Wednesday, August 30, 2006 

PB Pyramid League News

Filed under: Powerball

This was written by me and taken from the Powerball forums:

There's enough interest in this to take it to the next stage. If you want to be a cap mail me at ss_vorbis at yahoo.co.uk with your playing name, squad name and then I'll set you up on ScoreMaster. Once we have a minimum of four squads with a roster at least 15 (preferably 20) players we can go onto the next stage; Getting the rules down in stone and scheduling week 1.

I will let anyone sign-up as a cap, but if it doesn't look like you're going to get a roster I will cut your squad. The Important thing here is to get some stable squads playing every week. I'd rather have four solid rosters of 20 active players than seven or eight squads of half filled rosters who will no-show.

I've written a quick set of FAQ's on the blog:

http://subspaceblog.blogspot.com ... faqs.html

Just the basic information on how the league will work and how to get your squad signed up. I'll add more info to the page as we get closer to getting this off the ground. Don't forget it you do decide to cap a squad and you're looking for recruits to check out the PBPL sign-up page:

http://subspaceblog.blogspot.com ... sign-ups.html

I like the way this guy thinks. Good looking too. You can read the full thread here.


 

RSHL News

Filed under: Hockey Zone

I know you've all been waiting with baited breath on how the conferences are going to look for the RSHL regular season. Well Icevulture dropped this bombshell on Center Ice:

After much discussion, the BOD has decided to abolish conferences this season by a 2-1 vote with 1 of the members being indifferent, and the other unable to vote due to being preoccupied in real life. The LC also supported no conferences, in case some of you were unaware.

Although the no-conference format will not generate the same type of rivalry that a conference based league could have, the fact that you guys change teams so much almost nullifies that. Although I should mention that some teams have a similar core each season, the effort of making the conferences as even as possible was far outweighing any gains from having them. Next season we will re-evaluate the league and determine if we will stick with no conferences, or move back into a 2 conference format (or even a 2 conference 4 division format if the leagues were able to successfully merge).

I've given Judge the green light to go ahead and create a schedule. He is working hard to try and put out a 2 week schedule tonight, just so you guys know who you're playing to start off the season (which begins Tuesday Sept. 5). After that he'll take a day to relax and then work on releasing a schedule to show teams the first 8 or so games that they're playing. After some discussion, it was decided that releasing a full and complete schedule was not a great idea, as teams tend to want to change availabilities at the midway point of a season (because their school schedule changes the next semester, or for whatever other reason).

Another important note is that the season length is now going to be 22 games (instead of the 21 that was previously being planned). Teams will play every other team twice during the regular season. The top 6 teams in the league will still be making the playoffs with the top 2 teams earning a bye. The playoff schedule will be much tighter this season, as teams won't be able to schedule their own games 2 weeks apart. We're going to be trying to avoid the whole "take 1 month to play a 3 game series" scenario that the league encountered last season, and seasons before that. More on that when the playoffs draw nearer.

Makes sense to me. Since everyone plays everyone else in RSHL conferences have never been that big a deal. The only time they really mattered was for the RSHL all-star game. No news yet on how that's going to be worked out this season. Maybe they can go the same route as the NHL and have a North American team vs a European team. Could be interesting, although most Hockey Zone Euros play in the MSHL. The first three weeks of the season have also been published. Here's how it looks:


Week 1:

Tues Sept. 5th at 9 PM - hmm @ MC
Tues Sept. 5th at 10 PM - PH @ BA
Wed Sept. 6th at 10 PM - RT @ CR
Thurs Sept. 7th at 8 PM - DT @ BL
Thurs Sept. 7th at 9 PM - JT @ DS
Thurs Sept. 7th at 10 PM - SL @ Exe


Week 2:

Sun Sept. 10th at 8 PM - BL @ MC
Sun Sept. 10th at 9 PM - Exe @ hmm
Sun Sept. 10th at 10 PM - CR @ JT
Mon Sept. 11th at 9 PM - DT @ RT
Tues Sept. 12th at 8 PM - hmm @ BL
Tues Sept. 12th at 10 PM - MC @ CR
Wed Sept. 13th at 10 PM - JT @ RT
Thurs Sept. 14th at 9 PM - DS @ PH
Thurs Sept. 14th at 10 PM - BA @ SL


Week 3:

Sun Sept. 17th at 9 PM - DT @ PH
Sun Sept. 17th at 10 PM - DS @ SL
Mon Sept. 18th at 9 PM - MC @ DT
Mon Sept. 18th at 10 PM - DS @ Exe
Tues Sept. 19th at 9 PM - hmm @ CR
Tues Sept. 19th at 10 PM - BL @ BA
Wed Sept. 20th at 9 PM - SL @ JT
Wed Sept. 20th at 10 PM - BA @ Exe
Thurs Sept. 21st at 10 PM - PH @ RT


Don't forget to check out Center Ice for all your internet spaceship hockey goodness.


Tuesday, August 29, 2006 

Medicus' AML Round 7 Predictions

Filed under: Premier League

FnD pilot Medicus has found the German-to-English option on Babel Fish and used it to put up some round 7 predictions on the AML forums. You can read them here.


Monday, August 28, 2006 

'Exploit' Explained

Filed under: General News

So you read the Cheat or Lag? post below, checked out the videos, read the thread and you still didn't see what the fuss was about? Well join the club.

Turns out the problem was with Continuum 38. Apparently you could still enter Chaos with this client. If you remember a pre-release version of 39 was rushed out after a hideous prox bug in 38 was found. So people have been able to still enter the zone with 38 and play games with the prox bug still in effect. Now that you can no longer enter the zone with anything other than 39 things should be back to normal.

It bares saying that the prox bug is still there in 39. It's been fixed for bombs, but not for thors. I don't need to tell you that if a team-mate of yours half a screen away gets hit by a thor and it causes you to die. Fun stuff.

The thor prox bug is on the list of things to fix in the full release of 39, fuck knows when that will happen though unless PrittK decides to hand over the source code to someone else. Can't see that happening anytime soon.

You can read the thread started on the Premier forums here that explains the whole mess.


 

Odin's Round 6 Recap

Filed under: Premier League

Odin has put up his thoughts on yesterday's Pro games on e7. You can read them here and the feedback from them on the Prem forums here.


 

RSHL News

Filed under: Hockey Zone

This is taken from Center Ice and was written by Icevulture:

Thanks to input from the captain's in the captain's forum, combined with input from the Vangels today, we should have conferences (I wanted no conferences) drawn up by the end of tonight.

The regular season schedule will have its first game being played Tuesday September 5th. I don't know which teams will be playing yet because I haven't asked judge to make the schedule yet. Speaking of the schedule, I originally wanted a full season's schedule to be released in a one shot deal. Due to concerns with team's feeling they may need to change their availabilities at some point during the season, we'll be releasing only a portion of the schedule at a time. How big of a portion? Well I'd like to release half of it, but we'll see what we come up with.

Teams can expect the same pace as last season with the 3 games in 2 weeks scheduling in full force (maybe 4 in 2 weeks if your team postpones a game and has to catch up). Remember our season is going to be 21 games long with teams playing the 5 other teams in their conference 3 times each, and the 6 teams in the other conference only once.

You can find all the latest zone and league news on Center Ice.


 

Smooth's IML Player Rankings

Filed under: Premier League

FutureCrew squad cap Mr>$M00TH has trawled through the IML stats to put together some pilot rankings. It's interesting stuff and you can check it out here. You can check out the feedback to them on the IML forums here.


Sunday, August 27, 2006 

Buster's IML Round 6 Predictions

Filed under: Premier League

Just in the nick of time Ghostbuster has gotten his IML predicts up on The Buster Report. You can read them here.


 

Cheat or Lag?

Filed under: General News

Travis started this thread on the Premier forums earlier this week talking about a possible exploit on the current Continuum client. Today Reaem posted these two youtube vids showing what he was talking about:








Ignore the lame prox squares. I'm not sure I'm seeing anything here that isn't normal lag and damage dropping. So is it the server, is it Bobby D's connection, is it a cheat program or is it a Continuum bug - maybe related to the old prox bug?

