WoF Round Up

[Jimmy B]

WoF 2007 is approaching its conclusion. After two months of intense competition, 25 nations have been eliminated. The remaining three nations will be battling it out in the WoF Final this coming weekend. Team USA goes into the final as favorites, but Romania and Sweden certainly won't be ruling themselves out of the running.

Stage Three saw 12 nations competing in three groups, the top two scoring teams in each group qualifying for the Semi-Finals. The mobs were Argonauts, Molisks, Itumatrox and any mob from the Thorio tribe. WoF fever had truly hit EU now, the weekend chat window was filled with WoF globals and for those in search of luck, fake WoF team names were rapidly becoming more popular than the ever-present "We love MA!" teams.

The WoF itself was now becoming quite tactical. Firepower, of course, was essential. Support teams for fapping and eliminating non-scoring mobs were crucial. PvP tactics could make quite a difference. Choice of mobs was important. And one WoF team was even using wormholes in order to get from the starting point to the mobs quicker!

WoF Stage 3 - Tribes 'n' Trees

In Group One, Eudoria had only just qualified for the stage by virtue of a final round victory against Portugal at the end of Stage Two. They were like a new team in this Stage, triumphantly taking first place in the group despite losing to second-placed Sweden. Scotland and Denmark were forced to watch on in resigned camaraderie as their WoF dreams came to an end for this year.

Group Two was the one to watch in this Stage. England was spamming globals and comfortably won the group, but the real battle was between France and Romania for second place. Going into the final match, France held the advantage but Romania managed to beat them by enough points to scrape into second place. Ireland went out struggling, despite some great performances in Stage Two.

Group Three saw USA emerge as the Team to beat. With a number of very skilled ubers amongst their ranks, their globals came at an astonishing rate. Germany almost managed to keep pace with them though and secured a comfortable second place in the group. Team USA was also taking full advantage of the location of some of the mobs being in PvP-enabled areas. One reported in-match conversation went:

Star: "What team are you?"
Other WoF Competitor: "Italy"
Star: "Prepare to die!"
Other WoF Competitor: "No wait, Wales!"

So Stage Three was complete. Teams Eudoria, Sweden, England, Romania, USA and Germany were through to the Semi-Finals. For the statisticians amongst you, in the first three stages of the WoF there had been 679 globals! A check of the WoF Hall of Fame revealed that fourteen of these (2%) were over 300 PED and three (0.5%) were over 1000 PED. Team Austria still holds the highest with a 1239 PED Warrior.

The Semi-Finals took place this weekend. Feffoids, Ambulimax, Aetherex and Chompers were the unlucky mobs. USA continued their rampage, defeating Germany. Eudoria couldn't quite keep pace with Sweden in their match. A closely fought battle between England and Romania saw Romania emerging victorious, with just a couple of globals being the difference between the teams!

Team Romania, lots of faps, and a Chomper

The Final takes place next weekend, and will see the three remaining teams battling it out against Longu, Atrox, Hispidus and Hogglo. Good luck from the EF news crew to all involved!

Shortly before the semi-finals we caught up with Clam Jamphrie. As WoF artist, WoF scorekeeper and Team Eudoria captain he's been pretty busy the last few months!

Jimmy: Clam, WoF has been wonderfully illustrated by all your artwork - it must take you ages?

Clam: Somebody said after I had posted the first round of scores that I’m going to be a busy lad. He was not wrong. I have mentioned in my sketchbook diary that I went through a bit of an ‘artist's block’ a few months ago, but the WoF really got my creative juices going again, and now there are not enough hours in the day for me to create all I want.

Jimmy: Is art a hobby or profession for you?

Clam: Well, I’ve drawn since I can remember and all my working life I’ve either held a pencil or paintbrush or sat in front of a PC. I consider myself lucky to have earned a living doing something I love. I currently work from home as a freelancer, so if anyone wants to hire an amazing 2D-3D artist, PM me!

Jimmy: Who has influenced your art?

