after QCON 2002, then basically retired after QCON 2003. I guess it just "seems" like we've been around that long...

c[_]Wippuh: Qcon 2k3. What was the experience like? Meeting the guys from Burque? Why didn't you dress up like the year before? Could anyone out there ever sleep longer than Seed?

Amish Gigolo: QCON 2003 was fun. Take away the punishing long car drive from Connecticut, the fact we were in the tourney for a grand total of maybe 10 minutes and even after all that, I still had a blast. We got eliminated by cK on day 2 and 5 minutes later, I was getting hammered...so I had my fun in other places then gaming. The guys from Burque were cool definitely, I hung out with them and/or the Narf guys practically every night. Dressup this year...was because Haas didn't want too. I'm pretty sure everyone else would have...Helmut wanted too, Jimmy/Duck did it before, I wanted too. We could have pressured Seed and Red :P Haas...is just a stubborn little bitch and ruined it all :P

And Seed. OMG. I love the kid, seriously. But, he drove me insane on the car rides to and from Texas. He slept, arguably 80-90% of the ride while I drove. And while he was up, he never talked! I was stopping at gas stations...just so I could talk to people at the end of the trip. And at Quakecon itself, it seemed like he was always asleep. It was actually quite disturbing actually.

c[_]Wippuh: Unique strats, the Amish are famous for trying them out and not sticking to the accepted norms. In doing so, you've created some new ideas that are widely used now. How did you get the courage up to try new things, and what are some of the more memorable ideas the Amish have tried?

Amish Gigolo: I dunno about unique strats. We always would try fucked up strats either A.) Just for fun or B.) When our regular strat wasn't working. If we were having a bad week with a strat and had a match on Thursday. Wednesday night or something, we'd say "Fuck it" and just do something totally different. Personally, there is nothing worse then beating a strat like base...over and over again. We all know the NE Tower, Bridge, Tin Roof spots...might as well fuck around and try something new.

c[_]Wippuh: A lot of the current community has adopted the kiddy mentality of hateful smacktalking and wanting to do nothing but own it up vs easier teams. If there was ever a team that was the antithesis to them, it's the Amish. How did the Amish avoid this flaw, and what do you think of teams that are doing this now?

Amish Gigolo: I dunno, some of it might have to do that most of Amish are older (mid 20's), we just never got into the whole l337or and trash talking aspect of Wolf. Basically, all of us pretty much believed that if you're a good team you don't have to tell other people about it :) We had our cocky times and we had confidence in our abilities, but they were private. We'd go .500 or something in invite and people would say "Amish Suck" blah blah, but every single one of us knew we could go undefeated in a CAL-Main season and just rape some of the teams that were saying that about us :)

People that talk trash and act like asshats use that to instill confidence in themselves, we had confidence in ourselves without that. We could be nice guys and still kick your ass.

c[_]Wippuh: You have to make up a team of 5 guys who you have never clanned with before. Who would you pick and why?

Amish Gigolo: Easy. I wouldn't give 2 shits about winning...but they're all still great players :P Da_G, Sir_Shaggy, WarKrime, Obliv and Paper.
All of them for the same reason, hung out with them at Quakecon and they were all cool as hell.
And Shaggy...god bless him. Was the only person to give Amish a standing ovation as we left the Quakecon Tourney area :P

c[_]Wippuh: Finally, lets do some character association. Family Guy is coming back to Fox, so lets match Family Guy characters with people playing wolf. Who would fulfill the roles of Peter, Brian, Chris, Meg, Lois and Stewie

Peter (The Dad) - Da_G]Narf[ - Basically a big, fun loving guy who doesn't really care as much as all the other people around him.
Brian (The Dog) - The_Wippuh - Very analytical, eloquent and opinionated about Wolf. Yet, will get easily get shitfaced at Quakecon and stoop down to "punk ass bitch" levels :P
Chris (The Son) - Slag - The Big 13 year old kid. Looks really imposing...like he could hurt you. But, he wouldn't hurt a fly
Meg (The Daughter) - a//shatter - Huge drama queen, always has to be right. But secretly...deep down, yearns for acceptance :P
Lois (The Wife) - Juliebean - Julie's nice, I won't say anything bad. But, someone has to take care of Stewie.
Stewie (The Child) - Laws_69 - Always bent on total world domination, always scheming for that next big evil scheme to rule Wolfenstein. Yet, when you look at him, he's a little baby with a big head :) 3>

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Best in RtCW History

Posted by: (Monday, November 24, 2003)

Hi i thought it would be cool to see the opinons of rtcw players on what they think or the best rtcw players ever the reason i'm doing this is b/c i saw somthing like this on erou web site i think it would be a nice way to cap rtcw and see what the ppl think old and new players the reason of this post is to see what ppl think about 1) who they think was/are the best players in rtcw history 2) the best shot 3) the best team in rtcw history. 3) best sniper 4) and if you really want to get into it best medic and LT and feel free to say eruo teams/players since they are apart of rtcw oh and the best panzer if you think of things i haven't feel free the post i'm just doing this to see what the ppl of wolf of past maybe and present think. as for my list it would be.

best shots
1) wombat : even though i just saw a few demos of him i'd say he is number 1
2) wiseguy : same as wombat but it looked as if he was one of the best
3) beaver : b/c i have seen him play in cal and lan/qcon and he showd he is good
4) rambo : i'v seen him play in cal and proved at qcon he is one of the best shots of the post dr's abuse aria
5) warrior : the only reason i have rambo in front of him is b/c i think rambo did better at qcon

best players/team players
1) brian : b/c i have seen him in matches and pubs and both of them he seemed like a solid team player
2) pain-elite : i know none of you have prob heard of him but i have and he is a totall team player
3) elusion : i'v scrimed with elusion a view times and seems like a team player
4) rambow : allways make sure his team has ammo to make sure he gives his team the best chances to win
5) r-minp : i'v played with him and he is always helping out the team


best sniper(s)
1) wombat : saw him in demos looked great
2) citizen : same as wombat
3) laws_69 : heard alot about him to put him at 3
4) defftone : same as laws never saw him play but heard he is one of the best
since those are the only 4 i heard of / seen i don't have a 5th


best med
1) brian
2) elusion
3) wiseguy
4) wombat : don't know if he was onlty a med/sniper but from what i saw he was a good med
5) da_g

best LT
1) obliv
2) dr. rev
3) rambow
4) goerge
5) decka

best pazer
1) lynch
2) warbringer
thats all i know or heard of pf in the game

best team
1) in/gmpo
2) doctors
3) abuse
4) narf
5) dt/-a-

these are my opinons and i know not all of you will see things the same way. but i thought it would be fun to see what ppl think so plz post and once i think ppl are done posting i will count up all of them and post what most ppl thought. i hope this will be fun for everyone and a look back for some of the old players on some of the good times thnx. rehAb

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Interview: ChaosLord

Posted by: c[_]`Wippuh (Wednesday, November 26, 2003)

Finally, we were able to track down Chaoslord and ask him a few questions for planet-rtcw.com. CL came through and didn't disappoint with several indepth answers to all the questions we asked. So put on your reading glasses and enjoy!

c[_]Wippuh: The typical first question. Let everyone know who you are, where you came from, why wolf, and all that good stuff.

D|S-ChaosLord: Hrm, long or short, i'll try a bit of both. My name is Kurt Dimos, alias's being ChaosLord (usually for FPS's) and Trazar (usually for other games and pubbing without a tag). I started playing FPS's online with Duke3d, then really got into with qwTF in college. Guess what class I played in TF...the medic! If a game has a medic, I will usually try it. Here is some tooting of my own horn but just to let you know what kind of player I was.

May 1999
http://web.archive.org/web/20010303070859/tftimes.com/hall/hall_scout.htm
May 2001
http://www.planetfortress.com/tfa/Top5_medic.htm

Anyway, about about mid 2001 TF really died, everyone had moved on, including myself. I had played CS and been really good, leading a STA clan to undefeatedness and winning some local lans with pickup teams, but when CS 1.0 came out, I disliked it so much that I quit playing CS. Finally RtCW came along. The test was so damn fun, I had never been so pumped about a game before. The test2 was even better so I picked up the full version about a day after it game out. I started looking for a clan then, I knew some TF people were making a clan called Paradigm (former CS newbs), but was looking to just jump into something good. I found a pretty good pub with decent players with a clan name of Krieg on it, so I started idling in their channel. After talking with various members, I found out a split was occuring, and the leader of the split Ace72, asked me to go with them to form a new clan, I decided to go with them because I pubbed with them more, even though the leader of Krieg, herf, asked me to join them. So [B]loodshed (Versus, NOYB, Ace72, Tanguero, PsychoBud, CXXXVII, and myself) was formed. We entered BoB (losing a close game in Rd2 to FMH), and started playing in STA and TWL 5v5. After awhile I got frustrated with having to run things and having people have attendence problems, and after getting recruited by some members of a new team, I decided to move on. And that goes to your next question.

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[_]Wippuh: A lot of the players who have been around remember Clenched Fist, but mostly the team didn't last long enough to get into the spotlight like they could have. Tell everyone about that team. Who played on it, how good do you think it could have been, etc...

D|S-ChaosLord: So I joined cF. The team was made up of Bruce, Azar, Fuman, Yellow, Probie, SeveredHead, gax (after I joined), cloud7, illumina and one or two other people I am forgetting. This was a good learning experience for me, I was a good teamplayer, and had decent overall aim, but needed to get down headshots and better overall control. cF was, how should I say this, the best scrim team to ever play. We raped in scrims. We took rounds from dr, abuse, -a-, D|S etc etc. I remember putting a hurt on dr and -a- a few times, to later on get raped by them once their got their strats going. Problem was, this didn't translate into matchs. Come match time, people wouldn't show, people would have computer problems, and we would end up losing to a team would should have beat. Our one highlight was almost beating abuse in STA on castle. We couldn't hold them the last round, and they were able to hold us (using 3 panzers =p) to win the game. Add to that, we had leadership problems, infighting and other BS. Then we made the mistake of recruiting Casey (aimology) and Log1k.

So I left and was clanless for a few weeks. That was a cool time actually. I had made a decent rep for myself from cF, so I got alot of offers. This was a bit after the D|S split (I remember scrimming D|S on castle and beating them, then they split like 2 days later) and I got approached by Shiner to join D|S. I remember in one week, I scrimmed with the stickmen, Hostile Inc., -a- (brian got mad at me for scrimming with stx against them and wouldn't let me scrim with them anymore - which I don't blame him really), D|S, and like one or two other teams.

Like I said, was pretty fun. I had a tuff time trying to figure out who to join. D|S was on a down turn, I was idling in their private as they lost to cK on assault, where Jones retired, they were looking at recruiting some odd players (s1lver, some 15 year old), so I didn't think I would go with them. stx was also on a downturn. They never could get their recruitment right, and people wouldn't always show up, though if they could have put the time in they would have been great (they had lagwagon, bugzer, sergio from RIO, dgd, and other good players) but they just didn't look stable (they collasped about a month after).

Hostile Inc.was on the upswing, painkiller and a few of their other members were really on me to join, so I decided to go with them. What really hurt hostile was that Austin and Fusion lost their computers right as I joined and epik the other leader went AFK. I really don't know how good we would have been if they hadn't left right as I joined (and Herbal like a day before me). Anyway, I joined when they were sort of in a state of confusion, but it was all good. Hostile (osmo, plateau, Herbal-Tea, Dimension, PainKiller, Legion, ohmz, sgt-pr1ck, Austin, Fusion, epik, and Ramblow (who we recruited from -x- and who returned to them after awhile)) was pretty fun. We ended up going 8-2 in CAL-I that season, losing to cK and in our final game -a-.

Just like every RtCW clan (and most other clans I have been a part of) people started going inactive (plateau, ohmz and painkiller), we had ping problems (we actually were Ping flooded in our last 2 games as Hostile, vs -a- and vs dT, I really had never experienced it before, we would have won both games as well, so it really pissed off some of our members). In the end, Hostile sort of fell apart. There were alot of arguments between the Tri-Leadership (me, pr1ck, and osmo). Non-starters wanting more playing time (cough*Legion*cough).

Now here it get's a little foggy. I can't really remember exactly what happend, but about this time, I pretty much took over, we picked up hollywood who got kicked from dT, Bread (a friend of pr1cks), aimology, and BlowShitUp (who we later kicked) and I believe rambo came back. I think this was before the next cal season, but I can't really remember. I remember us scrimming, but I don't think we played any matchs. Anyway, I got into an argument with pr1ck, and left, then the clan collapsed a few days later with everyone going different ways (hollywood back to dT, rambo back to -x-, bread to RC, herbal to scary MONKEYS), so we continue.

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[_]Wippuh: What possessed you to reform Darkside? How did you approach the situation and what were the goals that the team set for themselves? Was it a success or a letdown, and do you ever plan on reforming the team for RtCW again?

D|S-ChaosLord: Well, so now I was clanless again. Right at this time, D|S was looking horrid. In one of our last matchs, Hostile Inc. had given D|S it's only 0-3 Loss on mp_sub. Their lineup kept changing, and they were on the verge of not being a RtCW team anymore. Doomsday was sort of the overall D|S leader at the time. He got word from someone that Hostile was gone and I was out and about, and he contacted me about coming in and helping out D|S. I thought it over. Doomsday and I talked over the phone, and in irc, and I told him the only way I would come to D|S, is if I had full and total control - Over lineups, strats, recruitment, everything. We talked about making D|S-RtCW into a good team again, a different team, but something that was worthy of the D|S name..

So, D|S was reformed. After talking herbal back into playing CAL-I, he agreed to come to D|S with me, and because I was joining back up, pharoah who had quit the team after D|S got rolled at qcon, decided to join back up as well. We started the season with Herbal, Vai, Naz, BigHogins (pharoah), Slugs, Kristoff, Doze, and myself. About a week or two in, I talked to rambo and bread and brought them into the fold as well. After a few weeks, pr1ck being lonely and clanless, talked Bread and Rambo to bugging me all the time to let him join, so now the newer D|S was formed. That first season, we lost once the whole regular season, to our rivals LoT. The starting lineup was Herbal, Rambo, Bread, Krishtoff, Pharoah (or pr1ck), and myself.

We end up playing dT in the playoffs on beach rd1. We had beat dT early that season on village (before picking up rambo and bread) 3-2 on village. Then dT reformed picking up nail, rok, illumina; we beat them on Ice 3-2 in the longest RtCW game ever. Anyway, we end up getting totally ping raped (4 players with 110+ pings), and lost to dT 3-2. It was sort of heart breaking, because we knew if we had even pings, we would have taken it (and this is not dissing them at all, watch the demo, we lost because Rambo runs into bullet spray from nail!). Add to the fact that hollywood said that we would cheat if pb wasn't on, made us really want to beat them.

Anyway, that season ended, and we went onto the next. During the break, Toff decided to call it quits, so we went looking for someone to replace him. We tried out a few people, then at about the same time, we heard that brian and some CAL-O newbie called warri0r were both needing clans. We scrimmed with both, and I felt that warri0r fit with us alot better. He really listened, and wanted to improve, add to the fact that he had a super gun (something that toff sort of lacked) made us fell like were in good shape for the next season. I think at this time too, bugzer was returned to RtCW, and was wanting to play, so we picked him up as well. We also had a stalker, his name was mildorf, and everytime we scrimmed he would pop up on the server. It was scary, but nice when we needed someone to fill in.

Anyway, the next season went pretty well, this time we lost to to z on beach 3-2, which was just the worst game I have ever been a part of. We played pharoah, bugzer, AND pr1ck. It was just bad, we played two panzers, neither of which got any kills, and had albert "buddylee" as a gun in place of rambo. Down rambo and warrior I was still suprised we kept it close losing 3-2 I believe. I finally picked up dildorf and got him to change his name to Illshot about this time, and we got our revenge on LoT (mildorf played for rambo and we still won!) beating them on ice 3-1 or 3-0.

I don't think we had faced dT all season, and we finally fought them in the CAL-I semifinals on ice. This is the weirdest match overall that I have played in. No discredit to dT, but we creamed them kill wise and their D was sloppy to begin with. Things were just on dT's side. Lucky nail (we have their whole team dead, I am running documents, with herbal in front of me, he goes thru service door, doesn't look around, my dumbass doesn't either, and nail pounces on me for the return) saves a win for us. Then warrior is running the documents for another cap, and gets killed by the super fast brian who is alone chasing him (if warrior had just turned and killed him =/). Then herbal's sister has to go to the hospital during the middle of the match, we bring in pr1ck to play a airstriking lt spot he has never played, and it ends up killing us and we lose 3-1. Still to this day, I can't understand how we could frag so much better, and lose anyway, though I credit 50 percent of the win on brian, who insured if he got the documents off the tower, they capped because he was uncatchable and who caught our document runner with his blazing speed. Our second cal season ended, but BoB2 was just beginning.


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[_]Wippuh: In BoB2, Darkside had an incredibly difficult path. First you managed to knock off LoT on ice in the elite 8 and then faced off vs DeathTouch on base in what many consider one of the greatest matches in the history of the game. Couple of questions about that match. In it D|S ran the radar 2 defense quite effectively after it hadn't be seen in so long. Was that the reason it was successfull or was it something else? Do you believe that this type of 'oldschool' tatic could be used on other maps? Also, what were the turning points in that match? Why did D|S not come out on top?

D|S-ChaosLord: By this time, I personally was getting in burnout mode, but, we had something to prove so we prepared hard and planned on dominating BoB2. Your right, our path was overall I think alot more tuff than almost anyone else's. We had Ac (I think it was Ac) on sub, d1g (laws_69, slag, fuman, and some other players - LoT3 we called them) on village, LoT2 (soma, odin, etc) on assault, LoT (george, blue, warpath, muddy, etc) on Ice, then dT/-a- on Base. We put down Ac rather easy 3-0 on mp_sub, beat d1g with a little controversy (them cussing out an admin) 3-1 on village, taking it to LoT2 3-0 on assault, then to a match where some considered us underdogs because of dr.george being in the lineup for LoT. I think we took this 3-0 on ice.

Finally we had come to face dT/-a- (you all know that controversy) on mp_base. We didn't scrim as hard as we could for this match, me partially just wanting BoB to be over so I could take some time off. We had already talked about BoB2 being the end of D|S for awhile, since some of us wanted to go to qcon and others didn't. Anyway, we went into the match fairly well prepared, alot of thanks on that goes to team Z, who ran a nice 2 panzer strat vs us that helped us out alot.

I struggle to remember the first part of the match. The story of the 02 D is pretty simple, we had ran it a few times before, but nothing ever really setup. When -a- forgot to plant 02, but got 01, we just fell into it. It was successful because overall, our aim was better, so we were able to hold them back, add to the fact that it really confused them and they seemed to have no idea what to do, it worked really well. As for why we didn't come out on top, I would say a few reasons. 1. I made a cruical mistake. When we set a good time on an O round after we setup the 02 D, I asked the team whether we should go 02 again, or normal D, everyone said normal D, they end up planting with about 1 minute left, if I had said 02, we would have won. Next, the last round, 2 things happened. One decka dominated our O with some sneaky panzer strats, and pharoah instead of playing a second panzer like we had all game, decided he wanted to play engineer, without telling us, thus we didn't plant on our 8+ minute hold.

It was a great game overall. They played well, and we played well, a few different calls on either side could have won or lost it for either team. The only thing I hated, was that I wish the last 4 spots would have been round-robin, so we could have played narf and z on beach, that would have given us a reason to play more matchs, cause we really wanted to play narf on beach. Anyway, after that, we retired, and that's about where we are today.


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[_]Wippuh: Darkside started out with Valdez and company running a very aggressive, in your face, type of style with big name guns and even bigger named personalities. The two biggest named players on your version were Rambo and Warrior, and you've made statements that indicate they'd be more suited to play the original style vs the strict, disciplined style that you dictated. How did you convince them to buy into your style? What are the pros and cons of your style vs the original one?

D|S-ChaosLord: There was really no buying into my style, I pretty much just told them what to do, yelled at them if they screwed up, and they usually did it =). Warri0r and Rambo are 2 great guns. Their problem is overall, in a strat, they arn't that great teamwise. I tried to setup solid strats, where if I had let our team "pub" a bit more, you could have seen rambo and warri0r do alot better. I dunno, I guess you could say I was more an abuse style of guy, than a cK or old D|S kind of guy. I believe that teamwork will always win over superior aim. Not that you can have totally suck aim and win, but that you don't have to have the top shots to get your job done if you play well together. The pro's of the pub style are that, it takes less practice, it's probably more fun, but you are going to lose alot more. Unless you can dominate other teams with your pure aim (ala old D|S) you arn't going to win. In a game that gets older, strats tend to override individual skill, that's why you saw teams like the doctors and abuse take over. Not only did they overall have really good guns, they had awesome strats and execution of those strats.


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[_]Wippuh: HerbalTea, Bread, Illshot are all names that people recognize now because of playing on Darkside, yet they weren't so well known beforehand. How did you find those guys in a scene where name recognition seems to matter more than skill sometimes? Do you have any guidelines on what makes a good player?

D|S-ChaosLord: Herbal I found thru hostile. It was recruited right before I joined, I think I joined up the day after he did. He is just the best teamplayer that I have found in RtCW. I mean, he is intelligent, has good aim, and is great support wise. The fact of the matter is, I probably wont play RtCW with a clan that herbal isn't involved with.

Bread was a friend of Pr1ck, and was brought into Inc. by pr1ck. He is just one of those not so big name players, that is a stalwart on your team. I like having Bread because I can put him in his spot, and he will perform ABOVE my expectations, that's saying alot about any player.

Dillshot The Dragon - he's turned out to be a cool guy. One of the younger members of our team, he came in with good raw skill, but it took a long while to work him into a good team player. I just saw that he could have the ability to be really helpful to our team someday, and now he is a great player to have on our team.


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[_]Wippuh: Rumor has it that there's were not any snipers on D|S so you had to fulfill that role. What seperates the truly great snipers from the rest, as you can almost name all of the dominate NA snipers on one hand. What are the mistakes that other players are making when they snipe?

D|S-ChaosLord: Actually, I started sniping in Hostile. Before that every team I had played on had had a sniper of one type or another. In hostile, we didn't have a good sniper, I could snipe, so I just did. Add to the fact I had a really good ping then, and that was all she wrote. The truth of the matter is I HATE sniping. I like to play medic and be in the heart of the action, sniping just isn't really fun, plus, as my name got out there, you see more and more teams doing things like, camping me with a panzer, going all underground, running 3 snipers, etc etc. That it gets really unfun. I think the keys to being a really good sniper are to keep moving, a sitting target is a dead target, so even if you are zoomed in keep moving, and take quick shots. Alot of snipers I see play will wait like 10 seconds to shoot someone, until they get that perfect lineup. A good sniper wastes about a 1/3 of his bullets with misses, just keep pumping out those bullets, you are bound to hit something! I never used any sniper scripts or anything else, I just bind mouse2 to zoom, so other than that I have no good info. Though, In the qcon qualifers when I played for D|S, cF`Fuman accused me of having a sniper script =o.


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[_]Wippuh: Your other team is Hostile Inc. How did that start? I've noticed that Inc is playing some CPMA in q3 leagues and getting beaten up on. What has carried over from Wolf to q3 and what have you totally had to forget in order to get better in it? Has CPMA taught you anything useful that can be brought over to RtCW?

D|S-ChaosLord: I guess most people know, I started up Hostile Inc. as a RtCW 5v5 team about 2 years ago. We kept that going, and we have been the on the TWL 5v5 spot now for 1 year and almost 3 months! So don't think we still don't play. It's just a for fun team. We joined CAL-main to have fun this season, got removed, we played cpma for fun, got raped, and we might play savage so we can axe people! As far as cpma, we just decided to play it in wansanity for fun, something to get our minds off wolf. It sucked herbal into q3 for a bit, and it was just something different for us to try. Only sad part is, we got beat by the quake girlz. Hostile Inc. saddest day.


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[_]Wippuh: You have a long history of FPS's. Name the top 3 things that you have found that matter from game to game? What are those universal principles that help players as they move along.

D|S-ChaosLord: Aim - It's the best thing that translates to other FPS's, you have to learn aim in other games, but its all hand-eye coordination. In the beginning of an FPS it's what seperates the good from the bad usually

Map Knowledge - You know the map, you know where to go. Put the best players on a map they don't know vs Decent players on a map they know in and out. See who wins. That's why you see in tdm games like q3, certain teams pick certain maps to play, cause they know them inside and out and have strats for them.

Game Awareness - This is the hardest thing to learn or teach. It's knowing where people are going to be, what corner they are going to camp, what is happening to your team and theirs thru death messages and comms. It's when you are pubbing and get a grenade to the face from someone who had no visual knowledge you were there, but KNEW you were there. From playing FPS's for a long time, I know that visual, and auditory input make alot of difference, hearing that person coming, hearing that airstrike being thrown, hearing that gun being reloaded. That's something that you just have to be good at. I know alot of times I have seen really good players get killed because they didn't listen to what was going on. It's just something you have to work on.

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[_]Wippuh: Again, along the lines of the long history of competitive gaming, what do you see as the next step for the FPS? What do you want to see that you believe will really pull all of the communities together, or is that something that will never happen?

D|S-ChaosLord: Pulling the communities together wont happen, people like different things, as far as the next step, if I knew that, I wouldn't be here, I would be making games. I really don't know what the next thing will be, I just wish it would get here.

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[_]Wippuh: A lot of top teams cite burnout as the reasoning for them quitting Wolf. They'll admit that they love the game and consider it the top team FPS out there, but that the constant need for scrims and eliminating mistakes takes too large a toll in order to be on top. Then they'll go back to their old game or move onto a new one and play it. Why is it that they can play other games and not get burned out, yet fade after a season of wolf? Is there a solution?

D|S-ChaosLord: Wolf is a game that just takes alot of work to be on top of your game. You can't really pub, and have your team work well together. It's also very individual dependant. A key person dieing at the wrong time, not playing his position correctly, can kill your D on O. Add to the fact that just setting people in places or positions doesn't tell you everything that's going to happen, you need to scrim it to find out. Add to the fact that you have a respawn timer, that makes you have rushes, and respawns. It's just a very complex game overall. I could list over alot of specific things, but it just comes down to it being very complex.

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[_]Wippuh: pwn. Tell us the story of when it where it was first used.

D|S-ChaosLord: Lol. Circa 1996 early 1997 a TF clan called Clan Marauder .M one of their members was talking about how badly they beat someone, he was saying how he owned something, and mis-typed it pwned. Back then, irc was new, and l337 speak wasn't around, so everyone started using it as term for owned and it spread thru TF. From then on, it spread out in the community, so that alot of TF clans started using it, then TF ppl moved to other games, and there you go. The funny thing is, you can find it's creation from a supposed billion places, but I know this, no one I ever heard used it before that time, and after that time you heard it alot.

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[_]Wippuh: Shoutouts.

D|S-ChaosLord: All of RtCW, past, present, future
All of TF, past, present, future
Anyone who says ET is gay.
All the people who I have played with, especially the Hostile Inc. and D|S guys.
The wippuh for finally interviewing me!

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This one is for Johnny in Irag...

Posted by: astro* (Wednesday, November 26, 2003)

Right after their CAL-O win, I had a chance to sit down and talk to the superheros. Here is the interview as it progressed, mostly unedited (except for the off the record stuff and the chit chat we had). 'Grats to $uperheros for winning for the USA, and for johnny in irag :P

Well first I'd like to congradulate you on your stunning CAL-O victory.

[11:31]evolve-astro: First question, what do you look for in possible recruits? Do they need super heros? Perhaps maybe they need a cape?

[11:32pm]  Inv_s_bl_M_n: i look for nice ppl #1
[11:33pm]  puffmydragon: recruits must be dedicated to the strategical genius of INvisibleMan, and must be able to attend cyberX in las vegas at the expense of InvisibleMAn. Look for Superheros to don capes at CXG.
[11:33pm]  Inv_s_bl_M_n: well said General PUFF
[11:33pm]  SpiDerMan: astro seriously, peeps need to be nice first[11:34pm]  SpiDerMan: we have had our share of lame wolfers in here
[11:34pm]  SpiDerMan: we had to kick out many people over time
[11:34pm]  SpiDerMan: and as it turned out, they would haunt us for what seemed like forever
[11:34pm]  SpiDerMan: what you have now in $...
[11:35pm]  SpiDerMan: is first off our leader Invis
[11:35pm]  SpiDerMan: aka Invisible man


[11:33] evolve-astro: So what do you guys think about america's victory in iraq? Would you consider your CAL-O victory similar to the americans (and english) triumph over Sadam's iraqi forces?

[11:36pm]  Inv_s_bl_M_n: yees baby!
[11:36pm]  Inv_s_bl_M_n: go USA!
[11:36pm]  SpiDerMan: other than OTC is way nice clan and Sadsack Hussein is very evil
[11:37pm]  SpiDerMan: in a way we overcame alot of bad things done to us for a the longest time
[11:37pm]  SpiDerMan: :)
[11:37pm]  puffmydragon: No, USA went into Iraq as heavy favorites and cleaned house with relative ease. Superheros on the other hand were not favored to do much from the start, but we worked our way up to the point of greatness we now enjoy. We are very proud of both the accomplishments of USA troops in Iraq and Superheros accomplishments in CAL.
[11:37pm]  SpiDerMan: yes
[11:38pm]  Inv_s_bl_M_n: $uperHer0s all play in matches and we vote which plan to use
[11:38pm]  puffmydragon: In InvisbibleMan we Trust.
[11:39pm]  Saint|Ryan921: the 1st amendment
[11:39pm]  SpiDerMan: unless it is the infamous "3 sniper Assault Defense!"

evolve-astro: I've noted a few players being caught cheating in rtcw recently (wyldcard formerly of FX), would you say that cheating is the equivlent to kryptonite to the superheros?

[11:40pm]  SpiDerMan: Well, our old clan we had a lamer caught cheating. It is well known. We know this topic too well. It sux and yes it is kryptonite.
[11:40pm]  Her0Scheduler_USA: Kryptonite i love it sure
[11:41pm]  Her0Scheduler_USA: yea we kicked him from clan 2 seasons ago
[11:41pm]  puffmydragon: Sure, cheating can destroy any team, but our primary focus now that we have a CAL-o championship is CyberX. At a LAN event cheating shouldnt be a problem and will not stop Superheros from continuing our success at CXG.
[11:41pm]  SpiDerMan: it is MORE than cryptonite because it is the gift that keeps on KILLING!
[11:41pm]  puffmydragon: Some teams are online Superheros, we plan on being the true Superheros on LAN.
[11:42pm]  SpiDerMan: hehe

[11:42pm]  evolve-astro: What team (if any) do you fear the most at cXg, and why?

[11:42pm]  Her0Scheduler_USA: fE
[11:43pm]  puffmydragon: Just about every euro team simply because they have the competition to improve themselves by scrimming. In NA we have fE and that's about it.
[11:43pm]  Her0Scheduler_USA: because they great shooters dosnt matter what strats they use it all works for them :)
[11:43pm]  Her0Scheduler_USA: If puff goes with us to cyberX we will be 2nd best usa team i feel
[11:43pm]  SpiDerMan: All the teams that compete at a lan regularly have experience. Experience gives you alot of confidence. This is my first title and I was nervous. We know it will be a learning experience for us.
[11:44pm]  Her0Scheduler_USA: Our cyberX team better than our regteam

[11:44pm]  evolve-astro: With your first CAL-O title in hand, do you guys plan on destroying the evil forces in main next season, or possibly invite (if theyhave it).

[11:45pm]  SpiDerMan: If they combine Main/ Invite it will be tuff division. We know we were an OPEN calibur team this season. But, we will not hide from anyone.
[11:45pm]  Her0Scheduler_USA: yes plans is #1 get our cyberX guys in scrims now and surprise everyone at cyberX. Next season go main/invite try stop evil teams there :)
[11:46pm]  puffmydragon: Superheros plan on competing at the highest level possible, if we can. To best prepare for CXG we must play the best NA has to offer. We would have loved to been in main or invite this season, but we capitalize on whatever opportunity is given to us so we won CAL-Open.

[11:46pm]  evolve-astro: I've got to ask.. who came up with the superhero "persona" and why?

[11:46pm]  SpiDerMan: Invis did
[11:46pm]  SpiDerMan: hehe
[11:46pm]  Her0Scheduler_USA: I came up with $uperHer0s name (invisibleman) so teams would see we fun and nice
[11:47pm]  SpiDerMan: We were running out of clan names. HAHA!

[11:47pm]  evolve-astro: Who, would you say, was the toughest team you've played this open season and why?

[11:48pm]  Her0Scheduler_USA: c!a because they greatshooters and fearless.
[11:48pm]  SpiDerMan: OTC for obvious reasons, they roxorz, and F1 had a great nite vs us on base.
[11:48pm]  puffmydragon: C!A, because they had some incredible teamwork and solid shooting. oTc suprised us as well and is right up there.
[11:48pm]  SpiDerMan: yeah C!A was great clan
[11:49pm]  SpiDerMan: they gave us a forfeit tho, :/

[11:49pm]  evolve-astro: Boxers or Breifs?

[11:50pm]  puffmydragon: Boxors, if anything.
[11:50pm]  SpiDerMan: SuperHer0s wear briefs, of course
[11:50pm]  Saint|Ryan921: yeah makes it easier to rub one out

[11:50pm]  evolve-astro: Cotton, polyesther, or spandex?

[11:51pm]  puffmydragon: spandex of course :)
[11:51pm]  Saint|TransiT: i know when im gaming i need the briefs for maxium pleasure
[11:51pm]  SpiDerMan: Well Puff likes leather actually but, we prefer cotton.
[11:51pm]  Saint|Ryan921: ohhh yeah baby!!!
[11:51pm]  puffmydragon: It goes against the Superhero code to wear any material other than spandex.
[11:51pm]  SpiDerMan: true

[11:51pm]  evolve-astro: Every superhero has their arch nemesis, who would you say are the $uperhero's arch nemesis'?

[11:52pm]  SpiDerMan: ALN!!!!!!
[11:52pm]  Saint|Ryan921: |Aln|
[11:52pm]  Saint|Ryan921: evil evil doers!!

[11:52pm]  evolve-astro: Who let comm0n` in? He has no superhero powers, except for the fact that he is easily downgraded.

[11:53pm]  SpiDerMan: lololololol
[11:53pm]  evolve-astro: :P
[11:53pm]  puffmydragon: We dont discriminate.
[11:53pm]  SpiDerMan: we congradulate

*** Editors note:
[11:54pm]  comm0n`: I have super powers
[11:54pm]  comm0n`: i can get 43 fps on village
[11:54pm]  comm0n`: and thats hard to do

[11:54pm]  evolve-astro: If you were a hotdog, and you were starving, would you eat yourself?

[11:54pm]  evolve-astro: I know I would.

[11:54pm]  GreenLantern: well superheros dont eat nor use the bathroom we live off of love
[11:55pm]  GreenLantern: and johnny in irag
[11:55pm]  puffmydragon: God Bless Johnny in Irag.
[11:55pm]  puffmydragon: Come home soon!
[11:55pm]  SpiDerMan: that irag clan is teh nubz
[11:55pm]  GreenLantern: yes go Troops!!! Go UsA !! #1 baby world Superheros #1 rtcw

[11:57pm]  evolve-astro: Knowing that I'm a famous MTV star, would and of you consider letting me be MTV-Man as an honorary member?

[11:57pm]  SpiDerMan: lol
[11:58pm]  SpiDerMan: yes, I have np wit dat!
[11:58pm]  evolve-astro: SWEET
[11:58pm]     (?)     evolve-astro changed nick to MTV-Man
[11:58pm]  SpiDerMan: Are you gunna be at CyberX?
[11:58pm]  SpiDerMan: lol
[11:58pm]  MTV-Man: possibly :P
[11:58pm]  GreenLantern: Sure we love all Each superHero has Each own Special powers
[11:58pm]  GreenLantern: u mtv_MAN have Tv power
[11:59pm]  GreenLantern: HE can juMP from Channel to Channel
[11:59pm]  SpiDerMan: Well we know it will be tuff to do well there but we will try our best.
[11:59pm]  comm0n`: he has asslove powers :D
[11:59pm]  GreenLantern: i have a Super Ring

[11:59pm]  SpiDerMan: Astro, question 4 you...

[11:59pm]  MTV-Man: sure
11:59pm]  SpiDerMan: who has more wolf media clout, you or teh Wippuh?
[12:00am]  MTV-Man: Me,
[12:00am]  SpiDerMan: ownt!

[12:04am]  MTV-Man: Any shoutouts and anyone you wanna thank?

[12:04am]  GreenLantern: Go USA!!!!
[12:04am]  GreenLantern: Go USA!!!!
[12:04am]  GreenLantern: JOHNNY WE LOVE UA!A!!
[12:05am]  Her0Scheduler_USA: Thanks friends and CAL for letting us play in there tough league :)
[12:05am]  GreenLantern: YAH BABY! TCO WAS SPUER tUFF BUT LUICKLY WE LRNED AND LEARNED SUPER TATICS TO CONFUSE THE ENEMBY tO OVERcOME gREAT eVIL aND THEY LOOSE
[12:06am]  GreenLantern: JOHNNY WE LOVE UA!A!!
[12:06am]  GreenLantern: JOHNNY WE LOVE UA!A!!
[12:06am]  SpiDerMan: Shout out to all the nice wolf people who never joined in on the lameage when we were getting kicked in the teeth by alot of peeps. We know who you are and we like yous guyz.
[12:06am]  GreenLantern: Go USA!!!!
[12:06am]  GreenLantern: tCO sUPER tUFF gREAT fUN gO uSA!!1 GO dESERT tROOPS gO usA
[12:07am]  GreenLantern: R sUPER sTRENTH wILL oVER PowER aNY teAM!! YEAH BABY wHO da CHAMPS!! wHAO tHE cHAMPS!!
[12:07am]  SpiDerMan: SHOUT OUT to the top wolfers who will try to get the CyberX title back home.
[12:07am]  puffmydragon: WHO DA CH@MPS?
[12:08am]  RadioActiveMan: I'd like to give shoutouts to evil aln trolls for blowing up the Chernobyl nuclear station on April 26, 1986 as I (being a young boy) was visting my grandmother and being in the area received the special super radioactive powers!

[12:06am]  MTV-Man: One more question, it just came to me: Being as Wippuh has ripped you guys many times, I'm giving you a chance to strike back, say whatever you'd like about him, within reason :P

[12:08am]  puffmydragon: WHO DA CH@MPS? (hint: not the Wippah)
[12:08am]  GreenLantern: wHIPPU I FINGER BANGED UR BOYFIEND |ALN| jUVENTES AND GAVE HIM A DIRTY sANZEZ yEAH baBY!!! GO usA!! GO tROOPS
[12:08am]  SpiDerMan: Wippuh, man you used to be a lamer to $ and now although you don't disrespect us i hope you at least accept us. Your articles are very interesting as I lub to write big posts too, your doing a great job and hope we can be friends. HELLO FRIENDS!!!
[12:08am]  GreenLantern: LOL ITS A JOKE BUT WILL BE FUNNY
[12:09am]  GreenLantern: Go USA!!!!
[12:10am]  Her0Scheduler_USA: Thanks friends and CAL for letting us play in there tough league :)
[12:10am]  GreenLantern: Ant Thank wTl for kicking US OUT !!1


[12:10am]  SpiDerMan: thnx
[12:10am]  MTV-Man: np guys
[12:10am]  MTV-Man: gl to you all
[12:10am]  SpiDerMan: :)
[12:10am]  SpiDerMan: stay kool astro
[12:10am]  MTV-Man: astro supports $uperheros
[12:10am]  SpiDerMan: wolf needs more peeps like you
[12:10am]  MTV-Man: :)

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Interview: KillerMike

Posted by: c[_]`Wippuh (Saturday, November 29, 2003)

The death of Wolf has been broadcasted long and loud by a lot of people, but for some reason we're still here playing. One of the main reasons for that is teams like Ground Force Unit! Teams that come along, form among friends and slowly become better and better. GFU has made the TWL Gamma finals scheduled for this upcoming Wednesday night and this seemed like the perfect chance to sit down and talk with KillerMike. Time to get a different view on the Wolfenstein scene.


c[_]Wippuh: Tell us the good stuff Mike. We want to know more about you. Who are you, what do you do outside of wolf, and how did you find your way to where you're at now? The intro basics.

'KillerMike': I'm pretty much the average high school student. Outside of wolf (which may not always be too often:), I work on computers at for the school. I play sports, I do farely well in school, and like to LAN at friend's house. Not really much to say about me:P, just the average player who likes wolf.


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[_]Wippuh: Your team has been around for a while now. You have pretty much remained with the same core group of players since the beginning. Do you believe that this makes the accomplishment of reaching the twl-gamma finals even more rewarding?

'KillerMike': I think it makes it far more rewarding. Five of our starters have been with us since the very beginning. Our 6th addition joined with us in February. Knowing that we've worked hard and gotten this much better in a year's time makes this moment very rewarding. When we first started TWL, we didn't know what Ventrilo or Teamspeak was. We all learend about that stuff as a team, got better, and with the same group of guys, we're where we're at now.


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[_]Wippuh: Again, in the same line of questioning, there seems to be a popular trend that teams take ex invite/main players and adding them to their roster in order to win games. GFU hasn't done so. How do you remain confident when seeing other teams doing that?

'KillerMike': To be honest, it's hard to remain confident. Knowing that all of our players were on the same team from Noobhood and up, it's a little scary knowing you're facing teams that have players with cal-m+ experience. However, we make sure just to stick to our game plan, and go for the big upset. We scrimm a lot, and we're always pubbing together, and that helps give us that edge of confidence before we play a match.


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[_]Wippuh: You're only 16 years old, you balance school, soccer, and playing in both cal/twl. Have you noticed any differences since you've begun playing competitive wolf? Are there any positives you've noted that come from trying to lead a team?

'KillerMike': I've noticed quite a few differences since I started playing competive wolf. I noticed an even bigger difference when Tr3y, joined the team (me and him go to same school). Before, I'd go to school, keep wolf away:P. However, me and trey find ourselves talking about strats during and after school. There's now always something to talk about:P. I'd say there are some positives that come from me leading a team. We all get along, talk to each other, and just enjoy playing with each other, and that makes my job easier. I've also learned to accept other's opinions and give them a chance to speak, because the majority of the time, their ideas work. I think that's an important part of a clan staying together. Discussing ideas, working problems out, and most importantly, having fun.


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[_]Wippuh: How does the typical week for GFU go?

'KillerMike': Ahh, the advanced, super organized schedule of GFU goes like this:
Monday: 7-8:00 Pub
8-11 Scrimm
Tuesday: 7-8:00 Pub
8-11 Scrimm
Wednesday: 9:30 TWL MATCH!!!
Thursday: 7-8:00 Pub
8-11 Scrimm
Friday: 7-8:00 Pub
8-11 Scrimm
Saturday: Pretty much day off, same as Sunday. We normally play ladder matches on these days.

We're not really strict on scrimmages, whenever we get enough players on, we all normally feel like scrimming.


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[_]Wippuh: In the Gamma finals you're facing off vs Hkc on mp_ice. With two huge victories behind you vs IW and F1, you're still going to go into the match as the underdog. How will your team prepare for the match, especially with the week off due to Thanksgiving?

'KillerMike': We're pretty much preparing like we do any other match. We scrimm when we get enough players on. However, the weekend off from Thanksgiving is a little tough. We've just made sure to scrimm when we can and make the best of it.


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[_]Wippuh: What are GFU's plans after this season? Are there any other games in your future? Do you have any goals for next season in Cal-O?

'KillerMike': We're still debating whether or not to give RtCW another season. We most definitely are going CoD, though. We are going to stick together, and see what we can make out of it. Another season for GFU is still up in the air.


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[_]Wippuh: As you step up in twl divisons and go at Cal-O next season, what will be the 5 things you think your team will work at to improve on?

'KillerMike': We most defintely will work on our shots, strats, and communication. However, we'll also work on getting together more often, and scrimming and practicing.


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[_]Wippuh: A lot is made of players and the leauges they play in. Many will mock the lower leagues even though they've never done anything signifigant in their own wolf career. Why do you believe they do things like that, and how do you believe teams should handle being mocked like that?

'KillerMike': I think teams should just ignore it. We've been called NOOBs, soooo many times I've lost count. We just ignore the comments, and do what we think needs to be done to get better. I think these players mock them to make themselves feel better, even though, as you stated, they've never done anything significant in their own career. They're just a blend in the group of their cal-i or whatever group. I don't really take offense from it, because it's just a game. It's all for fun.


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[_]Wippuh: Shoutouts

'KillerMike': Wipp:P, Hammer, Virus047, WarPig, Abi-Normal Dante HellFox and Doppy, Clone and Dozer, Nazi_Killer, Lord Zog, Alex, John, and Jon, JacKNife, my boy 0ne!!!, Circa, and to all the clans that scrimmed us ( AS, :+:, ]NARF[, HkC, c[_], [502nd], -x-, WTF!, and an more!)

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Interview: OPP|Pinggan

Posted by: c[_]`Wippuh (Friday, November 28, 2003)

As a special Thanksgiving treat, the most infamous spammer of them all was tracked down for an interview. If you have any trouble translating the 'pinganese' just go buy some cracker jacks and hope you get the special OPP decoder ring.

Enjoy!

c[_]Wippuh: The readers want to know the history behind ze Ping. Where did the nickname come from, how did you find wolf, etc...

pingGan'psycho: well nuthing speaciol about ze ping ;p im just a no0b who loves to play games hehehehe ;p i got the nickname when i play red alert 2 back in the days where me, joe, and some other friends from kansas
created a clan called POOKEY which supposed to spell puki means pussy hehehe ;p when we all created the clan i have no nickname :O soo me and my friends try to create 1 nickname for me :O then they all
suggested lots of stupid names lol ;p since im speaking other language soo i tot mangkuk would be a kool name ;p it means bowl ;p we use mangkuk(bowl) as a slang which stands for stupid, dumass, and jackass hehehehe ;p
but mangkuk is soo common :O soo i figured im gonna use sumthing similar to mangkuk(bowl) or sumthing that ppl would think its funny ;p soo i tot Pinggan would be a kool name which means plate hehehe ;p since
that day, i stucked with my seksi nickname PingGan hehehee ;p

while im busy playing Red Alert 2 and Yuri's Revenge, baby busy playing this stupid games called RTCW :O she played it since the demo first came out ;
she always try to convince me and my friends to play that stupid game ; and we all like " wtf is this game :O doesnt look like fun at all ; killing ppl and get nuthing" but she kept bugging me and ask me to
try that stupid game ; i called it stupid bcause i played CS like a couple of times and i dont like it at all :O thats like 6 years ago :O soo she kept bugging me and ask me to try to play the game ;
soo i said wth and give it a try :O and i was right, the GAME SUCK ASS!!!! :O make me dissy and i almost vormit because of that stupid game ; and thats the only time i said im gonna try that game ;
NOMORE STUPID GAME FOR ME!!! :O then u know baby, as a sister [a very kool sis actually] she STILL KEPT BUGGING ME AND ASK ME TO PLAY THAT GAME!!!!!! ARGHhhhhhhhhhh ; soo wit love i give it another try :O
and the GAME STILL SUX!!!!!!!! :O until 1 day, i get bored of playing RA2 and Yuri's, i give the game another shot :O and i think that day is my lucky day and im owning wo0t!!!!!!!!!!! then i said, this game
is not soo bad ehh ;p soo i start to like the game and get the game when it first released hehehe ;p


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[_]Wippuh: You're very active in all of the major wolf forums and constantly contribute you unique brand of posts to them. Why do you do it? What is it you hope to bring from your posts?

pingGan'psycho: for fun and to entertain myself lol ;p i like reading the forums when ppls flaming each other about sum stupid stuff and the thread got like 200 - 300 replies roflmfao ;p usually i reply sumthing else that has nuthing to do with
the topic soo i hope they'll change the topic and stop flaming ;p but it never works ;p ppl just ignore me and keep flaming roflmfao lololol ;p its either they just plain stupid, nuthing else to do, or bunch of kindergarten kids lolol ;p
dont be mad to who ever gonna read this lolol ;p nuthing but <3 to all of u kiddos out there hehehe ;p


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[_]Wippuh: You've been in OPP since the very beginning, how did OPP form, where did the nickname come from, and when did you see teams finally begin to recognize your team for the fun spamming n00bs that you are?

pingGan'psycho: baby always play on this awesome server called Jolt 3 since she play the demo ;p soo me, joe and knk played on the same server wit 150 - 300 ping, sumtimes 900 lol ;p at that time we dont care or we dont even
know wtf is ping hehehe ;p we just play wit those lag and still can get a good score hehehe ;p it was soooo fun lol ;p while we all playing, joe aka hyperave aka optimus prime aka mp 40 lol wearing this OPP tag
behind of his name :O soo i asked him, " re u in a clan???" and he said " NO" :O then i ask " then y u wearing that tag behind ur name??" and he said " dunno :O it looks kool because evrybody wearing a tag
on their names lol" ;p i was like " ooooooooooooooooookkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkk" lololol ;p then he said "y dont u wear it too?? it looks kool lol" then i ask him " what is it mean??" he said " dunno... :O" then i was like
"ooookkkk" hehehe ;p since then me, joe, and KNK wearing that goofy
tag hehehe ;p while baby already in a clan since she play the demo ;p we asked baby to join our clan and she said NO UR CLAN SUX!!! MUAHAHAHAH!!! ;p and we all like "NO, U SUCK MUAHAHAHHAHA" ;p as a revenge, i kept
bugging her to join our clan EVRYDAY!!!!!! hehehehe ;p then she starts wearing OPP tag behind her name ;p i was like Wo0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0ottt!!!! hehehe ;p

after a while, our friend who is a computer geek and loves to play video games, who play evrygame that exist in this world found out about the very first RTCW tournament(BOB) and ask us if we wanna join the tourney ;p
that is KNK hehehe ;p then he said we need at least 7 ppls to join the clan, but we only have 4 :O soo we decide to get on Jolt 3 server and spam "WHO WANNA JOIN OUR CLAN AND JOIN A TOURNAMent?!?!?!?" lol it was
funny as hell when we spam that shit roflmfao ;p soo theres 3 - 5 ppls that we actually knew from playing in Jolt 3 evryday wanna join us lol ;p its Ruiner, Henker, Guardian, Dr.Jules, and Evil Mick ;p all euro
players hehehe ;p soo we all get them to register for the tourney hehehehe ;p with regular cfg, no strats, no communication, nuthing :O we playing our first match as a REAL CLAN!!! woo0o0o0otT!!!!!!!! and got rolled
by this clan called Gibbering Idiots ;p they were actually a very good clan who go until the 1/4 final :O ;p cant remember that well hehehe ;p thats how OPP was born wo0o0o0ot!!!! ;p

ppl kept asking us wth is OPP stands for??? for about a month or 2, our answer would be "dunno" hehehhe ;p after awhile, we was thinking we need to give this clan a name ;p soo we came up wit a few ideas ;p forget what is it ;p
soo after a few weeks lol ;p we came up wit Operation Psycho Patrol hehehe and we tot its a really kool name ;p i dunno if its the jinks of the name or what is it, evrybody in the clan is psycho :O even 1 of our
member really goin to mental hospital because HE IS CRAZY roflmfao ;p

i dont think ppl actually recognize us as a good clan ; :( ;p yes its because we are the REAL no0bs wo0o0o0ot!!! ;p and im proud of that hehehe ;p even if they do recognize us, prolly i just didnt see it bcause
we do suck hehehe ;p or if they do recognize us its because we like to spam hehehhe ;p and we dont really care if ppl know us or not cause the truth is we know who we are and where we came from hehehe ;p that is the
best thing about OPP that i love, and they dont care about publicity or famouscity lol ;p thats a lot of ppls/clanz try to reach and at the end, the worst thing happened to them :(

soo im proud of this unfamous clan that still stands strong in the community FOR EBAH!!! ;p and im proud of our TRUE leader who brought OPP from nuthing to actually sumthing ;o i guess ;p and i am very
proud of the clan members who always keep it low profile and make me feels like a REAL family in this clan ;p ONCE U JOIN, U PROLLY DONT wANNA LEAVE THE FAMILY wo0o0o0ot!!!!! ;p OPP FO LIFE
Wo0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0otttttttttt!!!!!!!!!!!!! ;p


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[_]Wippuh: With so many spammers and goofy guys (and gal) playing for OPP, what are some of your personal favorite memories so far?

pingGan'psycho: my favorite memories is how the clan started ;p and i already said it hehehhee ;p others is like how we gel in OPP as a true family and i dont think i could EVER forget any of the clan members <3 ;p if i ever quit gaming,
OPP will be the best thing that have ever happen in my life and it will stay in my memory FOREVER!!! ;p


c
[_]Wippuh: The crazy puncuation. Is there a method to the madness?

pingGan'psycho: roflmfao ;p the answer is C :O is that the correct answer?? hehehhee ;p or is there a 5th option??? if there is , my answer would be E hehehehe ;p <3 ;p


c
[_]Wippuh: ;p What does it mean to you?

pingGan'psycho: it means ;p to u!!!!!! muahahahhaa ;p ;p ;p ;p ;p ;p ;p ;p ;p ;p ;p ;p ;p ;p ;p ;p ;p ;p ;p ;p
;p ;p ;p ;p ;p ;p ;p ;p ;p ;p ;p ;p ;p ;p ;p ;p ;p ;p ;p ;p ;p ;p ;p ;p ;p ;p ;p ;p ;p ;p ;p ;p ;p ;p ;p ;p ;p
;p ;p ;p ;p ;p ;p ;p ;p ;p ;p ;p ;p ;p ;p ;p ;p ;p ;p ;p ;p ;p ;p ;p
;p ;p ;p ;p ;p ;p ;p ;p ;p ;p ;p ;p ;p ;p ;p ;p ;p ;p ;p ;p ;p ;p ;p ;p ;p ;p ;p ;p ;p ;p ;p ;p ;p ;p ;p ;p
;p ;p ;p ;p ;p ;p ;p ;p ;p ;p ;p ;p MUAHAHAHHA!!!! ;p ;p ;p ;p ;p ;p ;p ;p ;p ;p ;p ;p ;p ;p ;p ;p


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[_]Wippuh: I had the honor of ringing in a scrim with OPP not too long ago and got to hear the madness that is the OPP ventrilo. Tell us some of the most unique things that you've heard on the OPP vent.

pingGan'psycho: the unique things is the yelling and fighting and all the screaming roflmfao ;p but its only for a few mins rofl ;p yes we fought a lot in vent ;p xspeacially me and newt roflmfao ;p we always i mean ALL THE TIME,
we have sumthing to argue about roflmfao ;p but at the end, we all love each other ;) like i said, we all family ;p when u sooo close to each other, there will be fighting and yelling and screaming wit each other ;p thats just a part of
what family means hehehe ;p

the other thing is nikon's binds roflmfao ;p its funny as hell roflmfao ;p

plus when baby changing ghey to newt name roflmfao ;p soo evrytime we wanna say ghey xample "u are soo ghey" we'll say it "u are soo newt!!!" lolol ;p


c
[_]Wippuh: The gamespy stats are constantly falling for wolf and people are migrating to games like CoD at a high pace. What is it about Wolf that keeps you here and if you could change 5 things that you believe would improve the game, what would they be?

pingGan'psycho: lets just say i LOVE this game sooo much!!! hehehe ;p yes i do play some other games ;p all kinda games ;p rts, rpg, fps what ever ;p but i think this is the best game that any game company ever made ;p theres sumthing unique about the game
thats make stay and play this game EVRYDAY!!! hehehee ;p theres no other games like RTCW :O other game is all about killing :O if u have a good shooters in ur clan, ull be a the best clan in that game ; but in RTCW no, even u have
a good shooters, doesnt mean u have a good team :O u need skillz to use evry speacial weapons in RTCW, u need strats which is the best thing, and u need a very very very very very very very good communication ;p i see a lots of good
shooters clan in NA ;) but none of them can give a very good competition to Euro clan ;p sorry to say that ;p but its the truth ;p they have a good shooters, strats, and a VERY good teamwork which is very impresive ;p
and the main reason im still playing this game is OPP :) <3 ;p

hmmmm 5 things??? :O i dunno roflmfao ;p well i try hehehee ;p

1) the attitude ;) ive seen a lot of lamers in this game that came from a very good clan ; sorry to say that :( but its not gonna work like that ; even u have the best team in the world, but u dont have a good
attitude, u wont go anywhere ; the clan that i respect the most is ]NARF[ ;) great team, and they have a very great personality ;) even tho they havent win any big tournament yet, they have my respect as the best team
in NA :) ppls complaining about the maps, patches bla bla bla is killing the game, but our attitude is actually killing the game :( i know ppl wont agree wit me hehehe but its just my opinion from what i see evryday
in this community ;) some ppl look sooo down on no0bs ; kick them from a server when they try to learn how to play the game :( well i dont care if u guys wanna do that, but dont complaint about the game is gonna die,
no competition and all that stuff hehehe ;p a baby cant just right away running around when they just born to this world, they'll start wit rolling, crawling, walking then they'll start running ;) just remember, we
once a baby too ;) <3 ;p

2) friends :) i see a lot of haters in this community :( which is pretty sad ; i played this game for a long time, and im glad that im pretty much gelling with evrybody ;p but some ppl just like to fight
with each other for sum stupid stuff ; if we all could get along wit each other, im pretty sure we can bring down those EURO FOOKERS heheheh ;p i love EURO players soo dont take it a wrong way hehehehe ;p <3 ;p

3) well maybe new maps and patches will help too ;) ppl getting tired of playing the same maps evryday ;p

4) damn i dunno lol ;p

5) damn i dunno this 1 either lmfao ;p well maybe if we could kill Wippuh for interviewing me could help the game too lmfao ;p <3 Wipp hehehe ;p


c
[_]Wippuh: If you could compare all of your teammates to cartoon characters, who would be who?

pingGan'psycho: damn this is a tough question :O i havent watch cartoons that much anymore ; well lemme try rolfmfao ;p

coyote = newt ;p a very creative player but sux hehehe ;p

road runner = Plan9 ;p very fast and very smart player hehehe ;p and very kool too hehehe ;p

wonder woman = baby ;p a very tough woman thats make evrythings by her self and amazingly she brought OPP all the way almost by herself ;)

daffy duck = lucky ;p talk too much roflmfao ;p and hes ghey too ;p currently looking for a partner wo0o0o0ot!!! ;p or maybe worth a one-night stand hehhee ;p

donald duck = spa ;p good player, great brother to me ;p but very clumsy lol ;p

bugs bunny = hydro ;p smart and kool ;) sumtimes annoying roflmfao ;p

samurai jack = hool ;p he loves samurai and a very kool guy ;p

He-man = joe aka hyperave aka optimus prime aka mp 40 ;p this guys is a keeper ;p and a very great real brother to me ;)

marvin the martian = ryback ;p very quiet and very smart ;p

tazmania = slaya :O fast crazy and koooool ;p

shrek = thedude ;p very sensitive guy hehehehe ;p but very loving hehehe ;p

goofy = xero lol ;p cant say anymore ;p

Hippopotamus = naps lolololol ;p <3 ;p

baloo = storm lmfao hahahahhahahahahahhahahah ;p

and me of course ;p IM SON GOKU WOo0t!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! SEKSI AND TOUGH WO0t!!!!!!!!!!!! lololol ;p

and thats about it i guess ;p


c
[_]Wippuh: Shoutouts!

pingGan'psycho: shoutouts to evrybody ;) xspecially to my loving family OPP wo0o0o00o0ot!!!!!!!! ;p and to all my beloved friends out there hehehe ;) <3 ;p
well in this oppoturnity(dunno how to spell) i would like to give a special thx to Chocula who sponsor us a vent server for almost 2 years ;)
and to Cheese who gave us his server and let us use it anytime we want ;) <3 ;p and thx to all clanz out there who helped us since we started the clan ;)
and personal thx to all OPP members, Cerebral, Rook8, Choucula, Cheese, poor, slappy, Busta, Paper, jay, neo, and knifer ;) who teach me alot of stuff
in a dif ways and in a dif xpects ;) thx a lot guys ;) sorry if i miss anybody :( cant remember all since some of u guys kept changing names ;
and thx to Wippuh who me to get interviewed and refuse to tell me y he wanna interview me ;O ;p <3 to all of u guys ;) wo0o0o0o0o0o0o0ot!!!!!!!!!!!!!! ;p thx <3 ;p
MAY TEH COWBELL BE WIT U WOo0o0oo00o00o0o00o0o0o0o00o0ottt!!!!!!!!! ;p




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Holiday Tourney!! Fun!!

Posted by: OpZ (Wednesday, December 3, 2003)

Greetings! This is Covert Ops Server Admin (Spidey) asking for your support in a propsed Holiday Wolf Tourney. I have previuosly said in past posts I was interested in putting a never before seen (at least in my wolf time) across the board tourney. Well, the Holidays are upcomming and hopefully the names selected below will have time to participate. Pls check for your name and e-mail me back asap as to "yes or no" you are interested. Any persons not responding by Dec 7th (D-Day!!) will be removed and replaced. The proposed dates are Dec 19th, 20th and 21st in the interest of those going to cyberX hopefully it won't be too much of a distraction. I am hoping that at least 75% of the people selected are interested and I have alot of names in mind for alternates as well. The matches are standard CAL rules and the maps are Beach(19th), Base(20th) and Ice(21st) respectively to a.m. dates. Any agreed upon server is fine but, I'm hoping to have the final match at Covertops Server. Default times are 10:00 est. Before "wolf dies, lol" I thought this would be fun. Winning team emails in the scores/ results. This is meant to be fun so please don't take it too seriously.

The following were used as criteria so please don't take anything personal if left off the list. E-mail me with vote for somebody as an alternats, np. CovertOps_Server@comcast.net IP=69.12.85.34:27960

Team leaders were selected first based on CAL season #6 winning team. Next came runners up leaders. The last two spots were chosen for as follows; KrazeyKaze STA champ leader and Hollywood, most logical choice to complete teams.
Teams are comprised of 8 each members and all members must play, be fair and have fun. 2ea invites, 2ea mains, 2ea Opens and 2ea 'free agent" pub whores/league players were chosen. Mainly the 3 winning teams of CAL had the heavier weighted entries and then the runners up and then the clans who did well during the season but perhaps not in playoffs were considered.
Every thread in wolf ends up being a lamer/ flamer thread so...hopefully this one won't degrade faster than we can settle it. Each team leader is to make up the NEW name of the team and post results with said name but, keep the "#" with the clan to keep bookeeping easy.
Here we go...
Team# (Leader)

Team#1 (BlackMagik)
BlackMagik, Donka
mp40, Synergy
Wolverine, teh_Wippuh
Steigal, Dp-bee

Team#2 (Roadkill)
Megatron, Johann
Roadkill, Armageddon
eriatic, Ray
Mogvaii, Codewarrior

Team#3 (Invisibleman)
Vatican, F0ck3r
Yoda, farb
Invis, puff
pimpplaya, rev

Team#4 (Blumpkin)
G-thugg, Sucka
Blumpkin, Juventus
darkcyclone, Legolas
DimMak, MattSiva#1

Team#5 (Winters)
Elusion, cade
Joker, SpanishRed
Winters, Nikon
Sammstein, Machine

Team#6 (Killa Sin)
KillaSin, Robes
Rahl, captainPecker
SnackAttack, Alien
underdog(eod), KillerMike

Team#7 (Hollywood)
Hollywood, Warrior
Alienware, Makaveli
TB, SpiDerman
Stormrider, Ralphnader

Team#8 (Krazeykaze)
brian, mooshu
KK, Hydro
viuda-negra, HaVoc
Comm0n, Argo

Team leaders will create Team names, muster troops for scrims/ practice (pls don't overdo it), schedule matches with opponent leaders, agree upon servers (be fair), post results to CO server admin, find vent(COserver vent available), find IRC channel(#coswolf available to gather for pms), and choose match lineups, everyone MUST play at least one full round per match. 2 specs allowed.
Meet people, share ideas, have fun, and enjoy Holidays!!!
Strength and Honour!!!


BTW 1 vs 2, 3vs 4, 5 vs 6 and 7 vs 8 to start. Beach Dec 19th
Winner 1/2 vs winner 3/4. Base Dec 20th
Winner 5/6 vs winner 7/8. Base Dec 20th
winner 1-4 vs winner 5-8. Ice Dec 21st
gl and hf

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CyberX Lameness

Posted by: $ Inv s bl m n (Friday, December 5, 2003)

CyberX www.cyberxgaming.com Web site advertises big prize monies for RTCW $30,000. Then teams get hotels, airfares plan their vacation time around those dates, and then director decides to lower prize money! $15,000. Cut in 1/2! False advertisement? Without doubt wrong and don't feel like getting into it to much because don't want to give TWL any more opportunities to discriminate than they already do, but completely unprofessional no excuses. Let's think they cut RTCW in 1/2 so they can add Call of Duty a joke game I bought it in hopes of playing CoD and RTCW at CyberX. CoD completely new game= 1) CoD No sprint bar 2) No Speed what's so ever U top speed is slower than normal RTCW run speed. 3) No Strafing used in fact strafing reduces u accuracy greatly. 4) Bugs like jump in air and u have 100% accuracy and others 5) 0[zero] patches to fix any problems known 6) no OSP 7) No center DOT for aiming 8) Its OLTL only 9) there are no classes everyone spawn the same class aka: LT/soldier combo no revives no giving ammo. 10) Snipers own the game 11) Handgun just as effective as anything else basically. 12) Cost $50. 13) No elite Strife jumping skills allowed 14) Why not just play chezzy[low graphics low system requirements] Counter strike u win more money and its same type game 15) NO Punk Buster at all cheating welcome just like Counter Strike is known for 16) What team play sure u got to work together to win any game but u don't need ammo or medics or dif classes just like a human tank battle. 17) All u do is run[slow] to a point set up and crouch around rest of the time either trying to ambush or camp an area. 18) Prone[lying on your stomach] almost useless hope u don’t accidentally hit that bind. 19) Headshots 1 single shot and u spec rest the round even though there is no center dot 20) After u dead they show cam of u getting owned LOL. 21) Lean useless they still see u man hope u don't figure that out hard way like i did.
Don't get pissed at my post just respond correct me where i'm wrong ok? Anyways where is RTCW2???

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Just a game

Posted by: selfie (Monday, December 8, 2003)

Cyber X Games Inc.
December 7, 2003

Community Release: CXG Los Angeles Qualifying Event/Response as written by Joseph F. Hill, President, Cyber X Gaming Inc.

At 4:30am (CST) I was informed by CXG staff and representatives of Gamers X of a disturbance that took place outside of the Gamers X facility. In response to this event I have prepared the following statement, which is based upon police reports, research, and information gathered to date from those involved, I prepared this type of response because I believe it important to the community that these actions be revealed and discussed:

Late last evening following the completion of a match involving two Los Angeles based teams a fight was initiated outside of the Gamers X LAN Center, host of the CXG Los Angeles Qualifier; upon learning of the disturbance Chris Hill of CXG, and my son, was asked to try and resolve the matter and stop the fighting; as he broke up the fight he and others were jumped by people associated with Team BZ. As Chris, and others attempted to calm the situation a member/associate of Team BZ ran to his car opened the trunk of the car grabbed a gun and placed it to the head of Chris Hill while other Team Members and associates encouraged the person with the gun to fire!

Upon hearing of this situation and the facts surrounding the disturbance I immediately expressed my concern regarding the safety of my son as well as those players and staff involved with the event. I also began to inquire about the ability for local authorities to ensure the safety of those involved, at which time we were informed that until the people involved were arrested that no such assurances of safety could be provided. At this time I became very uncomfortable with anyone’s ability to stop an additional act of retribution by those involved and requested the staff of Gamers X to stop the event and cease all tournament functions. The staff and ownership of Gamers X agreed with this position and players were informed.

CXG would like to express our appreciation to the staff and ownership of Gamers X with regard to the way they handled and managed this situation. Their thoughtful presentation of suggestions and actions is appreciated.

While this is a deeply disturbing and personally frightening situation I currently attribute this matter, and the despicable actions of those who initiated and presented the weapons, to the moral fiber and character of the local community rather than the games and players who will suffer due to the actions of a these few.
It is the position of CXG that threats and actions such as the ones presented last night unduly bring criticism and scandal to the gaming community and reflect poorly upon what we believe, in general, to be a great group of kids and young adults. However, we are also unwilling, unlike some other organizations in gaming, to hide our heads in the sand and act like these type of issues are not present within the community, someone has to step up! This is now the second time within the last 4 months that Chris has been exposed to verbal and physical harm by people associated with PC Gaming. While the severity of the first case does not reach the depth of this most recent situation, adults with supposed control of their acts conducted both.

As a result of this most recent action CXG will take the following steps:
1. Players from both Clans/Teams who participated in this action will be band from participating within CXG related events
2. We will place information on our web site that will seek information and identify those who initiate such actions against anyone within the community and those players/teams will be band from any further relationship within CXG events and we will seek to expose their actions to all!
3. CXG will enforce a zero tolerance policy within all sanctioned events that will cause the immediate disqualification and removal of any player/team that initiates any form of verbal or physical threat to others participating within our event.
4. CXG will seek civil and criminal action against those who initiate actions viewed to be detrimental to the well being of others.
5. CXG will review all event related games to ensure the presence of intrigue, strategy, planning, and coordination of skills as part of their presentation, and free of gratuitous violence.
6. Although plans exist for a significant presence of security during the Las Vegas event, we will now increase the presentation at the event.
7. CXG will initiate a research project to identify the depth of violence related to the Gaming community and affiliated events. We want all actions reported openly so the problem can be resolved. We also want to ensure that people who incite such dangerous actions are banned from association within any community function
8. CXG will conduct a “participant required” 30 minute presentation during all events that will discuss our policies on violence. This will include presentations by those organizations engaged in community safety.

CXG also believes that the future of our organization as well as the future of others within the industry will be determined by our ability to self-mange these issues rather than leave outcomes and reactions to the general population and governments. We will always be proactive to ensure the positive presentation of the gaming community and CXG will seek ways to provide a positive influence on those associated within the gaming community

We do apologize to those gamers who attended the event in Los Angeles for its ultimate outcome; however, if each of you can take a minute and place yourself in Chris’s (Recon’s) position late last night, I do believe you will understand why I took these actions, and will continue to do so!!

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cXg Info

Posted by: -a-WarRi0R (Tuesday, December 9, 2003)

Well, I havent seen any post so I might as well do it. Although the prize money for RtCW was decreased, we will still have fun at the event. I have made a channel #cxgteams.rtcw for those teams attending or for those active rtcw teams. The channel is basically for RtCW teams that need help finding scrims because I know we arent the only team that can abrely find any. So please idle and peform #cxgteams.rtcw .... Team leaders and Schedulers will get ops. Also I forgot to post this on the site but the cXg lan config was releashed. It is:

pb_sv_cvar rate in 2500 25000
pb_sv_cvar cl_timenudge in 0
pb_sv_cvar cl_maxpackets in 100
pb_sv_cvar cg_bobpitch in 0 0.002
pb_sv_cvar cg_bobroll in 0 0.002
pb_sv_cvar cg_bobup in 0 0.005
pb_sv_cvar cg_errordecay in 100
pb_sv_cvar cg_fov in 90 120
pb_sv_cvar cg_shadows in 0 1
pb_sv_cvar cg_simpleitems in 0
pb_sv_cvar cg_thirdperson in 0
pb_sv_cvar cg_wolfparticles in 1
pb_sv_cvar com_maxfps out 0.000001 40
pb_sv_cvar cl_freelook in 1
pb_sv_cvar m_pitch out -0.015 0.015
pb_sv_cvar m_yaw in 0.022
pb_sv_cvar r_colorbits in 32
pb_sv_cvar r_ext_nv_fog_dist in 0
pb_sv_cvar r_flares in 0 1
pb_sv_cvar r_gamma in 1.3 2
pb_sv_cvar r_ignorehwgamma in 1
pb_sv_cvar r_intensity in 1 2
pb_sv_cvar r_picmip in 0 2
pb_sv_cvar r_overbrightbits in 0 2
pb_sv_cvar r_mapoverbrightbits in 0 2
pb_sv_cvar r_rmse in 0
pb_sv_cvar r_texturebits in 32
pb_sv_cvar r_texturemode include gl_linear_mipmap
pb_sv_cvar r_uifullscreen in 0
pb_sv_cvar r_vertexlight in 0
pb_sv_cvar snaps in 40

A little bit better then Quakecon but still dark. GL HF!!!

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ocr*fizzel's ET-idea.

Posted by: selfie (Wednesday, December 10, 2003)

-from the ocrana site.

Enemy Territory - Competitive Gaming?
Overtime: Radar. This very often is the result of up to 2 hours playing a 6on6 Enemy Territory clan match.

Everyone who knows the game also knows that it is pretty hard to break through defensive lines. Especially on Goldrush, Fueldump, Seawall Battery and Oasis. When the defending team does its job well, there is no way you gonna get those objectives - unless somebody makes either a mistake or one of the attackers pulls out a superb shot.
A timelimit of 20 or even more minutes is way too much in my humble opinion. Let me give you an example on this case:


1) a maximum of 2 sw rounds is played to determine the final result.
2) if one team makes a major mistake in a round - the game is almost lost. (in rtcw you could lose a round and still win the game within the set.)
3) if both teams are equally skilled and if there are no surprises, the game will end up in a tie and an overtime has to be played.
4) It is not interesting for watchers. For example: Goldrush - bank open. Axis setting up an immense defense containing Artillery Support, MG gunner, mines, panzer and so on. The way for the allied guys to move across the map is long.

Even if you don't agree with the fact, that Goldrush/Oasis or so aren't so difficult to win, think about this: Are 4 playable (more or less!) maps enough to keep a game interesting? Especially when you play a map up to 50 minutes with just one sw round?

If you agree at this point with me - i will try to draw a conclusion. If you disagree, don't bother reading further and play the game as you know it right now. For all those who think that 2 sw rounds aren't really decisive, or those who hate playing 50 minutes for one sw round, i will give you my thought now.

Due to the fact that Splash Damage won't do much to change the game, the community has to do it itself. But how to sort things out in such a wide spread community? Who should be responsible for changes? And - are changes really wanted by the majority of people gaming Enemy Territory in clans/teams?

As far as I know, most people complain about these huge maps. But how to revolutionate the whole competitive scene?

I have been thinking about these questions over and over again. And my conclusion is, that only the leagues can change something.

My idea is to make a worldwide custom mapping contest, supported by all major Enemy Territory leagues. Such as: CAL, TWL, Clanbase, ESL, etc.

If it is the wish of the community to change something these leagues are responsible to support us as we supported them for a while.

Let people make good custom maps with a maximum timelimit of 10-15 minutes. These maps should be more balanced. The leagues could work together and make a vote, so the community can try the maps out and then vote for their favorites.

If you're not satisfied with the idea of custom maps: these guys who design them really know what's going on, and they are doing some great work.

I will now come to my final point. CAL, TWL, Clanbase, ESL, etc. really should try to work together for the community. It's not about competition. If Clanbase, for example, would add 1 or 2 custom maps into their mappool, and CAL would go for other customs we would have a big split. Too many different custom maps also can corrupt competitive gaming. Therefore I suggest that they communicate and set up a custom map vote. So at the end, we will have a set of 5-10 (?) new maps which are supported by all major leagues - smaller leagues will sure follow.

If you are satisfied with the idea of changing - support this column and its idea. If you are not satisfied with my conclusion, try to draw other good solutions that might help. Finally, if you are not content with the idea of changing at all: you wasted your time :p

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Interview: BeavermanA

Posted by: c[_]`Wippuh (Friday, December 12, 2003)

To continue on with the interviews we found one of the most feared, yet more quiet players around. BeavermanA has been receiving lots of praise from fellow players for a long long time, so it was due time we tried to ask him some questions about what's up!

Enjoy.

c[_]Wippuh: Tell everyone the good ol background info :) In particular, how'd you choose the name BeavermanA? What's the average day like for you?

u5 BeavermanA: WEll, to start my real name is Andrew Nicholls. I was born in Western Australia and I have been into video games ever since I moved to the US and got my hands on a Nintendo. As soon as I saw the legendary PC games Wolfenstein 3d and Doom, I knew I had to have a computer and have been gaming on them from that point on. RtCW was the first game I have really played competitively online, just before its release I was able to purchase a new PC and get broadband finally so I had good reasons for getting into it. My online names origin stems from the pages of Larry Flynt's magazine, "Hustler". Back in middle school, one of my buddies was able to get ahold of one of his dad's issues. In each issue theres a section called "Beaver Hunt" which we thought was hilarious, so I just added a man to that when I made my AOL screenname years ago; the A stands for my first name, someone had already taken beaverman :x My typical day at the moment usually consists of going to a class or two in the morning and then sitting on my ass or sleeping the rest of the day. THe semester ends next week so after that I'll probably just be sitting on my ass all day. Fun huh? Usually on the weekends I manage to leave the house and go chill with some NARF guys or other friends but my week is quite boring. I worked non-stop the first 8 months RtCW was out and saved up quite a bit of cash which allows me to do what I'm doing now.


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[_]Wippuh: Your clan list reads very impressively with time spent at FH, NARF, -a- and now u5. What's the differences between each of those clans, both style wise and in terms of personality?

u5 BeavermanA: I guess the main difference among the teams would be that playing with FH and NARF was primarily for fun, playing with -a- and u5 was mainly to build a team that could do well at Cyber X Games. I had a great time and really enjoyed playing with FH, learning how to play the game as a team for the first time. My favorite team would have to have been NARF though, theres nothing like sitting next to your teammates and winning, then going back to Da_G's to drink beers and smoke in front of his house. Playing with -a- and u5 has been a lot more professional because there has been only one thing in mind, winning CXG, although I still had and am having a good time with both clans. I find it quite funny that I have now played for both -a- and u5, the teams we had the most heated rivalries with while I was in NARF.


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[_]Wippuh: You're one of the big names in the game. When did you first notice that recognition, and how do you handle it?

u5 BeavermanA: I used to rage on TX SW back in the day but it wasn't until I joined NARF that I got any recognition as being a good player. Its hard to get noticed if you aren't playing for a top team. You'd be surprised how many people will PM you saying, "OMG you're in NARF? You must be l337". I never expected to be very good or even play for a team when I began playing, I just kept playing and improving my game, got use to my settings and stuck with them. I've heard so many people saying they are sucking so they start changing things in their configs in hope of getting out of a slump. Find something you like and stay with it, we all have bad days.


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[_]Wippuh: Tell us the guns out there that you respect. What sets them apart from other players and what is the biggest mistake people fall for when trying to improve individually?

u5 BeavermanA: Two of the biggest guns still playing RtCW would have to be my teammates Warrior and Serbian. I know I used to dislike playing against them in my former clans, if you don't lead with a headshot against those bastages you may as well /kill because you're dead anyway. Other than that I don't think there are too many overpowering players left in the game as far as pure aim goes, or I just don't perceive many others to be because the console usually says _____ was killed by BeavermanA's mp40 :) Exodus has some good shots as well from what I have seen, but since I either have a 50 ping and they have a 100, or vice versa, its kind of hard to make a good judgement. What happened to the good old days when everyone pinged 50ms to DFW? Also I have no idea who anyone is besides the people that scrim u5, I havent pubbed regularly for over a year now so I'm sure there are other noteworthy players out there. To be one of the "great players" you need to have the package deal of good aim, game smarts and a high awareness of whats going on around you. Half my kills come from just outsmarting my adversary, and I'm not referring to leaning and camping. The biggest mistake that people make in trying to improve their game would have to be believing that when you /exec WarRi0r.cfg, you will instantly become a beast. The best way to improve your game would be to play, play, and play some more increasing your knowledge of the game and improving your aim. Theres really no way to improve without practice, and playing against better players than yourself quickens the process.


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[_]Wippuh: You attended the last qcon. What was the experience like? Rumors have surfaced that you had to wear a special shirt at a bar and that you have a certain attraction for shaggy Canadian players? Can you clear that up for us?

u5 BeavermanA: I had a blast at Qcon 2k3. Meeting all the people I had been playing against for the past year was awesome. If CXG is only half as fun, its still going to be a great time. At the titty bar in Dallas, if you were under 21 you were required to wear a white t-shirt with the bar's logo on it making it painfully obvious to the staff if you were drinking as a minor, as I found out when they escorted me outside and cuffed me. As far as my attraction to Shaggy, how can anyone not be attracted to that sexy Canadian bish? I just hope these rumors aren't referring to something I wasn't told about that night after we got back from the strip club, cause I sure as hell don't know what happened.


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[_]Wippuh: The NARF lans are things of legend. Can you describe the average one and what it was like? where does the advantage kick for a team lanning? What about disadvantages?

u5 BeavermanA: Every NARF LAN was pretty much the same. The key elements were always LOTS of beer, I am puzzled as to why we never bought kegs instead of getting 10 packs of beer, LOTS of CA chronic smoking, and of course, LOTS of gaming. There was always something hilarious that occured as well, such as Dave (sp1ke) and Ed (Rev13:16) peeing on each other, or Dave (Imm0rtal) passing out in an unusual place like the hood of a car or in the dirt in the middle of a yucca tree. The biggest advantage to lanning for a match is the ease of communication among the players. I think we proved we weren't all LAN when we won Season 5 CAL-I without lanning a single playoff match. Disadvantages to lanning for me was the unfamiliar playing environment. Its not your home setup that you're used to playing with for hours each week, your keyboard and mouse are going to be in different positions; I solved this by bringing my own desk chair to LANs :o Theres also the possibility of the connection going out, which means your whole team is down; and theres the difficulty of everyone getting to the LAN itself on time, CA freeways are a pain in the ass, which left us with little or no time to warm-up prior to matches.


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[_]Wippuh: Since you've been playing so long and have participated on so many quality teams, can you tell us what gives you and your team the most trouble in scrims/matches? Does a devastating opponent med hurt, dominant snipers, is it tweaks to strats, etc...?

u5 BeavermanA: At this stage in the game I don't think there is much competition left at the highest level. Its not very difficult for us to roll over 99% of the teams still playing. Nothing really gives us much trouble in scrims anymore, besides the always annoying n00bstick, which is a backbreaker playing against any team with a good one. Theres just no way to avoid its ridiculous amount of splash damage without spreading out to the point of being too far apart to help teammates in smg battles. Thats one thing I love about ET, panzers have to hit relatively close to their targets, Its great when they hit 5 feet from me and send me flying, then just popping them in the melon as they try to run away.


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[_]Wippuh: Again, in the longevity theme, why do you believe that so many old school "established" players are against new maps being put into the league rotations? What are your thoughts on this, and what custom maps have you enjoyed and why?

u5 BeavermanA: The biggest obstacle for implementing new maps into league play is that they aren't used for tournaments. Since BOB2 there has been a big tournament in the near future, and teams like to practice only the maps being used for them. Wasting a week or two playing a map you aren't going to see again isn't logical for the players that compete in tournaments. If you saw Qcon putting mp_gay in their rotation, I'm sure you'd be seeing teams scrimming mp_gay constantly. I'm not against customs personally, I have enjoyed most of the ones I've played in matches. Most notably UFO, frostbite and base2. I'm looking forward to base2 in CAL this season, should be fun, but I'm willing to bet the team we play forfeits :(


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[_]Wippuh: From qcon to cXg, you've got a lot of experience on your team particularly with Elusion. What do you believe the NA teams will have to focus on in order to get past the Euros? What do you think u5's possesses that will get them over that hump, and who do you see as some other NA teams that could do some damage?

u5 BeavermanA: Last I heard the majority of the Europeans will not be attending CXG due to the drop in prize money, and I don't blame them. Even with 1st place their winnings wouldn't cover their trips expenses without a complete sponsor. The only teams that I even know of that are going are 4 Kings and Superheroes. I really don't pay any attention to whats happening in the world of wolf anymore. If we are to prevail at CXG, it will be because of the amount of talent our lineup possesses. Its hard to test a strats effectiveness here because we could probably use 6 flamers and beat most teams. Whoever ends up showing up at CXG, I'm looking forward to having some good games with them, win or lose.


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[_]Wippuh: Shoutouts

u5 BeavermanA: u5, all my old teammates and homies from my previous clans, FH, NARF and Affliction, and to the people I met at Qcon. My RtCW career has been a good one, and without all of you it would not have been possible
and not nearly as enjoyable :) GGs.

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Interview: Anomaly

Posted by: c[_]`Wippuh (Monday, December 15, 2003)

One of the last members of the Drs to still be involved with the RtCW community, Anomaly grabbed some interview questions and answered them for the site. Read on!

Enjoy!

c[_]Wippuh: Intro time, give us all that good info about your nick, your gaming history, blah blah blah.

Anomaly: My name is Andrew Brock, I'm 17 years old residing in Mississauga, Ontario, Canada. I started playing games online with Unreal Tournament 1 for fun. About a year later MPTest 1 for RtCW MP was released and I started playing and got hooked. Once retail was released I pretty much dropped UT and started playing RtCW non-stop. As for my alias, the word anomaly means "deviation from the common rule" by definition. I used to play LaserQuest a lot (Indoor Laser Tag) and one of the players used "Anomaly" as his alias. I just thought it was a really cool word and decided to use it as my alias in RtCW.


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[_]Wippuh: What is the fascination with the Drs? People are constantly creating rumors about your return to wolf, from creating false teams for CAL to throwing in irc logs where the slightest suggestion is taken as fact. Abuse and other big name teams don't receive this kind of pandering, so why do the Drs?

Anomaly: That's a very good question, one that I probably can't even answer that properly myself. I probably first noticed the "fascination" with the team in the days leading up to and during QuakeCon 2003. It surprised me how many people were rooting the team on in IRC, WTV, etc. Some people even dubbed dr. "Team Canada". Besides that, we had a lot of characters on our team with a great of sense of humour. From cracking jokes on irc to ingame jokes in scrims or matches with clans. There was also a lot of controversy always surrounding the team. From George's infamous "Watched the demo, wasn't impressed." quote, to scheme's opinionated form of expression, there was always something to read about. Not to mention the many rivalries we had, and packeting issues in matches (SGT tournament vs. cK and wSw). I think all of these factors contributed to the "fascination" with the team.


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[_]Wippuh: You recently competed for Canada in FIFA at the WCG. Can you describe the experience to everyone and what gaming is like in Korea? Do you believe that gaming in NA will ever be as accepted as it is there?

Anomaly: The experience was incredible to say the least. Gaming in Korea is what NFL Football is the USA, it is HUGE. We were all treated like celebrities and then some. There were about 100 people at the airport terminal waiting to greet our country with television reporters and the whole deal following us around the airport, some even came on the coach bus with us that took us to our hotel. Gaming is so mainstream in Korea that it is sort of overwhelming. Everyone there knew about WCG and all the games being played, who the favourites were etc. The venue was extravagant, and the residents of Seoul were extremely hospitable. Always waving and welcoming us to their country. Girls treated us like one huge boy band. Many would ask for you to pose for pictures and stuff, I even got to sign a few autographs. In the arenas some girls were going nuts when you walked by below them (seats were elevated sort of), screaming and crying as if we were all Justin Timberlake or something! It was overwhelming. All the gamers were totally pampered.

The gaming facilities were amazing, both for regular matches and the stage matches. There was also a practice LAN room right in the hotel which was pretty neat. Accomodations were great and almost all the meals were buffets. All in all, it was definetely one of the most incredible experiences of my young life.

As for gaming reaching that level in North America? I would have to answer with highly unlikely. Korea is just way too far ahead of us as far as bringing gaming up to the mainstream. It could definitely happen here as well, but I honestly couldn't see it ever reaching that level, and it would take a heck of a long time just to even get close.


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[_]Wippuh: George is working for the CPL, but what is the rest of the team doing and do you see a return to any games for the team in the future?

Well, Ted "wiseguy" Georgoudakis and Mark "wombat" Larsen leave in a few days to attend the CPL Winter 2003 Championship for CS team RDW. George of course will be there as well working for the CPL. Gus "gusto" Georgoudakis pretty much retired from gaming after QCon 2002, but still hops on to IRC from time to time. Same goes for Tyler "revenant" Bentz, except he probably comes on IRC once in a blue moon, the guy just disappeared! We haven't really kept in touch with Allen "Scheme" Wright much, but as far as I know he's been playing q3 and DJ's for TsN. Al "Muddy" Morais left doctors to form LoT of course. Dan "Arkaine" Albu is still working for NLi, not sure if he's active in any games. Adam "Northman" Gray plays q3 for Stickmen and PeaceMakers, as well as Savage for Abuse. And as for myself, FIFA of course, and also playing Savage for Abuse with Northman. Isaac "doomwvr" Nelson plays savage and other games casually with his old Q2 clan Reactive. Brian "wonderdog" French continues to shoutcast as a DJ for TsN of course. Do I see Doctors returning to any games in the future? Well I think its safe to say that we will possibly return in 2004. And that is all I will say about that, I don't want to make any guarantees nor kill the "fascination".


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[_]Wippuh: In wolf, the doctors were the trendsetters on many maps in terms of strats. What was the process that the team went through in order to figure out strats? Also, it turns out that many teams would copy those strats and not concern themselves with figuring any out on their own, what are the pros and cons you see for a team doing that?

Anomaly: Well when dr. first got started in RtCW, I was recruited at the 7th player for BoB1 about 3 days before the tournament started. I was the only one on the team at that point that had ever played the game, the rest of our team went out and bought the game that same day and we started scrimming the next night. The first couple weeks we just sort of got a feel for the game, as for strats I'd just give a typical strat for whatever map it was that week and we'd try it out as a team. From there we'd simply tweak or mold it slightly to fit our style of play. As the weeks went on, George the leader really became our strategical mastermind. From then on through cal-i and all the way to Qcon 2002 strat making pretty much went like this. George would come up with an initial strat beforehand, sometimes along with imput from gusto, wiseguy, or wombat. Then before we would play any scrims we would all hop into an empty Speakeasy server and George would walk us through the strat. After George was finished the rest of the team would give their input, anything from total strat revamps to just minor tweaking of their positioning and tasks. Once we finalized what we wanted to do we would start scrimming rigorously. If the strat wasn't working as planned we would just have another strat meeting in order to find out what was going wrong and how we could fix it. If it was working great then we would just continue to scrim it until we had perfected it.

To answer the second part of that question, I think it is fine to copy another team's strat, as long as you are confident that your whole team understands each individual position and how the strat is meant to work, you'll be fine. Most teams don't really copy strats, but use a basic strat that is similar. But the difference is that they will take the strat and change it to fit their team's play style. I think this is a contributing factor to why North American RtCW is so strong; clans were constantly tweaking and improving on strats, teamwork, etc. It's like drafting in NASCAR, teams just kept on pushing eachother to get better and better. This showed with strong showings from North American teams at QuakeCON 2003 and 2002.


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[_]Wippuh: Drs are a lanned based team out of the Toronto area. In the past George has said that the team didn't lan up very much, maybe twice a season or so. What goes into organizing a lan and what are the factors that many people don't think about when they say "lan team, omfg, that's why they win"?

Anomaly: All of what you stated in that question is all true. The plan for BoB1 was to LAN all of the matches at a local lan centre in Mississauga (since moved to Toronto) called NLi. However snow storms, Maple Leafs playoff games, Saturday night dentist appointments, and other random reasons prevented us from lanning most of the games.

Organizationally, lanning for us was easy. Basically we'd just make sure that everyone from the lineup could make it out to NLi on matchnight. Once this was confirmed, Arkaine, who works for NLi would ensure that 6 or 7 spots were reserved for us at the LAN centre for the game. Everyone arranged their own rides, most of us carpooled though (except me, I was the lone west sider :( ).

There are many factors that people who haven't lanned as a team haven't thought about. Communication is better on lan I think. For us, yelling to each other directly without any voice comm seemed to make our teamwork just a little bit sharper. There are many downfalls though. BoB1 was my first lan experience, so I definitely wasn't used to playing in different chairs, with different monitors, stuff like that you've grown used to when playing from home. Also, when there's a connection problem, be it packetloss or high ping, everyone on the team suffers instead of the problem being isolated. Overall I loved lanning matches, just the fun factor overrided any problems that we had.


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[_]Wippuh: You returned to wolf briefly while playing with HV. What did you think of the competitive scene? Do you believe that the new top echelon teams could contend with the older top teams? What do you believe are the biggest differences between today's game and the early game?

Anomaly: Ahh, the flame war question. I think this could probably be the most flamed topic in the history of e-sports. Anyways here we go:

The first thing I noticed after returning with HV is that the panzer was used a lot more on both offence and defence. It was hard for me to adjust at first to seeing the panzer on offence, and sometimes dual-panzer defences. I think I accidentally answered the last part of your question there, but oh well, that probably was the biggest difference that I saw.

It was interesting to see teams like NARF, dT/a, Amish, and DarkSide at the top of the scene since most of these teams were; either teams, or teams made up of players from teams that were in the middle of the pack back during the originally cal-i (cal-m teams or lower tier CAL-i). They had all progressed very much and really stepped up and kept North American RtCW very strong. This was proved at QCon 2003 as North America had another strong showing. Could today's top echelon compete with the older top teams? Well, technically we will never know. Many people base their opinion on their own clan affiliation, and in what era they played in, which is totally natural. But in truth, it is an argument that simply will never be won by either side.


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[_]Wippuh: Everyone says that Wolf is hurting because of a lack of maps. The counter argument for this has always been based in the game the Doctors are most well known for, Counterstrike, in which they've been successfully playing the same 6 or so maps for YEARS. What do you believe is hurting the game of wolf and driving away big name teams like The Doctors and Abuse?

Anomaly: First off, I think that Wolfenstein has incredible maps. In fact, most likely some of the best maps in the history of multiplayer games period. Beach, Base, Assault, Ice, etc will always be excellent maps for competition. CS paralells this with maps like dust2, inferno, nuke, and train. CS players wouldn't dare touch a custom de_ map without it being played in either CAL or CPL tournaments. To address this problem, the CPL have constructed and endorsed their own custom maps: de_cpl_mill and de_cpl_fire. Because the CPL have made these maps public and will use them in their LAN tournaments, teams are scrimming them like crazy. What RtCW could have done to raise the amount of competitive maps was the have QCON make their own mp_qcon_maps for competitive play and tell the world that they will be used at the next tournament. In this case I don't think any team would have a problem playing them on CAL, TWL, etc.

However, I don't think that the map situation is hurting the game and driving away the teams. RtCW just doesn't have the raw sponsorship and tournament backing that CS does. Most teams left simply because of the lack of competition. I think it is safe to say that RtCW1 is now officially dead, most of the competitive teams from both QCons realize that RtCW probably will not be played at another LAN tournament after CXG, since QCon 2004 has a lot of new popular Q3 Engine games to choose from. Such as CoD, ET, and maybe even Doom3. Overall, nothing really hurt Wolfenstein during it's life, it has taken us as far as it could and now its longevity has run out, and new Q3 Engine games like CoD and ET, RtCW's sequel have taken its place.


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[_]Wippuh: Many teams scrim hours upon hours a night and believe that this is the formula for winning, but the Doctors never did so. Instead of the grueling scrim schedules, you maybe played an hour a night or so. What did you focus on during that scrim and how was the team able to perform at such a high level without the intense scrim schedule?

Anomaly: Well, I personally always thought that we had a very rigorous scrim schedule. But I guess you are right in saying that some teams did scrim more than us (from what I've heard). On a typical night during the week we'd probably try to have anywhere from 1-3 scrims scheduled nightly. We'd scrim on weekends as well if we were able to get 6 guys together. During scrims we would focus on executing our gameplan, rather than succumbing to the other team's play style. Also, even if we did scrim less than most teams, we did "practice" more. By practicing I mean what I talked about earlier, as in hopping on Roger Wilco and an empty speakeasy and going through our offence and defence in fine detail. I still believe that practicing and scrimming as much as possible is still the best way for a team to improve, but practices like that and making sure everyone's on the same page is also important. I guess that is a contributing factor as to how we competed on such a high level, however I think our scrim schedule was still very intense.


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[_]Wippuh: One of the early rivalries for the Doctors was Darkside, but the more famous rivalry came with Abuse. What was the relationship like between the two teams and what were the keys to defeating a team like Abuse? What did you have to focus on in order to break them down? Why couldn't this happen online yet the Doctors proved to be the superior team at Qcon.

Anomaly: I think that the relationship Abuse was very friendly and close even to this day. Being the strongest team at the time from each coast, naturally there was a rivalry, but I think that it was more of a friendly one. Both of our teams got along well and were regular scrim partners despite being from opposite ends of the continent. Both teams always benefitted from our scrims together since our teams were constantly pushing each other to improve our game and strategies, sort of like my terrible NASCAR analogy earlier. I think that both Doctors and Abuse had stronger rivalries with cK respectively. In fact at one point due to conflicts with certain members of cK, both a and dr. boycotted scrimming with them.

Losing online in the CAL-i finals did not really phase our team at all. For that match we had to use two backup players at the time (myself and scheme) instead of regular starters and were unable to LAN the match because NLi was relocating to the Toronto location. We put up a good fight and were outplayed in the final three rounds and lost. However we knew our team with all of our regular starters and on LAN in Dallas would shine. We still had the same confidence that we could win QCon despite the heartbreaking cal-i finals loss. After the loss we just kept on scrimming, perfecting our strats, and preparing for what really mattered: LAN.


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[_]Wippuh: Shoutouts

Anomaly: Of course I'd like to make a shout out to all the guys in Doctors, Abuse, and HV; who I've played for in either the past or currently. But I'd also like to make a more special shutout to the whole Wolfenstein community. I think that instead of all the flame wars and hate mongering occuring these days whilst reminiscing of the past, we should all be celebrating the game for what it has given us over the past two years. The competition, the personalities, the friendships, the stories, everything. I can confidently say that I am proud to have been a part of the best community in all of gaming. And I know that everyone reading this can say the same. See you all in the "next" game.

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Timeline of Wolf

Posted by: c[_]`Wippuh (Wednesday, December 17, 2003)

Seeing how the TWL 5v5 match last night was the first "big time" match that has occured in quite a while, it seems appropriate to take a stroll down memory lane and list the other big matches in Wolf's history.

Mostly formed from opinion this timeline excludes some of the smaller tournaments before the original BoB, and may not include everything that you remember. If you do have a match/event that you believe should be included into the timeline, just submit it in the comments.

. Dec '01 - MP test released
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. March '02 - dT vs D|S in BoB Semis - D|S wins - mp_assault - first lost for dT
. March '02 - III vs Drs in BoB Semis - Drs win 3-2 - mp_assault
. March '02 - Drs vs D|S for BoB Championship - D|S wins 3-2 - mp_beach
. April '02 - cF vs a| for STA Title - Abuse wins 3-2 - mp_castle
. April '02 - dT vs D|S in Cal-I - dT wins 3-1 - mp_ice
. May '02 - XpK vs LMNO - nobody wins :P - mp_village
. May '02 - a| vs III - Abuse wins 3-0 - mp_base - first all r1 NA D
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. July '02 - wSw vs a| for Cal-I semis - Abuse wins 3-2 - mp_base
. July '02 - Drs vs a| for Cal-I title - Abuse wins 3-2 - mp_assault
. August '02 - cK vs D|S in Qcon - cK wins - mp_base
. August '02 - P vs Amish in Qcon - Amish win - mp_beach
. August '02 - -a- vs iN in Qcon - -a- wins 3-2 - mp_sub
. August '02 - cK vs iN in Qcon loser's bracket final - iN wins 3-0 - mp_assault
. August '02 - iN vs Drs in Qcon finals - Drs win 3-1 - mp_ice
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. November '02 - dT vs D|S in Cal-M Playoffs - dT wins 3-2 - mp_beach
. December '02 - dT vs NARF for Cal-M title - NARF wins 3-2 - mp_ice
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.
. March '03 - aN vs HV for Cal-M - aN wins 3-2 - mp_assault
. March '03 - dT vs NARF for Cal-M title - NARF wins 3-2 - mp_beach
. April '03 - nyX vs Z in BoB2 - Z wins 3-2 - mp_assault
. May '03 - LoT vs D|S in BoB2 quarters - D|S wins - mp_ice
. May '03 - -a- vs D|S in BoB2 semis - -a- wins 3-2 - mp_base - return of the r2 d!
. May '03 - NARF vs -a- in BoB2 finals - -a- wins 3-0 - mp_beach
. June '03 - Min vs Rewind in Qcon qualis - Min wins - mp_ice
. June '03 - tTt vs -a- in Qcon qualis - -a- wins 3-2 - mp_assault - Lehmann'd
. June '03 - Amish vs Amnesia in Qcon qualis - Amish win 3-2 - mp_assault
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. August '03 - f| vs GMPO 1st round Qcon - f| wins 3-2 - mp_ice
. August '03 - wSw vs 4k 1st round Qcon - wSw win 3-2 - mp_ice
. August '03 - wSw vs NARF Qcon - wSw win 2-1-1 - mp_beach
. August '03 - -a- vs GMPO - loser's bracket finals - GMPO wins - mp_base
. August '03 - GMPO vs iN - Qcon finals - iN wins 3-1 - mp_assault
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.
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. December '03 - u5 vs Inc - TWL 5v5 - Inc wins 3-1

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Flatline Tournament (aka... The Bump sha Bump!)

Posted by: sMn-s0r (Sunday, December 21, 2003)

After the success of the Cybertron Tourney, Flat line has decided to run an invitational 16 team tournament. It will start January 8th, the week of Cal Preseason week 1. The main problem is how to decide the 16 teams... at first I pm'ed a few people and asked them to rank the top 25 teams in wolf... then tally those up and decide the top 16. The only problem with that was that I didn't get very many back. Now I am opening it up to everybody. If you get some time, just make your list of the top 25 teams in rtcw in your opinion and email it to s0r2005@yahoo.com. The rules will be the same as cal.. 1 panzer, first to 3 points.. blah blah. Maps will be announced but they will be ones that are in the cal regular season. (Unless both teams agree to play FOOTY!!!!). If you have any questions just pm me in #team_flatline . Matches should get shoutcasted/wolftv and I am trying to work out some prizes, but mainly it’s just going to be for some good competition.

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Interview: Pissclams

Posted by: c[_]`Wippuh (Tuesday, December 23, 2003)

The Clam, the myth, the legend. Finally, Pissclams steps up to the mic and tells us about the legacy that is being a clam!

Enjoy


c[_]Wippuh: Who is ze Pissclams? Why ze name Pissclams? Tell everyone exactly what is wrong with you and why that is...

PiSSCLaMS: Well, my name is Jeremy and I live the suburbs of Kansas City.
I got my gamenick from the Jerky Boys, I used to listen to them when I was in college and they talked some shit about pissclams. I also alias as “MaryKate&Ashley” a lot because they asked me to since I’m dating them both.


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[_]Wippuh: Tell us how/when you got into Wolf-

PiSSCLaMS: I was living with a buddy from college. I was a Playstation 2 fiend, and he played games on his computer. I would watch him play games on his computer and they looked fucking cool but I didn’t have a computer at the time. Well, I started playing some of the games with him and one day we found ourselves staring at the shelves at Best Buy looking for a new game to play. I had read somewhere that the mp version of Wolf was cool so we bought it and tried it out. I was hooked right away, so I ordered the parts to a computer online and put together my Wolf station with help from a case of Coors Light and a lot of luck. Up to that point I hadn’t even opened a computer case before. LOL, my computer is such a pos I get like 25 fps but I luv it, it still works.


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[_]Wippuh: You're extremely active on various community forums, constantly adding your bit of wisdom to threads in that way that only you can. Tell us what threads/comments are your pet peeves and why?

PiSSCLaMS: Hrm, honestly I think the reason I became so active on the forums, etc, was because I hated my old job so instead of doing work like a good boy I spammed constantly at PW, Planet Rtcw, etc.

But I also have a lot to say, I think a community like RtCW’s is built and kept alive by the players whom participate in it. Those same players can either kill it or add their thoughts/opinions/etc in an attempt to breath life into it. When I see people taking things a bit to far one way or the other, I take it as my responsibility to offer up my many years of alcohol soaked wisdom.
Not much that I read in forums bothers me anymore, I’ve come to understand that the large majority of people that play this game are really cool people, a lot of them are young and full of testosterone, pulling fist sandwiches between spawn cycles, but still cool none the less.


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[_]Wippuh: You started late into the scene and weren't competiting during the peak days of early Darkside, Abuse, etc... How do you look at that early time? What are some of the things that fascinate you from then and what is the general impression you get from others about how the game was early on?

PiSSCLaMS: I was around, I just didn’t compete in CAL, I started playing Wolf in January of 2002. LOL, I remember sending CAL Shay an email telling him I was going to start up a team and we needed to be in Invite, I didn’t start a team, but God... He was cool about it tho, he just said ok, well, everyone starts in open. I remember playing against a lot of the Redemption guys when they ran a pub server with their old Elite team, playing against Silentstorm when he was in BAD, Cheese from Ballz, a couple of GLOW gals Thunder and Lightning and I all played on Bitchass.org server together as nubs. BEACH ONLY BABY!

Anyways, until I knew who I was talking to, and what I was talking about, I just kept my mouth shut. I can’t stand fucktards talking shit that have no idea wtf is going on. The /kill + leaning + shit-talking fuckfaces should burn very slowly.

The things that fascinate me from back then is just how much talent there was playing this game. Sure a lot of dudes can shoot helmets off your head now, but imo it takes more than just being able to track at head level to be a great player. An example of what I’m talking about is the old D|S teams, they played a cool style of Wolf. They flexed a lot on defense, we tried to do that when I was with the Outsiders, kinda of a controlled pubstyle.


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[_]Wippuh: Pirate or Ninja, and why.

PiSSCLaMS: Pirate of course. Pirates are mean, if they want something of yours they take it. Ninjas just sneak around with their goofy boots with the two toes in them and do shit behind your back. But in battle I would think a ninja would take a pirate down in a heartbeat. Think about the movies Master and Commander vs. Kill Bill, Uma Thurman the blond chick would kill Russell Crowe in two seconds. That was a cool movie, Lucy Liu is so hot I cried when she got the top of her head cut off.


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[_]Wippuh: You've been on some memorable teams, what are some of your favorite matches that you have been a part of and what is the biggest beatdown you've ever suffered in a match?

PiSSCLaMS: 3 seasons ago, I played for the Outsiders. We played vs c4c on mp_ice, the match determined who would move on to the Open Finals vs Redemption. C4c had a very tight defense on ice, they were spamming arty’s all over the place and we were having a hard time breaking thru to the docs. Finally I med’d myself up the spawn ladder and just weaved through like 4 of them and dove out the tower with the docs. I got killed mid air, but it got the docs out of the tower and into a place my team could get to them. Wyatt grabbed them and ran them in. We won 3-2. We lost in the Open Finals the following week to Redemption on Beach 3-2 in a great game.

2 seasons ago, when I played for Team Exodus was the greatest beatdown I’ve received. We played against 4k in the 2nd round of the Qcon qualifiers on mp_assault, the winner went to play in Dallas in the 16 team tourney. The match vs 4k was on a Saturday at like 6pm, I sat at the pool all day and drank Red Stripe beer with my friends, it was just too nice out to be inside warming up. We had heard a lot about 4k, sponsored by intel, bigtime teamwork, etc, but weren’t sure what to expect pingwise, etc. Well we played them on NYC, the pings were +/- 20 MS and they dented our faces in ways I didn’t think they’d dent. Their teamwork was the best I’ve faced, their shots were pretty good, attitudes sucked, but it was all good. It was great playing with Mario, Luigi, Multi, War, abomb, all those guys in Exodus were fun. Exodus went on to win Main that season as underdogs vs. MiN. Assault is a fun map, it’s like a giant Wolf playground.

Last season, I played for The Raging Octopi. The whole season was interesting to say the least.


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[_]Wippuh: Speaking of beatdowns... The infamous beatdown list for Qcon. How exactly did that start and what happened that prevented you from traveling to Dallas and securing lots of money for the ambulance business there? In the future, are there any plans to bring the list back? Finally, if you had a date with both of the Olsen Twins coming up and only had time to beat down 7 members of the community, who would they be and why?

PiSSCLaMS: The beatdown list was all Kuniva’s fault. He started some stupid thread at Planet Wolfenstein about people beating each other up at Qcon, for those of you that don’t know what Wippuh is talking about, the beatdown thread is here: http://www.forumplanet.com/planetwolfenstein/topic.asp?fid=2578&tid=1025922

Anyways, one thing led to another and pretty soon I threatened to kick basically everyone that played Wolf’s ass (as a joke). It’s a pretty funny thread if you haven’t read it, you should. Then I got laid off about 3 weeks before Qcon and had to cancel my plans to go to Dallas. It really sucks too because I really wanted to meet all you guys. If I only had time to beat down 7 members of the community, I’d have to go to the flower store and buy them all flowers. I turned in my boxing gloves, I’m a lover not a fighter, and you can call me RomeoClams.


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[_]Wippuh: Recently you've moved and your dsl connection has been down yet, like the trooper you are, you've restored your broadband and are back ready to play some wolf. Tell the readers what life is like without broadband, what did you do with all that spare time? What were your first priorities once you got your broadband back?

PiSSCLaMS: No broadband is bad news. I was going nuts. In KC there aren’t even any LAN centers or anything. It was tough. In my spare time I hung with my girl a lot which made her happy and me crazy. I went to a ton of movies, played a lot of basketball, read a few books, that’s about it. Once I got back online, I hopped into IRC and said hi to everyone that was around and started pubbing. Not that I ever had a shot, but right now my reflexes are terrible and my computer is running slower than ever. It took SBC 6 weeks to get my DSL running but so far the routing is great and I like it for gaming.


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[_]Wippuh: A lot of people are starting to point to the lack of prize money and high level tournaments for the reason as to why wolf's community is shrinking. However, one only has to look at q3 and its recent wansanity and qcon tournaments/prizes to see that a team community can indeed survive at a high level for a long time. Why is this a problem for wolf? Did OGL screw up BoB2 too much? Is there an overall lack of leadership among the community? Can you pinpoint the problem?

PiSSCLaMS: First of all, I don’t think there is a problem. I think too much is made of the life/death and status of the Wolf community. Sure it’s not what it was, but who really cares? In terms of why the community never grew much, I would hesitate to pinpoint it on just one person, place, or thing. Remember that when Wolf came out games like CS and Quake 3 had already captured huge audiences, also Activision quit supporting the game a long time ago, the game is very demanding on your time, it’s difficult to build a solid team with good chemistry, OSP isn’t bundled with the game, the game’s system requirements are tougher than games like CS, etc, etc, etc. Who knows, I don’t really spend time worrying about the death of Wolf, CAL is starting up their 7th season of RtCW and I imagine it will be around for this one and probably one more after.


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[_]Wippuh: You look at teams like Raging Octopi, Outsiders and NARF and you see teams that are winning championships while having a blast goofing off and not being complete assholes to the community. Many of the cal-o and cal-m teams seem to ignore this 'fun = winning' attitude and instead adopt the philosophy that the more you can flame, the more you make a rep, as they sandbag and bitch their nowhere but to disbandment. What do you see as the appeal of being a loud mouthed idiot while it has obviously been proven that the friendlier, more fun teams succeed much more in both rep and championships? Where does the solution come from?

PiSSCLaMS: Good Sportsmanship is rare today in all sports, whether we’re talking NFL, NBA, or esports like CAL-RtCW. It’s more common to find shit talking fuckfaces than it is teams like abuse, who genuinely spent time helping the community. When looking for teams I’ve always tried to be careful with who I choose to play with, making sure that my potential teammates and I shared a similar vision as to what “fun” was.

But to answer your question, quite simply it’s much easier for someone to earn a rep if they talk shit and act like a badass then it is to earn a rep as a cool mutherfucker who likes to help people out and who won such and such championship, etc. What they fail to realize is that the rep they are earning is not the one they want to have, and when their teams begin failing, fingers get pointed, people get pissed and people quit, the team folds. It happens every season, sometimes preseason, and you can see it coming from a mile away.

One thing I’ve noticed is how hard it can be for a team, especially a team with a lot of talent on it, to stick together. But, if the guys on the team all share a chill, relaxed, have fun, be friends, who cares if we lose a scrim, mentality, things go much easier. I mean, we all want to win, but I save my anger for the enemy. The proof is in the pudding, look at some of the teams that have been around forever: Narf, Amish, you guys at OS, Distress, OPP, these teams are all mature fun teams that share a similar vision within their ranks. Seems to work just fine.


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[_]Wippuh: Final Words?

PiSSCLaMS: Thanks for the interview; I’m really looking forward to playing CAL Season #7 and the fun it will bring. I also look forward to camming as many matches as I can for WTV, and hopefully we’ll all have a great time. Merry Christmas to everyone, have a safe holiday season.

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Interview: Baby

Posted by: c[_]`Wippuh (Friday, January 2, 2004)

c[_]Wippuh: tehehe, hi Baby! Tell everyone who you are, how old you are, and a link to a picture of yourself :) If not, we'll just take some general background info :(

babY'psycho: tehehe, hi Wippy! Who I am? Hmm..I got asked a million times about that. Frankly, I don't tell much about myself to anyone. A picture of me? erk... Honestly, I don't wanna be a murderer. I'm afraid whoever sees my picture will die from vomitting blood. Some of you will say "who cares how you look like". True. But since it is not that big a deal, who cares how I look like, what is my age or either I am married, have a boyfriend or single, right? If you are my friend, you won't judge me by my look or age.

Anyway, I'm a girl that play wolfenstein, nightly and still suck at it. I am one year old baby (that's what I told everyone) ;o) but actually I am 69 years old lady. Red Alert 2 was my first pc game besides solitaire, mindsweeper and hearts. Then, I found out about RTCW and tried the demo version. I enjoyed the game so much and pre-ordered the game. It was so addictive to me that I still play this game even if I got owned many many times. It is not only because the game is fun, it is challenging, full of drama (so I don't have to watch so much tv like I did before) and also because I get to meet a lot of cool people online.


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[_]Wippuh: Leader of OPP, that's quite a dubious honor there. What is it like bossing your boys around and how do you keep control of that many n00bs so consistantly?

babY'psycho: As we all know, mp40 is the founder of OPP but I do run the show since it started 2 years ago (Last December 2003 was our 2nd anniversary. w00tar!) and it is an honor for me to be the leader. Till now, I still have dedicated noobs that never leave the team no matter how bad we got owned or lose. My members are all like my family and I love them all so much. We talk to each other a lot, we fight, spam, laugh, curse at each other, do webcam, sing and do stupid things together.

I lead the team but I don't boss them. If I tell them to do something, most of the time they will listen and if they do not agree to anything, we will discuss the matter and end up doing what is right. If things gets out of hand, I will crack my whip or I will just be quite and would not talk at all and they all know that's when I get really really upset. The best thing is, we never ignore each other. There are so much respect and love in OPP!! I think it is easier to control the noobs then the 1337 ones ;o)


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[_]Wippuh: Ping and mp40 are your brothers, so no doubt you have some good stories that could potentially be very embarassing for them. Would you like to share those, or perhaps just some memorable real life experiences with the two?

babY'psycho: owg! Of course I have a lot of embarrasing stories about them. Let me think, it's too much of it.

When ping was in kindergarten, he was a big fan of Michael Jackson. He wears like him, dance like him and sing like him. He will dance everywhere and copied MJ's dancing movement. He will watch The Moonwalker video day and nite nonstop. Like a maniac! Please don't tell him I told you guys this lol. Awwwwwww <-- mj's style
So the story goes..... and as for mP40, there was this time when he got so drunk when we were at the club. He vomitted everywhere on the dance floor and all the way to the bathroom. I can't remember how many people had got his vomit on them that nite. ewwwwww!!

Those 2 noobs are my bestfriends. They make me laugh everyday and they make my life meaningful. We are very close, we do almost everything together.


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[_]Wippuh: You were a cal admin for a while during last season and you were practically left alone to run all three leagues, taking tons of flack and eventually even making you leave. Describe what it's like to be a cal admin. What were the pros
and the cons of the position for you? What is the most difficult thing that the position has to deal with in wolf?

babY'psycho: Gill offered me to be an admin and it took a while for me to accept it at that time. When I finally became an CAL admin for a week, Gill and Ralph had to leave due to real life issues. I joined CAL after the teams had been divided to 3 tiers. Lesch was around to help me whenever he is free but most of the time I was running RTCW alone. Anyhow all decisions were made by all the admins, not by me alone. It was not an easy "job".

It was not as fun as I imagined it would be being a cal admin. Everyone will hate you if they do not like the decisions the league made. Everyone hates you, and they attacked you nite and day. I got attacked not only on irc and forums, but also on pubs. It would be nice if once in a while you get a "thank you" or was shown some appreciation for all the time and effort of running the league.

It was frustrating for me most of the time. The main reason that made me leave was because these peeps were not only attacking and blaming me, they also blamed my team. My team had nothing to do with whatever we do in CAL. If I had made a mistake, it was totally mine, not my team.

What is the most difficult thing that the position has to deal with in wolf? Well, the most difficult thing was moving the teams to the upper tiers. It was a pain in the ass. I hope next season, the admins will just move the teams that they think belong in the proper tiers; wether they like it or not. Also, to anyone who still thinks that I'm an CAL admin (they thought I had just change my name from Angelina to Arianna), pls stop pm'ing me about CAL stuffs. Danke ;o) Don't hate, appreciate! tehehe <3


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[_]Wippuh: OPP has an extremely big roster. How do you balance playing time in matches and in scrims with so many members? Who is the newt'est person on your roster beside newt of course, and give us some more indepth discussion of the OPP lingo. What are those phrases that only your team uses and catches onto.

babY'psycho: lol! yeah we do have a big roster. Looks like we have all the wolf players out there but actually it is just a roster.
Some of us are inactive but still want to be a part of the family. I still have members who are not on the roster but still with OPP (UK members like Henker, Guardian, Ruiner, Drugstore and EvilMick. US members like Lenix, Stinky and Hooligan who still come to irc and vent to chat with us). Plan9, TheDude, Ryback, Storm, are all semi-active. They come once in a while and usually don't play match or just play the twl ladder due to work or real life. Slaya comes and go but is always there if we need a player for a scrim or ladder matches if he is not on our cal/twl league team. Naps just joined us and but decided to play COD. Silenstorm was inactive from the first day he joined us lol. The veteran members who are still scrimming and playing matches are Mp40 (duh, hes the founder), Ping (founder too) and Spakowski. Then comes the pondans like Newt, Lucky and Hydro. And late last season we got Xero.

There were times when we don't even have enough players for scrims but we had like a million members. But when the inactive or semi-active members came back, we had like 12 members around for matches or scrims lol. There was one time we had 6 specs on our match rofl!! We will take turn on scrims if we have more than 6 so that everyone can play. The inactive and semi-active knows they won't be playing matches unless if we need players. Usually whoever scrims the most for that week will play the match.

As for the words we usually use are pondan (gay), newt (gay), aboooo (boo to you!), owg (oh why god) and cibai (pussy). Not that we hate or have anything againts gay people. The meaning of gay in our dictionary is "lame".


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[_]Wippuh: I know that OPP was excited about cXg being held in Florida, as a lot of your players live there. Now with their move to Las Vegas a lot of you won't be able to make it. So, if you lived in a land of make believe, like Ping, give us 10
members of the community NOT from OPP you'd invite to your own OPP throwdown lan and give us the perfect scenario for the event.

babY'psycho: Oh, yes, we were excited about all the QCON's tournaments and especially CXg. Like I said before, we had planned to meet a few times but they never happened. About CXg, we again planned on going and believed that this time it will finally happen for us, because Ping, Joe, me, Newt and Plan9 are all living in Florida. Spa, Hool and Ryback are always on the list whenever we plan something like this. Natas was trying to convince his parents and Xero had already booked flight tickets. Newt even got us 2 hotel rooms booked. We even planned on who will sleep with who (ping wants to sleep with newt, however they tried so hard to convince everyone they hate each other). Then, CXg broke the news about moving to Las Vegas, we were dissapointed but still try to figure out any way that we all can go. Too bad, many things can't be planned last minute so we ended up cancelling the whole thing. But we will still go with our plan B. One day, we will just go and knock on Hool's door and do a LAN party at his house without informing him before hand.

If we are going to make a LAN party, we will love to invite all of wolf community so we can get to know each other better. But if I have to choose only 10 non OPP members, it will be: (not in any order)

1. tTt|Diesel - he is a nice guy and I know him in real life.
2. tTt|Chocula - known him since the first few months after we started OPP.
3. [Ballz]Cheese and his gf - our wdc server sponsor (not sure if we still have it lol).
4. D|S|Bread - he is the biggest "pondan" ever.
5. [FMJ]Thermal - one cool guy.
6. All GLOW - fun team (can I count that as 1? tehehe )
7. [rum]Jay - known him for a long time and he can rap!
8. [rum]Scarface - he is a fun guy.
9. Pissclam - he is the funnest of all.
10. TheWippuh - oh I have to invite him since he's my partner in crime in ruining the leagues and the entire wolf community!!
11. All x OPP members
12. NightFall
13. Akasha
14. Busta
15. Skyline
16. Fireh
17. ChumChum
18. Warrior
19. Killasin
20. Mogvai
21. Next2u
22. Serbian
23. oops, did you say only 10? why you make me choose only 10? can I just invite everyone? tehehe

Hmm, perfect scenario. I know for sure that Joe(mP40), Ping, Hool and Spa will be piss drunk and Spa will start to sing the usual Chiow Mix song while Ping will do the meow meow thing and when Ping gets tired with that and wants to argue with someone he will find Newt and argue non stop while playing wolf. Hool will cook us some good food since he's the chef while others and especially me will be finishing the food. Lucky will be cursing everyone in spanish while giving head to Buddy. Ryback will be singing and dancing ala Michael Jackson while Plan9 will be laughing his ass off at everyone pretending that he is not insane. Xero and TheDude will be striping showing their asses while naps will be taking a nap dreaming about on how to escape from all these noobs. Slaya will be calling us all terrorist while trying to get some sex0r and Hydro will use sign language trying to proof to us that he actually can't speak. Storm will be djing for us and make weird loud sounds from the mic, something like “rrrrrrrrruuuuuuuuuuppppppppppp!!". And we will probably scare all the none OPP who had come away or if they stayed they will be brainwashed to become a psycho, turning them to be a fun spamming noobs!! w00tar!


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[_]Wippuh: What is your biggest pet peeve? Also, what is the one question/comment about being a girl gamer that makes you just want to beat the crud of someone? On a totally unrelated note, if you gave Ping $50 to spend in the supermarket, what would he come home with?

babY'psycho: erk, my biggest pet peeve....hmm...if its about wolf, it will be people trying to steal my members to join their clan. If the player who is already in a clan but is looking for a new team, thats their choice imo. But if someone from another team tries to steal my members, that annoys me. In real life it will be people who pass judgement on others by their gender, look, skin color or religion; irritates me.

If I gave Ping $50 to spend in the supermarket, he will bring back a carton of Marlboro lights 100, a few bags of chips and salsa, some candy, chocolates and a bottle of coke.

Also, what is the one question/comment about being a girl gamer that makes you just
want to beat the crud of someone?

Well, I play the game because I enjoy playing the game not because I want to beat the crud out of someone. But most of the time, when i see someone better than me, it gives me the motivation to be good like him/her or better. Anyway, there are not many female players who plays RTCW and I'm proud to be one of them.


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[_]Wippuh: In ping's interview he said you'd be wonder woman if you were a cartoon character. I think wonder woman could turn invisible. Tell us where the first place you'd go if you could turn invisible.

babY'psycho: Wow, Wonder woman! tehehe. There will be too many places I would go if I can turn invisible!! Besides walking naked on the street and hang out in the man's bathroom, I would love to lie down on the peaceful beautiful soft white sand beach on a remote island and just listen to the waves splashing while the birds are singing; naked. I don't have to worry about anything else and just be free. (Note: not mp_beach). I know I can do that even if I'm not invisible but it's hard because I would end up killing people who looks at my naked body or I will be in jail because I'm not at the nude beach.


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[_]Wippuh: Finally, lets do some character association. HBO has been showing Harry Potter on tv constantly lately, so lets match Harry Potter characters with people playing wolf. Who would fulfill the roles of Harry, Ron, Hermione, Dobby, Malfoy, Fred and George, Gilderoy, Snape, Dumbledore and finally Voldemort.