You can read Reaem's thread on the forums where he posted these here.


Saturday, August 26, 2006 

Premier League Week 6 Schedule

Filed under: Premier League

Here's how tomorrow's games shape up:


Pro League Round 6

Exultant vs Unhallowed @ 2pm (Unh by 9.5)

Assassins vs NightBane @ 3pm (Ass by 6.5)

Starseed vs Sterling @ 3pm (SS by 2.5)

BIA vs Llamasery @ 4pm (BIA by 1.0)

Creation vs Fuel @ 4pm (Crea by 2.0)

Poke Her vs The Dark @ 9pm (TD by 1.0)


IML Round 6

CR Virgins vs Prospect (postponed by Pros)

Fly-NDeath vs Nightwatch @ 3pm (even)

FutureCrew vs Liquid Inc. @ 3pm (FC by 9.5)

ReDS vs Striker @ 4pm (ReDS by 2.5)

Secret vs StarFire Elite @ 4pm (SFE by 5.5)

(IMLLamasery have a bye)


AML Round 6

Fly-NDie vs ReDS-AML @ 2pm (ReDS by 0.5)

StarFire Academy vs SkyRakers @ 4pm (SFA by 1.5)

Warlords vs BECNHERS UNITE @ 5pm (BU by 5.5)


Don't forget you can find all the latest league news on the Premier League website.


Friday, August 25, 2006 

Vorbometer Predictions For IML Round 6

Filed under: Premier League

The Vorbometer is almost firing on all cylinders again. For round 5 it went 4-1, the third straight set of predictions I've gone and-one, still waiting for that perfect round. The game I called incorrectly was FutureCrew over Llamasery 6-4. I did say that with their new recruits FC could be the squad to beat in the second half of the season, but I didn't expect them to gel so quickly. In the other games Prospect and SFE took care of their opponents (Striker and ReDS) easily, the LI revival lasted exactly one week as they went back to only showing three again in losing 12-0 to FnD and Nightwatch almost had another OT upset of a big squad before going down 5-3 to CRV.

I hate to say it, but the MVP of the round was DeathKnight. He went 6-1 with 2 KO's and 1 forced rep in Prospect's win over Striker. The LVP of the round has to go to NW cheerleader-in-chief Kejami. In a vorbis-like performance he managed to play the whole 49 minutes of the game without making a kill or dying before getting taken out in OT. He did manage to force two reps though, which is two more than I usually get.

So here's how the Vorbometer foresees round 6 of IML, which this week is brought to you by Metallica lullabies:


Fly-NDeath (2-2) vs Nightwatch (2-3)
$$$ Game of the week $$$

What the hell is wrong with Nightwatch? Don't they read my predictions? I keep telling them they're a stale squad of over the hill vets who should of moved on to Pro season's ago and faced a fresh challenge instead of treading intermediate waters. Yet they still try and compete and almost beat top of the standings CRV last Sunday. You guys need to take more notice of what I say.

This is a hard game to call as it really comes down to who shows. Both these teams don't have much in the way of depth to compete with the top four, but they do have some very solid starters that can get the job done. If both teams show their best then it's going to be a very tight game which will probably end up in overtime. If either squad has to look to their bench to fill their #3 or #4 slot then it could be over very quickly. The game is that balanced.

I'm going to go with FnD in this one as the game has been scheduled for 3pm EST. NW have traditionally been a late night squad and that early time could hurt their showing more.

Vorbometer: 9-8 Fly-NDeath
Key players: Noobie (FnD), Tarnished Silver (NW)
Watch out for: another Kejami choke in overtime.


FutureCrew (1-3) vs Liquid Inc. (0-5)

Since no-one cares about this game and the only question is will LI show two or three this round lets talk about Prospect for a bit. what are they up to? Why all the postpones? What kind of strategy are they following? Will it work? Do Prospect have more colours of P banners than Victimise had colours of V banners? Who was that masked man?

In a Vorbometer exclusive I can reveal exactly what's going on. I've worked out what Sumi is up to. He's trying to kill DeathKnight.

If you remember at the start of the season I said that no squad could win a Premier League title with DeathKnight on the roster. He always chokes it up in the playoffs and takes his team down with him to fat wife hell. I still stand by that. Happily Sumi also knows this and has come up with a cunning plan. With all these big games in the make-up round for Prospect to play back-to-back I don't think DK can take it. All that choke potential, all those random thors flying all over the fucking shop. I don't think his brain is going to be able to handle it and somewhere around the five to ten minute mark in the SFE game his head is going to explode.

Premier League will be postponed for a week so we can all mourn the passing of the idiot and then Prospect can go into the playoffs without DK holding them back. Brilliant. You know ... maybe I should stop writing this predicts while Law & Order Criminal Intent is on the TV in the background.

Vorbometer: 12-0 FutureCrew
Key players: whichever two show up for LI
Watch out for: DK brain splatter. I recommend some kind of hat


ReDS (1-3) vs Striker (2-3)

It's a Bad reunion, except the ex-Bad on ReDS are playing good, while the ex-Bad on Striker are playing ... er ... bad. I didn't see the games last Sunday, but going on the score and the log it looks like Striker still haven't got any kind of teamwork going for them and against a squad with the depth and practice ethic of ReDS it's not going to change here.

After a 12-2 loss to Prospect last weekend, expect another lopsided score. And no, I don't know how Striker have a better record than ReDS at this point in the season. It's just one of those questions that will never be answered. Like how come Don Cherry has managed to go through half the season without going totally apeshit and ?squadleaving during a match then going to spec to tell everyone how crap his squad is?

Vorbometer: 12-2 ReDS
Key players: Bronx (ReDS), bho (Stkr)
Watch out for: The PB Pyramid League. All the cool kids are going to sign up.


StarFire Elite (4-0) vs Secret (2-2)

rape /reyp/

–noun
1.the unlawful compelling of a woman through physical force or duress to have sexual intercourse.
2.any act of sexual intercourse that is forced upon a person.
3.statutory rape.
4.an act of plunder, violent seizure, or abuse; despoliation; violation: the rape of the countryside.
5.Archaic. the act of seizing and carrying off by force.
–verb (used with object)
6.to force to have sexual intercourse.
7.to plunder (a place); despoil.
8.to seize, take, or carry off by force.
–verb (used without object)
9.to commit rape.

Vorbometer: 12-1 StarFire Elite
Key players: Garcon, Hedcase8 (SFE)
Watch out for: acts of plunder


Thursday, August 24, 2006 

SS Jackpot SVS

Filed under: General News

You may of noticed this zone already on one of the advertising banners at the top and bottom of this blog. I checked it out for the first time today, took a few screenshots and spoke to zone owner LC. Here's what he said:


