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CPL Europe

Friday, September 11, 1998
CD of Demos:
GreySeer has finished the production work on the CD now, and it's my job to finish the content off (basically the html pages - intro etc). Since I know the main interest anyone will have in the CD is to watch the demos (not read the blah blah), I'm going to get this done over the weekend and have a page ready to offer you the CD on Monday night. Grey will then put the pieces together and we should be ready to mail the CD to anyone who is interested by mid-week. Haven't decided on a price yet, but if we ask for anything above cost price you can rest assured that money is simply going to go into the pot for the next event.

In the meantime, here's a demo for you from round 1 of the double elimination. It's Mallanox (POV, 13) vs Knight (1) on DM6, dmm1 rules. This is a very well played game by Mallanox, who is pretty much in control from start to finish. Knight struggles to get into the game, never quite getting a fix on what Mallanox is up to. I think these two Players are going to have many close and hard-fought games against each other in the future. Knight's earlier win over Mallanox in the round robin on DM4 showed that both Players have fine chances. Definitely two Players to be watching.

Download mallvsknight.zip.

Asian Gib:
Got an email today from Sadiq Stanekzai in Indonesia who told me he has started a Quake site that concentrates on Asian Quakenews called Asiangib :-).

He also said that the match between Afghanistan's best player and Indonesia's bestplayer is indeed true:

"I was there yesterday and saw the whole match. The players was great. Even if it could have gone better for Indonesia :). RebeL9 is a tough guy on DM¤ :)~ Yeah BTW I'll put out the demos today afternoon. They are on DM4 and DM6 and one from DM2. Who won the match? Well see in the demos by yourself".

Take a look at Asiangib at http://members.xoom.com/asiangib.

How Did I Know?:
Over on Clanscene, HeKSeN asked a question:

"And to Hoony's note on me being "too good a Player to be a webpimp" i can only say one thing, how would you know? maybe i just pretend like im good, or even better maybe im cheating as hell with big pointy models shooting through the walls whenever the enemy is in nearby distance of 20 feet?. Who knows :)".

The answer is that I know cuz I downloaded BOTH your POV demos (on DM4 and DM6), watched them with a good beer (VB) :"Þ. With such a beer, I can tell most things in life pretty good (hic). Seriously man, congratulations on coming second in the DROOOOL.

Weekend:
OK, see you on Monday night (Australian time). Play lots of Quake now.

Thursday, September 10, 1998
It's Genocide:
Now this is hot. Check out the Genocide 4 QW tourney which just started up in the US. So many mean muthafucka American QW clans. If they broadcast this stuff on cable TV, would you watch it? Like hell, you play too much Quake to watch TV (it was a trick question). But look, I totally agree with HeKSeN (who by the way is too good a Player to be a webpimp as well) that los americanos need to play on some more maps than DM3.

It's Total Scandi Bloodlust Madness:
Imagine 100+ Scandinavian maniacs packed into a sweating, steaming lodge somewhere in the frigid wastes of Norway - you have yourself a mental image of the Tenth Asker LAN. Then imagine the likes of Sweden's Brutal Deluxe and the Disney Devils, plus Norwegian and Danish Clans and I bet you run screaming into the night to jump into a deep hole and cover yourself with itchy leaves. That's right, the Scandinavians are preparing to blast the northern ice cap off the top of the planet with a big one. Check out more details at Clanscene.

Polish Punishers:
Izn0 reports there is a possibility that some Polish challengers might take the ferry across to Stockholm to have a game against Clan 9. Imagine that. I tell you, stuff is happening in Europe. Those Europeans are going to kick a lot of ass in the next 6 months - a safe prediction. Also be sure to check out QuakeWorld for Izn0's interview with Blitzer of Clan Z.

Sujoy Switch:
Quick, try to frag Sujoy - this might be your only chance:

"Today I've made the switch to GL and fov 120... god save us all!"

Methos Marathon 6 Hour Bonk With Gorgeous Blond Neighbour:
Reports are flooding in that Ray Methos has been up to a little rocket jumping with cl_bob set to maximum:

"Got picked up (literally) after work by my gorgeous blond neighbor. Had white knuckles all the way home from her umm "quick" driving style.

