The Crossfire Challenge 5 is officially alive and kicking, players and admins are starting to arrive in Enschede and here on Crossfire if you're not attending we plan to rub your nose in what you're missing out on!

Firstly here is a small trailer of what has gone before at the previous CC editions, You can watch the CC5 trailer here.[/b]

Secondly the coverage is well under way! Externally Cadred have published their preview of the event you can follow all of their CC5 coverage HERE, they'll be sending Max Silver & Sidney Klinker to the event to cover the action. Benelux based sites TeK9 & Low Land Lions will also be on site covering the event.

Internally the Crossfire coverage has begun, Nellie has broken down the ET winners and statistics for you to drool over and I have made a tournament prediction column asking the question who will win CC5?

You can follow the event live here on Crossfire, livestreamed by QuadV and on ETTV courtesy of GamesTV.org. You can also watch the WZZRD TV Webcam stream and http://en.justin.tv/wzzrdtv

The latest version of the Schedule for CC5 can be found Here THIS IS A NEW SCHEDULE, ATTENTION TO ALL COD PLAYERS: New Format offering more matches for you, please check it. Some minor ET changes also.

UPDATE: The rules for the tournament are also now available. They can be found here.

We also have a telephone link to the Crossfire team on site, for use only in situations where urgent contact with the admin team is required, for example if you are unable to find the LAN centre or likely to be late for a game. The number is +31202224026.

Sit back and enjoy :)

First of all it is with a massively heavy heart that must inform all of those involved, weather participants or those that have offered their assistance along the way that Don is no longer with us. He passed this morning around 5:30am EST, peacefully & in his sleep.

At the beginning Don was acutely aware of the cup but paid it little attention due primarily to a lack of understanding. Unbeknown to me when my wife transferred all the funds we raised for Gateway from our Paypal, there was an option to send the the Honoree a letter notifying them that a donation had been made on their behalf. When he asked my wife about & it was explained to the best of his understanding he simply said "Tell them all I said Thank You"

Secondly I would like to extend my apologies to the remaining teams for lack of availability & communication over the past few weeks. With Don's condition deteriorating & having to be admitted to Hospice & my best friend whom we buried yesterday being put on life support a few weeks back, these have been difficult & trying times for me & my family. I know this is a gaming community & I apologize for the gloom nature of this post but I just want all the participating teams to know I have various reasons for being afk & that I will be afk later on this week as I have travel to Ohio for Dons funeral services.

Lastly on to the business of completing this cup. With 8b1ts FiFg attending CC5 this weekend & the cup being stalled trying to get an international match in (8b1ts FiFg vs excel) with the only ideal day that works for both teams being Sunday, my plan is as follows to get the remaining matches in on Sunday Dec 21, back to back. There is only 3 possibly 4 matches that remain that need to be played.

Beginning with...

8b1ts FiFg vs excel
Sunday Dec 21 @ 14:00 EST (20:00 CET)

We will make an afternoon/evening event of it with all matches being broadcast & shoutcasted by Mistaken. I will then release prizes at the conclusion to the winning teams.

8bits & excel have already agreed to this I just need confirmation from VAE & mamut.si. Please contact me if this is an issue for you.I will get a map schedule & make another post this coming weekend after I confirm everything. Your co-operation is greatly needed in this as we need to get this cup wrapped up & prizes awarded.

Thank you

Tonight at 20:00 CET we will see one4one facing vital-gaming in the groupstage of the ESL ET Winter League '08 Premier division!

Up to now vital-gaming is still unbeaten in Group D after overcoming Kruger.et.
one4one lost a close 3mapper versus cortana but still has good chances to proceed into the playoffs if they win some points in this match!

Over in Italy this past weekend, the Call of Duty 4 community has been doing battle for a sizable cheque. With many local Italian teams in attendance there was a large field and potentially a few obstacles for bigger teams to overcome, however there were familiar faces in the final.

ButtonBashers had waltzed through the winner bracket only Spanish side Overcame giving them any trouble by forcing overtime, after that point they were waiting for the scenes more established teams to fight it out between them in the loser bracket with Fatgames & CrackClan making it to the LB Final, Fatgames won that battle and looked avenge their winner bracket loss to the Dutch, but were unable to change the outcome second time around.

You can read more about Gamerland and see the full bracket on Cadred.org

ButtonBashers - €6000
Fatgames - €3000
CrackClan - €1500
4th Speedlink - €800
6th Cubesports & Dignitas €500

Following the successful completion of the seeding tournament, I can announce the groups for the main tournaments at Crossfire Challenge 5. For ET, the groups have been constructed by taking one team from either the 1st or 2nd poule, one team from the 3rd poule, one from the 4th poule and, where a team remains, one from the 5th poule, all selected at random.

Groups B, E and F are those with the 1st poule teams and, thus, the winners from these groups will not meet each other in the 1st round of the playoffs.

