The Euros are coming, ETL, Euros and the UK scene

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Guest

Guest
I’ve not posted here for a long long time. As a lot of you know I’ve been lying low for various reasons. Well its about time I posted something seeing as I used to post every other day
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I warn you - its a long post.

I want to address the ETL, the forthcoming influx of European tribes into the UK scene and
the feelings some people seem to have towards them.

For some people in the UK scene the very mention of the ETL makes them switch off. Now before I go on this is not a flame to ANYONE. This is just my observations of the scene at the moment. I’ve seen people in the UK scene’s reactions - from derision to total disinterest. People are entitled to their opinion and I respect other’s opinions unlike some people of late who I could mention.

Anyway this is how I see things -
When the ETL started it was very much Brit’s creation (he may dispute this but Brit was seen as the driving force behind the league). In fact the tribesplayers site and the ETL were deemed by many to be part of some EM masterplan or something. Brit and Vaggabond were the editor and deputy editor respectively and both HAPPENED to be in EM. Consequently from what I know, may people snubbed the site and the ETL as they seemed intertwined with EM. A few UK tribes signed up to the league but BR and BL (initially BL didn’t they then joined and left again in the blink of an eye) didn’t bother and I personally was disappointed by this, I wanted the best UK tribes to go and romp in Europe with the best Europe has to offer. Still that is their decision. Many joined nS and that is another topic entirely that is done and dusted as far as I am concerned - I voiced my feelings to Suds and Brit as soon as I heard about nS and whatever people think at least they are playing in the ETL.
Well as we know the league finally got under way and it quickly degenerated into a shambles. And believe it or not I am glad it did. Although some people in the UK scene were evidently rubbing their hands with glee at the thought of Brit and co landing head first in a world of shit, this led to a complete turnaround. The league was the subject of a takeover by the very people that participated in it - many European leaders such as Dauphin of MnO and E-Razor of AF and not forgetting Suds (how could I?) took over and have transformed the league into a workable, enjoyable COMMUNITY based league. Sure there were teething problems and yes SS (my tribe for those who do not know me) withdrew for about 3 hours (lol) but since then things seem to get better and better. And anyway a few incidents liven things up I suppose
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The last paragraph sounds like an advert for the ETL. Its not. I’m now moving onto my real point. If you participate in the UK scene and you think that everything is nice and cosy and the ETL and the Euro tribes are something to ignore then you are:
a) in for a shock (as I’ll explain later)
b) really missing out on meeting some damn nice people (on the whole hehe) and
c) missing playing against some of the most skilled tribes I have ever seen.
Its quite funny really - the whole thing reminds me of the Conservative Party’s stance on Europe - run away its the Euro’s! They’ll take over our leagues and control our brains! We’ll be forced to wear medium armour and only use blasters as directed in ETL rule 247 paragraph 5!
/me has tongue glued to side of cheek here
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Things are changing in the UK whether you like it or not. The Europeans are already here and I don’t mean the ETL. It seems that the xenophobes are losing the battle - Velvet has already opened up the WPTL to some European tribes and Poker and the UKTL admins are currently seeing how people feel about the Euros entering the UKTL. I personally think this is fantastic. It gives the leagues a new lease of life and gives UK tribes new unpredictable opponents and probably gives some of the UK people new guys and girls to flame
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For those who don’t know the Euro tribes cF, st and aL will now be playing in the next season of the WPTL. I don’t know much about aL, I do know that cF are a solid French team that can stomp on many the UK has to offer and that st are a young Finnish tribe who I think will do well also (just as long as they have learnt from a recent ‘experience’ when they played SS).
I better mention one thing that a few people have asked me lately before I wrap this up - ‘how come SS are not in the next season of the WPTL then?’. Well I am not the leader and its not my decision (and probably not my place to say), I can say that we debated the idea and decided to focus on Europe for the time being - this is not to say that we will not be entering the UK leagues again. Just that for now the ETL opens up new challenges for us and we seem to be doing quite bloody well actually, winning the majority of our games. I’m not saying we will win the league or anything just that we have performed well and that’s good
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Well I warned you that this was long and excuse me for it being a bit haphazard.
In summary:
- the ETL is now run by the people who participate in it - Season 1 is running smooth and is very enjoyable. Put away any pre-conceptions and consider entering Season 2 (the next season will be streamlined further as far as I know -see the ETL forum). Indications are that European tribes who didn’t enter the ETL for probably the same reasons that UK ones didn’t are entering next season - its taking off big time.
- Besides the ETL - the Euros are here in the UK NOW. Play them and learn something new - hell use the chance to practice your French GCSE or something ( I nearly called them ‘O’ levels - shows my age
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). Most speak better English than us hehe.
- Some reasons against the Euro tribes playing in the UK leagues I’ve heard are ‘we won’t have as much chance of winning x division in x league now’ and ‘the WP servers (or whatever) are meant to be for UK players’. Well sorry but that’s a load of bull - the UK servers are dominated by Americans late at night (BW mainly) and the rest of the time there are countless Europeans on WP, BW etc. AF and AFM spring to mind here and many untribed people I have met are French,German etc etc. Who cares if you are chucking discs at a German or a guy from Manchester (hmm tough choice as to who to kill first there hehe)? That’s xenophobe blinkered crap to be honest. As for the first reason - if you are worried about more competition then you better damn well practice. If you think you can win a league or division then you shouldn’t be afraid of who else is in there scrapping with you - go and fight - you WILL learn new tricks and tactics from new people.

