The last couple of days some interesting nuggets of information about the next installment(s) of Wolfenstein have slipped into the web from QuakeCon. First of all a designer from Raven says that "you're gonna get a solid multiplayer experience". He talks warmly about the Return to Castle Wolfenstein multiplayer and says the known features from RtCW MP will be there and then have the concept of the "veil" added (the veil being some kind of paranormal power). Watch it all in the video below:

Interview with Creative Director Eric Biessman at gametrailers.com (HD)

John Carmack held his keynote speech yesterday and mentioned that id might look into relaunching Enemy Territory as a webbased game in style with Quake Live.

Quote

We have said that if Quake Live is very successful the next thing we might look at [for a Quake Live-style game] is Wolfenstein Enemy Territory, which was always a more popular online game with more players than Quake Arena was, but it's hard to see how we do the same treatment with it. Like, you're running around fighting the Nazis and there's a billboard for Intel or something...

Eurogamer has made a nice writeup of the keynote here

Addition:
Furthermore a new trailer for Wolfenstein has been released. It still does not show all that much but at least it contains 1 second or so, of supposedly actual ingame first person footage.

Wolfenstein extended trailer at gametrailers.com (HD)

Call of Duty 4's biggest LAN event is live in Roskilde, Denmark with 25,000 Euro up for grabs and the games biggest names in attendance. Crossfire is live on site with Danish dynamite Arachon providing regular updates alongside Danish women's #1 fanbois, TosspoT & Deman.

Crossfire will be bringing you updates from the group stages and playoff's aswell as QuadV's broadcasting schedule as it happens and a special XLBet feature that allows you to make money off the games as they happen!

FINALS Live on QuadV - Tune In

Consolation Final - EG 13-8 Pandemic
Grand Final - LowLandLions 11-13 and 10-13 EG

PLAYOFF UPDATE

Tek-9 vs Infused has been thrown into controversy after davy arrived 1 minute after the doors closed, despite having stated he was just going to the toilet. Tek-9 have been penalised 3 rounds but their opponents Infused have opposed the ruling and stated they will selfkill for the first three rounds to even up the game[/hide]
PLAYOFF BRACKET

Group Stage Recap
The group stage is finally over with some surprising results along the way, but most top teams have managed to secure one of the two top seeds, which grants a seat in the winner bracket for the playoffs. H2K is one of victims that fell pray to one match of less concentration as they lost 13-06 against the much lower ranked Begrip, resulting in missing out the winner bracket round 1 BYE.

MeetYourMakers redeemed themselves from a mediocre start on Thursday, now topping the group by winning all remaining matches. And while Team Pandemic and Fnatic have managed to top their group as expected, the surprise of the past 36 hours must be LowLandLions that managed to top their group beating Team Dignitas and drawing against H2k.

In another news flash, in the game between weGamehotel and Druidz, Hanna from Druidz was caught with an illegal variable value; r_lodscaleridig. It is possible to set this to 2, using the in-game menus and therefore legal. However, Hanna's was set to 4 and therefor illegal, which means the match between weGamehotel and Druidz, which originally ended in a draw, is now a default win (0-7) for weGamehotel.
The decision is in great scrutiny by the community as the advantage of this setting is considered very limited as it only enhances pixels and details of the game.[/hide]
Final Group Standings
Group A
Team
Pandemic
Evil Geniuses
Copenhagen eSport
Infused Gaming
NCS Gaming
Team Zetta
Points
15
10
7
6
3
0


Group B
Team
Fnatic
Tek-9
Olso Lions
Druidz
weGamehotel
Team Fr33dom
Points
15
12
6
6
3
0


Group C
Team
LowLandLions
Team Dignitas
H2k Gaming
Begrip
Reason Gaming
Snoopy
Points
13
10
8
3
3
3


Group D
Team
Meet Your CREW
eSuba.HAL3000
Roskilde
Team Impact
Midat
Tenax Gaming
Points
13
10
9
9
3
0
[/hide]

Playoffs were scheduled to start at 11:30 CET on Friday, however it seems that this has been postponed until 17:00 CET. More update will follow soon.

