QuakeLive Round Up

The Quake Live (www.quakelive.com) Community here in Australia has been growing strongly in 2010 on the back of greater prospects in overseas tournaments. With word that the E-Sports World Cup (www.eswc.com) has picked up QuakeLive as well as Intel Extreme Masters circuit in Europe and the United States the game here in Australia has been growing competitively as much as it has been overseas.

2010 started strongly locally with Mick05s 4seasonsgaming.com Summer 2010 Duel Tournament. 128 players were split into 4 skill divisions.

The main focus was as always on the premier competition of Division 1. The top 32 of duellers in Australia faced off in groups of 4 fighting for the top two positions of the pool in order to reach the single elimination finals series.
The amount of talent in division 1 was immense, many of the players former champions from 'easier' games playing a purely competitive duel tournament led to many egos being damaged to say the least.

TF2 Australia #1 Scout and GameArena NS Champions Squad5's Reptile
TF2 NZ#1 YSW Soldier and New Zealand favourite Nomey
TF2 Champions exile5 and GameArena NS Champions Squad5's top 3 Warsow Australia player Haymo
CoD1/2 Former Champion (Ven) Outkast-PT
CoD1/2 Former Champion (X Squad) Durst aka fABIAN_mCgEE
Unreal Tournament WCG Finalist Kore
Unreal Tournament WCG Competitor Eko
Reloaded LAN Q3 Winner uNhoLeee
Warsow.au Champion Beastrn
CS 1.6's SnakewOw

As well as a strong swag of Quake3 Veterans pathe,zlr,chv,roffo,pablo,nomey and jth
The final came down to an epic best of five set between pathe and zlr. ztntourney1, dm6 (campgrounds) and tourney9 were the maps to be played. With zlr clean sweeping for a 3-0 victory. (shoutcast+VOD: http://www.gamestah.com/file/view/3751)

Division 2 is really the tournament to watch for future champions to take the step up to division 1 and the list of strong up and comers had phirt,beazyb,venjin and s3xything get through their respective groups and the single elimination to fight out the semi finals. Venjin took out beazyb, whilst s3xything took care of phirt... Venjin took down s3xything down 3-0 on t7,t9 and dm13 in the finals however the most thrilling game was definately the 3rd place play off between beazyb and phirt, both players giving it their all and some great timing and railing on the final map by beazyb allowing him to close out the the tie 3-1. Lets hope that these four can step up their already strong form in division 1 come winter 2010.
WD to Venjin (shoutcast+VOD: http://www.gamestah.com/file/view/3768 )

Division 3 brought raw talent mixed with less experience then their div1 and div2 counterparts but still brought some thrilling matches. In the quarter finals Roscach had to be taken to 5 maps before he could take care of leftovers who despite utterly dominated the thinking mans map of ztn couldn't handle Roscachs strong lightning gun on tourney9. Both players frustrations were evident in the final map t7, with Roscach slowing the game down with a small lead forcing leftovers to make some vital mistakes and end up worldspawning (killing self due to gravity) and then rocketing his face...this epic 5 match set took a lot out of both players. On the otherside of the bracket, Cretin slowly was getting past inferior opponents as his good positioning on his favoured ztn and strong rail allowed him to get through with ease. adktz was taken to 5 maps vs OPMD and RosCach however Cretin ended up on top in the final match vs roscach where he won 3-0.

The strong community feel in the quake scene as of date can really be put down two major quake hubs, noetix running www.premiumgamer.com (#premiumgamer on irc.gamesurge.net) and Mick05 4SeasonsGaming.com (#4sg on irc.gamesurge.net) with the software,gaming and peripheral industry taking note. 4SeasonsGaming has locked in Steel Series gaming peripherals (www.steelseries.com.au) as well as Ausnet hosting ( www.ausnetservers.com.au ) and DevNC software solutions ( www.devnc.com ) support for the future. The on going support of Gamestah with shoutcasting and hosting the video on demand is allowing quake to get the exposure it deserves in the pro gaming scene in Australia.

till next time, peace++