Saturday 29 December 2007

Happy new Year !!

Allright guys,
I'm about to leave for vacation (5 days in Cortina - snowboarding with my friends) so
I wish everyone a Happy new Year :).

See you on the 2nd (my birthday)!

Saturday 22 December 2007

Merry XMAS!

I would like to wish all friends,fans,family a Merry Christmas. I hope Santa brings you everything you want :)

Ciao,
Alessandro "stermy" Avallone

Tuesday 13 November 2007

the last 6 months of my life

*click* - - my bag is closed, i'm done packing.
I check my pocket, my passport is there; I’m ready to jump on another flight.
That's the life of a progamer, always travelling around the globe, from one event to another, always trying to show the world that what we do is real, is there, is the sport of the new millennium.
It's November, I'm finally home for good and I look back at May when I started this intensive year for real. I still remember taking the decision of trying out for the CGS ,leaving all my Quake4 Competitions for 2007, and try something new, a new experience and mainly a new challenge in my gaming career.

Everything turned out to be one of the best experiences, ever.

I got to know 10 fantastic people in a new family called San Francisco OPTX. I shared great moments with them, in and out of a new league called CGS that was more than successfull.
I traveled around the US for one and half month, together with my old friend Nicola "Forrest" Geretti and Celeste Thorson, for a Mall-Tour, The Fatal1ty Scene.
I lived for months at Jack and Cathy's place and they threat me like a son.
I spent many days at the Fatal1ty/Auravision office, with great people like Jack, Jen, Steve, Mark, Dave, Andrew, Kevin and Talva.

...then I came back to Europe, doing events every week-end around "my" Continent, enjoying it one by one, and never getting bored of it.

Now I'm here, in my training center in Italy, and I'm already looking into the new year, 2008, where something bigger and better will happen. And i'll be there with all the gamers, because, and never forget, we all have the same passion.

Alessandro "stermy" Avallone


----------------------------------
Shout-outs to Auravision/fatal1ty Office, Johnathan "Fatal1ty" Wendel, Birger De Geyter,The San Francisco OPTX team, My family,my friend Paolo Rossi and the A.S Andora Soccer Team.


Tuesday 16 October 2007

Small Update, Unreal Tournament 3 Beta demo Config

Hey guys,
sorry if I havent update my blog in a long time but I promise I'll do it as soon as I can, probably next week, after I come back from E4all in Los Angeles...
I just wanted to share with all of you my Unreal Tournament 3 Demo beta config.

I didnt want to change the whole game because it's just a beta,so the config it's tweaked but the graphic it's not "legoland" because I believe tournaments will not allow it, so it's kinda useless to practice that way :)

--------------------------------------------
Put these 2 files in C:\Documents and Settings\your username\Documents\My Games\Unreal Tournament 3 Demo\UTGame\Config

NOTE: I also tryed this config on a medium quality system (AMD 4000+, 2gb ram corsair, 7800gtx,10.000rpm Raptor Hard-disk) and I get around 60-70 fps most of the times in 1v1, in some points even higher than 90.
----------------------------------------------------

EDIT: it seems there are some problems linked to the account/profile, so until I figure out what the problem is, i take out the link

For anything, let me know.
Ciao,

Alessandro "stermy" Avallone

Wednesday 29 August 2007

What is stermy doing?


Hi guys,
Things here in LA are going good, the weather is crazy nice (Well maybe a bit too warm....) but definately i'm enjoying it.

In the past weeks beside travelling around the US for the Mall Tour (i'll talk about it later on), I did alot of cool things...
First of all, I never went to watch a Baseball game before...As you should know, baseball it's not such a big sport in europe and personally, I didnt even know the basic rules of the game, beside how the score point system works.
So me and my best buddies Jack and John (Fatal1ty) went to a Dodger game, which they won ofcourse...Then the week after, me and Jack went to watch Galaxy play Chivas.. and now we are planning to make me understand AMERICAN FOOTBALL (also known as MANBALL - inside joke - ) and seems like i will be a sf49ers fan..



At the same time, almost every day during the week I'm trying to work on few projects that I really wanted to be done, especially now that I dont have any competition coming up.(..YES i'm talking about a stermy website too).


I also gave FPS tips to young campers from ID Tech Camp this Month. These students were learning how to be professional gamers by participating in 3 week long courses at some of the most prestigious universities in the US. I thought the kids the best tactics and strategies for FPS games and how to play the game.
August 13th was my final lesson for these ID Tech Campers this summer. These sessions not only gave students a chance to learn from me, but they were also competing for a chance to win a complete Fatal1ty system. The top two winners from all sessions combined flown to Los Angeles to compete against each other in a final best out of 3 maps for the grand prize.
In the end, Joseph from Stanford came out on top. Ryan from UCLA, however, still took home a full line of Fatal1ty accessories.