Got home, dumped the suit, went out for a Mexican supper with the neighbor. Bought the movie "Titanic" for my mother who was too lazy to pick it up herself. [Ed he thinks of mum - how sweet] Dropped the movie off at Mom's place and went home. I watched a bit of TV and then spent 6 hours at my "gorgeous blond neighbor's" house. I don't think I'll go into all the details about that, it's just boring X-rated stuff. :)"

Huaa, huaaa, huaaa!!!

Sexy Girl Asking Me for Favours:
Not to be outdone by Methos, Cali Girl emailed me to post some news about some stuff, and well, so, you can read about the Quake QVT Bracelet Review by Jody `Cali Girl' Robinson on QVT's Sterling Silver Quake Bracelet at CGN Cali Girl News http://cgn.gamesmania.com and there's also an Unreal Profile and Interview on Cliff Blesinski a.k.a. Cliffyb a.k.a. Grand Master Ice Shaft, Lead Level Designer/Co-designer of Unreal. Profile and Interview by Jody 'Cali Girl' Robinson please check it out at CGN Cali Girl News http://cgn.gamesmania.com.

I love it when those girls talk dirty to me ;-).

werd:
sCary gets a big smooch from his loyal supporters for making a decision to refocus his site on FPS news:

"Holy hell that's a lot of email. Well I'm glad everyone seems to be glad that I'll be dropping the coverage of all that extra stuff and just concentrating the page back to where it belongs".

Wednesday, September 9, 1998
CD of Demos:
The CD of demos from the tourney is coming along now. We're in the "post-production" stages :P. It's very nice because you can play the demos straight off the CD if you have Demoplay, as it'll write them to your hard drive as a temporary file. Very handy for saving disk space :-).

While we're waiting, here's a demo for you from Group Three's round robin matches. It's Webby (POV, 38) vs The_Bitch (10) on UltraViolence, dmm3 rules. Webby always strikes me as the consumate professional Australian Quake Player - he's not only a great Player but also a dedicated Quake sportsman. He loves nothing more than some serious competition, in fact he relishes the opportunity to frag morning, noon and night. And in Bitchy he finds a tough and relentless opponent. The_Bitch plays a hard and aggressive game and never gives up. She is the classic Australian Quake Player - half a chance and she'll pop a cap in your bum and blow your arse to kingdom come ;-).

Download webvsbitchy.zip.

Feedback on Duel Tourney:
Well, a few days have gone by now and it's a good time to look at what some of the ppl have been saying about the Duel tourney we held on Saturday, and also to see how it stacked up against our own objectives.

First of all, ppl have said some really nice things about it, and for that we are very thankful. I'm not going to rehash all that stuff here though, no matter that it makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside ;-). Instead, I want to take a look at some of the constructive criticism we asked for:

Number of Computers: "I know you guys couldn't have everyone lugging their own pc into the place, but I think that for next time, You should give players that option, even tho I got to play on BD's p2-300, I would have been much more comfortable on my own pc...".

Response: We appreciate that you want to play on your own computer next time, and we'll do everything we can to make that happen. Have already talked to Grey about it and can't see any real problem with it from here. The reason we restricted it to 8 computers was to make the task more manageable but I think next time we can handle 8 more PC's. Ideally, we hoped to use 16 identical machines, perhaps borrowed from a sponsor, but I have second thoughts about doing that now. There's nothing like using your own computer, even if your opponent has a better machine.

Rules changed?: "Some players were under the impression that evry1 would b playing on a foreign puta". "I also have heard that people are a little disgruntled with the fact that they were told they couldn't bring their pcs, and then that changed, so most people had to play on other pcs, but some had the advantage of playing on their own puters..... in future, if the rules change or if circumstances change, either everyone concerned should be told (with ample time to do something about it), or nobody should be told".

Response: Basically, we needed to get 8 computers from somewhere and so Grey asked 8 ppl he thought he could count on to help out by bringing their computers. We wanted to keep things as simple as possible. So it wasn't that we changed our minds or anything, is was just that I didn't communicate effectively enough to the other 8 Players that this was what we were doing. Sorry about that.

More Servers/Games: "It may be better to have more puters for the next one so that more games can be played at once". "There were only 2 servers.... so there were always 4 people "practicing", which wasted time... I think a comp run the same way as the one on Sat, but with 4 servers running at a time would be great !" "Not everyone could play games while the comp games were being played, which had me feeling "Ugh, I need to kill these nerves, I need to play some quake, and chill out, dammit, I can't play". "We should probably have more duels played at once for the prelims etc and I am thinking if we arrange it so more duels get played in a shorter amount of time then we can have a team comp as well. I don't think there would be any probs in getting both comps done in one day".

