Things are starting to heat up in the i3D Enemy Territory: Quake Wars Beta Cup, with the quarter finals including what many would consider the competition's true final coming at an early stage. Only 3 games are being played this weekend, as xGx dropped out of the cup, giving Team Delta a free route to the semi final, where they will meet the winner of The Last Resort vs Team Exilium

With Copenhagen eSport taking on Team Dignitas on two teams who wish to assert themselves as the number 1 side in Europe go head to head. However, this match will take place on Valley, a map which is very doubtful to be played in the game's full release. This, combined with JaKaZc and Reload's heavy CDC3 Enemy Territory practice schedule have seen Dignitas' schedule somewhat lighter than it perhaps should be, especially in comparison to Copenhagen's, whose heavy practice schedule has brought them success so far, including victory twice before over Dignitas on Sewer, and on Valley, a victory in the 2nd inQuake Cup, where they defeated TLR in the Final. Summer is drawing to a close, and with the return to work and studies for a number of players, it will be interesting to see whether they can not only continue such a strenuous schedule, but also to avoid burning out. Although individually they have less top-level experience than Dignitas, who also performed well on Valley at Quakecon, they will fancy their chances of continuing their strong series of online performances in a game which could go either way.

That is not to say that the winning side will have a free route to the final, or even to the overall championship. As the two remaining German sides go head to head, it's difficult to see any result other than a convinving win for Ocrana, former Cause we Can, over Pain is Coming. PiC aren't competing on the same level as any of the other remaining teams, whilst Ocrana will not want to disappoint under their new name, and its hard to see that happening, with strong teamplay and some of the top infantry players, something which the victor of the match between Dignitas and Copenhagen will need to compensate for in their semi final, Copenhagen having experienced this in the final of the Clanbase Cup on Sewer.

In the other match, The Last Resort takes on Team Exilium, and the latter will be looking to cause an upset. Neither team seems to have been as active on Valley as on Sewer, but TLR seems to be taking the competition more seriously than Exilium, who could be a surprise in this match, after being absent from all other recent competitions. Exilium defaulted past Afterlife, whereas TLR had an easy victory over Stofftier. TLR go into this game as favourites, but Exilium shouldn't be written off.

[bQuarter Final Matches[/b]]
Copenhagen eSport [2:4] Team Dignitas
Ocrana [4:0] Pain is Coming
Team Delta [1:0] Xtreme Gaming Xperience
Team Exilium [0:4] The Last Resort

Cup Page
GameRiot Preview

The group stages of the i3d.net cup have concluded, with no real surprises in the qualifiers, other than a few notable absentees from the knockout stages due to inactivity and the death of some teams. With Kompaniet going inactive, and lolicon and Team Ninja dying, the right side of the bracket seems weaker than it otherwise would have been. Cause should see an easy route to the semi-final, where they will meet the winner of what many are saying should be the grand final, the quarter final match between Copenhagen eSport and the winner of Team Dignitas and R!oT Gamers. On the right side, The Last Resort will fancy their chances, although Team Exilium, Team Helix and the winner of the match between Xtreme Gaming Xperience and the out of practise u14 will all be looking to stop them.

[bKnockout Round 1[/b]]
Copenhagen eSport [1:0] n3rd
Team Dignitas [0:0] R!oT.it
Cause [1:0] retroactive
Pain is Coming [0:0] Infused Gaming
Team Delta [0:0] Team Helix
Xtreme Gaming Xperience [0:0] u14
Team Exilium [0:0] Afterlife
The Last Resort [4:0] Stofftier

Cup Page

TheLastResort has announced the pickup of the European Enemy Territory: Quake Wars side cZar-Gaming. Formally known as Team Cupido, the squad brings a wealth of talent and experience from the top echelon of Battlefield 2 and is currently training hard on the ET:QW beta in preparation for the impending release of ET:QW, and upcoming i3d.net Open Beta Cup, aswell as a heavy winter LAN season which will see the team competing at the Crossfire Devotii Challenge 3 and Netgamez.

Team Manager Luke "Baldrick" Cotton had the following to say:

Quote by Baldrick

"After formally playing with TLR's Battlefield 2 Team I had been speaking with Mike for a long time about bringing an Enemy Territory: Quake Wars Team into TLR and as it became apparent that cZar's promises were not going to be fulfilled we came to an agreement. I'd like to thank Mike for the chance to become the TLR ET:QW Lineup, especially before the game's full release, and for promising us the support required to attend the upcoming Crossfire Devotii Challenge 3 in September and future European LANs where we hope to fulfil our potential as one of the top European teams."