Clam: As a youngster I always would read 2000 AD so my artistic heroes mostly come from there. Artists like: Ian Gibson, Brian Bolland and of course Simon Bisley. One of my greatest heroes and one of my biggest influences was Albert Uderzo who drew the Astrix series.

Jimmy: You also do all the scoretables of course - have you been surprised by the amount of globals the WoF has seen so far?

Clam: I’m surprised looking back to the start of the WoF and to where we are now that teams like Germany actually managed to score zero in the early stages. I must give a special mention to Team USA, however, who have constantly forced me to make the match report tables bigger and bigger. Thanks guys. Pah!

Jimmy: You also lead Team Eudoria in the WoF! After narrowly surviving Stage 2, Eudoria sailed through Stage 3 - was this a change of tactics?

Clam: Hmm, lead is probably not the best word to describe my captaining style. Luckily Team Eudoria’s players seem to be able to get along with things without too much effort. Jake (Jason ‘Jake’ Leigh) deals with most of the organizing, which is a blessing due to the ‘behind the scenes’ WoF stuff I’m involved with. As far as a change of tactics go, we just enlisted bigger guns.

Jimmy: I see you've even got a Team Anthem - how did that come about?

Clam: I believe I was drunk. I did start to write the music score for it too, but then realized I was probably taking things a bit too far. I am also thinking of petitioning to get it recognized as the official Eudorian Anthem.

Jimmy: What are you up to in EU when you get a break from the WoF?

Clam: It seems like ages since I’ve had the time to run around and kill things, but hopefully after the WoF I can get back into the mix and go and kill stuff with my fellow Hounds. I did dabble in making shoes once but I soon realized that I prefer killing stuff instead. I’m a bit of a ‘one trick pony’ to be honest.

For the latest WoF news, visit the WoF Subforum. Keep an eye out for the award ceremonies and other WoF parties after the Final! One date for the diary is the WoF Appreciation Party on Friday the 18th of May, 20:00-MA, being held as a thanks to Hurrikane for organizing the event.

Acknowledgements: Thanks again to Clam for all the artwork used in this article, and to Hurrikane for providing various WoF facts and figures.

[edeanp]

Great story and fantastic artwork

[Xantonia]

Originally Posted by edeanp

Great story and fantastic artwork

I second that - some excellent work there

[Missmonkey]

Great Reporting Jimmy.... and a great interview with the talented Clammer.

The time and skill put into producing such amazing artwork really shows, he's one talented hound....not to mention his song writing skills.....

Eudoria Eudoria,
Land of all good things.
Eudoria Eudoria,
The good things that it brings.


Verse 1

There’s Feffs and Cleds
And Merps and Snots.
We’ve got Armax Cows,
And Araneatrox.

There’s Atrax and Atrox
And some of them big
But beware of the Ubers
If you visiiiit the Riiiiiiiiiiiigggg… oh….

Chorus

Eudoria Eudoria,
Land of all good things,
Eudoria Eudoria,
The good things that it brings.

Verse 1

Dysentery and flippentry
You can find at Twin Peaks.
But the place is so laggy,
You could be there for weeeeeeks

You can go to a ring
To see how long you lasted
But you’re bound to get shot
By some fucking baaaastaaaard

Chorus (‘til infinity)

Eudoria Eudoria,
Land of all good things,
Eudoria Eudoria,
The good things that it brings….

Ahhh the fun we had.....until next year

[ZippO]

amazing artwork man! and a very nice cover story on this latest stage of the event!

[Mal]

get journalism, pe needs more journalists like you

[Jimmy B]

Thanks for the nice comments people

Just in case anyone missed the bottom line, all the artwork is by the talented Clam Jamphrie. I can't draw a circle

[MindStar9]

Another excellent Front Page presentation JB ... it is such a pleasure working with you in the Newsroom my dear. Gratz on yet another super job.

And to Clam ... all I can say is ... amazing ... you are one talented artist Hon, and I'm about to send you a PM to see if we can work on something ... paid work of course.

[Kerham]

Great article. Happy to see this new gem (jam, clam ) in community

GO Romania!

[BlackMagicWoman]

Awesome!!!


GO ROMANIA !!!!!!!