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Crack Clan vs. Vinland, the morning after

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May 22nd Commentary


Byte — Yesterday was a highly anticipated match between Crack Clan and Vinland. Both casting stations, VanillaTV & TF.TV organised quite a bit to deliver this premiership game. For those not in the loop of what happened last night, the game came to an abrupt end, after only 4 rounds of the entire match being played, due to a dispute between the veteran Darn and ipz / Crack Clan, over allowing the FOV (field of view) extended from the maximum default. There was no obligation for Crack Clan in accordance with ETF2L rules to allow this feature. While it was not defined in ETF2L’s rule page, it was mentioned in one of their news post (27th of April 2013) as an update with the following:

“Using a server that allows higher FOV values is allowed if, and only if both teams agree. The hosting team must inform the visiting team about the increased FOV before the match starts.”

To be fair it’s clear as night and day, it should be agreed before hand & agreed by both teams into using it. Clearly it wasn’t, so it was decided in the match. Could this have been avoided before the match? Looking at irc, one of the leaders from Vinland, Rake, stated:

[Rake:] emb, imho it either has to be straight out banned or allowed
[Rake:] but this compromise just means that people cant actually use it

I personally agree with things being dealt by the league more so than the players, as it will cause delays and problems in the long run if dealt by the teams. For example as we saw last night, seems no one thought of asking the other team if they’re okay with using an extended fov a bit more in advance.

Similarly ETF2L have the same rule for mercs, must be agreed with the opposition and preferably stated on the match page, so that admins don’t apply a penalty. However with so many rules in the league one can only sympathesize with teams not knowing them all 100%, so the best solution would surely be making a cut off point for specific rules. The FOV setting being clearly one of those, however not all rules should have a clear cut decision.

So reading up on the ETF2L forums about this, obviously someone had to vent their frustration and disgust at this whole matter. The thread can be found here. Darn himself has made his own comment about his actions stating:

Dont blame the team. I did say them to get a merc or something. I have no interest to play without the fov anymore, you can talk all you want about being ‘professional’ and what not in this very ‘professional’ game. For me, to be able to play proper and have _fun_ with the game I need the higher fov. This season, these points mean very little to me if I have to grind thru the games. Saying that if the rest of the teams dont want me to use the fov im done. Sorry for all the people who tuned in to see a game.

While I can understand his point, in that he’s been there and done that a million times in TF2, along with achieved so much in his previous years with 4kings/Dignitas, coming back to the game for darn has been a ballache and very difficult for him to reignite that initial passion and flare in Team Fortress 2. Having said that, TF2 has moved a long way from those days and is a different scene and how certain things work is nothing like it used to be, so one has to accept and continue or leave peacefully, without ruining the fun for those joining the game or are in progress of learning/moving up the skill ranks.

Our intrepid reporter Arie had a chat with a member of both teams, first up Ipz, from Crack Clan:

VanillaTF2: The day after, are you surprised about the reactions? Especially people defending Darn?
Ipz: aslong as the right people get my point, i cant talk sense into everyone, if i try i end up really disappointed. In the end we did it cause we thought they might take rounds of us

VanillaTF2: can we quote you on that?
Ipz: lol ye they took rounds of epsi and of bff

VanillaTF2: If you’re not worried about maps, but rounds, why bother?
Ipz: numlocked talked to me on his stream the night before saying that they could suprise us, so im not giving out any advantages, which a higher fov is / to my enemy if my team cant utilize on it cause they arent used to it, hence would not increase their fov. I just dont want to drop rounds against anyone, the 2 rounds that we lost vs bff each map hurt already tbf
we want to lose rounds when it comes to broder and epsi, but not before

VanillaTF2: People might consider you default hunters for such behaviour.
Ipz: How could people consider that default hunting? I dont think there is a single person out there, even the onces that know rauli, that predicted him to ragequit. This guy comes to our server, being unbelievably disrespectful before even a single word is exchanged in English. The first sentence in finish calling us all kids and since james is gone this team is full of shit, then he wants to force me to disadvantage myself for him? We just got a bunch of racial slurs and some finnish bullshit that noone understands, but still people go on forums claiming we baited him?

VanillaTF2: Do you feel ETF2L should make a statement/rule to prevent events like last night?
Ipz: I don´t really care for now how ETF2L is gonna handle the fov case in the future and how they will punish the ragequit. All i care about at the moment is that Darn is getting called out for beeing a racist fuck

VanillaTF2: You’re quite pissed about it still
Ipz: ofc i am, we are working quite hard without any financial benefit for some month to push the quality of tf2 in Europe abit so everytime this stuff happens im super pissed about it cause it throws me back another 3 months.

We also talked to Rake of Vinland:

VanillaTF2.org: Hey Rake, is Vinland going to keep playing, and if so, how will you deal with opponents not allowing wider fov?
Rake: Well we hope to keep on playing, however after last nights “match” it’s obvious that not a single team is going to allow a higher FoV anymore, and as such we’re looking into our options.

