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[eh~AAssie]

SL3 round 4: eh vs Aliens

First of all, it's really annoying when the opponent is not on IRC. One of these days I might skip searching for them and wait for the forfeit points. This does not only apply to Aliens, but also some other teams. Start following the rules and make it easier for your opponents with showing up on IRC between 20:00 and 20:30!

We finally found Aliens training on the traxico server, and we were able to start the match. First I have to say, given my initial complaint, that Aliens are a very fair playing team.

We started on coast. eh with Nanteq, Tiggr and me and Aliens with Coba and Mihail who played all maps (sorry, but I don't remember what your 3rd driver was called... but I think it was long and red). Aliens took the first point. eh answered quickly to take the lead 2-1 before Aliens equalized to 2-2. In the next round I was on my way to a good improvement of my personal best, so I took the chance of taking the last turn at full speed only to get the finish side pillar in my face. Coba took advantage of this, but was followed by Tiggr and Nanteq. I managed to crawl over the line in fourth and eh took the lead 3-2. In the middle of the next round Tiggr got a bluescreen and the server crashed. After a few minutes the server was up again and we could continue. It was very often a fierce battle between Mihail and me, with Coba and Tiggr fighting just behind us when one of us made the smallest mistake. I don't think any of us liked the pesky bulk on this map. Even though it was possible to make a clean pass when braking at the right place, it was way to random. Braking 0.1 second early or late would cost 1 second of damage. The bulk could work at lower entrance speed, but not like this... The bulk probably shifted the point from one team to another at least 5 times.
The teams continued to shift on taking the points all the way. eh made 6-6 after a 1-3-6 round. In the next round I made a small mistake, which allowed Mihail to win the round followed be me and Tiggr. Unfortunatly we see Nanteq losing the battle for 5th place and Aliens won the map 7-6.

On bay Rustay stepped in for Tiggr. Also on this map the two teams had some very good fights. Coba and I started best for our teams. Coba even set a pb. After two rounds of crashing Mihail found his rythm and started driving very well. Rustray was maybe not the fastest, but he was very consistent. The teams followed each other to 4-4. The best round was probably the one where Nanteq, Mihail and I finished within 0.2x of eachother. Unfortunately this was the only shining moment for Nanteq this night. Sadly he played his worst match ever, especially in the last points of this map. Maybe he got lost in the butter (see his comment about the map ) At 4-4 I won and Rustray finished third, but Nanteq wasn't able to finish and we got a draw. Aliens took advantage of this and got three good team rounds in a row, which gave them a 7-4 victory.

At this point the server crashed again, with another blue screen for Tiggr. Hence, we asked guom to put up a server for us. Nanteq was so disappointed in his driving that he wanted Tiggr to drive island for him. Unfortunately Tiggr's computer crashed once again, and this time I think he gave up ^^, so Nanteq had to drive.

With a new server one would think that the problems were over, but no. It seemed ok though, and the teams changed on winning the rounds. We also had a draw when Nanteq didn't finish (we've all had matches where nothing goes right for us, so come back stronger next time mate ). At 3-3 we realized that something was seriously wrong with the score. Back tracking which team got the points in the different rounds, it turned out to be more serious than the "scores being showed are wrong" bug. Luckily it was still realatively early in the match, and I was able to remember what happened in all the rounds and we agreed that the score was 3-3. We decided to move to a server hosted by Aliens. Unfortunately the wrong scores continued when we in the first round on the server had another draw, but eh got awarded the point. In the next round I won followed by three Aliens, but eh got the point. So we realized that the server did not use alternate rules. This could be a mistake by the hosters, but for two experienced hosters to make such a mistake at the same time sounds weird, so I wonder if it was a bug. At this point Nanteq suddenly disappeared. I was considering bringing in an untrained guom to replace him, but knowing that it was 1 am in Russia, I said we'd play 2vs3. Aliens then offered to play 2vs2 (me and Rustray vs Coba and Mihail). This was remarquably fair of Aliens, because playing 2vs2 was more to eh's advantage than to Alien's advantage.

We continued to play. With only four players it was easy to keep the score manually when the server showed it wrong. I seemed to be the fastest on the map, with Mihail and Coba (who set a pb) close on my tail. Rustray was a little slower, but made up for it by being very consistent. Every round was had some fierce battles, and because of the cost of small mistakes on this map, one could never be certain to win even with a 7-8 second lead. Both teams took points, and we had two more draws. Aliens took the lead 6-5 with a very nice 1-2 victory. Then Rustray and I got our act together, driving two good rounds, while Coba and Mihail crashed. eh therefore won the map 7-6. This 2 minute map took a very long time with the wrong scores, server switch, disappearing players and 17 rounds with draws.

We finished 23:15 CET Aliens won 2-1. Except for all the problems, this a great match, where both teams showed high quality racing and fought really hard for each point. All players remained nice and fair, even with all the delays. Hence I would like to thank all the players for this great match, which to was one of the most fun I've played.

AAssie