Full Groups & Results From A Tournament
Full Groups & Reults from B Tournament

For those of you that don’t know, UGAME.net a social network for gamers has just opened its doors! It is a community site for gamers, where you can show off your social skills, share your photos and tag other gamers, create random groups around gaming (remenis about old CoD games), set up your team, troll on blogs, or simply stalk your favourite gamer (girl?), it’s excellent for event reunions and galleries (such as the ETAP HOTEL brigade from ESWC 08!).

The site, which was designed with the help of the Fnatic team, and some randoms has just opened its doors to the world after a 5 month closed beta. Thousands of gamers have signed up and so far the community seems to like what’s on offer. There are profiles, teams, guilds, galleries and blogs popping up all over the site, which are linked in to the individual user. The games system is also pretty sophisticated with over 1000 titles (more in the pipeline), with the ultimate goal to become the equivalent of IMDB for the gaming world. Have a look at the World of Warcraft (http://ugame.net/games/worldofwarcraft/) page for an idea of where its heading. Also if you wanted to find some other gamers who play CoD4 on the site, that's easy to do here. In the future there are plans to incorporate videos, files, galleries and countless other features to this system as well.

To Celebrate the launch UGAME is running a competition for the attendees at i34 or for you posh people, the M-Festival! So, are you going to Multiplay’s i34 in Coventry on the 8th August 2008? Fancy winning some excellent prizes from ATI? If so, then you could be in for a chance in UGAME’s ( www.ugame.net ) & ATI’s I34 competition.

There are over 2000 people attending i34, so the competition will be stiff but we’re confident that if you put the effort in, you will become the proud owner of one of five brand new ATI RADEON HD 3850’s!

We’re running 5 different competitions through the UGAME site, all of which revolve around the i34 group here . They include:

1. Highest overall, individual score in the CS:S group stages
2. Highest overall, individual score in the COD4 group stages
3. Who can take and upload the most amount of photos from i34
4. Most Valuable Player for CSS at i34
5. Most Valuable Player for COD 4

For more information about the competition check out the UGAME Blog here.

Week two of the ESL Major Series Final Stage will begin today with re-play Sleeperz facing 8Bits FiF. Both teams did not look good in their first playoff match last week, suffering two 4:0 defeats against well playing opponents, and now nothing than a win will do. Today both teams will fight in the LB Final for the third place and have the very last chance to grab one of the first three places which will be credited with at least 200 of the 1000 € prize money.

It is an essential part of a double elimination bracket and should be known to most of the players: losing twice will result in the end of the competition. In view of this situation and the fact that only the winner will come to more than just fame, re-play Sleeperz and 8Bits FiF will join the server at 21 CET and meet each other for a second time in the ESL Major Series Season II.



At the beginning of the qualification 8Bits FiF lost to re-play Sleeperz in a great three-mapper with 2:4 and had to take a longer way through the qualification stage, while re-play Sleeperz continued their winning streak and used the chance to qualify with the first try. But now, three months later, both teams made it under the last four and have improved a lot. Today’s match will be another next chance to prove their strengths and individual skills but even a loss will not be the end of the world. Both can look back to a great tournament and can be proud of their great performance. A win tonight will be the icing on the cake, worth at least 200 €!

GamesTV.org will once again be your home of full coverage so make sure you take a look at the ips for ETTV and radio commentary.

ESL Matchlink
GamesTV.org: ETTV

The dust has barely settled on Pandemic's huge win in the Antwerp eSports Festival and already the Call of Duty scene is rife with transfer activity and in Germany its bad news for the biggest name in the game.

SK Gaming have dropped their Call of Duty squad after a disappointing performance this past weekend. Finishing outside the prizes and having not shown the same performance levels since joining SK the former Six Devils roster now find themselves homeless and with the likelihood of some teams being out on the poach in coming weeks, the side could cease to exist.

Speedlink have disbanded after a fruitless LAN event once more, the side were not popular amongst other players at AEF after their match conflict against SP Gaming, claiming the Greeks were using the screen to their advantage. However more importantly for the Germans they have returned from another LAN without any major progress and Trigger chosing to move on.

At the moment neither stories have sources but will be updated when they're available. The rumour mill isnt done there though with heavy stories questioning the future of both MYM and KomaCrew, though those remain rumours at least until after The Experience this weekend!

In other AEF Coverage news, QuadV has the VODs uploaded at QuadV.com. Atarax has unearthed this feature from Belgian national Television - Other coverage including an indepth gallery on TEK9

Good morning eager eSports fans, today we will be throwing the schedule out the window into the baking hot sun. They are running 40 minutes behind so its pointless to list the games.

