Enemy Territory events with money involved are quite rare but that is nothing new to the common ET player. Ever when there are bigger events popping up, we are more than happy to see someone actually investing into our game. Some events turn out great like Crossfire's very own Challenge series, the Poznan Game Arena back in 2006, the QCups and also the ESL Major Series. And some events - like the Expekt.com Cup, which has been announced recently - turn out negatively as the tournament unfortunately never happened due to uncertain promisses and a weird registration process. The result is a kind of disbelief towards new announcements - which is only logical and understandable.

Now a new promissing LAN event has been announced which is going to take place in ET's probably most active country - Poland. After CC5 and close to the next ET main event, also known as the 'EasyBash' project, initiated by TosspoT, will the Bydgoszcz '09 LAN event appear on the ET agenda. Organised by the Polish multigaming organisation Fast2KiLL - which recently picked Blurred Vision as ET team to send them to Enschede - in cooperation with major partner IBM as well as partners like Fujitsu Siemens, MultiKino, ET.Owned.pl and Pretorian - this event features an Enemy Territory prizepurse of nearly 3.200 € in cash, together with hardware prizes by Fujitsu Siemens and clothing by Pretorian. The venue for the LAN will be the MultiKino cinema in Bydgoszcz, Poland (also known as Bromberg).

Today the TLR crew is proud to announce its first edition of a monthly top ten ranking for Enemy Territory. As any competitive community has such a ranking available it was about time to bring such a feature in. Furthermore the competitive scene itself became active again troughout the last months as hot events such as the Crossfire Challenge 5, ClanBase EuroCup and NecroRaiser's highly prized ET Cup have been announced and are about to start. With top teams competing again the need for a rating and the motivation to actually do it, raised even more.

We have chosen a system in which a community expert panel consisting of 13 known characters within competitive ET finds a final top ten ranking rating the teams by current and potential strength. The expert panel members are taken from different parts of our scene to represent the opinion of the community as a whole.

Expert Panel:

• hentai (Crossfire)
• decem (Crossfire)
• pedro (Crossfire)
• swine (Crossfire)
• Lightning (TLR)
• butchji (TLR)
• toxic (FatGames)
• kot (Re-Play)
• lio (Overload)
• Sainted (Overload)
• chmpp (Vicious&Evil)
• smOke (TeamPlay.cz)
• KiLl3rBoY (ClanBase)

Statement

Quote by TLR|bo

Lately the idea came to my mind to create a ranking for Enemy Territory like every other competitive gaming scene has got. The CoD4 Ranking by Gotfrag.com could be taken as an example for that project. Some may even remember that one-time ranking back in the days introduced by evan. Such a ranking could be useful for teams which are in the need of support for e.g. CC5 to show potential partners how they are rated within the community. Next to that it could bring further motivation for teams to practice harder and improve their position. In addition to that will it of course animate to discuss, which is an important part for an online community.

As the fall season with EC, CC5 and NR's ET Cup has yet not even started really, the ranking will of course not be as accurate as possible. Nevertheless, there has never been a ranking everyone agreed with and somewhere has to be the beginning. It will be exciting to see whether the teams can live up to the expactations or not. As it is planned to continue that ranking on a monthly basis, we are able to implement all changes, results and archievements in later editions. Since some teams got just created for EC and CC5 and not every team took part in every offline and online competition, it is impossible to rate the teams on their performances during official matches or to calculate their position with a system like the G7 Teams are using. Therefore we have build a kind of expert panel which should include the opinions of the top players as well as the scene volunteers to represent the community as a whole.

The Ranking:

• [bTLR.AMD[/b] 125]
  Lineup: Clown, dAv1d, Lightning, Matias, mAus, Winghaven, butchji
  Homepage: www.tlr-clan.co.uk
  IRC: #TheLastResort
  
  
  Quote by TLR|bo

  TLR have been voted to the top of the ranking. CC5 and EC will show if they can live up to the expectations and repeat former successes.
  
  
• [bTeam mamut.si[/b] 104]
  Lineup: JaKaZc, Night, r3vers, RELOAd, senji, urtier
  Homepage: www.team.mamut.si
  IRC: #mamut.si
  
  
  Quote by TLR|Lightning

  Former idle.ee lineup returning to the scene and many are tipping them as the fighter for the title of EC and CC5 but the current state of the team doesn't show that they are ready for it. For mamut.si to fight for the title there needs to be a lot of praccing going on but if they can get that going then for sure they are ready for the fight.
  
