UKCT - UKCounterTerrorist

[ukct] would like to wish everyone a Good new year and hope it is the best so far!

So, what did everyone get up to? I personally went to a charity party. All money is going to the Tsunami appeal, we raised £600 which is good. The great thing about this place though, was they wern't out to make a profit. Drinks were cheap as chips! I think we got 4 pints of carling and 6 Smirnoff Ice's (for the ladies!) for £12! Also, my last 4 pints I got for free, everytime I went to pay with my notes, they had no change to give to me, that was great What wasn't so great, when we left the place at around 3;30, pissed as farts, we didn't know which way was home, as it was a place we had never been to before. It was a football club in the middle of a field. We ended up walking an hour and a half in the wrong direction, untill I gave up hope and just rang my dad. He wasn't pleased to get a call around 5 oclock, but bleh I want to hear what everyone got up to last night!

Also, what are your new years resolutions? Mine is to work harder at my degree, as currently its going nowhere!

Best wishes, and good luck in the next 12 months,

Rick
pie

Although this is strictly clan news, I think it's of such stature as to make the front page and I'm sure you'll all very much agree.

As of midnight last night, it is rumoured that the team most know as Schroet Kommando.swe became no more. Supposedly, all the players contracts, including newcomer Hyper, expired, and had not been extended. What becomes of the players now is yet to be seen, but many people will be keeping their fingers on the pulse to see how the situation progresses.

This is what Swedish gaming site Gaming Eye has reported, and their statement - translated by ES Live - reads as such:

It now stands clear that the whole swedish CS section of Schroet Kommando leaves the clan.

SK's contract with the players ran out the 31. december and has not been renewed. What is going to happend with the players is unknown at the moment but we will do an interview later. There is no information on SK's page yet but we are counting on a statement soon.

What stands clear today is that SK.swe is leaving to organisation.

Gaming Eye has also interviewed HeatoN regarding the situation and what the team does now - you can read the translated version on ES Live here.

Whether the team stays together or not remains to be seen, as does whether they will form a compromise with SK or re-form NiP - all rumoured options for the team. This has also been rumoured to be the reason that they did not attend the [cpl] Championships for. One major question remains: will they be able to get half the sponsorship that SK.swe got, without the brand name, and without the history?

*Update*

Further rumours have now circulated, and have been seeming confirmed on the SK.swe site here, that Ninjas in Pyjamas have reformed with the former members of SK.

The #NiP channel on IRC is now extremely busy, and the topic boasts of the upcoming NiP-Gaming.com website - but, conveniently named in exactly the same way as the SK-Gaming website (TAG-gaming.com), is this just a very mis-timed joke? We'll have to wait and see.

Recently, we brought you news of the two maps competing for the spot of the official de_nuke for CS: Source. Well, as we step into 2005, Weeper has just released a beta version of his map. Note this released version is beta 8, as opposed to the beta 7 pictured in the screenshots - though not a lot has changed. For all the released screenshots of the map, check here - a couple samples are below.



As you can see, the map looks quite nice - but aside from maintaining the basic dimensions and layout, it is not particularly de_nuke on 1.6 as we know it...

To download it (4.3mb), we're hosting it here.

Major Euro online gaming league [clanbase] made a very substantial announcement today, regarding their Spring '05 season of their Eurocup competitions: 50,000€ (~ 35,318£) in prize money in total over all games, and the re-introduction of LAN finals, to be played this summer. Here's a snip from their statement:

It is exactly five years ago now that ClanBase set up the first ever EuroCup, which united the best European clans of the early years of online gaming and was the biggest online tournament ever at the time. During the ten seasons that have been completed since, the EuroCup has expanded to include all major competitive games and has established itself as the most prestigious tournament for most of them. However, in terms of prize money and final events, we knew progress was lacking.

This comes as a development of their recent partnership with the GGL, and allows not only for an inevitable step up in competition this season given the obvious new incentive, but also the high profile status of the tournament paves the way for major future sponsorships and bigger and better competitions and prizes.

For CS, 15,000€ (~ 10,599£) will be paid in prize money, 7,000€ (~ 4,946£) of which to the team that wins.

For the entire statement click here. Signups open tomorrow, so get your list of credentials ironed out now to fight for a place in what will be a very in-demand competition.

Tomorrow sees the return of the [clanbase] UK/IE Cup - with the sign-ups opening to its third installment. JamSam, who was behind the previous two cups, returns to run it - but this time Zorro will not be partnering him, Kirt of eS Live will.

Here's a sample of the announcement:

Its been a good few months since the previous UK/IE Cup (Spring 2004) proved to be a success, ending with a spectacular. A LAN Finals with previous cup winners Game2XS taking on uprising Choke in the championship final. Choke taken the gold aswell as the match in an overtime fight on de_nuke 19-17. As head organiser of the UK/IE Counter-Strike Cups I am very happy to announce the third cup aswell as Zorro's replaced, UK/IE 2v2 supervisor Kirt!

Our ambitions and expectations are higher this time around, and although we are aware that our second UK/IE Cup was a great success with the huge support we gained from not only the UK, but europe. We are now looking forward to getting this on the move and trying to get to the next step.

Whether there will be LAN finals - like last time - remains to be seen, and will be known in time when sponsorship deals are finalised, but with a whole month sign-up period before the tournament gets underway, all shall become clear in due time. For the cup homepage, information, and the entire statement, click here and check out the IRC channel here.