So then, we've arrived at the semi-final stage of EuroCup XIII, in what has been an absorbing competition despite the lack of last season's winners Parodia/uQ, and now we are left with the four best teams in ET at current.

Last night saw riZe beating maybe eventually after multiple ping problems and emo jokes, to confirm riZe's presence in the last 4 alongside the likes of Idle.ee, deMiurge, and northern darkness. The turnaround is a quick one, and only 3 days after the last quarter final, ClanBase propells itself into the next phase, scheduling the first semi-final between Idle and demiurge for tomorrow (Wednesday June 21st) with a view to finishing the tournament before the start of July. Idle reached this stage by virtue of overcoming genuine EC contenders 141, and in deMi they face perhaps their hardest game of all. The Estonians may well be classed as favourites, but only a foolish man would class demiurge as underdogs.


Idle.ee vs deMiurge
Date: Wed 21st June
Time: 22.00 CET
ETTV: GamesTV.org
Shoutcast: iTGs TosspoT & stewie

Lineups from:
[*] deMiurge roster
[*] Idle roster

Many thanks go to Adacore, who kindly delayed this match by a staggering 2 hours so the hx - riZe game could take precedent.

Finally foonr would like to make the following public service annoucement. He does in no way bear any resemblance to this man. At all.

[img|left]http://imageserver.gaming-networks.net/picturepool/news/2006-05-06/489f10b51abef37a1d33dd5bcb0ff5ef.jpg[/img]







Forget conventional aiming. Forget smooth tracking. Forget everything you've ever associated with a console shooter. The forthcoming Call of Duty 3 is soon to arrive on the Xbox360, PS3 and now the Nintendo Wii, in what is being described as a unique version of the game.

Until now, players have dealt out damage via their screen-centred crosshairs, with skill being based on control and precision more than any other factor. But prepare to rethink almost every aspect of the game when it is loaded onto the Wii, with its accelerometers and position-pointing device in the actual controller, players will instead shoot at the sensor bar in a manner similar to that which is experienced at the local games arcade,
a change which developers Treyarch are hoping will open up the market for shooters on consoles, a genre traditionally linked with the PC platform.

Although great efforts have been put in by Activision to keep the CoD3 project a secret one, including the forced removal of E3 footage from several websites, the game is expected to be released to coincide with the release with the Nintendo Wii, expected by many to arrive anytime in Q3/4 2006. Whenever its arrival however, the introduction of this revolutionary technique is sure to raise a few eyebrows from critics and fans alike.

This summer, the Electronic Sports League and Crossfire join forces to bring you a scorching program of competition and games designed to entertain and enthrall, with a string of events and coverage arriving soon in what promises to be one of the hottest seasons on record.

The ESL present their extensive 6on6, 3on3 and 1on1 cups with the industrious chosen at the helm, all of which make use of the very latest Enemy Territory match configs, designed to be used exclusively by Crossfire and the ESL. This of course means the new configs will be eligable to be used immediately in the on-going King of the Hill competition, which pits together Enemy Territory's most illustrious clans. The configs make a number of significant, perhaps even controversial changes, changes which will be given extensive coverage with the introduction of ESL and Crossfire games premiering on GIGA and GIGAII, the German satallite and IPTV gaming network, as well as omni-present ETTV and written coverage. Look out for further developments and news as the stories break, only on Crossfire and ESL.

So what can we expect to see in the config changes? Namely:

[*] MaxRate IN 16000 - 25000
[*] MaxPackets IN 60 - 100
[*] HelmetProtection forced 0
[*] Mortar & MG removed

And before the coming launch of Crossfire v3, signs are also afoot which show the changes and progress being made centre-stage. Today, Wedneday June 14th marked the official welcoming of the Call of Duty community to Crossfire, kicking off with an absorbing and critically acclaimed article by the respected Liam "crow" Crowley entitled Another Clanbase Blunder, available right now nestled in the columns section. News spreads fast in this neck of the woods, and soon community sites Tek-9 & GotFrag were alive with the sound of Crossfire extending a welcoming arm.

