UKTerrorist

It's Just the Ping

UK Counter Strike in Europe

Being an avid CS fan and one who follows the CS community (or should I say, European CS community), I've come to notice that there is an obvious opinion that some of our European friends believe the UK clans just aren't as good as them when it comes to competition time. Like you're probably thinking, I ask myself the question, why? Recently ClanBase (CB) held their famous CS European Cup for a second time. Did a UK CS clan win this tournament? Sadly no. The trophy stayed in Finland for second season. This time it wasn't clan Z who defended the crown but a newly formed clan known as Exousia who had evolved from The Ancients CS team/Apostrophe clan. In this season's cup there were only 2 UK clans competing (4kings and SLDR), compared to one UK clan in the last competition (4kings)! However in the tournament's second year there were seven clans from both Finland and Germany and six clans from both Denmark and Sweden! So are we to believe that the finest CS clans in Europe all come from these four countries? Surely there is another reason.

I've recently come to the conclusion that maybe it isn't the fact that there aren't enough skilful CS players in the UK, because quite frankly I think there are, but just maybe some of those skilful players in the UK are denied an opportunity to show their capabilities. This can come down to the gamer not having a good enough PC to really show he can "kick some ass" but in my opinion there is a more important reason and that is "broadband". What is broadband? Well the definition given on the NTL Broadband website states this, "Broadband services provide users with a high speed, "always on" connection to the Internet, removing many of the current frustrations of dial-up access." To the layperson this simply means your connection is super-fast and more than likely if you live in the UK, faster than the next UK Internet user. To the gamer this can only be described as "The Holy Grail". Sure you can download files super quick and pages load instantly, but to the gamer those things are trivial. What he wants is that LPB (low ping bastard) connection so he can compete against the giants of today's gamers and not be in a situation to say, "damn lpb's!" As an LPB you have a so-called "edge" over 56k'ers. Your bullets will hit your opponent noticeably faster and the game will more than likely feel smoother therefore making it easier to aim and fire.

In the UK we have two types of broadband, ADSL (provided by many ISP's) and Cable (provided by NTL and Telewest). With RADSL soon closing in there will be an increasing number of consumers who will have broadband access available to them. Even though satellite broadband and fixed wireless access have shown promise, high equipment and operating costs will keep their penetration rates well behind cable modem and DSL access over the next several years. At the moment the UK has one of the worst percentages of broadband users in Europe. This is purely because our telco companies didn't respond rapidly enough when installing such DSL services and because our cable infrastructure is, to say the least, crap! Cable modems were first introduced by NTL back in January 1999 and since then have grown to become a very popular service, but are only available in few franchises. BT announced their ADSL service under the ISP BTOpenworld and was set for a release date in July of 2000. These services have recently been dubbed "NTHell" and "BTOpenwoe" for obvious reasons. Correct me if I'm wrong but I found a staggering contrast that Sweden, which is home to some of Europe's "finest CS players", also leads the broadband market in Europe with 9.4% of homes connected to broadband this year alone. People who argue that having an LPB connection doesn't help that much are wrong and with few UK players using such high-speed connections that simply means for now we cannot be expected to be on the same level as our European friends because there aren't as many of us competing. In the UK alone we only have a meagre 0.9% of households connected to broadband services.

Germany's early adoption of DSL, partly due to lack of investments in the German cable infrastructure, means that it now leads the DSL market in Europe. By the end of 2000, there were approximately 400,000 DSL subscribers and only 1,000 cable Internet subscribers. The German market will have increased to 5 million DSL subscribers by 2003. Again there is that contrast of Germany being more broadband enabled and also being able to enter 7 clans into our European tournament. Whereas Britain only has a pathetic 30,000 DSL consumers. We also rank ninth in the European DSL table.

Today you will not catch one player from top UK CS clans such as 4kings or Nocturne playing their online clan matches unless all competing members are using their "broadband" connections. In most cases I've noticed that most of their members aren't actually broadband users but use ISDN. ISDN is a service which is faster than 56k but still not as quick as broadband. Lately there have been many arguments that even broadband users are making it harder for ISDN players to perform at their peak level and obtain their best ping.

