WARNING!  LOTSA PIX IN THIS REPORT! 
VIEW IT AT 1024 by 768 RESOLUTION OR SCWEWYNESS MAY RESULT!

The summer of the year 2000 saw the typical
dearth of T.V. network programming.  Reruns were so dreadfully dull that in
desperation, America turned to a lame rip-off of a European T.V. show for
entertainment.  The complete lack of any sort of actual competition can be
the only possible explanation for the popularity of perhaps the crappiest show
ever to darken the airwaves with its putrid presence.  I am - of course -
speaking of that shameful act of T.V. executive chutzpah, Survivor.

In the T.V. show, a bunch of middle-class
stiffs from all walks of life were taken to a deserted island and traded in
their dignity for a shot at a million dollars.  Sixteen people (I think - I
didn't watch the show myself so my actual Survivor lore is scanty) were divided
into two 'tribes'.  Each week, one person was 'voted off' the island in
perhaps the most blatant (and innately pathetic) attempt to manufacture actual
suspense ever in the history of mankind.

However dismal and annoying the T.V. show
might have been, the idea itself has been translated into a TFC mode of play by
the enterprising **KEA**Phantom-TPF-.  The first TFC Survivor series took
place in November, and was graced by yours truly.  I came in a respectable
third place and it was pretty fun.  The premise is the same as the T.V.
show.  Two teams (Red and Blue natch) struggle in prefabricated
'challenges'.  The loser has to 'vote off' a member of their team. 
This is the story of the first round of TFC Survivor Series Two!

Sixteen players.  Three rounds.  One
server.  And in the end - one player...

THE
PLACE: *KEA* Six Frags Team Park

THE TIME: 7:00 P.M. Mountain Time
on Friday, December the 1st - Anno Domini 2000.

THE MAPS: Well, Canal Zone, &
Push

There were three separate rounds
of play with the two 'tribes' - each round was 30 minutes in length and had
a five minute 'pre-round' countdown for the teams to communicate and plan their
attacks.  Of course, neither team did this.  The prematches were filled with
team killing and spam the likes of which no mortal should ever have to view
without the aid of barbiturates...

THE PLAYERS:

TEAM BLUE:
**KEA**CENSORED, [decepticons] Starscream, **KEA**7of9-=KAF=-, [-BeL-]Cyberstealth-TPF-,
Mr.Gibs.

TEAM RED:
TROUBLE, **KEA**Chrono-TPF-(AoE), [-BeL-]bigfoot-TPF-, The Crimson King,
Phr0zeN.

OBSERVING: Nafarias, Slyrr (my
noble aide), **KEA**Phantom (our host), and **KEA**Heirophant-TPF-(AoE).

Phantom and Heirophant eventually
pitched in for the teams since we were short the requisite 12 players that had
registered for the series.  Bad form on **KEA**Mr.Hat, KAR-Cerberus,
Capsule1/4, **KEA**Shoot2Kill, and DNDD-SniperKiller.  These were all
persons that had registered with Phantom and did not show up.  You are
forever immortalized in this report as cowardly bums!  Just kidding
guys!  We all know how virtually impossible it is to get even teams of 8 to
show up on a Friday night.  Those of you that aren't TFC players - this
ain't starcraft!  16 folks have to somehow juggle their schedules and show
up on the same IP address at the same time!  This takes patience, ICQ, MirC,
Roger Wilco, and more than a little voodoo.

We all met in the Survivor
website chat room ( http://kea.nerdnet.com/tfcsurvivor/news.html
) and there were some funny shenanigans before we all headed to the Frag Park...

"[TheCrimsonKing] Racecar
spelled backwards is racecar.  Is
that funny?    [Hierophant]
who called me ma'am?   [Chrono]
does that give me extra sexy points?   [TheCrimsonKing]
Hey, shutup Chrono. Keep you gentile comments to yourself!  
w00t!   [Chrono] my
genital comments?  [starscream]
ok folks remember to empty your bladders before the start.  [TheCrimsonKing]
Ok, immortalize this silly comment: You  gentiles
and jews think you can persecute us, but we, the Nation of Islam declare Jihad
on you 
ALL!  [Legolas] any
vibrations to my modem will knock it off, unfortunately i have 
a dog, a very active dog...  [Chrono] MODEM SEX
YAYAYAYA! [TheCrimsonKing]
Allah forbids homosexual acts Legolas. No place in Paradise 
for you!"

