In this article I wont talk too much about the matches at CDC4, but rather the LAN itself and the challenges ETQW faces.
The tournament
CDC4 just finished and we saw some of the best Quake Wars matches to date in what could have been an epic tournament. But due to several things CDC4 hopefully wont go in the books as Quake Wars historical highlight. The reason for this is split: 3 Quake Wars teams failed to show up at the LAN, the Quake Wars coverage was lacking in most ways (articles, ETQW-TV and shout casting, only thing that really worked out was score updates powered by
pedro and 
chosen). If I would describe CDC4.etqw in one sentence I would say that this was the first day at school for ETQW. Preparation could have been a lot better from one side and the setting could have been a lot more hospitable. In short no surprises, but lot to learn from.
I don’t think anyone expected the tournament to be perfect in any way and looking back there is only thing that really annoys me. And its that delays and bad coverage will be remembered longer than some of the great matches at the LAN.
CDC4.etqw was more than I had ever hoped for when it came to the matches. We saw 3 low seed teams really stepping it up in the group stage and playing even with top seeded teams. No group were decided before its last round and that’s rare. In group B we even had to play a decider match.
Logitech.fi, 
Infinity and GaB all gave us great matches versus arguably (atleast before the LAN) better teams. The problem is that these matches never made it to ETQW-TV or Quadv. The reason why they never appeared on ETQW-TV was because a CDC build of etqwpro was used at the LAN and it was not available to the public during the group stages. This was later on fixed by someone other than me, giving us ETQW-TV for some of the playoff matches. (Was taken down again for some games due to a server crash caused by ETQW-TV during the SL vs 4k semi final)
And the reason why no one got to hear splodges beautiful voice before the grand final was quite different. The machine that was used for streaming at CDC4 suffered from an unresolved issue with ETQW 1.4, which made it impossible to cast any Quake Wars before we got a new computer to stream from.
Here is a quick overview of the most exiting matches at cdc4:
Groupstage:
Epsilon 2-2 Logitech.fi
Epsilon 2-2 Infinity
Infinity 2-2 Logitech.fi
Epsilon 4-0 
4 kings
Gab 2-2 Speedlink
Gab 0-2 Speedlink
Playoffs:
Speedlink 4-0 4 kings
Epsilon 4-0 4 kings
Epsilon 4 - 0 Speedlink
Epsilon 2 -4 Dignitas
Coverage
With so many exciting matches its really a shame that coverage was so bad and that these matches will be forgotten faster than they deserve. Its something that need to be improved next time ETQWs finest meet at LAN. Some might ask why I didn't do more coverage than I did and the short and simple answer was that I had my hands full with the ETQW tournament and when I wasn't I was mostly very tired after little sleep.
But its not like the coverage is any better in general for ETQW. People need to step up and start writing previews, reviews, columns and news posts. And it would not hurt if someone grabbed their microphone and started shout casting either.
LAN culture
Another thing that became clear with CDC4 and that is that ETQW needs to build a viable LAN culture. Its no point in having more LANs if people don’t show up. Here ETQW needs to look to games like ET and Cod4 where teams go to LAN even when they don’t have a chance at winning. Because they know they will have a great time and that’s whats LANs are about, not winning – but having fun. And more ETQW teams needs to realise this, because if only 8 ETQW teams continue to go to LANs in the future the game will die out or become online only.
Knight in white armour
The competition mod is suiting up to be a great success after loads of work by Spacecommander, thoory and lately mostly Hannes. Hannes has stepped in and done a lot of improvements to the mod and gotten it ready for CDC and I would also like to thank him for his help with the servers at CDC. As for the future of promod it will be used by both ESL and Clanbase in their upcoming cups. A new version with a lot of improvements (which you got a taste of at CDC) will be released shortly as well. And if you don’t believe me when I say that competition mod has improved the game a lot for competition: You need to look no longer than my return to competitive ETQW. After 8 weeks im back due to the major improvements to the gameplay made by etqwpro and I recommend everyone that have left so far to try the next version of etqwpro when its released. It feels good to play a game that is improving on a weekly basis.
The future
According to the rumors
Dignitas will loose their tanker, Huggo, to school after the EMS final this week and that leaves the top spot in ETQW more open than ever. With many teams playing evenly at CDC4 the next months of ETQW seems to be the most even so far with lower seeded teams now looking to challenge the current top teams and the current top teams wanting to secure the crown of ETQW. And as CDC4 proved: Anything can happen, stay tuned!
As for the future of the game we only have one upcoming LAN right now and that’s QuakeCon on the wrong side of the Atlantic. But there are people within the community looking at possibilities for another ETQW LAN in the EU as the future for ETQW at CDC is uncertain.
<3 And shutouts goes to all etqw teams that attended, all admins, all quadv peeps (extra for splodge+tech guys), Bart (ravenwood), wzzrd and all sponsors.
The tournament
CDC4 just finished and we saw some of the best Quake Wars matches to date in what could have been an epic tournament. But due to several things CDC4 hopefully wont go in the books as Quake Wars historical highlight. The reason for this is split: 3 Quake Wars teams failed to show up at the LAN, the Quake Wars coverage was lacking in most ways (articles, ETQW-TV and shout casting, only thing that really worked out was score updates powered by
pedro and chosen). If I would describe CDC4.etqw in one sentence I would say that this was the first day at school for ETQW. Preparation could have been a lot better from one side and the setting could have been a lot more hospitable. In short no surprises, but lot to learn from.I don’t think anyone expected the tournament to be perfect in any way and looking back there is only thing that really annoys me. And its that delays and bad coverage will be remembered longer than some of the great matches at the LAN.
