The Good, The Bad and The Ugly

I thought it would be a good idea/read to do a monthly column on "The Good, The Bad and The Ugly" side of ET, its players and the community. This is all my own personal opinion and don't mean any harm or offense to those mentioned in it, although you probably deserve it!





Dignitas hosted a very successful one day tournament, involving 16 of the Top ET teams (excluding squad :P) in which they even rewarded the winning team with 6 QPAD mouse pads. Impact Gaming would go on to win this tournament and were very thankful and impressed that Dignitas would send the prizes to them within a week of them winning the tournament. A great tournament and a very fast and efficient delivery of prizes means that Dignitas get a place in the good section in October month. Many thanks to the Dignitas organization and the community hopes that you continue to host tournaments like this one.

It also gives me a chance to mention that it is great to see Dignitas bring back their core lineup that won CIC7, raising the competition level in ET another notch.

Speedlink also manage to get a mention in “The Good” period in the month of October. They, like Dignitas, produced a very successful one day tournament that managed to reward the new Dignitas lineup with their first major achievement. Speedlink also rewarded the winning team with prizes – which were 5xKudos Gaming mice. They also get a mention in “The Good” section for investing in their team by sending them to boot camp. This nearly paid dividends as they took a map gainst Dignitas in the semi final but were unable to come out with the victory. Time may tell though, as the team may grow stronger thanks to the Bootcamp, they certainly seemed to play better there than they have been over the past few weeks. Again, thanks from the community and we hope to see similar tournaments held in the future.

Alas another big organisation has produced a great tournament and gets a mention in “The Good” section of October. Giants Gaming who are new to the Enemy Territory scene (nice to see another org) have announced a new tournament that will start this week in which 16 invited teams will battle it out to win 350 euros. A great incentive for teams and another amazing tournament that I am sure will produce some amazing matches and healthy competition. Although this tournament is yet to begun, I have every faith that it will be one to remember so again we pay thanks to Giants Gaming and hope that they continue to invest time and money into Enemy Territory.

Without blowing mine or my team’s trumpet like a lot of people in the community think I do frequently, I have put Impact Gaming in “The Good” section of October for managing to derail Dignitas as number 1 in terms of the ET Top 10 I carried out earlier last month. Although, it was a much weaker Dignitas lineup than the current, it is a nice incentive to see that they are not unbeatable and that teams can topple them from their thrown and reach that number 1 spot. It remains to be seen what will happen in the future in terms of which team will take that number 1 spot and who will end up victorious when these two titans clash - if they clash.





I thought after mentioning my own team in “The Good” section of October, it was only right to put them in “The Bad” section. It has come to my attention, late last night, that Impact Gaming vs. gZcon is the only remaining game to take place in EuroCup group stages and the admins, players and fans are all waiting for the mighty playoffs to be released but until this game takes place, everyone is left waiting. Although Impact Gaming used a wildcard, which is allowed once per EC, judging by reactions and messages I have received, it wasn’t used at the best of times. The game will however take place tonight at 21:00 CET.

The above leads me on to my next sinner and will probably get abused left right and centre from this admin, due to it being a private conversation. Seeing as Private Logs are not tolerated on Crossfire, I will leave them out of this, I will however explain the sequence of events that left me annoyed. Seeing as Impact Gaming wildcarded yesterdays match, CB admin Homer messaged myself to say that the game must be played tonight or gZcon will receive a forfeit win. Some of you might say well done to Homer, but when I raised the issue that forcing the game tonight when I could not give any guarantee of fielding a lineup, could lead to a forfeit win for gZcon – meaning that Giants would be eliminated from EC he could not care one bit. He also went on to threaten me by saying if we forfeited our game, meaning we finished 2nd in the group, he would place us against Dignitas in the opening round of the playoffs. My main concern however, was that he would without any regret allow Giants Gaming to be eliminated from EC through no fault of their own.

This is my own personal opinion (as is the rest of this column) that the talks and mention of bringing back 6on6 for ET would do nothing but harm to the game and the community. I know a lot of people prefer then gameplay, tactics, spectating etc etc of 6on6 but ET has come a long way since then and as stated by the likes of Krosan and other Lan organisers, 5on5 is much better suited to competition format in the sense that it is easier to organise Lans. My issue isn’t that people miss the 6on6 format, it is that changing back would reduce the competition. I know many aren’t that bothered about Lans, but it is no lie that should Lans be removed from Enemy Territory, a lot of the top players wouldn’t continue to play the game. It would split the community and the competition and would result in, in my opinion, the death of the high end of ET. Of course ET isn’t just about Lans, competition, highskilled players, and those that don’t compete at the higher end of ET do have a say, but unless you could come up with a resolution to the points mentioned above, it just would not work. My advice would be to host summercups, as CB and ESL do, where new ideas, formats, maps etc are all introduced. Instead of this being the case, the summer cups could be in 6on6 format where teams and players have the choice if they want to compete. If the players and community are willing to say bye to the players that they love to watch and play with/against then I suggest/urge that we stick to the 5on5 format.

The DDOS issue that resulted in many matches being ruined, unfinished and tarnished left a Bad mark on the month of October. Many counter-measurements were introduced thanks to the likes of YCN (who in all fairness should be praised - maybe even mentioned in "The Good" section for their dedication, hard work and support they invest into ET) who managed to more or less stop the DDOS attacks. The DDOS issue at times looked like it could end the very competition of ET, threatening to interrupt games and ETTV coverage. Fortunately for us, this seems more or less fixed and we all hope that ET games continue DDOS free.





The team that named themselves EC Winners would surprisingly not pass the 1st stage of EuroCup this season. Having finished 2nd to the ever dominating masculine mans lineup 2 seasons ago, the team had their ups and downs over the past month. It seems that naming themselves EC Winners, has resulted in the complete opposite, which is why they get a mention in my “Ugly” section. The team, on paper, has a lineup that on its day could and maybe should have challenged the best in the game. I am sure the team has their reasons to their underachievement, but the facts remain the same, a team that was recently voted in the top 5 of October’s quarterly ET Top 10 massively underachieved, but credit has to go to STH, the underdogs of the group that no one gave a hope of progressing to the playoffs. Also, Aero showed that they are no pushovers by also progressing to the playoffs.

Last night mvp, a team that was also recently ranked in the top 5 of October’s ET Top 10 (who also ranked themselves 2nd) managed to lose to an Overload lineup which only plays together in EMS matches. mvp went into the match as strong favourites but were completely rolled over by the Overload side that mixed aim with teamplay and came out with a great result.

The Dignitas one day cup managed to produce some head turners, with Dignitas (being ranked number 1 for the tournament) crashing out against a very talented Giants Gaming lineup. It was however their previous lineup, but were rather slaughtered by Biqq and co who were shoutcasting the game. It was probably one of the worst performances thrown together by a Dignitas lineup and was probably one of the contributing factors that led to the new lineup.

I am willing to listen to any suggestions for November's edition, when I come to write the next installment at the beginning of December, so feel free to message me with any requests.