August 30th, 1999

The countdown begins.... No big surprises from last night's IGL matches, which means that CE and KiN will face off yet again next week, this time on Canalzone. The upcoming match will be their fourth meeting in the IGL in eight weeks. Hmm, a strange pattern seems to be developing. Hopefully the IGL admins will notice this detrimental effect and will take action to change things up a bit in the future.

In the meantime, IGL clans and fans are keeping a sharp eye on the site to see how long it takes for the admins to update. The Las Vegas line is at 3 days, but smart money says they'll do the deed within 60 hours.

This is why you're so happy at work on Monday The STA is raring to go tonight in their second week of Total War. The map was a success last week, and now that clans have some experience on it, expect the matches to be fiery tonight. The title match is KiN vs. 30+, with the old folks coming in as heavy underdogs. Rumor has it that some of the 30+ guys were actually alive during WWII. Maybe that experience will come in handy squaring off against the undefeated KiN boys (although I heard that KiN has been watching Saving Private Ryan all week in order to get psyched for the match).

O.G. Readmore's younger brother In an attempt to set some sort of masochistic record, Hate Inc. and Army of Darkness completed their fifth round of play in the OGL last night, once again ending in a tie. Why they chose Rock as a tiebreaking map has fans on the street scratching their heads in bewilderment, but insiders say that neither clan is willing to lose the match on a map they're not well-prepared for.

Elsewhere in the OGL, August has bid adieu, with CE still averaging only one piddly match a month. US and cM are battling it out on Thursday. The maps will be 2forts, Well, and Fortsaken. Also on Thursday is a showdown between CA and ZB, apparently to be played on Push, Fortsaken, and TotalWar. Hate and AOD will be continuing their super-duper-match sometime this week, probably on the new map Bottleneck...[that's a joke, folks]. And Dice is sitting pretty at #6 after defeating ARM, but no one seems to have any idea what their next move will be.

There's plenty of other intriguing action on the Ladder but we'll have to cover that in the upcoming days.

August 28th, 1999

Eggs over easy, and Bam over Darkness Nemo, from the Top 10 Tournament, took a quick poll about some of the non-Valve maps asking how worthy they are of clan match play. Bam came out on top as the most worthy, despite the fact that no one has ever played the new Bam map in a match to test it for playability. Darkness was a close second. You can see the rest of the results at the Top 10 site.

Deja vu The IGL schedule has finally been posted with pretty much the same teams playing the same teams they always play every couple weeks. That's the bad news. The good news is that at least four new clans are going to be added by next week, and hopefully someone over there will fix the scheduling system to end the delays and end the monotony.

How to win friends and influence your neighbors Clan pX is kissing boots all over town for some publicity, and since my boots needed some cleaning pretty badly (it's hard keeping 'em clean when you're a cowboy like me), I think their efforts should be rewarded. Here's the payoff:

Dear News Editor

I am mailing you to ask for a mention on your news site. We, at Clan Project X (pX) are an up and coming clan in the TFC scene. We are steadily rising to hopefully become one of the best clans in TFC at this present time. We are placed #1 in the Tournament of Champions, Mercenaries of War tournament (ToCMoW) based at tfctourney.cjb.net . We were also in the TopTenTournament (www.clannexus.com/topten) but were forced to retire, due to [edited out an ill-advised comment]. We also partake in the OGL TFC ladder, and have risen from the position of 86 to 48 in the space of 3 weeks, and are continuing this trend, in order to break into the top 10 before too long.

Also, we are the only clan who have been given a Mountain Server Group dedicated server, for our exclusive use. This was due to contributions to the establishments funds, to help them keep the group alive. In return we have been provided with this server, which we release as a public server most of the time, when we are not using it for clan matches or practices. The server name is MSG Clan Project X , and the Server IP: 129.82.227.125:27015 and all-comers are welcome at all times.

Our clan Web-site is at www.of-the-world.com/projectx and is recognised by many top ranking clans to be one of the most professional and asthetically pleasing around.

