Finally a game that was played! Australia vs Czech Republic, maybe the last hpb battle of the season, which isn't a bad thing as hpb battles tend to be a bit unpredictable and some players just don't like to play with high ping. But who can blame them. However, from a spectator's point of view they are something different than the aim-fest that lpb battles tend to be at times, with a lot more hilarious actions all over the place, teamkills, missed shots and just weird stuff happening all over the place. The players really need to work for their frags, and maplockdown with rail is a bit harder. It's just a different take on the average 4v4 on q2dm1.

Anyway, it all started with cse approaching me on IRC asking if I was available to ref. Since I just woke up a bit earlier than usual on a Sunday morning, and knowing that the other admins were happily sleeping away the alcohol from last night's beers, I stepped up to the task. The good thing with adminning Australia is that the serverpicking process is easy as pie, only one server to chose from. That the server happens to be the crappiest server in NDML (mod wise) evens it out in the long run; being an admin should be a tad challenging! The Czech team showed up immediately, and after a bit of warming up, the game was about to start. The maps were chosen, and sadly both teams chose q2dm1. Q2dm1 is a good map, don't get me wrong, but would be nice to see something different at times as well. But, I was standing by the rules of NDML, and didn't allow the teams to change, even though the game would admittedly be more fun with diff maps ;) And when Australia got their last player on (they had some difficulties with ping, thats why pannel had to step in with his 290 ping) the game started.


First map: Q2DM1



It's hard to remember exactly what happens when the map is played twice. But I'll try my best. Let it be known that wision was the star of this map, he totally dominated the rail area with his strong railing. At start he had 50% rail, but near the end I think it ended up around 30%, not bad at all with 200 ping! While Czech Republic focused mainly on the rail and the mega, Australia seemed to be hellbent on holding that lift position, either with the high pinging pannel, or the railing sax. It was hard for them to hold the mega though, as the Czechs gathered at rail as soon as they lost mega, and they proved to be having a good day with the rail this day. Jenskiller was fun to spectate, he did some weird stuff throughout the 2 maps, loads of friendly kills and some weird suicides. Most funny was when he spammed 2-3 nades into the lift, but why he jumped into the lift a second after is unkown to anyone but himself. The outcome needs no description. The game fell into a pattern after a bit, wision battling and dominating the rail area, and 3 other Czech players in mega or nearby the rail. Gotta give credit to pannel, and his extreme hpb style of playing! He's like the epitome of what hpb'ism is all about. Camping and running and spamming. Worked pretty well, though. Down by the lower rl cse was camping, wondering why the hell the Czech players weren't coming down at all :P Was fun, but the map belonged to Czech. And how long did Jenskiller have that -2 score? ;))

Second map: Q2DM1



Oh yeah, here we go again! After sax falling out of the server as the game started, the game was restarted. Of course with the telefrags that has become somewhat of a trademark of the partly unfinished GXmod. This time around the game was a lot closer. Wision had a lot harder time at rail this time around, sax really stepped up his game this time around, while getting help from teammates. Again, pannel was positioned at lift, or camping a spot nearby (almost as good as lift). But mega was held pretty well by Czech, with Marty holding the position very well. He is one hell of a stacker at times though, not sure how many times I saw him with 200/200, but with good teamplay it is not a bad thing. Australia had a hard time chasing him away from mega at least. To begin with I saw a huge amount of teamkills from the Czech team, but they stopped doing that to the same degree after a while. Anyway, the game was close for the entire game, with Czech being in the lead by a couple frags mostly. They also managed to get Rambler onto the lift, but never had the control of the rail as in the previous game. Not sure, but somehow Australia managed to get frag after frag without really being in position, mainly due to strong 1v1 battling skills (no luck whatsoever of course). Then Marty had to answer the phone, and the game was halted, 2 timeouts were called, and that somehow made some players lose their good flow. Anyway, near the end the teams were tied, and with a minute left the game could go either way. Czech had the mega, and the Aussies were chasing down players, while the Czechs tried to chase down a lone newly spawned aussie. In the last 10 seconds or so they got a 2 frag lead, and the game was over. It was a good game!


Big thanks to Australia for playing in this season, to me they have proved to be a great addition with good attitudes and actually wanting to play their games. Czech Republic isn't new around, and hopefully they are here to stay. Funny players to admin.

GGs!