However you can safely assume if there is a top game on the list of matches due we will most likely be covering on either TV1 or TV2.

Make sure to stay in #quadv for the flowing schedule for what will be ran be on QuadV.

Related Links:
- QuadV
- Antwerp eSports Festival
- Antwerp eSports Festival Article, Predictions and Interviews
- TEK9 Website

Good evening from QuadV at the Hilton Hotel for the Antwerp eSports Festival, we have a busy day scheduled for tomorrow so we thought we would try and give you guys a loose schedule on what games we will be casting, what casters and when!

Granted these times will probably go out the window at some point as I am sure you are aware things don't always go to plan at events!

Edit: Tournament is currently 2 hours behind schedule. so add an hour on all times :)

QuadV TV1

10:15 - CoD4 - Infused vs H2K Gaming - TosspoT, Kee_RinG
11:00 - CoD4 - Revolution vs ZelLion - Deman, Kee_RinG
12:10 - CS:S - TEK9 vs LowLandLions - TosspoT, Joe
13:00 - CoD4 - LowLandLions vs Impact - Deman, Kee_RinG
14:15 - CoD4 - Serious Gaming vs NCS Gaming - TosspoT, Kee_RinG
15:00 - Q3 - Impulse vs dyhell - Joe
15:55 - CoD4 - Team EG vs UF Gaming - Joe, Deman

QuadV TV2

10:15 - CoD4 - Dignitas vs Ocrana - Deman - Kee_RinG
11:00 - Fifa - Lastnight vs Maxos12 - TosspoT
14:15 - CoD4 - UF Gaming vs DEFCON - Deman, Crow
15:00 - Fifa - Byser vs Maximo12 - Deman, TosspoT
15:55 - CoD4 - MYM vs Serious Gaming - TosspoT, Kee_RinG

More will follow...

Related Links:
- QuadV
- Antwerp eSports Festival
- Antwerp eSports Festival Article, Predictions and Interviews

On Monday the 28th we will start a 5on5 SD Quick Cup. You are now able to Signup to get one of the sixteen slots.
So be sure using the PAM4 competition mod. Also install the newest PunkBuster configs and the AWP sniperfix which is needed for this cup. You can download them here.
Sign Up is open until 27/07/08 17:00 CET, register your team and enjoy playing!

Matchdates
(1) 28.07.08 19:00 CET
(2) 28.07.08 21:00 CET
(3) 28.07.08 22:00 CET
(4) 28.07.08 23:00 CET



Questions will be answered via support ticket or via irc: #esl.cod4



Links:
Grid
Info & Details
SignUp

A few minutes ago I published the 0.6 Version of ETQWPro Mod.

This Mod merges Splashdamage's Competition Mod and the old version of ETQWPro.

The main goals were to keep vanilla commands and Competition Commands working. So all your Scripts from vanilla or compmod should also work in ETQWPro 0.6.
Also user experience was a high priority, so you will now get feedback on error messages and so on.

0.6 is also supporting its very own ranked server system. More Information on this will made public soon.

No more words from me, be sure to check the changelog here and the complete Cvar list here

Windows server admins: Be sure to check the changelog. There is some info about Windows server binaries

I do suggest using the installer, since it cleans up your system from any old ETQWPro binaries!

Downloads:
Installer: download
Zip: download

The first match of the ESL Major Series Final Stage is taking place this evening with Impact Gaming facing the Benelux-mixture of 8Bits FiF. Both teams made it already under the last four, but only three of them can end in the money. The winning team of today's match will not only join the WB Final, it will also save 200 € of the 1000 € prize money and has the chance to win even more in the next days.

Looking back to the group stage, it seems as we have one clear favorite tonight. While Impact Gaming did not lose any match in the group stage, 8Bits FiF had some more problems and lost two matches during the first stage. However, both teams made it already to Europe's top 4 in this competition and are ready to challenge each other. The match starts at 22 CET and will of course be shown live on ETTV.



Jere

Quote

We are looking forward to play vs a clan with such big names. They certainly have more individual skills and experience, so that's why they are the big favourites to win this game. Altough maybe we could surprise them by taking a map, I don't think we'll be able to get 2. My prediction: 4-2 for impact.

ESL Matchlink
GamesTV.org: ETTV