clanbase

clanbase summer cup - 4v4 q3 ctf competition is about to enter its 3rd week. although its a fun cup, which most clans wouldn't take seriously, it is worthy of coverage if only because of the growing interest in 4v4 ctf in europe at the moment, mostly inspired by the upcoming quakecon2003 ctf tournament (more on that later).

the league, being fun orientated, uses mostly nonstandard maps, w2, ctf3, c6, cp2, ospctf2, and cp18. all of those maps except for cp18 have been used in european 5v5 leagues in the past, cp18 is something completely different from what is usually played.. its a tiny map, and makes very hectic games, but appears to be well suited to 4v4. i'm getting to like the idea of 4v4 ctf... regardless of the gameplay, theres less lag for isdners and its easier to get an impromptu game together for a 4v4, which makes it a good thing for the irish q3 scene

ts are in the second league, and although on paper they would be well capable for the premier league, they're experiencing some bad luck, narrowly missing out on points in both of their games so far, against insomnia in week 1, and against scrb this week (no report there yet). i think they have their most difficult fixtures behind them at this stage. next week they play the solid swedish side sec, a team that i would have placed in division 2 barrysworld, so i would expect a win for ts there. following that, a freshly dsl'ed mindphuck will be out to get revenge on the clannamestealers inc, a mostly croation team of players traditionally associated with tdm to my knowledge, but likely to prove handy at 4v4 ctf nonetheless. to wrap it up, they'll be looking for a win over a still-improving elaw side, who were impressive this week imo in taking a map off insomnia, albeit .8 seconds too late to force a decider. its interesting to note that both insomnia and elaw have acquired germans from heinerfest, one of the best ctf clans around last(?) season. theres a bit of irish interest to insomnia's squad, with melachi registered for them, i don't know whether he still plays for them or not.

fh were placed in the fourth league, a fair placement going by our form last season. i was still expecting third league, since that would have been more true to our form had we been able to field a full team each week for our bwctfl and savage campaigns. instead, at least we've got plenty of experience in playing with 4 players after the past couple of months now with myself on broadband, and enough strength in the squad to put a decent 4 players out for each game, i was looking forward to an easy time of it in the fourth league. thats not the case unfortunately, since the lower divisions were poorly made. i can see 4 or 5 clans in the fourth league that i think would finish in the top half of either groups in the third league. i'm pleased with fh's group nonetheless, although we're in with some tough opposition, such as the former eurocup clan @tarctica, the rapidly improving french clan hf, and the solid belgian clan 3p, there are no german clans, no italian clans, and no scandanavians 8) group a were not so lucky as dp have found out.. the spaniards sac, a clan who impressed with their high ping skills and teamplay in past seasons, lost to an unfamiliar 'pb' clan from finland. the group also features a misplaced jobios-enhanced intensitiy, and a couple of german clans that i've never heard of.

fh have been lucky so far, a narrow win in 2 maps over @tarctica was followed up with an even narrower win over whiney dutch clan 3p (no report on that - but it was a 2-2 draw on our map w2, while we managed to take their home map in our q3wc6 debut, 2-1). our remaining fixtures include the familiar french clan hf, whom we have met in many competitions in the past, usually resulting in a comfortable win for fh but most recently hf taking the honours in savage last(?) season. i've always known that the benelux ctf scene is huge, but i'm still surprised to find a decent side that i know nothing about... kreaturen is the clan in question, from belgium. looking at their website, they appear to be an rtcw team, although their week 1 game, almost taking w2 off 3p, suggests that they know what they're doing in q3 ctf. our final group game is against the erratic portuguese clan death. the problem with clans from portugal usually is that they're at a severe ping disadvantage over every clan (except fh's isdners) when they play outside of their own country. clanbase gives them a chance to play at their best, by allowing the option to one game on a home server, and one game away, and its its 1-1 in maps after that then the third game is split into 2 halves of 10mins on each server. while this does not sound like a favourable option to me, it would be interesting to have a on official ctf game on an irish server... something that has never been done afaik.

it will be interesting to see what the rest of the season holds for fh playerwise... we'll be missing one our regulars as saik heads off to israel today for a few months, and is likely to be without a connection for some time after returning to ireland. for the first time in over a year, we have recruited, only one player to help us get a full team out for games, a belgian cable cpm player called sg, althoguh even he has been inactive for the past couple of weeks due to temporary problems with his cable. one of our star players, the long lost jc has finally got broadband and got his q3 set up the other day, whether he decides to become active again is another question. even the legendary 2fish will soon be on broadband, so hopefully we can convince him to return to the game, and by october when casc and nex get dsl maybe we will be capable of fielding an all-broadband team.

savage

a small bit of quake.ie interest in the savage summer cup. fh didn't enter and neither did jobos, but ts topped their qualifying group, the closest thing to a group-of-death this season, with a flawless record to reach the a cup. they took nice wins over the dutch clan lkff, swedish bl, and english smak, before beating the german clan >v< in overtime in round 1 of the a cup. next up they play gunzoids. this cup is 5v5, and also fun-orientated, but they have stuck mostly to normal maps. i'll have to mention the good work taylor is doing running savage leagues, with minimal help... hes looking for someone else to take over so if you think you're the man for the job then go read what it says on the website somewhere.

quakecon

at the moment it looks like ctf is bigger than tdm... for q3ers at the massive dutch lan, "drome", last week, it was the q3ctf tourney that was the highlight (won by gzd afaik). now quakecon have decided to run a ctf tourney, and although i don't know what the prizes are its big enough to lure several top euro clans into it. while quakecon is not an exclusively american event, they have gone to no lengths in the past (that i have noticed) to include the rest of the world. they went a little better this time around, by giving european clans a chance to qualify. the qualification was a bit of a disgrace in my opinion - only 4 slots out of 16 available for non-american clans, maybe this is fair enough considering the difficulties the problems that euro clans would have even going to qcon... but the rules of qualifying games were terrible for euro clans - the games had to be played on american servers at american times. of course this led to almost farcical games on 100+ ping. i've said it before, ctf on 100+ ping is a completely different game to ctf on 40 ping, let alone ctf on lan! its frustrating that so many top european clans cannot get the chance to participate in this lan, but at least we have four familiar outfits qualified.. namely mtw (featuring the best of med), gzd (needs no introduction, goe derf), aaa (featuring the top frenchies from an assortment of clans), and four kings intel (blokey/blunt/jay/x afaik). all capable clans, this event will definitely be one to look forward to, kicking off in 27 days i think, and there will be plenty of biased coverage on quake.ie (i might throw up some predictions later, once i've seen a few of the american teams in action). the maps are ctf2, w2, cp1, cp9, and cp15. all quite standard maps except for cp15 (i don't even know what that map is).

jolt

jolt q3ctfl goes on, despite the departure of its talisman tnxeh. theres a surprise leader at the head of division 1, in clan lag. the quake.ie interest is in division 3 though, where jobos have been underperforming slightly despite their recent acquisition of dc.storm, and sit second from the bottom. this week, they lost to a litzter-powered bl, after a default loss earlier this season. however, i expect they'll be moving up that table in the next few weeks, since their remaining games are a lot easier, with wins to be expected vs lsr (who could be a handful given the addition of nv-bd to their team), l2i (potentially katostrophic), and my own jolt clan n2s (another improving side, having added pumpkin to their team this week).

for more ctf coverage, have a look at dynamic core - a new comlete ctf community website with plenty of updates and interviews demos and all that. unicious appears to be the main man over there, and thankfully (unlike some people) he seems to know what hes talking about.