Needless to say, Crimson
King's 'in
your face' Islam was a constant theme from him.  We all filtered to the
server and we were supposed to play on "VIDARS NILFHELM" - the great
new map from Neil Manke.  However, for some mysterious reason Phantom
decided that we would play on the tried and true Valve map "THE
WELL".  Arg!  That was the scene of my FIRST battlereport! 
Oh well - off we went...

SURVIVOR SERIES
ROUND ONE: CTF - THE WELL!

Slyrr was helping me by observing
the Blue base and I was observing the Red base.  Between the two of us we
hoped to monitor all of the important action.  To make the game interesting
- Phantom had set up certain rules for this round of play.  The teams were
to be 'highlander' teams.  There would be no more than one of each
class.  Only one scout, one HW Guy, one Soldier, you get the idea. 
This would prevent defensive teams of five Engineers setting up a virtually
impenetrable net of sentries.  You can change classes, but there can never
be more than one of a class at a time.

Now the people in the Survivor
series are all clanners or ex-clanners in TFC.  They know the ins and outs
of this map - and this is not going to be like some wussie public server match
where no one blows the grate for 10 minutes... 
I came expecting fast and furious action, because clan matches are an all-out
blitzkrieg in the first minute or so.  I wasn't disappointed.

RED OPENING
ROSTER:  Trouble and Chrono
went out on offense.  Bigfoot went out, but
only to blow the enemy water grate.  The Crimson King
was a Pyro on DEFENSE (!) and Phr0zen was a
sniper.  This was for the initial rush only though folks.

BLUE
OPENING ROSTER: Censored and Mr.
Gibs were the initial primary Blue offense, bucked up by Cyberstealth. 
7 of 9 and Starscream
were the Blue D.

This opening setup way favored
Blue.  A Pyro is almost useless on D, and a Sniper only has minor
usefulness.  Blue's HW Guy and Engy on D have a better chance of fending
off an initial rush.  Let's see what happened!

The
Blues came in strong, and the weak Red D was not able to fend off the initial
rush.  All the action in the
picture to the left happened within the first minute or two of the match.  Starscream
even went so far as to 'hand off' the flag to Cyberstealth
for the capture!  Now THAT'S teamwork folks!

The problem here was that Red
simply could not mount a defense with a Sniper, a Demoman, and a Pyro.   
Demos and their pipe-traps can't stop a scout, medic, and HW Guy all coming at
once though - and a Pyro just ain't gonna do a whole lot.  The
Crimson King would have been much better off on offense, and Phr0zen
seemed oblivious to the fact that snipers suck in competitive play.  Ah
well!  Live and learn and then get Luvs!

And was Red's Offense sitting on
its hands this whole time?  Not hardly!

Red's offense went at about the
same pace as the Blue offense.  Blue's D was notably stiffer, but the red O
was more skillful.  The sentry was a problem for the light O of course, but Chronos
proved that a Sentry Gun is not an obstacle to a good Heavy offense
player.  Light O provided the distraction and Heavy broke in to get at the
flag.  This is classic CTF stuff folks and I hope you are taking
notes.  It does not need to be said that one of the first things that
happened for either team was a demoman going out and blowing the water grate for
easy access.  Blue was slower about it than Red, but both teams got it done
within the first minute or so.

So within two minutes tops - the
match is tied with 1 cap apiece for each team.  Woot!  I could tell
already that reporting this mess was going to be a witch with a capital B! 
Things were happening at a pace that makes a public match look like 'glacier
speed' by comparison.

I don't have a shot of it, but
TROUBLE quickly came in for Red cap #2 not too long after the first cap by
Chronos.  This put red in the lead by one cap.  The scoreboard so
far...

Phr0zen
has gone Engy at this point, but otherwise Red remains the same.  Censored
has remained a Demo for a bit now, a leftover from when he blew Red's water
grate.  Chrono has one cap and TROUBLE
has one cap.  Cyberstealth has snagged the red
flag one time.

Red's defense may be a bit better
now that they have an engy on duty.  Let's see how things fall out in the
next few minutes of the match!

The
Blue attack now consisted of a Medic, a Spy, and a Scout.  Red's D was a
Demoman, a Pyro, and an Engy with a flawed notion of sentry placement.  Phr0zen's
sentry was just killbait and did not stop the incoming Blue attackers. 
Luckily Bigfoot and Crimson
King were around to help out.  Blue's second cap took quite a bit of
effort, as you can see.  It was nip and tuck all the way from the flag room
to the time when Censored tossed it out the Sniper
deck.  All in all it was a well coordinated attack that was up against a
defense from tough opponents that were less than ideally placed.  If the
sentry was in the flag well and Bigfoot was a
soldier then I don't think they'd have made it.  Right after cap #2,
CyberStealth snapped the flag up and took it out the water tube.  Cap #3
was not far off...