CDC4.etqw was more than I had ever hoped for when it came to the matches. We saw 3 low seed teams really stepping it up in the group stage and playing even with top seeded teams. No group were decided before its last round and that’s rare. In group B we even had to play a decider match.
Logitech.fi, Infinity and GaB all gave us great matches versus arguably (atleast before the LAN) better teams. The problem is that these matches never made it to ETQW-TV or Quadv. The reason why they never appeared on ETQW-TV was because a CDC build of etqwpro was used at the LAN and it was not available to the public during the group stages. This was later on fixed by someone other than me, giving us ETQW-TV for some of the playoff matches. (Was taken down again for some games due to a server crash caused by ETQW-TV during the SL vs 4k semi final) And the reason why no one got to hear splodges beautiful voice before the grand final was quite different. The machine that was used for streaming at CDC4 suffered from an unresolved issue with ETQW 1.4, which made it impossible to cast any Quake Wars before we got a new computer to stream from.
Here is a quick overview of the most exiting matches at cdc4:
Groupstage:
Epsilon 2-2 Logitech.fi Epsilon 2-2 Infinity Infinity 2-2 Logitech.fi Epsilon 4-0 4 kings Gab 2-2 Speedlink Gab 0-2 SpeedlinkPlayoffs:
Speedlink 4-0 4 kings Epsilon 4-0 4 kings Epsilon 4 - 0 Speedlink Epsilon 2 -4 DignitasCoverage
With so many exciting matches its really a shame that coverage was so bad and that these matches will be forgotten faster than they deserve. Its something that need to be improved next time ETQWs finest meet at LAN. Some might ask why I didn't do more coverage than I did and the short and simple answer was that I had my hands full with the ETQW tournament and when I wasn't I was mostly very tired after little sleep.
But its not like the coverage is any better in general for ETQW. People need to step up and start writing previews, reviews, columns and news posts. And it would not hurt if someone grabbed their microphone and started shout casting either.
LAN culture
Another thing that became clear with CDC4 and that is that ETQW needs to build a viable LAN culture. Its no point in having more LANs if people don’t show up. Here ETQW needs to look to games like ET and Cod4 where teams go to LAN even when they don’t have a chance at winning. Because they know they will have a great time and that’s whats LANs are about, not winning – but having fun. And more ETQW teams needs to realise this, because if only 8 ETQW teams continue to go to LANs in the future the game will die out or become online only.
Knight in white armour
The competition mod is suiting up to be a great success after loads of work by
Spacecommander, thoory and lately mostly Hannes. Hannes has stepped in and done a lot of improvements to the mod and gotten it ready for CDC and I would also like to thank him for his help with the servers at CDC. As for the future of promod it will be used by both ESL and Clanbase in their upcoming cups. A new version with a lot of improvements (which you got a taste of at CDC) will be released shortly as well. And if you don’t believe me when I say that competition mod has improved the game a lot for competition: You need to look no longer than my return to competitive ETQW. After 8 weeks im back due to the major improvements to the gameplay made by etqwpro and I recommend everyone that have left so far to try the next version of etqwpro when its released. It feels good to play a game that is improving on a weekly basis.The future
According to the rumors
Dignitas will loose their tanker, Huggo, to school after the EMS final this week and that leaves the top spot in ETQW more open than ever. With many teams playing evenly at CDC4 the next months of ETQW seems to be the most even so far with lower seeded teams now looking to challenge the current top teams and the current top teams wanting to secure the crown of ETQW. And as CDC4 proved: Anything can happen, stay tuned!As for the future of the game we only have one upcoming LAN right now and that’s QuakeCon on the wrong side of the Atlantic. But there are people within the community looking at possibilities for another ETQW LAN in the EU as the future for ETQW at CDC is uncertain.
<3 And shutouts goes to all etqw teams that attended, all admins, all quadv peeps (extra for splodge+tech guys), Bart (ravenwood), wzzrd and all sponsors.
Kudos to you for your great admining at the LAN, tho the circumstances gave you a hard time. :P
Specially Soltiz and his campingsuit :DDDD
Unfortunatly beside watching other people at CDC (which I personally find boring), there wasnt much else to do, especially if your designated driver decides to play poker till 4am and you dont fancy walking miles to city centre...
I hope next ET:QW LAN is in better location with more to do between games.
I did something silly when drunk and just got banned from playing, not like I tried beating someone up or threw a chair at someone. Was still a boring place in middle of no where with pretty crap food on sale.
+1 btw for wanting etqw @ CDC5
we got "the summit" from 9th - 11th may in osnabrück/germany http://www.the-summit.de/turnier/turnier_list.php
ok - no big prizes but its a lan ;)
looking forward to see the improvments on the next lanedition for qw!
therefore big multigamingclans outside germany will not send their qwteams some hundred miles to bring back a few euros&medals ;D
but if somebody wanna write an english newspost feel free to pm me (i can translate you some stuff from lanpage if needed ;p)
salvage, spawn. GO WORK
promod 0.04 is gonna be pwn!
"You need to look no longer than my return to competitive ETQW. After 8 weeks im back"
meaning you've given up cod4 with 13?
Wona wanted to go back to skating and snowboarding and I wanted more time for IRL and upcoming exams. But feel we got on a decent level, played evenly with a lot of very known teams in the end and both performed at team norway :)