I, on behalf on Clan Project X, am writing this to you, in an attempt at "publicity" in a sort of way. We would like to be recognised the TFC community as a stong power, along the same lines as clans such as Clan Eriynes (CE), Coup de Grace (CdG), Ride The Lightning (RTL) amongst others. Most of these clans we have played, and have faired very well against. This attempt at being recognised, will hopefully gain us respect, and also the option of new, talented players to further strengthen our squad.

I appreciate your time, and hope to see a mention, however small of us on your web-site in the near future.

Yours Sincerely
Dan
AKA [pX-SFD]Creepin_Death.WO1

So if you're unemployed and looking for a new project to be a part of, perhaps ProjectX is what you need.

August 26th, 1999

Calm before the storm After last week's fireworks in the OGL, it's been quite a few days since anyone has stirred. But have no fear, the end of the week is near, and that means more action. ZB finished off BlackSun in a tiebreaker round last night, tying CE for the best record in the OGL. 100k.d.l immediately challenged BlackSun, hoping to move into the #7 spot. #4 DA faces off with #2 US tonight in what promises to be a real shootout. AOD is also set to finish their tied match with HATE sometime soon. And just off the Leader Board, #15 CA, who recently defeated KiN in the Top 10 Tourney, is taking on #11 THD tonight. Fans of TFC have plenty of action to look forward to in the next couple days.

August 25th, 1999

Is your refrigerator running? In something of an upset, KiN's Raggedy Ass Tuesday Squad (R.A.T.S.) got overrun by Cogent Alliance in the Top 10 league on Run. This was KiN's first TFC loss to any clan other than CE, and it provides a nice segue to talk about the increasing skill level of the up and coming clans. It's taken awhile for clans to gain match experience and learn how to develop and test match strategies, but it seems that more and more clans are becoming competitive and pulling off wins where others may have underestimated them. Predicting matches these days has become a nightmare, especially in the middle ranks where skill levels are rising so quickly. This is a good sign for TFC. As the competition level increases, so will the intensity of the matches and the overall fun-factor of playing. Let's hope the trend continues and that clans continue to put in the time and effort to improve.

August 24th, 1999

"Meet Mr. Boot" Tresmer, from the STA, flexed his manly arms and tossed three clans (WOLF, RAD, and ROT) from his tournament because of forfeiting this week. These clans do have a puny chance of regaining admittance into the league if they beg and grovel and give gifts to Tresmer. [It might also help their cause if they buttered up important TFCNN news reporters too....Hey, no potato jokes!]

"Truce. Truce. No really, I mean it this time." Tubaboy and Media, from the TF Times and TFC News respectively, have declared another ceasefire in their ongoing war of words. The same can't be said for the Gods of Hate and U Suck. GoH seems to get a mighty kick out of insulting US. You can read the gory details on the STA messageboard and on the respective clan sites.

And a hush fell over the crowd.... It was a rough night in the STA with at least three clans forfeiting their matches. Now all eyes are on league commissioner, Tresmer, to see how he'll respond. In a post on July 13th he put his foot down and said, "There will be no more forfeiting in this league. I will not post another forfeit result. If you can not play, you will be removed." That brought the troops in line for a number of weeks, but for some reason it all came unraveled yesterday. So keep your eye on the STA homepage later today to see how this issue is resolved.

Domination thrown overboard The Top 10 Tourney was forced to make a somewhat last-minute decision to change maps for their matches tonight. It seems that even the revised version of Domination is still overly prone to spam sandwiches and other unsavory problems. Instead of playing on Domination, clans are encouraged to agree on an alternate map. Hopefully all the scheduled matches will go off without a hitch.

Shaggy, Scooby, and the Mystery Machine I recently tracked down Shaggy, administrator of the OGL Ladder, in an attempt to find out why TSUA (a long-time top ten clan in the OGL) mysteriously disappeared from the ladder. We met in a dark alley and the following conversation took place:

Potato: What's the word on TSUA? Do you know why they dropped the OGL?

Shaggy: No idea....

After that brief exchange, we both pulled down our hats and turned up our collars and walked away from each other into the foggy night.