LOL. This is fun. Hope I won't make anyone mad by doing this tehehe. Reminder: This is just for fun!

Harry Potter: Serbian. Consider one of the best player out there that are so popular like Harry. A lot of people like him and a lot hates him too. Just like Harry.

Ron: Bread. So low profile but yet he is good.

Hermione: me tehehe. I just like her character.

Dobby: Astro. Mangy little whining creature.

Draco Malfoy: Slag. A bully lol.

Fred & George: Natas & Fireh. Sometimes I wonder if they are twins. They sounds alike.

Gilderoy: Invisble. Always talking about him and his team.

Snape: law_69. People think he is the bad guy but actually he is nice.

Dumbledore: The_Wippuh. The wise one. Even some thinks he is "The One" that ruined the game.

Voldemort: Serbian's arch nemesis. I can't name him here. HE-WHO-MUST-NOT-BE NAMED.



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[_]Wippuh: Shoutouts

babY'psycho: I would like to make a shoutouts to all OPP members [old UK members, x-OPP members, cod and sof2 members, present wolf members and especially to those who still are here since we started]. Not forgetting the Amish, GLOW, Office Space, Redrum, Narf, RC, VIB, they helped us a lot on scrims. Also to Chocula, Cheese, Busta and Pissclams. Shoutouts to all the wolf players who are still around and keeping the game fun! Not to forget, tXc - the girls clan, especially to Akasha, Lethalweapon, Mrs.T, Girl and Sedated. Too many wonderful people I have met since I played this game. I can't possibly name everybody that I know on this list but that doesn't mean I don't appreciate knowing you all.

Before this interview ends, I would like to ask the community about the right age to play RTCW. I see some people said "he/she is only 15", "you're too old to play this game, please /uninstall and play bingo", "only recruit mature players or above 18 years old". What is the rating for this game? PG-13? R? E?

Thanks Wippuh for the interview and <3 to all!

Wait, hmm....I think I changed my mind about putting my picture for everyone to see. tehehe...hope I won't kill anyone and my wolf friends won't judge me by my look. Have fun!! ;o)


tehehe, some OPP n00b!

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Silentstorm breaks his silence

Posted by: icf|r0b`GG (Monday, January 5, 2004)

I'm always looking for a challenge and I decided that I throw my hat into the interview ring. For my first interview, I decided to do someone that isn't always in the limelight, but has had big game experience and probably one of the coolest attitudes in real life. Ranters and flamers, I bring you Silentstorm from High Voltage. Enjoy :)

ICF|K!lla S!n: Let's start with the traditional opening question: Who are you, how did you get into gaming and what teams did you play for in gaming and in your RTCW career.

silentstorm|HV: My name is Paul Hayes (20 yrs old) but I have gone by Silent Storm and have been gaming since I was since UT. I started playing when I was out of school for the summer at my dad's bored as hell. I started gamming with UT, not knowing what the hell I was doing...just running around shooting, but was that was my first FPS and my first interaction with the "clan life" Even though it was no more than "Hey SilentStorm...wanna be in my clan...ok tag up"...and I never saw the guy again. My dad bought RTCW for me Christmas of 2001. It was an immediate addiction. My first clan was (atom), a Belgian clan. Then I joined >BADBAD< to join =SeeD=, we ended up going to the 2nd round of the CAL open playoffs and with myself becoming co-leader near the end of my first ever cal season. I was looking to jump to the next level when one day I was pubbing and ran into RiotAct and Neo who recruited me to |Elite. When |Elite broke up I joined |LQD| for a short while till Elite reformed as Redemption and stayed there for about 5 months till they broke up and then I joined |HV whom I went to Quakecon with. After QCon I also played with secksi baby,newt, and ping at OPP and TWL 5 v 5 ladder with Hostile nc.

ICF|K!lla S!n: When you first started in RTCW, who were some of the teams and players that you looked up to?

silentstorm|HV: I was just coming into the competitive scene right when QCon2k2 was coming about. However, I really didn't know much bout any of the Invite teams. Out of all the teams around I found myself looking up to |LQD| the most. I became good friends with Dark Mag. and Sir Micheal. I respected Liquid because not only were they class acts with a recent cal open east conference champs title under their belt, but the guys there taught me a lot and showed me a lot of what gamming is all about.

ICF|K!lla S!n: In a community where teams break up and disappear and reform, how has High Voltage managed to keep running without losing too much talent and players?

silentstorm|HV: I think what keeps High Voltage together for so long over many years from playing UT, RTCW, to ET, is the same reason why I love playing with them so much. Not only are we just teammates, but we all get along together very well and no matter what game we are playing(whether we like the game or not) we generally enjoy ourselves. Yet we reserve that competitive sense of wanting to be the best team at whatever game we fully apply ourselves too and never really get into hardly any arguments or disagreements. I even come across people while pubbing RTCW or COD that ask if we are the same High Voltage from UT and start talking bout how they played against HV back in the day, which is cool to hear b/c not many clans have been around that long or for so many different games.

ICF|K!lla S!n: How was your experience at Quakecon? Both as a participant in the tournament and just a person in the BYOC?

silentstorm|HV: Quakecon was an awesome experience. I met Frankie (aka The Wippuh) in Alabama and we drove the rest of the way to Texas (I live in SC). Just like many others, not only did I get to see that I wasn't the only loser to travel 16 hours in a car to play a game, but I got to meet so many of the kick ass people that I have played with for 2+ years. Some of the people you thought were cool weren't and visa versa. As a tourny participant, we (High Voltage) kinda got handed a tough break having to face #2 GMPO and #3 Affliction in the first two rounds. I think we could have done better in Quakecon but the burnout factor was starting to hit and take effect in HV and somewhat showed in our preparation for the tourny. After we got knocked out of the tourny we still scrimmed a bit with ]NARF[ before their beach match and a couple other teams to help them get warmed up. However the most fun was taking the infamous Tigger (ryzer) and going around meeting people such as the cK team, Affliction, ]NARF[ whom I must say are cool as hell to let so many people drink free beer, Amish and ICF were cool too. The coolest Euro team was by far GMPO with Ramzi, Zaf, and the rest of them always playing damn hackie sack. iN and 4k came across as being stuck on themselves and acted like they were too good to even say have a conversation with.

ICF|K!lla S!n: I remember you were in Redemption when they won the CAL Open title. Why did Redemption break up in the first place and what were your impressions on the second rising of Redemption?

silentstorm|HV: team. We went at it full throttle too...You could expect us to be scrimming Sunday to Thurs. 8pm to 1am. We climbed the ranks quickly and made a name for ourselves by providing a very good scrim partner against invite teams (skill wise), winning the cal open title, making a nice run for TWL alpha title losing in 2nd or 3rd round(can't remember) to LoT (in one of their last rtcw matches) after they came back from a 2-0 lead. (All Whorepath), and doing better than expected in BoB2. However the burnout eventually hit and with BOB2 taking out any break we woulda had in between CAL seasons. The burnout affected the friendships we made and we all of a sudden didn't enjoy playing together that much anymore. Our leader RiotAct disappeared with no word, and tensions from new recruits and old members started mounting to the breaking point till everything just came apart in a bitter end. By the 2nd time redemption formed I was already established with HV and even though I missed playing with my old friends, I was happy with my new team, I liked the way the people in it and the way things were going on the road to qcon, and honestly didn't think the new redemption was going to last to long because of a lack of solid leadership and I knew old flames would be rekindled soon enough. They only played I think 2 weeks of Invite that season before breaking up. However it would have been nice to be proven wrong and seem them do well for themselves because they are good guys.

ICF|K!lla S!n: High Voltage took a break from RTCW last season by trying out ET. How did you guys do in ET and what made you decide to come back to RTCW?

silentstorm|HV: We tried out ET for a lil bit for a change in scenery (sp). We never took it seriously with never scrimming more than probably 10 times the whole season and a lot of times playing a man down in matches. However it was fun as hell because we laughed our asses off most of the time. I mean after all we were playing in TWL's first season of ET..meaning they only had one tier so basically we played a lot of teams that did crazy newb things that would send you laughing your ass off. We came back to RTCW after not finding much desire to play another season of ET nor finding much of a better game than wolf. However it's hard to get motivated to even sit down and make a strat or even scrim seriously for wolf after playing it for so long.

ICF|K!lla S!n: If all of a sudden, you were given a magic wand and a chance to get RTCW popular once again, what are some of the things you would implement? Would new maps from ID do the trick?

silentstorm|HV: People go where the money is. More tournies like Quakecon is what wolf needed to keep it going. The last hope for RTCW in the form of CXG has already taken a major blow in the form of a far west location along with reduced prize money. More maps would surely be nice as well, but at this point I think it would be to little to late.

ICF|K!lla S!n: In your heart, do you feel that RTCW will be at QuakeCon this year? And do you think if it's announced that it will generate more people returning to RTCW?

silentstorm|HV: No. Honestly even though I think RTCW is a great game, I think it's had it's time in the sun, as small as it was. I expect either COD or MAYBE ET to be announced as this year’s QCon. I think if RTCW is announced it would certainly bring back a number of people to RTCW but only till the tourny is finished. Plus not to mention wolf gamers who drank shitty beer like Shiners Bock just killed any reputation RTCW had =P

ICF|K!lla S!n: This season, I see you on the CAL Roster as leader of High Voltage RTCW: Is that accurate? Will this be the first time you will be a leader? How do you think you'll manage in your new role?

silentstorm|HV: Yeah. When talking to VJ about bringing back HV to wolf, he seemed like he was up for the idea, but basically said sure if you want to do it make it happen, your running the wolf show now. So I'm heading up the RTCW division. This will be my 3rd time being a leader (1st with =SeeD=, 2nd with (r), and now HV) However This is my first time being fully in charge to make all the decisions from recruiting to scrims, etc...This is a new challenge for me in the fact that I am very rusty calling out plays and adjustments on voice since I haven't done it since redemption and I haven't done any such thing with HV before. This season you can expect us to do some crazy stuff that everyone has always wanted to do, but never has for fear of losing a round or setting a high time...but whatever..balls to the wall and all in the name of a good laugh for the wtv peeps.

ICF|K!lla S!n: What are your thoughts on ET and the growing game Call of Duty? Will you play ET again or CoD if a big tournament arises for it?

silentstorm|HV: ET isn't bad at all, and I wouldn't mind playing it at the next QCon. However Call of Duty just has way too many flaws right now. i.e.. the crosshairs suck (can't change the size or color or pulsing of them), the jumping nonsense, the inherent ability of a sniper to shoot one shot into your finger and you die(and there are 50 snipers on like every server), and the endless amount of skill less camping. But this is just my opinion of what needs to be fixed. Never the less if it was at a big tourny I am sure I would play it.

ICF|K!lla S!n: Ok. Tell us what's in your CD player and VCR/DVD player now.

silentstorm|HV: In the DVD player i have SwordFish...just an all out cool movie and who can forget the Halle Barry's booby shot! In the CD player I have either Keith Urban or Coldplay. I put on ol Frank Sinatra though when the women come over.

ICF|K!lla S!n: With gaming turning into esports, do you have any rituals or superstitions before beginning match play?

silentstorm|HV: Hah..yeah definitely ...one of mine that is prolly the most common is just always restarting your computer no matter if you just restarted it 15 min ago. The others are a pre-game dump...not wasting a time out b/c I have to go during a match, and always turning off the ringer on the phone so I don't have to talk to stupid hoes while playing.

ICF|K!lla S!n: When you aren't gaming, how do you pass the time? What are you hobbies?

silentstorm|HV: I'm in ROTC at Clemson University so that takes a bit of time, but I also am in The Rodeo Club at school as well, along with working out a good bit and hunting/fishing, or chasing women.

ICF|K!lla S!n: What kind of leet computer are you running?

silentstorm|HV: I just bought a new computer.
-Dell 15' Flatscreen (with sucky ass refresh rate, so if anybody knows of a cheap high refresh rate LCF screen..lemme know)
-2.5 gig Pentium 4, 126mb Nvidia FX 5200, 1 gig of DDR ram, and 80 gigs of HD space.

ICF|K!lla S!n: Shoutouts?

silentstorm|HV: shoutouts to all the clans I’ve played with.
Baby for putting up with my inactive ass, The Hostile team who are always fun to pub/play with.
Melly, Julie, Longhunter, Rapier, Piss, Gear, Narf for always helping me with computer probs, Nightfall just b/c he will eat me if I don’t. Laws b/c he is a cool guy in person, Helmut, Multitask, and all the other peeps I hung out with at qcon. BTW...I have a picture of Tigger (ryzer) grabbing Da_G's tittie...expect it to be up soon.

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Interview: Rhea

Posted by: c[_]`Wippuh (Friday, January 9, 2004)

OSP is the most influential mod for competitive gaming around, and the work comes largely from one individual. Rhea has spent a lot of time working on the mod, yet we couldn't seem to track down any signifigant interviews on his involvement with RtCW.

We had to put a stop to that.

Enjoy!

c[_]Wippuh: Everyone knows who you are, but give us a little short run down again just for a refresher. What do you like to do for fun and so forth? How did you join up with the guys from Abuse?

a|rhea: I won’t make this long-winded. :p Started with Orange Smoothie Productions back in 1998 when Brandon Reinhart (the only dev at the time) left to go do a game called Unreal Tournament. I finished a new version of King of the Hill for Quake2 and did a mod called Rocket Olympics soon after. A couple of months later, some of the guys and I at work formed a company called NetGamesUSA to do all sorts of stuff with LAN/online organized multiplayer gaming. I ended up doing a lot of the features in a quake2 mod called “OSP Tourney DM”. I tapped to competitive community on what features were needed for environments like CPL/Quakecon and just got hooked. We ended up selling the company to Microsoft, but I continued to work on a Q3 version of OSP Tourney (later shortened to just OSP by the community) and have been ever since.

I’ve been doing some interesting things at work (http://zone.msn.com) with Flash single-player and MSN multiplayer games. I released a game a few months back called “Hexic” and did a few games in MSN Messenger 6.0 (Minesweeper Flags, Checkers, Hexic multiplayer) that you can play against your buddies. We’re just about to release a new title called Mozaki Blocks that is UBER-seksy. It ranks right up there with DonKing and Busta in terms seksiness. Check em out!

I’m married with 3 kids. You think I have time for fun?!? If I can get away, hiking the MW mountains, basketball, golfing, bike riding, skateboarding are all an option for me.

When we sold NetGamesUSA to Microsoft, I had to move out to Redmond, WA as part of the deal and work at Microsoft. I had known a few of the guys before I moved out (from working on Q2 OSP and early Q3 OSP), but most of the clan is out here in the Oregon/Washington area. It just seemed to click to hook up with them.


c
[_]Wippuh: What drove you to continue work on OSP for Wolfenstein and where did you get the majority of the feedback for the additions/changes to the new build?

a|rhea: The latest release was initially driven for selfish reasons ;-) I wanted to refine the multiview user interface and demo playback features in wolf before porting it all over to Q3 OSP. Youz wolfz playaz ahz minez guineaz pigz!! However, I just got hooked into that whole “mod” thing where it’s a feature a minute for a week. It didn’t hurt that I had a ton of people giving me friendly reminders of what *had* to go into this release ;-) The code base for OSP wolf is pretty solid to add safely add minor features really close to release (as can be seen in this release’s 0.9 notes).


c
[_]Wippuh: Your relationship, and the relationship of Team Abuse, with id, what is it like and how did that develop into the participation at qcon? What is the experience like from being on the admin side of things at such a large convention?

a|rhea: Participation w/Qcon is all related to my previous venture with NetGamesUSA, which is all Q3-based for the big 1v1 tourney. We wrote this “ngTCS” system (NetGamesUSA Tourney Control System) back in the day that was initially used at CPL events. Some of the organizers contacted us to do Qcon’99, and we’ve been going back ever since. We keep meaning to expand it for wolf, but end up running out of time before the event to fully add all the features we need. However, I did add a couple of LAN tourney features to OSP wolf that allow us to at least collect demos/screenshots from each match.

Its pretty cool going to these events, and I highly recommend anyone who is a diehard id-FPS player to go to at least one. You finally get to meet some of the online personalities face to face. They are *never* what you expect. Ever.


c
[_]Wippuh: When a new game comes out for competition, like Call of Duty for example, everyone wants 'OSP' for it. After all the work you've put into OSP, how does it feel to receive such recognition? To become a household name for gamers. What are the driving factors for you to work on a new game?

a|rhea: Frankly, it’s pretty awesome. I think it just proves that if a developer really has an open mind with feedback from the community, he/she can tailor particular features and focus on what is truly important for online/competitive play. It baffles me that some of the companies that make money at this don’t do more research in the online community. I have seen a ton of multiplayer games that, if they had taken a step back before releasing an initial version and looked at what has been successful, they would still be around today. So many have had potential that simply died when they were released (and no, I won’t name names J).

As for driving factors, I’d say the number 1 factor is me playing the game. I can’t work on something I don’t like. The next thing probably is knowing a few key people in the community to bounce ideas off of and can get beta versions to highly visible portions of the community (i.e. big pub servers, major online leagues/tournies). I had to start from basically nothing for Q2 OSP and it was a real pain to get a foothold in the community.

SoF2 was unique in that an external developer (Kilderean of Q3 Threewave fame) approached me about doing a mod. He was more than willing to do all the coding himself, so I set him up with the base OSP Wolf SDK that had the core “OSPized” feature-set. He’s done a great job in using it as a base and expanding the game to features specific for the SoF2 community.


c
[_]Wippuh: Take us through the process you follow for designing for a new game. How many hours do you believe you put into each phase and how do you balance that with a family consisting of 3 kids and a full time job? What do your kids think about their dad working on video games?

a|rhea: The actual design process is uber-top-secret stuff J As for finding time, it’s been getting harder. My daytime job now has me working a lot of overtime, which cuts into OSP time, unfortunately L I’d work on it full-time if I could, but I gotta get that paper! (Paper = money for you non-hiphop types :p) The actual development phases have been getting into a pattern of: a lot of intense work for a few weeks to get out a release, let it sit in the community for a while to find issues and new things to expand upon based on the last release. This is a key aspect for developing a very refined experience by maxxing out all of the available features to accommodate whatever variation that is useful for online play.

My kids always say “You made this game, right, Daddy?” when they see me starting it over and over while I’m adding/testing new features. It’s to the point now that if they ever see me playing some new game, they think that in some way I’m “working” on it. I’ve em trained trained pretty well, eh? J


c
[_]Wippuh: In RtCW, there's 2 divisions of the community. The competitive community which is on OSP and those who play on Shrub/Vanilla servers. A lot of the competitive players see Shrub as the 'goofy' mod, but admit that the ease of it being a server side based mod that does not require a web download, but only a small game based one, as extremely attractive. Are there any plans in the future of making OSP server side and what are the complications of such?

a|rhea: I originally did OSP for Q3 as a server-side mod, but once I started leveraging the client, I really never looked back. Don’t get me wrong, mods like shrub/bani are great for the community and there will definitely always be a spot for them. With OSP, I really want to push the whole experience, optimizing components along the way. Things like multiview, stat windows, hud options, etc. simply aren’t possible without a client-side update. I think the autodownload option and “pure” checks for RtCW are the biggest hinderance and main source of problems for any sort of client update.


c
[_]Wippuh: Of course, in ET, you bypassed the above by just including OSP in the game. How did that come about and what was it like working with Splash Damage? Do you see anymore collaborations with companies like that in the future?

a|rhea: Kevin Cloud from id contacted me about 6 months before the game was released, asking if I would be interested in helping out. Getting OSP in from the start has always been a goal, so how could I refuse? J Working with the SD guys was definitely a change, as internet collaborations mean you *never* get the face-to-face time usually available to talk about issues and generally how things are going. It was also interesting in that they were about 8 hours ahead, so I had a lot of late nights when I need to coordinate with the devs over in the UK. Overall though, it was a lot of fun and great to see the final product being used so extensively (even if I did play a minor role in the grand scheme of things). Collaborations with other groups are always a possibility. OSP has definitely become more popular over the last couple of years, and I get interesting emails from people I would never expect about it. J


c
[_]Wippuh: What are the biggest misconceptions from people about what can and cannot be done? Are there things that people ask for that sound extremely simple, but almost require more work than they are worth? What are things that you've seen suggested that were really great ideas that did not take extensive time?

a|rhea: Hmm it’s really hard to say, as certain things for certain people are really cool, while others are just like “ho-hum”. For instance, people thought it was the bees’ knees when the respawn timer, different fonts, and average ping we made available. These were trivial additions to the game. On the flip side, the windowing system I implemented for stuff like +wstats, motd, demo help, etc. is probably largely ignored, but was a bit of work to put together. I think the multiview system for in-game and demo playback is a fairly obvious “cool feature that took a lot of work” option. J


c
[_]Wippuh: In all of the games that you've been working on what is the one thing that you are most proud of and what were the most difficult challenges for you along the way?

a|rhea: I’m proud of everything that OSP has put out, from the Quake2 mods, to the present games. Sure there were some things I would have like to have done different, or had wished I had more time to do, but they’ve all been checkpoints along the way to the perfect “OSP competition” implementation. Wolf is pretty close! The biggest challenges for me have just been in terms of getting the code and design organized properly. I’m an engineer at heart, so I’ve had to pick up some of the finer aspects of coding through out all of the OSP projects. For something specific in the games themselves, it’s probably the multiview stuff I started in Q3 and finished in wolf (it’s why I try to pimp it as much as possible J).


c
[_]Wippuh: What is in the future for you? Do you plan on working on Wolf again anytime soon? Quake3?

a|rhea: Well, as long as my day job doesn’t continue to own all my time, I’m going to need to do a Q3 update before the community gives up on me entirely J Of course I will continue to tweak wolf as long as there is a solid community. I’ve put a lot of polish in it and hate to let it go. I’ve also got your usual top-secret side projects going, but that’s nunya!


c
[_]Wippuh: Reader Questions from planet-rtcw.com

- Antalus - What kind of software do you use to create your mods?

a|rhea: The second-best development environment of course: Microsoft Visual Studio C++ 6.0. I’d go with the best (VS.NET 2.003), but I have a uber-tweaked Q3-engine build environment under VC++ 6.0. I’ll probably roll to VS.NET 7.0 for the next game I do though, as it has a lot more debugging capabilities and optimizations. All the unix/mac ports are just static build environments that are built after I make the Win32 version.


- KITH - How's Team Abuse doing with Savage? Do you play competitively with them still? Any chance of seeing OSP for Savage at all?

a|rhea: Honestly, I haven’t been keeping track of them in the Savage world lately. I hear they have been doing quite well (as usual) and are totally sucked in. I haven’t even installed the free demo L No time at all these past six months to do anything outside of work. Cit really wants me to hook up with the Savage devs, but I’m really short on time and doubt I will have the time needed to do all the “right” things.


- KillaSin - Do you still pub RTCW every once in a while? If you do play games, what are they?

a|rhea: I don’t pub on RtCW as much any more, unfortunately. Most of my spare gaming time is back to Q3 CTF. The superman aspect of Q3 is just too hard to put down. The community out on the west coast has picked up in recent months, so its been keeping me busy playing J Believe it or not, I’ve also been playing a lot of the casual single-player web games to get a better feel for the casual/newbie market. Some of these games are really addicting!


- vladdy - Would you recommend software developer (ERP's, databases) such as myself to switch to gaming industry and what are requirements and best way to go (open gl, directx, api's ??)

a|rhea: Only if you really dig making games. It’s an area that requires probably the most in terms of having to know and integrate a wide range of computing components. It’s also a lot of work for sometimes short returns. Given that the average shelf-life for a lot of games is only a couple of months, it may also be the most discouraging. I’d recommend doing a small mod for a major game (like wolf/quake/hl) to get a feel for at least the game design aspects. This frees you from having to learn a lot of the engine-stuff that can be quite time consuming and hardly anyone will ever see. Mods for games generally are seen by 1000s of people, even if it isn’t a “big-time” mod on the scene.


- Chilifiend - Do you know anything about these rumors suggesting iD is about to release a new patch/map pack/etc for RTCW? For the love of god please tell us we’re not the victim of a cruel and evil hoax!!!

a|rhea: I wish! Unfortunately, I don’t think anything is planned, or even in the works. There are a couple of engine updates I’d like to get in, but it really isn’t going anywhere.


c
[_]Wippuh: Give us your preferred recipe for the perfect orange smoothie.

a|rhea: The secret is the coco-lopez. A lot of people forget that.


c
[_]Wippuh: Speaking of recipes, give us yours for a great game that would have a long life in both competitive and team play. Do you believe there is a game out there that will become the next CounterStrike? Do you see promise in the rts/fps blending that Savage presents or is the fps still strong enough to stand on its own?

a|rhea: Something that is key to any successful game is community support. Both id and Valve have done incredible jobs in the past in giving core components that the community needs to flourish and maintain a shelf life longer than 6 months. Heck Q1 is still kickin it after 8-some-odd years. I think Savage from everything I have heard and seen has definitely put a new twist on a couple of genres. This is a good thing. The next counterstrike? Who knows. CS has a lot of interesting things under the covers that has made it a huge success that may be hard to ever duplicate. Of course, I have a lot of ideas on how things SHOULD be and where they should go for the future, but that getting into my secret side project stuff that is still on nunya status.


c
[_]Wippuh: Any pointless facts you’d like to share about OSP?

a|rhea: Believe it or not, I invented the term “instagib”. Back in the Q2 days, I stumbled across a server that had disabled all weapons except the railgun. It was still normal items (health, ammo), normal railgun (100 a hit) – normal DM with a railgun only. I had a blast playing it and made a couple of configs for the mod. One was “instagib” that had no items, 400 damage and railgun only. I showed it to Brandon Reinhart while he was helping out with Unreal Tournament. He stayed on all night until about 7am playing, and the next day added it as an official mode in UT. Its obviously taken off and is now in a number of games, but just wanted to clear the air on its origin (I know everyone has been frantic on knowing where it came from :P). Hey, you asked for a pointless fact!


c
[_]Wippuh: Shoutouts :)

a|rhea: The rest of the OSP stuff, ABBBOOOOOOSE!, Fredo/Kevin/id guys, DonkeyKong (too seksy for me), Bustanutt (please visit his site at www.b********.com), The Chum, Neutron and family, all of the awesome server op beta testers (hugs and kisses), and every fricking player who has some opinion about OSP (much love!).

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Death sits down for a little chat :)

Posted by: Mortal :o (Sunday, January 11, 2004)

Death, founder of the Immortals and a very skilled RTCW player, has sat down with us to share his thoughts on rtcw, and much much more! ;p

__________________________________________________________________________

Mortal: hello

Death`: hey

Mortal: Lets get started. First off tell us about yourself, your hobbies outside of wolf. Also tell us about you, what you do for work, etc.

Death`: I’m 22 and I am a college student in Waco, TX. outside of gaming, i party and try to pass my classes at school :o. I’m a computer networking major if that helps.


Mortal: hehe, always good. Ok next question. Unknown to some you are the founder and original leader of the Immortals. What was it like in the early days of Immortals, what brought u to love the game? Who started Immortals as the originals? And what do you think about the new versions off the old clan?

Death`: The Immortals started by me and my roommates in college. I lived with a couple of gamers and after a few months of playing rtcw we decided to start our own clan. we were fortunate to pick up a few good recruits that we had known from previous clans and we did ok. In the early days of the immortals it was really fun. it was my first experience of online gaming and it was cool to LAN with 2 other teammates.

I don’t know about the new immortals team. I haven’t played rtcw competitively for a while so I can’t really comment on any new teams. Although I know 50cent is a smart player and as long as he is leading them they should be fine.
Death`: the biggest thing i learned about leading a team in rtcw for so long is the fact that you have to be careful about recruiting.

RTCW is a stressful game and it helps to have calm individuals on ur team to succeed.

My biggest mistake and ill be the first to admit was not taking recruiting as serious as I should have. I rushed it allot and it ended costing the team in the long run.


Mortal: agreed, If you had to rate 5 clans based on personal experience, not fame and media, as being the best clans you have played against, who would they be and why?

Death`: The top 5 teams I’ve played against: 1.afflitcion -great offensive strats 2. narf - best teamwork 3. Locked on target (with Vatican) - great strats , great guns. 4. Rewind - awesome aim and aggressive guns 5. GAT - great strats and they had justin! :p


Mortal: You were in Immortals, but where there other clans before or after that? And if so, where they better? And why did Immortals not work out for you?

Death`: i was in trinity for a while after immortals disbanded, played a few matches with them and had a good time. They are a good team and all pretty nice guys. i left them to come back to i- again cause my old teammates wanted to give it another go so we did..:/ i had to leave in the middle of the last cal-i season due to real life shit and immortals unfortunately disbanded a third time while i was gone

I then started to play et a bit with some friends from wat? rtcw division. Then i joined wat? for cod until recently. Wat? is a great team full of class act guys and they will be a top team in cod easily imo. I regret leaving them badly but I just don’t have the time to commit to a serious team right now so im clanless again. Wee!

I don’t compare the teams that I’ve been on to each other. They are similar in the simple fact that they all want to win and be the best

That’s what I look for in any team and all the teams that i have been a part of have had that winning attitude


Mortal: hehe, i here ya.... real life is always a pain in the ass, But lets say you had free time and could play...if every person in RTCW history was @ your disposal to make a team that was the best in RTCW history, who would they be and why?

Death`: that’s simple. The dream team would be the doctors starters because they in my mind are the best team in rtcw history. They beat the best in the U.S and they beat the best in Europe. There’s no need to mess with that lineup.


Mortal: What’s your favorite map in RTCW and why?

Death`: assault, it’s wide open!


Mortal: What’s your favorite class, and why?

Death`: medic is my fav class because there are so many things a good medic has to think about at the same time to be effective.


Mortal: Many people in RTCW say that iD did not support RTCW as much as it could in its growth......and abandoned it leading to its lack of longevity. Do you agree? If so what could iD have done to made RTCW the next CS?

Death`: I don’t think iD had anything to do with rtcw not growing as much as people thought it would. Panzers and the same maps over and over again hurt rtcw imo. I’m glad to see that cal is finally limiting panzers to 1. i think that would have made a HUGE difference 3 or 4 seaons ago and maybe influenced players and/or teams to stay in the game longer. the rtcw maps are great but after the first few seasons teams would copy each other strats and it strated to get lame.

Base is a good example.. how many teams do u see defend ne and radar 01 as opposed to something different? a lot.

I don’t know...maps aren’t that big of a deal, panzers are though. Especially on small maps with easy spawn times, Spam city!

I think that rtcw might grow some more over the next couple of seasons since the panzer limit, but well see. Ff qcon takes on rtcw for another season it will help bring some people back


Mortal: Do you think the new OSP will also help?, with /kill counting as deaths and some inside artys being fixed, along with other goodies.

Death`: I’m not sure. I guess only time will tell. From my point of view, the panzer limit stands out more than anything. Hell, it made me want to play rtcw again :p


Mortal: cool cool, a few user questions now


Wat?DepreSsioN: do you plan on coming back to rtcw ever and show the rtcw community your leet skills once again?

Death`: lol, if rtcw will be at qcon ill be back for sure.


fa-H4des: do you miss hades?

Death`: I miss yelling at hades from across the hall while we were lanning!


Mortal: hehe, and finally, last but not least, the shout outs to all the deathites out there :P

Death`: all of #wat?, all of #theimmortals , all my ex-teammates, 50cent, #icf, and especially wat?kamikaze for being a good leader and for giving me a second chance.


Mortal: aight, thanks alot Death, take care........hope to see you back on RTCW scene soon :)

Death`: np, thanks. gl to u.

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The Christmas Cup Final and a Movie contest

Posted by: =X= Sea (Monday, January 12, 2004)

We've been having a nice Christmas cup in the "Euro scene of RTCW". A couple of movies have been made about the cup and we would like your votes in too about these brilliant movies.

The great final (A-losers.msi vs. 535) and the Christmas Cup Radio Show on will take the 18th of January,

The winner of the vote will receive the best mouse pad on market, the Funcpad 1030, although the prize can't do justice to these two great movies!

The first submission was done by =UDS= Insanity. Though his clan didn't participate in the Christmas Cup, he took this contest as a challenge to show and test his movie skills once again. His movie truly shows new insights on how to make a RTCW movie and above all: Originality. A little hint: There are a lot of Santa’s and Human Reindeers in this movie. Download Insanity's movie:
http://ladder.gaminguk.net/ChristmasCupMovie1.zip

The second movie was done by [BEER]Tosspot. This movie compared to Insanity's, has a total different flavour, which surely makes it a heavy weight in its class. The intro is just one of the most breathtaking intro's I ever seen.
Download Tosspot's movie:
http://ladder.gaminguk.net/ChristmasCupMovie2.rar

Unfortunately one submission didn’t meet up with the deadline which was set and therefore wasn’t allowed to go into this next stage of allowing the public to decide on these 2 great movies.

To judge these movies, vote here
http://gaminguk.net/cgi-bin/ikonboard/ikonboard.cgi?s=40027e442dacffff;act=ST;f=11;t=3355
You need to be a registere to the forum in order to make your vote.

Make sure you vote for your favourite and then tune in on the 18th of January for the Christmas Cup Live Radio Show and WolfTV. You don't want to miss:
- The Explosive Christmas Cup Final: A-losers vs. 535
- Cutting edge interviews from the hearts of our
community
- The free mouse pads that will be given to some lucky
listeners of the show
- The drawing of the 3 month game server by
gameservers.net (between teams that didn't forfeit matches in the cup)
- The ‘noob’ award and the ‘ownage’ award from the cup
- And lots of other fun moments guaranteed!


More information about the show and the final match will follow soon. Now go vote and share your opinion with others!

On behalf of the Christmas Cup staff,

Johnny Cash and Sea

#xmascup @quakenet
Christmas Cup Official Website
http://ladder.gaminguk.net

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Why CyberXGames (January 2004, Las Vegas) failed

Posted by: c[_]`Wippuh (Wednesday, January 14, 2004)

By Mike Masquith

The event:
CyberXGames was a tournament with big prizes for the top teams around the world playing:
Return to Castle Wolfenstein (RTCW)
America's Army (AA)
Call Of Duty (CoD)
Counter Strike (CS)
Quake III (Q3)
Unreal Tournament (UT)
WarCraft
These games are mostly 'first person shooters' (you are a character in the game who has to shoot enemy characters on the other team). All require serious skills and strategies to win against the competition. Other than WarCraft, the games are played by teams of around 6 people. This was held in two locations, in a big conference room in the Stardust hotel in Las Vegas, and another conference room in the Riviera hotel across the street.

Also, the event included a gigantic BYOC (Bring Your Own Computer) facility for gamers to have fun and play against each other, as well as a number of booths for sponsors to display their wares. This was held at the Stardust hotel in Las Vegas, in their pavilion.

My Qualifications:
I was there. I was an assistant admin.
I play some of the games, although nowhere near at the level of anyone on a team.
For 15 years, I've been either the technical lead or project manager in charge of installing medium to large phone systems. Like this event, it requires well thought out planning of highly technical logistics. Lots of diverse elements must be coordinated. Deep knowledge of multiple disciplines is a must. Staff must be allowed to make the most of their expertise with minimal conflicts. Customers must get what they pay for, they must get what they're promised. After years of working within these parameters, I believe I can report and analyze what happened with some insight.
I have nothing against anyone involved, nor is it in my interest to cover for anyone, I'm totally neutral.

The failures:
Communications:
A set of 15 or so walkie-talkies would have saved an enormous amount of time, energy, confusion, you name it. We'd heard some were purchased, found to be inadequate, returned, but it was never pursued further. Many didn't have cell phones either, or if they did, didn't have numbers of people they needed to call. Regardless, cell phones would have been a big expense for people to deal with. Critical decisions made on the fly caused huge problems because there was practically no communications available. People were totally out of the loop on important decisions that had huge impacts on their areas of responsibility.

Security:
In a word, pathetic. I'm amazed lots more wasn't stolen. As it was, several expensive systems were jacked. Several things were vandalized and damaged, including the only ethernet switch and the dual Opteron server in the Riviera hotel, and the America's Army demo machines (which were awesome). NO one was guarding anything over there, and somehow admins who were responsible for setting up matches and helping set up equipment were also expected to babysit equipment instead of working on their real jobs. At the main building, at least one back door was ajar because of power cables going through (!) and no one watched it. I passed through dozens of times with no security watching me. I could have carried out thousands of dollars of stuff. As I write this, I'm finding out my wife's new Sennheiser headphones were probably stolen. Late last night one of the 'guards' found out how to play DVDs on the AMD booth's equipment, and sat and watched movies all night instead of paying attention to anyone entering or leaving. Even in the competition room, there was no security by CXG to control what happened to the tournament systems... people installed software, changed system languages, and the firewall that was supposed to isolate the competition LAN allowed internet access, and many systems got infected with many virii. Unknown people looped ethernet cables and brought down the network both in the tournament room, and in the BYOC room. We discovered someone got on a terminal in the admin area and tried to hack into a firewall.

Physical layout:
Bad. Hotel provided tables with nowhere near enough depth to have a monitor at a comfortable distance. Most players ended up with their keyboards an inch in front of their monitor. Power and ethernet cables underfoot. In the BYOC area, ethernet switches were positioned at the end of hugely long tables (20 of them!) with 48 chairs, 24 on a side. There was never a contract to cable the facility. Over 60,000 feet of Cat6 was required. The only cable provided was 20,000 feet that a server company brought with them in a deal with CyberXGaming to provide floor space for a booth for them. Little or no thought was put into how the cable was to be run or finished (pull, cut and crimp RJ45s on 1,500 plus cables, some over 75 feet... insanity!!!). Myself and several last minute temps, and a few other admins stepped up and made cables for hours. What a waste of time. Had the switches been set up in the middle, we would have used half the cable. We ran out several times, prompting emergency runs to buy boxes of CAT5. Several cable makers never had done it before, so many cables were bad. Not using pre-made cables is beyond my ability to understand. I re-designed the center section of shorter (24 chair) tables, saving 10,000 feet of cable, and many hours of labor because we could use pre-mades (they only had some 9 foot ones). No one noticed or cared. Due to the fact that this cable had to be completed in less than 24hrs, the admin with the ability to fix the competition computers (install updates, install games, patches, etc) never had the time to do so. She had plans of ghosting the systems to create a standard setup, which would have saved immense time later on. This could never happen, as she ended up having to recover from the worst lack of planning at the very beginning.

Equipment:
In theory, the hardware provided should have helped make this a great event. There was some great stuff here. The rack of servers was awesome. The network equipment was great, and plenty capable. The systems for competition were excellent, and steps were taken to ensure they were all equal to be fair. HOWEVER... It was expected (at least by many) that the systems would be delivered with games installed, but what we got were boxes with XP installed, not even updated with security and service pack patches. Gamers stepped up and helped install games with their own copies at the last minute. In fact, without the unhesitating help of the Unreal Tournament players, their matches at the Riviera wouldn't have happened. As with any big mass of equipment a few things failed. Getting some of the boxes fixed took way too long (communications again, not lack of expertise). Although they looked slick, a huge group of LCD monitors were totally unacceptable for most games, they should have all been CRTs. This really cut down the number of acceptable systems for tournament play.

Chain of command:
None, really. Responsibilities were sometimes unclear, or incorrectly assumed. Many technical decisions were made by people who had no business doing so. Most I witnessed were made by desperate admins trying to get things going, but often screwing up things as much as helping because there was no easy way to communicate. About the only thing run with technical proficiency seemed to be the network, but because of lack of security, and poor planning, it got blamed for a lot. The worst problem was the constant bumping of heads caused by the cascading effect of massively postponed matches. Every admin was fighting to get their games scheduled at all, on the few operational boxes that were acceptable. Over and over, I heard admins being told no, your matches are postponed, or no you can't use these computers, or you have to move your match somewhere else at the last second. Even if the right decisions were made, there was no good way of communicating it out.

Broken promises:
Huge prize money cancelled. RTCW, for example, went from $30,000 down to $10,000 just a month before the event, then during the event dropped entirely! Many teams spent thousands of dollars on airfare and hotels, etc. and didn't even get to play. They came from all over the world. These people are incredibly passionate about their games, and unbelievably talented at them. I was blown away at the talent. To see them treated like this made me tremble with disgust. Over and over again they were told to be ready to play at a specific time and then turned away without any idea when to expect a rescheduling. Many woke up really early to be ready, and never played on that day. That a riot didn't break out was a miracle. The patience exhibited by the gamers was positively heroic. They just wanted to play, and many didn't get to. As usual, corporate interests held sway over indivudual gamers. The games sponsored by big companies (with big legal departments) like Microsoft, the Army, and ATI got priority, probably to avoid lawsuits.

Final Comments (by V1X3N):
The problems stemmed from a complete and total lack of ability of ONE individual in the head of cXg. It is my opinion that this one failing is what doomed this event before it started. Had I known of this individual's complete lack of ability at the outset, I would have left cXg. Not to mention that while we were working ourselves to death with 26 hrs of cabling, this said individual took off to go party in Vegas. I am utterly and completely disgusted. To name names, this was Recon. If he has problems with me calling him out, I certainly hope he can explain why when we were working so hard, he sits there like the lump he is.

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CAL and TWL seasons.

Posted by: ChaosLord (Thursday, January 15, 2004)

I wanted to get a discussion on the CAL and TWL seasons.

First off, I believe there should be two tiers. This really only makes since. To keep the competition where it should be, there should be a lower tier, and a upper. If there are 54 teams in CAL this season, split it up 20 and 34.

Now, for the season itself, for once in the history of RtCW, why can't we have a real SEASON of play instead of a group of haphazard matchs. Divide main into two divisions, East and West (or central). 10 teams in each. Have 7 Interdivision games, 3 cross division games, and PRE-SCHEDULE the whole season. Allow teams to know who they are going to play for the whole 10 game season. If a team drops, then you know they have a bye, if someone can be found from open to replace the team, then they take on the team they are replacing schedule. This way, teams can have easy weeks and hard weeks. You also get to play alot of teams. You don't have to keep playing the same teams over and over like it has been in the past for rtcw. You eliminate headaches of trying to figure out who plays who every week according to win and losses, you have a preset schedule. This is how every sport does their seasons. Do you think that the NFL decides who is going to play who week to week? Hell no. I know there has been seasons, where because my team was winning, we had to play teams we would play in the playoffs, the last 2 games of the season, to meet them round 1 and round 2 of the playoffs. Now there is a better chance of that not happening. Make it easy on you, make it easy on us, and pre-schedule the season.

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A Different Top 10

Posted by: c[_]`Wippuh (Thursday, March 4, 2004)

An article on easports caught some attention lately. It was called, "Ten of the best: North American esports figures". That got us thinking about the ten RtCW figures the game has seen. The list is obviously biased from my pov, but that is what makes it interesting as you weigh in with who you'd add/leave out.

Here we go.

10. Pinggan/Baby - For the #10 spot there were a lot of different players who could have represented, but we went with the combo of Pinggan and Baby from OPP. Leading the alltime feel good, good guy team in wolf, these two have constantly been bringing the level of fun in wolf up. And it's hard not to say that Ping's 'unique' style of posting hasn't made all of us say WTFOMGH@X while reading ;p

09. Warri0r - No name is more associated with headshots than Warrior. From his run with 82nd in cal-o all the way to dominating in main with fx, Warrior has been the man when it comes to aim. Possibly the most dominating medic to ever play the game.

08. PiSsClAmS - Who can forget the infamous beatdown list? Just one of the more classic PC forum postings that took on a life of its own, if there's something quirky going on, you can be assured that PC is in the middle of it. Playing for such classic teams as Outsiders and Raging Octopi, Piss can now be found in Maximum Bow Rage tying in all caps as he abuses with FULL EXTENSIONS, FULL FUCKING EXTENSIONS!

07. Hollywood - Since the very start, Holly has been playing at the very highest level. From TIP he went and was the backbone of dT with their dominating strats, unique style and his devastating pf. Missing qcon 2k2, Holly went with qcon2k3 and had NA's best showing with a 3rd place finish. All the while making his strat book famous.

06. Shaftian - Tweaking? What's that? After Shaftian posted his config, everyone knew. Leading the old school classic team of D|S, Shaftian was a dominating pf and even more of a dominating community spokesman. He was co-leader of the D|S team that went 50+ games without losing a match, racking up a BoB victory and a Cal championship. At cK he helped the team finish 3rd at qcon2k2.

05. George - Now working for the CPL, George was the leader of the Drs team that took RtCW by storm with their simply dominating performance at qcon2k2. Leading the Drs through multigaming success like few have ever seen, George returned to RtCW for BoB2 (his last tournament ever) and led LoT to a final 8 appearance.

04. WarWitch - No name will get more of a response from the l33test to the most casual player. WarWitch came to RtCW with TsN and was an instant hit. Shoutcasting almost all of the classic RtCW matches, he has become the undisputed voice of the game. Turned 'ze' into common lingo for wolf and expanded the game beyond just the individual play aspect. He made wolf into so much more.

03. Citizen - Leading the powerhouse that was Team Abuse, Citizen comes away with #3 in the list. Dealing the first loss to Darkside, the classic vs wSw on base and beating the Doctors for a CAL championship all help, but the biggest contribution can be found off the server. Numerous articles from their website and all the work done as he admins the speakeasy servers puts him in the top 3.

02. Da_G - Leading NARF, Da_G is the biggest personality the game has. Always running as NARF's dedicated med, Da_G helped NARF secure multiple CAL championships and provided the game with a great latter day rivarly as his team faced off with dT in almost every signifigant match for seasons 4-6. Combine this with the endless help his GLARF config has provided everyone and you get #2 in the list.

01. Rhea - A member of the classic Abuse team, Rhea is not known for his play or his team, but rather his contribution that all of us, OSP. OSP has become the standard for competitive gaming mods and is still being updated today by Rhea! Listening to the community and being extremely unselfish in a positon that is extremely hard to envy puts Rhea at #1.


Honorable Mentions

Shogun - Creating the lingo we all use (or mock, which is it?) today, he would have made the list if not for 187 :/

Valdez - Coleader of the original D|S, 3rd place with cK at qcon2k2 and Frontline.

ChaosLord - Reformation of D|S and domination for a seemingly casual team.

Rahl - n00b, but manages to keep TWL afloat. SoS has been around forever too, and he's the reason why.

MentholMoose - Answering questions on pw.com everyday while playing for the powerhouse III.

Dimmak - Leading the crusade against the a| and Drs style of play, while dominating with dT

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Cal Main Week 3 Predicitons

Posted by: i-m4tt (Tuesday, February 3, 2004)

Distress vs ALN
Distress 3-2

Clan Commission vs blur
Commission 3-0

Darkside vs CCCC
Darkside 3-0

Intense Combat Forces vs GameWyze.rtcw
Gamewyze 3-1

By Way of the Gun vs Default
Default 3-0

Order Thru Chaos vs Perfect Drug
Perfect Drug 3-2

distorted Reality vs Turbo Cyborg Ninjas
Ninjas 3-0

The Raging Octopi vs High Voltage
High Voltage 3-0

iron warriors vs Knights of the Old Republic
Kor 3-0

Cerebral Assassins Inc vs Team DiE
DiE 3-2

eXcalibur vs Team Hate
gg

Team Exodus vs Scourge
Exodus 3-1

Operation Psycho Patrol vs Tribal Valor
opp 3-0

Suave vs Explicit Animosity
not sure if suave is playing or not

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Chilifiend from >TB< sizzles on the hot seat.

Posted by: Mortal :o (Saturday, January 24, 2004)

Chilifiend from Team Burque ( #teamburque ) hops into the hot seat for an interested interview. :)

________________________________________________________________________

Mortal: Hey

Chilifiend: Hi

Mortal: First off, just some general info on you. What you do out of RTCW, how old you are, hobbies, etc. Also, why did you get into RTCW and was it your first PC game?

Chilifiend: I'm a 26-year-old computer consultant/geek that enjoys riding toys in the desert and on the lakes. I played Wolfenstien3D so no RTCW is not my first game :)...Too many hobbies to really list hehe..


Mortal: So your the leader of Team Burque correct? How has Team Burque done over the seasons......and what is their goal. Also, who all is in TB :).

Chilifiend: Correct, this is only our second season of CAL so we still have some kinks to work out. We played in both ET and RTCW last season and managed to break even in CAL-Open while making play-off's for ET. We are only focusing on RTCW this season and hope to do much better since we put in a lot of scrim time to prepare for *cough* CyberX *cough* which worked out great for us with a tie for 1st. While our #1 goal is always to have fun, we do plan to get full sponsorship if/when we get to that next level. We have a great group of guys so win or loss it's always a blast playing.

Right now our starting roster consists of myself, Rand, Kaoz, Foetwinny, M4SH, Christpuncher, and Trash with Bean taking a break to warm up the bench.


Mortal: What motivated you to start playing RTCW? Who introduced you to the competative side of RTCW?

Chilifiend: Well like any gamer, I've always dreamed of being a pro player and was interested to hear about Fatal1ty's exploits in Quake3 before I even had broadband. Then the RTCW mp_test came out of nowhere and grabbed me by the balls and it's been my main game since. When I caught wind of the BOB prize tourney that's when I decided to try out the competitive scene and started the RTCW division of the Amish World Order. I've been scrimming ever since...


Mortal: Chicken or Beef? Why?

Chilifiend: Interesting you ask. I was a white meat kind of guy but I just read something on Shacknews that mentioned some crazy chemical in leafy greens and red meat might be the secret to long life. So I think I'll say beef now.


Mortal: If you could go back in time and change something, what would it be and why?

Chilifiend: I'd go back to the moment that Adam screwed the pooch so that we could be scrimming in the Garden of Eden RIGHT NOW!


Mortal: In RTCW, what clans have you been in? What aliases have you used?

Chilifiend: I started the AWO right before BOB and played as Amish Crackfiend until we deiced to try a local area team for QuakeCon 2003 where I play as Chilifiend. Yes I hope to sell out someday and get >TB< some sponsors and didn't know how well Crackfiend would hold up in that arena.


Mortal: Who is the best RTCW player(s) in your opinion and why?

Chilifiend: That's hard to answer. Best to me doesn't mean headshots. My RTCW idol is probably Citizen from Abuse. He was always a top skilled player but most importantly really put an honest effort into the community to help it grow. He was there to answer any n00b questions I had and was always willing to share his wisdom. As far as best skill I couldn't really say. Abuse's retirement from RTCW marks the start of the scene's decline in my book.

I know there are quite a few guys that are many levels above me but I never really have followed them to be able to throw out a name. We scrimmed CCCC last night so I'll throw some props over to Serbian since he's always had insane aim.


Mortal: TB lan parties are a known tradition among RTCW community. Who are the guests that have stopped by, if any, and what’s the weirdest and wackiest things that happen at the lans.

Chilifiend: Can't really brag about any guests since it's mostly a local thing. Basically Royal_Ally decides when they occur by making the trek down from Denver, which is roughly every 2 months. The rest are all my local geek friends. Every member of >TB< has attended except Trash who will get his feet wet soon I hope. I don't know if this is the forum for some weird stuff but at the last LAN I was pleased to see water dripping from my new Gigabit switch on to my new Wireless-G router. Usually we get some very intense games going well into the early morning and consume vast amounts of Bawls, munchies, and high-grade tobacco. There's been talk of importing some Narf from Cali but we'll see. Next BurqueLAN is coming up end of March so reserve your spot today!


Mortal: If you could change 3 things about RTCW game wise what would it be?

Chilifiend: I really really think it would be cool to add a kick/melee attack. Of course it would have to be well designed and balanced within the existing game play but I think it could be done. Basically it would be an attack you could use while reloading/etc that is more about knocking/moving guys than damaging them. If used with player vectors it could have a lot of depth. I'll have to stop now or I'll rant all night why it would be so perfect.

I also think it would be cool if you could drop ammo even if you're not an LT. Basically it comes from your ammo stash instead of your special so if you have 3 clips you can give one to your buddy.

Last, it would be nice to have all the ET bells and whistles like command map. Maybe some sort of command system so you can force class on your players and give them waypoints? I have too many things I'd like to see so I'll have to stop now. Over all I think it's damn fine the way it is.


Mortal: If you could make a pc from scratch...what would be inside it and why?

Chilifiend: Fastest AMD Athlon64FX that's out because I'm an AMD fan boi. 4 SATA hard drives (or SCSI if this is just a dream) in Raid 0. A gig or so of that fancy new DDR ram that has the load indicators. Radeon 9800XT of course and dual 5.25" floppy drives.


Mortal: What do you think is the next RTCW or CS game coming up?

Chilifiend: Looking at existing games I have a lot of hope for ET. The fact that it's free really gives it lots of options and given time I think it has a lot of potential. I think it would be possible for somebody to make an ET-TV mod that allows any n00b to click on a "Watch Match" link to download the game/mod and watch a match without buying or installing anything. That would really bring in the spectators. It still needs some love in the competition area though but I think ET_Pro will handle all that with time.

I also think BF1942: Desert Combat has some potential down the road. As far as games coming out, I'm keeping any eye on FarCry, PainKiller, UT2k4, and of course HL2. I think some cool games will come out on the Doom3 engine but who knows what it will offer to the pro scene.


Mortal: Last but not least, shoutouts :P

Chilifiend: Shoutout to Rand, and Kaoz who are helping take our teams skill to the next level despite their lack of RTCW experience and of course all my brothers in >TB< that fight the good fight.


Mortal: thanks chili

Chilifiend: w00t!

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Movie Is Done

Posted by: Scarface (Friday, March 5, 2004)

Thanks to everyone who contributed to the Pissed Off movie. You can download the Movie From http://et.kragoth.com/Movies/pissedoff.zip Thanks again fellas ;p

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50cent talks the talk.....

Posted by: Mortal :o (Saturday, January 24, 2004)

Mortal: hi

5
0cenT: yo

Mortal: Tell us about yourself, name/age/location, all that good stuff. Also, why do you play RTCW? Why the alias 50cent?

5
0cenT: Well my real name is Mike Urban, i 17 an live in NY. Wolf was probably the first game i really got into. It was defently the first game i played with a team. I started playing like 2 years ago and ive been hooked ever since. And the name 50cent, well i picked it when i first stated, i used to listen to him when he was still underground, and it just kinda stuck. Ive been wanting to change it, but I can never stick with a new name.


Mortal: So, what clans have you been in? When did u start playing RTCW? What was ur best RTCW experience?

5
0cenT: Well since I’ve started playing wolf 2 years ago, I’ve been in only a few teams. My first team ever was [CB] crossbones. I never scrimmed with them. It was me and JJ (ammun1t1on), he’s my real life friend. We both joined that team and like 2 weeks after we did we decided to form our own team, Majin Clan. We played a lot and had our own server, and we had some notable players. Then Majin turned into zH, and after that I left. i stayed with the immortals for a while and we won twl- a one season against Arise. Then I went to some other teams for a few days until i settled down with Immortals again which then split into my current team, h8 ( #teamh8) . My best wolf experience was probably when I went to Quakecon. I went with IcF and we placed 9th. It was just great to finally meet the faces behind the names


Mortal: If you could watch one match, with any team vs. any team, what would it be and why? Also what map?

5
0cenT:: Id love to watch a match between Infensus and GMPO. I never got to see the one at qcon cuz I was passed out from night before, too much to drink :-/ . They’re 2 really talented teams and watching them would just be incredible. I’d like to watch them play on either base just for the simple reason that everyone knows each other strats. There are no real different strats that are used, so we would see just pure skill that’s would show.


Mortal: Who is your most disliked person in RTCW, besides myself obviously?

5
0cenT: I have no idea really. I haven’t been playing lately, took like a 2-month break, but id still have to say the most hated person in my eyes is Astro heh. He’s just too cocky and isnt very good :/. But the kind of person in this game I hate the most are the people who have those big egos and think there better then everyone, that pisses me off. One man cant win a game, its a team effort that does it.


Mortal: What do you like better? Bananas or Oranges?

5
0cenT: well, I like bananas because I can put them in smoothies, but orange juice is good. I don’t know, and who really cares!


Mortal: What do you think caused the decline in RTCW, though RTCW is still alive, you have to admit pubs and a lot of teams have lost a lot of the once standard respect for the game.

5
0cenT: Well I don’t really know what caused the decline, but its defiantly happening. It might have had to do with the fact that there is only one big wolf tournament a year, quakecon. They had cXg but that got messed up. There’s not really any support out there for the community. I really noticed it when I go on a pub and don’t notice any tags or names. The standard for wolf has went down A LOT. There are no real amazing teams like there used to be, there are just good teams. I think panzers really broke it up too. Too many teams abusing them. Like my friend m4tt says, if cal/twl would have made the 1 panzer rule like 3 seasons back, the community might have been stronger nowadays.


Mortal: Do you play any other PC games, if so what are they?

5
0cenT: I played CoD once in a while, but not really. Just when I get bored of wolf.


Mortal: What do you do as a hobby out of video games?

5
0cenT: Well, I guess u can say I’m a pimp heh. []D [] []V[] []D . I don’t do that much that you can describe with words. If I go out I just chill wit my friends, go to parties or the movies.


Mortal: Did you attend cXg?

5
0cenT: Nah, I haven’t been playing wolf that much lately, so I didn’t even bother looking in to it that much.


Mortal: Is team h8 attending Qcon? If so, what do you think will be different about this year from last year?

5
0cenT: We defiantly plan on it. That was the original intent of this team. We gonna practice hard and do the best we can. I think once the team starts getting used to each other, will defiantly do some damage. This year will be much diff then last year. Last year we didn’t even really plan on going to Texas for qcon. Trinity dropped out at the last second so we took their place. This year were gonna be ready, and were gonna have much more.


Mortal: Who is in Team h8? Is it just Immortals renamed or are their some new faces to be seen?

5
0cenT: Yeah, it’s got some old Immortals on it. M4tt, the former leader of immortals is leading h8. He’s a great leader, and that’s why how I know where gonna do good. We also have crucial, but he’s not that active, but he’s still ex-immortals. The new faces we got are JJ/ammun1t1on, flogzero, anialatem, elusive and blade. They all great players and have some great experience on past main/invite teams.


Mortal: Last but not least, if you had a magic wand that could fix anything in the world, what would that one thing be?

5
0cenT: Well, I’ll be noble here, and say that’d id want to fix my friend JJ's car. I messed it up in an accident :/. So that would be what I would fix.


Mortal: List your shoutouts, all that good shit here.

5
0cenT: Death, Hartman, eXcero, Naps, Wes, DSC, JJ, Warri0r, cKyass, Nightwolve, killa-sin, tekoda, de_x_rules, scrilla, fatal, oleg whoknew and all the other people who I’ve played wit...peeeaaaace

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CAL Open Playoffs: Early Picture #2

Posted by: Kuniva (Thursday, March 11, 2004)

I changed the way I was going to oraganize the playoffs. My original Idea was to Divide the Atlantic from the Pacific/Central divisions, and have conference winnners duke it out for the championship, but after much consideration it appears the east may be stronger than the west in overall point totals, and seeing a team like renegades or perpetual motion make the playoffs based on the low point totals in the west would be retarded at best.

So... new and improved overall rankings stand as follows:

1. Closing Time -- 8 - - 16 Points
2. Teh Birds ------ 6 2 - 12 Points Round win Diff: +14
3. Team Burque - 6 2 - 12 Points Round win Diff: +12
4. Office Space -- 5 2 1 11 Points Round win Diff: +9
5. Ghetto Pimps - 5 2 1 11 Points Round win Diff: +7

CLINCHED PLAYOFF SPOT (above teams)

6. Yakuza -------------------- 5 3 - 10 Points
7. Forgotten Kings --------- 5 2 - 10 Points
8. Suicidal Intent ----------- 5 2 - 10 Points
9. Optikal Xperience ------- 5 3 - 10 Points
10. Team Vote -------------- 5 3 - 10 Points
11. Old Skool Gamers ----- 5 3 - 10 Points
12. Team Canada ---------- 5 2 - 10 Points
13. Growers Anonymous - 4 3 1 9 Points
14. FMJ Clan E -------------- 4 4 - 8 Points Defeated Inmates Week 5
15. Inmates ----------------- 4 4 - 8 Points
16. Made Men --------------- 3 4 1 7 Points

///PLAYOFFS--CUTOFF///
Exact Position Doesn't matter atm for below cutoff
17. American Special Forces - 3 2 - 6 Points
17. Cross Breed --------------- 3 5 - 6 Points
19. Mercenaries --------------- 2 6 - 4 Points
19. Renegades ---------------- 2 1 - 4 Points
19. Nudie Bar ------------------ 2 1 - 4 Points
19. Perpetual Motion --------- 2 1 - 4 Points

///ELMINATED///
23. Alliance of Soup Nazis - 1 7 - 2 Points
23. Team RedruM ----------- 1 3 - 2 Points
23. Final Five ---------------- 1 3 - 2 Points
26. TeamSSI ----------------- - 7 - 0 Points
27. Sin ----------------------- - 3 - 0 Points
28. NoX ---------------------- - - - 0 Points

The Calculation Method for these standings can be found HERE

This gives us the Opening playoff matches of:

1. Closing Time vs 16. Made Men
8. Suicidal Intent vs 9. Optikal Xperience
5. Ghetto Pimps vs 12. Team Canada
4. Office Space vs 13. Growers Anonymous
3. Team Burque vs 14. FMJ Clan E
6. Yakuza vs 11. Old SkooL Gamers
7. Forgotten Kings vs 10. Team Vote
2. Teh Birds vs 15. Inmates

It may look jumbled, but assuming the favorites keep winning, we would arrive at (THIS IN NO WAY IS A PREDICTION, IT IS MEANT TO DEMONSTRATE THE PLAYOFF BRACKET STYLE):

1. Closing Time vs 8. Suicidal Intent
4. Office Space vs 5. Ghetto Pimps
3. Team Burque vs 6. Yakuza
2. Teh Birds vs 7. Forgotten Kings

And then...

1. Closing Time vs 4. Office Space
2. Teh birds vs 3. Team Burque

Championship.

1. Closing Time vs 2. Teh Birds

Eh?

So where does each team stand going into the final two weeks? Here's how I think it is

Closing Time
2am. is the immeadeate favorite to take the CAL-O title heading in to week 9. Undefeated at every turn, and showing no signs of slowing down. Meeting them in the playoffs will almost certainly garner an early exit for a team. Don't expect any upsets in the last few weeks. Although I would like to see a Closing Time vs Teh Birds or Team Burque in week 10.
Championship Odds: 3-1

Teh Birds
Teh Birds are irking me a bit as to their rank heading into the final weeks. The record says one thing, but the clans they've faced say another. In their only real challenging matches vs c[_], Team Vote, and Ghetto Pimps, They've come out 1-2, with all their other wins coming against teams not in the playoff picture at all. Teh Birds could be a very good clan, but for me, they are still unproven.
Odds: 8-1

Team Burque
TB to me is a solid clan coming out of the west, with wins versus division rivals Office Space and Team Vote, they are certainly the team to watch in the west, but with early season losses to eastern teams Yakuza and Growers Anonymous, can TB be expected to come out strong against the east in the playoffs? Alot could have changed since their defeat to gA in week 3, but has anything that will bring them a title?
Odds: 6-1

Office Space
HARHAR! The office space crew is having another good season in CAL-O despite wippuh's newfound passion for the opposite sex, and the team's insesent(sp?) playing of the evil enemy territory. Hopefully with the playoffs drawing near their focus will shift back to RTCW and we'll see a charge deep into the playoffs from this crew.
Odds: 9-1

Ghetto Pimps
The pimps are looking strong coming out of the east, and have put down highly ranked western team Teh Birds in recent weeks. Managing to take a round from a strong 2am. team on Sub shows that they have the goods to throw down with the big boys. A little determination and hard work and they could go way deep into the playoffs.
Odds: 13-2

Yakuza
Self proclaimed sandbaggers (me looks at GGAllin's avatar) have been rolling along in the tough atlantic theta division. With wins over West leaders Team Burque and atlantic rivals OsG, SI and Ghetto Pimps their schedule has been ANYTHING but easy. Facing all those opponents plus dropping back to back matches to Closing time and oX. Since those losses though, they have been on a mission, dropping only 3 rounds in 4 straight victories. If they can continue this push into the playoffs, they could knock off one of the big boys in an upset victory.
Odds: 6-1

Forgotten Kings
I still hate the name of this clan, but anyways, Forgotten kings, to me at least, are not ranked this high because they are better than the clans below them. They are ranked this high due to ease of schedule. Sure they've beaten OsG 3-0, but besides that win, there is no other team they've won against that is challenging for a playoff spot. They have a bye week win, lost to Made Men who are barely in the playoffs, and lost to rival gA 3-2. Until they are scheduled vs a Yakuza, SI or 2am, I can't put any stock in them to do well in the playoffs.
Odds: 15-1

Suicidal Intent
Perennial contenders Suicidal Intent are coming on strong in the east with back to back shutouts after a two week stretch in which they lost two 2am and Yakuza. It almost seems like SI either dominates you completely, or or goes down without much fight. Shutouts in every victory, and 3-1 in both their losses, it seems the key to SI is to break their strong start and get them scrambling for a solution to stopping you. The shots on -SI- are good, there's no doubting that, if they can learn to stay solid and use their shots to their advantage, they'll be a playoff contender.
Odds: 8-1

Optikal Xperience
oX is proving to be a thorn in the side of their division rivals. Suprisingly defeating Yakuza 3-1, but have dissapointingly come out flat lately. With a close loss to Eastern powerhouse 2am. and a shocking 3-0 loss to teh birds on sub last week, a slump seems to be forming for oX. This is not the time of the season to be slumping. They need to bounce back quickly, or they could be finding themselves connecting to wtv on tuesdays alot sooner than they expect.
Odds: 10-1

Team Vote
Alpine's noobs have had a good season brewing out of the west so far, with wins over oX and teh birds under their belt, they've proven they can compete with the higher skilled teams. The well has run a little dry since the early season however. With a suprising loss to mercenaries, and back to back losses to team burque and yakuza in recent weeks, it seems another slump may be hitting a playoff team. They need to find the drive again and pick it up. Or they could be joining the wtv crowd as well.
Odds: 10-1

Old SkooL Gamers
-OsG- has had an up and down season as of now, with a win, a loss, two wins, two losses, and two more wins in the recent weeks, Team yo-yo may make a better name. The consistency is going to need to improve if they want to come out in the playoffs and make a difference.
Odds: 13-1

Team Canada
Well well. Here we go once again with my own clan. :P Comebacks dagnabbit! That's been the name of the game for us in the last 3 weeks. We went down 2-0 to Crossbreed on Ice, we came back and won. We went up 2-0 on Made Men, they came back to tie, and we won a close one on chateau. Sub? same story. Mercs went up 2-0 and we came back to win, in a NAIL BITER. We have to improve our consistency. It seems like early in matches we're all cold and aren't used to playing with eachother, but then we warm-up and bring it home to end it. A few scrims here and there during the playoffs won't hurt us, hopefully we can get it together.
Odds: No chance I'm predicting this part.

Growers Anonymous
The first clan in my list where the playoffs isn't even a sure thing yet, but one win, and they're in. With losses to several of their eastern rivals, Growers anonymous isn't a clan on everyone's &quot;watch out for them&quot; list, but they can't be taken lightly. They've proven they can take harder clans to the edge with a win over Forgotten Kings, but losses vs Higher ranked teams OsG and oX in recent weeks don't make you want to buy gA stock on planet-rtcw.
Odds: 20-1

FMJ Clan E, Inmates, Made Men
These clans are all in the same boat. They are FAR from safe as far as a playoff spot goes. They need at least a win and a tie to guarantee a playoff spot. Lose one match in the last two weeks combined with wins for ASF or Crossbreed? They could be caught. They better pray to the CAL admins that they don't get a hard match, and they better hope they got a good frostbite strat. Who they meet in the playoffs means nothing right now. As getting the chance to meet someone is worry enough.
Odds: 30-1

American Special Forces, Crossbreed
These teams are on the BRINK! They need to crank it up a few notches and really kick some ass in the final weeks if they want a shot at the playoffs. ASF is still a mystery to many, and crossbreed has lost some starters after their ice defeat. If they CAL admins give them a shot at FMJ, Inmates or M2, they'd better seize the chance and come out with a win. I'd like to see these clans play one of those teams. It would make for a very interesting playoff race, in what could otherwise be a blowout if they're scheduled vs 2am as a sacrificial lamb.
Odds: 50-1

Mercenaries, Renegades, Nudie Bar, Perpetual Motion
Not much to say here, the only way these clans can make it is if they get back-to-back wins coupled with back-to-back M2 Losses. The chances of that are slim-to-none. Start pubbin and get ready for next season, cause your sittin out for the big dance.

WELP! That's it! Hope you enjoyed this look at the CAL-O Playoffs and I hope it gives you some advice on what you need to do to go far. GL! AND HF ON FROSTBITE!


KuNiva.CA
#Team_Canada on GameSurge

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Maximum Bow Rhymin

Posted by: gisele (Friday, March 12, 2004)

With the popularity of Maximum Bow Rage constantly growing, I felt compelled to channel our emotion lyrically. Please keep in mind this is purely for entertainment pleasures and do not mock my usage of slang, ya heard?

Maximum Bow Rhymes Part 1

You best grease up them bows
Cause if you aint careful,
You’ll get End0ed.

His name is G-Thugg,
When hes robbn’ yo kills,
You gone feel like you was mugged.

Oh shit, how in the fuck you ragin Piss?
“They got holes in they dome,
the width of my wrists.”

You got Spec, who’s down with his server,
When hes rollin’ yo face,
You can call him yo lover.

SL1k’s bullets spray,
Hes balln so hard,
He’ll make you wish you were gay.

Theirs our main man Robes,
One headshot and your owned,
You’ll be screamin so loud, you’ll bust your ear lobes.

They call me Gisele,
When I’m tkin they sayin,
“Bitch what the hell?”

When were on the mic,
You feel the rhymes and you like.
Your emotions are in the fucking zone,
Cause we got tha ill communication,
Like a god damn phone.

When our posses in effect,
The emotions are high,
If you wanna roll wit us,
Throw them deuces way up in the sky.


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Good servers ... that need more good players

Posted by: FuZioN)nG( (Monday, March 15, 2004)

Tired of waiting in line at Hell's Gate? Can't get in on the 2v2's on speakeasy? Well it's time to start populating the other pubs in the community. Even one of the most popular server that's been down ... is now back up (with punkbuster finally enabled). So get the info on these good servers!

UDP OLTL 1
Capacity: 30 Players
Mod: Shrub One life to live
Notable maps: Mp_schwalbe, Mp_depot
IP: 66.45.68.181:27960
Notes: Server can be big at times .. but when you're looking for a well coordinated pub with great teamwork, head to this server.

}-{ Heaven's Gate v|engeance
Capacity: 18 Players
Mod: OSP
Notable maps: mp_bridge
IP: 66.28.238.9:27960
Notes: This server is BARELY used, but the ping on the server should be great for all. Add it to your favorites and lets play on the bridge marathon :)

Shallow Grave Virginia
Mod: OSP
Capacity: 26 Players
Notable maps: CAL/TWL rotation
IP: 69.44.60.43:27960
Notes: Formerly known as
DarkSide Public ... great ping for anyone east coast or central

[WDC] Locked Box )x( RTCW
Mod: OSP
Capacity: 18 Players
Notable maps: CAL/TWL Rotation
IP: 208.185.30.202:27960
Notes: One of the most famous pub servers of the recent past. Server crashed a while back ... and is finally back up with great pings as usual and Punkbuster enabled (was disabled last time).

Yakuza Public
Mod: OSP
Capacity: 16 Players
Notable maps: CAL/TWL Rotation .. and a few custom
IP: 68.12.70.210:27962
Notes: Need to beat up on those shrub nubs who play OSP? Head over to yZ pub then :D


So if your favorites list was feeling kindof empty ... add these servers and keep them full! Other servers worth mentioning:
}-{ell's Gate Pure OSP, Glownage OSP, =VODKA FRENZY=

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CAL Open Playoffs: Week 9 Wrap-Up

Posted by: Kuniva (Wednesday, March 17, 2004)

Week 9 is over with some "suprises" to say the least. Probably only suprises to the people watching from the outside though. Let's take a look at what happened tonight and see what it means as far as the playoffs are concerned.

NoX Clan defeats TeamSSI - 3-1
What it means for NoX: 2 points! Yay!
What it means for TeamSSI: Still no points! Boo!
What it means overall: Nothing. Absolutely Nothing.

yakuza defeats Team Canada - 3-0
What it means for Yakuza: Defeating a Team that's tied in points with you is big in any sport. A win for yakuza also means they leapfrog several teams who didn't fare as well tonight. Though I won't do the exact math tonight, They've moved from a 6th place rank to 4th, which is the difference between playing a team like forgotten kings, or hey it's us they're set to play now, and they just whipped us 3-0 right? ;)
What is means for Team Canada: IT MEAN WE SUCK BALLS! Well not outside our spare time anyways. We had some higher hopes going into this match than normal. Some starters didn't show up but we still felt we put up a good fight. We just gotta work harder.
What it means overall: Yakuza is proven to be a greater threat, and team canada is proven to have been at team you don't need to worry about as much. Yep. We blow! GUESS YOU DON'T NEED TO SCRIM WHEN YOU'RE GONNA PLAY US! No really. Don't.

Renegades defeats Team Burque 3-0
What this means for renegades: In my system of playoffs, you're already eliminated, but it's not like CAL is going to listen to me, and they've always gone the way of the conference champs. In which case this means you could be the suprise team out of the west when finals comes around. Dethroning the West's best when you're 2 weeks old is a big ass deal.
What this means for Team Burque: It means you sit back and go WTF JUST HAPPENED? You were the west's kings, you got dethroned by PEONS. IT'S LIKE GLADIATOR ALL OVER AGAIN! Don't let this rattle you though. Unless your the Miami Dolphins, noone learns anything from winning every match, and hey maybe now if frostbite is in the playoffs (god forbid) you can study your demos real hard and steal renegades' strats.
What this means overall: Everyone starts going "hmmmm, TB lost to a bunch of nobodies" then if you're high ranked like TB you think "I'd better not keep my guard down and come ill-prepared vs the lower ranked teams" and if you're in the lower end of the rankings you think "WE CAN BEAT 2AM NOW! I KNOW WE CAN!" Head for the hills people. Playoff upsets will be upon us soon.

Team Vote defeats Office Space - 3-0
What this means for Team Vote: Congratulations! You've leapfrogged Office Space into a tie for 1st in the West! Keep up the hard work and you'll be sittin pretty for your first round. Don't let it go to your heads though. Especially you alp, ya homo.
What this mean for Office Space: They're probably already in an ET server somewhere getting ready for a match in that. I really hope they lose whatever et league they're in so they concentrate on wolf again :(
What this means overall: You could look at it two ways really, the west is weak, or the west is strong and has more depth than people are thinking. Should open a few eyes no matter what though.

Teh Birds defeats Perpetual Motion - 3-0
What this means for Teh Birds: You got handed a sacrificial Lamb this week and you did what you had to do. You've all but locked up a 1st round match versus a CONSIDERABLY weaker opponent. Keep the pressure on and you'll fly through the early rounds. Lose next week though? You could drop quite a bit if you do with so many teams on your tail.
What this mean for pM: rofl, you got hosed. I mean uh... tough luck. Hope to see a next season.

Sin defeats Mercenaries - 3-0
What this means to Sin: No more 0 Points season for you! w00t!
What this means for Mercenaries: You're like, eliminated to the 4th power now
What this means overall: It means people are quickly scrolling past this part and not even reading what I'm writing, cause who cares? Am I right?

Made Men defeats Nudie Bar - 3-1
What this means for Made Men: YOU'RE HANGIN IN THERE! Good job comin out strong this week. If the CAL admins aren't complete retards you'll get scheduled vs on of the two 8 point teams next week, and get a chance to prove you really belong in the playoffs. Even though you'll most likely be playing 2am first round =\
What this means for Nudie Bar: Despite the awesome tags and great name. Ur out fa sho.
What this means overall: Not much in the real big huge grand scheme of things. What it does mean however for the teams at the bottom of the rankings is that there is gonna be one hell of a fun playoff race if the CAL admins set it up right.

Cross Breed defeats Alliance of Soup Nazis - 3-0
What this means for Crossbreed: You're keeping your head above the water, probably floating on a piece of wood, clutching your your boyfreind's dead corpse, on tuesday you get to choose. Sink or swim.
What this means for aSn: What can I say? ggz.

Closing Time defeats Forgotten Kings - 3-0
What this means for closing time: There's no possible way in hell you can take an underdog roll anymore, even if you lose your next match 3-0 to TeamSSI, people will still expect you to win. I've been in that position before in Main two seasons ago. It's not a fun place to be.
What this mean for Forgotten Kings: It means you're still unproven, like I've said several times now. Your record is strong, but your performance against teams of similiar record is weak. If you don't bring the goods home on the final week against a good team, I'll be predicting against you all the way into the finals if you get that far, and I still think your name is a rip-off.
What this means overall: 2am is shaping up to be all that their record says, if you draw them in the playoffs you'd better hope you're on your game, and they are way off. As for Forgotten kings, It's lookin liks a classic case of a paper tiger at the moment, I'm not expecting much from them.

Old Sko0L Gamers defeats Suicidal Intent - 3-2
What this means for Old Sko0L Gamers: Damn dudes. You suprised me with this one. You're steppin it up. You've exited the mediocre 10-pointer pack and brought it to the big boys now. Hope you can keep rollin.
What this means for Suicidal Intent: Stuff isn't quite turning out like your first few weeks were implying they would, now you gotta figure out what went wrong this week, and try to fix that up. Don't want to be goin into the playoffs on a bad note.
What this means overall: OsG steps up into the ranks of the clans you gotta watch out for now, while -SI- slips farther and farther into mediocrity.

American Special Forces defeats Team RedruM 3-0
What this means for ASF: Nothin. It was a forfeit win.
What this means for RedruM: Bye bye, it lasted as long as we all thought it would.
What this means overall: It means there was an extra server open tonight.

Ghetto Pimps defeats Optikal Xperience - 3-0
What this means for Ghetto Pimps: I can't say I'm too suprised, just a bit at the 3-0 score, I thought it would be a bit closer than that. You're on the right path though. The wins are coming to you. Just keep doin what your doin and you should be set for the playoffs.
What this means for Optikal Xperience: You're goin "merde", and thinkin ya shouldn't of lost that one as bad as ya did. hopefully there was a reason you can identify why it didn't work. If you just got outplayed period, maybe it wasn't your day, but make sure it's your day from now on.
What is means overall: The loss of a few players from Ghetto Pimps Roster hasn't slowed them down at all. Watch out for them in the playoffs. Optikal Xperience will be comin back hard next week, if you get scheduled against em get prepared good.

FMJ Clan E defeats Growers Anonymous - 3-1
What this means for FMJ Clan E: You've avoided being swallowed up by the playoff chasers for now, but you're not out of the woods yet. You're gonna need at least a tie on village. Start scrimmin now.
What this mean for Growers Anonymous: You got leapfrogged by FMJ, and you're in the crosshairs of two clans on roll who really want a playoff spot. They say it's harder to keep a playoff spot than to get one. Guess you're gonna find out.
What this means overall: It means we're gonna be havin some fun watchin how the last seeds shape up after next week. It's gettin excitin in the lower brackets, kind of like being the a canadiens fan.

Inmates defeats Final Five - 3-0
What this means for Inmates: Read what I just told FMJ. Read it? Ok. It's the same deal. Go rez!
What this means for Final Five: It means you're consistent.
What this means overall: The playoff race thingy again. Yep.
So once again we come to the ranking section. Remember the basic rules? No? Well here they are again:

Seedings and Tiebreakers are determined as follows:
1. Points
2. Wins
3. Head to Head Competition (2 Way Ties Only)
4. Round win differential (3 + Teams tied)
5. Strength of schedule based on forfeits. (Least number of forfeit wins)

My calculations according to these rules can be seen here: http://www.m1nions.com/teamcanada/samepointcalculations.txt

x = eliminated
y = clinched playoff birth
y* = Special just for my team :D we can't be eliminated from playoffs because even if we tie with asf or crossbreed in points at the end of the season. We've defeated them both. Which would rank us above them. No other 10 point team has defeated them both, and therfore could be passed by them.
z = clinched rank

yz - 1. Closing Time ------------- 9 - - 18 Points
y - 2. Teh Birds ----------------- 7 2 - 14 Points
y - 3. Ghetto Pimps ------------ 6 2 1 13 Points
y - 4. Yakuza -------------------- 6 3 - 12 Points
y - 5. Team Burque ------------ 6 3 - 12 Points
y - 6. Team Vote -------------- 6 3 - 12 Points
y - 7. Old Skool Gamers ----- 6 3 - 12 Points
y - 8. Office Space ------------- 5 3 1 11 Points
9. Suicidal Intent ----------- 5 3 - 10 Points
10. Optikal Xperience ------- 5 4 - 10 Points
11. Forgotten Kings --------- 5 3 - 10 Points
12. Inmates ----------------- 5 4 - 10 Points
y* - 13. Team Canada ---------- 5 3 - 10 Points
14. FMJ Clan E -------------- 5 4 - 10 Points Defeated Inmates Week 5
15. Growers Anonymous - 4 4 1 9 Points
16. Made Men --------------- 4 4 1 9 Points - Forfeit win over Euphoria
________________________________________________________

17. American Special Forces - 4 2 - 8 Points
17. Cross Breed --------------- 4 5 - 8 Points
x - 19. Renegades ---------------- 2 1 - 6 Points
x - 20. Mercenaries --------------- 2 6 - 4 Points
x - 20. Nudie Bar ------------------ 2 1 - 4 Points
x - 20. Perpetual Motion --------- 2 1 - 4 Points
x - 23. Alliance of Soup Nazis - 1 8 - 2 Points
x - 23. Team RedruM ----------- 1 3 - 2 Points
x - 23. Final Five ---------------- 1 4 - 2 Points
x - 23. Sin ----------------------- 1 3 - 2 Points
x - 23. NoX ---------------------- 1 - - 2 Points
x - 28. TeamSSI ----------------- - 8 - 0 Points

If there was any mistakes in any of this. I apologize, it's alot of data to digest.


KuNiva.CA
#
Team_Canada on GameSurge

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q3 Mouse Accel and Win XP

Posted by: pissclams (Friday, March 19, 2004)

I know this is old news but a few people have asked me recently for help turning off mouse acceleration with Windows XP and the Quake 3 engine so I figured I'd post the fix here.

For those of you unaware of it, turning off the "Enhance Pointer Precision" and setting mouse acceleration to 0 in your RtCW config won't disable Mouse Accel in the Q3 engine. The only way to actually turn it off is to make a simple change to your registry.

To turn off Mouse Accel copy the following lines (in blue) into a notepad file and save it as a .reg file, everytime you want to disable it just click on the file and uncheck the "Enable Pointer Precision" box in your mouse software.

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Mouse]
"SmoothMouseXCurve"=hex:00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,a0,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,40,\
01,00,00,00,00,00,00,80,02,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,05,00,00,00,00,00
"SmoothMouseYCurve"=hex:00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,66,a6,02,00,00,00,00,00,cd,4c,\
05,00,00,00,00,00,a0,99,0a,00,00,00,00,00,38,33,15,00,00,00,00,00

To go back to the default reg entry use this file

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Mouse]

"SmoothMouseXCurve"=hex:00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,15,6e,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,40,\
01,00,00,00,00,00,29,dc,03,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,28,00,00,00,00,00
"SmoothMouseYCurve"=hex:00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,b8,5e,01,00,00,00,00,00,cd,4c,\
05,00,00,00,00,00,cd,4c,18,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,38,02,00,00,00,00

You can toggle between using no mouse accel when you play q3 games and the default setting simply by using these two files.
Hope it helps-
PC

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Interview with Paper

Posted by: Mortal :o (Saturday, March 27, 2004)

Paper, from such clans as Redemption, Elite, and Wat? has sat down to talk about many things.........but mostly about RTCW :P. Anyways, read up and enjoy.

btw paper, i messed up ze knee so thats why its so late, ;p.

_____________________________________________________________________________

Mortal: Hello Paper

pape
r: whats up

Mortal: First off, the basics. What is your name, where do you live, Age, etc. Also, what is the origian of ur alias? and have you had other aliases?

pape
r: My name is dominic vennettenetti giacomi, i live in north eastern pa .. im 24, i got my name paper from working in a paper mill >8). as far as any other aliases, i mostly just play as paperlyke.


Mortal: What games do you play? Do you compete outside of RTCW?

pape
r: i've been playing quake 3 since 1999; never competed tho. picked up rtcw 10 days after it came out been playing it ever since. i also play sof2 and cod D: and no i dont compete anymore


Mortal: You are a dying breed. You are one of the legends some say. A player who started at the top and played at the top today. What do you think is the reason you still play RTCW as much as you have before?

pape
r: RTCW is the best game for any ex quake player that i ever seen as far as the movement and skill level it takes to be good. im not as good as i used to be, that or ppl just got really good. there are alot of new faces i see that rip it up. new games like cod take less time to learn, RTCW takes months and months if not years of practice. to get back to your question i put to much time into this game to play another game .. but is it dies any more than it is ill prob pick up cpma again .. or painkiller .. something 1 v 1 or 2 v 2 ..


Mortal: if you could change 1 thing about RTCW what would it be?

pape
r: more players/servers


Mortal: Whats your favorite thing to do outside of RTCW?

pape
r: i skateboarded for 9 years .. im thinking about picking it up again this spring/summer and attend some comps around the philadelphia area ... and yelling at my girlfriend, thats always entertaining


Mortal: Whats better; pork or chicken? Give details.

pape
r: heh ... i just ate chicken in a can, dont ask .. i dont dig on swine. pigs are nasty. nuff said


Mortal: If you could own any car in the world, what would it be and why? (real cars......not flying space cars :P)

pape
r: um .. i'd have to say a maserati or audi a6. anything fast =)


Mortal: Last questions, do you think RTCW will be around in the next Qcon?

pape
r: i really hope so .. but i think its unlikley .. i need to take another vaction .. last quakecon was a blast from what i remember but im not driving 30+ hours again thats for sure. riding in a car with laws,julie,rambo and zorro was enough for me ..i didnt play i just got drunk the whole time and ate mcdonalds


Mortal: last but not least. Shoutouts!

pape
r: not in any order >8) .. madness .. riot .. smokey .. fenix .. neo .. muddy .. rapier .. laws .. julie .. vatican .. stiegl .. kovert .. serbian and anyone else i've played with .. oh and 2am|darkon, i just found out he lives 5 blocks from me. Oh yeah, and you


Pic of Paper ---> http://www.angelfire.com/freak/downloads0/paper.JPG

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Interview: Bread

Posted by: c[_]`Wippuh (Saturday, April 10, 2004)

Wonderbread? WTF kind of nick is that? Hardly instills fear into the heart of ethugs everywhere. However Bread has made quite a name for himself with his run with Team Darkside. In order to see what this unl33t l33tz0r thinks, we sat him down for an interview.

Enjoy!

c[_]Wippuh: Tell everyone who you are and what you're about. Where does that nick come from? How did you start gaming, how'd you find your way to D|S, etc... We wanna know!

D
|S-Bread: My name is Philip, I got my nick from Wonderbread, just because I was looking for a silly name and the colorful packaging looked pretty neat :p. I shortened it to Bread so that it would look and fit better with a clan tag. Online, I started playing Starcraft on my old P133 via a 33.6k connection. When I got my 1.2ghz with a DSL connection, I started playing Quake 2 TMG railwarz (CTF). This was the game that taught me the basic fundamentals of FPS. Both these games I played strictly for fun (pubbing). Then I tried to get into Q3 few weeks before RtCW came out. I tried the RtCW demo for 5 minutes (using the venom :p) then uninstalled it, finding very little interest towards the game. But one day I was dueling with one of my Q2 buddies and he somehow convinced me to play RtCW (the bastard never got the game by the way) and I bought it. From then on I never looked back.

I pubbed the game for the first week and discovered it had a great teamwork aspect. So I decided to join the first clan I find, which was New Century Gamers (NCG). It was during my time in NCG that I met Sgt.Prick, who was in a clan called Dogs of War (DOW). After DOW disbanded, he joined a clan called Hostile Inc. After 7 months in NCG, I finally decided to leave so I could expand my RtCW horizon. Prick seeing I had potential, convinced his teammates to give me a try. The roster eventually became Chaoslord, Herbal-Tea, Sgt.Prick, Hollywood, Fusion, Austin, Animeman, Dimension, Zodiac, Rambo and me. After 2-3 weeks, internal disputes broke the clan up before I had a real taste of Cal-I competition. Everyone went their separate ways, which was when I really improved my skills. For 1-2 weeks I pubbed on servers such as Konijn USA and Doctors Operating Room. This greatly enhanced my aim, and the skill of using a pistol. Before I joined Hostile, the pistol was the most underrated weapon in my arsenal ad after joining them, it became one of my favorite. I got sick of pubbing and decided to look for a clan again. Out of all the clans that offered me something, 3 clans stuck out to me because each had someone I knew from Hostile; Darkside, Deathtouch and Wolfmorder. Holly offered me a bench spot on dT, while the other 2 offered a starter spot. I chose the starter spots above everything else because I was hungry to play in a high caliber team, something I didn't get out of Hostile because I was a bench player there. I eventually chose D|S after numerous scrims between them and -wm- and felt more comfortable playing with D|S.


c
[_]Wippuh: You've played several seasons of Invite and Main. You've seen the classic teams to today's teams. What's the difference in them? Do you believe that the old school teams could come back and dominate as easily as they did in yesteryear? Why or why not?

D
|S-Bread: One difference I found between the classic teams and today's teams is their patience to try something new and thinking outside the box. One example I could clearly come up with is a scrim D|S had against cK when they reformed for BOB2. On offense for assault, they pulled a 3 sniper 1 panzer 1 engineer and 1 medic strategy. We played a tower defense, and they basically use the 3 snipers to force us into a focal point from sniping at all sides, then try to take out 2 with a panzer shot while the snipers get a couple more, while having the engineer and medic attack. It stressed our defense and wasn't successful, but impressive to me nonetheless. They showed a lot of patience and weren't afraid to fail in a scrim. "Winning" a scrim or doing badly in one meant nothing to these teams; they just cared about being the best and would rather lose 10 scrims to find out every possible way of winning than to use that 1 safe way to do well in every scrim. I don't know if the old school teams (dr, abuse, empire, etc.) could come back and dominate as easily as they did, because after QCON1, gun skills were refined exponentially. For the old school teams, leaving the wolf scene then coming back (like cK); they would be a step back from the rest gun wise. But I believe if those teams never left wolf in the first place, their guns would have kept up with time and their teamwork would have been tough to equal.


c
[_]Wippuh: Darkside came into this season with the designated mantle of heavy favorites. You come out in the playoffs forfeiting on assault, a map everyone believes as your strongest. What happened this season to Darkside and where did everything go wrong? How did you come into the season and what are your feelings now that the season is over? Will we see you guys next season?

D
|S-Bread: D|S.rtcw prior to this season was looking around for a new game. GivingSavage and CoD a try, nobody seemed interested in any of those games. So they gave RtCW another go. Eventually burn out sets in midway through the season. We hardly scrimmaged in the last half of the season. We played the Perfect Drug match on mp_sub, and then haven't played together for 2 weeks until the Gamewyze one on village. I came into this season not knowing D|S was going to give RtCW another go. I was planning to play with some friends in another clan, but came back to D|S because they were ready to play while the other one decided to have last minute changes. Now that the season is over, I don't really have any feelings about it. D|S won't be coming back to RtCW next season from the vibes I'm getting. But individually, a couple of us will continue playing wolf for the time being.


c
[_]Wippuh: Many would agree that the 2nd coming of Darkside, with yourself, CL, Rambo, Warrior and Herbal-Tea, is probably the most lethal team that never got to qcon. Not because you guys didn't qualify, but because you just never even expressed interest in attending. With affliction's success and D|S generally being considered a stronger gunning team how do you think you would have done there? How come Darkside never attempted it?

D
|S-Bread: It's really hard for me to say how well we would have done hypothetically. Affliction was our greatest rival and every match we played was like a boxing match, punch for punch. Using that, I would say we would have stayed close to them in the rankings at Qcon. Darkside never attempted to go to Qcon because not everyone on the team wanted to go. After BOB2, couple of us was already burned out. Rambo, Warrior and Pharoah wanted to go, while Herbal and Chaoslord didn't. I would have gone if the team as a whole went, but since only 50% wanted to go, I chose not to because joining a last minute clan won't get you anywhere competitively.


c
[_]Wippuh: In terms of being such a strong gun team, what do you believe led to that label? How did your teams separate themselves from other teams in that department? How much of a factor do you believe aim is in RtCW? What other factors weigh heavily in the determining of a match other than just aim?

D
|S-Bread: I believe that label is mainly due to Rambo and Warrior's pubbing results. I think in wolf, once your gun reaches a certain level, it is good enough for teamwork; anything more is great, but not essential. All the other teams have the guns to do teamwork, so I don't really see our team separate from the rest. But having two exceptional guns on your team, you have the luxury of placing them in very effective areas, but that involves teamwork and strategy planning. I believe RtCW is 50% gun and 50% teamwork, give or take. Other factor that weighs heavily in the determination of a match other than just aim would have to be communications, teamwork, and intelligence. All these are tools to win, and you'd want to utilize each one of them.


c
[_]Wippuh: You're about the most unl33t invite player I've ever seen. I see you pubbing a whole lot and having fun while doing it. A lot of top level players such as yourself have pretty much resigned themselves to only scrims and matches b/c the fun of the pub experience is gone. How do you keep it fun and what are some of your favorite moments on pubs? What are you there to do?

D
|S-Bread: I keep pubs fun by being on ventrilo and playing with friends. Pubs can be frustrating at times, but when you have people on ventrilo to joke around with, it takes a lot of that frustration out of focus and you focus more on having fun. My favorite moments in pubs would be pubbing with members from D|S, RC (Raiders Coven), Excalibur, OPP and MBR.

c
[_]Wippuh: In Chaoslord's interview he stated that you were the one person that he would stick in a spot and watch as you would surpass his expectations! What is it like having no expectations from Chaoslord? :P Can you give us some good stories on him to pay him back for that?

D
|S-Bread: It's nice to have no expectations from him; it tells me I'm doing my part in the team. I never paid much attention to the way he plays because I know he 'll get the job done. He always knows what to do under any situation, something you'd expect from a Cal-I player.


c
[_]Wippuh: I usually ask players to name 5 others that they've never teamed with, to make up the uber team! That's getting a little old, so we'll go a different direction here. Name 6 players that if put together would form the most n00bified team ever. What would you name this team and why would they be on it?

D
|S-Bread: Easy, pick any 6 people who plays on a shrub servers exclusively; totally ignorant of leagues and put them on a team :p. Expect them to try poisoning you with a needle in OSP then ask if it was disabled. I would call this team Facial Trauma Victims or I Got Goomba'd :p


c
[_]Wippuh: Shoutouts

D
|S-Bread: Shoutouts to D|S, RC, OPP, Excalibur, MBR, tXc, Team Canada, my NCG teammates, dT|Rez, Slaya, Riley the little whore, and Team Affliction for the best matches I've ever played.


Missed an interview, or want to read an old one? Check the Interview Link List!

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Punkbuster chats it up...

Posted by: [+ oo] rampage (Monday, April 5, 2004)

Punkbuster staffers Ken, Bjoern and Stuart give answers to everything you wanted to know about the best anticheat program around. The interview was done by the people at www.gamesurge.net conducted on IRC of course.

Question #1: What do you guys do for Punkbuster?

well, i'm basically the cheat researcher and do the cheat detections. that's my main job right now (apart from maintaining the website)
I do mostly cheat research.
I'm Tech Support, Technical writing, PR, Testing, some research...um..a little bit of everything

Question #2: What made you want to work for Punkbuster?

I joined PB when Tony needed some documentation help back in CS days
i was addicted to CS - and I hated cheating. then I heard about PB from a friend, and used it on our server... the client/server aspect fascinated me. a few months later i was part of the team :)
that was back in 2001 I think
or was it 2000?
think 2000
yeah
december 2000
I used to run a game server, just a public only server for fun. I started to notice all of the odd things that happen when cheaters show up to a game. It was quite annoying, I ran into PunkBuster and liked the idea. So I joined up

Question #3: How does the Punkbuster system work?

Heh, this isn't a quick answer
well, pb is basically a client/server system. the pb client runs at the players PC, and sends data back to the PB Server which requests data from it
the pb servers then kick the players which are reported to cheat
pb is auto-updating
we have master servers for every game. once we have a new update ready, we put it on the masters. the pb servers download it, and then distribute it to the clients
the pb client checks the clients PC for cheats - but only what is running in memory, we don't search your hard disk for stuff (unlike what some people believe)

Question #4: What games does Punkbuster currently support?

PB currently supports Q3, RtCW, SoF2, ET, Raven Shield, Far Cry, Splinter Cell: PT, BF1942 and BFV, and AA:O, with CoD arriving soon

Question #5: Do you know the timing of when the support for CoD will be available?

"When it's done" (tm) :)
It's really up to activision to release PB

Question #6: Is there a database where cheats who have been caught is located, such as their ip?

We don't have any kind of public data base of caught cheaters
except of course about cheaters that are globally banned by us
There are admin communities like pbbans.com and punksbusted.com that create their own public ban lists
but we dont care about the IPs, not reliable
as we do global banning, we store the GUIDs of course
but, this is not for public viewing of course

Question #7: With Punksbusted.com new Auto-MBL, Did you guys work closely with them on this project?

not really - we work closely with punksbusted, but in this case they basically did everything themselves :)

Question #8: Just have one question.. why didnt u guys ever think about api dll game hacking.. see u should create something that reads the only things that should be loaded for cs and if theres an external dll or a dll that shouldnt be supose to be loaded making the game not start?

well, this is a question about CS that we don't support since more than 2 years now ;)
but if you're asking about new games as well that we support
then something like that could be an option, but we cant really comment about these things - we're surely gonna add more things over time, but right now we're very happy with how PB catches the punks

#8 : any dll's loaded that are known hacks are easily detected by PB. We go for the detection, vs a wide "we don't know what it is so we kick you" approach.

Question #9: What games in the future would you support? Is this decision based by you or the company?

#9: PB is contacted by the game developer, and we go into talks with them.
We then integrate PB into the game code and a patch is released, or it's on the release
First and formost is the fact that we have to work with the developers and put PB right into the game
we tried the 3rd party method in CS, and it failed. So now we require full dev support

Question #10: How does Even Balance research cheats? do they just go d/l them and lurk in cheat forums and the like?

We get cheats from MANY sources, lots of cheats are mailed right to us
from people who hate cheating as much as we do
It's a good bet that if you see a cheat for download, we already have it.
if you find any cheats though: send them to research@evenbalance.com in case we missed them :)

Question #11: Do Even Balance staff play the games they prevent cheating for?, If so, What games do you enjoy the most?

sure we play the games we support :)
yeah, gotta test the product...or something
just started playing BF:Vietnam a few days ago, i like it a lot... but I also like all other games we support of course
I'm an ET freak, love that game. I can spend all day...
Yes we do play- testing of course ;)
Probably I play Quake3 insta the most, but I like all the games
I prefer team based games. You might see me in BF as well, I play with this name

Question #12: PunkBuster started out on Counter-Strike, if I remember correctly, but left the scene (rightly so) when they found out that there would be no cooperation from VALVe on the anti-cheat front. Since then, you've moved on, and have become the de-facto anti-cheats for a bunch of big-name titles. Do you ever have moments, though, where you look back and wish VALVe had been a bit more cooperative?

as i said right at the start, I LOVED CS
played it from beta 1 up to the point where PB left the CS scene
so yeah, i regret that it didnt work out
but i didnt see any point in playing a game that doesnt have pb support :)
I missed CS, but leaving that market allowed for the opportunity with id, and RtCW. And our real first break
I would have liked to see it work out as well.

Question #13: Are you going to continue to update for certain games like sof2, or any type of "old" games?

we will continue to support the games that have pb integrated until the contract ends

Question #14: Are you planning to add any more admin functionality in to PB for Americas army?

AA has all the standard pb server commands, and the web admin tool
There are some features we are looking at because of the nature of the leased servers
mainly in the ability to do some remote admining that is easy on other servers, but we have no date on when this might be released

Question #15: People say that PB does little damage to cheaters, what is your view?

pb is a big problem for punks
i dont know of any public cheat that still works and has been around for a few weeks
we sometimes let cheats work for a while and then bust the punks using it
again, if you find any cheats that are said not to be detected email them to research@evenbalance.com
if you check the cheater forums for example, you'd see that most of the punks are really upset about pb...
so it works just fine :)
I think the results speak for themselves. There are some cheat makers that have up and left after several attempts to make a cheat that can stay undetected.

Question #16: Is the PB team going to make it so BF1942 players or any other players on slower connections can play for extended periods of time without losing connection due to PB refresh?

BF is hard in the fact that the game is very high bandwidth
pb has to biggyback on that connection. at MAX, pb transmits at 1k/sec

Question #17: Is punkbuster going to scan for bugs with Battlefield Vietnam (specifically drivers) that help a person see through walls and make models glow white/purple in some cases?

Bugs in the game are a problem - the best thing is always if they are fixed by a patch, but in some cases pb can be used to detect the usage of exploits
concerning drivers: if we find that such drivers are available/used, then we'll look into that. and we'll take the appropriate messures to counter this. Back in the CS days one big company made drivers that allowed for cheating, and this was also advertised - if that happens again today, we'll consider banning such drivers on PB supported games

Question #18: How do you guys make your money? Do the game makers pay you in some cases or is this just something you do out of good will?

Even Balance, Inc. is contracted by the game companies - they pay us money, yes
but
that does not mean it's all about the money - we also do it because it's fun, and all of us started as volunteers back in the CS days and did it for free
and as I love the games we support, I'd even do it for free :)
We offerd to integrate PB into CS for $1, same for RtCW. Valve said no, id said yes, but we're paying you a real amount. And it went from there

Question #19: I hear that PB has a lawsuit pending in Texas over a user who was supposedly falsely accused of cheating by your software. Care to comment?

No comment :)
yeah, that one we really can't talk about, sorry

Question #20: There were a lot of rumors flying around that PB was already ready for CoD but IW had a problem with the net coding can you comment on this?

no comment

Question #21: How much of the detection code is reusable between games?

basically, every part of the detection code is reusable - when we improve detection in one game because it is needed there, it will also be available in the other games. so we're continuously improving PB cheat detection

Question #22: How would someone go about applying to voluntarily help program, etc..?

Programing is kept very close, only Tony has access to the full code
most work is done in cheat detection and research/testing
With new games coming out, and possibly more in the future, there may be options avilable
however, you can always mail support@evenbalance.com and let us know what you're interested in - we may get back to you at some point. but this would most likely not be for pay...

Question #23: I was wondering if Punkbuster is considering any options that will check for console command cheats in Raven Shield?

yes - we hope to have more info there in the very near future

Question #24: From my understanding PB is rather system intensive in general. After connecting and doing the initial authentication, is further scanning performed to an extent that it influences game performance? If so is continued work being done on optimization, or is it felt time is better spent adding PB support to other games (such as COD)?

We are always trying to improve the sacnning techniques when we can
a few of our latest patches have improved system scanning, and people having instability problems said it fixed some of them
pb scans all the time while you play
PB scans memory like Bjoern said, the biggest problem that PB can cause is if the swapfile is big
but as stu said, we'll improve pb all the time, and also the scanning, yes

Question #25: How often do you guys update punkbuster? Is there a certain schedule you guys have?

there is no schedule - pb is updated as required

Question #26: How do you feel with Punkbuster being compared to other online anti-cheats? Such as programs being made by United Admins?

We think it's a good thing that other anti-cheat software exists - but we can't really comment on these products as we dont compare them to our software (I never used anything from UA upto this date)
and i've also never played CS again so I don't know much about VAC either for example

Question #27: Will Punkbuster ever make a Program for X-Box live and/or Ps2 online?

maybe, you never know what the future gives :)
Again, if the devs want it, we'll talk

Question #28: Do you plan on releasing an easier to use manual update system, maybe some type of PHP integration into the website.

We can certainly try to do something like that
Actually, PB is auto-updating - there should never be a reason to manually update PB. Since several PB Versions, the client has a built in (mini) PBWEB . The problems start when PB servers are not using the latest versions, which can cause severe problems. But if the PB Server is fully up to date, and the client pc is properly configured, the problems with auto-updating will be very very rare
so, we hope that pbweb will be obsolete in the near future for nearly all users

Question #29: Ever considered two versions of PB? One that allows pretty much stand protection and another that cracks down on your PC and doesn't allow you to run hardly any programs that could be a cheat. Something leagues could use but not public servers (make it easier for people to play and pub)?

well, we have something like that already. "PB Restrictions"
if these are enabled on the pb server, the pb client checks a lot more
i guess that is similar to what you're asking here
the restrictions currently kick for passthrough drivers in Q3 based games for example
but we'll be expanding that over time
the command is pb_sv_restrictions 0 or 1 with 1 being on

Question #30: I have heard that some hacks aren't really hacks but more of Spyware&Viruses, Does this cause a problem to the team when researching it

We have to be very careful about incoming attachments
we scan all files for virii and such before testing
Ys, thats why we tell people not to test any of these hacks, just send them to us insead, much safer for the user

Question #31: will PB use md5 checking to combat against cheaters?

Right now PB has a beta MD5 file check tool in PB servers
http://www.evenbalance.com/index.php?page=md5tool.php
You can find the commands there, but be careful, as a wrong MD5 hash will kick every used out of your server

Question #32: How do you plan on stopping cheats that use hacked drivers, for instance if they hex edit the OpenGL drivers so as far as Punkbuster knows is using the right drivers but then gets redirected to a hacked driver from the edited OPENGL driver?
we will add detection for it - but we won't say how of course

Question #33: How does pb for ET work GUID wise when someone gets banned from a server, the reason i ask is I banned someone from my server but they game back on with a different GUID. as ET is a free game, how does the guid work ?

we can't really comment on that - all i can say is that the system will be adapted and changed over time

Question #34: On the subject of updating - Why in the battlefield engine players are kicked literally every 15 minutes or 2-3 times a map for update failures, when the server is 100% updated?

this issue is being looked into by us and EA. We hope to find the reason soon

Question #35: Honestly, how accurate would you say you're software is?

very accurate - there have been only a few false detections in the last few years since PB became available, and if there ever is a false violation (we call these false positives) we make a news post about this on our website
if anyone believes to be kicked and that there is a bug, please contact us at support@evenbalance.com
and we'll find out what is happening
and correct this if needed
The next one will be our last question for this session:

Question #36: Why did you choose the name Punkbuster?

We got the name Punkbuster with the root of punk
we got a little flamed at that from some certain social groups...
but we use the dictionary meaning, a Deviant
cheaters are nothing but punks to us, and we take care of them
Ok that concludes our chat session, I would like to thank Bjoern, Stuart, and Ken for sparing their time to anwser a few questions. If you would like more information of punkbuster you can visit it at www.punkbuster.com
or www.evenbalance.com :)

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Interview: laws_69

Posted by: c[_]`Wippuh (Tuesday, April 6, 2004)

If you've played RtCW for any amount of time, you've probably found a way to be included in one of the infamous rants brought to us by laws_69. Seeing how he's talked about just everyone, it was time to interview him and see what he had to say about himself.

Weeeee.... read on!

c[_]Wippuh: From WJ to tTt to sMn, give us the rundown on the history of Laws!

laws_69: And a lot in between! I played RTCW as a noob sniper since the first beta release of mp_beach. All I did was snipe, didn't care what map it was. I started playing and consorting with fellow players on RTCW Central OC-48 server (and still, only sniped). I joined the best clan that was in that RTCW Central community, Wolf Jaeger, in about February of 2002 (2 months after the games full release and after Battle on the Beach). After playing in scrims and such, I realized that a sniper wasn't going to help much on every map...I soon decided to go all out on practicing to use all the weapons equally well and learning to make, and tweak, game configs.

About two months into my stint with WJ, I got very serious about winning and became leader of the team. We joined CAL and began to set a streak of 25 straight wins in STA/CAL/TWL when 7v7 was still the shit. We rolled through Cal Open (the season right after QCON when the Invite teams bailed) to an undefeated record. The scrim schedule I had put those guys through was pretty amazing for an Open team (4 hours a night, Sunday thru Thursday) and we all got burned out when playoffs rolled in and we lost to xTc on village. After 9 months with WJ, I left the squad with the starting roster of WJ to form a new team (a rift had formed between the starters and benchers). I proceeded to make my own clan, Uncommon Valor (uV to those in the know).

This team had a lot of, what would end up being, great talent. UV consisted of Mario, Luigi, Havoc, Pissclams, JulieBean, BigNutz, r3m, Redbird, Deauxcheck (hope I didn't leave anyone out). Long story short, my Comcast shit on me and I was getting 999 all day and night in RTCW for about a month straight (I disbanded the clan before CAL started, I wanted the players to find a team in case I wasn't able to acquire DSL). Month or two later, I get Megapath DSL and join Team Lithium and played with them until a few members left right before roster lock and we disbanded not wishing to acquire so many new people to finish the season.

I then joined Amish after a lot of begging and pleading from Gigolo and Redbird. Everyone knows that story, so we won't delve into it (2 weeks of fun followed by one week of absolute arguing and bitching by both sides). I left and started to play SoF2 with Daniel and Slag before going back to RTCW and joining Digital Tactic (with Slag, who I once hated with a passion before actually talking to him on Ventrilo) for the Battle on the Beach 2 tournament. This team was pretty good, imo tbh, with: slag, me, Fuman, Neo, Paper, z0rr0, Atomic Fish, and Ser8ian (hope I didn't forget anyone). We hung tough with Darkside on mp_village before the first of two dastardly admin decisions in my career, this one by OGL All-Star Jaster, who failed to call a prompt timeout resulting in Darkside rolling over our missing players position for a plant.

After BoB2, I joined my wife in playing with Team Redemption (fresh off their Cal Open championship). I took over the team, bringing with me Ser8ian and z0rr0 from d1gital Tactic and also adding longtime friend Chocula. The team was great...however, internal dissension ended the greatness quickly and I gave up gaming for more than a month (Serb and I have never, and probably will never, agree on which strategies to run). Some time later, my old buddy Chocula started nagging me to play with a team he was on, Team Trinity....

Team Trinity. I didn't get along with Myth nor Blitz very well on forums. They were always assailing my masculinity at every turn. Alas, Chocula did his best Jimmy Carter and brokered peace....I was now a Trinity noob. The team had definite promise, just no direction. I quickly helped to fortify strats and bitch out everyone on ventrilo whenever they did something stupid (which was quite often). Eventually, it hit a crescendo where people were either going to quit or do what they were told...a few people left, but the ones who stayed really started to shine. Suddenly they all had confidence and that spelled trouble for the team we'd be playing in the Quakecon Qualifiers, Affliction.

Oh mighty Affliction....I hated them so. Why, you ask? Simply put...Nail had lead me to believe they were recruiting me and told me not to rush into joining a team (back in the day)...they then proceeded to add Slag and close their roster (something similar to what Darkside did to me, except they just told me I was a noob and to fuckoff). Anyways, Affliction was notorious for being an "amazing" North American team, and also, absolutely HORRIBLE on mp_assault (which, lucky for us, we drew them on for qualifiers). Everyone predicted a quick 3-0 and GG from Affliction.

Before the match, Trinity dominated just about every team they played on assault...cK, Frontline (with their amazing door blocking strat...), Carnage (who was supposed to be good but really blew) and a bunch of others. Anyways, I predicted a 3-1 victory for Trinity....could have been correct, had during the course of the match OGL All-Star admin Lehmann (of Phrag Doctors fame...) not kicked out our engineer from the server, that being the famous Dopio, when he 999'd near the communications tower 3 minutes into our 4th round (while up 2-1). Opio, the silly bastard, was trying to hit a voice bind with his ALT key and missed his other key only to hit his ENTER key. Instead of waiting for Opio to come out of it, the admin correctly called a timeout...but then proceeded to ref kick him without asking anyone. Our engineer gone, we held the tower...however Affliction simply spawncamped him and eventually overtook the tower. We were so pissed, we lost focus and Affliction came from behind to win 3-2 (placing 3rd at Quakecon).

The following CAL Season, Trinity owned up Cal-Invite pretty well but fell apart in the final regular season match against Affliction (what was the REAL Cal Championship) and most of the players just stopped playing RTCW.


c
[_]Wippuh: You're well known as being outspoken on the forums. The lifecycle of wolf has brought it to a point where a few individuals have made it the popular thing to be a flaming asshat without points (which is where I think people like yourself and *gasp* Thorian differ) and the Open level players have begun to emulate that as they see at as part of being successfull. What do you believe would counter this, or do you see it as part of the game and unavoidable?

laws_69: Shit talk is unavoidable. Competition brings intensity and what comes with that is intimidating banter and mocking. What people need to realize is that it is just shit talk, 99% of the time it is someone just trying to be funny to get a rise out of the others. Some teams, including a great many I've been a part of, actually play better when we get really aggressive and "in the face" of the opponent with shit talk...it let's us have fun, keeps us focused on our objective of humiliating the opponent, and also makes the game feel like more is at stake than simply winning/losing an online game. It puts a much bigger impetus, at least for me, on winning a match if I talk smack to the other team beforehand (knowing full well that if we lose, I will be mocked and ridiculed on forums for the following week). Also, there are only two ways to counter shit talking (at least by teams, not talking admins): 1. Beat the shit out of their team in match (my favorite) 2. Talk more smack and make it hurt (something else I like to do...I don't just knock someone, I give it personal flare to show that I KNOW what I'm saying is true).


c
[_]Wippuh: You're one of the most feared snipers in NA. What do you credit that to and who do you respect as fellow snipers in the community?

laws_69: My sniping secret is 1600x1200 resolution. You see so much more of the screen, I can catch a sniper out of the corner of the screen moving into position where other players couldn't see it because of their r_mode. I've always been drawn to the sniper class, I used to play sniper in Quake 1 Team Fortress during my frosh year at college. I developed a knack for wrist-flicking shots that acquired my opponents head quickly...don't know why, it just does. Unlike a lot of snipers, I lock my fps at 76 (not the typical 43)...I find 43fps like a "slow-mo"...that frames just dot along instead of staying smooth. The only sniper I've ever played who can compete with me is Deftone and most of that is because we worked on our sniper together quite a few times (including me reworking his config, which is very important in RTCW). Chaoslord is rumored to be a l33t bitch, but I've never been able to compete against Darkside in a match/scrim on assault. Vatican is damn good. Team Playa was a sick bitch in his time, until his internet went poop on him. The best sniper who uses 30 maxpackets and 20 snaps (making them tough as hell to hit even when standing still) would have to be Fuzion...he has no aim, but the kid can really work his net settings.


c
[_]Wippuh: The Affliction vs Trinity match in which the Lehmann/Opio incident occured had tTt up and in a position to secure the win before the infamous kick. At that time, Affliction was probably the most feared team in all of wolf, how did you prepare mentally for that match, and what did you do stratwise that you believe gave -a- the most problems?

laws_69: Stratwise we didn't do anything special. I was going to snipe, that was a given. We ran a typical garage defense which was very tough (mostly because we had great medics in there to revive Sucka...who was pretty nasty when covering doors). Affliction didn't have a sniper...Brian and Rok tried to snipe, but they just weren't good enough at it. IMO, even a tiny separation in skill between two snipers will end up being a massacre because the sniper who is just a little better always come out on top (which doesn’t apply to this match, but was just a tidbit of info FYI TBH AFAIC). I knew beforehand that Affliction would be cocky and would try to run the tarmac on us. They paid for it dearly. Megatron did a great job of panzering Affliction when they tried to get the spawn ladder and the garage defense held strong. I think Affliction could have scrimmed for weeks and had our demos and still not have done any better...we were just a better team on assault (I think I just have a better understanding of the map than some people do due to my sniping vantage).


c
[_]Wippuh: At qcon you played for wSw, how did you hook up with them and what was the experience like vs other teams you had played on? Do you believe, that if you would have gotten past village that you could have done some serious damage? What would have meant more to you, facing Affliction on base, or getting a shot vs GMPO/iN on the Euro dominated map assault?

laws_69: Slag was always bitching to me about how much Nard sucked (I love Nard now, but they were having problems with Gisele spilling all the wSw secrets on forums). I suggested they get rid of him and get a true playa on the roster. Slag suggested it to the Evil Twins (Evilkiller and Emaciator) and they tried me out. About a 1/2 round on ice and they felt we had a really solid team...Nard was gone, I was in. We then added Impulse, which...while I get along with him now, was a mistake...we should have just kept 6 strong and not brought in the problems of changing personnel.

Village, the death of America. The problem with Village wasn't that the Euros just "own" that map so well. The fact is NO TEAMS in NA would scrim Village....I know, we tried to get some. The way our E-Thugness (America’s) had gotten at that point was that if you asked to scrim village, you were presuming you'd make it that far (which got you mocked and laughed at, as NARF mocked us when we asked for village). BTW, a direct quote from BeaverMan when we asked for Village "Why do you need village? You actually think you'll make it past 2 games?" With 0 scrims on village, we were in trouble and didn't know it. We beat GMPO on Ice and then beat NARF on beach (two of the better matches I've ever even been affiliated with). Here is where scheduling came into the mix...Affliction drew TAF, another American team that also....yup, hadn't scrimmed village. We drew those l33t bastards, Infensus, who had LAN Bootcamped for 2 weeks and scrimmed a lot of village.

Had we been in the other bracket, there is no question in my mind that we'd have won Quakecon. West Side Wolves two strongest maps were base and assault, with base being our absolute strongest. I really wanted to get a piece of those Euros on assault to prove myself as a sniper, oh well. I could have cared less about playing Affliction on mp_base as I'd have rather made it to Assault against a Euro team. Affliction knew we were a better team, we asked them to play an exhibition match after they lost to GMPO....an exhibition match for the "American Champion" and they declined. They'll deny it, but we just had a better team. Oh, one more note...The Euros were abso-fucking-lutely brilliant in their Qcon preparation. They barely scrimmed Ice, instead pushing to scrim Beach and Village (knowing that Ice was only to be played once, even if they lost...and they would be playing beach and village at least twice if they lost). I still marvel at their outlook on the rotation and at the clouded view us Americans had.


c
[_]Wippuh: You're now playing with sMn in CAL-Main and are considered one of the favorites to win it all. What does sMn need to do to go all the way and what are your main obstacles? Does the Main champion title still hold the prestige it once did or do you believe that without teams like dT/Narf/drs/a| that the title doesn't carry the weight it once did. How can current teams overcome that stigma?

laws_69: Honestly, I think the winner of Scourge and sMn should win the title. Exodus is a great team, I just see us and our opponents for tonight as being a notch better. Main title would be nice, it really means little...4 teams in Main were in their own class, as far as I am concerned. As far as “prestige” goes, I see 3 different generations in wolf:

1. The old school (dT, Darkside, etc)
who played the game at its outset and are very "cliq"-like in that they only talk to and recruit friends or friends of friends. They are washed up scrubs now, so I won’t discuss them anymore.

2. X-Gen My generation.
Players like Slag, Warrior, Vatican and myself. We've played long enough to learn the in's and out's of the game, not just mastering our shot. These people absolute carry matches. Not only are they able to take out a lot of players at a time, but they are smart in doing so...they know when to fall back, when to attack, and can calculate odds of survival quickly.

3. New school.
The kiddy-sMn guys and most of Cal-O/Cal-M. These guys started playing RTCW and watching demos of Old School and X-Gen and thought that to be good you had to have a good shot. These are the guys that made 1v1, 2v2, and 3v3 popular. All day long, they'd continue to work their shot. That is great, however they aren't learning the team dynamic and they also aren't learning a lot of little sneaky tips you pickup. Game intelligence, I see the new schoolers as totally lacking that (at this point, they'll learn it though).


c
[_]Wippuh: Since you've been on high level teams for a long time now, and have seen some of the best shots out there, we'd like to see some of the "top's" from you. Top shot, top post flamer other than yourself :P, top match/scrim you've played in, top pf, top goofup ingame and top whiner on vent. How about top unknowns too? That player and team that people don't really think about, but deserve(d) more attention than they get/got.

Top shot: Elusion, Beaver, Warrior and Warpath
Top post flamer: Astro, Aphrodite, Dimmak
Top match: wSw vs Narf, Affliction vs Trinity, Darkside v Digital Tactic (3 games that I got the most nervous in)
Top PF: Lynch, Grym, Vatican
Top Goofup: Opio's Alt + Enter, Herbal Tea's misplant, Buddy Lee's mass TK panzer, Astro planting inside on assault and having it disarmed to lose a match.
Top whiner on vent: laws_69 (always saying WTF, OMFG, THAT'S BULLSHIT), Slag (Oh Wow!, There it is!), Daniel (Dat was Bullshit), Nomad (OMFG, STFU, OMFG)
Top Unknown team: That is usually the team I'm on, but not this season. I can't think of one.


c
[_]Wippuh: If you had the chance to put together a team of 6 players that you've never played with before, who would they be and why?

laws_69: Warpath, Rambo, Brian, Nail, Chaoslord. I've had rifts with all 5 of those guys, I'd lock the door.


c
[_]Wippuh: JulieBean is your fiance/wife and you both have played video games competitively. All the jokes have been made out there about gamers not even knowing what a girl is, etc... Give some advice on how you manage a relationship, school and playing wolf without letting one area becoming more important than it should.

laws_69: I'm not in school at the moment. After my first year of law school, I realized I just wasn't ready for that much studying. I'll go back, but right now I'm an insurance agent in the Detroit area (I sell Commercial stuff, focus on restaurants). Playing games takes too much precedence, no matter how much I promise Julie that "I'll only scrim from this time to this time", it always ends up with me stretching it. She is currently playing Call of Duty with Violent Infantry Brigade. It is much easier to handle the wife/time issue when she plays games as well, she is more understanding of "we have a huge match, need to scrim more tonight" than someone else would be. My suggestion: ALWAYS go to bed at the same time, never stay up later than the other. Going to bed and waking up with your significant other (didn't want to leave out Slag and his man-lover) helps keep some of the problems from boiling over.


c
[_]Wippuh: When RtCW is totally done for you, what will you look back at and really remember with fond memories? What will you look back at and make you think that you spent too much time playing a video game?

laws_69: RTCW is the best team-based game I've ever played. I don't know if any game can top it when it comes to teamplay. You have different classes all with different objectives. One person can't do their job without the other doing his job. It is a hard game to be successful in and even harder to master. I'll look back on my run with WJ as my most favorite gaming experience. My 5 man panzer against Darkside on village in BoB2 is a good memory, as is the utter destruction I wrought upon Affliction. Placing 5th at Quakecon was a big thing to me (yeah, fuck you TAF...we're fifth! =0 ).

I definitely spend too much time playing games, things would be so much easier if I wasn't addicted to gaming and hi-tech gadgets. I'm still paying off my plasma television. I have two high-end computers with giant 21" monitors that were awful expensive as well. I'd be in much better shape, physically, if I weren't playing games. My usual workout time when I was in highschool/college was at about 9 at night...heart of scrim time.


c
[_]Wippuh: Shoutouts

laws_69: Shoutouts: sMn, Redbird, Slag, Daniel (living in Hawaii), Maximal, Multitask, Vatican, Chocula, r3m, my wife, Pissclams, all the WJ players from my past, Helmut, the Lithium crew, Sunstyle, Kappa, Team Trinity, Da_G, Ogl All-Star admin crew, CyberX Gaming for jobbing the gaming community, F4ng from GameWyze for being a shithead and my local Chrysler dealer for putting me into my sexy LHS.

If I failed to mention someone, fuck you too.

Missed one of Wipp's interviews or want to look one up? Find them at the interview link list.

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Interview: LuckyB

Posted by: c[_]`Wippuh (Wednesday, April 7, 2004)

Next in our quick run of interviews around playoff time, we talk with LuckyB. From the epic takedown of Rewind in the qcon qualifiers to his current run with Exodus, Lucky has had quite a quiet but successfull career in RtCW.