Yet these are only small tasters to whet the appetite, with continual development everpresent as we approach the great point 3. Join us in these exciting times.

If I told you, there was a website out there for Enemy Territory, not run by a massive games network, such as GGL or GameSpy, but one which had attracted close to half a million registrants in its 3 year tenure, you'd probably not believe me. And you'd also have good reason to, after all, without Crossfire present there's very little left for people to desire. But in a quiet little corner of the web, the site which left TosspoT lost for words has been trundling along without making much fuss, despite a few unfortunate cases of people trying to break in.

What am I talking about? The true home of meez, lotix, necuz and unblind, the great bastion that is Enemy-Territory.com, which yesterday relaunched itself in version3, following a string of security breaches on the old software. Yes, the old phpNuke system has gone, and in comes the lovable cms 'e107', which not only looks better, but is more secure and easier to use than anything we've had before. The staff are hoping this is the beginning of the rebirth, to times where there were 50 news stories a month, 20,000 registrants each week, and download stats were reaching into the hundreds of terrabytes. Whatever stigma the site has lent itself to you (especially the sponsor '4players.de - who don't really understand too well the concept of help), let us break bread and thank the lord that this great site is back in business, and looking so mighty fine at the same time. Just how do they do it?

[center]*UPDATE*: helix win 4:2 and retain their koth status[/center]

And so we make our way to the perhaps unusual location of Walmington-on-Sea, where two plucky groups of players set out to prove their worth as Britain's last-line-of-defense, or just who gets to wear a rather nice crown, seeing as nobody involved is British, nor is it the 1940s anymore. Just what is this world coming to?

Nevertheless, with the arrival of the Warden imminant (black uniform), I thought it best to get off my nationproud rear and start doing some work for this next match in the KOTH. And whats to come has the same effect as when you talk to Mainwaring about promotion. That's right. It gets interesting. Let us rewind a few weeks, to the summer of 1941. All the hype was in place, and we sat down with stewie and nearly 1000 ettv slots to the delicious prospect of elite vs helix, in a game which very few people gave elite a hope in hell of winning. But how wrong they were! elite were unlucky with a tank bug on goldrush, but took the second map in some style for force helix to overcome them on braundorf, having certainly not given us the thrashing that most had forseen. So thats whats been. Thats done, it's in the past. Let us bury that and return to screen one.

As you may have seen via Godfreys grapevine as it is now known, the teams of cZar and northern darkness played a behind-closed-doors encounter on braundorf. The result of that meant that northern darkness won the right to play last game's winners, helix. Now though the show must go on, and despite a delay of three days (oh, where does the time go?), we have a match ready to roll.



Also this evening theres one more twist in the Eurocup saga as underscore take on RiZe in the final and now crucial match of Group B. Following 141's victory over cZar, RiZe have been relegated to third place and need the victory to progress to the next stage, defeat is not an option. However they will be facing an understrength underscore team who have publically stated this will be their last match before introducing a new roster.




I threatened helix honcho Clown with national service until he backed down and agreed to answer a few of my biting questions. Hit read more to find it.

Well well well, what do we have here, Rene? Are those Yvette's stockings I see protruding from the rear pocket? I surely hope not, we wouldn't want you being taken away from here by 'ze Germans, and missing all tonight's ETTV now, would we?

And much like our French counterparts, from majestically brilliant to the downright odd, mixing games that might provide excellent entertainment next to those that could make you drift asleep. And after all that, if you're still drooling at the mouth for action, RadioITG are on hand to switch the coverage to CoD2 should you so desire. Let's take a look at what games are being played tonight:

Kicking off coverage comes the perhaps premature RTCW2-Cup, which is aiming to build a profile for the recently launched #rtcw2-news, pitting together the teams of Insane-Teamwork and 4evolution over some of ET's newer competition maps, in a game which has already drawn a respectable number of ettv slots - as I write the figure is just over the 200 mark. On top of all this we have vaGgi and Dj cAze providing the commentary on two seperate streams for German language lovers.

