Time to hit the court!

Reload your Rocket Launchers Gentlemen, things are getting serious!

As some of you might have noticed the BBall Divisions went live today in the early morning – which means we are good to go!
There are about 180 teams participating all split up in 32 divisions which means most will have 6 teams while some will only have 5. You should be playing at least 1 game per week to get it done before the final deadline which is February 10th.
As it has been a bit more than a week since the announcement you might have forgotten the deadline / default dates or anything else related to the Cup – as always you can look up the details on the Cup’s Hub page!

A few reminders and clarifications

• Only stop playing when the game has officially stopped. If the game gives you an overtime – play!
• If the game ended in a draw in the group stage you do not play a golden cap – Draws are possible!
• If you can not play on your given default date please contact your opponent as fast as you can and leave a post on the match page. You are free to reschedule to any date before February 10th
• Since this is a 2v2 competition you will have at least 1 (main) player to play all the matches with his second player being from the roster. Anything else will be considered a merc and needs to be allowed by the opponents (if the main player is missing his replacement is considered a merc even if it’s a player from the roster!)

Additional prize

Tt eSports generously throws in an additional Tt eSPORTS Knucker

Can’t wait to get your hands on it?

The next BBall related newspost will contain more information on how you will be able to win this one.

So stay tuned!

Admirable: Hello and welcome to another Season 13 ETF2L Premier Division interview. That’s right Season 13… ugh… running a bit late and I’ll tell you what, I normally prepare for these things.  I usually have a set of questions, do my research, but the guy I’m interviewing today he’s like a brother of mine. I know him like the back of my hand, it’s none other than Crack Clan’s Retsh0ck… or should I say formerly Crack Clan’s Retsh0ck… what’s up, Asaf?

Retsh0ck: I’m great! Feeling good. A bit nervous.

A: You should be nervous! This is a big deal… this is like a job interview right now because you’ve got no team.

R: Yeah definitely…

A: What happened, Retsh0ck?

R: Hmmm I guess uh… Read the rest of this entry »

Season 14 powered by Twitch – Division 1 Qualifier Updates

We received the sad news that The Potentials have folded. With one of the three contenders for the last two spots in Division 1 gone, the qualifier has become obsolete. Both remaining teams,  logs.tf and OutSiders, have been seeded into Division 1 and the gap in Division 2C has been filled.

P-REC Update

You may have noticed that the P-REC plugin, used by many to automatically record their personal demos for leagues and fragmovies, had been broken since Christmas. Orange took the time to rewrite the plugin, despite being retired from TF2, and got it signed by Valve. What a hero! You can find the latest version of the plugin (2.0.4) on his Bitbucket page and say Thanks! on the forums.

• P-REC 2.0.4 for Windows Vista or higher
• P-REC 2.0.4 for Windows XP

In case you are experiencing problems with the plugin, installing the Visual C++ Redistributable for Visual Studio 2012 Update 1 may fix your issues. More questions can be asked in the P-REC thread in our customisation forum.

Staff Updates

Seasonal staff changes are inevitable a volunteer organization. Our long-term Highlander admin  Hildreth has decided to move on and concentrate more on playing (and his job). He will remain on staff as a Honorary Admin and advisor. We are grateful for the countless hours and passion you put in promoting Highlander, and hope you can still enjoy this game as a player.

Pretty much the same applies to Buffalo Bill. After 15 months of active admin duty, it is time for him to move on. Thanks to you as well for the countless hours you invested into this league during our two tenures as a 6v6 admin – you will remain listed as a Honorary Admin.

 schocky decided to resign from the Anti-Cheat staff, because he can no longer commit time to AC work. Thanks to you as well.

We have some promotions to announce as well.  DeusVox has proven himself as a keen helper with a lot of good ideas and is joining our media staff. His most recent work is the Season 14 powered by Twitch banner.