Read on!

c[_]Wippuh: Tell everyone who you are, where you came from, how you choose your nick, all that good introduction stuff.

-x-luckyb?: I am Brian Johnson. I am from Pekin Illinois. My name came from the first online game i played (Battlezone). Every time i killed someone they would say it was only
luck so i changed my name to beginners luck. The first clan i joined for Battlezone i changed my name from beginners luck to LuckyB1rd.
After i left that clan i didn't like the name so I dropped the 1rd to make it look a little better.

c
[_]Wippuh: I remember meeting you in October of 2002 when Office Space played Dark Oblivion on the TWL 5v5 ladder. Even then you stood out and we were all pretty sure you'd become a big name player. Describe the road from those early days of D|O to where you are now with Exodus.

-x-luckyb?: It has been a fairly easy road as i always had a clan to go to. I had some real nice guys around me which always makes it easier. They weren't so much good rtcw players but they tried their hardest. There has been some rough spots like the merge from Minions to digital heresy. Friends i have been around a long time going one way then others going the other way. I have never thought of myself as a "big name" player and never will.


c
[_]Wippuh: Back then, you were a dominant gun, but now people really look to you as a big game pf. What was it like making that transition and why was it made? What was hardest to learn in the transition?

-x-luckyb?: The transition from gun to panzer was easy, anyone can panzer. I learned to look past the talk of being a "panzer whore" and "get some skill and pick up a gun" talk. We were scrimming one day in Minions and I picked up the panzer because our panzer was late for a scrim. They saw how i did with it and i got stuck with the panzer ever since. The hardest thing to learn for me was finding the right spots to sit and when to wait and not get trigger happy.


c
[_]Wippuh: When you joined Minions, did you have any idea that you would be as successfull as you were? What was it that put you guys in position to beat Rewind? What was that win like, particularly you having a huge match on pf, and tell us about the qcon experience, from teaming up with .dh beforehand to what I assume was a disappointing showing in Dallas.

-x-luckyb?: I had no idea we would do that good in Minions. After weeding out some of the non-team players, we finally got a solid starting 6 and just kept practicing. When we went into the Rewind match we knew we would have somewhat of a advantage over them because of pings(although pings don't matter when they tk half the team or keep grouping up). We scrimmed a few euro teams and saw how they attacked/defended and worked some of it into our strats. The win was great although we knew we would face all kinds of people disagreeing and talking about us.

As far as me panzering so good, we came there for one reason, and that was to win. I tried my hardest and it showed. I still have no idea why we changed from MiN to .dh. I know RedDevil wanted to get sponsored and figured merging with a well known euro team could help but it didn't.

At Dallas, we knew we would get stomped on by iN. There's no getting around that. They attacked us in a way that we never saw before and they were so damn quick about it. Against the .dh euro squad on beach, alot of things went wrong. No one played their positions, no one was talking so we lost.


c
[_]Wippuh: Exodus is an extremely strong team and really served notice at the beginning of the season, with your 3-3 tie of D|S on base, that you were a team to be reckoned with. No doubt you believe that -x- can win it all this season. What would that mean and what are the main things standing in your way? What do you believe the team needs to do in order to make it to the finals and win?

-x-luckyb?: A win this season would be great. We've worked hard this season especially with all the roster changes. The main things standing in our way is sMn and Scourge(Good thing one of them will be knocked out). Of course D|S is going to be tough on Ice but not as tough as they used to be. They haven't been scrimming and it i'm sure it's going to show. Exodus needs to start communicating and listening. Without those 2 things, your good as dead.


c
[_]Wippuh: Since you've been on high level teams for a long time now, and have seen some of the best shots out there, we'd like to see some of the "top's" from you. Top shot, top sniper, top match/scrim you've played in besides Rewind, top pf, top goof up in game and top whiner on vent. How about top unknowns too? That player and team that people don't really think about, but deserve more attention than they get.

-x-luckyb?: The top shots is a hard one as there are so many good shots out there nowadays. Anyways, here's my list.

Top Shot - Warrior (before Cod), beavermana, Shogun.
Top Sniper - Laws_69, Vatican.
Top Match/Scrim I've played in - tC vs A-T, MiN vs LQD, tC vs HCC, XoS vs 82nd.
Top Panzerfaust - Lynch, Grym.
Top Goof up in game - tC vs HCC my 3 man tk panzer on sub at 32 seconds left while planting, Rewinds 4 man tk on ice for qcon quals, Rezonets falling to his death while chasing docs on ice to lose match.
Top Whiner on vent - $ilver, Daniel, ckyass
Top Unknowns - Warch1ld would have to be one. No one ever talks about him but he is a very good team player and good shot. Impostor aka flash gordon is definitely another one. Hardly anyone even knows about him but the ones that do knows what he can do.


c
[_]Wippuh: RtCW at the very top level is a game that constantly puts stress on the players from the constant scrimming, etc... A lot of players burn out and just vanish almost overnight from the community. How do you balance that and find a way to still have fun after all this time of playing?

-x-luckyb?: We have lots of fun on vent. We make fun of each other and the stupid things we do. Mostly we just make fun of warch1ld though :) I personally mostly just play in scrims. When i do pub it's because i changed something in my config and wanted to test it out or because im too bored.


c
[_]Wippuh: For a different type of question, we'll delve into team exodus and the players you spend all your time with. If you had to associate each person with a drink, what would they be and why? Who is the virgin white russian complete with little drink umbrella?

-x-luckyb?: This question is a little bit harder as i usually only drink beer and jaegerbombs. I'll give it my best shot though.

warch1ld - would have to be the virgin white Russian with little drink umbrella because he probably is a virgin and he seems a little fruity.

mario - Bikini because it's his favorite type of clothing to wear around the house.

luigi - Pink Tequila because the name just fits right.

madness - Blue Blazer because when he gets mad, he starts blowing fire.

stiegl - Rusty Nail because he sounds almost exactly like that guy off of Joy Ride.

riot - Brave Bull because he's just plain nasty!

ckyass - Waikiki Woo Woo because that's the type of noises he makes on vent all night long.


c
[_]Wippuh: What are you personal plans after this season ends? Is RtCW still in the picture or are you looking at tackling additional games? What are you looking for?

-x-luckyb?: Actually i'll be leaving before the season ends. I'm moving to Vero Beach Florida on April 19th and i won't have internet down there right away. When i actually get internet down there i will more then likely come back to RtCW if there is still people playing. There's no game like it with the style of aim and teamwork needed.


c
[_]Wippuh: Shoutouts

-x-luckyb?: All of Team Exodus including warch1ld, slothy, opio, abomb, all of my old teammates, illshot, rambo, dstnoob and TG.. oh and can't forget wipp!

Missed an interview, or want to read an old one? Check the Interview Link List!

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Killa Sin chimes in

Posted by: Mortal :o (Wednesday, April 14, 2004)

Killa Sin (aka Rob) of ICF fame has been in the commmunity for the longest of time; competing, chatting, and even helping with TWL-RTCW. Hes a good guy and a good player, enjoy the read. :P

________________________________________________________________________

Mortal: Tell us about yourself, your age.....where you live,
how you started in the wolf game, etc.

ICF|Rob: My name is Robert Cervantes. I'm a 20 year old college student at NJIT
(New Jersey Institute of Technology) and studying Marketing and
E-Commerce MGMT. I live in West Orange, NJ which is about 15 minutes
away from Newark and 30 minutes from New York. I started PC gaming my
freshman year in college. Counter-Strike was my first game. Got all
the way up to CAL IM, then my boss at my part time bakery job, Blue
Dragon (currently in LoT) kept bitching at me to get rid of CS and try
RTCW. I've been playing since April 02 and haven't stopped since.


Mortal: What is your favorite hobby outside of the pc?

ICF|Rob: That's very tough. Before gaming and college took over my life, I
played basketball just about every day. I had this killer jump shot
that made me one of the first picked in pick up games. Can't dunk, but
I can tap. In addition, I enjoy reading a lot of books dealing with
business. It's always fun to walk by the Barnes & Nobles and check out
the newest book to make you rich beyond your wildest dreams.

Being a well known and fairly old player in the rtcw
scene, what is the difference between the new rtcw
clans/players and the ones of the old days?

The biggest difference has to be attitudes and pub time. Nowadays,
these pub all-stars want to start junk like they run the place. They
camp the corners, care bout some stupid ratio and make your life
miserable. And I know a lot of current RTCW players that pub other
games and just play RTCW for matches. Lately, I've been one of those
people. I find a lot of my time on vent with the ICF CoD and ET teams
just pubbing with them. Back then, they were willing to help you out.
They show you strats and tips and tricks. I've been on the receiving
end on those both, but not lately.


Mortal: Your the leader of ICF, a very established
mutli-gaming clan. How is it to lead such a group of
talented individuals? What was the best time you had
with ICF?

ICF|Rob: I've needed lots of patience. And I do mean a ton. ICF started in the
RCL (RTCW Cracked League) which was the home of all the bootleggers.
That's where the work ethic and teamwork came from. We had like a 6
game winning streak going in our first season in Open and got all happy
and saying that CAL isn't hard. Then we ran into the eventual
champions, 82nd, and Warrior and gang did a number on us and got us
back
down to an ego level of 0. After that, we just keep posting some wins,
get into the playoffs, and have a good attitude so we can attract some
top players when it comes time to recruiting. Not to mention when you
got very good players like Xpire who are very loyal and turn down the
top teams to play with friends. That has definitely help us and it's
why we have displayed the lineups that you've seen the last 2 seasons.
It's been blessing to not only know people online and how they shoot
and
kill, but how they live the world and encounter problems that I maybe
facing in the near future.

The best time I had in ICF has to be at Quakecon 2003. To meet all
those people that you've been in wars with was very special. The
stories that we can tell to our kids one day are kinda funny. From
Nightwolve doing a maid impersonation and turning on the vacuum in the
middle of the night while Xpire's sleeping to witnessing first hand the
crazy drunken antics of Beaverman or the violent beating that Ckyass
deals to a drunk Mexican wanting to mess with some RTCW players. It
truly was one of the best times of my life when it comes to
competition.
Runner-up for my best moment had to be the CAL I finals last year
(please mark with a *). If we had Warzone, I know it would have been a
different game. But we've had our chances to win it. Slaya was MVP of
that game. Major adrenaline rush for a good hour and 1/2.


Mortal: If you could pick between an eskamo tatoo or a tatoo
of a bird egg, which one would you pick and why?

ICF|Rob: I'm going to say the "eskamo" tattoo simply as a gag for our many
Canadian games that ICF has had throughout the years. We've always
used
to joke that Krimson (former ICF living in Calgary) had crappy ping
because his ISP hub was from an igloo. And you know where eskamos live
at.


Mortal: What is the best league/ladder you have played in
RTCW?

ICF|Rob: As a TWL admin, so I'm a lil bias. I love TWL because I get to see the
hard work first hand. My boss at TWL, Rahl, is really dedicated to
making the community the best it can be. Don't get my wrong, CAL has
implemented many changes that have helped us out in the long run, but
my
loyalty has to be with TWL. They are the greatest organization and
they
are on top of every new game that comes out. We recently got the
PainKiller ladder up and are days within opening it up. Watch out for
the Half Life 2 ladder as soon as that game comes out


Mortal: What other games do you play? Do you compete in any
games, have you prior to rtcw?

ICF|Rob: As I mentioned before, I used to be a Counter-Strike player. I still
on
occasion pub CS since Call Of Duty has got me better at it lately,
especially the AWP. I pub CoD, CS, and ET on a regular basis.
Whatever
division needs the players I try to help them out. If Johann (ICF|ET
leader) needs me for a scrim, I try and make it. If Xpire (ICF|CoD
leader) needs the same thing, I help them out. So I guess you can say
I
compete in 3 games. Yahoo pool is something I'm looking into. Even
though I cheat with a piece of paper for those angle shots :X


Mortal: If you could make one team that would be the best in
RTCW history, who would the top 7 players be in it?

ICF|Rob: With the amount of talent that we've had in this community, it's tough.
But here it goes:

Medics: Zemme, Brian, Xpire
LT: Warpath, Rambo
Soldier: Lynch(Panzer) and/or Laws (Sniper)

P.S. It would be interesting to see Warzone panz without his ISP
lagging out every time the enemy spawns.


Mortal: Who is the best gun you have ever seen in RTCW? What
about panzer?

ICF|Rob: Best gun to be honest has to be Serbian. He just does a number on a
lot
of people. Best pistol has to be Xpire. He can rage 70 percent of SMG
peeps with a luger or colt. Best panzer is very hard. You've got
Lynch, Hollywood, Warzone, and prolly the best Euro panzer I've seen in
Madbone (Digital Heresey). I know first hand what Madbone brings and
he's the one that made the different in our Quakecon match to win 3-2.


Mortal: Who is the smartest player strat and game wise that
you have seen in any game so far?

ICF|Rob: I haven't been with the "leet" crowd to know a lot about that. It's
funny. Some of the best guns tend to be some of the stupidest players.
And some of the smartest players aren't the best guns. Warrior has
always fascinated me with the way he adjusts to the situation. Laws is
another one who knows where to be at the right time along with helping
sMn reach far into the CAL tournament this season. So it's a toss up
between those 2.


Mortal: Are you a gangsta? or a wangsta?

ICF|Rob: I'm Hispanic man. I gotta be gangsta. Growing up in Newark, NJ, I've
seen some fucked up shit. Lots of red liquid, so most def gangsta.


Mortal: How did you come up with the name Killa Sin?

ICF|Rob: I used to play as BNCEO long ago. Blue Dragon kept telling me that
name
was wack, so while at work, I was brain storming and out came Killa
Sin,
a member of Wu-Tang Clan affiliate Killarmy.


Mortal: When someone calls you Killa Sin in real life do you
take it as something normal, or does it feel odd?

ICF|Rob: I idle in IRC as Rob. I only play as Killa Sin. So most of the time,
people call me Rob, which I like more than being called by my handle.
To me, that's just silly, even though I had to do it at Quakecon
sometimes. But if somebody does, I take it as they are calling my real
name. Feels a lil odd, but not that much.


Mortal: Last but not least, shoutouts.

ICF|Rob: I got lots!

All my friends @ NJIT and from West Orange High School

ICF Past (Blue Dragon, Lefty, Righty, Warlock, Krimson, JBlood,
Reptide,
Troop, Murderous, oKnY, Enigma, DDay, Drunksoldier, Newdeal, Elf,
Yoshi,
Retali8, Prodigy, Kappa, Lunchbox, Logic, Code Warrior, Spic, M3sh,
Asinine, Powerrpc, FiyahStorm, Phil 80, Ragin Jesus, Mooshu, R3m,
cyric,
nothx, Scarface.

ICF Present (Xpire, Dex, Cypher, Korey, Warzone, Johann, Squirts, Blue
Jacket, Blaze, Tacoma, Vitamin, Diz, Hemlock, Reactor, Lynxis,
Commodus,
Tekoda, Method, Pimp, Diesel, Nightwolve, Lithe.

ICF|Cod Version 1.0 aka Gamewyze CoD aka Rival|CoD: The opposite of
loyalty and loyalists. Changing members every second for the
impossible
dream. Remember this: Bros before Pros =)
/me waits for Warmachine's bitching

50 Cent, Death, Mooseknuckle, Laws, Sc00by, Riceboy, Shaolin, Goddess,
Jfreak, Multitask, Havoc, Strider, Vinnyisme, Cnav, Thermal, Ter,
Lucky,
entire OPP team, Silentstorm, entire TWL staff, Mortal, Elf, Yoshi,
Dual32, ckyass, Konundrum, Abomb, Uranium Gamers (Our Sponsors!!),
BlackMagik, Samus, Abomb, Illumina, Hollywood, Shatter, coke, Jifster,
Zemme, Blaze (GMPO), CIS, Hammer, Rabid, Damage, Sassy, Xero, Toxic
Girl, Mortal, Warchild (Exodus), Warchild (Genocide), Next2U, Esco,
Forb, Megatron, Tristran, Blue Dragon, and the entire NARF team,
especially Da_G and his 2 bottles of strong liquor in each cargo
pocket.


To my girlfriend, Alicia. Greatest girlfriend ever. Understands my
gaming habits and let's me do it without a single complaint. Watch it.
She'll rage your face in ET =)

If I forgot you, don't blame the heart, blame the head. Don't Be
Hatin!

Edit this Article | Delete this Article

Interview: Rahl

Posted by: c[_]`Wippuh (Tuesday, April 20, 2004)

The target of many interviews is to talk to someone who provides an interesting perspective on the game. Up to now we've never had the chance to interview an admin of a league and get their outlook on RtCW as a game. That ended as we hunted down Rahl beating up 12 year olds in online Magic the Gathering matches. He was kind enough to stop his rage long enough to give up the following interview.

Enjoy!


c[_]Wippuh: Give us all the info on good ol Rahl. From Unified Syndicate (y0, locknar!) to Distress, the readers need to know what makes rahl tick. For those out there that don't read, tell everyone where you got your nick (nerd :p the only nerdier nick in the game may be Rand|TB, hehe). How bad would Landshark beat you up in Poker?

.sos-rahl: First off, I'd just like to say that I'll attempt to give a long and short answer to all your questions. I know some people who visit this site suffer from ADD, so I'll try and accomodate their special needs along the way :)

Short Reply: Kith sucks. Distress rules¡K..sometimes. Rahl's a stupid ass nick. Landshark sucks.

Long Reply: My initial entrance into the realm of RTCW was mostly due to the fact I'd just purchased a new computer and wanted to test it out. I'd actually had a copy of Wolfenstein sitting and collecting dust (Christmas present) since my old Pentium 550 couldn't really handle it without shitting bricks sideways. So, after I got my new computer, the first thing I did was install wolf and play some single player (yes, all the way through). Out of sheer boredom, I decided to give multiplayer a chance. Needless to say I was immediately hooked. Ice had just been released so that was the first map I really got to know. After getting bored playing it exclusively for 2 weeks, I went out searching for a different map. Low and behold I found a server with 62 people playing. I was a kid in a candy store.

Absolute carnage on Charter Communications Market Garden was exactly what the doctor ordered. I'd play the same round for hours just reviving people on the Shelled Street and racking up points!!!!! [U|S]Luke happened to be on their one night just messing around, and we had some fun working together. A few days later he PM'd me on the PW forums and asked if I was interested in joining a clan. OK, sure, how hard can it be, right? I can shoot ok (so I thought), I can revive (ok, so you mean it has to be done quickly?), and I know a few maps (Market Garden and Ice). So he gets me on a server where Unified Syndicate was getting ready to scrim on Sub. Sub? Holy shit, I've never seen this map, but I'll be OK as long as I follow someone (make sure you don't tell anyone though as they'll probably just laugh at you). So I hop in and kill Kith a few times in some 1v1's, while holding my own against a few other people. Kith decided I was good enough to join, and well, that was the moment life as I knew it chand.

I basically went through that entire season (CAL Season 2) learning each map as it came up in the rotation. I'd pub as often as I could so I wouldn't be lost come match time. I'd also watch as many demos as I could get my hands on, which really helped me learn positioning and which routes yielded high traffic (I think we now call them chokepoints :p). Needless to say it was a season of learning, and before I knew it, it was over. While the season was progressing though, I'd managed to always keep in contact with our fearless leader Kith on AIM while I was at work. These discussions yielded a lot of strat type sessions (work is boring as shit anyway), and so by the time the season was over, I'd managed to work my way up the pole as a strat caller and organizer. At the end of that season, Kith decided to move on up to join [Pro] which left Unified Syndicate in a state of flux. I was left with the decision of either taking it over and running with it or finding someplace new to call home. I opted to try and salvage it as there were still quite a few players interested in playing another season. I didn't really have a good rapoire with the other leaders in [U|S] (multi-gaming clan) and getting things done was taking too long and involved way too much red tape. As a result, we went off on our own and started up what most people now know as Distress.

My nick comes from Terry Goodkind's Sword of Truth series. As a writer he's really only average (perhaps I'm being a little generous here), but I always found I could identify with the crap the major character kept having to face (especially since it was of the same shit, different day type of thing). Up until this time, most of my gaming experience was playing RPG's, so it wasn't uncommon to have a fantasy type of name for a nick. I was just too lazy to change it when I made the jump. Now it's fucked up because when I read a new book he puts out and read about "Rahl", I think, "I wouldn't do something that fucking stupid". Yeah, I need therapy

Everyone could beat me when it comes to playing poker. So, when I try and get a game or two of Texas Hold'em going at QCON, please keep that in mind and know that this noob can't take your money.


Rahl the n00blar


c
[_]Wippuh: Distress has been around for a long long time with you at the helm. There's been some lineup changes during that time. How do you keep the identity of a team together while undergoing major lineup changes? The typical RtCW team just breaks up and forms other teams. Why do you think that is the norm instead of it being like Distress has done?

.sos-rahl: Short Reply: Asshats suck. We can handle losing.

Long Reply: I think a lot of a team's identity is attributed to the way it is led. Given the fact I've always been a huge proponent of sportsmanship and maturity above everything else, we've just been able to find players who tend to fit this mold and who pretty much share the same type of mentality as the rest of us. We've had a few duds over the seasons, but for the most part everyone we've brought into Distress has remained with us. The main reason Distress has managed to stay together is that even though we want to win, we realize enjoying each other's company is paramount to our survival (whoa, that sounds gheyyyyy). We're patient about who we bring in and sometimes pass up the "better gun" in order to take someone we think falls more inline with our personalities and has an overall better understanding of what it is we're trying to accomplish. A lot of teams out there are formed with "instant gratification" in mind, Distress was not. We don't mind struggling or trying to overcome the odds, and we don't mind losing so long as we know we did about all we could to prepare for a match.


c
[_]Wippuh: Throughout all of the seasons you've participated in, there is one player who has faithfully stood by your side in Reload_Blues. For nearly 5 seasons he's been pluggin' along as a Distress starter. Talk about how much further the team could have gone without him being there and what goals the team has now that he has taken a seat on the bench next to The Little Mermaid, SoS-Ari. Did he bring anything positive to the group?

.sos-rahl: Short Reply: Everybody h@x, pinging above 7 sucks, and WTF would anyone play Reload in a position that doesn't allow him to chase after kills.

Long Reply: Everybody h@x, pinging above 11 sucks elephant sack, and why the fook would anyone play Reload in a position that doesn't allow him to chase after kills and do his own thing. Now that he's on the pine, most of the team has come to terms with the fact there is indeed a God and he does listen to prayers. The only thing positive he brought to the team was his death/kill ratio (note: the inversion of kill/death for the sake of finding something positive).

On a more serious note, Reload has really been someone we could count on throughout the seasons. He's always been one of the first people to show up to scrims and one of the last to leave. Other than me, he's also the longest running active member (or at least he was up until this coming season), so he's seen first hand just how far this team has come.


c
[_]Wippuh: Since you are the n00ber tuber for the Distress, we'll ask you some pf related questions. What is the biggest con about the pf in terms of a strat? When do you say "you know, it might be a good idea to go 6 guns here"? What do you believe is the hardest thing for an offensive pf to master? Finally, name one player out there that you believe would make an excellent pf if given the chance and tell us why.

.sos-rahl: Short Reply: Panzers are ghey

Long Reply: The biggest con when it comes to strat'ing for a panzer has got to be the fact that I'm the panzer. I mean that in 2 different ways (1) I suck, and (2) I suck. I think that covers the cons. Changing the strat to go with 6 guns is pretty much map specific. For most maps, the Panzer just has to hit that "one" shot to open things up, and as long as you're patient more often than not that time comes. For some maps like Ice, when the defense is running an upper stronghold defense, it just makes more sense (at least for us) to bring more air to the table. Maps like Assault might require an extra sniper if the other team is playing a strong lip D, an extra engineer if our solo Engy is being concentrated on, or an extra LT to get some more arty or air on or around the tower.

The hardest thing for an offensive pf to master has to be patience. There are times when you have to lead the charge, and I think that goes without saying. Sometimes though, it's prudent that you sit back and let your teammates draw attention so you can quietly make your way to your opponent's spawn. The offensive pf has two main goals really. (1) Open a gap in an entrenched defense, and (2) Stop your opponent from reinforcing their defensive positions (i.e. spawn camp).

Naming one player who I think could be an excellent pf is difficult. I say that because I believe the good pf's rely on their team to set things up and good panzers tend to be a product of a good system. Basically, you can take a player who's cognizant of spawn times and can keep mental track of how many players are generally still alive, and he should be able to find positions where he can set up for an advantage.


c
[_]Wippuh: The jump from open to main/beta to alpha. How was the transition and what did SoS struggle with in those initial seasons? What is the greatest reward for playing in those higher divisions and if you had to tell teams 1 thing upon which they need to improve on in order to make the transition easier, what would it be?

.sos-rahl: Short Reply: The transition was tough. We still struggle. We get to meet the most famous active players of today up close and personal. KY Jelly helps, but it's not the be-all, end-all solution.

Long Reply: Initially, Distress was what a lot of teams are now; a team that shows up for matches and occasionally has a scrim. Working out strats and having a rotating lineup really limited what we could accomplish early on. Our process was one of natural evolution really. As players retired or moved on, we filled their spots with people who were more passionate about the game. Eventually this led us to the point where we were putting in more time, and the players we had were more dedicated and determined to show up. The more we played together, the stronger we became.

The greatest reward for playing in the highest divisions for me has to be the constant competition. In the lower tier, there were matches where showing upwith 6 players was basically a guaranteed victory (after we started scrimming religiously). When you're preparing solidly each week, it's sort of a let down when you're not really tested on match night. This is really never the case in the higher tier. We're not a powerhouse team, nor have we ever been. Each week is difficult, and there's a lot of grinding it out involved. The upside to this is that when your preparation pays off with a win against a tough opponent, it's far more gratifying than a shallow win where you didn't have to be at your best in order to succeed.

As far as making the transition easier to the upper tier, I think that gap is a lot narrower than it used to be, and I don't think it'd take much for a few teams to make the leap. Right now what I perceive as the biggest difference is probably the attention that's spent on spawn times and gibbing. I realize that's the standard answer, but it's the truth.


c
[_]Wippuh: Speaking of improvement, it seems that Distress is always doing something for the community. One of the bigger ones of these is the infamous Friday Night Madness. How did this start and what are the goals of it? Describe it to all the readers so they can understand what FNM is all about.

.sos-rahl: Short Reply: Drunk people having fun doing stupid shit with other drunk people.

Long Reply: IIRC, Friday Night Madness started 2945.2 seasons ago. At the time I think we had *maybe* 17 idlers or so in our IRC channel. That was actually considered a packed house for us back in the day. We just decided one night to grab those people who were in our public channel and a few clans we were friends with (i.e. vengeance, glo [not GLOW, game lan org], Grey Wolves, etc¡K) and just have our own little private gaming experience. When it first started I think we had a lot of 4v4 and 5v5 scenarios, but as time marched on and word spread, FNM eventually started resulting in a full server. This past Friday, we decided to resurrect it from the dead (stopped hosting it at the beginning of last season), and it was a blast. Most of the people who join in on the fun are also on our Ventrilo channel, and when you factor in we have an attached WolfTV server and someone camming when they're drunk as shit and bored, you end up with a fucked up shoutcast and a whole lot of laughs.

It cracks us up when unknowing people join the server expecting everyone to play as though it's the fookin Superbowl, paying attention to all the details and working hard to "win" (yeaaaaaah, ok). No thanks. We work hard during the week, so Fridays are our "I don't giving a flying fuck" time. Don't get me wrong, we still expect people to remain civil and maintain some self control (i.e. no intentional TK's and no personal attacks), but outside of that, the only real requirement is to be able to just relax and have fun...and make fun of Nate and Cieje.



Rahl the n00blar admin


c
[_]Wippuh: The biggest thing that is known about yourself is your involvement with TWL as the head RtCW admin. How did you achieve the position? Since you started till now, describe the development of TWL's RtCW league. What makes you the most proud, both in a league wide sense and in terms of what you've accomplished individually while adminning? Is there 1 thing that you wish could go back and handle differently?

.sos-rahl: Short Reply: Ankle grabbing is an actual skill set. I'm proud of the fact there's no permanent damage. I'd have not nailed *that* chic in college. Not sure what that has to do with TWL, but I'd really like the chance to change *that* decision.

Long Reply: Coming up through the lowest ranks of Open and Beta and making my way up to Main and Alpha, I felt I probably had a better perspective than a lot of people on what the majority of players wanted and enjoyed. That being the case, I told Skeet I was interested in becoming an admin (having him as a teammate probably didn't hurt my chances any), and he eventually persuaded the admins at the time to give me a chance. It wasn't long after I joined that Skeet and Mich took on more responsibilities within TWL, which left the Lead Admin position vacant. They asked if I was willing to step up, and I said yes.

TWL's RTCW league has come a long way since it was started in the sense of gaining some recognition. I don't have to tell people it was originally started to serve as an outlet for those teams who felt CAL took a dump on them going to 6's (yeah, I know, TWL was constipated at the time and ended up taking some ex-lax between the next two seasons so they could also shit on the players...hehe). TWL has always claimed to be a league for the players, and I definitely still agree with that philosophy. Everything I do, every decision I make is done with the players' best interest in mind. I have a passion for this game, and I care about all the players who share this same passion. I don't care if they're the best players or if they're the Bob Euker's of wolf, I'll do everything I can to help everyone continue to enjoy this game.

To be an effective admin, I think you have to take pride in everything you do and every decision you make. Otherwise, you'd be doing a huge disservice to the teams and players who count on you. Don't get me wrong, I love seeing positive feedback as much as the next guy, but I feel it's my job to keep in touch with what's going on in the community and reacting in such a way that elicits a welcomed response.

There's really only been one decision I've regretted, and it was the omission of admins from the playoff finals last season. A few problems came up that really needed an admin present to handle on the spot. I've learned my lesson though, and have since instituted the policy of having admins ref matches for the semi-finals and finals this season. Nobody likes to see a match decided on a technicality, especially when it's the biggest match of the season.


c
[_]Wippuh: The admin is a position that everyone talks about as if they could do better, but very few have had the guts to step up and actually take the pressure. What does it take to be an admin and what are some of the common misconceptions you see everyday about your job? If you could change 1 thing about your job, what would it be?

.sos-rahl: Short Reply: Good fucking luck. The ankle grabbing thing gets old.

Long Reply: The most difficult part about being an admin is knowing that at some point you're going to have to overturn a match result, make a ruling, or make a decision that goes against a team you are close friends with. Remaining impartial and unbiased is an absolute must as an admin, and I don't think a lot of people can really do that, especially when you're admin'ing in a league you actually play in. I'm very thankful that in most cases, the teams and players I've had to rule against have been understanding (refusing to allow players on after roster locks is a big one), but it still doesn't make the task of doing it any easier.

I think the biggest misconception has to be that TWL follows CAL. While that might have been true in the past, since I've taken over it has been nothing short of cooperation and compromise on the part of both leagues. The players don't benefit from having the two leagues pitted against one another, and both crews are aware of this. For the most part we share ideas and work together to sort out our differences. Bob, Bert, Miki, and Arianna are good people and they try hard to please the players. How can I in good conscience find fault in that?

I can't really claim that I'd like to change anything about my job. I was given the opportunity to move up in TWL, but I decided my place was still with the wolf community. If I had a wolf wish granted though, I'd really love it if all the teams that started the season were around when the season completed. I know it's a pipe dream, but I'd love to make a schedule for an entire season from the beginning for every team so that more hype would be generated for future matchups.


c
[_]Wippuh: Take us through the process of laying out a season, describing each step and telling us about those issues that otherwise we would never know about.

.sos-rahl: Short Reply: Eenie Meenie Miny Moe!

Long Reply: The process really starts by examining how the last season went. You have to be willing to take responsibility for mistakes you might have made and strive to correct those mistakes going forward. After that, you have to get everyone to the table to come up with a game plan for how the next season will be run. Let me just say that there's very little difference when comparing the opinions of the admins to the opinions of the players. We rarely agree on the specifics, so it frequently ends up being a long, drawn out court battle. While we eventually come to some sort of compromise or agreement, it can be a nasty process of suggestion and rejection when we sit down and hash our way through. For example, last season TWL wanted to see more customs actually being played. CAL did too, but they were reluctant to drop stock maps in order to make room. Eventually we were able to agree on keeping both by extending the regular season and dropping 2 weeks from preseason. Both sides are typically slow to accept change, mostly because both sides have to convince the other that it's for the best (as it should be).

Picking the maps that are going to be played and choosing the rotation is a beast of a headache. No, we can't end the season on a custom. No, we won't play Base 2. Assault sucks, we all agree, but Snipers RTCW wide would unite and stone us to death if we didn't leave it in. Sub sucks, most of us agree, but Engineers RTCW wide would unite and stone us to death if we didn't leave it in. How about a custom map for the playoffs? Yeah right, good luck making it out to your car alive. We should split it by dyno, doc, dyno, doc. No, we should split it by Custom, Stock, Custom, Stock. Nuh uh, we should play them alphabetically. Wippuh sucks.


c
[_]Wippuh: We had the pleasure of meeting at the big ol party that was qcon2k3! Lets hear about the experience from your point of view. What was the experience like? What were the big surprises in terms of meeting people and what did you enjoy most about the event.

.sos-rahl: Short Reply: I was at qcon2k3?

Long Reply: Unfortunately, my experience was cut very short since I was only able to attend on Thursday. I'd have loved to stay longer, but work grabbed me by the sack (Note: This year my pager will be at the bottom of the nearby lake).

The experience actually started off on the wrong foot. It took me a whole fucking hour after arriving at the hotel to find anyone involved with wolf. I think the first team I saw was High Voltage, and I'd swear on my mother's grave they were a god damned Rugby team. Eventually Slik and Dirty from GLOW grabbed me while I was going down the escalator to smoke my 12th cigarette, and that's when I started meeting a bunch of people. Wippuh, Kith, Doppy, Hammer, Paper, Gabe, Obliv (fucking hilarious), Winters, and a myriad of other folk all made my short time there a lot of fun. I'm definitely excited about returning this year, this time for the whole stint.

What did I enjoy the most about the event? The Shiner Bock of course :p


c
[_]Wippuh: This subject has died down a lot lately. What was the relationship between TWL and cXg and where did cXg go wrong? When did the TWL crew stop and go "mmmm.. guys, this might not be a good idea"? How much work was done for this event and do you believe that it could have been saved? What do you believe could have really made a difference?

.sos-rahl: Short Reply: We were involved with cXg?

Long Reply: Seriously, we were involved with cXg? Hehe, I never was, so I can't really speak to what went on. From what I gathered it was made clear early on that TWL wasn't going to be listened to when it came to setting up the tourney. That's when the TWL admins involved pulled their support. A few admins stayed to try and help where possible, but I think we all know how that turned out.


c
[_]Wippuh: Lets have some fun with character assassination. We've been told that we can't make fun of you for being a Magic the Gathering geek, but we can talk about Looney Toons! Take the following characters and tell us the player you believe would match up with them. Tell us why too! Bugs, Daffy, Marvin the Martian, Elmer Fudd, RoadRunner, Coyote, Tweety, Foghorn, the Tasmanian Devil, Pepe Le Pew, Sylvester, Porky Pigg and finally, the grandmotherly figure that watches Tweety and Sylvester.

.sos-rahl: Short Reply: See Long Reply

Long Reply:

- Elmer Fudd: 100% Synergy. That poor bastard couldn't call out map positions to save his life. Tthh tthhee theeey come theyyy theyyyrr commmm commming ummm theyyy here theyyre coming here here coming here ummm, they're on the fucking northwest tower. I'm down

- Wile E. Coyote: Yeah, I think Rahl gets this honor. Big bad rockets...ACME explosives¡Kblowing himself up without killing anyone...I r teh win

- RoadRunner: Spitty's trickjumping ass qualifies him here.

- Pepe Le Pew: Reload...nuff said

- Tasmanian Devil: Arch, Ari, whatever the hell his/her name is this week. Good luck trying to play him in a position and actually see him staying there.

- Daffy: Nate...he rambles, nobody takes him seriously, and anytime we bring him into a match he gets his shit kicked every which way. "Ho! Ha ha! Guard! Turn! Parry! Dodge! Spin! Ha! (thunk)"..."Duck Dodgers in the 24th and a half centurryyyyy!"..."Ho ho, very funny. Ha ha, it is to laugh"

- The dog that jumps up and down with Spike: Cieje...oh, can we, can we, huh huh, can we, come on, can we, huh Spike?

- Chicken Hawk: Tempest, young and gets in over his head...cocky little fooker to boot

- Marvin the Martian: Smokey ¡V "The Illudium PU-36 explosive space modulator! That creature has stolen the space modulator!"..."Well, back to the old drawing board"

- Bugs: Skeeter for not taking the left turn at Albuquerque and for "What's up"

- Yosemite Sam: Synergy again..."Ya stupid idjet"..."Great horny toads"..."ya better say your prayers, ya flea-bitten varmint! I'm a-gonna blow ya to smithereenies!" Texas players > *


c
[_]Wippuh: Shoutouts

.sos-rahl: All the members of Distress, past and present who've been able to keep this thing going. TWL, CAL, and STA admins alike who do their jobs thanklessly on most occasions and who sincerely care about the teams and their players. Fan sites such as planet-rtcw to add to the hype and add to the interest in the game. The players who put up with the stupid ass decisions we admins make. Teams such as Tribal Valor and OPP who've always been class acts and have always pushed us. A large number of scrim partners over the seasons: GLOW, IcF, .com, dR, F1, 2am, VIB, Office Space, !th!, default, }-{, aln/slackn, DP/tUx, 502nd, MX, RC, tTt, -a-, -x-, mF, law, excal, Ni!, cD, ufok, glo¡K¡Kalright, I give up.

Thanks to everyone who's made this game worth playing (and admin'ing).

Missed an interview or want to read them all? Check out ze interview link list!

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Wolf Champ History: Fill In

Posted by: c[_]`Wippuh (Wednesday, April 21, 2004)

Here we are with another epic Cal-M finals match and it seems that there's not really a good resource for the history of Finals matches.

So, lets try to fill in the following info and see if we can get a good picture of what has happened over the last 2+ years of wolf.

Some of the following info may be wrong, but if you can correct it in the comments, we will update it in the article. Any help with starting lineups of the matches, links to demos and dates of the matches will be posted too.

Cal Championships

Season 1 - Only season played fully at 7's, playoffs took place during BoB1, but the semis and finals occured after BoB ended.

- Semis - phx vs -P- - phx wins 4-2 on beach (March 25th, 02)
- Semis - D|S vs III - D|S wins 6-0 FORFEIT - III would not play due to pings and only having 6 players on beach
- Finals - D|S vs phx - D|S wins 5-1 on village - phx's lan was ping attacked delaying the finals match for 2 hours.

Season 2

Cal-I - played 6's
- Semis - Drs vs ck - Drs win 3-1 on base
- Semis - wSw vs a| - a| wins 3-2 on base
- Finals - Drs vs a| - a| wins 3-2 on assault

Cal-M - played 7's
- Semis - cF vs WS[red] - cF wins ???
- Semis - nYx vs FH - nYx wins 3-0 on base
- Finals - nYx vs cF - nYx wins 3-0 on assault
   nyx (Cyno, Lynch, EventHorizon, Dosey, RQuasar, Elmos, Fookin)

Cal-O - Played 7's - in early wolf, there were 3 seperate brackets for Cal-O. Atlantic, Central and Pacific. The central winner (LQD) got a bye since they played in the largest conference? The Pacific (FU) and Atlantic (wat?) champs faced off first to determine who played LQD. 3 div champ scenario
- Semis (pacific) - FU vs tTt - FU wins 3-0 on sub?
- Semis (central) - wat? vs ???
- Semis (atlantic) - LQD vs ???
- Semis - FU vs wat? - FU wins ???
- Finals - Fear US vs LQD - FU wins ??? on beach
   LQD (Tsunami, Warpath, Sylvester, Warrior, Pringles(Noir), SirMicheal)

Season 3 - First season played fully at 6's - Starts with an invite div, which falls apart as top teams leave the game. "RtCW is dead" :P - Main has 3 divs

Cal-M
- Semis - LQD vs GAT - LQD wins ??? on base
- Semis - NARF vs FH - NARF wins 3-1 on base
- Semis - dT vs LoT - dT wins ??? on base
- Semis - dT vs LQD - dT wins ??? on village?
- Finals - dT vs NARF - NARF wins 3-2 on ice
   NARF (Da_G, Lynch, Cyno, Warkrime, Spike, Rev)
Cal-O
- Semis - xTc vs LBL - xTc wins 3-0 on base
- Semis - 82nd vs WS -
   82nd (Khan, Warrior, Nightwolf, Chaos, Dual32, Polo)
- Finals - 82nd vs xTc - 82nd wins ???
   82nd (Khan, Warrior, Nighwolf, Polo, Dual32, Kappa)

Season 4

Map Rotation - Base, Village, Ufo, Chateau, Assault, Sub, Ice, Beach - Playoffs - Sub, Village, Assault, Ice

Cal-M
- Semis - NARF vs [u]- NARF wins 3-0 on ice
- Semis - dT vs D|S - dT wins 3-1 on ice
- Finals - NARF vs dT - NARF wins 3-1 beach
   NARF (Da_G, Lynch, BeavermanA, Obliv, Warkrime, Spike)

Cal-O - 3 div champs scenario
- Semis (pacific) - c4c vs casaulty - c4c wins ??? on assault
- Semis (atlantic) - redempt vs SI - redempt wins 3-1 on assault
- Semis (central) - Outsiders vs ???
- Semis - Outsiders vs c4c - Outsiders win ???
- Finals - redempt vs Outsiders - redempt wins 3-2 on beach

Season 5

Map Rotation - Beach, UFO, Frostbite, Assault, Village, Ice, Sub, Base

Cal-I
- Semis - fx vs Uprise - fx wins 3-1 on beach
- Semis - NARF vs LQD - NARF wins 3-0 on beach
- Finals - NARF vs fx - NARF wins 3-2 on ice
   fx (Warrior, Nightwolf, Impulse, Wyldcard, Reaper, Vatican)
   NARF (Lynch, BeavermanA, Obliv, Da_G, Warkrime, Immortal)

Cal-M
- Semis - -x- vs Trinity - -x- wins 3-2 on beach
- Semis - dh vs ???
- Finals - dh vs -x- - -x- wins 3-0 on ice

Cal-O
- Semis - Comm vs Eggnog Squad
- Semis - GLOW vs TV - GLOW wins 3-0
- Finals - GLOW vs Comm - GLOW wins 3-1 on base

Season 6

Map Rotation - Assault, Frostbite, Chateau, Sub, Beach, Base, Village, Ice - Playoffs - Assault, Beach, Base, Ice

Cal-I
- Semis - ICF vs -a- - ICF wins 3-0 FORFEIT - Illumina, a cal admin, adds himself to -a-'s roster the night of match, resulting in forfeit win for ICF
- Semis - TRO vs tTt - TRO wins ??? on beach
- Finals - TRO vs ICF -

Cal-M
- Semis - ugb vs OPP - ugb wins 3-0 on beach
- Semis - aln vs Distress - aln wins 3-1 on beach
- Finals - aln vs ugb - aln wins 3-1 on ice
   aln (Roadkill, Hellfish, Alienware, Vitriol, Bongwater, Juventus)

Cal-O
- Semis - oTc vs Spookhouse - oTc wins 3-2 on base
- Semis - $ vs 502nd - $ wins 3-0 on base
- Finals - $ vs oTc - $ wins 3-2 on ice
   $(InvisibleMan, SpiDerMan/$pec_0pZ, SuperMan/TimeBomb, PuffMyDragon/Rome, Wolverine/ KamiKaze, AquaMan/Transit)

Season 7

Map Rotation - Assault, Keep, Beach, Base, UFO, Ice, Chateau, Sub, Frostbite, Village - Playoffs - Beach, Assault, Ice, Base

Cal-M
- Semis - -x- vs Excal - -x- wins 3-0 on ice
- Semis - sMn vs EoD - sMn wins 3-0 on ice
- Finals - -x- vs sMn - -x- wins 3-2 on base
   -x- (stiegl, madness, mario, luigi, riot, cykass)
   sMn (laws_69, WarRi0R, ConF, mindgame, sLaG, fatninja)


Cal-O
- Semis - SI vs gP - gP wins 3-0 on ice
- Semis - Canada vs teh birds - Canada wins 3-0 on ice
- Finals - gP vs Canada - gP wins 3-0 on base

Season 8

Map Rotation - Base, Tundra_Rush, Beach, Sub, Keep, Assault, Ice, Village - Playoffs - UFO, Ice, Village, Assault

Cal-M
- Semis - Goggles vs Radier's Coven - Goggles wins 3-? on village
- Semis - fX vs the executives - fX wins 3-0 on village (forfeit)
- Finals - fX vs Goggles - fX wins 3-0 on assault

Cal-O
- Semis - SI vs oX - oX wins 3-2 on village
- Semis - vengeance vs Silence - v| wins 3-1 on village
- Finals - v| vs oX - v| wins 3-2 on assault


Season 9

Map Rotation - Frostbite, Base, Tundra_Rush, Beach, UFO, Ice, Village, Axis Complex, Assault, Chateau

Cal-M
- Semis - blur vs sMn - sMn wins 3-0 on tundra rush
- Semis - fX vs the rabia - fX wins 3-0 on tundra rush
- Finals - fX vs sMn - fX wins 3-0 on beach*
*True champion of season 9 was really team LQD. It was so harsh that the beating was removed from this article as it just couldn't handle the emotion of the scores and maps played by LQD


TWL Championships

season 1 - played at 7's

Map Rotation - ???, Base, Sub, Ice, Assault, Village, Chateau

Beta
- Semis (pacific) - Sanrio vs LBL - Sanrio wins ???
- Semis (atlantic)- FF vs ICF - FF wins ???
- Semis (central) - qF vs v| - qF wins ???
- Semis - Sanrio vs FF - Sanrio wins ???
- Finals - qF vs Sanrio - qF wins ???

Alpha
- Semis - 82nd vs WS - 82nd wins ???
- Semis - Uprise vs NARF - Uprise wins ???
- Finals - Uprise vs 82nd - Uprise wins 3-2 on ice

Season 2

Map Rotation - Base, Village, Ufo, Chateau, Assault, Sub, Ice, Beach - Playoffs - Sub, Village, Assault, Ice

Beta
- Semis (atlantic) - EoD vs -$- - EoD won ??
- Semis (pacific) - Sanrio vs OS - Sanrio won 3-1 on assault
- Semis (central) - 7 Angels vs |AS - 7 angels won ???
- Semis - EoD vs Sanrio - EoD won ??
- Finals - EoD vs 7 angels

Alpha
- Semis - Uprise vs Amish - Uprise wins ???
- Semis - HV vs LoT - HV wins ???
- Finals - Uprise vs HV - HV wins ??? on ice

Season 3

Map Rotation - Beach, UFO, Frostbite, Assault, Village, Ice, Sub, Base

Beta
- Semis - Eggnoq vs Syn - Eggnog wins ???
- Semis - TV vs Drinkn - TV wins ???
- Finals - TV vs eggnog - ??? wins

Alpha
- Semis - Arise vs K' - Arise wins 3-0 FORFEIT - Arise lost match then found that K' had a player on another roster too, used that to get forfeit win.
- Semis - i vs ???
- Finals - i vs Arise - i wins 3-0 on ice

Season 4

Map Rotation - Assault, Frostbite, Chateau, Sub, Beach, Base, Village, Ice - Playoffs - Assault, Beach, Base, Ice


Gamma
- Semis - HkC vs ???
- Semis - GFU vs F1 - GFU wins 3-0 on base
- Semis - GFU vs HkC - HkC wins 3-2 on ice - GFU uses their timeout for a HkC 999'd player. Final round GFU sets sub 3:00 time. GFU has guy go 999 while defending but no timeouts, HkC refuses to call timeout citing "don't know how" and beats time.

Beta
- Semis - SoS vs aln - SoS wins 3-1 on base
- Semis - OPP vs ???
- Finals - OPP vs SoS - OPP wins 3-0 on ice

Alpha
- Semis - LQD v. fX - fx wins ???
- Semis - tTt v. ??? - tTt wins ???
- Finals - tTt v. fX - fx wins ???

Season 5

Map Rotation - Assault, Keep, Beach, Base, UFO, Ice, Chateau, Sub, Frostbite, Village - Playoffs - Beach, Assault, Ice, Base

Beta
- Semis - nG vs teh birds - nG wins 3-2 on ice
- Semis - fK vs OsG - fk wins 3-0 on ice
- Finals - nG vs fK - fK wins 3-1 on base

Alpha
- Semis - EoD vs BwG - EoD wins ???
- Semis - ICF vs TV - ICF wins ???
- Finals - ICF vs EoD - ICF wins 3-0 on base

Season 6

Map Rotation - Base, Tundra_Rush, Beach, Sub, Keep, Assault, Ice, Village - Playoffs = UFO, Ice, Village, Assault

Beta
- Semis - v| vs ??? - nG wins 3-? on village
- Semis - m2 vs ??? - fk wins 3-? on village
- Finals - v| vs m2 - v| wins 3-1 on assault

Alpha
- Semis - fX vs Star - fX wins 3-0 on village
  fX (Rem, Slaya, Serb, Warrior, Vat, Rambo)
&nssp; Star (Spec, Mutha, TB, Alphaneo, kk, trigger)
- Semis - Distress vs ref - Distress wins ??? on village
- Finals - Distress vs fX - fX wins 3-0 on assault


BoB

- Semis - Drs vs III - Drs win 3-2 on assault
- Semis - dT vs D|S - D|S wins 3-1 on assault
- Finals - Drs vs D|S - D|S wins 3-2 on beach (first WTV match?)

BoB2

- Semis - NARF vs Teamz - NARF wins ???
- Semis - D|S vs -a- - -a- wins 3-2 on base
   D|S (Warrior, Chaoslord, Herbal Tea, Bread, Rambo, Pharoah (buddy lee))
- Finals - -a- vs NARF - -a- wins 3-0 on beach

Qcon2k2

- Loser Bracket finals - iN vs cK - iN wins 3-1 on assault
- Finals - iN vs Drs - Drs win 3-1 on ice

Qcon2k3

- Loser Bracket finals - GMPO vs -a- - GMPO wins ???
- Finals - iN vs GMPO - iN wins 3-1 on assault

Overall wolf lifetime champ - Team Thorian

Edit this Article | Delete this Article

Idea for wolf show on TsN

Posted by: high.warchild! (Thursday, April 22, 2004)

I have been sitting on an idea for a long time and now it's time has come. I have been talking to some people and am in the midst of planning a Wolfenstein news talk show. I would be hosting along with a co-host(still not found) a weekly show discussing:

-General Wolf News(what's happening around the community)
-Roster Changes and Updates (New Teams as well)
-Upcoming Players/Clans
-That week's matches with predictions and team discussions
-The previous week's matches with summerys and score updates
-League news with team standings and new league regulations(if changed)
-Player/Clan Interviews
-News on Tournys such as Qcon and the like
-General Wolf discussions
-Guest speakers and their thoughts on community happenings

I have been talking to Warwitch about this and I need to get a mock show recorded, so they can get a feel if it is worthy of TSN. I am posting this article in Hopes of community feedback and ideas on how to make this show happen and wondering if anybody would like to help with this project. I am, as stated earlier, still looking for a co-host and anybody willing to help out anyway they can. Thank you.

To Reach Me:
#genocide.rtcw on gamesurge
rbojanovic@comcast.net

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Interview: Fo3Twinny

Posted by: c[_]`Wippuh (Thursday, April 29, 2004)

It's not everyday planet-rtcw gets an interview like the following. Pure Haiku ownage comes your way from Fo3Twinny as he tells about life in New Mexico, the Amish at qcon2k2 and the disaster that was cXg.

Remember, posting comments in the form of a haiku is highly encouraged!

Enjoy!

c[_]Wippuh: High Twinny! How are you? Please tell the loyal readers of planet-rtcw.com what brought you to gaming, where you got that nick and all the other things that make Fo3Twinny tick! Oh, that rhymed! In order to make this a more Team Burque'sque interview, please summarize all your answers in a haiku :) To show that we're not about making you do all the work, we will do the same with the questions! Please don't get help from Ally, the poetry master, though :/

High! Foetwinny Rawr!
Tell us about yourself please :)
You r teh win yes!

fo3tw1nny>TB<: High! My name is Kaipo Moore. Im a hawaiian bruddah. 27 Years young, residing in the pleasantries of Albuquerque, NM. Probably one of the only hawaiian gamers out. I am the raging pineapple. Please pheer my macadamian nut like skills.

I got started gaming playing Quake on and off. Mostly Lanning. Me and Christpuncher tearing it up maybe twice a month just to burn time before a strip club or party. Never online. RTCW was my first multiplayer tiff pixel game. Never played a multiplayer game online. Then, one magical night after a romp at the local TD's strip club, Chilifiend, Christpuncher and I all headed back to chili's house for some LAN action. There was talk about the infamous "Mp_test2" and this game called Return to Castlewolfenstein on the ride there. We reach Chilifiends uber leet Lan pad, and he introduces me to the world of multiplayer online FPS gaming. I kid you not..I played from 3am to 6pm the next day. Straight. Never got up. I was addicted.

I build my first computer soely for the fact of playing wolf. Nothing else. I didn't care. The satisfaction of killing billy badass in Piedmont, North Dakota sitting at dad's E-Machine was more than gratifying. Chilifiend (aka Amish Crackfiend) lived local. He had talked in the past of clans that he had been in. The Black Heretic clan of Ultima Online. He wanted to start an RTCW clan using the Amish name. The Amish name derived from there. Exactly how, I believe chilifiend and gigolo are the only two that know the exact answer. I hopped on board, and the rest is history.

From then on, ive played wolf ever since. I stayed on the infamous "Happy Penquin" for the first few months. Trying to learn the game. This is where I got my med start. Happy Penguin is always so insanely chaotic, that you could stand in one spot forever and get at least 20 revives. I liked medic. I could heal myself when I pulled bonehead moves. I could bust out a needle at the cry for help and prick anyone. The power I had. Insta-Doc. Neat.

I practiced and eventually moved on to Texas Stopwatch where all the "skerry" people played, recruiting along the way. Gigolo and Infidel joined up (also veteran(s) of Amish/Black Heretic)and we picked up Royal_Ally, along with a few other OG guys. Amish WraithLord, Reaper, EVIL, Meep, Rudy_bega (last seen on a mp_tram server near you), and the deadliest 40 yr old female west of the Rio Grande, Amish Dominatrix. Cheech joined from Aop. The leet Twl Admin ZedsDead had an amish romp. Bunkryrass, the mallard mauler of Deviant duck, and his sick shot brother JimmyJack, all from HardTastic eventually joined up. Im missing a few, but my memory sucks. Probably from smoking too much pot. I am not a role model.

I like playing wolf.
Wolf makes my innards tingle
No other game compares


c
[_]Wippuh: From the Amish to Team Burque, you've been around forever. Tell us about how you see that RtCW has developed over the seasons. If you could divide wolf into eras, what would they be and how would they be classified?

Amish to Burque
Wolf from season to season
Tell us the eras

fo3tw1nny>TB<: Ive been pounding the digital playground of rtcw since Season 1. I love this game. Tried Cod. Nah. No classes. Tried CS. Woah..wth kinda atari looking game is this? Always back to rtcw I went. So many people have come and go. Onto ET, onto CoD. I stayed with Amish. We had a rivalry going with -PRO- and "Cleetus" the amish rtcw goat/sheep/cow mascot. He was won in a match and LadyLuck stole him/her from then on. Im still not sure how that worked. Some good rivalry matches with HCC back then. Strats were just coming about, and it was okay to run a "flaming wall of death" going all flamers. /Killing wasn't really happening in pubs. People didn't seem to bitch as much as they do now. It was fun playing on the old skool pub servers like The doctor's operating room, and dropscape. No lines. Back then, everyone was still learning. There weren't any call votes to change off of mp_assault. It was fun running across tarmac and not getting sniped by 6 different people. We played mp_dam and mp_tram with a huge grin. It's been fun watching the sport evolve, and being a part of it.

One Hell of A Game.
COD who? Cs What?
wolf 4 life. k. thanks.


c
[_]Wippuh: Your well known as a member of the Amish team that went to qcon and raged
Paradigm on beach to win some cash! Tell us about that qcon experience, how
you prepared and what was it like to finally realize that you were a
progamer? All these kids today talk the talk, but you've walked the walk!

Paradigm went down
The Amish as pro gamers
How are you so l33t?


fo3tw1nny>TB<: Qcon 2k2. That was a lot of fun. We scrimmed Team Abuse night after night preparing. Citizen was an outstanding help back then. After games or scrims, he would stay on the server and help us out. With strats, shooting, everything. Qualifiers came around, and we won first round (I forgot against who) but lost to mTw 3-0 in round 2 on assault. We had no qualifier spot. It sucked. Chilifiend then told us that they were accepting Round 1 qualifying
clans to attend, for clans that did qualify, but couldn't make it. We got called upon, and were more than willing to take the spot. I believe we took Empire's place? This was everyone's first tournament.

Royal Ally drove down from Denver, and met up with us at chili's elite lan pad. We lanned all night the night prior to leaving, and left at 5am in the morning tired as hell, but pumped on pure gaming adrenaline. Scared as hell, and armed with a trunk full of roller ball mice, and dual inverted keyboards..we headed to Dallas. Roster was: Foetwinny, Crackfiend, JimmyJack, DeviantDuck, Haas, and Cheech. Gigolo was unable to attend. We wandered around for awhile. Looking for people, looking at displays. We found zay, the uber leet Qcon rep..and she told us we had first round against The Doctor's on mp_base. I say "oh shit". She says, "Remember, its double elimination." Riiiight. We head to the tournament area at the Mesquite Convention Center, for round 1. We almost manage to take a round from them when Haas manages a ninja plant, but we still go down 3-0.

We wander back to the byoc, and I believe this was when we toy with the idea of going out and buying suspender like apparel. Changed into our newfound sexayness, we head to the tourney room. "Can someone hold my trackball while i fix my suspenders"? Round 2. On mp_sub against Clan Wat? If I remember right, so im probably wrong. We won 3-2. Round 3. Against Infensus. We lost.

Next match was scheduled for morning. 8:00 am to be exact. We were noobs, and didnt schedule our hotel room on site, so we had a 15 minute drive each way to the tournament. Mp_Beach against Paradigm Shift. The seating was fuxxored when we got there. So we had to sit nearly back to back to paradigm shift. I was closest to anyone on the opposing team, so they resulted in sticking some French guy inbetween me, and i think Kow -P- to make sure i didnt turn around. We ended up
winning 3-2, and this put us in the money spot for 10th, and qcon money. Last round was against wSw on mp_assault for 9th and 10th. We lost, wSw took 9th, and we settled with 10th. Dead last, but happier than hell. We partied the night away, drinkin beers, watchin fully clothed (booo!) women jump into the pool. This year I hear there's a lake nearby. I expect Nakedness ladies.
K thanks.

Qcon r teh win
More phun than midget porno
okay, maybe not

c
[_]Wippuh: After the Amish placed at qcon, the team retired from wolf for some rest. Later a lot of the old school Amish players surfaced as Team Burque to play in Cal-O. Burque is a predominantly LAN team based out of Chili's pad. How did Team Burque come about, how did you recruit the players to fill out your roster and tell us about some of the more entertaining experiences with your current team. Of course, tell us the differences between playing on LAN on the way most of us are use to!

Burque comes to Cal
Cooking chili on servers
Lets hear the story

fo3tw1nny>TB<: Team Burque was an idea Chilifiend and I had toyed with. We wanted to see if we could get strictly local gamers into Rtcw, so we could have the advantage of lanning together. Well...we still dont lan together, and never have for a match or scrim. Weeeeeeeee!!!!! We just dont have the bandwith. There's no lan center out here in the land of entrapment. We've attempted it at chili's, but only successful with 3 or 4. Chili even tried upgrading his comcast account for more upload, and still only 3 or 4 tops.

Mash is my roomate, so him and I lan together all the time with Christpuncher lanning here on occasion. Its mostly us either paired, or not at all. Rand and Kaoz were recruited from the local Gammathon lan held at the New Horizons place. Rand and Kaoz are one of, if not the best Q3 players in New Mexico. Chili got them introduced first to Enemy Territory. Where Team Burque got its start.

From there, we branched off into Rtcw. Chilifiend recruited all local guys except for of course Royal Ally and Trash both from Colorado. Ally has been around with us for 3+ years, and has been generous enough to drive down for every single BurqueLan, and is moving down here soon to join the ranks full time. Trash is an addition from Asc/Teh Birds and brings a humor like
no other. He's one of a kind.

Mr. Bean is one of our fiercest medics, his first (and a half) season in CAL competition play. Taking dual inverted keyboard gaming to a whole new level. Christpuncher I believe is here for our porn needs. You need a porn vid, go to cp. He has it. Mash is another fierce medic. Being my roomate, we play together constantly. He's learned so much throughout the years, that he can only get better.

Orbitirix is one of our main men in a cloak. He speaks softly, but carries a mean wallop. He can play a mean game of UT2K4, and is responsible for a lot of website magic. He heads up the CS division of Team Burque. Lanning is fun. You can throw stuff at your enemies. You can spill Rand's coke on Kaoz's fatpad. Ping isnt an issue. It's good clean fun with periodic smoke breaks to talk trash. A fun time is had by all. We keep it going around the clock for a few days. Really
the only time we actually lan together.

Umm. what is a haiku?
maybe a haiku is you?
i am a pothead


c
[_]Wippuh: In Amish you were the super med playing along Gigolo, Haas, Cheech, Jimmy, Duck and Crack. However in Burque you've moved over to panzer and quickly made a name for yourself in that role. What dictated the move to pf and how have you liked it? We all know that patience and timing are crucial for the pf, but we want to ask you about some of the other aspects of it. What do you believe are the easiest maps to pf on and why? Hardest? Who is the easiest member of your team to tk with the pf and why?

From Med to PF
Uber panz soldat, Jawohl!
H@x Lies H@x and lies!

fo3tw1nny>TB<: Well, I started pubbing with other classes. I was tired of medic. No more revive for you. You go now. I tried Lt, engie, and soldat. I wanted to be more of a Utility guy. I wanted to be a part of the action. A cog at coswell. A sproket at Spacley's. Anyone can point a panzer and shoot it. And when the call came out for anyone, I answered. Group shots are almost erotic. Seeing 3 to 4 go down in the click of a mouse. Yeah Baby. Thats gaming. Patience is a lot of it. Having enough nerve to sit there while 1 or 2 pass you by, and wait for the group. Also, luger and 9mm skills come into play. Easiest map by far is Beach. Get spawn time, sit at window, wait 30 seconds. You have to move, at tops..3 feet. The rest you can just make up as you go. That's probably why I like the panzer position. Its an "on your own" type of position. You can get a panz off spawn and go sneak behind someone and shank em. You can have your own unique style to it. I suppose you can with any sort of gaming, but this is my metaphor, and Im stickin to it.

Hardest for me would probably be village or assault. I suck at angles and corners. Rand seems to always be the Panzer victim. No matter where we are it seems like he gets singled out and panzed. It's okay tho. Part of the strat.


c
[_]Wippuh: After qcon2k3, up came cXg in Vegas. Nothing really has to be said about the disaster that it was, but a lot has to be said about how Team Burque tried everything they could to get that tourney going. Where did cXg fail and why did TB try so hard to help? How close was that tourney to really happening and what was it like to be so frustrated at the failure of cXg yet have the great city of Las Vegas to party in? How did TB party in Vegas?

Who's incompetence?
cXg is downgraded
Party in Vegas!

fo3tw1nny>TB<: Wow. Cxg. We all had plans to attend the Las Vegas event aside from the fact of its shadiness. Mostly the Entrance fee. 75.00 up front before you can even play. We all send in the money, and head to the city of sin. I love Las Vegas. You can eat a buffet for 2 bucks, get free drinks all day while you sit at a nickel machine like a cheap ass, and so much more. Topless this..Neil Diamond that. It was like a dream. Not to mention the AVN awards and the Pron convention was being held in Las Vegas the exact same weekend. Fate? I think so..

We got a room at the Frontier, which was right next door to the stardust (tournament hotel), and one at Terrible Herbst Hotel/Casino. Found famous for his petrol station elbow rage. Terrible's was designated the "Quiet" room. The room where one could go to meditate, and read the latest issue of the tv guide. The non smoker room. The Frontier was the Party/smokeout room. We ended up staying up all night in pheer of a long Byoc line. After walking around for hours, trash,cp and I are the only ones that survive the night, and keep waiting. Cp crashes out in a stardust lobby chair and later gets Shoo'ed off by a policeman for sleeping in the lobby and getting mistaken for a bum. Me and Trash are still alive. The 8am check-in time was drawing near, and me and Trash head to register. There's already chaos as Joe Hill is yelling..serious style at Joi Hill for opening the doors too early for registration. It was about 7:58. Joi continued to register people as they walked in..about 8 of us total before Joe finally closes the door. We didnt have our pc's with us, and Joi instructs us we need to get our pc's, and come back to registration. This is when we will get the elite "sticker" with 4 numbers on it that more than secured your computer from being stolen. One was stuck on your monitor, the other on your tower. One of mine was computer generated, while the other was drawn on with pen (Which will prove to be a problem later). Marked "1228".

We get our bags full of shirts and my prized Media Player 9 cd, and head to the byoc. It was fairly well set up. The AMD display was nice. The models made it a pleasure to get amd water tattoo's. Lots of CS stuff. CS talk. CS everything. Gary Coleman was signing autographs at the postal 2 booth. We head up for the security meeting. Joe Hill tells us in a technical form to play nice with one another. We stand there and look interested.

At this point, noone really says anything about any wolf tournaments. We hear there's a meeting outside the byoc with all the rtcw teams. We head out, and they tell us to be at the Riviera in the morning by 8am. NO LATER. If you were late, you were disqualed. No exceptions. 8am and vegas don't mix. That's just wrong. Like real life hacking. After some manipulation, we get Mitch to agree to have only the team captains show up.

Next day, we head to the Riviera. We find the tournament room, and theres no server. Neat. There was a set of beachers indoors. Neat. Must be a vegas thing. There was an Americas Army demo display. Wasnt plugged in. There were FIVE pc's on each side of the tourney table. 5. Not 6. 5. The monitors made Gameboy advance monitors look plazma. These things were junk. We wait longer. Still no server. Were told to go back to the byoc at the Stardust. We go back. Stop at the pipe shop on the way back, and go smoke ourselves silly pondering what the hell is going to happen next.

I believe then told that the tournament will be held at the Stardust now. Still no server, and at this point I had still have yet not touched a tournament computer. Tournament computers were still a rumor. Like a bigfoot encounter. There's talk of the CS tournament being cancelled. The mood in the byoc seems hostile. People are getting louder. Not playing any games. We end up going to the Electronics convention.

Next day, more promises, nothing happening. CS tournament cancelled. Were still sitting around doing nothing. Chilifiend and I do a quick interview for the Discovery Channel. We lan for a few hours afterward just incase. At this point, im sick of waiting. I go find Mitch, and ask him whats up. He asks me if I can help set up Tournament servers in the byoc. He hands me a wolf cd,
and im off to find 12 computers in a room full of 500 people meant for 20.

We have no cd-key. Kaoz and I hit up the Shuttle display (the only internet source in the byoc) and muster up a warez key. I ask chili if he can help. I go first installing wolf, while chili is behind me with osp and ventrillo. There was no justice in the tournament room. Food everywhere. People everywhere. You would have to move a huge fruit basket off the keyboard before you could do anything. We were plugging and unplugging Cat5 cable. Mind you, the girls were playing a tournament while we did this. One mistake met a certain "point at the noob" status for life if we had unplugged the wrong one. We end up one monitor short. I find mitch, and we have to go RENT ONE from the "rent a monitor" guys. wtf. We have to find Joe Hill first for the credit card power, and of course knowing my 75.00 went towards a monitor rental, was more than reasurring that this tournament was going to go on problem free. Finally installed on 12. Sporatic, but installed.

Wait..what about a server? Shit. We steal a warcraft 3 pc for rtcw server pwnage. United 5 and GLOW sit down to attempt to play. No way. This was just thrown together. Server was erratic. Osp wasnt working. The towel was thrown in. Tournament cancelled. Were all dissapointed. Checking out of the byoc, were left with a serious case of Gamer blue balls, and my demise with my neato sticker of security. Since my tower was the computer printed 1228, and my monitor was the written on, they wont let me leave. They never gave out any hand written security tags. My own monitor is now being stolen by me. Because Joi Hill says so. Good Games CxG. May you all die of malaria.

Cxg, total joke
The Hill's are teh criminals
give me my money


c
[_]Wippuh: Up comes another season of Cal and we see that TB is signed up to have another go at it. What are the goals this season and how do you hope to overcome the obstacles that prevented you from reaching them last season? What can we expect to see from Burque this season?

In comes season 8
Team Burque signs up for Cal
What are the team's goals?

fo3tw1nny>TB<: Were hoping to come in a lot stronger. Less newbness, more leetness. TB's Cal debut season, we went 4-4. Last season, we went 6-4. Not a huge improvement. Were hoping to do better. I sense a pattern forming. Maybe 8-4 this season? Pheer. Suppose it depends where they stick us too. Were hoping for another Quakecon Rtcw go-around. There better be. Con Globbit. Real life is a constant battle. A lot of us work non stop throughout the week, and don't have a lot of time to get scrims in. When we do attempt a scrim, we have 3 or 4. It's hard fighting between the two, but we want to step it up this season and bring the eyelid rage. Gaming doesnt pay the bills though. (Your sponsor name goes here)

someone sponsor us
we r teh sexay gamers
i have a hairy cat


c
[_]Wippuh: Beside NARF, there may never be another team more associated with narcotics that Team Burque. Associating things is fun. To keep in a long honored interview tradition, we'd like you to tell us what kind of drug each of your team members would be and why! Who is the schwag of TB?

Team Burque says high!
Drug association time!
Dankity Dank Dank!

fo3tw1nny>TB<: Heh..well, I left this one up for my clanmates to choose:

<Chilifiend|TB> I wanna be cocaine!!!
<ChristPuncher|Dialup> i are Chica|TB...women pwn me...they are my drug
<Rand-Kaoz|Work> Rand is Guiness|TB and I am Corona|TB <--for the non
smokers. pfft.
<m4sh|work> put me down as schwag, i care not
<m4sh|work> i smoke what I can get damnit!

If it were up to me, The schwag is the stems that binds us. We are all a bag
of Golden crispy nuggz. Please take a hit.

This interview done
time to smoke some stank nuggz
thank you, please drive thru.


c
[_]Wippuh: Shoutouts!

Shoutouts, shoutouts, yar!
Your chance to say whatever!
Leave your last words please!

fo3tw1nny>TB<: All TB members. High. All rtcw community. High. Wippuh for digging in the icy trash can for the last bud light, All ByoB Strip club attendee's of 2k3. That rocked. Gigolo, all the amish bretheren. High. All CxG Rtcw team Attendee's, United 5, GLOW, Superheroes, tTt, Opp, 2am, -Pro-, HCC, Team Abuse, Ralph the nader, Warkrime]NARF[, ICF|Diesel, tTt-opio, x-cracker, (.)(.)Dirty, and all the rtcw folk i've ever smoked out with. high.

Also, to www.voyeurmods.com Your one stop, mod shop. Give Rand and Kaoz something to do plz. They also need food. K thanks.

shoutouts r teh win
i suck at writing haiku's
have sex and poke smot


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Interview: Samus

Posted by: c[_]`Wippuh (Thursday, May 6, 2004)

It's not often we get the chance to provide an authentic European perspective here on the site. However, Samus is from Holland and recently moved to Canada. Once moving over he played with the successfull team Scourge last season.

Many called for his interview, but not knowing much about him, there was a prelim question sent out. The first answer to the interview is basically that all over again.

Enjoy, it's a long one!

c[_]Wippuh: Hi Samus, Tell everyone who you are and all the stuff needed to introduce yourself, how you came from Europe to NA, who you played for over there, etc...
Just ramble about yourself for as long as you would like.

Samus: Allright, my name is Roy Kroone and was born 25 years ago in Haarlem,The Netherlands.
Five years ago I bought my first PC and been hooked on it ever since.
I learned alot about benchmarking, overclocking or technical problems and found out this would be maybe what I wanted to do for a living.
Together with that I allways been a fanatic gamer, and had almost every console after the ATARI 2600.

Loving the new technology PC games had to offer (then I compared it with Playstation, since it had the best graphics,gameplay for that moment) , I quick found my way into the online gaming world with games like Diablo, Half Life, Quake,Unreal and ofcourse RtCW.
Clearly the interest for First Person Shooters won over other genres, although I can very much appreciate MMO games like Asheron's Call, EverQuest or WarCraft.

Somewere in September 2001 if I'm not mistaken, ID software released the multiplayer demo of Return to Castle Wolfenstein, a classic title revamped.
It was obviously my new addiction and together with a collegue who I worked with at Sony Music Holland, I started having very late night 'sessions' of RtCW to pull ourself up the next morning, head to work like a zombie, smoke some J's and do it all over, it was addicting as you all know :)

We soon started getting good at it and were allways playing on the same server: cool.hot.ee
After a month or so I met this dude called RaZiel who was maintaining a team called GwS and he asked me to join up together with my friend.
We created a new demo clan called TeC , The Elite Crew.
We were then the best demo clan in mp_test2, with players like RaZiel and Lunatic and we felt comfortable with it, although we knew the retail version of the game was eager to be played and was of better quality then what we experienced in the demo.

We got to know alot of ppl then and there were actually players out there which are still playing in the NA scene here, a thing I found out when I moved to Canada.
Im talking about the Admin Clan, who for some reason did like to play on Euro servers.
I saw people like Redman, Parkov (hikikomori), Frank (oX-Neo), and Hydra (oX-Maniac), these last 2 guys actually live in my city Montreal. =)
So that was kind of a surprise when I bumped into them when I started playing here.
Last but not least on the social subject: I've actually met my girlfriend playing RtCW, very long story though but that's the reason I've been living in Canada for a year now. =)
(If you want the complete story about that, I can refer you to another website! ;p)

Anyways, the retail version called our names loudly and we decided to try and take the step as a team, which in the end was a failure.
We were active on IRC from now, so the contact between ppl would go abit better from then.
I was good friends with RaZiel and since we were still motivated to play the game after endless drama/discussions with the kids we harboured in our clan we decided to take a look around and see what the game had to offer.

I got in contact with some Swedish blokes, Nickee and Motion who we knew from the demo, were playing for a clan called dC, Drowned Cows.
Since we didnt really knew what direction we had to take we started playing for them and were in the beginning a team to look out for on ClanBase, only fearing Blackbugs in our devision, and ofcourse the big Scandinavian teams iNfensus, noll08 or Gunslingers.

We learned strats, aim, teamplay and what dedication meant for a team.
Although the good feeling about the team didnt last longer then a few months, I have to say that it was a nice experience, playing mostly all the teams from Europe, and in the end become one of the best middle-class teams around.
There were some internal problems, and RaZiel left to play for the nVidia team and later Rewind, which was one of the best European teams.
I stuck with the clan because I did like the people in it, we played leagues, cups etcetera able to win some but never reach the next step, but I was fine with it. They play ET now.

Maintaining an online relationship with my girlfriend wasnt easy and with many ups and downs, visits and early morning conversations I decided to take the big step and leave Holland to build up a life in Canada. I came to live here in June 2003.
It took the moving company almost 4 f*cking months to get my goods from the Rotterdam Harbour to Montreal and I wasnt able to install myself properly right away.
(imagine packing everything you posses and wonder were it is for 3 months, grmbl)
Ofcourse that part got solved and after the summer I was able to up our little 'Techno-Room' with my most precious material belongings, my soundsystem and my PC. :p

Anyways, I started playing RtCW again after 4 months and realised I was raging face again like that. The Euro scene was dying with big teams disbanding or quitting RtCW for ET so it was kinda a perfect situation for me, since I hated Et anyways.
Observing the NA scene kinda dissapointed me, there werent really alot of people to look up too. Besides that the mentality disgusted me, ppl acted like they are under verbal attack or something, and had to defend themselves all the time to save their honor, the trashtalk, WOW.
So I didnt have high hopes besides raging some dudes on pubs.
I knew some of the older teams ofcourse, Darkside, Affliction, NARF and some of their players but they did not play RtCW anymore, I understood why.

Although I didnt saw it happening I was asked to join Admin Clan's reincarnation with players like Redman,Mortal,Valk,Ronald,WesleySniper.
Having a tough time getting dedication from the players, we decided to quit that.
The idea came from WesleySniper (s*lacerate) and me to give RtCW one last try , and try hard.
Scourge was born and we created a core from the 4 dedicated players I found out of AdminClan.
Keywords were dedication and democracy.
Soon handpicked people joined our forces and for awhile, it was allright.
Problems came when we understood that someone had got to take the lead.
Since we started this a democracy, peoples opinions on certain things were too vaque or just too much bouncing off on other players ideas.

When some players started leaving after losing 1 or 2 matches, I was very dissapointed in them but on the other hand happy they left, attitudes like that can't keep a team alive.
So after getting rid of the dirt, I was short some players and things didnt look good for Scourge.
We realised we had to step it up a notch, and the democracy that was left voted for me to be the leader of Scourge Gaming.
I took in an ET team to also keep in contact with the retarded brother of Wolfenstein.

Things went fast from then, I met Vatican and we talked awhile about the situation in RtCW land. His team looked to be in the same condition as mine and at first he tried to make a few of my players join his team, but after explaining that I wasnt planning to give my own team up, we combined forces.
I allready knew players like Serbian (playing for pimps Europe) ,Vatican(oldschool) and Remedy and I was very happy with the progress we were having.
It especially helped me out on the moral level, since there were some people very childishly bashing on our clan.
Now all over the sudden we had a team to look out for, and I allways wanted to play on a level like this. Hardly losing any games we were 'gelling' the team and tried to have as much fun as possible meanwhile.
Since then we have tried to keep it as dedicated as can be, with some glitches here and there.

This is basically what I wanted to say myself, next question please :)


c
[_]Wippuh: Now you currently live in Canadaland eh, but you came from the Netherlands. In a totally gaming unrelated question, tell us about the transition between Europe and the home of curling. What is it like to adapt to a new culture and environment? What is the hardest thing to get use to and what were you pleased to find was even better than at home?

Samus: Yeah, curling \o/
Well to be totally honest Holland is to me one of the nicest places to live in the world.
Its not that much different actually since I live in the best part of Canada as I hear people say, Montreal Quebec.
The amount of foreign people is enormously and the city is allways in movement.
This kind of multiculturalism I experienced in cities like Amsterdam or The Hague, and I love it.
I'm not sure if I can get along with the french mentality here yet, the people here are rather stubborn and arrogant in some cases and have huge temperament.
What I was used to was freedom and hospitality, here it seems to be each for its own. Not allways ofcourse, but its just something that caught my attention.
Although this is just a slight downside of it all, the city is great and has many artistic sides.
Hopefully I can force some dutch passion in this town when I open my first coffeeshop here... haha jk ;)
And no, there was absolutely nothing that was better here then at home, except my girlfriend!


c
[_]Wippuh: Since you played over in Europe, describe the social hiearchy of the gaming community over there and how it interacts. In NA you have the big communities and then several large lans a year thrown by the CPL. Is there a league like CAL for Europe and how do they operate? What are the stereotypes attached to each community and what do they all think of NA?

Samus: Tough question for me to answer, I haven't been much involved with other communities than the RtCW one but I'll try to give you as much info as I can come up with.
If you talk about CPL you mainly talk about Counterstrike and thats worldwide.
Actually, the top 3 of CPL CS is taken by European teams.
Furthermore they have the ESL-League, Clanbase, and many smaller communities creating there own leagues.
I don't think that there is much difference between how organisations manifest differently between Europe and NA. In the end everybody learns from each other and with community sites like for instance ESReality and GotFrag everybody will be satisfied.


c
[_]Wippuh: You came from the European community and then what? Did you immediately find your way into the NA scene or did you continue to be mainly involved in European happenings? What was that transition like?

Samus: The RtCW scene wasn't doing very good in Europe at the moment I was moving to Canada.
Leagues ended and ET was about to destroy what was left of competitive Wolf.
Many big teams called it a day since there was not really much more to fight for.
If there would be something they had like CAL, I'm pretty sure it would still be great to play RtCW in Europe.
Since the players could only depend on Clanbase's Cup Leagues for good competitive play or a 'respectfull' title with some smaller leagues using its ladder systems the fun was over. Also the big teams had to keep their sponsors satisfied and were kind of forced to play ET.
I tried to stay involved with my old team but the difference in time/ping/gameplay was totally different, furthermore I don't like ET for competitive play, its crap.
So after 4 months I picked up my special edition RtCW again and inserted it in my PC hanging on a big ass 1000 volts transformator :)


c
[_]Wippuh: What is biggest differences, both good and bad, between the European RtCW scene and the NA RtCW scene from your point of view? If you could combine the finest aspects of them both to create the uber scene, what would they be?

Samus: Create a mentality were everybody would respect eachother, that's all.
I've seen too much shit on last Qcon's WTV matches to believe this is possible.
To be honest I havent found any good aspect yet about the NA RtCW scene, besides ofcourse the organisations that create leagues and the people that maintain a good interest in the community by helping out in any way.
Not much is to be said about the current EU RtCW scene, I'm not in it.


c
[_]Wippuh: What is the biggest concern that you have with RtCW right now and how would you fix it?

Samus: With 1,320 players online right now I'm not really conceirned that the game will end a gruesome death in the near future.
What I would do to make it more interesting though is set up a team that would promote OSP throughout Shrub and Main clans/servers.
OSP needs more players, simple as that.


c
[_]Wippuh: You've played with some of the biggest Euro players (Raziel) and some huge guns from NA (Serbian, Vat). What are the similarities between these groups? What do they all do that sets them apart from the other players out there?

Samus: Mainly a combinations of things, anybody can be an awesome player.
Its time, patience, brains, dedication, and you got to know your stuff.
The people I played with in Europe were more awaiting the gamestate (lol) , defensive players but with exceptions ofcourse.
Here its more based on the attack then on the defense and people like to Rambo alot.
I learned to combine those parts and found out this is the way it has to be played, outthink the enemy in defensive state and attack when u find their weakness.
This is ofcourse basic thinking and I won't say nobody plays like that, but ppl here like to go more for quantity instead of quality.
The similarity between players like RaZiel and Serbian for instance is not much more then pure mousecontrol. (except ofcourse RaZiel making its RtCW movies and articles about increasing your aim)
Europe did have the better guns when RtCW was hot and an explanation for that I haven't found yet. (Probably the same reason why Sweden allways does good in any game)


c
[_]Wippuh: Gaming is still looked upon as a nerdy sort of thing here, yet we read a lot about how it is more socially acceptable in Europe. Is this true and if so why is that? What do you believe needs to happen in NA for gaming to be more socially accepted?

Samus: I think it has alot to do with the media which promotes gaming as a new sport in Europe.
Big companies like Intel or AMD sponsor teams and make sure people attend to LAN's and other competitions by making commercials for it.
There are gameshows on TV which allows people to see what new games come out during dinnertime, stuff like that.
A nice documentary about the growth of gaming as a sociable hobby in Europe can be found here: http://www.swertcw.com/download.php?id=483

c
[_]Wippuh: Shoutouts!

Samus: Yeah, greetings to everybody I like so far in this community, Ronald, Machine,ToxicGirl, Raziel, Lacerate,Serbian, Vatican, Remedy, Slaya, Rob, SpecOpz, Opio, Fuzion, Hikikomori, Redman, Neo, Maniac, Donka, Whippuh,Warwitch,Riot, Mario and Luigi, Ika, Radigan, Akasha, Fatninja, RalphNader, Rambo , and alot more.

My little fraggin' girlfriend Christine for understanding the time I had put into RtCW for awhile and not complain too much about sleeping alone :P

Also my old team Drowned Cows and the ET team Scourge.

_

As some of you might know I recently retired as a leader of Scourge gaming and all that is left of it is the ET team.
This due to half of my team leaving to create a Qcon team, which I totally respect since I'm not going myself.

I'm afraid I won't pertain in any team this upcoming season since not one team will fill my needs at this point.
Still I will play alot of RtCW and will hopefully be back next time there is a good opportunity for me :)

I wish all the team good luck and try to keep it as alive as possible untill I'm back to rage your faces =)

Thanks for having me.

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Predictions: Cal-M Week 1: mp_base

Posted by: c[_]`Wippuh (Friday, May 7, 2004)

Week 1 predictions for base in Cal-M.

Team Exodus -vs- Trinity
Trinity is a tight team but it will be interesting to see how they handle this season without laws at the helm. He might be an ass over vent, or so I hear, but that is what you need in order to maintain the discipline needed at the very top.
Exodus has some minor changes, but switching CL for Mario is more than fair and if LuckyB goes to smg from the pf to make way for Warzone, I think no one loses there but the people getting raged by LuckyB's mp40 :o
x 3-0

adverse energy -vs- By Way of the Gun
Magik will help bwg a good bit, as all they really needed last season was a stable lineup. huh huh huh, I said stable.
bwg 3-1

Eternal Conquest -vs- Reformation
I'm not really sure what to make of either of these teams as their rosters are both huge. I like ref though as I've always been a big fan of what .comm did and they look to have some ex players on the roster.
ref 3-2

Team Effect -vs- Intense Combat Forces
Is fx scrimming? Does it matter? I would give icf a chance if this was the old team and they were scrimming like they are now, but their roster just doesn't look like it will be able to hold back the superstars of fx
fx 3-0

Endless Gaming -vs- Arabian Goggles
Hearing nothing but good things about endless. They're scrimming with a small tight roster and that tells me that they're dedicated. Arabian goggles has a good looking roster too, but Endless will be too strong.
e 3-0

The Renegades -vs- Team Vote
Kluv is definitely a 'grade, and f1 does nothing but hurt themselves with his addition. Considering the outkast factor of jolly ranchers in Kluv's Zima, I see some very harsh rage coming from the other F1 guns. Where's Ra1n? This will be a good one if ren scrims hard, otherwise I give it to f1.
F1 3-1

SiN -vs- yakuza
Don't know alot about either team here other than GGAllen is a 'bagger and that everyone thinks SiN should be in open. I think this will be closer than people think and that SiN will steal the victory.
SiN 3-2

Genocide -vs- Raiders Coven
rc has Bread :(
gen 413-0

Saint -vs- Forgottenkings
fk scrims like madmen while I don't know about Saint. I don't believe that Ambigiously Gay Duo of Transit and Ryan will be enough to stop the smg of Kovert and Friends :/ Cracker > *
fk 3-0

Closing Time BYE -vs- Star
What stops multiple delayed attacks? A well disciplined teamwork oriented team. That's the definition of 2am.
2am 3-1

Cerebral Assassins Inc -vs- The Outsiders
Clams, Chum and Robes have been pubbing hardcore. I think this match really comes down to who has been scrimming more. c!@ will never be happy with the server selection :p
3-2

Sucka Free -vs- Distress
Rahl is very confident in the new roster he's put together. He's got some seasoned vets that scrim hard and have brought SoS's gun to the highest level they've ever been. Is that enough to take out the heavy hitter that Suckaz bring? I'm assuming decka on pf will be the deciding factor in this match. If laws is serious and sucka doesn't scrim, then this match will go to SoS, otherwise I believe it will be really close
3-1 SoS

iron warriors -vs- Fast and Danger
FaD's roster issues will catch up to them here on the very teamwork oriented map of base.
IW 3-0

Perfect Drug -vs- Operation Psycho Patrol
Opp comes in with a revamped roster, but they've still got their heavy hitters in Newt, Spa and Hydro. What they hit heavy I have no idea, but they'll take this one with their new EoD companions. Newt and Spa are still whores!
Opp 3-0

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Predictions: Cal-O Week 1: mp_base

Posted by: c[_]`Wippuh (Friday, May 7, 2004)

Week 1 predictions for base in Cal-O.

Tiger Syndicate vs True Soldiers
Two new teams to the league, I think that the one with Del3 (Leth) on it should have an immediate experience advantage on this map.
TS 3-1

Team Vengeance vs. teh leat sphellzors gruppe
It's only a matter of time before v| gets their act together in terms of teamwork, and they're gonna be nastAy when that happens. 2448 is an older Main team and teamwork is where it's at for them. I expect the team that has someone step up and be huge on the NE tower to win this one.
either way 3-2

Team Evolution vs. Team Burque
I really don't see Evolution standing a chance against one of the early big dogs in Open. If Ally plays, expect an /amsg in irc asking for donations for Jump Rope for Heart!
Burque 3-0

Office Space vs. Team Acost
GL HF, hopefully we'll have 6 guys show up. Trey and Mike being there will be a big help, but b3e will balance that out by sucking so much :(

Ni vs. NoX Clan
Ni! took last season off as some played with Sanrio and some just chilled in the shrubbery spamming their forums. However, this isn't a team to be overlooked. Denali is more than a capable pf and Ni! can bring the guns when needed. If these guys scrim consistantly, they'll be right there in the top 2 or 3 of central :o
I have seen some NoX guys beginning to pub on tougher servers lately, and that's nothing but a good sign for them.
Ni! 3-0

Alliance of Soup Nazis vs. Devil Stomper Battalion
This one will be good. aSn and DSB are two teams that always show up to play. I expect DSB to do fairly this well this season and get that .500 record.
aSn 3-2

The Swat Guys vs. Xecuted with Addiction
I know little of xwa beyond the fact they're a oltl team. They're getting a ton of hype and they'll need it in a div with oX!, -rabia- and SI.
xwa 3-0

Optikal Xperience vs. Rabia
The Rabia guys have been impressive on pubs when I've seen them. Executing some nice timing strikes together. oX is the real deal though and I think they take Rabia out.
oX 3-2

Made Men vs. Mercenaries
Everyone is picking Mercs here. I've always been a big m2 fanboy and I think they'll come away with a win.
M2 3-2

Collateral Damage vs. FMJ Clan
Without the magnets of Vexed and Krypes, cD looks a little stronger than usual. It's good to see them back and I suspect they will give FMJ a better match than they expect.
FMJ 3-1

4lcH0liCs vs. American Special Forces
I seriously have no clue who the Alchi guys are. I'll toss this one up.
3-2 either way

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Interview with fatninja

Posted by: Mortal :o (Monday, May 17, 2004)

MortaL: First off, tell us your name and what you do, age,
hobbies, etc. And also tell us how you got your alias
and how you found your way to RTCW and the gaming
community in general.

-x-fatninja: My name is David Daniel. I'm 17 years old and live in ATL, GA. I enjoy lots of things besides wolf, but snowboarding/wakeboarding are my favorites. I began online gaming about 6 years ago when a friend got me into the oh so addicting Everquest. I played that for awhile, but eventually got bored with the fact that I couldn't blow anything up, and another friend showed me a little known game called Battlezone II. I started playing this and
eventually joined a clan in the game called Hell's Elite Legion (HEL),
and with them moved to several games, such as Mechwarrior 4, Tribes II, and
eventually... RTCW. My name actually doesn't come from Chris Farley...
One Halloween I dressed up in a ninja outfit that didnt quite fit the
4'11'' 36 inch physique I had, and one of my friends called me 'fatninja'. It
stuck and for some reason i've never changed it... And for the question that
everyone i've ever met online has ever asked me... no i'm not really
fat.


MortaL: Some people consider you a clan-hopper, others don't.
Do you consider yourself to just have bad luck with
some clans, or what do you see in the light of your
multiple clans compaired to the players that have
stayed in clans for years on end.

-x-fatninja: I dont consider myself a clan hopper. I was in HEL for almost 4 years... One of the reasons i've had so many tags is because clans seem to break up soon after I join :P. HCC broke up, ai- broke up, t-bag broke up, sMn broke up, etc. There are some guys in this community I would have liked to have stayed with for a while... the guys from Redline for example, but many of them get tired of wolf and /uninstall. I guess


MortaL: What is your favorite game other then RTCW and why?

-x-fatninja: Right now... City of Heroes. MMORPG's are a lot different than FPS games, and can be fun to fool around with sometimes. Splinter Cell is also a very good game IMO TBH.


MortaL: Have you been to any RtCW or LAN events for any game?
If so do they solidify your choice to game or is it
kinda odd meeting people you play with in person?

-x-fatninja:I have been to a few small lans with Tribes 2, Battlezone II, and Halo but nothing big. If Qcon has wolf this year I plan on attending. I dont think it is odd meeting some of the people you play with... it's actually very interesting to see the diversity of people who play the same game.


MortaL: Give us an outline on your clan carrier in RtCW, what
was your best clan in respects to teamwork, fun wise,
or just pure skill and why? Also tell us if you could
take any players in the world of Wolf from past or
present and form a 7 man team who would join you and why?

-x-fatninja: Well HEL was my first clan like I said earlier. After they left wolf I joined HCC until they broke up. From there Wesleysniper, toast, forb, vibe, dsc (remedy) and some others invited me to join ai-, and I was with them for all of a week until they too broke up. I then joined BYE with
RalphTEHnader, Nikon, Toast and others. BYE renamed the clan to [T-Bag] and disbanned. What was left of ai reformed into Redline. Redline did very well in Main, going undefeated in the regular season, but we lost the first round of
playoffs due to the fact that half our starters couldn't show. Many of those
members lost interest in the game, and they disbanned. Wesleysniper and Samus
told me about a clan they were starting called Scourge. I didnt know Samus
but was good friends with Wes so I hopped abourd. Scourge was a very good
clan, but I had a conflict with some of the members and the 'democracy'
system that ran it so I left and was recruited by Conf, Mgame, Nomad, Havoc,
and Nikon into Gamewyze. They named to sMn, broke up, and once again, and I
joined exodus.

If I could pick any players to form a team it would be:
Serbian - lt. I know he hates me and I like to talk shit to him, but
there is no arguing that he is one of the best players in Wolf.
Samus - med. One of the nicest gamers i've ever met. Very smart med
with a good gun too
Nomad - lt/med. Very good gun, and is smart... if Laws isnt around :P
Slag - whatever. Great player, plus he does impersonations on vent
Laws - best sniper in wolf
Anybody but me - panzer. no comment
s0r - waterboy
fatninja - bench warmer. I suck :)


MortaL: You are currently on Team eXodus after sMh's
disbanment in the later part of last season, what made
you join exodus, was it because they won CAL-M last
season or was it for other reasons. Alot of your sMh
teammates joined tTt, would this have been a 2nd
choice if -x- didn't work out or why not?

-x-fatninja: The main reason I joined exodus is because they asked me to try out. I was going to play with arabian goggles, but decided not to for reasons i'll leave unsaid :) Trinity was not my second choice.


MortaL: What do you think is the best setup for good gaming:
having a good system, good mouse and keyboard
settings, ping settings, or just good sense of the
game? Mix and match the answers together if you want.

-x-fatninja: Well in order to give advice on how to be a 'good gamer' i'd have to be one... which i'm not, but I think a good system helps. You dont need a supermachine that holds a 333 fps, but it is nice to be able to get 125 or 76... anything below that becomes almost too choppy. I think knowing
how to play the game is more important than anything else, though.


Mortal: Finally, shoutouts. Thanks for the interview fatninja. :)

-x-fatninja: All of my former clan mates... Samus, Wes, Havoc, Nikon, Ralphthenader, slag, Laws, Nomad, Cocaine addict s0r, Eternal, MasterMoe, Cade, Millitant, all of BYE, warrior, Alphaneo for leet binds, Spec_Opz for benching 7-8 warri0rs, conF and Mgame for giving good head, anyone else im forgetting sorry, i'm tired of typing... and anyone who actually read this interview... i'm sorry for putting you through all of this. Thanks for your time!

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Interview: ChumChum

Posted by: c[_]`Wippuh (Thursday, May 20, 2004)

In the history of wolf there might not be anyone who measures up when it comes to filling the role of all time nicest player. ChumChum has been around forever and has been leading some of the most popular teams the game has ever seen. Add in his work on base2 and tundra rush and you have an individual who has done nothing but positive for the community.

Enjoy the interview :D

c[_]Wippuh: Tell everyone who you are, what you do, how you came to wolfenstein and what stopped you from being either a) a soap opera star b) the lead singer of a hair metal band.

<<ChumChum>>: Well, my name is Brian Boxwell and I am a computer technician. I have been playing wolf since the mp_test. My buddy keef and I had been waiting for it to come out for most of that year. Before that I was playing Unreal Tournament but was ready for something new. RTCW was just amazing and I was quickly sucked in. I never made it into a hair metal band as I have no hair :O


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[_]Wippuh: The first team that many remember you from is SToP. Short Transvestites on Prozac! The site is legendary. What is the story behind that team and what do you remember the most from those days of wolf?

<<ChumChum>>: When RTCW came out, Keef and I knew we would be doing the clan thing. However, he had just stepped down from leading his Mega Team Fortress clan to do RTCW full time and wanted a break from the leadership role. I had never lead a clan before and didn’t want the responsibility because I had started a new job and wasn’t sure how much of my time it would take up. So Pancho, keef’s wife stepped up and said she would do it. Problem was, we didn’t have a name. So one night while they were going to dinner, she pulled up to a stop sign and yelled out STOP! They quickly agreed that stop would be a good clan tag but they needed to figure out what it stood for. So over dinner, they relayed names back and forth. Some were down right retarded. But then keef came up with a keeper and Short Transvestites on Prozac was born.

When SToP started playing wolf, it was just all fun. Competition was barely a thought. This all changed when we played our first scrim against some clan called The Inner Party. They only had 5 so it was a 5 vs 5 on beach and assault. Their lineup consisted of Nard, Sunstyle, Quartz, Prodigy, and Hollywood. My ass is still sore after that night. They were spawn camping us on the beach :/ I spawned, I died, I cried. It was unreal. Until that time I, like many others, thought our clan was the baddest of the land.

After our scrim, they lost 2 players so quartz asked keef and I if we wanted to ring. It was in this scrim that I learned about this great new technique called “crouch”. I also remember quartz or Hollywood trying to tk/revive me on the tarmac and I was like wtf stop shooting me noob only to then realize what they were trying to do! After seeing those guys play, it became a goal of mine to get that good. I have yet to reach that goal.

SToP joined CAL-O season 2 with pretty much no hopes, just seeing what this CAL thing was. We ended up doing pretty well that season. However, to this day I am still upset we lost to LQD on beach 3-2 back when they had people like Warrior and Warpath playing for them.


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[_]Wippuh: After SToP, the next big stop was Outsiders! How did Outsiders form and what is the basis of the tags?

<<ChumChum>>: SToP started losing interest in wolf plus we had a bit of a power struggle since I wasn’t the actual leader of the clan but I did a lot of leading. Add to that the ego I had developed and things just came apart. I was always pushing for people to learn nade spots and learn to strafe jump and just trying to make people play the way I thought they should play. This is NOT the way to do it. Everyone has their own style and that is part of what makes a team great and fun. Anyway, I then thought about a cool clan tag, something original. I wanted something that didn’t look like a clan tag at all until the whole team was on the server together. I eventually came up with the . I then had to think of a name to go with the tag and since they were on the outside of my name… lame I know.

So I had a name and a tag. What else do you need? Oh ya, players. I had met 2 people playing wolf who I seemed to get along with really well. One was Goose who I met on a server I used to admin called Forge’s Frag Fest. The other was this lad named WyattC in some clan called Trinity. Goose and I were still trying to decide if we could actually put a team together because neither of us were really known at the time. Still aren’t :o Well, Wyatt had a falling out with tTt and decided he would join us and get this outsiders thing going. It took us like 2 months to recruit or first player. We were very selective of who we brought into the clan so our recruiting process was the slowest in the history of clans. By the end of the season, our roster consisted of myself, WyattC, Goose, Nubs, Seed, Busty, shoeshine, and pissclams. These guys all rock. We didn’t have as much skill as the other clans out there but we had a lot of fun together and that made us a better team.


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[_]Wippuh: While with Outsiders, you had a very good run all the way to the cal-o championship. You finished in 2nd after losing to Redemption in the finals 3-2 and afterwards the team disbanded. Why is this such a popular trend? Wolf hasn't seen a team from cal-o finals go on and compete for a full season in cal-m :\

<<ChumChum>>: Yeah, it’s sad and I am kind of embarrassed that I was apart of and the cause of our break up. I had put so much into wolf by this time. I even made strats in flash where you click on the word “ladder” for when the offense was rushing ladder and it started an animation of where we should setup. Insanity. I would be lying in bed trying to go to sleep and then I would get this idea for a strat, hop on a server with a couple guys and show them what I was thinking so I didn’t forget it. I just basically burnt myself out.


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[_]Wippuh: After the disbanding of Outsiders, you vanished from the competitive scene for a long period of time. What were you doing during that time and what brought you back for more wolf?

<<ChumChum>>: Well, actually I thought I was going to take a break but I ended up playing with Wyatt and Justin in the clan slateoon. I wasn’t as involved in wolf as I was before so I just showed up and played. We ended up just fizzling away by the end of the season. After that, ET came out and We revived SToP to play the first season in TWL but it didn’t go further than that. Also during this time I became an ET admin for TWL. Just before coming back to wolf, I tried doing CoD but it just doesn’t quite fit my gaming style which is run out, die, respawn, run out, die, etc.


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[_]Wippuh: Now after the hiatus, you came back and quickly churned out two maps in Base2 and Tundra Rush. How difficult was it to learn how to map and why do you believe that experienced custom mappers have such a hard time getting their maps accepted in leagues, while league players learn the software and quickly put out maps that get league play time?

<<ChumChum>>: Base2 was actually pretty old. I had used the source .map file to learn from and just kept messing around with it. Plan9 was also learning mapping the same time I was and we ended up passing base2 back and forth just changing stuff around. We eventually decided to try and make it a WolfTactics map by mirroring it. But when WT died, the map kinda did too. Then plan showed the map to some of the OPP players and they put it on their private server and played around on it. Eventually, a few people saw it and people mentioned trying it in preseason. By this time I was out of wolf but made the changes people requested on the forums because Plan9 was off playing final fantasy or some crazy game like that.

There is this misconception by most gamers that a custom map is not as good as a professional map just because it was done by a person and not a ‘gaming company’. The reality is that most of these stock maps were made by guys who started off doing maps for fun much like nib, gerbil, chavo_one, rummie, menzel, and hummer. These guys are just amazing mappers. Lets use Hummer as an example. He put out some really good maps for wolf that got criticized. He recently got a job with a major game developer so those same people who criticized his work will soon be playing on his maps and loving it. Sure it’s a bit different with a company because they have standards and goals that have to be met. However, if a mapper like Kolosok offers to make a map specifically for competition and asks for feedback, its up to the gamers to give it to him otherwise they won’t get what they want. So when the map is finally released, they will bitch about why the map sucks.

The thing that bothers me about these 2 maps getting played in the leagues is that I am not a good mapper at all. I don’t even consider myself a mapper. There are tons of good maps that could be played but because they aren’t stock, their faults are magnified. As if the spawn camping issue in base doesn’t suck mutant donkey ass.


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[_]Wippuh: Tundra Rush in particular getting a lot of praise. When did you decided to work on this map, what were the goals you set when you went into the project and how long did it all take? What was the process like? What possessed you to change the map from a dyno obj to a doc run? Did you see it being this popular? What changes do you plan to make to the final version?

<<ChumChum>>: Menzel released the source to Tundra, which was a favorite of mine. I remembered how CAL and TWL used the map in preseason but it had some minor complaints. I figured maybe I knew enough to make those changes and there could be another viable map for competition. I again took ideas posted on the forums to make some changes. While I was doing this, I also made a Doc run version because I have always preferred them to dyno objective maps. Eventually, people tried the Doc Run version and liked it.

I guess when I look at a map, I see it differently than the typical mapper. I see the potential strats that can be used and change things to even the map out. In the case of Tundra, The biggest problem was how it was Axis friendly. With the help of people like Wippuh, Virus, Fuzion, and InvisibleMan, those faults were curbed. Then, I would spend a lot of time doing timing runs. The time it takes to get from initial spawn to the flag. The time it takes to get from the flag to the objective and objective to the transmitter. From those times, I adjust the initial spawn points and spawn times. I also had the help of players like Slaya(fast fucker) to help me tweak the spawn points so that the Allies and Axis have an intense meeting on initial rush like mp_ice. As far as changes for final version, its all up to the players.


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[_]Wippuh: Reader Questions!

From Rampage - Back when wolftactics came out you were a big supporter, why do you think it failed so miserably?

<<ChumChum>>: I think it was a combination of factors. First, ET came out at the same time. Second, the weapons and classes looked a little too much like RTCW even though they were meant to be totally different. So when Wolfers see a bazooka, which they know as a panzer, shooting rocket after rocket, it appears lame to them. Then you have the mp40, which is THE gun in RTCW almost useless in WT, people will get frustrated.

- From Killa Sin - What is your obesssion with making your own PB style WARNINGs and spamming them on pubs? Thanks cause those are very annoying and kinda childish.

<<ChumChum>>: I always thought people enjoyed them :/ They are just things I do to lighten the mood. Too many people take this game so seriously that they miss out on all the fun. Besides, I am in fact fast AND danger.

- From b3e - Is it peanutbutter jelly time?

<<ChumChum>>: When is it not?


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[_]Wippuh: In the whacky question department, we're gonna go with the hair metal theme. You're a manager from the 80's and you've got to fill out that perfect band lineup with nothing but Wolf players. Who would you recruit and why? We need a drummer, 2 guitarists, keyboardist, lead singer, 3 backup singers, a bassist, someone to play the tamborene and 2 strippers to dance in cages above the stage! Tell us the name of your band and the classic hits you might cover in concert!

- drummer – Laws_69
- guitarist 1 (the v shaped guitar) - WyattC
- guitarist 2 (guitar with 2 necks!) - Chocula
- keyboardist - Pissclams
- lead singer - Pingan
- backup singer 1 - Wippuh
- backup singer 2 - Invisibleman
- backup singer 3 - Thorian
- bassist - Goose
- tamborene - Seed
- stripper 1 – Da_G
- stripper 2 - ZedsDead


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[_]Wippuh: Shoutouts!

<<ChumChum>>: Big shoutout to anyone playing wolf who doesn’t feel the need to put anyone down and just play the game and have fun with it. Rhea for making such a cool shit piece of software! Everyone check out Mozaki, it owns OSP :p http://zone.msn.com/en/mozakiblocks/default . Wippuh for doing all the other interviews because people like them even though this one will surely suck. Narf for being an awesome team with an awesome attitude. And of course DarkJunkie. Without him, I don’t know where I would be today.


Missed an interview or want to read an old one? Check out ze Interview link list!

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Interview: George

Posted by: c[_]`Wippuh (Saturday, May 22, 2004)

Some n00b player from n00b team that now works for some n00b gaming organization. Planet-RtCW.com got the chance to interview this unknown so as everyone can get a look into the mind of the less than average gamer :p



c[_]Wippuh: You're one of the biggest names to ever play the game. Tell everyone how you got into gaming and how you went from there to Wolfenstein and then to the CPL.

CPL|George: I got into online gaming in the summer of 1999 playing Half-Life Deathmatch after seeing a friend play it. From HLDM I went on to play many different games as one platform wasn’t enough to fully keep my attention. Counter-Strike was the game I spent most of my time playing at a high competitive level. After CS, in terms of playing games used at major LAN events, I went on to play RTCW.



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[_]Wippuh: The Doctors are the epitome of RtCW lore. How did the team form and did you ever imagine that you would one day be winning/earning money from playing video games?

CPL|George: After the 2001 winter CPL event I formed a team with 4 other players to create a powerhouse CS team. Even though things were going great for us in the CS community, after playing a fun RTCW tournament (BoB1) we decided to play RTCW as our main game and attempt to win Quakecon 2002. At this point our whole starting line up had already won a fair amount of cash playing video games such as CS, Q3, etc., so this was nothing new to us.



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[_]Wippuh: Summarize the run that the Doctors experienced through RtCW. From picking the game up, the BoB finals, the Cal-I finals, Qcon to retirement. How did it look from your vantage point? Was there ever a time where the Doctors seriously considered coming back to play the game?

CPL|George: We picked up the game 3 days before BoB1 had started. We knew we were really new to the scene so we just practiced 1 map a week while learning a new game using the skills we’ve obtained from previous games played. Losing in the BoB1 finals was disappointing because we all wanted Gamecubes and video cards but looking back at our accomplishments in a game we just learned to play was quite rewarding on its own.

CAL and online play we took very serious. However, we did not take it serious to the point where we had to win; we took it serious as it was the only means to practice for upcoming LAN events. Half our starters were very inactive so when the CAL-I finals rolled around we had to use a few back up players. We lost a very close match to a great team but it wasn’t a big deal to us. We knew if we could compete with some of the worlds best clans online with half a starting line up, when it came time to play on LAN with our starting line up there was nothing to worry about.

Quakecon was a great experience for our team. I think our performance speaks for itself at that event as we only lost 1 round the entire tournament due to a bad call on my part. We also obtained sponsorship from ATI right at the actual event. It was an exciting time for us. After winning Quakecon we wanted to take a break from RTCW and just move onto another game to. We considered coming back to RTCW but that never materialized.

This is where things changed for the Doctors. I was offered position at the CPL shortly after Quakecon 2002 where I saw potential and took the job. I had to drop from the Doctors and the team lost the sponsorship. This is where the team split up and went their separate ways. Wombat and Wiseguy found success in being apart of one of the best North American CS teams. However, if we look at current events, a majority of the Doctors are back together but are now known as 3D.CoD as one of the top teams in that community registered to compete at the next CPL event.



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[_]Wippuh: The qcon2k2 finals saw the Doctors face off vs iN in what is considered a classic match. What do you remember about that match and that qcon in general? Who were your toughest opponents that weekend and was there any satisfaction in seeing iN win the next year knowing that you had already beaten them?

CPL|George: What I remember the most is the bad call I made to rush the flag and play very aggressively on defense. The reason it was a bad call is because there’s a specific time frame when it’s good to rush on ICE and we went against a golden rule our team made and it cost us the first round. We got killed right after our spawn time and were never able to establish our main defense and they capitalized with a fast cap.

I also remember the next round we set an even faster time which I think really shook iN up to where they never recovered. It was the turning point of the match because when we set up our defense on that map we knew they couldn’t penetrate it and they didn’t. Yes there was satisfaction seeing iN win the following year knowing we had already beaten them.



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[_]Wippuh: After Doctors quit playing RtCW you came back and had a brief stint with Locked on Target in BoB2. After playing the powerhouses of the first few seasons in Darkside, Abuse, cK and wSw, how did the new teams like NARF, deathTouch, Z and others stack up? What were the biggest differences that surprised you and what were the biggest disappointments? Why was LoT unable to get to the finals?

CPL|George: The major difference I saw was that on average, the aim that most players had improved greatly. Strategies that teams used were pretty much the same. One thing that surprised me was a lot of teams were using “European strategies” that I found very easy to pick apart. The biggest disappointment was the community going on witch hunts for cheaters which is something I never had to deal with while playing RTCW before and one of the reasons the Doctors decided to leave CS.

LoT didn’t make the finals because there was no chemistry. There was chemistry between certain players but you need a whole team on the same page to expect to win anything at a high competitive level. A majority of that LoT team that played in BoB2 had never played with one another and it cost us. No matter how good the players are on a team you need chemistry. That’s one of the main reasons why the Doctors have had success playing multiple platforms together; our chemistry was unbelievable. I believe given a little more time that LoT team could have won BoB2 with the potential it had.



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[_]Wippuh: "I watched the demo's, wasn't impressed". The post that started perhaps the biggest flamewar the RtCW community has ever seen. However, the basis of your comment was that strats > guns. iN might have had great guns, but Drs won because you possessed both great guns and great strats. All teams realized this yet still to this day you have teams that neglect strats in favor of just high tuning their personal shots, why is that?How did your team go about forming the strats that are pretty much the basis for many today? What were the areas that you focused on in those initial formations?

CPL|George: I’m honestly not sure why teams neglect putting adequate time into their strategies. Maybe some players prefer trying to improve their personal skills for immediate online fame instead of looking at the bigger picture. Having great aim is natural but it can be worked on with little practice. Having great strategies and perfecting them on a team basis is not natural and it takes a lot of practice to execute them perfectly.

A lot of our strategies came from just brainstorming in empty servers or just brainstorming on our own time. I would mainly come up with the strategy and then the team gives me their feedback on what we went over and usually what a majority of the team wants they get. We didn’t have a hard time agreeing on things and used scrims to practice multiple strategies to fine tune positions. I think it’s a great skill to visualize the way a strategy will pan out before you actually test it. The less time you spend coming up with strategies the more time you can practice executing them and working on your aim.



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[_]Wippuh: In that thread, several Dr players state that Drs leaving RtCW to play Counterstrike was based purely on the competition level and that in terms of play RtCW was a far superior game. Despite being a highly successful game, why do you believe that a game with such a high level of spectator friendliness, play value, number of maps and numerous other positive aspects, failed to break through and dethrone CS as the top team game? What keeps the massive CS community from going somewhere else and what will it take for a game to 'knock it off'?

CPL|George: There was nothing wrong with RTCW; it was almost as good as it could possibly be. The reason it didn’t dethrone CS is because of CS. The CS community goes back to 1999 around the same time I started online gaming. The community has grown so large it’s going to take more than an amazing game to dethrone it. I don’t see one game being the cause of CS dying in the future, but I see many games in the future that will eventually dethrone CS together although the most played game at that time will steal the spotlight. The only thing that can dethrone CS is time itself.

What will be interesting is CS on the Half-Life 2 engine. A few things can happen here. Gamers can just quit CS altogether and get into Half-Life 2 or another game. The community can split between CS on the original Half-Life engine and CS on the Half-Life 2 engine. If you’ve seen the screenshots from CS on the Half-Life 2 engine the game looks much better so we might also see a high majority of the community all switching over to CS on the Half-Life 2 engine breathing even more life into this old dominating game in the industry until CS2 comes out. Time will tell!



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[_]Wippuh: Of course, when speaking about CS, the CPL comes straight to mind. Take a moment to explain to everyone what the CPL is all about. How it ties into CAL and what the ultimate goals of the CPL are. What is your function within the CPL?

CPL|George: To put it simply, the CPL is all about pushing gaming computer competitions to the level of a professional sport by today’s standards and that is our ultimate goal. CAL is our amateur division where a few hundred thousand gamers compete against each other online.

My title at the CPL is Press Communications Director. The best answer to this question is on our website. Here’s the quote:

“George coordinates the activities of the CPL Press Center, including requests for interviews; and the distribution of CPL press releases.”



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[_]Wippuh: The CPL throws 2 major lans a year. What is the process like in organizing each one? How do you decide on the games to be played and what are the pros and cons of selecting games for the lans without them even being released yet?

CPL|George: Only Angel could provide an accurate summary of the process involved with organizing a CPL event but even that summary would be the size of a short novel. That alone should give you an idea on how much work goes into each event. Its months and months of work by a large staff at the CPL who deal with CPL related issues on a daily basis that makes this all possible.

In terms of how we decide on which games get chosen for CPL I’m going to cheat again and give you a quote from Tonya on our forums:

“In general, we consider many factors before selecting a game, including the size of the community, the applicability of the game to tournament format, spectator appeal, sponsor interest, the motivation of the community to be included in our events, etc.”

The CPL no longer chooses games before they are released. On the other hand we do consider them and keep a close eye on them and upon release if we’re interested in a specific platform we ask the community their thoughts on the game which helps us come to a conclusion while considering the other factors listed above.



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[_]Wippuh: How does the CPL and their events differ from the other massive lan events like WCG and Qcon? Are they seen as competition or is there a bigger picture that is being looked at? If so, what is the major 'competition' in terms of that big picture?

CPL|George: Events like WCG and ESWC take the best players and teams from many countries and provide an Olympic type or World Cup type of events. Qcon is a fun free event that promotes specific games. The CPL is an open tournament where we allow anyone who is willing to compete at a chance to win our large cash prizes. In 2004 alone we’re giving away half a million just in cash prizes.

Even though the CPL is an open tournament, we attract many of the top gamers and teams from many different countries as well while at the same time giving the average gamer a chance to have fun competing against the worlds best players. The most interesting thing about the format we use is that at times an average gamer or unknown player comes out of no where, plays the game of his life and upsets a top player or team.

We don’t see any other organization as competition. We make that statement on a regular basis when asked but it’s not out of arrogance like most people think. We see these other organizations as being on our side and we respect them greatly. The more successful they are the value of the CPL increases and vice versa. We might not all have the exact same ultimate goal, but from what all these organizations provide today, it’s helping the CPL reach its ultimate goal. So to answer your question, yes there is a bigger picture.



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[_]Wippuh: Shoutouts

CPL|George: I’d just like to give a shout out to all of the CPL’s sponsors. They make all this possible and the community should support what they have to offer as they are supporting the community!

I would also like to let the community know to keep an eye on the CPL's upcoming activities as we will soon release news that we believe will advance the sport to an entire new level.

Missed an interview or need to find an old one? Check ze interview link list!

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Interview with Shawn "Nail" Hawken

Posted by: Mortal :o (Tuesday, May 25, 2004)

Interview with Nail, of Affliction. Expresses some of his opinions on such topics as RtCW (duh), Qcon2k3-2k4, and gaming in general. Enjoy!
______________________________________________________________________________


Mortal: First off, tell us why you started playing video
games, what you do, your name age, etc. Also tell us
about your rise to fame in RTCW and how you got the
lovely name nail, and the alias cookiemonster.

-a-nail: My name is Shawn Hawken, 21, full time student at Univ. of Tennessee Knoxville. I first started playing games back in Doom 2 days and
followed most of the iD software games all the way up to Quake 2. From there,
little dabbling here and there with Worms spin offs, Heretic 2, and Unreal
Tournament. Roommate at college introduced me to RTCW MP-Demo and was
hooked instantly. I'd never played games competitively til RTCW and found my
way onto EnterTheGame quickly in search of clans. The name nail... well
that came from a personal change in nicknames from skimp to nail, which I stole
from a euro friend of mine.


Mortal: Can you list some info on the clans you've been in, a
timeline of them and why they fell or why they are
still around, and why you joined/left them.

-a-nail: I can't even remember the first clan I was in, but I remember trying out for a lot of clans at the end of BoB1, even affliction. I ended up joining Krieg B Team with Dakota, odin, and herf... which quickly died and dissolved. Funny part was that the B team was the 'lesser players' and most of them went on to better clans. After Krieg it went WolfMorder -> Circle Noir -> ][magine -> DeathTouch -> Affliction. May have missed 1 or 2 in there but the first 3 all died pretty much when I left for some reason, things were probably going pretty bad. In ][magine I hooked up with a local boy Illumina and he and I went all the way to Affliction together.


Mortal: You have been in the deadly lineup of affliction's
RTCW roster for along time. What have you seen change
and what happened to the newest reincarnation of -a-?
Also, do you plan to compete in RTCW this season, and
with who?

-a-nail: The only thing that has changed since Quakecon 2003 is that nobody plays RTCW together anymore. The newest reincarnation of Affliction was supposed to play in CAL but not enough people were interested to sign up for the roster. This season I actually will be competiting, and it will be the first time I've not played with the same 4-5 guys since DeathTouch. I'm on SuckaFree's lineup with nard, gisele, laws69, vem, and decka.


Mortal: What other games do you play competatively, or is it
just RTCW?

-a-nail: After discovering RTCW I did not think I could find another game just as fun to play, especially on lan, as it. However when Halo came out there was a considerable amount of hype in the beginning and many of Affliction
played it together. I however was the only one that could put up with the buggy
parts of the game in addition to the unpolished netcode. I sought out teams
for Halo not knowing many of them such as Kaizen, Abuse, and Demise. Ended
up I snuck my way into Demise's lineup and played for them at Winter CPL
2003.


Mortal: What kind of music do you listen to?

-a-nail: Country, Techno, Rap, Hard Rock, and Hip-hop... basically anything that I like.


Mortal: If you could change one thing about RtCW what would it
be?

-a-nail: Tough one. Part of me wants to take the /kill side effects from ET and combine them with RTCW. For instance throwing an Airstrike, calling a mortar, or firing your panzer and suiciding you have a full bar of energy. But the other part of me reminds me that I usually play panzer so... nothing.


Mortal: With the "return" of clans like tTt, [fX], and iN, do
you see RtCW doing anouther few years of Qcon, and if
so whats your/affliction's plans on that whole deal.

-a-nail: Of these clans and many more that have returned the only ones I would see helping keep RTCW alive is fx and iN. Many people hate fx but there has to be one of those teams in every competitive gaming scene, they drive many other teams to practice and try to beat them. iN is on the other side of the spectrum, in Europe everyone loves them, and loves to practice against
them I would assume, they help keep RTCW alive in Europe. I would be somewhat
surprised if RTCW was at this years Quakecon, but not totally. If it
even shed light on the next Quakecon, that would be the shocker.
Afflictions deal with Quakecon + RTCW is up in the air as many of us are playing other games. Brian is playing CoD with wat?, Illumina and Chrome are playing Lineage 2, that takes out 2-3 of our roster, not sure what would happen but we
would try to make an effort to reform to return to Quakecon for another great
tournament.


Mortal: Finally, shoutouts. Thanks for the interview nail.

-a-nail: Shoutout to all past and present Affliction members, Dimmak, Aphrodite, all the dT guys that I played with RTCW and Soldat with, SlaG and Laws69 for keeping Quakecon interesting, ChaosLord, and everyone else I'm sure I missed a lot.

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Interview: Warzone

Posted by: c[_]`Wippuh (Monday, June 14, 2004)

It's rare that you're able to find that l33t ringer who doesn't bitch but leaves a great impression on your entire team. However, we ran into him the other night and Warzone was nothing but super cool.

It seemed only proper to keep in contact so that everyone could learn a little more about some nub named Warzone!

Read on!

c[_]`Wippuh: How are you doing man? Everyone wants to know, who is warzone? How did you get into gaming? How did you find your way into wolf and your history since you started...

Warzone: My name is Everett Pattison and I am 17 years old and I'm from Nova Scotia, Canada. One hour ahead of eastern time. I first started getting into game was when my uncle introduced me to rtcw. I was instantly addicted to the game. I asked for the game for Christmas and I got it. I have been playing ever since.

I started my gaming career in Red Dragons. I had played on XINU server with them for a long time and I decided to ask RD-Universal (also known as Warmach1ne) if I could join. They let me in. We weren't the best team around but we did well in STA ladder. I also remember enjoying the red dragons pub with increased speed and charge times. From then on I think I went to Vicous Insanity. A cal main team started with me, jaytee, vatican, centric, aimology, justin, impulse and a few others. After that team had died I joined team demise with impulse. I remember we were scrimming deathtouch (new deathtouch with holly, nail and all those guys) and we took a round off them and we were excited. The team would of been good if it stuck together, but due to clan hoppers it died. From there I went on to Z-Unit / [TAF]. This would have to been the best team I have been on. All the guys were cool as hell and we were good too. From there I join ICF with prod1gy. I later on left ICF and joined the CAL-M champions exodus. Due to everyone being burnt out this clan soon died. I was a free agent again. I joined up with Hostile which had a huge roster but only had 3 people on for match day, and due to other eternal problems I left. I had the most offers to join a team ever in my life. I finally decided to join eXe which I am in now.



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[_]`Wippuh: Of course, when the name Warzone is mentioned, your prowess on the n00b tube is immediately thought of. What dictated you toward this class and when did you notice that people were really giving you respect because of it? Who do you look at as a pf that you really marvel at and why?

Warzone: The reason I chose the n00b tube is because of my computer and my connection. I found it very difficult to shoot with 100-150 ping and 60 fps. I don't really marvel anyone to be honest. I have seen some of the old demos of the greatest panzers ever, and to be honest, there were plenty of mistakes I seen them make.



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[_]`Wippuh: In wolfenstein, there really is a perfect package of skills that you need to accel. Individual smarts and aim, teamwork and communication within the team, just to name a few. Those are all well known and discussed extensively. However, there's a few 'external' factors that contribute too, some of which you're all to familar with. Tell us about how you believe things like time commitment, personalities and most importantly, hardware, all factor into how far an individual and a team can go.