Quote

Match: Insane-Teamwork vs 4evolution
Time: 20:00 CET
IRC: #rtcw2-news
Maps: adlernest_final, braundorf_b4
ETTV: gtv id /621
Radio:
[*] #rtcw2-news - vaGgi http://85.25.133.25:8000/listen.pls
[*] Au-Hur Radio Shoutcast Dj cAze - qartex http://85.25.8.83:8000/listen.pls

Moving on to the first of the 'big-three' matches, but this time there's not a Frenchman, Englishman or American in sight, as the EuroCup continues in bullish style, placing together forever old-timers eSrael against the team many see as Idle.ee's main challengers, Northern Darkness. But the team soon to take on helix in the KOTH would do well to not underestimate the screwed hitboxes of eSrael, with their legions of supporters on gtv.

Quote

Match: Northern Darkness vs eSrael MSI
Time: 20:30 CET
IRC: #eurocup.et
Maps: sw_goldrush_te, adlernest_final
ETTV: gtv id /582

Next up on Rene's menu comes the #ET-Cup, fueled by the drive and determination of the spambot, known only as Mr "#pzz.et" NxM. On show in Edith's stage are the all singing, all lovely champs filling the void left by the old squad, RoyalitY, set against the team behind the bar, consisting of toxic's all laughing, all lagging AngelDust team... well, only toxic lags to be fair. stewie is on hand to provide the explanation in his new iTG role.

Quote

Match: RoyalitY vs angelDust e.V.
Time: 21:00 CET
IRC: #et-cup
Maps: sw_goldrush_te, frostbite
ETTV: gtv id /594
Radio:
[*] Radio iTG Server 3 - stewie (English) http://listen.radioitg.com/listen3.pls

STOP PRESS
Just like a German officer changing his mind over his choice of coffee, the great sleeping giant that is angrykid has smelt his own hideous breath and awoken, only to decide he fancied munching on a game as a treat. As such, the scheduled game between vicious&evil and maybe has now been cancelled, meaning that depending on how you look at it, either the best game of the night is now down in ak's stomach, or there be more time to watch the other games. Nevertheless, if none of these games satisfy your existance, there are always two other alternatives:

21:30 CET oXid vs //dream http://www.gamestv.org/war.php?wid=626
22:00 CET pblm vs N2Ku http://www.gamestv.org/war.php?wid=616

Now, if you'll excuse me, I have some army men needing to get home. Tarrah!

There be many an ET player, or RTCW player for that matter, that vast swathes of us here hold deeply within the caverns of our hearts. To take the example of nellie, who only last week received mysterious phone calls reaching into the hundreds from what he believed to be a bored prank caller from the depths of northern England. So imagine his shock, when it emerged that the buzzing on the end of the line had been noneother than his secretly admiring fanboy, fata1ty, who had unfortunately been struggling with a broken phone cord.

As famous as our Wolfenstein players might like to think themselves, it seems none of them feature in carmac's "The Top 13 Gamers of All-Time" compilation, which uses the medium of the GGL to convey his opinions about those gamers who er, ... are the best 13 in the world. But who could be first? Surely it's some famous name who even we at xfire would recognise. Maybe it's our aforementioned American prank-caller friend, or how about that Dutch chainsmoking Sander "Vo0" Kaasjager. Well, no, not exactly. The latter only managed a measly ninth place. So shame on him, being beaten also by the girlz of destruction.

Whatever your views on the matter, or your lustful desires for nellie's phone number, you can catch the entire list right now over at the GGL. Remember, games included don't just revolve around FPS-based games, nor games from this side of the millenia. Feel the pacman nostalgia coming back already? I thought so!

