The time has now finally arrived for the first ever Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory E-Series LAN event to take place. After a few bumps along the road in preperation, we are finally ready to go live at the Kaos Gaming Centre in Weesp, The Netherlands. Unfortunately, there will be no stream for the event due to the cost of Owzo's flight rocketing up by the time the last team confirmed their attendance.

UPDATE3:
Through the wonders of Hamachi, we've managed to get around the port issues with the network and will be able to start bringing you ETTV, just in time for the last group match and the playoffs! Thanks to Marcus from YCN for suggesting the idea and to h3ll from GamesTV.org for setting it up.

UPDATE 2:
Sadly there has been further issues with servers and the games will now continue to be played in offline mode meaning no ETTV for the moment.

UPDATE!!
As it was only one team complaining about having to play online, Jere has decided to take the majority vote and force all matches to be played online for the benefit of ETTV! The first match is about to go live!

In just under a week’s time, six teams will make their way to Weesp in The Netherlands to take part in the first ever KTV E-Series for Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory. For those of you who are still not sure what this event is or what it’s about then allow me to recap the basics for you; E-Series is a LAN event run every few (or so) months by the Dutch online broadcasting company Kaos TV. Their most successful LAN events have been 1 day Call of Duty 4 events and this series continues. The guys at Kaos TV happily agreed to trial run an Enemy Territory tournament on the 15th of May, and should everything go to pLAN and the community show their hunger for me, then this will become a regular occurrence!

Aside from the obvious involvement from Kaos TV and myself, the most notable efforts you be passed over to Jere and, of course, Felix. Jere has been working really hard to make teams sign up and pay, and has also corresponded with captains from each paid team in order to determine the map list for the event. Felix has played an extremely crucial part in the event actually going ahead after he, very kindly, paid for 2 teams to the event out of his own pocket! With those thank-yous said and done, I would now like to present to you the final information regarding the event!

Date: Sunday 15th May 2011
Location: Kaos Gaming Centre, Weesp, The Netherlands. Click for full addressStichting Kaos Contingency
Pampuslaan 67
1382 JM Weesp
The Netherlands
Teams attending: Power Gaming, OVERLOAd, Belgian Fraternity, TAG, Team Zodiacx and FiF.red by #g2p
Format: 5v5, round-robin group, top 4 proceed to single elimination playoff (all rounds bo3)
Prizes: 1st - €500, 2nd - €150 hardware
Admin: Jere
Maps: Adlernest, Bremen (b3), Frostbite (standard version), Goldrush, Radar, Supply

[bE-Series Schedule[/b] (click to expand)]
It’s in the best interest of all teams to be at the venue at 09:30 AM (this is when the doors open). The sooner you are there, the more time to you have to check in and set up. Match times are strict and the admin’s decision is final. Teams are not expected to be late for starting, the only time where a delay should have an impact on the schedule is due to a technical error and through no fault of a team or player. Of course, there are some situations which can occur such as illness or injury that may result in a team or player being late. Make an admin aware of this as soon as you can to keep them up to date. The admin’s decision is final on all accounts, please respect this.

09:30 – Kaos Gaming Centre doors open, allowing teams and players to check-in.
10:00 – Setup should be well under way by this point.

10:30 – Round 1 match start
11:30 – Round 2 match start

12:30 – Lunch break

13:30 – Round 3 match start
14:30 – Round 4 match start
15:30 – Round 5 match start

16:30 – Dinner break

17:30 – Semi-finals start
19:00 – Final start
Kaos TV website

Finally, the first deadline arrived last night at 20:00 (BST)! I can confirm that there has been a total of 5 maps submitted for the competition and there's definitely potential for ET to see at least one new competitive map entering in to the map pool. As this is only the initial deadline, this period will be used for the map makers to receive feedback on their maps in order to improve them for the next and final deadline of June 7th 2011 at 20:00 (BST).

For those of you who aren't up to date on what this is all about can read the original news item here on Crossfire.nu. In short, the winner of this contest will receive €150 prize and have their map featured in the map pool at my LAN event in July.