Warzone: It is very important to have a team commited to you and you know that won't hop mid season. I have been a victim of clan hoppers before and I hate them for it. I am on eXe right now and some of the guys on this team have big personalities. I know for a fact that some of these guys can be straight up assholes, but its just their way of joking and I guess its just the way it goes. Can't really change people. As for hardware, well I really believe hardware really improves your game alot. I hear about people like serbian getting 333 fps on every map and using r_mode 9 and is using all those fancy icemats and fatpads and stuff like that. And these guys simply rage, no questions asked. But I gaurentee you if you put these guys on a shitty machine these guys would have much more difficulty getting a kill. (Not a personal attack on serbian though, just the first person to come to my mind =)



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[_]`Wippuh: Recently you were able to ring with Office Space :) A lot of the guys don't pay attention to the scene but really enjoyed your personality and had nothing but nice things to say about you afterwards. It was a big surprise to them when I told them who 'teakettle' was and they were even more impressed that a 'l33t' 17 year old could be so cool this late into the game. What do you see as the benefits of carrying such a personality instead of the typical e-thug persona? Why do so many choose the other route?

Warzone: Well sometimes I joke around about being an e-thug with people I know, but don't use it all the time. I guess the reason I didn't choose to be an e-thug was because of the whole stupidity of it. E-thugs probably spend more time typing threats out over the internet than going outside.



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[_]`Wippuh: Speaking of ringing, there seems to be an overflowing well of pro ringers out there that don't play in the leagues. Guys with the experience and time that would make them valuable to almost any team. However, none of these players seem to be willing to take up the responsiblity of bringing them all together to form potentially 4 or 5 more teams to play in Cal/Twl. Why is it that these guys will not form teams and help the game they all play so much anyway?

Warzone: Most of those guys just play for fun, and don't want to worry about making playoffs or showing up at certain times to scrim. They just want to enjoy freedom and maybe meet new people when they hop on vent with different teams to scrim.



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[_]`Wippuh: In the course of a career, Wolf can get very tedious sometimes. The scrimming, the constant race to eliminate mistakes, etc... Almost everyone though will cite the excitement and adrenaline rush of when it all comes together as why they keep playing though. Tell us about those times you really remember fondly, when everything was clicking and the game was nothing but fun for you :)

Warzone: Hmmm, well I really don't remember much of my wolf career, I probably missed a few teams I've been on in the intro question. But if I had to choose a time when things went smoothly and had no mistakes were when z-unit played locked on target on village. Even though a few of their players were being ping raped, I still strongly feel that we would of won nonetheless because our whole team was just clicking together. We had lost the first round because we decided to hold tavern (which we sucked at) and got ran over and never recovered. The next rounds we held the cemetery and got full holds and sub 5-minute caps.



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[_]`Wippuh: With the roster deadline today, who will you decide to sign on with and why? When looking for a team what do you suggest players look at if they want to have both fun and a successful run?

Warzone: I signed with eXe yesterday because I have been ringing for them for quite a few times and I like their playing style. Most people know that some players on this team get out of hand sometimes and I fully agree, my ears sometimes hurt after hearing mindgame scream about something stupid =) But if you want to join a team and have a successful run you need to scrim with a team multiple times so that you can see if you like the way they play and if you like their personalities.


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[_]`Wippuh: Reader questions!

- Ethug - Hmm, how about.. Do you or have you ever pinged below 100 to any servers? What's the deal behind the whole Nova Scotia connection joint.

- Warzone: Yes, I ping below 100 on Speakeasy NYC, WDC and sometimes CHI. I guess when I live this far east and this far north, the connection just doesn’t get there fast enough. =)

- Rampage - Why did you leave the defending TWL Alpha Champions, a well established, very well known clan Intense Combat Forces for a free agent clan that ultimately fell apart?

- Warzone: The reason I joined ICF in the first place was because of my good friend prod1gy who very shortly after went to play CoD. I played close to 2 seasons with ICF. The reason I left ICF is because of the fun factor. They were all cool guys and all, but

- Fuzion - Explain to us one of your famous arts, and how it came about, the warzone PRINTSCREEN. ;p

- Warzone: Heh, the warzone printscreen is just another unfortunate effect of living in Nova Scotia. I get 2-3 second lagouts every 2-3 minutes, and I have no idea why. I’ll admit it has helped me out once our twice, but for the majority of the time it usual screws me up hardcore.

- Fuzion - Take us to the past ... tell us about the 6 man panz on iNfensus and how it worked out :)

- Warzone: Well I got a 5 man panzer on iNfensus on mp_beach. iN decided to scrim us because they were preparing for Quakecon. Anyways, they had 6 people in the basement with the docs, there was me and dual32 on the radio stairs. They were all at the bottom of the radio stairs and I was on the 1st platform. I took my shot and blew 5 of them away except for the doc carrier. The doc carrier kills me and I yell at dual to get him cause he was coming up the radio stairs. Lucky for us dual had gone 999 and they capped on us. =)

- Cypher - Who is hotter...Cameron Diaz, or Demi Moore

- Warzone: Cameron Diaz because I’m more into the blondes and I find Demi Moore to look kind of old :O



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[_]`Wippuh: You discover the mysterious technology that replicates your gaming rig and connection 6 times! You have the honor of handing these out to 6 lucky wolfers in order to form a super team known as r_mode3! Who are the 6 guys who you would give these out to and why?

Warzone:

- [r_mode3]warzone – I think everyone wants a new computer

- [r_mode3]pissclams – Saw his computer specs on the config repository plus he’s a cool guy.

- [r_mode3]wonderbread – This guy rages with a bad computer, think of him with a new computer?!?

- [r_mode3]wippuh – For giving me this interview

- [r_mode3]cypher – For giving me a good laugh with his Hank Hill and all his other goofy impressions.

- [r_mode3]gtx – I have been on a team ringing and for some reason I always ring against team distress, and for some reason I always panzer this guy. So I think he need some compensation for his misery =)



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[_]`Wippuh: shoutouts

Warzone: I’m too lazy to think of everyone who I have enjoyed playing with so I’ll give a shoutout to everyone except for cypher, cause he sucks. =)

Everyone msg ICF|Rob|TWL and tell him to send the 5 man infensus shot =)

Missed an interview or need to find an old one? Check ze interview link list!

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Interview: Spec_Opz

Posted by: c[_]`Wippuh (Wednesday, June 16, 2004)

Star is putting together a really good run in Cal-M during a day where you don't see new teams last for long at all. At the head of Star is the one and only Spec_Opz. Read on to see his thoughts on a multitude of subjects pertaining to wolf.

Thanks Spec!


c[_]`Wippuh: Hiya Spec! Tell everyone who you are, what you do, how you got into gaming and what brought you to Wolfenstein.

-*-$pe<_0pZ: My name is Joey Bender and I live in Seattle area. I am doing a gig as a sales rep for a German parts manufacturor. I bought a home pc about 3-4 years ago. They threw in some cd's of FPS stuff and my fav was "I'm Going In". My favorite SP FPS shooter of all time. Incredible graphics, sounds, weapon realism, anyways I started peeping the FPS/ MP reviews online and this one game kept getting all the rage, RtCW. So I thought wth. I went thru the SP and thought man, I'm not into skulls and goblins. In fact, a friend gave me a Q3 cd and I loved the fast pace fragging but, once again I am not into spooks. So one day I just tried the MP link and it put me on a beach with bullets flying all around. I was in. I spent a few months on nothing but beach. If the server rotated I jumped off to go back to beach elsewhere. I spent most of my time on Fun for Phreaks with 20 v 20 or w/e trying to cap docs. About that time I started into clans probably like any other n00b except I was a few months or so behind the "test generation". Once OSP was released for clan play I never went back to bani, shrub.



c[_]`Wippuh: You're currently doing extremely well in CAL with your team Star. How did you form the team and what were your goals for this season? Tell us about the guys you pulled together for Star and what they each bring to the team.

-*-$pe<_0pZ: Well, I sat out a season to make predictions, chill and run my pub server CovOps (ip= 69.12.85.34:27960) and I had always been the new guy in a clan and had my own ideas and although I was very vocal in clans I was in before, I didn't have total say. I wanted to shop my ideas and see how they worked and so Mu7h@ from teh Birds last season, was really cool and let me jump into their vent once a week and give them a strat for the upcomming week. They took it from there, scrimming it and making their own tweaks and I didn't really try to interfere too much. Teh Birds played very well and deserve their own credit. Almost made the Championship matches of Open and Beta but got 'bagged. So I thought, I want to put together my own clan and just see what we can get done as a new entity. I had interest from a lot of really great players but, I was an unproven leader and a lot of friends opted for their own paths. No problem, wolf is about making friends and staying cool so I always wished those guys luck. I really wanted friends to come and join me and all I really asked was not to be an asshat, and be a team player. I didn’t spam irc or post forums, I handpicked everybody.

For Star roster, we have Time-Bomb (med, doc runner) who is one of last old school –a- members who traded ‘bows with iN at QCON. Ex-leader of old SAINT, and all around player and one of my best RtCW friends. We also have KrAzYkAzE (med/ lt/ engy/ timer) who was leader of Tv clan and anybody in Wolf knows him and he has a solid gun and a short fuse, hehe. We have trigg3r (med/ lt/ sniper) from bwg and he has a solid smg and is another guy with a short fuse but, he gives our clan attitude. Also trig is one of my best Wolf friends and he has a lot of war experience with him. Then we have doNka (med, doc runner, sniper) who was the leader of kinetic unfortunately, we will lose him to vacation after week 7. We have Mu7h@ (med/ lt/ engy/) who is the ex-leader of the birds from last season, say it once to him and it is done, a real quiet nice guy. We have end0 (med) who is a real nice guy and shows up to every practice and scrim. We have AlphaNeo (lt/ panz) and diab1o (panz/ med/ lt) from eXcal as well. I play med/ engy/ doc runner mostly.



c[_]`Wippuh: That being said, what is it that makes it so difficult for other teams to put together a roster and keep it together for Main? You can see many Main teams break up due to 'lack of people' and then see their entire rosters spread out among 2 or 3 Open teams :( What do you think the real reason is? What's the solution?

-*-$pe<_0pZ: Well, our roster is mainly more mature players and we know what we can and can't do in wolf. A lot of young players get pissed over a loss and want to rename/ disband. Losing blows but, if you did everything you could and followed game plan and lose, give the other clan credit. A lot of guys are looking for an e-title and want to hop to the stronger clan. I have no issue with that. As I said losing can be hard but, making friends is as important, imo. Main is very tuff. You have a clan like AI who has the best roster in RtCW and frankly, some people do NOT want to get rolled by those guys, period. If you are not on that roster so, what can a guy do? Retire/ sandbag/ hack/... not me. I'm giving RtCW this season and then who knows, it is losing some numbers but, the peeps who do stay are actually pretty good in general. Dropping down to thump on Open in a preconceived plan is very weak. It is what is destroying the real Open teams trying to get a foothold in RtCW. If you want to have fun "raging" go make an OGL clan and introduce them to OSP and maybe they will say, "hmm, let's step up and see what we can do". I am not against the “fun” Open clans that just chill for fun and don’t scrim, it’s a lot different than stacking up for an Open rage.

The solution is very difficult. I look at RtCW at the moment as a hobby. I take the strat portion of Wolf into thought and have fun with it. It is the only thing keeping me in Wolf other than my friends making me laugh so much. So perhaps one solution is to try to recruit new blood from the other non-OSP leagues and get them to up their game. Forget playing RtCW to make coinage, lol. Only play wolf to enjoy a fast pace class oriented FPS to keep your hand-eye sharp. Also, as I said I am in it for at this point, to take every map, make a new strat from a blank sheet of paper and see what the scrims tell you to adjust. Listen to everyone in your clan and show each other respect. Always try to scrim the best clans to expose your weak spots. Lastly, get on the pubs if you don’t want to see the game totally go. Nothing lasts forever though, so enjoy your time because change is constant.



c[_]`Wippuh: What are your biggest pet peeves about the community? What are the greatest things about the wolf community to you?

-*-$pe<_0pZ: Peeves. Most of my peeves are gone. Pubbing, all the bs I saw a long time ago like knife tapping, tk-smurfing, doc killing etc, are way down. It is the main reason I started my own server. I couldn’t stand the anarchy the other servers were doing. A complete waste of time. The only real peeve left is hacking. I feel anybody who hax in a video game is the ultimate loozer and has real life issues happening. Smack talking in a match, real low. Incessant forum hating with negativity spewing. I really don’t read nor post comments on forums anymore because they are just so stupid, breeding grounds for lameness. I do enjoy things like the Bread contest and some of the positive articles though. Lastly, I would have to say the idiots in WTV audience who get owned in a match and nevertheless, talk smack in console to get their name up in lights and be very bad audience members. Nothing wrong with a funny “dove on his own grenade” lol, etc but to type “this guy fookin blows” and stuff like that is uncalled for as are the ‘slams’ for the guy camming the match.

Greatest thing;
People. For every asshat posting on a forum, there are 10 guys who are on the down low and really a level headed person. I really am glad for the friends I have made in my time with Wolf.

Leagues. CAL and TWL absolutely rock. It is run better than any semi-pro football team, and better than most city politicians can do. The rules are fair, the admins do a great job, and the schedules/ divisions are pretty good. WTV rocks as well.
Planet-RTCW. That site is top notch. Other than too many n00btardz spamming venom on it the stocks, news, pows, predictions, etc, top notch.



c[_]`Wippuh: Invisible Man is a controversial figure in the scene. Out of everyone, you perhaps played with him the longest competitively. What did you learn from him in terms of what to do and what not to do when it comes to leading a team? What do you think about the rep he has earned?

-*-$pe<_0pZ: Well, I met Jeff on a pub one day and we were discussing how I was disenchanted with my current clan as the strats were not working and he was also peeved that his current clan wasn’t scrimming hard enough. So I said let’s make our own clan. We put together a clan called *exec.ute*. I came from STA and had no clue of the history between SpY and the leagues. It really never came out until we started winning as *.* then all this crazy stuff came up in forums and I am like, wth? Really, at the time Jeff was a nice person. He was very cordial on vent, we got along great. He and I definitely had some clan thoughts in common as to practices prior to scrims and continually tweaking strats and knowing when something works even if it isn’t being run correctly. The only thing I knew about Jeff then was he and I took RtCW seriously, very seriously and we were focused on strating every map fresh. The only thing I never cared for on his teams were the allowing of people who didn’t practice nor scrim to jump in and start in matches, if the strats are not too complicated one can get away with this but, as one runs more complex strats, you simply could not allow that to happen. Also, I never condoned using 4 ringers in a scrim, lol but if the other are not around it is tuff, I also didn’t care for the allowance of match global stuff or forum rage which he allowed. I did really enjoy those days with the guys though. Then one day he tells me we were kicked from leagues. I began to uncover some skulls in the closet. I am not a politician. I only wanted to play Wolf. Anyways, long story short, we made SuperHer0s and won a CAL Open title and he was still pretty cool until they announced CXG. He really changed after that and I think I speak for some of the other guys that he became very short with everyone. CXG hopefuls came, heard his attitude and left. We all knew it was over after the season ended. I have very fond memories of Rome, Kami, tb, emI, Kozac, the twins in that run. I haven’t spoken to Jeff since CXG but really he is not a bad meaning person, he means well however, one thing, he can’t formulate his thoughts well on paper because on vent he is nothing like that, or wasn’t. In real person he will give anybody his last dime. I am very disappointed in his continual negative posting with his axe to grind with TWL and his continual promos of AA on RtCW fragile forums is just not good. Be happy Jeff . =)



c[_]`Wippuh: GL HF MDA! Multiple Delayed Attacks is now a cliche joke line for many of us, however beneath that is a truth about the importance of timing and coordination when it comes to a team being successful. What are 3 similar things that you think a lot of teams don't do enough when it comes to being successful at wolf?

-*-$pe<_0pZ: Timing and coordination are EVERYTHING in a strat. Some maps you just spawn and go. Others you must regroup for the pushes. Classes are every bit as important as the spot. Without ammo, you get no X-fire, without needles, you don’t survive many pushes. Just as important is intel/ communication. I’ve learned that you can win scrims until the cows come home and come match time, if you don’t have total communication, it will cost you (actually, Kozac saw the iN vs –a- mp_base demo and it was he who suggested we use it to throw off 502nd in the tunnels, hehe).

3 similar things that I think a lot of teams don't do enough when it comes to being
successful at wolf;

1. Taking an iN, dr’s, NARF or an –a- strat and thinking it will work for your clan. The team leader must look at his roster and then make a strat which employs the envelope of talent he has without trying to force things from some players who can’t be comfortable in the strat. Everybody has seen the demos so even if they don’t run them, they know how to break them by now. Obviously, some spots flat out are fixtures in wolf on some given maps.

2. Have a practice prior to your scrim. Scrimming right off and running around getting shot at while trying to explain to somebody what he doing wrong while the clock is ticking will ultimately end up with a very solid, STFU from somebody. =/ Also, a lot of lame people will post demos, clips or screenshots of your clan in a scrim if they feel they can bring you down and get a laugh. If you are on your first scrim and may even have a ringer or two, and they could already have the map down and it makes you look bad, and ends up a very bad experience. So, take time to run over the strat and protocol prior to a scrim. Personally, I do not believe in ringers, although at times I have used a few potential recruits or a few close friends to ring as a 6th. Anymore than 2 ringers is a waste of your time, gives away intel of your strats and teaches the guys who didn’t show up nothing.

3. Don’t be afraid to make a complete new strat from a total blank sheet of paper. Assign terms to it so your clan can speak the language of the map. “2 in coming on that one ladder thing!” means squat to nobody. I use a sheet of printer paper and write “Defense” on one side and “Offense” on the other. Note spawn times, choke points, spawn protection, and critical spots in the map that will make or break your O and D. Make classes, and assign rotations that are realistic and this means when one side of your Defense falls, you must compensate with fast rotation and when all breaks down, assign a failsafe spot that must not fall. Do that for as many phases as you feel you will need given the various milestones which may progress through the course of the map. However, keep the damn thing simple. Scrim the theory, revise the plans, re-scrim, etc. By game day make final pre-game adjustments and then go at it.



c[_]`Wippuh: Donka plays for Star and is good player. He's noted a lot for being a speedy little Euro :p Of course to maximize your speed, you have to have a tweaked out cfg and beefy vid card to up your fps. How much of a role do you think hardware plays into q3 based games and do you believe that this is fair when the playing field is not level across all gamers? What is the solution?

-*-$pe<_0pZ: Hehe, yeah doNka is “the fastest man in Wolf” (:p) now that brian and elusion retired. I can say that like a hoops shot or a golf swing “your” config may not work for me. Everybody is different. Some guys have incredible reflexes and can go a particular sensitivity while others don’t have such a steady hand and need to go quite another. Everyone knows the magic FPS numbers to get max efficiency out of your strafeing and you find the one your unit can hold the best and from there balance your maxpackets to an even integer usually 1 or ½ of it and then mess with yr sensitivity. I actually made my own from scratch and is not 1337 by any stretch. I have the usual spawn point and class/ weapons binds and team chats but that’s about it. I see some of these configs and am like omg how do they actually do all that crap in game? I speak to a lot of peeps on configs or I used to, and it is no surprise that the top shooters usually have the numbers on lockdown. The Wolfer ultimately has to aim the damn cursor though in any case. Most vid cards will get you 43 or 76 FPS in wolf, and the higher end ones give you 125 and 333. I don’t feel a guy with a 76 has that much more disadvantage than the guy with 125 however, I use 125FPS because it gives me more pleasant/ smooth mapping graphics imo. Ping is so much more critical. Connection, routing, server proximity is crucial. If I could play Seattle/ LA with 100 maxpackets and a 30 ping I would be a different player than I am now. As it stands to play Central (CHI or DAL) I go 30 maxpackets and ping about 75, not great but decent. Hardware is the tent pole in MP gaming no doubt. The latest pc’s have great vid cards, processors, sound cards, monitors, memory, hi-tech laser mousse, etc. Makes a big difference and gives an edge. All is fair in Love and War. =) The solution is cut back on the smoke and save for a pc beast. Seriously though, a great crossfire and smart lightning fast rotation will balance out a lot of inadequacies of an individual within a 6 v 6 concept. Still it will come down to a duel inevitably, with a west ping you just learn to not waste bullets, bursting and pre-fire are certainly a tool. I think there are some top players out there like Rem, Vat, Slaya that if yr cool to them they will help out in general. I honestly just focus on strats in my little knothole of Wolf. In an actual match, trick-jumping is really not much of a factor other than running docs and even then if the Defense knows the spots players use, they just cover them. Knowing each map accel points can’t hurt though. All the hardware in the world is not going to help you any more than valuable experience, competitive strats and vent/ communication.



c[_]`Wippuh: I noticed that you've given a lot of input into threads about people working out and/or losing weight on pw.com, etc... The gaming lifestyle isn't exactly the greatest when it comes to being physically fit, and games like ffxi/evercrack are actually ruining people's lives (come back Baby, Joe and Ping!). There's games out there like DDR that schools and parents are using to keep their kids fit! Where is the balance and when should people question the time they're putting into games?

-*-$pe<_0pZ: Good one. Personally, I put a lot of time into RtCW when I am in a clan. If I am not in a clan I just pub a bit and spend more time outside. FPS games are mainly played by people from 18 to 40 +. When you are young like under 19, you have resilience in your muscles and ligaments, tendons. Once you get into your 20’s if you remain with bad eating habits (junk food) and little to no exercise, you are really doing yourself a disservice. By late 20’s you will really have a difficult time regaining your past waistline without rigorous exercise so, stay active while young and never stop. A very underrated “exercise” is simply brisk walking, always my ground zero when coming off of bad injuries. I enjoy, Martial Arts, Weight lifting, Hoops, walking, and hill climbing with a bicycle. Obviously since RtCW my training has gone down but, I always get in 3 times a week some cardio and lifting. As important is proper eating. One rule, if man makes it, don’t eat it, (cheese whiz in a can, processed foods high in salt, etc) if it comes from the earth (fruit/ veggies/ fish/ low fat meats), go for it. Obviously, other factors like fats and cholesterol factor in. Everybody should watch their fat intakes and cholesterol no matter what your age. That stuff stays with you man. The balance should be, do your daily cardio/ exercise FIRST (even ½ to 1 hour 3 days a week), then reward yourself with hours of RtCW guilt free. Junk food is “funny” and lot’s of peeps like to joke about how much crap they like to eat. Nothing funny about an early heart attack, imo. No need getting pwnt by food.



c[_]`Wippuh: I've got a lot of famous movie characters. Match them up with community members and make sure to tell us why too!

-*-$pe<_0pZ:

- Cameron from Ferris Bueller's Day Off
Anybody who was talked into a wallhack as a “hey man give it a harmless try”

- Spicoli from Fast Times at Ridgemont High
Me. Sean Penn played my HIGH skool dayz exactly except maybe I was even more abusive on myself. Ggzez. (btw, I would really love to tap Madonna)

- The Dude
Dirtay, nuff said.

- Austin Powers
the Wippuh. I think you would have been happier in the 60’s on Haight and Ashbury than dealing with todays youth. =)

- Wayne and Garth
ConF and mindgheym. 2 guys outta control, beating a latest “schwing” into the ground and laffing themselves silly. Heart those 2 nubs.

- Don Vito Corleone
Hollywood. Although I don’t know him personally, he has set the USA bar of RtCW gameplay with the highest USA finish at QCON and he is the Godfather of Wolf imo.

- Lumbergh and Milton
Lumbergh is nomad. Condescending boss man figure who is above all of the rank and file, hehe. Milton is Loyalgaurd who is not aware that they fired him and will ultimately burn down the building, haha.

- Gny Sgt Hartman (lee ermey)
laws_69. Obviously, you pukes. Actually, laws is Al Swearingean from Deadwood (HBO) to the tee.

- John McClane from Die Hard
WarRi0R. That mo-fo dies harder than Bruce Willis.

- Carl Spackler (Bill Murray) and the Gopher in Caddyshack
Didn’t see this one but, from the promos I’ve seen I’d say Wippuh vs Inviseyman would be close.



c[_]`Wippuh: Shoutouts!

-*-$pe<_0pZ: So many way kool bruthahs; end0, time-bomb, Pissclams, slaya, remedy, trigg3r, WarRi0R, Vatican, Ser8!@n, doNka, Bread, Mr. and Mrs. T, laws_69, gisele, ConF and mindgheym, nomad, Kk, Mu7h@, warpzone, Rome, emI, Kozac, the twins, Dirtay, $crilla, F@ded, Kep, Woolf, Kovert, AlphaNeo, revo1ver, diab1o, samus, fatninja, comm0n, Robes, G-thong, pinche Stormy, Fuzzy, SilentStorm, Akasha, Hartm@n, Team Burque and last but not least the not so Invisible Man! Sorry, I know I missed some peeps and I am just too tired, ggzez.



Missed an interview or need to find an old one? Check ze interview link list!

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A Metrosexual guide on How to Not Look like a Gaming Geek at Qcon.

Posted by: c[_]`Wippuh (Wednesday, June 23, 2004)

DeoreDX brings us a good guide on how to NOT dress at Qcon this year. From http://www.damageclan.com/forums/showthread.php?p=2030#post2030

I could easliy have written twice as much as I did, but for brevity's sake I tried to keep it as short as possible.

ABSTRACT: The geek. This much ignored subspecies of humans if often ignored and ridiculed by the public. Though mocked and shamed the geek is the backbone of our society. It is the geek who drives the economy with their high paying nerd jobs. It is the geek whom advances technology in the hopes of bigger, faster, more abundant free porn. Without the geek we would not have high speed internet, technical manuals on the Starship Enterprise, and kids would still play outside instead of spending hours and hours bathed in the eerie glow of a CRT.

Chances are that the 5 females that will be going to Qcon will most likely have significant others. This leaves the guy/girl ratio for the geek at Qcon quite low. What the nerd looking for female companionship must realize is that there are females out there who do not know what IRC is, do not instant message, and do not prowl internet message boards looking for pictures of Legolas or Aragorn. But, unfortunately the attire of the average computer gaming geek/nerd tends to detract the average female, leaving the large male nerd population to battle over the 5 taken females that will be at Qcon.

As a self confessed half-Japanese metrosexual, I have been able to hide my darker nerdier side in a veil of Kenneth Cole, DKNY, and Johnston and Murphy. Because of this, unlike the average geek I have had dates, kissed a female that was not my sister or mother, and have has sex since Bill Clinton tried to use an intern as a cigar cutter. My hopes here is that a computer geek/nerd may take some of my advice on how to not dress like a nerd and perhaps use this knowledge to attract a member of the opposite sex. There are plenty of fish in the sea, but if you limit yourself to the 257 female gamers in the world you will most likely die a lonely person.

SHIRTS: Rule one of how to not dress like a nerd: Anime is out, period. Yes you may enjoy watching Inyuasha on adult swim and love to proudly display your favorite anime character on your shirt, but nothing screams “I’m a huge dweeb” more then an anime shirt. Yu-gi-yo, Pokemon, Dragonball-Z, Cowboy Beebop, Sailor moon, etc. Leave them at home. Remember your goal here is to attract someone with ovaries, not another male geek who too knows about the arcane anime figure on your shirt. If you must pay homage to a cartoon on your shirt, retro Hanna Barbara is currently “in”. Mighty Mouse and Underdog would be two safe shirts to wear. The exception to the Hanna Barbara clause is Johnny Quest and his homoerotic man partner Haji. Unless you want to the world to know you’re a pederast, stay away from the Johnny Quest stuff.

Similar to rule one, Leave the Star Trek, Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, Spiderman, or any other sci-fi movie shirt or comic book character shirt at home. When is the last time you heard an average female proclaim “Man, that guy looks sexy in his Princess Amidala shirt”? George Lucas is rich enough, stop buying his crap! If you’re talking to a non-nerd remember; the “first two” movies that were recently released really suck major choad.

Don’t be afraid to wear a shirt with a collar. In fact, shirts with collars are in the “highy recommended” column of the average metro’s closet. Try to stay away from plaids and prints since most geeks have a very hard time coordinating their colors and knowing a good in style plaid from a bag plaid. Remember the 3 F’s when it comes to printed shirts: Fish, Flowers, or Furry animals are out. Though it is possible to find a fashionable print unless you are experienced stay far away. Solid color tops are good for the introductory metrosexual. If you have a hard time choosing a color think about the rule of Porsches. I.e. does Porsche offer this color from the factory? Black: Yes. Navy: Yes. Grey: Yes. Khaki/Tan: Yes. Pink: No. Neon Green: No. Day-glo orange: No. Nothing says “My Mommy bought this shirt for me” more then pinks, yellows, and pastels. Stay with earth tones and you will be two steps ahead in the game.

There is no need to buy shirts that a 4 sizes too large. You skinny guys, a too large shirt does not make you look bigger, and you fat guys a too large shirt does not hide the fat. The seams on the shoulders are called the shoulder seam for a reason, they are supposed to be on the shoulder at the junction between the torso and the arm. The shoulder seam is not called the half-way down my arm seam. Ill fitting clothes can really make one look disheveled. Remember, horizontal stripes make you look wider/fatter, while vertical stripes make you look skinnier. Tucking a shirt in can be a good thing (though not required, based upon the style of the shirt). Make sure you have a belt when tucking your shirt in (see ACCESSORIES).

PANTS/SHORTS: I know how nerd and geeks love reading about spoilers on the internet, so I have a spoiler for you. If you are reading this and are wearing blue-jean shorts: YOU WILL DIE ALONE (Thanks for the line Truimph). Blue jean shorts are dead, and they have been dead since ’93. There is only one person on the planet who looked good in blue jean shorts and her name was Daisy Duke. If you own blue-jean shorts, get rid of them immediately. I’m not talking about giving them to Good Will or The Salvation Army, because that would just be cruel to let the poor make such a horrendous fashion mistake too. Take then and burn them in a funeral pyre.

Much like shirts, ill-fitting pants and shorts can really hurt one’s appearance. Only homos wear Capri pants, and shorts below your kneecap belong more in a rap video then on a well-groomed and dressed man. Don’t go too short with the shorts either; the gym teacher look went out in the early 80’s and no-one likes to look at a male camel toe.

Again try to use the Rule of Porches when choosing a color (with the exception to the rule when it comes to shorts being red), and stay away from over-trendy pants/shorts with a gagillion pockets and multi colored zippers. Stuff like that stays in style for about 3 days. Classic 4 pocket cargos are good. 18 pocket American Eagle pants are bad.

Jeans (not to be confused with Jean shorts) are always a safe bet. Make sure your jeans are well fitted. No, we do not need to know what brand of underwear you are wearing and we also do not care to watch you walk around with your hand on your crotch in order to hold the jeans up. Leave the carpenter’s jeans to the carpenters, you do not need a hammer loop to carry your Jar Jar Binks action figure.Dark vintage wash is in and looks like it’s a fad with some holding power. Stay away from the old school dark jeans that belong in a 4H club meeting more then at your local martini bar. Martini Bar… 4H club… which would you rather go to in order to pick up a female (human)? If you don’t want a 4H club chick don’t dress like it.

SHOES: Contrary to popular nerd/geek belief one shoe cannot be worn with every outfit. Leave the Airwalks for when you are skateboarding, and leave the Jordans for when you are on the basketball court. If you want to look nice one MUST get the appropriate shoes. When wearing pants (which I doubt the average geek will probably want to do in the oppressive Texas heat in August) a good leather shoe goes a long way in saying “I have a bit of style”. A good leather shoe is not to be confused with an 80’s style Sebago docksider which screams “I let my grandmother buy my shoes for me”. . Darker leathers are preferred over lighter leathers which seem to into and out of style. Since I doubt many of the Qconners will be wearing slacks/pants, we will skip ahead to tennis shoes.

Leaving the shoe very loosely tied so that one may just slip it on and off the foot can really make a good shoe look ratty. The only person who looks cool in untied shoes is Nelly. If you are not a St-Loui rap star tie your damned shoes. Really, to tie your shoes takes perhaps 3 seconds to do, and even less to undo. You can break yourself away from IRC or ICQ or AIM or your local internet forums for 5 seconds out of your day in order to properly tie your shoes.

Try to get a nice simple running/trail running or cross training shoe if you must wear a tennis style shoe. New balance, Nike, Reebok, Adidas, etc all make very nice fashionable tennis shoes. If one is feeling brave, you can step up to more expensive lesser known brands suck as Salomon, Vasque, Merrell, The North Face, etc. Even though I cannot stand the yuppy/trendy The North Face stuff they make some of the finest trail running shoes you can buy. (On a personal note, I used a pair of TNF Ultra 102’s on a recent section hike of the Appalachian trail. Great shoe.) Remember, leave the ugly overpriced basketball shoes and skater shoes at home. The basketball shoes are just plain ugly, while if you are wearing a skater shoe everyone will think you are a poser unless you are carrying around a skate board. Remember, you’re trying to impress females, and females are just not impressed if you have the latest and greatest Air Iverson Jordans. Pick a nice neutral and comfortable shoe that is not expressive. The common computer nerd is not advanced enough to make fashion statements with their shoes, because more often then not that statement is “Look, I’m a huge f’n wannabe dweeb”

Sandals and slippers are NOT to be worn with socks unless you wear Depends, are on a soft food diet because you lost your dentures, or loved t be scorned by the masses. Sandals and slippers are NOT to be worn with pants or jeans. The recent trend to wear flip flops with jeans is a flash in the pan Abercrombie and Fitch wannabe fad.

ACCESSORIES: Accessories can really help out an outfit, or can really break an outfit as well. Rule one of accessories: YOUR BELT LEATHER AND YOUR SHOE LEATHER MUST MATCH. Black belt and brown shoes? Be prepared to be struck down by queer eye for the straight guy lightning. Tan shoes and a brown belt? Attire often seen in a NASCAR event. If your shoes are black, wear a black belt. It’s not a hard rule to remember. Brown shoes? You guessed it… Brown belt! See how simple the rule is? Next time you’re watching your Star War collection, look at all the popular characters. Mace Windu, brown boots and brown belt. Han Solo, Black boots and a distressed black leather belt. Padme Naberrie, White leather belt and white boots.

The metal color of the buckle plays an important role as well. Like the leather, you always want to match all of our metals. If you wear a silver watch, get a silver colored buckle. If you wear a Titanium watch, get a titanium colored buckle. If you get a gold watch, wear a gold buckle. Not hard is it?

“Well not so fast!” You say. “What about if I wanted to wear tennis shoes and tuck my shirt in so you can see my belt over my hanging nerd gut?” In these instances a web style belt does wonders. You’ve probably seen the patterned web belts at your local REI or Galyans, they are a great accessory to have. Personally the belt I wear the most is a $3-4 navy colored web belt that you can buy at your local Army Surplus store. You can buy them with a 1” web with a black buckle, the belt looks great with just about any casual attire. Since the belt is not LEATHER it does not have to follow the Belt/shoe color code, it only has to match the outfit. My suggestion for the poorly dressed geek going to Qcon is to just leave your shirt un-tucked, because I’m afraid the belt thing is too much for a beginner into the world of Metrosexuality. How someone could write advanced code for h4x0r aimbots yet not be able to do something as simple at match a belt to their attire is beyond my understanding.

HATS: There are only four people in the world who are allowed to wear trucker hats: Ashton Kutcher, the guy from N*Syn who was shagging Brittany Spears, a farmer driving a John Deer tractor, and a trucker. If you do not fall into one of these four categories stay away from the trucker style hat

HYGIENE: The beginner metrosexual will want to pay special attention to their hygiene. The metro will always tried to maintain a neat, clean, and orderly appearance. One must promote good Feng Shui on their self as well as in their environment. There are several things that a gaming geek can do to help promote better hygiene.

-Bathe every day. For proper social acceptance the gaming geek must pause their run through Hell in Diablo 2 at least once every 24 hours to properly bathe themselves to remove the built up odors of the day. Not only does the body accumulate odors throughout the day, but the gaming geek’s hair can become quite greasy after a hard day filled with Call of Duty or Unreal Tournament while drinking Mountain Dew and eating Doritos. A bar of soap, some shampoo, and proper instruction on how to acquire water from a standard bath tub is all one needs to properly bathe.
-Use deodorant and/or antiperspirant. We all know how stressful a match can be, and in stressful situations the human body creates sweat. By applying under arm deodorant/antiperspirant to ones self after one bathes you can help combat the odor causing bacteria that would accumulate though a hard day of gaming. There is nothing a real female dislikes more then a sweaty, greasy, smelly man.
-Brush teeth at least twice a day. Proper oral hygiene will prevent that halitosis that usually causes people to shrink back from you as you talk. Consult your local oral hygiene specialist for proper instruction on how to properly maintain and clean your braces.
-Comb and cut your hair. Like a prized show dog, the male always appears more attractive when they keep the growth of their extraneous body hair in check.
-Shave. Most females prefer to have their men clean shaven instead of them looking as if they had a dead rat strapped to each side of their face. The safe bet is to play the numbers and keep yourself clean shaven.
-Cologne. Cologne is useful in maintaining a clean and fresh aroma. The human body can react to aromas in powerful (good) ways, so it’s best to try to maintain a good clean aroma. Never pick your cologne out yourself, because men and women usually differ in their preference of smells. The key here is to attract the attention of a woman, not to have a strange guy come up to you to tell you that you smell good. But, too much cologne can be bad as well. Imagine that your cologne is like a Jedi force field. If your force field is too large it will repel the female before she can get close. The proper way to apply cologne is to spray one spray directly in front of you and walk through the mist. Cologne is not bug spray in which every free inch of your body must be covered with it to be effective.

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New league/ladder with custom maps!

Posted by: .Banks (Saturday, July 3, 2004)

Hey all..Ive entered into negotiations with www.provinggrounds to see if they will start a league up with custom maps. If anybody would be interested please respond so I can forward replies. :) Maps were trying to add would be te_frostbite te_kungfugrip te_mitchelldown axis complex bankraid mountain assault this would be a huge breath of fresh air for us..please go to www.provinggrounds.com register and post under my post. Its under New ladder/tournaments.

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Interview: Citizen

Posted by: c[_]`Wippuh (Friday, July 2, 2004)

You've probably heard of this guy if you play RtCW at all. Read on to find out about the formation of Abuse, the many roles that Citizen plays and what Citizen's beefs are with the game.


c[_]`Wippuh: Everyone knows who Citizen is if they play RtCW, however we really don't know much more of the simple stuff. How did you get into gaming? When did you really start becoming more involved beyond the casual gaming, etc...

Citizen: About 6 months before Q2 came out, I attended a LAN in Seattle. This is where I met wiseguy. He was running a 64 person QW 1v1 tournament (wiseguy is very old school - he was one of the original competitive Doom players under the name Lorjack). Being a casual player, I got demolished in my second round match of the tournament. But it totally opened my eyes to the competition gaming scene. Thinking that I was too far behind the curve to catch up with Q1 skills, I dove deep into Q2 upon its release. Also of interest is that I met lantern on the trip to that LAN (he travelled in the same van as me), and I vaguely remember meeting Anna Kang there before she was affiliated with John Carmack. I think her alias at the time was Nabeo.



c
[_]`Wippuh: When players hear the name Citizen, one of the first things they think of is Abuse. What was the formation of Abuse like and when did you really start noticing that the name was getting major recognition? How and why did Abuse make a transition into RtCW from q3 and then back to q3? What set RtCW apart from the other games out there and what sets it apart from others in that the top teams seem to drop the game for long periods/totally after their success?

Citizen: About 6 months after the release of Q2 I went to a local monthly LAN in Portland called PNGG (Portland Network Gaming Group). I had not seen wiseguy since the LAN mentioned above, yet here he was at this LAN. Nobody at PNGG played much Q2 as they were mostly QW players, but I somehow got everyone playing Q2 that day. One of the players there (and a good friend of wiseguy's) was toxic. Over the next couple of months the three of us started up a team with the intention of playing competitive TDM in Q2. Almost every original member was a regular PNGG attendee. Seeing as how PNGG has a 21 and over only rule (so they could drink booze the whole time without worries), the founding members were all quite mature (as mature as gamers get anyways, heh). Some fun trivia is that the three final potential team names we had were Abuse of Authority, Hit Squad, and Pale Riders (I blame wiseguy for that one). In the end we all agreed on the shortened version of Abuse of Authority and simply went with Abuse.

We competed in Q2 TDM until Q3Test came out. Then we played tons of Q3 TDM and dabbled in some CTF as well. The core of the team has always been similar, but we would pick up a player here and there to keep us going. We stuck by one very strict rule we have always had though - we only look for talented players that some of us know and trust in person. Of note on this is that I had met lantern for the second time in 1998 at the last big west coast Q2 LAN K9Con. Then a few years later we recruited him into Abuse to play Q3 with us.

So we were a bit burnt out on Q3, and I remember the guys even spent 6 weeks playing CS once (I stayed out of that one). We did not bother with the RTCW demo when it came out, but when the original BoB tournament was announced a few of us decided to take a serious look at RTCW. I remember it literally took me weeks to convince lantern to even try the game. There were things that we loved about it and things that we hated about it, but overall there was more good than bad. The classes are very well done since they depend on each other so much. And the level of coordination and teamwork required to compete at the top level really catered to our cohesion of playing together for so long. It took WAY too much time to practice and stay at the top level though. This is why teams tend to burn out on games like RTCW and either take long breaks or simply never come back. I also dislike games where weapons have a spread (spoken like a Quake player, heh). And I especially dislike the penalty of increased spread if you shoot while jumping.



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[_]`Wippuh: In the early days of RtCW Darkside was the dominant team, playing a really aggressive in your face style. Then Abuse came along, finally beat Darkside and established a set style of xfire oriented defense that is still being copied till this day. What are the pros and cons of that style vs D|S's style at the time?

Citizen: The biggest pro of our style is that it proves teamwork can trump aim in this game. The con however is that it is much easier to copy (as you mention). The longer a game is out the more difficult it is to come up with a fresh strategy idea that will be effective in competition.



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[_]`Wippuh: Darkside's first ever defeat in RtCW was vs Abuse on base. However, many look at other matches and pinpoint them as some of the greatest matches in the history of RtCW. Abuse vs cF on castle, Abuse vs III on base and the advent of the r1 d in NA, Abuse vs wSw on base again and the 5 round thriller and Abuse vs Drs on assault for the Cal-I finals. What do you remember about each of those matches, the strats and thoughts that the team went through before and during each match? What are your more memorable matches in RtCW that people don't know about? Was there a team out there that you just loved to watch/play more than others?

Citizen: I honestly don't remember much about playing Darkside, and I vaguely remember playing cF on that horrid castle map, heh. We put a ton of time in on base (our favorite and best map) to prepare for that match versus III. Unfortunately I think they did the opposite and just showed up for the match. The outcome was very lopsided as a result. I think wSw took a round from us on base right? This stuff is mostly a blur. :) Then of course there is the Cal-I finals versus doctors. In my mind they were the best RTCW team in the world. We had a few things just go our way in that match (I somehow became a very good sniper that day, and cujo made an excellent in game adjustment with his panzer positioning). Fortunately it provided some excellent entertainment for the RTCW community. :)



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[_]`Wippuh: After that Cal-I season that Abuse won, Qcon2k2 came up and Abuse was heavily favored by all the NA fans out there to go all the way and win it. What went wrong and how did the Doctors set themselves apart from the other teams to win the 1st place check? While many were surprised that Abuse didn't fare as well as they thought they would, what surprised you the most about the tourney? Going into it, what were you expecting?

Citizen: Oh man, QuakeCon 2002 killed RTCW for us. We were burning out badly about a month before the event and pretty much stopped practicing. We figured we could still do well though and that the break might do us some good. Our worst map (and what I consider a total luck map with the horrid spawn times) was sub, and we were playing it in the first round versus a very low seed (so we did not focus on it much). Well at least it was supposed to be the first round map...

After getting to QuakeCon, the tournament organizers inform us that they are swapping the first two round maps (so base is played first and then sub). Suddenly we were playing our best map against a team we could likely beat on any map, and we had to play sub versus cK. At the same time, EU teams were not practicing sub either due to it being the first round map. So entering round two, each of the three EU teams lost to an NA team on sub, and we lost to cK on it. This landed us in the loser's bracket with the EU teams on what I'd consider one of their best maps (beach). Do I think the outcome of the whole event would be completely different if the map change had not happened? Yes. This is a very good example of a tournament staff not understanding the ramifications of what they are doing. We have not played RTCW since leaving that event.



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[_]`Wippuh: Of course, after qcon2k2, season 3's invite division fell apart and many declared that RtCW was officially dead. Here we are at the start of season 8 and RtCW is still supporting a large playerbase. How much do you keep up with RtCW and why? Do you believe that teams like Abuse, the original wSw, Drs and original -a- could come back and still be on the very top? What are the major differences you see between those teams and the latest batch of upper echelon teams like NARF, dT\-a-, fx and -x-?

Citizen: I honestly don't follow the scene much (and have not since leaving it). I'd guess that the previous top teams you mentioned could compete again at the top level, but it would take 3 to 6 months of serious practice to get back in shape to do so.



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[_]`Wippuh: While being a top team in the game, Abuse gave a ton back to the community. From OSP to the Cal-I finals there was always something being given to the community. Why so much work for the scene? Even though Abuse no longer plays RtCW, you still manage the Speakeasy servers and help organize qcon. What dictates the work you put in still and what are the benefits of upkeeping the Speakeasy servers/databases for q3/et/rtcw?

Citizen: My motivations are mixed. It is fun creating things like http://pb.speakeasy.net (which was just a project over a couple of weekends that is completely automated). And all of the maintenance of the Speakeasy servers is automated as well. I guess I just like showing the community what can be done by someone with a bit of initiative and creativity in his spare time. I always tend to get involved in multiple projects (usually eating up all of my spare time), but it is worth it for me personally as long as those products are appreciated by the community. Abuse has always been big into nurturing whatever competitive gaming community we belong to.



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[_]`Wippuh: OSP is the mod everyone uses for competitive play. Before it came along with stats, the scene focused primarily on teams. There's maybe 4 or 5 people now who could name all six of Abuse's starters for any match in Cal, yet the name is still instantly recognized. Nowadays, osp has turned into a mod that is used extensively for stat whoring. Kills, deaths, headshots, etc... This has made it where RtCW has become more of a game about the individual dominating player (Warri0r, Lynch, BeavermanA) and teams are constantly changing. What are the pros and cons that come along with RtCW teams going this way? Is there anything positive about this approach? What are the benefits that come along with developing such as Abuse has?

Citizen: Abuse has always used the same core of players for every game (adding one here or there like I mentioned before). It has made us last. Our friendships are more important to us than playing games, we just happen to share the same hobbies and passion. One of our biggest advantages is getting into a new game. We don't have to go through the learning your teammates skills and behaviors phase. We simply learn the game together and trust each other from day one. I am not a fan of talent whoring, and I can't imagine it being much fun playing on a team like that for very long.



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[_]`Wippuh: We all know that you are involved in Qcon as the Director of Competition. No doubt that all the info on games for this season are not nailed down yet so we can't get that out of you, but how about some other info? What is the process like in setting up a qcon and how much work goes into it? What does your involvement include and what are the personal benefits you enjoy because of all your work? What is the difference between the way Qcon is held vs the way that the CPL holds their events? How far do you believe video games will go with these major events such as they grow extensively every year, and what role do you see the console system playing in the future?

Citizen: This question is outdated of course (I took a very long time to respond to this interview, heh). Without naming names or details, I'll just say that I did not agree with how some things were being done this year with QuakeCon. So I parted ways with the organization. My involvement in running gaming competitions is definitely not over though, so we'll see what the future holds. And to answer the last part of your question, I definitely see console systems playing a role in future LAN competitions (but they will never replace the PC platform).



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[_]`Wippuh: In addition to helping iD with Qcon, I believe I read somewhere that Abuse helped in testing Enemy Territory. What do you think about ET from that point up till now with its evolution from ETPro? With a game so similar to RtCW why do you believe that teams that play RtCW do not instantly flock to it and the multitudes of servers/players that come from it being a free game?

Citizen: We actually were not that involved in testing ET other than helping our rhea some. And to be honest, I have NEVER played the game, so I can't give a good answer to the last question. :)



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[_]`Wippuh: Lately, you've ventured into a totally new game, playing Savage with Abuse. Explain the game to everyone and what you like about it vs other games. Do you believe this is the future of the fps or is there some other idea out there that is still to be explored that set the fps genre off to a new level?

Citizen: Savage is amazing, but I have stopped playing it as well due to business in life. It is just a fresh gaming concept that merges the FPS and RTS genres very well. If it was pushed by a real publisher with big money, then I feel as though it would have been much more successful. But I am looking forward to S2's next game (whatever it is) since I bet they now have the attention of many publishers that could properly get the game out to the world. Hopefully Savage was just ahead of its time. I don't really think it is the future of FPS (I have other thoughts on that subject I am not going to share this time), but there is definitely a fresh concept that gamers should appreciate. Change is a good thing, but it is makes "Pro Gaming" a difficult concept since the entire ruleset and arena gets replaced with each new game.

Right now Abuse is just taking a break from gaming. But we should be back for the next big game that appeals to us. But unless we truly enjoy a game, we won't waste our time getting deep into it (no matter how much prize money is involved).


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Interview: Seed

Posted by: c[_]`Wippuh (Thursday, July 8, 2004)

You wanna interviews, we givva you ze interviews! This time with the championship sleeper of the wolf community, Seed! The man can not only sleep alot, he can give some seriously indepth answers to those questions that we've all been wanting to hear from a player that has been at the top of both Wolfenstein games!


c[_]`Wippuh: Seed! Tell everyone who you are, what you do and how you got into gaming! What is the path you took to get to where you are? Are there truths to the rumors that you only stop sleeping in order to game?

dT Seed: My name is Alex Donavon, I'm 19 and I live in a north suburb of Chicago, Illinois. I'm currently in college studying computer science and engineering, and I work part-time at Walgreens where I develop photos.

Along with many of my generation, I've been playing video games since as early as I can remember. Starting off with the Super Mario Bros. series for the Nintendo, I owned just about every gaming console available from then on up until the Playstation 2. Shortly after the release of the PS2, my dad bought a new family computer and I quickly got sucked into the addictive world that is online gaming. My first online FPS was called “No One Lives Forever” (NOLF). I tried the single player part, and got maybe halfway through before trying the online portion. From there, it was all over - I got hooked, sucked in, utterly addicted – never to touch the SP mode again. I probably played online for 5 or more hours every day, on a 56k modem, mind you, so when AOL disconnected me or when someone called my house, my game was interrupted (which seems hilarious in retrospect.) Anyway, I quickly became quite good at NOLF, and I eventually helped form a clan which became one of the top teams in the game: NbK. After being quite successful in NOLF, some of my teammates got sick of it and started talking about a new game coming out that was supposed to be extremely cool. They were talking about RTCW, of course! Eventually, all of my clanmates decided to move on to RTCW, so I followed suit.

I started playing RTCW nonstop – I became hopelessly addicted. For some reason, I played a lot on Happy Penguin, which was a 64 player server running mp_depot in Objective mode. After learning the ropes and playing for several hours a day, I became quite a respected and popular player on the server – however, I was criticized by my teammates in NbK for playing on such a “noobie” server, and was told to play on “good” servers like TimeLord, Konijin, and Texas Stopwatch. Playing on Texas Stopwatch for the first time was definitely a wakeup call. I realized that I was nothing compared to the players there, so I made it my goal to become a dominant player. I began playing on Texas Stopwatch religiously, and I became a pub-star - being able to get those leet 5:1 k/d ratios was my goal, and I became pretty good at it.

In response to the second question, I guess that's the path I took to get where I am. I simply pubbed a ton, in addition to nightly scrims, and I just kept working on my game. I believe that's still the only way to succeed as an individual player: practice, practice, practice. In fact, as I'm sitting here typing this response, I can't help but be a bit annoyed that I could be pubbing some ET or RTCW instead. That's just the attitude you need to have in order to succeed as a professional gamer! Har har.



c[_]`Wippuh: Over your career you have played with several different teams, many of them successful. Almost all of them look like they have different personalities. Tell us about each and how the personality of the team worked to the team's advantage.

dT Seed: My first RTCW team was Ni! (formerly known as NbK). These were a great bunch of guys - probably the most genuinely nice and non-egotistical team I’ve ever been a part of. These guys weren’t very serious, though - most of them were in it simply for fun. However, they’re still around today and remain friends, which just goes to show that teams that enjoy themselves and don’t get too burnt out or wrapped up in competition are bound to last. However, as my skill level eventually exceeded my clanmates in Ni!, I knew I wanted to join a more competitive team.

At the time, WyattC, ChumChum and Goose were forming a new team called The Outsiders. Wyatt pm’d me one night and asked if I was interested. To be honest, I really didn’t want to join them and help them build a new team – I wanted to join an already established team. Trinity was also recruiting me, and they seemed like such a better choice, having been established as a skilled team and having several widely respected players. However, Wyatt somehow worked his magic and eventually convinced me to join Outsiders instead. Looking back, I’m glad I did, because Trinity disbanded shortly afterwards. Outsiders was a great team: Chum, Goose, Wyatt, Nubs, Pissclams, Busty, etc. – all great guys with unique personalities. We had such a great time just joking around and talking on voice, yet we were fairly serious competitors at the same time - which is a rare balance to achieve, and was probably the main reason we had the success we did. In CAL that season, we made it all the way through the playoffs to the Championship match, where we played an extremely close game and lost to a very tough Team Redemption. I think the final score was 3-2-2 or something like that. Needless to say, it was a very tough loss, and shortly after we decided to take a break. I wasn’t ready to stop playing RTCW competitively yet, though.

After searching around a bit, I found out that Amish was recruiting. After one scrim with them, I knew it was the team for me. The atmosphere on their Ventrilo was such a contrast to some of the other teams I’d been looking into and scrimming with at the time. Amish were very laid back and fun to talk to - people like DeviantDuck, JimmyJack, Haas, Helmut, Gigolo, etc. were all really friendly, and comprised a very skilled team at the same time. We were a solid team and we did fairly well that season. We were said to be chronically underrated; perhaps the pinkish in-game tags and the name ‘Amish’ could be a bit deceiving? Hehe. Anyway, we stuck around and even qualified for Quakecon 2003, which we attended and competed in, but unfortunately we lost our first two matches and were eliminated early.

After Qcon, Amish decided to take a break, but I still wanted to compete. At that point, I had established a reputation as a panzer whore. Team Redemption had recently reformed, and they needed a panzer, so I fit in pretty well. We had a very strong team; however, we only lasted as Redemption for a month or so. People went inactive or quit, including our co-leader Riot, which was basically the nail in the coffin for Redemption, so to speak. Then, one night when I came home from work, I discovered that Redemption had merged with Global Assault Team, and we were now GAT. I didn’t mind at al as we acquired skilled players in Apoculos, Justin, and Dezarax. Our lineup was something like me, Apoc, Justin, Dez, Madness, and Stiegl. Unfortunately, we were soon plagued with inactivity and general lack of interest. Many of us felt that RTCW wasn’t going anywhere and we wanted something new. And so came GATs half-merge into smf-ET.

At the time, Apoc was an inactive member of a top ET team – smf. When we found little competition and interest left in RTCW, he started talking about making a switch over to ET, which was still a fairly new game at the time, competition-wise. I had never played ET for more than 10 minutes, and I had never heard of smf before, either. I soon learned, however, that smf was a successful multi-gaming team which had excelled in Q3:RA3, SOF2, and ET – and were, *gasp*, sponsored! Needless to say, I was drawn in by these claims, and I was soon invited to be a starter for smf’s ET division.

Suave (smf) was one of the best teams in ET for many months. We scrimmed frequently and devoted a lot of time to ET, yet again – we were close friends despite our seriousness, and this is no doubt one of the key factors that helped us survive many tough losses and other various issues. There’s not much else to say about Suave except that I thoroughly enjoyed my time there, and was extremely disappointed when Reed (smf>>Damage), the clan founder and overall leader, decided to move the smf Call of Duty team over to “Eclipse Gaming”. After less than a month, the CoD team decided to “take a break”, and all that remained of Eclipse Gaming was the ET team. At that point, we were still going strong, but after some serious inactivity issues and some very tough losses, we also decided to call it quits. Our starters just didn’t care anymore, it seemed – some not even enough to show up when we needed them. Personally, I felt that we had had our time in the spotlight, and there was very little potential left, so I moved on.

I took a short break from ET and played RTCW with Outsiders, and it was fun for a little while – but I knew I wanted to play ET competitively again. I joined Deathtouch, and that just about brings me to where I am today. dT is a dedicated team, and the players (collectively) actually want to work hard in order to succeed – a quality that was obviously lacking in Eclipse.



c[_]`Wippuh: In RtCW your last team was the Amish and then you went to ET and play for smf and now dT. Amish were in the upper echelon of RtCW and dT is a top team in ET. What are the differences and similarities in what it takes to be a top team in each game?

dT Seed: There honestly isn’t much difference between what it takes to be a top team in RTCW compared to ET, being such similar games. It all comes down to hard work and dedication, both on the individual and team level.

While RTCW and ET are both team-oriented games, more so than pretty much anything else out there, the individuals comprising a team are still tremendously important. Each member of the team should, ideally, be a skilled and smart all-around player. Historically, every top team of their period has had a very skilled set of individuals. I’ve heard some people claim that a few teams, like Abuse or Doctors, didn’t have very extraordinary players, yet their teamwork led the way to their success. I think that’s true to an extent: they did have great teamwork, but their lineup of individual players was nonetheless very impressive, many having successful backgrounds in Quake 3 or Counterstrike.

On the “team” level, I think a vital part of any good team is in their leader. By leader, I mean the person who calls stuff out in-game. If a team has devised solid strats, and has a leader who knows these strats by heart and knows when to call them, they can’t help but be successful. It also helps if many members of the team provide input for strats – the more discussion put into strats, together as a team, the better. All this combined with a lineup of skilled players will surely produce a successful team.

There’s also the important quality that some teams seem to overlook: you have to have fun playing together! If you’re too serious and don’t have fun playing as a team, even if you are successful, it’s probably not going to be enough to prevent burnout, especially if you’re only competing in online leagues like CAL or TWL, which don’t offer any prizes. Every team I’ve been in has had its’ own unique style and sense of humor, and the close relationships between members have always been important in keeping the team alive and together through hard times.



c[_]`Wippuh: In early RtCW days, demos from teams like D|S, abuse, drs, etc... were gobbled up by the community and commented on religiously. Those demos can directly be tied to many players stepping up their play and teams getting better, as everyone wanted the notoriety and skill that those demos displayed. How does it feel to be one of the players in ET that is setting the standard and what responsibility, if any, do you feel that requires from you?

dT Seed: It seems really odd to think of myself as one of those players – but I realize it’s probably true and just not easy for me to see. As far as responsibility goes, I’ve always tried to be a contributing member of the community by occasionally uploading demos, giving help to anyone who asks, giving my config to anyone who wants it, etc. The most important thing anyone can do, no matter what skill level they are, is help out newer players. Not enough people, especially top players, help newer players out. I’m not saying people need to go out of their way, but giving some advice, config help, whatever, if someone asks, is really appreciated by newer players. I know I truly appreciated the help that was given to me in the past when I asked players I looked up to and they actually replied and were helpful, rather than ignoring me.

There’s also the importance of uploading demos for the community to share. This is especially important in ET, where ETTv is not yet a reality. So many people appreciate demos, from any team or player, simply because they’re entertaining as well as educational. Of course, there are various dilemmas inherently associated with demo uploading: isn’t it rude to upload demos of your victory over another team? Won’t other teams copy or learn to exploit your strats? Isn’t it kind of showing off, uploading your demo? I know I’ve asked myself these very questions many times before when contemplating whether or not to upload a demo. Yes, some teams or individuals will take it badly when their loss is displayed publicly, and yes, teams will be able to copy or perhaps learn how to counter any strategies shown through the demos. These are all legitimate concerns, and these are probably a large part of why we don’t see more demos made publicly available. I usually try to convince myself that it’s for the good of the community, which I know is true. I just think back to my noobie days in RTCW when I would get so excited when a member of Drs, Abuse, Darkside, NARF, or any skilled team would upload their demo. I would eagerly download it and study it. This has been greatly lacking in ET, as only a small percent of teams upload any demos. I hope some people will start to realize the importance of demo sharing, as I feel that the positives far outweigh the negatives.



c[_]`Wippuh: Lets follow up some on the demo question. You say that you're concerned with the possibility of teams possibly copying your strats. Further discuss this in the relation it has to making the game stagnant. In RtCW you had Abuse releasing a few demos here and there and all of a sudden 90% of the teams out there were running their strats to a tee. This creates boring play that makes guys hate maps like Base because of the dreaded R1 d syndrome. It wasn't till NARF came along and really started breaking strat norms that this tide turned in RtCW. What are the pros and cons of copying a team's strat like that vs trying something new?

dT Seed: The shift from 7s to 6s in both RTCW and ET was a major factor in the streamlining of strats, which is the biggest downside to 6v6 as opposed to 7v7. After a few seasons in RTCW, there were a defined and widely known set of ‘usable’ strats for each map, and very rarely did you ever see anything new or revolutionary. This wasn’t necessarily because nobody was trying to be creative, but more that the streamlined strategies were undeniably effective, and there may have been little incentive for most teams to try anything new.

The advantages of copying an already established strat seem to be obvious: it’s easy to assign people positions and responsibilities, and from there, all it takes is some practice to ‘gel’ and make the strat work for your team. The disadvantage of trying out a new strat is that it takes time in explaining it to your team and actually getting them to understand their new positions and responsibilities. It might be an extremely effective idea in theory, but many times because it’s too difficult to actually implement, teams will abandon their new ideas and resort back to the tried and true methods. Meanwhile, there are many teams don’t even try to think outside the box and simply use whatever strats have been out there for ever, which can indeed make the maps, and eventually the game itself, boring.

This is why new maps should always be welcomed by the ET/RTCW communities, instead of being shot down for silly reasons or no reason at all, as they commonly are. At first, so many people hated playing Chateau competitively in RTCW, or Supplydepot and Venice in ET, simply because they were new. But thanks to the leagues for forcing teams to play them, they eventually became quite popular and enjoyable maps. So, to keep the game from getting stale: players need to be more open to new maps, mappers need to try and make maps more suitable for competition, and leagues need to at least attempt to integrate new maps into competition. Perhaps a little off-topic from the question, but I think it needed to be said.



c[_]`Wippuh: Congrats! In the Europe vs NA all star match you got voted as the MVP player for the NA team. With your experience at such high level of play, what did you see from the Euros that you feel dictates workin' on by the NA scene before possible Qcon matchups?

dT Seed: The Euros have a good 5-6 month head start in 6v6 play, and it’s obvious from watching their demos that they’re far ahead of North America teamwork-wise. They also have some really incredible individual players. I guess that’s to be expected, though, considering their competitive community is much larger than ours, so there’s naturally more competition, which breeds talented players and teams.

Since ET isn’t at Qcon, the only time we’ll get to face the Euros is perhaps in scrimmages or in GGL (or maybe another All-star match?!?). Unfortunately, there will always be ping issues, with either one team having a severe disadvantage or both teams having 100+ pings (which isn’t really a huge issue, but still it would’ve been nice to play them on LAN). I’ve participated in several scrims against Euro teams, as well as the All-star match, and it’s always a very fun and unique experience, despite the ping conflicts.



c[_]`Wippuh: With the NA leagues going to 6's many believe that strats will tighten up and it will become a less spamtastic game. With this, you also have the potential team/player killer in the time dedicated not to playing the game, but eliminating mistakes. How would you advise teams and players to avoid this in ET and how have you kept the game(s) so fresh for so long?

dT Seed: Obviously, RTCW and ET require a great deal of hard work and dedication for any team to stay competitive, but this is especially true for top teams and teams that wish to keep improving. Personally, I keep the game fresh by constantly trying to find new ways to enjoy it. For example, on pubs I’ll do something that I hardly ever do, like play covert ops and actually try to make myself useful to the team. Or maybe I’ll go engineer and practice landmine placement, or something else I rarely ever get to do in competition. To keep the game new and exciting for your team, you could try switching up positions and classes of players. If burnout is a concern, allow people to play different spots or classes if they want to. And there’s always new tactics to be discussed and practiced, demos to be watched. etc. Watching synched demos with other people on vent is pretty neat, and it’s the closest thing to ETTv at this point. If all else fails and you’re getting burnt out, then just take a small break. This goes for both individuals and for teams: a short break here and there can be healthy, and is much better than the alternative of a large scale breakup.



c[_]`Wippuh: The development of ETtv, or lack thereof. Tell everyone what your views are on the balance of maintanence releases vs ETTv development with ETPro. What are the boons that would come along with the release of ETTv?

dT Seed: I truly do appreciate all Bani and the ETpro team has done for ET. ETpro has been a crucial factor in the development of competitive ET worldwide. Reportedly, ETTv is somewhere around 75% complete, and Bani and his team are working hard on it as well as on ETpro. It’s a bit alarming that there’s absolutely nothing to show for ETTv at this point, yet we constantly see new ETpro ‘texstbugfixes’ being put out, which mostly fix very minor bugs and seem to add largely unnecessary features. I have faith though, and I know ETtv will be around sooner or later. Bani and his team are dedicated to the ET community and seem to really love the game, and are therefore willing to meet the challenge of programming ETTv.

Why should we want ETTv? ETTv, assuming it is similar to WolfTV, will make a huge impact on the ET community, just as WolfTV did a couple years ago. Being able to watch and chat with other members of the community about a match in real time is, simply put, good times. It helps bring the community closer together, and also undoubtedly helps the competitive scene by giving teams a look at other teams’ strategies and play styles. I really do miss the luxury of being able to watch the big matchups on WolfTV. I suppose I even took it for granted. Anyone who plays ET who has experienced WolfTV (or QTV, or any other of FonFon’s GTV programs), knows what I’m talking about. For those who don’t - rest assured, when ETTv arrives, you won’t be disappointed.



c[_]`Wippuh: Lately, we saw your return to RtCW, along with Apoc and Justin, to play with the Outsiders. What was the experience like coming back to play in Cal-M? What has changed and what is the same? Your play in ET has benefitted you in what ways?

dT Seed: I still greatly enjoy RTCW, and coming back for a bit to play in Cal-M was much what I expected it to be. It’s basically the same as I remember it - the same strats, perhaps a bit more involved, are still being used. The only thing that has really changed, as the saying goes, are the faces. Players that I barely knew about or didn’t think much of back around Qcon 2003 are now dominant players or members of top teams.

Also, there’s something to say about the skill of the teams left in RTCW after so long. After many scrims with some of the top Cal-M teams, I was a bit surprised at how well we (Outsiders) were doing, and I was just surprised in general that the game hadn’t evolved much at all since I left. I think it’s safe to say that the skill level in RTCW has declined a good deal, which is unfortunate, yet understandable, considering it’s several years old, with little influx of new players, while CoD and ET are newer have been attracting more and more players from RTCW.

To your last question, it’s hard to say whether ET helped or hindered my RTCW skills. I had taken a long break, so naturally upon returning my shot was way behind what it used to be. RTCW is so much faster paced, with ping and quick reflexes being much more important than they are in ET. Also, headshots and corner camping are much more effective and important in RTCW. It took me a while to readjust, but overall it wasn’t too big an issue.

I really can’t think of any ways which ET helped me for RTCW, but the reverse was definitely true. After playing RTCW competitively for well over a year, I learned the ropes quickly in ET and soon became a fairly well-known player. ET is very similar to RTCW, despite what many people claim or would like to believe, only ET is a bit more complex – having another class, additional weapons, more objectives in the maps, etc. Honestly, transitioning between the two games won’t be a problem for anyone who started with RTCW. On the other hand, an ET only player might have a rough time getting used to the quicker paced RTCW.



c[_]`Wippuh: Many RtCW guys look at ET in a negative light. How would you sell the game to them?

dT Seed: It’s easily understandable why some RTCW players dislike(d) ET. The first two seasons of CAL and TWL were played 7v7 with non-Euro (aka “Spam”) settings. The design of many maps along with this spam-heavy style of play could cause long and tedious matchups, with frequent double full holds. Not to mention that playing with tons of landmines, leveled-up panzers, and leveled up field op spam could just get ridiculous. I’ll freely admit that I disliked ET with these spam settings. Perhaps the only reason I stuck around was because I was on a relatively successful team in Suave, otherwise I’m not sure I could have dealt with it.

Nowadays in ET, things are much better, thanks to a severely nerfed XP system and 6v6 instead of 7v7. ET plays a whole lot more like RTCW now: it’s more tactical, clean, and ‘skill’ dependent - skill referring to smg and med-work skill, as opposed to coordinated spam skill. All I can say to those who harbor some hatred towards ET for whatever reason is that you have to actually give it a fair chance. Playing a few times on a pub and dismissing it isn’t fair - give it a serious try in competition! ET has come a long way thanks to Bani and his team, and it’s so much more playable now, both in pubs and in competition, simply due to the XP limits and other competitive-based modifications.



c[_]`Wippuh: You win the lottery and have millions of dollars. Besides doing 2 chicks at the same time, you decide to really pour your time into doing ultra positive things for the RTCW/ET scene. Tell us some things you would do?

dT Seed: Ok, so let’s say I have hundreds of millions of dollars.
For starters, I’d host the first ever WolfCon. A massive LAN party dedicated to ET/RTCW. There would be both RTCW and ET tournaments for huge cash prizes. I’d make these cash prizes so big ($100,000 to each player for 1st prize, anyone?) that ET/RTCW would attract players from all other games and successfully kill Call of Duty and Counterstrike, for good (and CPL can suck it as well). Or maybe I could just buy CPL and make ET and RTCW the main games? Well, I’d do something to get ET/RTCW the attention and following they deserve.

I’d also hire Splash Damage (or another talented mapping team) to make a new set of professional competition maps. Why not?

Hmmm… I really like those ideas. I think I’ll go buy a lottery ticket now, hehe.



c[_]`Wippuh: Shoutouts!

dT Seed: Smf (tom, rick, steve, dustin, kev, apoc, justin), Amish, outsiders, and deathTouch. <3

Missed an interview or want to read an old one, then check out ze interview link list

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Cal Main Season 8 Wrap-up

Posted by: FuZioN)nG( (Friday, July 9, 2004)



Tuesday, July 6th 2004 wrapped up season 8 with 5 (five) forfeit wins. Not a good sign as we enter the playoffs. Let's take a look at the standings.

Atlantic Conference

AI.Gaming 9-0 [9 Game win streak, 27 rounds won - 0 lost]
Arabian Goggles 7-2 [5 Game win streak, 22 rounds won - 8 lost]
R3formation 5-4 [1 Game losing streak, 17 rounds won - 12 lost]
Forgotten Kings 5-4 [3 Forfeit wins, 2 Forfeit losses]
Intense Combat Forces 5-4 [2 Game losing streak, 15 rounds won - 14 lost]
Team BillCarleton 3-2 [1 Forfeit win, 10 rounds won - 6 lost]
Saint 1-8 [2 Forfeit losses, 1 forfeit win, 5 rounds won - 24 lost]

Central Conference

Raiders Coven 8-1 [3 Game win streak, 24 rounds won - 8 lost]
eXecutives 7-2 [1 Game losing streak, 25 rounds won - 12 lost]
The Outsiders 6-3 [3 Game win streak, 20 rounds won - 14 lost]
Operation Psycho Patrol 6-3 [2 Game win streak, 20 rounds won - 14 lost]
Star* 5-4 [2 Game losing streak, 19 rounds won - 16 lost]
Urban.X 5-4 [3 Game win streak, 19 rounds won - 17 lost]
Distress 5-4 [2 Forfeit wins, 18 rounds won - 12 lost]
Team Vote 5-4 [3 Forfeit wins, 1 forfeit loss, 12 rounds won - 14 lost]
Sucka Free 4-5 [3 Matches 5v6, 1 Forfeit win, 15 rounds won - 16 lost]
Cerebral Assasins Inc. [2 Forfeit wins, 1 FF loss, 13 rounds won - 17 lost]
Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling [1 Forfeit win, 13 rounds won - 8 lost]
Iron Warriors 1-7-1 [Tied Euro Styles, 13 rounds won - 24 lost]
Euro Styles 0-2-1 [Moved from CAL-O, 4 rounds won - 9 lost]
adverse energy 0-1 [1 Forfeit loss, 0 rounds won - 3 lost]

Now the team rundowns as we enter the playoffs.

_______________________________________________________________________________


adverse energy: Inactive. Lost and /quit

AI.Gaming / Team Effect: Unstoppable. Undefeated throughout the season, the team to beat.

Arabian Goggles: With a new revamped roster including ChaosLord, Jfreak, Mario, Method, naTe, and Radigan, they're another team to look out for in the east. Definitely heading to the semi-finals, could they upset fX?

By Way of the Gun: Inactive. Roster issues = reason for disban.

Cerebral Assasins Inc.: Roster issues, lost KeP ands oops x_O

Closing Time: Inactive. Disban + Hello ET. A few members competing for 2448 in CAL-o

Distress!: They're always in the playoff race. Tough team with ALOT of experience.

Endless Gaming: Inactive. Most of their roster is now with AGoggles.

eternal Conquest: Inactive. 72 members and had 5 show up for a match :/

Euro Styles: Moved up from CAL-o after 4-0 (2-0 vs playoff teams). They rage the pubs, guess they don't have the teamwork yet. Work hard and upset someone in the playoffs.

eXecutives: I got word from Op!o that eXe will be finishing the playoffs in both CAL and TWL. However after this season they move on to ET.

Fast and Danger: Inactive. Roster issues = reason for disban.

Fear Factory Gaming: Inactive. Hello ET.

?ForgottenKings: Inactive. I think 4-5 forfeits in a row (CAL+TWL combinded)

Gorgeous Ladies of Wrastlin': A newer-older team that scrims like it's a job. Tough team to look out for that has a blast playing.

Hard Core Cessation: Disban #28

Hostile Inc.: Inactive. Roster issues, but hey they're still #1 on TWL 5v5.

!ntense Combat Forces: Active. A long-standing team thats rebuilding, but is always one of those teams to look out for. They had a tough schedule.

Iron Warriors: Their record doesn't show how tough this team is. Few tough breaks, 3 3-2 matches and 1 3-3 tie.

Operation Psycho Patrol: FUN::SPAMMING::NOOBS. The first 2 are right, but they aren't noobs ;p Another long-standing team that is rebuilt, who doesn't love these guys? A tough team to look out for, especially when they scrim.

Raiders Coven.: We barely scrim anymore ;(

r3formation: One of those border-line teams. When they scrim they can be a force.

SaintI: Worst record and main, a few recent forfeits, and the biggest roster. I'm guessing inactive.

`SiN`: AKA Team Silence in CAL-o (Moved from CAL-o to main, then reformed in open)

STAR*: They've had a rough past couple weeks, but are still hanging in there. Always a team to look out for in single elimination.

-SuckaFree: Inactive. Alot of 5v6's and a few forfeits. From gisele's word they won't be competing in the playoffs.

Team Affliction: Were they ever active?

Team Bill Carleton: The only band competing in RtCW. Awesome roster that scrims frequently. Another team to look out for in the playoffs.

Team LiQuiD: Inactive. 2 forfeits and a /quit

TeamVote: They've dealed with alot of criticism this season for forfeits and 5v6's, but have stuck it in there. One of last season's open team that lasted a whole season in main with one of the smallest rosters. Congrats guys and GL in the playoffs. They can be a tough team when they want to be.

The Outsiders: Great team to look out for in the playoffs. Their roster consists of alot of old-school players. They've been winning without Robes, who should be back soon to help them out even more.

The Renegades: Inactive. Most of their players play for Euro Stylez.

Urban.X: Name change? Who cares it's always been the same core of players. A very competitive team with 4 (FOUR) 3-2 matches. They like to keep it close.

yakuZa: Disbanned. A few of their members play for True Soldiers in CAL-o and GGAllin is 'baggin main with distress.

_______________________________________________________________________________

So thats the rundown on the teams, in my opinion. Playoffs begin Tuesday, July 13th 2004, and there's alot to look forward to. 34 teams were placed in main this season, and about 16 are active to compete in the playoffs. That makes 18 inactive teams. I really appreciate the teams that stuck it out in the rough times this season. QCON downgrading us was like a stab in the community's back, but lets keep it strong.

There's 4 weeks left (playoffs) - I'd like to see everyone scrimming and hoping for the best with their team. Good luck, Have fun, Take demos! And to all the people not competing - we'll see you on WTV :)

EDIT: Check out the playoff schedules @ http://caleague.com/?division=rtcm

rc.FuZioN
#clan_rc


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RalphTheNader

Posted by: BYE|TheHammER (Saturday, July 10, 2004)

Seeing that someone I have the utmost respect for is taking big strides in his professional career I decided to take a moment and recognize him and his upcoming big moment and do a little one on one interview with him. I give you, RalphTheNader.

Hammer-Mr. RalphtheNader, tell us a little about yourself, like your name, where you are from, how you got into gaming. Stuff like that.

BC- my name is Bill Carleton, from Cheshire, CT -- I've been a console gamer up until I bought a decent enough PC for gaming in 2001. I played UT for fun but competitively; RtCW was the first game that really kept me interested, day after day. Career wise, I landed a job as the Senior News Editor for GameWEEK magazine straight out of college. I give a lot of credit to Bryan Intihar (News Editor for EGM) for helping me get this job -- he's been a friend of mine for years now and he recommended to his boss to hire me, because of my love for games and interest in the industry. I was very fortunate to have had that experience. In addition to being a musician, I am the Director of Social Services for a skilled nursing facility, and I enjoy both avenues of my career equally. And just to get things clear, I'm only 26 and I'm a NEW ENGLANDER, not a hick like most tend to say. It's funny, nonetheless.

Hammer- In all the matches you have played in, what is your most memorable match and why?

BC- I must say that the playoff match with BYE vs. 82nd back in Cal-O season 3 I believe? It was Ralph, gfk, herr pi, fastm, commando and magic mikey that played against what would be considered some of the greats in the game now: Warrior, Kappa, Vatican (I think), Dual32, Guerrilla (maybe) and the rest I forget. We lost the match 3-2, but we came out rushing the tarmac hard and had a 2:30 cap, taking the first round -- people on WTV were really surprised, and we gained a ton of respect from that match. I was really proud to have led the team that far, and we all are good friends now, 2 years later.

Hammer-In team BC you have the most musically engineered team in the history of RTCW. If you were going to make a dream team of RTCW, what 6 people would you bring together?

BC- This is tough. I've played with a ton of great players. I'd have to have -a-brian and -a-nail -- these two are amazing at bringing a team together with great communication, spawn times, when to attack, doc running, flag grabbing, leadership, etc. -- then I would just have to bring in utility players that can play any position without a hitch and intuitively know what to do and what is expected from them: bort (dr. arkaine) I had the pleasure of playing on a team with him | -a-hollywood: strats and smarts make him a nasty addition to any team. | Warrior: he just plays the game smart and will make up for the mistakes his teams make | iN Summ3l: an incredible euro player that just dominates consistently. There really are so many players that I know would make a solid team, a basic good gun with great communication can make a huge difference. For example, when you find players who are constantly helping gib your kills, you know you are playing with a smart, attentive team. Affliction always did that, and that's what made them stand out most of all, in my opinion. That whole team is composed of an incredible amount of talent. All of them compete with the best in the game.

Hammer- Everyone in this game there is someone that has helped them grow and taught them the ways of the game. Who has been the most influential person for you in this game?

BC- I have to give credit to Team Affliction for making me a significantly improved player since 2003 -- but I would have to say -a-brian has influenced me most. All you have to do is spend 5 minutes on ventrilo with him and you will understand why he dominates. Most of his comments were quick and brief, and you would know exactly what is going on. He is the smartest player I know in the game, and it was such a pleasure to have learned from him.

Hammer-Anyone that has played with you, knows how passionate you are with strats and how creative you are when coming up with them. Making a strat on a map and making a song. Lead us into your line of thinking between the two. Are there any similarities?

BC- This is a good question. Well, in my case musically, I start with a melody or chord progression. That melody leads me into an emotion that I think coincides with the melody. I then play through the chords and try to phonetically phrase things, like (by, bo, be, fo, ma, na) and that soon turns into lyrics, (I go pee for mama). Yeah, that probably doesn't make sense, but that's how I go about it, and sometimes it just comes to me intuitively, and I'm thankful.

Strats design is similar in the fact that you have to have a concept of what you want to achieve, whether it's flag running, or spawn camping -- and then you think of ideas that would get you to that goal. Successfully by scrimming and practice. Just like music theory, you need to stick with the fundamentals for this to work. In music it's correct notes, timing, and keys -- in gaming it's getting the spawn time, gibbing and reviving -- a/s 2 seconds before spawn, mortar 10 seconds before, etc.

Hammer- What and who has inspired you on your music career?

BC- Well I picked up the guitar in 1996 when I was a senior in high school. My whole family plays and played a long time before me. I just got tired of telling my friends that I didn't play, and so I had my mom teach me some chords, which was hard to do since she plays Hendrix-style (lefty with right string setup). But eventually I got a foundation to work with in music theory, and started to teach myself advanced guitar. Now my influences range from John Mayer to Shawn Colvin, Lindsey Buckingham (Fleetwood Mac) to Randy Rhoades and Jimmy Page.

Hammer- Take me back to qcon 2003, what are some random memories, good and bad about the event.

BC - Drinking with the community, hanging out with Affliction, playing quarters with Nard and Gisele. Getting to meet the west coast guys from Narf and GLOW, and the Euros who were totally cool. Everyone I met at Qcon was incredibly nice and outgoing. Paper gave me beers during the tourney, and is an awesome guy. Dezarax was great too. Really, most of the guys I had e-motions with in pubs ended up being really friendly irl, which is a nice surprise. Holly went around pretending he was a caster from Cached.net, and his interviews were hysterical. Nail with his "I fuck on the first date" t-shirt and ryzer passed out on the BYOC floor in his tigger outfit were just a few of the great moments I took back to CT last year.

Hammer- How does the disappointing news of qcon 2004 grab you? What are your feelings about RTCW and ET being shunned from the event?

BC- To be honest I didn't watch quake 3 at all until the championship match, because I was too involved with the Wolf tourneys, and meeting the players in the community. Now I truly understand the sacrifice made to get a team together and compete, let alone make the expense to come all that way, especially for the European competitors. It's really a shame that Wolf won't be a part of Qcon2004 -- because I feel the communities' overall decision will be to stay home. The tournament atmosphere last year was the perfect buffer between going out and partying. It gave us wolf fans something to talk about throughout the days and look forward to, even if we were eliminated early on. I believe that will not be re-created with just Doom3 being there as something else to follow other than Q3.

Hammer- Not many people in their life compile a group of songs and put an album out. Take us through the process of how this was all put together.

BC- It was something that had to be done. I had a lot of things happen to me last year that forced me to write again. Between July and September of last year, I wrote 12 songs, before then it was 3 years since I wrote my last song. The reason was, I was happy, and I didn't focus my energy towards the creation of music. But once it was all gone (Mom got cancer, broke up with my girlfriend of 3+ years, resigned from my job) I had to express how I was feeling instead of thinking about it, and doing nothing at all.

The process itself, when you're doing it practically alone, is painstaking. I wrote, recorded and produced all the music, with the exception of the percussion and a few bass lines for the album. Mixdown was something completely foreign to me, so I had to study about it, how to pan and mix music so that it sounds professional. It took a very long time to get it to where I wanted it, and still there are a number of things I would have liked to improve. But sometimes it's necessary to just get it done, and so that's what I did in May 2004, I crunched and finished it.

Hammer- Your release party is coming up on your album, give some people some of the information behind it and where to contact if they want to attend.

BC- The party is Saturday, July 17th at the Thirsty Turtle in Stamford, CT. Anyone is invited, you just have to send an email to bill@billcarleton.com to confirm you will be attending, and all the information on the party is in the news under Release Party Information on www.billcarleton.com

If you're coming from out of state, I can provide a place to stay if you give me enough notice.
Hammer- You have played with a few clans in your RTCW career. Most notably, BC|, 2am, -a- and BYE. Take some of the people from your past and match them up with current/past musical artists that fit their personality or you would compare them too.

BC- Hammer = Jimmy Buffett, Sith = Frank Sinatra, Magic Mikey = Marilyn Manson, Mouse = Tori Amos, Havoc = Henry Rollins, 6Shot = Dr. Dre, Revolver = Garth Brooks, Fatninja = Stevie Ray Vaughn , Nikon = Steven Tyler, Nail = Eminem, JoKer = Mariah Carey, Multitask = Eric Johnson, MoRoN = Ozzy Ozbourne
Hammer- Who would you like to give a shoutout to?

BC- 2am, BYE, [T-BAG], -a-, bc and wwxd? clans. All the idlers in the channels that I idle in, and have for the past 3 years. Everyone who is in my liner notes in my album. Sith, Mikey, GfK, MoRoN, Herr Pi, Frosted, Nikon, Havoc and all those who pmed me saying they listened to my music, thank you for your support. I'm sorry I forgot your names/handles, doesn't mean I'm not thankful. WTV, gameadmins, planet-rtcw, team-arise and cached.net for keeping the community tight-knit and informed. The people who play this game really are awesome and incredibly funny for the most part. I'd also like to give a shoutout to id for creating vsay -- it makes wolf hilariously funny, especially on pubs. For those who still use vsay manually, you get a big shoutout. v56 and v586

Thanks TheHammer for this interview and for being an awesome person to everyone you have met through Wolf, both at Qcon2003 and online. You set the example for the rest of us.
-Bill


I would encourage everyone and stop by www.billcarleton.com and help support Bill in his career and his dream. There are so seldom self defining moments in a persons life and Bill is approaching one of his. Lets give him some encouragement in helping him start his music career.

Let me give you a big Thank you to Bill for the kind words and the chance to bring his words forward.

P.S. Sith is really Eddie Munster but you did not hear that from me.

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DeGeneration- A New Style of Game Play

Posted by: -opp bigbear- (Thursday, July 29, 2004)

Ok so after testing the new DeGeneration MOD from TramDesign and talking about it on IRC with some folks I've decided to write a little article about what I see this game as.

First of all if you have ever joined an OSP server on mp_base and wanted to DM do not bother playing this game. You will hate it. This game is even more objective oriented then RtCW ever has been. Stat whores and corner campers will despise this game and nothing will ever change their minds about it.

The basic elements of the game are simple; each team has a generator and the goal is either to build your generator up to 100% or to completely destroy the other team's generator. Panzers, grenades and dynamite (all explosive weapons?) can be used to damage the other teams generator. To build your generator you must find certain "parts" that are air-dropped into the middle of the map (each map is mirrored, like mp_bridge or mp_wizerness in RtCW). The sprocket looking parts repair your generator the most, then batteries then fuzes. The more a part repairs your generator the longer it takes to "install" it. Installing parts is simple all you need to do is have an engineer pick up the parts (walk over a part and crouch) then use his pliers on the generator to build. However, any class can pick up parts and bring them to the generator. Parts can be dropped so that engineers can then pick them up and build. There is one deployment flag that each team can take which allows them to parachute into the middle of the map when they re-deploy. Other then these features little has been changed. The hitboxes are a little screwed up right now but thats because the game is currently only in beta stages and a few weapons like the panzer seem to be "nerfed" (panzers seem to be as powerful as in ET).

Overall the game seems to be a fun escape from the monotony of RtCW pubbing for those of us that actually like strat based OBJECTIVE games like RtCW was meant to be. I, for one will pub degen here and there even if the competitive side of the game never takes off.

However, it doesn't seem to me like this game will take off as a huge competition game. The fact that both teams are constantly on offense and defense combined with the elements that will drive away the stat whores will make it difficult for this game to succeed on the competitive side. The way I see it 6v6 will not work. It needs to be 7v7 or 8v8 to really have the team sizes needed to both defend and attack objectives. Therefore, teams will need to have larger rosters to play this game but since stat whores (unfortunetly a large % of the community) will hate this game teams will have a hard time finding players to fill their rosters.

I find this very unfortunate. The game is perfectly designed for competition the way I see it. Unlike RtCW this game will actually have a lot of varied and unique strats for each map. Teams will not be able to run the same old defenses and offenses over and over and over again because of how this game is designed. However, people in the RtCW community hate and fear change and as a result maps like Depot, Bridge and other duel objective maps have been phased out of competition and off of servers because they actually take team work and real strats instead of constant CornerCamps and stat whoring. DeGeneration is basically like playing a dual Obj map like depot but with some added flare and if you have ever seen what happens to a server population when the rotation changes to depot you know that people will be unwilling to accept the game because of this.

This article is just meant to share my early feelings about DeGeneration and to educate those of you who have yet to DL it about the basics of the MOD. I plan to try to scrim this game soon (hopefully tonight) and afterwards I will be writing an article that focuses completely on the possible competitive scene that may sprout from this MOD. Personally I feel this game has a lot of potential and if people play it with an open mind it could really give a much needed boost to this community.

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Cal Open and Main Finals (Season 8) - Interviews

Posted by: FuZioN)nG( (Tuesday, August 3, 2004)

I had a chance to sit down with the 4 final teams left competing in CAL open and CAL main. The teams include v|engeance, optikal eXperience, Arabian-00-Goggles, and Team Effect fX. Check out what these teams have to say before their big matchups tonight.

Team v|engeance #teamvengeance Player: T-1000

1.) First off give us some background on v|, and how it all started. (Past vengeance and present)

well animal used to be in v| back in the day w/ marine. in between then and now animal, paladin, and myself were in a noobie clan. that's how we met up. so i played w/ the birds last season (guys i met in that clan) and paladin was away at school. after having a great run last season we disbanned at birds and i bumped into animal on a pub. he asked me and paladin to join, we did, recruited some guys from the birds and other squads, and here we are.

2.) From what I understand most of you guys have known each other for a while or have played with each other, how does this play to your advantage?

well lt goose, troll, and myself have been together for 2 seasons, but paladin and i have been playing together for about 2 years. So that’s 4 of us w/ experience playing together. it is extremely helpfull to know your guys, their capabilities and their limitations. helps us draw up strats, helps us in game. we don't have any real dominating guns so the team aspect is what we rely on the most...

3.) v| has had alot of tough matches in both CAL and TWL throughout the season, and especially the past few weeks. Explain to us how you guys manage to play in these conditions.

lots of cursing on vent. and i mean a lot... nah we scrim hard, get our asses beat during sunday and monday, then usually are prepared for the matches. each guy on our squad has stepped it up at times to make crucial plays. i credit a lot of our success to troll's panzer work, but i speak for myself only on that. also we come up w/ some crazy strats and aren't afraid to try them. true soldiers gave us tough matches all season and i respect those guys a lot - remind me of us last season. the silence match on village was crazy! probably the most intense match i was ever part of. and tbh we lucked out on the playoff maps - 3 of our best got chosen (FU ICE FU)

4.) Vengeance is now 9-3 in CAL, and is competing in the finals for both CAL-open and TWL-beta. Tell us what the road has been like.

the road has been rough, time-consuming, and stressful on all of us. i think i quit the team 17 times during mid-season. i also believe our lack of "elite" players has enabled us to survive as a whole and continue to push towards the championship. paladin took a lot of the leadership roles on his shoulders and burdened them well. we're a team i guess, not 6 individuals...

5.) What does the future look like for the clan?

the future is foggy... we almost split up right before playoffs. we're probably going to be back next season, but w/ a revamped roster and new roles. troll will be moving on to main (where he belongs) and i'm not sure about paladin b/c school starts up soon. myself, goose, 8s, and animal will be back - and i hope they let me panz :)

6.) If you guys win CAL-open, what will it mean to you and how do you plan on celebrating the event?

it will be kharmic for me personally, as we got bagged badly last season. i would love to win one for the guys w/ shitty computers and the other other guys who don't make this their job. i kinda feel like i’m in the movie "Hoosiers"... IF we win we'll probably have lots of vent sex and all that mushy shit (we'll put the ip up after the match if we win)... but no expectations man, ox and m2 will both be fierce - so we're just going to do our best...

7.) Any shoutouts or additional comments?

shoutouts to mutha, spuddy, rob and don, josh, pimplaya, esc, and pharrel (my ex bird mates), spec ops for his help last season, team burque and f1 (great guys), and to my v| teammates (i love troll sexually).

.optikal eXperience! #team_oX Player: uNrEaL`

1.) First off, tell us about .oX!, and tell us how it started.

oX saw the light around may 15th 2003. JF and I founded that clan. Whatever we do, we always keep in mind to have fun. We first joined TWL 6vs6
ladder, we had our first lost after 6 wins. We did one season with twl, then we joined CAL. Three seasons have passed and we had many interesting
adventures.

2.) oX! is the only all-french canadian team out there that competes in CAL, is this an advantage to you guys?

I don't think this is an advantage because we don't have other french teams to rival with. Although there's another french canadian team in the wolf community. WQC, wolfenstein quebec, is a bunch of fun and cool guys and girl :)

3.) After forfeiting to -SI- on MP_assault in week 7, tell us how much last week's 3-1 victory over -SI- meant to you.

It meant alot. There was alot of talk on planetwolfenstein about how SI would kick our ass, well we prooved them wrong, eventhough Hartman wasnt
there.

4.) Right now .oX! is 10-2, preparing to play v|engeance in the CAL-open finals, tell us what the road was like getting there.

This season was alot of fun, Tekoda joined us, he brought experience, plus he's a really good guy. We played two teams twice this season, in some way, it helped us. And for the third time of the season we played FMJ in the playoffs. They have beaten rabia, that was a big suprise. And the conference final was also fun which I think everyone saw or heard about. That was an amazing season with alot of surprise :)

5.) What does the future look like for the clan?

For my part, I will continue to play wolf and maybe doom3 as I enjoyed playing it for the last 2 days. I think most of our players will come back
too.

6.) If you guys win CAL-open, how do you plan on celebrating the event?

Either if we win or loose we will probably meet at the Saint-Sulpice, a little bar downtown Montreal.

7.) Any shoutouts or additional comments?

Thanks to CAL for the great season, had fun :)



Team Arabian Goggles #AGoggles Player: comm0n`

1.) Give us some background on AGoggles, and how it all started.

Agoggles started when ghetto pimps ended, there were 3 core players from ghetto pimps which was myself hoohaa and Chao$ after the season was over we wanted something to do so we formed agoggles.

2.) You guys have 3 brothers that all play for AGoggles - ChAo$, joKer, and ABomB, how much does the lan factor work to your advantage?

The brothers only have 2 computers so they mostly have to share, but joker is a really good sniper and abomb is a panz so we can interchange them when we want to work them into a strat, its nice but it would be better if they had 3 comptuers


3.) AGoggles have gone through a big roster change throughout the season, including what seemed to be a merge between e|ndless.gaming and AGoggles. Roster issues looked to be a problem, but you guys picked up ChaosLord, Mario, Jfreak, and a few others. From what I understand Mario is no longer with the team though. How did you guys manage to stick through the tough times and still place very strong finishing the season?

there have been 4 members that have remained so from the start, me hoohaa chaos and abomb. without these 4 players i doubt we would have survived, along the way we had some nice pickups but they never seemed to work well into our team, we picked up elusive and CL about a month ago and it has been working out great


4.) You guys are coming into the CAL-main finals match as an "underdog" to some people, even though you have a 10-2 record. fX's zero rounds lost during the season is somewhat intimidating. Tell us how you have been preparing for the big showdown.

we have really been working on our strat, we know fX is stacked and there all really good players, but we can only just throw everything we have at em and hope its enough, assualt is a good map for us well see how it works out


5.) What does the future of Arabian Goggles look like?

some of us are moving to ET some to d3 and some are staying with rtcw, we are all excited about the doom3 release and hope it lives up to the hype, btw anyone have a multiplayer cd key :)



6.) If you guys win CAL-main, what would it mean to you and how would you celebrate?

it would mean alot, we would probably just all yell on vent and spam our binds, this is the last season for alot of us, win or loose weve had alot of fun.


Team Effect #team-effect Player: Vatican



1.) Give us some background on fX, and how it all started. (Past and present)

fX started when myself, Wyldcard, and Impulse (Joe) were tired of Elbows and wanted to start a new team. We merged up with Team Flatline (Joker, Chaos, Bk2x, Kappa, Nightwolve, Antidote, ckyass) and picked up reaper on the side, and moved on from there. We scrimmed pretty hard, then Warrior joined up from D|S because they weren't as active as he wanted them to be. Rambo joined up too, but he joined cK, only later getting ran like the boston marathon in the first week of CAL-I.

Qcon time came around, I was in school, Wyldcard said he could go at the last minute, and Warrior was already in Frontline. Although a few of us didn't go, most of us still did, but with other teams. Nightwolve & Enforcer were in IcF, Warrior in frontline, and Impulse in wSw. They got to talking at Qcon and decided they wanted to bring the team back after Qcon for cXg. We ended up being the US team of the great Euro RtCW/ET, Rewind. The roster consisted of myself, Warrior, Impulse, Wyldcard, Nightwolve, Guerrilla, Joker, Chaos and newly added Serbian. The team worked out well until Wyldcard got banned for trying out hacks in other games. We tried to play again as Stylez with Wyldcard aliasing until Fuzion caught him and ruined our scheme. Then it went to 82nd I guess with Wyldcard not even aliasing and maybe a few more name changes I'm not sure.

All that passed and CoD came along and cXg was coming up. We decided to cut
Impulse and Wyldcard and picked up Beavermana and elusion, with the cXg roster being myself, Warrior, Serbian, Beavermana, Elusion, and Guerrilla. A little while after that, we replaced Guerrilla with Summ3L from iN, and Beavermana for decka, and then decka for slaG. It was fun finally meeting everyone, especially Bruce_Lee (0pz), but we know how cXg turned out.

After cXg, War went on to play CoD, slaG quit games for a while, Summ3L was doing his online poker thing, elusion played ET for affliction, but me and Serbian kept on playing RtCW, and ended up in Scourge. After that season, fX reformed again.

The original roster at the beginning of this season was myself, Serbian, Warrior,
Wyldcard, ckyass, and Nightwolve. Wyldcard wasn't active enough so we replaced him for Remedy. I got into an argument with Remedy because he was acting extremely stupid and we then replaced him for Nomad. Well Nomad then joined his pals at eXe so we picked up Slaya. Wolve and ckyass started to show they weren't interested in wolf so we decided to pick up Remedy (again), Rambo, and Samus.

And here we are today, playing against our old friends and clan mates (Lil' Debs, Big Chaos, and JokeraGe (:|=) for the CAL-m finals.




2.) You guys have gone through numerous name changes but have mainly stuck with the same core of players, does the constant change of teams play to your advantage?

People get real mad when we change names. It shouldn't matter to them, they aren't in the team. Not really sure why we do it, sometimes for "sponsors" (fe, u5, AI), sometimes for a fresh start (Stylez, 82nd). It doesn't change our strats or players, just a new look.



3.) fX / AI has yet to lose a round in CAL-main this season. Very similar to CAL-invite of season 5 where you guys played a GREAT matchup against ]NARF[, losing 3-2. Will experience play a role in tonight's matchup?

Experience for online play doesn't mean anything, but for LAN it's a lot different.
All a player needs to do is do his/her job.


4.) Team Effect is competing in both CAL-main and TWL-alpha playoffs, which gives them 2 shots at their first championship title. What has this season been like for you guys and how have you prepared for each matchup?

We won TWL Alpha the season we lost to NARF in CAL-I actually. The season has had its ups and downs regarding some of our player’s inactivity and failure to show up when we really needed them. All in all it's been a good season. We like to scrim Sunday and Monday a few times a night to prepare.


5.) What does the future of Team Effect look like?

Warrior will probably move on to CoD, but the rest of us (Me, Serbian, Remedy, Samus, Slaya, and Rambo) will still be here until we see a new game that appeals to us. So we might be looking for a new recruit.


6.) If you guys win CAL-main or TWL-alpha, what would it mean to you and how would you plan on celebrating?

It would definitely mean a lot to us.



7.) Any shoutouts or additional comments?

Vatican: Bruce_Lee (0pz), CAL|Bert, #carolina.
Warrior: ICF SPORTS FOR HANGING IN THERE ALL THESE SEASONS AND GETTING NO WHERE.
Guerrilla: Myself for buying doom3 this morning.
Serbian: #p!mps @ QuakeNet.
Samus: Shoutout to Holland, bulldog, and Amsterdam.
Kappa: 4v4 cod-center.com representing Joe Lopez and his broken nose.
Militant: D@n!el from old HCC, a!m0logy, #militant
Rambo: ChaosLord, Bread, Herbal-Tea, Valdez, SunStyle, Leethal, team affliction, and Joe Mama.
Slaya: Shoutouts are what little kids do.



____________________________________________



GL HF TONIGHT :)

#gtv
/connect gtv.speakeasy.net:27970





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No RTCW/ET at QuakeCon? Here's why...

Posted by: v1k!ngISCG (Saturday, August 7, 2004)

HomeLan conducted an interview with id's director of business development Marty Stratton and he had some interesting things to say. Why were RTCW and ET not included in this year's QuakeCon celebration? Here's why:

Marty Stratton - We wanted DOOM 3 to be the featured tournament and the Q3A 1v1 is simply a tradition. The Q3A CTF tournament was a favorite last year as well, so we decided to bring that back again this year. We also had to wait to make the call on DOOM 3 as the featured tournament until we knew that it would be out, and that meant that we couldn't get the RTCW online qualifier rounds completed in time to give the teams proper travel notice. We'll definitely look at bringing RTCW and/or Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory back next year, but are obviously very excited to be able to have the first ever DOOM 3 competitve tournament at QuakeCon.


There's also some info on what booths etc will be up and running at QuakeCon this year. Check out the rest of the article here: Click Here

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planet-reallife.com

Posted by: c[_]`Wippuh (Wednesday, August 11, 2004)

This is just an article to deal with some frustration that I have experienced over the last few days. As many of you guys are younger and still in school, this will really help you out in the future if you pay attention.

Document everything.

I just moved out of my current apartment. While living in what I otherwise thought was a great complex, I spent three years dealing with 3 floodings of my apartment, 2 robberies, a snake and complete lack of attention from the landlords. While the former is pretty much commonplace among all apartment managers, the previous 3 are not.

While moving out they stated I would have to pay for the price of recarpeting my apartment. This is easily $1000 and is much more than I can presently afford. There was no way I was going to pay that seeing as my carpet had been flooded 3 times. After the second time they had even offered to move my roommate and I to another apartment while they recarpeted our apartment for free. They said fine after I told them my history and I moved out.

While making sure that my roommate had carried out some stuff that he was suppose to do, I talked to the new manager. She did a walk through and stated that I was liable for the carpet and now a pet deposit of $500. We had of course paid the pet deposit 3 years earlier but they did not have any documented proof. It took me going to my bank and paying for printouts of my checks to prove them wrong. I had been flooded 3 times and they tore the carpet at the doorways to extract the water. They had not documented that, so I was now having to pay for it. They had not documented that 2 of the times were due to them busting plumbing in the apartment above us and the third incident was not mentioned at all!

Long story short, I called enough bosses of the boss to have the charges dropped. However, I learned a valuable lesson in keeping everything I do documented.

When you have a landlord say that they will get something done in the future, get it in writing! Otherwise you're just setting yourself up for some really shitty days ahead.

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Recruit, Merge, Form!

Posted by: c[_]`Wippuh (Wednesday, August 11, 2004)

There's a TON of players out there looking for teams. There's TON of teams out there looking for players. There's a bunch of teams out there looking for 1 or 2 while some are looking for 3 or 4 :o

Use the comments below to post what you're looking for. A team, a pf, someone who scrims late, etc...

Use this as the place to coordinate your efforts and form teams for the upcoming twl/cal season.

After you meet your requirements, be sure to edit your comments to say that you've met your goal.

Los los, the leagues need teams!

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Interview: Serbian

Posted by: c[_]`Wippuh (Thursday, August 19, 2004)

It's been a long time coming (9 months maybe since we first asked) but we finally hunted down Serbian to get his take on many an issue.

Read on!

c[_]`Wippuh: Yar! Come on Serb, tell everyone who you are, what the deal is with your ties to eastern Europe and how you came to play for Team Effect.

Ser8!@N: My name is Milan, I’m 25, and was born and raised in Belgrade, Serbia. During my senior year in high school, I received a full scholarship to Berklee College in Boston, Ma. I graduated in 2001, and then moved to New York City. I started playing wolf at the beginning of 2002. Back then, the wolf demo, test2, was the hottest game for my Apple G4 computer and I happened to have a lot of free time. I was a complete noob, playing as a soldier with venom all the time… I used to be so dedicated, that I’d spend the whole round by camping in the ducts, and raging with my venom, collecting points.

My first clan was a test2 clan that lasted a few weeks, because Slag decided to start playing the retail version. I believe it was called DX. Shortly after the team folded, I decided to try the retail version myself. My first team was a European team called CCCC (later P!mps). That was probably a team that I had the most fun with. 100 ping was never an issue, I was just so happy to be with my friends and have fun. There were 4 of us from both North America, and in Europe. I stayed with them almost 2 years and during that period of time I learned so much. In October 2002 we decided to make an American version of CCCC with Vladdy, Ika, Cartman and myself as the core of the team. That clan lasted for almost 6 months when our leader, Vladdy, needed some time off due to his real life situation.

Shortly after CCCC folded I joined aNimosity. During that period, SlaG and D@n!eL helped me a lot and made my game grow. After aNimosity disbanded, a few months before Qcon 2003, I joined Redemption. I had a lot of fun playing for that clan since we scrimmed every night from 9pm – 2am, and after a few months, that team was a force. We never had problems, attitude issues or arguments (except with laws over the strats). We scrimmed Narf, Frontline, and Taf, and we pretty much always played pretty good against them. The only team that was giving us hard time was affliction.

Right after Qcon, during the break between the seasons, Vatican who was also in redemption, asked me to join fX. That was a tough call since I really had much fun in redemption, but since it was a break between the seasons I decided to join. Suddenly, all the people that I’ve never had any problems with, arguments, or bad vibes started acting like I was their worst enemy. Stuff like “you killed this game for me” certainly made no sense for me back then. Incredible amounts of hate started coming from my old team members. Also, a player called exorcist, was an interesting figure at that time. While I was in redemption, he was kissing my ass to get him in the clan so I did my best to convince my teammates to let him join. Shortly after I left, he joined redemption and became the sleaziest hater, and I never figured out why. Maybe that was the part of their campaign. I have to mention that while looking for a qcon team, I tried cF (clenched fist) with aimology, logic, alien, glacier, kozac, dezarax, and Justin; and shortly before that, clan 187 with Shogun, kristoff, strych 9, etc…

Ok now fX/Rewind.us/Stylez/United5/Ai.gaming/fX…. This team is something special… we've had many different players come and leave, but the basic core of Vatican, Warrior and I, stayed the same. When I joined the team, our lineup was Vatican, Warrior, Wolve, Impulse, Wyldcard, and Serbian. We also had Kappa, bk2x and Guerrilla as the backups. Right before cxg, impulse and wyld left so we decided to pick up Beavermana, Elusion, and laws and shortly after, we dropped laws and picked up Summel from Infensus. Beavermana quit gaming so we replaced him with SlaG and that was basically our lineup for cxg.

I’d have to say that we had a lot of fun in Las Vegas. Met really kewl people there, got to know each other. The only sad part is that we had to look at Mich on a daily basis and listen to his lies. He and his other admin’s level of incompetence were confusingly stupid. It took us a sec to figure out if those guys were for real… They didn’t even know how to set up a rtcw server, and running a tourney was certainly a domain of science fiction for them.
After cxg, fX took a break since Warrior decided to start playing cod. Vatican and myself reformed CCCC adding Slaya, and Remedy in the roster. Since we had trouble recruiting we decided to merge with Scourge and our lineup became Samus, Machine, Vatican, Slaya Remedy, and Serbian. That team worked really well together but we were unlucky enough to lose to smn, since one of our key players never showed up. That team had a nice chemistry and if we stayed together a little longer it would’ve been a killer team. Right after Scourge disbanded, we reformed fX and pretty much dominated every team in every league we play.


c[_]`Wippuh: fX rolled through last season with seemingly no challenge at all. In the history of the game there's been the constant pattern of teams dominating online and then quitting after their winning. After you guys wrapped up the Cal-M championship, you were one of the first 5 or so teams to sign up for the next season. What drives you guys and what is it about Wolf that keeps bringing you back?

Ser8!@N: Wolf is simply the best fps team play game there is. We chose not to play crappy games just because they’re “new”. Even though the competition in wolf is not what it used to be, it’s still fun and until there is a better game out there we’ll probably stick with wolf.


c[_]`Wippuh: It never seems to fail, whenever you or your teammates are mentioned the word 'hax' is brought up. What brings all the hate and how do you handle it? Also, in the past fX was known for talking the smack. Nowadays, it's seemingly the exact opposite as fX has sort of taken up the mantle for NA RtCW and is handling everything very maturely, etc... What brought about that change?

Ser8!@N: Playing this game on the highest level against pretty much cal-O caliber teams will produce those kind of statements. Since there’re only about 3 teams that are at a Cal-M level, accusations and hate is just a normal thing to us. We just laugh at them. In the past, our members were young, but now, instead of our members being young and immature, we have new ones that are much older and mature. We choose not to talk smack, because then we would just be going down to their (people who try to hate on us) level.


c[_]`Wippuh: One of the biggest things that comes to mind when thinking of fX is the time before qcon 2k3. During all of the scrimming for the event, the Europeans constantly complimented fX as the only aggressive team in an otherwise very conservative style'd NA field. What are the pros/cons of playing such a style and how hard is it to play that style when everyone else was/is playing something totally different?

Ser8!@N: I have to say that during that period, I wasn’t in fX. We still utilize the same concept of game play. The good thing is that you’re most likely gonna rage the opponent so hard, that after few rounds they’ll lose their confidence. However, to successfully execute those kinds of strats, you’re required to have extremely smart players with exceptional aim.


c[_]`Wippuh: While there wasn't any participation in qcon beyond Warrior with Frontline, Effect did make it to cXg for lan play. How do you believe you would have stacked up against Four Kings (that was the big euro team there right?)? How do you believe the team would have matched up against the monster teams of yesteryear like a|, Drs, iN, GMPO, NARF, etc... Do you believe that fX is the greatest team to have not participated in a major lan?

Our goal was to win cXg, and anything less than that would’ve been a failure. Our team performance was at its peak as well as our personal confidence. There was pretty much nothing that could possibly stop us from taking that prize, not even Mich with his incredible lobbying for mp_village as the final map. Actually, that was our secret weapon, since we had that map on lockdown. I think back then, we were a stronger team than 4K, even though they’ve been together for a much longer time.

The other part of your question is hard to answer. I don’t think it’s fair to compare Abuse or Doctors with fX since they were the pioneers of the strats and team play. We basically started building on top of their base. I’d love to play iN, gmpo, or narf since they’re the greatest of our time. I really look forward to playing affliction, since they’re pretty much the only serious team on the horizon. I believe that we’re one of those teams that could’ve won it all if we had a chance to display our talent on a lan. We tried our best by going to cXg, but basically we got owned by Joe Hill and his peons.


c[_]`Wippuh: Now that we have your thoughts on that one, lets switch course and get some other info. What are the three toughtest matches or teams that you have ever faced? What was it about each one that sticks out in your memory?


Ser8!@N: Against Lot while I was in animosity on beach. We won 3-2, but it was really tough. I remember shaking like crazy and my shot was all over the place…

P!mps against Infensus on mp_ice during the qcon 2003 qualifiers. We tried our best, but that wasn’t enough to beat the winners of that years qcon tourney.

United5 vs Hostile Inc. on mp_Assault in the 5v5 ladder. We thought we had them, but we got rolled since 2 of our players pinged 100 and it was basically an impossible match up.


c[_]`Wippuh: If anything else is picked at about fX, it's the constant name/tag changing. It has been anything from sponsorships to just for a change of pace. It's pretty well known that you guys don't care for the criticism, but what is it about the change of tag that drives people batty like it seemingly does? What are the pros/cons of changing in order to get a sponsorship? Also, what are your thoughts on team concepts like United5, GameWyze, etc...? What are the pros and cons of those multigaming teams?

Ser8!@N: Picking on a team just because they change their name/tag is straight up dumb and ignorant. In our degenerated rtcw society, not so many interesting things happen and kids need something fascinating to talk about. It’s pretty sad when a forum topic like “team-effect has changed their name to united5”, has 100+ posts, and most of them are whining about it. You’d make it extra spicy if you roll people on pubs, scrims, and matches so hard that there is nothing else for them to do, but hate. Imo, there isn’t anything wrong with name changing if you’re getting some kind of sponsorship or merge with a multigaming clan, but changing your team name just for fun does get on my nerves. Then again, when I joined fX, most of my teammates were 15 so there isn’t much to expect.


c[_]`Wippuh: When not trying to accuse you of hax or picking on your national basketball team *rip USA*, people like to joke on you and your trickjumping habits. There's a lot of 'you'll never use that in a match' and so forth. However as the game gets older and older, we're starting to see actual trickjumps being utilized in matches. Other than the obvious element of surprise, how does learning to trickjump benefit someone?

Ser8!@N: Well, I started practicing Tj’s right after qcon 2003 since a huge amount of rtcw players quit playing, and most of the servers either went down, or became empty. Also, the level of quality went down at the same time, and I needed something challenging. All the jumps that I’ve been working on are actually very useful during matches/scrims. It’s nice to shoot and practice your aim, but there’re many other challenging aspects of the game that are out there to explore and master. Trick jumping basically helps your movement in general like coordination, timing, and making yourself comfortable with the mouse and mouse pad. Being fully in control of your mouse is probably the single most important factor to successful FPS gaming, since ultimately that is your portal to the virtual world.


c[_]`Wippuh: Now here comes the oldschool question. Since you're usually on this list for many, name 6 guys you would like to play on a team with and why. The only requirement is that you have never played on a team with them in the past.

Ser8!@N:
- iN-Civ - The best all around player
- iN-Sod - One of the best shots in the game
- Ramzi - He can play anything
- Hollywood - The greatest mastermind and leader in rtcw history
- Czm - Great aimer
- Wombat - All face med/lt


c[_]`Wippuh: Shoutouts

Ser8!@N: P!mps: Kure, Zex, Sica, Desperado, Boki, Ludi metak, Rip, Jakal, Sere, Keen, Rommy, Innos, Summel, etc…
All my previous clan members from CCCC, Redemption, Animosity, Scourge, as well as my current FX members.

And a special shout out to all the haters that are helping this game grow :o.




ze interview link list!

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RtcW Movie Review - Fraghunter: 2nd Round

Posted by: FuZioN)nG( (Monday, August 23, 2004)

Today I was roaming through http://www.own-age.com to see if there were any new Rtcw movies that were worth checking out. I came across a few that I downloaded, the first one being dT vs. D|S, but I wasn't impressed much only because of the quality of the movie. It does have an awesome ending though.

Scenario - 8
The other movie I downloaded was Fraghunter: 2nd round. This movie from what I understand is made from the Rtcw demo. It's a very unique video, it's like watching a demo - but with alot of effects and nade cams, etc. I don't think I have ever seen any other movies that just come from 1 game - all the way through for 10 minutes.

Frags - 6
You can tell that the players aren't very good, because some of them don't shoot back. He does put up a very good ratio, though (like he should playing with n00bs). This is probably the only thing I didn't like about the movie, that is the other team being so horrible.

Quality / config - 9
All the hud / chat / etc. was removed from the screen, and is completely redesigned through Adobe editing. The config is pretty nice, very good quality for the file size to time ratio. The movie is 10 minutes 51 seconds long and totals to be 181 MB. One of the songs has been used before in a few other videos, but he did a good job of adding in-game sound to level it out.

Overall - 8
I really enjoyed watching this vid - and I'm sure alot of people would as well. Like I said before the quality of the kills aren't top notch, but it was something unique with the whole round scenario. The nade cams and matrix style rotation has been used before, but it is still enjoyable to see with good editing.

Check out the movie @ http://own-age.com/vids/video.aspx?id=2241




You can also check out Frag hunter 1 @ http://www.own-age.com/vids/video.aspx?id=453

:)

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Cal Season 9: Week 2 - Base

Posted by: c[_]`Wippuh (Thursday, August 26, 2004)

The prediction threads on Pw.com just aren't kicking it anymore, so here we are. Lets get some talk going where all the competitive players hang out.

Mercenaries vs The GuNNaZ
After scrimming m2 on frostbite, I knew that my prediction for that match was going to be wrong. Mercs should pick it back up here even though GG will play :o
{M} 3-0

Team Effect vs American Special Forces
You know what, fuck this talk about lopsided matchups. If there's a team out there that has really turned their rep around in my eyes, it's fX. Let them rage asf, but watch them be classy about it.
Watch asf show up and play too! Half of the l33t teams out there would find a way to forfeit vs fX instead of getting raged by them. I'm sure asf will learn something from fX and that fX will probably even give them a pointer or two afterwards.
Also, if Cal should apologize to them about these first two matches, TWL needs to just go ahead and make up 10 apologies for them :/
fX 3-0

team affliction vs Endless Gaming
Hah! I called affliction's loss to Rabia last week! Bow down all you suckers! This week affliction plays a map they know a thing or two about and will rage some face with extreme prejudice! I would not want to be endless :/
-a- 3-0

We-Happy-Few vs Fear Us
fu| is another team built around players very familar with base.
fu| 3-0

Made Men vs Rabia ***MotW***
Rabia comes off a big win vs affliction last week and m2 came out and showed some muscle vs Mercs. You look at this one and say that Rabia should win pretty easily with hiki and elliot playing with an already stacked lineup, but I think this one will be hella close.
Key matchup = m2's offense vs Rabia's defense. If m2 can find any semblence of success, they will have a great chance of an upset!
Rabia 3-2

Excalibur vs Minions of Rage
This is a great great matchup, but I really don't know if xcal can hang with the Luckyfaust on base. It really all depends on how much Havoc gets his boys to scrim.
Min 3-1

Collateral Damage vs High Voltage
Yup, it's all about roster for HV. Get 6 showing and they should win. Their ne tower defense should be pretty stout with their core players. Damage needs to mix it up on offense to even have a chance.
HV 3-0

Growers Anonymous vs Team Exodus
Exodus is gonna have to bring 6 to beat gA. 6 means an easy win, otherwise they'll have to play a man down and probably with Bread :/
-x- 3-0

Illgamers vs Team Uprise
Uprise isn't the old team and they're really rusty. Our match vs them was a comedy of errors on both team's parts. Really disturbing to participate in :o
I think Uprise can win this one if they bring in the right players. Cash namely.
[u] 3-1

Team Evolution vs AfterLife
This will be a pretty good matchup. They're about 2 evenly matched up teams with aF looking like they're willing to scrim ze big boys to get better (first scrim was vs fX :o). If they keep that up they will go far.
aF' 3-2

readyup vs Operation Psycho Patrol
OPP on base, eek! Newt and Spa make the entire ne tower sticky with their manlove, slowing down Spydr's offensive pushes and making them easy targets :o
OPP 3-0

Elements Of Destruction vs Star
Oh man, this is the match of the week right here. Whichever team wins this one is indeed the real deal. Both of these teams are super impressive. Spec has got the science down about Base and eod brings a big pf and even bigger guns. It's the technicians vs the uber pubbers.
* 3-2

r3formation vs Noob_Aimerz!
r3f is pretty tight.
r3f 3-0

Office Space vs Team Cellular
Well, well, well. We scrim one team on base after our frostbite match and it was Cellular. It sorta sucks because both of our teams run some unique stuff to really take our opponents off their game on base. I don't think anything we do know is going to surprise each other.
We will try to emulate OPP's manlove with some Cracker and Juv secretions :)
With that being said, Cellular in a pure ragefest.
Cell 3-0

Blur vs Pound Your Face
blur 3-0

Ecstasy vs The Outsiders
Outsiders are the real deal. This week we find out where xTc ranks. Take a round from them and look good, don't take one and keep fighting for some respect.
3-0

Devil Stomper Battalion vs NoX Team
This would actually be pretty fun to watch. DSB has loads of experience, but NoX seems to be scrimming a little more. NoX in a close one.
NoX 3-2

Tribal Valor vs Team Executives
Valor takes this one with relative ease. The SoS pickups really work for them here, especially Rahl on the n00btube and Spitty gunning it up. Reload sucks it up and /kills enough to make valor look l33t.
valor 3-1

Bigasskickin vs Team Vengeance
v| will be too strong for BigAKT here :(
v| 3-0

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Season 9 Playoff Schedule Discussion

Posted by: OpZ (Sunday, August 29, 2004)

Season 9 has seen the return of some previously inactive clans and moreover, CAL/ TWL have listened to the masses and have given the players a change this season by scheduling more custom maps and allowing for creative strats and funner scrims. Axis_Complex in season? Fookin right on Bert and Rahl et al. Also, Frostbite, Tundra, UFO and Chateau are on the docket.
This begs the question, "What will the playoff maps be?" Imo, we will have played Ice, Village and Assault at seasons end, Base and Beach earlier on, so I am of the opinion that we will need some fresh maps for the playoffs.
I propose the following maps and the intent of this article is to foster discussion as to what playoff maps do players wish to use?
TrenchToast, Destruction, Depot are NOT up for debate here. =/
Bear in mind that the post season schedule should stay in concert with the regular season scheduling to keep things fresh. I really don't think it is much good for RtCW at this point to cycle Base, Assault, Village and Beach every time for the playoffs whereby, keeping RtCW predictable and moreover, the clans that have been together with a core of players since Season 1 don't even scrim anymore and usually forfeit the customs. Don't get it twisted, I really feel the 4 above maps pwn but, Village and Assault 2 weeks after we just played `em will be boring.
My suggestion for playoffs;
1. mp_Keep not used yet and a great map for competition
2. mp_Sub map pwns, nuff said
3. mp_Ice will be 7 weeks back since played and Ice is chilled pwnage
4. mp_Beach we have all played this from day 1, pony up and get it on
Must use a doc run map for the Finals, get the adrenaline rush back in WTV.
Start the lame wars!

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Hardware Reviews: What do you want to see?

Posted by: c[_]`Wippuh (Thursday, September 2, 2004)

In the interest of the gamers out there for RtCW and ET, we're currently trying to guage the interest in hardware reviews solely for the Wolfenstein crowd. What do you think?

If you're all for it, how would you like to see it done? What factors do you want covered? Would you prefer one reviewer or three, etc...

If the interest is there we will begin approaching companies.

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Cal Season 9: Week 3 - Tundra

Posted by: c[_]`Wippuh (Friday, September 3, 2004)

Whoa! Plenty of good matchups as Week 3 rolls in for CAL. There hasn't been this many quality face offs in a regular season as far back as many can remember. On to the flame predictions!