L.C.> hey vorbis
vorbis> hi
vorbis> just taking some screenshots. About to do a write up for the blog
L.C.> population hasnt really grown since my PC doesnt work any more
L.C.> :S
L.C.> I think my CPU died
L.C.> Heh.
vorbis> to get SVS players in here you really need SSC billing, the blog might help though
L.C.> Heh. :)
L.C.> It sounds very logical.
L.C.> Statistics/leagues and stuff.
vorbis> is it on any billing right now?
L.C.> my public biller which is on a dedicated server on OC48
vorbis> maybe you shoulf try a jackpot event night, I'll publise it for you. That might get people here, but it will be tough without any kind of billing
L.C.> This zone is connected to my public biller - you can find a thread about it on Shanky Server Forums (forums.minegoboom.com). It's established on a dedicated server on an OC48 connection. Very strong indeed. Server itself is like Dual Xeons or...
L.C.> ...something, each clocked at about 3600mhz. 2GB RAM I think.
vorbis> the problem is all the other SVS zones are SSC
L.C.> Indeed. ^^ The public biller is fully established with a database and all.
L.C.> SSCX primarily.
vorbis> all of svs is on priitk's server now
L.C.> I made the first 4 or 5 pages of F1 help too. :L.C.> The first part (letter) might need some color revision
L.C.> Otherwise it's my simple introduction.
vorbis> looks good
vorbis> got my pics, I'll do the right up now, I'll also add this chat as a little interview too
L.C.> Hehe
L.C.> I originally started this zone sometime in 2004
L.C.> I ran this for a time period in 2004, and successfully gained a daily population of approximately 8 players, and a peak of 15. It went offline due to malicious attacks, I lost its files.
L.C.> In 2005 I decided to try again, from scratch because I had to. I successfully rebuilt the zone spending numerous hours finding my resources for this zone. Back then it wasn't as organized as it might be today.
vorbis> are you trying for SSC Billing?
L.C.> It later went down because I lost interested, I quickly fell back into 3D Gaming, as I had been since I quit in 2004.
L.C.> I came back about 2 months ago, I retired from 3D Gaming because I got tired of it.
L.C.> Heh, from what I last heard, SSC was full.
L.C.> So I didn't really attempt to search for SSC Hosts.
L.C.> This is basically the 3rd Attempt at running this zone, and this time I won't let the chance get away.
vorbis> it's a lot tougher than it used to be
L.C.> I won't shut this zone down, ever, nor give it up.
vorbis> hope it pans out for you. It's not easy though. I was on staff in the last two attempts to get Turf Arizona back up
L.C.> 1stStrike, regardless of what some people think of him for what he did to end his reputation, replied to one of my private messages giving me an encouraging piece of advice.
L.C.> I'm checking my inbox folder to retrieve the quote.
vorbis> 1st was zone owner the first time, and he and testtube ran it the 2nd
L.C.> This is what 1stStrike advised me after I had asked him for it, word for word: "Never give random people sysop. Make a good zone and keep at it and eventually it'll get popular by word of mouth. My zone was never an instant success. It took a..."
L.C.> ."...lot of time and work for it to grow." -1stStrike
L.C.> I believe those words, and I truly believe I put together a good zone. It is only in the player's mind to decide its long-term fate.
L.C.> But regardless of what it becomes, I will remain at its side and support it.
vorbis> I never understand why people look for staff before they look for population
L.C.> I didn't look for staff. I only hired blue_monday because he was quite loyal and has proven it. I trust he is capable of maturely taking care or protecting this zone when I'm not here.
L.C.> It finally came to mind a little later after thinking of 1stStrike's advice and hiring blue_monday..It struck me very clearly.
L.C.> For those that just randomly come in and ask to be a staff member, they have nothing to prove of how worthy they are.
L.C.> They haven't proven you that they are part of the zone.
L.C.> It's my policy and philosophy.
L.C.> This zone doesn't quite have a bot, maybe it's because I'm not humble enough to lonely accept a MERVbot.
vorbis> A bot would help, specially with low pop.
L.C.> One of the plans I had in mind for this zone was to restore some of how Subspace was played back then. I had been told by older players than I that the person in the arena with the most points had the ability to use the Nightwasp.
L.C.> MERVbot might have a plugin for that, but I guess I can't fight it since I can't construct this zone a bot of its own with particular features.
L.C.> By nature when I work on a project, I usually like to construct almost every bit of it, leaving as little 3rd Party away.
vorbis> There is a plug in for it, DZA used to run it in pub. It takes the place of the shark
vorbis> I think Underlord coded the bot himself though, not sure if it was a merv
L.C.> I had one player come in here and claim they would make a bot through Underlord's bot tutorial...however I had doubted that, and can conclude my doubt is proven correct.
vorbis> ok, I got all the screenshots convert. Anything else you want to add before I make the post?
vorbis> coverted*
L.C.> I don't know. :p I think it's fine as you write it with whatever material you have recieved.
L.C.> Too much said would be too much detail, thus a liability for making a slightly negative impact.


Here's all the screenshots I took while we were chatting:








The zone has a real old-school feel about it with the original subspace ship graphics and the 1280 res cap, but not being on SSC billing is going to hurt it. You can find out more information about the zone on the SS Jackpot SVS website. If LC takes my advice and tries to set up a weekly Jackpot event I'll post about here.

For now go check the zone out and wallow in some Subspace nostalgia.


 

WZ Cup Week 3 Schedule

Filed under: Warzone

Vorbis, you say. We want to partake in some capture the flaggage action on a small map setting in an 8v8 scenario and maybe win some sort of cup. People, I say. You can this coming Sunday in SSCX Chaos/League in ?go wzcup and/or ?go wzcup2 and here's the schedule:


ReDS vs NightBane @ 2pm

BLaCK STaR vs United Kindred @ 2pm

Opulence vs Elder Clan @ 3pm


All times are in EST and you can find all the latest league news on the WZ Cup forum.


 

Vorbometer Predictions For AML Round 6

Filed under: Premier League

Last week's predictions saw me going 2-1 again (still waiting for that 3-0). I called the BU/SFA game wrong. BU only showed three, then ebola lagged out after 1m 40secs of game play and SFA cruised to a 12-0 win inside 12 minutes. In the other two games Fly-NDie took care of Warlords easily 12-4 and SkyRakers showed some post-JackMove signs of life before going to down 12-8 to ReDS.

For the round MVP I'm going to go with FnD's Medicus who went 6-2 with 1 KO and 1 forced rep. The round LVP comes from the same game. North Star, who was coming off a 5-2 MVP performance in round 4, managed to go 0-3 with 1 forced rep and a dire 5 wasted rep in 8 minutes of sucky game play. The rest of WL weren't that much better. ZoAnimus (4-3) was the only player who managed to get any kills for them.

With the first third of the season over the standings are as close as most expected. With all teams playing each other once FnD, BU and ReDS lead with 3-2 records and SR, SFA and WL are all only one game behind at 2-3. Remember there's still the matter of the two SkyRakers games to be replayed or forfeited to take into account.

I promised myself to keep off the sports analogies this season and so far I've managed to, but I'm about to slip up. Premier League seasons are usually like the NFL. You play a regular season with the squads normally split into divisions, then you have the playoffs and then you have your final. This season of AML is more like MLB. Each squad is playing a three game series against the others. And those series' results are going to decide the top two squads as I'd be very surprised if tiebreakers weren't used to split the teams. So this section of the regular season is going to see squads looking to take two game leads or tie their series up and keep in contention for the final third of the season.

So on with my round 6 predicts, which this week is brought to you by fisting and God's will.


Fly-NDie (3-2) vs ReDS-AML (3-2)
$$$ Game of the week $$$

(previous game: 12-6 ReDS)

A win here for ReDS will give them a two game lead in their regular game series over FnD and a real boost for their chances of making the finals. But it could prove to be an even bigger game for FnD. With a loss to BU already, another loss to ReDS could force them to win out the rest of the season as their two main rivals for a finals spot will hold the tiebreaker advantage over them.

More bad news for FnD is that ReDS now look to have the most settled starting line in AML. With Army, Papa T, Super Bunny and Zhule set as their starters ReDS are starting to become the squad to beat this season. FnD are coming off a big win over WL so their confidence is going to be high and Burnt Special is a smart enough captain to make sure that his squad knows how important it is to them not to give two wins away to ReDS, but with those question marks against their bench still there after the BU loss (FnD made no subs last Sunday) I think ReDS will just pull away to take it at the end. I'm expecting one of the closest games in AML so far this season, well worth your time speccing.

Vorbometer: 10-7 ReDS-IML
Key players: Zhule (ReDS), Zash (FnD)
Watch out for: FnD subs. They have to make one eventually.


StarFire Academy (2-3) vs SkyRakers (2-3)
(previous game: 12-5 SR)

That win for SR is one of the JackMove games so it's not clear what's going to happen. I think these middle games are going to decide SR's season and if they'll replay those first two games. If they can pick up a couple of wins I think they're more likely to take the option of replaying them in the make-up round. If they continue to lose I think they'll just take the forfeits.

And going to on their performance last week they could get those wins. They still miss JackMove leading the line and they have problems with their #4 slot, but with a real lead-by-example performance from captain kawika (5-3 with 1 KO) last round they almost upset ReDS. The biggest disappointment for me so far has been the performance of GeminiGirl who again played well below her ability going 1-3 and dying out at the 28 minute mark. Looks like she's running on hempty (geddit?!?!?).