Anyway, I totally forgot to mention in this blog that I am actually doing a Mall Tour around the Unites States.
2 Weeks ago I've been in Seattle, last Week in Minneapolis and here you are the next 2 stops dates:

September 1, 2007 Jordan Creek Town Ctr. Des Moines, IA

September 8, 2007 Spring Hill Mall Chicago, IL

September 15, 2007 Detroit

So if you guys wanna come and compete against me, just show up at one of the stops...you just need 1 point to walk away with a great prize... and if you dont score a point, well, there's still a ruffle at the end of every show so... we'll still give away prizes!

See you there!

Friday 17 August 2007

Pictures from the US

Hey guys, since i didnt have much time to update my blog in the past months i'm going to upload some pics now, here we go:








Thursday 16 August 2007

Quakecon 2007 Interviews:

Here you are 2 interviews from Quakecon 2007:

GGL:


and Gameriot:

Sunday 15 July 2007

UPDATE..

Hi guys,
sorry if I havent been able to update my blog but I've been really busy and alot of things happened from April.

In my last post i uploaded my Quake4 1.4.1's config, unfortunately the 1.4.2's wont be uploaded for now. Why? I'll explain to you now.

THIS POST HAS BEEN WRITTEN THE 15 JULY. IT WENT NEVER ONLINE BECAUSE I TOTALLY FORGOT. FROM NOW ON I'LL TRY TO UPDATE THIS BLOG AND MY MYSPACE PAGE AS MUCH AS POSSIBLE, I PROMISE.

----

After the I30 Quake4 tournament in UK, I came back home and started practicing at my place for the upcoming Quake4 Season (WSVG / ESWC ) with Forever and 2 italian players VGAI and Ob3n.
During those days of practice tho, I decided that I wanted to try out for the Championship Gaming Series and so I was facing a new challange in my gaming career; The game I picked is Fifa, a football game, definately different from First person Shooter but a easy choice for me, since I love football and I've been playing football videogames forever.


Thanks to the Fatal1ty Brand, a Canadian player flu over to my Place in the end of May, practiced with me right before the Combine and then we both went to Los Angeles,where all the 6 GMs had to pick 1 fifa player for their franchise;At the draft, I got drafted for the San Francisco OPTX as the first Fifa pick, something I and most of the people didnt really expected.

The 23rd of June all the Players moved in together in a huge complex with really nice apartaments, a swimming pool, gym, basketball and tennis court and we'll be living here until the end of July.. Crazy uh? Imagine all 60 players "living" together for that long, meeting and having fun every day and at the same time, practice and be ready to win against their best friends and also opponents during the season.

I've been competing for so long in so many different tournaments, but this is definately a totally new and great experience.

First of all, the new "tournament" format it's really exciting and cool if you ask me. Every Frenchise is composed by 1 counter strike team (5 players), 1 DeadOrAlive male player, 1 DeadOrAlive Female Player, 2 Project Ghotam players and 1 Fifa Player.
Every round in counterstrike counts as 1 point, same thing goes for every round in DOA and every Goal in Fifa; For PGR,instead, 1st place gets 5 points, 2nd 3 points, 3rd 1 point, 4th nothing.
This means that, every point you gain or lose will effect the ending score of the match, resulting for a win or loss for you team; so even if you would win your game, your team might lose...It will take really long for me to explain everything and I have so many things to say, so it's better if you check www.thecgs.com for more informations about the League.

So...I'm living in a 4 people apartament, together with Dave Chapelle, our DOA Male player,MOE and CLown from our counterstrike team.. what can i say,we are having a great time and these guys are like brothers for me,we always support and help eachother and we really want to bring the San Francisco OPTX to the Global Final.

My fifa practice, after I got drafted was going pretty well, i was able to practice 6-8 hours a day before we moved to the apartmanets in Venice Beach and I was improving really fast, in fact, i was able to beat already 3 guys in the first week of the Season.. Unfortunately tho,we didnt have internet available for the first 2 weeks and most of the fifa players here dont really play against eachother, so that didnt really help me... Coming from a totally different background to a new game, i need costancy in my practice and alot of it... this combined to our busy schedule didnt really went in my favour.
In week 2 and 3, I had to play the top3 fifa players in the League, and even tho I managed to beat Novisname once, i wasnt able to beat KreeganBG and Wizakor yet.
I definately didnt expect to have such a busy schedule and it has been really hard to find fifa players around the world who were willing to come over to practice, because most of them have jobs or have school.