Response: If we can get 16 computers then we can also get another two servers and this problem can be addressed. Again, for the test we wanted to keep things nice and simple and focused on the one competition. In future, I think we can probably expand things a bit. It will mean more work - Grey was saying he'd probably need at least another couple of "marshalls".

Rocket jumping: "I noticed that rocket jumps were lower than usual. Servr setting perhaps?"

Response: A couple of ppl mentioned this to me. Grey will check it out.

Music: "I did not mind the music. The more Tool and Korn the better. I dont really think techno suits quake. Quake is meant to be heavy and gothic. ;-)" "The music may have been a bit loud at the begining cause i could not hear the opposition on the level due to the music. but it was cool when lowered. This also interferred with a player at times cos it was loud and drowned out the sounds of the game. As for the selection I didn't really mind it. I noticed some ppl singing with the tunes and some were trying to restrain themselves from dancing ;-p". "Music, yep, I appreciate BD got in there and offered his techno.. But as my brother is a DJ, I spent 2 years listening to it, and originally I liked it, but now I can't stand the shit, same with a few other people there, so maybe get some different people to bring in their musical collections.. Knight has top music, just a thought ;)".

Response: Music is really important to me too, and it's a tricky one because ppl have such different tastes. I think the answer is to play a little bit of something for everybody - a bit of variation. Sometimes some Rap is just right, sometimes some Hip Hop, sometimes some R&B, sometimes some Goth, and sometimes some Metal. What I'd like to do is to actually burn a CD of some great Quaking tracks. This is new territory - music to Quake by :-).

Also, I really wished we had two microphones and a mixer desk on the admin table, cuz I wanted to have conversations with Grey and other ppl as commentary, and I wanted to be able to pull up some rocking track at the completion of a hot game, and then turn the volume down (but keep the music going in the background) while commentating on the result and introducing the next Players. Hopefully I can get something like this set up for next time.

Sound: "Spectator views of the game projected the sounds of the player being tracked. If ur headphones were set to a very suttle level then I bet u would have been able to hear other player's sounds (if they were the one tracked)".

Response: Ideally I'd like to keep the Players in a sound-proofed box, so that the spectators can yell and scream and the music can roar, and the sound effects can knock you right out of your seat. When that rocket hits I want you to all to bounce a foot into the air. When someone pulls off a neat trick I want the hollering to be heard in the next State. Maybe some specialised headphones are the answer. This is definitely one that I'm still working on - it's a technical problem though, and technical problems always have a solution. It just means getting creative :-).

Spectating screens: "Seemed to b framey"

Response: Yeah, we'll check that one out. Again, the projectors and screens were OK, but what we really want to see is some in-yer-face cinema-quality projection system. In a few year's time we'll see this sort of technology being used for public computer game tournaments, and I expect it will absolutely shit on anything we can imagine today.

Configs: "If people are not allowed to bring their own pcs, then once we know exactly who is coming, they should be required to email their config to you or GreySeer, so this can be modified and put on all the puters beforehand".

Response: Hehe, we did email everyone about this, but the reality is that often things don't work out that way ;-).

Colors: "Some players thought colors were sposed to be restricted to 4 and 13 (didn't happen in the early rounds)".

Response: Yeah, a detail that got overlooked until we had solved some other, more pressing problems.

Decisions: "I also think that stuff like v_kick should be decided well in advance, and not on the day.... ".

Response: Agreed, though sometimes an issue will crop up at the last minute that cannot be ignored.

Tuesday, September 8, 1998
Loads and Loads of News:
There is loads of news about these days, a consequence of the great job guys like Coerj (Coerj), HeKSeN (ClanScene), Izn0 (QuakeWorld), Methos (Methos), Sujoy (Sujoy), and Thresh ( Frontline) are doing with Quake news. These are just some of the sites I regularly visit (in alphabetical order ;-).