I can't really rate SFA from their win last Sunday. Four monkeys randomly hitting the keyboard would of put up a better performance than BU did. I know I keep calling a SR upset in these predictions, but this week I think they're going to do it as long as GeminiGirl steps her play up and becomes the heart and soul (geddit?!?!?) of their starting line.

Vorbometer: 12-10 SkyRakers
Key players: Thizzen (SFA), GeminiGirl (SR)
Watch out for: More hints by me that are as subtle as a sledgehammer


Warlords (2-3) vs BENCHERS UNITE (3-2)
(previous game: 12-2 BU)

BU are still proving impossible to predict. Coming into last weekend with wins already over ReDS and FnD BU were starting to look like title favourites. So what happens? They show three, have one lag out to make it 2v4 and get royally stomped. Still no sign of squad caps Beef and Phil which I think is starting to hurt them. You can only turn up and play a couple of minutes before each game and win so many times before you end up with what happened last Sunday. I can't see them having two bad showings in a row though which is going to be bad news for Warlords.

In their first game against each other Warlords did exactly what BU did last Sunday. They showed three, then one lagged out to make it 2v4 and they got royally stomped. I'm expecting both teams to show this Sunday and I'm also expecting more royal stompage. This time by BU over WL to take an unassailable two game lead in their series. Unassailable, that's a good word. I need to use it more.

Vorbometer: 12-3 BENCHERS UNITE
Key players: Darq (BU), ZoAnimus (WL)
Watch out for: The return of the unassailable a terrier. Can you believe he missed last Sunday's games and so did I. What are the odds of that?


Wednesday, August 23, 2006 

Reset Stats

Filed under: General News

I've decided to post the reset stat leaders for SVS zones on the blog from today onwards. I've added a link to the main menu. Click that or click this to check them out. There's also a quick explanation on there about why I've started doing it.

As it's a pretty long post I've decided to keep it off the main archive and opened up another month (Dec 2005) to keep them in. The Subspace Blog - the only blog that posts backwards in time.


 

Premier League Week 5 Gallery

Filed under: Premier League

I'm thinking of asking Mauler to hoover my flat and cut the grass for me since he seems to do everything else around here. While I was away building sheds last weekend and unable to watch any of the games Mauler has given me a few screenshots so we still have a gallery. Here they are:





I'll be back to my normal no-life Subspace speccing ways this weekend so expect a full gallery. If you want to submit some pics the best thing to do is convert them to .jpgs, host them on a free picture host then send me the links.


*Edit*

I should read my ?messages more closely. These pics are from week 4, not week 5. Today was the first time I've logged into subspace in 10 days which is why I assumed they were from last Sunday. I'll keep the pics up though since there's no week 5 gallery and a reminder to me what a moron I am.


 

PB Pyramid League

Filed under: Powerball

Take it from me, when you have ideas that seem great when you're drunk always wait until the morning before posting on a forum laying them out. Then you won't get stuck with trying to run a league in Powerball like I have this week.

Like all SVS zones Powerball lives and dies on it's leagues and since the move to ASSS there has been no leagues and the fights over the small/large public spawn continue. As there's no sign of a new league on the horizon and no-one on staff is willing to run one I've decided to offer my shitty services.

I'm looking to run a simple league along line of the Saturday Pyramid League in Prem. A knockout tourney to crown the first champions in week 1, then every week after that current champs face off against the winners of that week's tourney for the top spot of the pyramid.

If you're interested in playing or helping check out the two threads I've started on the PB forums here and here. I'll do some of the work on this blog, but most of the league will be run from ScoreMaster. I've already set a league up, you can check it out here, but there's not much to see yet.

Right now I'm looking for captains - we need at least four squads for this league to work - then to start filling out the rosters. There's enough appetite in PB for a league like this to work.


*Edit*

You may have noticed that the blog has grown an extra month. As I said above I'm going to use this blog for some of the league stuff. I'll backdate those pages to Jan 2006 to keep them out of the normal blog archive. I just put up a sign-up page at the suggestion of Sath to see how many people are interested and whether this will be a goer or not.


Tuesday, August 22, 2006 

Odin's Pro League Round 6 Predictions

Filed under: Premier League

Odin's round 6 predictions and recap of round 5 are up on e7. You can check them out here and read the feedback to them here.

Expect my first set of predictions of week up on the blog sometime tomorrow.


 

WZ Cup Week 2 Results & Standings

Filed under: Warzone

As with the Prem games there's no screenshot gallery as I was away last weekend and missed all the games. Here's how the round panned out:


Opulence bt BLaCK STaR
MVP: A mirror (Op) 39
2nd: Witlospock (BS) 20
3rd: Abadx (Op) 16
Game time: 12m 40sec

United Kindred bt ReDS
MVP: Papa T (UK) 24
2nd: P-Maverick (UK) 21
3rd: Maeniel (UK) 21
Game time: 17m 14sec

NightBane bt Elder Clan
MVP: LEGOMAN (NB) 103
2nd: riceboi (NB) 94
3rd: Nova (EC) 85
Game time: 44m 36sec


You can find the box scores to the three games here. Here's how the standings look:

Squad          Pnts
--------------------
Opulence 8
Nightbane 8
United Kindred 4
Elder Clan 4
BLaCK STaR 0
ReDS 0

Expect the week 3 schedule to be up in the next couple of days and I'll post it here as soon as it is. Don't forget you can keep up with all the latest news on the WZ Cup forums (I'm still refusing to call it the Intersteller Warzone Cup).


 

Premier League Week 5 Results

Filed under: Premier League

There's no screenshot gallery for this round as I was away last weekend building a shed (don't ask). Here's all the results and stats from Sunday. Thanks again to Mauler for getting most of the logs uploaded:


Pro League Round 5


Unhallowed bt Starseed 9-7
MVP: Benji (Unh) 4-2
LVP: Enforcer (SS) 0-2
Game time: n/a
game log

BIA bt Fuel 12-0
MVP: Masterlord (BIA) 4-0
LVP: fedu (Fuel) 0-1
Game time: 23:21
box score - game log

Assassins bt Llamasery 12-4
MVP: bRUt (Ass) 4-0
LVP: Razar (llamas) 0-3
Game time: 39:47
box score - game log

Creation bt Exultant 12-6
MVP: Maeniel (Crea) 5-1
LVP: Pempu (Exu) 0-3
Game time: 16:43
box score - game log

Poke Her bt Sterling 12-3
MVP: zoo (PH) 5-0
LVP: Cloud (Ster) 0-3
Game time: 43:30
box score - game log

The Dark bt NightBane 12-3
stats n/a


IML Round 5


StarFire Elite bt ReDS 12-4
MVP: neef (SFE) 3-1
LVP: Isengard (ReDS) 0-1
Game time: 43:45
box score - game log

Fly-NDeath bt Liquid Inc. 12-0
MVP: scorch (FnD) 4-0
LVP: Ra|m (LI) 0-3
Game time: 9:25
box score - game log

FutureCrew bt IMLlamasert 6-4
MVP: Exactman (llamas) 2-1
LVP: R.O.C.K. (llamas) 0-2
Game time: 45:00
box score - game log

CR Virgins bt Nightwatch 5-3 (in OT)
MVP: datah (CRV) 3-1
LVP: Covert Agent (NW) 0-1
Game time: 49:24
box score - game log

Prospect bt Striker 12-2
MVP: DeathKnight (Pros) 6-1
LVP: Felony (Stkr) 1-3
Game time: 19:25
box score - game log


AML Round 5


Fly-NDie bt Warlords 12-4
MVP: Zash (FnD) 4-1
LVP: North Star (WL) 0-3
Game time: 14:56
box score - game log

ReDS-AML bt SkyRakers 12-8
MVP: Zhule (ReDS) 4-2
LVP: Crudgiver (SR) 0-2
Game time: 44:09
box score - game log

StarFire Elite bt BENCHERS UNITE 12-0
MVP: Foxtrot (SFE) 2-0
LVP: DemonLemon (BU) 0-3
Game time: 11:47
box score - game log


Don't forget you can find all the latest league news, stats, standings and stuff at the Premier League website, the Premier League forums and MasterRater.


