Joke about Rastaman's height here.

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With the closure of the EnemyDown Spring Invite a few days ago (Standings below), things seem to be bright for the flaship brand of TNWA. I spoke to Ben "Bub" Wood, one of the main Counter-Strike: Source admins of the league, and a very outspoken one at that.

1. Logitech.fi
2. 4kings
3. nameless
4. guns4hire
5-6. fnatic
5-6. Reason-Gaming
7-8. eSuba
7-8. TLR

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So Bub, with the completion of the ED Spring Invite, did the event go as well as you hoped?

Stu was really the mastermind behind it all and had been pushing the idea of an invite event with a decent prize pot for ages. With TNWA onboard the ED events have the financial backing that was needed to start offering these kind of events. I think for the first 'big' cash prize on ED it went very well. All events have hiccups along the way but it's how you deal with them and what happens after them that actually matters.

I was very happy with the end result from the organisers point of view

So what would you say was the biggest "hiccup" along the way to the final?

he ED double elim bracket being completely wrong would have to claim that prize. Previously it had only been used for 8 team events (Ebuyer competition) and when it tried to do 16 it was just wrong. On the positive side of things it has given the site devs the chance to completely rebuild it and revamp that side of the events system.

Right from the start the tournament had it's share of controversy, with Wez (stand in for the Birmingham Salvo) being found to be using a previous banned (steambans) account, how do you think you handled this?

I think we handled it the exact same way we would if it happened to any other team in ED. A player was using another steam account to bypass an ED ban. That means the new account is also banned and where the player is listed as CL the team is removed. The discussion for the SALVO guys is obviously whether the original account should be banned after this amount of time and because of the situation surrounding the ban.

For us that wasnt the issue, the only thing on the table was the fact that a player was getting around a ban by using another id and that isn't allowed.

It was a shame for them to be removed from the event as they are a great team but ignoring the ban and allowing him to continue playing wasn't something we were prepared to do at that point.

This raises the issue of the policy of lifetime bans. People in eSports mature, and for a cheating infraction in a public to affect a professional cash tournament 4 years later seems a bit silly. Does ED intend to review its policy on cheating bans?

I wouldn't want to say anything about ED policy on something as major as lifetime bans as that's not something I can decide. Perm bans are open for appeal at any point and players can contact senior admins regarding them. Policy comes from the top down. You're talking about 1 specific case (wez cheating on public, steambanned and mirrored to ED) and then applying that to the whole of lifetime bans.

Would you give, for example, cruified a 1 year ban and allow him back into ED?

That better have been rhetorical! You don't get to interview me.

Haha, all I'm saying is that perm bans are perfectly reasonable in some cases. In some cases a perm ban is extreme. The decision of which cases are reasonable and which aren't isn't something I decide. Would have to ask the management/seniors.

For me it's the breach of trust. In an online environment a cheater loses that trust when he is caught cheating anywhere. Is it worth risking it to keep him playing? If you say yes then it's a slippery slope and soon everybody is using "comedy speedhacks" on publics and claiming they dont cheat in officials. ED has always had a zero tolerance policy and it's served the site very well for 6 years

So going back to the ED Spring Invite, another controversial issue was the Guns4Hire versus Reason game, with TiLs allegedly illegaly fake defusing, even though Guns4Hire lost the round, reason conflicted, was this a straight forward decision to make or did you have to rethink how you applied the rules?

When Reason first conflicted I just found it massively amusing. Dust2. g4h. Accused of illegal defuse on A site. I'm sure the reason guys were happy they were in another country. Can't underestimate Ali and Tyson a.k.a. tils and beta.

More seriously though the "fake" (the defuse noise) was made when the bomb was visible and they lost the round anyway. They also eco'd 2 rounds afterwards so I don't think it was a hard decision for the conflicts team at all. They deal with stuff like that every day and luckily they don't care what clan name or player name is attached to a conflict, they just sort it out. Result stood and Reason were understandably annoyed as it meant they were out of the best event this year.