Collateral Damage vs American Special Forces
Two teams that are there pluggin' along for pure love of the game. They both have skill on their teams, but put fun over comp! These are the guys keeping it alive. Gotta go with CD here due to the high number of idlers from their team in #initech!
:!: 3-1

Fear Us vs High Voltage
It's time to find out what HV is really made out of. There's still the core group of happy campers with J and Grim, plus that dirty LSU fan of Deftone playing under the name of Traizen. Perhaps HV will just let him snipe and cover the entire 'tarmac' area of Tundra while they camp the spawn way.
Whatever happens, fu is a proven team of vets and this matchup will tell us all about where they both stand.
fu 3-2

We-Happy-Few vs The GuNNaZ
Wow, I know next to nothing about BOTH of these teams. Gunnaz have a player named WonderHoe, which is amusing. Oh yeah, they actually took a round from Mercs on base too.
Gunnaz 3-1

Team Exodus vs Minions of Rage
BIG MATCHUP #1
Here we go. Lets get the show on the road as Mario and Bread take on Havoc and LuckyB. This one will be one hell of a match. MiN is constantly scrimming. Usually they go into every match with a gun advantage, but with Bread's and Guerilla on the other side, you'd have to give -x- the edge.
This one all comes down to, once again, if -x- cares enough to scrim. I think they will and that this one will go to them.
-x- 3-2

team affliction vs Team Executives
BIG MATCHUP #2
eXe will most likely get pumped up for this. Nard and crew might even show up for a few scrims for their buddies in Affliction. However, -a- is showing a return to form and are being seen more and more on pubs and scrimming. This could be a deadly matchup. This one will really come down to how much progress -a- has made on their guns as we know their strat will be top notch. Since I even managed to kill scott and brian on a pub last night I've gotta keep in tradition and say...
eXe 3-2

Rabia vs Excalibur
BIG MATCHUP #3
Rabia and Excal are two hella tough teams, but this time we seperate the pretenders from the contenders. Excal is supposedly a top team but got swept aside fairly easily by MiN on base. With a win vs Rabia they can prove that they belong. Rabia has the long range guns suited for Tundra. This should be a barn burner.
Rabia 3-2

New Jersey vs Mercenaries
Oh man, this is a super ghey team from NJ. Not only do they have the only two guys gayer than the NJ governor in Ryan and Trans, they've brought back TRUSTILL! Something tells me that they're going to be just about as serious as Saint was, which spells trouble vs a very experienced Mercs team.
Mercs 3-1

Endless Gaming vs Made Men
While not a major major matchup, this will be a good one. IF e| can add a 6th to their roster soon! Until then, I'm going with the guys from m2 and their wicked strats.
m2 3-0

Team Vengeance vs Blur
Blur's got Kovert of Forgotten Kings fame, but I don't think that's going to be enough for them to overcome the up and coming team that is v|.
v| 3-1

AfterLife vs Bigasskickin
afterlife looks like a mix of Acost and AsN? I'm not sure. BigAKT has been around forever in various forms. This is another very level matchup and I'm not sure who will take it.
BigAKT 3-2

Devil Stomper Battalion vs Growers Anonymous
gA looks too strong here for the 25 and overs from DSB.
gA 3-0

Team Evolution vs Team Germanium
rsf lost a nailbiter last week and face off vs Germanium this week. Who's Germanium? Well, it looks like it's none other than Noobaimerz! Quick, someone hunt down that screenie of nailed hacking!
rsf 3-2

Star vs Ecstasy
BIG MATCHUP #4
xTc wants some respect for their win vs Outsiders. Well here it is, a matchup vs Spec and his boys. Does vio and redman/shams/br!ck/kronic/wtf/omg/howmany/nicks/retire have what it takes to beat Mutha, Spec and super duper doc runner Donka? No.
Spec 3-0

The Outsiders vs r3formation
Yipes, another solid matchup sees Piss and crew facing off vs ref. I think that Pissclams will be drinking projuice supplemental shakes all week long as he builds himself up into a hyper rage after the xTc loss. Not good news for r3f as the rage gets passed onto Seed and Helmut, and they pull out the churns for this one!
Outsiders 3-1

Illgamers vs Nothing 2 Prove
Opps, Illgamers seems to be a bunch of the Acost guys. n2p looks to only have 5 members.
Ill 3-0

readyup vs FULL METAL JACKET
FMJ takes this one because I still have no clue how the rup tags relate to their team name.
FMJ 3-0

Office Space vs Pound Your Face
PYF looks pretty decent with aSn Johnny returning on their roster. However they have some ET specific players with Murieta and Eclipse of the DAMN DIRTY AMISH! I know this will bring out a LOT of emotion from myself and especially Cracker, who has been harassed by the Amish for a long time now. Look for some extreme MM1 pwnage in this one.
OS 412-0

Operation Psycho Patrol vs Team Uprise
Uprise has the guys, it's just a matter of time and commitment for them. OPP is still very solid and Hydro is looking extremely good everytime I see him on pubs (and not in the 'looking good' way that Yogi thinks of).
OPP 3-0

Splash My Nuts vs Team Effect
BIG MATCHUP #5
Warrior, Multitask, AlphaNeo and Warzone face off Warrior's old buddies in fX. Look for WTV to construct a special steel cage to put over this one as it's going to be feirce. sMn starts off with a rough pounding from an fX team that has been wanting something like this for a while. This is the one I want to see on wtv!
fX 3-0

The Swat Guys vs Tribal Valor
Perhaps the only uneven matchup of the entire week. TV should handle TSG fairly easily.
TV 3-0

Team Cellular vs NoX Team
This is a good matchup. Cellular has some great help going for them with Nomad helping them on strats. NoX is getting consistantly better and better and I saw someone complaining the other day about them being cocky. Surely a sign that they've been hanging around osp too much. I like NoX, but Cell's guns might be a wee bit better.
Cell 3-2

Flame on!

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So you want to be an E-THUG?

Posted by: E-THUG (Friday, September 10, 2004)

After seeing Wippz desperately trying to do this article over at Peon-Center, because I've been delaying on it, I decided to F. Scott Fitzgerald it up.

There's 7 key points into becoming a talented and fearless E-THUG warrior, atleast ones that I could come up with. They are: 1) Knowledge of what's going on in the battle, 2) Knowledge of when to step into the battle, 3) Always respect kids who aren't E-THUGz, 4) English skills, 5) Catchy Phrases, 6) Names, and most importantly.. 7) Skillz.

1) Knowledge of what's going in the battle.

True warriors don't go into battles unprepared, they have their handy dandy notebook like they're Steve in Blue's Clues ready. They scout their opponent out very immensely so they can slap kids back into place. If you go into a battle without knowing shit about your oppenent, and just talking random stuff, then you need to de-lodge and get into the freakin' zone until you find the emotional spirit. Being an E-THUG isn't an easy task, it isn't a bunch of "ROFLZ" or "HEY U IN THE 3RD ROW ROFLZ PUT DOWN THE BUCKETZZZZ WSW 8TH PLACE QCON READ EM N WEEP", it's actual knowledge of what you're battling with your opponent. Interesting facts such as when and how a team got Steve Smith stiff armed is very useful when in a battle. Recent transactions of teams and who got emotional and said f this and just disconnected in the middle of a match are just a few examples of preparing for battles.

2) Knowledge of when to step into the battle.

I've said this before and I'll copy and paste it again so everyone can read this one. E-THUG's don't just come in to an already started E-THUG battle unless you see a reason to. It's like two black kids battling it up at school and then a white kid comes up and says "YO000O ROFLZ SINQUARIOUS BRO DID U DO THE HMEWRK IN MR LOPEZ'S CLASS LOOOOOL." But if the kids then say like "YO YO HOMEZ I SK33T GERALDOZ MOMMA CH33K." then that's when you join up in the battle. Kids step out of line it's just time for some punishment. Once you step in, you aren't allowed by E-THUG code to step out. You keep battling for your title as an E-THUG. If times get desperate, make about 5 other aliases and drop some ROFLattacks at your oppenent, or in the midst of defeat, just acknowledge that you blow as an E-THUG, and go back into the factory for training.

3) Always respect kids who aren't E-THUGz.

I'll keep this one short and sweet. If you see some peon who doesn't know anything about E-THUGgery, don't even say anything to him/her, UNLESS they step out of line and try to bring it to the Vegetable Field. Basically, don't talk to "strangers".

4) English skills.

Sorry kids but this one is definately important. D0N"|" TY|>3 11k3 TH1$ $CRuBB13, or, "rolf spu gusy ist em, omgf i cnt tpye". Type like this. If your opponents can't understand what you're even typing, you need to seriously rethink your english skills for one, and go back to school. If you're a EuroPeon interested in the department of E-THUGgery, I'm sorry but I don't know your language, but, all I can tell you is use correct grammar. Kids usually view E-THUGz as kids who don't know the english language. You can get away with misspelling a word when you're battling except for when you battle those emotionally challenged kids who get all close to the screen and read every single word you type hoping you misspell something, or say like "you're" when you're supposed to say "your". I hate dumbasses that chronically do that though.

5) Catchy phrases.

When you're an E-THUG, you definately need almost more than skillz, some catchy phrases. Good things to get you started on some catchy phrases is analogies related to sports. For example, when you're making fun of a team, you could compare them to the LA Clippers, I like to do that a lot personally. If you want to scout out some catchy phrases, play some other games, talk to some people that look like they're an E-THUG and get some material from them. Rainbow 6 was just E-THUG central for me. I learned a lot of nice phrases such as "ROFL MAN U GOT RAN LIKE THE BOSTON MARATHON". That one is probably my all time favorite. I wish those forums were still up.. kids from Rainbow 6 were just hardcore. I was still training in the E-THUG Facial Factory at that time.

6) Names.

Ok kids seriously. If you're an E-THUG and your name is -=BBK=-34513Z3Y3 [**LDR**], you need to just go ahead and seriously /kill in real life. You want a hardcore name? Use names that are fearful in stuff like movies, such as "Rambo" and that kind of joint. Honestly, numbers in your name doesn't make you an E-THUG, except for warriors such as "WarRi0R" himself, it just makes you look like 1) An asshole, 2) A complete peon, and 3) Laugh Out Loud material. Your ass is gonna get your ankles broken like Stephen Davis does to kids on any given Sunday if you come into a battle with that kind of shit. If you want colors in your name to let people know what you're representing, there isn't anything better than LQD's colors. You can go with the oldschool teal and blue, or the newschool (more E-THUGlyke) dark blue and black. You can spot a fake E-THUG with 15 different combinations of circus ass colors in their name. Try to limit it to 2.

7) The last and most important one.. Skillz.

Just because you have an 8th place Qcon medal, it doesn't let you have the right to represent the E-THUG's in terms of skills. You could have, oh for instance, got train wrecked in the 4k movie and made your team lose the round. Doesn't work kids, NT tho. Most of the kids today think they have a nice shot but that's because they roll w/ their gear as a medic and 1) Give themselves and themselves only med packs and 2) Med up when they're about to get traumatized. You want examples of E-THUGz with skillz? Take notes from true warriors like Warrior himself, Serbian, Decka, Rambo, etc. If you go 10-62 in a match then you definately need to disassociate yourself as an E-THUG and go back to the factory for EXTENSIVE training. Honestly, that joint is sad, 10-62? Newbie. Some warriorz however, can be skilled in the department of E-THUGgery, but not in the actual gaming skill. Viking is a perfect example.

Well kids that's pretty much all I can think of right now. If any other warriorz have some input on how to E-THUG it up like a champ, post here.

E-THUG out.

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Week 4: Beach

Posted by: caffeine (Monday, September 13, 2004)

don't know about 1/2 the teams, but i'll give it my best...

growers anonymous vs high voltage
b/c they showed us some love 2 seasons ago...
3-1 ga

exodus vs affliction
the big time matchup of the week. i am still puzzled how affliction hasn't won yet? mario, luigi, bread = ouchy...
3-1 exodus

new jersey vs eod
forfeit

minions vs mercenaries
minions should have shooter advantage, but word is they have some trouble following strats. merc is wicked good on base, and beach has many similarities, except for sniper hill and the war room.
minions 3-1

collateral damage vs m2
m2 will take most of the "open teams" from last season imo. good bunch
3-0 m2

excal vs fear us
excal has some great shooters and should be ready to take it to fu. i don't know enough about fu to say anything more than GG.
3-1 excal

rabia vs fx
rabia is no joke, and i think they personally could've won open last season. the solidified w/ some of the top guns from true soldats. their cc'ing w/ nades is tough to beat on maps like this. however fx might be the most pissed off team ever, and they will bring it hard. ps serbian jumps the breach :o
fx 3-0

asf vs we happy few
dunno

opp vs pound your face
opp is diesel again this season. good teamwork, so on... hydro is sexsi.
opp 3-1

blur vs bwg
blur only fielded 4 last week, b/c shifty was too busy watching fx/smn to play w/ his team. GG FUCKHEAD! will either team field 6? good even matchup if they do.
dunno

ecstasy vs swat guys
xtc is one of the big hype teams right now, will they continue their roll vs a tough sg's team? yes
xtc 3-2

bigasskickin vs fmj
dunno

office space vs rup
wip's crew is better than they were last season imo.
3-1 os

tribal valor vs paradox
paradox has my e-boyfriend 8e on it, along w/ homo's sin and stormy. i love them all sexually!
3-1`dox b/c their tag is leet

afterlife vs dsb
dunno

smn vs executives
i hope executives win tbh.
dunno

uprise vs n2p
dunno

outsiders vs vengeance
i think we may need to get cal bert to spec this one IMO!

nox vs illgamers
dunno

team cellular vs team evolution
cellular scrims, dunno about evolution.

zeee end!

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E-THUG Sits Down With AlphaNeo, The Interview

Posted by: E-THUG (Tuesday, September 14, 2004)

E-THUG: Let’s start off with the basic first question AlphaNeo, tell us about yourself!

sMn-Alpha: My name is Jeff “AlphaNeo” Lada, and I’m a VERY welcoming person (I read Pissclams’s book and studied under sensai-End0). I’m 18 years old and was born and raised in Marion, Indiana. Currently, I am studying chemical engineering at Purdue University—the home of the Boilermakers, who take it upon themselves to rape other teams at football. Anyway, I’m currently on my own in Lafayette, Indiana. I work on campus in a chem lab where I prepare labs for classes, make demonstration reactions for classes, mix chemicals, blow stuff up, etc. When I’m not studying, working, or playing Wolf I enjoy playing paintball, shooting billiards, attending on-campus LANs, and partying with friends. I’m a “typical” college student, I guess: I drink, party, and thrive on pizza… oh… and I study.

E-THUG: To get started on the real part, tell us what you think of the season so far, how CAL/TWL is doing, and what are sMn’s plans for the season and the postseason.

sMn-Alpha: IMO TBH (I had to do it) I think new CAL season is going smoothly thus far. However, I do not see a one tier system to be in the best interest of the league. While some may disagree, there is no denying the fact that the range in skill between some teams is absolutely ridiculous. To pit Team Effect against ASF on Base is in no way, nor should it even be considered, a match. Admittedly, there are probably not (55 give or take disbanders/formers) enough teams to develop a working and efficient two-tier system, so I guess the CAL admins had no choice. Some teams are just going to have to take the 3-0 and learn from it, rather than get angry/disband/etc. When the inevitable uneven match occurs, perhaps it is in the best interest of our community for the lesser of the two teams to ask other teams for help, review previous demos, or think of unique ways to learn from the experience. Don’t be shy, PM teams on IRC, get to know other teams, and work hard to become a better team, not a group of individuals.

As for the 30 teams in the TWL scene, it’s good to see some new faces and some old schoolers. I haven’t played a TWL match yet this season, so I can’t say anything about the administration or setup, but I’m sure it’ll go along smoothly, too.

sMn plans to work hard to lose as few rounds/matches as possible this season. With Warzone dropping warm welcomes from the tactical nuke, Warrior/Common attempting to count the skull-buckets lying on the floor, and Conf/MG talking about God-knows-what on vent, we somehow manage to make strats, practice hard, and eliminate the nuances and faults in our gameplay so that we can become a better team. Oh, and we plan, as Vinny so eloquently put it last night during a beach scrim, “TAKE IT ALL THE WAY BABY, YEAAAAAAAAAAAAH…. *pause*….. AH #
% THAT.”

E-THUG: Most gamers have a history of where they chose their aliases from. AlphaNeo is a unique alias. Where’d you get it from?!

sMn-Alpha: I know I’m going to catch the “you’re a geek” line for this, but my alias actually stems from my 5th grade etymology class. I formed my name back when Quake 1 was brand new, so I had to think of something to cool, because everyone had a cool name in Quake 1. So, remembering the Greek and Latin my teachers had taught me, I started brainstorming. “Alpha” is the first letter in Greek alphabet, and now is associated with “head, first, one, or dominant”, as in alpha-male. The root “neo” means new. I combined their meanings with a little imagination and formed a name that had a powerful meaning- new dominance or the new one. Whatever, it sounds cool, and I had it before that albino Keanu Reeves in the Matrix. Too many people now use the name “Neo” because of that movie and also think I use it because of the movie. To make matters simpler, most people just call me “Alpha” now anyway, but I’m still attached to the original- AlphaNeo.

E-THUG: Last season you were playing for a quality team in Star. This season you are playing for what many believe to be the cream of the crop in sMn. How is that transition like? Going from a ‘mediocre’ like team, to one of, if not the best?

sMn-Alpha: First off, I don’t really think Star was truly a “mediocre” team. Truthfully, I think we were probably in the top 5 (fX, AGoggles, eXe, rC, and Star), in Main last season, so “above average” would be a better assessment in my opinion. Anyway, we had our disagreements and times that we didn’t gel, but we were one of the few teams to nearly take rounds (as far as I know) on fX: nearly 2 on ice and village, if Warrior hadn’t gone clutch on village AND ice. 3-0 really didn’t show how close mp_village was to a 3-1 or 3-2 in their favor. Ice was a similar story. Nonetheless, I think we had a solid team but lacked dedication and cooperation.

The transition to sMn is somewhat odd for me—I feel as though I don’t belong with some of the old school powerhouses on our roster. Warrior, Common, Warzone, Mult1task—some of these guys were Cal-Invite or Main while I was playing panzer on Happy Penguin (21 man panzer = rage). After 1 serious season of competition with Star, I’m playing with people who I used to watch demos of. It’s surreal, but I’m excited and hope I live up to and surpass the expectations of my teammates.

(As a side note, yes, I did play on the Happy Penguin depot server for the better part of a year, mostly playing panzer. To this day I stand behind the fact that 64 man carnage is the most fun you’ll ever have playing Wolf – especially without having to worry about TK’ing. I still post on their forums and am friends with many of the regulars there. Great guys to pub with.)

E-THUG: You used to be a solid panzerwhore, but recently you’ve transformed into a powerful gunner. Why the switch?

sMn-Alpha: Well, it’s really tough to say why I primarily switched to a gun, but the best way I can explain it is pubbing, practice, and the versatility of an SMG toting lieutenant or medic.

On the surface, a good panzer shooter is a must for a top notch team. However, that player must also be able to shoot a pistol, move quickly, and be the absolute smartest player on the team, hands down. All of this is a lot of pressure on a player with one money shot every 25 seconds—you mess up, your life on that spawn is pretty much in vain unless you know how to work the pistol or throw nades. After pubbing for quite a long time with an SMG on Hell’s Gate, Speakeasy’s, and the “weekend warriors” pub on the Covert Ops server, I became a pretty good shot. Now as a lieutenant, I feel as though I play more a “team-oriented” role—handing out ammo, throwing cans, and pissing bullets.

Overall, I really just wanted to broaden my horizons and become more cognizant of the different classes in the game. So far, no complaints… gunning is easier than panzing. Yes, I said it.

E-THUG: You recently took down what many considered, ‘an unbeatable team’, in Team Effect, without even giving up a round. Describe the preparations you guys took, how you felt going into the match, and then going out of the match.

sMn-Alpha: Well, we formed sMn in the middle of a CAL week with the notion that we really wanted to be a top level team, and moreover, beat fX. Luckily for us, our six starters all knew one another from previous pubbing and whatnot. We started scrimming for the next CAL match on te_tundra. At that time, we did not know which team we would be facing, but we started scrimming some of the top level teams. The next day, we found out we would be playing fX. So, what it all boiled down to was a brand new team of six people who had never played together (save for MG/ConF), playing against the undeniable powerhouse that is fX. We had seven days to make a strat, get the strat to work, gel as a team, and beat the CAL-Main champs of last season. We prepared our strat and scrimmed teams such as MiN, xTc, -a-, and -x-. After tweaking our strat quite a bit, we only lost 1 round to –a- after getting an initial bad push/spawn.

To be honest, I went in the match confident in our teams ability, but somewhat uneasy about my position/skill against the players on fX. Since I was never spectated on WTV, I was playing the spawn as an LT – all by myself. I was nervous… really nervous, and prior to that I had never been nervous about an online game. Weird feeling, but playing at that level, even if it is just a game, can do weird things to you.

After the first half round, I gained my composure, and knew what had to be done to beat them. I calmed down, and probably played one of the better matches in my short career. I rarely let Serb/Vatican by me in the spawn, and if they did get by, Mindgame quickly cleaned up the low-hp duo. Going out, I couldn’t have been more thrilled to beat my prior idols of this game.

E-THUG: Do you feel that sMn is still a contender, or do you feel that sMn is already at the top now that you took the belt from the champs?

sMn-Alpha: I feel that if the players of sMn are dedicated enough to take this championship, then we definitely can do it. However, I’m not going to deny that there are several teams with lots of talent in CAL (we all know who they are). Sure, we may have beaten last season’s champs, but that doesn’t necessarily mean we will be THIS season’s champs. However, at this moment in the season, I definitely think we are currently “the team to beat” since fX firmly held that title.

E-THUG: You’ve played with some interesting people and teams in the past. Tell us what you consider your ‘prime’ point in your wolf era.

sMn-Alpha: I’ve really only played for three serious teams. After my unfortunate banning from Happy Penguin (rofl) I “joined” the old Crossbreed with Thrillhouse, Virus, Binary, and Kearvek for about 2 weeks, mainly because I knew Binary from Happy Penguin. After things didn’t work out there, I hopped aboard Perfect Drug for CAL Season 7 with Tighten, SR, Kronic, Baaad, Spiticon, Meth, and Twiggy. Those guys are a blast and I’ll never forget some of the hilarious times we had. Even though we went something like 2-9, many fun times were still had. During season 7, I got to know Warrior, Conf, Mindgame, Laws, Fatninja, Nomad, and Slag from the old Splash My Nuts. Never a dull moment on that vent. Anyway, Conf, Mindgame, Spec Opz, and I would always pub together on the weekends. When Season 8 rolled around, Spec made Star and I played with Timebomb, Krazykaze, Trigger, Spec Opz, and Mutha.

Of these seasons, I consider the “prime” point in my Wolf career to be Star vs. Raiders Coven on UFO. At no time other time in my Wolf career have I seen a team so dedicated to winning and almost flawlessly executing a strat.

However, you cannot compete with the OGL team MAUSER RAGE… that was pure abuse… for those of you that aren’t informed, I hack with the unscoped mauser— it’s painful and coming to a pub near you.

Now that sMn has started back up with me in the roster, in retrospect, it seems like I’ve only just begun my “prime”.

E-THUG: Everyone wants to be remembered for something. If by some chance you couldn’t play RtCW again, what would you want to be remembered for?

sMn-Alpha: Pro-pubbing, Team Vengeance hating me (love you guys now), RAWR, and my constant smack talking that always ends up getting me in trouble (must be an Indiana thing… Bad habit I picked up from ConF and Common). But in all seriousness, I really don’t mean it at all.

E-THUG: You are well known for your awesome binds in game. Are they hard to make? How’d you come about making such cool binds?

sMn-Alpha: Well, they’re not really that hard to make once you get the general idea/template of the bind down. After that, it’s actually a lot of math to calculate what spacing/timing would look best on the screen without lagging/crashing wolf. The most I’ve ever really worked on a bind was about an hour – and that was the ROLLED bind that everyone has come to love. The easy ones, the LOLLERCOASTER and ROFLCOPTER for example, take about 5-10 minutes.

I started making them when I got sick of seeing the retarded “SHANKED” bind that everyone had that was all the same, but in different colors. I knew I had seen some freaking sweet Quake 3 binds, and since the engine is the same, I knew it had to be possible in wolf. So, I began making them to add something new to the Wolf community – something no one had ever seen before. At least in Wolf, that is.

And yes, to clarify, I make them all from a blank .txt document. I don’t use any program or any ASCII templates/sites/shortcuts to make them. All of the binds are completely my own work; I just get ideas from different places.

E-THUG: Something new that might spark up an E-THUG battle… name 6 people you would NOT want to be on a team with.

sMn-Alpha:
Redman of xTc & Postal of former e| – do I have to give a reason… really… com’on.

Illumina/Neuro of -a- -- because they found it fun to talk smack to me when I was in Star. I believe one of their exact words were “YOU ARE A TERRIBLE PLAYER.” Yes, in all caps. (I think it was those two, sorry if I’m mistaken… nonetheless… jerks :-( )

Paladin of MiN – I do believe that kid wants to see me dead… in real life.

S!lo of fX – I said it okay, I SAID IT… because he gave me a multihack. *coughs*

Pissclams/Bread – Because they’re too f’in emotional and I’d never get kills.

Snoop/Mindgame – Have you ever heard them on vent… no? Consider yourself lucky. (Just kidding MG, I love you… not kidding Snoop… your voice makes me want to stab myself in the eye. It’s not that you’re a bad player… well, okay, you are, but… your voice can make a grown man cry. Give him three-five years then MAYBE.)

E-THUG: And of course, the shout outs!

sMn-Alpha:
sMn:
Conf & Common – Team Indiana (little bit of venom rage… o? ok now.)
Mindgame – stretch mark boy
Warrior – cracks me up on vent and a blast to pub Bani with.
Warzone – Canadian, but he’s the best panzer in NA, so we’ll let him slide.
Mult1task – who has a bagillion configs
S0r - … uhh… it’s s0r.
Spec_Opz – The myth and legend, and my Star leader/executive of tomnubbetry.

All of my old team members of Star*: TB (the disgruntled lt), Mutha (the abuser), KrazyKaze/Trigger (weird accents) Donka (probably one of top 5 my favorite wolf players… that Russian > you), and END0 (God, I love that dude… too bad he’s in med-school).

GISELE, SCRILLA, KOVERT, BOOTY, BROKEN, DAIZED, eternal, team executives, the old team vengeance, powell, ralphthenader, team blur, nomad (who also has a bagillion configs), dynosaur, fatninja/slaya/remedy (come back!) and the rest of Team Effect, pissclams and bread (for their emotions), camoflauge, orta, col banks, heimlic, the Perfect Drug crew, all of the people that keep this game alive, and all of those that continue to hate me/accuse me of hacking.

For those that I forgot, please think of it as a loss of mind, not of heart.

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Interview: Mario

Posted by: c[_]`Wippuh (Wednesday, September 15, 2004)

It'sa him, Mario! Find out with the little plumber with an attitude from Florida thinks about the game of Wolfenstein. How did he get here, where does Luigi factor into it all and who is the Princess of RtCW?



c[_]'Wippuh: Intro Question! It'sa you, MARIO! Tell us about how you brought yourself from humble beginnings as a plumber all the way to a very top notch career in Wolf :)

-
x-mario!: Well Luigi was the one that introduced me to the game. I went under the name Chief Wiggum. My first ever clan was Majin, from way back in the day, not the one everyone knew and hated. Then I created !UGB! the first edition not the one that made it to finals. Then I hopped through some clans. Until I was approached by Warchild and Essential. They asked me to join, and I really didn't belong there at the time. But I thought it would be a good learning experience. So I joined, played in a few matches, and exodus disbanded. GG. The next season or the one after (can't remember) warchild asked me if I would help him bring back exodus for another season. I was up to it, we picked up some good players such as abomb, fragile, and cracker. They helped us throughout the season as we took our first cal main title. We took a season off and season 7 I decided to bring back exodus with warchild again, we had a lot stronger force of players that season such as stiegl, madness, ckyass, riot. That led us to our second main title. This season is a little different, although picking up some brand name players, we are having some small troubles gelling as a team. But we are still working on it.



c[_]'Wippuh: NARF, Abuse, Drs, -a-, fX... The list is small but very prestigous. Why is exodus left off of the list when people discuss teams that have really made their mark on RtCW?

-
x-mario!: I think that because we never really had big name competition. NARF had 3 invite titles against some of the games top teams. Abuse and Drs, I really don't have to go into why they are on top. -a- for there qcon finish in 2003, fX for them raping every team they pretty much faced last season. Also at the time we didn't have top named players, and the community makes predictions on the players in the team, not the team. And to tell you the truth, I don't think I would want to be considered a top team. Its what keeps the drive going. Being the underdogs is what its all about.



c[_]'Wippuh: In your two championship matches exodus beat .dh (MiN) and Splash My Nutz. Going into both of those matches, dh and MiN had the superstar lineups with guys like LuckyB, Warrior, Laws and were heavily favored. However, -x- made it look routine in their dispatching of both. What is the secret? What can other teams take from those runs by -x- and learn from in order to beat the big name teams?

-
x-mario!: Well its not really a secret. From day one when the guys join exodus, I tell them to leave there egos outside before they step in. If there was a way I could disable stats on my team I would. But its all about team play. In the match against MIN, we knew we were the underdogs, and all that did was step it up a notch. But part of our strategy was to not scrim them at all. We knew we had equal guns, and we knew that they thought that it would be an easy win. If we scrimed them then they would understand that there was nothing easy about it. So we let the critics go on rants about how exodus won't even get a round in. Easy 3-0 win. Once we played them it was a shock to them and the community. Of course I don't want to take anything away from MiN/dh they are a good team and still are. In the sMn match, sMn was talking a lot of smack. And I got pms from everyone saying please beat them. It was pretty funny. A bunch of exodus guys wanted to talk shit back to them, but I told them to hold off until we play them. Because making them eat there own shit is a whole lot better then talking it back. So we just took whatever they threw at us, and just brought it match time. There wasn't much talking after that. Still they were a great team, but had terrible egos.



c[_]'Wippuh: One thing that really sticks out in how teams prep is their focus on defense. Gotta get these spots down, gotta full hold, gotta work on xfire. However, when you watch the very top teams, you notice that it's almost the exact opposite. There seems to be a heavy concentration on offense. In place of 'pubbin' it, there's a plan and roles for everyone to play. Why is it so hard for new teams to work on offense and how would you suggest they go about doing so?

-
x-mario!: I have always been about offense rather then defense. Its hard for new teams to get down offense because they just don't have the patience. Also when rushing everyone has set things to do, but its not specific, just basic. For instance, when you are rushing and say you have 2 lts in front of you, and one dies, all 3 meds shouldn't go for the revive, you see that with of teams now-a-days. One of the problems we are having and I know other teams have this problem too, is killing one guy and just sitting there, and just waiting for lts to lead. The whole fact of rushing is to actually rush. You see on a lot of maps, that all they do is pick people off, but what you don't understand is the longer you wait the stronger they get. Also you need patience in order to run some offensive strats. You have to get everyone on the same page and have everyone believe in the strat. If one person doesn't like the strat or doesn't follow it correctly, you will get owned.



c[_]'Wippuh: Continuing on that last question, you can tell that upper echelon teams really have an understanding of timing that is far past their counterparts. Where most everyone knows how to time spawn camps, some others have really broken the maps down to continiously apply pressure and shift defenses to focus on only on those spots that can be attacked during a certain time frame. Tell us the 1 thing each that you see that seperates the good teams from the decent teams, the great teams from the good teams and champs from great teams. (3 things total)

-
x-mario!:

- good from decent- constantly knowing spawn times, and for panzers to hold their shots.

- great from good- knowing when to attack and where to attack

- champs from great- being able to switch defenses in mid round. Not offenses.



c[_]'Wippuh: This week you go up against Team Affliction on beach. While they've been having a rough time of it, they are reknowned for their work on beach. This isn't frostbite or tundra. This got us thinking. .dh beats rewind on ice in the qcon qualifiers, knocking out what everyone considered the top team in Europe. Just down the road a tiny bit, -x- dispatches .dh on ice with no problems in the Cal-M finals, yet when you guys are in the qualis you get knocked out by 4k on assault, a team that didn't have the rep of Rewind at the time. This tells me that different maps mean so much for teams. Tell about the personalities your team has to assume for the core maps (ice, beach, base, village, assault, etc...). What does it take to be successful on all of them? Why is it so hard for NA to play village vs the Euros while NA rolled fairly easily on Ice at Qcon?

-
x-mario!: Well my input on this is kinda incomplete. Luigi and I didn't play in the match against 4k. From what I heard luckyb was a beast with the panz, in the match against Rewind. And against 100 pingers that can be deadly. As in terms of different maps for different teams, let me just say that the euro's are on a whole different playing field. Their strats are more complex, their communication is a lot better, and teamwork is just ridiculous. NA has better guns. But this poses a problem on some maps. Village is all about teamwork, and keeping your guys together throughout the map. There are a ton of hiding spaces that someone with a smg or panz can take you out and return the docs. Assault is the same way. It all depends on the team though. If you have 6 guys that are really good shots but are more comfortable doing there own thing then following someone, then your more of a spawn camping team. If you have good teamwork, your more of a rush after their spawn type of team. Thats my opinion.



c[_]'Wippuh: As RtCW watches her veteran players go to other games, it's hard to not notice success from them. Top RtCW teams can go into ET and do extremely well, extremely quick. Complexity, with impulse, Warmachine, Joe and Wyldcard can go and place 3rd in CoD, Nightfall's team came out in 1st and then there were the Drs in 2nd, all at the CPL. What is it about RtCW that prepares players so well for other games?

-
x-mario!: I think RTCW not only prepares your shot in a way, but also in enhances your awareness. Because of the fast pace game, that when you go into another game like ET and COD, its slower. You have more time to take in the area that you walk into. Thus making players smarter. In RTCW you walk into a room and you have to be on your toes, being cautious about corner campers. Hiding spots. Everything in COD and ET imo is slower thus making it easier to spot things.



c[_]'Wippuh: We'd be remiss if there wasn't a question about Luigi. What does Luigi mean to you? How has your career progressed with Luigi and where would you be without him? How do you handle the delicate ego of a sidekick who will never measure up to Mario? Luigi's Mansion has received acclaim but Mario is the flagship for a huge corporation!

-
x-mario!: Luigi and I have been friends since middle school. He was the one who introduced me to RTCW. Luigi can kiss my ass. Fuckin always stealing my kills, TKs me ALL THE TIME. Can a brotha get some respect. In all seriousness, hes the one player I can rely on to get a job done. Its hard not to be in the shadow of luigi because his 45-7 ratio is better than my 4-0 ratio. Can't get any kills but the job gets done and thats all I am worried about. My career hasn't progressed really...every win that we have had in season 7 was the saying....wait how did it go again?....oh yea "ALL LUIGI".



c[_]'Wippuh: Any thoughts about the rematch against affliction?

-
x-mario!: I wasn't at the last match because of personal problems. But I was looking forward to playing affliction. I got nothing but respect for that clan. Should be real fun tonight win or lose.



c[_]'Wippuh: With the Mario and Luigi question, we've got to get into some obvious character association. We need the who, but especially the why of who would be each of the following famous Nintendo game characters!

-
x-mario!:

Qbert (you're never really sure wtf is going on, but damn it's amusing)--- invisible man, enough said





Mega Man (able to assume multiple identities)--- redman, but with gameshark





Glass Joe (just gets the shit beat out of him all the time)--- laws, mostly in wolf, when it comes to shit talking, he brings it





Mike Tyson (bad guy that will you instantly)--- snoop





Little Mac (little guy whom never gives up)--- Raiser, even when I told him no for the 56th pm that he sent asking if we were recruiting, he still pms me everyday. Stay with it dude.





Bo Jackson in Tecmo Bowl (unstoppable, everyone wants to be him)--- zman





Bowser! (the baddest bad guy)--- abomb, because he can down little debs with the best of them, and hes pretty nasty with panz





The long tetris piece (when the going looks rough, this one is gonna make everything easier)--- zman again, although the tetris peace might get there late because in terms of lag





Princess Peach (haha, ghey!)--- Bread-because he likes to wear pink





c[_]'Wippuh: Shoutouts!

-
x-mario!: Rambo, Newt, Yogi, Samus, Palehorse, Shoutouts to all my former and current members of exodus, Abomb for relaxing, All the members of agoggles. All the members of M2. Wippuh, Pissclams, Choaslord, Madness, Agent x, the godfather himself Warchild, and essential.



Missed an interview? Check ze interview link list!


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Week 5: UFO

Posted by: caffeine (Friday, September 17, 2004)

for those of you who were hating on my "lack of color" predictions last week i suggest you READ http://www.pha.jhu.edu/~kgb/cosspec/ white is a color (read to the part about the suspected color of the universe), as is black - so please eat me...

bye vs team uprise
for a sec i thought they meant bye, as in Bomb your enemies... eheheh
uprise forfeit...

m2 vs affliction
if affliction can be taken by one of the "not big 4" teams this could be the map to do it. m2 has great chemistry and have steadily been improving. affliction could be had after a big victory on the beach. they drop a round, but not the match
-a- 3-1

HV vs exodus
exodus proved yet again to be class acts, replaying affiction last week, and going from win to loss - bread's gonna be angry (and akasha was so sexsi and clutch on tuesday). another week for the High voltage peeps to gel w/ the clams man. this could very well be the MOTW. but it could get ugly if HV isn't scrimming hard.
exodus 3-1

damage vs rabia
rabia may run a 6 eng defense. they will be strategically placed cc'ing and nading the shit outta virus and crew. rabia is my team that is on the bubble, ready to crash into the top 4. they will beat damage badly imo.
rabia 3-0

nj vs minions
nj guys are asshats on the pubs. minions already started scrimming. uh oh nikon on ufo :0
min 3-0

gA vs fx
gA 3-0

FU vs merc
another possible MOTW. 2 evenly skilled teams here. could be a great wtv watch. i hear that the fu crew is a bunch of old school players and ya gotta love the old school, but merc is so sexy on base, and ufo reminds me of base, except for the creepy aliens and the ufo...
merc 3-2

#ur:) vs smn
#ur face will steal a round while alpha neo and conf are busy admiring each other's reflections on the glass the covers the aliens. aside from that slip up smn is looking to be the one to beat...
smn 3-1

team cellular vs vengeance
beast and dresser almost took silence here in the playoffs last season, they'll roll us tbh - i tk and gib rev like whoa...
celly 3-0

illgamers vs dsb
i have no knowledge of illgamers (except that their names w/ their guid's are names that 15 year old wanna be eminems would choose). dsb always plays hard. GO DSB!
dsb 3-2

office space vs r3f
wip and company will be raging this week i think. they love the customs and played well against us last season in the playoffs here. only our the big panz work by troll kept us afloat, and i don't think r3f will have that.
[_]c 3-0

rup vs swat guys
interesting match up here of recent shrub clans making the move to osp. swat guys have some good guns and last season to build upon and the spyder guys play non-stop base dm. i can't decide so i say...
toss up

tv vs n2p
valor should be closing in on old form now after a week to gel and have vent sexxor. seems to me that n2p is a bunch of the guys from the dark clan, and last season's, uh i forget who they were, nayeen joined em later on. tv will be scrimming if they haven't already started.
tv 3-1

akt vs blur
after playing us 4 on 6 blur has beefed up their roster w/ a bunch of the reformation (.com) guys. akt is making the move from 24/7 beach to osp w/ the help of col banks and logiryan. great to see this stuff being done, but blur will be making moves soon this season - a team to watch out for...
blur 3-0

xtc vs dox
troll, my sexy bitch, left `dox this week, and i don't know who they have on the pine to step in (is sin's suspention up?). it's a huge loss for them imo and could be the difference in the match. this is my MOTW #3. xtc has been on a roll and dox has the guns to get it done. stormy is my illegitimate child btw...
`dox 3-2

opp vs outsiders
god why the fuck is opp so sexy! hydro and yogi may be the hottest couple in wolf atm (oh you didn't know they've been dating for weeks now). opp plays very well on maps like this (lots of hallways and open spaces - ice is there best map and i draw a lot of correlations b/t the two). gonna be tough for > to get the W...
opp 3-1

bwg vs fmj
hmmm the return of bwg. i have no knowledge of fmj's roster, and refuse to look at it right now b/c it's 6 am.
more next week...

nox vs executives
sigh

afterlife vs asf
afterlife has only 1 member on a big roster i recognize (8ball) and asf WILL GIVE ME OPS IN THEIR CHANNEL! i respect the asf guys for continuing to progress, take their lumps, and hang w/ the big boys in rtcw osp!

dbdbbdbdbdbddbdbdbdbdb dat's all folks.

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Week 7 - Cal M - mp_village

Posted by: c[_]`Wippuh (Friday, October 1, 2004)

Village! Village brings it all to the table. Big pf's, both patience and speed on docs runs, excellent teamwork and comms. It's all there. If there's one map that can be dominated by the corner camping llamas on the speakeasys, this is it. Onto the predictions!

Minions of Rage vs Rabia
Is there any doubt this is the MotW. Rabia can make a statement about where they deserve to be with a win in this one. Nikon, LuckyB and Mutha might have other plans though. The teamwork of Rabia vs the absolute brutality that MiN can bring to the table. Should be a great matchup with MiN coming out on top in the end.
Winner: MiN 3-1

Growers Anonymous vs Mercenaries
gA has been on a tailspin lately. A loss to asf certainly doesn't bode well for them as they go to face off the veteran squad of Merc. Look for Merc's experience from being together so long really pay off here.
Winner: Merc 3-1

team affliction vs High Voltage
Laws can talk all he wants about how Affliction got through village at Qcon due to facing NA comp. The fact still remains that they're facing off vs another NA team this time too! HV is not your average team, but affliction will be too much for them to stop.
Winner: -a- 3-1

Team Bandaid vs Fear Us
Team who? Team Bandaid looks like a combo of tons of different guys. Randy, Pimpplaya, Kap (Opio?), Chris and others certainly makes you wonder who good they might be. With a late entrance they may be too late to make the playoffs, but they're definitely going to have something to say about who makes it. This is going to be a better match than many believe.
Winner: fu 3-2

Made Men vs Team Effect
fX's aim will just be too much for m2 to handle.
Winner: fX 3-0

Team Exodus vs American Special Forces
An impressive win vs gA doesn't do a thing for asf vs -x-. Neither does having a busted hacker stay on your roster. PresidentChaos farms tobacco out of the western courtyard the entire match!
Winner: -x- 3-0

Collateral Damage vs We-Happy-Few
WHF hasn't show anyone that they have what it takes to beat the guys in cD yet. Look for Duffman to have mucho fun tk'ing Deore.
Winner: cD 3-0

SMN vs Team Paradox
dox looks like a nice team. This doesn't look like a nice match. Warzone's stats will be super spiffy looking afterwards. dox does have SUPER FAGGOT SiN on their team who has liked to crash Texas Swingline in his spare time.
63fe1e012a678c64c67b50938cbcbe66 "
sIn" "24.254.52.130:27960" Crashing Server
786033103f95dfbf3b81b555cca3d4d6 "
sIn" "24.254.52.130:27960" Crashing Server
32271eee1521ae05c22004bb0925d1b3 "
sIn" "24.254.52.130:27960" Crashing Server
Add that to your ban list!
Winner: sMn 3-0

Blur vs readyup
Blur is one of those teams that you really can't put a finger on how good they are just by results. This week is no exception.
Winner: Blur 3-0

Team Executives vs Office Space
Yeah, OS will be coming into this one with a lot of confidence. In a short scrim last week, they made eXe's defense look like swiss cheese with some devastating rage! Fearful caps just 10 secs short of being full holds has to have eXe in the doghouse. Things should be interesting this week as surely eXe will have 6 men in the match, unlike the 5 in the scrim :o
Winner: eXe 3-0

Devil Stomper Battalion vs The Swat Guys
Actually not a bad one to watch. These two teams have the coordination to make this a fun one. In the end DSB looks poised to win though.
Winner: DSB 3-1

Pound Your Face vs Tribal Valor
Step up time vs PYF. Some dropped rounds to Afterlife don't look too good. Some rounds taken from Valor would be impressive. A straight up win would be very convincing of their place. Hard one to pick here.
Winner: Valor 3-1

Team Cellular vs Bigasskickin
These Cell guys scrim a lot. That will be the difference here as they win.
Winner: Cell 3-1

Operation Psycho Patrol vs Team Vengeance
MotW material imo. OPP comes in as a historically strong team on village. v| had the upset of the world with their victory on village during last season's playoffs vs Silence. Troll's pf had a lot to do with that. Should be a barnburner (all of OPP is already on fire!).
Winner: v| 3-2

By Way of the Gun vs NoX Team
BWG's roster is just too impressive.
Winner: BWG 3-0

Nothing 2 Prove vs AfterLife
Afterlife is an interesting team. They take PYF to the wire but have dropped rounds to asf and DSB. n2p is similar in that they pushed Valor all the way to a 3-2 loss. The winner here should be a team to watch for a late push for the playoffs.
Winner: n2p 3-2

FULL METAL JACKET vs Team Evolution
FMJ's scrim time will pay off here vs rsf.
Winner: FMJ 3-1

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Week 6 - Cal M - mp_ice

Posted by: c[_]`Wippuh (Friday, September 24, 2004)

nup, wtf is a nup? Well, it's nub, but the b has fallen, so it's even more n00berlicious! That's what these predictions aim for! They're super nup with absolutely NO color. This week, lets discuss week 6 of Cal-M on the map that gets nothin' but love, mp_ice.

Onto the predictions!

We-Happy-Few vs. Redline
WHF has been having a rough time of it in CAL so far, but they're sticking with it and that's super duper strong. Redline has some names on their team that lead me to believe they'll be able to beat WHF, however this is ice and it's popular on the pubs so maybe WHF can pull out a round or two.
Score: 3-2
Winner: RedLine

Collateral Damage vs. Mercenaries
What is wrong here? Mercs is a good, good team. WIth players like GG, Alpine, Fuzz and the oldschool mercs you'd think they'd be in pretty good shape. A brutal schedule has rewarded them with matchups vs the likes of MJ, MiN, m2 and fu. Pretty brutal. Not as brutal as cD's schedule though :o fX, HV, m2 and Rabia. Looks like these two teams can finally have some fun. I look for Merc to win this one as Vexed gheys up the cD vent channel so much that even Deo has to stop dressing metrosexual!
Score: 3-0
Winner: Merc

Team Effect vs. Minions of Rage
This is a high profile match, but I don't believe it's going to be as close as people think. fX is beastly on Ice. Serb, Vat and company are going to be roaring and channeling all their emotion, or something like that. MiN is no slouch on Ice, but in this one I think fX's guns will just be too much. The corners of ice will be giving off high emotional readings after this one.
Score: 3-0
Winner: fX

Team Exodus vs. New Jersey
-x- is at a crossroads after losing to affliction and HV. Ice is a map suited to them with their tight teamwork. Not sure what to make of NJ after their forfeit loss to MiN last week. In the end, even if both teams show up at full strength, I believe the offense of -x- will be too much for NJ to keep up with.
Score: 3-1
Winner: -X-

Fear Us vs. team affliction
fu has a monster roster and they might need all of them to slow Brian down on his legendary speed runs. If he gets off the stronghold, game over :o I expect -a- to still be slightly rusty, but that's going to be more than enough for them to beat fu. If the right guys play for fu, expect a hellacious match.
Score: 3-0
Winner: -a-

American Special Forces vs. Growers Anonymous
gA is also up for the award of most brutal schedule. fu (who they beat), -x-, HV and fX is pretty tough is you ask me. They get back on track this week due to having Stagnant on their roster. Why is that important you ask? Simple, Stag is from Alabama! That's pure fury.
Score: 3-1
Winner: gA`

Rabia vs. High Voltage (MotW)
HV has had impressive wins over fu and gA, but their win over -x- last week was a statement that they were a team to watch out for. Even with the super connection of Paul's, they will be ready for this match. Rabia comes in with big wins over -a-, xcal and m2. This one will be fierce and is a pure tossup so far. The winner of this match is whichever team gets more from their pf. Gotta give Grim the slightest of edges there.
Score: 3-2
Winner: HV|

Made Men vs. Excalibur
This is an excellent matchup. Both teams look right there on the edge of making a run to the playoffs. m2 took a round from -a- last week. xcal has been doing exactly what everyone has expected them to, winning. A tie vs fu looks worrisome and on that basis I'm going to go with m2 in a close match.
Score: 3-1
Winner: m2

AfterLife vs. Pound Your Face
Afterlife is outmatched here vs PYF, aka IW. Look for PYF to have some big pf play from Ryan to really frustrate afterlife and take them out of their game. The med rushes on the offensive by PYF should lead to some hectic situations on the stronghold.
Score: 3-1
Winner: PyF

Team Uprise vs. Bigasskickin
The only question here is if uprise will have enough. If they do, this match is close and furious. If not, well forfeit duh.
Score: 3-0
Winner: AKT (forfeit)

Ecstasy vs. SMN
I like to bash on xTc, that's no secret. Picking them to lose is almost as common as me picking OS to lose. However, there's no bashing going on here. sMn is a force and even a round taken from them would be a huge statement by xTc. Can they do it? I don't believe so. sMn has only dropped 1 round so far and seemingly has the teamwork to compliment the guns that dox just fell short of on ufo.
Score: 3-0
Winner: SMN

Nothing 2 Prove vs. NoX Team
n2p took Valor to the wire last week. I'm pretty sure that both TV and SoS were strong on UFO, so that's a big testament to what n2p is capable. They're going up against NoX, a team that has vastly improved, but the showing vs Valor is too much to ignore.
Score: 3-0
Winner: n2p

Team Paradox vs. Devil Stomper Battalion
DSB rocks but dox is going to be too strong here. I can't wait for the dox vs nox matchup. The predictions on that one should rox! hehe, sorry, couldn't resist.
Score: 3-0
Winner: dox.

Operation Psycho Patrol vs. Office Space
OoOoOo, something I said made the guys in OPP mad the other night in their channel. Maybe it had to do with me saying that all of their players were ghey!?!? Yes, I believe that was it! Plus their beloved LSU Bungle Tigers SUCK! Spa pulls out his pink hot pant skins and does an extreme makeover of the stronghold. With the new pastels and softness of Ice, OS gets confused and starts actually killing OPP members, but can't find the docs in all of Yogi's copies of Oprah. OPP wins easily :(
Score: 3-0
Winner: OPP

Blur vs. The Outsiders
Any team with Arch, err, Ariel the Little Merboy, is doomed from the getgo. I believe this is just a conspiracy by Arch to get a look at Helmut without his pants on. Again, Arch proves to be a goob, as we all know that Helmut never wears any pants. Blur is favored here, but a Seed appearance is a huge boost and could signify a win for the Greasers.
Score: 3-2
Winner: blur

Illgamers vs. The Swat Guys
The two teams without a win face off on Ice. This could be a god one and I wouldn't mind watching actually. I've got to go with SG though. How can you not pick a team that has a member named =SG=UranusHertz?
Score: 3-1
Winner: TSG

Tribal Valor vs. readyup
Valor is the better team here.
Score: 3-0
Winner: Valor`

By Way of the Gun vs. Team Evolution
BWG is back and ready to rumble vs rsf. rsf pulled some nifty stuff vs us on UFO last week and I was impressed by their offensive coordination. Only a Case of the Mondays and some extreme fajitas from Flingers stopped them with some great work in the doc room. BWG was a good team on ice if I remember correctly. That powers them here.
Score: 3-0
Winner: BwG

Team Executives vs. Team Vengeance
This is an interesting matchup. v| is a good team and most know that. They don't have that big presence like -a- and sMn do though, so I see eXe sort of slacking on this one. v| will surprise them with some extreme quality play. Donka and Spec will bring some delayed tactics and that's the key to any victory. Closer match than people expect imo.
Score: 3-2
Winner: eXe

FULL METAL JACKET vs. Team Cellular
I still don't get Cellular's tags. Can someone explain them to me? I feel left out. FMJ has not been extremely impressive in their schedule or whom they've beaten despite some respectable names on the roster. Apathy might have set in and that's no good vs Cell, who looks to be scrimming often.
Score: 3-0
Winner: [::]_

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Top 10!

Posted by: [M2]Retired (Saturday, October 9, 2004)

cuz whip is lazy and i'm bored!
but not bored enough to use colors :P

Fall Outs: HV no showed which is never a good sign. They also haven't really done that much to impress me personally of late. They're out.
Also, v| gets replaced by the team that beat em! Just makes sense.

10 (Tie). Made Men (0) Though M2 got shut out by fX, they beat oX 3-1 in TWL solidifying their position here. I think they may get an interesting matchup (maybe HV or Exodus) that will confirm whether they hold this ranking with the ties.

10 (Tie). Blur (New) It's about time someone noticed what these guys are starting to do. They haven't dropped a round since solidifying their roster and everything sees to be going good. They will also be starting to get tougher matchups.

10 (Tie). Tribal Valor (new) Reemerging from STA to the real world this season, TV got a big win over #ur:) and sneaks into the top 10. In the mess that is the central with all the teams that have come and go, valor gets the nod here.

9. Operation Psycho Patrol (New) Always around this spot looking in, a 3-0 on v| breaks em in.

8. Paradox (new) Great roster and a few more weeks before playoffs to grow. Look out for these guys. They took a round against SMN, but hopefully don't get anymore l33t matchups that could threaten their playoff prospects.

7. Exodus (-1) Things just don't look that good for x. They continue to fall here after losing a round to ASF.

6. Minions (-2) Another team that has failed to impress when put up against the top competition. By my count they have 2 non-forfeit wins. (xcal and merc) On rep alone they stay this high.

5. Executives (-2) These guys fall not because of what they did this week on village (3-0 upsetminded OS), but because of rumblings of inability to make 6. This is a team that could compete with the top level, but not without a solid roster.

4. Affliction (0) Once again, this team would probably be 3 but rumors of inactivity keep them on the watch list and below Rabia. They also get hurt by not being able to show us they would 3-0 hV which probably would have happened.

3. Rabia (+4) Our big winner this week. Things are looking good for these guys. Solid roster. Getting better. This team will go far in playoffs.

2. Effect (0) Got the job done vs M2 and only stays 2 because SMN beat them and they won't go above the nuts until they get em back.

1. Splash My Nuts (0) GGz

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Predictions: States Cup Week 1

Posted by: -opp bigbear- (Tuesday, October 5, 2004)

Here by popular request (unless wippuh beat me to it ;p)

States Cup Predictions Week 1. (thats all the colors I'm doing I'm fucking lazy.)

Note: map selections are unknown. Team Captains plz post your map selections in the comments if you wish.

California ( http://www.yuwa.org/statescup/teams/californiaI.htm ) vs. Team Northwest ( http://www.yuwa.org/statescup/teams/northwest.htm ):
Cali is basically tTt + a few EOD + some other bitches so this team is going to be a little ahead of everyone else as far as teamwork and such is concerned. Northwest has some talent but isn't very deep and most of them have never or rarely played together. Look for Cali to win this pretty easily. Though Spec and Shaggy are hawt.

Cali wins 4-0

New Mexico ( http://www.yuwa.org/statescup/teams/newmexico.htm ) vs. Texas ( http://www.yuwa.org/statescup/teams/texas.htm ):
New Mexico is basically Team Burque with some other pretty good players such like Cali their teamwork will already be there. Texas also has several players with experience together in Nard, Gisele and Vem and has old school beasts like Chocula and Animeman filling out a pretty solid lineup. I think texas will take this in what may end up being one of the closest matches of Week 1.

Texas wins 3-1 (loses 4-0 if Word plays)

Colorado ( http://www.yuwa.org/statescup/teams/colorado.htm ) vs. Missouri aka the Midwest Cow Tippers ( http://www.yuwa.org/statescup/teams/missouri.htm )
My match so I'm gonna keep my mouth shut. GL HF to Colorado.

Tie 2-2 ;p

Minnesota ( http://www.yuwa.org/statescup/teams/minnesota.htm ) vs. Michigan ( http://www.yuwa.org/statescup/teams/michigan.htm ):
Both teams look pretty solid but I think I'm going to have to give the edge to Michigan in this one. Imposter, Mindgame, Multitask and Shifty are very solid players for Michigan but Minnesota can counter with a pretty solid lineup. In the end Michigan prevails.

Michigan wins 3-1

Indiana ( http://www.yuwa.org/statescup/teams/indiana.htm ) vs. Illinois ( http://www.yuwa.org/statescup/teams/illionis.htm ):
MOTW IMO. Both teams are pretty stacked. Half of Indiana's potential starters could come from sMn with some quality players like GTX, Eliot and others to fill out the rest of the lineup while Illinois can field a team featuring the LuckyFaust, Donkanator, Rambo, Scott (-a-ttocs?), Bigshot and gay CoD players like Powell and Rinker. WTV for this one plz.

Toss Up but I think Illinois wins 3-1

Ohio ( http://www.yuwa.org/statescup/teams/ohio.htm ) vs Pennsylvania II ( http://www.yuwa.org/statescup/teams/pennsylavaniaII.htm ):
We (opp) scrimmed Ohio the other night and while they have some decent shots their teamwork is a little lacking right now. However, they are working to try to get their shit together and should come out pretty strong. Also I believe they have choosen mp_keep as their map so some of the PENN guys may be a little unfamiliar with it. Pennsylvania II has viking, the best playa NEVA as StanG would say, and hydro who IMO is one of the top 4 panzers in RtCW. Drunksoldier, eights, caffeine and paper give this team a solid lineup from top to bottom which I believe will give them the edge.

Penn II wins 3-1

Pennsylvania I ( http://www.yuwa.org/statescup/teams/pennsylavaniaI.htm ) vs. Team National ( http://www.yuwa.org/statescup/teams/national.htm ):
Penn I has a super solid lineup with almost no weak links. No matter who they play they should perform well. National has solid players but little depth beyond their top 4 or 5 so if any of those players don't show this team could be in serious trouble. However, against Penn I it wont matter who shows.

Penn I wins 4-0

Florida ( http://www.yuwa.org/statescup/teams/florida.htm ) vs. Tennessee ( http://www.yuwa.org/statescup/teams/tennessee.htm ):
Both teams have pretty solid rosters but if you compare the top 8 for Tennessee vs the top 8 for Florida I think Florida has the edge. With that being said this match probably will come down to who shows up and plays for each team. FuZion, s0r, parcher and nail are all going to have to be there for Tennessee to win.

Toss-up I think Tennessee 3-1 depending on the game time lineups.

Team South ( http://www.yuwa.org/statescup/teams/south.htm ) vs. Georgia ( http://www.yuwa.org/statescup/teams/georgia.htm ):
Team South is another one of those teams that has a lot of experience together featuring several Office Players plus some players that scrim against or ring for OS a lot. However, their familiarity together may not prove to do much good against a Georgia team that could throw a super stacked top 6 at them. Holly, Silo, Fatninja, Mooshu and pharrel make a very solid 5 but their success throughout the tourney could be decided by who fills the 6th spot.

Georgia wins 3-1 (sorry to Juve, Tim and cracker but ya'll gonna lose ;p)

Carolinas ( http://www.yuwa.org/statescup/teams/carolinas.htm ) vs. Virginias ( http://www.yuwa.org/statescup/teams/virginias.htm ):
The Carolinas have 2 of the best Clan Leaders of the last 2 years of wolf in Vatican and Chaoslord but beyond their top 3 or 4 they are a little weak. Their success will depend a lot on what Vat and Chaos can do with what they've got. However, the Virginias face a lot of the same problems as far as depth goes. They do have the two leet couples in Mario/Luigi and Fuzz/Alpine players whose careers always seem to be joined at the hip so you might see them do some things in this tourney.

Virginias win 3-1 because of slightly better depth.

New Jersey ( http://www.yuwa.org/statescup/teams/newjersey.htm ) vs. Maryland ( http://www.yuwa.org/statescup/teams/maryland.htm ):
Maryland has some quality players but their best player who has been pretty active in RtCW for the last few seasons is naps everyone else has been focusing on ET or CoD for the last few seasons. Thats not a good sign ;p. New Jersey is another one of those teams that doesnt look like it has many holes in its lineup. They can field anyone on the roster and still put forth a solid performance.

New Jersey wins 3-1

New York I ( http://www.yuwa.org/statescup/teams/newyorkI.htm ) vs Quebec II ( http://www.yuwa.org/statescup/teams/quebecII.htm ):
New York I is stacked. They very likely could be the early favorites to win the whole thing. Quebec II has some quality players but n0fx, Bruce and AtomicFish haven't been all that active in RtCW lately. While Quebec II will have some success later in the tournament I don't see them doing much here.

New York I wins 4-0

New Hampshire ( http://www.yuwa.org/statescup/teams/newh.htm ) vs. Quebec I ( http://www.yuwa.org/statescup/teams/quebecI.htm ):
New Hampshire isn't very deep beyond its top 3 or 4. Quebec I is .oX! plus Warzone and Samus. Therefore Quebec I will probably have the best teamwork out of any team in the tournament and has incredibly solid depth. They might be one of the early favorites.

Quebec wins 4-0

Ontario ( http://www.yuwa.org/statescup/teams/ontario.htm ) vs. New York II ( http://www.yuwa.org/statescup/teams/newyorkII.htm )
Ontario is solid throughout their whole lineup while NYC II gets weak after their top 3 or 4. The most interesting part of this matchup will be the Chris vs. Randy factor. Also remember that Bread has poop in his eye and it will greatly alter his play ;p.

Ontario wins 4-0

FLAME ON.

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Predictions for week 9: Assault!

Posted by: [M2]Retired (Friday, October 15, 2004)

Prediction time!

Mademen v Mercenaries
M2 and Merc have played about 6 times in the last two seasons including in both twl and cal playoffs last year and already in cal this year. M2 has won the last bunch 3-1 so...
M2 3-1

Eggnogsquad v Collateral Damage
Hard to judge es because they only have one match as the reformed team but roster alone they are too good for damage.
es 3-0

Bandaid v Optik
Optik/envision's roster looks a little thin. also, they had to forfeit a match in sta last week because 4 of the 6 players had different guids than provided for play I think the story goes. I dunno. Bandaid is better anyways.
[::|noobs|::] 3-0

Growers Anonymous v Fear Us
FU > Merc 3-0 Merc > gA 3-1 =
FU > gA 3-0

New Jersey v We Happy Few
A popular matchup of late?
NJ 3-0

Rabia v American Special Forces
ASF may steal a round, but I doubt it. Rabia is on a nice winning streak and it will continue here.
Rabia 3-0

Executives v Effect
Obviously MOTW! Someone on eXe had posted about hoping they play someone good on Assault (not sure if it was sarcasm, i didn't take it that way) well they got it! This interleague matchup puts the best of the Atlantic v the best of the Central (or 2nd best). There is a feeling from eXe of confidence and I'm buying it!! fX has had some roster changes and may have minimal troubles with adjusting. fX loves assault too! what a matchup! anyways, I love underdogs.
eXe 3-2

Evolution v Nox
someone's gotta win?
r$f 3-1

Nothing to Prove v Exodus
After playing M2 4/5 on 6, can -x- get a roster together for this possibly difficult matchup. n2p also has posted about inactivity problems. I think they both get their rosters together and -x- shows n2p they are the better team still. n2p gets a round maybe.
-x- 3-1

Pound your face v Paradox
Paradox gets a good matchup for them here. They can show us where they stand without playing another super tough team that could beat them. #ur:) has not impressed lately and dox 3-0s blur they will 3-0 here.
dox 3-0

Blur v Cellular
Cell is a solid open team. Blur is just better and they get back on their winning streak here.
Blur 3-0

Splash My Nuts v By way of the Gun
bwg has looked good lately and if they get a round from SMN they will stay in the top ten, but smn is just better.
SMN 3-0

readyup v Devil Stomper Battalion
spydr is just better here.
spydr 3-0

Office Space v Afterlife
MOTW 2! This match has playoff implications. The loser will be hard pressed to make the playoffs and the winner has a good shot. Afterlife has looked solid. They have 5 3-2 matchups this year. This will probably be another one but I think the boys from the cup will be ready and win it in the end.
c[_] 3-2

Full Metal Jacket v Swat Guys
FMJ is probably just better here
FMJ 3-1

Operation Psycho Patrol v Tribal Valor
MOTW 3! This could be another close one here. OPP seems to be inconsistent. valor seems to be finding their stride down the stretch here. assault is a different kind of map and some teams love it others hate it.
valor 3-2

Vengeance v Big Ass Kickin
v| is just better here and ends their slide down with a win here.
v| 3-1

that's my story and I'm stickin to it.

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States Cup Week 2

Posted by: ==*{SGT.DICK}*== (Monday, October 11, 2004)

Northwest 1 : 2 New Mexico

Looks to be a really good matchup. 2 solid squads that rely on teamwork rather than individual skill.

Texas 2 : 2 Colorado

TX has the stronger roster I think, but Colorado has it together already shown by their victory over Missouri. Texas lost, but played down a man. I think they'll have 6, but still be disorganized somewhat, prompting a tie here.

California 4 : 0 Minnesota

Cali is a powerhouse and will show it again in a sweep over Minnesota.

Missouri 2 : 1 Ohio

Another great matchup in the Midwest. Both suffered close first week defeats, and this one could really go either way.

Michigan 1 : 3 Pennsylvania I

Quite possibly the MOTW here, Michigan looked strong in their win over Minnesota, but Pennsylvania I is one of the favorites.

Illinois 0 : 4 National

Illinois didn't even come close to looking ready to play and will probably forfeit this game too. It's sad because Illinois has the players to be a top team.

Indiana 3 : 1 Pennsylvania II

PA II has a good team, but Indiana is another one of my favorites.

Georgia 0 : 4 Carolinas

Maybe GA will get it together for this one, but I doubt it. Carolinas would take this one anyway.

Tennessee ? : ? South

No comment, but we look forward to a great match. No forfeits here.

Florida 4 : 0 Maryland

Maryland looks to be a llama.

Virginias 0 : 4 New York I

NY not getting much action again, another forfeit I bet :/ .

Ontario 4 : 0 New Hampshire

NH looks pretty solid, shame they will probably be a forfeit llama too.

Quebec I 4 : 0 Quebec II

I dominates whether II plays or not.

New Jersey 4 : 0 New York II

Same for NJ here.

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Playoff Outlook

Posted by: c[_]`Wippuh (Wednesday, October 20, 2004)

Wanna see what makes for exciting matches? The playoff hunt. It's pretty lined up who's going to make it in the depleted Atlantic conference with 7 of the assumed 8 spots already nailed down. However, over in the Central conference, it's all tight! Only 4 spots have been secured and of those only sMn and eXe don't have major concerns. Even TV, with a solid shot at the #3 seed, could fall to #8 if the right things fall into place! After those 4 teams you have a total of 9 teams that have a shot of making the final 4 spots!

Here's a breakdown on the playoffs and what has happened so far. Teams only have to play 5 games to be eligible.


Team Name - # of points +/- round differential

* = clinched playoff spot

Atlantic
fx - 16 points +21*
rabia - 16 points +17*
-x- - 10 points +8*
m2 - 10 points +3*
merc - 10 points +1*
fu - 9 points +1*
nj - 8 points +5*
band - 6 points +6
gA - 6 points -6
asf - 6 points -8
cD - 6 points -10

The Atlantic Story

fx (clinched Spot)
best possible = #1 seed
worst possible = #2 seed
fx owns the tiebreaker vs rabia with a 3-0 win way back on beach. The possibilities of them losing the top spot is if they lose and rabia wins.

rabia (clinched Spot)
best possible = #1 seed
worst possible = #2 seed
Rabia could fail to show up for this week's match on crapteau and still coast into the playoffs with the top seed. Their only hop for a top seed is a fX loss which looks highly unlikely.

-x- (clinched Spot)
best possible = #3 seed
worst possible = #7 seed
-x- has to show up on chateau or risk the possibility of falling way down the ladder. A win would put them with 12 points and at least a +9 round diff, which is more than merc or m2 could muster up.

m2 (clinched Spot)
best possible = #3
worst possible = #7
Made Men have had an impressive season so far. With a win this week, plus a Merc's loss they could have 12 points and the tiebreaker vs -x-!

Mercs (clinched Spot)
best possible = #3
worst possible = #7
Mercs have an outside shot at the #3 seed after a relatively quiet season. The only way that's happening though is if both m2 squeaks by and -x- lose. -x- has too big of a round diff for mercs to overcome while if m2 wins 3-2 (+1 to round diff) and mercs win 3-0 (+3 round diff) it leaves them both at +4 round diff. m2 and mercs split their season series so a possible playoff game is in the works if this scenario fills out?

Fear Us (clinched Spot)
best possible = #3
worst possible = #7
If Fear Us won and went to 11 points, they can wish for losses from m2, mercs and -x- to put them in the #3 seed. If they lose, nj can win and leapfrog them in the standings. However a seeding anywhere from 4-7 looks realistic.

New Jersey (clinched Spot)
best possible = #3
worst possible = #8
NJ rollerskates in with some generous scheduling courtesy of CAL :/ With the last 2 weeks finding them matched up with We Happy Few, they've secured 4 points and +6 in the round diff department. Woohooo for NJ! And check this out. If NJ manages to win their match 3-0 while -x- losses 0-3 (forfeit possible) and m2/merc lose, they come out with a possible playoff vs -x- for the #3 seed! WTF. Good news is that NJ looks like they're firmly entrenched in the doctrine of forfeiting vs teams that can beat them!

Bandaid
best possible = #7
worst possible = #8
Bandaid is the only team with 6 points that can leap over NJ. If they can manage a win they'll take the round diff up to at least +7. Combine that with a NJ loss, which would take them down to at least a +4 diff and you have Bandaid in #7 and NJ at #8. Either way, NJ will face off either fX or Rabia round 1 :/


All of the following teams HAVE to win or go home.


gA
best possible = #8
worst possible = playing ET during the offseason
Here comes the teams clinging to the hope of a #8 seed. The only hope lays in a loss from bandaid and a win for gA. That will give gA 8 points and a minimum of a -5 round diff. If gA can pull at least a 3-1 win, they will put their diff at -4, which is more than asf could cover.

asf
best possible = #8
worst possible = playing ET during the offseason
Another team that needs a loss from bandaid, a stout 3-0 win to make their diff -5 and gA to either lose or win only 3-2. That would put gA and asf at -5 and at a playoff for the #8 spot!

Colleteral Damage
best possible = #8
worst possible = playing ET during the offseason
The last team clinging to the #8 dream. cD needs losses from bandaid and gA. If asf wins, they can do so 3-2 and cD can win 3-0 to force both teams into a situation where they have 8 points and a -7 diff. Hard to see happening but it is a possibility.



Team Name - # of points +/- round differential

* = clinched playoff spot


The Central Story

sMn - 14 points +19*
exe - 14 points +16*
TV - 12 points +6*
OS - 11 points +3*
OPP - 10 points +5
blur - 10 points +5
PYF - 10 points +4
v| - 10 points +3
dox - 8 points +8
bwg - 8 points +4
sg - 8 points +0
after - 8 points -2
cell - 8 points -3
bakt - 8 points -5#

sMn (clinched Spot)
best possible = #1
worst possible = #2
sMn is ready to take that #1 seed. All they need to do is win their match this week by any margin. At worst, they lose their match and eXe takes the #1 spot. If they lose and TV wins, they'd both have 14 points, but sMn owns the tiebreaker in a head to head win over TV.

eXe (clinched Spot)
best possible = #1
worst possible = #2
eXe can hope that sMn losses otherwise they can book their tickets for the #2 seed. sMn owns both a head to head win and an insurmountable round diff lead over eXe.

Tribal Valor (clinched Spot)
best possible = #3
worst possible = #8
Here's where it gets interesting for the Central. TV is a lock for the #3 seed if they win. However, if they lose, they could fall all the way to the #8 seed if OS, OPP, blur, PYF and v| win! v| would have to manage up a 3-0 win and TV fall 0-3 to force a playoff for the #7 and #8 spot between the two

Office Space (clinched Spot)
best possible = #3
worst possible = #8
With 11 points, OS currently stands #4 in the standings. They make it in because the only teams that can leapfrog them are OPP, Blur, PYF and v| as all the 8 point teams cannot overcome the points. If all 4 of those teams get the job done and OS falls, OS can look for a #8 seed.

And here comes the race for the rest. 9 teams fighting for the last 4 spots!

OPP
best possible = #3
worst possible = playing ET during the offseason
With a win and losses from OS and TV, OPP could technically snag the #3 seed. If OPP wins their diff goes at least to +6 while a TV loss means they'd have at least a +5. Whatever the outcome, OPP is in a fierce fight here for a playoff spot. Rounds grabbed on Chateau can mean life or death for their playoff future as blur, pyf and v| all wait in the wings with 10 points and diffs that can all catch up to OPP


Blur
best possible = #3
worst possible = playing ET during the offseason
See OPP's scenario

Pound Your Face
best possible = #3
worst possible = playing ET during the offseason
See OPP's scenario. Then add in that if blur and OPP don't lose, they need drop at least 2 rounds, making their round diff +6. Then with a sweep they can leapfrog both of them.

Vengeance
best possible = #3
worst possible = playing ET during the offseason
They have to have OPP and Blur lose along with TV and OS in order to get the #3 seed. In order to get past TV they need them to drop all 3 rounds. Tv losses, their diff falls anywhere from +3 to +5. If v| wins, their diff goes up anywhere from +4 to +6. Lots of possibilities arise from TV, OPP, Blur, PYF and v| all depending on the round diffs.


All of the following teams HAVE to win or go home.


dox
best possible = #5
worst possible = playing ET during the offseason
Despite coming in late, dox has a mightly good round diff and look to be a devastating matchup for whomever gets them. The best they can do seed wise is #5 as they don't have enough points to leapfrog OS even if they win and OS losses. Their hope lies in either OPP, Blur, PYF or v| losing. If they win and one of them losses, they'll be a team with 10 points and at least a +9 differential, which will be the best possibl differential of any team with 10 points

By Way of the Gun
best possible = #5
worst possible = playing ET during the offseason
They've got a shot at the #5 seed if they can pull off a sweep or a 3-1 to put them at 10 points and a +7 or +6 diff. They've also got to have 2 of the 5 teams above them lose. Any type of win on their part and a loss by 2 of the 5 teams above them (Opp, blur, PYF, v| and dox) and they're in!

Swat Guys
best possible = #5
worst possible = playing ET during the offseason
SG's have a rough road ahead of them. They need lots of help. They need to win 3-0 to put their total at 10 points at +3. With that record they not only need losses from OPP, Blur, and PYF, but they've got to have losses where those teams don't manage to steal rounds. :(

Afterlife
best possible = #7
worst possible = playing ET during the offseason
The best Afterlife can do is achieve a 10 point and +1 round diff. With the worst possible losses from all of those above them (a -3 to round diff), they still would not surpass OPP and blur. Plus they'd be tied with PYF if they lost 3-0. That means they can't go higher than #7 and that's only with a playoff spot win vs PYF. Very iffy :(

Cellular
best possible = #8
worst possible = playing ET during the offseason
The best Cellular can hope for is a win at 3-0. That gives them 10 points and an even round diff. With 0-3 losses they would still not pass OPP, Blur or PYF. They've got to have a loss from Afterlife and v| losing 0-3 to force a playoff with v| for the final spot! Yipes

BAKT just can't make it. With a -5 round differential, all the teams above them could lose 0-3 and they could win 3-0 and still behind OPP, blur, PYF and v|. Leaving them in #9

The upcoming schedules for week10 will clear up the muddy picture signifigantly. Until then...

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FragFest2004

Posted by: .Banks (Friday, October 22, 2004)

Hi all you RTCW players out there. Well, as you all know, this community has had its fair share of bad news..whether it be hackers, shit talkin, hackers, bad attitudes, disputed matches, hackers, and more hackers. Weve come up with a tourny to help the over all well being of RTCW.

It will be called FragFest2004. Its a 2v2 obj, SW match.

We will start it around middle of December. We are shooting for after cal and twl league ends, that way people have time. Matches will be on tues and wed night. We have 5 sponsored servers lined up, with prizes. Brackets will be designed, and on the site within a couple days. We are going with double elimination matches, so if your team loses, you still got a chance. Refs will be at every match. There will also be a complete set of rules on the site within a couple days.

Our site is here http://www.syntaxstudios.com/tourney/addteam.asp You can register as of now!

There has been some talk about past tournys and how they didnt produce the prizes. We live in the real world, and bad things happen. This tourny will cost the players nothing, and is solely built on the premise of doing what we can to keep rtcw alive. I hope all goes well, but, if something goes wrong, remember what this is about, and try to keep a good attitude towards the game. ITS ALL ABOUT RTCW!!!

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Playoff Predictions Week 1 UFO

Posted by: -opp bigbear- (Wednesday, October 27, 2004)

Well CAL already has the Week 1 Playoff Schedules up so lets get a prediction thread going post-haste. First weeks map is everyones favorite...UFO! A map where clutch doc runs and big time panzers can sway the momentum for any team.

Atlantic Conference:

#1 rabia- vs #8 -nJ-
Well, some people may say that members of rabia hack. Personally I'd like to give them the benefit of the doubt and assume they are just a hardworking bunch of players that get maximum results out of their time spent playing the game. New Jersey on the otherhand is a hodge-podge of old school players, homosexuals and complete psychotics. Going to have to give Rabia this one.

rabia- > -nJ- 3-0

#2
-x- vs #7 fu|
Exodus is a force when they can get 6 players together to scrim and play matches. If they stay active through the playoffs they could easily be one of the teams to beat. fu| is oldschool reborn but they often have problems getting members together to scrim. Megs is hot though and Sonic and eviL bring the MISSOURAH rage. Still exodus has this one in the bag.

-x- > fu| 3-0

#3
[m2] vs #6 -fx-
Wow looks like the only people siLo screwed were m2. Team Effect sneaks into the playoffs at the sixth spot instead of 1 or 2 because of the forfeits they recieved as a result of Mr.Hacks. As a result m2's surprising season will end earlier then it should have.

-fx- > [m2] 3-0

#4
merc| vs #5 gA
A match earlier this season between these two teams spawned a little controversy and led to the creation of the current OGL champs Team No Huddle. With the addition of Troll to the lineup and with GGallin benched (hopefully) Merc will pull this out against a greatly improved Growers.

merc| > gA 3-2

Now the Central Conference:

#1
sMn- vs #8 c[_]
Well Office Space is a much better team this season then they have ever been. True CAL-M material if there had been a CAL-M. No more Open noob jokes need to be sent this teams way. However, sMn is a force and has to be the odds on favorites to win it based on their CAL and TWL wins over -fx-.

sMn- > c[_] 3-0

#2
eXe| vs #7 v|
My boys at v| got a harsh seed and have to face a tough eXe team that only improved with the additions of Nail and Decka. Anial, Flog and BeeZ have put together a team that looks to be a force for as long as they want to keep playing. However, vengeance is a streaky team that on the right map can beat almost anyone even if Wagz blows cack.

eXe| > v| 3-1

#3
valor vs #6 blur
We played both teams and scrim TV every week for our match warmup. This match will without question be the MOTW as these two teams are incredibly close to each other in skill and teamwork. This match will be decided by whichever team puts in more effort in their preparation. In the end I think Blur might be inspired enough by a lotto loss in week 10 to pull this one out.

blur > valor 3-2

#4
-opp- vs #5 n2p
My match so I won't say much beyond the fact that n2p even making the playoffs surprises a lot of people out there. This team can not be overlooked as it is having a season like teh birds did 2 seasons ago. GL HF to both teams. Personally I think it will be a close match that could go either way depending on each teams preparation.

TOSSUP 3-2

BTW I know I messed up the colors for a lot of teams. If you would like me to fix them just p2p me the correct code for your clan tags. GL HF to all teams involved despite all the drama this has been one of the best and most competitive RtCW seasons in a long time.

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Interview: [M2]Saint

Posted by: c[_]`Wippuh (Wednesday, November 3, 2004)

He's the man at the top of one of the only teams to still be kicking since Test 2! Come inside and listen to [M2]Saint as he kicks around his team and discusses a few things about ze Wolfiestein!

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[_]`Wippuh: Saint, give us the word! Who are you? What do you do? How did you get into gaming and then find your way to RtCW?

[M2]Saint: I'm Steve Jackson, aka 'Saint' leader of the Made Men squad [M2] (www.mademen.net). I currently live in North Canton, Ohio and work in the Global PC Resource department of Diebold, Inc. RtCW is actually the first FPS I really got involved in. I actually just stumbled across it on a game review site and thought it'd try it since I loved Wolf3D...



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[_]`Wippuh: Made Men is a long standing team that has been around since the test days! Not many teams can claim that. However, with all of that time spent, you're still a team that many know relatively little about. Give us a rundown on m2 and its history. How you guys came to competition, etc...

[M2]Saint: Made Men has been around since the end of 2001. John Rabon, aka Smokepuppet, secretly began running an RtCW server at work... and in passing a guy named 'Spookie' suggested he start his own clan. That's how it all began. I remember seeing the server name in all red simply called 'made men' and waiting 15 to 20 minutes to join it. M2 was one of the top clans in Test2 and some of the best guns played with our tag at one time or another. We've always been competitive... beginning with clan wars and then came tourneys like the beach head open and advancing to CAL, TWL and STA leagues. You can't forget those fun nights of staying up until 5am chilling and using the flamethrower at zero gravity though. Like any clan, we've seen our ups and downs... drama and internal conflict. We've had 3 falling outs where we've lost a great deal of players due to one reason or another. But here we are today, stronger than ever and still competing with a tightly nit core.



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[_]`Wippuh: With this being the first season that m2 has had to face major Main talent like fX/rabia, what is the biggest thing you notice in matches vs teams like them? How big do you believe the gap is between those top 3 or 4 teams and the rest of RtCW, and how long do you think a team would have to buckle down in order to reach that level? What would be your prescribed path to get there?

[M2]Saint: There is definitely a lot of talented players in this game and the top RtCW teams aren't at the top for nothing. The first thing that strikes me is incredible aim... the teamwork comes naturally to the top players from experience. With the decreasing amount of teams still playing RtCW the gap is much greater than before and pinning a casual cal open gaming clan against a hardcore main gaming clan will show this. There's a few key elements that will help you reach a higher level of gameplay: 1. Self-improvement through practicing, improving aim by tweaking your sensitivity and watching other players. 2. Improving as a team by setting aside a few hours 3 days or more a week for scrimming and making strategy, good voice communication, knowing your role/position at all times. When you scrim, you need to scrim teams that are stronger than you. Learn from your mistakes and stay motivated.



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[_]`Wippuh: Right now it's election day. Voting is really a duty that many Americans choose to ignore. Is there a duty for players/teams in RtCW that is comparable to voting in real life? If there is, what is it or what do you believe it should be and how would it affect the game?

[M2]Saint: I don't believe there is really any required duty, but getting involved with the RtCW community games the game more fun and competition better. A good example would be when leagues vote to change an element of the game such as the number of players, the amount of panzers or a cvar. It's really the duty of the clan leader to talk to the team and discuss it - then vote on their behalf. M2 votes on any decisions made in the clan.



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[_]`Wippuh: You're magically transformed into Rhea and have all of his programming powers. What would you change/add to osp and why?

[M2]Saint: The first thing that comes to my mind is CAMPING. If I'm around the corner and I peak my head out to see what's coming then obviously my head should be able to be seen unless there are hacks which isn't uncommon here lately. So anytime you lean, your head should be visible and should be able to be shot.

Some random spawn times would make things harder too.



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[_]`Wippuh: With osp you have a great mod that really transformed the game. Some can argue it was also for the worse with its stats and features that were twisted to feed the ego in a team oriented game. Tell us your thoughts on the 3rd parties outside of the players and the game and your feelings on them. What are their pros and cons, what would you like to see changed?

[M2]Saint: Personally, I think it's only natural you want to see how many headshots you've gotten nowadays. Stats are a good guideline to see what you might be doing right and what you're doing wrong. I really have to say that everything fit together well as far as 3rd party goes. Punk buster has done a pretty good job of catching common hacks and enforcing cvars... it would be nice if they would update their client more frequently. And I honestly can't count how many times we've used speakeasy servers for matches, I don't know where we'd be without them.



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[_]`Wippuh: Going back to the second question, m2 has been around for over two years as a team in RtCW. Give us the three matches you remember most and what made them special. Then give us three moments in RtCW that you really believe have been important for the game and why.

[M2]Saint: I could probably list a couple dozen! I remember when M2 finally began playing the retail version of RtCW and we had a match against Bomb Your Enemies on WTV on ass-ault. Needless to say we got worked pretty good by their panz on the main gate... a wake-up call that we couldn't pub like our mp_beach. Another one would have to be our last season in STA when we beat Tribal Valor in a come from behind 3-2 win and played against Reformation (break-off from The Commission) in the playoffs. Lastly, I'd have to say our sick win streak in general in the TWL and STA leagues when we turned both seasons around after almost disbanding.



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[_]`Wippuh: SmokedTurkey, HoneyHam and Chase are all from New Hampshire. What's up with Chase? Did he not get the memo about food themed nicks in the state? Explain to us the issues surrounding this individual. After that, we want you to run down your team and tell us what food each is and why.

[M2]Saint: The food group is what we call them. Even though Chase is not really a food, he's still a great player and a great gun. These guys are all close friends in real life and helped salvage M2 in its darkest moment. I'm glad to have all three of them on the squad. Ok, here's your nutritional info for our starters:

MasterControl(HeXum) is definitely a very angry chilly cheese burrito, he'll either spawn camp you or take a sh*t on your porch and wait.

UgLy is a certain vegetation, but most people smoke it rather than eat it.

Chase is a leet jumping scrublet sandwich. See type of sandwich for reason.

Goddess(PussyGalore) is a warm apple pie... because she's sweet :P

HoneyHam is a piece of ham. He hogs the kills :(

SmokedTurkey is a hot dog, made of turkey bologna. Like a hotdog, he's made up of a variety of qualities or horse parts.

BlackLungz is a skinless chicken breast, because it's nude like he plays wolf.

Tonka is a pineapple, he's a good medic and will stick you no matter what.



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[_]`Wippuh: Will we see m2 in the leagues next season? What does the future hold for the team?

[M2]Saint: You will definitely see M2 competing next season, but in which game is hard to determine at this point. Our clan was born on the beach in RtCW but we've become good friends and we plan on sticking together whether if it's to compete or just have fun. We spend as much time bullshitting as we do playing the game. M2 forever.



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[_]`Wippuh: Shoutouts!

[M2]Saint: [M2]MasterControl, [M2]SmokedTurkey, [M2]Chase, [M2]Ugly, [M2]BlackLungz, [M2]HoneyHam, [M2]Tonka, [M2]Sigint, [M2]Goddess, [M2]TongPo, [M2]Malefic, [M2]SmokePuppet, [M2]HootieMcBoob, [M2]Nemesis One, [M2]ForD, [M2]CadaverJunkie, [M2]SpyderGyrl, [M2]Tango, [M2]Sgt182, [M2]Psycho, [M2]PeaceKeeper, [M2]NaziMudda, [M2]SuperNinjaChris, [M2]Phalanx, [M2]RedRum, [M2]Nutz, [M2]DeadMedic

And anyone else I forgot...

Missed an interview or want to read an old one, then check out ze interview link list

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The Round Table with Big Papas.

Posted by: -doNka- (Thursday, November 4, 2004)

With all the usual interviews going on I decided to conduct one w/ people that would be actually interesting to listen what they got to say. The purpose of the interview was to get a different point of view(inter-view hello?) on the game. In order to achieve that I went around and asked people who played the game (necessary condition, IMO), but this time I made sure that they are not biased as much as those who play the game nowadays or played it for a long time. So I asked D|S-Cha0ticz, D|S-Syn, -a-simple, [CCCP]dnx3 and syz-DjWheat(Styles519) the following questions and got their response:


Q: When and for how long did you play RTCW and what did you play right before that? What's the highest place anywhere you've ever gotten?

cha0ticz: I played RTCW for about 4 months before Quakecon 2002. At the same time I was practicing Quake 3 1v1 and ended up placing 5th at that Quakecon for 1v1.

D|S-Syn: A referee of every major Q3 event in the past 3 years. KIT2 runner up, Resurrection 2 3rd in the east I believe.

dnx3: I played RTCW a bit during the very first test, and then a few months in mid-2002 during Quakecon time. I basically started spectating some matches before Quakecon, and saw that unlike what I expected, RTCW was an interesting game to play. Before that, I've played 3 years of QW, 18 months of Q3, and 18 months of CS (ugh). Played UT2003 for 18 months after RTCW. Highest place would be top8 at WCG 2003 finals for UT2003, last year.

Simple: I played RTCW for about a year, from the Battle on the Beachhead tournament up until QuakeCon2002. I've been apart of 10 tourney champion teams between netquake ctf, Quake 3 ctf, UT2K3, and Savage. The highest finish we had in RTCW while I was playing was finishing 3rd of the North American teams at QuakeCon2002 in 5th place.

DjWheat: I played RTCW for approximately six months. I picked it up after QuakeCon 2002 when a bunch of friends were heavily into it. Previously I was playing Quake 3 for Clan 519 in TDM, and my buddies needed a hired gun. So I jumped on board with them and actually really enjoyed playing. I was a member of the Positive Dickmen for approximately 8 months before we fizzled out of the competition due to lack of interest. As far as the highest place we've gotten? We may have a hit some high rankings in the TWL ladder, and did make it into the playoffs for the 2k3 season.

Q: What did you think about the game in terms of aim, tactics, physics, community atmosphere, and game play overall?

cha0ticz: It was actually pretty good in my opinion. The constant spawning instead of the usual round based methods of 'realistic' games was a nice change of pace and it kept the game moving quite fast. I think it had quite a bit of room for dynamic strategy. The physics were perhaps a bit too much like quake 3 I guess and that might be why the hardcore CS crowd never accepted it. The community had it strong points and weak points like most communities. Some people did a great job at supporting the game (rhea for example) while others were their usual immature selves (I won't name names =D )

D|S-Syn: When I was playing it there were no real 'hacker' issues so the atmosphere was a lot different back then compared to what I see it as now. It was pretty friendly but very competitive. 2 or 3 teams, mine included, seemed to have a good jump on everyone with individuals whose aim just dominated most of the players and that a lot won them most of the matches. When those 2 or 3 teams played each other it was fun to just sit back and watch replays of it. Mostly because the action was pretty fast pace and those teams were constantly pulling something out of their hat.

dnx3: As far as the game itself, I think it basically hit a perfect balance between quake and ut-type deathmatch games, and slower cs-type games. Fast enough to be fun, slow enough to be accessible, and most importantly it required incredible teamwork. Most importantly, I found the game to be just plain fun: just hopping on a random public server and shooting people, that was still fun, and IMO very few games can accomplish that, especially today. But, like most other games, I found that the community sort of sucked. Not really because of the people themselves, but because typically, in games that have several major LAN events, players get to know and respect each other more... While in a mostly-online game like RTCW, there's really no reason for stupid people not to act like total jerks.

Simple: At the time I played, aim wasn't a huge deal, but it was probably our only edge over most teams out there. Tactics were and I believe still are the key to being successful in RTCW. The game provides a tremendous opportunity to show off superb teamplay. The movement was good for the type of gameplay it's meant to provide, but overall slower than I enjoy. The community always seemed fairly nice, and brought forth many interesting characters.

DjWheat: Some may be surprised by my answer...
I still firmly believe that RTCW is THE BEST team game that has been released to date.
Let's look at each one of the things you mentioned to find out why...
AIM: The aim moves away from some of the sparatic and random "realistic" elements and is more "arcade" like. For the most part there is a learning curve in getting to know how various guns shoot in different positions. But there's no doubt that the aiming in RTCW is fine tuned to be perfect for its style of game.
TACTICS: Unlike your basic "round based" team games, RTCW was constant action. That single-handedly changes the entire dynamic of teamplay. In fact, many have said that RTCW is one of the hardest games to master as a team... I believe that's a true statement. It takes practice, patience, and trial and error to become the best of the best.
This may have actually hindered the game a little bit, because there was a lot of time and dedication required to "dominate" within the community. But once again, once you pitted two teams together that knew what they were doing... it was essentially a battle of tactics. Who could overcome, adjust, and compensate for another team's strategies and tactics... to me that's what a true team game is all about.
COMMUNITY: I always enjoyed the RTCW community. It was an eclectic mix of players from many different games. It's really too bad that the community isn't larger than it is...
ATMOSPHERE: It's quite frankly beautiful. The maps were perfect, the setting was always interesting, but not necessary for competitive match play...it was more or less a bonus.
GAMEPLAY OVERALL: Once again, RTCW is hands down the best team based game ever made. I would like to say that I've accomplished a lot as a gamer in the past six years... but more importantly, some of the greatest moments I've either participated in or witnessed were in RTCW.


Q: Why did you quit playing RTCW? Did you leave the game because u didn't feel like playing it, or did you leave because you saw no money coming this way?

cha0ticz: After Quakecon 2002 most teams seemed to be moving on and I was getting ready for Quake3 1v1 at WCG the following month. I just didn't think it was worth the time to put into it anymore. There were no other LAN tourneys announced for after Quakecon and it seemed like there would only be online ones left. LAN tournaments are much more fulfilling to practice for in my opinion

D|S-Syn: I actually stopped playing because a game I had more time invested in, Quake 3 Team DM, picked back up in activity and competition so I went back to playing it to finish something I had started a year prior. Money and lack of desire to play it didn't play into my decision. If Quake 3 hadn't picked up when it did I would probably have had a good run in playing RTCW from then till now.

dnx3: The major reason why I quit the game was due to the ridiculous amount of negativity in the community back then... Basically, everyone kept claiming that the game would be 'dead' after Quakecon 2002, and they all decided to stop playing, not realizing that had they spent more time playing the game instead of claiming it was dead, maybe it would have lasted longer as a major competitive game ;) Ironically, the game I moved to (UT2003), had the exact same problem after 6 months. But it's somewhat easier to find one other player to play against in a duel game than a 6 man teams to play with and against...

Simple: I never truly liked the game and many teams had pushed so hard at perfecting their teamwork that to be a competitive team it required tremendous amounts of time practicing. I wasn't willing to do it anymore. As a team we had decided we were through with RTCW before QuakeCon2002. It was going to be our last RTCW event, but later on Brian decided to continue playing and we ended up with the current affliction team. I went to a game with less money, that I enjoyed more. Money had nothing to do with it. Playing started to feel like work, and I could have made more money working. I just moved on to something that fit me better.

DjWheat: I quit playing it not for the money... but for the time. RTCW was practically a 2nd part-time job. You had to organize your team of Six (sometimes more) and constantly work on your strats, aiming, and teamwork. Communication was also a MAJOR factor of this game... combine those, and quite frankly with my schedule... I was never able to keep up with it the way I wanted to.
Therefore I had to depart from the game, and it was a very difficult decision. Now, with that said, I can understand if a team left the scene because of a lack of tournaments and money... because you have to ask yourself whether or not the time sacrifice is worth being #1 in a league or ladder. Had it been given some money to put behind it, maybe things would be different!

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Interview: Tony from Punkbuster

Posted by: c[_]`Wippuh (Friday, November 5, 2004)

Wondering about Evenbalance and how they make Punkbuster work? What's going on in their offices? Well here's the interview you've been waiting for. Tony Ray, the man with the plan, steps up and answers the questions you've been waiting for!

c[_]`Wippuh: Oh man, we hate to do this to you but it's tradition and we're pretty sure you've got it ready to cut and paste. Can you give us the Cliff Note version of how PunkBuster started?

Evenbalance|Tony: Several years ago, I was very active in a TFC clan (TFC=Team Fortress Classic, a Half-Life mod). I sponsored/admined servers and was also a league admin for a couple of popular leagues and basically spent all my free (hobby) time playing/admining. I was aware of how cheating/hacking had pretty much killed other online communities such as QuakeWorld and Diablo as I had played those games online when they came out but was never a very serious online player. When the hacks started appearing in TFC, things started going downhill fast. Every night, league matches were being disputed and new exploits were appearing all the time. Our clan decided it just wasn't worth spending significant time working on strategies, etc. for matches any more. There was just no interest in having our time stolen by punks who downloaded widely available hacks. The last straw for me was when ASUS advertised that their new video cards came with drivers that "helped" players beat their opponents. In fact, these drivers came with a key toggle that activated a driver level wallhack that let the ASUS users see through walls. ASUS backed down due to outrage in the online communities at the time but "somehow" the drivers got leaked anyway. I researched anti-cheating methods for some time and came up empty. No one other than game developers had tried to tackle this problem seriously, and the game developers' efforts had all been miserable failures primarily due to the length of the development cycle. It's hard to combat cheating when you can only update 1 or 2 times per year. So I decided to design and develop a 3rd party "watchdog" program that would run in the background while players were playing and look for public hacks. I knew the program would have to be fully client/server and have an auto-update feature to be successful. And since it would be considered invasive and was 3rd party, it had to be fully optional. I didn't really think many server admins would require the program since players would have to go download it and allow it to scan their whole computer while playing, but once we got our first beta system running and admins saw that it worked, everything kind of exploded from there and the rest is history.



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[_]`Wippuh: Even Balance provides support to 13 listed games, yet there's less than 20 people listed on your staff. In the market you're in, everyone wants their game to be the top priority for PB and see total devotion given to it. How do you balance out the time of both yourself and the staff?

Evenbalance|Tony: We all wear multiple hats :) Some of our guys serve primarily a support role in answering questions sent in by users. Others are pretty much devoted to daily reading of forums related to games we support (both at regular fan sites and also the hacker/cheater sites). And we also have a research team that checks out the emails that come in daily to research@evenbalance.com from the community so we are able to keep tabs on new cheats as they come out on a daily basis. The hacks are pretty much handled in the order they arrive on the scene. Hacks that are particularly devastating or that hack PunkBuster itself are boosted in priority and our engineers just work down the list finding ways to detect the hacks in the list. As the workload continues with adding new games, we have met that challenge in two ways: 1) converting our volunteer and part-time staffers to full-time and 2) hiring new staff members from the outside. I expect that soon we'll be needing to recruit some new volunteer staff members from our grass roots supporters. As we grow, some of those will then be converted to part-time and/or full-time staff members as necessary. We have had and turned down opportunities to expand rapidly by deviating from our core product, but we're trying to grow correctly and slowly enough so that as little as possible slips through the cracks.



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[_]`Wippuh: The amount of emails you receive you must be staggering. Questions about screenshots, kick codes, etc... Give us the estimated amount of mail you receive each week and then tell us how you maintain the responsibility of being THE word on cheats in all those games vs just returning answers such as 'probably/could be the so and so wallhack' while still being able to respond to every query accurately.

Evenbalance|Tony: We do receive quite a bit of email both for support and to our research team - hundreds of emails per day, sometimes thousands. We make every effort to answer each one personally within 24 hours as much as possible (although we ignore all emails containing any type of threat). About screenshot questions, we do not make judgment calls. That is up to the community. We usually refer folks to punksbusted.com and pbbans.com, sites like that where admins congregate to arrive at conclusions based on their vast corporate knowledge of the game. We also do not give detailed info about our violations, that is a long standing policy. It would help the punks alot more than honest players to know exactly which violation # goes with which hack, etc. We do not want to be a one-stop shop where punks can come to see the list of PB violations. That would make their twisted lives much easier. And since we don't publish that info on our website, we also do not answer emails asking the same types of details. Our goal is to provide an objective tool - we don't play judge nor jury. We make the tool, it's up to the community to decide how and when best to use it and the evidence generated by its usage.



c
[_]`Wippuh: Recently a major cheater was exposed in RtCW. He went on to explain how he constructed his cheats and bask in the minor celebrity he gained from the experience. It was a pretty disgusting experience. However, in the end he did release his source for the cheat. How will pb take that source and use it to their advantage? Do you learn from it or do you apply your already established methods to it? How about what the cheater said about it in public and in the comments of the code, how much attention is paid to that? Finally, what is your response to cheaters who say 'all I have to do is change a little bit of the source, keep it secret and I'll be home free to cheat'?

Evenbalance|Tony: Well first of all, we've learned and it has been confirmed over and over again that you can't believe a word that a cheater says. If he'll cheat honest players in a multiplayer game, then he'll lie to them also without batting an eyelid. I can't tell you how many times a day we see patently false info on the cheater/hacker websites and forums. That being said, we do pay attention because it lets us know what they are thinking. Our engineers do use the source code when it is released. We use it to see how the cheat hooks into or effects the game, find out what it has to change in order to work properly. That is how we catch custom/private hacks based on source code. Cheaters who think they are safe just because they change something and recompile are living in a dream world. We've caught and banned many who thought that already. Normally, we will silently detect hacks based on newly released source code for a while to catch all the punks who think they are getting away with something and then we ban them in one batch several days later.



c
[_]`Wippuh: In ET, the makers of ETPro (Bani and crew) get a lot of cheaters very frustrated in how his mod is working to detect cheats. Does Even Balance pay attention to that effort and work with guys like Bani in order to make the games you support more secure?

Evenbalance|Tony: We think it's great when the community comes up with any way to fight cheating. That's how we got started ourselves. We do receive support requests from mod authors from time to time and try to help as much as we can without sharing our trade secrets, but to this point we have not worked closely with other organizations at a detailed level. That being said, we're always trying to find ways to improve PunkBuster and its effectiveness at catching cheaters. I'm aware of ETPro and have worked a bit with Bani a few times on issues he was having, but I don't know anything about the anti-cheat capabilities of ETPro. Our team tracks ET hacks just like all games we support and we go our way without regard to what else out there may or may not be working.



c
[_]`Wippuh: As PB gets better at detecting cheats, the programmers out there get more advanced in their tactics of getting around your software. One of the results of this are communities that become wildly suspicious of players significantly better than them because they know PB doesn't catch everything. The resulting witchhunts are ugly for everyone involved. What is your advice for players that are out there trying to catch cheaters? What would you tell them in order to avoid the witchhunt mentality and actually help the game?

Evenbalance|Tony: As a long-time student of cheating/hacking methods, I know how tempting it is to try to catch someone subjectively (i.e. watching demos, screenshots, etc.). But I have learned to give every benefit of the doubt to the player being scrutinized. I've also had the good fortune to attend many of the best LAN events in the world, QuakeCon and CPL, many times over the past few years. I've seen the best players in the world go head to head watching right over their shoulders as they play for hard cash. Some of the things I've seen are amazing and are absolutely done 100% by excellent players with no hacks or exploits. The really unfortunate thing about reviewing demos and screenshots is that bad people can be very successful at framing innocent players in this manner. No matter how good PB gets at detecting cheats and advanced hacks, there will always be a relatively few hackers who keep their stuff private and may avoid detection for a long time. We are always working on ways to swing the advantage to the server admins even for private cheats we have not seen. As hard as it is for some people to accept that no anti-cheat can be 100% effective, it is still my advice to just play the game on protected servers and avoid spending time trying to subjectively prove someone else is cheating. Any punk who cheats will get caught eventually.



c
[_]`Wippuh: PB silently updates their cheat database yet the only public notification that RtCW had of Even Balance's continued support was a server update from back in June. What reassurances can Even Balance give to RtCW, and even all those other smaller communities, that we're going to continue to receive support for the game?

Evenbalance|Tony: Most of our server and client updates are released to fix bugs and introduce new features. It is a common misunderstanding that we need to update our versions in order to catch new cheats. However, if we announce to the community after we update in the background without changing our version numbers, that info really helps the cheaters more than the honest players and admins. All of our supported games are covered by contractual agreement between Even Balance and our clients (the game developers/publishers). Any of our clients may cancel the agreement at any time (none have to this point). When that happens, those games will no longer be shown on our website as supported. So as long as your favorite game is listed on our website, we are working just as hard for that game as the others we support. We don't have priorities among the games we support. Our only priority is dealing with cheats/hacks as they appear for any of our games.



c
[_]`Wippuh: In an alternate future Even Balance decides to move on from RtCW yet wants to provide the community, no matter how small it is, a device for updating 'the PB cheat database'. Have you considered anything like this? What are the major roadblocks that you could forsee?

Evenbalance|Tony: We are committed to supporting RtCW for as long as id Software wants us to. It is not even up to us to decide when to move on. I'm not sure how the transition will be handled at some point in the future - we'll cross that bridge when we come to it.



c
[_]`Wippuh: Time for some reader questions :)

From opp valentine - We've had some commotion over black pb screenshots, can you please clear this issue up?

Evenbalance|Tony: This is a pretty complex issue. Basically, PB gets the screen buffer from the DirectX interface. Some versions of DirectX in combinations with certain video cards are buggy. On machines with the buggy combination, the DirectX interface sometimes returns the wrong buffer to PB. This happens mostly on systems with 2 monitors - that is how you can sometimes see a player's background or task manager (players should make sure to run the latest versions of DirectX and their video drivers if at all possible to avoid this). For some newer video cards, PB just always gets an empty buffer instead of what the player is seeing, this is what causes the black screens. I'm not aware of any bug that can cause only a crosshair to show up on a black screen. For now, admins just need to give players the benefit of the doubt unless they sometimes get real screens and sometimes black from the same player - that would definitely indicate a hack. We are planning a full rewrite of PB's screenshot facility to address these and other issues with PB screenshots and related hacks. Keeping up with cheats is the priority, but we'll get to this as soon as we can.


From pissclams - Does Even Balance have contracts in place which outline their responsibilities and length of support they provide towards the games using PunkBuster?

Evenbalance|Tony: I can't divulge the details of our contracts, but I can say that all of them except 2 are fully open ended. They go month to month with our client having the ability to cancel at any time. The other 2 are annually renewable and both have been renewed at year end by the client. Basically, our responsibility is to fight cheating the best we can for if any client is unhappy, they can cancel our contract at any time.


From vid2face - When PB makes updates for any game, where do they get their resources on what hacks to block? Do you guys alias and go on websites that provide hacks for a game? and/or do you receive them from players that found/got hacks from somewhere/someone?

Evenbalance|Tony: Both. We have staff members who regularly visit websites with cheating activity (both public and private). Some of our guys have alter-egos in the hacker world so that we sometimes get private stuff and pre-release hacks. We also get tons of emails every day to our research team. Most of them are sites you could find if you typed "cheat" into google and so we already know about them, but sometimes supporters will send us 'secret' stuff they were able to obtain somehow.


From Bassman - When you are submitted a valid website/hack through your research@pb email address, what is the expected return time on a fix for these hacks? Whats the general process for them?

Evenbalance|Tony: Normally our turn around time is a couple to a few days at the most. Some hacks are very advanced and require our engineers to figure out how they work in depth before we can write code to detect them - those take longer. Also, in some cases we silently detect new hacks for a few days so that we can catch a group of punks who think they are getting away with cheating/hacking PB, and then we ban them all in one batch. So in those cases, it may appear that our turnaround time is longer as we tend to have a long-term outlook geared toward catching and exposing the punks. But admittedly, every once in a while a mistake is made and our follow up team finds a cheat that we thought we were catching but actually were not. Then we get that one done asap. I can't go into tons of detail about our process, but basically we verify that the hack is not one we already have, then we make sure it works and then find a way to detect it. Then there is a QA procedure to ensure as much as possible that there will be no false positives (when false positives do occur, we make them public on our website - always have). Then the detection is turned on (but sometimes silently at first).

From c[_]`Wippuh - When a player is kicked on a server, how hard would it be to include the guid of the offending player in the kick message so that easily faked logs are not use to incriminate innocent players?

Evenbalance|Tony: That is a good idea. Starting with PB Server v1.106, PB kick messages will show the last 4 characters of the player's PB GUID after the player's name in the PB kick message seen by the other players on the server.


And that is that, Tony cut off on the shoutouts but he did say the he'd be willing to do 5 follow up questions that we sent him! So if there's something you'd like to see asked, post in the comments and we'll send it off to him sometime in the future.

Missed an interview or want to read an old one, then check out ze interview link list

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Interview: Wooolf

Posted by: Mortal :o (Friday, November 12, 2004)

Wooo!f, co-founder of c!a, and one of a few remaining Western competitors in RtCW, sits down to talk about himself, c!a, and alot of other interesting things. Enjoy! More interviews 2 come :).

_____________________________________________________________________________

Mortal:
Hi Wolf, how are you?

Wooo!f:
great and yourself?

Mortal:
Good

Mortal:
First off, tell us about yourself. Age, hobbies, and how you got into games and RtCW.

Wooo!f:
Well my name is Britt Hampton, I'm 27 years young, and I live in Seattle Washington. My hobbies are games, friends, ganja, beer & family. Also I like outdoor sports mostly baseball and football.My gaming experience began with Quake3 about 4 years ago, a buddy of mine had rtcw on his pc and we played it for days, i finaly went and got a copy of my own and its been going since then.


Mortal:
Tell us about your clan history. Who did you play with? Did you start in OSP or did you start in shrub/bani type gaming? Also, what did you play by through your RtCW career?

Wooo!f:
Hmm... my first clan was a Euro team called ||TF|| (The Federation ). They mostly played all the star wars games hence the name. After that I freelanced for a while just pubbing and getting in all rtcw had to offer; shrub bani all of it. After that I played a bit with r$ and MOBB, there I met FAD3d and we became pretty good friends. From there I had a small spell with dR and some other teams. i played in dR for a seson back in season 3 i think. Were i had been friends also with ali@s.. myself FAD3d and ali@s always used to play in smoke herb and other names I was W@rmMIlk.

After a year or so had passed me and FAD3d had started thinking of starting our own team. Hence the arrival of c!a ( Cerebal Assassins Inc ). We played the first season in Cal-O where we went 6-2. Then we played in Cal-M and did pretty well against the other top teams. Most of my playing career though I have always been Wolf.


Mortal:
c!a was a western team correct? How was it like being one of the very few western teams competing on a high level like Cal-M. Did pings and servers become an issue? Also tell us more about your time with c!a, and its resent downfall.

Wooo!f:
Yes, at the start we were 90% west. With one player KeP in New Mexico. It was rough being one of the few west teams; pings and server issues always troubled us but we managed, bitching the whole way. My time with c!a has been the most exciting and enjoyable time EVER. We had a great bunch of guys that ive known for a long time and had a great time competing with.

..ah c!a's recent downfall; its been coming for a long time i guess; me making posts in the forums that "were coming back again" looking like an ass everytime. We try to play and it doesn't happen so it finaly just got too much, with half of the original roster not coming back to play with us it just got too much. With trying to recruit and find the right type of player for us, we just decided to finaly throw in the towel for good.


Mortal:
With the recent hacking episodes; do you feel punkbuster is falling behind the new programs with interior and exterior options? Also what do you think should be done to help the hacking stop?

Wooo!f:
PB is falling way behind. Ive seen hacks for ET and RtCW. I never thought RtCW would turn into counter strike. I feel guid's should be blocked like they are now and also blocking ip's. it makes me sick that some certain high profile players get caught hacking and dont give a shit. There the certain people that take the fun out of the game for all of us who love this game still.


Mortal:
Also on the subject of hacking, some players seem to take an extremist view on hacking; saying the team of the hacker should be banned from the league for the season. What is your take on that and other punishments for hackers?

Wooo!f:
Well I don't feel that the whole team should suffer due to one dipshits fuckups, but if say more then one person on that team was caught then it gets a little misleading, and i think bigger punishments would need to take affect. As of punishments there is only so much u can do. Its a wide based pc internet game with loopholes for hackers and banned people to get in wherever. I'm not the smartest on this subject but ip address banning is all i come up with, or send them my way and ill take care of them!


Mortal:
What is next for you in gaming? Will you stay with RtCW or move on?

Wooo!f:
Ill always stay with rtcw, its the one game i love to peices and wont probably stop playing ever , as of whats next for me we'll just have to see, id like to still compete and such , see maybe what games are happeing outside the rtcw world. For now though its RTCW FOR LIFE


Mortal:
If your hands broke, would you still play rtcw with your feet?

Wooo!f:
Of course , id figure something out or rig something up so my toes could be lethal gaming appendages.


Mortal:
Ok, now for some public questions.


ali@s:
What do you think about the wolf community when you were mobb and now?

Wooo!f:
Well when I was in MOBB the community was great, very inviting and lots of teams and players to rage or get raged by, but now theres a couple handfulls of teams left, with some players whod rather call u noob or tell u to stfu instead of how it was when i started when people were so helpful.


mutha:
What was the most intense match you were ever in?

Wooo!f:
The most intense match ive ever been in would have to be c!a vs distress 2 seasons ago. We were playing beach and we full held each other about 5 times. It was turining into a 3 hour match real quick. Finaly the score was 2-2, we finaly set a time and were defending now, we held them the whole time with Rahl panzing our asses the whole way but managed to hold on and take the win 3-2. That was my most intense match ever.


ColBanks:
Name 4 players that you look up to and why?

Wooo!f:
The first one would be Kep. Because weve been in this a long time together and weve helped each other the way, even though he bitches alot and is short.

Second would be ali@s - cause hes been doing this just as long as i have and i look up to him for staying with it like so many other players have.

Third would be the whole original c!a crew as a unit, man we raged some shit that first season in Cal-O.

4th and final would be ColBanks-. i have never met and talked to such a nice person wanting to help others with anyting he can help u with.


Zero:
With there being 5 or so teams that are way ahead of other teams do you think there should be to levels in cal; a main and open, so other teams can enjoy and experience what the playoffs are like?

Wooo!f:
Well, i feel yes there should be atleast 2 tiers , but with the lack of teams playing now its hard to make that decision. Say if we have 20 teams you could make 2 tiers of 10. But that might get repetitive because you would play the same team atleast twice for sure, thats a hard question to answer. I do feel though that all players should get the experience of playoffs.


Mortal:
Finally, Shoutouts!

Wooo!f:
SHOUTOUTS: FAD3d, Kep, scrilla, Peendo, ali@s, ColBanks, Mortal ( im coming to kirkland to kill u ), the TB squad - even though there crazy liberals, Co1dnezz, Virv, the c!a crew past and present, and so many others that have made this game and community such a pleasure to be in. ViVa La RTCW!

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Turkey with Grevenator!

Posted by: Mortal :o (Thursday, November 25, 2004)

One of West's best; nyX-GreveN aka the GREVENATOR sits down for a little chat. Enjoy!
______________________________________________________________________________

Mortal: Tell us about yourself. Where you came from, hobbies, life, etc. Also tell us about how you got into gaming and how you found RtCW to be your reaccuring home over the years its been released?

nyX-GreveN: Hello RTCW folk, for those who remember me I am Victor Gogol aka nyX-Greven. I reside in the beautiful , yet cold :) province of British Columbia (in Canada). I live at home, 17 years old, am in grade 12 and current hobbies include gaming, friends, movies and music. My first taste with gaming was the rare times my dad would go out and rent a super nes and some games, I remember some of the games so well, but my introduction to online play was starcraft. I played one of the greatest rts of all time for a little more then a year, a friend and I were heavily involved in some ww2 custom map clans( it was all the rage :p) Being that I was interested in ww2 a interesting demo caught my eye, the rtcw mp beach demo, the beginning of an addiction. I was on a POS rig at the time so I was'nt running the game that well, but the times I was down in the basement, fps hitting its peak at 43.. I was loving it. I remember pleading with my parents for the game, and they saying no, your too young(I was maybe 13-14 at the time), so my heart was crushed, my wolf addiction only satiated by the screenshots appearing on the net. So Christmas came, I was still hoping for wolf, and lo and behold, the last present from my parents, a brand new rtcw. I clearly remember yelling a loud "yeah!!" and then leaving my family on xmas day to install it. So that was my beginning of it all.


Mortal: Tell us about your RtCW "career". What clans did you call home? Who were some of your longest and/or greatest teammates? And did you ever see time in the ranks of RtCW playoff competition?

nyX-GreveN: Well, Well, Well..... When i first got into mp it was all new for me, playing an fps online, totally new, so naturally it took a while for me to get used to it. I began playing all over and one day a close friend who had been playing rtcw with me(oTc Cyclone, now rabia-) told me about a clan he joined, =WSS=. This clan was cool, it had a page with all our medals and even all the wars we had won....errr lost, I was so excited. I still remember the time I had some demerit points on my account for showing up late for a scrimm, and how crushed I was :p. Well =WSS= was my first clan, I think I stayed in it for quite a long time till I was approached by a member of [DPG](deutsche panzer grenadiere), this clan was actually quite good for its time, we had the notorious frag1le(stewbacca) who was a certifiable asshole :p, and.... babar, aufklarung, a bunch of people who disapperared over time. This clan was alot of fun, a bunch of nice people, fairly good organization and provided alot of countless hours to play rtcw compet. I believe I then left DPG and was a free agent for a while until one day on Dropscape I met a couple of noobs in Dthsmrf and DublG of c4c(cause for concern) fame. I wowed them with my skillz and joined up, starting a respectable west coast clan. I forget most people in this clan so I wont even bother trying to make up some crazy names... it was a good clan though and I believe I left after some conflict or something. I then joined up with my favorite and most long lasting clan in nyX, dosey saw me playing one day and we had a chat, he was reforming nyx, blah blah blah, wont u join us, and he begged for a while till I joined them :p. The clan was the funnest time I've ever had in wolf, the roster, if my memory serves me correctly had such people as Sharp(one of the best guns of all time imo, but he hated me :p), tk (could pull alot of shit out of his hat in the nick of time), dingdong(very gay, but very consistent), dosey(good leader, but he made fun of me :( ), AK(the legend, the man with the sexy voice) Dan(our resident boomstickwhore), FooL (our other medic with me, really nice guy), Putz(asshole, pure and simple :) ) and....... we had some members who stayed for a little while then left, but that was during the end of the wolf times.

Sorry if i forgot anyone important, oh yeah nyX-divbyzero, our ever present nyx founder and stuff, he was a nice guy, giving us servers and stuff. I think in between those clans or after I was in kaos-, ]HOD[(ripoff of NARF, with sharp running you knew it would happen), Chrome-. I think thats about it. My longest or greatest teamates would probably be everyone in nyX, i loved em all. I dont know if played in any playoff games... ahha I did, with ]RaG[, the ultra pro STA clan, but I couldnt really in nyX, my computer was so crappy I could'nt run a microphone with wolf running, and I couldnt afford a new soundcard, so I was pretty limited, it sucked.


Mortal: To most RtCW gamers you are known from your run with nyX, a formatable west coast clan that played well and has a few CAL championships under their belt. Tell us about your time in nyX, Who was in it, Who lead it, and why did it fell apart? Also talk about the reincarnations of nyX and how they differ from the original.

nyX-GreveN: Well my time in nyX is basically described above, and who was in it, and who led it. Dosey was such a cool guy and everything, lots of good stuff in that clan. I believe it fell apart because ET has just come out and I think people who were getting tired with wolf, I know it came back a little later for one season but it was quickly gone, I think we were either burned out or bored out. The only thing that differed imo was the players, we had a couple of addons each time but I believe the core group was always together, me, tk, sharp, fool, dosey, ak, putz and dingdong.


Mortal: Alot of people say RtCW is dead and something or someone *cough* Whippuh *uncough* killed it. With all the changes in cfg's and rules do you think this is true? How do you feel about this and do you think someone killed RtCW or that it is dying?

nyX-GreveN: I don't see why Whippuh killed rtcw, maybe its some inside joke :o, but no I don't think cfg's and rules changed it at all. People can adapt to those but when competition starts lowering itself and tournaments start fading, big name teams start leaving I think people think since those people are leaving, its my time too. That caused a huge number of players to leave after clans such as abuse or doctors left. I dont know how any single person can kill a game, but I do think the number of people who left wolf influenced other people and so on to leave wolf and try the newer
games. I think RTCW will continue as long as there are still people making the effort to play and have fun.


Mortal: If you could assemble a team of six RtCW players to fight the world against crime, who would they be and what would their powers be?

nyX-GreveN: Hahaa ok,

Sharp- Captain Annoying, Using his whiny voice to reach all ears,
Annoying manages to bring murderers to tears.

oTc-Darkcyclone- Aids Man, Unleashing the deadly AIDS virus on any who
come near him, including his allies, truly a fearsome foe(don't ask me, he
wanted to be called that)

Da_G- Da Druggstore, Using the entire drug store at his side druggstore
hurls many types of prescription drugs and others, weed to take the
criminals out, and massive doses of cocaine to effectively take them
out.

Fikus, aka mascot, aka everyothernameinthebook- Hopper, hops from side
to side(clan to clan) evading the foes then destroys them with his
uppercut.

Gnomish- The Gnome, runs around the criminals with rope, tying them up
then having his way with them further removing them from a life of crime.

Pissclams- The Pissing Clam, is a big clam who walks around pissing on
opponents..... sounds pussy right? but did I tell you the piss was
actually acid?


Mortal: With the invasion of games with more bells and whistles and higher graphics quality; why is RtCW still considered one of the best games by alot of players, including most who play it now?

nyX-GreveN: The MP, thats all about it. No game pushes the teamwork to the extreme that RTCW does, its astounding. The game made u want to be good, to help your teamates, you felt as if it was your job, if you were the medic, to help your team, it was this feeling that helped make rtcw what it was. The game simply sucked you in and you couldnt stop playing.


Mortal: If you could name one player in all the times of RtCW history to be the BEST player in quality, character, dedication, and comedy. Who would it be and why?

nyX-GreveN: Woo hard one......(serious thinking)....., Ill go out on a sort of limb here and nominate team nyX as the best player of all time, we were a person together, sharp with the quality, dosey and dingdong with the character, dedication with AK(try phoning me during the day, to remind me of a scrimm, my mom coming up and saying, "theres a phone call for you.... from california"), and comedy with both putz and fool. Im afraid I can't
answer the question on a single person.


Mortal: With the recent exterior-hacking going on, do you feel
that Punkbuster has lost the war against hacks in RtCW? in general?

nyX-GreveN: No, with the newest release of pb I hope that will solve most of the hacking problems, I don't know who would want to hack in a 2 year old game, does'nt make much sense, the people that are still playing it play it because they love it. If some idiot is hacking at this time in rtcw then he is some low-life who is either too poor or too lazy to get a newer game to hack in.


Mortal: If you could make one team to rule them all...in RtCW.
Who would be in it and why?

nyX-GreveN: Ok, well since there are'nt alot of west interviews( I think) i'll only use west players for my ultimate team:

Panzer: w:grym, this guy was insane, playing with him on dropscape was a
challenge.

Medic: [u]korrollary, insane in every sense of the word, I still remember the time he sniped a guy from beach in a split second before he got the flag in front bunker, really nice guy too, but a beast in both skill and tactics

Medic: elusion, best medic of all time, no doubt about it, I have never
seen the rampages this guy has gone on from any other player, a honourable
runner up would be slowpa1n

LT: nyX-Sharp, headshots to the extreme and very good know how of the
game

LT: [u] mehdi, stupid name......... good player

Sniper: i forget kinda who I met who was a pro sniper, but I remember a
scrim with dT when they had borntodie, on assault, we were'nt getting
anywhere :(, total ownage


Mortal: Last but not least, with the retiring of NARF do you feel that most, if not all west coast teams have decided to call it quits and west coast RtCW is pretty much non-existant?

nyX-GreveN: Yes, sadly I do believe that, but I actually think one of the west's greatest boosts was eliminated when the great Dropscape server was gone. Dropscape was the Konijin of the west, it simply catered to all skilled, west players. My times on that server will never be forgotten.

But back to the question, the west coast was never as popular as the east and I believe this also played a big part in it. NARF represented the west for the most part, and when they retired a big part of the west died.


Mortal: Ok, thanks for the interview pal. Now heres your chance for
some Shoutouts!

nyX-GreveN: all of nyX, clan wicked, c4c, MORTAL!, Stretchmark, every single clan Ive been in, Zeo, RaG, Focker, Darkcyclone, NARF, Dropscape, Opio, Myth, Putz(kick in his face), Darkside (for having a cool name), my idols Timelord, TXSW, Konijin, LoT, abuse, doctors and a huge thanks to all the people I ever played with during my 2 years of
gaming, THANKS TO ALL AND HAVE A GOOD NIGHT!!


Mortal: PS: Sorry about the format, i didn't have alot of time to edit, format, and submit before i hadda go. Hope you can still enjoy it as much as i did. Cya!

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STA Season #7 Information!

Posted by: :+:VirUs047` (Tuesday, December 28, 2004)

Hope everyone enjoyed the holiday season, but it’s once again time
to frag!

STA-RTCW is pleased to release our Season #7 map schedule. The new season
starts with a one week preseason, on Monday, January 3rd, 2005! The maps
to be played will be either, Bunker (mp_bunker) or Final Stand
(mp_finalstand_beta), which will be announced shortly.

We are currently accepting new teams to join STA-RTCW for the up coming
season. The join application is on the STA website. All teams that participate in 60% of the season are eligible to play in the playoffs. For more information please check our website: http://wolf.sta-league.org or contact an admin on IRC @ irc.gamesurge.net #sta-wolf .

STA Season #7

Preseason Week #1 1/3 – Bunker/Final Stand

Week #1 1/10 - Keep
Week #2 1/17 - Assault
Week #3 1/24 - Ice
Week #4 1/31 – Base

2/6 – Interclan Match

Week #5 2/07 - Village
Week #6 2/14 – TBA
Week #7 2/21 - Beach
Week #8 2/28 – Tundra_Rush_Beta

Playoffs and Probowl TBA

The STA Admin staff looks forward to another fun filled season and wishes
all the teams the best of luck!

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Elliott Sits Down for a Chat!

