True Gamers has posted their pre-event coverage of the Razer CPL event which starts tomorrow, taking a look at who may win the phat cash prize. And in more Razer CPL news, Gamepig has a transcript of a chat with Angel Munoz, who is president and founder of the CPL. They touch on a couple of things, such as CPL Asia, CPL Australia, bigger cash prizes and also the situation of Pele, a Russian player not allowed to visit the US to play at the Razer event.

Some more competition news for you guys as all the big tournaments out there are going on. Firstly RazerCPL starts in just 2 days and rumor has it they are giving away enough money to buy lots of twinkies. You can check out a new preview of the event at Eurogamer.net. NetGamesUSA also announced that demos will become available within minutes over at this web page. Speaking of tha players, you can read what 20 of the top players think about the maps chosen for RazerCPL. Make sure and check out the latest seedings for the event here. Also, on the UT side of things the UT championship event that just completed in Nottingham (£2500 prize) is wrapped-up at UKGamer.net

I knew you were all waiting for your first post/werd, but I gave myself some time to think about what to put here this time but I really dont know. Nothing exciting happening, and no new things on the Shack either (for now that is :) ). But we will have coverage of the RazerCPL event as Steve has told before. He'll be there updating on his laptop with a whole bunch of pictures, and game results I'd imagine. It's gonna be good! And then in a months time, E3 is happening again. Steve and I will both be in LA, so there should be ample coverage of all the cool games on display there.

The website for CPL Europe has opened up, announcing their first event, CPL Scandinavian Open Tournament, to be held in Stockholm, Sweden - July 20 to 23. The winner of the tournament will receive a cool $10,000, and there will be cash prizes for the top 16 finishers as well. More details will be announced in May.

Some competitive scene stuff for you guys. Firstly the 500 player LAN event aptly called LAN-Arena has just concluded and the demos from the final matches are available at Truegamers.net. Also, the RazerCPL $100,000 Quake3 Tournament is just a couple of days away. You can check out RazerCPL.com for the latest seeds and also check out #razercpl on irc.enterthegame.com if you're running an IRC client.

Was a pretty quiet weekend, here's what went down. Q3Jailbreak was released. AMD's Thunderbird is the newest processor we might be seeing soon, end of next month soon even. This one has the on-die cache, so it'll be a good bit faster than the current Athlons. We also posted the revised RazerCPL seedings.
Also if you missed it on Friday there was some news on future videocards.

The $100,000 RazerCPL Quake3 tournament is just a week away. Mike Wardwell has posted the revised 2nd edition preliminary top 128 seedings for those of you placing your bets. The top 10 being an even split between Americans and  foreign players. Make sure and check out the rules section.

Qualifying round seeds are not final until April 13th at 6:00 PM CST. Duel bracket seeds are not final until April 14th at 6:00 PM CST.

The $100,000 RazerCPL Quake3 tournament is just a week away. Mike Wardwell has posted the preliminary top 128 seedings for those of you placing your bets. The top 6 being an even split between American and foreign players. Make sure and check out the rules section.

Due to the high volume of new talent attending The Razer / CPL $100,000 Quake 3 Arena Tournament, including a large overseas presence, many players have yet to be properly seeded. Qualifying round seeds are not final until April 13th at 6:00 PM CST. Duel bracket seeds are not final until April 14th at 6:00 PM CST.

A little bit on the competitive scene for you guys. Firstly the QIL Quake3 league has hit the final 4 in the largest Quake3 teamplay tournament currently going. The final teams flying out to California for the LAN finals are Stickmen, Abuse, Kapitol, and my own clan r3volution (w00!). Also of note is the RazerCPL 1on1 $100,000 tournament is only a week and a half away. Speaking of CPL here is a video interview with The Romero and KillCreek on CPL, and here is a recap of the recent Denmark CPL qualifier.

The 'Pro-mode' Quake3 mod was released on the net a few days back and has been met with some pretty surprisingly positive feedback. Most of the people I know who have played it seem to think it 'feels great' etc. Problem being the mod changes the gameplay dynamics of Quake3. Of course there is a debate ongoing at Cached. Here's word from Cached:

One side says that it makes Q3 more enjoyable and should be implement for Tournament play and the other side is saying that Q3 should be left as it is-at least when it comes to playing in high profile tournaments such as the cpl.