Red's offense was making some
stellar progress at this time though.  Chronos
is showing 7of9 no mercy, and is regularly
thrashing his sentry gun.  Phr0zen even went
medic for a minute or two and joined in the capping fun.  Blue's defense
was only 7of9
and Starscream.  7of9 couldn't keep his gun
up, so Blue's D rested almost entirely on Starscream
during this time - and it was clear that Chronos
and TROUBLE were too much for him.

It was pretty obvious that the
Blue defense was going to be the weak link for the boys in Blue this game. 
If they didn't change up their plan then Red would probably walk away with this
match.  As it was, the score now was 4 caps for Red and 2 caps for Blue
with one cap on the way.  The score would be 4 to 3 within moments.

However, in a stunning change in
the tempo of the match - Blue's Offense starts to shake its groove thing. 
The Pyro on D is showing its weakness, and Phr0zen
has changed to a HW Guy so there is no sentry on defense.  Blue has lots of
light O and they know how to conc jump from the water up to the well
gantry.  Red's D is still persistent and fights for every cap - but Blue
comes out with two more caps and catches up to the Reds!  This could be
better than I thought!

The scoreboard!

Chronos
remains the Red 'go to guy' on offense.  But CyberStealth
on Blue and Censored (Medic) are not going to let
Red run away with this match!  We have picked up two players somehow as
well.  Some guy named [-BeL-]DOC!-tpf-(AoE) [sR]
in on Red as a Sniper.  Hierophant has joined
Blue as a Demo on D to balance the teams.  His presence on D gave Starscream
and 7of9 the time they needed to solidify their
defense a bit.  Red was still a big threat with Chronos
leading the pack, but CyberStealth's
speed as a Scout is now giving BLUE the edge!  I love a see-saw match!

OK!  The match is coming up
on the half-way mark at this point.  Both teams are at four caps
apiece.  There is a funny story with cap number five though.  Both
teams got flag touches at about the same time.  The details are unimportant
- but the results made for a pretty funny picture that you don't see all the
time in a competitive match...

Heh.  Well it wasn't long of
course until Cyberstealth came back and finished
the cap run.  So with Chronos making cap
number five for Red and Cyberstealth making cap
five for Blue you have a score of...

We have Chronos
with three caps, Phr0zen with one cap, and TROUBLE
with one cap for the Reds.  Red has made some CRITICAL team changes at this
time as well.  Cyberstealth is the star of
Blue's O with 4 out of 5 caps.  The Crimson King
has given up his futile attempt to be useful on Defense as a Pyro and is now an
Engineer.  Phr0zen is now a HW Guy on D in the
Well and Bigfoot rounds out the defensive
effort.  This defensive setup would prove to be quite troublesome for Blue
in the future.  DOC! is still a useless
sniper...  Go figure.  Red's offense consists of Chronos
and TROUBLE, with Bigfoot
going out on the occasional offensive foray as well (but he stuck to D for the
most part).

Now lest you get the wrong
impression from my humorous asides, the Blue offense did NOT suck.  Cyberstealth
and Censored were conc jumping into the Red well
like MAD and they did as well as you could expect two light offense guys to
do.  However, they simply did not pack enough punch to break the D. 
Many was the time that Censored would manage to
blow the sentry, only to be stopped cold by Phr0zen. 
And Bigfoot was still around with his mad
Pipe-traps of doom to complicate matters.  Blue really really needed a
Heavy offense at this point - but I didn't see Mr. Gibs
much on Offense even though he was sorely needed.  And so the Red D held
fast despite many incursions.  This went on for quite some time and Blue
remained at the dubious total of five captures.

While all this was going on, Blue
was struggling to get their Defense on track.  With Mr.
Gibs and Starscream on D as a Soldier and HW
Guy respectively, and 7 of 9 on duty as an Engy you
would think that they would have a formidable D to crack.  Either Red's
offense was REALLY good or Blue's D was really bad or some combination of the
two.  In any case - Chronos and TROUBLE
were having only minor problems getting past the Blue setup.  I dunno what Heirophant
was doing - but it ended up not making much difference on Defense.

Over the course of many minutes
(about 8 to 12 or so - I don't have a stopwatch yet) Red began to slowly pull
away from Blue.  Below is a little collage to give you an idea of how this
fracas was going...