  
• [bOverload Gaming[/b] 84]
  Lineup: acid, jetro, Kevin, lio, mesq, vila, zeto
  Homepage: www.overload-gaming.org
  IRC: #Overload
  
  
  Quote by TLR|Lightning

  The Belgium Flower house, 'All whine no skill' could be their motto but looking on how long they've been together, it wouldn't be a surprise that teamplay could get a long way, after always grabbing next to the prizes we'll see yet again a year of grabbing next to it. But the teamplay will at least let them fight for top 5.
  
  
• [bVicious & Evil[/b] 82]
  Lineup: twidi, lettu, mikza, squall, iron, chmpp, cadein
  Homepage: www.viciousandevil.com
  IRC: #vae
  
  
  Quote by TLR|Lightning

  A team from Finland playing under the German flag put a team on the field that played a lot of games together in previous teams or in the nation team. To put it short they've been around for a long time only the big prizes haven't been there yet maybe they can do it this year but I think parodia will still stay number 1 team of Finland after this year.
  
  
• [bTeam FatGames[/b] 75]
  Lineup: toxic, snoop, syK, teKoa, m1lk, Tiigeri, mystic, Mztik, jauhis
  Homepage: www.fatgames.eu
  IRC: #FatGames
  
  
  Quote by TLR|Lightning

  A new team on the block even though you can't really call it a team yet since the players playing in it have been changed just some days ago but the players they got will for sure be good enough to make it an interesting team for this season. With toxic as candidate for most overrated player as captain, what could go wrong?
  
  
• [bFear Factory X-Fi[/b] 67]
  Lineup: Wrobel, wiesiek, Templar, Xanah, wiadro, dvk3
  Homepage: www.fear-factory.pl
  IRC: #FF.org
  
  
  Quote by TLR|Lightning

  Fear Factory also know as Cheat Factory. They won't be happy with all the different names they get but it's all their own fault after being kicked from last EC for having a cheater playing for them. Also for this year they will be a team to recon with, since it's yet another online competition just to show the "real" skill of the team.
  
  
• [bRe-Play Devilry[/b] 61]
  Lineup: buzka, kot, Robol, Wodzian, miks, S4rna, r1co
  Homepage: www.re-play.net
  IRC: #re-play
  
  
  Quote by TLR|Lightning

  This team is almost the same as the successful team Net-Runners and looking back on how they preformed, it wouldn't be a surprise seeing this team going for the top. The teamplay isn't there yet but praccing can solve that problem and for being the only polish team in ET that can be trusted, we can only hope they will succeed.
  
  
• [bS.N. Battalion[/b] 28]
  Lineup: Meez, perfo, hentai, Sight, Rk, Viax
  Homepage: Crossfire Profile
  IRC: #snbattalion
  
  
  Quote by TLR|Lightning

  Also this is a new team for the season with some known players and less known players, they seem to make a good mix together but experience will tell if they can make it further. With perfo as captain you can always be sure to see a cheater free team so the only thing they need are pracs and get the experience so they can climb this ladder.
  
  
• [bRe-Play Sleeperz[/b] 17]
  Lineup: Eirik, Griim, hell, Lazio, w3st, al, toNi, Nonix
  Homepage: www.re-play.net
  IRC: #re-play
  
  
  Quote by TLR|bo

  Re-Play Sleeperz is one of ET's most stable teams around. Having played for one4one already they made it into EuroCup by winning the OpenCup Premierleague last season. Now they have to show if they can compete with the top. At least in our ranking they are rated at 9th spot.
  
  
• [bVital Gaming[/b] 16]
  Lineup: DabSter, Em0ReJ, maxuh, rat, zerender, xAv, anim
  Homepage: www.vitalgaming.eu
  IRC: #vital-gaming
  
  
  Quote by TLR|bo

  Vital may have surprised many by easily beating atoon in their EuroCup Qualifier match. The experts rated them to be one of Europes top ten. May the upcoming events prove what they are made of.

ClanBase have just recently announced the groups for this fall seasons EuroCup. As the qualifiers have successfully found the final participants, we have now the total of 16 teams for this EC's groupstage to start. Prizes remain yet to be announced, the teams that take part at this EC will anyway guarantee a hot battle, which will hopefully be more entertaining than last years dilemma.