Coerj has got a hands-on review of Daikatana. HeKSeN reports on a Danish 1-on-1 tournament which took place on Sunday - DROOOOL, won by Amoun, with HeKSeN coming second, and Insane third (lots of demos too). Izn0 has an interview with [9]Xenon, with one with Blitzer (from Finland's Clan Z) to come (plus piccies of Players). Methos has got an interview up at BigFoot's Lair. Sujoy is releasing demos and has news of Cenobite becoming the UK Captain. Thresh reports that in a GX poll 60% of the people voting preferred Quake over the 35% who preferred Quake II.

What does it all mean? I think it means that the Quake scene is very much alive and well, and that we are all benefitting from the encouragement of hearing about what's happening in other countries. Something that strikes me all the time is how similar we all seem to be, as Quake Players from all around the world.

Check out this piccy from DaNoLd's HP of the QDay2 guys (this piccy is a year old now, btw):

:

Now compare it to this piccy of the Mohicans (a NSW Clan) I took at the recent Duel Tourney:

From left to right, that's Knight, Hook, RJ, Malby, and Webby. I just want to point out the similarities - can you see it? RJ and The Oy ;-). Hehe.

Deep and Meaningful MB:
Have you visited the Challenge.AU Message Board, and seen all the deep and meaningful stuff there about QW vs NQ? I tell you, I can't understand half of what they're saying there, it's all so technical :-Þ. Can anybody tell me whether or not the argument is getting anywhere? Has anyone managed to make a convincing case yet?

WDT:
Is on my mind, and my fingers are crossed.

Challenge.AU Invitational 16 Player Duel Tournament CD:
Is coming. GreySeer is putting the finishing touches to it now, I believe. We'll announce how you can snag a copy here soon.

Also Tim, who came second, emailed me with some of the "memorable moments" of the LAN for him:

• Rj having a vandetta against Faust on aerowalk
• Rj shouting like an idiot, making smartarse comments
• Evry1 getting pissed off at Godzy/Sexy cos they kept nagging to check v_kick settings
• Faust's quote "female quakers like suburban cos ther's a kitchen in it"
• BD going pyscho, making many sexy poses
• BD winning $250 from the pokies
• Malby/Hook teaming up, putting peer pressure on me to get drunk
• Malby eating Mentos off the floor
• Hook lecturing me in the life of drinking alcohol
• Practically evry1 taking advantage of the no floodprot situation
• Ppl deciding whether to pronounce Faust as "F-ow-st" or "F-aw-st"
• Ppl deciding whether to pronounce Womby as "W-om-bee" or "W-oom-ee"
• Alchy smashed
• Hoony's commentating of "oooooooo"
• Rj being an idiot and pushing his weight on the front row in the group foto
• The voting about whether v_kick was on or off was 8 all when only "15" ppl voted (I didn't vote)
• An ax kill

And some of Malby's thoughts on the upside of the LAN:

...it was well run, the projectors made watching games really cool, the way everyone was laid out at two tables, the bar (that was the only thing that killed my nervousness ;)), the players themselves, the way you n grey ran things, the way godz n sal cracked their whips and got us into the games, the sportsmanship shown on the day, the cheers and laughs while players are playing (I dunno about other players, but when I'm playing, and people clap, or cheer, either at something I just did, or something my opponent just did to me, makes me laugh, and calm down too.. ie, when tim axe fragged me (how embarrassment)).

Congrats, I'm really looking forward to the next one, if I get invited :)

What they said: (/me remembering quotes from the day):

• "That fuckin shaft" - Guzz, after playing Malby on DM6, hahaha
• "dad?" - Malby after playing Flint (Tim) on DM4
• "gimme another drink" - BD, drinking bourbon and coke while playing Reload
• "Is the bar open yet?" Malby, 11am
• "Is the bar open yet?" Malby, 12pm
• "Is the bar open yet?" Malby, 1pm
• "Is the bar open yet?" Malby, 2pm
• "Is the bar open yet?" Malby, 3pm
• "Is the bar open yet?" Malby, 3:30pm
• "Is the bar open yet?" Malby, 4:30pm - "Nah, ten more minutes!" Traydogg 4:30pm
• "Is the bar open yet?" Malby, 4:36pm - "Nah, ten more minutes!" Tray again
• "Is the bar open yet?" Malby 4:42pm - "Nah ten more minutes, but he said that ten minutes ago" Tray again :)
• "Is the bar open yet?" Malby, 4:45pm - "Yes" Bartender - "Woooohoooooooo!"