Ouch!  It was slow, but
sure.  Red won the first round of Survivor Series #2 and Blue never got
past cap #5.  

"Ahoy ahoy!  C.
Montgomery Burns here.  I have only one thing to say about Red's
performance in this match...  Eeeexcellent...."

Mr. Burns' comment aside, Red
performed an excellent overall round in this match.  Their initial defense
was questionable, and that allowed Blue to get several caps.  However, once
their D settled in it was too much for Blue.

In contrast - Blue's D never
quite seemed to finds its footing.  Chronos had a lot to do with
that.  In the end, Red's offense was just a couple notches better than
Blue's D.  With a better D AND a better O, it was only a matter of how much
Red would win by.

All this considered, the round
was pretty close there up until the half-way mark.  Props to everyone
involved for an above average performance.

The Blue Team now had a hard
choice to make...  Who do you vote off of the island?  Well it
actually didn't take them long to decide.  Heirophant and Phantom were only
playing on the teams to keep them even number-wise.  As such - Heirophant
was the first victim!  So long Heiro!  He now joined Slyrr and I back in
the ranks of bodiless Observer Entities.

SURVIVOR SERIES
ROUND TWO: CZ GOLF!

For those of you that don't know
the rules, Canal Zone golf is a fun little variant of TFC.  Canal Zone is a
'Domination' map where you carry flags to a set of five different cap
points.  If your flag is on the point, your team gets points for every few
seconds you 'own' the zone.  The more Cap Points you own - the
bigger/faster you score.  You get a 25 point bonus if you cap all five
zones at once, and then the flags reset.

This system gets turned on its
ear a bit in CZ Golf.  Only ONE scout is allowed to carry the flag. 
The Scout cannot move once he leaves the base - he can only jump and
squat.  Friendly Fire is turned off and the Scout's teammates have to knock
the hapless scout around the map like a piñata.  His teammates basically
have to 'golf' the flag-carrying scout all over the map to capture the
points.  It is senseless, mindless fun.

Unfortunately, it makes for a crappy
battlereport.  There isn't a lot of visible action because you aren't
allowed to interfere with the opposing team.  No killing folks!  No
violence!  How fun is that to watch?

Anyway
- here is what happened.  Red came out early on and built up a good
lead.  Blue seemed to struggle a bit with trying to learn how to best bonk
the scout around the map.  The answer is SNIPERS blue... Snipers... 
Anyway, Red was regularly taking cap points and eventually built up a very
sizable lead - even going so far as to cap all 5 points and get the extra
bonus.  But then for SOME reason, red started totally screwing
around.  It was like watching a public server match!  Blue lost no
time in capitalizing on it - and a solid Red lead was quickly vanishing. 
With only about five minutes left in the game and the score almost tied, Red
finally woke up and started playing again.  Blue kept up a frenetic pace,
but in the end it was too late.

Red wins again!  Victim
number TWO is... **KEA**CENSORED!  Sorry man.  No more rats and fat
naked guys on the beach for you...  So Red now has a pretty big advantage
going into round three.  The game is...

SURVIVOR SERIES
ROUND THREE: PUSH!

For those of you that haven't
played Push, it is a fun little map that is only meant for small teams.  It
is basically TFC soccer.  There is a ball in the middle of the map and two
bases with a cap point on each side.  Blue tried to get ball to red cap
point, red tries to get ball to blue cap point, person who has the ball that
gets killed drops the ball, yadda yadda yadda.  This is another game that
is a hoot to play and crap to report.  If CZ Golf is boring because of no
violence, Push is hard to report for the exact opposite reason.  It is
violence UNENDING!  The action is so fast and furious that it is quite
impossible to give a play by play.  I'll end the suspense right now. 
Red SLAUGHTERED Blue.  The Blue players were 105 pound blondes in stiletto
heels and the Red players were 275 pound musclebound pimps.  It was
pathetic and the collage below tells you everything you need to know about the
match...

In case you didn't get it - you
see "THE BALL HAS BEEN DROPPED!" quite a lot in a game of push. 
Blue tried as well as they could, but they were a player short and that
hurts.  In the end the score was a whopping 130 points for Red and only 30
for Blue.  Owie - stingie.

The FINAL victim of Night One:
Survivor Series 2?  [decepticons] Starscream!

So we have Heirophant, Censored,
and Starscream off the blue team.  Will the Blues recover from their THREE
round drubbing and win the survivor series?  Stay tuned and see!  Same
Bat-time!  Same Bat-channel!

THIS HAS BEEN A "NAFARIAS
SEZ!" PRODUCTION