 

RIP Terrell

Filed under: General News

It's a very weird experience when someone you only know online dies, specially in a setting like Subspace - or any online game really - when you only know them as a spaceship sprite and by their gaming persona which could be a million miles from what they are really like as a person. There's always a chance of a hoax, but as this came completely out of leftfield I have no reason to believe that this isn't true.

Blackout wasn't my first WZ or WZL squad, but it was the first squad where I really learned how to play CTF properly. T.Mac was another new WZ'er on the squad. He was only 15-16yo then, but a good kid and fun to have on chat. We both went on to play for DOMINATION before he stopped playing ss.

I found out today that he died a couple of weeks ago at just 18. You can get more details on the thread his friend dMx started on the WZ forums here.


Sunday, August 20, 2006 

WZ Cup Week 1 Results & Week 2 Schedule

Filed under: Warzone

There's a change in how the WZ Cup is going to be run. From now on there will be no games on Thursdays - just on Sundays. Here's how last Sunday's games finished:


NightBane bt BlaCK STaR
MVP: HOLLYWEED (39)
Game time: 8m 17sec

Opulence bt ReDS
MVP: 3d (82)
Game time: 26m 43sec

Elder Clan bt United Kindred
stats n/a


You can read the box scores of the first two games here. There's no gallery this week as the only game I was at was the EC/UK game and I was playing in that. Here's how today's games look:


Opulence vs. BLaCK STaR @ 2pm

Nightbane vs. Elder Clan @ 2pm

United Kindred vs. ReDS @ 2.30pm


All times are in EST and will be played in SSCX Chaos/League. For all the latest WZ Cup news check out the WZ Cup forum.


 

Best Ban Ever

Filed under: Random Crap

Just read this on the SSForums:

I find alot of the bans going on to be a little excessive, not my place to say when someone does something stupid, but when the bans hit home, then its a problem. 2 days ago, I was banned, for the most ridiculus reason ever. The ban is still active (netban #1984). from the start basically, i shot a cat with a blow dart (yeah sure its not right, but when this wild cat pisses on your windshield, and takes a crap on your hood, you want it dead.) so i told Jericho24. (not to complain, but he does kill rats and mice for snake food) about it..

which inturn cased me to lose my sysop position of sscc desert storm. The job isnt important but once they remove/ban me from the zone. I'm sorry, my property comes with (www.dszone.net). If you look on the Registrant of the domain, it lists myself (David DeRenard). So once i took my domain cleaned it out, and forwarded it to a Dutch Gay Magazine Companys website, apparently that was grounds for a netwide ban.

In my understanding, anything in my PERSONAL life (outside of ss), can not be used to netban me. I have not broken 1 rule of the SSC ban policy. Im not posting this in hope of getting my ban lifted, that dont bother me. I just feel you should all know about it.

To all of you who have gave me a banfree, i respect you for that, and for following decent ban guidelines.

Current ban description: "Axed sysop of DS, took down DS website and forwarded to extremely pornographic websites. Ban authorised by SVS"

And for SVS, i realize you dont like me, thats your choice. But this was ridiculus, as a bang operator you yourself should stick to a decent set of guidelines.

-schitt

The day you can't shoot blow darts at cats then forward all your ss traffic to a Dutch hardcore gay porn site is the day this game dies. All sysops reading should give this man a banfree now. You can read the thread in full here and check out how the DS website looks by clicking here - you aren't automatically forwarded to the porn, you have to click the pic.


Saturday, August 19, 2006 

Premier League Week 5 Schedule

Filed under: Premier League

Here's all the games, times and point spreads for this Sunday:


Pro League Round 5

Starseed vs Unhallowed @ 2pm (Unh by 2.5)

BIA vs Fuel @ 2pm (BIA by 5.5)

Creation vs Exultant @ 4pm (Crea by 6.5)

Assassins vs Llamasery @ 4pm (Ass by 4.0)

Poke Her vs Sterling @ 5pm (PH by 2.0)

NightBane vs The Dark @ 9pm (NB by 6.5)


IML Round 5

Fly-NDeath vs Liquid Inc. @ 2pm (Fnd by 6.5)

FutureCrew vs IMLlamasery @ 4pm (llamas by 5.0)

CR Virgins vs Nightwatch @ 4pm (CRV by 2.0)

ReDS vs StarFire Elite @ 5pm (ReDS by 4.5)

Prospect vs Striker @ 7pm (Pros by 6.0)

(Secret have a bye)


AML Round 5

ReDS-AML vs SkyRakers @ 3pm (ReDS by 5.0)

StarFire Elite vs BENCHERS UNITE @ 3pm (BU by 5.0)

Fly-NDie vs Warlords @ 5pm (FnD by 3.5)


All times are in EST. Don't forget to check out the Premier League website and MasterRater for all the latest news, results and stats.


Thursday, August 17, 2006 

Vorbometer Predictions For IML Round 5

Filed under: Premier League

After a round break from predicting I returned last week and went 3-1. The game I called wrong was Nightwatch comfortably handling a Striker team whose problems look to be a little deeper than just bad subs. In the other games Liquid Inc. finally showed four to a game and were even competitive for a while (they were 2-3 down after 15 minutes) before CRV put their foot down and won 12-5. The match of the week turned out to be a bit of a damp squib as ReDS were all over Secret and won 12-4 and in the final game llamas took out FnD 6-2

The round MVP goes to bushes. He hasn’t shown much this season, in fact this might be his first regular season start (without full MR stats it’s hard to tell and I’m too lazy to check back on Mauler’s site). On Sunday he took all but two of llamas’ kills going 4-1 with 1 KO and three forced reps. With him and Exactman (who grabbed llamas other two kills in the game) llamas might actually get 12 kills in a single match.

The LVP of the round was an easy choice. When Whirl subbed in for Trash-killer at the 26 minute mark Secret were 5-2 down to ReDS, but not out of contention. 4 minutes later after going 0-2 with 1 wasted rep Whirl was out, Secret were 9-3 down and the game was over. Ouch.

So here’s my Intermediate predictions for round 5, which this week are brought to you by Jessica Biel’s ass:


CR Virgins (4-0) vs Nightwatch (2-2)

The Nightwatch cock is erect and proud and the IML community is sucking upon it mightily. Well excuse me if I don’t join the ‘Wow, NW are back and haven’t they all got cute asses!’ brigade. I watched almost all of their game against Striker and I wasn’t impressed. That was a game Striker threw away rather than NW taking hold of it and winning it. I still say NW look stale and will not be a threat to the top four in IML. Once I get hold of something I refuse to let it go, I don’t care if NW don’t lose another game all season.

CRV are currently on top of the top four right now, although that has more to do with ReDS week 1 upset and the SFE/Prospect game being postponed. CRV have the teamwork, they have the depth, they have the ability to strafe tall buildings in a single bound and their trash talk is coming along quite nicely too. Another thing they have this season is Steve_Zissou’s weasel. I’ve known Stevie for longer than I care to remember over a fair few number of squads and the thing you have to bare in mind is that to get the best out of him the rest of the starters really have to adjust to his playing style rather than him adjusting to the rest of the squad. When you do that Steve will give you an ungodly amount of kills in a game (plus a couple of stupid deaths, but you just have to live with that) and as that’s exactly what happened last week (6-2 over LI) it looks like CRV have worked out how to play with him. Expect a lot more Stevekills to come.

Talking of weasels, whatever happened to Covert Agent? I remember the first few seasons of IML Covert’s weasel was fun to spec. He would run perm X and anti, go afk for periods as he was capping the squad as well as starting every game and he just wouldn’t die while guaranteeing you at least three kills per game. At that time he was the best weasel in Premier League. Now look at him. Pretty much what happened to the rest of NW. You should of gone to Pro.

Vorbometer: 12-5 CR Virgins
Key players: Steve_Zissou (CRV), Covert Agent (NW)
Watch out for: me managing to go through a whole CRV prediction without mentioning Peen once. Oh shit =(


Fly-NDeath (1-2) vs Liquid Inc. (0-4)

So LI finally show 4 to a game for the first time all season. If more majorum starts to show up they might actually win a game before the season ends. Not here though.