Update: Testserver rotations are now functional again!

Firstly, I would like to say that the LAN even will continue, none of the teams will lose any money or anything like that so don't panic. Secondly, yes it's true (sadly), TLR has closed its doors for now and by coincidence, the site has gone offline as well so there will be a lot of unanswered questions. I have a copy of the news post that was due to go live yesterday on the site before it went offline, I've written in the full version but only displayed the ET version and the thanks to all of you who've shown your support to us over the last few months. If you would like to read the full news post to find out about our other teams and staff members, then you can unhide the rest of the post.

Nothing changes for the LAN apart from the name. I'm still running it, TLR's sponsors weren't involved in it (apart from YCN and they're still involved). Same goes for the mapping contest, that will still go on as TLR, the prize WILL be given.



We're sure it will come as a shock to a lot of you, some of you may even be saddened by the news or maybe you saw it coming. Regardless of your reaction, the news is true; TLR will officially be closing its doors.

Throughout the short 4 months since our re-launch in December, our online campaign has been fantastic. We've seen our Facebook group grow from 86 people to 553, our Twitter followers go from 126 to 411, our website traffic going from 200+ unique hits in a week to 300+ unique hits a day. We would like to dedicate the last 4 months to our teams, our staff and of course all of you who have continuously supported our teams and projects. As cliché as it sounds, we couldn't have achieved what we achieved without all the aforementioned.

What will happen next? Read on to find out about our teams, their time in TLR and what their future holds...

Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory

We made a return into Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory by bringing in an all-star team who have displayed their skill and talent throughout their time here at TLR and will continue to do so. Their first contribution to TLR was the ClanBase EuroCup championship mere days after they joined. Since then, they collectively achieved Team of The Year in the Crossfire awards and several players received personal awards such as best aimer, player of the year and most underrated player. This team have been fantastic to work with and we wish them the absolute best in their future together. We're sure you'll be hearing about their new venture very, very soon.

Read the rest of the post

Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare

We've always been a supporter of the Call of Duty series, and the fourth episode in the game's history has been no different. This particular team, give or take a few names and faces, has been with us since July 2010 and has come a very long way. Placing poorly at Antwerp eSports Festival in 2010 to winning numerous Benelux LANs and most recently finishing at third place at Outpost on Fire 4 a few weeks ago. This is a team who are continuously improving and will become a serious contender for top spot with the right support. The team will continue to play together and will be attending E-Series on May the 14th, we do not yet know which flag they will fly.

Day of Defeat: Source

We re-entered the Day of Defeat: Source scene shortly after the arrival of our Call of Duty 4 team. This particular team have the greatest players from Europe snowballing their way through every opponent they meet at online and offline events, most notably absolutely destroying their only real contender at Anjougame a few weeks ago. With exam periods and international team opportunities arising, the future of this team is yet unknown. If they decide to stick together, they will continue their dominance among all things DoDs.

Michael "chefinal" Robinson

Mike is TLR's founder, owner, father and carer. He is the man who started it all back in 2003 as a Grand Theft Auto PC community to what you see now. Many of you will have met him at an i-Series event or even one of the many Crossfire events. As his nickname may suggest, Mike works full time as a Chef and will look to focus on his career for now. This is the man who holds the key to TLR's doors, who knows, he may re-open those doors again some day.

Sean "Seanza" McDougall

Along with the Call of Duty 4 team joining in July 2010, the then manager of Team Rockit joined us in our journey forward. Since then, Sean has become a massive part in TLR's road to success and has increased his own experience and skills whilst being part of the team here. He is best known for his no-nonsense dealings and honesty and most know him as one of the most reliable people in eSports today. He has been the creator of most of the recent initiatives by TLR and has been the driving force behind our social media and community campaigns. Sean will still be hosting his LAN event in July and we're sure it will be an amazing event! Aside from that, Sean's future in eSports is unknown, apart from the fact that he will be heavily involved in some way or another.