Well all this as I said is how I see things, it’s my OPINION. I’m not saying that I or SS are holier than thou because we play in the ETL or anything like that. Do what you want to do - its your life and your tribe, and your opinion counts just the same as mine. Like I said at the beginning its not directed at anyone in particular, I know a hell of a lot of UK players are enthusiastic to the Euros playing in the UKTL and WPTL now. We’re not all little Tory boys wrapped in our little priceless scene
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By the way yes I hate the Conservatives and I am pro-European in real life. hehe
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The rant is over - thank God
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If you want to flame me feel free I don’t think I’ve written anything to deserve it but that doesn’t stop some people.
All I ask is that you consider the points I’ve made - the UK scene is good and healthy and I enjoy playing alongside some of the best people skillswise but more importantly I mean people with the best attitude and great personalities. We are just a small part of a community, you don’t have to get involved with the larger scene.
Finally if you think that the Europeans are a pushover you try playing against MnO - wow that’s all I can say about them.
Ok thanks for taking the time to read this and I want some juicy replies please (I probably won’t get one reply now!).
Take care
Sean -
AKA [SS-02}Xtro
European SS Friendly Person
 
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old.zach

Guest
Nice article Xtro

One thing you didn’t touch on is the difference in the state of telecommunications in the UK and Europe.

In the UK things are pretty bad at the moment with the majority of UK players having to play with modems and having their calls metered. As a result of this it is very expensive to play games on-line in the UK. This cost probably puts many people off from playing on-line games in the first place and those who do cant play as long as they’d like.

In parts of Europe on the other hand, things are much better as 10Mbit connections, cable modems, etc are cheep and available. Playing with these connections means not only will you have a ping of 30 or lower, but you can play for as long as you want. This means that gamers in Europe are far more likely to play on-line games, and will play them for longer than UK players will.

While the UK tribes community is small, it does have two excellent and well run leagues in the WPTL and UKTL. Most of the European tribes communities not have any local leagues to play in which is why the ETL means a lot more to the Euro tribes than it does to the UK ones.

‘if you think that the Europeans are a pushover‘ I don’t know who does but I certainly don’t there are loads of excellent clans out there, and many like MnO have vast experience from playing in the OGL.

As good as the Euro tribes are the US tribes are even better still, if you haven’t already I’d recommend downloading demos of the practically invincible US side the Imperial Elite [IE].

- Zach
 
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old.Coyote

Guest
Just to clarify (from an SS perspective) the main reason we are not entering into the next season of WPTL was because of the absolutely disasterous performance /pings/server crashes/lags we experienced last time.

I totally accept the Admins explainations and am not slagging them off here. Its just that even though ppl tried to explain it away, we had 60 - 70% of our team lagged out on a regular basis when playing on WPTL servers, and thats a mix of ISDN, Cable, ADSL and dial-up ppl...so it just became too frustrating for us.

We decided at the end of the last season that this was one league we would avoid the second time around just to avoid the same type of hassle and performance related screaming that took place. I mean - for crying out loud we get better performance on the QAMEX servers, and thats a miracle at the best of times
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We wish the league all the best and hope it works out for everyone. No disrespect intended here at all, just practical logic.

As for other leagues..yeah we will probably enter the UKTL when it comes back. That was a good set of games last season. Each other opportunity we will evaluate as they arise.

For now we are content with the ETL games. Thanks. Hope this clears up any misconceptions.




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________________
[SS-01]Coyote
European Ambassador
Starslayer Tribe http://starslayer.gibbed.com/starslayer.htm

"Abandon All Hope!"
 
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old.suds

Guest
As the match report on the BR v MnO game http://www.tribesplayers.co.uk/news/index.shtml#940279741 states there is a big difference in telecomunication systems abroad and here. Finland also "lags" slightly behind other countries like Denmark and Sweden.

As the ETL first season is over halfway, the state of the net has always and will always effect the games being played - being as we know totally inconsistent with pings to same server being good one week and bad the next, thats the net for you.

It is true that more european tribes are interested in the next season, which will have 30-40 entrants if commitment holds. I hope more UK tribes are willing to play in next season, the experience is good, and productive.

To clear one point, the ETL in its present format is totally backed by Brit, who is very happy with the group of admins running it. I am happy working with them and we learn more each week.

The success of this remains as it always will with every league, with the community.

Suds
 

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