TLR Owner Mike "Chefinal" Robinson gave the following statement:

Quote by Chefinal

"It gives me great pleasure to welcome cZar-Gaming ET:QW team to TLR.eSports. This game is growing very quickly and having a great impact on the gaming community. The team we bring to TLR brings alot of skill and great team work. We look forward to the up and coming lans, tournaments and cups for this team and bringing home the results and acheivements along the way. Knowing Luke for a long time I know he will work very hard to keep this team at the top for this game both online and offline"

The new TLR Lineup will be as follows:

Luke "Baldrick" Cotton - Team Manager
Jop "ILoveYou" Huisman - Team Manager
Stephan 'Wastestuff' Idema
Nicolai 'RuFiO' Kleine
Ali "Sin" Mohammed
Marius "Athex" Stavang
Lars 'Tankz0r' Tijhuis
Erik "2Easy" van Hoorn
Frans "Quark" van Hoorn

#TheLastResort - TLR-Clan.co.uk

Round 1 of the 16 team QuakeWarsLeague.com knockout cup is over, and 8 teams have advanced into the Quarter Finals. Both TGBF.tv and GameTV have been providing coverage of a number of matches, and the results from Round 1 are as follows.

[bRound 1 Results[/b]]
ntech` 0-2 4th Rangers
One2| 2-0 Grievous Angels
dignitas 2-0 te4m.
bioxar 2-0 Venatio
cZar 1-0 tyrn
NINJA 2-0 Pain is Coming
exilium 1-0 Habitual Genocide
cause* 3-1 earthquakers

This gives us the following matches in Round 2, where the competition heats up with a number of big matches. First we see 4th Rangers taking on One2| in what should be a formality for One2, and the same goes for dignitas as they meet bioxar. Team Exilium have been impressive and should be able to pull off a victory over cause, however this is a match which could easily go either way. The biggest match this round sees the two Battlefield 2 sides which seem to have best adapted to Quake Wars go head to head, as cZar and NINJA battle it out for a place in the semi-finals. It's expected that a number of these games are covered with videostreams in the coming week.

[bRound 2[/b]]
4th Rangers vs One2|
dignitas vs bioxar
cZar vs NINJA
exilium vs cause*

I also managed to catch up with QWL|MoraX for a quick interview.

[bQWL|MoraX Interview[/b]]
Please could you introduce yourself to our readers, and give us an overview of what QuakeWarsLeague is about and what it hopes to accomplish?
Hi there, I am MoraX from QWL. I am both admin and developer of the QWL site. QWL is trying to gather a great community for ET:QW, as well as provide a platform for clans to compete in cups and ladders. While keeping in contact with Splash Damage, we have lately also been busy on the field of video match coverage by both TGBF and game-tv as you may have noticed


So what do you think differs yourselves from the more traditional leagues such as Clanbase and ESL?
We try to be different by means of letting things loose a bit. Where Clanbase and ESL most of the times have tight rules to follow and having large amounts of ladders and cups, we are trying to pay more attention to our ladders and cups, and we are always open for suggestion out of the communities.

What are your future plans for the website, both upon the full release of ET:QW, and in the more distant future, will we see you branching out into other games?
The future plan is to first stick with ET:QW for a while. Since the website is completely homemade, the ET:QW beta was a great opportunity for us to test the system. Two new features which are in development, are a ladder system (pretty much self explanatory I guess), and a server reservation system. With the server reservation system, it will also be possible to reserve our servers for practice matches. If everything goes well, and people seem to like the way we run QWL, branching off to other games is certainly a very good possibility.

At the moment, you're the only league to be running without any vehicle limitations. Why have you chosen to do this, when most of the competitive community would rather play with heavy limitations on the vehicles?
First, we would like to the game be played as it should be, the way Splash Damage ment it to be played. Vehicles are part of the game, so in our eyes, it wouldn't make sense removing them. Second, since it is still a beta, this is also a great balance test for Splash Damage to see if any vehicles are overpowered or not. Especially since the game has not been tested in actual competitive clan matches that much yet (not without limitations that is). However, clans who play an official QWL match are allowed to make their own additional rules as long as they don't contradict with any official rules. So if both clans agree not to use any aircraft, that is fine with us.