Josh "pesteh" Clarke

It all started for Josh in TLR when his company, pixaweb.co.uk, were drafted in to code and design a new website for TLR. Before long, Josh found himself being more involved with TLR than he initially expected and continued to pour his efforts into the organisation by constantly updating the website graphics and eventually re-designing the whole website to what you see it as now. Josh will continue to run his company, and has yet to decide if he will continue being actively involved in a managerial role in the eSports industry. If you're looking for a fantastic website that looks highly professional and is easy to use, then pixaweb.co.uk is where you need to be!

Of course, aside from the teams and management mentioned above, there have been some other key people involved in our recent success, namely Roelof "pZy" Prins and Matt "rellie" Squires who have shown utter dedication and passion via their journalist work here on our website, on our Facebook and on Twitter. We would like to send out a personal thankyou to them for all their efforts and their time at TLR. Their futures are yet unknown, but rest assured they won't be hiding away! Other notable thanks go to those who helped us run our online cups and other competitions.

Finally, and certainly by no means least, a MASSIVE thankyou to all companies and organisations who have shared their efforts with us as an organisation and provided us with funding, products and moral support over the years. You have all been fantastic and wish you all the best in your future and hope the market continues to boom for each and every one of you!

It's goodbye from TLR... for now at least.

www.tlr-esports.com

After the recent announcement of Kaos TV's E-Series event looking to support the Enemy Territory community, we've seen quite an interest in teams looking to go to the event. However, without an admin to run the tournament, it sadly cannot take place.

All E-Series staff are vaolunteers and are involved in order to better their gaming communities. You will be provided with tokens which you can use at the event to buy yourself some food and drinks. Your services will only be required for one day at the event (15th May) and, at the very least, must know basic rulesets of Enemy Territory competition. Both myself and Kaos TV understand that a lot of effort goes in to organising and maintaining these tournaments and are highly appreciative of the work that you will do.

The Call of Duty 4 signups have already opened and we're looking to open the ET ones as soon as we can confirm an admin will be in attendance! If you are interested in helping out at the event, please send me a message via email on seanza(at)tlr-esports.com or send me a pm on here stating that you're interested.

Related:
Original news post
Teams & players list
Kaos Facebook page
Kaos TV website

Known for its Call of Duty 4 tournaments, the E-Series LAN organisers are offering Enemy Territory a chance to feature at their LANs. In a move to try and better the offline event activity of ET, I spoke with the event organisers about running an ET edition of the E-Series. However, before we want to commit ourselves to anything, we want to test the water first of all.

Should the event go ahead, it will be held at the Kaos Gaming LAN centre which is located in Weesp, The Netherlands (about a 15-20 minute drive from Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam) on Sunday the 15th of May. It will be a one day event just as the previous Call of Duty 4 events have been, and the prizes will be cash and hardware (amounts dependant on team attendance). To get things started, I suggested a 6-team event and see how it goes from there. We’re going to need an admin to ensure things go smoothly on the day as well.

It has been known for quite some time that The Last Resort were looking to make their comeback in the W:ET scene but they were waiting for the right team to come along. Over the past few months, TLR's management have been having frequent discussions with Team Impact who had previously left Epsilon.

Today, the silence is broken. The Last Resort can finally announce their official return to Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory by bringing in a team that they see as most suitable for representing the name and wearing the tags.

The brand new TLR.ET lineup is:

Ross "R0SS" Gracie
Gavin "sqzz" Butler
Dario "XyLos" Azzarelli
Robert "M1lk" Buijs
David "mAus" Herre

Paul "eVo" Sexton (Manager)

With this announcement, comes a lineup change due to Jay "Hayaa" Bonhof stepping down from competitive gaming. His replacement is none other than Robert "M1lk" Buijs, a player that steps out of a period of inactivity since this year’s Crossfire Intel Challenge 7.

Head over to the original newspost for more information, including R0SS' amazing statement!

