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What is ClanBase

ClanBase, as the name already suggests, is a ‘base’ for all ‘clans’. It’s one of the largest and oldest online electronic sports league in the World, responsible for organizing cups and ladders on a variety of games such as Halflife 2, Counter-Strike, Unreal Tournament, Call of Duty, Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory, Medal of Honor, Battlefield 2 and many many more! ClanBase, abbreviated by most users to CB, provides each clan its own homepage in which they can present themselves and be able to arrange their matches using a built-in calendar.

Progress of ClanBase

Founded in October 1998 as a Dutch Quake II Capture the flag ladder, it grew quickly all over the rest of Europe and beyond. Now, more than 9 years later, more than 1.8 million users are registered with the site, playing actively in one of the 250.000 clans who join cups, ladders or other sort of leagues. Some gamers, like those who play the popular Counter-Strike or Call of Duty 2, can play on regional ladders, where they can meet with other players from the same nation. The Call of Duty 2 community, with comparatively large numbers of Hungarian and Slovenian participants, is able to choose from 15 regional ladders, and they are still eligible to play on the European ladders aswell. The Finnish community is highly active in Counter-Strike, with around 7000 clans playing playing an average of 50,000 matches a month in ladders.

ClanBase Crew

This organization is based on the volunteer work of hundreds of admins: referees, judges, cup supervisors, ladder supervisors, news writers and programmers. Each admin is responsible for his or her part of the maintenance or development in gaming or other aspects of the site. The core of such admins is called the ClanBase Crew.

Some Crew members are involved in the daily battle against cheaters. They are working closely with third-party anticheat organizations such as UTAN, Even Balance, etc.

In 2004 ClanBase formed a strategic partnership with the US based Global Gaming League (GGL), who consequently started the AmeriCup - the American answer to the ClanBase EuroCup.

In July 2005 the Global Gaming League bought ClanBase. In this transaction the old owners of ClanBase, Willem "Tal" Bison, Rob "Amsterdam Wob" van de Veer and Filip "Godsmurf" Camerman, joined the GGL advisory board and GGL assumed responsibility for the day to day operations of ClanBase. GGL appointed MadUSA together with three long term crew members, Nicolay "Nico" Ramm, Willem "Killerman" Bierman and Bleah, as the new managers of ClanBase.

ClanBase competitions

The site provides Ladders and Cups in different shapes and forms:

ClanBase Ladders

The Clanbase ladders run constantly with teams playing any time they agree to and reporting the results through the ClanBase website. Points are then awarded or removed using an ELO based rating system to create a ranking of participating clans. All ladders are subject to popularity and participation and new ladders can be created by a player creating a request and other players voting on it with ClanBase having the final say. Most games have European ladders and national ladders for countries with the largest amount of participation, the European ladders are usually considered more prestigious than the national ones.

ClanBase Cups

The OpenCup

The ClanBase OpenCup is one of the many tournaments organised by ClanBase. The OpenCup is operated in many ways as a lower level version of the EuroCup. The tournament is entered through open registration with cup administrators then picking the applicants and placing them in the divisions they see as being appropriate based on the past results of a clan and the experience of its members.

The OpenCup is organised twice a year in tandem with the EuroCup. You can compare the OpenCup and EuroCup to the existing forms in UEFA: the UEFA Cup and the Champions League respectivily. The spring season usually starts in February or March, while the Fall season starts in September or October. There is a separate OpenCup for each game and mod, so the term OpenCup actually refers to several dozen concurrent cups.

The tournament structure for the OpenCup can vary slightly from season to season and game to game but always consists of a group stage followed by playoffs until the final. Normally the top two or three clans in each group advance to the playoffs, play-offs have traditionally been organised as single-elimination brackets, but double elimination is gaining popularity among the ClanBase cup supervisors.

Each OpenCup is governed by a set of common rules in addition to game, mod and cup specific rules. Cup supervisors and cup administrators make sure that these rules are applied.

The EuroCup

The ClanBase EuroCup is the most prestigious online gaming tournament in Europe. It is an invitational tournament ran alongside the OpenCup. Apart from this it is mostly identical in organisation to the OpenCup. The EuroCup receives far more coverage than the OpenCup on the ClanBase website as well as from external sources. Most of these EuroCup finals are held as LAN events with cash prizes and are becoming acknowledged as important events.

The NationsCup

The ClanBase NationsCup is the de facto European Championship of online video gaming. As the name suggests this is not a tournament for clans but for national teams selected by an appointed team captain. There are rules dictating how many players from each clan the captain is allowed to pick. This is for example to prevent a nation with the current best clan in a game simply fielding that clan and to force the nation to use a mixed team therefore placing every nation in a position where they must create strategies and work with players unique to the national team.

You can compare the OpenCup and EuroCup to existing cups in Soccer: the UEFA Cup and the Champions League respectively. The fall season usually starts in September or October, while the spring season starts in March or April. Occasionally a summer cup is held for certain games during the summer holidays. The NationsCup can be compared to the FIFA WorldCup.

TO BE CONTINUED.