August 22nd, 1999

The answer, my friend, is blowin' in the wind A hurricane is blowing through Texas tonight, affecting the KiN folk, and probably some of your relatives as well. But the IGL goes on....Clans have been practicing throughout the week, and I think they've come to an agreed opinion. Simply stated, 2forts is a brutal map. Expect the matches tonight to be cutthroat and gritty. It's time for war.

And on behalf of the pacifists in the crowd, I must raise the question: Yes, 'n' how many times must the cannon balls fly before they're forever banned?

Match results will be posted at midnight eastern time, as always.

And if one war isn't, like, totally enough.... The STA is set to play on the new map Total War tomorrow night. Signature matchups include KiN vs. BlackSun and US vs. GoH. John Hancock, framer of the Constitution and avid TFC player (his alias is Quill), said he thinks KiN and GoH will come out on top. But then again, what do hotel moguls know about clan play?

August 21st, 1999

Secret Souffle It's a yummy picnic Saturday with some readers giving TFCNN the heads up on two formerly-unknown TFC leagues, AoW and UTR. Here's word from Corps (who just couldn't help but share his family tree):

Well here is your info, as for BoS it was formed by me Corps (formerly [ZB]Corps and before that [NAM]Corps), Magi (formerly [NAM]Magi) and Wiglac (formerly [ZB]Wiglac). We have alot of young talent and so far everything is going great. We have our first OGL match next thursday against a clan called bum (Punk asses chose run :).

As for the AoW and UTR they are both located at www.teamplay.net. The UTR is just a ladder where clans make independent challenges etc. while the AoW is a leauge (3/5 rounds complete) similar to the STA or IGL where matchups/maps are chosen for you however the scheduling is left up to the teams.

Longbow gave another little tidbit about the AoW: "The URL is http://teamplay.net/ and from what I can determine, they are leagues oriented more towards smaller teams that can't quite manage to get 8 people together regularly. The web site seems to be extremely professional...." I edited out the rest where he started describing his TFCNN tattoos and his undying devotion to yours truly, ...(although maybe I misread that part). Anyway, thanks to all who sent in info!

Mystery Meat When clan Brotherhood of Soldiers (BoS) sent in their match writeup they mentioned that the game was from the AoW league. I've never heard of the AoW, so I went to the BoS homepage to try and gather more information. BoS is active in three leagues (apparently), the OGL, the AoW, and the UTR. My question is, what is the AoW and what is the UTR? It seems these leagues have been going on for quite a few weeks but this is the first time I've ever heard of them. Perhaps one of our faithful readers can fill us in....Thanks!

August 20th, 1999

Be careful where you stick that TFCNN has made an unconfirmed observation that TSUA, a long time OGL top ten clan, has disappeared from the OGL ladder, presumably due to the breakup of the clan. As soon as that's confirmed we'll let you know. Their disappearance allowed cM to jump onto the Leader Board in the #10 spot.

OGL Buzz A lot of the big OGL matches were completed yesterday. DA fought off cM in two extremely tight rounds. THD came up just short after three rounds with US. And BlackSun is tied up with ZB after a grueling three rounds. The tie breaker will be played sometime early next week. For those who have had their senses dulled by too many trips to the Gap, let me state it bluntly: the competition in the OGL top fifteen has been fantastic lately!

Strategy Corner The Digital Assassins proved their worthiness to be in the top five of the OGL after beating cM in two rounds. But they didn't rest on their laurels after the win. Instead they perceived a potential weakness in US (who seemed to have their hands full with THD) and quickly challenged them. DA has a momentum advantage right now, and they'll no doubt pick Fortsaken for their one round, a map which they've never lost on. This forces US to pick their two strongest maps (Well and 2forts, probably), and put up a good showing on their home court. Overall, the slight edge would have to go to US, mainly because they get to select two maps, but DA has definitely chosen to challenge at a very wise time.

Ken, can KiN win? The hot match in the IGL this Sunday is CE vs. KiN, the third showdown between these two top clans. KiN has fallen short in their past two attempts to dethrone CE, but they certainly have a strong chance of pulling it off this time. The map is 2forts, where KiN has proven themselves to be a powerhouse, denying their opponents any caps, and blowing through opposing defenses. CE has had similar showings on 2forts in the past but no recent matches on the map. Expect a very low scoring affair, a clinic on how to defend 2forts.