Group A
Impact
Muse
Copyright
Randoms
09:00Group B
VAE
TAG
dESIRE
Charism
10:00Group C
Friends in Force
Fast2Kill
aToon
True Destination
14:45
Group D
Epsilon
Overload
Epic Fail
AoW
20:30Group E
ButtonBashers
Replay
Anticlimax
Kruger
18:30Group F
mamut.si
ZeroE
Decibel
21:00

More info on ETNote: Times given are for start of 1st game in group, to give an indication of approximate start times. For certain groups (in particular, B) teams have a wide range of start times as matches are played over an extended period. Teams in groups A, C and D will start at the times given, teams in other groups may start at that time or later, depending on the schedule and any late start requested.

In the Enemy territory tournament, the top team from each group will proceed directly to playoffs, the 2nd place team from each group will progress to a second group stage, consisting of two groups of three teams. The winners of each of these groups will also play in the main double elimination playoffs. In addition, 3rd and 4th place teams in the first group stage will play in a single elimination losers bracket over Saturday and Sunday.

Call of Duty groups were created similarly, randomly placing teams from each stage of the seeding tournament in alternate groups to create the following four groups of three teams:

Group A
Dignitas
AndThenSome
CubeSports
09:30Group B
ButtonBashers
komaCrew
H2k
SatGroup C
Reason
Tempus Moriendi
AMPOL
09:30GroupD
Vicious & Evil
FatGames
Team e3
14:45

Due to changes in the group structure, start times in CoD are still under review.

Our secound match week of the ESL Winter Season is comming to its end so
we are going to remind you again about today's matches which are broadcasted by GamesTV.

I am proud to announce that we have reached the last stage of the Enemy Territory EuroCup XVIII. Two teams which have both proven themselves in the past have made it to this point and will now fight it out in one epic game, or at least so we hope. ButtonBashers will be facing off against team mamut.si on Saturday the 13th of December.

Yes people, this does mean they will be playing the final at the Crossfire Challenge in Enshede The Netherlands. Due to the particular good timing of the LAN event the ET organizing Crew Adacore and Anaconda have agreed to give us some time to play this match at this event. There will be ample coverage at the event itself and if we are lucky ClanBase will get some extra video coverage in as well.



I would like to thank Adacore and Anaconda as well as Tosspot from Crossfire.nu for this great opportunity.
(source)

Camtrace 3D

(v0.9 b424)

Long time no see, one might think, but Camtrace 3D is still in development. And its maybe more alive than ever. There have been plenty of changes, fixes and new features in the current version.

While the current b424 version is still considered as a beta release, i must say that i am pretty pleased with its current state.

Downloads:
Full installer - http://ct3d.twen.name/common/ccount11/click.php?id=102
Release Notes - http://ct3d.twen.name/common/ccount11/click.php?id=101

Media:
CT3D Renderer - http://www.own3d.at/watch/10580 (rendered inside camtrace 3d in the 3D Preview)
Support forums - http://smireboule.myhannes.info/wbb/index.php

The seeding tournament for Enemy Territory will run in a similar fashion to the CoD tournament played on Sunday. This will involve a maximum of three games per team, starting at 18:00 CET on Sunday 7th December. Any teams that are not able to play will forfeit their matches and receive a last place seed at CC5.

The tournament will be composed of three double elimination brackets of eight teams each, with each bracket played to the WB final and LB semifinal. Each of these brackets is equal in terms of seeding, so there will be three #1 seeds, three #2 seeds, etc.

Teams should join #cc5.seeding prior to the start time. ETTV will be required for the WB final of each bracket, but is not a requirement for all earlier games (although we would like to see some games from each round on ETTV).

So says Keith Bakker, the founder and owner of the only gaming addiction clinic in Europe. In a recent interview with the BBC Mr Bakker states that just 10% of ‘addicts’ attending his clinic can be treated through traditional techniques for addiction such as abstinence, even though they're displaying classic dependence symptoms. The remaining 90%, he states, require psychological treatment and counselling, helping them improve their communication skills and self confidence in order to rebuild their lives.

Unsurprisingly, Mr Bakker ascertains that 80% of treated ‘addicts’ have suffered bullying and isolation at school, and so find an outlet in the virtual world. Often gamers angry with their personal lives vent their frustrations through their online persona.

Quote

Using traditional abstinence-based treatment models the clinic has had very high success rates treating people who also show other addictive behaviours such as drug taking and excessive drinking.

But Mr Bakker believes that this kind of cross-addiction affects only 10% of gamers. For the other 90% who may spend four hours a day or more playing games such as World of Warcraft, he no longer thinks addiction counselling is the way to treat these people.

"These kids come in showing some kind of symptoms that are similar to other addictions and chemical dependencies," he says. "But the more we work with these kids the less I believe we can call this addiction. What many of these kids need is their parents and their school teachers - this is a social problem."

Following media reports on the growing menace of gaming addiction a question was put to the Crossfire userbase, and a massive 76% believed gaming to be addictive.

You can catch the full inteview on the BBC.