Recently I caught up with a couple of players from two of the UK's finest clans. These were Rock (UK based) from clan nocturne.uk and Oppie (Netherlands) from clan 4kings, to find out their views on connections and how important they really are.

XceeD: What connection do you currently have and how important is this to you?

-|noc.Rock|-: I have ISDN, it's very important as it means I can compete at a high level over the net against top foreign clans. I can also d/l hl and cs patches reasonably quick. However, I wish I had cable instead :]

[4K^Oppie]: I use Dutch cable with Chello ISP. It is quite important to me, especially when playing a match versus an international opponent. Matches often have to be played on servers further away so a connection that is stable and good in the whole of Europe is important.

XceeD: Would you ever play an online clan match using 56k or allow any of your members to use such connection?

-|noc.Rock|-: No, definitely not. It gives a great disadvantage playing with a High ping. I wouldn't let my members use 56k for wars either for the same reason. To join noc.uk you need to be an LPB.

XceeD: Do you think if UK broadband were to be at the same level as in Sweden and Germany then we would probably have more players competing and possibly be at the same level of competition as they are?

-|noc.Rock|-: Yes, we would have more players competing at the same level of competition of clans from Sweden and Germany. However, I still believe the UK actually lacks good players. I sometimes play on finish servers and their aims on average are far better than players on public UK servers.

XceeD: With LAN events becoming increasingly popular what with the prize money they offer do you believe such competitions open the doors to hpb's who were unable to prove themselves beforehand and would you take on such player if they were "that good" in a LAN but could never get a broadband connection?

-|noc.Rock|-: That's quite a tricky question. The problem is if I did see such a player, he wouldn't be able to participate in practice wars much. We play a lot of top foreign clans for practice and play on foreign servers. With his 56k connection he would ping outrageously to these servers and I don't believe we would get sufficient practice as a clan, as he'd constantly be dropping etc. Also, If he had a 300 ping he's gonna get whacked out easily, so therefore, I wouldn't know if his position was a bad position or he was getting taken out because of his ping.

[4K^Oppie]: I think that LAN competition is a good development because it makes gaming more fair, as in all the same connection and PC. At the moment I think there are still too many online tournaments that require lots of online practise and therefore lots of time online. Of course if a player proves to be very skilled with a 56k modem I don't see why we couldn't take him or her on :). But unfortunately in counter-strike and other fps games such as q3 and UT ping does make a difference.

What Rock and Oppie have pointed out is that yes connection is regarded as a very important tool. With gaming becoming more international, lpb connections are essential for top clans to maintain their superiority. They also believe that good players with poor connections can still get noticed at LAN events. Sadly most clans do not practice at LAN's but online where we fall back onto the player's connection thus making it harder for the clan to function 100% efficiently at all times.

The UK's first Professional Gamer, Sujoy, had to move away from the UK purely because our phone companies were unable to deliver the specifications he needed to carry out what he would say was "doing his job". If you've ever played Q3 with a 56k connection and 200 ping you will remember how frustrating it was having to guess where your enemy was going to move because when you fired there was a substantial delay between the cause and effect, or pushing the mouse button and then seeing that rail gun blast across your screen.

On an ending note I encourage our fellow European friends to not write off UK gamers just yet because we simply don't have the Internet access most other European countries have at this time to be able to compete with similar pings making clan matches more even. Only when our telco and cable companies start to improve will more players have access to high-speed connections and therefore be able to shine as individual gamers and make our clans more superior than they are now. LAN events are merely windows for such broadband gamers to shine even more. In years to come I feel UK clans will be much stronger than they are today and hopefully in the CB Eurocup 3 we will have more than 2 clans competing! And with the CS Nations Cup closing in maybe Team UK can prove that we have a lot to offer the CS community as far as competition goes.

Article by XceeD

P.S. - After my last question with Oppie, I had to tell him how good I really thought he was and being honest I told him he owned. His reply simply was:

[4K^Oppie]: Hehe, it's just the ping mate……just the ping