Razer is celebrating Christmas early this year and are luckily not being too selfish about it, either. They will be joined by HeavenMedia to give you twelve weeks of Christmas and give you a unique chance at winning a big prize with very little effort.

Razer picks up the role of Santa Claus and will be holding a weekly raffle in which all people can enter and the winner will be given a major Razer product for his personal use and another person will get a similar Razer product as well. The first raffle has already been opened for public and you can simply enter by visiting the raffle's microsite.

We're on to Day 2 of the WCG2010 USA Online Qualifiers. Last night, we saw some close games and some ragequits, the latter coming from Team HOT who returned to the game after leaving it around 2 years ago, Team FATE spoiled HOT's "never been defeated by an American team" claim to fame by more or less destroying them and forcing "America's greatest" to teamkill each other in the spawn out of frustration, needless to say, HOT won't be returning to this tournament.

Another "top team" seen leaving was Team Decimated, again crumbling to a solid FATE squad, however, they showed more sportsmanship during their match by actually playing the whole game. We also saw some nice teamplay from The Art of Warfare as they gave FATE a scare on Quarry, which some may have expected given TAW's experience as "pub players" on such a "pub map", props to them.




Round 4- Tonight @ 21:00 EST (03:00 CET)
Starting tonight's coverage is the match that probably most of us are anticipating; AmeriMIX vs. Team FATE on Salvage, an infantry based map. These are the 2 stronger teams in the tournament, but FATE carry more experience as a team than AmeriMIX, however, don't let that fool you, they have good players who could take the win in what will surely be an epic match.

Round 5 - Tonight @ 21:50 EST (03:00 CET)
The final round (assuming there are no teams drawing on points after it) will be AmeriMIX vs. The Art of Warfare on Sewer, a map which requires a lot of determination and teamwork from the attacking side, and flawless communication from the defending side. Although AmeriMIX enter this one as the favourites, don't rule out TAW.

Enjoy the games tonight, to check up on last night's matches, read yesterday's news post.



NB: This has been posted for those who are interested in spectating, if you have no intention to reply in a constructive manner, then do not reply at all. Users seen disobeying this rule will be warned then banned if they continue.

Only a few days ago, I posted a news item detailing Splash Damage's request for a team to represent America at this year's World Cyber Games in Los Angeles, California. With a few teams signing up, the fairest way to decide who would represent USA was to host an online qualifying competition. Tonight, that competition starts, and we have 1 match from each round available for viewing on ETQW TV or on video stream.

Round 1 - Tonigh @ 21:00 EST (03:00 CET)
First off, we have Team Decimated go up against AmeriMIX on Ark. This will be Decimated's first match in a long time after them coming out of "retirement" due to the inactivity of competitive ET:QW. AmeriMIX, however, have yet to play a game as a team, so this should be interesting. They're a bunch of guys who have continued to play the game.

Round 2 - Tonight @ 21:50 EST (03:50 CET)
Next up is The Art of Warfare vs. Team Fate on Quarry, a map that's fresh to the competitive map pool and has be especially been drafted due to it being included in the Quake Wars Online map pool. TAW boast about being the largest clan in ET:QW with a massive amount of 160 members (Yes, you read that right, one hundred and sixty!!), but how will they play against a Team Fate squad full of experience and skill? This should be one interesting matchup.

Round 3 - Tonight @ 22:40 EST (04:40 CET)
We will be seeing TAW back on the screens again as the face another "oldschool" team, Team HOT on Refinery, a map which is notorious for double fullholds until ETQWPro removed the MCP objective, however, this is in a vanilla environment, so the MCP has been re-added again. Will be see another double fullhold on this map? Will HOT be able to show the ETQW TV viewer that they are still the team they once were? Tune in to find out.



Enjoy the games and be sure to look out for tomorrow's matches.



NB: This has been posted for those who are interested in spectating, if you have no intention to reply in a constructive manner, then do not reply at all. Users seen disobeying this rule will be warned then banned if they continue.