This isn't a test, this game was actually played!

Hehe, gotta give credit to both teams for even showing up for this game. 3 months and nothing happening, then finally Gravgon decided to force the game and both teams manage to gather enough players to get the game going.

I came into this game a bit unprepared, I was just done watching some non-important friendly football game (Norway vs Paraguay 2-2) and noticed I kept getting slapped in the ndml admin channel. Apparently they wanted me to be an admin since OhYeah really wanted to watch the Apprentice. That's as good a reason as I've ever heard, at least honest, so I agreed to admin the game without really considering it for long.

So, lets see:
- we have two great teams, Sweden and Poland
- we have the best shoutcaster available, DaHanG
- we have q2tv ran by the swedish superhero TheWretch
- we have the best admin helper ever, OhYeah
- we had the best scorebotrunner in #ndml ever (allthough hardest names to pronounce) in Kkubass

It had to be great a great game. The captains told me their mapchoices, and it turned out to be:

Sweden: q2dm1 / q2dm3
Poland: q2dm2 / q2dm3


Team Sweden:
B = BubkeZ
N = NaSSaL
Z = Zorre
P = Pogo
H = ph


Team Poland
Cleaner
bOGI
Ivers
R1cky
Sil
Bocian



After a bit of serversearching which happened while I caught up on the rulespage on the ndml site, the teams were almost ready. I mean, being ready does not really imply typing ready in console. That, we learned, takes a lot more than just being ready. Anyway, the server had a slight ping-advantage to Sweden, but they let it be known they had some severe packetloss so the Poles agreed to play all games on the server. The admin team was very happy with that decision.


Q2DM1 - Sweden's map



I really should have written this report yesterday I realize by now, it's just so hard remembering the small incidents that makes the game so fun to watch. Especially in a 5 mapper like this. However, I do remember Sweden loved the railgun. At times they had all their players positioned there, and all we read in the console was "random pole railed by random swede". However, the Polish team didn't give up without a fight, they managed to hold both lift and mega positions for several minutes during the game, but they never managed to rack up the amount of spawnkills the Swedes did. It wasn't really a suprise, but I really felt the Poles would perform better on the next map.


Q2DM2 - Poland's map



Yes, q2dm2 is Poland's map. I really enjoy watching teamgames on this map, it's less about just rail and aim, and more about tactics and how to be able to utilize the quad and RA/rail/bfg. Poland had a great start to the game, think they scored 10-15 frags before Sweden even got one. Poland whored quad, and it really paid off. Sweden did position Pogo on the RA lift, but allthough he held it for a while, the lift seemed to be a position that switched owner quite often. After the shaky start, the Swedes got their act together, almost tieing the game at around 40 frags or so. But from then on it was Poland's map. They ran quads the best, they had RA under pressure and held it at times, and Sweden just couldn't get back into the game. Cleaner and R1cky both showing off some good scores, while poor BubkeZ was playing bingo lotto.


Q2DM3 - Sweden's map



First game on q2dm3 was a classic. It wasn't so much for outstanding play, rare to see a game with as many friendly frags and lavadives, but it was the nerve and intensity of the game. To begin with it looked like Sweden was a bit unaware of the quad, Poland seemed to steal it all the time, managing to get a lead which they held for a while. Untill they had like 50 frags. Then suddenly, the Swedes locked down the map completely. Seemed like they got like 50 frags on Poland while the Poles didnt get a single one, which put them in the lead by 30+ frags or so. Then Poland managed to keep up with the pace, but you also noticed how Poland suddenly got control over every single position on the map. They had rail, they had RL and they had quadruns. It was now the awesome comeback started, and it lasted for a long time. Slowly they got closer frag by frag, untill the final minute. Still about 10-5 frags or so behind, all you could read in console was "random swede railed by random pole". In the end we saw a Polish player in a very very intense rocketlauncher battle with an unarmed swede at the RL, it was sooooo close, had the game lasted 1 second more I wouldn't be suprised if the Poles would have won. But, they didn't!


Q2DM3 - Poland's map



This game was a bit of an anticlimax compared to the previous one, it was just the same game without the nerve and tenseness. From the get go, the Polish players decided to show the Swedes how this map really should be played. Cleaner as throughout all the maps, did a really good job. His aim was very nice, and he played smart. Even though Sweden managed to pick up quads, they rarely got out alive. As always there were tons of lavadives and friendly frags. I couldn't be happier. Poland won this one convincingly.


Now, this was just as intresting. Sweden won the total fragcount by a single frag, which made it possible for them to decide who should start the mapelimination of the remaining maps (not perviously played). Which were:
q2dm5
q2dm6
q2dm7
q2dm8

Sweden decided that Poland could start, which seemed a bit weird since that allowed Poland to eliminate 2 maps, giving them an advantage. But, maybe Sweden were confident enough on all maps but q2dm6 that they didn't care, as long as they got to eliminate q2dm6 it was all good. Poland removed q2dm5, Sweden q2dm6, then Poland ditched q2dm7, which led to


Q2DM8 - Deciding map



Q2dm8 was the deciding map, and the key was powershield. To begin with Sweden had some powershields going on, but then bOGI got the powershield and really showed how to put it to use. He did play a bit defensively, keeping stacked as much as he could, but he did take down a lot of Swedes. And even though Sweden had managed to get a small lead, the Poles were closing in. However, as soon as NaSSaL got powershield the game seemed to be over. He went mental on the chaingun, and gathered a lot of frags. And when he took down bOGI, the game was pretty much decided in my book. Poland never managed to come as close, allthough they never were outplayed either. Sweden just was the better team with zorek showing off his great aim to secure the victory.



All in all, pretty fun games to watch. The fact that Poland basically played with a totally new team was admirable, instead of vanishing into inactivity they got a team of newer players going, which is a much better alternative than just not playing at all. As for Sweden, they showed they got some great raw skill, and even though the maps were continously delayed by disconnecting player the games were fairly friendly in spirit.


Again, big thanks to DaHanG for another awesome shoutcast! And thanks to TheWretch for his work on q2tv, very much appreciated. And finally to kkubass for running scorebot and OhYeah who dropped by in the commercialbreaks.


Shoutcast + caster's pov demo