[center]Group A[list][*] Zero Empathy[*] Re-Play Sleeperz[*] S.N. Battalion[*] Vicious & Evil[/list]Group B [list][*] 8Bits HighBot[*] Incomplete[*] Re-Play Devilry[*] Team mamut.si[/list][/center]

[center]Group C[list][*] TLR.AMD[*] Cortana[*] Team FatGames[*] TAG.ET[/list]Group D [list][*] Overload Gaming[*] Fear Factory X-Fi[*] Vital Gaming[*] Muse Gaming[/list][/center]

Next to the group announcement ClanBase have reveiled some rule changes which look as follows:

Quote by ClanBase

Like always all the EuroCup matches will be prescheduled. This means you do not need to challenge your opponents. If a selected time is no good for you then there are 2 options available.

• Either you talk to your opponent about moving the match to another day in the same week(meaning from Monday to Sunday). You all know the dates well in advance so do this in time. There is a limit to moving the match which will be set to 48 hours before the time it is currently set to. If you choose this option both teams leaders or war arrangers have to notify the supervisor of this by mail or via IRC.
  
  
• The second method is to use your one wildcard. This means that you can postpone a game to a date later in the week or at the latest one matchweek after it. You only have one of these so use it wisely. You can use a wildcard up to the point of the normal starting time. Using the wildcard is simple. announce you will use it before the normal starting time of the match to one of the cup supervisors and to your opponent. Wildcards are only valid during the group stage.

Quote by ClanBase

About the allowed players: As I have posted before any players that have played a qualifier game aren't allowed to play the first match if they lost that game. Any players that won their qualifier game aren't allowed to play for another team during all of the group phase of the EuroCup.

Also all players not on the APL before the start of a match will be considered freelancers. A red card and forfeit loss will be given if they weren't allowed to be on the APL and a yellow card if they would have been allowed to play had they been on the APL.
Example: Fear Factory play Overload and use a player that was used by authentic in the qualifier. If this match is in the first matchweek this will result in a red card and a forfeit loss due to the rule about players losing the qualifiers match.
If however this happens in week 2 or 3 the punishment will be a yellow card only.

ClanBase News

Polish top player Michal 'kot' Staszewski returns to Enemy Territory's pro scene with joining Re-Play's devils. His new team just qualified successfully for the upcomming EuroCup season to follow Polish contrahents Fear Factory X-Fi as second Polish team. With joining Devilry the new lineup easily leads to the imagination of a new diversus squad as his former mates Robol, Wodzian and buzka are already part of Devilry for quite some time now. kot himself played in pretty famous teams just to name Dignitas, Netrunners and FatGames as some examples. Some even titled him to be ET's smartest gamer; the strength of his former teams underlines that thesis.

• re-play| buzka
• re-play| kot
• re-play| Robol
• re-play| Wodzian
• re-play| miks
• re-play| S4rna

• re-play| r1co

Next to the diversus clique will FF X-Fi star r1co most probably be joining the team to take Dolars place being the second FF player besides S4rna. His move is not sure yet as some of the members stated. Only yesterday r1co played for Authentic Gaming in the mentioned EC qualifier match versus his possible new mates. With their succeeded qualification the Poles proved to be one of Europes - let's say - 'stronger' teams. How far they can go and whether they are able to come close to former archievenments under the Netrunners tag remains to be seen. Seeing new top teams rising is already quite nice for its own; their plan to attend ET's Christmas event CC5 doubles that.

re-play.net

Tonight ClanBase will announce the chosen few from both Crossfire games, Enemy Territory and Call of Duty 4 to attend the upcoming EuroCup Fall season. As known there will - next to the direct invites - also be qualification matches to determine the
EC participants.

This time they will not give out the invitations via IRC as they usually do, but in form of a live video stream. The invitations show will be broadcasted from the OutPost Centers in Antwerp, Belgium. The CoD4 invites can be followed from 20.30 CET as the timeschedule says. Subsequent to that will be the Press Conference with Chiefs of the Cups at 9 o'clock PM.

Enemy Territory will make its presence right after the conference at 21.15 CET. As of yet no fixed numbers of EC teams nor the distribution of direct and quali invites are known. So feel free to tune in tonight to follow the live show giving you all information you need. The lists of all teams will most probably be unveiled at the ClanBase page right after the official announcement. Furthermore you can join #EuroCup to get additional information regarding your cup.

