Cities: Skylines II is an upcoming city-building game developed by Colossal Order and published by Paradox Interactive. It is a sequel to Cities: Skylines, and expands upon many of the simulation factors such as simulated city and population sizes, and improved traffic AI and management schemes. The game is scheduled for release on 24 October 2023 for PlayStation 5, Windows, and Xbox Series X/S.

Source: Wikipedia

As we near the release date of Cities: Skylines II, more and more media and articles both substantial and fluff-esque are going to be popping up everywhere. Inspired by the release of Two Dollars Twenty's YouTube gameplay video (linked below), this thread is a repository for any morsel of news regarding the much anticipated city-building sequel. Utilise the tags to see previously posted content on Tildes.

Welcome to the discussion thread for the BLAST Premier Spring Final 2023, the last Big Event before the summer break. The event will feature eight of the world’s best CS:GO teams competing for a $425,000 prize pool and a spot at the BLAST Premier World Final 2023. The event will take place at the Entertainment & Sports Arena in Washington, D.C., from June 7-11.

The teams attending the event are:

• Heroic (From Spring Groups)
• G2 Esports (From Spring Groups)
• FaZe Clan (From Spring Groups)
• Natus Vincere (From Spring Groups)
• Vitality (From Spring Groups)
• Astralis (From Spring Groups)
• Cloud9 (From Spring Showdown – EU)
• Imperial (From Spring Showdown – NA)

The event will start with two double-elimination GSL groups, followed by a single-elimination playoff bracket. All matches will be best-of-three.

The event will also mark the return of Vitality to LAN for the first time since their Major triumph in Paris, where they won without dropping a single map. They will face Imperial in their opening match, who might be playing their last event with Gabriel “FalleN” Toledo as rumors of his move to FURIA are rampant.

Other interesting matchups include G2 vs Cloud9, who both had disappointing runs at IEM Dallas and the Major cycle, and Heroic vs Astralis, who will clash for the Danish supremacy.

You can follow the event on BLAST.tv, YouTube, or Twitch. The schedule and results can be found on HLTV or Liquipedia.

This is a bit of a test thread. I will try to post a comment for each match, under which you can share your thoughts and comments about each individual game. As such, it may be preferable to sort the thread by new, in order to see the most recent match-ups. Also, in case I miss any match feel free to post the results yourself!

Why am I posting this thread?

Honestly, I'm really excited about this. Isn't that enough? :)

What is it?

The World Chess Championship (WCC) is the topmost competition of the sport, and basically determines the best player in the world. It is disputed between the winner of the Candidates Tournament and the current champion. Since his first title in 2013, Magnus Carlsen successfully defended the title on three different occasions and is the undisputed favorite. The challenger Ian Nepomniachtchi does have a positive score against Magnus, but most don't give that much importance, since most of his victories happened when they were much younger. Chess.com combed through the data and gave Magnus 72% winning odds. In terms of style, Magnus is considered a universal player. Nepomniachtchi is generally more aggressive but adopted a more conservative style in the Candidates Tournament.

Since 2014, the WCC happens once every 2 years, alternating with the Candidates Tournament. The current edition was supposed to take place in 2020, but was postponed due to covid. It will happen in Dubai.

The World Chess Championship starts this Friday, November 26, at 16:30 local time, 12:30 UTC.

Where to watch

• Chess.com
• Chess.com Youtube
• Chess.com Twitch
• Chess24
• Chess24 Youtube (I strongly recommend the stream with David Howell for non-advanced players)
• FIDE Youtube
• FIDE Twitch

In the United States, the NBC over-the-air television channel will broadcast daily 30 minutes highlights.

The players

Time controls

In chess, time controls determine the time each player has to make their movies. A time control of 10 minutes means that each player has 10 minutes to use throughout the game. There can also be increments, which are added to a player's overall time after each move. For example, with a time control of 10 | 5 each player starts with 10 minutes to make their moves, and automatically gains 5 seconds on the clock every time they make a move.

The time controls for the World Championship matches may seem a bit complex at first. This is just for reference, if you intend to follow the games online, I'm certain that the commentators will make sure to remind you of these details.

The table above means that, on stage 1, each player has 120 minutes to make their moves. On stage 2, they have 60 minutes. On stage 3, each player has 15 minutes, with an addition of 30 seconds after each move.

Format

• Draw by agreement is only allowed after the 40th move (it used to be the 30th).

• There will be 14 standard games (it used to be 12). The first to achieve 7½ points will be World Champion.

• If, after the 14 games, the score is equal, there will be tie-break games in that order, with the subsequent tie-break only being disputed if the previous one maintained the tie.

  1. 4 rapid games of (TC: 25min + 10s)
  2. Best out 5 blitz games (TC: 5min + 3s)
  3. 1 armageddon game.

Scoreboard

Magnus won on round 11. Rounds 12 to 14 will not be disputed.

Schedule

All games, as well as the closing ceremony, are scheduled to 07:30 AM EST / 12:30 UTC.

This will be updated with the results for each match, as well as the sum of the overall points. I will also try to sum up some experts commentaries for each selected games. Adding notes to every game would require more effort than I initially thought! I'll create a top comment with links and basic info on each game, but will not be adding personal notes to all of them. Feel free to add your impressions to the top comments. Thanks!.

The Game Awards start tonight at 5:30 PM Pacific time (Dec 13, 02:30 UTC). There are a lot of announcements, sales, and events going on associated with it though, so I thought I'd try to collect a bunch of it here, and then we can discuss and post the actual winners in here later as well.

Sales

• Steam
• Humble Store
• Epic Store
• Nintendo eShop
• Xbox Store
• PlayStation Store
• Final Fantasy XIV

Announcements/Releases

• Sayonara Wild Hearts released on PC (20% off)

Events

• "The Game Festival" - 13 first-look demos of indie games available on Steam for 48 hours (announcement post)

Edit after the show: Article on CNET that lists all the winners of awards, as well as having embedded copies of most of the trailers/announcements/etc. that were shown

Lots of games have special events or updates that change the game in some way for Halloween. Some of them are pretty impressive, so I wanted to make a thread where people could point out some of the best ones.

Have you seen any interesting updates/events in the games you're playing/watching?

Please make a separate top-level comment for each game/update so we can easily separate discussion about a particular game.