VanillaTF2: Ipz went on record to say, more or less: “We didn’t want to lose rounds to this team, the dropped rounds against bff already hurt. numlocked warned us beforehand we might get surprised, so we didn’t want to give them any advantage”
Rake: Well well

VanillaTF2: Are you surprised cc turned out to be a little bit afraid of you guys, even if it was just a fear of losing rounds, not maps?
Rake: I hardly see it as a reason to deny higher FoV. I wasn’t expecting them or broder to do it, more so the teams that we’re actually competing with (solar, rlm, lms). And we’ve been having fairly good results at fairly random intervals, I guess they assumed we might pull something out of the hat last night.
However it would’ve been a lot better, everything considered to just play with the higher FoV cap, especially after seeing Darn’s reaction, and noticing that he’s not even trying to play

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Well…..that was disappointing

10
comments


May 21st Commentary


Arie — So after all the preparations for a good TF2 cast: Scorescreens, relays, overlays, live stats, mumble comms, forum posts and reddit threads (and that once for VanillaTV and once for TF.tv) and hundreds of people watching on the streams,  Vinland had to forfeit the match after less than 10 minutes when their star player  Darn left the game after  Crack Clan refused to change a server setting to allow a wider FOV.

Interview with Crack Clan after the match:

This setting is available through the TFTrue plugin and allows a higher FOV than the normal maximum of 90. The default setting of TFTrue is the same 90 degrees FOV. However, Darn likes to play with a FOV on 110, you can see that in our VOD of the  Vinland vs  Skidmark Central.

Now I’m a bit on the fence regarding the fairness of a wider FOV. Players have been using wider FOV for ages using custom resolutions, but Openplugin and TFTrue have made it less of a hassle and less of a pain on the eyes. Ultimately I think the advantage of seeing a wider battlefield is probably negated by the smaller players you have to shoot at.

Where does this leave team Vinland though? It’s a darn shame that a team that was off to such a good start might now fall apart over something totally unrelated to the normal struggles of a new premiership team (e.g. poor results or the team not getting along). Will this be the end of Vinland and the first drop of the season, or will they rebound in time for their upcoming matches against teams they have a chance of defeating, and will there be anyone left willing to cast those games?

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ESEA Season 13 LAN with Arx and Beta!

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April 21st Commentary
Tagged: arx and beta ESEA vanillatv


Beta — After some quick organisation between a few of us we are happy to announce Vanilla TV will be covering Saturdays games of the ESEA LAN Finals.

As this has been done in a spare of a moment, it will be hosted by Arx & Beta on our stream.  Please join the VanillyTV mumble and STV below if you would like to direct the camera yourself.

HRG vs Fully Torqued @4pm GMT / 5pm CET

STV:  107.20.74.112:29034

VOD Map 1: HERE

VOD Map 2: HERE

Classic Mixup vs Chess Club @ 6:30pm GMT / 7:30pm CET

VOD Map 1: HERE

VOD Map 2: HERE

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Crack Clan analysis – Ipz versus Broder

7
comments


April 10th Commentary
Tagged: analysis crack clan Ippz team fortress 2


Byte — Along with the great content coming out, Ipz has made a POV analysis of him versus Broder. This game was pre playoffs, standard pcw in which Crack Clan lost 7-3 on cp_badlands.

So for all you soldiers out there and even if you aren’t a soldier, I’d watch the insight of this guy, and see how difficult it is to play at the top of the game.

 
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ETF2L Season 14 Division 1 Elemental Violence vs Furbo pandas

12
comments


March 12th Announcement
Tagged: division 1 elemental violence etf2l Furbo Pandas pledge


Byte — While we prep ourselves up for the premiership playoffs, we still have a few games left in division one. It’s all to play for the 2nd spot, which at the moment is tipped to be Outsiders aka “Web One”. One thing is for sure, Furbo Panda’s need to win this game and they need to win it outright to stand a chance of competing for that 2nd spot.

Arguably Furbo Panda’s have played the top two teams in division 1, and are now set up and prime to contend for the 2nd spot (with a bit of help from their enemies tonight), it was a narrow defeat against Web One where they lost 3-4 on cp_process_rc2 and 1-3 on cp_snakewater.

If Web one lost a map and Furbo win all their matches, they would steal second spot off the frenchies. So it’s a weird passage of play, basically for those who haven’t work it out, Furbo need to beat elemental violence outright 6-0 and then ask a favour from elemental violence to at least win a map versus Web One.

Furbo Pandas

Medic ritalin
Demoman Hildreth
Soldiers Zoob and Shifteeey
Scouts Sheepy and Furbo

eu Elemental Violence CUBE, Kastos, e-thug, stuntz, Shrike410, WARHURYEAH

Elemental Violence
11
Furbo Pandas

Furbo Pandas eu Shifteeey, Ritalin, Hildreth, Zoob, Sheepy, Furbo

ETF2L ETF2L Division 1 Week 4 Elemental Violence vs Furbo Pandas
(12 comments)
TIME
  • Tuesday March 12th
  • 21:15 cet
  • 15:15 est (na)
  • 05:15 est (aus)
CASTED BY

Who will win this match?