The link to the live stream will be given at about 19.00 CET in the news item below.

ClanBase News

Having seen legendary idle.ee returning to ET just one day ago, it is now time to present you the next challenger for this EC title - aMenti! A team that beat idle.ee and later dignitas several times, now returns as well to fight for Europe's crown and to prepare for ET's biggest and most probably last big offline event later this year.

Most successful under the TLR brand (The Last Resort), this team has nearly won everything a team can dream of. Alongside gold in ET Masters, a third place in the International Premiership
Series (IPS) and two third places in the Clanbase EuroCup; this team is a two times crowned champion of the Crossfire Challenge series.

With a mainly untouched core of success, this team's roster guarantees excellent teamplay and hot fights against the other challengers for EC and CDC5.

• Clown
• dAv1d
• Lightning
• Matias
• mAus
• Winghaven

With Lightning being a single new addition to the lineup, only time can tell whether other top teams like mamut.si or the recently announced Fear Factory X-Fi team can beat them.

As rumour has it, there is a high possibility for an announcement of Return to Castle Wolfenstein™'s sequel at next weeks E3 by id Software and Raven Software. Coverage partner for this years E3 exposition 'Spike-TV' stated in a press release that id and Raven software are planning to unveil new information regarding an upcoming gaming project. In detail they said:

Quote by Spike-TV

"Geoff Keighley is on the E3 show floor to give Spike viewers the inside scoop on the sights and sounds of the show.
Also, tune in for more world exclusive surprises including something special from id Software and Raven Software"[/b].

As Wolfenstein fans we of course hope for the long expected RtCW2. A project between Raven and id should even strengthen our hopes as RtCW2 was going to be produced by just these two companies.

Which gaming project is going to be introduced, is obviously not sure yet, only time can tell. Whether there is a totally new game to come, a further Quake or Doom sequel or even a mix of some game series (ala ET:QW) could only be seen next week in Los Angelos.

Source: http://www.sherdog.net/forums/f48/rtcw2-creams-pants-811269/

Without much of coverage be it spokenwise in form of shoutcasting or written coverage neither here at Crossfire nor over at GamesTV.org, the groupstage of ESL's second 1000€ prized online competition, the ESL Major Series (EMS), following last year's International Premiership Series (IPS), has now ended. Nevertheless, the tournament is not yet over as there is still the final clash to be coming. Though, we can still hope for the great event we expected at the beginning.

With top teams like Impact Gaming, one4one eSports (now re-play), Overload Gaming and mPG still fighting for glory and a piece of cash, the final stage of the EMS should hopefully be a bit more entertaining than this seasons EuroCup and all its problems and issues. But before moving into the final stage, there will be a 'Survival Cup' incoming to determine the last participants for the great final. Let's have a look at the group standings which are posted below:



Teams wearing the little star behind their name are the ones going through to the mentioned 'Survival Cup' whereas Impact Gaming and megaProGaming are already qualified for the final stage.

More information regarding the further cup structure, the dates and the prize distribution can be found in the official news post over at the ESL.

Clanbase today released the groups in which all participating teams have been divided. A total of 160 teams will play in this cup and give 5v5 a further chance for acceptance. Whether 5v5 could be an option for the future of ET remains to be seen. Now let's see what this cup will bring for us let's have some fun during the summer.

Quote by ClanBase

As you may see on the right side of the screen our groups have been made public. With 160 clans competing mUnduS and myself did our very best to put everyone in a good league.

All teams can now start challenging each other and all games fror the first week must be shedulled before Saturday the 29th at midnight. All games not set by then will be forced to a date which will be best for the team that chalenged or the team that has the most dates available.

Former Enemy Territory squad of Team EDiT lately also know by the name of 'Questionable' now became the new ET team of Overload Gaming. As ovr lost it's team to the british multigaming clan Team Coolermaster, the dutch organisation around Headmanager Sainted were forced to look for a new ET site since they did not plan to quit focussing on Enemy Territory and its community. After being a bit disappointed due to losing a strong team, Overload Gaming should now be able to smile again, as they should have found a decent replacement with last Eurocup's second placing team EDiT. The team's lineup has undergone minor changes only, but have a look at the new Overload.ET yourself.

acid
Kevin
lio
vila
Matias
Sheep
r1co (backup)
snot (backup)