Good day Commanders! It's time for another Championship Server Update. This will be #4 in the series, the server itself is now approximately a month and a half old and although the battles rage nVidia is still in firm control. Today we're going to visit with freezy who is in charge of the United Forum consortium I hope you enjoy the chat!
GR Tell us a little about yourself. Name (first only and only if you are comfortable sharing that), sex, age, location.
freezy Hi, my name is freezy (real name Silvio), I'm a 26 year old male from Hamburg, Germany. Maybe you know me as one of the administrators of the German C&C community websites www.united-forum.de and www.cnc-inside.de, on which we host our weekly Free Funds Friday to give away free TA funds codes every week.
GR Tell us a little about your alliance. History TA wise, namesake website and anything else you'd care to share.
freezy The United-Forum alliance is the official TA alliance of the 2 just mentioned German community sites. Most of our members are therefore German, but we also have English speaking members. The alliance was founded right with the beta start of TA on the Closed Beta 1 Server, after many of our community members expressed interest in playing together as an alliance in that new C&C browser game. Because of that we never had problems filling our ranks and were able to open different wings famous for their color-based names. On the CB1 server we made many new "friends" from other international community's because of our PvP efforts, I recall a french guy from CnCSaga on a C&C community summit saying "oh you were the ones who kicked our asses on CB1." We've also beaten Phenomic Empire there, the alliance of the developers themselves (and btw, did you know that also other EA teams played on CB1, like DICE or Victory Games?). On CB1 we defeated the Endgame as first alliance in TA as a whole, our livestream broadcast of this event was even watched by the Devs. We then also played on the first German world Welt 1 and made the Endgame there as second alliance. On Welt 1 we befriended with the rank 1 alliance Se7en Sins, who are now part of our United-Forum alliance on the Championship server, together with old UF veterans and players from other servers. We had a good start on the CS server, but resulting from the events in the last weeks are now more in an underdog role. But we still enjoy it and are probably famous for our stubbornness and our pride. I think we are the only alliance on this server which does not give up after 3 days of PvP bashing.
GR How long have you personally been playing TA? What other C&C's are in your background?
freezy I play TA since December 2011, with the start of the beta. I also played every other C&C title, my online debut in C&C was with RA2: Yuri's Revenge in 2001, this also marks the start of my community participation. I also enjoyed the multiplayer of the C&C titles that followed, I probably spent the most time online with C&C Generals and C&C3: Tiberium Wars. Favorite C&C is Tiberian Sun because of it's gloomy atmosphere.
GR What are your thoughts on the Championship Server as a concept?
freezy I like the concept of the Championship server. Of course I would have preferred a server with no funds usage, but I think that would not be in EA's sense. So the concept of the server is fine, but EA should have spent more efforts in quality assurance (fixing occuring bugs like the reptime cap faster and also making sure that things like account farming won't occur) and also more efforts on news coverage as promised before.
GR What about how it is playing out? Seems like the diplomacy has turned on its ear a bit in the last week? Or is that just me I wake up dead every day (apparently the Ultimate Veterans did not like my last blog!) How do you feel about the Championship Server map overall? Meaning size, impact of POI on the server overall, etc.
freezy That is all tactics, lulling them in false confidence and then striking when they don't expect it ^^. I'm sorry for your bases being raped though, but I appreciate that you hang around with us. Maybe you should tell them that you enjoy immunity as reporter? Well but as I mentioned earlier: Yes the server went not that good for us, but basically we don't care that much anymore and continue to have fun. What else can we do anyway with the server being pretty much decided? I congratulate nVidia for their apparent victory though, they played it out smart and therefore deserve it.
1. GR How do you feel about the Championship Server map overall? Meaning size, impact of POI on the server overall, etc.
freezy Actually I like the small size of the map, it puts more emphasis on PvP instead of the usual weeks of PvE on the bigger servers. POI coverage is ok as well. The problems of the server and TA as a whole lie more in general game design and game balance. Not much has been done in that regard for a long time and current trends have been seen too late. For example the balance between defense and offense in the early stages of the game is broken, with defense much more viable: You lack the units to overcome the all around mg nests, defenses are mostly power leveled (sell buildings -> level def HQ -> put units in the additional defense slots -> sell def HQ again and rebuild buildings) so you have to grind through more units than normally would have been possible which makes each target able to survive 3 attacks. And after 3 attacks you are safe because then support weapons obliterate any incoming attackers. Another point is that Nod in it's current state is overpowered compared to GDI, (cobra shields anyone? ^^). And I don't know why there was nothing done against account farming yet, which really did make things worse. I think the whole gameplay and balancing needs a face lift, but I won't pollute your blog with that any further GR How do you see this finishing from here?
freezy Uhm TA or the server? ^^ Well the server is pretty much in the hands of nVidia now, though it has to be seen how many nVidia alliances will do the Endgame, maybe some time other alliances will also get a chance to do it. Regarding TA: I'm optimistic the recently announced Forgotten attacks will bring fresh wind into the game, but more has to be done to bring the ship truly back on course.
GR Anything thoughts in closing for the community?
freezy Well I incorporated many thoughts into the previous points, so let me just thank you for the interview. Also thanks to all supporters/contributors/members of our United-Forum/CnC-Inside community and in game alliance, and greetings to my friends at Gamereplays.
Here are the current rankings for both the individual ladder and the alliance ladder