Posted by: Mortal :o (Wednesday, January 5, 2005)

Elliott ( also known as Aequitas ) sits down to talk about his late start in RtCW, his first teams, and the season ahead. Plus much, much more! Enjoy the read!
_______________________________________________________________________________


Mortal: Tell us about yourself, your age and where you live. Also tell us about how you found RtCW and when you started playing competatively. Do you play any other games competatively?

i`aequitas: Well, my name is Elliott Gibbs, I am 20 years old and go play baseball for / go to Valparaiso University. I started playing wolfenstein around the middle of 02' when my best friend |LQD|Purplerain made me try it out. I hated the game originally and would only go engineer to throw ndaes because I couldn't shoot at all. After getting handled enough on pubs I started to learn how to play. I joined a Destruction only clan, -True Soldiers- and we decided to try out Cal, during season 8. I tried watching as many demos as I could of people to see how competition actually differed from pubbing. I don't like any other fps games out there ;\


Mortal: Tell us about your clan experience. Who you bonded most through your clan-life and who you idolize most as a leader and over-all player. What clan was your "favorite"?

i`aequitas: I first began with True Soldiers in Cal-O season 8, and our roster had 1 season of Cal experience. We picked up Hikimori and Madoshi from yZ and did quite well. After losing in the playoffs I took a 2 month break and eventually joined rabia-. The guys on rabia- were nothing short of a perfect group of chemistry that led to a very succesful season. Everyone got along and the teamwork showed in our 12-1 record. With the rabia- falling apart with roster problems this season I started Inertia with the goal of having mature, friendly players that would be able to gel into strong teamwork as in my previous clan. Over the seasons I have really got to know Hiki and Kalamazoo quite well and owe a lot of my success to the both of them. I would have to say I idolize Hiki the most in the community. He keeps his mouth shut, plays the game right, and is a great teammate and friend. He taught me a lot about the intricacies in RtCW. As a leader I do idolize |fx|Vatican for being able to consistantly putting out great lineups for his teams and getting the ego's of his players to drop when match time begins. I don't have a favorite clan, all of them have been great to me.


Mortal: If you could make a team of 6 gamers to play in RtCW vs. 6 s!lo's....who would it be?

i`aequitas: hrmm...as my meds I would take Rambo, Samus, and Hiki. They all know when to fall back and when to pop helmuts. Lt's would be Mutha and Battleaxe, pure rage. And myself of course on the noob tube 1 man'ing people out of spawn. ... Strat Director : doNka.... Comic Relief / Team Mascot PAND.


Mortal: With the start of the new Season, what teams look like a threat to your new team, Inertia. Also, tell us more about Inertia; and who is on the lineup?

i`aequitas: As always, fX is the team to beat, with -x- trailing behind. [ES], Trinity, and Teh Birdz can easily sneak up and take a 2-0 advantage on anyone as well. Our roster is pretty set. We have Hiki, doNka, Juventus, KrazyKaze, Mutha, Kalamazoo, Time-bomb, and myself as of now.


Mortal: Who was the best team you played against in a match/scrim in regards to quality/respect/sportsmanship?

i`aequitas: For sure Collateral Damage and High Voltage. Be it hack accusations or the constant great shot spam, these two teams have none of it. They are always there to say GG's and defintely respect all of their opponents. fX is the best quality team i have scrimmed, and a respectful one too. They stick to their strat and execute it. You don't see them cc'ing inner compound of base during a scrim with a lesser team.


Mortal: What do you think is the best feature of the current release of RtCW?

i`aequitas: The teamwork that RtCW requires is unmatched in any FPS game that I have tried out. RtCW allows for it's best players to shine, but also requires teamwork to bring home victory.


Mortal: What can you expect for the future of gaming? What do you think RtCW2 will have, or what do you think it should have?

i`aequitas: The future of online gaming depends on the people playing. The only ones that will be able to stop cheating are the people that are cheating themselves. Hopefully the real reasons of playing games, to have fun and of course win, will be more focused upon then how to beat the system or feed egos through cheating. I really hope RtCW 2 will be similiar to the game today. Besides the obvious need for more powerful anti-cheat programming, It would be nice to make the game somewhat more random for more excitement, as well as some changes with weapons.


Mortal: If you could combine 2 players into one killing machine...who would they be and what characteristics would you take from each player to add to the whole?

i`aequitas: sMn|Warrior and -a-Brian. Combine one of the fastest and smartest doc runners to play RtCW and Warrior's shooting and all around versatility.


Mortal: What is your favorite RtCW map? What features make it your favorite?

i`aequitas: mp_Keep is my favorite map hands down. The short spawn of the axis ensures frequent defusals and the obelisk running is 100% skill with timing and knowledge of the map.


Mortal: What do you expect lies ahead in the future of your RtCW Career? Wish for?

i`aequitas: Well this season appears to be the last for everyone in OSP. Right now I am having a blast with Inertia and winning comes with that. I would really hope that people don't give up on RtCW. Personally I am not letting anyone ruin my time, and wish that more people would view the game like that instead of refusing to play because of the recent downfalls in OSP.


Mortal: Thanks for the interview! Now for ShoutOuts!

i`aequitas: Purplerain, HIki, Kalamazoo, Cicatriz, Battleaxe, Virv, KaiserSose, Ramius, Rhino, Boohazrard, Fuzion, Kamui, Pand, Wolve, Donka, Zeaus, Juventus, KK, Justin, Team V| for making me practice to beat them :P , Team Damage, Whippuh for keeping the game alive! with Planet-rtcw, Rambo, Mortal, Warzone, and those who donate their time and money to keeping them game going, the league admins, and people like Spec opZ and GMH for running public servers for people to play at and those teams that allowed me to ring for them. Lastly those that still play the game legit :) I am sure I forgot some, sorry :P

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Caffeine; the man, the myth, the Bill Cowher of Wolf?

Posted by: BiRdZ meshugr (Friday, January 7, 2005)

MeSh - So Wags, who the hell are you? In other words, tell us a little about yourself…

Wags (Caffeine) - Sigh, I’m roommates with Paladin! I live near Hershey, PA, work for UPS, and am close to my bachelors degree in Elementary Education. I’d rather not get too much into the real life stuff; I don’t think many people actually care about all that. I’m just a guy who enjoys coming home after work/school and gaming.

Me
Sh - Fair enough, cuz I don’t care either. So what first brought you into the gaming community?

Caffeine - Well I’ve been buddies with Nate (Palafag) for awhile, and we were playing Halo a lot. So finally we checked out this RTCW game; noobing it up on shrub for awhile. We met some guy who introduced us to the competition side of gaming and I fell in love with it. It felt almost like playing a sport.

Me
Sh - Interesting analogy, so what sport do you think most closely resembles RTCW and why?

Caffeine - Football for sure; You have the linemen: the down and dirty guys who don’t mind going 3-19 as long as they win. The glamour spots: the people who don’t like to get hit. The whiners, the Ronnie Lott’s…

Me
Sh - I can identify with the 3-19 players pretty well personally. Where do you fall in among those descriptions? I see you as the Bill Cowher-type…

Caffeine - 1 on 1 compared to most guys out there, I blow. Most of my game is knowledge, smart play. Knowing/getting spawn times, getting into the flow of the game. I guess I would be Bill Cowher if I were an NFL coach! The guys I game with will tell you I let ‘em know when I’m pleased with what they’re doing and same when I’m not.

Me
Sh - Tell me about some of the teams you’ve played with, and some memories that stand out from those times…

Caffeine - Well my first clan was =000= Triple Zilch, shrub patrol. Then I joined up with some ASC guys and we formed Teh Birdz. That season was great, because we all came out of nowhere, ran horrible strats, and went to the semi-finals in Open and Beta. I loved that team; sexually. V|engeance, the year we won CAL Open and TWL Beta; basically Teh Birdz split up, ½ went to FIST, ½ went to |v. Mutha went and got himself l33t with the guys in Star. Now I'm re-united again with the old faglies.

Me
Sh - Seems pretty strange for a bunch of virtually unknown players to jump in and hit the semi’s out of nowhere, what happened there?

Caffeine - Lotto offense + Defense 4. I dunno man, we’d just scrim Main teams all week, get our asses beat and then usually pull out a win. We had good med-work, as has been the case for every team I’ve been on. Good med-work and good gibbing, that's been key.

Me
Sh - Birdz used to get all sorts of shit talk that first season, how did you react to the “shrub noobs” accusations? And do you find it ironic now that shrub is getting hot again?

Caffeine - We used to get accused of stall tactics, because we were all out of school so some teams thought we’d stall matches so they’d have to disconnect. The shrub noob stuff didn’t bother use because we were winning. Hmm, ironic? I guess so man.

Me
Sh - Your next team, v/engeance,, won CAL Open and TWL Beta the very next season. Who was on that roster and what helped ya’ll get to that point?

Caffeine - Troll on panz was probably the biggest thing, Goose, Paladin, Eights, Animal and myself were the usual starters. We had key guys fill in at key times though. Well, we actually ran strats and scrimmed three nights a week, matches twice a week; a lot of practice. Good med-work and gibbing = the key to our success.

Me
Sh - What was your most memorable match from that season? I have a feeling you may mention playoffs…

Caffeine - Playoffs. Vs heavily favored Team Silence on Village….man, easily the greatest match I ever was involved in….

Me
Sh - You guys nearly blew it…

Caffeine - Yeah a couple times. Once Palafag and I lagged out, Nate almost couldn’t get over the bridge running docs, vent crashed for the 15th time in round 7 or so, and we ran the docs short for the win using vsays and teamchat. Our panzer was minimized trying to get vent back up….it was hilarious. So very intense…

Me
Sh - The next season I lost a lot of money invested in Vengeance stock. Care to explain why?

Caffeine - We lost our panz (8e)…which was big. Lost Paladin, a clutch guy and we somehow forgot to gib. It was a rough season, but we stuck it out and all still hang together.

Me
Sh - I blame myself for starting a few of those games and blowing it…regardless, Teh Birdz are back and nearly went to ET. Seems like that decision was scrubbed, what happened there?

Caffeine - The game is entirely too gay, end of story…

Me
Sh - What are the teams that will present the greatest challenge to Birdz this season?

Caffeine - I haven’t honestly really studied who’s on what team et. fX obviously, Inertia has a tough roster, HairPullers, tTt and Exodus will probably be the big guns this season. Who knows for sure? Any team that scrims frequently will do well.

Me
Sh - Alright, here’s a typical interview question. Who would be on your dream team?

Caffeine - What, starting six?

Me
Sh - Sure. Assuming you were one of them…

Caffeine - Ahhh, I wouldn’t be, though. There are a lot better players than me out there…

Me
Sh - Understood. Answer the question plz kthanx...

Caffeine - Okay. Troll on panz, for sure. (Fuck I hate these questions, because I’ve never played with, or been on vent with a lot of the guys in the league!)…I’d have Elliot as a med, Spuddy as a med, Zeaus as med, hmm…any fX guy for LT….

Me
Sh - Backups?

Caffeine - Eights. Because apparently he hacks so he could be pro on intel from spectator. And either fu|megs or merc|saura as cheerleaders. I’d have to have a Team Burque guy there too, just to say “copy”.

Me
Sh - Classy...lol.

Caffeine - Copy.

Me
Sh - Okay, wrapping it up here, any shoutouts?

Caffeine - Vengeance, Birdz, Operation Psycho Patrol, Team Burque. That’s all. I’m not friends with everyone.

Me
Sh - Nice. You know I’ll probably edit this up to make myself sound like your most favorite player/teammate ever….

Caffeine - Rgr dgr.

Me
Sh - Thanks bud.

Caffeine - Laters

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Interview: GGAllin.

Posted by: c[_]`Wippuh (Thursday, January 6, 2005)

If there's one name that should instantly make you cringe, it should be GG Allin. If you don't know, hopefully you'll stay ignorant. However, the longtime player of RtCW with the same name is a lot more under control and kicks in with the second interview in this series.

Enjoy the thoughts of GGAllin.


c[_]`Wippuh: Hi there GG, lets get down to business. Who are you, how'd you get to wolf, tell everyone who GGAllin was. All that good intro lovin'.

GGAllin.: HI2U :p Well my name is mike I'm a 25 year old limey living in the us. As for me getting into wolf I was looking through a pcgamer many moons ago and came across an ad for rtcw, i thought it looked pretty good so i jumped online and looked it up and found the mp test and proceeded to d/l overnight (56k owned me). At first i hated it and played it for maybe an hour or 2 and never touched it again, then a few weeks later when it came out in stores i decided to pick it up anyway and i was hooked. As for who ggallin was check this site out www.ggallin.com enjoy :)



c
[_]`Wippuh: There's a lot of opinions about the decline of wolf. Lets say that you are magically made admin for all of wolf. You have 5 magical acts that you believe will bring wolf back to the top. What are they and why?

GGAllin.: Hrm thats a really tough question but as negative as this sounds i think we just need to keep the players we have now.. playing. I don't think anything could get wolf back to the "top" but as long as players still love and play the game it will stay alive. As for 5 things i have no clue, which is why I'm not an admin for anything :o



c
[_]`Wippuh: Now that you've answered that one, lets talk about the two big games that have come out lately. World of Warcraft and Counterstrike Source. Both of these games are huge. What is so appealing about both, especially Source, that allows them to be so popular? How do these areas compare with RtCW?

GGAllin.: I've played both and i love them both. World of warcraft is just great fun, and its depth makes it a great game (lots of quests and things) that along with the pvp which attracts us fps players for that much needed competition and trash talking. Counter strike "sauce" is just an amazing game, the source engine is so purdy and the rag doll effects and interactivity are awesome, now comparing wolf and cs:s is like apples and oranges which is probably why i like it so much, change is good and cs:s is alot different.



c
[_]`Wippuh: The memorable teams in your wolf career. Talk a little about each of them and how they influenced your outlook on the game. Also, give us any examples of things learned in the team atmosphere of RtCW that have carried over into 'real life'.

GGAllin.: Well Ive been in quite a few, The first was {kea} and thats where i learned how to play the game, gave me my first taste of online competition and convinced me to dish out and get dsl. 2nd was xgoonx which was a bunch of guys i went to highschool with. Deathstar and the gang gave my first REAL taste of competition in cal and twl i learned everything i know today with this team, tweaking, strats, tk revives etc we had a great run.. 8 months i think then disbanded when we lost a few players and i lost my connection. And then there was |Steel best team there never was thats all i gotta say about that. Next is yakuza my favorite team, i had so much fun with these guys and made many friends. We also did rather well in cal and twl which is always good. After which was a season with sos, mercs and finally where i call home now Damage. I dunno if i learned anything from wolf that would carry over to real life but i do say danke ALOT.



c
[_]`Wippuh: You've been around for a long, long time playing in all of the aforementioned teams. For you, where does the drive come from? What keeps you coming back for more and what does the next game you move onto, in a seriously time commitment manner, have to do to gain your patronage?

GGAllin.: I think friends keep me from leaving wolf. I've tried a few times to leave for other bad games but i always come back because there's so many people i enjoy playing with. As for what a game needs to keep me interested well the things i said above really, a good comminity helps alot also.



c
[_]`Wippuh: It's interesting while watching the lifeline of a game and seeing who the successful teams are. Most of the time they're the teams that start at the very beginning of the game with a deep involvement. Sometimes there's a team that will crossover from another fps and scrim intensely for a short time period to bulk up for certain goals. Which route would you rather take and why?

GGAllin.: Well right now I'm in opp for cs:s, We're getting pretty serious about scriming and we won our first cal match on monday. It will be interesting to see how far we go with this, I guess if we keep winning we must be doing something right.



c
[_]`Wippuh: On a curious note, who do you believe are some of the most underappreciated guys around the RtCW community? Who do you admire for their roles and involvement in wolf and why?

GGAllin.: v1king and smoke if it wasn't for there endless trashtalking and nonsense i wouldn't have anything entertaining to read.



c
[_]`Wippuh: The concept of esports is almost laughable. However, the Xbox and Xbox Live have built an infrastructure that looks like it could realistically do what everyone has been talking about for esports. If you have an Xbox or not, talk about the pros and cons of gaming on a pc vs gaming on a console and how they each affect the future of competitive gaming.

GGAllin.: I don't like consoles, the only thing i think they are any good for is sports and racing games. As for esports including consoles and such i think they would end up being the OGL of online gaming. But thats just my opinion for all i know esports on consoles will be the new nba or something.



c
[_]`Wippuh: You somehow end up as the casting director for the Real World: MP_Beach. You decide that you want some real action on your show so you draft everyone from the RtCW community. Give us your 8 to 10 folks that would make up your show and why they're there. Feel free to stereotype :)

GGAllin.: Oh man this is easy Smoke, v1king, laws_69, invisibleman, donka, gisele, crucial, silo and dimak. I'd fence of the beach, then throw 4 baseball bats in and play eye of the tiger extremely loud. Deprive them of food, online games and bathrooms then sit back and enjoy.



c
[_]`Wippuh: Shoutouts!

GGAllin.: Infinite, smoke, vio, virus047, alpine, fuzz, saura, hiki, kalamazoooooo, kodama, krale, schism, logi yogi, vix, pc, cheese, hydro, 8ee, caffeine and everyone else i forgot and will pm me later saying "wtf dood wheres meh shoutout" and on a final note GO STEELERS 15-1 BABY WOOOO


Missed an interview or want to read an old one, then check out ze interview link list

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CAL Week 2 Predictions, Assault

Posted by: FIST-Smokey (Friday, January 14, 2005)

Eggnogsquad vs Team Exodus

Last week es| lost to FX, but not before getting a point(which I must say surprised me). But Multitask and the rest of team make for an experienced, and extremely potent lineup. On the other hand, Exodus dropped a round vs ASF last week(no disrespect towards ASF), further strengthening my feelings that they are not the team everyone remembers. I think this will be a very good match, but I believe es| will pull out the win.

es| 3-2


xtreme soldiers vs Karma Police

I don't know much about xtreme soldiers, however I do recognize some of the names from the [kp] squad. I predict an easy win for [kp].

[kp] 3-0


Inertia vs Team Effect

I'm pretty sure I cursed Inertia last week by saying “as long as they don't run into FX early on”. Sorry Elliot. Even though most would give this match to Team Effect, Vatican and the rest of FX better be on their toes. Inertia's lineup is nothing to take lightly. With es| getting a point of FX last week, I almost have to give the edge to Elliot and his boys. They have the guns and experience to give FX a run, but what role will Warzone play? Assault can be tough, especially with a top notch panzer running around. I hope this is on WTV. MOTW!!!!!

Team Effect 3-2


Special Olympic Swim Team vs Scourge Gaming

If Scourge stays together for the entire season, they will be in the top 5. The Swim Team will drowned under the weight of s*.

Scourge Gaming 3-0


Guns 'n Roses vs Full Metal Jacket

FMJ is not the same team as from last season, or the season before, or the season before that. This is a great bunch of guys, but they've been in a downward spiral, so to speak, for about the last year. They've got the talent, but just not the drive. Guns 'n Roses will prove to much for for FMJ. Muslim is a nasty sniper, and thats going to make all the difference on Assault.

Guns 'n Roses 3-0


Not Cool Enough vs Blur

Not Cool Enough was a no show last week against Hair Pullers. So I don't know whats up. Blur does have a secret weapon, if they use it. Banks as been on a rampage after some little black kid *Cough cough FIST-Tyson.... cough* slashed a tire on his new GTO. Even if Not Cool Enough shows, Blur will be to much.

Blur 3-0


Trinity vs Teh Birdz

As much as I love spuddy and the rest of the Birdz, I don't think they've got what it takes to pull this one out. Troll is going to have to double time it the whole match, as he possibly could be the great equalizer. IF Troll can slow Trinity's pushes down, they might, JUST MIGHT surprise everyone.

Trinity 3-1


Fear Us vs American Special Forces

I don't know about this one, ASF got a point on Exodus last week on a map where guns usually prevail(and Exodus has 'em). I've played against FU, they have good guns, great strats, and damn fine teamwork.

Fear Us 3-1


Excessive Overkill vs Hair Pullers

Excessive Overkill surprised me last week with a win over Roadkill. With the recent addition of Kovert, this team could be one to watch out for. But, Hair Pullers will be to much, XS might get a point, but thats it.

Hair Pullers 3-1


epical vs NoX Team

Nox is getting better every season, epical doesn't have a full roster.

Nox 3-0


Collateral Damage vs RoadKill

Someone said CD broke apart(don't know for sure), but I know Nikon is no longer on their lineup. Both these teams have been around for a while, and played with the same core group. I have to give the edge to CD though.

Collateral Damage 3-1


Office Space vs The Black Panthers

GL HF

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Week 3 Prediction on mp_ice

Posted by: fenix (Thursday, January 20, 2005)

xtreme soldiers vs Scourge Gaming -
Scourge should be able to handle xs without much trouble.
s| 3-0

Inertia vs Team Exodus -
I guess we are the MOTW, will be some exciting games.

Eggnogsquad Full Metal Jacket -
Eggnogsquad had their troubles last week but they look like they are bouncing back. As long as they do, FMJ won't stand much of a chance. es| has the better guns and on a map like ice that will give them a big advantage.
es| 3-0

Guns 'n Roses vs. Special Olympic Swim Team -
I hope aqua shows up, if they do this match could be fairly close. However, GnR scrim non-stop an Aqua doesn't do much at all from my understanding, let's just hope they show.
GnR 3-1

Karma Police Team Effect -
Karma Polica is still alive or are they h8 now? Either way they might as well bring the lube.
fX 3-0

Blur vs Hair Pullers -
I Believe Hairpullers didn't show last week, hopefully that changes this week because this could be a great matchup. Piss and the crew should be able to come out on top though and give blur some free vibes.
>> 3-2

Teh Birdz vs Office Space -
The birds shocked trinity last week and look to continue their success of ice, they have the teamwork and even though OS has more experience it may not matter. The birds are becoming quite a team, one to look out for.
Birdz 3-1

hate vs Excessive Overkill -
Don't know if hate even has 6 yet, but if they do they shouldn't have much trouble.
3-1 h8, as long as they field 6

Team Babydick vs epical -
I think babydick wasn't in week 1 and had a bye last week. They look like some old bwg with an extra or 2. If that's the case epical (who?) won't stand a chance.
3-0 baby bwg

RoadKill vs Trinity -
This shouldn't be much of a match, trinity Should being bringing it to ice hard. Unless these roadkill guys decide to crash the server.
tTt 3-0

Fear Us vs Not Cool Enough -
NCE will probably forfeit again, even if they show fu| will be to much.
fu| 3-0

Collateral Damage vs American Special Forces -
I would love to see Damage win here. However, asf has grown into a tougher team in the past seasons. This will be a solid match up. Hopefully damage's teamwork brings them out on top.
cD 3-2

NoX Team vs The Black Panthers
The panthers are looking to be a solid group this season and i don't see NoX stopping that.
Panthers 3-0

Sorry i don't know many of the teams colors :x

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Predictions on MP_base

Posted by: fenix (Wednesday, January 26, 2005)

Special Olympic Swim Team Full Metal Jacket -
If the special olympians get it together they should earn a W this week. However if they don't FMJ could bring the upset. Whoever works harder and executes better will take this one.
Aqua 3-1

Team Effect Cullen Said So -
3-0 Cause
fX said so

xtreme soldiers vs Guns 'n Roses -
GnR scrims to much and xs still needs some time to get to there level from what i've seen.
3-0 GnR

Inertia vs. Eggnogsquad -
Inertia will definetly be looking to grab a win right here. I don't see es| providing to much of a challenge to them. es| has the capabilities but they aren't playing at the level they should.
i' 3-0

Team Exodus vs Scourge Gaming -
Apparently we get MoTw again, weee. Should be good games and i'm friggin thrilled to play some objective base.

hate vs RoadKill -
I still don't know much about roadkill but i do know some of the faces on [h8], if they play as a team they should come out on top.
[h8] 3-0

NoX Team vs Team Blizzard -
We scrimmed NoX on pretty much every map 2 nights ago, classy and fun guys. Team Blizzard is new and i don't know much about them so it's a toss up.
Blizzard (if they have 6) 3-1

Team Babydick vs Teh Birdz -
Another potential motw to me. Both teams are strong when they bring their A-game. Whoever does more pushups should come out on top here.
Birdz 3-1

American Special Forces vs The Black Panthers -
This should also be fairly close, although i haven't scrimmed the panthers im just going on what i've heard. I give the edge to the panthers though.
Panthers 3-2

Blur vs Office Space -
I'm always rooting for office space but i just don't see it happening. Only if there were chairs on the ne tower. Hopefully the cup preps and takes a round or 2, or even upsets blur. But it will likely by blur coming out on top.
Blur 3-1

Collateral Damage vs Hair Pullers -
If hp fields 6 they should win, cD is and always has been a classy team and with some practice could make it a tough match. However, hairpullers have some great players and need to step it up as a team.
>> 3-1

Trinity vs Fear Us
This is a tough call. I've heard good things about fu| but haven't scrimmed us. Trinity on the other hand can be a force on some maps. I think trinity will come out on top for the battle of the ne tower.
3-1
tTt

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Reminiscence

Posted by: ChumChum (Wednesday, February 9, 2005)

Everyone has favorite matches that they watched or played in because they were close or it showcased some really great players. However, each player has a special match or two that sticks out to them for different reasons. Perhaps a 5 man TK or a come from behind win against a solid team or just a match where everything was going your way. I am curious to read about other player's favorite matches and I think others may be as well. To start it off, I will talk about some matches that stick out for me and look forward to other player's matches in the comments.



Back when I was in SToP, we played LQD on mp_beach and shoulda woulda coulda won. It was 2-2 and I had the docs in the war room. I asked where I should go and everyone was yelling stuff and I couldn't understand what was being said. In the confusion I thought I heard someone say "long" so I went long. Well, as it turns out, my team had the radio room all cleared out and I could just pranced right in and won. Nope, they spawned, killed, and returned the docs. Aside from that, it was a pretty intense match. They definately had the better players but we somehow managed to make it an extremely close match.



Another match with SToP that sticks out was against Saint on mp_assault. At this point, SToP had lost all of its steam. We had just barely beat the done clan who only won like 1 match in the previous season or something like that. We were all just done with RTCW yet still played matches for some reason. The Saint match was one of, if not the, last match for SToP. So i talked with keef and pancho about us putting together one last stand and actually try to win one last time. We ended up winning a close match even though Saint probably didn't prepare very much for it. It's wasn't that fact that we won the match. It was the fact that we put the effort into doing somethign despite not having the drive to do so for virtually the entire season. Kinda like when you run 2 miles in a track meet and you somehow find the motivation to sprint the last 200 yards.



One particular event I will never forget was when I was with Slateoon. We usually played down a man because we never could recruit anyone who would pass our stringent screening process :o Anyway, once again it was mp_assault and we were playing nyx. I spawned alone at the flag and rushed across the tarmac as an Lt. When I got to the garage, I thought our guys were holding at the stairs. No, they pushed up, killed everyone, and were heading up to make the plant that would win the round. Not so fast says ChumChum. I drop my can at the bottom of the ladder thinking I could get a few bad guys to help out my team but since they had already pushed out and cleared it out, they were in the line of fire. The only good news of this story was that the placement of my can was perfect. Perfect enough to kill our only eng and the 2 meds there to cover him. We lost the match 3-2. WyattC, normally a very vocal personality on vent both positive and negative was just silent. Meanwhile, our sniper (Mr. Gentle) got to see everything through his scope and replied with "That's just funny".



My final match was again with Slateoon. This was our very first match as a team and we got to face another team who was also having their first match. This was Shogun's allstar clan 187. They had a Fatal1ty Q&A in their channel to boost their reputation and Shogun went so far as to guarantee a win for his team. Many people thought it would be a blowout since they had all of the well known players and top guns in RTCW. We ended up rolling to a 3-0 win and soon after the 187 team was no more. I am not saying that we had anything to do with their breakup. A team with that many egos was doomed to failure. It was just good coming out on top as the underdog when the leader of the other team talked mad shit beforehand.


What are some of your favorite matches or moments and why?

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Predictions on Mp_Village

Posted by: fenix (Saturday, February 5, 2005)

Team Exodus vs hate - the cal website says we are a backup motw :o

Guns 'n Roses Blur - Good match up, blur is solid and GnR scrims like the game is brand new, crazy bastards. Blur is to strong i think though
Blur 3-1

xtreme soldiers Collateral Damage - Should be a great match up but i am pulling for damage. They are a classy team adn with a scrim or 2 should be able to come out victorious.
cD 3-1

Team Blizzard vs American Special Forces -
Blizzard is new and i don't know if they have the chemistry to take out a team like asf', either way should be some good games but i have to give the edge to asf on village.
asf 3-1

Scourge Gaming vs Trinity -
As scourge says, they are underrated. Either way this match up will be intense. Depending on the server selection and the starting 6, this has the making to be a great match. If it's on a decent server for the westies i would give the edge to trinity. It really depends on who does their push ups.
tTt 3-2

Fear Us vs Inertia -
Inertia shouldn't have much of a problem here, even though fu| is a quality team. Hopefully they get a round out of it.
i' 3-0

NoX Team gets a BYE -
lucky bastards :D

Office Space vs. Cullen Said So -
This is another nice match up here, once again it depends who scrims. I' pulling for office space though.
teh cup 3-2

Hair Pullers Full Metal Jacket -
If >> has 6 they should take this fairly easy. If not fmj should come out on top. Sorry piss, don't know if you found 6 yet :x.
Hp >> 3-0

Teh Birdz Team Effect -
Sorry birds, you may be match off the week but it doesn't matter. Great guys but nevertheless, bring the lube :\. take a round though!
fX 3-0

The Black Panthers vs Special Olympic Swim Team -
Are the panthers still around? Either way the special olympians should take this match.
Aqua 3-0

RoadKill vs Eggnogsquad
Eggnogsquad, if they play as a team, should take this pretty easy.
es| 3-0

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a dull number crunch that you can compile with your one free hand

Posted by: bull-z-@ (Wednesday, February 9, 2005)

I'm bored again, you can post this if you want.


comparative statistics: season 8 cal rtcw vs. current season
-----------------------------------------------------------
season 8
596 active players
51 active teams

Largest roster in Open:
Black Panthers with 18
Largest roster in Main:
Saint with 18
-----------------------------------
season 10 cal rtcw

263 active players on cal rosters
22 active teams


Largest roster in Main:
Cullen said so with 23

------------------------------
333 active players lost between season 8 and 10
29 active teams lost as well :/

-----------------------
1. considering there is a two year wait rumoured for rtcw2, who (i.e. what clans) will come back for next season is cal continues?

2. With all the negativity, server crashing, and decline of teamplay happening in the few remaining pubs, what keeps most of you coming back?

3. What game are you playing now more than rtcw; basically what has peaked your interest at the moment?


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As a disclaimer the largest rosters in no way inflect on the actual active players for the team. This is just a fact listing and in no way demeans the clans listed.

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Chateau CAL X-W6 Predictions.

Posted by: -doNka- (Monday, February 14, 2005)

It is sunday night already and we need a new place to flame. Fenix is missing, fuzion is trying to handle his OLTL crap called CSS. That means I'm coming into the game. Yay.

MP_chateau, brought into cal some time between seasons 3 and 4, is known to have very high contrast games. Match can be either very intense(Saint vs LoT, sMn vs X, etc) or very boring (20 min spawn camp).

Cullen Said So vs. Special Olympic Swim Team
This will be hell of a match, IMO. Both team are full of has beens and aliasers, so I would think they got a lot to prove to eachother.

Score: Any team representative that will try to contact opponent team will earn a forfeit win even if his own team is not present.

Team Bli
zzard vs. Eggnogsquad
All I can regognize from brr are Manv!r of gA and ouch from infamous xTc. There's also a rumor that I didn't care to check yet that this team has who? Redman? Hmm. They have taken out NOX and Asf(3-2), but I really do not think ES is facing some kind of challenge here.

Score: Es take it all in a sweep.

Team
EFFECT vs. Scourge Gaming
Scourge is that kinda team that has an ability to outgun their enemy by a factor of 1.5 and still lose a game. Their teamwork is suffering because of poor leadership or lack of individual commitment, go figure.

Score: Fx = Home team so the game is gonna be about 10+2+ 2+2 +10+2 min long.

Full Metal Jacket vs. xtreme soldiers
I have scrimmed FMJ on sub once and played -[x]- in OLTL. I gues I should go w/ exerince on this one.

Score: FMJ up by 1.

Team
eXodus vs. Guns 'n Roses
I have one advice for roses. Try all not to get killed before your second spawn, so you could enjoy the game for more than 2 minutes. Plsu, exodus is taking this match very seriously so they invided nail to play this week. Ouch.

Score: Exodus all they way.

Fear Us vs. RoadKill
I have not seen Roadkill since preseason either. FU has some player base and experience to hold up against RK on this one, in my opinion to be honest.

Score Fear 3:0

The Black Panthers vs. Collateral Damage(no color here)
Score: I got nothing to say here, no freaking idea. I only read about these teams on occasion, but I've never seen any of their people in game. I don't think. Record favors cD, imo

Hair Pullers vs. Office Space
Hehaw. Another chance for OS to take a win? Last time I have played pissclam's friends on this map I got rolled so fast I couldn't even come up w/ excuses.
Score: Office space goes bold. 0:3

I
nertia vs. Trinity
O'boy. MOTW here according to CAL|Bobbie.

NoX Team vs. American Special Forces
God damn those weekend warriors. I have no idea what's either of those teams like. Angel sure owns on pubs shooting the shit out of people. Spiza is ain't all that bad either. That's about it for my knowldge in this kinda crowd.

Score: NOX can take one round.

Blur vs. Teh Birdz
Oh wow. Both team got a lot to prove in this game. Birds must convince everyone out there that last week's outstanding performance against fX wasn't just a result of whatever fx's 1000 execues were. Blur must hold up against birds to prove that their run into semi-finals last season wasn't a fluke either. This match is gonna be the Most Emotional Of teh Week! (MEOW!)

Score: Birds will triplle the rounds taken by blur.

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Interview: Vatican

Posted by: c[_]`Wippuh (Tuesday, March 15, 2005)

Ever since watching a demo of Vatican on base with LoT, this interview has been waiting to happen. It's taken a long time to write it up, but we've finally gotten some answers out of Vatican, the leader of Team Effect. Get your read on!



c[_]`Wippuh: Hi Vatican! Give us the goop, talk to us about yourself, how you got into gaming, RtCW and all that other good stuff that starts an interview.

fX Vatican: I’m 17 years old, turning 18 in April. I live in Charlotte, NC.

I got into gaming by meeting a friend who showed me Age Of Empires. If you’ve never heard of the game, it’s a RTS/RPG or whatever, pretty much like Warcraft 3. You build an army, command it, and go and take the other person’s town out.

I then got my own computer, and decided to buy Rainbow 6. This was my first FPS. I played over at zone.com. My computer wasn’t too great at the time, so I was still playing a bit at my friend’s house. I think he downloaded the RtCW MP demo, so I tried that out and I saw an air strike on beach and thought the game looked absolutely real. When I bought a newer and better computer, I bought RtCW right away.

Currently I’m playing World of Warcraft with $AMU$, and RtCW on Sundays-Tuesdays, and maybe Wednesday if my server is down and 0pz needs another guy for Metal Gawdz.



c
[_]`Wippuh: Talk about the evolution of fX. When did the team start and how has it changed over the seasons? What are the more memorable matches fX has had? If you had to pick 3 teams that gave you the most problems who would it be and why?

fX Vatican: Team Effect started out with a combination of 4 players from Elbows (myself, Wyldcard, Impulse, and Reaper) and all of Team Flatline (Bk2X, Nightwolve, Kappa, Chaos, Joker, and Antidote) in the middle of CAL Season 4’s playoffs. At the time, none of us were well known except for maybe myself, Wyldcard, and Impulse. The starting roster consisted of myself, Wyldcard, Impulse, Nightwolve, Reaper, and Antidote.

We started out scrimming CAL-O teams for a few weeks. We could get atleast 3 scrims a night back then. Once we mastered all the CAL-O teams, meaning we had no problem beating them, we moved on to higher level scrims. We started scrimming the middle tier teams (can’t really remember any) mainly, and sometimes the best teams like DarkSide, deathtouch, cK, NARF, etc. We did well against the middle tier teams, but obviously got owned against the upper tier teams. We did this 3 times a night, almost every night.

What really got us started rolling was when there was problems in DarkSide during BoB2 (fX got eliminated by the team of panzers, cK, in maybe the 2nd or 3rd round). Warrior had been scrimming with us occasionally and he obviously wanted to play with his friends. He was very active in RtCW, and DarkSide wasn’t as so. They lost to deathtouch on base in one of the final rounds, and Warrior quit soon after. DarkSide was basically done after that. By that time, we were starting to become one of the top teams. He joined after a scrim we had with NARF on beach, which was the final BoB2 map I think. Needless to say, we handled NARF well. Rambo also joined after that, but quit within the next couple of days and joined cK for some reason.

Our first match in CAL-I of season 5 was against cK and this one was pretty personal. It ended up being 3-2 in favor of us, and those two rounds were the only rounds we lost during the whole season up until the final match against NARF in the CAL-I finals. We continuously scrimmed 2-3 times a night, about every night, during that whole season. We eventually became known as one of the top teams in NA at the time. This was because of the continuous scrimming with the same six players (myself, warrior, impulse, wyldcard, nightwolve, and antidote), every night.

After QuakeCon 2003, the team started to change. We lost antidote and Nightwolve, but picked up Serbian and Guerrilla. We also went through all of those name changes, like Rewind, Stylez, 82nd, fe, u5, maybe others that I forgot. Teams started to not want to scrim us due to us being the top team in league, and also due to Serbian and Wyldcard’s incident. We were now pretty much known as cheaters. This roster stayed the same until cXg when we dropped Impulse and Wyldcard, and picked up Elusion and Beavermana. Beavermana then had issues about not being able to go to cXg and so we dropped him and picked up Summel. We later dropped Guerrilla and picked up Slag. So our roster for cXg ended up being myself, Warrior, Serbian, Slag, Elusion, and Summel.

After cXg, the original fX was pretty much dead. Most of them went on to play Call of Duty, but myself and Serbian, and warrior also for a while, still played. Our new core ended up my new teammates that I met in Scourge, myself, Serbian, $AMU$, slaya, and Remedy. This has been our roster up until this season. We picked up Rambo, Hollywood, Brian, AlphaNeo, Warzone, and Bill Carleton along the way.

A memorable match fX has had would obviously be fX v. NARF. We might have gone in there a bit too overconfident, because we had recently beat them 3-0 on base in an official match, and we also faired very well against them in scrims. Unfortunately, during the summer, Nightwolve had some kind of football camp, or was in Florida, and this had to force us to use Reaper. We had a quick 1-0 lead, and it swapped back and forth until it was 2-2. We set a fairly decent time, and now just had to hold NARF to take the championship home. The round started, and we beat NARF to the flag and diffused the dynamite on them. This got us really pumped up. The flag was eventually lost and all killed out and went on to the hill to hold them for even longer. What cost us the game was an air strike that killed 3 or 4 of us up top. The push was either make or break for NARF, as we needed to hold NARF off from the docs for about 10-15 seconds, and obliv threw a nice air strike to win the game for them.

I can honestly say that I can’t give you three teams that have given us trouble. The only one I can say that has given us the most trouble would be sMn, as they’re one of the only teams who’s ever beaten us.



c
[_]`Wippuh: Break down the history of the game as you see it. Where has it been? Where is it now? Where is it going and where does Team Effect belong in all of that? Overall, when it's only a few diehards playing on some beach demo server that was forgotten about and never shut down, how will the game be remembered by everyone?

fX Vatican: Where has the game been? I started around Season 2 and you could find respectable players from CAL-O teams in any server. CAL-O was very big at that time. CAL-M had maybe 10-15 teams, it was pretty small, and CAL-I was the same way. It was a great honor and privilege to be in CAL-M and CAL-I. It was also a great honor and privilege to have a chance to scrim them if you were a low or medium CAL-O team. I remember getting welcome’d aboard by the ShoGun cK in vI (warzone, jaytee, wyldcard, impulse, myself, leviathan, centric, shaggy2dot, a!m0logy, dstskillz, ryan and transit, others?) Up until about Season 6, you could find a scrim with a team your level in a matter of minutes. These were the seasons where a new team could form, practice, and eventually be the best. After that, when teams lost interest, it became harder for teams to improve because of the lack of scrims, and the loss of interest.

Where is it now? The game isn’t completely dead yet, but for me it is. Over the past few seasons, we were lucky to get maybe one scrim a night from a different team. Starting in season 6, teams started to not want to scrim us because they didn’t want to get owned. Those teams never improved. Some of them still play today. As the newer games come out, like World of Warcraft for me, people just move on to play them. The same was with RtCW. People quit their old and dying games to come play here.

Where is it going? I think it’ll get a minor spark if QuakeCon wants to add it into their events, but then go back to having a few teams left after. There won’t be a major wave of new players coming to this game. Every time a person quits, that’s just one less player in the now small community.

Team Effect has gone through most of the eras and will probably be remembered as the team that was just simply shady. We’ve been called hackers ever since Season 5 (82nd was caught using centerview, which was banned after the release of OSP .82 or 83, forgot). I think we were the team that played the hardest, wanted to improve, win, and have fun playing all at the same time.

The game will obviously be remembered by all the people who’ve played it, as their favorite, and the absolute best. They’ll remember the memorable times and wish the game was still back then.



c
[_]`Wippuh: After what seemed like a ripple in the community with your loss to sMn last season, fX has reestablished its position at the top of the game. What are your thoughts on the rest of the playoffs and next season? What continues to drive the team? What are your goals for fX in the long term? Do you feel that fX has any responsibilities to the game?

fX Vatican: We came into tundra that week knowing it would be a tough match. Warrior had recently left us to join sMn so we knew it would be extra hard. sMn is just a good team on tundra, and even with our newest cheater, silo, we couldn’t take them down. Around the week when village was the map of the week, we decided it was time for us to add some teamwork to the team, so we pretty much let silo go, and picked up Hollywood and brian. The team then consisted of myself, Hollywood, brian, Serbian, Slaya, Rambo, Samus, and Bill Carleton. We were back with full force then with great strats, great teamwork, and great guns.

When the finals came around, we knew we had the advantage on beach, because it is one of our best maps. We practiced hard, and went in there and just took it to them, simple as that.

I think the rest of the playoffs might be a little hard for us, as none of us are really dedicated enough at the moment. Hopefully we can build up enough interest in everyone and get ourselves motivated and start to scrim more. This will probably be the last season for me, and probably for fX as well, I’m just too much into WoW ;O, and I’m also going to college soon. I know we all want to win the championship still, so you won’t see us slacking in matches.

My goals for fX have already been accomplished. We’ve successfully won 2 CAL championships, 2 TWL championships, and many other things. The championships are the most important to me though.

I think fX has a responsibility to show the few players or teams that look up to us for help good attitudes. When I started fX last year I told everyone that I want the trash talk to be minimal to none of forums, but sometimes you can’t control your teammates actions. Top teams are supposed to set the example for everyone, like how NBA or NFL players are supposed to set the example for high schoolers or college players.



c
[_]`Wippuh: fX has always been a team at the very top of the heap in RtCW. However, you guys never made it to the 2nd qcon. Did you watch any of the matches and even if you didn't, how do you believe fX would have matched vs everyone, especially the Euros? What was your take on NARF's early exit and Affliction's deep run?

fX Vatican: 4 of fX’s players went and competed at QuakeCon 2003. Warrior with Frontline, Impulse with wSw, and Nightwolve/Kappa with IcF. The rest of us did stay home and watched the matches and planned to make fX again when everyone got home.

By that time, not many teams gave us a challenge, and I feel that if we had gone as a team, we would have faired especially well against the NA teams. There were only a few teams there with actual LAN experience, and that would have made it a lot easier to take the win. It’s tough for me to say how we would have done against the Europeans as I’ve never played them with the same ping. I don’t think the way they played were any different than that of top NA teams. It’s said that in every game, NA players are more about individual skill, while the Europeans are more about teamwork and strategy (Example: Summer Olympics for basketball). I think this is the case in our game. I don’t think we would have had a problem with them in terms of skill, just possibly their different style of play. All in all, I wouldn’t want to claim that fX could have taken it all, but I will claim that we would have finished with some money.

NARF’s early exit wasn’t too big of a deal. Some teams really wanted to win more than they did. I predicted they would lose to wSw on beach, and that might of got them. I don’t see any advantage to whether or not they were a LAN team, because teams can just use ventrilo. That’s pretty much LAN’ing right there. You should be able to be good online, and on LAN, and NARF was that, so I don’t think it was a matter of “even playing fields” now that everyone was on LAN. I don’t think that they really wanted to put forth the extra effort to win.

Afflictions deep run was due to their dedication to winning. Their team was different than all the others. Players were still concerned about how they did individually, more than how the team did. Affliction had players that countered that kind of thought. They show how top teams are supposed to be playing.



c
[_]`Wippuh: We asked Serbian this question, but he wasn't in fx at the time. During all of the scrimming for qcon2k3, the Europeans constantly complimented fX as the only aggressive team in an otherwise very conservative style'd NA field. What are the pros/cons of playing such a style and how hard is it to play that style when everyone else was/is playing something totally different? How did it feel to receive such high praise?

fX Vatican: Before and during the QuakeCon 2003 preliminary tournament, no one in Europe knew who we were. They predicted us to not even make it to the top 16, meaning we wouldn’t even qualify for QuakeCon. We started to become close to a top European team in Rewind, and we shared different strategies. We really became known to them when we were scrimming for assault. Even though we had the ping advantage, it was very clear to them that we knew how to play the game, and we were someone to look out for. At that time, we were planning on going to QuakeCon, so we were still scrimming 2-3 times a night, and practicing very hard. We scrimmed teams like GMPO, 4K, Rewind mainly from Europe.

I think by that time, we had perfected our teamwork. Playing with each other 2-3 times a night for maybe 3-4 months pretty much paid off. They saw how we worked together, and had the gun skills to top it off. It is hard to play against a team that comes in with a strategy you’ve never seen before, such as the fast push in the north service halls on Ice. If you’re good, you can work around it, and know how to try to counter it on the spot.

It felt pretty good knowing that the Europeans now recognized us as one of the top teams in the game. Most of them started asking us for demos of other teams and if they were any good or not. They were pretty much asking for the other team’s strats.



c
[_]`Wippuh: cXg, describe the personal disappointment of the event for yourself. Despite the obvious negatives, what were some of the more memorable happenings for you at the event?

fX Vatican: If I look back on it, I’m not ashamed that I went to start off with. I got to meet the players that I played with everyday in real life, and how they actual are in real life. I am obviously disappointed that we weren’t able to play and prove that we were indeed legitimately good. I had never been to a big time event such as that, and I thought it was something pretty awesome when I first came. The rest of the players who had been to QuakeCon, or other big events, said it looked pretty low standard. It was pretty rough having to get up early to go play, and then get told that we weren’t going to be able to for a while, and then go back after a while, and get told the same thing. This is pretty much what happened for the few days that we were there.

Some memorable happenings were obviously meeting everyone for the first time face to face. After I had gotten off the plane, I was waiting for my luggage and here comes some bald guy that looked like slag, and it was of course, to pick me up. Myself, scorp, elusion, and slag were riding around the first night looking at all the luxurious and world renowned hotels on the strip. We then met Serbian and Summel at the hotel, and then Warrior the next day at the LAN hotel itself. We never saw his dad at the event, however.

Meeting InvisibleMan was a moment to remember. I really doubted that this guy was for real, but he actually did pay for everyone to go to Las Vegas. We introduced ourselves and he especially kept on looking at Warrior and his ears. “Yeah that’s warrior alright”. Elusion told him he was decka and InvisibleMan thought that throughout the whole event. One thing though, I swear every time you looked at InvisibleMan, he would be looking right back at you, like he knew you were going to be turning in his direction.

Meeting Bruce Lee (0PZ) was nice as well. We saw that guy and thought maybe he was some security person. This dude definitely didn’t play video games.

Also seeing the more famous people that play video games like Fatality and Team 3D, SK, etc, was nice as well.



c
[_]`Wippuh: As every season goes along the gap between fx and everyone seems to lengthen. It's obvious that teams can take dedication to the game and really push you guys, like teh birdz did. But there's top teams that seemingly can't take that next step to challenge you and every season you see more and more of them going to play ET or some other game. What would you say to those teams and how do you motivate yourself when there's fewer and fewer challengers?

fX Vatican: In whatever game you play, if you want to improve, you have to go out and find a team(s) that are a lot better than you, stick with the same roster, and get to their level. After you’ve mastered that, you move on to the next level until you get to the top. It’s as simple as that. If you’re fine with being low skilled, or in the middle, then that’s what you want to do. No one has to change your attitude if you don’t want to move from where you are.



c
[_]`Wippuh: If you're going to say the name fX, instantly you can expect the comments to fill up with the hax accusations. Accusations seem to be the popular bandwagon to hop on nowadays in the community, but when leveled at your team, there seems to be a constant attachment of deep hatred and resentment that's not thrown towards others. Why do you believe this is?

fX Vatican: Maybe it’s because we’ve been this good for this long, and have yet to of been all out, full scale, busted for cheating. We’ve had players that have been caught for cheating, but who’s to say that everyone else on the team cheats as well? Also, who’s to say that we don’t cheat? Maybe all of us do cheat. Who or what can prove that we do or don’t? PunkBuster obviously can, but players such as silo, styles69, and the gang have proven that can be dealt with. Demos can possibly prove that we do or don’t, but there’s never a certainty, just a thought out guess. You just don’t know who cheats, and who doesn’t until you see them play up close and personal. I’ve seen Serbian and Warrior both play up close and personal, and I know they don’t cheat. It’s up for you to decide to believe me, or to have your own opinions about it.



C
[_]`Wippuh: Lets do some character association. How about the gang from South Park?

fX Vatican:
Stan – Me because I’m the leader.
Kyle – Slaya because he’s jewish.
Kenny – Kappa because he dies a lot.
Cartman – Cartman because that’s his name.
Mr. Garrison – Ryan & Transit because they’re gay.
Timmay – n0fx or Bruce0007 because they spam.
Cartman’s Mom – Gisele because slaya said so =\.
Chef – Bill Carleton because he sings.



c
[_]`Wippuh: Shoutouts!

fX Vatican: First off, a shout out to all the teams and the players that I’ve played with in RtCW over the past couple of years. Thanks for the games.

Shout out to big $AMU$, 1v1 unarmed? Ya knkz. Shout out to slaya, laff, never heard of you. Souht otu to rme, rolf spu ugys, ?. Shout out to Militant, thanks for the CD Keys to test cheats on. Shout out to Alpha, Warzone, Rambo the muscle, and Bill Carleton, it’s been great playing with you guys this season.

Shout outs also to Bruce Lee (0PZ), FuZioN, Boo7y, Conf/MG, Slag, Pi$$Clam$, yogi and the OPP crew, Wippuh (Franklin, lol) and his OS crew, hollywood, brian, laws_69, lacerate (MRK), fatninja, lateralus, PZM/phreak, all of the past fX players, the elite/redemption dudes, Elbow$ dudes, Metal GawdZ dudes, TB/Superhero$/GLOW and the cXg crew, and whoever else was an online pal of mine in RtCW ;O, sorry if I forgot ya!

Lastly, a shout out to Serbian, Warrior, Impulse, and Wyldcard, I’ve played with ya’ll the most over the past few years, thanks for the good times.



Missed an interview or want to read an old one, then check out ze interview link list



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CAL X:Last week on Tundra

Posted by: -doNka- (Thursday, February 24, 2005)

Penis picture owned imo




-[X]- VS
(cullent said so)
Forfeit matchup, not much to talk about. If soldiers take this match they might jump over Aqua and get #8 seed in playoff bracket.
Score: 3-0 -[X]-


-nS- VS.
Eggnogg gets a break before playoffs.
Score: 3-0 Eggnog Squad


S* VS. @--
I'm really not sure how scourge will perform now that they know they must record demos. Note to roses: use and abuse demo policy.
Score: 3-0 Scourge


-FMJ- VS. Brrr
Brr has bend NOX 3-0, stole game from ASF and took a round from ES. FMJ on the other side had some Ups and downs vs. barely existant and some pretty strong teams as well. This game may go either way.
Score: 3-2 Blizzard

-fX- VS. -x-
MOTS - match of the season.
Aim: -fx- [---x----------] -x-
Exp: -fx [----x---------] -x-
Map: -fx [----------x---] -x-
Team: fx [------x-------] -x-
Fx's record on tundra: embarrassing lost to sMn(with a hacker on fx's roster), and a questionable win over rabia. Not so hot. I don't really remeber exodus matchups on that map by I see them as a team that is able to adapt to a (relatively) new map like this a little better. Yet still, look at those weird scales I've posted.
Score: 3-2 fx with ties




VS. NOX
This will be exciting game for those who will be playing it. I see spiza pulling this one off.
Score: NOX wins


FU VS. Screw this team
FU better not lose to those people.
Score: 3-0 Fear Us


VS. Inertia
GL HF. Match for the #1 playoff spot.


tTt VS. asF
Trinity is going to have an easy week on this one taking playoff chance away from asF.
Score: 3-0 Trinity


VS.
Office Space will be battling for their playoff spot this last week of the season. I have no doubt they will take the match from cD, so it shouldn't be any kinda intence match or whatever.
Score: 3-0 Office Space



..I., VS.

Not sure where birds' problems gonna take them, but if they pull 6 together and practice a little bit this might be another exciting match that can go either way. The winner of the match will get #1 or #2 playoff spot depending on Inertia vs Blur outcome.
Score: 3-2 HP

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TWL Semis

Posted by: c][beast (Sunday, March 20, 2005)

Sup guys twl semi-finals goin on this wednesday...Just posting up some predictions. Down to the final four here folks, maybe some wtv if anyone cares :).

Gnr vs Tv:
Should be a good one, gl hf
3-2 either way

Metal Gawds vs. fu:
Metal Gawds are a solid team but i think fu could take around or two. I think mg will have the win though.
3-1 Metal Gawds

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Top 20 Teams of All Time

Posted by: c[_]`Wippuh (Tuesday, March 29, 2005)

How do you believe should be in the top 20? Where do they rank among each other and why?

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Crazy Out of the blue Idea

Posted by: c][beast (Sunday, April 17, 2005)

I remember when i was a little kid. Man all the sports teams i played on. what fun. Yall remember those days? Coach says one day, "Ok, we are gonna need all you guys to go out and get a sponsor, to help the team." I remember rackin up like 5 in a day with my twin bro dresserwood. 1000+ in a day. good shit eh? Crazy? YES! how many people remain in wolf today? 70-100 in osp. By god if someone could organize everyone to get like 500 dollars of sponsorship. For what you ask? Hell say you are gonna compete in a tournament, and it would benefit a good cause. Yea this idea is shit but hey maybe if enough people like the idea. then we might have a tourney. yea it would be weird for like 20-40 year old dudes to go in and ask for shit. Yes i am in that bracket range and understand how weird it would seem. But hit up like an outback or some restaurant chain. They throw that out like crazy. To get someone "trustworthy" to handle the sponsorships and maybe get like a money rtcw tourney going. Yea it would just be held over online cuz we cant have a convention at some place. duh. Maybe its my drunk self talkin and spittin of random shit but i mean you go to 5 places ask for 100 or 10 and ask for 50. 500 from each person. lets say we get 100 people to participate. Thats 50,000 bucks split for winning teams. Hell get 50 people to do and have 25,000 to split between teams. Good idea? why not throw this out here to yall and see all the negative that gets thrown back in my face for it. And for the ussually rants from the people who cant seem to post anything positive. No i am not a kid. No i have no idea how this shit works(sponsorships that is). Do i care if yall bash me for this idea? no. just thinkin of a way to get some spark going. maybe.

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Define and Rank

Posted by: c[_]`Wippuh (Thursday, July 21, 2005)

It's time to really break it down and define the following terms. Not an easy task if you really think about it. After defining, make sure to rank them! Feel free to add your own terms to define.

n00b
nub
nup
'gloid
power 'gloid
downgrade
'grade
momo
eggroll

etc...

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Failed Clutch

Posted by: Mortal :o (Wednesday, August 10, 2005)

The Clutch move... the last attempt to win a match, and sometimes an action that can make a player a legend. Wolfenstien, like any other game, has had plenty of these clutchs. And I am sure we all know a finger and toes count of them... but do we know the failures?

I think it would be interesting to here who fell to his death with the docs, who shot the teammate and who was to fat to beat the clock... and best of all, who got lost on the map. I am sure it will take a bit of rekindling in your minds, but some fun stories should arise from this. Some dumb shit too.

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Favorite Flavor

Posted by: Mortal :o (Tuesday, August 9, 2005)

Each and every clan that has a reputation, an undying fan, or a 12 year old poostain has a "resurection".

Teams like -x-, wSw, tTt, nyX, and -a- to name a few have had resurrections. Some have been pretty similiar in style and team core... others have been random players and a bencher from the original team running wild with the tags on. And each to their own... but with all the flavors of the clans out there.... which one is the best? Would you consider the original exodus better then one of the many newer versions? The original wSw or the team that went to Qcon. What is the best flavor? I choose Apple. :O

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NA Season 10 Fragmovie

Posted by: Senatorrov? (Tuesday, September 6, 2005)

i was watching the Eurocup X fragmovie today and i got a thought.

why not make a frag movie like the euros did.
cal never got to finish 10, and twl has a good showing for their 10th season.
name it like: "NA Season 10"
it could be frag sprees from all teams participating in twl season 10, pretty much like eurocup X did.

ive seen the meloncholy and rabia movies, maybe we can get saladin or kalamazoo to do them if they chose to.

just an idea, i think it would be a nice ending to a posible last hurrah for NA rtcw osp.

also if u havent seen the EuroCup X movie, its sweet.
http://www.swertcw.com/default.php?c=download&id=881

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Nostalgia Continues

Posted by: -doNka- (Tuesday, December 13, 2005)

After all the movie making I've gotten this idea of naming all the people i've been teaming up at some points of my wolf gaming history. I think this shit should be interesting to do for everyone, so lemme start:

(
green = have been noticed playing wolf less than a season ago)
(
red = got caught hacking, partial red = rumored to be caught hacking)

Silent Service
ss-: kokopelli, 8dot3, petey, maggot, w3r, diseased(broken), dasmick, snagger, cracker(-x-, os), neo7

Saint
|: time-bomb, rome, transit, ryan921, rei, enabl3D(emi), soma

K'netic: petey, ika, moggvai, esco, next2u, kluk, sorrow, synergy(tempfiller), digitall, donking, cartman, laff(lqd|spawn), darkforce, minp

Superheros-cxg(undefeated cxg champs): invisibleman, dozer, executor, nismo, skyline

Saint(cowboy edition): +kozak
Glow (
.Y.): dirty, dozer, slag + ?

Star: opz, halphanegro, mutha, krazykaze, endo, bassman, scrilla, time-bomb, trigger, sage, booty, raze, hardcore, som

eXecutives: flogzero, anialatem, nard, beez, pchonic, decka, nail, wiz4rd, blade(not the one who has been caught hacking), glacier

Inertia: aequitas, krazykaze, mutha, hiki, kalamazoo, juventus, time-bomb, koven

Tribal Valor
-Tv-: all currently active

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Funny IRC quotes

Posted by: E-THUG (Wednesday, December 14, 2005)

Need some good laughs here.

Too many noobs like "donka" and "lox" running around making fun of each other.

Post some IRC quotes from the past that make you laugh.

[23:45:37] [@ChanServ] [MiliTant] *** NewOrleans has quit IRC (Excess Flood)

[23:19:28] [tTt-Method] hey can u unban me from #team-effect

[21:10:58] [u5|Elliott``] hey
[21:18:44] [|a|vatican] yo.
[21:18:55] [u5|Elliott``] 2 questions
[21:19:12] [|a|vatican]
[21:19:23] [u5|Elliott``] #1 if serb is around, would you mind asking him to take me off of ignore, #2 are you still holding any grudges against me..and if so, why?

[18:36:59] [Remedy] yo i still type in global liek he said fuck this!!!

[20:17:32] [iN-serbian] wow... questing much ?

[15:57:23] [i`aequitas`prac] we'd like to play on a server with md5 tool checker

[14:49:46] [fX-Vatican] what do they call you around the streets?
[14:49:52] [fX-Remedy] dc

[23:13:46] [@|fx|hollywood|a|] where the fuck is samus
[23:13:56] [@|fx|hollywood|a|] hub cap spinners bling bling

[23:01:54] [@slayayaya] ?

[15:04:31] [[fe]highlight] dont do it vat
[15:10:42] [[fe]highlight] vat dont do it ;/ what would http://www.lostlegacysystems.com/Pics/Masterlegrand_ezr.jpg the lost legacy do
[15:11:03] [[fe]highlight] he wouldnt sell out to spend 8 hours aday setting up flame thrower crossfirers with nail and decka roflmao

[FBI|Martin]: division et?? [00:45:44] [FBI|Martin]: you will play can about 20 training today?? [FBI|Martin]: you will train tacts but we will instruct[FBI|Martin]: what on it?? [00:53:01] [FBI|Martin]: think you??

[16:58:25] [@fX-SerbiaN] oh welcome aboard
[16:58:32] [@fX-SerbiaN] how was your business trip ?

Just for starters

e-thug out

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PlayerTracker: matriX

Posted by: c[_]`Wippuh (Monday, January 9, 2006)

Well I usually dont do this type of thing so dont expect pro questions but seeing the the lack of news on planet-rtcw asides from whos hackin threads or frog maps, theres nothing really interesting to read. Well Rtcw was my favorite game and seeing rtcw2 is still a ways off, im hoping that this site can stay up till then. Which brings us to the present situation... So im on etg idling for quake 4 and such and notice all the old, old rtcw players/clans, so I figured it would be a good idea to do some interviews with these players.

Like i said Im not good at interviews so any suggestions would help, being that i have like 8-9 more of these interviews ranging from players from clans like aN,D|S(1rst version),empire, and abuse. So heres my attempt to bring more readers to the site along with word of mouth on etg, to keep this site in mind when rtcw2 comes out. NOw normally it would piss people off interviewing older players because you will get comments like "who the f*** cares move on kid" but seeing rtcw2 on the horizon i thought it would be nice to see future plans for these clans/players and such along with other questions.

So without further talk here is the resurrection of PLAYERTTRACKER.


PLAYERTRACKER starts back up with phX(team phoenix) matriX. Read, Enjoy, and post any helpful suggestions. Or if any1 else thinks they can do better pm me in #wolfers and ill give you the names to interview. Thanks









lacerate: Hi matrix , obviously rtcw is far behind you but dig deep into your memory bank for a few minutes. Tell us when you started gaming, how you got your handle, what clan/s u played with in rtcw , and anything else (name,age,w/e), yada yada yada.

matriX: Well. Names Jack Furnari and I’m currently 20 years old ;-). Back in the day when my real social life ended was the year of 1996. All kickball, playing baseball with dad, sweating in the heat ended, as I began to install the first ever edition of Quake! At 10 or 11 years old I began my computer geek life, which was pretty fun.

My handle used to originally be “NIGHTMARE”, then I kind of got tired of it after a year of gaming, then at 1997 I began playing Quake II and ever since then I was using my current handle, “matriX”. I picked my name out from the matrix comic’s (before the movie came out). And then when the movie did come out, the name really became popular and so many people have been using it, but in time people have continually been changing there names to something else and I will continue to keep my name, and I’m pretty sure (hopefully) in time no one else will have interest in this “over rated” name.

And as for what team I played with for Return to Castle Wolfenstein, was the famous group known as Team Phoenix :-). I have been a member with this team since 1999.



lacer
ate: Some may remember Team Phoenix as a solid west RTCW clan, while other may just remember you guys for having a cool tag, Tell us about your clans history, makeups/breakups, and ultimate departure from rtcw.

matriX: Team Phoenix originally played in a Quake III mod called “Urban Terror”. PHX has began they’re famous reputation in the Urban Terror community, then soon spread to the Rocket Arena community, and then of course, our main course meal quickly after that was Return to Castle Wolfenstein. To make the long story short, Team Phoenix has departed from RTCW and other games, due to getting back to real life responsibilities. As for myself, twice I have attempted to bring the team back to rise out of the ashes once again for CS:S, and even Quake 4. But do to lack of interest for several reasons; we have not fully dedicated ourselves to those two games, which I will explain within one the next couple of questions.



lacer
ate: Tell us your most embraced moment in RTCW, was it a clutch victory against a great clan, a insane multi kill that saved a round, or getting your knob slobbed by your girlfriend while pubbing on texas stopwatch :).

matriX: Haha, well buddy, there was probably several hundred of these so called “embraced moments” that I can vaguely remember. LOL, for some reason this question reminds me of the movie 40 year old virgin, starring Steve Carell known as “Andy”. Romany Malco (Jay) and his co-workers asked him to tell a story about one of his nastiest sex experiences he ever had. His hilarious blank face, saying “Wow, so many stories going through my head right now, uhh”. I mean seriously, great f’n actor! Made me laugh my ass off at that part of the movie.

Anyways back to the question hehe, probably what I can unfortunately vaguely remember, was after the Bob Tournament, what began was the first CAL Season. We were known as the Underdogs the entire time, but successfully became the west coast champions and were known as being in the Top 5 teams in the country, alongside with ‘Team Darkside’, ‘Team Abuse’, ‘The Doctors’ & ‘Team Empire’. What I will never forget was the endless practices and scrimmages we had to do in order to play at our very best. Running through strats over and over was very time consuming, but to see them actually become successful in matches was priceless, and which will never be forgotten. So honestly, too many countless times I can remember embraced moments, If I were to ever start calling up old teammates to reminisce. I probably won’t be going to sleep tonight, with endless typing for stories. This would just be way too much reading for you and too much work for me :-).



lacer
ate: Not that it means anything important but some people dwell on this question. who do you think were the top shots in rtcw(when phx played cal), and what clan/s you thought were overrated.

matriX: Well back in the day during RTCW, I was way too busy seeing the drama in mIRC, so I don’t really remember the Rants and Raves about other teams and how people were chatting about them over IRC besides chatting with members over the phone and over internet voice chat. Couldn’t really tell who was over rated or not, didn’t pay attention to it, we just played our game.



lacer
ate: I recently seen in Irc that Phx was making a comeback for quake 4, But when the game arrived you guys went mia it seemed, What happened there?

matriX: This continues my story from question 2. From Counterstrike source, we have heard amazing things about it, sure it was a very accurate game, the graphics and physics of it were fantastic, but the reason why we have chose not to get involved in this game is because in the beginning they clearly have implemented old maps from the original counterstrike game, from at that time already had 5+ years of perfected strats from all teams that are already seriously known. So for some of us including myself to just hop into the game, it would be quite difficult to sync an entire team to play against teams that are just that much more experienced than us in the Half Life Community. Quake 4, by this time (a year later after CS:S) it was hard to get back some of the old members to be involved with professional gaming, mainly because it was of course extremely time consuming. But the remaining members and myself (such as Jesse (wheela/mauler), Steven (ripped/monstah) Ken (warbringer), Dave (pmsrage) and Chris (fake_id) had the idea of just picking up new blood from the Quake 4 community to join the team.

After actually playing it, some realized they weren’t as interested as they originally thought they would be (too buggy). Some people at the time couldn’t afford new hardware at the moment. And wasn’t sure whether if it was really worth putting money into hardcore machines to run the game flawless if the game wasn’t going to be as hot as what everybody was hollering about. From the performance in the beginning and still really to this day, majority of servers are completely empty. Figured it wasn’t worth it and then holidays came up and figured it wasn’t worth it, and some of us just kind of out grew pc gaming, either that or pc gaming just isn’t as great as it used to be like back in the day unfortunately.



lacer
ate: Gaming is on the rise both in console(game awards shows rival music/movie awards shows) and in pc(bigger tourneys, and duelers getting tv time), Do you ever think we will see the day when say..... a fatal1ty could appear on espn? And tell us what you think e-sports has to do in the next 5 years to get more mainstreamed?



matriX: Most definitely, with all the money John makes and how much his sponsors support him, they could make gaming strive to a real sport, that’s of course if the games can keep up and keep them running popular like how Quake 1-3 and Counterstrike was. CPL has been doing a fantastic job keeping up the cash prizes on most of the tournaments they run. But for it to be on ESPN, it will definitely be more involved, meaning more players with contracts. We would have to be paid to live off of it at a good salary in order to make a living out of it. I’m more than sure if some other players were getting paid as much as John is making now, they’re would be a hell of a lot more competition for him and everybody else. It won’t just be pointed to one person as persistent as it is at the moment.



lacer
ate: The gaming community is really in a "which way to go kinda state" (all this is just my opinion i could be wrong). We have counterstrike players arguing over css and cs 1.6 and then we have the dueling and tdm scene where it was looking to explode for q4 with thousands of players on message boards saying they will be playing the game, but so far its looking like a flop(is it due to lack of money to buy power boxes or modding not yet in top gear?). All of this gives me that feeling that maybe everyone will say fuck it im playing rtcw2! Do you feel that wolfenstein has a second chance at becoming a huge success with the release of rtcw2

matriX: This is very possible, BUT. Like most movies that come out these days, most sequels can never match the excitement and depth as the first one. So far as I can see, Coders in the Quake 4 community are trying to make the game more playable, such as remaking the maps such as (TMP) Maps. Everyone is eagerly trying to make they’re configs to run the smoothest as possible without having to put much money into there boxes.



lacer
ate: Will you be playing rtcw2 and if so will you bring Phx back?

matriX: As much as I would LOVE to see this happen, I would unfortunately have to say no. This is really sad for me but it’s true, all of us are grown up and out of the loop when it comes to gaming. Our interests have changed outside the game, and for most of us this is for the better. We all kind of have to catchup on experiencing outside activities such as traveling, staying close to family, more work and money, etc. What I remember is myself being extremely anti-social with my family, which I thought at the time was nothing to worry about, but after time you realize that you feel you are missing out and you should be spending more time with friends and family, and to concentrate on career’s that we know we can live on. If I really wanted to bring back PHX, I would first have to win the lottery and make millions, build a mansion. Then of course somehow hypmotize or talk to all the old members into getting to move in and play games for hours, to days, to months. But at the moment I don’t think I really want to do that. All of the old veterans and myself are happy where we are. If we were to start gaming again, it would have to come out of our hearts. Because when you care the most about the game, that’s when you are an excellent gamer. If you don’t love to game for hours upon hours, it’s definitely not worth it, and you wouldn’t get very far. You really have to love what you do for a hobby.



lacer
ate: 1rst word that pops in your head when i mention/show the following

1 -RTCW
2 -clan kapitol
3 -cyberx games
4 -xbox360
5 -this chick http://www.break.com/index/pic237135.html
6 -big hairy dick

matriX: LOL uhh, ok.

Awesome.
Old
Wtf?
Expensive
Plasticsurgerysucks (cheated)
gladihaveone (I cheated on one word again ;-) )



lacer
ate: Thanks for the view matrix hopefully we will see you in rtcw2, Now lastly give us some shoutouts and your irc channel and network its on

matriX: Well No problem, Anytime!

You might see me in RTCW2 as long as it’s not a fluke the way Quake 4 started. :D

Currently I am teamed with Forsaken Saints; you can find me in #fs on irc.enterthegame.com. As of January 6th our new website launched! You can check it out at www.ForsakenSaints.com . And if I were to ever take pc gaming professionally again, expect to hear about me in the future :-)

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Interview: MesH

Posted by: mutha' (Tuesday, January 10, 2006)

#BiRdCaGe.MuThA: 1.Who are you, how did you get into gaming and what teams did you play for in gaming and in your RTCW career?

#BiRdCaGe.MeSh: Hey there. My name is Jon Mirro aka MesH. I'm 23 yrs old K...Hard to think back to where it all started, but I think my first real experience in gaming was when my brother came home with a floppy disk of the original Wolfenstein 3D. I was hooked on it, having really only played flight/space sim games like Wing Commander and Red Baron. It was also through my older brother that I got introduced into the world of Quake and such, but I really never got into multiplayer until he invited me to his work where he and a bunch of his college buddies had set up a Quake 2 LAN. LOL, we played for hours on end, I remember good times where we'd break into his workplace on weekends when everyone was gone and fire up the old school PC's and deathmatch it up. Good times...

From there on out, basically was hooked on shooters. Unreal, Unreal Tournament, Quake 3 for a time, until one of my best friends comes in while we're stoned at his parents house and installs RTCW, saying "you gotta check this new game out!" I remember seeing Beach for the first time; hearing the mortars and just being amazed at the graphics and realism of the map at the time. A couple hours later, I sold some of my personal ganja stash and bought the game, jumping into every server I could at home. I had no idea about crouching to make your aim better long range, or about fps or trickjumping; all that was stuff yet to be realized...I just liked to snipe and throw cans and watch the pretty smoke. Ha!

#BiRdCaGe.MuThA: 2.When you first started in RTCW, who were some of the teams and players that you looked up to?

#BiRdCaGe.MeSh: I think it was a few months before I joined up in any clan. ASC had a public shrub server that I began to play on regularly, and there were two clans that played on it all the time: ASC and NEO. NEO had made an offer but ASC had the better players at that time, and I wanted to improve and get the high scores and all that. Kills/deaths ratio made no difference back then. Eventually ASC let me join up with them, and I learned alot about the game that I otherwise might never have attempted to learn. It came to a point where we all noticed that there were competitive leagues out there, so we started practicing and forming a league team (this would have been mid-to-late 2002).

Our buddies in M|asters Clan w/ VOlks and LouDog became regular scrim partners, and I remember just evolving into a pretty decent shot (or so I thought) during those times. I really looked up to players like Volks, who I thought were awesome because they played in competition leagues and always rolled me in the 1v1 duels. Another person was Warrior; whom my friend in ASC (Sparky, now known as Trash from Team Burque) linked a movie to me. After watching that video I realised how horrible I was, and how awesome some of the players out there were. I worked on nothing but my gun during that time, trying to re-create some of those scenes in my playing style. I remember downloading his 82nd demos wherever I could find it, just constantly watching the movement and aiming.

Then after watching the Amish movie and Infensus and a few others, my RL friends started seeing way less of me cuz I was too busy working on my aim or scrimming. If anything, RTCW helped me stay out of trouble, otherwise, that time spent would have certainly been on quite a shitload of illegal stuff.

Eventually the nubish-ness started fading away and I really wanted to take ASC to the next level and form a true league team that could go in and compete. But the other players seemed to be lazy about it or just generally not interested in the hard work it takes to make a team successful. I remember my frustration with it all, which eventually led to my leaving the team for bigger things. Among some of the players that DID see things similar to me were none other than Mutha, Lt.Goose and Spuddy, to name a few. That was the beginning of things to come.

#BiRdCaGe.MuThA: 3.In a community where teams break up and disappear and reform, how has teh birds managed to keep running without losing too much talent and players?

#BiRdCaGe.MeSh: I think alot of it is friendship. I know it sounds gay and all, but we all just seemed to click, and everyone was on the same page. While we were all business as far as the gaming went, we also just hung out on vent and were laughing nonstop, making fun of eachother and linking silly pictures to eachother, etc. Example..one thing we always used to do after a win was visit this live nude webcam site, login with hilarious names and convince the girls in the free softcore rooms to put their legs over their head, or take it off or whatever, and if they did, someone would yell out "I SEE BALLS!" ...lol, it's childish but it's FUN, and I think that's a crucial part of teamwork; having fun with the people you're playing with. I think it's alot of little things like those that contributed to our longetivity as a team.

#BiRdCaGe.MuThA: 4.Mesh I know your in the air force, how does that effect your gaming schedule? Also is there alotta fellow brothers of yours in the the airforce playing multiplayer based games?

#BiRdCaGe.MeSh: It can be tough man. As a player, it's been a constant up-and-down streak, where I'll start getting better and pleased with where I'm at, and then OH SHIT I go to Basic Training. 10 months later, after Technical School, I'd jump back on and re-learn it all over again. Then as soon as I start getting back to a point where I'm happy with my gameplay, OH SHIT I have to deploy. And the cycle never ends, and probably won't for as long as I'm in service. Then you consider work-shifts and whatnot...it's tough. For the most part, the only times I've really been able to actually scrim regularly or play in matches have been during the last 8 months. Otherwise I'd be working a swingshift or graveyard and come back after work, login and say "so guys how'd it go tonight?".

But in the scope of things, I'm pleased with where I'm at. It can sometimes cramp my style as far as gaming goes; in the end, gaming isn't as important as what I do when I'm working. I sometimes wish I could just sit back and frag it up all day, but that's just not possible with what I do. Gotta make a living somehow, ya know? And it's a decent one at that.

Most of the gamers up here in South Dakota seem to be big into CS:S, WoW, or Halo2. Not a whole lot of RTCW players, altho I did meet some kid at a local LAN tourney who was in the old Exile team, he was even wearing the t-shirt, lol. Most all of my buddies that DID attempt to play RTCW or ET eventually got stationed somewhere else, so that kind of ended that.

#BiRdCaGe.MuThA: 5.I remember when you guys won cal-o and twl-bravo back to back in one season how was that for team vengeance? Did more people respect you guy's because of this?

#BiRdCaGe.MeSh: Well, unfortunately, I wasn't a part of Team Vengeance when they won both Open and Beta. Spuddy, Biff, Pimpplaya and I had formed FIST, which was really just an attempt at having fun with some idea someone brought up on vent one day. Looking back, it was a fun team to play on, and we pissed alot of people off with the racial thing; which I don't blame them. Some of that stuff I didn't agree with, but I was enjoying it until I deployed. That match against Office Space on Sub that Wippuh spoke about awhile back was my last match before leaving, and it was a nailbiter. When I was overseas, I'd occasionally find a computer to use for emailing the folks, and would of course check out the standings and shit, and was pleased that both FIST and v| were doing well. Those are mah boys! 'Cept I was pissed that of all teams, it was v| who knocked us out of playoffs...

I'm not sure what people thought of Vengeance after that season. I think it established them as a very capable team, for sure. I think it also gave them some bragging rights really. 4/6 of their starters hadn't played in leagues except the previous season in Birdz, so winning both leagues was kinda like "hey, we did it, we don't suck as much as you all say we do, and here's the proof".

#BiRdCaGe.MuThA: 6.So with teh birds(team vengeance,d4) being a tight group of guys, what is everyones role in this team?

#BiRdCaGe.MeSh: Caffeine in-game is our playcaller. He throws out the offensive pushes and is constantly reminding the rest of us to grab a spawn time if we see it, call out where the arty's are, reminding us to gib and all that. He's indispensable to the team. Off the servers, he's usually the smartass forum-whore who always provides us with a good laugh. Good guy tbh. Great all-around player...has turned matches around by switching up to panz many times...

Spuddy serves as our full-time medic for the most part, altho he does well at every position we throw him in. He always manages to TK me somehow, and I think it's intentional, but as a medic you can always rely on that guy to get the pickup and kill the enemy. One of the best guns on the team. Really funny, very sarcastic.

Lt. Goose is our scapegoat for every mistake we make. He's also probably one of the best guns on the team, although we do our best to demoralize him at every chance we get. One of those players that gets better the more pissed off he gets. He usually plays Lt, but is a decent sniper as well. Lately he's been trying to panz and I hope he soon forgets about all that. Despite his many, many, many faults as a player and person, he's a great guy.

SonicReducer is a newer addition to our team from last season with D4. He came to us from Fear Us, and contribues a solid gun and smart gameplay. We can usually throw him in any role or piece of a strat, and he'll be successful. I don't recall how we picked him up, but he's a great contributer to the team. Plus he pays for the vent server, and that's reason enough. :p

Mutha played with us during our first season of Birdz, and is one of my old ASC buddies. He took a hiatus and played for Star and Minions, and you all know him as a great gun and good guy.

Animal I met through hanging out with the Vengeance guys. Probably the most down-to-earth guy in the game, he's got the most experience than any of us in competition, having played for KoR and v| back in the early CAL and TWL seasons, and is still so loyal to the Vengeance memories that we know it would make his day for us to tag up with the v| again. The guy is really smart with his airstrikes, and has a great knowledge of the game. When he talks in vent, we all stfu and listen.

Nosferatu is our resident Canadian player, and as much as we hate Canadians, he worked his way into our hearts. Between hockey and RL, it's hard to get him in-game. But he's got a great gun and smart gameplay. It's always nice when he shows up, and we always demand he says "eh?"

And then there's Teh Almighty Troll. This guy never fails at making us laugh our asses off. He's established himself as one of the top panzers in the game, and is a damn fine gun when he classes up otherwise. We've all known him to shut down pushes by himself with just a nade and a pistol, so packing that extra rocket is just icing on the cake.

Rampage is another newer addition to our lineup. He comes in as yet another panzer that we can throw in the mix,
but also another good shot and contributes alot to the team in terms of strategies. He, unlike the rest of us, is
pretty calm under fire and has given us alot of heads-up on the ET scene. We suspect he is the old CAL|Justin, our mortal enemy, but as we haven't acquired the evidence to boot him from the team, he shall remain.

And then lastly I guess there's me. I play medic 90% of the time for these guys and generally try and keep up, needle out and reviving. You won't see a shitload of kills outta me; I'm fine with that.

#BiRdCaGe.MuThA: 7.With competition pretty much dead in RTCW you guys moved to Enemy Territory how is it compared to its older brother RTCW?

#BiRdCaGe.MeSh: It's alot gayer. Shit like riflenades, mines, prone...those got on our nerves at first, and still do to an extent. The hitboxes felt a bit different. But there are many more teams playing, and it's been nice to be able to meet new people and face up against other teams. As in RTCW, we joined in the competition rather late. Didn't do so well our first season as Vengeance, but after Rampage recruited us into OSG (due to the remaining OSG players having RL stuff goin on), we've come together and done pretty well.

#BiRdCaGe.MuThA: 8.Can you recall your most intense match ever? if so describe.

#BiRdCaGe.MeSh: Probably between FIST vs. Office Space on Sub (rtcw). The FIST match was important because as I said earlier, it was my last match before deploying and I wanted the win bad. I just remember that game going neck-and-neck the entire match, and we finally took the win in the last seconds. Spuddy
was clutch and killed their 2 engineers with his smg from the water. It was a great ending to my season.


#BiRdCaGe.MuThA: 9.With season #11. ready to kick off how do teh birds plan on playing this season? any new strats? any teams to be scared of?

#BiRdCaGe.MeSh: I don't think we'll honestly scrim much, maybe once a week at the most, just for fun. For the most part, RTCW competition lacks alot of new maps which would force teams to create new strats. Everyone knows the strats, there's little if anything left that a player can do in any of the season maps that hasn't already been done. I'd like to see more customs, but we all know that won't happen. Best thing to do is to sit tight until RTCW2 comes out.

There are a couple oldschoolers coming back in the form of Wolfplayers, and I see them being a big hurdle for several teams. Jolly Rogers, Tribal Valor and Colorblind will put up some very stiff competition for sure. There's alot of talent still hanging 'round, and hopefully everyone will stick it out the entire season.

#BiRdCaGe.MuThA: 10.Everyone is making movies nowadays with this in mind who inspired you to wanna make your upcoming flick?

#BiRdCaGe.MeSh: I think the initial inspiration, like I mentioned before, was Warrior's movie, produced by Gearbolt. Then the Amish vid from Redbird, and most all of the movies made by Shaolin. Lately I've been obsessing over RTCW4EVER and
Affray:The Breed, both excellent movies made by Bewohner of the TuxVIII scene. I'd highly recommend those for any movie enthusiasts out there. There are of course some great classics like the Infensus vid.

#BiRdCaGe.MuThA: 11.When is the birds/vengeance expected to be completed? and will it be the same old frag movie with linkin park and inner compound corner rape abuse?

#BiRdCaGe.MeSh: I think you'll see something different in this movie. Not to say that it'll be on the level of some of the movies I mentioned above, but I'm aiming for a more cinematic-type video. I'm sure there are others out there like me, who get tired of the same fragmovies that are basically just a bunch of frags with a few of the typical songs thrown in there, like anything by Linkin Park and Du Hast by Rammstein. Although there are videos that are awesome that have those kind of tunes in it, it just seems to eventually be so overdone and repetitive. You likely won't see the corner camping and all that. As for any inner compound footage, there likely won't be alot of that kind of stuff.

Depending on RL, the movie will hopefully be completed around March-April.

#BiRdCaGe.MuThA: 12.Is there any one assisting you in making this film?

#BiRdCaGe.MeSh: I'd been meaning to make a Birdz/Vengeance movie for a long time, but had always been really lazy in getting it started. I'd already fooled around and made a video of myself during my days in ASC, before I joined Birdz during season 7 (I think). It was mostly practice, trying to re-create some of the styles I'd seen in other videos. I started getting back into it seriously when Elliot began work on his still-as-of-yet-incomplete vid. That would have been a great project to work with, and I understand there were several others who were involved in that as well. I was supposed to contribute some of my music for his soundtrack, which would have been fun. Anwyays, Elliot got me started into it again, and helped out tremendously in the beginning stages. So far I've been getting alot of technical help from Kalamazoo and Alea and it's well appreciated. I'd love to get with those guys and work on a project apart from this Birdz vid, someday. :) Loxodonte has also been assisting with finding me some soundtrack stuff and hooking me up with a shitload of fonts.


#BiRdCaGe.MuThA: 13.Lastly the shoutouts!

#BiRdCaGe.MeSh: Well obviously, my teammates. I hate you all. All the guys from Team Burque, namely Foetwinny and Tr#sh, wish you guys picked wolf up again. :) Kalamazoo and Alea for their recent help with the movie, thanks for putting up with my questions so far. Some of my old buddies from ASC all those matches ago, I remember the good times. Mutha, of course, thanks for the interview. Dynosaur for his excellent Hellsgate server, altho I wish he'd move it to Chicago. :p

GL HF.

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Season 11 Preview!

Posted by: c[_]`Wippuh (Wednesday, January 11, 2006)

Tonight's the night! Season 11 of TWL fires up and it's time for some early season predictions! With the crack staff of trained monkies here at planet-rtcw.com, we went far and wide to gather some thoughts on the upcoming season. The only thing that seemingly everyone could agree on was that no one would approach the faggotry of teh birdz this season. Not much of a surprise there!

Here's the questions that were sent out
- winner of season 11
- runner-up of season 11
- darkhorse of season 11
- your prediction for largest "drama" of season 11
- preseason all pro team
- team to challenge birdz on overall faggotry this season

Here's the lucky ones who returned answers. Troll, Alpha, caffiene, Mesh, pissclams, vid, rov, Opz and Slayaya!

SURVEY SAYS!!!



trololol:

winner of season 11 - I'd Have to go with Jolly Rogers simply for the fact that they're almost the same core grp of guys from yak, ts, and so on. They have great teamwork and excellent guns, should be fun to play them when the time comes.

runner-up of season 11 - Between ColorBlind & Wolf Players, both carrying experienced good guns with some old faces that with a little practice for teamwork should make them top notch teams.

darkhorse of season 11 - Tribal Valor because theyve been together for so long, play with one another for many a seasons, their teamwork/guns will make give these other teams a run for their money so to speak.

your prediction for largest "drama" of season 11 - Honestly dunno but im sure Caffeine will be in the middle of it...like always, heh.

preseason all pro team - Medic/Troll, Lt/Trololol, Lt/8eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee, Panz/Nubian Princess, Medic/Eighte, Lt/Col. Sabretooth

team to challenge birdz on overall faggotry this season - Wolf Players..1 word, "Laws". kthx




fX Alpha:

Winner of season 11: Whichever team I play for-- yeah, I SAID IT. Really though, I'm simply on a roster to be on a roster and doubt I will playing RtCW because CAL-Main/Invite CS:S plays their matches on Sun/Wed. Rumor has it I might be going to Wolf Players to late kids with Vinny and Joe-- cause that's I roll. Well, in all seriousness, I have no idea who's going to win, nor do I care. However, I'm going to guess there's about 2 teams that might actually try-- Birds and TV. TV will attempt to get scrims... lol... they can't be fucking serious? And the Birds will try because they think they're good or some shit because the got 2 rounds vs. on an all-time top 10 team that didn't made scrim and made strat in pregame warm-up. kl8.

Runner-up? I'm gonna go with.... err... uhhh..... whichever team has the most players from BWG. They have a history of losing if they face a team that can actually play the game.

Darkhorse-- look THE FUCK OUT for Nox. Straight abuse.

Preseason all pro:
Juventus. Don't need anyone else.

If I HAD to pick 6:
Warrior doing the flameball from the top rope on beach (if you've never seen him do it-- you really need to, it's hilarious)

Laws channeling with the AWP

Slag downgrading kids-- doesn't matter what class

Me corner camping with a panzer that inevitably will be jumped in front of after Spec Opz connects to the server (Yes, I picked myself-- sup?)

Pissclams as Soldier w/ Elbow

Mutha (I'd take him over 90% of main) and he'd use ANY gun and would destroy that 90% of main with absolute prejudice

Luigi subbing in when Piss has to go brew projuice

OH, and Remedy corner camping a gravestone in the cemetery of village-- regardless of what map we play... we need him on that cemetery... so fucking clutch.

Darkhorse: Chosen 1's or whatever the fuck they call themselves. Why, you ask? Because I'm looking at their roster and have never heard of one of them (save for Scrilla-- wow, Scrilla, you have SERIOUSLY bottomed out on this one), and they're playing OSP competition-- which probably means at least 3 of them hack their balls off or have hacked their balls off at one point.

Team to Challenge Birdz on overall tomfaggotry:
I'm gonna go with whatever team I play for. Why? Because it's going to be my personal goal, if I ever actually play, to have a TWL rule list by my mousepad and break THEM ALL. I'm going to have a sharpy marker and I'm going to cross off each rule as I break it. I'm talking globals, 3 man boosts, 3-4 man panzer drops to other soldiers, anti-aliasing for fucked up screenshots, name changing, rate-hack (oh wait, thats not illegal in RtCW after 11 seasons-- sorry, forgot), nade boosting from medic revives, spawn killing and not planting, etc.



caffiene:

team to win it all: probably donka's team. hiki and kal are really good players (even if they are too fuckign cool for birds vent). basically the same team that's been together for a few seasons now. law's team will probably ff 70% of the matches (repeat of bZz from last season). colorblind could, but i foresee many voltron strategies being used...

runner up: one of the 2 teams above who doesn't win it all

darkhorse = ss. those guys are remind me of us our first season. hard working and whatnot. they were tough last season in their first season of osp comp.

largest drama of the season: some fucking faggot will get caught hacking again, laws will be whining and bragging, donka will be donka'ing. tell ya what, i think ss will beat laws' team b/c he's banking on everyone in the league being scared of warrior - not happening laws, we're not afraid

preseason all pro team:
untility player (the "we need someone to go med/lt/eng/soldier asap" guy) : hiki + runs spawn timer

med: spud - you guys just have no fucking clue how good he is

lt: kk, good overall player, very few holes in his game

panz: troll, was the best panz when warzy still played, is still now

med/lt combo: mario bros, probably 2 of the best at their craft for more seasons than we've been in the league

we will be the 72 dolphins and go undefeated in fagness again this season. not even anyone remotely on our level.

ggs and gl (unless your name is fucking stas "i stare at a computer screen for 15 hours a day" donka turisto)

F OFF



Mesh came in and gave us a little preview of the teams out there!

NoX - Reminds me of the 1993 New England Patriots; both teams had the ugliest uniforms ever the season prior, not to mention a not-so-thrilling record. Yet something changed with this team over the off-season, beyond the better tags. The Senate is a team eager to establish themselves as a team to not be trifled with, and they have shown much improvement in their teamplay. There remain fewer teams to beat up on these days; rov, splurgn and oranges will have to step up and prove to the competition that they
won't be the team to crush any longer.

Jolly Rogers - Apparently they skullbone people, so they say. I don't believe it. Kalamazoo and Hiki will be returning this season and will undoubtedly be carrying the team through abusive flamer strats, much to Donka's dismay. Alien continues his sketchy reign as an out of nowhere talent, while Vid stays unscoped mauser the entire match. Kep will certainly be running around maps Han Solo-style, and that generally goes without saying. The real wild card on this team, I believe, is none other than FuZioN himself! Not much has been seen from this guy for awhile, and it remains to be seen what kind of impact his participation will have on a team I predict will find itself in one of the top seeds come playoff time. As they say somewhere "only time will tell".

Chosen1s - Other than $crill4 and TheEscalator, none of these names ring a bell with me. They may have a tough road ahead of them when they face the likes of Wolfplayers and Colorblind, but as the season continues we will hopefully be seing more from them. As of now, I throw them into the unknown category.

Tribal Valor - Always a contender, this team has a long history and is one of the few teams that have stuck together in one form another for the past several seasons. Krazykaze, Rambowl, Dinosaur and Conscious continue to provide solid guns and teamwork and are at the very core of this team. With the addition of SnipeTX and Diesel, it remains to be seen just how far they will go as a challenger. Question now is who will fill the great panzer void that this team now suffers from the loss of Hiki and Kalamazoo?

ASC - The oldest clan in RTCW still alive and kicking, bar none, despite their very late entry into TWL season competition. Quite likely the nicest and most sporting team playing right now. Their biggest hurdle for the season will be establishing their teamwork and focus this late in the games history.
The guns are there in Noname, Nick and Wildchild, and I've known from experience that Malaber can be a beast when he has a talented medic backing him up. Unfortunately, I don't think they can stand up to some of the more established teams playing today, and hope they have a few surprises up their sleeves.

Birdz - are we a team to beat this season? I'm not one to answer that. What I can say is that we take this game very seriously. It's not fun anymore, and we hate all of you. I'm totally joking on a deathly serious note. Looking for scrim partners btw. On a seperate note, I'm stoked that our old friend and former teammate Mutha has re-joined our ranks and continues to be a beast, tho he may have to get used to us all over again. Another returning member, Troll, gets far too much notice and is absolutely overrated.



pissclams:

TWL OSP Season 11 Predictions:
- Winner of Season 11: There are no winners anymore; we’ve repeatedly proven time and time again that we’re quite the downgraded community.

- Runner-up of Season 11: Depends on who shows up, I know we’re just fucking around so my guess is we don’t win much, it’d be maybe Jolly Ranchers, Birdz, TV, or Wolf Players. I hear the SS guys are pretty good but I think this is their first venture into the OSP world. Maria Menounos is hot.

- Dark Horse of Season 11: Dark Horse? Times like this are really when you have to ask yourself, “What would Tyler Durden do?” That’s right I said, it, WWTDD. Look the dark horse of this season is the Senate, the NoX Senate; word on the street is that they are fucking furious. Ever seen a furious senator? Heh didn’t think so.

- Your prediction for largest "drama" of Season 11: There are several things that I fully expect to take place during TWL’s Season 11 of OSP RtCW, they are (in no particular order): Caffeine is found somewhere outside of Topeka KS with Lucky B’s cousin, Lox, and Spec Opz. The fearsome foursome is touring the country and stopping by each remaining Wolf Player’s house and doing HDD scans looking for illegal h@x, the entire trip is sponsored by Dynosaur’s Truck Stop, located one mile south of Knoxville Tennessee.

- Team to challenge Birdz on overall faggotry this season: Impossible to challenge the Birdz on overall faggotry. Impossible.



Vid:

Winner of Season 11:
Whoever shows up to play Teh Birdz.

Runner-Up of Season 11:
Teh Birdz

Cinderella Team of Season 11:
NoX. They make playoffs with an overall Season 11 record of 2-2-2 and getting a FF win in their first round matchup getting them to the semifinals. Then their journey through the 'Big Dance' ends with a loss in the semifinals.

Preseason All-Pro Team:
I only know of 1 match that actually was played during Preseason so props to those guys.

Team to challenge Teh Birdz on overall faggotry this season:
You mean Caffiene? Can he even be touched?....I mean by a girl of course.

Prediction for largest 'drama' moment:
When PB kicks Dyno from his own server for having an invalid .pk3 file. Then permanently bans himself from his server immediately afterwards in great satisfaction that his server is still hack-free.
(Not drama but would be fuckin' hilarious. And by no means am I accusing Dyno of hacking)



rov?|NoX:

- winner of season 11 - i would go with teh birdz in a close 3:2 final

- runner-up of season 11 - tossup between donkas team and the nox senate, id like to think weve got a chance, just mo

- darkhorse of season 11 - id say nox team has got a chance, weve been gettin better last 2 seasons

- your prediction for largest "drama" of season 11 (more busted hackers pretty much/ everyone shits themselves awaiting info for rtcw 2)

- preseason all pro team (the senate hands down. rov on panz, flash on sniper/lt, splurg on lt, oranges on med, bigshot on med, and whoever shows up as our 6th on med.

- team to challenge birdz on overall faggotry this season - chosen1s




Opz:

Lewel, I don't know 80% of these guys anymore. I know Tv and Birdz. They are decent, considering all the better playahs have been long gone. laws is back? Haha I just looked 'em up, they have 5 on roster, prolly gunna win it all.
Is it 6's or 5's? Anyways with 5 they will win, they won't show though...
Colorblind might win it if the roster shows up.
Hell, I have been pubbing the last few weeks, I can prolly pull off 4 other kids from Dyno's server and get to the finals. :p

gl hf

Does wtv exist anymore? Might be a few lawlz in the matches.



Slaya is a MOVIESTAR:


WTF IS WRONG WITH YOU



There you go folks, facts dropped from the pros! If you're lucky there may be an edited in Donka q & a this afternoon!!!

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Funny Story (Not sure if you've heard it)

Posted by: -doNka- (Sunday, January 29, 2006)

________________________ Funny Story _______________________

Once upon a time, the Team Effect was in an intense firefight on mp_village in one of the matches for the Cyberathlete Amateur League. Two members of that team: AlphaNeo(formerly of sMn), Serbian(a guy who is not American), and the rest of fX crew were in an insane firefight at the crypt. They were standing strong while protecting this objective on the damned ground of the lost souls. The battle was filled with chaos and devastation. Grenades were being thrown back and fourth shaking the cold winter air with crisp loud explosions. Air strikes and artilleries were going non-stop creating thick clouds of red and blue mixed smoke. Panzer rounds were echoing through out cemetary leaving gray streaks of smoke wafting in the air. People were falling from the relentless suppressing fire. They were getting revived by the brave and selfless medics, and the bodies of those that were not revived in time were being gibbed into piles and piles of mixed human remains.

Sometime in the middle of this hell on earth fight, a strange gut feeling struck Alphaneo's uncompromised mind. He turned around and saw a picture that cannot be fully captured by words or written down in history books. His team mate, Remedy, was corner camping an old grave stone near an abandoned section of the cemetary. All alone he was sitting there waiting for his teammates to be overrun by the enemy, waiting for a chance to get some cleanup kills to obtain the image of the hero and the team savior. "I shit you not."

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Pics from Soldiers in Iraq

Posted by: SplurGn|NoX (Wednesday, February 15, 2006)

This site used to be where guys would put pics of their ex wives/gf's then other people would pay to see it - for whatever reason soldiers in Iraq couldn't get access using their credit card so the owner of the site made a trade - send me your pics and I will give you access.

Someone in the justice depatrment got pissed about this and decided to throw the guy in jail. Read more about it in www.freechris.org

Anyway - here is the link to the pics....
http://www.nowthatsfuckedup.com/bbs/index.php

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A Draft League?

Posted by: c[_]`Wippuh (Thursday, February 16, 2006)

What's the biggest problem with the existing format in RtCW leagues? The size of the community. There may be 10 teams around, but there's enough players to actually 15-20 teams. In order to remedy this, the idea of a draft league has been bouncing around inside my head for a long time. This is a light sketch of it to see if it's a feasible idea and what you think of it.

Have a sign up period. All interested players, who have a commitment of showing up, can sign up and play. After a set date, sign ups close. Then the pool of players is divided by 6 and that many captians are picked.

If 48 players signed up, then 8 captains are picked by the admins of the league. The captains would then pick their 5 additional players to form a team of 6. How would these captains be selected? Easy, skill and knowledge of the community. That way we can keep the skill spread out, make the competition great and hopefully construct teams full of players that will get along.

On match night, you only have 6 players though? Well, if your #3 pick cannot make it then you can go out and get a #3 pick or lower from any other team not playing. This will prevent from Pissclams (and obvious #6 pick not being able to play and his team captain picking up a #1 pick).

This way we can keep rosters small, maximize teams and hopefully eliminate forfeits. This would also dictate the idea of flexible scheduling on Wednesday nights. A possible solution would be to have 2 match nights so there will always be picks around who can get to ring for you.

Vent, servers, etc... are all easy problems if there's enough interest shown to continue on with the idea of a draft league.

Post your feedback and lets see what we can do.

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Need Funny Quotes

Posted by: gisele (Monday, March 27, 2006)

I'm making a quote bot for #wolfers and I need some funny quotes from irc. You people say alot of funny shit and I'd like to relive the lol's by making a bot. Do me a favor and pm me or paste them here. Try to keep them to one-liner's or at least small so they fit in one line.

I don't want any of that RTCW slang unless it's an actual Uncles or Shogun quote. Thx.


So go through those logs! :D


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POWs are Easy

Posted by: -doNka- (Sunday, April 2, 2006)

Millions of satirical pictures can be found on the internet. Some of them capture funny elements of reality, and some of them are simply products of authors' imagination and photo editing skills. I will talk about methodology of making pictures for planet-RTCW POWs, which in a way, I suppose, could be applied to other games. I've made some good collages, as well as some bad ones, pretty stupid ones even, but nobody is always perfect. I just want to discuss what makes a POW good or bad so next time you think of submitting one, you might think twice.

I'll get through the miscellaneous points at first and then move to larger concepts.

-Quality
You think you have a pretty funny POW idea? Implement it. But before you do, please make sure that you don't destroy it with a terrible config, low image quality, or sloppy work.

---In game graphics are important.
Bad config is the first thing that cuts the viewers’ eye open. The viewer opens up the picture, and all he/she sees is distraction coming from bad color palette (example) or aliased edges. It's one thing if you take a screenshot when the game is running and the demo is not being recorded. In this case, screenshot is all you got and the moment is gone! Or is it? Can you re-create the situation? A POW that reflects real events doesn't have to be current as long as it closely resembles the situation you want to use in your image. It's completely another deal when you recorded a demo or you just decide to take some screenshots offline. Create/get a great looking config, turn on anti-aliasing and anisotropic filtering, and boost your resolution to the maximum. This will at least not repel viewer's attention. If you make it look amazing, it will draw attention to your content. Make sure you remove all details that are not needed (team overlay, messages, crosshairs, etc...).

---Edit the image thoroughly.
I don't mean you have to be a Photoshop guru, but at least try to cut/paste/erase fragments with a great precision. Get rid of all the unnecessary details that do not need to be in the POW for the same reasons as above. Do NOT post 2400x1800 resolution image unless you want to display an uber important level of detail. I cannot think of anything that would ever require more than 1024x*** in size. And even that is too much unless you want to display some text (example). Scale it down to an appropriate size.

-Camera Setup
It is very important to position your camera in an angle that captures the most sense from a given situation. Try to use entire screen efficiently, don't leave unused space, use creative angles… pretty much follow the basic principles of photography. If you already got a screenshot in hand, don't hesitate to cut it down to the point when content is still there, but the junk is out (example).

-Content
Here I can only give you my personal take on the methodology.

--Idea
Unless you are making an amazing looking screenshot, or an artistic drawing, you must have an IDEA to your POW. This is the kind of process I go before I even start messing with pixels.
---I never(anymore) make a POW because I want to make a POW. I make a POW when some idea strikes me as a lightning. And even when I get the idea I usually chew on it for a bit to make sure this isn't a momentary excitement, and if it is momentary, it better be worth the hype. Otherwise you will bump into cases when you make a POW, submit it, and actually hate it once it's up.
---I like to keep it related to the medium as closely possible. "Find a waldo" POWs on a totally unrelated background is not something that I like to see taking up space in the picture gallery.
---Will other people find this valuable/funny/teasing? You are not making a POW for your personal collection, you are making it for other people to see. Best make sure those people can at least understand the idea you're trying to deliver ( example).
---If you decide to be the 1000th kid that post stats, make sure your stats are different from all the other stats that ever been posted. Otherwise you will just annoy people with something that only you care about. People have stats too!

--Approach
Michelangelo was once asked how he makes such beautiful sculptures. He replied "I just take a stone and cut the junk off." (not an exact quote). There are two ways you can go about incorporating a descent content into an image:
---Make something that requires time to look at thoroughly
The best examples could be found in works of Wippuh. Busy busy busy looking screenshots with a lot of humoristic content that needs to be read from beginning to end. If you try to refer to Michelangelo, that would be like taking a stone and adding stuff onto it until it looks pretty. Not my favorite approach, to be honest. (example1) (example2)


---Make a piece of art that pleases viewer's eye.
There's no advice on how to make this right, however, the examples do exist: (example1) (example2) (example3)(example4)
---Work with what you got, but work very carefully.
If the only material you have is an in-game screenshot, please make sure you don’t ruin it with your comments or enhancements. Keep it straight to the point, the most work was done when you made a screen capture anyway.

I hope this helps.

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Interview: Nate

Posted by: c[_]`Wippuh (Monday, April 17, 2006)

YOu wanted it so Holly went out and got it for you guys, an interview with Nate, "Director of Competitions" at Quakecon! The goal of this interview wasn't to pimp a certain game over another but to dig a little deeper and get an inside look at the workings of the event and hopefully provide some insight on how one can go about supporting their game.

We'd like to thank Nate for agreeing to the interview and returning it in record time! Hope everyone enjoys.




c[_]`Wippuh: Hey Nate, give us some background on yourself. What you do during the day, how you got into gaming and all the introductory stuff that someone can reference when writing your biography.

Nate: Well, right now I'm an intervention specialist for an interactive security company called Westec Interactive. We remotely monitor and intervene in situations through CCTV cameras and speakers/mics to locations in all 50 states. We take normal security up a notch, and have a lot of fun doing it - all without ever leaving our command center. Started working for that company in March of 2006. Prior to that I worked in a law office for a couple of months as an office manager. Before that, I worked as a veterinary technician for an Animal Emergency Clinic. And, to start everything off, I worked as a technology technician (computer tech?) for a school district.

I got into gaming through my first job. We started playing Quake 2 on our LAN during holidays, instead of actually doing any work. I became involved in Quake 2, mainly Action Quake 2, online through the Online Gaming League, joining an AWESOME clan - the Order of Zeus - {OZ}. It was through competition with {OZ} that I ended up looking at a staff position with the OGL. I started as a help desk assistant, moved my way up to ladder admin, help desk coordinator, then finally League Official. I played many roles in the OGL, which helped prepare me for future work in QuakeCon.

I'm basically a normal guy, working a full time job, and finding time to shove in gaming, school (still going to classes online,) and QuakeCon. I've got a wonderful girlfriend who hates the months leading up to QuakeCon (online qualifications, planning meetings, etc..) but supports me through it all.



c
[_]`Wippuh: Your title for qcon is Director of Tournament Operations. Exactly what does that mean? How did you get into the position? What is your role and what kind of time does it involve? Also, what is it like to follow in the footsteps of someone like Citizen?

Nate: If we want to be official, my title for QuakeCon is "Director of Competitions." This title means that I oversee every officially sanctioned competition at QuakeCon. This does NOT refer to the case mod contests, etc - I focus on organizing, staffing, and running the tournaments we host at each QuakeCon - the MONEY tournaments. I'm responsible for picking the tournament director for each tournament, selecting key volunteer staff, assisting in planning the layout for the tournament area, publishing rules for each tournament, arranging server management for each tournament, scheduling matches for each tournament, and keeping the competitions on schedule. I cannot say that I do all of this on my own - I have a great staff, dedicated to making QuakeCon's competitions some of the best in the world.

I got into this position after a few years of hard work. 2001 was my first QuakeCon - I was exposed to how things were supposed to work, how the organization functions, etc. I learned a lot in that first year, and mainly kept quiet. In 2003, through my work with the OGL, I was given the position of Tournament Operations Manager. This meant I was assisting each tournament director with special needs, and supporting the Director of Competitions with any special requests. A lot of the work for 2003 was done pre-event, with online qualifications. This turned into working 18-20 hour days and getting very little sleep, but it was an amazing learning experience. In 2004 I was initially a tournament director, but with some late staffing changes, I became the Director of Competitions. 2004 was a VERY interesting year, and one that secured my deep confidence in the tournament staff. I retained the position in 2005, and will be the Director of Competitions in 2006.

I don't know that I ever followed in the footsteps of Citizen, as he never did act as Director of Competitions at QuakeCon. If anything, I was following Alric (our current Executive Director,) and let me tell you - it is NOT as easy as it seems.



c
[_]`Wippuh: The initial impression of qcon is that there are two distinct groups of people there. The tournament folks and the BYOC fans. Talk about the balance between the two groups and how you and the administration of the event come together to achieve that balance.

Nate: I certainly agree there is an /impression/ of two distinct groups of attendees. I do not agree, however, that this impression is reality. The majority of QuakeCon attendees seem to come for the event as a whole, not just one side or the other. QuakeCon has so much more than just a BYOC, or just some tournaments, or just some concerts. QuakeCon is the combination of all of those features, and more, that results in one bad-ass LAN party.

Where we tend to see the "BYOC vs. Tournament" discussion is on the forums. Our forums are full of people itching for the next QuakeCon. The average QuakeCon attendee is not a forum regular, and not someone who cares about whether the BYOC will have 2899 seats or 2901 seats - they just want to come to QuakeCon, have fun, and be entertained. The BYOC provides hours of entertainment, just as the tournaments do. Some people don't like the competitive atmosphere brought about by Professional gaming, but it's something that our event fosters - willingly or not. QuakeCon has historically offered big money tournaments - that's going to draw more fans, more players, etc.

Just as I am the Director of Competitions, there is a Director of BYOC (EvilJohn in 2005) that manages their own area. While our two departments will work together on some issues, we never butt heads or argue about one side being better than the other. We, as in ALL of the QuakeCon staff, are there to provide an amazing event to thousands of people.



c
[_]`Wippuh: Another group that plays a major part in Qcon are the sponsors. Such a large event is driven, much like everything else, by money. How do the sponsors get involved with id and what level of commitment do you see? Are there some sponsors who put more effort and interest into it than others and if so, how?

Nate: I do not personally deal with sponsor contracts or negotiations. The sponsors we have at QuakeCon are amazing - they help to create the most entertaining, fun LAN party in North America, which I think shows their dedication to gaming. I certainly don't know if one sponsor puts more effort or interest in than another - every sponsor I deal with is there for the same reason we are - to put on one hell of an event. They are all committed to seeing gaming progress.



c
[_]`Wippuh: There's a lot of groups out there that try to throw massive lans like id does. We've watched several of them fall through in the past few years. What is it that allows companies like id and the cpl to continue to succeed despite having different goals and directions?

Nate: I don't want to speak about the CPL, because I know very little of them. What keeps QuakeCon alive? In my opinion, it would be the fans. The people that keep coming out, year after year, to see just what is going to happen at QuakeCon. QuakeCon is not your typical LAN party - we don't ONLY feature a BYOC - we don't ONLY feature tournaments - we don't ONLY feature conferences - we don't ONLY feature concerts and parties. QuakeCon brings everything together, which then creates an environment that welcomes ALL kinds of gamers - not just BYOC'ers - not just tournament players - not just partiers. EVERYONE is welcome at QuakeCon, and EVERYONE has fun. I don't know that other LAN parties are able to support the large groups that we do - it just seems like QuakeCon is the most friendly, most open LAN around.



c
[_]`Wippuh: Qcon is a pc driven event, but it's hard to ignore the exploding market that is consoles. More and more everyone reads about how id's developers are developing games based on the xbox first and then porting to the pc while it was vice versa in the past. Has this been discussed at all by the administration? What do/could you see this potentially meaning to the future of Quakecon?

Nate: We have not had any console tournament discussions in regards to QuakeCon, yet. I don't want to speculate past that.



c
[_]`Wippuh: Lets talk about the tournaments. Take us through the process of deciding which games will be present at Qcon. What are the major factors that decide what will and won't be there? What type of influence do things like sponsors, communities, past events, upcoming releases and so forth hold?

Nate: Ah, the $1,000,000 question. The method used to select games is somewhat like a secret recipe - you'll never know.

Just kidding.

There are a TON of factors that go into selecting games for QuakeCon's competitions. With such a large (GLOBAL!) audience watching what we choose, and making plans on attending based solely on which game will be offered, we certainly feel some pressure every year. Current game releases, pending game releases, community interest, the ability for a community to FILL a tournament, the game's current strength against hacking, cheating, etc. Logistics limitations (number of computers available, etc.) also play a big role. We would love to have a Quake 1, 2, 3, 4, Doom 3, ET, and RTCW tournament at each QuakeCon, but it's just not possible. We have to choose games that will have the support of their community, that can FILL a tournament bracket, and that will showcase current or emerging technology.

This certainly is not an all-inclusive list of the factors used, but it's a start. We don't always use each criterion each year, and sometimes we use more than we have listed. This is a very complicated process, and one that we take very seriously. We really DO listen to the input on our forums, even if we have to sort through 200,000 junk posts to get to 2 or 3 true, fact-based posts.



c
[_]`Wippuh: The "PICK MY GAME" threads over in the qcon forums can get very heated and seemingly always find themselves closed. It seems that there's no recognized method out there for communities to support their games for qcon. Can you lay out some of the ways that a community can direct positive energy into showing support that will attract the attention of the powers that be?

Nate: Even if I do end up closing a thread for getting off-topic, their view has been heard. I have to read through each one of those forum posts anyway, so I'm hearing what's being said.

The only reason that threads end up locked so much is that it turns into 'MY GAME IS BETTER THAN YOURS!' which then turns into 'YOU SUCK.' I just can't stand when threads turn into flames, and lose any value they may have had. Sending me an eMail (a professional written eMail,) works too. I just don't like getting, "OMGWTF GIVE ME RTCW OR I WONT GO TO QUAKECON YOU F4G."



c
[_]`Wippuh: There are rumors of TWL and Activision getting together for a possible Battle on the Beachhead 3 tournament for Return to Castle Wolfenstein. If BoB3 was successfull how attractive would a game like RtCW be to Qcon? Could a single event like this be a determining factor for a game and its inclusion?

Nate: I have not heard these rumors, but large community events certainly help a game's chance for being at QuakeCon. Results from large competitions are also considered in the seedings process at QuakeCon.



c
[_]`Wippuh: When the games are announced, what is the next step for you? How are rulesets, qualifiers, dates, and all of the other stuff determined?

Nate: Even without games being announced, my staff has completed rules for 6 or 7 different possible games. We know the type of games that are possible, we know what we would like to see, and so we plan everything ahead of time. We already have some 1v1 tournament rules done, some team tournament rules done, etc. We have discussed qualifiers for 1v1s and team tournaments, but until we make an announcement - nothing will be released.

The dates are based around QuakeCon's dates. Qualifiers will be based mainly on available time. I want to have everything for the LAN competitions set in stone long before the event, so Qualifiers may be a bit rushed, if we do them.



c
[_]`Wippuh: In the past we've seen games have incredibly restrictive guidelines when it comes to the relationship of cvars and graphics. Games like RtCW and ET will be played very near to default, while players for games like Q3 might as well be played without restrictions. How can you explain why certain games have to meet these harsh restrictions while others do not?

Nate: I believe we have closed the gap between the team games and 1v1 games in terms of graphic fidelity. The last two years brought EXTREME graphics restrictions, which were applied across the board - not only to the team games. You just have to understand the frustration of a game developer when they throw a huge party for YOU, the fan, and then see the game they worked so hard on, brought down to look like watercolors. Not very flattering!



c
[_]`Wippuh: In the past we've seen comments from you saying that the newcomer to qcon holds just as much influence to you as the old timers. Where is the line drawn between keeping the competitive integrity of the event high and letting the inmates run the asylum?

Nate: When I say a newcomer to QuakeCon holds as much influence as an old-timer, I mean just that. If someone comes to QuakeCon for the first time, sees something that they think could be improved, and says something about it - you can bet we'll be listening. We'll do the same for someone who's been to 5 QuakeCon's in a row. We value input from EVERYONE - not just one demographic of attendee. Of course, tournament staff focuses on keeping the competitions respectable, and we won't just throw away years of tradition based off one comment. My main goal for making those statements is that I want people to TELL US what they think. I don't want them to think that because 20 different old-timers say it should be done this way, it will be. Everyone's comments matter.



c
[_]`Wippuh: With always being based in Dallas, Qcon is a primarily an American based event. Europeans can certainly compete but the tables are almost always stacked against them. What can Qcon do to even the playing field for our dirty lil' Euro friends? Has there been discussion of using some of the sponsor money to possibly subsidize travel costs and truly getting the best of the best in Dallas for the tournaments?

Nate: We have not discussed assisting in paying for people to make the trip to QuakeCon. That's something that I don't see coming down the pipes anytime soon, either.

In means of leveling the playing field - we've discussed regional qualifiers, European servers, etc. for the online portions of our tournaments. I think this is really as far as we can go in "leveling" the playing field. For the most part, once at the LAN, everyone is even.



c
[_]`Wippuh: Almost done! Lets take this time for you to answer some questions from the little people out there.

  - Cowboy|Ryan921 - Nate, Do you touch yourself at night, if so at what time and can i come over?

  Nate: Where do I find the 'close thread' button for this interview????


  - Spiza - Is microsoft or the xbox360 team taking part in qcon at all now that rtcw2 is debuting on the 360?

  Nate: We have not had any discussions regarding consoles in our competitions for 2006. I can't comment past this year.


  - -a-holly - Do you get paid for what you do?

  Nate: QuakeCon is a volunteer-run event.


  - vid - There are talks of Qcon not being in TX this year. If this is true, what other cities are be considered for the LAN?

  Nate: Personally, I think change is good. An announcement with important location and date information should be coming very soon. I can't say anything past that.




c
[_]`Wippuh: You're about to even the score. On your way to wash the stench of the BYOC off of your body you happen to walk by a room and find the 5 most obnoxious forum idiots ever, participating in some rather inappropriate acts with small animals, some yarn and 3 gallons of mustard. You allow them to blackmail you and in turn for not telling everyone, you get to give them the most thankless jobs/tasks at qcon the following year. What would those tasks be?

Nate: SECURITY! The security crew, BY FAR, has the most thankless job at the event. They spend hours upon hours on their feet, checking bags, protecting areas, and keeping us all safe. Do they get thanked? Nope - they get yelled at by drunks at the door.



c
[_]`Wippuh: Shoutouts

Nate: I've gotta give a huge shoutout to my tournament staff. In my eyes, they are the hardest working people at QuakeCon, and get very little thanks for it. T-Dawg, Anthrax, Ceppy, Milez, Judba, LekDevil, Digismack, and Jess have been there for a few years. Orangato and Lilazzkicker made their debuts in 2005. The BYOC and networking crews for QuakeCon, crimpnation, EVERYONE who helps to make QuakeCon what it is.Also to anyone who volunteered their time in the tournament area for setup or teardown in 2005 - you guys are awesome. We couldn't do this without kickass volunteers like you.

And, of course, here's to id Software and the rest of the amazing QuakeCon sponsors - this event would be impossible without them.




Missed an interview or want to read an old one, then check out ze interview link list

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Interview: VeRrel

Posted by: [+ oo] rampage (Saturday, May 13, 2006)

Some of you may know VeRrel from his past with Scourge and some may know him from the Enemy Territory team Sinners Revolution and some of you may not know him at all. So here's a closer look at a new/returning addition to the upcoming BoB 3 tourny and TWL-Season 12. Enjoy!

..|., Rampage: Let’s start with the usual info and give us some insight of who are you, competition background and some details about your team Unorthodox recently renamed from Sinners Revolution.

udX- Verrel!: I'm Christopher "VeRrel" Bialek, from Orlando, Florida. To be foward I don't have a candy painted competition backround, for the most part my biggest team to be from is Scourge Gaming (Samus, Serbian, Vatican, Myself, Lacerate and a few others that I cannot recall). The new team Unorthodox that i'm playing with now for the most part they have came from ET as Sinners Revolution's main lineup from what I know. I came to them offering to fill a position and create a BoB3 team we've taken off from there and became what we are now a two week old team in the works getting better every night.

..|., Rampage: I know you've had a past in RTCW what teams did you come from and how are they influencing the team you're in now?

udX- Verrel!: I guess my most prominent team in the past was Scourge back in CAL Season 8 Main I believe, they definatley influecned the way i've lead everyteam i've been in up to now. I've taken some basic stratgies that we used in those games placed them onto the teams I play with now and I try to keep us under the same rigerous nightly scrimming basis like we did in Scourge also.

..|., Rampage: What's you're role on the team? What exactly do you do, strategy? Anything specific like that?

udX- Verrel!: Well I guess specificly I am the strategy guy, I tell you what your position is how you're going to play it and what you're going to do, if something goes wrong within the strategy i'm the guy that fixes it.

..|., Rampage: Being a team that has been away from RTCW for a while having recently spent your time in ET what made you get back into RTCW at this point in time?

udX- Verrel!: I've been in the RTCW community for awhile now, to be honest I don't know what made them want to make the switch but they did and I have been nothing but impressed with what they've brought over to this game from ET, I believe some of the things that made the team want to get over into the RTCW community was the tournaments and all the hype about BoB 3 and the OSP Season.

..|., Rampage: Tell us a little bit about what your goals/expectations are for udX and what you’ve been doing to get ready for season 12 and the upcoming BoB 3 tournament.

udX- Verrel!: For the most part i'm hoping for us to pull off a few wins and just try our hardest to get better every match and scrim we do. We've been scrimming every night now for almost two weeks i've seen nothing but improvement every night. I'm hoping for us to pull off a bracket win and maybe make it to the finals in BoB 3 all I can say is practice will make perfection.

..|., Rampage: Seeing as though your last few seasons were over in the Enemy Territory world and without getting into the argument of which game is “better”, what do you feel the major differences are between the two competitive scenes and what do you feel the difference is between the gameplay of each.

udX- Verrel!: My last couple of seasons were over in the ET community, I feel that ET is a much more...well I guess you could say "solo" game, in ET you can play as a medic by yourself in a position with just an FO near you for the most part he could be five yards away and it wouldn't make a difference, while in RTCW you usually play a Medic with an LT right beside each other using each other to pull off a choke position on the map, otherwise I think RTCW requires alot more teamwork than ET in my OWN opinion lets keep that in mind.

..|., Rampage: Coming from ET where there is usually only one or two teams that are absolutely dominate and the rest just play for thirds, does it surprise you that the RTCW community has more of a even playing field of high quality teams and what have your experiences been like playing some of these teams?

udX- Verrel!: Well since i've came from an RTCW past it doesnt suprise me much, yet I do remember coming from the old days when fX used to completley dominate everyone else and everyone else sort of took the position and got in line behind them. I guess you could say that's the same for United 5 in ET right now.

..|., Rampage: Give us an idea of what you think your teams strengths are and what kind of things you feel your team needs to work on.

udX- Verrel!: So far we have a lot to work on, i'll admit that but every night we're making improvements and working harder to get better, I think we need to work on our communication alot its been killing our offensive pushes because we don't know where everyone is at and whats going on when we push out. I'd say our strengths are holding a position and teamwork we seem to be working together very well and just the over all feel of playing with the team on defense is very "smooth" I guess you could say.

..|., Rampage: Has the transition from ET to RTCW taken longer than expected or has your team adapted better than expected?

udX- Verrel!: Well for the most part most of the players are from RTCW or atleast had somewhat of a past in RTCW, we've adapted right to RTCW and we seem to be doing well alot better than I have expected thats for sure.

..|., Rampage: What can the RTCW community expect from udX going forward? Any long term plans or is season 12 and BoB 3 the extent of it?

udX- Verrel!: I think you will definatley see us in the seasons, the RTCW community can look for us to get better and I don't think we will be leaving for quite some time.

..|., Rampage: Moving a bit away from the actual game and into pc specs, what kind of rig are you running?

udX- Verrel!: Haha =D the question I was waiting for. I play on a laptop, unusual to most but not to get into that it's a 1.6GHz Intel with 512mb of PC3200 and a Radeon 9600 Pro. As far as the accessories i'm running a Logitech G5, Saitek Keyboard, and Logitech "PC-Gaming" Headphones.

