The recent eight-man minicomp has given us in the North American QuakeWorld community a chance to update and resort the ranks. The community is larger than eight people (although by how much, noone knows), the eight invitees were fairly representative of players from the average tier to the exclusive top dueler group.

Overall it was a night of some great games and some games with higher pings than what we should tolerate in the 21st century. Unfortunately, we are not as blessed as, say, Sweden, with standard 100/100 mbit connections. At least three of the 7 scheduled matches were plagued by excessive ping, including the final.

That said, it was a fun night. .We even had live commentary by the awesome SyN courtesy of Radio iTG. (Hopefully we can get some VODs released in the near future...) There is quite a lot of people playing (most are around 4ln/vegeta level) so if you want to give QuakeWorld a try, get quake and hop on a server! And check us out on IRC: #qwplayers irc.enterthegame.com

Oh yeah, there is also a QWCA tourney that is gearing up. QWCA is slightly less demanding than QWDM (you spawn with armor and weapons, like RA3), so if you want to try, thats the time and place.

Anyway, the final standings are:

1. KovaaK
2. Kev
tied 3/4. sane/squeeze
tied 5 to 8. 4ln/FayD/lithium/vegeta


The Brasilieros (vegeta and 4ln) actually held their own against the top seeds on the Brazil home map Dm6, which is nice to see. Sane actually had a lack-luster performance (compared to the last 1on1 NA tournament where he defeated the entire AG lineup) which could partially be attributed to fluctuating pings. Kev shined, although could not take the pressure or the fluctuating pings and could not finish the finals vs KovaaK. And finally, KovaaK dominated the night. Even with 200ms.

For the curious, here are some statistics (I had a couple minutes of free time during my lunch break today ...)

Most played map first, with frag statistics:

Aerowalk is quite popular these days in the states, and turns out some fairly close matchups as well as high frag counts. ZtnDm3q was played only once, but that does not include its second pick in the final, because Kev /quit during that game

Aerowalk (5 times) (40 total frags per game) (16 frag difference per game)
Dm6 (3 times) (22 total frags per game) (10 frag difference per game)
Dm2 (3 times) (15 total frags per game) (8 frag difference per game)
Dm4 (2 times) (46 total frags per game) (38 frag difference per game)
ZtnDm3q (1 times) (29 total frags per game) (11 frag difference per game)


Player with highest fragrate per map first:

KovaaK takes this statistic fairly easily, with Kev and lith in tow.

KovaaK (26 frags per map)
Kev (21 frags per map)
lithium (17 frags per map)
sane (15 frags per map)
FayD (11 frags per map)
squeeze (9 frags per map)
vegeta (10 frags per map)
4ln (4 frags per map)


Highest difference per map player first


KovaaK wins this statistic hands down. Everyone else, (except Kev) actually scored less frags than deaths on average. (Which makes sense since everyone else either lost all or half of their games.)

KovaaK (22 frag difference per map)
Kev (8 frag difference per map)
FayD (-2 frag difference per map)
sane (-3 frag difference per map)
lithium (-4 frag difference per map)
squeeze (-7 frag difference per map)
4ln (-22 frag difference per map)
vegeta (-23 frag difference per map)


Closest games first

The sane-lithium match up turned out to be quite close on Aerowalk. The first round Brazilian games on Dm4 were the biggest blow-outs.

sane (25) vs. lithium (23) on Aerowalk
Kev (14) vs. vegeta (11) on Dm2
sane (15) vs. lithium (10) on Dm6
squeeze (6) vs. FayD (0) on Dm2
Kev (20) vs. sane (11) on Aerowalk
KovaaK (18) vs. 4ln (8) on Dm6
Kev (20) vs. sane (9) on ZtnDm3q
KovaaK (15) vs. squeeze (-1) on Dm2
squeeze (15) vs. FayD (-1) on Dm6
FayD (34) vs. squeeze (17) on Aerowalk
KovaaK (35) vs. squeeze (9) on Aerowalk
KovaaK (27) vs. Kev (1) on Aerowalk
KovaaK (34) vs. 4ln (0) on Dm4

Kev (50) vs. vegeta (8) on Dm4


Highest scoring games first

Dm4 and Aerowalk games dominate this list.

Kev (50) vs. vegeta (8) on Dm4
FayD (34) vs. squeeze (17) on Aerowalk
sane (25) vs. lithium (23) on Aerowalk
KovaaK (35) vs. squeeze (9) on Aerowalk
KovaaK (34) vs. 4ln (0) on Dm4
Kev (20) vs. sane (11) on Aerowalk
Kev (20) vs. sane (9) on ZtnDm3q
KovaaK (27) vs. Kev (1) on Aerowalk
KovaaK (18) vs. 4ln (8) on Dm6
sane (15) vs. lithium (10) on Dm6
Kev (14) vs. vegeta (11) on Dm2
KovaaK (15) vs. squeeze (-1) on Dm2
squeeze (15) vs. FayD (-1) on Dm6
squeeze (6) vs. FayD (0) on Dm2

Wow, thx for this great coverage. I was lucky enough to watch some of these games and even listen to SYN (with a delay of 20 seconds ) But I saw some nice moves from kov, it didnt see yet. Nice to see that the play ztndm3q. And do you know, was Fakeshaft allowed ?

I believe Kov did not use fakeshaft, not sure about the others.

Nice with a NA tournament. I was a bit disappointed by the standard of the games though but i guess there aren't that many players around anymore. Maybe the finals were better too, stopped watching after Sane-lithium or something.

There was no fuss about fakeshaft.

And of course the demos are on CHTV: http://challenge-tv.com/?mode=demodetail&demo=33165

Yeah, some of the earlier matches weren't that great. But the community is very small and only a couple can be at the top. Kov put on a great display though. I would love to see him play against some Euros on LAN but the very mention of that will turn this into a typical reload "what if" thread.

phil, thanks for the news. glad to read that qw still has some activity in NA with some of the players even I can remember congrats to kov! btw, do fiend or zjz ever jump on the odd server? what about pg or def? glad to see sqz in those demos... makes me wonder about tk and dnx from quebec.

havent seen john or pg in a while but im sure they lurk. def is also mia. fiend is here and there, but also generally inactive. this just gives more chances to the new bloods to get their ownage in