Happy Fourth of July! To celebrate this fine holiday, we have finished processing a slew of match reviews for you to enjoy reading. Break out the popcorn.

On the tournament front, so far only one set of results has been sent in by those clever players from KRO and GfH. Remember that although this is a two-week round, the deadlines will still apply and you should try to play your matches before the fallback times if possible. Consider it practice for next week, when the Bottom Bracket will really start heating up with two matches per week.

[07/04/99 05:56 CDT | Butcher]

Badlands have completed Caer Cadarn, and a final candidate of the map is now available for download from the MWC99 Hotline server in the MWC99 Maps folder. We welcome any feedback, and if you email us here we will pass it along to Badlands.

The games to be played on Caer Cadarn are still under review, but Dark Captures or Flag Rally seem likely.

[07/02/99 21:59 CDT | Butcher]

We know you've been waiting anxiously, and your prayers have been answered at last. At last, the highlights section has been started with our favourite picks from the first round of Double Elimination play.

GASP at the stunning play! MARVEL at the impressive explosions! SPECULATE on the outcomes of this week's spotlight matches! WONDER how we ever have time to do all this!

The Play of the Week and Blunder of the Week will eventually have screenshots depicting the events in glorious technicolour, but for now you'll just have to use your imagination. Sorry.

[07/01/99 07:43 CDT | Butcher]

Quite a few people have amused themselves on the Discussion Board by trying to work out who's going to beat who in MWC99. Well, now it's your turn. Show us how good your prognostications are by putting your money where your mouth is (figuratively, of course).

We've opened a betting pool where you can place your bet on ten teams that you think are going to finish highly-placed. At the end of the tournament, we'll be awarding a prize to the person whose picks do best. Enjoy!

Note: We see no reason why MWC99 staff shouldn't be allowed to enter this little challenge for a bit of fun. So don't complain at us when you see us doing so.

[06/30/99 00:04 CDT | Butcher]

I have finished making changes to teams' rosters, and they are now locked for Round Two of the Double Elimination ladder, which begins now. This round will last for two weeks, fallback times have been assigned on July 11th.

Please note that teams in the Top Bracket should play a five-game match (Lichen, Lichen, Desert, Desert, Divide) whereas teams in the Bottom Bracket should play a three-game match (Lichen, Desert, Divide).

Because next round is going to be the first of the double-bracket one-week rounds, it is going to be crucial that we get results processed as soon as possible after the fallback times. Remember, send in your results the NIGHT THAT YOU PLAY... we can't afford to have problems like we did this week.

We hope to have highlights from Round One up shortly.

[06/28/99 22:54 CDT | Butcher]

A bunch of miscellaneous updates to start the week...

Never, ever, ever, rename a 'Last Recording' film and send it in with your results. This triggers a bug in Myth II that can make people's Save Replay button to stop functioning. Offenders will be flogged, repeatedly.

Remember to check out the Story section regularly if you aren't already! There are new updates almost every day. You can see the current headlines in the bottom-most box on the right-hand side of this page.

We have changed around some of the maps and games in later rounds (none earlier than Round Four)... just minor changes, mostly.

Brackets for Round Two are mostly complete; you can start scheduling your next match now with your upcoming opponents if you want to. However we are still waiting on two sets of results from Round One before official confirmations are sent out.

Round Two will last until July 11th, and so has two weeks to run. This is being done for a number of reasons:

• Since it's the first round with both Top and Bottom Brackets running at once, we want to get a lot of matches out of the way before fallback weekend.
• My supervisor is breathing down the back of my neck and I need to get more work done on my PhD than I have been for the last month.
• It's my twenty-first birthday this weekend coming up, so I want to take a well-earned break.
• Oh, and there's this little vacation called the 'Fourth of July'... you may have heard of it.

[06/28/99 08:12 CDT | Butcher]