First Antwerp, then Roskilde and next Stoneleigh Park the CoD4 community have had three weeks and 57,000 Euro to contest for. Now two thirds of the way through that tour its time for reflection on what has been a highly successful 2 weeks thus far.

Its about this time every year I write a column about how much fun Quakecon was, I was hugely disappointed not to be attending what I consider to be the number one community event however in hindsight, I don’t regret a thing. Great matches, Great events and Great stories really have seen the CoD community come alive.

I was first quite skeptical about the feasibility of running three events back to back, the financial cost on top of the huge social cost looked too great even for a more established community, and whilst there have been losses along the way, you wouldn’t have known it this past weekend. The atmosphere was fever pitch in Roskilde, a renewed sense of potential was clearly evident. Despite Pandemic looking unbeatable in Antwerp, this was a new event! Courtesy of a unique prize distribution method, teams were being rewarded even if they didn’t win the tournament. Roskilde Raven’s for example won 400 Euro because they won a winner bracket match. Such a method gave everybody something to fight for as each winner bracket win was met with ever growing financial reward.

LowLandLions success story is a double edged sword, they were in their own words as well prepared for that event as they had been for a very long time. It was the first time in a year that I’ve seen them play so well, that in the face of a disappointing result in Antwerp with only raffle prizes to speak of. Their confident performances sent them cruising through the winner bracket and into the final much to the discomfort of the more favoured teams around them who were uneasy at losing to a team who haven’t delivered in CoD4 yet. It was performances such as theirs coupled with a 1 map match format, that saw leading names play the 'random' card when describing their benelux opponents.


That’s probably music to the ears of those on Crossfire who have leveled that argument at the game since the beginning, but there are logical reasons for the randomness. One of them is my only gripe with both tournaments, just 1 map in each match. Now in group stages I truly empathise with it, you’ve got a lot of matches to get through and there’s no point wasting time on seeing EG 13-1 –[101 Airborne]- on two maps, but in playoff matches you cannot live without it in my opinion, cash prizes cannot be decided on the random factor of whether a teams roster is geared toward one particular map. No European team was going to beat Pandemic on Crash, but another map and suddenly the playing field could be leveled. The only constant in Call of Duty is that teams have huge map bias because of the individual play styles on offer. In that respect you have to draw the comparison with CS and must fall into line with WCG & ESWC and move matches into a best of three format to deliver accurate results, otherwise maps win matches and not performances.

Secondly however LowLandLions are not given the respect they deserve for being in the right frame of mind for each game. There was no drama in that team this weekend, they were truly professional all weekend long and reaped the rewards of their readiness. MYM bowed out to Reason on Crossfire, the map they took EG to double overtime on just 8 hours prior. A combination of lack of sleep and a manager with a fractured toe (thus not in attendance) left MYM with a hangover that Reason took full advantage of. I truly believe if MYM’s manager was there to crack the whip that morning, they’d have won. The same drama could be found in Dignitas, you could hear Blackmane’s abuse to Sko from every corner of the arena. One poor performance from Fnatic saw mint with a cloud over his head for the rest of the weekend. In a lot of cases, people beat themselves and blamed the game.

Moving on, each event had unique differences that were very entertaining. Except for the final, the TEX schedule ran like clockwork. A combination of the Quakecon style formatting of each PC and ironfisted admin’s lead to a highly successful delivery of the tournament. What it lacked was the spectating atmosphere, there was nowhere for people to watch the matches and by the end the tournament Deman and I were running a ‘one beer buy-in’ to come and sit in our area. However some cool features like mini football pitch and a nice bar in the complex kept everyone together and a nice community feeling. AEF traded those positives, a great stage with lots of spectators sitting around for the whole day was at the cost of the schedule, the AEF raffles on stage were a phenomenal success. Regardless, both tournaments had were rightly, very well received by the players and fans which was the most important part.

The by product of these two events has been what I feel has been missing from the CoD community. For the first time in Call of Duty, there is a real camaraderie between players. Two weeks of being in the same hotels and the same venues has brought the community together for the first time, CoD has had many more LANs than ET for example yet until 2 weeks ago, ET could tell more drinking stories than CoD. That has finally changed, now the community is rife with stories of football chants about EG players, Vanner’s sexual preferences & ragekeki rugby tackling Morg. Players I’ve known for years have finally come out of their shells courtesy of being away from home for 2 weeks. Its here where the tour of duty has really delivered the best results!

I34 is next and whilst there is a much smaller turnout of the big names, (lack of information on computer availability and this mainly BYOC event cost multiplay a lot of the big names) there will still be some great matches. With EG, Dignitas, Fnatic, MYM & LowLandLions amongst others attending it should prove to be another fantastic weekend of Call of Duty.