ET United LAN Sebhes

Another LAN, another experience. Where to start? In this journal I will not only write about my own LAN experience, but also about my personal future with ET, upcoming LANs and more. It is gonna be an extensive wall of text. If you are interested in my story, I would advice you to sit down, grab some popcorn and enjoy the read.

First of all I would like to personally thank everybody who has either played, watched or helped out with the LAN. You have all contributed to a great event. Organizing the LAN for a second time was easier than the first one. You got the experience from the previous one, but most importantly is that players have more confidence in the organization. This lead quite easily to the second LAN.

Before continue reading, please realize how special it is to have a second LAN organized in a period where ET was considered to be dead. A second LAN in seven months! I'll start my story from Thursday, the day before the official LAN kick-off.

LAN experience

ET United LAN: Thursday

On Thursday, the day before the LAN, we still had some unfinished business to do. That evening me and
Deltorro visited Ronner to install the server for LAN. Luckily, this did not take longer than half an hour as mAxwell had arrived at my place in the meantime.

Now we were set and ready to pick up our next victim Shaman at the Rotterdam-The Hague airport. Here we also met half of the viSual squad. It was great to see back Aie, Efax, kApot and iNsAne. You could clearly see that this was an emotional moment for Efax. He had tears of happiness in his eyes.

On our road to Bruxelles we made a pit stop at a McDonald as some of us had a hard time and felt sick. It was about mid night when we arrived at our apartment. We decided to have a quick look at Botkamp and meet some of the other boys from viSual, erAse and brain storm in a cafe.

ET United LAN: Friday

The first night was absolutely terrible. Drunk hybrAtek decided that keeping persons awake who try to sleep by ringing a bell for one hour consecutively was fun. At last I opened the door and told him that this was the last time he rang the bell. This resulted in a typical first LAN night with not more than 3 hours of sleep.

The first day of the LAN. This day the 3on3 tournament found place. There were issues at the start of the LAN with the servers. Luckily for us Ronner stood ready to help us by phone. We managed to get the servers up and teams were now able to play. However, there was one more issue we had to solve. Gamestv was not able to connect to the servers. This was a serious problem, because the staff from Botkamp had no access anymore to some programs which were critical to fix the problem. I was pleased to find out that Msh100 saved us from a lan without GTV. He wrote a special program via teamviewer which made GTV and streamers able to connect to the servers. He did this multiple times as the PC which contained the program was turned off several times due to different reasons. A big thanks goes out to Msh100.

With some delay, we could now finally start the LAN. My first match was against Testi who happened also to be my first opponent during the Reborn LAN. During the day I was mainly focused on the games being played. This day Deltorro helped us out by adminning the matches when me and timbolina had to play. Many credits go to him this day.

The day ended with a 4th place for us which was an absolute disaster. Our goal was to win the 3on3 LAN and becoming 4th was the worst feeling ever. The empty feeling inside was terrible. I felt devastated, it was like all the time I spend into ET was for nothing. At the same time it is nice to see that a game as ET can make you feel that way.

After the tournament I had time to get to know my fellow teammates mata, dialer and 7ele. All three persons have a great personality.

ET United LAN: Saturday

Saturday was the first day of the 6on6 tournament. This day was more calm than the first one and gave me the opportunity to meet some of the new players.

The most intense match for us this day was the match against rushit eSports. We had to win either radar or bremen_b3 to become first in the group. chry told me that he could not sleep well that night before because he was afraid he would lose from us. After their +/- 10 minute time on bremen I could clearly see the fear in his eyes. Unfortunately, we eventually lost the map on a few seconds. Chry is usually a very calm person, but right after their map win I heard him screaming like never before.

I liked the fact that during this LAN the Germans got more social and started to interact with people from outside their team. I had the chance to meet delirium, who were one of the most enjoyable teams from LAN. Happy people who you can have a laugh with. Right below pictures with the Germans and delirium.

ET United LAN: Sunday

Sunday was the big day of the 6on6 play offs. Teams will either celebrate or leave the tournament demoralized. The LB - Semi final against erAse is worth to write about. One round before, erase managed to surprise and beat viSual in a very tight match. The expressions on the faces of the viSual players after the match players said much. It instantly reminded me of my own 3on3 result. It was a pity they left right after their defeat.