..|., Rampage: Aside of the usual hacking accusations, one thing that is said when someone’s skill jumps is that he/she got a new pc. With that said and with all the technological advancements in gaming computers, videocards, processors etc is there anything to be said for a players skill on a high end machine as opposed to the Fred Flintstone age of pc’s or should we in fact call everyone a hacker!?

udX- Verrel!: Well..I do think that PC has somewhat to do with skill but I believe a decent mouse (MX510) and a cap of 76FPS in game on RTCW and you should be set as far as gaming and improving your shot. I think that PC's have alot to do with shot and how smooth someone is going to play but a PC is never everything.

..|., Rampage: Finally, RTCW 2 or Quake Wars, which are you looking forward to the most and why? Let me remind you this is planet-rtcw :)

udX- Verrel!: RTCW 2!!!!!! Definatley! Quake Wars is coming off nothing but BF 2ish to me. To be honest I cannot STAND vehicles to be played in a game no matter how well you adapt them to the infantry its just not the same as far as competition when vehicles are added. I'm big into competition and personally I think Quake Wars is just a game to make iD some money with the kids looking at the game saying "Cool! A tank!" and I don't thats going to bring it anywhere as far as competition in Qcon or CPL or CAL for that matter.

..|., Rampage: Shoutouts.

udX- Verrel!: Serbian, Slaya, Mach1ne, Vatican, Samus, Lacerate, Slag, Redman, Remedy, the whole Unorthodox team, Militant, Banks, Smoke, GGAllin, Common, Duster, Hollywood, Daized, Ckyass, Multitask, Digital, Elusive, Eternal, Mindgame, Nate, i'm sure I missed some but thats all I can think of off the top of my head.

For those of you wondering, here's what the top of that head looks like :)



..|., Rampage: Ok man, good luck this season and with BoB3 looking forward to seeing you guys in action.

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BoB3: Round 1 Crappy Predictions

Posted by: c[_]`Wippuh (Monday, May 15, 2006)

You didn't ask for them, but I did them anyway. Enjoy.

Affliction vs *BYE* - Clearly TWL is sympathetic to -a-'s plight. With a tough second round matchup vs either OS or unorthodox on base, the biased admins at TWL give them an extra week to work strats. Watch out for the BYE though as Nail might not show up due to trickjumping on tundra rush for qcon and get affliction awarded with a forfeit loss.

BYE 3-0


Unorthodox vs Office Space - Wow, what is TWL thinking here? Facing off in the first round we have a Spurs vs Mavs like matchup as the winner of this match is the clear favorite to win it all. Despite Verrel's Dirk like 'do, this one may come down to who has their Big Shot Rob coming off the bench. Watch out for Trey's neopet hax and Cracker's Hoody Hoo LSU binds to crash the server!

Tied 312-312


Jolly Roger vs ASC - Jolly Roger completes the total devastation of ASC as Donka recruits all of ASC to join the Rgr roster. A daring but effective strategy, Donka is quoted as saying "that was easy".

rgr 3-0


Locked On Target vs Blur - LoT comes back with their pimp ass tags vs a very capable Blur team. LoT will have this one if they get 6 to show.

LoT 3-1



West Side Wolves vs *BYE* - SLAG will spend the next week bitching about how BYE's were much tougher in the old days . After that it's nothing but hardcore boot camp as the wolvers will be benchpressing their "Saved By the Bell - The College Years" dvd collections to prepare for base.


Team Trinity vs Los Batos Locos - LBL owns as they sport some oldschool Cal-I handof players. Second only to those warriors that were with Pro in season 2! Trinity has their hacks in place to prevent Opio from minimizing the screen but will be enough? With Reload on LBL's roster, this one is already over.

.:. 3-0

r.b.


Scourge vs Briphido - Briphido? Who? Looking like a clear contender for the most ladders being played in TWL belt that HEL use to own but not in this tourney. Scourge counters with Redman's merry band of great white trash from the great white north of Canadaland.

Scourge 3-2


High Voltage vs Necrotic - Not sure who's on Necrotic due to TWL's excellent brackets. Nevermind, found em. This is Mortal's merry band of good guys. HV appears to be Tigger, two brothers who like the Road Warriors and SilentStorm. Nightfall comes back to show everyone's who the boss as a late addition to the HV roster, all in pursuit of the collector tin! Deftone, maybe the most dominant sniper left in wolf, not named Juventus :p

HV 3-0


Exodus vs IW:CI - Mario and Luigi are extremely fagtastic but Cykass is a scary looking guy. I'm not predicting against him as he will break me in half!

-x- 3-0

Forgotten Kings vs Tribal Valor - ***MotW*** - Forgotten Kings have some nice shots and will show up vs the more well known TV. FK has Invis' young padawan, Spec. Can he bring the multiple delayed attacks that they will need to overcome the redneck accents on TV's Vent? No telling!

TOSSUP!


Arise vs The Awesome Ones - TAO's description on TWL says "We just want to be pwned by all just so we can say we hung out with the best.... It's all about the fun." That's the quality we're looking for in RtCW. Arise's desciption, "we are teh suck." This could be an alltime great match, but then again Shatter plays for Arise. GG drinks a case of Steel Reserve and starts giving Smoke booty calls, effectively disrupting Shatter's "Sgt Saunder's hermaphrodite spanksock D". Hrmm....

a// 3-2 :p


Cloud 9 vs Choosen 1’s - Cloud9 looks to have some favorable scheduling in front of them. C1 could be overlooked and that would be a mistake. With the roster that c9 could throw out there they could either be a final 4 team or a round 1/2 out due to not caring. Should be interesting to see them return and show what they've still got.

c9 3-1


Birds vs *BYE* - Caff's a fag.


Onslaught vs Syndicate Soldiers - Another possible MoTW. Onslaught has got the dynamic duo of Dresser and Beast. WIth the 8 man roster limit imposed by TWL, SS doesn't have enough guys on roster to dig through the TWL rule book and find a loophole they can exploit for the easy Source like win.

on 3-0


United 5 vs FMJ - Crappy draw for FMJ. Some really good guys on that team, but they get matched up vs u5. u5 comes in with lots of sponsored stuff from their dominance in ET. With their super computers and l33t mousepads, no one stands a chance. Radea goes cool pimp and dominates as he brings the colorblind rage with him. For some reason I would like to take this time to tell everyone in RtCW to be thankful they never had to endure THE GUILD.

u5 3-0


SAINT vs Hostility - Saint is Ryan, Transit and 6 other guys who can tolerate their stupidity. Hostility is a bunch of BANI RAGERS bringing it to OSP. I can't believe it, but Saint looks like they may get a win here.

Saint 3-2

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BoB3: Crappy Community Preview

Posted by: c[_]`Wippuh (Monday, May 15, 2006)

Planet-RtCW went around and asked some members of the community their thoughts on several issues pertaining to BoB3. Topics include division winners, their biggest challengers, darkhorse teams, players to watch, the final four, final two, the champ overall and their biggest focus to win. The participants will be added as they send their answers in...


Here's how it all lays out...

Div 1
Affliction vs BYE
Unorthodox vs OS

Rgr vs ASC
LoT vs Blur


Div 2
wSw vs BYE
.:. vs LBL

scourge vs briphido
HV vs Necrotic


Div 3
-x- vs IW:CI
FK vs TV

Arise vs TAO
c9 vs C1


Div 4
birds vs BYE
onslaught vs SS

u5 vs FMJ
Saint vs Hostility


Map list
Round 1: Ice
Round 2: Base
Round 3: Village
Round 4: Assault
Round 5: Beach

Div 1 winner vs Div 2 winner on Assault
Div 3 winner vs Div 4 winner on Assault

Championship on Beach


ZYDORAN!!!:


Hello my fans. Although I am not participating in this tournament due
to reasons you all know (it wouldn't be fair to all the other teams if
a player as great as me participated, I would win without breaking a
sweat even if I was playing by myself.), I will be telling you today
how the whole tournament will play out.

No, there will be no predictions from me. I, being the greatest RtcW
player ever to walk on the face of this earth, know exactly who will
triumph and who will be defeated over the next few weeks. If you do
not want the results to be known to you before the tournament starts,
I advice you to look away now and not read the following paragraphs.

Division 1

Who will win? - Affliction.

By looking at the rosters for Division 1, the teams all have
formidable players who should be feared. However, Affliction has big
names and experienced players who have proven themselves in the past
in every single slot. Therefore they will win.

Who will be their biggest challenger? - The Jolly RGR

Like Affliction, these guys have some very experienced players.

Darkhorse - )x(

They have a cool tag. (And some pretty good players.)

The player to watch - Warrior

Kid can headshot.


Division 2

Who will win? - wSw

They have by far the most impressive roster in division 2. And since I
say they will win, they will win.

Who will be their biggest challenger? - High Voltage

These guys always had good teamwork, it will serve them well and they
will go far.

Darkhorse - s*

They have a cool tag.

The player to watch - Slag

I don't think anyone can claim that he is a bad player.


Division 3

Who will win? - Team Exodus

They have Robes and Robes is cool. And a beast in bed. They will win
this division though, despite having Robes.

Who will be their biggest challenger? - Cloud9

Roster is full of old and experienced players, I don't know if their
teamwork is good, but they should be able to pull some kind of manrage
somehow.

Darkhorse - Cloud9

I'm pretty sure most of their players haven't played for quite a
while, but I think their experience will serve them well and they will
do well in this division. I don't know if their tag is cool, haven't
seen it.

The player to watch - Robes

If he can play like he can cyber as an asian schoolgirl, you are all
in for a world of hurt.


Division 4

Who will win? - United 5

I heard these guys were good sometime. So they win.

Who will be their biggest challenger? - Teh Birdz

I also heard these guys were good sometime.

Darkhorse - Team>>Hostility

They have a pretty cool tag.

The player to watch - SPECIAL.

I like his name.


Tournament Finals

As you know, I am never wrong, which is a side effect of being the
best RtcW, ET, WoW and Yahoo Pool player ever to exist, so the
matchups in the Semi-Finals will be as follows:

Affliction vs wSw - Assault.

There will no doubt be a lot of manraging and elbow facing in this
match, with all those great players playing against each other. There
will be some close rounds, and in the end it will prove to be an epic
match. In the end, Affliction will pull out the win and advance to the
finals, while wSw ends up crying themselves to sleep after fapping to
porn.

3-2 Affliction


Team Exodus vs United 5 - Assault.

Like the other Semi-Finals match, there will be much drama in this
game, and while both teams will do their best to outdrama the other,
Exodus will end up on top like an asian hooker in a soapland.

3-1 Team Exodus


Finals!1!!11!!11!

Okay, so the final matchup will be...

Affliction vs Team Exodus - Beach

Oh my, the drama surrounding this match will be enough to make an emo
kid on livejournal cut himself to death. There will be much crying
before, during and after this match, and the only way this matchup
could be better is if either team got swapped out for Team-Thorian,
the best team ever to play RtcW.
However, that is not possible, so we will have to be content with
these two great teams matching up. So, you are dying for me to tell
you who will win now? I don't blame you, for I am always right. But
the answer my friends, is that Affliction will win. Somehow.

Affliction 3-1


And there you have it. I have spoken.




c[_]`Wippuh:

Div 1 - This one looks to be a tough one for Affliction but they should be the one to make it out of the bracket. LoT is stacked with oldschool names but have they been scrimming enough to match up vs -a-? Rgr gets screwed with a tough road throughout.

Fav - Affliction
Biggest Challenger - LoT - The name, the experience and some good guns.
Darkhorse - Unorthodox - Could these ET guys and their constant scrimming make a dent in the toughest section?
Player to Watch - Elliot. If Elliot is clicking on pf, rgr can rock through. A potential matchup vs LoT on base will nullify LoT's guns since it's a xfire map and put the load on his shoulders. A big day and they could be waiting for -a- on village, another big pf map.


Div 2 - Scourge has been scrimming and HV has got the name, but can anyone compete with wSw? Slag and company might have some difficulties, but they shouldn't be so extreme to keep them out.

Fav - wSw
Biggest Challenger - Scourge. They've been scrimming too much not to be taken seriously.
Darkhorse - HV - HV could make some noise if SilentStorm is on point and Grimdeath still has the touch with pf.
Player to watch - Slag. As slag goes, so goes the players around him. Expect some serious anger from him as he eyes -a- in the final four on Assault :o


Div 3 - It's all Exodus and Cloud9. -x- has been active the last few seasons even if it wasn't together as a team. c9 has TONS of names, but it's been a long time since they've been spotted in RtCW.

Fav - Exodus has the map rotation to make it through to the final four fairly easily in what I consider the easiest div.
Biggest Challenger - c9 - Not too tough to figure out why...
Darkhorse - Fk has some dark hax they can release possibly.
Player to Watch - Sephy - One of those oldschool names, it will be interesting to see if he can get it together in time for -x-. If he does, count on the rest of the guys around him to do the same. Dangerous team :o


Div 4 - Birds comes in losing TWO huge players in Troll and Elliot, basically the pf's that made their team click. They've still got the studs of Mutha and Spuddy but will that be enough?

Fav - u5 - They've got the hunger and a rematch vs Birds on Village would be really fun to watch.
Darkhorse - SS - They really could exploit their way to forfeit wins throughout :o
Biggest Challenger - Teh birds...
Player to watch - Birds' pf. Whomever it is has to have a HUGE tourney for birds to get the respect they want.



Final Four
Affliction vs wSw on Assault - Wow, what we'd pay to see this matchup if Laws would have signed up with Slag and Vat. This one will really come down to what happens with -a-'s new players. Guys like Rambo, Warrior and Warmachine bring an element that could put them over the top on a traditionally weak affliction map. The only worry I'd really have for -a- here though is a lack of careface. Slag will be revved up for this one...
wSw 3-2

Exodus vs u5 on Assault - u5 comes from ET and the falloff damage dictates an up in your face attacking style. How does that transfer to Assault in RtCW? Not too well especially since you rarely ever see snipers in ET. Put them on a wide open map and they better hope that -x-'s pf is not on by then, because the teamwork surely will. If -x- has either a sniper or pf on top of their game, this one looks like a -x- win. Both clicking? Might get ugly.

-x- 3-0


Finals
wSw vs -x- on Beach - Two power teams on their signature map. This one could be another BoB classic to go up their with drs vs d|s and -a- vs NARF. I'd look for wSw to be coming down after a huge win. However, whomever comes from that upper bracket will have a much tougher road to come through and will be much more battle tested. Scrims will be hard to find as all the l33tz0rs will have traversed back under their respective gaming rocks. -x- puts up a valiant effort but falls as Mario and Luigi start bitching over why mario gets the stronger franchise and Ckyass gets busy messaging some "hottie" from his myspace page.

wSw 3-1


The biggest factor for wSw to win? Easy, motivation. If Slag keeps everyone motivated and gets some scrims in, those collector tins are their for the taking.




s*00t:


Division 1
Favorite to win: Jolly Rgr
Biggest Challenger: Affliction
Darkhorse: Blur
Player to watch: L-O-Elliott

IMO Division 1 has the most evenly matched teams and anything can
happen. In the end I have Jolly Roger coming out on top of the
division, however, I wouldn't be surprised to see some upsets.
In the first round, Ice, I think unorthodox will pull thru in a close
one over Office Space.
Jolly Roger should easily beat ASC, and in another good matchup I have
Blur beating )x(.
Second round, Base, I have affliction beating Unorthodox in what I
believe will be a close one. I'm making Blur my team to watch because
I think they could overtake Jolly Roger, however, in the end I think
L-O-Elliott's panz will be too much for Blur.
I have Jolly Roger over Affliction on Village.


Division 2
Favorite to win: Scourge
Biggest Challenger: wSw
Darkhorse: Briphido
Player to watch: doop

Unlike division 1, I think division 2 will be more predictable. I say
this because I do not see many of the teams in this division scriming.
High Voltage has the potential to go far but I haven't seen them
scrim much if at all. The darkhorse team I'm picking that has a
chance for an upset in the first round is Briphido. They have good
guns, however I am not sure how well their teamwork is. I am picking
Scourge over wSw to win the division. I think it will be a helluva
match on Village but I have confidence in my teammates.


Division 3
Favorite to win: Exodus
Biggest Challenger: Forgotten Kings
Darkhorse: Forgotten Kings
Player to watch: Inya

Not too much excitement in this division because it has imo the best
team in it. Exodus is strong and I see them winning the division
easily. Unfortunately, I think their toughest opponent will come in
the second round rather then the third. Forgotten Kings and Tribal
Valor are two solid teams. I think it will be Forgotten Kings that
will face Exodus on base in the second round. It will be a good match
with the winner ultimately being Exodus.

Division 4
Favorite to win: Onslaught
Biggest Challenger: u5
Darkhorse: Onslaught
Player to watch: Mutha

This is the division I decided to take my biggest upset from.
Everybody wants to see round 2 of the grudge match between birdz and
u5 but Ive got this feeling that the birdz wont make it there. This
is not a nock on the birdz, because they are playing well in their
scrims. Ive got onslaught beating the birdz on base and facing u5 on
village. It should be a close match on village but I'm sticking with
onslaught as my choice for this division.

Semi-Finals
Assault
Jolly Roger vs. Scourge
I am picking Jolly Roger over Scourge on assault because I hate
assault and don't look forward to playing it. However, if wSw beats
Scourge I have think wSw will beat Jolly Roger and advance to the
finals.
3-1 Rgr > Scourge or
3-0 wSw > Rgr

Exodus vs. Onslaught
I picked Onslaught as my Cinderella team however I think this is as
far as they go. Exodus is too strong for onslaught.
3-0 Exodus

Finals
Beach
Exodus vs. Rgr
This will be a long match, with a lot of full holds. I don't think
ties count in the finals so I am going to say 3-1-3 in favor of
exodus. Exodus is the stronger team imo but with elliott's panzing on
beach, Rgr does have a shot at shutting down Exodus' offense.



Just like to say, its great to see so much interest back in rtcw.
Hopefully everything goes smoothly and the upcoming season should be a
good one.
s*00T
http://scourge.rad1gan.com/demos/00T/brackets.jpg




slaG:

Div 1: This is by far the toughest bracket in my opinion, with 3 major power
houses such as lot, rgr, and affliction in one division should make for good
games and clutch moments.

Fav- My personal fav is going to have to be RGR, I think if rgr makes to to
village vs affliction they'll have the upper hand due to donka's euro
tendancies to be gay and afflictions inexperience with euro's on this map

Biggest Challenger- Affliction, affliction has a lot of good team work and
warmachine and warriors guns should be able to keep up.
Dark Horse- LOT, have yet to scrim them or watch them scrim, it's a bunch of
average players all together, but this is a game of team work and well see
what happens.
Player To Watch- Gonna have to go with warrior, hes defidently the top
player in this division should be impressive to watch some of the shit this
kids going to pull off.


Div 2: This division should be interesting, got a lot of old names and some
new ones, such as doopers this kids playing for the pewpew clan is a
machine, I suspect hell go 73-1 in everymatch.

Fav: briphido

Biggest challenger: Scourge, this team has come along way from the nothing
team I remember, they have teamwork and strategy should be tough for team
doopers.
Dark Horse: wSw, haha if we scrim more than once a week we may be able to
pull this off. weeeeeee
Player To Watch: Doopers, this kids been accused of hacking hes so good, im
sorry when youre better than remedy you deserve to be the player to watch!

Div 3
Sorry to all the teams in this division but Im 99.9% sure exodous is gonna
3-0 every game only challenge here is perhaps fk or tv.
Player to watch is defidently elusive hes the best player exodous has and
will carry them to victory.


Div 4
Fav: Birds
Biggest Challenger: United 5, Im not sure but if united 5 faces birds on
village this might be good game birds seeya later. These u5 kids are violent
on this map. And with the abscense of aequitias's rocket launcher these kids
might have a serious problem.
Dark Horse: Onslaught, I know these kids aren't anything that amazing but
they do have sometype of teamwork so well have to see how it goes.
Player To Watch: Im going to have to say caffeine, I don't like him but he
suprises me sometimes when he goes off on these kids.


My pick to win it all is myself, im dropping out of wsw and creating a team
that will consist of me, myself and my elbow. I expect slag and his elbow to
take this tournament flawless. ggs




Militant:


- Your favorite to win and their biggest challenger
LoT to win it , biggest challenger will be affliction

- Your darkhorse team -
Cloud9

- Your player to watch -
Sage!!!!

For the final four div 1 will play div 2 and div 3 will play div 4
- who are your final 4 -
LoT , -a- , wSw , cloud9

- who are your final 2
LoT and –a-

- who wins it all
LoT hopefully 
- what is the most important thing your pick to win it all needs to do in order to be successfull -
Scrim often and just gel as a team

The divs

Div 1
Affliction vs BYE – lame…a team like affliction shouldn’t be getting a BYE in round 1.
Unorthodox vs OS-Should be interesting watching an ET team playoff against an experienced OS team.Im gonna go with OS 3-2

Rgr vs ASC- LoL , shall I say more? 3-0 RgR

LoT vs Blur – As long as LoT start to scrim should be an easy win…3-0

Div 2
wSw vs BYE-Once again….another “top” team getting a BYE is a good laugh.

.:. vs LBL-Hard to tell who is going to win this one , both teams are rusty and probably in need of practice…gonna go with 3-2 LBL on this.

scourge vs briphido-who the $#(* is briphido….s| 3-0

HV vs Necrotic- good ole HV taking on mortal and his crew….im going with 3-1 HV as long as deftone and grm play :P

Div 3
-x- vs IW:CI-….. –x- 3-0

FK vs TV-I can’t see TV coming out on top of this one with the amount of scrimming that FK has been doing….3-1 FK

Arise vs TAO-LOL , shrub vs old school osp , should be fun to watch. Arise 3-0

c9 vs C1-never heard of either team , gonna go random on this one… c1 3-2


Div 4
birds vs BYE- YAY FOR A BYE

onslaught vs SS-both shrub/bani teams? … SS 3-2

u5 vs FMJ-once again u5 is stuck going against an experienced FMJ team…..but who knows..u5 3-2

Saint vs Hostility-GG to this one . hostility 3-0





-x-Mario:


Division 1
Fav - Affliction
Biggest Challenger -.Rgr since from what i heard they picked up some new players, but will be interesting if they can gel well enough
Darkhorse - LoT - its really a toss up between those 3 teams, great division
Player to Watch - Nail of affliction, Mr. clutch


Division 2
Fav - wSw
Biggest Challenger - Scourge
Darkhorse - HV
Player to watch - Slag

wSw should have no problem takin this division, but scourge might bring the upset.


Div 3

I don't think i will be playing with exodus in the tournament but im still pullin for them.
Fav - Exodus, I would def. say that exodus has the easier route than any other team.
Biggest Challenger - c9
Darkhorse - between arise and Fk
Player to Watch - Vortex- with his 20 sensitivity, just watch him its great, plus he has the crouch button on lock.


Div 4 -

Fav - Teh birds, cause even though they lost players, there meds are still great.
Darkhorse - FMJ
Biggest Challenger - U5
Player to watch - Mutha



Final Four
Affliction vs wSw on Assault - Two great teams, should be a classic battle. I just see affliction goin with this one but barely. 2 snipers from affliction if they bring it will be brutal. Just depends on who brings it that night.
-a- 3-2

Exodus vs u5 on Assault - u5 has great guns, but you need lots of teamwork for assault. Gonna be interesting if they bring it come match time. Since theres a new lineup in exodus i would say that the teamwork isn't all there. So if exodus gets it together then they should be all right. If not I see very close games.

-x- 3-1


Finals
-a- vs -x- on Beach - I would like to play in this match if it all goes down cause it will be one to remember. Even though im pullin for -x-. -a- is just nasty on beach, if executed right. Should be interesting on what is gonna happen. If exodus can tame nail. It should go in there favor.




-a- Hollywood (like the wrestler):


Our hardest opponent will be the Jolly Rgr. They are experts of the guerilla
warfare tactics on a guerilla warfare map, mp_village. Their strategies on
defense will consist of donka flanking for the flag and back raging as much
as possible. Elliot will be annoying with the pf dropping down into the
cellar every spawn to get the 5 bangers and chucking hotdogs like John
Elway. Our main strategy is to contain Elliot and turn him into a buddy lee.

When jolly rgr is on offense I expect to see nard being an LT and not
leading the charges. Instead he will hand out cupcakes in the west courtyard
while his medics push in and get gibed. At the last second (around full
spawn) nard will push in while his team is in limbo and get an easy kill on
head shot hairy while he is reloading. At this time donka will be camping in
a dark random spot that no one would even think to look. He will try to
shoot and gun down our team from our backs but will not succeed.

In the end it will be the same old shit on wtv. People will be rooting for
Jolly Rgr to win and talking shit about affliction. Sorry kids, no upsets or
lehmenns kicking people here. 3-0 Affliction.




-x-cKyAss:


Div 1- affliction will take this division easily, some good players in this division but affliciton is to stacked to loose.

Div 2- wSw and scourge will compete for this one, If slag doesnt get to cocky they'll beat scourge 3-0. If he does, they'll win 3-1 :-0

Div 3- umm exodus?

Div 4- I think birdz will win this division, u5 will go back to playing et.

FINAL 4
Affliction vs wSw- This should be an awsome matchup, looking foward to see who's gonna take this. I know slag and his boys wanna shit all over affliction but i think its going to come down to teamwork. Both teams have even shots, Both teams have good panz's. Which ever team wants it more is going to win. Im saying 3-2 wSw if not 3-2 affliction deffintely gonna be a 3-2 match.

Exodus vs Birz- I will say i hope we win, Exodus has a new roster, and we r working through our problems. Hopefully by this time we will have worked out everything and be able to make it to the finals.


FINALS- wSw vs Exodus- wSw is a great team, I'll be honest in saying everyone on their team probably has a better shot than i do but i dont think headshots are whats gonna win this match. Expect huge panz kills, bloody carnage in the war room, and mad amounts of profanity on ventrillo. This will be a classic imo. I hope exodus loose's because the 2nd place prizes are way cooler. umm jk, Just happy to be playing again! :)

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The Battle to Beach: Elu$ive

Posted by: Mortal :o (Wednesday, May 24, 2006)

Battle of the Beach III is pumped full of action, with great matches with new and old teams fighting for the prize of first place. I am sitting down with some of the outspoken and favorites for some more in-depth details to what Battle of the Beach means to them, their thoughts on the competition, and more!

Enjoy the first installement of The Battle to Beach; where I sit down with Elu$ive of Exodus!

--------------

Mortal: Basic info; Who you are, Where are you from, What games were before Wolf? What keeps you in the Wolf circle?

-x-elusive: Greetings and Salutations homos, my name is Justin "elusive" Terza. I'm 19 years old and I hail from the keystone state Pennsylvania... I started gaming about 4-5 years ago with RTCW being my first on-line or even computer game ever.. Before that I mainly played console games with friends just like everyone else.. Playing this game for so long has been quite the experience and i can't really give you just one answer to why I’m still here. It's obviously a well made game that has continued to be revamped and modified by the people who believe in this game and truly think that this game could quite possibly be the best that they've ever played. Just look at the physics, shooting, and multiple classes you can go, why even bother going to another game when RTCW gives you everything and more. The team base aspect of this game just keeps you interested in what’s always going on, always calling things out on the fly waiting to push as a team that’s what its all about and i can truly say i love it.. There really isn't a game out there i enjoy playing as much as rtcw and that’s pretty much why i keep coming back to it. You could ask anyone that has been around for this long and they would probably give you an answer somewhat along the same lines as mine.


Mortal: What brought you to compete in BoB3?

-x-elusive: When bob3 rolled around i had no idea about it.. I was too busy with cod2 and my team snowmen who were in cal-im at the time, to even realize people were trying to revive rtcw again. So as this was all happening i had SUHKIHASS COUGH ckya$$ bugging the shit out of me to come back to panz for Exodus in bob3, so I was much obliged to just completely drop cod2 and say f that game and go to Exodus to pick up the boomst!ck and bring the dynasty back to such a fierce state that not even Warchild nor Chuck Norris could bare witness the truth of the insanity at stake.. RUH ROH WARCHILD in THE MIX KEEPING a checkup on the stats.


Mortal: Being an important part of Exodus, a BoB3 favorite, do you feel pressure to perform superb against teams like Affliction, cloud9, and wSw; who in many respects are the largest competition for you, and Exodus, in many seasons?

-x-elusive: There never is a time where I don’t feel the need to do my best in a scrim or match.. I always give a 110% effort to my team whether its gunning, panzing, or even calling things out and just communicating as much as possible. I’ll do anything just to make the team better and to make everything work just right. But even with the competition that there is now, I’m still going to keep doing the same things I’ve always done to try and shut the other team down at key choke points in each and every map no matter how hard they try and avoid me... Just always being in their face pushing them at the right times making sure i give my team a easier chance of holding something down or breaking a defense, anything to make it work.


Mortal: Exodus is a well-oiled machine, with alot of power shooters and some great teamwork under the hood. Where do you fit into the mixure. Who is the best shot, who is the clutch player, the trickjumper, etc?

-x-elusive: Well, as everyone knows I’m a panzer and i have been panzing for exodus for almost 2 years now I believe.. I’m just there to make the key shots for the team. Whether its gibbing bodies, taking a big panz shot, or just making it easier for my team to surpass anything in there way to get the objective done as quick as possible for the win!!! JAWOHLLL

As for who is the best shot, clutch player, and trick jumper... That’s a tough question to answer i can't really name one single player on Exodus who is the best at one thing.. Our roster as of right now looks like (me, luigi, ckyass, imposter, robes, common, nothx and mario). Obviously we have our LTs (common and luigi) who do the majority of the shooting, but that’s not counting out our medics for who is the best shot at all.. Its just the LTts job to kill and the medics to keep everyone up.. So each person has their own class that they are exceptionally the best at, not to mention Exodus was never known for having the best shots, we have always been known as having good teamwork and great communication and I can honestly say that's one thing that makes Exodus who we are. Any player on the team can be clutch at any time, go and stop a plant or return the docs, gib bodies etc. That’s being clutch in my book, and everyone on the team takes the cake for that.


Mortal: With a big career in Wolf already behind you; do you feel this event (BoB3) is going to bring the best matches of your time, or do you feel that the best matches are already set in stone in your mind?

-x-elusive: Any tournament like Bob3 is promised to bring great competition and some exhilarating matches. I'm almost positive that their will be some matches I'm going to remember from this tournament but for the most part I believe most of the great matches that I have played in are already set in stone.. The latest one going back to fX vs. -x- on tundra ending in a exciting 3-2 victory for fX. Even though we lost, I believe that match was definitely one of my favorites and one intense meeting for the archives.. There is more but I don’t want to go on and bore everyone weeeeeeeee ...


Mortal: Who is the biggest threat in your eyes in BoB3?

-x-elusive: There are a lot of teams still left in this tournament, and each and every one of them has a chance to cause an upset or take down anyone and come out with the win. Exodus takes each week one step at a time. But as of right now if I had to say who the biggest competition out there is, I would have to definitely say wSw and affliction. Both teams have the experienced players and the teamwork to prove that they can be called the best and compete to the highest level of competition. Even the birds, scourge, and u5 have a chance to mix the playing field up and throw in an upset win over one of the top teams. You just never know who is going to come out on top.


Mortal: Lets focus on this week. The match is against a team called Forgotten Kings; with some notable players in Spec_OpZ, KoverT, and Raiser. Does Exodus feel the need to have quite a few scrims on each map before the match, or do you gauge your amount of practice based on your opponents skill?

-x-elusive: Exodus goes into each and every match equally; we take each team we play with the same seriousness unless we just feel like having fun and messing around. But for the most part we are always on top of our game and prepare for each match without a doubt the same way as any other. It would be a joke to not go into a match without scrimming the same as you did for the last one just because of the other team’s skill or if they were new to the game. You always want to be on top of things and if the other team doesn't prepare enough for you and you are ready for them then you did your job.


Mortal: How do you think you will fare against Forgotten Kings? What do you think your weak-point will be, what do you think there's is?

-x-elusive: Forgotten Kings are a great group of guys, I've known most of them for quite awhile and they are all great players. This match could really go in any way but in my opinion whoever has their shit together are going to be the ones who come out with the big ole W .. But for the most part I’m going to say we are ready and we came to win and we won’t strive anything less. Exodus has a solid defense as well as a solid offense, so I can't really say we are weak in any department.. And as for fK I haven't really heard anything about them, but if I did have to say what their weakness would be, I would have to say that they being new, and not having the experience together would be their weakness. By the way that’s me being humble about it =p


Mortal: If you defeat Forgotten Kings; you will play the winner of Arise vs. Cloud9. With alot of older and veteran players on both teams; what team do you feel to excel, and what team do you want to face?

-x-elusive: Both Arise and Cloud 9 have some great players, but both teams have new rosters and not a lot of experience playing with each other. That is what will hold each team back from being at full potential.. But if I had to choose a team I would pick Arise mainly because they have their shit together and a lot of players with experience in this game. Cloud 9 has some amazing quake 3 and 4 players and some great ET and oldschool rtcwer's, but without the experience and teamwork they won't be able to pull this match off in the end. Arise 3-1. As far as what team I would like to face, i wouldn't mind playing either one. Both are going to be competition for us and either way we will be prepared to play either one when the time comes.


Mortal: Who is going to be in the Final 4 of BoB3 in your opinion?

-x-elusive: As of right now, I'm not really sure who could end up in the final four, but if I had to choose 4 teams to be there, I would like it to be wSw, affliction, birds and us of course sillies!!!! But hey, it could go anyway so let’s just wait and find out what happens when the final four comes around. JAWOHLLL


Mortal: What motivated you, and Exodus, to get into BoB3? The Competition, The Prizes, or the Game?

-x-elusive: Bob3 is an opportunity for Exodus and me to excel in a game we love so much and are able to experience the competition this game has to offer. We have the majority of the same players with a few new recruits, and I can honestly say that we all enjoy playing this game together as a team and we all have the same motive to succeed. But, when we joined the bob3 ladder on TWL, the prizes weren't even announced so we are in it for the game. Of course the prizes are nice, but playing the game and enjoying it is much more pleasing then any prize a team could win in this tournament.


Mortal: After BoB3, whats next for you and Exodus?

-x-elusive: After Bob3, our next step would be to win TWL Season 12, at least that’s my thoughts on it.. But after all that’s said an done, we could only hope for rtcw at Quakecon, and win the buzzard back for America.. Dirty euros :p Besides that I’m not really sure what the rest of Exodus is doing, but I will mainly be playing cod2 here and there with some friends and spending more time doing things outside of gaming. Who knows what will happen, only time will tell friends.


Mortal: Shoutouts, Thanks a ton Elusive!

-x-elusive: Ckyass, luigi, mario, imposter, luckyb, eternal, common, robes, nothx, stiegl, warchild, SnipeTX, daized, slag, slaya, exclusive, elusion, rem, serb, sage, sor, digital, chaoslord, illshot, nard, gisele, vat, rambo, warrior, beavermana, warzone, militant, neo, guerilla, axe, special, alea, radea, conflict, malenkov, sephy, jaytee, donka, banks, word, nail, holly, leethal, brian, booty, opz, kovert, inya, smoke, raze, dynosaur, buddy, bonez, mindgame, v1x3n, frag, rambowl, ZeAu$, endo, alpha, caffeine, shatter, mutha, troll, elliott, rampage, vid, myth, opio, glacier, alien, verrel, scrilla, rizza, viking, transit, fistsofrage, shoosh, wippuh, silentstorm, redzone, and mortal for taking the time to do this interview with me thanks bro.. And to anyone else that I forgot out of this huge fucking list of names I love you, but damn son that’s a lot of names PEACE WHITEYS I’M OUT!!!

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The Battle to Beach: Caffeine

Posted by: Mortal :o (Thursday, June 1, 2006)

Battle of the Beach III is pumped full of action, with great matches with new and old teams fighting for the prize of first place. I am sitting down with some of the outspoken and favorites for some more in-depth details to what Battle of the Beach means to them, their thoughts on the competition, and more!

Enjoy the third, and final, installement in The Battle to Beach, where I sit down with the leader of the Birdz; Caffeine.

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Mortal: Who you are? Where do you live? What do you do outside of gaming? What games do you play other then RtCW? What is the history of Caffiene in RtCW; ie. Clan history, huge matches, championships, etc?

caffeine: I'm caff from Hershey, PA (the chocolate factory is 5 minutes from my house suckas). I landscape for a living and take 1 or 2 classes a semester at LVC, closing in on my elementary education degree. Other games than RtCW hmmmm. Well we tried ET but just couldn't get into it like RtCW, a few of the team pub other games (cod2, bf2). I play some age of Conquerors w/ my roommate. The history of my team isn't very long. We made plenty of noise when we entered the OSP scene a number of seasons ago and made it to Cal Open semi's and TWL Beta semi's. The year after most of us won Cal Open and TWL Beta as v|. Then we kinda broke up the next season. The season after that was our infamous "almost beat fx" season. That was probably our biggest match. We won TWL last season after not playing together for 2 or so seasons. That was kind of sweet, but every win we pick up all we hear is "blah blah 2002, no good teams left, asld;fas" so...


Mortal: The Birdz, a BoB favorite, have had a long history in RtCW. How did you all get together? What do you think has kept the core group of you interested in RtCW, and each other, for this long? What is the future for The Birdz?

caffeine: Well we got together on ASC's beach server. A few of us were in a clan called Triple Zilch, and some were in ASC. We'd all rage faces on that shrub server, and somehow someone said "let's try that osp thing". The core of us (I don't think we've started the same 6 guys ever in our RtCW history) staying together is rather simple. We love the game and we all love each other (some platonic and some erotic). Future is unknown, although we're signed up for season 12. We're focusing on bob3 atm and that's good enough.


Mortal: What compelled you to compete in BoB3?

caffeine: See question 2.


Mortal: There was a "grudge match" before BoB3; assuming on its title, do you have a "grudge" against United 5? How did the match come about?

caffeine: Well it's kind of a long, drawn out story. Basically when we came into the ET league for 2 seasons we butted heads w/ their team. Now they came over to RtCW talking all this shit about us. We had to put up. I think holly set it up as a preview for bob3.


Mortal: You beat United 5 in the "grudge match" and coincidentally replay them in the Division Finals for BoB3; Do you feel the match will change, and what can you say United 5 has going for them/against them?

caffeine: We're going to win that match. u5 has some decent players, but I just don't see them having the comm or match experience on this map to take us. Ask radea - they don't scrim (or scrim w/ their starting 6), don't care, HAHAH RTCW GOOD GAME, some excuse. Axe is really the only guy in that camp we don't dislike. They've all been playing together for probably as long as we have, so that's a definate plus, but the lack of prep, and careface will be their demise.


Mortal: If you, The Birdz, get to the final 2; Who would you want to be the opponent and why?

caffeine: I'd guess I'd rather play wSw's. Although I think their guns are better than -a-, the teamwork necessary for beach is right up -a-'s ally. Both of those teams have better guns than us, so we'd have to out team-play them. I guess the lack of a panzer on wSw's would make me choose them as well.


Mortal: What, out of all the prizes, do you want the most? Are prizes a large motivater for you/The Birdz to compete in BoB3?

caffeine: We're shooting for 1st of course, but we're all determined to get 3rd at least, and get spuddy the mousepad. He's been playing on teh same little square thingy for 2 years now. Guy deserves it. I think i heard ramp say something about headphones. We're not really in it for the prizes man...


Mortal: After BoB3, the game imo will return to a normality that some, if not most, dislike; this being lack of teams/inactivity, empty pubs, etc. What do you think can/will turn RtCW into a game that more players are attracted to and want to compete in in the future?

caffeine: I think this tourney is doing more good for RtCW than anything else. It'd be really nice to have a full season 12.


Mortal: Whats next, after BoB3, for yourself and the Birdz crew?

caffeine: What's next is probably the same as what was before. All of us on vent chilling, making fun of each other and stupid ass donka. We'll be around for sure.


Mortal: At this time, what team was the toughest in BoB3 thus far?

caffeine: We've scrimmed affliction quite a bit and have to say they're the toughest we've faced...


Mortal: What match thus far in BoB3 was an upset, or have most been pretty straight forward?

caffeine: I'd say most have been pretty straight up. Assuming we win and exodus wins tonight, all 4 #1 seeds will have advanced to the Final 4.


Mortal: You fall asleep, in a dream you are at Qcon2k6 and RtCW is the main event. You are in the finals (for 10K$) standing for by your 5 teammates, taking on the infamous iN; who would the 5 teammates be and why?

caffeine: The 5 guys on my team right now. We'd love a shot at them. Although from the demos i've seen their teammwork was downright scary.


Mortal: Thanks Caff! Shoutouts!

caffeine: Shoutout to troll, elliott, and donka. enjoy the rest of the tourney on wtv




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BoB3: Crappy Final Four Predictions

Posted by: c[_]`Wippuh (Friday, June 2, 2006)

Colors and formatting coming soon :o

Back after successfully predicting the final four, here we are with another look at the two matches.


Div I winner: -a-

Route to get here: bye > unorthodox > roger



Div II winner: wSw

Route to get here: bye > trinity > scourge



Div III winner: -x-

Route to get here: IW > FK > Arise



Div IV winner: u5.et

Route to get here: FMJ > hostility > teh birds





Div I vs Div II

-a- vs wSw

Like the initial prediction, what would you pay to see laws on sniper for wSw in this match? wSw has a lot of guns that can bring it on the sniper rifle but what does Warmachine's time in CoD2 and CS:S translate as a RtCW sniper? These two rosters are loaded with tons of monster guns. Both have appeared very solid in their previous matches, especially -a-'s impressive showing on village over rgr. -a- has appeared scrimming more but you never know what slag will bring. No doubt he'll be busy watching ASE and seeing who's willing to sell scrim demos.

In the end, -a- is my pick to win. With what I believe will be Warmachine on sniper and Brian ninjaneering, their smarts will overcome the sheer power that is wSw.

Score: 3-1 -a-



Div III vs Div IV

u5 vs -x-

Looks like -x- is finally getting a lot of love in wolf. After sporting many title belts the fans are grouping on the teamwork bandwagon that is exodus. Their opponent is u5, who pulled off the stunner of the tournament with their win vs teh birds on village. Village looks good for u5's in your face et style, but how does that translate over to assault? Not too well, especially with elusive on panzer. u5 has a lot of routes they can take for this match and we certainly hope to see the fair face off. Potential looms for whining about having to have Alea to field 6. In the end, it doesn't look like it will matter, with Mario , Luigi , Elusive and Cykass on a rampage.

The difference on this map? Offense. Does u5 have what it takes to attack the nasty long range d's assault brings? Can their defense stall what will be a level of teamwork they've probably never seen? The lack of falloff damage will help them out but the little things are what make assault clicks. The battles in the garage may be the best the tournament will see.

***update, if Alea doesn't play, u5.def will be "strappin' his pads on".

Score: -x- 3-0




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The Battle to Beach: Hollywood

Posted by: Mortal :o (Saturday, May 27, 2006)

Battle of the Beach III is pumped full of action, with great matches with new and old teams fighting for the prize of first place. I am sitting down with some of the outspoken and favorites for some more in-depth details to what Battle of the Beach means to them, their thoughts on the competition, and more!

Enjoy the second installement in The Battle to Beach series where I sit down with the leader of one of the most influential and skilled teams in RtCW; Hollywood of Affliction.

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Mortal: Who you are? Where are you from? What keeps you coming back to RtCW? What games do you play other then RtCW?

-a-hollywood: My name is Rob Fisher, I’m currently living in Acworth Ga, and I’m petitioning to graduate from college with a B.B.A in business mgt this fall. Rtcw is a game that is like none other. Who the hell had an idea to create ammo packs, med packs, and airstrikes for a fps? That guy is seriously a brilliant man. At the moment, I’m currently only playing rtcw.


Mortal: What is your role in Affliction? Does Affliction compete in other games?

-a-hollywood: My role in Affliction is to make sure my team is prepared best as possible. The current team for battle on the beach III is, brian, chrome, holly, leethal, nail, rambo, warmachine, and warrior. Warmachine is the only player at the moment that is competeting in another game, css. We are all lan proven, no cg_landodgers 1, and we all enjoy the game style of rtcw and being on the same team together.


Mortal: What was your role in the creation of BoB3?

-a-hollywood: During the past 2 years I used to play quake4, cod2, and aom; mainly for fun and not for competition. I’ve talked to many players that used to play rtcw through out those communities. After having a short conversation with old rtcw players they always mentioned how fun the game was and wished “people still played it”. These players usually say how they can’t wait for rtcw2 and how much they want the game to just be like rtcw. I asked these players a simple question, “why wait 1-2 years for rtcw2 to come out when you can play rtcw right now”? Most of these players answered the questions the same way, “I don’t play rtcw now because no one else plays it”. I felt this was strange. People love(d) rtcw, want to play rtcw, yet they don’t play it because no one plays it. I then thought to my self, this is ironic. There are three types of gamers out there:

- the gamer who plays for fun and doesn’t care to win.
- the gamer that plays for competition.
- the gamer that only plays for cash.

The sad thing is this: a good competitive competition will only come if there is cash/prizes for the game. Everyone knows rtcw is an old game. Two months ago, people hate to admit it, rtcw was a dead.

Since I work for an internet service provider, I have a lot of free time to surf the internet, hang out on irc and be real geeky. I’ve been sending out a lot of spam to old rtcw players on planetwolfenstein.com, writing articles on other various forums and sending messages to a lot of people telling them about the wolfpug.

My idea for battle on the beach III started when I saw a growing interest with the pug/draft league(see #wolfpug). A lot of people were coming back to rtcw to participate in a pug/draft league because each team had an equal chance of winning. During this time I received a lot of criticism to get players back, and join the league. Old friends like brian, dimmak, and even chrome said I was wasting my time trying to revive a dead game :P. I had a lot more positive feedback then negative so that kept me motivated :).

The wolfpug league didn’t turn out so well after the 3rd week. People didn’t seem to be motivated to play with certain players. I felt we had enough players to start forming our own teams and start scrimming. This would take competition up to the next level. The idea for bob3 came into my mind one night while we were trying to get more players back into the rtcw community. Everyone who has played rtcw competitively knows that battle on the beach has always been a powerful and intense tournament. The idea of bob3 and having a tournament was a success. The community doubled in size and more people were interested to come back and play rtcw again.


Mortal: What motivated you to return for BoB3?

-a-hollywood: It was my idea to have a third battle on the beach tournament, of course I’m going to play in it! I helped with early decisions with the tournament. Before the tournament started, I was asked to be a twl admin. I refused this offer because I wanted to participate in bob3 and not admin the league. Apparently you can not be an admin and play at the same time :). As for Affliction, many of our players felt that the newer games that recently came out didn’t turn us on. Brian, chrome, nail and I have been with each other since the early days of 2002 back in deathtouch. We felt rtcw was a game we all enjoyed to compete in. We felt participating in battle on the beach 3 would be a fun and entertaining way to see how the new school competition will stack up in 2006. Another reason for us to come back for bob3 is for preparation to compete for this year’s quakecon for rtcw (rumor).


Mortal: How did the return of Affliction come to be? Was it hard to choose 8 players for BoB3 when more than 8 signed-up?

-a-hollywood: At first we were in discussion to merge with team effect a couple of weeks before the tournament started. They wanted to pick up Brian and myself making the roster: brian, holly, remedy, vatican, serbian, warrior. During this time, brian and I wanted nail on the team because of our history and because we knew he was pro. We felt 3 players from old affliction and 3 players from fx would be best for the merger. We felt that we should make nail a starter over a certain member of team effect. In the end, it turns out the merger did not work and we ended up picking up warmachine and warrior. We then dug up Chrome, leethal and rambo from the grave since they have played with affliction in the past.

Warrior and Warmachine are new to the team. I have never played with them before, only against them. The both are very skilled, lan dependable and also bring great communication and teamwork to the team.


Mortal: Who is your biggest competition on BoB3? Why?

-a-hollywood: Since we are the favorite to win this tournament we have to approach every week the same way. The spectators loves upsets, and we try to work together as a team daily to make sure this doesn’t happen. We know we can beat every team on their best map; it just comes down to who wants it more. We have been scrimming the past couple of weeks like true soldiers. Rtcw is about teamwork, communication and having the same 6 people on the same page. To answer your question, every team is our biggest competition. We will take it one match at a time and not underestimate anyone.


Mortal: The next match you are going to play is against The Jolly RGR, a team that has a large amount of teamwork and guns to match. What do you think will happen? Do you feel it will be a close match?

-a-hollywood: Team Affliction vs. The Jolly Rgr

From Bob3 Predictions:
Our hardest opponent will be the Jolly Rgr. They are experts of the guerilla
warfare tactics on a guerilla warfare map, mp_village. Their strategies on
defense will consist of donka flanking for the flag and back raging as much
as possible. Elliot will be annoying with the pf dropping down into the
cellar every spawn to get the 5 bangers and chucking hotdogs like John
Elway. Our main strategy is to contain Elliot and turn him into a buddy lee.

When jolly rgr is on offense I expect to see nard being an LT and not
leading the charges. Instead he will hand out cupcakes in the west courtyard
while his medics push in and get gibed. At the last second (around full
spawn) nard will push in while his team is in limbo and get an easy kill on
head shot hairy while he is reloading. At this time donka will be camping in
a dark random spot that no one would even think to look. He will try to
shoot and gun down our team from our backs but will not succeed.

In the end it will be the same old shit on wtv. People will be rooting for
Jolly Rgr to win and talking shit about affliction. Sorry kids, no upsets or
lehmenns kicking people here. 3-0 Affliction.

-a- > rgr 3-0

Rumor has it that rgr’s best and favorite non custom map is village. I’m hoping for an exciting and competitive match. If we end up playing wsw in the final four, I heard assault is their best map ;)


Mortal: Out of all the prizes, what one do you want the most?

-a-hollywood: If we finish top 3, we will opt to not receive our prizes. We feel the prizes should go back into the community. The prizes could contribute to another rtcw tournament that will attract more players.


Mortal: Who, in your opinion, will be in the Final 4 for BoB3?

-a-hollywood: I believe things will turn out to be in our favor in the end.
affliction, wsw/scourge, -x-, and teh birdz.

It’s sad that I won’t be in town at my gaming rig for the affliction vs wsw / scourge match. I’ll be in Florida picking up sand from the beach for the team we will face in the finals. Believe me, if it comes down to wsw vs. affliction that will be the blockbuster match of the summer. The elbow pads, chin straps, and mouth guards will come off with that game kids! I wonder how many strings slag had to pull to get that match on assault (our traditionally disfavored map by the way). This could be an interesting match…


Mortal: After BoB3, what does the future hold for Affliction and RtCW?

-a-hollywood: Our main focus was to gel for bob3 and to focus and practice hard to compete at quakecon. Competing in bob3 and playing rtcw isn’t necessarily a job like other games. We enjoy rtcw and like the game a lot. If rtcw is at quakecon this year, I see a lot of more teams forming and the skill, teamwork level, and the competitiveness of each team rise.


Mortal: With such an influx in RtCW gaming, do you think BoB4 is something that could be seen in the future? Why or why not?

-a-hollywood: That is a good question. I believe after bob3 the community will grow bigger or die again. It is up to the players to make that decision. Rtcw is clearly the best team-play fps ever. Battle on the Beach 4 has already been scheduled for March 2007. For more information on bob4 you need to message Twl-vixen. If she claims she knows nothing about bob4 or even quakecon2k6, she is lying. Just keep pming her and she will speak the truth!


Mortal: Shoutouts! Thanks a ton Hollywood!

-a-hollywood: I would like to make a shout out to dimmak, and illshot for saying how much they love rtcw yet never came back to play it. All of the guys in affliction: brian, chrome, decka, illumina, nail, neuro, lee, rambo, ttocs, warmachine and warrior. Shout out to tosspot, warwitch, deeay, trillian, ckyass and sabo + all the shoutcasters that I did not mention. wtv crew for all their hard work and participation w/ criticism by me/nail on wtv. I would like to give a special shout out to my girlfriend, Stacey, who lets me play rtcw 4 nights a week. And lastly a big shout out to all the people who talk shit about my team and myself on wolf tv (you know who you are and I know where you live).

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Interview: Virus047

Posted by: Mortal :o (Saturday, June 10, 2006)

Sitting down with gamers and interviewing them on all sorts of subjects has always been enjoyable; as it opens up their world for you to see a glimpse of. I am sitting down with a very underated, devoted, wolfplayer; by the name of Virus047.

His trek through RtCW has been a great one, and his story should be told...

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Mortal: First off, the basics. Whats your RL (:o) name? What do you enjoy doing outside of gaming, where are you living, etc.

:+:VirUs047: My name is Matt Beck. I'm 21 years old. I'm a full time College Student. I attend Ohio University - Chillicothe, which is a branch of OU. I'm studying Computer Science Technology and Technical and Applied Sciences. I hope to graduate with my two degrees with in the next few years. I'm also working full time at the University in our IT department. I fix computers, on the spot repair, etc. I've got a wonderful GF, and currently live at home to save money. I'm involved on my Campus, not only with working there, and taking classes, but I'm the Vice President of my campus's Student Government. :) I enjoy Golfing and Chess. I also am an avid Scifi fan and like to write in my spare time. :)


Mortal: What has your history in RtCW been like? What clans have you been in? What made you want to play RtCW?

:+:VirUs047: Good question. My History of RTCW started like most, I played WOLF 3D back in the day, when I found out they were making a new version several years ago I jumped at the chance to play the Demo. I got hooked. First time I played it was actually at my old high school, where a few of my buddies in the computer lab were playing it.

I found I wasn't half bad, and picked up the full version. After a few months of random pubbing, I started looking for a team. Cross Breed was the first team I joined, at the time it was called Guardian-Network. Guardian-Network was made up of three teams from three different parts of the globe. US, South Africa and Europe.

The US team later became Team Cross Breed. Team Cross Breed was lead by Funk_Dokta at the time, he had to move, and I was given the job as leader. We muttled through a few bad seasons, 1-7, 2-6, and several roster changes later, we finally had some nice seasons of 4-4 in both TWL and CAL.

As leader of CB, not only did I turn Cross Breed around as a more serious competition team, but I got us involved in TWL, CAL and STA’s OSP Leagues. Which is how I started my admin career in STA. I became an admin in STA in the fall of 03. I’ve been an admin with STA ever since.

Cross Breed made the playoffs several times, but never once won a playoff match until later in CB's history. CB broke up for a short time and I joined Collateral Damage, where I played RTCW for several seasons until TWL's season #10. During the time with Collateral Damage, I got several of my friends in Damage and former Cross Breed members to play as Cross Breed in STA.

In STA CB had records of 7-5 and 9-3 in two seasons, both times making it to the Semi-Finals in the STA playoffs. CB retired after our semi-final playoff loss to Flatline in STA almost 2 years ago. I had some real life issues, and stopped gaming all together for a while. I returned to competition in RTCW and in ET for a while.

I jumped around on some ET rosters (Bomb Your Enemies, Deaths Asylum, Never Die Easy), before I retired from ET comp to just play RTCW. When Bob3 and TWL Season #12 was announced, I went about finding as many of my old clan mates from Cross Breed as possible and reformed CB for one last season. This is where I stand now.


Mortal: Explain what brought you to choose Virus047 as your game name?

:+:VirUs047: LOL. I've had a lot of people ask me that question before. Well, my love of Video Games doesn't stop at RTCW or ET. I'm a HUGE Console Gamer. When I was younger, I played the original Resident Evil game for playstation. The T-Virus in that game turns people to Zombies, which in turn was my first nickname in the online world.

T-Virus99. I cut off the T- and just stuck with Virus for a while. Then I slapped on the 047 for good measure. The 047 comes from Star Trek, yes Star Trek.... In EVERY EPISODE of Star Trek you can find the #47. It might be said outloud, or read or perhaps you see 47 Red Shirts eat it in an episode, but it’s there. The writers in Star Trek the original series put that in there for some strange reason and I found it funny. So I added on the 047 to pay tribute to my love of Scifi. My name basically reflects my love of Video Games and Scifi!  Walla!

Mortal: You have been a part of STA for awhile, definately a defining figure in the league administration. How did you come to admin STA, and what do you do for them now?

:+:VirUs047: Another good question. I had Cross Breed playing in all forms of competition, including TWL, CAL and STA. Which at the time, all my members found far more competitive for our skill level than some of the other leagues. I became fairly good friends with STA-RTCW’s head admins, Skrappa and Chackazz. After a few seasons with STA, I asked if there was some way I could help out the league.

I had an application in my e-mail that night from Skrappa. After my application got reviewed, I had a few interviews with there SA’s and I got the job. My first week as an admin, Skrappa and Chackazz disappeared for match night and I was thrown into the fire. So that was fun. After a while Skrappa and Chackazz became inactive and I became co-head admin of RTCW in STA with Trinners. After a year or so, I had some real life issues come up.

While I was gone STA canned its OSP league. I returned to gaming, and found I was still and admin with STA. Actually I had GRB, STA’s Senior Admin and Founder asking me if I could help out STA’s ET division. STA-ET became my new home. STA-ET wasn’t doing so well, various problems with the community and admin abuse had really killed it’s clanbase. So I had a HUGE challenge on my hands.

I talked with some big names in the ET community, got some stable clans to join and with some help from Gotcha, Homeless and VioD we got STA-ET back on its feet and back in the good graces of the ET community.

Were currently in our 7th season in STA-ET and we’ve since opened a 3v3 league, which is in it’s 2nd season. After 3 months of helping the STA-ET division, Gotcha informed me I was named as the STA-ET Head Admin position. I accepted the role and have been doing my best to provide the ET community a friendly and competitive league to play in.


Mortal: How do your experience as the STA-RtCW Head Admin and STA-ET Head Admin differ from each other? Do you enjoy doing one of the other?

:+:VirUs047: Hahah. Well being an admin is a demanding job. It’s only rewards are the ones you create for yourself. As an admin, you can’t please everyone. You are bound to piss someone off. I ended up pissing off Made Men in the STA-RTCW Finals once, which personally upset me, because I was good friend with all of them.

I respected that team, but sometimes you have to make calls that people don’t agree with. Either way I compare my admin experiences in STA-ET and STA-RTCW like this: RTCW was a smaller community. ET is a larger community. I try to offer everyone in those community something they can enjoy.

It’s like trying to put out a product on the market that is unique that people will want to buy and want to keep buying. Something that’s hopefully better than the competitors. I can do that in STA-ET better than I can with STA-RTCW, just because the community is larger, bigger market so to speak to sell the product.

That product for me that I’m trying to sell the community is a competitive and fair environment to play ET or RTCW. I like seeing teams play 3-2 matches and having people tell me they played the greatest or most intense match they’ve ever played. That for me is why I’m an admin.


Mortal: Intense matches come and go, every person has their top match; whats yours?

:+:VirUs047: For me it was two matches in CAL Open Season #6. First it was Cross Breeds match vs. Old Skool Gamers in Week #6. We were 2-3, and had just come off a big win over Absolute Synergy on Sub, which NO one in there right mind thought we would win. It was Mp_CoinFlip afterall, so no one really cared. We were still a 1-3 team to many people. OSG came in to Week #6 with a perfect 5-0 record.

We scrimmed Base 3 times a night for almost a week, and had everything down perfect. I could plant and blow up radars in my sleep. We went in to that match with so much confidence we knew we were going to win. Which is what we did. Everyone played flawlessly. Executed everything that was asked of them.

There was a point we almost lost a round, and Thrillhouse tossed a grenade with like 4 seconds left on the clock into Radar 2, as the Axis Engy was defusing that killed 2 guys. Won us the game. Everyone on vent went nuts. We ended up winning 3-1, and IMO turned heads that season. We were 3-3 after this match.

We lost the next week to Spookhouse and were 3-4 barely going to make the playoffs unless we beat another team we had already played that season in Absolute Synergy. AS was the same record we were 3-4, and we had to play them on Ice. Both teams were talking some smack and again I had my troops ready.

It was a HUGE match for my guys. In CAL, ties = 1 point per team. Both teams weren’t moving docs at all. It was 2-2 before we knew it, and the last round. I told my guys we were going to win, and not end this in a tie. ScoobySnacks answered my call and had one of the most amazing doc runs I’ve ever seen on Ice.

He at one point I remember pistoling like 2 guys with like 3 bullets. We won 3-2, went on to the playoffs to get served up by Commission on Assault. But those two matches stick out in my mind the most.


Mortal: Battle of the Beach 3, the biggest thing in RtCW in atleast a year, is almost over. Explain your role in Battle of Beach 3 as an Admin, and why you chose administration over competing.

:+:VirUs047: I’m surprised you knew I was even a Bob3 admin! :) I was one of the few admins in BOB3 that wasn’t involved in TWL’s admin staff. I was asked by Vixen to help out, and I accepted. Don’t tell my Senior Admin at STA I was working with TWL though. LOL! I’ve long since been friends with all of the TWL RTCW Admin staff, and I jumped at the chance to help them with BOB3.

I wasn’t currently in any form of competitive skill to compete in BOB3 or give countless hours of practice and scrimming to play on a team, so the admin job fit the bill best. BOB3 was a HUGE undertaking, and if it wasn’t for this die hard community and the admins at TWL, it never would have happened. I’m only glad I could help out, and participate in this venture. Best of luck to Exodus and West Side Wolves in the Finals!


Mortal: What was the best match (in your opinion) so far in BoB3? Why?

:+:VirUs047: Wow. It is hard to really pick just one match from this tourny. I’ve seen so many wonderful matches while admining, watching on WTV and viewing Demo’s from matches. Personally for me it was the match with Affliction and West Side Wolves on Assault. Having scrimmed Affliction the night before this match, I saw all they had to offer.

They rolled Cross Breed in our first scrim back as a team. I thought they would win, but regardless of the outcome, that match had everything you needed in a semi-finals match. Wonderful teamwork. Some clutch planting and defending by Brian!! It was an all around very intense match and the best team came out of that match with the victory. Congrats to West Side Wolves.


Mortal: Are you disappointed in the participation, or lack there of, of iTg in BoB3? From my knowledge (going off what PC said) they have only covered one match... while an independent broadcaster, cKya$s, has covered atleast two...

:+:VirUs047: Yes I am. iTg provided BOB3 with a big name shoutcast group that I know has a history of being very involved in so many of RTCW’s big events. Them being involved in this was a HUGE boost to everyone’s excitement about the tourny. There a big name, so it helps to have a big name in a big tourney like this that is doing the shoutcasting. Then they bombed there involvement in the tourney.

It’s a shame really. Huge props to cKya$s and his shoutcasts! I listened to both of his casts. Good stuff. iTg’s reputation wasn’t helped by this, but who knows what really went on behind closed doors on their part. At least they did one match.


Mortal: What does the future hold for you and RtCW?

:+:VirUs047: The future of RTCW three months ago was fairly bleak IMO. Now with the recent revival of RTCW in the form of BOB3 and TWL’s upcoming Season #12 of OSP, there’s new hope that this community can continue on until RTCW2’s release. When that is, I have no idea.

I hope it’s soon, but who knows. So the future is a little brighter. RTCW is the best game online to date IMO. BOB3 is almost to an end, and I’ve heard rumors of BOB4 come next March. :) TWL Season #12 looks to be very exciting, with 40 teams signed up and so many old names and teams returning, it makes me VERY excited for this season to start up!

I’m sure the team numbers will be cut, as many of the 40 teams have 1 or 2 players, but hopefully we finish with over 30 teams. It appears to me that the community still wants to play this game, and support the leagues and events that come out of it.

With that in mind, STA might even return to RTCW again in the form of an OSP League… but I didn’t tell you that. I would say the future of RTCW is the best it’s looked in over 2 years. But what do I know…


Mortal: Any last words? Shoutouts! Thanks for sitting down with me Virus047!

:+:VirUs047: It was my pleasure Mortal. :) Thanks so much. I want to say Porkchop Sandwiches for Darkon and Go REDS!!!

My first shoutouts go to Funk_Dokta, for giving me the chance to lead Cross Breed, and letting my terrible wolfer butt in to Cross Breed in the first place. Thank you Funk. :) CB misses you! You are the CB Daddy!

Vixen – You’re the mom I never had. :) Thank you for taking me into Collateral Damage and making me feel apart of a family. Through everything I was going through, in game related and real life issues. I know you had my best interests at heart. Thank you.

TheHammer – Your insights into leadership and friendship has helped me a lot more than you know. Thank you. Best of luck to all you do. :) Oo yeah… your Cubs still stink… even if they beat my Reds. :)

Teh Johnny Person - :)

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Interview v2.0: Nail

Posted by: Mortal :o (Thursday, June 15, 2006)

I did an interview with Shawn "Nail" Hawken over two years ago on this site... and really enjoyed him and his experience. After the interview I noticed alot of players wanted more questions and more detail; and I agreed. I finally sit back down with the beast that is Nail for a more indepth interview. Enjoy!

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Mortal: Basic Info, Who is Shawn "Nail" Hawken? What made you choose the name Nail? What do you do for a career? Hobbies?

-a-nail: Well I am Shawn Hawken of course, still residing in Knoxville representing Big Orange country. That name 'nail' was just a european friend of mine back in 1998 or so, and I had some personal issues on my old name, so me and Illumina would go pub as hammer and nail, and it just stuck from there. Currently I am working technical support for an online gaming service(have you upgraded your drivers for your video card?) while I build up some cash for a townhouse, tuition etc.


Mortal: Your a large part of Team Affliction, a dominating force in RtCW that rings with greatness in most players minds. How did you come to Team Affliction, and how did you all rise to be what you are now?

-a-nail: Back in the Deathtouch days we had obviously lost in CAL many times to the west powerhouse Narf, after one of these losses Chet(Dimmak) had told us he was done, and basically 'good luck in BoB2.' So there we are with 5 members, a backup of Slizznut at the time I believe, wondering what to do. So me being the smart guy I am, recruit Slag thinking he could somehow work into our mix and be a good asset to the team. Things did not work out, egos collided and the big key to all this being I personally told Slag he would start for us at Quakecon, the team decides we need to cut him(which Dimmak actually demanded - cut slag or leave Deathtouch). This was weird coming from the guy that said he was no longer playing as we took over recruitment for BoB2-Quakecon, but he was one of the founders of dT and we were playing under his name.

So we did both, cut Slag and created the 2nd Affliction RTCW team. I did not know anything about it going to Affliction. But one day I logged on and they said join this channel and change tag to this, brian and holly were sneaky about it.

Since then we been playing under the |a| tag, and hope to play many more games not just continue with RTCW as it just aint there popularity wise.


Mortal: With your recent loss to wSw in the third BoB3, how can you gauge your experience in BoB3 in comparison to the BoB's in the past? Was BoB3 up to par with its previous tournaments?

-a-nail: The only BoB's I played in were actually BoB2/3. I did not find out about competitive RTCW til BoB1 had -just- finished. The experience is great as far as competition, playing for a reason, in a single elimination tournament is always fun. However, and I do not think I am alone on this, I do wish BoB3 had been double elimination.

Along with many other teams, Affliction also, just lost interest once they were eliminated and the number of teams to scrim declined greatly week by week.

The signups were not 32 teams, but 29 was not bad considering the very few number of forfeits. Sometimes I did not think the staff were communicating between themselves much. Also, requiring demos from -every- single player even if the match is not disputed etc, and the admins wondering why people do not upload demos is just silly. In all leagues you record your demo, and keep it on hand because if a dispute is going to happen, it is usually right after the match -- just an odd rule.


Mortal: How do you feel TWL did with BoB3, being the adminning body over the tournament, compaired to OGL with BoB1/BoB2?

-a-nail: The TWL admins were very flexible as to rescheduling matches, times of the match and everything. I do not even remember who admined BoB2 at all, but just remember that iTG actually showed up for matches, but this was in a time when RTCW was very popular and iTG could justify casting due to the number of listeners.


Mortal: Back to the match vs. wSw; did Affliction come into this match full-throttle, or do you feel you didn't perform up to par due to the fact that Hollywood wasn't there to lead the battle?

-a-nail: To say we did not come into it full-throttle would be lieing. We came into the match after a warmup scrim ready to go, and the first round showed promise as we set a reasonable time. However when we went to defense and let them plant a 2 minute time? Besides me whiffing a panzer from 5ft that is just unacceptable. Our defense was very staggered the first round and it was a kick to the balls and woke us up for the rounds to come. Although I felt our defense was fine after those rounds, we just could not get any chemistry going on offense, and when we did it was too little too late.

Holly not there to lead the battle? Does not matter, we played all week in anticipation that he would not be here, Warrior made the strat calls on D, and we had just steam-rolled people with Warmachine sniping all the time. wSw's defense just did not allow us to spawn camp and set the sniper up as we were very used to doing, and we did not adjust to it.

We made huge mistakes on defense and offense, and every time they were there to capitolize on them. We did not lose to only mistakes, they were good, we had the mindset to win just did not show up to play. In the end, the team that deserved to win, won the match.


Mortal: What suprised you/impressed you about wSw?

-a-nail: The team that everyone says has the best aim in Wolf right now, playing very defensive in garage/euro boxes surprised me. We expected them to try to run a sniper and shoot tarmac 24/7, which would have played to our advantage as Warmachine is a beast sniping. Although we expected them to do that, we did have strats for other defenses, but they played spawn/spawn boxes very well and we could not get their rhythm of /kill outs screwed up. They played it well.


Mortal: This isn't the same wSw, having some players being the same and others being from newer generations of Wolf elite. How did the wSw of today compaire with, lets say, the QuakeCon team?

-a-nail: We never really played wSw before Quakecon due to all the strats being released etc. (not that we changed them) so we never really knew who was the better team over all. But watching the Village demo from Quakecon you can see little mistakes that wSw made back then, that they did not make on Assault (ie: shooting a guy to get the kill and not reviving while that body gets gibbed, little details that make you better).

Although wSw's roster has lots of egos on it, it was apparent in our match that they could work the crossfire on defense and can put aside their egos to get it done.

Mortal: Third place in BoB3, do you feel you met your expectations in this tournament?

-a-nail: Not at all, I would not have signed up if I did not think we could get first. We failed in this aspect of BoB3, and although the match was a 3-1 loss anyone watching (perhaps has been in that situation before) think that the match is closer than the score reflects. We just did not perform and they did, simple as that.


Mortal: Off of BoB3, and more towards RtCW in general; TWL Season 12 is coming up, is Team Affliction up for tearing teams apart and bringing some dominance to the table? I know I would love to see more matches with that lineup? If -a- doesn't come back for it, do you plan on finding anouther RtCW team to play in TWL-12?

-a-nail: After the loss, nobody likes to lose(although it has only been a couple days), we just do not see a reason to play anymore. Warmachine plays CSS for EFG and will be concentrating on that, Brian and I had quit our CoD2 main team to play, and I believe he is going go to back to that as the community is huge(albeit many little kids) and it is very competitive right now. As for the others, I do not really know what their plans are, but I like playing games that are very popular with huge communities, so I will probably either play Lineage 2 with nard, or go back to WoW with my old guild and play that while I wait for RTCW2.


Mortal: Whats your favorite class?

-a-nail: ... take a guess? Lets roll for it 1-100 = Panzer

/random 100


Mortal: What makes you love this game? Alot of us really feel its the best team-based game out there, and in many ways it is, but it also has some great action and skill behind it; What do you feel makes this game enjoyable?

-a-nail: Faced past, change strats on the fly to mess with your opponents head, spammy but strats can avoid the spam. From other games the biggest factor I notice is just strat work is not as big a factor as they are in RTCW, and that is probably what I like the best. It all comes down to pushes, timing, gibbing, little things seperate the good teams from the medium tier.


Mortal: Favorite map? Reason?

-a-nail: I'd have to go with Beach just because it is a doc carrying map, and the strat play is not as straight forward as many thing. It has a lot of elements to it, and having few losses on it, that also makes me lean towards Beach(you never like the maps you lose on in my experience).


Mortal: If you could think back, over your wolf career up to this date, what would the top 10 highlights be?

-a-nail: I doubt if I can even think of 10 but from me personally:

Nading on Infensus to stop defuser for a quick time
Randomly shooting rambo in the noggin to secure our win in BoB3 semifinals
Poppin a 4 banger against leethal/warrior on beach at quakecon stopping their doc push
Every single time I touch your flag


Mortal: Best team ever, doesn't matter what country, what era, or what league; What team do you, personally, feel to be the best overall at RtCW?

-a-nail: I'd have to stick with Infensus, they showed up at both Quakecon events and had a strong placing both times. The got 2nd the first time, then proved to the entire community that it was not a fluke and got 1st the following year, hats off to them. Although they got 1st place the second time, their debating skills are far superior to ours.


Mortal: RtCW2 is coming out soon; with rumors of no mp, How will this affect the game that is RtCW?

-a-nail: If it has no multiplayer that would be a slap to the face of the RTCW community and many players that are not in the community that I know are waiting for this game because they loved the first. Would be a shame for ET:QW to be the only RTCW based game to come out with MP in it.


Mortal: Do you feel games are moving in the direction of graphics, gadgets, and multitasking instead of smoothness, basics, and skill?

-a-nail: Developers are caring more and more about numbers of sales, profits, etc.. than gameplay, and publicity of the game due to this. Sure you will sell tons of copies if you follow the standards set forth by Battlefield 2, but how many lans have used this and grabbed more customers due to that? Exactly.


Mortal: Most wanted game; What game are you looking forward to buying/playing? Why?

-a-nail: RTCW2 if it has multiplayer for obvious reasons. Lineage 3 in 2008, and the WoW expansion pack because I have MMO urges also.


Mortal: Back to BoB3, Who will win? wSw or Exodus? Why?

-a-nail: On that map, I would probably lean towards team elusive as he is kind of unpredictable with a panzer. We played them a couple times early on it and he does have patterns that you can learn, but it will come down to if wSw can contain him on both offense and defense. I do not know if wSw will run a panzer as they pride their guns, but if they do not it would be a shame.


Mortal: Elaborate on your LAN experience, from QuakeCon to CPL, What is your favorite thing about LAN's, and what one is your all-time favorite? Why?

-a-nail: Quakecon 2003 was the first lan I ever went to, local, across the country, everything. It was pretty fun although we were all-business, we made up for our lack of partying on the last day. But when I later went to CPL for Halo and got to see just how many side tournaments they had for miscellaneous prizes, previewing new games and even using those for tournaments as well, I was very impressed with this and actually had lots more fun.

At Quakecon if you were there you know full well that none of us could even practice/scrim RTCW at all because you could not host an OSP server without it going 999 for everyone. This, was bullshit. I was barely in the BYOC, mostly watching matches and playing, and if I was doing neither, it was quite boring as there was not much else to do. CPL varied from this and had lots of events to participate in to keep my attention.

Winter CPL 2004 was probably my favorite as it held CS 1.6, CoD 1, Halo, UT2k4 4v4 TDM, Painkiller 1v1. Also for the finals they had all the big screen setup etc, and it was much more enjoyable to watch the finals in bean bags as opposed to the previous summer sitting in wooden chairs looking at a projection screen.

Lots of players from RTCW/Quakecon were at this even such as Warmachine, Kappa, Leethal, Brian, Wyatt, Dr's(as 3D CoD), and countless others. So not only was it a wide array of games, but also got to see these guys again and make fun of each other when we got knocked outta the tournament.


Mortal: Since it seems to come around time and time again, in detail, what game is better; RtCW or ET?

-a-nail: RTCW is the first game I played competitively and I love it, ET players complain that it is too spammy due to full energy on kill outs, panzer strength, etc. Well then how do some teams avoid all the spam you throw at them and even evade the 2+ spawn camp panzer kills? Many of us would say years of playing, and skill. I call it not being a fucking retard.

It is pointless to explain to an ET player how the game is crap. The simplest reason could be, aim is not a factor in this game. Where they counter 'but it is less spammy, the rifle-nade gun is hard to use, the panzer is less powerful' yadda yadda... Then why oh why do 4+ headshots at long range not kill someone?

That is all I have to say.


Mortal: Your a fan of Halo, Did you ever pickup Halo 2 on Xbox and try it out? Do you like/dislike consoles vs. PC's? Why?

-a-nail: Illumina and I played the French version of Halo 2 and quickly found out that the gameplay is trash and never played it again.

I only really play FPS games, and on consoles Halo was the only reasonable one as you can only carry 2 guns.

Playing FPS games on consoles can be very annoying, think of Quake. There are not enough buttons on the controller to map each weapon to, which many of us are used to on the keyboard.

So they lack in gameplay from that hardware design.


Mortal: Drama isn't something the RtCW community lacks, and everyone and anyone has had a fight/beef with someone over their career. Whether it be the croud favorites-to-hate such as Transit (I WILL FIND THE CRACK IN YOUR MASTERPIECE), InvisibleMan (OMG AA IS REALISM SIR), or Astro (I WANT RECOGNITION NOW!); or personal beefs. Who do you have a problem with, or who has a problem with you? How does this effect your playing RtCW?

-a-nail: Currently I think the only person that I do not get along with, and vice-versa, would be slag. Everything was fine and dandy til one day I spammed for a ringer, and told him the truth that 'they do not like you and dont want you to play' something along those lines. So he got slaglyke and starting doing the same old shit again. I do not play these games to make friends, the people in my clan are the only ones that matter, and those can change at the drop of a dime.


Mortal: Last BoB3 question, I swear! u5 forfieted their match to Exodus. Even though you could rescheduel a match, they didn't. They also didn't inform admins until match time. How do you feel about this situation?

-a-nail: They lost a lot of respect from me, not that they care. But you are playing under United 5, which upon creation was a dominant force in many online games. It is just my belief that they should be respecting that name, and trying to do the best they can to validate why they are even still on with United 5 as ET is not a game that is at lans, and u5 was created to be a lan team.


Mortal: I don't do interviews to make friends, as its pretty obvious from the above questions; What is your stance on players who come back after hacking, and players surch as orTa, Styles69, etc. who play with hacks over and over again? What makes it valid to play after hacking, and how do you feel about some players who can never get the accusation of hacking off their back for a simple mistake?

-a-nail: Hey if they want to hack, I do not care. Anyone that has to use hacks, exploits, tweaks, whatever... Anything that would not be allowed at a tournament, is just fooling themselves when they think they are good by using them. I've only seen one hack for RTCW and that was when Illumina was a CAL admin and I dropped by his house he showed me all sorts of shit that just blew me away.

The fact of the matter is, I like to compete in any game I play if I feel my team is good enough.. The people that hack will not show up to lans, if they did they would be horrible and they know it, so it does not bother me.


Mortal: Best excuses? I like my cousin downloaded it, or that I was just testing it; but there are some fabrications that are amazing in detail. What hack excuse hit you as the best excuse (in a comedic sense) of all?

-a-nail: I do not really follow who has hacked and who does not as it just does not matter to me. These people want to hack, that is fine. They know the consequences and should man-up when they are busted and just explain why they used it in the first place.


And now for some community questions.....


FuZioN: Favorite Alcoholic Beverage?

-a-nail: I like beer like any other guy(wheat beer mmm), but my favorite drink is probably a B-52.


ICF|Rob: During Quakecon 2003, where was affliction hanging out? Was it major strat class, watching matches in the tourny room, what was it!

-a-nail: To me the spectating at Quakecon 2k3 was very subpar as opposed to the previous year(from pictures I saw). You were only allowed to spectate easily what, 3-4 teams? In my opinion, this was crap and there were only so many games that were fun to watch.

As a team, if we were not playing in the tournament we'd sometimes be chilling in the BYOC. But then again, you could not play RtCW OSP so what was the point?

So we'd go out to eat every night and have a little Affliction pow-wow.

I felt no need to party the whole time as I'd be unable to play if I had ;-)


KoverT: Why can't you play UNO?

-a-nail: I can play UNO fine, it's not like my computer won't record demos or play UNO or anything. I've only played UNO about 2-3 times and it is just boring.


mutha: If you had a second chance at aN would they change the roster or change how you strated against em?

-a-nail: No we would not change the roster, strats were there, but not executed. The same can be seen when we lost to Narf 3-1 on Beach in the CAL finals, barely changed lineup (Time-bomb for Dimmak) used the same strats but actually executed, and won 3-0 the next time we played on Beach.

We had strats for defenses similar to theres, but had not seen many teams run 3 euro boxes(mostly because they had died and just were patient coming out of spawn). So on the tarmac we just got hit from more guns than we should have.

In the end, shit happens, you can not win every game you play. The truth sucks :-P


Huppiw: Nail seems that he would be a total ass since he's so good and has
played with almost nothing but the top teams. However, he was really cool and
fun to play with in when I had the chance. He wasn't egotistical, he
wasn't condescending, he was nothing but helpful and polite about everyone he
talked about, even when he had ample opportunity to talk some shit.
How does he do that? Why is it so hard for others at the top to do that?

-a-nail: I'm not sure if this is a sarcastic question or not but... I'm not perfect, I talk as much shit as the next guy but I draw my lines about what actions I take. Some see me as old-fashioned(in terms of RTCW at least) where I hate when people global chat/vsay in scrims, or talk about other teams scrims when it is more polite to keep it to yourself.

In reality, I've never really accomplished anything in any game that I have competed in, so acting cocky or condescending would be very foolish and just be painting myself in a corner for hate-mail.

However, if people do not know me, they may think initially I'm the biggest prick out there.. but after a while they realize I treat everyone the same and deep down I'm just a big cuddly redneck.


-------


Mortal: Like I said at the start, Nail and I did an interview in 2004, which can be found here. I'd like to thank Nail for anouther wonderful interview and praise him for being a rare breed; someone who is skilled yet humble. Thanks for everything Nail, take care :).

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Girls & Gaming

Posted by: gisele (Wednesday, July 5, 2006)

Confused about the new poll? Let me explain. I am currently in a silly little arguement with some ladies over at GGL about girls in gaming. One of their writers claims she may be posing on the cover of Maxim as a "hot" girl gamer. However, aside from writing at the GGL, she doesn't much game at all. Rather, she is an RPG player who doesn't compete in leagues (yes, I too wonder how she landed a job representing a GLOBAL GAMING LEAGUE) or anything. From what I understand, she is launching a site for girl gamers or something from within the GGL (which on paper, it sounds like a good idea).

My question to you is, who would you rather see on the cover of a magazine representing girl gamers? Is it more important for her to be "hot" or talented? If "hot" is your answer, why would you buy a magazine with some random face/body when you could buy a Playboy with Jessica Alba? Furthermore, would it be "hotter" if she were let's say, g0d-missy or g0d-trito who are attractive females AND professional Quake players?

How do you define a "gamer?" How do you define a "model?" Is there a crossing point for the two or is one exploiting the other?

We all know there are people out there who will and do buy Fatal1ty brand products simply because they know who Fatal1ty is and what he has achieved. He holds countless titles under his belt, of course his products will sell. Do you think they would be as successful if he was a no-namer in the gaming world but posed half-naked on the cover of Playgirl?

Just to make things clear, I have no problem with female "booth babes" or "AMD girls" being used to sell gaming/PC equipment or hardware. I understand that; sex sells. My problem is someone using gaming as a tool to market themselves when they are nothing to gaming. (For lack of a better word...I know she is not "nothing" but she obviously isn't the Fatal1ty of girl gaming...).

We all know that people within gaming communities like to flex the "what have you won" muscles all the time, and usually, if you aren't known for anything, people could care less who you are. Why is it different for females?

There are TONS of female gamers out there, many who are part of sponsored, multi-gaming all-girl clans. These girls compete, they make attempts at titles and most importantly, they represent the future of gaming.

Why would someone with no accomplishments, not even so much as an attempt at competition, be chosen to represent all of them? I am also not saying that a "gamer" is only defined as one who competes; I feel that people who take the time to learn, experience and participate within their respective communities are "gamers."

People like shoutcasters, admins, sponsors, modders, programmers, etc...can understand why defending R1 and not R2 is relevant, or why getting that red amor is crucial in your 1v1 match. You don't have to play baseball to really understand it do you? I personally don't think so; I think it may seem foreign to an alien, but taking the time to think about what's going on and to watch and learn...you can pick up on things. I definitely think I learned the most from watching you all play and talking to people about the game; in general, making an effort to move from pubber to competitor. Why is it so hard for some females to do? I will definitely not say that being a female in the gaming world is easy; I am still not taken seriously and I've known many of you since 2k3 and you've watched my skills develop and change.

What has been easy though, despite all the enemies my rants have made me, is getting help. You tell people you are a girl and they instantly want to help you. I don't understand a "non-competitive" GGL writer representing girl gamers on the cover of a male's magazine. I just don't. My best friend plays COD2 on Xbox with her boyfriend, should she be on the cover of Maxim or any magazine for that matter, as a "gamer?"

R_Seriousmode 1, guys. I'd really like to hear your opinions. Enlighten me, perhaps you can make me understand?

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The Death of Competition

Posted by: gisele (Tuesday, July 11, 2006)

Mahmood over at the GGL wrote a really interesting 2-part article on the current "state" of North American competitive gaming. The article details some of the various problems that the current competitive scene is facing. I highly suggest reading these articles as they are very informative (so informative that I wrote a novel instead of a comment reflecting on them).

For part 1: http://www.ggl.com/news.php?NewsId=3462
For part 2: http://www.ggl.com/news.php?NewsId=3463

As I previously stated, the articles caused me to start thinking; what happened with RTCW? What killed the lack of competitive interest in this game?

Let's review some of the most popular reasons as to why RTCW is "dead:"

-Silo
-Hacks (Silo wasn't the first to hack the game, therefore he get's a seperate spot on the list)
-Lack of league recognition & the loss of CAL
-Lack of lan/tournament recognition
-ET/CoD/any other game that RTCW players moved on to play
-The loss of Speakeasy/Gamecloud servers
-No "competition" (been hearing this one since I started playing in 2003)

Anytime you mention RTCW in another community/IRC, you generally hear comments like "RTCW is the best team gave ever" or "I use to love that game!" Then you start to wonder and perhaps proceed to ask, "well why did you stop playing it?" Most of the time I hear people say there is "no competition" or "the game is hacked out," but I really don't think the latter is a real reason.

Take for example CS: one of the most hacked games out there, yet, looking at numbers it has more teams and players playing it than any other game. This is a game that has been out since 2000 and still going strong. It's also featured every year (like clockwork) at just about every major lan you can think of and all the big leagues have ladders for CS. Apparently hacks didn't scare anyone away from CS.

Leagues and lan recognition are crucial to the life of a game, competition wise, imho. Without either there is no competition; teams don't want to play when there is nothing at stake.

com·pe·ti·tion
n.

1. The act of competing, as for profit or a prize; rivalry.
2. A test of skill or ability; a contest: a skating competition.

Though prizes and money are a big factor for competitive gamers in choosing games to play, many people compete to be the best. The challenge of beating the best team/player in a game is a prize in itself to some people (it was enough to bring u5 over to RTCW, remember?). We have one league humbly representing us still and they, imo, are the last thread holding the sweater in tact. Many of the leagues around now didn't exist when RTCW was in it's prime or didn't have the man/sponsor-power that they do now.

The loss of TWL would be the final blow to KO this game out of the ring. We can wait for RTCW2 (when was the last time you heard about that game?), move on to another "dead"/"hacked"/just plain bad game, get lives, not give a shit or...we can do something about it. So I'd like to hear some opinions from you to see how you feel about the situation.

Answer the following:

1) Why do you play RTCW?
2) What has kept you playing this game?
3) Are leagues and lan competition important to you?
4) What do you think caused the decrease of competitive interest in RTCW?
5) What would bring back teams and put more competitive life into RTCW?



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Expectations of RTCW2

Posted by: gisele (Monday, July 17, 2006)

This morning I came across a rather amusing blog post of some random blogger's thoughts on RTCW2. The title of the blog describes the poster's current state as "nervous" on the subject of the game. I'm almost positive that many of us are currently just as flustered as said blogger, however, reluctant to fuss over something that we are all dying to get our hands on.

Hypothetically speaking, let's pretend that id/nerve software contacted you and asked for YOUR input in the development of RTCW2. If you were in charge of overseeing the development of the game's dynamics, what elements would you choose? Should it become a closer, less-retarded version of ET or nothing like ET in any way, shape or form?

Perhaps a healthy medium - an updated version (i.e. modernized graphics, D3 engine, etc...) of RTCW with certain elements taken from ET (ammo/health bins, slower rate of fire, proning, etc...)?


Furthermore, should the competition mod be as stripped of everything as OSP was in comparison to Shrub? (I know this is really out of id's hands, however, it's something I notice people mentioning quite frequently). I think it's quite humorous that in Shrub (the supposed "noob" mod) the panzerfaust is much more difficult to control than in OSP (aka "pro gaymers" mod).

You be the judge! Now is your chance to whine and list all those things that you are hoping to see in RTCW2!

For a link to the blog I made reference to: http://blog.inglorion.com/2005/rtcw2-makes-me-nervous/ (he brings up some interesting points)

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Planet-RTCW Facts

Posted by: gisele (Monday, July 17, 2006)

Since I'm bored, I decided to make a list of the top 5 most viewed articles and interviews! It's a shame we don't have a way to document other things like who comments the most, or who posts the most. Damn! Anyway, here's what I came up with...

Useless Planet-RTCW Facts






Top 5 Most Viewed Interviews:


5) If it weren't for this guy, we would all be killing each other with poisoned needles! Rhea claims the fifth spot with 3536 views!

4) Say it ain't so but Laws_69 comes in fourth with 4269 views!

3) Everyone's favorite E-thug and third most viewed player goes to fX-Vatican with 4310 views!

2) The one and only Doctors' George takes this spot with 4315 views!

1) Holy hell! Most viewed and not even an RTCW player? Here's to hoping for PB updates! PB Tony
wins with 5241 views!





Top 5 Most Viewed Articles:


5) A totally random article that I don't think anyone really cared about comes in fifth. Why? Check out the comments baby! "RTCW vs. ET thread #3080, RTCW players are shady...so kids watch your back cause I think they smoke crack...I don't doubt it...look at how they act" - Q-Tip out with 2470 views!

4) I'm not entirely sure how this one made it to this list...but there's nothing wrong with wanting to dress like a Euro is there Wippuh? Wippuh's guide to impress AMD booth babes surprises us all claiming fourth place with 2752 views!

3) We can't get enough nostalgia around these parts! Which is why we make articles like this to keep ourselves entertained! While also managing to take third place on this list with 2914 views!

2) The colossus of RTCW clout all in one easy to read article! The Top 20 Teams of All Time comes in second with 3102 views!

1) Tupac may have written "Scandalous" about a girl, but there's nothing more scandalous than a top player being caught hacking! The infamous Wyldcard story wins with 4430 views!

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Best RTCW Movie Ever?

Posted by: -Raze- (Sunday, July 23, 2006)

Just curious what most consider the best RTCW movie ever made? I just finished Violent Reflections and that ranks very highly on my list.

I've been trying to download COH's video, but its always corrupted. Any thoughts or suggestions on what to check out?

Also, if you have the COH vid, could you upload it and link me?
Thanks

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Ok, I am going to explain alot of stuff and come clean right now

Posted by: `Ev1L` (Monday, July 24, 2006)

I just had an interesting convo in the et center quakenet channel. apparently digm, the former TWL head admin for et, along with a few other people think I am whacked because I support the notion that a player named blazen is in fact a player named Turkish who is a hacker. I was presented evidence from daniel of cal fame to back it up. TWL has not taken a stance on it cause their database does not back up that conclusion. While I wish no ill will against TWL, they also lost alot of info when they suffered a severe outage in march. TWL also never has tracked players by hostmasks, cal does. And these et noobs have discovered proxy servers, etc so tracking them is getting to be a greater challenge.

When I was a TWL admin, I was anti-cheat for ET. Prophet and I would go over ban lists and reference IPs, host masks, etc. I was also helping TWL when I was in CAL. CAL has better info because they track hostmasks (and twl does not) so there was a lot of cooperation there. When I went to TWL, there was still alot of cooperation there. I would go through the lists and verify players, prophet and I would share info, and we would type out a report which Digm would post as hackers he was banning (we did all the work, he took all the credit).

I was fired from TWL because I made a post on the RTCW shrub forums regarding how retarded the TWL shrub admins were because they did a wolftv broadcast in real time, no delay. IMO, they messed up and my team at the time, N4L, was forced to replay a match due to admin incompetence on the same map they won. N4L lost the re-match and Vixen came out later (she was busy) and said no rematch should ever be played on the same map.

While I was a bit acerbic, I made my stance known. Ok, maybe my tact was wrong, but, I made my feelings known. When TWL decided to get involved in Bob3, SnipeTx pmd me and reminded me we were both bad boys for talking shit about the incompetent admins (I mean no shit to fall on Snipe, I am being brutally honest and there are things that happen behind the scenes no one knows about). And I offered my 110% support. I actually hosted the original BOB3 site which promted shatter to download and use E107 (:D)

I have had an interesting career as an admin. I know pissclams, et al, came down in support of freeing Killermike, and I supported his suspension being upheld. Why? Because this whole cvar kick violation rule was being developed at the time, there was no rule to apply. I also advocated Mike got 30 days off, not a full year. Why? because I do not think he hacked. I know we also were creating a precedent for how these things are handled, and I felt as though we needed to show that we were not treating one member of the community differently than other members. Which is why I publicly posted that vixen of sinners and cgl fame is on the MBL. She stated it was misfit, and everyone said, ok and she was never banned. Other players have shown compelling evidence that was not them and they are suspended. is there a huge double standard there? yep. So if my publicly making these double standards known to everyone means I am crazy, then i am certifiable. And one person I can name who fell victim to the same stupidity I am thinking of is Ep1c. So Vixen, while you may think its an attack on you, its not. As admins, you need to be fair. And based on Ep1c, you know there is sometimes more to the story.

And the whole truth behind the redman suspension is this: cal re-wrote the rules so that everything was crystal clear regarding offenses and their punishments. When redman was initially suspended, the admins dealt with the best they could do at that POINT IN TIME. After having many talks with Miki in vent (not talking to wipp or piss), wipp, pissclams, etc all had almost 0 support from cal for this game and they all did the best they could at that time. So major props to them. When Daniel and I evaluated the redman situation after he petitioned to be un-suspended, we applied the new CAL rules and determined that we would commute his suspension. I also made him get into vent with me and talk to me before we removed his suspension. And I was very clear that if he did 1 thing, his suspension would be added again and I would personally make sure a world of hate came down on him. To this day, he has been a decent guy. Sometimes, people mature.

I have met Vixen from TWL. I have met SnipeTx (he picked me up from the airport for quakecon 2003). I remember telling Sir Shaggy I would take on the entire narf team on mp_bar and own every single one of them. I remember meeting quite a few of you, though you may not remember me.

And yes, my entire spat with Dynosaur was about design issues, nothing more, nothing less. I have been involved in print publishing for over 10 years, and we did not see eye to eye on some things. It has all been resolved now.

I am so sorry to bore you with this stuff. I hope you got some insight into how things work. Yes, I have seen demos of well known players who are definitely hacking, but we can not verify its really them, so they still play and they should thank their maker that they have not suspended. That is their second chance.

There should never be a double standard with admins. Sorry, you may be my friend, we have evidence you hack, you are gone, period. Admins should never be afraid to speak their mind when they believe the administration is dumb. And the administration needs to constantly be aware they may need to back track and reverse their decisions--something TWL never does.

I mean no disrespect to TWL. My whole point in many posts is that there often is more to the story than anyone knows. Its sad I actually have to explain that to avoid the label of he is crazy.

I am quite sane. You all post pics that say "free sage" "free ep1c" "free my aunt for fucking my uncle." I have had players get into my vent and ask why I am talking to banned hackers. I learn alot from them. And if you provide me compelling evidence I am wrong, I will publicly admit it.

Still waiting for Digm to show me I am wrong on Blazen. Keep in mind, TWl pretty much lost their entire database in march, so expect styles69 to be on a team shortly.

I have to admit, I should never have to explain myself like this. Which is why Vixen, SnipeTx, Virus etc, just listen to me and say, yep, sometimes he may be retarded, but he is one of ours.

thank you for your support. god knows many days I do not deserve it. I suppose my only redeeming quality is that caffeine and I will be trading burger recipies from now on. Its not as gay as you think. trust me.

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Comment Stats on Planet-RTCW!!!

Posted by: -doNka- (Friday, July 28, 2006)

I've tried to get these stats done for years now, and FINALLY it happened! These are the most interesting statistics from my point of view, facts and analysis as follows:

Article comments

Vatican's interview leads the race with the only count above 300. Of course, comments are not exactly about vatican, but about fx hacking phenomena, the factor that made many threads popular. Couple of random articles that follow got into the flames of who's the best/worst panzer and what not. Rather obvious speculation: hackers and penis measures are the hottest topics on this site.

News comments

Whatever news post has to do with hackers is doomed to grow out of proportion. Silo leads, silo continues, passes to a*dave, and waves to LuckyB. Nothing is more popular than bashing hackers.

POW comments

The only POW that could breath down silo's neck is infamous April Fools starring AlphaNeo.

User comments

No surprises here on the top of the chart. I did expect gisele to come a little closer to the top, but #5 behind wippuh, lox, piss, and yours truly is reasonable enough. Special meantion to laws_69 who hasn't been around for years. Also, next = viking.

Characters posted

Wippuh leads with a well thought out(*cough*whine*cough*) postings, the whole 510 thousand characters. Specops lingo breaks 500 with humor lube, chance to win, and readers love. Outlined italics responses take loxodonte to the 3rd place. By my rough estimates 500K charactes(including spaces) is about 150 pages of word, font 10 single spaced. Edited and re-read 3 times on average :)

Average Post length

This one used only top 30(29) posters by total comments. Absolutely no surprize here. Invisible man leads with amazing ~600 characters per post. Specops follows with nearly 500 characters, followed by hollywood and wippuh.

I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did.

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Interview: Mortal

Posted by: :+:VirUs047` (Saturday, July 29, 2006)

:+:VirUs047: Hello Mortal.

Mortal: Hello.

:+:VirUs047: How's life treating you?

Mortal: It goes, nothing too special. Been trying to go see more of the local car shows lately, as they seem to be popping up everywhere. If your bored, check out a company called AutoFX, they make glassback for Mustangs (basically taking the entire roof and making it really strong tinted glass, it's hard to explain; think sunroof without the retarded flat spot @ the top).

:+:VirUs047: Mkay ready to begin?

Mortal: Sure, did stretches and ready to go.

:+:VirUs047: Mortal go ahead and tell everyone here a little bit about yourself. What's your name? Age? Hobbies? School? Where do you work? What do you do outside of RTCW? Details!

Mortal: My name is Zach, and I live in Seattle, WA. The great Northwest has been my home all my life. I'm 19 years old, trying to survive as a part-time worker, student, and in a 2 year relationship. I don't have a ton of hobbies; as I am a home body, but I do enjoy playing Xbox 360, playing some Poker (usually end up loosing money I don't have), Frisby, Movies, Drawing, and writing, etc. Outside of RtCW, I play some CoD:UO, Quake 4, and did a year stint in World of Warcraft, but I'm free now. I mainly just enjoy my time at home with my girlfriend, family gatherings, and the small stuff in live; enjoying every day as much as I can.

:+:VirUs047: Cool. Everyone's back story on how they came in to online gaming is different, I'm sure your story is as interesting as everyone else. How did you get your nickname? How did you get involved in gaming? How did you get involved in RTCW? What brought you to the competitive side of this wonderful game? What have you done in your long RTCW career? Teams? Leagues?

Mortal: My nicknames can be explained as follows; KoRn-Warrior-, my shrub nickname until I first joined an OSP clan, was because I was a fan of KoRn and Warrior seemed to be a good edition to it. This alias was tied to my time in RtCWFiles.com, FileFront, and Shrub gaming.

My name I use now is Mortal, formed from the first few weeks in an OSP team, I felt a name change was important. A good friend of mine named himself Immortal, and I decided to be his opposite. Thus my name became Mortal. This would be the name you know me by.

The other names I have went by are probably best cased as Abys$ and AbstraxioN. Everyone has an alias, and these where mine. AbstraxioN was mainly when I was in Flatline, and Abys$ was pretty random name I aquired earlier on.

Well, my history in RtCW is pretty long. As for online gaming, before RtCW I played Operation Flashpoint and Warcraft III online; and thats about it. I got into RtCW because Wolf3D was the first game I played that really amazed me; I played Lemmings and Wack-a-mole; but until Wolf3D, most games were boring :P.

I got RtCW for Christmas the year it came out, it was probably one of the best gifts I have gotten. I installed and played a decent amount of Single player, got owned by helga, and put it back on the shelf for a few months as I played Operation Flashpoint. I ended up blowing up an entire platoon of teammates with my helicopter, and got banned from half of the active Operation Flashpoint servers. So, with no good servers, I messed around with other games such as Age of Empires, Unreal Tournament, etc. but ended up picking RtCW back up and playing multiplayer.
I started out playing on shrub servers; mainly Happy Penguin, Kitty Carnage, and some closed servers (Namely AZ LINUX, WMD, etc.). I was the typical shrub nub, scrolling through weapons and playing on a default config; with a gig of custom maps in my main folder.

After a few weeks I made my first clan, called Ultimate Assassins ( {UA} ) and we pubbed shrub servers together, being stupid and having our rank behind our name. I gave Ultimate Assassins to the second in command, RedTex, as I was involved in SAT's and such; and couldn't really play a lot. After my SAT's I decided to step into a different clan, and played with WMD, with ColdSteel and some others. The team had a member named VADER, who was a great guy; and I'd later run into again. After awhile with WMD I left because of some shrub drama; and joined =USA=, a fun loving rank hugging shrub team with mature players forum whoring their days away. A lot of shrub players seem to be emotionally disturbed, and one of them threatened me; so I decided to leave =USA= and rejoin my original clan {UA}, with only a few original members left. SlayingMantis was the leader, along with a few others; but many of the original members were long gone. This was the time I played a ton of River, and finally found out what OSP was; and found out a player I knew named VADER was the leader of Morbid X, a CAL-O OSP team at the time. I also knew a lot of [DA] members moving to OSP, and decided to go over aswell....

In the middle of all this, I had met a shrub player by the name of Wolfumbra, who also ran and founded a site most of you know as RtCWFiles.com. We became good friends, and he offered me a basic news posting job on the site. From then on out I was very involved in RtCWFiles, writing news posts; uploading files, and making guides. I still talk to some of the admins and have a good standing with the current ET admins to this day. From my work in RtCWFiles.com came roles in UT2k4Files.com, AoWFiles.com, and after the FilesNetwork merge with FilesFront, working on basic stuff for FilesFront. Again, real life made me forfiet anouther thing I really enjoyed; as a lot of family problems arised out of my control. I came back to see a lot of newer admins aboard, my name still on the list, but the same flare for posting news and helping the community wasn't their; as the community had changed so much. After this I went on to OSP and really didn't have a lot to do with many of the hundreds of shrub players I used to talk to on a daily basis.

OSP dawned a new type of gaming for me, where players used skill; not utter chaos, to actually win something. In shrub I just blew stuff up and felt accomplishment for camping a tower on the opposite side of Market Garden, or in Operation Flashpoint where I just rained down rockets on friend or foe and watched things die. In OSP, for the first time, I got my taste of competative gaming. Sure, in shrub you had your ¡§clan wars¡¨ but I had only done 1-2, and they were really relaxed, and usually ended up with head-banging contests or human towers.

I found a server called $$$ More Money $$$ and started to play there quite often. In there I found a lot of [DA] players, and Morbid X players pubbing often, and started to become a fixed figure in the server. After awhile, More Money asked me to join their ranks in their first season in OSP (probably around the dawn of TWL 7v7, or so, for you people who enjoy timelines). The roster wasn't full of amazing names; mainly myself, Immortal, SS, J0ltz, Mrs(SLACK), SLACKEN, Nailz (not -a-nail), Noodle, and a few others. We later dropped Noodle and Nailz left for a better team; so we picked up Gry$e and Uzi. Uzi had recently left Morbid X because of some e-drama, so we bumped heads as I had always enjoyed Morbid X and became a good friend of Vader at that time. Anyways, that was the demise of More Money, with Uzi taking it to a level of threatening to fly to the Northwest and kill me, and j0ltz (probably around 10 at the time) laughing away and thinking Uzi was the coolest. Uzi disappeared, good riddens, and j0ltz left aswell. This was probably after our first season, so we handed in the towel.

After that I joined a team called Team Error. I wasn't anything more then a backup, as I still tried to pick up venoms as a medic, etc. and wasn't the best player. This team had names such as vengR/saleen and DarkHorse, along with others. We lasted a few weeks, got torn apart by Distress on beach, and died away. After that I ran around on Speakeasy servers with vengR, and really learned a lot from him. Anyways, he joined Unknpwn with Lox and Iokain, and I ended up joining UfoK. UfoKillers was a great team, with a lot of experience, and I had a great time. Roswell, Snake, DeadBull, JacKal, Tug, etc. were on the large roster; and we ended up making two divisions. In the second division Tug was looking for more players, so we recruited a player by the name of GodZilla, Mult1task's crazy brother, and Alias. We had a great time, and played the season as SC (second command) with the normal ufok tags around it. After awhile, Tug left and took his emo-esque ego somewhere else, and UfoK reformed to one team, after that I played a bit; but decided to leave and make another team. This team was called Team Necrotic, and is still around to get owned in ladders to this day. We were as follows: Myself, Mrs(SLACK), Immortal, Gry$e, Neglect, and someone by the name of Scorp!oN who is now known as Buddy, the lovable burrito making whore. Anyways, we played in TWL and CAL earlier on and didn't accomplish much, but had a great time. We pubbed a lot on O++ and Locked Box, and I tended to drag some of them into DropScape to enjoy the 10 ping or so I'd get on that server.

After that, I really finally saw what OSP had to offer, playing vs. NARF and other west coast powerhouses really showed me how much was left to learn, and how much this game can evolve; from shrub towers to scrimming 4 hours a night against huge names in gaming.

From Team Necrotic, I went into different teams and had many seasons of competition; all a bit scrambled in my mind. Some of them would namely be Seven Sins (-s!n- with redman, l0kie (radigan), hik0, Jone$, and a few others), Xcalibur (FuZioN, Mrs.T, SniperT, Cade, Erebus, etc.), and 8 (StormrideR, sho0tz, and some other fucktards). After that, I found a team that I can easily say was the best team I've been on, period. This team was }-{ell's Gate. I rarely played in matches, but had a good time when I did, and most of them had me in scrims and off matches when they could. The lineup was Sephiroth, Raiser, gMh, s0rdid, myself, mooshu, and sc1ll4. Be4st and Dresserwood were also in it for awhile, but they merged in and never really did anything besides tag up. I'm sure I'm forgetting someone in the list of main guys, but that was the core team. We had a great time on vent and I had a great time playing or as a spectator. Even back then, Raiser was a great shot on assault, and really showed quality over most CAL-M players they faced. Sephiroth and gMh (who later on went to join redline) were in their prime and it really showed. I think the best part about this team was it had it's own pub (the original }-{ell's Gate Public OSP) which was populated and filled my off-time quite a bit. After }-{ell's Gate dissolved, I really wanted to find a team that really stood out, and that had that team feel to it. I remembered the only team I played on before that had some sort of core feeling other than }-{ell's Gate was More Money.

So I reformed More Money with Mrs(SLACK), Neglect, Myself, SS, and Immortal as older players; and EnVy and a few others as newer editions to the team. This worked out perfectly, with us really bonding as a team and moving into the seasons with some decent scrims, and decent amount of teamwork under our belt. We surprised some, had a great time, and raged it up in the lower end of competition at the dying days of 2 tier competition. The only bad thing that came out of More Money v2.0 was that Immortal, my longtime friend, disappeared due to some big real life issues, and resurfaced later on a shrub server MBL months later, to most of our surprise. He hit rock bottom hard, and he was never the same. After the MBL ban, he rarely could pub on any server; and just disappeared in general.

After CAL-M got dropped, and eventually CAL dropped RtCW; the game started going into a dormant state, and the scene really seemed glim, with TWL being the only league holding more then 10 teams together. More Money took a hiatus as we found new love in other games, such as WoW and CoD, etc. We kept up on vent and mIRC for awhile, but connection dissipated, and I rarely talk to any of them anymore.

From their my main teams I can remember were Collateral Damage, with Vix3n, Virus, etc. which was great fun. Team Flatline with s0r, digitard, Sage, Circa, ABK, and some other nubs. And then the other team which I really enjoyed was Forgotten Kings, which I co-founded w/ Kovert. Our original roster was KoverT, Myself, Booty, error-, paper, Inya, and a few others. We played vs. HV on Keep in pre-season and won, was a great match. Both teams were strong and fun to play with, but fell into the same slumps of inactivity, etc.

I pubbed around, did teams, etc, and resurfaced into doing my own teams for the past few seasons. Whether it be Eternal Conquest, CS:S, Team Necrotic, Morbid X, etc. I have had many teams; and built a good reputation of having a huge roster of random players who don't ever play. Hopefully Morbid X is being represented different, as we have a core group of 8 players, and have played every match. In regards to the above teams, Eternal Conquest was the funnest; with Greven, Putz, JunioR, and a few others from old school nyX and some other older players; we generally had a good time. Greven has always been a legend in my book, even if hes a youngin, and it was great fun playing with him on a team. CS:S = Cullen Said So. Cullen, the angry communist, said I should make a team, then disappeared for a month; so I named it Cullen Said So and didn't let him join when he returned; and he now has even more spite that me than before. He's a good guy, and will probably comment here calling me a homo; but he's just insecure that the Americans will find out he is still a spy and impale him on a street sign.

Along the same line with most of this, I was part of RtCWPugs.com with Digital and ZeAu$, actually hosting pugs on dedicated servers/vent on a daily basis. I played on vent with almost every player besides the newer blank guid players of present day TWL; and it was a wonderful experience. I also was recruited as an admin for TWL-RtCW, and created the TWL-OSP 3vs3 ladder with NiteSwine. We also worked on the foundation of a tournament, but it didn't get the proper sponsorship backing; and thus the reason why I'm not a part of TWL-RtCW Administration anymore.
That is the HUGE story of my career in RtCW, with a crap loads of teams forgotten, I'm sure I'll be reminded of some in comments.

:+:VirUs047: Nice long answer! Tnx! Many of us know you've done a lot for the community, not only have you recently provided us with some wonderful interviews of RTCW greats, but you've worked as an admin for TWL, Rtcwfiles.com, and been in some very notable teams in your career. What has been a personal highlight for you in your many years in this game? Why?

Mortal: Hard to say, I always think the highlights have to be the matches, because that is the core of why a lot of people play. I stay around because of the community, competition, fun things to do and witty sites; but overall, setting up an effective strat and executing it, along with clutch plays, 3 hour games, and cheers on vent after a job well done, is the highlight of RtCW. I mean, sure some of the newer games are fun, but their isn't anything that compaires to vent on an intense RtCW server. And yeah, the worst vent experience would easily be getting yelled at for getting punted into the whelps; stupid WoW raiding :P.

RtCWFiles.com was a great experience, and was really enjoyable. It opened my eyes to how complex sites work, and thus I took a kinder to HTML, Java, GUI's, etc. and am working on a degree in Web Design. Everything in life has some sort of reprecution, good or bad, but RtCWFiles.com really affected my perception on how running sites work, how thankless a lot of it is, and how fun it can be.

:+:VirUs047: The past few months in RTCW have been a huge uplift for the community. Most recently with BOB3, TWL's Season #12, the return of several old school teams and players. These things and more have added to a renewed sense of competition in the community. While many think wolf is/was a dead game, and others consider wolf the best game still around to date, what is your personal take on RTCW? And do what do you see as the future for this game? How many more seasons can TWL keep RTCW afloat?

Mortal: RtCW is a great game, if not the greatest, and it will be around with shrub servers for awhile. As far as OSP; I posted a lot in the article ¡§Death of Competition¡¨ and will just hint at the main points here. OSP is a great mod, competition is great; but the community is very reclusive, with no new blood incoming, and some incoming to a very unenjoyable and sketchy environment. We all have had our fits, e-drama, etc. but at this time their isn't a lot of support in any sense outside of TWL; and so your left with a lot of e-thuggs who stay to brag at a game they are good at, or the diehard fans. The community is old, foreign to most, and the game does lack what many players flock to games for; graphics, a competative base at the time, and LAN tournaments.

Could Qcon2k6 tournaments help boost some interest in RtCW, sure. Could more online tournaments help the community gain in marginal size, definitely. But the fact is, you'll never see the ¡§good ole days¡¨ return, and TWL will boast RtCW for as many seasons as the teams sign up. When a season arises with 5 or so teams; you will see the game dropped from the league.
I'm in the big boat of people hoping RtCW2 is a lot like RtCW and not ET, and not a console game but a PC title. This boat is large, but the outcome of it ending up being that was is slim.
On a final note, as far as tournaments go, keep your eye out for a fully prized tournament before 2007, and no it's not going to be BoB4; ran by the wolfers, for the wolfers. Stay tuned :P

:+:VirUs047: Every team has a moment when they click and shine above everyone else. Every play has those nights when they are almost untouchable and would be called a hacker on many shrub servers. Go ahead and give us your favorite in game moment or favorite match highlight?

Mortal: Favorite game moments eh? I think some of the best ones would probably be me trying to trick jump, and everyone erupting on vent as I fail the basic jump over and over. Dueling on that MML map was always a blast, aswell as playing Tram 4v4 and still seeing people camp doorways.

Match wise, I really enjoyed playing against IcF weekly with }-{ells Gate, as the scrims/matches always seemed to be intense and I think that was the best I have ever played. Watching iN, 4k, and GMPO play blow my mind, and always stick out as great times on WTV.

I got called a hacker by Debussy of SS recently for seeing his panzer sticking out of a barel in Keep Wine cellar, and he swore up and down Gromit said he had proof I hacked. That one made me laugh, as I was a part of TWL-RtCW administration with Gromit for a short time before I left. Crazy kids will lie their asses off to win an e-fight. Good times all around imo.

:+:VirUs047: Some of us know most of the players on your roster in MorbidX, but tell us a little bit about the players on your roster in MorbidX. Start with your starters and work your way down.

Mortal: Well, I should take time to elaborate on the old team, and how it evolved into this team today. The old team was Vader, Dark_Death, Dirtbiker, ProKilla, Mzeo, W!nGz, ZephyR, Tomski, ZEDS=DEAD=, and Musashi. The newer team is good, but in no way compares to what was Morbid X. The older players returning are Mzeo and ZephyR. I hope ProKilla checks his old email, as he usually is up for RtCW; the rest have either disappeared all together or are playing Xbox (Vader, DD).

The new team is really a combo of a lot of good players I've played with, and just inquired about a team. We did get quite a few but our core roster is as follows:

Nosferatu (vengeance, bird lover, native poo-flinger): great shot, good guy, was apart of Team Necrotc for BoB3, and wanted to play TWL12.
Myself (n00b)
Vix3n (cheerleader on the frontline) Enjoyable from cD, good player, dedicated.
Karma (gA crackhead, a k a endeavor) Crazy guy on vent, ends up tking team a lot.
Natas (Fun Spamming Noobs) He's a good shot, and his voice is still sexy.
Spakowski (Fun Spamming Noobs) Good panzer, quality player.
b3h3m0th (WoW n00b)
Jeteye (SAINT Soldier) good quality player, bad shit-talker.

We are here to have fun, we have played every match, and most are much closer then they seem. I feel we could do a lot better if we got Tuesday's down as our scrim night, but as of late we go into Wednesday without a strat or any warmup; and that hurts.

:+:VirUs047: MorbidX is a strong contender this season for a playoff spot in the Axis Division. With so many solid teams ranked currently above you in TWL and in that division already, what is MorbidX’s mind set this season? What did you hope to achieve when you brought back MorbidX to play RTCW again.

Mortal: I hope we get to playoffs, It'd be great; but we need to get our shit together as far as scrims and pre-match stuff before that will ever been in grasps. I hope we can show our teamwork later down the road against big contenders and make some noise; but nothing is guarenteed. The reason why I remade Morbid X was because I always enjoyed them, and scrimmed and rang for them for the longest time. I think Dark Death or Vader would enjoy seeing us back in any form, even loosing, if they had a PC and were not owning face in Halo 2. I really enjoy playing on teams w/ WinGz, Mzeo, ProKilla, and ZephyR; and I was hoping they would all return, at the moment only Mzeo and ZephyR are around, and not that often.

:+:VirUs047: Who is going to win TWL Season #12? Why?

Mortal: Tribal Valor, look at the roster.

:+:VirUs047: Out of a ranking system of 1-10(1 being fav, 10 being least fav), list your top 10 favorite players to pub or play with? They can be active or inactive.

Mortal: As this is an enjoyable question, I'll do it like so:

Top 10:

1: Hikimoriki, he panzers me every shot but I still enjoy pubbing...
2: vengR/saleen, he used to call me a nub but I usually can get him angry on a pub...
3: w0rd + buddy, comic relief, watching Buddy fail.
4: Sephiroth, he never stopped competing, I remember he yelled at me for not reviving him on mp_dam.
5: Wooolf, he seems to always die, and it seems to always make me laugh.
6: Elusive, match quality goodness to watch when I'm dead.
7: mp40 + hydro = spam until my PC locks up.
8: ZephyR, trys so hard to pretend he sucks @ RtCW.
9: Cicatriz, overall good player, fun to pub with in general.
10: Slayayayaya, :O(

Bottom 10:

1: BoneZ, idiot.
2: myth0, an arrogent ignorant hacker who has a fan base and a scapegoat in a mentally retarded brother named war0.
3: alien, one man panzes me all the time, and doesn't reinstall quake4.
4: donka, doesn't let me knife him anymore.
5: styles69, always tries to talk to me and preach about him being clean.
6-9: anyone who spawn camps my team over and over on mp_chateau or Village. You know who you are.
10: Anyone from that Silver Spray Guild garbage. Waste of space imo.

:+:VirUs047: LOL! Nice! What are your personal top five teams in RTCW History? Serious teams. (Can be active or inactive.)

Mortal:

1: Infensus
2: NARF
3: wSw
4: GMPO
5: Animosity

:+:VirUs047: Your top five all fun teams in RTCW History? Teams who played for fun and fun only. Or perhaps teams you enjoyed playing over and over. (Can be active or inactive.)

Mortal:

1: OPP
2: Mauser Rage
3: Team Necrotic
4: Rogue Warriors
5: Morbid X

:+:VirUs047: No Colalteral Damage or Cross Breed? J/K! :D Out of the wolf community, which players would best represent the following people? (Select 1 person per character. Can be current or old school)! :D

Captain Kirk? Mr. Spock? Dr. McCoy (Bones)? Scotty? Sulu? Chekov? Uhura? Khan? Random Redshirt?

Mortal:

Captain Kirk - SnipeTX: Captain of the U.S.S. MD5Tool
Mr. Spock - Donka: The only alien amongst a human crew.
Dr. McCoy - NiteSwime: Logically minded and always ignored :P
Scotty - Sage: http://my.opera.com/overlord/homes/blog/scotty.jpg
Sulu - KillaSin: http://www.agonybooth.com/extras/trek/and_the_children/sulu.jpg (think 8 hour vent convo, Scotty was the only one who could save you).
Chekov - Lox: http://www.wnb.de/cards/chekov.jpg they could be twins.
Uhura - Vix3n: Does a lot of good, but she never really gets noticed.
Khan - Redman: http://wwwai.wu-wien.ac.at/~franz/Startrek/gifs/Filme/khan.gif fake pectorals are almost as funny as trying to convince D|S-Shams that you were D|S-Shams.
And Virus, your the ensign who always gets owned right after they get beamed down to explore the new world.

:+:VirUs047: Redshirts always get the glory! :D Mortal thank you for your time. As always it’s been a blast. GL! Best of luck to you and to MorbidX this season! Thanks!

Mortal: Best of luck with Cross Breed, and I hope you die slowly in a forest and no one ever finds your body.

:+:VirUs047: I'm sure some random forest creatures might enjoy that... Shoutouts! Let the community know who you love! :D

Mortal: Fuck, this'll be long. My team of crackheads in Morbid X, the good teammates of More Money, Eternal Conquest, Forgotten Kings, Collateral Damage, Hells Gate, and Team Necrotic. As far as players, I'd like to thank vengR for helping me as much as you did, you really opened the doors for me to be in OSP, Greven for helping me with CFGS (even tho I still use the first cfg i ever used, dT chromes; great config), Wooolf (thanks for not killing me with milkboddles you whore), Faded, Kep (One of the coolest RtCW players), scrilla, Inya, error- (come back bitch), Stormrider, Lucky (aka w0rd), Buddy (aka cum receptical), DarKon, malis, Walker, TwF, dsc, Cullen, Enzo, Orion, Mrs(SLACK), SaVior, SilentStorm, ChroNic, mp40, baby, hydro, natas, spakowski, newt, spitfire, spiticon, sonicreducer, megs, Myth, Dark Horse, Lynch, Da_G, Mark, Oblivion, Sephiroth, gMh, WarRior, Alpha, Slayayayaya, Sage, Nail, Jone$, SnipeTX, PleX, Kalamazoo, hikimoriki, dorito, SaVior, kyjelly, FuZioN, cicatriz, TP, David, sR, TheHammer, digital, ZeAu$, stat1c, Sladden, Mzeo, ProKilla, SS, St0rm, Gnomish, GrmReap0r, In$an0, MeSh, myBuzz, godz1lla, mutha, and many many more. I can't name all of you but anyone who I've known and enjoyed; you've made this game worth while. Thank you!

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TWL Season 12 Final Week Predicitions!

Posted by: [+ oo] rampage (Friday, August 25, 2006)

Well another regular season is coming to a close and for all intents and purposes this could very well be the final week of OSP regular season competition we ever see. What seemed to be a promising start to the season off the heels of BOB3 turned into a reality check with only about 18 or so active teams, a lead admin stepping down and one of the biggest community contributers also moving on. With that said there is still some games to be played and the playoffs are just around the corner. Now on to the predicitions.

Dark vs Cross:+:Breed
Not necessarily the two strongest teams but very close in terms of equal talent amongst each other. That being said, this one has my vote for MOTW and if at all possible should be the front runner for any wtv that may be available. Not for the dazzling strats or the fierce gun battles but simply because this is probably the closest matchup this week. 3-2 either way.

Onslaught vs Breakdancers
I'm really surprised at Breakdancers this season. I mean, on paper they have a pretty kick ass roster and even though most of them don't touch rtcw until match night I would have expected that their past experience alone would have led them to more than just 3 wins. Onslaught has been a middle of the road team all season having shown some flashes of talent here and there however I think they have been struggling to get a solid 6 players in recent weeks. Now I may be wrong about that but I've not seem them as active lately as they once were. If Onslaught plays like they did early in the season they can take this 3-1 otherwise it's anyones game.

Papichulos vs RsF
Like I said about breakdancers I'm extremely shocked that papichulos hasn't put up better numbers this season. The roster sports legendary names like Da_G and Herbal Tea and yet they have only managed 3 victories and a forfeit win. I understand their situation is very similar some others in that they don't even touch wolf until match night but come on now these were some of NA's top players in years past. Anyway this week should give Papi the 3-1 win giving them a 5-3 overall record heading into the playoffs.

Rabia vs Blur
This is one match that could be considered for MOTW but I think they both struggle with getting all their players on. Kind of a recurring theme this season for a lot of teams. Anyway if both can field six it should be a pretty good match. I think if rabia puts up their best linuep they outplay blur and take the 3-1 win. If one of the teams comes up short on players victory goes to the team with six OR this may not happen at all and one team walks away with a forfeit win. Who knows.

Syndicate Soldiers vs Ni!
Ni was a no show last week. SS wins by forfeit.

Teh Birdz vs Hostility
We haven't played a match since sub. We're bored with this. Have fun hostility and if you forfeit I will personally hunt you all down and cut your eyelids off and keep taking your picture with the flash on.

Jolly Roger vs Nameless
Jolly "easiest schedule in the history of wolf" Roger matches up against a 1-3 nameless team. Yeah, ummm rgr 3-0. BUT WAIT! Some might say that Tundra is the arch nemesis of rgr having lost on this very map last season to ASC Squad Bravo! Yeah well wishful thinking, rgr still wins 3-0.

Total Havoc vs Intense Combat Forces
tH wins by forfeit.

