Hi folks, I’ve been lurking for a while now, reading messages and threads here and there while enjoying Enemy Territory itself. Not being much of a multiplayer fan myself I gave it a try when it was first out, not expecting to be taken in but curious nonetheless, and I’ve to say I immediately fell in love with it. I’ve been playing regularly ever since, seeing the amount of players grow from about two million to almost 70 million right now. Anyway, I guess it’s safe to say I’m enjoying the game, and I find myself coming back to it time and again. I suppose it’s the teamplay element that gets to me, and the gameplay experience which is different practically every time.
I don’t suppose I’ll eventually post all that much or become a regular visitor, but at this point I did want to register somewhere in an ET community and put in a few questions and comments about something which is becoming an issue for me when playing. Fortunately (or unfortunately, depending on how you look at it) it’s not something with the game itself but rather with the way it’s played.
What I’m talking about is the Fuel Dump map, which is without a doubt my personal favorite in ET, but which at the same time seems to offer me more and more frustration when I play it. For me it’s kind of the highpoint of ET, often the last map I’ll play before finally signing off, but more often than not it turns into the lowpoint of the game instead. Strangely enough changing servers and playing with different teams doesn’t seem to help much as very often I’ll just run into the same problem. To be more specific, it’s the roof door inside the axis garage – or rather the fact that people don’t seem to know about it. I don’t know about others, but for me it’s been weeks since I last saw the allied team break through the side fences, plant the dynamite that way and win the game. The easiest and most logical way to go once the side wall is breached, imo, is to just get an engineer and a cvops into the main building, go over the roof and jump onto the fuel pumps, and plant. The axis team (as you might have guessed at this point I tend to play allied ;)) doesn’t even know you’re in there until the message ‘dynamite planted’ appears, and at that time it’s generally already too late – especially since an engineer with a high XP can plant multiple charges fairly quickly and the side fences which will still be in place will prevent any axis from going right in and defusing. In my experience it’s pretty much a guaranteed win when a covert ops and engineer make it over the roof. The hardest part of course is getting to the roof door as an engineer in the first place, preferably without being seen.
To get right to the point, my gripe with Fuel Dump, or rather the way it’s played, is that even experienced players (judging by their XP) often don’t seem to know about the roof door and will apparently insist on trying to go through the side fences, which (again, in my experience as of late) is a sure way to lose the map. The reason this has become so frustrating for me is because I generally play as an engineer myself there and make it my priority to get inside the garage and then call for a covert ops.
Mostly it’s at this point that things go wrong. I wouldn’t have posted about this if it concerned a minor or common problem, like new players not yet knowing the objectives or encountering only an occasional lack of teamwork between players, but this has slowly become a persistent problem with this map for me over the past weeks and finally I feel the need to put in a few words about it as in the end it’s turning what should be good gameplay into evenings of frustration.
What it comes down to is that I feel getting an engineer inside should be the first concern of the allied team once the tank has run its course, and that one making it into the building should be the sign for cvops to try and get there as well. I guess I can be pretty short about the pros and cons, in my view, of going through the roof door or the side fences: the roof door is safe as there can be no mines in your path, there is no structure to destroy first which will automatically announce your presence there, subsequently the dynamite charge(s) can be planted right away without delay, and, as I mentioned above, the enemy not only doesn’t know you’re there until it’s too late but also doesn’t have a direct path to the planted charge(s). The position, after planting and with both fences still in place, is also easier to defend even by a single person. The only con that I can see is that it can be hard to get inside the main building undetected for an engineer, who of course can’t disguise himself.
When it comes to going through the side fences however, I can see only cons all the way through – the axis team knows you’re there once you destroy one of the fences, destroying them in the first place means having to either wait and defend dynamite or, if done with a cvops satchel, to time it with the arrival of engineers, the axis team has a clear path to get to you so the position is nearly impossible to hold, they also have a clear path to the dynamite so they can defuse immediately, the side fences can be rebuilt quickly and easily, and mostly not only the area just outside is mined but the area just behind the fences as well. If there are really any positive sides to this method I’ve to say I don’t see them; the only way for the allies to possibly pull this off is if they’re greatly superior to the other team and can actually hold the axis base even though they’re about a mile away from their spawnpoint and the axis spawn is right there. Still, what a game of Fuel Dump has mostly come down to for me in the past few weeks is that after finally making it inside and calling for cvops to try and get there as well, the team chat either remains silent and nobody responds, or, if there is a response, I notice that people either don’t know about the roof door or know about it and still insist that destroying the side fences is the only way to go. The worst part is when I notice people trying to destroy the left fence, the one that looks out right on the axis spawn exit.
I know this can be attributed to new players who don’t know the ropes yet, but strangely enough I see this kind of stuff from players who obviously have more experience and who know the maps. The weird part is that over the course of about two months now I find I’ve seen the allied team win Fuel Dump only a handful of times (mostly through an engineer and cvops going through the tunnel grate in the beginning of the game), and in the end what the map usually means for me is that I sit inside the axis garage for minutes on end using the teamchat to try and communicate with a team where people either do not respond or don’t even want to try to get a covert ops in disguise in there. In truth I’d been thinking of asking about this issue in an ET community before, but either I didn’t get around to it or I dismissed the idea thinking things would change in the long run. A game I played today finally drove me to this attempt at opening a discussion about it though (did a board search for similar subjects first of course but didn’t find any) – a game wherein with tons of luck I made it to the roof door five times in the course of about a quarter of an hour, and wherein I got killed every time after leaving my position to help out whenever the side fences had been destroyed. The team ignored any request for cvops to the roof door and insisted dynamite be planted at the side fences. The allies lost, and as this was not the third or fourth but I think closer to the 20th time I’d played Fuel Dump this way I at last decided it was time I tried to get some opinions on the map from other ET players.
Since this is the first time I’m really talking to other fans of the game (outside the chat window after every map I guess) I’m interested to know how you like to play the map, what your views are on how to win it, etc… Like I said, fuel dump is my favorite part of the game, and I’d like to see it stay that way and not let it become the point where I disconnect from the server.
Sorry for the long post, and congrats I guess for those who made it this far 
. Doesn’t always work, but most of the time when the east parts have already been stolen and the fighting is hardest at the front entrance it’s pretty easy to get a uniform there, going through the side entrance and all the way behind the axis spawnpoint, picking them up, and then hauling them all the way back while the Axis are waiting for you in vain at the front entrance where logic would suggest the carrier will want to pass through. At Goldrush it’s cool to scout out the bank when breached but I imagine moving among the axis in there is something which only works on public servers with more unexperienced players present. Even then you’re quickly found out and most of the time it only works once.