Monday, September 7, 1998
Challenge.AU Demos:
More demos for you - the first FINAL game between Reload and Tim, and something very special:

Reload_vs_Tim 1st FINAL - Reload (POV, 21) vs Tim (15) on Aerowalk, dmm3, no powerups. First game of the "best of three" Final. It's a very close game for the first half, with both Players tied at 9-all and then at 10-all. Reload breaks the deadlock, and gets a lucky spawn frag off Tim on the RA ledge. From there he really cranks it up. There are some amazing RL battles in this demo - "Death from above!". The crowd were going wild. "You don't miss do ya?", says Reload at the end. "Nor do you", replies Tim.

timvmalby.zip - Tim (POV, 20) vs Malby (2) on DM4, dmm1, no powerups. One consequence of playing in front of spectators on big screens was that some of the Players began to put on a show. The crowd really witnessed something special during this game - how many times have you seen an axe kill in a Duel Tournament? Tim entertains like Agassi on Centre Court in this game. Watch for the timed Telefrag where he nets both a frag and the rocket launcher from Malby, who is incidentally a very strong Player who thrives on DM4.

NOTE: Both demos are from observer machines (first-person POV) so that for some of the demo you see both Players' POV. The Demos CD is in production right now - and should be available in a few days time. Some 80+ demos - hmmm :-). We'll announce here how you can snag a copy.

Live and Let League:
Ewan, the organiser of the recent 5 Nationas Tourney, has emailed me to say that he's had a gutsfull of the criticism organisers of Leagues in the UK are copping on the UK mailing list (100 emails a day currently).

"Due to all the bollocks currently going on in the uk with qw, ive decided not to bother running a 2nd 5 Nations tournament as was planned. Currently in the uk if you run a league all you seem to get is hassle from people who dont even know how to admin a 30min game of quake :/

If anyone wants to have a go at running the 5 Nations then mail me.

ACME-Ewan - "

Hmmm. It's never a good thing when an events organiser steps down - they are just ppl volunteering to try and do a difficult job. I would have thought they needed all the support they could get. For example, Aerotus emailed me to say that the UKCL ( basically the lpb + hpb league for the UK ) just finished a ' fun cup' which QPD won in convincing fashion. The next season doesn't start until the 28th / 29th w/e of this month. Aerotus mentions that he has to somehow fit in about "8-9 hours of adminning online a weekend along with study along with a life etc". That's a helluva lot of work!

SK vs Core:
Lajos emailed me to say that Hungary's Core were about to play Germany's SK again. In their last match, the results were:

1st : DM2 tp2 dmm1 (Sk server) 281:11 to SK
2nd DM3 tp2 dmm1 (Medusa) 208:32 to CORE

A demo of the 2nd match can be found at ftp://quake.pganet.com/pub/quake.hu/incoming/core vs sk 2.zip.

More on Afghanistan vs Indonesia:
"More"? hehe. You clearly haven't been reading Izn0's QuakeWorld lately, where Izn0 writes that he:

"got a mail from a guy named Voodoo who claims that his brother who is working in Afghanistan read in a newspaper that Afghanistans best quakeplayer is going to travel to Indonesia to face their finest".

Well, I also heard from Voodoo, and he told me that:

"my brother has talked with the Afghan player and he says that he lives in Pakistan because of the war in Afghanistan but he calls himself Afghan. He has been in Indonesia sometimes and he met many cool guys there who also plays Quake. So he got the message from Komodo that he wanted to challenge him. The matches will be played this week. And my brother will send me the demos as soon as he gets them. Of course I will send them to you".

Will let you know if I do receive that demo - it's a cool story anyway :-).

They Said:
Knightly News on commentating at the Duel Tourney:

"I thought this went off. It was fun actually sitting down and watching the matches being played on the big screen and then to have some mofo going, “omg he got the ra! he is shafting him he is must be dead soon and ooo the other guy got away...” [RJ]. All we need now is some naked women announcing the matches and doing a half time show".

Bitchy writes on GolSyd News:

"Sexy beat me in a "test run burping comp" she beat me hands down since I couldn't get a burp up :P Well done Sexy ;) Then Sexy took out Godzy and gave her a black eye. Godzy has vowed to get revenge at i98 :P

Hoony took full advantage of the mic, and using his ever so deep and lustful voice, commentated the finals with "oooooo"'s and "ahhhhh"'s :P it was commented that he should get a job as a 0055 call guy :P".

