Mapmaker Chris has been working on his map Meltdown since late 2007 and the first public beta is now released. The map has been designed from the beginning for 6on6 and the sole goal has been to make a good map for competition. Now you can help test the map and provide feedback on how to improve it.

Meltdown features close quarters infantry combat as GDF assault a Strogg facility and there are no vehicles on the map.

Read on for information, screenshots and download mirrors.

The team behind the most popular etqw mod to date have now recruited the creator of the etqw competition mod pigmod, no other than Blaze. The ETQWPro team expect Blaze to bring manners into the team and we see it as a happy bonus if he decides to include some features. Rumors say that Blaze was once an army sergeant in Vietnam and that he killed 10 boars with his fists.

Aside from that Blaze is a major asset on all fronts and has already made his mark on the mod, bringing in lots of experience from both modding and creating games. Blaze has previously worked on mods such as reaction quake for quake 3.

This means the coding team now consist of Hannes, SpaceCommander, th00ry and Blaze.

With the two most successful competition mods for etqw now working together you can hardly imagine any limits! Stay tuned for big updates to come!

You can visit ETQWPro at www.etqwpro.net and #etqwpro on quakenet.

The qtour is widely known around the world as the most prestigious 1on1 tournament for counter strike 1.6 and have attracted some of the biggest 1.6 stars in the world, such as Spawn and XeqtR. Now World Cyber Games, known for tournaments such as SEC and WCG, have embraced the qtour and is co-hosting it. And WCG have brought their main sponsors Samsung along, so Samsung is now spearheading an impressive field of sponsors. And with the new blood there comes two new games. Call of Duty 4 and Counter Strike: Source have now been added to the qtour roster.
For now the cooperation is only a part of WCG Nordic and the first tournament will be at The Gathering 2008 in Hamar, Norway and signups are now open. The qtour will be streamed by tgbf.tv and as always our favorite drunk Swede living in Denmark will be running the show.

WCG QTOUR Championship:
• 16 player single elimination
• 14 players are invited
• 2 spots are open for public qualifier
• 1on1 tournament in games normally played 5on5
• Game titles: • Counter-Strike 1.6 • Call of Duty 4 • Counter-Strike Source
• Live stream by TGBF.tv
• Great prices
• Great prestige

Visit www.q-tour.com to sign up!

Four Kings face off versus Dignitas tonight in what should be a great match with two of ETQW's best teams. Though it looks to be an uphill battle for Four Kings.

Dignitas have a perfect record versus Four Kings and at CDC Four Kings failed to impress after ending 4th. And Four Kings comes into the final from the lower bracket after beating epsilon 4-0 on Salvage and Sewer, so they will need to win double to win the final. Another thing that might affect the match is the fact that Four Kings recently had some roster changes, with Imentiu leaving and Winghaven joining.
Winghaven is unable to play todays final due to ESL rules so Four Kings.etqw manager Hazz will play the match. Hazz told me yesterday how good he was and that I have never seen him play, by the looks of it he will have the chance to prove himself today. The match will be played on Island and sewer.

Both teams statements before the match can be read here: http://www.esl.eu/eu/etqw/ems/season1_playoffs/match/8518036/

Dignitas 4 vs 0 Four Kings
Start time: 22:00 CET
ETQW-TV: GamesTV.org
Shoutcast: Gameoff.net (English)
ESL TV: http://tv.esl.eu/de/program/view/38172 (German)


Update
dignitas didn't had that much problems, especially on Island they performed pretty well. It's no surprise that they won the first Major Series Season for Quakewars.

dignitas
Four-Kings
Epsilon / SPEED-LINK


Note: You will need ETQWPro 0.4 to watch the matches, you can download it here: http://etqwpro.net/misc/etqwpro040.zip
Listeners guide: http://www.crossfire.nu/?x=tutorial&mode=item&id=11 (How to get sync between ETQW-TV and shoutcast ++)

The Community ruleset is soon 6 months old and the people behind the ruleset (Biggest EU leagues and top EU teams) have now decided to open a public web page and irc channel. The thought behind the new public input channels are to let more people have their say on the rule decisions. The rule deciding wont go completely public though, but key questions will now be asked in public.