These are the days of our lives The latest TFC soap opera has blown through TFC News (the messageboard, in particular) with plenty of mud slinging, miscommunication, kidnapping, divorce, remarriage, and death. There's a lull right now, the worst is over, but you'll want to stay tuned to find out if Frank comes out of his coma and if Jenny marries Bryant.

Oh yeah, and the new TFC News Top 10 list is due out sometime this evening.

August 19th, 1999

David Letterman is weak! You can't keep a good site down. Nemo, from the Top 10 Tournament, is fighting back against the petty jealousy of a certain latenight TV host. Here's what Nemo said about the status of the Top 10 Tourney website, "Well, I myself have had problems getting to the page and my clannexus.com email addy from my work machine. I have no idea why this is happening. I'm on the same university network at work (research lab) and at home (DSL) and so this is pretty wierd. Anyway, there is a work-around. Try: http://207.5.92.21/topten/topten.htm. This works for me at work." And it works for me here in the TFCNN studios too! Now I can finish posting the Top 10 results from earlier in the week.

By the way, there is good news on the Top 10 site for Domination lovers out there (darnit, I'm talking about the map you sickos!). Nemo asked Uncle Bruce to spruce the map up with a better respawn system (and boy did it need one), and Bruce agreed. So go spruce, Bruce...here's some juice.

Swirling confusion The OGL Leader Board is just buzzing with activity and movement. It can be a daunting task for our readers to keep track of it all, especially if they have fun back-to-school shopping on their mind. So, in an attempt to make it easier for them to spend even more time at the mall, we've provided a quick rundown on the latest OGL conditions:

• #1 CE is back to their inert state, sitting around waiting to be challenged. It's not looking like there are too many bold challengers waiting in the wings, either.

• #2 US was finally challenged after sitting around for awhile as well. They play #12 THD tonight; the first meeting between these two clans. Yesterday, TFCNN took a poll at the Del Mar Horse Racetrack in San Diego, CA, and most betting folks chose #2 to win, #12 to place.

• Probably the most interesting scheduled match is #3 ZB's showdown with #7 BlackSun. The two clans play tonight, and a lot is at stake for ZB. It's been over two weeks since ZB has played a match, and they've been through some turmoil in that time, losing some important players. Tonight's match may give a good indication of how well ZB has recovered from their problems.

• #4 DA has found a secret weapon in the map Fortsaken, using it to produce strong results against tough clans. Now they'll have to fend off #11 cM, a clan that has plenty of big match experience and wants on the Leader Board badly.

• #5 HATE proved that they still have plenty of loathing left in them after taking down #8 CdG earlier in the week. Next on their plate is #13 AoD. If Hate gets by AoD it will be interesting to see if they challenge up to try and regain some of that lost ground.

• #6 Dice is the only European clan on the Leader Board. Their one loss came at the hands of cM. They're scheduled to play the undefeated #15 ARM who has been tearing through the lesser competition on the ladder. [TFCNN Trivia: What's the favorite movie of Dice members? A: Casino]

• The ever-optimistic #7 BlackSun sensed some weakness in the ZB camp and decided to try and steal a win (tent pegs will go flying). That match is tonight and has a lot of fans really interested in the outcome.

• #8 CdG got stopped in their tracks by Hate Inc. earlier in the week. Right now, with only CE open to be challenged, CdG is biding their time. After the matches tonight there should be a few clans open to being challenged. The real question is, has CdG's confidence been shot, or can they laugh off their loss and just call it a flesh wound? We shall see.

• #9 100k.d.l got by TSUA with a forfeit recently. It will be interesting to see what their plan is, whether they decide to challenge up or wait to be challenged from below. Either way they must feel grand. (Ouch!)

• #10 TSUA has been sliding like a slug down the Leader Board. If any of cM, AoD, THD, or ARM wins their upcoming matches then TSUA will slip off the board. History has shown that it's not too easy to get back on once a clan falls off into the salt mines.