Cheating:
It's kind of interesting to see many European Players taking a good look at the way they play the game. Check out this quote from QuakeWorld:

"After reading on Challenge-au that "thanks to the leadership of some Players like DOOMer, Xavier and the NBI guys, there is a move back towards fair gaming in Quake over there" (btw that quote originally came from HekSens ClanScene, GREAT SITE! ;) ), it to quote a great movie: "made me want to be a better man", so I deleted my fullbright and proxy (sounds corny doesnt it?). For some of you foreigners this may seem like a heapfull of cheating but here in Scandinavia no one even raises a eye-brow if you say you use fullbright and proxy, cause "everyone" does that (for those of you thinking: does Clan 9 cheat also? I can tell you that Clan 9 doesnt use proxy, fullbright, or any other cheats).

It felt real good to play without "cheats", and i encourage everyone to do the same: quit the cheating, just because everyone does a thing it doesnt mean its right, if "everyone" jumped of the top of the empire state building, would you? Well maybe you would. :)".

IMHO, whether or not something you do could be considered cheating depends entirely on whether or not you're the only one doing it, and hence, whether or not it gives you an unfair advantage. If everyone uses bright skins, for example, that just becomes "the way we play the game". Then the issue becomes, does this RUIN the game? Are we losing half the fun that comes from not being able to see your opponent coming at you down a dark corridor?

SK-Metzgerr emailed me to suggest that when everyone uses bright skins and other similar-level stuff, it ceases to be "cheating". He even posted some of his tricks of the trade - but I'm sorry I don't want to post the URLs because in some countries these things are not as common, and hence they MAY provide an advantage to the Players that first use them. I don't want to introduce them to other countries - it seems wrong for me to do that.

Here's what SK-Metzgerr said:

"1. Thiner shaft (many players use that and some use even their own created shafts looking like a laser beam)

2. I have got changed the color of the grenades (i tried to draw a skin for them that looks like gold)

3. Rockets without smoke and a different color (i used these ones when i had a lame machine to achieve more fps,but now i have got a p2-400 and i still use them)

4. White skins ( i have drawn just a white picture for skin base) i havent posted that one because everybody knows how that looks like

Now i want you to know whether using these models is cheating or not. And if that is cheating what is the use of aimbots, different player models or cheat proxys? If my models are cheating then is the use of timers and the auto-messaging of some proxys too. Almost every player uses bright skins. And why not? Why has Qw the option for the skins. Aha i know you are only allowed to draw some that are not bright :)

The other thing is that different models for the shaft, grenades or missiles even look better and that is the reason why people make partial convertions. When i saw Sujoy's settings with Fov 90 and no Crosshair i only thought "how could somebody play with those settings". At my point cheating is the use of aimbots, different player model and proxys that tell you where your opponents is or that have timers. I am sorry but really many people (about 75%) use bright skins and different models like i have got.

The old cheating discussion is really ridiculous. I dont mind about that because i quit playing quake for some time. Since i have to work i havent got any time or lust for playing anymore. and life is really fun without quake too :) also i would advice that taking quake too seriously is dangerous!"

SK-Metzgerr, yes, you're right, the stuff you were using is "lightweight", especially when you consider that everyone else in your part of the world, it seems, used that stuff. I agree, "hardcore" cheating is stuff like the use of aimbots, different Player model and proxys that tell you where your opponent is etc.

I guess in Australia, we have traditionally been very cautious about this stuff. I mean, we're the country that had a serious debate about whether v_kick was cheating or not :-D. I can remember when our local community got really angry at some Players when it was discovered they were using bright skins. In parts of Europe, obviously, no-one would even notice.

This is a cultural thing, in part. People are always going to do things differently in different countries. When we do get to play together, we probably need to have some internationally-agreed rules.

Challenge.AU Invitational 16 Player Duel Tournament - Successful Test:

Congratulations to Reload, who won the Challenge.AU Invitational Duel Tourney test with awesome power. Second place went to Tim (the Quake Player formerly known as FlinT) who was unstoppable until he was stopped by... Reload.

