It was a long time ago since the last update on FTE, many may have wondered what has been going on in that time and I can only say that much work has been done for making the FTE-client a choice in competitive gaming: A ruleset has been introduced which will grant you to play with FTE in NQR!

Read more at quakeworld.nu!
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I have written some predictions for Gold Cup and tried to introduce the clans a little. Take a look HERE.

Feedback and thoughts are appreciated, but I think the commenting doesn't work in the columns section, so you're better off leaving a comment to this news post.
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As you may have noticed, we juggled with the groups and clans a little in order to get some feedback on the different approaches. After we had received some serious whine about the first groups, we thought of separating NQR11 into 4 tiers, only to find out that we'd receive even more complaints. "Gold Cup too small", "same teams as usual", "Bronze Cup too small", "wtf iron?", "lol SD in Silver Cup", "Silver Cup too big" - just to give you some samples. We tried to be flexible about the groups, but weren't really rewarded for it. So, with the exception of some minor changes, we went back to the three tier system. We have also done the fixtures now (except for the Rookie tier, which will be completed during the day), so the groups are final and cannot be changed anymore due to technical restrictions. Beyond this point it is simply impossible for us to move around clans between the divisions, so please stop being a sissy about it. We also ask you to keep in mind that QuakeWorld is, regardless of how great it may be, still a computer game. There is no money involved, you have nothing to lose and there's absolutely no point in getting overly upset about things. We do our best, we invest our time, but we will never be able to please everyone. As sad as that may be, you will have to live with that.

Now a few more things about the league:
- Schedule/playing: The groups are large and we are aware that 8 weeks is not all that long. The schedule that comes with the fixtures is not something you need to adhere to (ie you are free to play a clan from your tier at any given time, you can play an opponent from week 8 in week 2, etc), but we're hoping you will try to play all of your games within the 8 week timeframe. This is not an easy task, but we feel that it's quite important. QuakeWorld seems at a turning point, and if we want to show people that QuakeWorld is still alive and kicking, then we have to do our part and keep this scene active by playing leagues and tournaments. Also, running after people to remind them of playing their games is both time-consuming and annoying, so please spare us as much work as possible.

- Player additions: As you know, clans are allowed to have 2 player additions once the league has started. This point has been reached, so keep this in mind when recruiting players. We admins have also decided that Rookie clans are allowed to have unlimited player additions (if recruited to avoid inactivity). It would be a shame to have idling Rookie teams simply because some of their players left QuakeWorld again. We want to avoid this at all costs.

- Coverage: We are still looking for people willing to provide coverage. Now that the tiers are final, it would be nice to read some predictions. We are a relatively small team and could do with a hand. If you feel you can contribute in any way, please let us know.

- Interviews: With far over 300 Players signed up it is hard to decide who to interview. Therefore we are asking you to reply to this news post and let us know if there is any particular person you'd like to see interviewed, additionally to WHY you think this person should be interviewed! This can be any player from any division... if we think you got a point, we'll go ahead and try to get an interview.

If you have any further questions or suggestions, don't hesitate and approach us on #nqr on QuakeNet.

Now... go and practice, we have a long journey ahead!

//NQR staff

After a lot of thorough discussions, we have come to a decision about the groups and teams. Some hard decisions had to be made, and we are aware of the substantial amount of whine we are going to receive, but since about half of all clans had signed up for Silver Cup and some Silver Cup clans had signed up for Bronze, we were unable to fulfill all requests. There's still two days left in which you can try to make us reconsider, but there's a good chance the groups are gonna stay as they are now.

In a three tier system, the top third of the clans should play in the best of three divisions, hence our decision to move some clans that had requested to play Silver Cup into Gold Cup. We tried to even out the tiers as good as possible, and the result is 14-13-13-10.
You will also notice that tiers are quite large and that we decided not to subdivide these tiers into groups such as A and B. The reason for that is quite simple: We at all costs want to avoid what happened in Division 2 in EQL Season 6, where several clans went inactive while the remaining clans had no more opponents. While we of course hope that all of the 50 clans remain active, it would be Utopian to assume this is going to happen.
Also, given the large size of the tiers, we have come to the conclusion that the top EIGHT clans of a division will move to playoffs, and this is something that ALL clans in ALL of the tiers can achieve. This of course depends on the activity of the tiers and whether or not we will be forced to remove clans. To those clans out there disappointed about their placement: Set the playoffs to be your goal and try to appreciate that you are going to play against clans that you don't usually get to play.
The group stages are scheduled to take 8 weeks, so that's just over 3 games in 2 weeks. We are going to be strict about inactivity, so don't wait around for too long.

As for the rookies, we have also decided that they are allowed to have more than just two player additions once the league has started. These additions however, should obviously not alter the team's strength too much.

The league starts coming Monday.
Let the whine begin.
// NQR staff
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It's been a long last week for the NQR staff and their helpers. Shortly before signups were supposed to open we found out that we had to change host, but luckily mli came to our rescue and offered to host NQR from now on. So before we say anything, we would like to express our gratitude to both gaz, who has been hosting NQR for years on end, and mli, our new host!

Laudations aside, let's see what's new in NQR11!
- After some talk and coordination with the FTE developers we have reached the conclusion that there's no reason to further exclude the users of QuakeWorld client FTE from the participation in NQR. That's right, FTE will be allowed in NQR 11 if started with the new accordant NQR ruleset! For more information, please check the "rules" section.

- As you may have heard by now, NQR11 will let clans pick between two different map-pools. There is the regular map-pool (DM2, DM3 and E1M2) as well as the extended map-pool (DM2, DM3, E1M2, CMT3, CMT4, MIDCIT, E2M2TDM). To see how this works, please read through the "rules" section.

- Fallbunny is desired to be turned ON unless clans agree otherwise. However, if the server selected for the game does not permit you to enable fallbunny or elect an admin, this is not enough reason to change server. The game will have to be played with fallbunny OFF. Again, the "rules" section is something you need to check out.

- There will, as expected, be a rookie tier. Everything else concerning the tiers/divisions will still have to be decided as it strongly depends on how many signups we receive.

We are still looking for more writers and commentators (not admins). Being a writer or commentator for NQR is not much of a burden as you will have no obligations or schedule to adhere to. Writers can write columns, predictions, or impressions when they want, however often they want. Be it once, twice, or ten times. Please think about it as we can always use a hand in making the league lively and exciting. It would be much appreciated.

Signups will be open until 23:59 CET on February 3rd, 2008.

// NQR staff
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