ET has come long way since it's release way back in 2003. We have already witnessed many great teams pushing the game forwards and proving old methods weaker than the new ones. I can't in any means call myself oldschooler, starting ET only in 2004, but I've paid a great interest to the ET scene and it's happenings (I have only been member of Xfire for about a year so I've collected my information basically by playing and following Clanbase) and made many interesting views about teams and their players.

The first teams who made an impact to the scene are ofc the teams in first EuroCups. Gunslingers, Dsky, Dignitas many of todays gamers appreciate them as the best teams in ET even today. Even if players can't exactly say that they'd somehow be better than the teams today but they are just legendary, which was easilly proven by the poll where was asked, which do players favor, the old or the new Dignitas. Many of those players have already quit, but some of them are still hanging here, usually near the top. And when a oldschooler walks up to the stadium the crowd cheers, which can be seen in form of zP. Xfire decided to send a team to Quakecon and the players had the chance to vote their favorite players there and suprise surprise the players were mostly oldschoolers (Sancitity, r3vers, potter, Darky, butchji and later Sanctity being replaced by gazeta). So point once again proven, oldschoolers are still more appreciated and favored than newschoolers.

The reason why oldschoolers are so much favored lies probably in the fact that new players like to identify themselves with the players who are on top of the game at the time they start playing (that's how I myself atleast appreciate many players). And many of todays players have start in somewhat when the oldschoolers were on top of the game, ofc there are many who have started a while ago, but they have surely heard / seen the oldschoolers playing. And well the players back then didnt lame and flame everybody, the games were tense and players were nice to each other, those teams created the standards for this game, they are appreciated as the pioneers of ET. Well it's a truth that oldschoolers have won all the EuroCups which are the most appreciated tournaments in ET-scene. Only one team with less oldschool players have risen above the standards and that is Parodia, which basically came from nothing to everything.

In most top teams there are their favored players. You can easilly see the idea there. Dignitas - Darkie, Gunslingers - mystic (parodia / impact - mystic ofc too), zeroPoint - butchji, TLR - mAus, they aren't all oldschoolers but there is one thing binding them all. The thing is that many teams have their rambos / amazing aimers and those are the players who rise above the mass. Every team need it's workers, but usually the aimers collect all the glory getting potm even if they play shit and getting their name on every mouth. Those players are remembered and appreciated above the standard level.

Well I dont know if I've said anything of interest and mostly I've just talked about my point of view from ET in it's years of succes. Many things have changed and now when Dignitas is challenged and EuroCup is more and more infested with newschool teams it is meaning a change of an era. I still love the players from the past, the ones that really showed me what this game is all about, they like I said were nice to each other, didnt flame that much and prooved that there much skill in ET. Now its up to the new players to draw the big lines, to show the starting players that much skill lies in them. For sure the players appreciated in RtCW 2 (if it comes and it is a good game) are the ones who are atm on the top. Though one thing is on our side, even if the community flames, lames and points fingers to each other, it has surely achieved something in the forms of many cups and lan events, but there is still much to do, but you can easilly say that the fate of ET rests on strong shoulders.