Speaking of those clans, do you have a a favourite or favourites that you think will win the competition?
Well, both clans in poule 2 of round 2 seem to have good papers (Dignitas & Bioxar) . Although I must admit I haven't seen many of the other clans actually play, so there might be a surprise in there.

You've already mentioned your partnerships with TGBF and Game-TV; How do you see the role of broadcasting in ET:QW?
I think broadcasting might help the gaming business to get to a higher level of seriousness. Gamers are often still considered "nerds" these days sadly, while more and more people discover the fun of gaming,and that we are not nerdy creatures living on cola in the dark! Broadcasting, in combination with the professional contests like the World Championships of Gaming helps showing people that there is more to gaming than they think, and it can be a serious business.

Is there anything else that you'd like to add?
Thanks for the interview, it was fun to do. We hope to see you on QWL. Don't be afraid to PM one of us with any questions or suggestion you have, we won't bite!

i3d.net in association with QuakeWars.net are pleased to announce that the i3d Enemy Territory: Quake Wars Beta Cup is ready to begin!

130 clans signed up for the first European Enemy Territory: Quake Wars Cup; with over 1000euro's worth of prizes up for grabs.
i3d has decided to split the cup into two sections: Division 1, 40 pro-teams, and Division 2, 40 semi-pro teams.
Both division follow the same schedule: 8 poules of 5 clans play 4 wars per clan. After the poules, the cup will move to a knock out schedule: the top 2 clans of each poule will qualify for the knockout stage.

The cup will take place using the Public (Open) Beta during the months of July & August. The first matches will start at the 9th of July 2007. One poule match per clan per week will be scheduled.

i3D.net offers each and every clan bookable private unranked warservers for training and matches. These servers are free of charge and available for 24 hours in each session. Read about the free ordering here: http://www.i3d.nl/cup/news-article.php?news=207

More information regarding the cups, the poules and match schedule is available on the official cup website:
Division 1
Division 2

QuadV and TGBF will provide audio and visual coverage of the cup, and Crossfire will bring you regular coverage.

Match week 1 runs from Monday 9th July - Sunday 15th July


The poules are as follows:

[bDivision 1[/b]]
Group 1
Team One2
4th.Rangers
gods.inc
Desire
The .x7 Project

Group 2
lolicon
bioXar
egamespoint.Thermaltake
Team Delta
Team imm0rtal. eSports

Group 3
Dignitas
Quakenstein
Beyond-Gaming
spierdalaj!
n1ce.it

Group 4
Kompaniet
Xtreme Gaming Xperience
AEQUiTAS
Kampfschwimmer
A.S. R!oT Gamers

Group 5
Cause
BioXar
Fear Factory.X-Fi
DEFAULT.Team
CoRe

Group 6
Exilium
Power of Greyskull
Retroactive
plan9
masterblasters e.V.

Group 7
Ninja
Project Ego
Logitech UVM
Stofftier
Pain is Coming

Group 8
cZar Gaming
VGA Gaming
69ers
infused Gaming.ET:QW
Team.Intermission
[bDivision 2[/b]]

Group 1
VaKarM.H2G
Squad 3V
Silent italian Shadows
Head Killer Shoot
Deathless

Group 2
Venatio
shuuk
Fallen Soulz
xVera
United Dutch Forces

Group 3
progressive eSports
Alpha9
prediction Gaming
|BEWARE|
Vendetta

Group 4
eatSlugs
*NOB* Mrcine
Highrised
Who Are You??
Creatures of The Night

Group 5
Clan Des Damnés
GamersNation.co.uk
Empire of Soldiers
et-fr
illuminators

Group 6
FreesTyle
Fleetwood
Killers in Arms
Clan-Groland
Dutch Hawks

Group 7
ntech
Breakdown
Team Vendetta
#murso
Afrika Korps

Group 8
Team enCore
Wilda D-Link
QuoVadis
ReaLComputerFreaks
BIER

i3d.net in association with QuakeWars.net are pleased to announce the first ever cup for Enemy Territory: Quake Wars. The cup will take place using the Public Beta during the months of July & August.

All European (top) clans, teams & communities are invited to participate in this cup, which will decide who goes home with 2 Enemy Territory: Quake Wars Game servers from i3d, and 8 corepads!

The Cup will have a maximum of 40 Clans, which will be divided into 8 poules of 5 clans, each team playing all the other teams in its poule. The top 2 teams from each poule will qualify for the knockout stage, which will take place in Single Elimination. We feel that this will give all competing clans the chance to play a number of matches in a relatively tight time-schedule. The first matches will take place during the first week in July.