  • Elemental Violence (100%, 8 Votes)
  • Furbo Pandas (0%, 0 Votes)

Total Voters: 8

Loading ... Loading ...
MAPSSCORE
DEMO
VIDEO
cp_gullywash3-5
cp_process4-3


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Crack Clan Battle Report #3: The Delusions of a Potato

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March 1st Commentary
Tagged: Battle Report crack clan demos etf2l logs


Admirable — “Stop spamming us with news”, they cry on ETF2L forum. Never!

Last week an ill-advised late-night live viewing of the Oscars capitulated to the sort of terrible sleep patterns that have punctuated my seemingly eternal student years. I’m not sure if I ever said I was aiming to put out Battle Reports on a weekly basis, but that was my intention, for the remainder of Season 14 at least.  So, apologies for breaking my imaginary promise, but if you want to hate someone, hate Seth McFarlane.

The extended interval has led to significantly more resources to document, so this edition will be comprised mostly of beautiful tables interspersed a few paragraphs of lorem ipsum filler about my favourite colour and which team member I have the biggest crush on. Before we get in to that I should mention that our SourceTV Relay is now at fakkelbrigade.eu:27100 courtesy of the inexhaustible generosity of Arie; our scene is truly blessed.

Whilst I’m in a slightly apologetic mood I should probably shoulder the blame for getting everyone’s hopes up in Battle Report #2 with tall pseudo-culinary tales of unlocking the secret Epsilon recipe for success. The figures below tell a different story of a rather one-sided engagement, but at least we managed to last 30 minutes on Process. And Snakewater? Let’s not talk about that.

Have you ever wondered what the “T” in  T-Mac stands for? Just a click away lies knowledge and intrigue at Crack Clan dot com.

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ETF2L Season 14 Premiership – broder vs Crack Clan

38
comments


February 28th Commentary
Tagged: Arx & Beta


Beta — As we come into the business end of the season, only 2 games are remaining for some teams at most.  With this in mind, every point counts and tonight is no different, with broder vs Crack Clan both of whom are wanting that second place spot.

Of all the hype about this season, I guess some of the familiar faces in the broder team returning to the game or for some moving house did get quite a lot of attention.  They are currently ahead of their competition tonight by 7 points, having won more maps this season but they have played 2 more maps then Crack Clan.  Apart from a massive upset in other teams remaining games this season, a victory on at least 1 map tonight will near enough secure 2nd place place before the playoffs stage of the season.

broder

Medic Mirelin
Demoman ryb
Soldiers Zebbosai and Tek
Scouts cookye and Bybben

swo Broder Mirelin, Zebbosai, ryb, Tek, cookye, Bybben

Broder
11
Crack Clan

Crack Clan de Admirable, Brego, T-Mac, ipz, smzi, TviQ

ETF2L Season 14 powered by Twitch: Week 6 (Premier Division)
(38 comments)
TIME
  • Thursday February 28th
  • 21:15 cet
  • 15:15 est (na)
  • 05:15 est (aus)

Who will win this match?

  • Crack Clan (73%, 8 Votes)
  • Broder (27%, 3 Votes)

Total Voters: 11

Loading ... Loading ...
MAPSSCORE
DEMO
VIDEO


The ball for tonight’s game firmly sits with Crack Clan.  With the team currently sitting behind broder, a 2 map win tonight would be the preferred choice to negate the risk of their next match up not going as expected.  This won’t be an easy task for them, Crack Clan have made some changes in house with the French Soldier T-Mac coming into replace  minimoose.  The flanking power of the opposition scouts could be a concern for Admirable tonight, especially on the larger mid-fight map cp_Process.

Crack Clan

Medic Admirable
Demoman Brego
Soldiers ipz and T-Mac
Scouts smzi and TviQ

Things to look out for?

- The second map for tonight will be Process, could we see some potential sniper play come in from TviQ?

- Brego vs ryb – The school boy vs the lecturer – how will this battle end up….I know where my bet is being placed

- T-Mac will be under the spotlight tonight, will he be able to deal the vital plays need to securing points tonight?

That said there have been some questions raised regarding some of the play style used by broder this season.  It will be interesting to see how maybe some smart gameplay could come into tonight’s game, with strong death matchers on both teams, who will come out on top?

Tune in tonight at 21:15 CET with Arx & Beta guiding you through the action, with the camera being controlled by  Animal.  We will have a nice new feature on the stream tonight, with further adaptations to the damage monitor being developed by Arie hopefully ready to go live.

WAIT WAIT – there is more! Tonight we will have our first edition of English and French broadcasts with Luzzu & KnoxXx hosting the game for our French viewers over at our French Stream. If you fancy watching both, this can be accessed from our Twitch Team page here

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