Vorbometer: 12-5 Fly-NDeath
Key players: Noobie (FnD), Predictor (LI)
Watch out for: LI making a sub!1!!1!ONEHUNDREDANDELEVENTY


FutureCrew (0-3) vs IMLamasery (1-2)
$$$ Game of the Week $$$

My main interest in this game is seeing how the new look FutureCrew (FutureFutureCrew?) will play together for the first time coming out of their bye week. For those of you who missed my Premier transactions post FC have been the most busy squad between the locks. In addition to roark they’ve also picked up coast and Grinder, along with winning the JackMove lottery. If you don’t know the story JackMove (Belt) started the season in AML with SkyRakers. It was then found out that he didn’t have an AML ranking and was kicked out of the league. As the staff saw this as a mistake rather than any deliberate move to cheat he was allowed to join an IML or Pro squad this season. I have it on good authority that a bitter AML bencher for life who is also on the AML rankings panel ratted him out. Don’t know their name though.

This season’s llamas of IML have something very few llama squads have had in the past. Teeth. I didn’t see much of their game last week, but I was impressed by the copious use of the forwardarrow by bushes. Maybe he’s been spurred on by the fact he wasn’t added to the llamas of Pro. I know I’d be pissed if someone thought Mortok was a better player than me.

FutureCrew now have a very solid looking starting four with their late recruits added to the seven year itch, but I don’t think they’re quite ready to take on the tight teamwork from llamas of IML. They could turn into a real spoiler squad down the stretch though.

Vorbometer: 9-5 IMLlamasery
Key players: JackMove (FC), bushes (llamas)
Watch out for: Teeth!


Prospect (2-0) vs Striker (2-1)

So Speed has been mutinized and is no longer cap’n, and while he takes his rowing boat back to Belguim Mr. Serrate is in charge of all things Striker. But after watching their last game I no longer think bad capping is the source of all their problems. Although they did make one bad sub (Maytag for crazyman when majeure was available) they just don’t seem to have any teamwork going for them at all, which is surprising when the backbone of this squad has played together for years on Bad and Blasphemy. Maybe it’s a clash of egos (Pretender could piss off his own reflection) or maybe it’s down to inactivity, but Striker just can’t seem to gel as a team and against a squad with the skill and depth of Prospect that means wipeout.

Vorbometer: 12-2 Prospect
Key players: Mitsubishi (Pros), Serrate (Stkr)
Watch out for: DeathKnight, BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA


ReDS vs StarFire Elite

Most people will have this down as the game of the week, but I think SFE take this easily for a couple of reasons. First of all if you read my AML predictions you know I think ReDS are playing as many people in each game as they can knowing that they’ll make the playoffs anyway. Yes, they will make the playoffs – they’re just that good – but they’re not going to beat teams like SFE on the way unless they use their best four.

Secondly is the CRV factor. The talk on the IML forums recently has all been about the current leaders in the standings. Coming off the Prospect postponement I think SFE will want to make a statement to CRV, Prospect and the rest of IML. That statement is ‘We’re mad as hell and we’re not going to take it anymore’, or maybe it’s ‘Get these motherfucking snakes of this motherfucking plane’. Whatever it is it means that ReDS are going to get SHReDDeD.

Vorbometer: 12-5 StarFire Elite
Key players: P-Mav (ReDS), Garcon (SFE)
Watch out for: Snakes on a Plane.


 

RSHL & MSHL Start Times

Filed under: Hockey Zone

This is written by Icevulture and taken from the front page of Center Ice:

Teams may or may not have read some of the changes in the S13 rulebook, so I'm going to point out one of the bigger changes happening this season. Rather than having 10PM games get delayed, and delayed, and delayed some more so that they start at 10:40PM or something stupid like that, we're going to have the games starting at the times that they're scheduled to start. The referee training guide has the following in it:

-Games should be STARTING at the time they are scheduled
-If a game is scheduled for 7PM, it should not be getting announced to the zone at 7PM or 7:02 PM, it should be getting announced at 6:50PM and starting at 7PM

Consider this your formal announcement about this rule change. You need to get your teams online and ready to go so that the game can start ON TIME. If a team cannot show 4 or more people by the time the clock gets to the time your game is supposed to start, you will forfeit. If you can show enough people to your game, but they're having lag problems, the refs can wait for things to clear up so that he can start since your team had enough people when the game was scheduled to start. There are limits to how long the ref should be waiting though. I'm not going to put a firm number like "5 minutes" up there or anything, because it depends on the circumstances of the situation.

Games SHOULD be getting announced to the zone about 10 minutes earlier than they're scheduled to start, give or take a few minutes. The important thing to remember is to have your team ready to go on time so that the puck can drop when it's scheduled to drop. This rule not only makes it easier to figure out how long you're going to be playing your league game, but it's going to make things easier on the refs since they'll be able to finish the average game within the 1 hour time slot so that if they feel like helping goal judge the next game, they have the ability to do it.

I've got a feeling that a lot of squads are going to have lag problems in pre-game. Although to be fair WZL had the same problems with start times and did a lot to fix it last season and by using the same method of calling games earlier. in Premier League the system is slightly different. The game is called when the match is scheduled and the ref then starts a ten minute timer. The squad caps can agree to start at any time in this period once they're ready, but the ref will start the game when the ten minutes are up as long as both squads have at least two slots filled.


 

Doyle's IML Round 5 Predictions

Filed under: Premier League

O'Doyle has slapped together some predictions and posted them on The Buster Report. You can read them here.


 

WDT Main Event

Filed under: Dueling Arizona

This was written by jae and taken from the WDT website:

Event: World Dueling Tournament Main Event

Date: Saturday, September 30th, 2006

Time: 2pm EST (Eastern Standard Time)

Venue: SSCX Chaos/League Zone SVS @ ?go WDT

Type: Invitational with Open Signups

Prize: $50 US. Payments will be made by Paypal, or delivered by mail. (Cash/Prizes may change without notice)


More information:

We are extremely excited to announce our first ever World Dueling Tournament event. Be sure to go check out arena WDT in SSCX Chaos/League Zone SVS and get a feel for the environment and style before playing in this tournament. Right now, the arena has been created to provide a Dueling Arizona pub so pilots do not have to green! Just pub around, duel, and chat.

If you're interested in taking part you need to register a name on the WDT site.


Wednesday, August 16, 2006 

Odin's Pro League Round 5 Predictions

Filed under: Premier League

After taking a break for the last round Odin is back with his Pro predictions on e7. You can check them out here and read this thread for all the feedback to them.

I'm planning to get my IML predictions up on the blog sometime tomorrow and my own Pro picks on Friday.


 

Premier League Transactions

Filed under: Premier League

If you can remember back to the start of the regular season in Premier League I made this post about the first roster lock. This Sunday was the second and final lock. The rosters are now fixed for the rest of the season. No player can join or leave a squad now.

So here's what player movement there was between the locks in all three leagues:


Pro League


Leak (joined Unhallowed, left Unhallowed, joined Fly-NDie, left Fly-NDie, joined Unhallowed)
If I was playing for one of the top two teams in Pro I'd also like to leave and spend a few days on an AML feeder squad before going back. What the hell was that all about?

Tardcart (joined NightBane)
A good pickup for NB. If they are going to win any games this season in Pro it will be with Tardcart starting and leading the attacks.

Senior (joined Unhallowed)
The biggest regular season transaction. Unh still can't match Assassins in terms of depth, but the addition of Senior give’s them a starting four that can give Ass some competition and solidifies their status as the #2 squad in Pro.


IML

Fists (joined Nightwatch)

Grinder (joined FutureCrew)
A big pickup.

Coast (joined FutureCrew)
A bigger pickup.

roark (joined FutureCrew)
The biggest pickup.

JackMove (left SkyRakers, joined FutureCrew)
So SkyRaker’s loss is FutureCrew’s gain. The hunter becomes the hunted. The aml’er becomes the iml’er. The warbird becomes the weasel. The belt becomes the belted. I’ll stop now.