Right now tho,We are working into a new way of practice,looking forward to qualify for the playoff with the San Francisco OPTX and be ready for that...

Some notes:
- Kat Hunter: you believed in me, that's why you drafted me. I'll do my best for dont let u down

-Fifa Players: I'm playing fifa because I love football, LIKE YOU. I'm not doing it for show you guys something; FPS and SPORTS Game are different and I totally respect the work you guys put in this game. I know I came into your scene out of nothing and it is hard to accept, but believe me, I have the same passion as you! :)

- San Francisco OPTX: We are a great team,I love you guys! even tho we had a bad second week, I'm sure we are one of the best frenchise. Let's do it guys!

- Fatal1ty Brand: Thank you guys for the support as usual..you are always there when I need you!

- FPS players, FPS Community: I will never leave you. FPS have been my games since I started playing online in 2000 and I shared great moments of my life and career with you. I'll be back.


It's all for now.

Ciao,
Alessandro "stermy" Avallone



Friday 13 April 2007

Quake4 1.4.1 Config

Hi Guys,
Like I promised in the past few days, today I uploaded my Quake4 1.4.1 config.
It's pretty much the same as 1.3 / 1.4 beta1 with just some small changes.

I hope you enjoy it.

Quake4 1.4.1 CONFIG

Alessandro "stermy" Avallone

Thursday 29 March 2007

UK Quake4 1v1 Invite tournament @i30

From 5th to 10th April 2007 I'll be playing in this invitational tournament since it will definately be good practice for the upcoming events this year.
I will also do promotions for the Fatal1ty's Brand partners so I'll probably do some exhibition matches against the public and also present some products.
So if you are there and you want to challange me, bring it on!

Here is the list of the invited Players so far:

1. Stermy (yes) -Italy
2. cooller (yes) - Russia
3. av3k (yes) - Poland
4. Forever (yes) - Holland
5. cypher (yes) - Belarus
6. Dreg (yes) - UK
7. 2gd (yes) - UK
8. GaRpY (yes) - UK
9. Lost Cauze (dropped out) - USA
10. d1ablo (yes) - Germany
11. Jibo(yes) - China
12. k1llsen (yes) - Germany
13. impulse (yes) - Belgium
14. Sombra (yes) - Spain
15. HELL (yes) - UK
16. Dozo (yes) - UK

So definately an impressive list of pro-players and I'm looking forward to be there.

Prize Money : $10,000*

1st Place : $4,000
2nd Place : $2,500
3rd Place : $1,500
4th Place : $1,000
5th Place : $600
6th Place : $400

See ya ;>

Cebit it's over...

That's right, i'm back home...
Cebit was definately an amazing event, we had alot of things to do but we also had a great time.
I wanna thank all the people i worked with and my team.


No i'm not as small as it looks...it's just that Birger is too tall and Fox was trying to be as cool as him using my feets as a ramp!!


Thank you Frank for the fantastic Job...you made people going crazy as usual!

See you there next year ;)

Tuesday 13 March 2007

Pro evolution Soccer 6's tournament with Friends

Every monday night, my friends here in Andora, organize a pro evolution tournament 1v1 or 2v2 with little prize money.
As you should know, Soccer here in Italy it's a big thing, and most of the people from 10 to 40 years old play Soccer videogames (Pro evolution soccer is the most famous).

So Yestarday night it was time for a 2v2 cup, where the best players in Andora battle vs eachother for the first place - 100€.
I got invited to play with my friend Paolo Rossi (and team partner) and our team was A.C Milan (I wanted Inter Milan, but it was already taken by "Chiaffy"...)

We passed the first group stage, but unfortunately, we didnt make it to the final because we lost our matches in the second group stage.
All the teams were really prepared, especially the teams who played with Barcelona and Real Madrid.

Here you are some pics from the event:

Thursday 8 March 2007

Stermy's Painkiller,Quake3 & Quake4 settings

Hi Everyone,
Today i decided to upload all my games's config, so all of you can download it and try it out!
Here you are:

Painkiller: HERE

Quake 3 OSP n°1: HERE

Quake3 OSP n°2: HERE

Quake4 1.3 : HERE

Quake4 1.4's config will be up soon, but it will not be much different from 1.3's.

Enjoy!!