 Admirable originally wanted to join the ETF2L staff as full league admin (“I am happy to do all the admin tasks“), but it seems it was a bit too much for him. However, he did a great job with the Premiership interviews last season and gathering feedback from our top players, which helped a lot to further develop our league. We are more than happy to keep him around as our Premiership Ambassador (Yes, we made up that position just for him).

 ipz-  has been removed from the staff for public misconduct. We appreciate the 4 months of work he put into ETF2L and are happy to hear he plans to continue to support the scene with his expertise, even if outside ETF2L. However, we cannot tolerate admins abusing their position and violating our rules of conduct.

Site Update

No doubt, many of your are still waiting on updates from the Banner Competition. We have decided to aim beyond the original goals of the competition (new banner and color scheme) and proceed with a complete overhaul of the site. Our newest asset to the media staff,
 DeusVox, took over the redesign of the site and has produced a preview of what the main page would look like:

Please note that this is an early preview and does not feature all of the planned changes, however it does showcase the general style we want to proceed with. Constructive feedback is always welcome.

TeamFortress.TV

Do you livestream Team Fortress 2 and want your channel to reach a wider audience? TeamFortress.TV is the place to go, in that case. You can submit your stream to TF.tv’s livestream widget. Make sure you go through all of the rules and requirements which can be found here. Once you get on the TeamFortress.TV stream list, you are automatically invited to the TF.tv group on ETF2L’s partner Twitch page as well. To accept the invitation, go to your Twitch page, then Settings, where you can accept the invite under the “Teams” tab.

TeamFortress.TV welcomes Europeans on the forums as well, where you can catch up on all the latest news and gossip from the American scene. It is a good source for news from ESEA and other leagues, TF2 streams from North America’s top players, latest maps, player interviews, and even mentors!

ETF2L 6th Cup Quarter Finals

With only 8 teams remaining, the ETF2L 6th cup is on the cusp of a startling crescendo and as the competition hurtles towards completion, only 3 rounds stand between any one of our contenders and €300 cash. Epsilon eSports, Crack Clan, Team Doctrinal, Lutuset, myDGB.net, Team Reverto,  BFF and logs.tf have already proved a lot by fending off the other 112 teams to reach the quarter finals, and their progression into the semi and grand finals is purely down to how they perform as a team in the coming weeks.

After tonight, there will only be 2 more semi-final spots available as the critically lauded  Lutuset will be facing off against the reputable Team Doctrinal and the div1 minnows with potential,  logs.tf, will play host to ETF2L’s very own whales, BFF; two of these teams will be declared at a sufficient level to be worthy of playing in the semi-finals, however for the other two contenders, the dream is dead.

Read the rest of this entry »

Season 14 powered by Twitch – Division 1 Qualifiers

The Division 1 Qualifiers are a round robin tournament between  The Potentials,  logs.tf and  OutSiders. All matches consist of two maps, each team gets to pick one from the Season 14 powered by Twitch map pool. Because two spots are up for grabs, the team that comes last in this round robin tournament will go down to Division 2, the other two will get a place in Division 1. In the event of a tied round robin, capture point difference, total points captured and pistols at dawn will be used to rank teams.

The schedule for the three matches is as follows:

• Tuesday, January 15th (today), 21.15 CET:  logs.tf vs  The Potentials
• Wednesday, January 16th, 21.15 CET:   logs.tf vs   OutSiders
• Thursday, January 17th, 21.15 CET:  OutSiders vs  The Potentials

Season 14 powered by Twitch – Division 1 Qualifiers Match #1: logs.tf vs The Potentials

Today we have the first match of this seriues coming up-  logs.tf vs   The Potentials.

Since  The Potentials lost yesterday’s Premiership Qualifier in an exciting match against the stunningly well playing  Pyro|Gen, we now have 3 teams hunting for only two spots in Division 1 this season.

 The Potentials certainly don’t want to play in Division 2 this season, after being so close to gaining promotion to the Premiership Division, so you will most likely see them fighting  logs.tf with brute force today.

We asked  Gubbins from  The Potentials for a statement on this match, here is what they had to say:

Ummm, they’ve had some really interesting results but I think under the pressure of an official we can bring the goods and it’ll take something special for  logs.tf  to keep up

Update:

 The Potentials have disbanded due to roster issues and the other two teams have been seeded in Division 1.