All matches will take place on Sewer using the very same ABBA format seen in Enemy Territory. It will be played in Stopwatch mode, with a time limit of 20 minutes. The matches will take place in 6on6 mode (6 players per team). It is allowed to substitute players, however they must leave the server before the replacement connects. Certain vehicle restrictions will be enforced. Any team found using the prohibited vehicles will automatically forfeit the half.

It is not allowed to exploit any bugs (of which a list will be circulated prior to the competition beginning). If you think you have found a bug, please contact the i3d Admin Team as well as posting it on the FilePlanet Beta Forum. Teams found to be breaking this rule will be subject to round forfeits or possible disqualification, at the admin's discretion. All teams who play a match in the competition will be required to submit feedback which will be passed on to Splash Damage to aid the ongoing development of Enemy Territory: Quake Wars.

In order to be eligible to compete, teams must have at least 6 players with a legal Enemy Territory: Quake Wars Open beta key. These keys are distributed on FilePlanet and a select number of Enemy Territory: Quake Wars websites. They must all be registered and added to the team at i3d.net in order to be eligible to compete.

Spectators are not permitted, other than i3d Cup Admins, and recognized shoutcasters/commentators. Both TGBF.tv and QuadV.com will be providing audio and video coverage of this cup.

Coverage Partners:
QuakeWars.net
TGBF.tv
QuadV.com
Crossfire.nu

About i3d.net
i3D.net is one of the largest European gamehosters, hosting the Battlefield series, Counter Strike PREMIUM servers and America's Army Honor. i3D.net's PREMIUM servers offer high quality Counter Strike gameservers. They will also be hosting servers in Enemy Territory: Quake Wars as a trusted partner.

i3d also have an unique Quake Wars gameserver offering. The servers are hosted in The Netherlands (Amsterdam and Rotterdam) and Germany (Frankfurt).

Advanced Rules

What is the ABBA mode?
For those that are not experienced with this format, the team listed first on the i3d.net cup web page will play as GDF in the first round, with the team listed 2nd playing as Strogg. The attacking team (team A) will set a time to complete the objectives. The teams then swap sides, and team B must try to beat that time. If they beat the time of Team A, they win the half. Ig team a do not set a time, and team b do not complete the final objective, the half is a tie. Team B then attacks again, and sets a time, which Team A must then try and beat. If they do so, they win the half. If after this the score is tied at 1-1, the team with the fastest time to complete the objective can choose whether they will start on offense or defense for the deciding round.

Vehicle Restrictions
The following vehicles are prohibited:
Anansi
Bumblebee
Tormentor
It is only allowed to use 1 (ONE) Cyclops

The cup IRC channel is #i3d on Quakenet

The leading UK shoutcasting station QuadV have announced that they have secured the services of Crossfire owner Stuart "TosspoT" Saw, formely of Radio iTG.

It is with great delight and excitement that QuadV can announce we have secured the services of one of the world’s most talented and well known shoutcasters, Stuart “TosspoT” Saw.

Stuart joins us from inside The Game (iTG), where he covered many major tournaments throughout the world and brings with him a wealth of knowledge and experience. Not only will Stuart be joining QuadV in a senior commentary position, he will also serve as one of the executives of the company, helping the company to grow as part of the management team and as a shareholder.

“I am particularly thrilled with Stuart joining us at QuadV, which adds even more quality to our already great line up of commentary talent”, commented Head of Commentary at QuadV, Paul “ReDeYe” Chaloner, “Stuart is without doubt one of the finest commentators of eSports in the world right now and I feel his addition leaves us with the best line up of shoutcasters in the UK and possibly Europe.”

“I am personally looking forward to working with him again having had a very successful working relationship and friendship during our time at iTG. Everyone at QuadV is thrilled to have him on board with us and we are looking forward to his unique way of bringing eSports to people with the QuadV brand.”

Stuart said, “I'm very happy to be moving to QuadV and starting a new chapter in my gaming career. Anyone that knows me will know I take shoutcasting and all the other aspects in gaming very seriously. Thus leaving iTG and joining QuadV was not a decision I took lightly, in fact it's been one of the hardest decisions I've ever made. I'll be the first to admit that without iTG and Marcus “djWheat” Graham, I wouldn't be anywhere in this business, I wouldn't have travelled the world and I wouldn't have made so many great friends.”