Obviously things have been pretty quiet around here the last few months. The reason is simple: I’ve been really busy with exams. With the last one finished earlier today, I’m ready to get back into NS again. I’m not really sure where take over stands at the moment, or if there’s even going to be another ENSL season on NS1, but in any case I intend to keep playing in preparation for NS2.

Some assorted news and thoughts:

I’m going to start working on two new NS1 movies very shortly. These are going to be my last NS1 movies EVER, so this should be interesting. I’m not going to release any details about it just yet, but rest assured this will materialize.

I’m not sure what’s going to happen with 9L.ns2. I/we had originally planned to try putting together a 9L reunion of sorts, but I doubt this is going to materialize. To be honest the season 13 reform left me a bit disappointed. Of course playing with the dudes again was fun, lots of fun actually, but I also realized that life is really starting to catch up with most of us. Priorities change and most simply don’t have the time or motivation needed to play at the top level. I guess we’ll see what happens — I don’t even know if NS2 is going to be worth playing yet.

Take Over got destroyed by BALLS in the ENSL Season 14 semi final a few weeks back. Big disappointment. It was a fair win though; we got outplayed at every turn. Unfortunately the team wasn’t able to prioritize at the moment when it was the most needed and almost a full month of lackadaisical practice left us helpless. I’m sure the players in question had good reasons, but it’s still very frustrating. This isn’t some great new development though — the team with the greatest stamina and will to win usually comes out on top in the end. It just feels a bit strange watching it from this side. In the past I’ve usually been on the team that hunkered down and kept practicing until the end no matter what.

I’ve also realized a few things about leadership. No offence to x-man and Danny, they’re good guys, but they simply didn’t put in the time that was needed to shepherd this team to the finish line. Again, I’m sure they had very good reasons, real life tends to override computer game commitments, but this is essential to the winning formula. Having a good leader who knows his shit and always puts in the time needed to rally the troops and get stuff done is a rare but very important commodity in NS. I’m not going to claim I was some great leader, because I certainly wasn’t, but I’ve known a few in the past. They really do make the difference between a half-assed group of players and a sharp team.

Hopefully we’ll see a resurgence of strong leaders in NS2.