Our match against erAse was one to remember. We did not manage to set a time but almost managed fullhold them as well. The pressure was high now as we had to fight ourselves back from a 2-0 score. We managed to beat them in bremen_b3 and the decider map was supply. We hard a rough start and got held 8 (!) minuts at the flag on the first stage. At this point I don't think many people had faith in us winning this map. However, we managed to set a 12.5 minute time in the end. It was gonna be hard, but not impossible to defend this time. We encouraged each other and this resulted in a sensational last round. We played one of our best rounds of the LAN and managed to hold them several minutes on all stages.

Right after the match I wanted to thank esSe for the match and he told me some words I will not soon forget. It showed me how much of a winner they are and at the same time it made me realize how beautiful it was that ET can make people so involved to let them feel in a certain way.



The grand final of the LAN was between Rushit eSports and Playing Ducks. An highlight of the last years with Enemy Territory. It is been a while since an ET match had over 350 viewers for a match. Teams can be proud that they generated that many interest.

ET United LAN Aftermath

My LAN was officially over Monday when I dropped shaman at the airport. It has been an incredible event where I had the honor to meet many new faces. I am extremely happy and proud that we succeeded in a second LAN within a year. It was hard saying good bye to some of you, because I don't know if we will ever meet again. Before the LAN, I was ready to quit ET. Now, after the LAN, my mind has changed somewhat. More on this later.

The new LAN location in Belgium was in my opinion a big success. Better gaming gear was available and the location was in the center of Bruxelles which created many opportunities for people to go out. The new location also attracted new teams who otherwise would not have come.

A special thanks goes out to all of you who have thanked me for our effort put into last LAN. I truly appreciate it and it was my pleasure if you enjoyed the LAN.

My future with Enemy Territory

As stated above, I was ready to quit ET and to move on after the LAN. This has several reasons, but the most important ones are that gaming has seriously influenced my study results in a negative way. Besides, it has also influenced my social life by preventing me to go to social activities whenever I had games or when I had an admin job to do.

Being an admin takes more time than I expected. For people it is relatively simple to have critique on the way you work. It is not nice to get accused of benefiting your own team or manipulate the rules for own sake, when you are trying to do your absolute best. I can honestly say that I have always acted from a neutral point of view and based my decisions on what I thought is best for players and for ET in general. For those of you who are not directly involved with the games it may seem different. I read everything, but often I decide to not respond in public. However, before making decisions, I always try to discuss with captains of teams and try to take their opinion into account.

Due to the success of the LAN I have slightly changed my decision of quitting. I will however still significantly decrease the amount of time spend in ET, but the game is too nice to completely abandon.

10-year anniversary 'xD Trickjump,

Back in 2006 'xD Trickjump, was created by DeathMaster and me. Now 10 years later we are still playing the game and in order to celebrate our upcoming 10-year anniversary we will announce a tournament this weekend. Our aim is to start the tournament at the beginning of Christmas holiday. More on this later this weekend.

Will there ever be another LAN?

A question I received a lot during the last few days. Will there will ever be another ET LAN? A difficult question to answer. It is certainly possible as you can see how much attention a LAN event generates. In my opinion, the answer will be independent of the future state of ET as players are always willing to return for a LAN event.

Many people have offered us to help out for a possible next LAN which I would like to thank for. I do not think that it is smart to host one too soon again. I can see another one find place in more than a year from now. I will need myself to get my study on track again and focus on work after my study before considering hosting another one. I can promise from myself that when time is there, I will definitely try to generate enough interest for another LAN. Whether we will succeed will only future tell. So the answer to the question: will there ever be another LAN? Only time will tell.

ET has become much more than a game itself. It is something most of us grew up with and also offered us the possibility to meet people who we would have never met otherwise. A unique experience which we will carry with us forever.

I love ET and I would like to thank all of you for the continuously support throughout the last year. Lastly, props to those who have managed to read the entire story. Cheers from Sebhes.