So with a 2000 euro tournament just completed, will this be repeated in the near future?

Yeah definately. Now TNWA own ED there is a strong business backing the site which means reliable and consistent prizes for all the games on ED, even the SNES games like 1.6

The next big event for you guys seems to be CLUK 21, the format is similair to the Ebuyer tournament, in the sense that 8 teams qualify from online stages to the LAN, but dissimilair as the teams do not get expenses paid, and the prizepot is smaller (£1,500), tell us a bit more about this.

Well it's actually 16 teams qualified. There will be 2 qualifiers, the first 1 will end with 8 teams being invited and a second qualifier for all those that didnt make it in the first 1 will be made a few weeks after the first one finishes.

With the prizepot being so "low" compared to some of the other large LAN's over the summer, do you expect to attract any European teams?

I think the aim is to run a professional event that sets the bar for organisation, server quality, number of games played and admin/player communication. Whether any European teams want to take the risk to fly over for a £1500 will be upto them but I believe the hope is to attract as many teams as possible of all skill levels and concentrate on making the event the best it can be, regardless of competitors.

So tell us about the plans for ED after that events wise, from the pro teams to the ED Ladder?

Lets start with the ED ladder I guess. Ladders don't suit high skill teams but they do suit everybody else that wants to hop onto a server with some mates and have a good 40minutes game before they have to go back to real life. Pro teams make up a small minority of CSS players and the ED ladder is ridiculously popular and active.

It's the bread and butter of ED games and if people want to slate that then it's all words on a website. What actually matters is catering for people that just want to play a game and enjoy themselves.

Events are only increasing in regularity and standard. One night events on sundays, EDCSSL is in it's 10th season and I don't think i'm wrong in saying it's the best league in europe by far. The reliability of games and community surrounding it can't be found anywhere else and i'm surprised no bigger teams are interested in it

Do you think the top team mentality of "no participation without prizes" is good or bad for eSports?

It's got to be bad hasn't it. It's egorific. "We're too good to play in this without prizes" when infact your accomplishments amount to what you can write on your CV. The CGS lads have a great experience and a salary to put on their CV's. Team that have won ESL Cup #50 frenchies only would be laughed out of an interview for putting that on.

Prizes are an incentive to get teams to commit to a league and also to bring more tension to the games when there's something to play for. In that respect i'm all for prizes. It adds another elementAwarding prizes because teams think they deserve to win something for clicking heads is naive and about 5-10 years too early. Players need to work together in their team to improve and strive to be the best in whatever the do, inside and outside of gaming.

So do you think ED has managed to shake off the "for people who are bad" stigma, or do you think it'll be the crux of online flame for a time to come?

ED is for anybody that wants a stable, reliable and well ran platform to play in competitions. The admin team behind ED is the best around in terms of maturity, reliability and professionalism. If people want to whinge at ED then that's upto them. Flaming on forums is irrelevant, people vote with their feet and if you put on good events where teams can win a decent prize that they've earnt then teams will follow.

Spring Invite is an example of that. ED will cater for everybody that wants to be catered for.

So with the Spring Invite allowing bunnyhopping if both teams agree to it, are there any plans to move that ruling down to the ladders?

That's not upto me and I don't know of any discussion currently going on that will change that. Who knows though, if both teams agree to it then I don't see why we should enforce a rule that neither team wants. That's against what ED is all about. I'm sure everybody will have a different opinion on that though.

The BH rule was thought up and implemented by Stu and I can see it cropping up inside and outside of ED alot more

Thanks for your time! Anything else you wish to add?

Yeah. signup and pay for CLUK21 before the £44 ticket price increases. There's a bar, a great sleeping area and some awesome tournaments + loads of other just turn up and play events on xbox's and wii etc. Hasn't had much advertisement yet but it's definately going to be a great LAN. 10th July -> 13th July (thurs -> sunday for £44 no hidden "early arrival" charges either)