Entertainment (joined nobody)
Poor old Corporal Canada, not even NW wanted him. I wonder if a certain article in a certain blog put off prospective captains from offering him a spot? I’d be gutted if I had anything to do with keeping the dueler from Venice Beach from playing internet asteroids this season. No, really.


AML

1st (joined BENCHERS UNITE)
The addition of 1st gives BU a real WZ flavour this season. Also, watch out for a lev turrent in at least one regular season game.

Hoobastank (joined Fly-NDie)

Thizzen (joined StarFire Academy)
Another WZ’er who’s come over to 4v4. Hopefully with the WZ Cup being played in Chaos currently we’ll start to see this work the other way too.

equinocs (left FutureCrew, joined Fly-NDie)
I would of said this is a good pickup by FnD before last Sunday, now (see AML predictions below) … not so much.


 

Buster's IML Round 5 Predictions

Filed under: Premier League

Ghostbuster's second IML predictions are now up on The Buster Report. You can read them here and feedback to them here. They're a very good read. Also, look out for predictions from Datah and Doyle on the blog later in the week.


Tuesday, August 15, 2006 

Vorbometer Predictions For AML Round 5

Filed under: Premier League

My return to amateur subspace predictions last week saw me going 2-1. I picked BU over FnD and ReDS over SFA while missing Warlords over SkyRakers. Looks like they’re going to miss JackMove more that I first thought.

The MVP of the round was an easy choice to make. When a beer subbed in for BU (for some scrub called a terrier) they were losing 7-2. Beer then went on a tear, going 4-0 with 5 forced reps to lead his team back and take the win 12-8. The LVP comes from the same game and is shared between the four FnD subs. Argome (0-2 and 3 wasted reps in 3 minutes), Over Kill (0-1 after 2 minutes) and Burnt Special (0-2 and 2 wasted reps after 3 minutes) threw away a five kill lead and the chance to go atop the AML standings. Only equinocs (1-2 after 20 minutes) managed to show any offense.

So here’s my week 5 predictions for the Amateurs of Premier League, which this week is brought to you by True Saints. Amen.


Fly-NDie (2-2) vs Warlords (2-2)
$$$ Game of the Week $$$

WL cruised to an easy win over SkyRakers while – as you already know – FnD threw away a 5 kill lead in losing to BU. If last Sunday’s game taught us anything it’s that FnD’s starters are head and shoulders above their bench. FnD’s first mistake was subbing out Uni, who is their best player by far, for equinocs. Their second mistake – and biggest - was subbing in Over Kill for Zash when Zash hit zero reps on his last life. Over Kill was over-matched, over-awed, over-rated and lots of other words that start with over-. He choked and died out easily and the team just collapsed from there.

There are teams that will play their bench and not mind if they lose a few games along the way as long as they qualify for the playoffs. ReDS in IML look like they’re going to do that this season. The problem with running a squad like that in AML is that there are no playoffs, just the top two squads moving onto the finals. If this is the way FnD want to do things (and as they are a feeder squad to FlyNDeath it’s no bad idea) they must be very careful against which squads and at what times they play their bench. Depending on other results the winner of this game could go into second place, if FnD do the same thing here as they did against BU they could drop another game and drop out of the top two.

I can’t see them falling into the same trap again though. I think they’ll let their starters play out the game. I like FnD’s top 4 better than the active 4 Warlords will start (Sacred Remedy being inactive has been a huge loss for them) and will take the win here.Expect WL to keep it close though and that will be incentive enough for FnD cap Burnt Special to keep his starters in and himself on the bench.

Vorbometer: 12-9 Fly-NDie
Key players: Uni (FnD), North Star (WL)
Watch out for: Argome, Over Kill and Burnt Special staying on the bench.


ReDS-AML (2-2) vs SkyRakers (2-2)

SkyRakers are now 0-2 without JackMove and seem to be in freefall. They aren’t that bad, but they haven’t had anyone step up to take the place of belt. On Sunday the only player who could really fill that role – GeminiGirl – managed to go 1-3, although she had no support from the other three slots. SR really needs a good showing and a good game to get them back on track, but I can’t see it happening this Sunday.

After a tepid performance against BU in round 3 ReDS showed what they can do when they start their best on Sunday with a comfortable win over SFA. As long as they keep showing their best ReDS will keep winning and I can’t see a still shell-shocked SR changing that.

Vorbometer: 12-3 ReDS-AML
Key players: Dwath (ReDS), GeminiGirl (SR)
Watch out for: Caerbannog’s AML squad rankings on the AML forums. A lot better than these.


BENCHERS UNITE (3-1) vs StarFire Acadamy (1-3)

So what to make of BU? As far as I can tell this squad didn’t practice together at all between their round 3 and round 4 games. A squad who’s two caps seem to have gone MIA. They warmed up for their match on Sunday by playing a bit of 2v2 and some Chaos Pub. Their best player, a beer, turned up a couple of minutes after the game was called and didn’t warm up at all. So it’s not really surprising that they found themselves 7-2 down, but who would of bet on them coming back to win? And who will bet against them winning next week? Maybe they should never practice. It might hurt their game.

SFA are a similar squad to FnD. They are SFE’s feeder squad and will play as many people possible in every game. There are two differences between the squads however. SFE won’t play their best four and sub in four benchers, they will mix up their starting lines and subs from game-to-game. The other difference is that SFE have a deeper and more experienced roster than FnD so can get away with playing seven or eight players per game. OK, so right now FnD have a better record than SFA, but I’ve never let the facts get in the way of my predictions before and I’m not going to start now.

I can’t see SFE winning this Sunday though, no matter who their starters and subs are. I can’t see any team beating BU right now. And when I say any team I mean it. Prospect, Assassins, Real Madrid, Miami Heat, Denver Broncos, The Mean Machine. Nothing this squad will do can surprise me.

Vorbometer: 12-7 BENCHERS UNITE
Key players: a beer (BU), Foxtrot (SFA)
Watch out for: This is BU. Be prepared for anything.


 

MSHL Pre-Season Week 2 Schedule

Filed under: Hockey Zone

The week 2 schedule was put up on Center Ice yesterday. Here's how it looks:


Celtic @ Admirals (5pm Sunday August 20th)

Baby Seal Killers @ Jesus Saves (9pm Monday)

Quick Puck @ Red Mile (9pm Tuesday)

Underdogs @ Puck That (5pm Sunday August 27th)


All times are in EST. Expect a post on the blog sometime this weekend with all the results from pre-season week 1 in both RSHL and MSHL.


 

Premier League Week 4 Results

Filed under: Premier League

Mauler again has gotten all the logs together and put them up on his predictions site. There was another server burp on Sunday, but only one game wasn't updated on MR (Unhallowed vs Creation) and as Mauler was reffing that match he's got the log for it.

So here's all the scores, stats and logs from Sunday:


Pro League Round 4


Unhallowed bt Creation 12-3

MVP: chrono (Unh) 4-0
LVP: Caerbannog (Crea) 0-3
Game time: 31:40
box score - game log

BIA bt Exultant 12-3
MVP: Tunahead (BIA) 8-1
LVP: dpm (Exu) 1-3
Game time: 18:00
box score - game log

Sterling bt NightBane 11-8
MVP: DarkDisparage (NB) 4-2
LVP: Hooker with a Penis (NB) 1-3
Game time: 45:00
box score - game log

Assassins bt Fuel 11-3
MVP: tak (Ass) 5-2
LVP: Nadai (Fuel) 0-3
Game time: 45:00
box score - game log

Starseed bt Poke Her 10-4
MVP: Bobby D (SS) 3-0
LVP: Cheap Liquor (PH) 0-3
Game time: 45:00
box score - game log

Llamasery bt The Dark 4-3 (in OT)
MVP: Crunchy (llamas) 2-1
LVP: Blink (TD) 0-2
Game time: 49:42
box score - game log


IML Round 4


CR Vrigins bt Liquid Inc. 12-5

MVP: Steve_Zissou (CRV) 6-2
LVP: silly_n00b (LI) 0-3
Game time: 29:22
box score - game log

IMLlamasery bt Fly-NDeath 6-2
MVP: bushes (llamas) 4-1
LVP: Mindriot (FnD) 1-3
Game time: 45:00
box score - game log

ReDS bt Secret 12-4
MVP: Silver Warrior (ReDS) 5-2
LVP: Whirl (Sec) 0-2
Game time: 35:29
box score - game log

Nightwatch bt Striker 12-6
MVP: Division by Zero (NW) 3-0
LVP: Felony (Stkr) 0-3
Game time: 35:17
box score - game log


AML Round 4


BENCHER UNITE bt Fly-NDie 12-8

MVP: a beer (BU) 4-0
LVP: Over Kill (FnD) 0-1
Game time: 38:26
box score - game log

ReDS-AML bt StarFire Academy 12-4
MVP: Army (ReDS) 3-0
LVP: D.D. (SFA) 0-1
Game time: 33:14
box score - game log

Warlords bt SkyRakers 12-5
MVP: North Star (WL) 5-2
LVP: Kali95 (1-3)
Game time: 31:13
box score - game log


Don't forget to check out the Premier League website and MasterRater through the week for all your Premier League goodness.