Alessandro "stermy" Avallone

Sunday 4 March 2007

..back in italy....e il Cebit

Venerdì, ore 23.25 treno diretto per l'aereoporto di Stoccolma..aereo alle 6.20 del mattino per Copenaghen e alle 9.25 da Copenaghen a Nizza, 11.45.
Alle 13 ero a casa, pranzo del campione, e alle 15.45 al campo Marco Polo di Andora per disputare la partita Andora - Bordighera.. 4-0 per noi e lascio il segno con un goal. (ebbene sì, sono ancora iscritto a calcio e gioco/mi alleno ogni volta che sono in italia...passione?).

In questi giorni cercherò di continuare ad allenarmi sul mio server online 1.4 [Stermy IA 1.4b Server], che verrà aggiornato e ri-abilitato a giorni.

Il 14 partirò di nuovo per il Cebit in Germania, dove sarò presente per tutta la durata dell'evento; Chiunque voglia sfidarmi e vincere grandissimi premi si faccia avanti!

-- per ora vi saluto e se volete essere miei amici, dovete tifare per l'inter martedì sera contro il Valencia! --

See ya,
Alessandro "stermy" Avallone

Wednesday 28 February 2007

Quake4 patch 1.4b e Training in Svezia

Con l'uscita della patch 1.4b di Quake4, ho deciso di iniziare i miei allenamenti per la stagione 2007 prima del previsto.
Sono partito il 12 Febbraio per la Svezia, precisamente verso casa di Johan "Toxic" Quick.

Per prima cosa ho studiato i punti fondamentali del nuovo aggiornamento, cercando di trovare un equilibrio nel mio setup cosi da poter mirare accuratamente quanto nel aggiornamento 1.2 / 1.3 ; ci è voluta quasi una settimana per trovare i settaggi esatti, ma alla fine sono riuscito a trovare una via di mezzo..e i risultati sono stati piu che ottimi.

Qui alcuni dei miei settaggi:

Mouse: Microsoft Intellmouse explorer 3.0 - Nuova Edizione
Mouse driver : Intellipoint 5.5 + mousefix - windows default, no aumenta precisione.
Mousepad : Qck+
Sensitivity : 4.1
g_fov : 103
m_accel : 0
net_clientprediction : 0

----

Complessivamente l'allenamento di 2 settimane è andato piu che bene, grazie alla connessione 100mbit/100mbit BBB.
Ho hostato un server direttamente su una delle macchine che avevamo in casa, cosi che la gente potesse connettersi direttamente da internet con ping da 1 a 10 (Lan praticamente per tutti, soprattutto con altri utenti BBB [90% dei progamers svedesi)e ovviamente per me e toxic.
Ore di gioco giornaliere variano da 4-8.

----

E con questo concludo un piccolo update al mio nuovo blog...

Alessandro "stermy" Avallone

Monday 29 January 2007

Piemonte Share Festival

Lo scorso venerdì sono stato invitato al Piemonte Share Festival (23-28 Gennaio 2007), assieme ad altre persone importanti nel campo gaming/informatico/artistico/etc.
Tema principale le comunità online.

Tutto è andato molto bene e gli argomenti sono stati interessantissimi.
QUI potete trovare il videocast dello show.

Un ringraziamento a tutte le persone che hanno partecipato alla "conferenza" e al clan "mxb" per lo splendido party nel pub "the beach"!

See ya!

Tuesday 23 January 2007

Nokia E61



La scorsa domenica mi sono comperato questo "telefono".
Essendo sempre in viaggio, avevo bisogno di un telefono che avesse una buona autonomia, che supportasse servizi importanti quali il Push e-mail , Connessione UMTS / EDGE / Wi-Fi , e un sistema un pò piu stabile del mio PDA BenQ P50 (Windows Mobile 2003).

il Nokia E61 funziona sotto OS Symbian (s60), sistema operativo molto personalizzabile, stabile e con molti programmi supportati.

Potete trovare tutte le caratteristiche principali del telefonino QUI

The Wii Laptop



Stasera,girovagando per il web, ho trovato questa news.
A quanto pare, "Ben Heckebdorn", ha modificato un pò la nuova console di casa Nintendo, così da trasformarla in una mini-console portatile!

QUI Potete trovare tutte le informazioni a riguardo.

Caratteristiche Principali:
- 16:9 widescreen LCD, 7-inch diagonal.
- Stereo sound
- Gamecube controller port
- Built-in short range Sensor Bar
- Ports for using original Sensor Bar and A/V output jacks
- Built-in power supply and compartment for power cord
- Dimensions: 8.5 x 7.7 x 2-inches

Test: il mio "nuovo" blog

Ciao ragazzi,
finalmente ho deciso anche io di crearmi un blog personale.
Cosa ci scriverò sopra? un pò di tutto, principalmente argomenti riguardanti la tecnologia e ovviamente, il professional gaming.

Test:

World Series of Videogames MTV

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