British gamers lose to Sweden

An early lead didn't help in football or Quake3

Britain's top Quake players have lost their semi-final match against Sweden in the European nations cup.

Despite establishing an early lead in the online gaming contest the UK team lost 3-2 in a very closely fought match.

The fixture was so close that two of the rounds needed extra time added to produce a winner.

In the final deciding round, technical problems handicapped one key UK player making it difficult for the team to co-ordinate play.

Late break

The UK met Sweden in the prestigious Quake III Deathmatch Nations Cup run by the Clanbase games website.

Like all the deathmatches, the UK-Sweden game was played over a series of rounds. Each round is played on a different map and each round is won by the team with the most kills, or frags, after 20 minutes.

The first team to win three rounds wins the whole match.

We really deserved a better result for our performance

Tony Dobson, UK Quake III captain

The UK team dominated the first round, built up an early lead and defended it well to become easy winners on the first map.

The second map was much closer with each team gaining an edge again and again, only to have it surpassed in a counter-attack from the opposition.

Overtime was needed to find a winner and the UK won the stage by a narrow margin in the closing seconds of the match.

The third round was closer still with both sides tied until the final stages when a late killing spree gave Sweden a victory.

The fourth round followed the same pattern and a winner, Sweden, only emerged in overtime. At this point the score was tied 2-2.

Pings and pangs

The final map was one the UK team was unfamiliar with and put it at a disadvantage going into the deciding round.

"It is not a very well liked map and as such it isn't really practiced in the UK," said Tony Dobson, captain of the UK team. "So we didn't really have good tactics going into the match."

Despite this the UK took an early lead.

"We relied mainly on innate skill and aim to see us through, and we were holding our own," said Mr Dobson.

The lead was wiped out by technical problems suffered by team member Blokey.

The faster a player can swap data with the server where a game is being played the better. Throughout the first four matches the average delay, or ping, was 50 milliseconds.

In the final match the ping rate of Blokey was spiking at 150 milliseconds, making it impossible for him to play his normal game.

Sweden took the final round 86-69 and the whole match 3-2.

"We were playing against arguably the best quake playing country in terms of talent and depth, so a win was always going to be very tough," said Mr Dobson.

"But we played some fantastic Quake and it was a privilege for me to coach the best players in the UK and see them out play the best Europe has to offer," he added, "We really deserved a better result for our performance."