Monday, August 14, 2006 

WZ Cup Week 1 Schedule

Filed under: Warzone

Moving on from yesterday's games in Chaos here's how Thursday's schedule looks:


United Kindred vs Nightbane @ 8pm

Opulence vs Elder Clan @ 8pm

ReDS vs BLaCK STaR @ 9pm


These games will be played in Warzone on the smaller map and will be 6v6. For more info check out the Warzone website and the WZ Cup forums.


 

World Dueling Tournament

Filed under: Dueling Arizona

This was posted yesterday by Jae on the Pro league forums:

World Dueling Tournament (WDT) was a project about 4-6 months back. Garcon and I, mainly back and forth e-mails, and brainstorming ideas... with the help of team: aiti, and Underlord.

To see the website: wdt.jae.ca


Our Concept

To populate SVS, and regain the interest within and out of the zone by providing a cash/prize for every winner every dueling tournament.

The duels would be 2 out of 3, to minimize luck factor, and in a box. With many previously discussion on this box vs circle topics such as:

http://ssleague.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=6167

and

http://ssleague.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=6121

We have concluded this. If we have a bot, we'll probably go with circle, otherwise it will be box. But I hear the arguments why box is better or box is worst, and I think new comers from different zones are more familiarize with box dueling, and they would feel more comfortable playing in a box, than in a circle. The point is to get more popularity into the zone/arena, and I think box is the optimum choice. If you are good at circle, you have huge potential to winning a box duel. While if you are used to box, chances are you will lose in circle. So for the circle duelers, (such as I), will have to adjust and own the box duelers at their own game. Bobby, Nacre, Omega, I, etc... I truly believe as much as we perfer circle, we're more flexible and want more of a challenge.

Also, I have taken people's advice and created a box, that is slight smaller by like 2 ship space, and removed the rocks... so its less bouncing.


Who can play in this?

We'll be inviting 16-32 people, while the rest can sign up on the day of, or 1 week prior to the event (Multiple of 8s). Our goal is to keep this a monthly event probably either the first or last Saturday of every month around 2pm EST to best suit Americans, and Euros, and us Cannucks.

We still have yet to confirm our very first event, but the feedback from cross zone has been wonderful.

If you have any questions, comments, or suggestions, or even would like to join our team of promotions/marketing email: jae@jae.ca

Thanks!

And an update by aiti:

Also I'll mention here in case you guys don't want to cipher through the other threads. Yes there will be cash prizes in these tourneys. We have a couple concepts to play around with such as a free roll tourney or pay to play tourneys (invites) etc. Just fyi

You can read the thread in full here.


 

Premier League Week 4 Gallery

Filed under: Premier League






Sunday, August 13, 2006 

RSHL News Update

Filed under: Hockey Zone

This was written by IceVulture and taken from Center Ice:

Right now I've put janitors in the preseason because I want to gauge the activity levels of the teams in the league. If we've got teams who are going to no-show to preseason games, and they don't have a damn good excuse for doing it, I won't be too happy.

MI is not dropped from the league. Despite their implosion, they've rebounded with fresh leadership and recruited some newer faces (yes I joined the team that made fun of me on ventrilo for at least the past 2 seasons... how ironic).

BL is being watched, which ties into the whole activity levels during preseason thing I mentioned. They've got a lot of history and bucky remains confident they'll be competitive next season. I'm using the preseason to see how they do and make a decision from there based on what the vangels discuss, and what the BOD eventually votes on.

EX/DS aren't being dropped. For all intents and purposes they're in the league for sure, unless they begin to show less than the required number of players to preseason games


 

SSCouncil.com Returns

Filed under: General News

The Subspace Council have a new website online. So if you want to know who's on it and what they do check it out. It also includes info about what to do if you feel you've been unjustly banned or want to retrieve a lost name or squad. Good luck with that last one. In my experience unless you know a billing op personally you have no chance of getting a name or squad back. That's why one of the most famous squads in Alpha History - Orange - is now owned by some name-hoarding Trench Wars fuckwit.


Saturday, August 12, 2006 

The Buster Report

Filed under: Premier League

CRV pilot - and brother of the great Pro captain Fred Savage - Ghostbuster17 has put up his own blog The Buster Report. For his opening post he's put together some predictions for round 4 of IML. Good stuff. I've added the blog to our links.


 

Subspace on Linux

Filed under: General News

Looks like those penguin guys have finally worked out how to play SS on Linux. This looks to have a better chance of working than the old Snrrubspace project as this is using Wine to run the standard Continuum client while Snrrrubspace was a custom built client for Linux and only Alpha West allowed people to log into the zone using it.

You can find out all the info about how to DL and run it at wine.getcontinuum.com


Friday, August 11, 2006 

Net Defender's MSHL Squad Rankings

Filed under: Hockey Zone

Fellow Blades alumni Net Defender has put together some rankings for the upcoming MSHL season on the Center Ice forums. You can check them out here.


 

Premier League Week 4 Schedule

Filed under: Premier League

Almost a month into the season already. It doesn't seem like that only seven days ago we were just three weeks into the season. Here's how the games look for this Sunday, along with the ever accurate MR point spread:


Pro League Round 4

NightBane vs Sterling @ 3pm (Ster by 4.5)

BIA vs Exulant @ 3pm (BIA by 11.5)

Assassins vs Fuel @ 3pm (Ass by 9.5)

Poke Her vs Starseed @ 4pm (SS by 0.5)

Creation vs Unhallowed @ 4pm (Unh by 4.5)

Llamasery vs The Dark @ 7pm (TD by 0.5)


IML Round 4

Prospect vs StarFire Elite (postponed by Prospect)

Fly-NDeath vs IMLlamasery @ 3pm (llamas by 3.5)

CR Virgins vs Liquid Inc. @ 3pm (CRV by 9.0)

ReDS vs Secret @ 4pm (RedS by 2.5)

Nightwatch vs Striker @ 5pm (even)

(FutureCrew have a bye)


AML Round 4

Fly-NDie vs BENCHERS UNITE @ 2pm (BU by 2.5)

ReDS-AML vs StarFire Academy @ 3pm (SFA by 0.5)

SkyRakers vs Warlords @ 6pm (WL by 0.5)


I'm sure that you get tired of me saying this, but I'm going to say it again. All times are in EST. Don't forget you can find all your 4v4 based news on the Premier League website and all the latest stats, scores, standings and all that kind of fun stuff on MasterRater.


 

WZ Cup Week 1 Schedule

Filed under: Warzone

First set of games in the WZ Cup start this Sunday in Chaos/League. Here's how the squads match up:


Nightbane vs BLaCK STaR @ 2pm

ReDS vs Opulence @ 2pm

United Kindred vs Elder Clan @ 3pm


All times are in EST. Expect the rest of the week's games (Thursday in Warzone) to be posted on the blog soon. You can read all the latest zone news on the Warzone website and check out all the latest happenings in the WZ Cup on the WZ Cup forum.



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