Below are the full results. As you can see, 40 1-on-1 duels were played by some of NSW's top Duellists. This was a test, remember, for the "real event" we will use a selection panel of 9 "wise brains" to pick the 16 Players. Many of the Duellists who played here will undoubtedly be invited to this upcoming tournament.

The tournament was played over three stages - (1) Round Robin, in which all 16 players played 3 games. Insane was replaced by Womby for this round (pretty cool that only one Player was unable to make the event :-). (2) Double Elimination, in which each of the remaining 8 Players had "two lives". (3) The Final, in which the two Players left standing duked it out in a "best of three" format.

You'd be right in thinking - that's a shit-load of great Quake :-). The games did not disappoint. We have virtually every game as a demo, from both Players' POV, and Challenge.AU will be bringing you some of the highlights during the coming week (see further for some demos already :-). We are also putting together a CD of the Tournament, and we'll tell you more about this a little later on.

Check out the results tables to see how everybody did:

I know you want to see demos already, so I snagged these demos for you, more will be coming up soon, and we'll also put out a CD with all the demos from the tournament (I think we got 'em all), plus some extra goodies.

reloadvsmall.zip - Reload (POV, 11) vs Mallanox (4) on DM6, dmm1, no powerups. Finally you get to check out Reload in action, and to see for yourself his incredible style. This is a great game, with some hot moves by both Players, who know each other well (both teammates in Clan Dark Nemesis, both "young guns" ripping into the scene of oldies). I'm sure you'll be amazed at how Reload looks around, lightning fast, checking out all angles, and at how quickly he puts together his devasting attacks. No wonder he almost made 3rd place as "Best DM2 Player" in Methos' Ultimate Quake Poll, the only Australian to achieve such recognition.

timvsfaust.zip - Tim (POV, 7) vs Faust (5) on Aerowalk, dmm3, no powerups. Tim was a clear sentimental favourite with many of the oldies at the tournament, having whipped their collective butts for the last couple of years. One of the nicest, most polite Players out there, don't let that fool you he'll gut you if you give him half a chance. Faust plays a very aggressive game and does well to keep the score so tight, but Tim shows a very smart Quaking brain at work and wins this hard-fought game in style.

 I thought the format was very well received by the Players and the spectators. The format - big screens and having spectators seated watching the games, worked really well. It was great to see ppl getting all excited and cheering for the great shots and moves on the big screens. The bar also did some pretty good business too ;-).

I'll thank 'em again and again, but the Tourney wouldn't have been possible and wouldn't have run so well if it wasn't for the talents and assistance of a number of ppl in our NSW Quake community.

First up, GreySeer is THE LAN MAN - you DA MAN!!! I think everyone is continually impressed at what Grey can achieve, and how he makes it all work so damn well. Congratulations Grey, it was an awesome set-up.

Next up, it really helps to have two great looking girls giving the Players (mostly guys, with the exception of The_Bitch, the same girl who is of course beloved in Ireland) the hurry-up, and Challenge.AU was fortunate indeed to have the services of the simply delectable Godzilla and SexySal. With these girls, we can probably get Methos to fly over for the next one :-). Thanks to you both for cracking the whip and getting those guys organised and in line, it just would not have been possible without your very persuasive powers. A very special thanks must also go to Rogue_Agent, who travelled all the way from the Gong to be a server administrator - his is the Evil_Eye you sometimes will see in the demos. No prizes for guessing who the OverSeer is ;-).

I'd like to thank the Players who were simply magnificent throughout the day. You are all a bunch of true professionals. I was really impressed with how you turned up on time (some even turned up early), how you settled down really quickly and worked hard with Grey and the girls to get everything set-up and running smoothly. It took us an hour of bumming around there, what with the configs and stuff, but everyone was very cool and collected, and before we knew it the tournament was underway. In Play, you guys also put in a huge effort, particularly the guys who had to play right through until the end ;-).

Finally, I'd like to thank the spectators for coming along. We've come away from the test with a helluva lot of ideas, and with confirmation that the format really does work well. If you were there and you have some feedback, please feel free to with your ideas, because we're going to take a really good look at the event and dream up ways to make it even better.

Normal News:
Just to let you know that "normal news" (is anything normal around here?) should resume on Monday night (tomorrow night). I have received some emails and things - don't worry guys I am not ignoring them it's just that I've been a wee bit busy this weekend ;-). Also, you may have noticed Challenge.AU usually has the weekend off ;-).