With summer encroaching and the ESL Major Series still two months away, things are looking slightly dead in the DoD:S Community. Whilst we accept that things like sun, sand and surf might be an attractive prospect, we here at zeroPoint have prepared a whole host of events for those of you among us who are too pale or ginger to brave the sun.

As such, it is our pleasure to announce our first zeroPoint! Summer Series, five weeks of entertainment that offer opportunities for anyone who fancies a bit of competitive DoD:S to break up the monotony of the barbecues, afternoon drinking and scantily clad sun bathers that tend to make up our summers!

The goal of this is to provide opportunities for all aspects of the community, from a 5 week long Summer Cup for those dedicated players who want to prove their ability to weekly nightcups and a King of the Hill style tournament that you can dip in and out of at your leisure.

Although the principle behind all of this is fun, we'd like to bring an aspect of friendly competition to the proceedings, so each win your team makes during the summer will be a contributing factor to the zeroPoint! Summer Team Rankings which will be released at the end of August and the team with the most points overall will be crowned Summer Series Champions.

Obviously the advantage of this format of event is that it allows those of us who might be lucky enough to be going on holiday the chance to compete in other ways during the summer, without having to forfeit matches midway through an actual season. This way, you can choose to play some weeks and not others without any forfeits incurred. Perfect for those of you who want to make the best of the sun while you can!

So, without further ado, allow me to introduce the events that will be running this summer:

zP! Summer Cup '10

This will consist of two 16 team knockout tournaments with an opening 32 team qualifying round that will decide which tournament you will play in. These will be single elimination brackets to ensure we remain within the alloted time frame. The first four rounds will consist of a single map played in the traditional 2x20 style whilst the final will consist of two maps, each chosen by one of the finalists played in the 4x15 style. The map pool for the first four weeks is as follows: dod_lennon, dod_catania, dod_salerno and dod_ anzio



zP! Night Cups

We aim to bring you a weekly Night Cup, in the hope that even if you didn't enter the Summer Cup, or you've already been eliminated, there will still be some element of competition to your week! We'll try to get these as full as we possibly can, so these will be open to mixes as well as your regular teams.

It is worth noting that the winner of the first week's Night Cup will be considered the reigning King of the Hill champion for the second week, so it's worth double points towards our Summer Rankings!

zP! King of the Hill

This is a new style of event for zP! though the premise ought to be familiar to you. It will run from the second week onwards, with the winners of the first Night Cup considered reigning 'King'. In each subsequent week a team will be voted by the community to face them. Should they lose, the current 'Kings' retain their crown and go on to face another opponent in the following week. Should the challenger win, they will be crowned 'King' and go on to face a new challenger the next week.

It's worth noting that once you have lost a game in King of the Hill you cannot re-enter. For this reason, mixes are barred from competing.

So there you have it, the layout of our first Summer Series. Of course, we'll have full coverage of the events here on zeroPoint! along with weekly interviews, a handful of specials and the King of the Hill vote.

Thanks for reading and good luck!