Hate to say it, but as much as the mod may 'improve' gameplay changing the physics and weapon dynamics is a bit over the top and if anything will just split the Quake3 players even more. I like the mod, but I dont see CPL or anyone actually using it. This thread from October of last year with a quote from John Carmack on pro-mode should be of interest.

The $100,000 Quake3 RazerCPL tournament is just a couple of weeks away now and the tension is already beginning to build. Gamepig.com (!) has a pretty good write-up which features demos from a ton of the regional qualifiers that have gone down around the nation for players getting slots in the tournament. I've actually got 3 monkeys from Clan R3V who are gonna stay at my place for this tourney, and I'll be forced to wake up before 10am too every morning. The things I do for these guys.... :) The CPL event this time around is just nuts, I'm not even gona venture a guess on the winner. Cant wait!


btw, Its the special lady friends birthday tonight, she's 21 so I gotta take her out and get her boozed up. Feel free to email her to send her birthday wishes and ask how in the world she puts up with me. :)

Update Jack - 21? Yeah, in six years!

With recent legislation action the CPL is considering making their tournaments only available to those who are 17 and over. There is an explanation and discussion going on here.

This post in the CPL forum is a newspaper article about nB.Fatality who recently won the XSI tournament in Sweden and is one of the favorite at the upcoming RazerCPL tournament for $40,000 cash. Pretty interesting.

The Quake Player Index is up on Gamershome, with info on Quake players, and also a list of past and future tournaments. They even have the results from the July '98 CPL event, where Steve ended 6th.

Haha just kidding, of course he isn't. He just pretends. We just gotta watch his head doesn't grow too big though, check this new announcement from the CPL:

The CPL announced today that Steve Gibson, owner of the popular website Scary's ShugaShack located at http://www.shugashack.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank" class="external (you're there now!), will be the official master of ceremonies and moderator of the Razer CPL event. Steve was part of the CPL in 1997, as public relations representative.

Pfff official master of ceremonies. It's just to make up for his lousy Quake3 skillz ;)

update Jack

From: Steve Gibson <smiles@shugashack.com>
To: Assface <hexagon@shugashack.com>
Subject: News for you to post

Hey fuckhead, post that CPL annoucement about me. I don't want to post it or I'll look like some sort of rockstar that's better than my readers or something.

update Steve: Ok you can quit sending me hate mail, it's a joke. I had no idea CPL was even going to announce it, and that email is fake. I will be announcing at the CPL tournament though, I figured what better way for more people to see what a goober I really am. Live and in concert!

The CPL sent word that John Carmack will be giving a speech on 3D gaming technology programming and of course doinga Q&A as he always does at these events. The event being the upcoming $100,000 RazerCPL Quake3 tournament. The talk will be on April 14th at 4pm CST.

The RazerCPL $100,000 Quake3 tournament is getting close, and the amount of attention the tournament is getting and the # of people that will be there is of course getting a lot of attention. The biggest online Quake3 4on4 tournament, QIL recently made a  request to CPL to hold their teamplay finals at the event. Due to a conflict though this wont be happening. This has been a big stink in the online gaming community, and recently the QIL commisioner made a post claiming that the CPL was going to sue him. You can check out the full response here from Cached.net

The quote on the QIL that we would sue them if they explained to people what happened, is a complete fabrication. <snip> ... [QIL] accused us of being greedy and money motivated and that he wanted to disclose the emails so he can show everyone what we were "really all about." I simply told him that our emails were meant to be private ...  <snip> our attorney emailed him (John Fischer our corporate attorney was copied on the emails) and explained to him the legalities in reference to defamation and the use of our copyrighted material without authorization... <snip>

So there it is. The QIL finals will most likely not be held at the CPL event. Bummer. 11pm update: You should take a look at comment #40 from the QIL commisioner. It looks it's not a fabrication, although a bit blown out of proportion.

Loonygames has an interview with Angel Munoz, the President of Cyberathletes. Those folks holding the $100,000 Quake3 tournament in just a couple of months down in Texas.

TexasMonthly has an interesting article featuring the most powerful computer industry types in Texas. Angel Munoz of the CPL, as well as Mike Wilson and Harry Miller of Gathering are featured in the story.

Looks like the RazerCPL $100,000 Quake3 tournament slots are already full. 512 slots taken in about 28 hours. There are still some spectator openings for those of you interested. I know I'll be there. :)