The idea behind the web page is not to create a community, start cups or fill any other function already taken within the community. The web page is only there so people now more easily can find the newest Community ruleset server config, read updates and vote on key questions.

You can find the new Community ruleset web page here: http://www.community-ruleset.com

And the new irc channel on quakenet here: #etqw.community

The Community ruleset is supported by ClanBase, ESL, Crossfire and the top EU teams.

The biggest ETQWPRO update to date has just been released featuring gameplay improvements, game fixes and some additions. The focus of fourth public release is to polish old features, work against full holds on certain maps and make the community rule set as automatic as possible, making it easier to follow. A lot of the features in the update were used in the CDC4 build of ETQWPro and at the people at the LAN seemed very happy with them.
And with this major update we hope that people that have quit ETQW will come back and try out the mod. Because we are getting closer and closer to ETQW as it should have been from a competitive perspective. And we have gone a long way in improving all sides of the gameplay. ETQWPro is a lot more about skill through precise aiming, more balance and less about spam / vehicle dominance. So if you ever tried ETQW and felt it was too spammy, aiming was off or that you felt the balance didn’t work in competition we recommend you try ETQWPro 0.4.

And as a teaser I can tell you that there are already some features ready to be implanted into ETQWPro as soon as they are balance tested properly. So you can look forward to more big ETQWPro updates this spring.

ETQWPro 0.4: http://etqwpro.net/misc/etqwpro040.zip
ETQWPro wiki: http://myhannes.info/wiki/index.php

ETQWPro gathers
The gather channel #qw.gather on quakenet is running ETQWPro gathers around the clock in both 4on4 and 6on6. So if you just want to test out the mod this is an excellent option. Each week more than 120 gathers are played, that’s more than 15 gathers each day.

Tonight the two last quarter finals of the Clanbase Nationscup for ETQW will get underway with the royal power of Sweden taking on the freezing and oh so drunk force of Finland in the first match. In the second match we got team UK trying to get back at Italy for its friendly climate and after a long winter the British will surely be bitter. And if watching these two matches on ETQW-TV wasn't enough to get you through the night, I will do my casting debuted for ETQW. (In English) If I end up failing in the shout cast I would still recommend everyone to tune in as I am very bad at handling failures and either way it should be an entertaining cast. I will try to cast both matches, but if Sweden vs Finland turn out to be a long match I will stay in it.

Note: You will need ETQWPro 0.03 to watch the matches, you can download it here: http://etqwpro.net/misc/etqwpro003.zip

Sweden 4-0 Finland
Start time: 20:00 CET
ETQW-TV: GamesTV.org
Shout/fail cast: Gameoff.net

Italy vs United Kingdom
Start time: 21:00 CET
ETQW-TV: GamesTV.org
Shout/fail cast: Gameoff.net

Source: http://clanbase.ggl.com/news_league.php?lid=5937
Listeners guide: http://www.crossfire.nu/?x=tutorial&mode=item&id=11 (How to get sync between ETQW-TV and shoutcast ++)

Ninja-edit: I will be in #Crossfire if anyone got something to complain about during the cast!

The members of the Community rule vote have once again voted on how ETQW should be played. The biggest change this time is the decision to add ETQWPro to all matches.

The Community rules are supported by ESL, Clanbase and the top ETQW teams and will be used at the upcoming CDC LAN with a shortened maplist.

General rules:
ETQWPro must be used in all matches and all features that are included in ETQWPro are allowed or specified through cvars.

Teams are only allowed to use vehicles from one heavy vehicle spawn on all stages with more than one heavy vehicle spawn. Once a team have used a heavy vehicle from a heavy vehicle spawn they must wait until the vehicle gets destroyed and respawns before using another.

Please make sure that the ETQWpro auto record is running. Demos are required from all matches.

Heavy vehicles are not allowed during the last objective, even if you were using the vehicle during the objective was enabled. You have to leave the vehicle.

Use of 3rd Eye Camera is not allowed.

Maximum 1 Heavy Vehicle per team.
Maximum 1 Medium Vehicle per team.

Heavy Vehicles include: Cyclops, Desecrator and Titan.
Medium Vehicles include: Hog and Trojan APC.