Read all about it.

This isn't really that newsworthy, I'm just placing it on the mainpage so it gets hits and a "look at me" effect.

Contrary to some people's belief, the lack of an update on Wednesday did not mean the competition was dead. The helix vs elite game was a fantastic occasion, and we've been working hard to emulate that game in the future. Previously the week structure, if you remember, was along the lines of a 2-day challenge window, followed by a mini-cup system and then the KOTH match on a Sunday. In theory this sounded fine, but in reality, and having seen the opening game, I felt the need to spread things out, and make the games that bit more special, rather than being all bunched up and happening every week - something which detracted from the 'special' value.

As from now, clans will have 3 days following the KOTH game to submit their challenge. They then have a further 6 days to play their playoff games, at whatever time suits each clan best. Playoff games are still 1 map as before, the map being decided by me and cycled each time. This week the map is braundorf_b4. Although the playoff games naturally throw up some nice games, due to to the nature of the clans involved, it has been decided that they will all be played behind-doors, meaning they will not have ETTV, shoutcasters, or a full-length report. Following the conclusions of these playoff games, of which the scores will be reported, the playoff winner then has 5 days with which to organise the KOTH game with the current champion clan, in this case helix.

So an overview, this would be an example match cycle:

Sunday - KOTH game
Monday -> Wednesday - Challenges taken
Wednesday -> Tuesday - Playoff games played
Tueday -> Sunday - KOTH game played at anytime in this period

If you need it even simpler: We're playing this over 2 weeks rather than 1.

You might perhaps be wondering who is currently in the frame to play helix. At the moment we are awaiting a date for cZar to take on northern darkness. Like I have said, the winner will go on to play helix, in a match that will both be announced in advance and given ETTV, shoutcasters, and probably some free dellekes thrown in too. So you see, the KOTH is alive and well, and hopefully in a format that is for the better over all.

love, foonr.

Despite never having played it, the casual ET player sitting at home and looking at gameplay promo vids seems decidedly dismissive of the forthcoming Splash Damage offering, with users continuing to give their views on one of the more recent journals.

vaGgi thinks that ET:QW sucks hard, whilst n3co went for the similar no-nonsense approach, by advising us that et:qw = poo. Yet those who have actually played it, appear in the majority to like it, even if TosspoT doesn`t reckon it`s what this community wants.

One such name includes GameSpy, who have praised the game no end as part of their Annual E3 Awards program. The Awards sort games by a variety of different categories, including Best of Show, Best Multiplayer, Best PC game, and so on. Whatever the type of audience that will enjoy this game when it is eventually released, GameSpy judged it good enough to be awarded overall Best Multiplayer Game of 2006, and the fourth best game in the entire expo, from a guestlist that included both PC and console offerings:

Quote

...in our brief playtesting time, we felt like we'd only begun to scratch the surface of all the different tactics that might be available on that map.

Obviously the issue with ET:QW we all want to know is how good it will be, but the question we should really be asking is how good a game it is overall, regardless of my personal preferences. And with awards like this coming it`s way, ET:QW looks certain to at least please some people this summer.

Following the close of Season 1 of the Hip-Hop Gaming League (HHGL), Ryan Ford of the GGL went to interview the self-titled commissioner, Snoop -Commish- Dogg, to chat about the unprecedented event which saw rappers and hip-hop artists transcend through Hollywood to play games and get down with their homies.

Although not Wolf related, or anything to do with xfire, the combination of gaming and Snoop Dogg giving an `articulate`- not interview was too good an opertunity to pass up being on the frontpage.



Here be an extract, word.

Do you have plans to continue your role as Commissioner?

I`ma have to get in it, man. I can`t let these dudes go ahead and keep winning this shit. And I just gotta host? (INDISCERNABLE) that! I gotta get in and put my hand down.

Improve your Friday night by reading the full article. :>