Tribal Valor vs tTt
TV bolstered their roster even more just before the dealine and are looking like the front runners for the finals. Even if tTt manages to get six this week it won't matter much unless TV plays their bench roster, which would make it a more even match. Anyway TV wins 3-0

Well I'd urge everyone to show up and enjoy your final regular season matches as they could be the last. Have fun in the playoffs. peace.

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TWL OSP Week 3 Predictions

Posted by: Mortal :o (Sunday, September 17, 2006)

Teh Birdz vs. Tribal Valor

Easily MOTW. Teh Birdz have always been a strong team, and really embody what teams should be; a group of core players staying together throughout the seasons. Not many teams of this calibur can say the same, staying with almost the same roster throughout their competative career.

Tribal Valor would be quite opposite, still being quite a strong team, but with alot of potential in different 6 man combos, but the possibilities of it being a close match will depend on who plays. If you see WarRior, rambo, slayaya, Remedy, Sage, and Militant playing for Tribal Valor, you'll see a very close match in my eyes. But WarRior, rambo, slayaya seem to have not played alot lately, so rust might cause it to be a one-sided game. Tv has alot of talent in alot of their members, but I think the solid team that is Birdz will do well and excel over Tribal Valor on Base.

The wildcard would be the fact that MeSh isn't around, but with a solid 6 still around in caffeine, LoX, iokain, mutha, rampage, spuddy, and possibly eight$; they should have a good run. Anouther would be the fact that they did play a close match against each other in the season, and this would definately be the grudge match of the season. Very close match either way.

3-2 ..|.,


The Jolly RGR vs. Syndicate Soldiers

The Jolly RGR have undoubtabley had an easy season. Not offending the other teams, but RGR has played teams of lesser calibur and it shows with the round wins/losses they have aquired. With guns such as v1d, Radea, Daniel, Lunatic, and Alien aboard plus the panzer that is w0rd; you're looking at a powerhouse team in their division.

They will not be fighting against an easy team tho, as Syndicate Soldiers have exceled in the past seasons and have come into the playoffs with a very cohesive team including Talbot, Karpov, Debussy, INya, Boo7y, and Scrilla with the panzer; you're looking at a very underrated team. Syndicate has been much more active in regards of scrimming, and has been really showing skill as of late in their matches.

The wildcard would be the fact that donka isn't playing, him being their leader and probably a big part of their team in one way or anouther. Anouther wildcard could be the fact that this is base, a map with a pretty straight forward strat that relies alot on guns and medic pushes; which I would give to RGR in that regard. It'll be a close match, but RGR will most likely be taking their team to the finals.

3-1 :X

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TWL OSP Finals: Tribal Valor vs. Jolly RGR

Posted by: Mortal :o (Thursday, September 21, 2006)

The season is coming to an end, with a big match for both Tribal Valor and Jolly RGR as they square off for the first time this season. Both teams have had a relatively easy run to the playoffs, and had some intense matches in the semi-finals to make it here, fighting for what could be one of the last TWL OSP buzzards left before they go extinct.

Let's start out with a recap on what happened this season for these two teams.

Overview: The Jolly RGR
First off, Jolly RGR, a team ran by doNka with some power players such as imposter, nard, lunatic, alien, w0rd, and v1d onboard; it is a well-oiled machine with a season under it's belt already and a very fortunate season at this time. They have shown alot of skill, and really impressed alot of players throughout the season.

Week 1: Ice vs. Exodus
The next match they played was against exodus, where they got a forfiet win vs. the powerhouse that slipped into inactivity.

Week 2: Base vs. Total Havoc
Going into week 2 on Base, they took on the newely reformed and rebuilt Total Havoc with some quality players, but Jolly RGR swept the scoreboard and took the game 3-0.

Week 3: UFO vs. Breakdancers
Week 3 on UFO put them up against a team of quality players, and bl0nk, in that of Breakdancers. It'd be a cold day in hell that Jolly RGR would give up a good streak so far, and only dropped a round to the Breakdancers.

Week 4: Village vs. Syndicate Soldiers
Quite possibly the closest season match yet for Jolly RGR, they set up to play against the team they would later meet in the semi-finals, Syndicate Soldiers; and they came into Village and fought a hard match, barely breaking Syndicate Soldiers and taking a victory 3-2.

Week 5: Sub vs. Papi
Week 5 on Sub placed Jolly RGR against Papi, a team with some real talent and some legendary names (Da_G), but weren't about to give up their 3-0 streak and took down Papi with little conciquence, 3-1.

Week 6: Frostbite vs. Blur
Week 6 rolled around, and this well-oiled machine would not break down any time soon, steamrolling over Blur, which some predicited would be a close match, with anouther 3-0 win on Frostbite.

Week 7: Assault vs. Swat Guys
Week 7 gave the pirates a break, w0rd went to get waxed, v1d designed pictures in ET console, and Alien masterbated to Lego Star Wars; Swat Guys were on duty and didn't show up so Jolly RGR took anouther forfiet win.

Week 8: Tundra vs. Team Nameless
Team Nameless came into the season late, and filled a needed slot, but was not anything more than a bump in the road for Jolly RGR, who took anouther 3-0 win on Tundra.

Playoff Week 1: Frostbite vs. Team Trinity
Being undefeated, they headed into the playoffs vs. a returning Team Trinity. Returning to Frostbite, Jolly RGR fought hard gainst Team Trinity, and despite Trinity's best efofrt, Jolly RGR took them down with a 3-0 win, winning all 6 rounds on Frostbite this season with no rounds lost. Impressive.

Playoff Week 2: Beach vs. Papi
Papi took down Dark, a very active and solid team throughout the season, in Round 1 of the playoffs to face off against Jolly RGR once again. This time, they left Sub and took the battle to Beach, and again, Papi's fell short of denting the Jolly RGR machine; loosing 3-0 and causing StormrideR to bust his burrito.

Semi-Finals: Base vs. Syndicate Soldiers
Will anyone be able to stop this team? Well, the only team who came close was the team in Week 4, Syndicate Soldiers, who almost gave Jolly RGR a loss on Village. Both with strong ratios and some great matches behind them, they faced off once again on a new battlefield, the one and only Base. Jolly RGR came out strong and nailed Syndicate Soldier's coffin closed, delivering an impressive 3-1 win on a classic map.

Season Win/Loss
11 Wins (2 Forfiets) - 0 Losses
27 Rounds Won (not including 6 by Forfiet) - 5 Rounds Lost

And now their opponent...


Overview: Tribal Valor
Tribal Valor, also known as FLATEFFECT, with players from Team Flatline such as s0r, Sage, and digital, and players from Team Effect such as Rambo, WaRrioR, Remedy, Slayaya, and Militant. They came into this season being an instant favorite, with some great players and alot of older players returning to form what hasn't been seen in awhile, a powerhouse in their own right.

Tribal Valor formed after Week 1, and so their first match was Week 2, on base...

Week 2: Base vs. Locked on Target
Anouther team left inactive from the BoB3 slump, Locked on Target dissolved before the season started, and gave Tribal Valor a forfiet win for their first match together.

Week 3: UFO vs. RSF
Tribal Valor went into Week 3 all buisness, taking apart the newly reformed RSF team, and not looking back, 3-0.

Week 4: Village vs. Indifference
Taking on the OSP version of Xtreme Soldiers, Tribal Valor flaunted anouther easy 3-0, with some well played games, Indifference fell short of making a mark on Tribal Valor.

Week 5: Sub vs. Teh Birdz
Quite possibly the most talked about match of the season, Teh Birdz faced Tribal Valor on of all maps, Sub. Both teams played well, and the match ended up spiraling into chaos, as server/player disconnections caused a possible round loss for Teh Birdz, and a few weeks later they reset and replayed the match, ending 3-2 Tribal Valor.

Week 6: Frostbite vs. Precision Gaming
Precision Gaming decided to not show up and gave Tribal Valor anouther forfiet win this season, and eventually biting the bullet after forfieting to other teams.

Week 7: Assault vs. Rabia
Anouther well-rounded team faced against Tribal Valor on Assault, and was torn apart in a 3-0 win. Rabia tried their best and fought well, but was overpowered and couldn't hold a round.

Week 8: Tundra vs. Team Trinity
Walking into Week 8 undefeated, with a 6-0 ratio, Tribal Valor took down Team Trinity with confidence and dominated the large area's in Tundra. 3-0.

Playoff Week 1: Frostbite vs. ICF
IcF had a rocky season, with alot of inactivity and below par play, taking on teams to only fall short of wins multiple times; and this wouldn't be either. IcF showed up to play, but didn't fall short, they were dominated. Tribal Valor took anouther 3-0 win on Frostbite.

Playoff Week 2: Beach vs. Onslaught
Onslaught has rose to be respected as a very active, innovative, and competative clan. Revolving around teamwork, not shear skill, Onslaught has had alot of upsets and really shown some skill but with roster problems and an opponent such as Tribal Valor, they wouldn't get their time to shine. Onslaught fought on Beach, and lost 3-0 to Tribal Valor.

Semi-Finals: Base vs. Teh Birdz
Rematch time, just like Jolly RGR, Tribal Valor faced against the only team who took 2 rounds from them earlier in the season, and came into the match very prepaired and took down Teh Birdz 3-0.

Season Win/Loss
10 Wins (2 Forfiets) - 0 Losses
24 Rounds Won (not including 6 by Forfiet) - 2 Rounds Lost


And now to the championship:


Finals: Ice - Tribal Valor vs. The Jolly RGR
Both teams come into this match with no losses, and few rounds lost overall. Both teams have had 2 forfiet wins attained, and have bested their only 3-2 opponents 3-0 in a semi-finals rematch. Tribal Valor come into this match only giving 2 rounds the entire season, and The Jolly RGR only gave 5; but The Jolly RGR has a total of 11 wins, with Tribal Valor only having 10 because of a late start in the season. Both teams are confident on their respective maps, whether this is one of them is unknown, but overall this is quite a matchup, and will hopefully be a good match. Good luck to both teams and fight like you want it, as this is one of the last times you'll have the chance.

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Interview: FuZioN

Posted by: Mortal :o (Friday, September 29, 2006)

Mortal: Hey FuZioN. First off, tell us about yourself, what you do in the real world, where you live, your name, age, etc. What things outside of RtCW and PC Gaming to you really enjoy?

x FuZioN: Sup? The name's Colin, I'm 18, and I'm currently residing in Murfreesboro, TN. I'm a CIS major at Middle Tennessee State University, minoring in business administration. Outside of RtCW and PC gaming I'm your regular college student, somehow managing a pretty good schedule of partying, studying and working at UPS. In my free time I'll be kicking it with whoever, normally going to a show or just taking it easy with my roommates. In October I will be dealing blackjack at the Wildhorse Saloon :)


Mortal: You have played RtCW for quite awhile, whether it be playing for DP in shrub such a long time ago or playing for Rabia for OSP Season 12; you have had quite an extensive clan background. Explain to us what clans you had, what one's really stood out, why you liked to be apart of a team, and what where the most memorable times as apart of a clan/team.

x FuZioN: My memory may be a little bit off, but for the most part it's pretty accurate.

I started off pubbing at
SparkyTown on my beast of a computer, 1.7ghz, 256mb of pc133 ram, and integrated graphics. Luckily at the time, I didn't know what frame lag was :) I was a pretty pathetic gun at the time, so most of my pubbing time would be occupied by the panzerfaust. However I learned to be a pretty damn good med, taught by one of the best, FDR. I looked up to guys like Sparhawk from [DP], Maynard, =EoK=, =SFX=, PiTa, and some other shrub guys who could throw down. I was taken in by Dead Presidents, mainly a pretty cool group of guys at the time. I want to say I was 13 at the time, so obviously I was the youngest one in the bunch. However one of the older members, [DP]Harrison had a kid, DerSoldat, who was pretty damn good at the time and wanted to start competing. However, he was 12, lol. Technically we weren't old enough to be members of DP because of the age limit, so DerSoldat and I decided to start up a clan for young gamers such as ourselves. The name? Next Generation. The tags? =NG=... oh god.

Anyways, it didn't take long at all for us to get things going. We mainly recruited off that same server, picking up guys like Kolosok, MikeRoth, Smoky, and eventually got our names out there. We picked up TWL and started competing in the 5v5 ladder. Our first scrim was against a team called Crossbreed... hmm sounds familiar. Funk_Dokta was their leader at the time, a regular at SparkyTown. I want to say we lost 3-1, on base and keep. We set up scrims and started to get our shit together, but that was mainly just getting to know each other and check out the whole competition side of wolf.

I was instantly interested. From then on out I wanted to do nothing but compete. Sure, I loved pubbing, but I would much rather prefer organized gameplay. Anyways, =NG= couldn't really get anything going because we didn't have any communications, just AOL instant messenger (yes, we were those n00bs.) [DP] offered us a teamspeak server and forums to use, very generous of them. However, that's one of those "business guilds." We had to wear their tag to be able to have the teamspeak. So... we became [DPng].

That didn't last long, I made several friends online and other people offered us servers to use for comms. I didn't like the [DPng] thing at all, we wanted to be our own clan without their dictatorship above us, because they would try to have say in almost everything we did. Being the rebel that I am, we quickly branched off on our own and became just next generation again. By that time we had a little bit of swagger going, we were pretty well known on the 5v5 ladder taking on teams such as eggnogsquad, AkT, and =NCG=. We hated the shrub tags, and decided to move on to something more original, )nG(. Things were going great, we had a few new recruits, Auslander and X-Ra!ded who really stepped up our game a notch.

After about 6 months of being together, my family was moving and I was going to lose my internet connection for a while. NG tried to keep it together but didn't really succeed.

I was able to keep up with how things were going because Smoky is my best friend in real life, and now roommate. By the time I had gotten back, he had moved on to =SFX=. At the time =SFX= actually had a pretty decent OSP team, with ColdBackHand, Newbie0, Trogdor, YourBigFatMomma, KNASnakeeyes, Widowmaker, and Jacka. Some of you guys may know Jacka better as Cade.

I made alot of progression through experience playing with SFX, but I was still mainly using the panzerfaust. Cade pretty much introduced Smoky and I to all of the OSP servers, such at Texas Stopwatch, O++, and the Speakeasys. One weekend I happened in on a speakeasy server, checking out a couple of guys dueling. Those guys would be eod.:n@ps and myth0logy. I would watch them go at it, and I was amazed at how these guys were shooting. Once myth0logy had enough of his dome engraved by n@ps, I starting asking the n00b questions. He was all about helping me out. The first thing he did was give me a config, and got me to start dueling him. I didn't gun much so it was definitely a change of pace for me switching from shrub to OSP. From there it was nothing but progression from then on out. Cade had moved on to |X|calibur, and Smoky followed. I stuck it out with SFX for a while until I realized they didn't really want to take anything seriously.

Season 5 was starting in CAL and Excalibur was holding tryouts, so Smoky and Cade got me in. The thing was, they already had their panzerfaust in Rowdy, so I had to pick up the needle and medpacks and give it a shot. I eventually got in after they saw what I had to offer. I was by no means any good at the time, but Sniper-T and MrsT saw potential in me because I followed strats well and I was already friends with Cade and Smoky. This is where my actual "gaming career" began. I remember my first match in CAL-o Season 5 preseason on frostbite, against VIB. I recognized alot of guys on their roster from SparkyTown and the RO/RC forums, such as Mich, Sgt. Fury, and some other guys. Mich was an absolute beast at the time (at least in my eyes.) The match is going great, then my PC freezes. I reboot and get back on and start working with |X|'s local PC genius, Pr3d4t0r. He's asking the basic questions to try to diagnose my computer, then he asks me if I was overclocking my video card. I was like... "video card... wtf is that?" He had me install Sandra and take a screenshot so he could see what my PC was running, because I was an absolute noob at the time when it came to computers. He convinced me to go out and buy a video card, but of course I had to go with something cheap. Ended up going for the GeForce 5200.

This is the point where I took the biggest leap of progression in my game. I had the config, and now I had the FPS. Changing from 20-30 FPS to 43-76 was huge. I would always get my fair share of kills before hand, but now I became a pretty consistent shooter and just a pure damage disher. That sparked alot of my interest in computers, and now it's something I'm going to be studying over the next four years as well. Anyways, |X| had a great core of guys, Sniper-T, MrsT, J33v3s, Jacka, Smoky, Metal_Man, Rowdy, destruct!on, BoB, Pred, Grunt, and Avenger. I eventually ended up taking over a starting spot because of Metal's inactivity and our starters were the T's, jacka, smoky, me, and Rowdy.

It didn't take long for me to keep improving, I was already beginning to make a name for myself on O++, locked box, and TXSW, and became involved on the PW forums. However, as |X| had a real fun group of players, we didn't play that well. My first season we ended up finishing 3-5, and cade left for EoD and cal-main. However, we learned alot that season. I remember watching CAL-i playoffs, watching mp_base, seeing all of NARF head to tunnel doing the trick jump. At the time, that was something I had never seen before and immediately tried to add that to my game. Weeks later I got to see CAL-i finals between [fX] and ]NARF[, watching fX take the early lead, but NARF came back and evened it at 2-2. The last round fX set a beast time and held it until the last minute, with a last push by NARF to grab docs and win the game. It was probably the most impressive win I've ever seen throughout my career, other than GMPO @ quakecon on ice.

However our record in didn't show how well we really turned things around. We started scrimming and getting our shit together by scrimming teams like !SoS!, |HfH|, VIB, TV, among others. By that time x didn't have a solid starting roster, and we had recruited too many players. That offseason the T's wanted to take the next step and become a competitive team, and make a run at winning Cal-O. However, they decided to split the team into two teams - one more competitive, the other much more laid back. They asked me to take over for competition, and I took that position and didn't look back. I was ready to make the jump from a decent team to a playoff team. To do this, I needed more competitive players. We scrimmed with the same core group of Sniper-T, myself, Smoky, Rowdy, and destruct!on.

That offseason we took a big hit though, destruct!on got caught with a wallhack on O++.

I'll let you guys in on a few things here. Destruction claimed it was his little brother who downloaded the hacks while he was at his dad's house for the weekend. We always kept things in house in |X|, we were almost like a family, so MrsT believed him. She convinced KuNiva, who was a CAL admin at the time, to get rid of all of the evidence but he wouldn't do it unless destruct!on pretty much dissapeared, so he had to come up with a new alias. It happened so fast I doubt anyone still playing wolf ever knew it happened. It made the forums, but destruct!on was "cut" from the team, as the community would see it. So what was his new alias? Some of you will get a kick out of this one, destruct!on was no other than the player Desolate. The thing is, we all believed him and didn't think anything of it at the time and we all moved on. No one outside of Kuniva, MrsT/Sniper-T, Desolate, and myself knew. The only reason I knew was because I was the one who turned him in to MrsT, because I was pubbing with him at the time.

Season 6 was about to roll around, and I had to get my team together. I had MrsT, Sniper-T, Smoky, myself, and I brought back cade. We needed a constant 6th though. Sniper-T brought in a friend of the family, Jason, who used to play with HCC back in season 3/4 I believe. Everyone will know this guy as s!Lo. He scrimmed with us for a while, and he brought alot of experience to the table that we needed. We all knew that, so we convinced him to come back to wolf and play for us. We still needed to add a few more players though. On our less competitive team we had a guy named BoT who wanted to bring in a friend of his from demo, named ZerO. He was by far one of the better tryouts we had, but he lacked any experience. Once he had scrimmed with us, he turned into a great player. I kinda molded him into the player he is today, we'd stay up late and duel/pub/trickjump, just trying to improve on our game. Over time his new alias was lateralus.

Again, we still didn't have 6, but after pubbing all the time on GLOW/NARF's server, we came across this crazy drunk guy named (TK1)DaKind, and we offered him a tryout. Dak was probably one of the most underrated players in wolf at the time, and became a pure damage disher and a solid med. We finally had a solid 6, and solid backups in desolate and di@blo, who I brought in as an old friend from nG. We started off strong, and started to be a well-known clan throughout the league, teams were no longer taking us lightly. Our 6 at the time was myself, Sniper-T, lateralus, s!Lo, daKind, and erebus (smoky).

Season 7 we really turned it around in preseason, and quickly became well known around the league, moving us up to CAL-m. It didn't take long for people to begin accusing us of hacking. Well known players such as laws_69, stiegl, and others didn't understand how we were a bunch of no namers and began to rage all of a sudden. We had a pretty deep run that season, but eventually lost to -x- on ice or scourge on another map. I don't remember which one. Footage from this season can be found in the xcal movie: http://own-age.com/vids/video.aspx?id=6681

After that season everyone decided to break up and go into different directions. Tony and Jesse (The T's) started up their own pizza place and weren't going to be around. We all kept in touch, as we always have.

I still wanted to remain competitive, but I moved away from wolf temporarily. I was more into the whole "multigaming" scene then, playing different games, CoD, CS, ET, the list goes on. However as someone always does, Natas came to me about starting up a team for RtCW. He was an old friend of mine from OPP and the RtCW scene looked good at the time. So we gave it a go. [c]onvulsion was the team name, and I brought in some old friends to give this team a go. Silo and dakind both joined from xcal, and we also brought in eternal, Jfreak who were clanless at the time and were definitely interested in getting a team going. I also got some old friends from RTCWOnline/RTCWCentral, those players were cheaptr1ck (among other aliases,) rinker, and vexed, Infinite who was still on 56k at the time, as well as cyanide who I became friends with in ET. Looking back on this team we had plenty of talent and if we had enough active players in RtCW we would have gone farther than we did, but we were caught up in other games.

We tried out another guy, who was an xcal fanboy, his name was l0rax at the time. He was a pretty solid player, but was just annoying as fuck. After days of him asking to join us, we finally said if you go by the name WolfPlayer you can join. Pretty gay, but he immediately tagged up. You guys know him better by the name confucious, or ConF. So we had our solid team, and were ready to make a push for the playoffs. We joined 3 games late into the season so we had some catching up to do. I'll never forget the match I'm going to tell you about. It was against Natas' old teammates at OPP on beach. We came out very strong and went up 2-0, and set a time sub 4 minute I believe. I remember hearing on vent that silo said he would uninstall RTCW if we lost that match and let them come back. Dak claimed the same. Sure enough, OPP made a comeback and capped our sub 4 minute time. Then proceeded to win the next round; and the next. OPP came back and beat us fair and square in a match we had put away. I've always given them loads of credit, and that bastard hydro reminds me every occassion he can, lol. Sticking to their word, silo and dak were done.

We had a TWL match the next day, and they were done. So we only had 5 guys and played 5v6 -vs- !tH!, and you all know they ran a panzer. It's what they "practiced for" so they're going to keep to their strat. It didn't matter though, we took it to them and beat them 5v6. We knew we were still capable of winning so we kept going. Later on in the season when we were hurting for players due to inactivity, we brought in the biggest clanhopper of all time, comm0n. You gotta love the guy though. We had plenty of issues at first, but we've gotten past them. We made a solid playoff run and got to !UgB! on village, taking the first round 6v6, and then losing cyanide because he got kicked off his computer, lmao. Down 5v6 we couldn't hold and lost 3-1. Convulsion moved on to CoD, and renamed to yeX!, and became a pretty solid team. As far as I know they're not around anymore though.

Cal-Main Season 8 was upon us. However, I was stuck in the same situation again. I wanted to remain competitive but the group I was in moved on. I got a PM from Akasha letting me know that RC was coming back and that they'd like to have me join. The current roster at the time was Akasha, ZeroPhade, Bread, Sedated, and me. We still needed another player, and everyone talked Jason into coming back to play with us. From there we needed our panzer, and Akasha brought in LucKyB, who brought Impostor and KuNiva along with them. This was by far the most solid team I had ever been on. Great communication, great teamwork, and great skill players. We had our LT's in Akasha and Silo, meds Bread, Sedated and myself, and a great panz in LucKyB.

We won our first couple games and came to our first bump in the road being scheduled against Hostile Inc. It was the original Hostile Inc minus Bread and Warrior. The problem was, Bread wasn't going to be around that week, so we had to play without one of our best players. The beach bandit had to step in, and not only did he step in but he stepped his game up big time. This guy is a beast on mp_beach and there's not a better teammate to have around than Impostor. He had plenty of clutch saves on that map and we ended up winning that game. However, there was massive controversy from this match when I uploaded my demo. At one point in the match I was speccing silo, and heard a guy coming up the radio stairs and told silo to be ready to check that corner. Sure enough there was a guy there and he prefired. If you're interested, the demo is here: http://cached.net/?go=%2A/demo/single/15806////textmatch/fuzion

A few weeks later silo went inactive due to work and his new CS fetish. We had to have someone step in, and kuniva was the guy who did so. Kuniva was never a great player, but he was a very smart player and gave us some old strats that Minions used, Bread and I threw our own twist on it, and really helped us out. That's why we were beating teams like Inc. Later in the season though everyone is losing interest, and starting to become inactive and we weren't scrimming. Like many times throughout my gaming career I was having computer problems, except this time was probably the worst. I had an issue with my video card/network card in which they would be hogging resources from one another, because they were sharing the same IRQ. At some points i'd have maybe 76 fps, but a 300 ping, a 50 ping but 15 fps. Anyways, we made our playoff push and picked up pharreL from the birdz before roster locks. We ended up losing to Arabian Goggles on village. Akasha was tired of all the hacking accusations, Bread was done with RTCW, LucKyB and Impostor went back to -x-. Again, I'm left without a team.

Where do I end up going this time? Season 9 was around the corner, and Tony and Jesse were back, but still a bit inactive. We got the group back together and gave it another shot. It was mainly all the players from Season 7, but with more of the less competitive team. Bob was active, Kevin was back(lateralus), desolate was starting, diablo, and of course me and silo. We played the first match without scrimming at all. We still didn't have active players.

I don't remember the right week, but Vatican had pmed silo about joining fX. He explained their situation, which was similar to ours at xcal. They weren't going to give it up though, they knew sMn had formed to take over fX's reign. Silo said he was definitely interested in joining, but wouldn't make the switch without bringing me in as well. I wasn't really down for leaving xcal unless I was going to be starting for a team that was going to be competitive and active. We were both offered starting positions, and we played on. I was still having PC issues though, and since Rambo came back and was active he replaced me. That's not what I left xcal for though, and I got out of fX after a couple of weeks with them. I wasn't down for scrimming all week then riding the pine around match time. I got the shaft, in my opinion, but definitely left on good terms and there was no love loss.

Eventually I was able to fix my PC though and was ready to move on. MiNions was back and HaVoc wanted to bring me in to tryout. I was with them for about a week, but couldn't stand n!kon. I got out of there real quick. I hit up rabia for recruiting because they had an old buddy of mine, pand, playing for them and I saw them heading in a good direction. After scrimming with them and found out how laid back they were and the teamwork they had, I knew that's where I wanted to play. This is the season that the infamous s!Lo got "caught." More on that later though. Rabia really stepped up their game play and I found myself again deep in the playoffs, and again on an underdog team. We eventually ended up losing to fX on tundra 3-2 and our season was over.

Season 10 approached, but I was pretty much done with wolf. I had moved on to ET to compete there, as I saw the RtCW community at its last breath. However I was still around and played with pissclams and the dominant HairPullers, which again had the inactive bug. Season 11 I didn't compete, and Season 12 we brought back rabia.


Mortal: You recently played for Rabia for TWL OSP Season 12, and had a great run into the Playoffs, and had a hard match vs. Teh Birdz in Week 2 of the playoffs. Recap the season, what really stuck out about it, and how you think TWL did for their 12th OSP season.

x FuZioN: Season 12 started out great, it was mostly all of the old rabia minus axe, monster, and kal. We still had triz, pand, aequitas, hiki, and myself. We had a very solid roster aquiring KK over the offseason, fenix, caseyjones, my roommate nurka, and eventually silentstorm and cade.

Our first match of the season was a forfeit win, and the first one we actually played was against ICF. It took us a while to gel, and ICF went up 2-0 I believe. We had to adjust and I ended up setting up a completely different strat during the break. Everyone stepped up their game and we finished the rest of the match in almost dominate fashion. The next week we played BirdZ, a map we prepared alot on; te_ufo. However our main issue that week was too many players, and we were constantly subbing in and out all week. Ultimately Birdz had the better team though.

After that match elliott mysteriously dissapeared, and we didn't hear from him. After we beat onslaught the next week, we lost hiki due to a dead powersupply. Cade moved off to college, fenix moved back to college, SS was out dating pissclams, KK was getting owned by his girlfriend, CaseyJones dissapears weeks at a time, and yet again, I find myself on an inactive team except this time with a college connection. Things went pretty downhill from then on out, we had our moments such as gathering together to beat crossbreed on sub.

The next week we had an easy match against Ni! (no offense), but had 4 guys show up I believe. Me and nurka were out at the dave matthews concert but let everyone know before hand. We managed to get a 6th player in the second round against Tv, but our season was pretty much over weeks before hand, we were just all trying to save it. We actually were able to scrim for the last week of the season against blur, but still ended up losing 3-2 on tundra again due to mix-ups.

Playoffs rolled around though, and we held RsF easily. So then we're looking at the BirdZ again. Elliott shows up in our private IRC channel mysteriously, and says once he gets a cdkey and a config he's back. Hmm left after the birdz match, and showed back up for the birdz match... I'll leave the speculation up to you. Hiki fixed his pc and is back for some action. We scrim and really got our shit together on beach, which is a map I've come to love competitively over the years.

Match day rolls around and I've got some old friends that showed up at my doorstep, and I end up drinking a fifth of jager a couple of hours before the match because I'm just kicking it with some old friends and my roommates. Then I remember I have a match. I show up on vent and as soon as I connect and speak they knew I was pretty fucked up, but they had been used to that throughout the season. This time I'm just plastered though and almost useless. I did get docs and cap a 2:50 time against onslaught in a scrim though and it was pretty hysterical at the time. Eventually they told me to go sober up though so I tried to go eat and gather myself, but end up passing out. As far as I know they lost 3-1, but I've yet to see demos or anything :( This was planned to be my last RtCW match, and I ended up getting too fucked up to play. Sad way to go out, but what's done is done and I've had plenty of matches throughout my career. ggs


Mortal: Alot of teams are really trying to compete in shrub, as has always been some competition in that area, but why do you think teams and leagues are leaning towards shrub over OSP; and why do you think Shrub attracts more players in regards to pub value?

x FuZioN: There's always been a shrub league, it's actually much smaller now than it once was. The competition may be more leveled out now, though. Throughout my career I played plenty of shrub, I mean that's how I started out playing the game. OLTL has always been one of my favorite pub activities, on the ganja palace and at one time UDP. I'm actually supposed to be competing shrub this season with I Love Lamp, but as previously stated, I'm done gaming. More people are leaning towards shrub now because it's just an overall more fun mod to play -- and it's always been that way.

OSP has always been the more superior competitive mod. The main thing that's helping the shrub leagues is the amount of shrub players that there are, they dominate the wolfenstein community now; not necessarily on planet-rtcw, but just at an overall perspective. Due to RTCW's history, the old egos from the competitive OSP days, shrub players lose alot of interest in OSP. Sure, they'd love to compete, but they do it for fun. There were always those teams, take a look at [DSB], We Happy Few, Collateral Damage, etc. In shrub you will put up with egos for sure -- just spend 5 minutes on Chaos DM server or tehpalace. However, communities were developed in their mods as well. Look at Happy Penguin, SparkyTown, Teh Palace as examples. All of those servers have its regulars, and osp servers such as speakeasy's have always been aliased players talking shit and playing DM. Shrub just happens to be more active, but I don't see the leagues leaning to that mod as it's primary attraction.


Mortal: You are a fan of football, and have played some of the football games, aswell as done some fantasy football in the past. What attracts you to football, what football games do you like the most, who are you rooting for in this NFL season?

x FuZioN: It's just something I grew up doing. I played football throughout my childhood but was tired of spending all of my free time into playing, and I had to get a job to afford to drive and such. I was done playing football my sophomore year in high school, but would have continued to do so if I was able to do it. When my parents went through a divorce I had to get a couple jobs to help support the family and myself, so it was just something I had to get away from.

Growing up I was a HUUUUGE 49ers fan, call me a bandwagon follower, but I was just fascinated with their offense and primarily Steve Young. As time went on, I looked up to other players such as Brett Favre, Derrick Thomas, Barry Sanders, Randall Cunningham, etc., and just became an overall fan of the game of football. I heard about the Oilers moving to Tennessee, and my Dad was esctatic to hear it. He was a big Chiefs/Oilers fan. We followed them when they moved here and it was the local game, so I watched them every week and eventually really came to like them. Steve McNair and Eddie George were two big stars coming up at the time and we had a solid team.

Once they moved away from the Liberty Bowl in Memphis and actually came to Nashville, I got season tickets to see them play at Dudley Field (Vanderbilt Stadium), and they turned things around and went 8-8. The next year they became the Titans. Would you believe we were almost the Tennessee Tornadoes? How gay is that? Anyways, the new look was great. As many of you know, the Titans made it to the SuperBowl that year, and I won't lie I bawled when they lost. 1 yard short? Ultimate rejection.

Anyways I'll get off the Titans for a moment. I did ALOT of fantasy football back in the day, one year I was in 8 different leagues I believe. I loved fantasy football because it's like managing your own team, you gotta know who to start and who to sit, and if you're good you make alot of changes every week. In the past I've ran my own leagues with some online gamers, Sage won one year and I think Infinite the next. I'm not doing any FF this year, but I've probably followed football more this year than any years past.

It's the love for the game :)


Mortal: Let's dig up something a bit older, as everyone really enjoys the "good ol' days", and talk about S!lo. He was apart of Xcalibur, a team you were a promident figure on for a long time. Tell us about how you and S!lo came to know each other, and what you felt when he was exposed as what would be one of the most infamous cheaters in RtCW history. Where is S!lo now?

x FuZioN: Jason (s!Lo) was a guy who Tony (Sniper-T) and Jesse (MrsT) knew and he started pubbing with us on our pub server when we still had one. We mainly ran maps like base2, kolo's beach2, predproject, etc. It didn't take long for him to get his game back, and despite what everyone believes, silo was a very solid wolfplayer. You will always have the guys who "knew all along," but that's just what they want to believe. They might have known silo was fishy, but this was during a time in which RtCW was going through massive hack-o-phobia. Everyone on xcal vent would joke around about so and so hacking, I'd kill a few guys and they'd all claim hax. Almost every time MrsT got a kill we called hax on her :) It was so common. We had ringers come in and play with us all the time. Guys like warzone, JohnnyBlaze, Bread, among several other players were almost like regulars on our ventrilo, so they knew
how the environment was.

I always knew something was going on though, because siLo would bring up hacks alot. He just knew too much about them to not have experience with them, and I'll go ahead and let that out. Sniper-T and MrsT knew silo was hacking back in Season 4 with HCC, in the playoffs against outsiders I believe. Yes, everything the other hacker (HaVoC) said is true about silo. The hack that
destruct!on got caught with was no other than silo's wallhack. Everyone covered things up from each other, which baffled me because we kept everything inside the clan, but none of this would ever get out to us. Tony and Jesse both knew Jason's past but still brought him in, because he said he'd be legit.

Contrary to popular belief, he was. Almost everyone ran PBss, we ran them on our server, Texas Swingline ran them, Speakeasy's had switched to them, D|S always ran them during our scrims, fX wouldn't play us unless it was on their server, among several other teams. Go back and ask all of those players -- his SS were legit. ChaosLord was probably the only guy who was completely sold on silo having an aimbot. I was sure they existed, but never saw one first-hand. Again, this was just laughed at and we moved on. Silo actually claimed he had some evidence of CL hacking, now if that will ever be released, I doubt it.

No one believed me in the previous cached demo that silo was legit. That was pretty much a huge event in which Serb got all over him for. It still doesn't make sense to me to this day how they patched things up and ended up gaming together and being friends. However, he saw plenty of evidence that he was legit by scrimming us on their server. Throughout my gaming career with him, over 3 clans, yeah I did see some crazy stuff. But it was never something that I didn't hear in my headphones, see in the corner of the screen, or random nades. However, his favorite spot on Beach was to guard ducts... go figure, lol.

Silo didn't actually get "caught" by someone, he gave it up in my eyes. He was tired of everyone calling hacks, didn't like where the community and leagues were going, and he said fuck it and went out and hacked. He knew PBss were running, so it's not like it was an accident. He was smarter than that. You all know what happened from there though, and our friendship went very sour from there.

A couple of months back I joined up on the ventrilo server all of the old xcal guys hang out on. It's a CS:S community now, and they run their own servers. Bread, Desolate, siLo, cade, Dakind, Akasha, Sedated, among other players can be found there. I want to say the name of the server is The Brewery and silo is 'wtf mang'. As far as I know they aren't hacking and aren't competing.


Mortal: Alot of Wolfers seem to develope a rivalry, whether professional or malicious, with other players throughout their career in RtCW. Do you have any such rivalries?

x FuZioN: Ah yes, now that you have brought this up I remember another clan that I was in, right after NG and before SFX. I was pubbing on SparkyTown and this guy named LoyalGuard came in asking for a ringer, and being the noob I was, I said I would do it. I didn't even know what a ringer was at the time. Anyways, the clan was *SpY*. Loyalguard, Transit, ryan921, time-bomb, daedalus (who was aliased), Flagman, and ALOT of others were in this clan. They had an STA match and signed me up on the roster so I could play. I think we ran 7 panzers in that match on UFO, it was lethal. Looking back it was pathetic. I couldn't stand the guy though, he was just one of those annoying types of characters. Every week from then on out he was always bringing in ringers for matches, and it was getting old. I started to do my research on this clan, and found out that the guy they called Daedalus was caught hacking a while back. I found that out and got out of there quick. By no means did I leave on good terms with them. I turned them in to STA, told them about the ringers and everything, and they eventually got suspended.

If you hear the story from LoyalGuard or Transit, they'll say I was a terrible player and I gave out their super-secret-spy strats. That didn't happen, plus I don't think it was hard for other teams to figure it out, 7 panzers on defense...

Later on I found out they tried to make a comeback, and again did my research to put them away. They renamed to executables and another member of their team got caught hacking, Gumby. When gumby got caught he moved on to multi-clan and alias, as well as spam the TWL forums with thousands of GUIDs. Two hackers in one clan, plus a history of ringing, these guys were on a mission. I found them coming back yet again as Superheros and made a post on PW. http://www.forumplanet.com/PlanetWolfenstein/topic.asp?fid=6049&tid=1181319&p=1

Alot of flames there :)

Another time I developed some sort of a rivalry was during the time of the "hack5-o", in which KoverT brought on alot of hate and turned into a pretty big deal. You can find all that drama @ http://planet-rtcw.com/?page=news&id=846#comments

Other than those two, I'd say I don't have any more existing rivalries. Alot of people may dislike me, but I don't see anything serious there.


Mortal: You had a stint in ET, playing for quite a few good teams, but what made you stay in the RtCW scene and not dissapear into ET like so many former RtCW players have done?

x FuZioN: Other than ladders with convulsion, my first stint in ET would have been playing for reverence, Radea's team, who cyanide brought me over to tryout. However the purpose behind that clan was to beat another clan in week one, some sort of rivalry between radea and them, and we lost and disbanned.

Later on in my ET career, I joined LoT, which consisted of me, drunksold1er, wolfnoob, dakota, neo, animal, nothx, can't remember them all. Nothx got in trouble for talking shit on a pub though, and Muddy kicked everyone out of the ET division. From there I made another team, -asylum-, which was originally me, cade, robesz, justin, rev, redzone, jibba, and some others. We eventually got sponsored by Check 6 and were their ET division. Aftet that season we took a break from ET, and eventually came back as team sauce, all the same players. When sauce died yet again, I played with after effect for a little while, and eventually team sauce formed yet again. This time it was justin bringing back his old RTCW clan, slateoon. The core was back with me, justin, rev, redzone and robes, but we brought in aandw and gatlin from accel, eternal, endR, and mercy. Probably the best ET team I was on. Great team, lack of interest in ET though. The latest I've done in ET is play a few games with maVen, but I'm done.


Mortal: What is your favorite RtCW map? Why?

x FuZioN: It's gotta be beach. It's got plenty of different phases to set up, you don't see common defenses even in today's time. Sure they have the same basics, but almost every team does something different. Plus it's a doc map, and docs > blown OBJ's. It was sad to see beach2 by Kolosok not get much interest from the competition admins, same with base2. Those two maps are wolf greats, and the second versions seem even better in my eyes, changing things up and making it more fast paced. My second favorite would have to be sub.


Mortal: You have recently talked about leaving gaming, and moving on in life. What motivated you to take a 360 and decide to stop playing games all together, as you were just a competator in a game?

x FuZioN: Alot of things actually. It didn't help that my connection won't be improving any time soon. I'm not really down to commit any nights of the week to game anymore, and I don't want to just be on a roster and be inactive. I figured if I'm done competing, I'm done with gaming as a whole. I've played many games throughout my career, and there's not much that I look back on and wish I did differently. My biggest regret of my RTCW career was turning down Kuniva and Havoc to play for Minions/Digital Heresey to go to QCON03. It was a mixture of me not wanting to leave xcal, but at the same time I think I was 15 and my parents weren't really down for me going. I've got alot going on with school and the nightlife, so it's time to hang up the "e-boots" and that's what I'm doing. I'm not one of those guys who will be back for more though. I'll probably hop in IRC/xfire rarely, but of course keep up to date on p-rtcw every now and then.


Mortal: What was your favorite match to watch over the years?

x FuZioN: NARF -vs- [fX] on ice; CAL-i season 5
GMPO -vs- frontline on ice; QCON03
-a- -vs- .:. on assault, quakecon qualies, AKA LEHMAN'd

I also enjoyed watching/playing nG beat birdz 3-2-2 :P


Mortal: Why did you decide to play RtCW for so long, what motivated you to compete instead of pub, and who really made you enjoy the game more as
time progressed?

x FuZioN: RtCW was always the game I loved to play, it was my first and rightfully my last. There's always been competition out there, and I've always enjoyed being on the "underdog" teams. Pubbing was great, don't get me wrong, but mainly only back in the old days of SparkyTown in shrub, O++, Locked Box, TXSW, and more recently when Spec had his Covert Opz server and OLTL on the palace. I can't really specify who made this game more fun as it progressed, but it was more of a community effort to keep the game alive as long as it has. Much < 3


Mortal: Shoutouts, goodbyes, We will miss you FuZioN!

x FuZioN: Hmm this will be quite long...

Neal (Smoky/Erebus/Nurka), Tony and Jesse (MrsT/Sniper-T - words can't describe how much yall did for me), Drew (Jacka/Cade -- when you coming to visit?), Kevin (lat - you bastard), Boris (kolo - NG4LIFE!), terrin (des), Jason (silo), Andrea (Sedated), Shaun (dak), metal_man (why'd you have to dissapear??), j33v3s (one of the first great shooters I looked up to), Grunt, Rowdy, Pr3d4t0r, Scott (diablo), BoT, WonderBread ("the best ever" lmao), Akasha, KuNiva, Paul (silentstorm), Impostor (the beach bandit), LucKyB (miss ya buddy), pharreL the slut, Natas the dumb bitch, CT, rinker yeX!!1, vxd, Vixen (known you FOREVER throughout my career, helped me out alot), eternal the philly faithful, Jfreak (long nights of one life), cyanide (happy 14th bday), snoop (happy 13th), Dark_Death, Sam (vat), Milan (serb), slaya (never heard of em), MILI!, samus, ariel (karaoke wars?), b3e, killermike, 6shot, yogi(bigbear), pissclams (beatdown express), $piDerMan opZ (lets get some intel), newt, pinggan ;p;p;p;p!!!11!, baby, xero, hydro, ggallin, r.b., rahl, wippuh, thehammer, fuckin robert zehme (robesZ), dor1to, RedDeviL, n@ps, hartman, method, mooshu, cullen, tempest/tempert, enzo, chumchum, juventus(that one slipped), johnny, virus047, funk_dokta, pauly, G-THUGG!!, Maynard, r3v, argo, Mortal, wesleysniper, dsc, elusive, knasnakeeyes, duster, illshot, mario, luigi, warch1ld, cambr!a, diesel, warzone (but not his panz), daized, krackshot, eviL, MC, branmuffin (lmao), spakowski, asphyx (R.I.P buddy), som, hc, alphaneo (april fools?!?!), gisele, donka, opio, fatninja, kep, raze, newbie0 (wtf did you go), dagoth, mich, sgt. fury, arise, miXer, Neo, sir_shaggy, fuckin end0 (savin lives), joe spiticon, bongrip, viudanegra, fenix, cLOUDDEAD, pandizzle, culostriz, kalamaz00, hiki, battleaxe, alea, silver, Stev-o (redzone), higs (justin), Tom (rev), jibba (big Dom), a&w (danny), gatlin, endr, Jason "radea" (more like gaydea), NewbdeaL, Ray Bolger (DownGrade), Boo7y, mutha, wags, troll, nate, Mike (KK), fuckin banks, Bo (benching monitors), digital, team burque, v|mouse, mousie, ray, conf, mindgame? pff, v1nny, seed, dyno, comm0n`, GLOW, toxicgirl, Charley (Ev1L < 3), laws_69, yojdawg, Rob, busdriver, high1, deb, scrilla, warlord, inya, dress/beast, hanes, blackmajik (anomily), buddy, kn!fey, stormrider (v52!), w0rd, Rampage, g00se, eights, Mesh, Spuddy, Kyle (f0ck3r), sal, xp!re, vid2face, MARINE, bl0nk, BigshoT, warchild, gunner, snappas, l1zzard, redman (turned things around), gnomish, revolver, whoopz, wolfandbeer, odin, tang, andrew, malenkov, eclipse, gabe (ek), paul, nuMb, matt, JUNO!!!, nazzy, MRHA (#ascend), anox, powell, and this is where my memory begins to go blank... if I missed you, I really might not have :p

Shoutout to everyone who still plays (except Transit), and keep on wolfin' :)


x FuZioN

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Interview: TosspoT

Posted by: Mortal :o (Tuesday, October 3, 2006)

TosspoT has been an influential and respected part of the European community for quite awhile, with his endeavors with Radio iTG to his large involvement in the progression of Crossfire as a community, whether it be website, lan, or team related.

He has been a comentator, a competor, and much more. We sat down and chatted about his past, present occupations, and future plans.

I hope you enjoy the interview!

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Mortal: First off, tell us about yourself. Where you live, how old are you, what you like to do outside of gaming. What do you do to make a living, and what are your dreams?

TosspoT: I'm Stuart "TosspoT" Saw, 20, I'm current at University in York, England. Home would be London for me. Outside of gaming, I errrm drink? That is about the sum total of my existance at the moment, study (a bit), game ( a bit) drink ( a lot)! My dream would be to never grow up, Peter Pan style. If I could freeze frame the past month and replay it over and over again that would just be fantastic :)


Mortal: How did you get the nickname of TosspoT? Was that your only alias or have you had different ones in the past?

TosspoT: Actually it is the only name I've ever had. The first time I ventured online (the day of purchasing RTCW), my brother called me a TosspoT, ever since then its just stuck. I was TosspoT in white and then I learnt how to put colours in my name and now I come in all shapes and sizes.


Mortal: What does TosspoT mean?

TosspoT: Well it has two meanings, both rather fitting! The true dictionairy meaning, means to be an alcoholic. There is actually an old and rather specialist beer called TosspoT ale. The other meaning...means to be a Tosser, a wanker, a plonker. You get the gist :>


Mortal: So RtCW was your first online game? Explain why you took the leap from offline games to online games and why you chose RtCW to be that game?

TosspoT: I think anyone thats ever played RTCW knows why its worth the leap! There was something about it, something that finally beat Goldeneye. I played the MP demo on the BlueYonder servers and then carried on from there, it was just fantastic, captivating and so enjoyable.


Mortal: What did you do in RtCW, what teams did you play for? any championships or tournaments under your belt? What made you move on from RtCW to ET?

TosspoT: I played RTCW truly hardcore. My first experiences online were rather sporadic, for example I didnt know what Ping was and in all honesty I still dont, because I'm not a connection whiner (at least not on my connection). I played in two state side clans first of all back in the day, RD (RedDragons) and MWK (Mid West Killers). Was great.

I finally moved over to UK teams, time difference and just general convienience settled in. I learnt what Roger Wilco was, I learnt how to put colour in my name! Magic moments for any gamer. Eventually the peak of my RTCW career would have probably been playing in Eurocup with uC after that point I moved to ET.

Why ET? Well, By this point, RTCW as on its last legs. It had been 2 or 3 years, ET came along was a pleasent change, I had an offer to go and play in the dh side for ET, I already had friends there it was a logical move at the time. I moved to ET because of the change, new players new challenges.


Mortal: Did you fully move over to ET, or did you play RtCW aswell? Do you still play RtCW as a casual game, or have you fully moved on?

TosspoT: For about a year I fully moved over, I played pretty intensely for dh, void and then pinkgorillas. I captained the nations cup team, I went the whole nine yards for a while. However, after May 2004 I had no desire to play competitively in anything any more. I played some CoD, some Source, Some RTCW and again some ET. I was a game whore, right now the only game I really enjoy going on a public and playing is RTCW, I only play ET when I do for the friends I have the in the game.


Mortal: Do you feel ET took your competative gaming to the next level, or was the ET competition on par with what you first competed in in RtCW? Do you feel players that have played RtCW and move to ET have a long-term advantage over teams who move from different games, assuming the skill in both previous games is of similiar calibur?

TosspoT: Let me go straight out there and be hugely controversial. If you were good at RTCW, you are instantly better than any "good" ET player. There I said it, and I'll say it again if need be! Sure there are exceptions and now there is no comparisson because ET has evolved from playing the player to playing the map.

Of course, if you've FPS and Team experience coming into either rtcw or ET you're going to have an advantage over someone that hasnt. However, the difference between RTCW was you had, to have quicker responses, hand eye co-ordination all that good stuff.


Mortal: Lets backtrack and talk more about Digital Heresy. They are well known in both RtCW and ET, including their US RtCW division that competed in Qcon. Tell us more about your experience with Digital Heresy, who was apart of the team at the time, and where LAN / Tournaments apart of the ET team's agenda?

TosspoT: Well, its kinda ironic that I played for dh. Because I had long not really got on well with some of their european RTCW team (water under the bridge now ofc), but to play for their ET team was kinda strange and cool? The team was lead by Mcmad and then it evolved around key his leadership and key players of H!ve, Traducer, Adreena and Nudey.

Sure, every ET and RTCW team at any stage in their existance has had dreams of Quakecon, but realistically lan intentions werent on the horizon.


Mortal: Moving on to your shoutcasting career. Explain to us how you got invovled with covering matches, what companies you worked for, and how you found yourself working for Radio iTG?

TosspoT: I been casting for nearly 3 years now, and its a constant learning curve. It started back in RTCW just as a favour to a friend to help his tournament and then sorta grew from there. Casting in RTCW was always in the shadow of one particular man though, I actually think that helped always knowing I'd never be able to compete? Because I'm quite a competitive person.

Myself and Kee_RinG joined iTG after getting owned by them when they got chosen for a final we'd done all the prelim's for, so we decided if you cant beat them, join them! Since there is been one huge learning curve as I've had the privilidge to work and cast with some truly phenominal people, who have made their names and reputations in the business for the reason that they are the very best at what they do, iTG very much helped broaden my commentating horizons.


Mortal: What games do you cover for iTG these days? Do you cover matches regularly? What is in the future for iTG and TosspoT?

TosspoT: What games? Well, I'm a whore I wont lie. I cover so much at the moment, I got to love casting but was frustrated by the lack of exposure RTCW and ET get on the competitive circuit, so I've since picked up anything from Quake to CS to Warcraft to Console games.

The future? Well the future is very bright for iTG, Quakecon was a phenominal success and television wise we've done the commentary for DirecTV's Championship Gaming Invitational aswell as many other TV projects across the globe like PrizeFight TV amongst others.

We've alot of dedicated people working hard behind the scenes making sure that we're ever evolving.


Mortal: Very cool. How was Quakecon? Was this year your first year going to Quakecon? How was it covering live at QuakeCon? What ET match was the best in your opinion? Did you only cover the ET tournament?

TosspoT: This was my second Quakecon and it was simply...magic. Quakecon is unique in every way and just truly a brilliant experience. I was managing the Crossfire team at the event whilst casting for iTG and the matches there not only had an added incentive for me, but also were just PACKED with action.

There was no way you could get bored at Quakecon.

I did ET primarily but also covered some Quake4, and there was some great Quake games also but for me ET will live on in the memory for the soul reason that it was just so exciting.


Mortal: How was this year's smaller QuakeCon compaired to the previous QuakeCon you went to?

TosspoT: Not noticable, I think the venue was better to the Gaylord Ranch infact. Other than the aircon (typical dallas) I dont believe there was a single bad thing during the whole weekend....nope not one, one of the most memorable weekends of my life.


Mortal: Did you meet alot of players from the community you were apart of? Did alot of people you met seem to not fit their online persona?

TosspoT: Heh, well I've met alot of gamers through the various lans I've been too, people have their querks and theres always one whos mouthy online and quiet on lan, but such is life. Things are never what they seem!


Mortal: Does Europe have alot more LAN's that involve ET, as the US only has QuakeCon and smaller player-made LAN parties?

TosspoT: This has only really become an occurance lately, there are now maybe 3 more European Cash ET lans that i am aware of, which is way more than Wolfenstein has experienced previously before september of this year, it was always quakecon only now things are changing and ET is raising the stakes, too late argue some, but as a wolfenstein player I've waited this long, the fact that its come is good enough for me.


Mortal: Do you think QuakeCon sparked alot of interest in the European ET scene?

TosspoT: Not really, I think the timing was coincidental. Nothing happened after last years quakecon and there was even more money.


Mortal: What teams do you consider to be the "dominate" teams in the ET EU scene?

TosspoT: There is just idle, everyone else is currently a pretender to the thrown and until idle are over thrown nobody can argue with their record and their success.


Mortal: What teams do you feel can match idle in skill? Alot of impressive teams have formed lately, do you think some of them will rise to contend with Idle?

TosspoT: I believe that zeroPoint is that, and well I would as I'm involved with them. The biggest challenge facing the rest of them is staying active, many lose interest and lose faith too quickly, very few of them have the allstar cast to carry them when enthusiasm is down and therefore until they are as solid as a rock they are vulnerable to lose matches.


Mortal: Alot of teams have manageres, including the Crossfire Qcon team having you as one. This is unherd of in the US scene. Explain the role of a manager, etc.

TosspoT: The role of a manager is very much eliviate any mental stresses on the players, allowing them to do their job ingame whilst you do the rest of the work. No that dosent mean be the bitch of the team, although sure you do that role too :P

Any problems within the team, tensions, tactics anything in the back of their mind. Its your role and responsibilty to make sure that they arent there.

It may not be heard of in the states for RTCW, but the greatest managers in gaming like Jason Lake and Craig Levine manage the two big US multigaming clans and they are more hands on than we were at Quakecon.


Mortal: You are invovled with the Crossfire Gaming site, one of the biggest EU ET community sites. Explain what made you become apart of that endeavor, how long has it been around, and what is the future for Crossfire as a name; being LAN's or teams, etc.

TosspoT: I've worked for Crossfire for a few years, It was setup back in 2002 for RTCW. I bought it earlier this year and took over the running of it along with of course the very dedicated admins we have.

Crossfire has alot of things up its sleave, we've achieved alot this summer. We've sent a team to Quakecon, We've run our own lan and our traffic has skyrocketed. Additionally we've a documentary soon to be released and we will be featured on Gameplay HD in the states, we're out there exploring lots of ideas and possibilities.

The future? Well, Goal number one is to get the new site up and running, thats very near to completion. Then its planning for our next lan or lans, we've got alot of strategic partners like PrizeFight and ATi that we've to thank for our success and making our dreams a possibility.


Mortal: Do you forsee yourself ever leaving the gaming community?

TosspoT: Errmm, I dont know. I've alot of friends in gaming that have become more than just names on iRC (of course I've met many of them), I've had employment oppourtunities and I've had alot of fun in gaming BUT...

Right now I'm having alot of fun away from the gaming world I got used to. Nights of 7-11 on irc and ventrilo playing clanwars and such are well and truly gone, I dont know if I could ever do that again. I still shoutcast online somewhat, but I'm not as active as I was thats for sure.

I'm just enjoying university life at the moment, I love going out, getting drunk and making a fool outta myself infront of hot chicks :P

Infact, I play more games at 6AM than at any other time, I come home load up all seeing eye and struggle to sit still let alone aim whilst wondering round servers abusing people :D Now thats gaming!


Mortal: Thanks for the interview m8, post your shoutouts here.

TosspoT: I'd just like to thank anyone and everyone who has offered me support in the past :) There are alot of great people involved in every little corner of gaming, whether its via shoutcasting, playing or crossfire. I'd like to thank the community of Crossfire, they make that site what it is! Oh and hi mum (she reads these, and my uncle!) :)

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Battle For Berlin - Map Discussion

Posted by: Mortal :o (Saturday, October 7, 2006)

What do you, the community, think should be in the map pool? We want to know and want to see some discussions on why and what pro/cons each map has.

The current map pool is:

- Ice
- Base
- Keep
- Sub
- Village

We will be taking a few more maps, so please; If you feel a map is a strong candidate for this tournament, Tell us!

More info on the tournament:
Battle For Berlin News
Battle For Berlin Team Registration
Battle For Berlin Game Rules
Battle For Berlin Forums

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Hope for Bani??

Posted by: *Kn1ghT* (Wednesday, October 18, 2006)

Some of you may know me, some may not. I am a gamer just like the rest of you. One thing that might seperate me is the fact that I enjoy competition. Competition is one of the main reasons why I got into gaming in the level that I have. However, gaming is also meant to be fun, afterall, RTCW is a game. Games are meant to be a source of fun for people.

In the past, I functioned as an administrator for the Bani-mod World League (BWL). The BWL was started by a few members of the Extreme Soldiers (-[x]-) clan as a home for Bani-mod competition. BWL did not last very long, however, due to some software issues as well as interest from other clans. We, as admins, had done work on a new website for BWL, but had a few issues that needed to be worked out that just never got fixed, and eventually the plug was pulled on the Bani-mod World League.

It was a bad time for this to happen, because I had been in conversation with the leaders of a few of the member clans and they were excited about the prospect of Bani-mod competition. Eventhough the plug had been pulled on BWL, I did not want to see that as the end of bani-mod based competition.

Bani-mod was never known as a competitive mod. The competition market tends to be dominated by the OSP mod and, to an extent, the Shrub mod. Bani-mod has been known as a fun mod where people can pub and enjoy themselves. During the run of BWL, we had come up with server match configs which were liked by the teams that played because they were geared toward competitive settings, but still had a very Bani feel to them.

Now that the BWL has gone down, I am partnering up with the Teamwarfare League (TWL) to bring in some bani-mod activity. As an active player in TWL, I know their system quite well, and know that it is one that is very easy to use and effective. The type of activity we are looking toward is ladder based. In a ladder system, teams are given a preliminary rung (rank) based on when they join the ladder. Then, at your convenience, you may challange a team that has a higher rung than you. If you win, you take over that rung. Match time, date,and location are determined by the playing teams. Maps are selected by a random pool. Eventually, if there is enough intrest and the ladder sees an acceptible amount of activity, we will look at a league. The way a league differs from a ladder is that in a league matches take place at a particular date and time against pre-determined opponents.

What I need from teams that are interested, first, is an acknowledgement that your team is interested, as well as any ideas that you have in terms of maps, settings, cvars, format, etc. Please contact me via email (knight AT team-hostility DOT com), post your input in this thread, or post input in the thread at the www.team-hostility.com forums. I will keep a list of interested teams at the Team-Hostility forums. The sooner I get responces the better, as TWL will not open the ladder until they know that there is a certain degree of interest.

Thank You

-Donka (god-access hacking Kn1ghT's Account)

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Response From Alias..and an Update

Posted by: -Tv-Conscious* (Friday, October 20, 2006)

I wrote to Kevin about a month ago and received a response today in the mail. He was out of commision for a little over a week with Celluitis (disease which destroys your cells) and was in pain for a few days, but as of 10-18 would be rejoining a new platoon. This delayed his graduated but he wanted everyone to know he said hello, and that he is planning on graduating on time to be home before Christmas. If you still wish to write to him, he has been reassigned and will be mailing me again shortly with a new address which I'll happily post.

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Battle For Berlin - Server Config

Posted by: Mortal :o (Monday, October 23, 2006)

Battle For Berlin has released its finalized server config. We took it through testing to make sure it works in SW mode, ABBA, etc. All the CVARs should be up-to-date on the server cfg and match the BFB CVARs page.

We will be releasing more info about servers and whether they will be assigned to all teams/international matches/ or free to use whatever server with the correct config shortly.

The server config can be found here:

- Battle For Berlin Tournament Server Config

Before you execute it on your server please make sure to note that the server name is set to:

"Battle For Berlin - #* - *** Tournament Server"

...which you can edit to whatever you wish. The server config also has maxclients set to 12, so you should change that if you wish to have more than 12 slots on your server. Other then that, it should be good to go.

Test it out, and if for some reason you do find problems with it please email me.

Thanks!

Zach "Mortal" Hooper
Battle For Berlin Tournament Director

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Game Demo: What is this?

Posted by: Mortal :o (Sunday, October 29, 2006)

I'm just curious, I was browsing some of the demo websites and found a demo of dr.w!$eGuy playing vs. mTn on sub. I noticed off the bat that something was lagging, and thought it was just WTV; but after watching more it was a purposeful CI, and some people brushed it off as something with maxpackets, etc.

There were also alot of sounds spammed, like glass breaking, explosions, sniper shots, etc.

This was probably totally legal at the time, but I don't know for sure, and was just wondering if I could get some other opinions... as what was around back then, etc. isn't really familiar to me.

It looks like a toggle to lag and take larger jumps, go around corners mid-jump, etc. Watch the full demo when they are on Defense you will see some obvious notations of what I am talking about; tho there are CI jumps throughout the entire game.

Download it: http://cfg.nb-hosting.com/mp_sub-173530-drw!$eGUy.dm_59

Just curious....

Thanks :)

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The History of RtCW Competition

Posted by: Mortal :o (Friday, December 8, 2006)

While doing the BFB tournament, a few players came up to me asking about previous leagues and tournaments; and their results. They wanted to create a timeline of RtCW Competition history. I've browsed around and would really like any help you can give on this subject.

If you could, the basic outline would be the name of the league/tournament ( ie; CAL Season 2 ) and the 1st - 3rd's names and clan tags. Anything other then that is fine, but that is the bare minimum. This goes for all OGL, CAL, STA, TWL, and otherwise. QuakeCon, BOB, etc. as tournaments, and any others. Also, any shrub and bani competition that was somewhat organized, inside or outside of TWL is fine aswell.

Hopefully we can make a chart of the timeline of RtCW Competition, in a full spectrum.

I'll give a basic format example to start it off:

Battle For Berlin
1st - Hostile Inc
2nd - HighBot
3rd - H4X sQuaD

Thanks!

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What one person in your rtcw career has left an indelible mark in your life?

Posted by: .Banks (Thursday, March 8, 2007)

Take a moment, close your eyes, and imagine with me. Your an axis/allied LT.Your standing over a battlefield (mp_beach). You have a sullen look in your sleep deprived and barely councious eyes. Youve just fought the toughest battle of your 5 year career. As your mind takes you back over the years of watching close friends fall, nights without sleep, victories and hard fought losses. Think of those friends that fought with you, sometimes, kept you alive, and were supportive of you. Name there names here. Give them the credit there due. For a change, lets have some pleasant thoughts of the game, and people we have shared the last few years with.

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Battle For Berlin Days 1-5: The Results

Posted by: Mortal :o (Wednesday, November 8, 2006)

Battle For Berlin Day 5 Match Results:

Map: Village

Animate Gaming > svpermen 3-0
Demos: N/A

Xeimos > Total Havoc 3-0
Demo: N/A

Team Rage > ShadowFighters 3-0
Demo: N/A

Dark < Team Trinity 3-2
Demo: Coming Soon

AOL Disk < Blur 3-0
Demo: Coming Soon

KiH < H4X sQuaD 3-1
Demo: Coming Soon

Point.Blank > evil 3-0
Demo: N/A

Syndicate Soldiers < Critical Impulse 3-0
Demo: Coming Soon

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Battle For Berlin Day 4 Match Results:

Map: Base

emc < Animate Gaming 3-2
Demo: Coming Soon

Xeimos > aZe 3-0
Demo: N/A

Team Rage > Team Hostility 3-0
Demo: N/A

Dark > WANsanity 3-2
Demo: Coming Soon

AOL Disk > Fear Us 3-1
Demo: Coming Soon

Point.Blank > Fallanx 3-0
Demo: N/A

Yokohama Fragers > Total Havoc 3-0
Demo: N/A

Syndicate Soldiers > Armed Aggression 3-0
Demo: Coming Soon

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Battle For Berlin Day 3 Match Results:

Map: Base

Critical Impulse > Highbot 3-0
Demo: Coming Soon

Nameless > KiH 3-1
Demo: Nameless vs. KiH (POV: MerlinatoR|BFB)

Reflexive Gaming > evil 3-0
Demo: Evil vs. Reflexive Gaming (POV: Alien|BFB)

imbecilS > Blur 3-0
Demo: imbecilS vs. Blur (POV: Alien|BFB)

3 Stooges > Team Trinity 3-0
Demo: Coming Soon

Order Thru Chaos > ShadowFighters 3-0
Demo: N/A

Yokohama Fragers > Total Havoc 3-0
Demo: N/A

svpermen < Hostile Inc 3-0
Demo: Coming Soon

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Battle For Berlin Day 2 Match Results:

Map: Ice

3 Stooges > AOL Disk 3-0
Demo: 3 Stooges vs. AOL Disk (POV: WTV-Digital)

Team Trinity > Fear Us 3-0
Demo: Team Trinity vs. Fear Us (POV: WTV-Digital)

Point.Blank < Order Thru Chaos 3-1
Demo: Point.Blank vs. Order Thru Chaos (POV: WTV-Digital)

ShadowFighters > Fallanx 3-2
Demo: ShadowFighters vs. Fallanx (POV: $F`H!tman)

Yokohama Fragers > TOEZ 3-0
Demo: N/A

H4X sQuaD < Total Havoc 3-0
Demo: N/A

svpermen > Syndicate Soldiers 3-1
Demo: svpermen vs. Syndicate Soldiers (POV: Alien|BFB)

Armed Aggression < Hostile Inc 3-0
Demo: N/A

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Battle For Berlin Day 1 Match Results:

Map: Ice

Critical Impulse > emc 3-0
Demo: CI vs. EMC (POV: Alien|BFB)

Animate Gaming < Highbot 3-0
Demo: Animate vs. HighBot (POV: WTV-Digital)

Nameless > Xeimos 3-0
Demo: Nameless vs. Xeimos (POV: MerlinatoR|BFB)

aZe < KiH 3-0
Demo: KiH vs. aZe (POV: Mortal|BFB)

Reflexive Gaming > Team Rage 3-0
Demo: Reflexive Gaming vs. Team Rage (POV: str33tz|BFB)

evil > Team Hostility 3-2
Demo: Evil vs. Hostility (POV: WTV-Xero)

Dark < imbecilS 3-0
Demo: N/A

Blur > WANsanity 3-0
Demo: Blur vs. WANsanity (POV: NiteSwine|BFB)

---------------------------------------------------------------------

For more demos, different POVs, etc. please check out the Battle For Berlin Demo Library.

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THC+, you will be missed.

Posted by: spaztik (Monday, November 13, 2006)

i will never forget back on thc banibeach when he would play mahnahmanah and zap everybody. funny guy, great wolfer, good leader; he was definately a reason to continue to play the game for me. He would always make me laugh at least 10 times when i played with him at a time i was about to quit playing.

Deepest condolences go to his wife, (=AFA=Crabby) and family. Updates to follow.


here is his obituary for all who are interested.

MICHAEL (MIKE) D. BROWN
DES MOINES

published on November 11, 2006

MICHAEL (MIKE) D. BROWN

Des Moines

Michael (Mike) Dennis Brown, 39, died November 8, 2006, at the family�s home. Visitation will be from 2 to 5 p.m. Sunday, November 12, 2006, at Iles Grandview Park Funeral Home, 3211 Hubbell Avenue, Des Moines. Funeral services will be at 10:30 a.m. Monday, November 13, 2006, at the funeral home. Burial will be at Laurel Hill Cemetery, 3801 E. Court Avenue, Des Moines, following the service. A family luncheon will be hosted immediately following the burial at Berean Assembly of God Church, 5225 Maple Drive, Pleasant Hill.

Mike was a lifelong resident of East Des Moines and a 1985 graduate of East Des Moines High School. He was born on June 19, 1967, the youngest son of Dwain and JoAnne (Bishop) Brown, formerly of Des Moines and now of Pleasant Hill. He worked as a machinist for Townsend Engineering, Des Moines, for several years. Prior to that, he worked for John Deere�Ankeny Works and Titan Tire Co. He married Helena (Helen) (Johnston) Brown on Feb. 14, 1992, at Hope Lutheran Church, Des Moines.

Mike enjoyed working on and with computers, restoring 1970s-era muscle cars and racing ATVs. He also enjoyed spending time with his wife and three children and doing odd jobs around the house. He also enjoyed collecting NASCAR items.

Mike is survived by his wife, Helena (Helen), Des Moines; daughters, Annah, eight, and Amanda, five; son, Joshua, four; his parents, Dwain and JoAnne Brown, Pleasant Hill; a brother, Kevin, formerly of Des Moines and now of Clarinda; and a sister, Jennifer (Mark) Overton, Des Moines.

Mike also will be remembered by Helena�s mother, Karen Johnston, Des Moines; two sister-in-laws, Becky (Walter) Johnson, Des Moines, and Bev (Tim) Riley, Altoona; a brother-in-law, Edward (Karyn) Johnston Jr., Des Moines; six nephews, Kenneth, Christian, Mark, Jacob, Jared and Jonathan; and five nieces, Nicole, Raiven, Raechelle, Megan and Jessie and several aunts, uncles and cousins.

He was preceded in death by his father-in-law, Edward Johnston Sr., Des Moines; his uncle, Danny Bishop, Jefferson; and his maternal and paternal grandparents.

Memorial contributions may be made in the family�s name to Berean Assembly of God Church or to Iles Grandview Park Funeral Home.

ILES

Grandview Park Chapel

3211 Hubbell Ave.

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RTCW Competition History

Posted by: SyndicateGromit|TWL (Friday, June 22, 2007)

Return to Castle Wolfenstein Competition History

Syndicate.Karpov
____________________________________________________________________________

August 2001

RTCW showcased at Qcon 2001
____________________________________________________________________________

October 2001

Return to Castle Wolfenstien Demo released
____________________________________________________________________________

November 2001

Return to Castle Wolfenstien Retail released 11-21-01
____________________________________________________________________________

December 2001

STA RTCW Opens Shop (Head Admin: RalphTheNader)
Hosting a Title Holder Format for several �seasons�. Later would switch to a �regular season� format to conform with Clanbase, TWL and CAL.
____________________________________________________________________________

February 2002

TWL Blitzturniere Champion - VuP
RTCW Nations CUP 1 - Sweden defeats Finland 3 - 1 on beach & village
____________________________________________________________________________

March 2002

Battle of the Beach 1
BOB 1 Champions - D|S (Valdez,Shaftian,Shogun,Jones,Sh4ms,Ioneye,Sergihoe,Kristoff) defeats Dr's 3 - 2 on Beach (7's)

Wippuh: This included one of the doctors using a nade spam exploit that was fixed in a later patch. The semis were on assault, where Dr.�s narrowly defeated III 3-2 and D|S defeated dT 3-1
BoB1 was also a large factor in how placement for CAL-I was done.
Both The Professionals and Cult of Hands got to the final 8 and were invited to CAL-I despite being CAL-m level teams.

RTCW Open Cup Europe - MoralDecay (Keen,Summ3l,Ivve,SoD!,Radical,Init) defeats Broken 7 - 5 beach,village,assault
____________________________________________________________________________

April 2002

Cyber Athlete League RTCW season 1

Season 1 CAL Champions - D|S (Valdez,Shaftian,Shogun,Jones,Sh4ms,Ioneye,Sergihoe,Kristoff) defeats phx 5 - 1 on village (7's)

Donka: In preparation for upcoming huge LAN event, the almighty DarkSide�s core breaks off to wear pretty cK tags that were the hottest tags in the gaming world at that moment.

Wippuh: This match included a ping attack delaying its start for 2 hours ?!

____________________________________________________________________________

July 2002

CAL RTCW - OSP 3 divisions for season 2. Invite,Main & Open

Season 2 CAL Invite Champions - Abuse (Quancer,Lantern,Method,Cujo,Rimshot & Citizen) defeats Drs 3 - 2 on Assault (6's)

Season 2 CAL Main Champions - nyX ( EventHorizon,Dosey,Divbyzero,RQuasar,Cyno,Jericho,AK,Elmos,Jubei,Fookin ) defeats cF 3 - 0 on Assault (7's)

Season 2 CAL Open Champions - FearUs defeats LQD 3 - 0 on beach (7's)

Wippuh: There were 3 Groups of Open , Atlantic , Central and Pacific .
The 3 winners were LQD, Wat? And FU .The finals for CAL-I were 6's and included nice work by abuse's pf, Cujo?

There was a nice video made by Citizen of the overall strategy and feel of the match. The change was due to the announcement of Qcon.

Main and Open stayed 7�s. TWL still briefly rocked the 8�s!!!

RTCW Nations CUP 2 - Sweden defeats Italy 3 - 0 on village & beach
____________________________________________________________________________
August 2002
Qcon02 Champions - Dr's (George,Wombat,Relevant,Gusto,Arkrine,W!seguy) defeat iN 3 - 1 on Ice

Donka: Post quakecon syndrome goes in effect. Best RTCW teams part the game leaving a lot of room for 2nd tier teams and new comers.

Wippuh: Ice was not in competition in Europe at the time, so the NA teams had a huge advantage here. Dr�s are still the best team to ever play the game imo.

Also, I remember some very intense demos of matches played on sub (D|S vs Ocrana?), including iN�s loss to affliction comprised mostly of the q3 affliction players.

Never forget, cK-shogun�s classic qcon vid!
____________________________________________________________________________

December 2002

CAL RtCW - OSP - 2 divisions for season 3. Main & Open
Season 3 CAL Main Champions - NARF (Da_G,Lynch,Cyno,Warkrime,Spike,Rev) defeats dT 3 - 2 on Ice

Wippuh: It�s fun to talk about which was a better rivalry. NARF vs dT/-a- or dT/-a- vs D|S !?

Season 3 CAL Open Champions - 82nd (Khan,Warrior,Nightwolf,Chaos,Dual32,Polo) defeats xTc 3 - 2 on Ice

TWL RtCW - OSP - 2 divisions for season 1. Alpha & Beta
Season 1 TWL Alpha Champions - Uprise (Korollary,Nok,Cash,EventHorizon) defeats 82nd 3 - 2 on Ice
Season 1 TWL Beta Champions - qantumFlux
(Icehawk,Justice) defeats Sanrio on Asault

Wippuh: I always felt that this match was crap. qF was Justice and maybe one or two others from Paradigm Shift, a team from CAL-Invite.

Season 1 STA OSP Champions - ADMINCLAN defeats qF 3 - 0
RTCW Open Cup Europe - PlanB (Ben,Crapa,Delux,bajo,anhe,Johnstar,weak,viros,n2y) defeats Exido ____________________________________________________________________________

February 2003
RTCW Nations CUP 3 - Sweden defeats Poland 3 - 0 on village & ice
Planet-RTCW comes online
____________________________________________________________________________

April 2003
CAL RtCW - OSP - 2 divisions for season 4. Main & Open
Season 4 CAL Main Champions - NARF (Da_G, Lynch,BeavermanA,Obliv,Warkrime,Spike) defeats dT 3 - 1 - 1 on Beach

Season 4 CAL Open Champions - Redemption (Steigl,Gnomish,Fenix,Madnessriot,Paper,Hova,Juliebean)defeats Outsiders 3 - 2 on Beach

Wippuh: Open still has east , west & central divisions.

It may have been Outsiders semi�s match in which s!lo was so convinced that was hacking that he went out and made his own hack.

Donka: According to members of redemption they scrimmed 5 hours a night on their way to CAL-O championship.

Brian & K split from dominant east coast Death Touch to dump the dead weight of dT2 and to reform under respected name of affliction.

TWL RtCW - OSP - 2 divisions for season 2. Alpha & Beta
Season 2 TWL Alpha Champions - HV (Vjason,Ryzer,Deftone,Silence,Grimdeath,SilentStorm,Xav) defeats Uprise on 3 - 0 Ice
Season 2 TWL Beta Champions - EoD (Anialatem,Saleen,Troll,Opio,Stormrider,Underdawg) defeats 7angels 3 - 0 on Beach
____________________________________________________________________________
May 2003
Battle of the Beach 2
BOB 2 Champions - -a- (Brian,Chrome,Decka,Hollywood,Illumina,Nail) defeats NARF 3 - 0 on Beach
Wippuh: I believe that for winning this matchup, dT/-a- got the Gamecubes? It was a massive letdown, the finals that is, as -a- ran NARF pretty hard.

Donka: Affliction revises their panzer strat and beats NARF when it matters. GameCubes go on sale.

Season 2 STA OSP Champions - Spy (loYalguArd,CaQruBBioR) defeats BYE! 3 - 0

Virus047: Loyalguard and company defeat a very solid BYE! team in the finals.

BYE! finished the regular season 9-1(while *SPY* finished 8-2). STA played 10 week regular seasons and remained 7v7 format until Season #4.
____________________________________________________________________________
June 2003
RTCW Open Cup Europe - Rage (Bonehead,Enril,Pui,Sengo,Mariano,Redcrow,Jaco) defeats InFront 2 - 1 on assault & village
RTCW EUROCUP - Rewind defeats SNAPS
RTCW Nations CUP 4 - Holland defeats Belgium
____________________________________________________________________________
July 2003
CAL RTCW - OSP - 3 divisions for season 5. Invite,Main & Open
Season 5 CAL Invite Champions - NARF (Lynch, BeavermanA, Obliv, Da_G, Warkrime, Immortal) defeats fX 3 - 2 on Ice
Season 5 CAL Main Champions - Exodus (Stiegl, Madness,Mario,Luigi,Riot,Cykass) defeats dh 3 - 0 on Ice
Season 5 CAL Open Champions - GLOW (Dirty,Valentine,Spaniard) defeats Comm 3 - 1 on base

Donka: This season could be labeled as rising of WaRRioR and affiliates. Warrior leaves darkside to help out their old 82nd buddies to form the most headshot whoring team known in RTCW.

That team renames countless times including European rewind, and CS United5, finally getting stuck with their original team fX label.

Sharp: In my oppinion this was ]NARF['s best lineup. Beaver, Obliv, Da_G, War, and Immortal are all excelent aimers. Lynch was ok, but his claim to fame was that panzer (good at pistol too). Good game ]NARF[.

TWL RtCW - OSP - 2 divisions for season 3. Alpha & Beta
Season 3 TWL Alpha Champions - immortals (Hartman,Crucial,Bob,Death,Wesley,Dsc,Excero,50cent) defeats Arise 3 - 0 on Ice
Season 3 TWL Beta Champions - TV (Nazgul,Dynosaur,KrazyKaze) defeats eggnog squad

Donka: TWL semifinals record hold, perhaps, one of the earliest cases of pulling a rule book.

Shatter of team Arise complained about a player on opposing team (K�Spawn ex-LQD) having a second account in TWL on team liquid. Even though the account was simply lost and forgotten, match result was overturned and Arise moved into finals after a 3-2 loss to kinetic. Term �pulled a shatter� stuck around for a while.

KrAzYkAzE: TWL Beta finals was a great match between Tv and ES on base. First round Tv set a time of 9:09 and ES beats the time with 3:47. Second round ES sets a time of 5:11 and Tv beats it with 3:42. Third round Tv sets time of 4:12 and holds. Fourth round ES sets time of 4:21 and Tv beats the time with 2:10 to win championship. It was a really fun season. Tv went undefeated 8-0 season and 4-0 playoffs.
____________________________________________________________________________
August 2003
Qcon03 Champions - iN (Darkie,Hombre,Keen,SoD,Spear,Civ,Summ3L,Zam,Wuff,Sweet,Radical)defeats GMPO 3 - 1 on Assault

Donka: Dark times on RTCW start with the end of the QuakeCon03.
Neither of American superstar teams got into finals. WaRRioR did not prove himself on LAN. NARF, 3 times CAL champion, was crushed on all counts. This is the time when both, hacking and witchhunt for hackers, develop at incredible pace.

Most of the good, LAN proven, RTCW players left the game burnt out immediately after QuakeCon leaving the top of the mountain to whoever gets a first headshot. RTCW community experiences massive Canadian gangs invasion.

Wippuh: Affliction, in a big surprise move, didn�t play in CAL before qcon03, came in mostly overlooked, yet placed 3rd. The superstar ringer teams disappointed despite Frontline beating GMPO on ice in the first round. So much was focused on the first two maps that the NA players overlooked village, where the Europeans cleaned house.

Online Gamers Guild 1 day tournament: dT (Brian, Chrome, Dimmak, Hollywood, Illumina, Nail) defeats Narf 3-1 on base and cK 3-1 on Chateau

Wippuh: I forget what the winnings were for this, but I want to say it involved a video card?
Hollywood: 5 asus a7n8x deluxe motherboards and 4 asus 4200 video cards.
____________________________________________________________________________
October 2003
Season 3 STA OSP Champions - TribalValor (Nazgul,Dynosaur,KrazyKaze,Kulumbus,Horizon) defeats Rag. 3 - 2 on Base

Virus047: I was accepted into the Admin Staff of STA OSP. Joining Skrappa and Chackazz as admins where I pushed for STA OSP to use the same maps and configs as TWL/CAL. Which we later did to help boost attendance/support for the league.
____________________________________________________________________________

November 2003

CAL RTCW - OSP- 3 divisions for season 6. Invite,Main & Open

Season 6 CAL Invite Champions - TRO (Robez,Moosho,Pissclams,Slaya,Blackmajic,Cade,G-thug) defeats ICF 3 - 2 on ice
Donka: ICF rolls to the finals by continuously exercising rulebook defenses in matches against Kinetic and Affliction. Slaya(TRO) is born.

Hollywood: -a- got dq'ed because they played illumina who was not on the roster. -a- defeats tTt 3-0 on ice.

Robes: The Rageing Octopi become reigning CAL-I champs.

Season 6 CAL Main Champions - aln (Roadkill,Hellfish,Alienware,Vitriol,Bongwater,Juventus) defeats UGB 3 - 1 on Ice
Virus047: One of the feel good stories of RTCW.
I remember aln started the season very poorly and had a fairly strong finish which carried over into the playoffs.

Their determination to win helped them overcome early regular season failures and produce one of the better runs in RTCW history to win a championship.
KrAzYkAzE: This was a good season for Tv. We were up on ALN on assult 2-0 in the playoffs and they came back to win the match and the championship. Should have been Tv�s championship imo J

Season 6 CAL Open Champions - $uperHeros (InvisibleMan,$pec_0pZ,TimeBomb,PuffMyDragon,Wolverine,Transit) defeats oTc 3 - 2 on Ice

Virus047: Little oTc (huge underdogs) collected the support from the majority of the RTCW community and nearly pulled off the upset over SuperHeros and Friends in the finals. Very good match. Some clutch doc runs by oTc.

Donka: Era of Invisible Man. Delayed attacks, colored multi page posts, witch hunt extreme and, most importantly - FR1eN@s.

Wippuh: IMO, the worst team to ever win open, in terms of how good they actually were.

TWL RtCW - OSP - 2 divisions for season 4. Alpha & Beta
Season 4 TWL Alpha Champions - fX (Warrior, Nightwolf, Impulse, Wyldcard, Reaper, Vatican) defeats tTt

Donka: Hacking was real. fX left CAL after the WildCard incident.

Season 4 TWL Beta Champions - OPP (Baby,Slaya,Lucky,Hooligan,Hydro,Word) defeats SoS 3 - 0 on Ice
Season 4 TWL Gamma Champions - HkC defeats GFU 3 - 2 on Ice
____________________________________________________________________________
December 2003
RTCW Open Cup Europe - KnightsofDeath (Aloc,JanCiper,Stranger,Viddi,Xtrem) defeats P!mps
RTCW EUROCUP - SurrenderOrDie defeats Kreaturen
____________________________________________________________________________
January 2004
Cyber X Games.

Donka: The world of e-sports and competitive video gaming learned a lot this time around, but RTCW world learned even more. It learned all about the man who created delayed attacks, and went undefeated at the event that hasn�t hosted a single RTCW match. His name is Invisible Man.
Specops appears on the horizon.
http://donkanator.com/spgm/index.php?spgmGal=CXG_RTCW

Sharp: Second day they had "technical issues", and the rest of the competitions were cancelled. Teams that were there for RTCW included, but are not limited to u5, 4 kings, Amish, tTt, GLOW?
____________________________________________________________________________
February 2004
TGT2 Tournament Begins!

Virus047: TGT2 was a little but very competitive tournament consisting of a 5 week regular season and playoffs.

Members from teams M8s, Ni!, Team Cross Breed, Distress, , Phoenix Rising, Texas Rangers and several others were split up into new teams. Thus giving a very unique experience to gaming with new players in this tourney. It was coordinated by SRDG.
____________________________________________________________________________

March 2004
Season 4 STA OSP Champions - TribalValor (Nazgul,Dynosaur,KrazyKaze,Hiki,Kulumbus,Horizon) defeats .com Base2
True Gaming Tournament 2 Champions � TDQ (Elderly,HanoverFist,Jadefalcon,Kronk,Likethat,SilverKobra,SlammeR,SourKraut) defeats Alcoholics Anonymous A.A.
____________________________________________________________________________
April 2004
CAL RtCW - OSP - 2 divisions for season 7. Main & Open
Season 7 CAL Main Champions - Exodus (Stiegl,Madness,Mario,Luigi,Riot,Cykass) defeats sMn 3 - 2 on Base

Donka: Era of SpecOpz. �gimme sum jack� and �camp the nook�, and all the other lexicon that can be associated with this man who becomes the godfather of Wolf in the entire year of 2004.

Covert Ops server gives a birth to a small sub-community that can be called an All-Star shop. Several of its members unite to create an unusual force � sMn.
Season 7 CAL Open Champions - ghettoPimps (Nayeen,Common,Shoosh,Hoohaa)defeats Canada 3 - 0 on Base

Wippuh: Not the beginning of the sandbag routine, but Cananda, led by Kuniva had the strat of not scrimming at all during the season and then working very hard once they got into the playoffs. It worked and a lot of people mimicked it.

Donka: This match was mostly famous for server crashing controversy. Every time Team Canada would have a 7 minute hold, the server would crash, and ghettoPimps steal the replay round.

Virus047: ghettoPimps beats Closing Time (2am) who was a powerhouse with a lot of talent on the way to there eventual championship in the playoffs. No one predicted 2am to drop this match and was a huge upset in my opinion. Nayeen had a 6 man panzer shot in the finals on WTV. Very classic.
TWL RtCW - OSP - 2 divisions for season 5. Alpha & Beta
Season 5 TWL Alpha Champions - ICF (Rob,Xpire,Warzone,Cypher,Korey,Johann) defeats EoD 3 - 0 on Base
Season 5 TWL Beta Champions - forgottenKings ( Boo7y,Covert,Diaz,Jones,Capone,Jujitsu,Inya ) defeats nG 3 - 1 on Base
____________________________________________________________________________
June 2004
RTCW Nations CUP 5 - Holland defeats Belgium
____________________________________________________________________________
July 2004
Season 5 STA OSP Champions - Reformation defeats MadeMen 3 - 2 - 1 on village

KrAzYkAzE: This should have been Tv vs. Reformation. I was in the semifinals match vs. M2 along with the other Tv guys. We were up 2-0 on ice and I had to leave the match for some other league going on at the time. M2 came back and to win 3-2. I wish I would have stayed. I think this was when I played on Star in CAL/TWL and we had a playoff match the same night.

Virus047: Eventual STA Season #5 Champs Reformation split off from Commission and storm STA OSP going 10-1 (including the playoffs) to win the championship. Beating some very formidable teams along the way in (MadeMen, IronWarriors, Commission and Team Cross Breed). Perhaps the best season in STA RTCW History.

STA OSP actively attempted to work with CAL and TWL to catch hackers. League wide bans began taking place. Banned in TWL or CAL = Banned in STA.
____________________________________________________________________________
August 2004
CAL RtCW - OSP - 2 divisions for season 8. Main & Open
Season 8 CAL Main Champions - fX (Brian, Rambo, Serbian, Vatican, Slaya,Militant) defeats Goggles 3 - 0 on Assault
Season 8 CAL Open Champions - v| (Animal,Caff,Ltgoose,Troll,Eights,Paladin)defeats oX 3 - 2 on Assault
TWL RtCW - OSP - 2 divisions for season 6. Alpha & Beta
Season 6 TWL Alpha Champions - fX (Brian, Rambo, Serbian, Vatican, Slaya,Militant) defeats Distress 3 - 0 on Assault
Season 6 TWL Beta Champions - v| (Animal,Caff,Ltgoose,Troll,Eights,Paladin) defeats m2 3 - 1 on Assault
RTCW Open Cup Europe - KnightsofDeath (Aloc,JanCiper,Stranger,Viddi,Xtrem) defeats Nameless
____________________________________________________________________________
October 2004
TGT3 Tournament Begins!

Virus047: Because the first two tournaments were so widely successful TGT3 was announced. Members from teams like F1, WFL, 4H and Resurrection join the fray. TGT3 was widely successful due to the efforts of SRDG who helped setup a very competitive and fun tournament.
____________________________________________________________________________
November 2004
Season 9 CAL OSP Champions - fX (Brian,Hollywood,Rambo,Serbian,Vatican,Slaya) defeats sMn 3 - 0 on Beach
Season 7 TWL OSP Champions - sMn (Warzone,Alpha,Mindgame,Opz,Multitask,Conf,Warrior) defeats BWG 3 - 0 on Beach
True Gaming Tournament 3 Champions � Fruit Flies (Virus047,Fuzz,Lice,Janus,SilverKobra,CatSpit,Force,GopherGuts,BigBadBanna) defeats Rebel Alliance*

Donka: Affliction returns only to be defeated by random teams. Warrior leaves fX and re-creates sMn. fX replenishes the roster hole with silo and fusion. October 2004 � Silo gets caught.

Affliction breaks up to fill rosters of fx(Hollywood and brian) and eXecutives(decka and nail). Specops joins splash My nuts. This was not the last case when a man traded in his legacy and a vent server for a place on a top team.

Virus047: TGT3 Champions Fruit Flies () steamroll through the competition going 5-0 in the regular season and 2-0 in the playoffs. Dropping only two rounds all season.
___________________________________________________________________________
December 2004
Season 6 STA OSP Champions - Flatline (Mutha,Alphaneo,Opz,Vid,Digital,Militant,Multitask,Sage,Eternal) defeats TV 3 - 2 on Frostbite

KrAzYkAzE: Wow, this was good match. I remember it the most because Specopz bragged about beating us for the buzzard. LOL!

RTCW Open Cup Europe - emaHo (Darkie,Hombre,Keen,Serbian,SoD,Spear,Civ,Summ3L,Zam,Wuff,Sweet,Radical) defeats Kno i Horn
____________________________________________________________________________
February 2005

Season 8 TWL OSP Champions - Metal Gawdz (AlphaNeo,Serbian,Vatican,Warzone,Saladin,SpecOpz) defeats Fear Us

Season 1 TWL Shrub Champions - Hair Pullers ( Coff1,Kep,Robes,Vid,Rambo,Spuddy,Paladin,Kep,Mutha,Pissclams ) defeats ASF 3 - 0

Robes: Hairpullers use the voltron d in the finals. Pull Free Vibes~~~ Pull Free? Can Be!

RTCW Nations CUP 6 - Holland defeats Belgium
____________________________________________________________________________
March 2005
Season 7 STA OSP Champions - Flatline (Mutha,Alphaneo,Opz,Vid,Digital,Militant,Sage) defeats NoX 3 - 0 on Final Stand

Virus047: Flatline wins second STA OSP season in a row (Back 2 Back Champs).
____________________________________________________________________________
April 2005
Season 1 STA Shrub Champions - Syndicate-Soldiers (Gotcha!,Luna,Debussy,Herbman,Doc,Ck,Talbot,Rap,Karpov,Leafie)defeats nJ 3 - 0 on Base
RTCW Open Cup Europe - Unique.de (Fr4,Igor,Insi,Kraft,Maki,Ozzy) defeats UDS

Donka: April fools with alphaneo getting caught aimbotting. Planet-RTCW generates above 1000 comments over night.

Also, dozens of broken hearts and gallons of human tears. Wippuh gets kicked from CAL for playing along and banning the whole alphaneo�s team.

Producers: alphaneo, donka, gisele, pissclams.

Wippuh: Good times! Classic April Fool�s joke!

I would like to take this time to point out a massively overlooked portion of wolf�s history.

It was shortly before this time that Pissclams stopped adminning in CAL. He ran the majority of CAL for nearly 2 years and really kept it stable. Along with Rahl in TWL, he provided a base that so many people simply don�t appreciate enough.

I saw the hard work he put in behind the scenes with his adminning duties, camming and being a general great person to promote the game from within. HUGE loss when he stepped down. Combine this with people who simply cannot fathom the fact that other players/teams are better than them and you have the rapid decline of wolf.
____________________________________________________________________________
June 2005
Season 10 CAL OSP Champions - fX (Alpha,Rambo,Serbian,Slaya,Vatican,Warzone) defeats Inertia on village

KrAzYkAzE: This was a good match. It sucked for us (Inertia) because Mutha couldn�t play. He had a 300+ ping that entire month of the playoffs. I think if he would have played, the match would have been 3-2 either way imo.

Season 9 TWL OSP Champions - TV (Donka,Elliott,Hikikomori,Krazykaze,Rambowl,Plex) defeats Metal Gawdz on village

Donka: Metal Gawds was a distorted version of fX built and led by specops. It featured four fX members: AlphaNeo, Serbian, Vatican, and Warzone with addition of specops himself and saladin. After 2 hours of struggle, Metal Gawds receive a devastating loss after which fX members decided to quit wolf. That was also the last team Specops led through an entire season.

KrAzYkAzE: This was probably the funnest RtCW match I ever played in. I don�t think I could have played any better as an individual and our teamwork was superb. It felt really good to beat them because the same guys beat us in the CAL finals the night before.

Season 2 TWL Shrub Champions - N4L (Militant,Warzone,Focker,Coff1,Banks,Dyno,Evil,Branmuffin,Mutha ) defeats True Soldiers on Chateau 3 - 0
RTCW Open Cup Europe - ViB (Arno,Didjay,edge,Enki,Kritos,Max,Maxuh,Momo,Uzer) defeats natalie 5 - 3 Frostbite,base,village.
_______________________________________________________________________________
July 2005
Season 2 STA Shrub Champions - The Swat Guys (Hotniks,Golfpro,Hunaryun,Feltersnatch,Holz,Heckler) defeats -|SS|- 3 - 1 on tundra

Talbot: SS got screwed out of this championship, we got forced to play on a server where we all pinged well over a 100.
____________________________________________________________________________
August 2005
RTCW Nations CUP 7 - United Kingdom defeats Germany 4 - 0
____________________________________________________________________________
October 2005
Wolfenstock 1 Day tournament Exodus (Fuzion,Imposter,Hiki,Luigi,Slaya,Naevara,Fenix,Twrecka,Pheonix) defeats tehbirds 3 - 0 on beach
____________________________________________________________________________
November 2005
Season 10 TWL OSP Champions - TV (Donka,Dyno,Elliot,Alias,Hiki,KrazyKaze,Rambowl) defeats Mongoloids 3 - 0 on Beach

Donka: LuckyB tells admins that his ip shows up on MBL due to his hacking nephew.

Issue goes public and luckyB gets a boot from RTCW overturning all exodus� wins in playoffs

Season 3 TWL Shrub Champions - Xtreme Soldiers (Badman,Forsaken,Surge,Deadeye,Banger,Spliff,Madness) defeats ASF 3 - 0 on Base

Talbot: X played extremely well and earned their shrub championship, they beat SS 3-2 in the semis before rolling over ASF in the finals.

Syndicate.Gromit|TWL: Wasn�t this the season where Syndicate.Soldiers beat X and N4L beat ASF in the Semis but both matches were replayed with opposite results because WTV was live instead of delayed?
____________________________________________________________________________
February 2006
RTCW Open Cup Europe - Svperfrogs (Arno,Cerv,Edge,Kritos,Max,Maxuh,Momo,Mote,Uzer) defeats one.soldier
____________________________________________________________________________
April 2006
Season 11 TWL OSP Champions - Teh Birdz (Caffiene,Mutha,Spuddy,Troll,Sonic,Mesh,Eights,Lt.Goose) defeats Jolly Rogers 3 - 2 on Beach
Season 4 TWL Shrub Champions - Syndicate-Soldiers (Luna,Debussy,Doc,Ck,Talbot,Rap,Karpov,G-force,Aiko,Gromit,Booty) defeats C1 3 - 2 on tundra

Talbot: SS came back from 2-1 to win an extremely close championship 3 - 2 .

____________________________________________________________________________
June 2006
Battle of the Beach 3
BOB 3 Champions - wSw (Remedy,Slaya,Slag,Beavermania,Elusion,Daized) defeats Exodus 3 - 0 on beach
Wippuh: A match where even the RtCW fanboys were rooting for u5.

Donka: United5 comes to RTCW to defeat birds and does it on RTCW original birds favorite map 3-0.

This is the largest registered transfer of bragging rights to ever happen in RTCW.

Virus047: BOB3 marks one of several minor revivals of the RTCW community throughout the years.
Hollywood (from Affliction) sparks interest and with the help of TWL and several other community members gets the tourney underway.

Several notable teams and community members return to RTCW for the tournament. Interest in BOB 3 Tournament revives interest in OSP Community and TWL announces Season #12 of OSP. Over 40 teams signup to compete. OSP pubs including Hells Gate return in full force.

Syndicate.Gromit|TWL: I remember 2 things most vividly:
1) agonizing over the team seeding which, with the return of so many talented players, was done subjectively; and
2) the semifinals match Donka mentioned above. The Birdz allowed a banned player to play for U5 thinking that, regardless of who played, the Birdz would win. TWL informed both teams pre-match that if a banned player played for U5, the Birdz would move on to the finals by forfeit. The teams played anyway and Birdz were rolled on Beach. In the Finals, the Birdz refused to play so TWL decided to let U5 play for the title. U5 forfeited. All in all, it was a remarkably crappy way to end a great tournament.
____________________________________________________________________________
July 2006
Season 5 TWL Shrub Champions - Syndicate-Soldiers (Alien,Booty,CK,Debussy,Doc,G-Force,Gromit,Inya,Karpov,Mutha,Rap,Scrilla,Talbot,Warlord)
defeats oN 3 - 0 on UFO

Syndicate.Gromit|TWL: A very strong season for Syndicate with Scrilla taking over the PF to free the rest of us up to gun. I think all our team members played a round in the finals.

Talbot: A special championshp for SS, we played 12 players from our roster for this match.
____________________________________________________________________________
August 2006
Vixen Resigns as TWL RTCW Lead Admin

Virus047: Vixen could easily be credited by some as being one of the soul driving forces in TWL to keep RTCW afloat in its later stages when several higher up TWL admins wanted to pull the plug.


Her drive and determination to never give up on the RTCW community was something that was hard to find in any admin who�s ever worked in this community.

She was a personal friend and teammate of mine so I saw the countless hour she put forth to make TWL the best league possible. Regardless of personal opinion or feelings towards her it�s hard to ignore the effort and time she put towards the community.

Her loss was felt very deeply as TWL was knee deep in admin controversy for many seasons to come.
____________________________________________________________________________
September 2006
Season 12 TWL OSP Champions - TV (Remedy,Slaya,Sage,Elusive,Serum,Rambo,Mofo,Dyno,SnipeTX) defeats Jolly Rogers by forfeit, Ice

KrAzYkAzE: Not the original TV by any means. I played on Rabia this season.

Talbot: TV took this win by forefeit and refused to reschedule...Suffice it to say they lost a lot of credibility after this win.

Syndicate.Gromit|TWL:
1) 24 team season with 16 team playoff format http://www.teamwarfare.com/tournament/default.asp?page=brackets&tournament=RtCW+OSP+12+Playoffs&div=1
2) Tv takes a forfeit win over Jolly Roger (Alien, Vid, Daniel, Word, Nard, Lunatic and Radea) after Jolly Roger squeaked by Syndicate in the Semis. HUGE disappointment as the WTV audience missed what would have been an excellent match between 2 teams with undefeated regular seasons.
3) Mid-season drama with the disputed Tv v Birdz match on sub (http://www.teamwarfare.com/forums/showthread.asp?forumid=12&threadid=324971).
4) Overall, it was an excellent revival season coming on the heels of BOB3.
____________________________________________________________________________

November 2006
Battle For Berlin 3v3 Champions Hostile Inc. (Remedy,Slaya,Rambo,Serum) defeats Hummel
____________________________________________________________________________

December 2006
Season 6 TWL Shrub Champions - Syndicate-Soldiers (Debussy,Doc,Ck,Rap,Talbot,Karpov,Gromit,Booty,Warlord,Inya,Scrilla,Mutha,Alien,Luna)
defeats I Love Lamp 3 - 0 on multiple maps

Talbot: Another match where SS got to play a dozen players from it's roster in a championship match.
____________________________________________________________________________

February 2007
Season 13 TWL OSP Champions - Trinity (Cade,Sucka,Myth,Robez,Elusive,Bigshot,Rowdy,Chocula,Saleen,Lowtrack,Anomoly) deafeats High Life 3 - 1 on Frostbite

Robes: Numerous server crashes. tTt pulls out a win for the flock.
Talbot: Server crashers ruined the WTV and the match for the most part, for everyone

Syndicate.Gromit|TWL:
1) Another good OSP season with 18 teams and an 8 team playoff bracket.
2) Syndicate went 8-0 and Jolly Rgr 7-1, but after losing to both teams in the regular season, Trinity won the title.
____________________________________________________________________________

June 2007
Season 7 TWL Shrub Champions - Syndicate-Soldiers (Booty,Karpov,Inya,Luna,Donka,DTA,Timmay,Aiko,Talbot) deafeats Paco 3 - 0 on Tundra

Talbot: SS wins their 4th straight shrub championship, a dynasty is born.

Syndicate.Gromit|TWL:
1) In an effort to increase the number of teams and add some elements of OSP into Shrub, TWL changed the format to 5v5, removed the 1st shot helmet protection and disabled trading heavy weapons.
2) These changes resulted in a 21 teams field with a 12 team playoff bracket.
3) It was a good season with competitive matches. Everyone enjoyed the changes or, at least, accepted them without much complaint. Congrats to everyone on this most recent season.

____________________________________________________________________________

Thanks to: Talbot, Gromit, Wippuh, Donka, Robez, Hollywood, Sharp, KrazyKaze & Virus047 for adding commentary .

Syndicate.Gromit|TWL: MUCH thanks to Karpov for leading this project from start to finish. I imagine everyone can appreciate how much time and effort it took to complete the first chronicle of RTCW competitive history.

Also thx to Gotcha, Booty, DividedbyZero, EventHorizon, Fool, Sucka, Vixen, Juventus, Diaz, Rambowl, Vortex, Killermike, Flogzero, Sage, Coff1 & Caffeine for supplying info & help.

Please dont take it personally if I have inadvertently left your name off of a teams roster , some are incomplete.
I added as many names from each seasons roster as memory and research would allow. Karpov.

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Best RTCW Song That Never Came Out.

Posted by: -doNka- (Thursday, July 19, 2007)

I was cleaning up my ftp and found a long text i wrote for my 3rd RTCW song that I've never finished making. It was written during the times when RTCW pubs were overrun by canadians and their *brothers*.

This piece was based on Eminem "When I'm gone" so get the rythm of beat and lyrics goin inside your head when you read this.

Have you ever had that perfect aim to get a ban for
not irc ban, global, MBL streamin' ban for
so you could actually stand strong without any armor
against some fishy skilled kids - styles, postal, and farmer
But what happens when canuck turns in your hax to bust you
And every wolfer in the world now tries to flame and bash you
What happens when you become the main source of their pain?
"Hey Dude, check out my stats" - go catch punkbuster train
"It's all my brother!", "Really? Your brother's hacker, is he?"
No more dorito stories, kids, the underbed gnome's fishy
You've installed your uber skills, they don't install themselves
Don't try to tell us fairy tale here that never sells
Then come to forums, play some pubs and tell us wolf is dieing
So we can promoptly tell your face to stop your fuckin crying
You kids are shady, yea baby, haxors are crazy
You'll ask unban your ass someday but admins will be lazy

I keep having this dream, I'm looking through walls on my screen
The pub is bumping, I'm seeing things i've never seen
My nades make people cry, why, why are people crying
They must assume I'm talented and I aint fuckin lieing
And when i'm busted I say it is my first time
And testing hax is not really a haxing crime
I want to reconnect but access's gone, someone already blocked it
I realize this is the end, i should have fuckin stopped it
My key gen comes in handy every time i rock it
Comes up a picture saying my host is banned, we've already kicked ya
I look around, and feel a sting of fear
This ain't my house, people coming, so i disappear
Someone is saying "I am ready for the match fight" - and it's tonight
I got him banned for haxing and he doesn't know it is too late
And just as I go to walk out of my planted back door
The flames are rising, there're gone, and this spotlight is on
And i'm singing

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Things That Would Make RTCW Better.

Posted by: -doNka- (Sunday, November 11, 2007)

RTCW has been one of the most balanced, attractive, addictive game since it came out. Not too many games are fit for competition mode right off the shelf, which RTCW was. It's been 6 years since it came out and it is still hard to think of something that could have made this game any better. So I decided to come up with the list of things that I saw in other games or just ever imagined about RTCW having in order to make one step closer to perfection. So here we go:

Antilag
One thing that any FPS game ought to have, yet RTCW has never gotten it on a global scale. This simple feature could unite nations. Seriously, look at NA teams playing Euros in ET. Some of the most exciting matchups in promode happened between scandinavian and North American players. This never happened in RTCW. I'm sure there are people here that still remember rewind vs minions(digital heresy) and other not so anticipated games that completely blew because of huge ping difference. Creation of antilag was totally up to mod makers, which in our case - Rhea. And he did not seem to care much about antilag just before he stopped caring at all.

Reward system
RTCW has the most worthless reward system out of all games out there. You get near zero credit for being a good teammate. You get one worthless point for a kill. You get nothing for defending objective, but you get 10x kill points for returning one. Beach war room comes to mind where docs may be picked up and dropped 50 times a game. I'd be glad to see ET system migrating to RTCW as soon as ET even came out. Great gameplay reflective point system(not XP) and rewards for best class, best damage, kills etc still keep team play spirit in ET. Meaningless reward system let RTCW go into places this wonderful game should have never gone. I'm talking about /kills, headshot whoring and, sequentially, deathmatch. Point system in RTCW was a failure from the beginning and it's a shame it was never changed. While nobody cares about it in competition, pubs could be a lot more fun if there was something to look at besides KDR and HS count.

Better hud menu
There are two little arrows that ALMOST show that you are about to be able to throw an air strike can. Almost. What about a pack? Or three packs? This always drove me crazy. Why not have a number next to the bar. Simplicity has its own charm, but that could be at least optional. It would not hurt to show whether you currently have grenades or not. I'm sure we've all been in a situation when you accidentally press a grenade bind and here it comes out x 1 when you thought you had none. In the same way, a display of pistol bullets and even gun bullets when you have a 'nade out would be really nice. Quake 3 osp and promode really took this to the proper level with customizable menus. Simple and convenient.

No fog from the beginning
I never fully appreciated reality in games, and grafix, and all that fancy crap that simply gets in a way of your vision. A way that is open for fire, but not for visual recognition of a target. When it comes down to the battle between to people that know the map and possible player retreat routes this becomes less relevant, but it's still there and still annoying. IMHO, this game simply looks better without fog. To me, it is visually appealing without fog. Maybe, without fog, there would be less exploiting and tweaking the game to the point when you have to make your screen glow white on r_intensity 5 in order to recognize shadows a mile away.

Web repositories
There's nothing worse than waiting 5 mb map, or a mod component to download at some ridiculous speed of 11KB/s. I'm no prophet, but this could be foreseen and fixed before RTCW even came out on a 3 year old Quake 3 engine. Web download references would drastically improve new player experience and possibly keep him in the game for longer time. This is all it was about at the end, not running out of people playing the game. Imagine if anyone could download OSP in 20 seconds and a map in 30...

Usable sten
Sten is a wonderful weapon, especially in skilled hands. But no matter how good a person is with a sten, he cannot use it throughout the whole cycle of the game. I always envisioned sten overheating, maybe, after 13-14 bullets instead of 10. It would still require aiming skills and overheat timing and make the weapon not just a pub toy, but a usable weapon available for both teams.

Powerful knife
Backrage with knife is one of the most satisfying experiences in wolf, but in frontal battle this weapon is almost worthless. Say, 25hp per hit would make it a lot more fun to use when you ran out of bullets in a close battle. What's the fun of knifing a medic 10 times in the face and still not accomplishing anything? Some power and visual reinforcement could have made knife a really fun weapon to use.

Lesser sniper rifle recoil
I just felt like it was too much. I felt it was just ridiculous when I first upgraded my PC and increased average FPS nearly twice. Some nifty scripts with 43 fps sniper rifle were real savers, but I still hate dragging the crosshair down after every shot. I almost thought of using one of those loxodonte's exploits with 0 recoil once. I get the point of upward recoil and all, but scrolling two pages down after every mouse click is a charm killer! Seems like every other game got it right besides RTCW.

Hopefully, there's some being that watches us from above and will not happen RTCW2 suck as terribly as all of the id-related titles since 2002. If you're out there, pass this onto developing team, amen.

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Movies 2008

Posted by: bull-z-@ (Friday, December 14, 2007)

Here is a list I compiled of my picks for movies in 2008. There is nothing else really going on with this site, but I figured you guys would appreciate this.

Movies to Look out for in 2008: a Jimlist

Cloverfield
Release Date: January 18
Plot Outline: Revolves around a monster attack in New York as told from the point of view of a small group of people.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1060277/

Rambo 4
Release Date: January 25
Sly Stallone
He's Back
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0462499/

The Eye
Release Date: February 1
Jessica Alba
Plot Outline: The remake of the Hong Kong film "Jian Gui", a woman who receives an eye transplant that allows her to see into the supernatural world.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0406759/

Fool's Gold
Release Date: February 8
Kate Hudson, Matthew McConaughey
Plot Outline: A new clue to the whereabouts of a lost treasure rekindles a married couple's sense of adventure -- and their estranged romance.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0770752/

Jumper
Release Date: February 14
Hayden Christenson, Samuel L. Jackson
Plot Outline: A genetic anomaly allows a young man to teleport himself anywhere. He discovers this gift has existed for centuries and finds himself in a war that has been raging for thousands of years between "Jumpers" and those who have sworn to kill them.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0489099/

The Other Boleyn Girl
Release Date: February 29
Erica Bana, Natalie Portman
Plot Summary: A sumptuous and sensual tale of intrigue, romance and betrayal set against the backdrop of a defining moment in European history, The Other Boleyn Girl tells the story of two beautiful sisters, Anne (Portman) and Mary (Johansson) Boleyn, who driven by their family's blind ambition, compete for the love of the handsome and passionate King Henry VIII (Bana).

10,000 B.C.
Release Date: March 7
Plot Outline: A prehistoric epic that follows a young mammoth hunter's journey through uncharted territory to secure the future of his tribe.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0443649/

Ironman
Release Date: May 2
Gwyneth Paltrow, Robert Downey Jr.
Plot Outline: When Tony Stark is forced to create a life support suit to keep him alive after an accident he decides to use the technology in his suit to fight crime.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0371746/

Indiana Jones and The Kingdom of The Crystal Skull
Release Date: May 22
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0367882/

The Happening
Release Date: June 13
M. Night Schyamalan
Plot Outline: A paranoid thriller about a family on the run from a natural crisis that presents a large-scale threat to humanity
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0949731/

Get Smart: The Movie
Release Date: June 20
Plot Outline: Maxwell Smart, Agent 86 for CONTROL, battles the forces of KAOS with the more-competent Agent 99 at his side.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0425061/

Wall-E
Release Date: June 27
Plot Outline: The year is 2700. WALL*E, a robot, spends every day doing what he was made for. But soon, he will discover what he was meant for.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0910970/

Wanted
Release Date: June 27
Morgan Freeman, Angelina Jolie
Plot Summary: after his estranged father is murdered, the deadly sexy Fox recruits him into the Fraternity, a secret society that trains Wes to avenge his father's death by unlocking his dormant powers. As she teaches him how to develop lightning-quick reflexes and phenomenal agility, Wes discovers this team lives by an ancient, unbreakable code: carry out the death orders given by fate itself.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0493464/

Hellboy 2: The Golden Army
Release Date: July 11
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0411477/

The Mummy 3: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor
Release Date: August 1
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0859163/

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
Release Date: November 21
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0417741/

Star Trek XI
Release Date: December 25
Eric Bana, Winona Ryder
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http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0796366/

There Will Be Blood
Release Date: December 26
Daniel Day Lewis
Plot Outline: A story about family, greed, religion, and oil, centered around a turn-of-the-century Texas prospector (Daniel Day-Lewis) in the early days of the business.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0469494/

Push
Release Date: 2008
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Plot Summary: The action packed sci-fi thriller involves a group of young American ex-pats with telekinetic and clairvoyant abilities, hiding from a clandestine U.S. government agency. They must utilize their different talents and band together for a final job enabling them to escape the agency forever.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0465580/

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Aggregate Performance Metric, Pt. I - Overview

Posted by: source (Friday, November 6, 2020)

Introduction

In anticipation of Wolf PRO being released sometime in the near future, I developed a new framework for ranking players which is called Aggregate Performance Metric (APM). It works by calculating two primary factors, player impact and team success which are then combined and adjusted for quality of competition. Each player contributes a certain percentage of their rank points to two pools, impact points and success points. The ratio of those contributions is determined by the number of players in the match. In essence, each player makes two bets: 1) on themself meet or exceed expectations, and 2) on their team to meet or exceed expectations. Expectations for impact and success are determined by relative rank within the match. Impact points are distributed based on each player’s performance in a number of weighted statistical categories, and success points are distributed based on the outcome of the match. A player’s rank after a match is a percentage of the difference between the amount points that they had prior to the match and the amount attributed to them after the match.


Problem

The current system (Elo) is unsuitable for use with multiplayer games because:

1) It doesn’t account for the disparity between players within a match;
2) It doesn’t account for the individual impact that a player has on the game, particularly in the event of a loss.


Requirements

I set the following requirements for a replacement system to be well-rounded:

> It must correctly rank a player in each of 27 (33) possible scenarios, where the factors are player impact, team success, and quality of competition given that each of these may take on a positive, neutral, or negative value.
> It must be scalable to work correctly for player counts between 2-64.
> Each match must be a closed system where the number of points is fixed and the sum of the redistribution of points is 0.
> Player ranks are adjusted based on expectations. Those that exceed expectations increase their rank, those that meet expectations stay in the same position, and those that fail to meet expectations decrease their rank.
> It must work at minimum for objective format games (Objective, Stopwatch).
> It must account for players who played incomplete rounds.


Assumptions

I made the following assumptions when constructing APM:

> The less people in a match, the more important it is to win; the more people in a match, the more important it is to have an individual impact.
> The less people in a match, the more important it is for teams to be balanced. A team’s expectation to win is not linear in the sense that a significant gap between team ranks becomes increasingly difficult to overcome.
> The more people in a match, the more difficult it is to win in spite of any particular rank gap between teams - as variance decreases, confidence increases.




For a mathematical breakdown of how it works, see Aggregate Performance Metric, Pt. II - Breakdown.
For examples of it working in 6v6 matches, see Aggregate Performance Metric, Pt. III - Examples.

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Aggregate Performance Metric, Pt. II - Breakdown

Posted by: source (Saturday, November 7, 2020)

For the previous article, see Aggregate Performance Metric, Pt. I - Overview.


Solution

Aggregate Performance Metric is a system that calculates a player’s individual impact on the game based on their performance in a number of weighted statistical categories, then factors in team success relative to the difference between the sums of each team’s rank points in order to account for quality of competition. A player’s rank before a match serves as an expectation for how they should perform, the expectation being that a player will retain their same rank after the match. The difference between a player’s pre-match (antecedent) and post-match (consequent) rank is a portion of the difference between how a player was expected to play and how they actually did.

Rank displacement is calculated using the following formulas:

ε’ = ε + δλ
λ = P' + T' - ε
P' = αΣ( εM )P
T’ = (( 1 - μ( T )) * β * Σ( εM ) / ( ⌈ T ⌉ * m + ⌊ 1 - T ⌋ * n )) + ( ⌊ T ⌋ * μ( T ) * β * Σ( εM ) / n

where...

ε is the antecedent rank;
ε’ is the consequent rank;
δ is the rank displacement scale;
λ is the rank displacement function;
P’ is the player’s impact points;
P is the impact value for the player;
T is the success value for the player’s team;
μ( T ) is the expected success value for the player’s team;
T’ is the player’s team’s success points;
n is the number of players in the match;
m is the number of players on the team;
Σ( εM ) is the total pool of points to be distributed (match rank points);
α is the ratio of a player’s rank points contributed to impact points = 1 - 2 / n ;
β is the ratio of a player’s rank points contributed to success points = 2 / n ;


Scale

The rank displacement scale is used to determine the percentage of points actually distributed after a match. The exact value is to be determined and adjusted for during implementation.


Player Impact

Inherently, a player’s expected consequent rank is equal to their antecedent rank since the value of their points is relative to match rank. Their expected impact value is their current rank divided by the match rank. Their team’s expected success value is the sum of their team members' ranks divided by the match rank.

Impact points are distributed by multiplying the player’s impact score by the total amount of match rank points to be awarded on the basis of that factor. The interesting part of impact point distribution is calculating a player’s impact score, the accuracy of which comes down to implementation. A number of statistical categories which may be either single-factor (e.g. kills) or multi-factor (e.g. kills-per-minute) receive category weights. Each player earns a portion of the weight in each category based on the amount that they contributed to the total in that category. Similarly, their score is the total weight that they earned in all categories divided by the total weight distributed.

The more categories which are accounted for, the more accurate this process can be. In order to prevent player impact score from skewing towards specific classes, there should be a wide range of categories whereby the total weight is distributed evenly amongst them such that each class has roughly equal opportunity to earn the same weight. Ideally, statistics relating to objectives (dynamite planted, objectives transmitted, etc) should be factored in. Determining category weights becomes more difficult with each added category, so there needs to be a balance between accuracy and complexity.

While player impact can be applied to OSP, the design heavily favours the development of Wolf PRO because of potential for a well-rounded set of statistical categories. In order to account for time played, individual statistics need to be normalized by multiplying each player’s contributions by the match time and divided by the player’s time before impact scores can be calculated.


Team Success

A team’s success score T is determined by:

T = { Win = 1, Tie = 0.5, Loss = 0 }

The table below shows the team point distribution based on the outcome of the match, where YOURS is your team’s contribution to the success points and THEIRS is the opposing team’s contribution.



The formula for distributing success points might look complicated, but the logic is simple:

> The winning team gains the other team’s contribution to the team pool and splits it amongst themselves; their contribution is distributed evenly amongst all players.
> The losing team loses their own contribution, but gains an even portion of the winning team’s contribution.
> In the event of a tie, each team gains only the other’s contribution.


Quality of Competition

An important factor that is implicit in the previous calculations is to account for quality of competition. Expectations placed on each individual grows as their team rank increases. The wider the gap between team ranks, the wider the contributions to the team success pool become. In essence, a favoured team has less to gain and more to lose. When the gap is wide enough, it’s possible to lose points even in a win.


Strengths & Weaknesses

Along with solving the two introductory problems, this system has a few significant strengths:

There is little to no incentive for excessively strong teams to face excessively weak ones, and as a result there is incentive for teams to be balanced.

The value of a win is determined by the number of players in the match as well as their combined strength.

Individual impact is not skewed towards high damage classes (ie. lieutenants and panzers).

Both the player impact and the team success portions of APM could be factored out to be their own complete individual ranking systems.

Setting the scale value higher initially and then lowering it over time could help normalize the rankings without the need for seeding.

The system can’t be applied to aggregate data - it only works when applied to individual rounds. The same is true for any system based on the relative strengths of teams.


More testing should be done to find the most desirable value for displacement scale as well as the default rank for a previously unranked player. Additionally, the value of α could be increased to enhance the importance of team success; I chose 2 / n because it consistently produced reasonable results and because it scales nicely such that when n = 2, α = 1 meaning that in a 1 v 1 game, winning is all that matters. This is reasonable because this system is designed for use with objective-based games, although it would be just as easy to modify it to work with strictly score-based games.




For examples of it working in 6v6 matches, see Aggregate Performance Metric, Pt. III - Examples.

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Aggregate Performance Metric, Pt. III - Examples

Posted by: source (Saturday, November 7, 2020)

For the previous articles, see Aggregate Performance Metric, Pt. I - Overview and Aggregate Performance Metric, Pt. II - Breakdown.


Here are a few simple examples to illustrate how it could work for a 6v6 match given a rank displacement scale of 0.025 (2.5%). In each example, the number of players is 12 and the match rank is 18,000. As a result, α ~0.833 and β ~0.167 which means that 15,000 points will be distributed for player impact and 3,000 points will be distributed for team success.


Example #1: Balanced, Win/Loss, Kills = 10

In this example, the teams are assumed to be balanced as every player starts with a rank of 1500. There are two standout players with respect to impact, player_a and player_g, the latter of which plays exceptionally well despite a match loss. Since there is only one category counted towards impact points, the weighting is irrelevant.




Example #2: Balanced, Win/Loss, Kills = 10 and Revives = 5

This example is exactly the same as the previous one, except that revives are factored into the player impact calculation in order to better characterize the impact of medics. The difference is reflected in their consequent rank where player_a and player_g, two kill-focused players gained less points while player_k lost less points. The rest of the players who had an average number of revives moved slightly towards the mean.




Example #3: Unbalanced, Win/Loss, Kills and Revives

This example has the same statistics and outcome of the previous two, but starts with rankings that more accurately reflect the skill levels of the players; the team ranks skew towards the winning team by 500 points. As a result, a number of players lose points despite their team winning since they have a below-average impact on the match.




Example #4: Unbalanced, Tie, Kills and Revives

The last example is the same as the previous except for that the match result is a tie. The axis team overcomes their rank disadvantage to tie the match which earns them points relative to that disadvantage. At this point, the distribution of points after the match is very reasonable with only a few outliers which highlights the importance of assigning weights fairly among a well-rounded (but not excessive) set of statistical categories.

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Case for Sten

Posted by: -doNka- (Saturday, December 19, 2020)

Sten - cool, but ultimately useless weapon. Fun long range, but not good enough for real play.
The problem is obvious - natural limitation - 10 bullets overheat.

What can you do with 10 bullets - 2 headshots, 3 body shots at 40% accuracy - 10-11 bullets. Even the most perfect scenario to kill 1 person you need close to 10 bullet limit.

At best, people have accuracy 33% with MP40/Thompson. So consider the following scenario for Thompson to kill a person with 130hp while shooting 33% acc.

(130-50)/18/.33 = 14 bullets minimum with a headshot
130/18/.33 = 22 minimum without headshot

MP40 is 14 hp per body shot, but a higher accuracy and same effect.
Hallway fights are easier as the accuracy may go up to 50-60% per one fight, but not across all games. It's pretty stable - 33% at best (study based on thousands of games)

So now let's assume sten all-day accuracy ought to be a little better - 40%

(130-50)/14/.40 = 15 minimum with a headshot
130/14/.40=24 minimum

Considering this, I think sten overheat limit should provide a possibility for a good kill. 1 hs + some body bullets that is:
12 bullet minimum with 50% accuracy
or 15 for an average fight with one headshot

So
Proposing to make sten 16 bullet overheat (2 reloads in 1 clip)

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