No this isn’t a boring news post about what might have happened some hundred years ago, Christmas morning is now officially about frags and more frags. Its far from everyday a known player releases a movie and I cant remember last time two movies of this caliber was released on the same day. I might be on the road to salvation after all.
CopyKill from the German powerhouse Ocrana have released his first ETQW movie named “in raGe”. And a little to the west Four-Kings.etqw captain nkm have released his first frag movie ever and if you ever wondered how the world looks through a scope this is your chance. In the movie info field nkm writes this:

Quote

Contains frags by myself from recent matches.
My first attempt at a fragmovie so be gentle!

But rest assured, he has been far from gentle with his targets.

nkm – etqw
Length: 9 min
Movie link: http://www.crossfire.nu/?x=movie&mode=item&id=472

CopyKill – in rage
Length: 10 min
Movie link: http://www.crossfire.nu/?x=movie&mode=item&id=473

Tuesday night is fight night in the ETQW QCUP and in what looks to be the most exiting round so far we have 4 teams wanting to advance to the 250 euro final. So get your popcorn ready, put your feet on the table and relax as Quadv and TosspoT brings you the semi finals (or at least one of them) of the ETQW QCUP.

Dignitas 4-0 Four-Kings
Time: Tuesday 19.30 CET
Stream: N/A
Maps: Island and Area 22
[bTakens take[/b]]
In the first match of the evening we have the 1st and 5th seed of the ETQW QCUP clashing together in what should be an exciting match, but with a clear favorite. Dignitas have been playing rock solid lately, winning all there is to win of officials so far in retail ETQW. Four-kings also have a good track record and wining versus GROF in the second European ESL EMS qualifier is the highlight so far. Some might argue that Four-Kings have yet to play the best in the big leagues and thats true to some extent. Four-Kings have not had the change to prove them selfs after joining the Four-kings organization, but that does not automatically make them a lesser team. But as the seeding suggest, (partly done by me, so not the best reference) Dignitas is the best team going to this match and should win it 4-0 if they are able to perform at their normal standard. And Four-Kings needs to step up their game if they want to win the match. A factor that might tip the match even more in Dignitas favor is that key Four-Kings player Fenda is away on holiday and Four-Kings might even be forced to play the match with a merc. My final prediction: 4-0 to Dignitas, but I hope to see Four-Kings step up and perform at their best and give Dignitas a hard fight for the spot in the final.

[bLineups[/b]]
Four-Kings
Hentai
nkm
Imentiu
Dranzer
rglaf
TBA

Dignitas
utr
Huggo
RELOAd
senji
Bjorn
jakazc


Kompaniet 4-0 EYEBALLERS
Time: Tuesday 21.00 CET
Coverage: QuadV.com with TosspoT (direct link tba)
Maps: Island and Area 22
[bTakens take[/b]]
In the second semi final we have an all out Swedish battle. The two top Swedish teams will not only battle it out for a spot in the final, but also for the crown of Sweden. Last time these two met, in the Swedish ESL EMS qualifier, Kompaniet was able to secure a 4-2 victory. Back then EYE won Area 22, Kompaniet won Island and Sewer. For this cup Kompaniet is seeded second and EYE third. But things have changed since then and while Kompaniet have been crushing their opponents lately, EYE have had some big problems. In the ETQW Nordic Championship EYE just lost to the all star mix team "BUBU" (consisting of players from Dignitas, H2k and infinity), in EMS EYE only managed a draw versus underdogs Frag Executers and gave walk over versus Creative. So there is a big question mark behind the mighty EYE tag at the moment, will EYE be able to bounce back or will this match be another failure? In light of the recent trouble for EYE and the maps being played I predict a 4-0 win for Kompaniet. But EYE is a team packed with talent and if there is anyone that is able to pull off a big upset, its them.

[bLineups[/b]]
EYEBALLERS
Tork
Spy
Jazze
SpeedyHS
Ingolrien
kik
redux
wona
(will update with lineup for the match)

Kompaniet
mson
Soltis
rvn
LAondA
Wayf
xedd


Complete brackets can be found here: http://www.team-apas.com/cm2.9.99/123.html