Golden Age

Search for Belonging

Counter-Strike has always been an extremely popular game among Estonians ever since its release year (2000). Estonians began searching for new and exciting game servers and communities where they could spend their free time. Several 5v5 format tournaments were organized, which was the most classic way to play Counter-Strike. Estonians followed the Estonian e-sports team sYnck, and even Estonian National Television introduced the world of e-sports along with the game Counter-Strike to the entire Estonian public.

Estonians wandered through international game servers, and a few of them, mostly by chance, discovered game servers dedicated to Kreedz maps and got their first introduction to Kreedz. Among them were mostly classic 5v5 format teammates R0geR, razOr (aka rzr), Sp00n, alert, and spr1n. Notably, Sp00n did not really enjoy playing Kreedz and was not very active in it. Estonians mostly played Kreedz on their own, and there was no real sense of national community.

In 2005, a few Estonians, including the previously mentioned 5v5 teammates, began joining the @QNet IRC channel of the Xtreme-Jumps community, where they also participated in Kreedz tournaments.

In 2006, participation in XJ IRC tournaments continued, Estonians started to plau on XJ, CG, and kzfi servers, and that same year, the kz.ee @QNet channel was created by spr1n, attempting to gather Estonian Kreedz enthusiasts. The channel was mostly empty, but the community still slowly grew. For the most part, people still played classic 5v5, and Kreedz was just a fun diversion. That same year, dr0n, a friend of alert, also joined the community.

By the end of 2006, other players had joined the community as well, including essp and everest, whom spr1n still considers to be the most important members of the Estonian community. Their contributions to Estonian Kreedz have been significant.

The year 2006 can likely be considered the birth year of Kreedz in Estonia. In addition to the gradual formation of the Estonian community, it was also the first time in history that an official Kreedz world record (WR) was set representing the blue-black-white tricolor. The world record was achieved on August 9 by the Estonian player dr0n on the map bkz_wallblock with a time of 02:37.00, taking the record from the Swedish player Zhady, whose time was two seconds slower and had been set just five days earlier on August 4. The Estonian’s first world record stood for only two days, as the Swede, feeling challenged by the Estonian’s performance, reclaimed the record with a time nearly five seconds faster. Despite the quick loss of the record, the event remains significant for Estonians, as it marked their entry onto the international stage and left a lasting mark in the history of Kreedz, showing the presence of Estonians.

The First Estonian Community is Founded

Led by the legendary player spr1n, the first Estonian Kreedz community kreedz.pri.ee was established on April 30, 2007, bringing together all Kreedz enthusiasts in Estonia. Although the first signs of an Estonian community had already emerged the previous year, things now became official, and national records of Estonian players began to be published. The community adopted the abbreviation #KZ.ee and, on the same day, announced a game server named #KZ.ee - Estonian Kreedz Jumping server to unite players. The server used the prokreedz plugin, and its plugins were improved and developed with help from Sp00n, a 5v5 teammate of spr1n from classic Counter-Strike. The server was hosted by everest. The community and server quickly became popular, and several Estonians set their first national records in the first weeks, including xevil, zerG;, spr1n, R0geR, and dr0n.

The first Estonian to jump over a 250 LongJump block was dr0n. He actually made a demo recording of it on the map kz_longjumps back in 2006, but the record was only published in the Estonian community on May 4, 2007. At that time, the world record for LongJumps was 254.

One of the most active players during the community’s first year was snOOp (not to be confused with the Estonian player Sp00n or the Romanian player sn00p), who set several national records and also helped spr1n with various tasks. By the end of the year, the most national records were held by dr0n, followed by snOOp, third was spr1n, and a few records belonged to players RAJU and ButCheR. At the end of the year, the player rtg800 joined the community, made his first national record, and would go on to play an important role in the following years.

The community in its first year was supported by server admins alert, dr0n, and razOr, and tournament admins ButCheR, everest, JumbalaR, R0geR, seiskakoo, snOOp, and xevil. Naturally, the community leader remained spr1n.

There were also Estonians who hoped to achieve good results by cheating. The first cheater in Estonian Kreedz was Marko, who used autobhop in the #KZ.ee community. spr1n identified the cheat on July 8, 2007 and decided to punish the player with a three-month ban on submitting demo recordings and a 48-hour ban from the server. Excerpt from the conversation between spr1n and Marko:

Lessons weren't learned, and just three weeks later, on July 27, the player Aud!t0r (aka BrandMuffinMake) was caught cheating on the map bkz_goldbhop. The cheater submitted a demo in the #KZ.ee community using a +jump script. Once again, spr1n had to intervene and sent the cheater on a three-month break. Excerpt from the conversation:

The Estonian Community Grows Rapidly

If the first year of the community was about gathering momentum, building a foundation, and the emergence of strong Estonian players, then the next year (2008) was extremely successful and the community grew explosively. The sense of belonging rapidly increased. New game servers were opened and plugins for the servers were developed. HideNSeek was played to a small extent. The Estonian community slowly began to turn international, with many Latvians, Lithuanians, and players from elsewhere joining the servers. Estonians began setting their first world records and gained more international recognition, proving their competitiveness.

The Xtreme-Jumps community gave the Estonian community a IRC Cup Bot, created by myptx. Thanks to this, Estonians could begin organizing tournaments themselves. The unique #KZ.ee CUP game server allowed players to compete against each other in a tournament format. Each session required a tournament admin to be present, who used the BOT system to run the tournament. The tournament formats varied depending on the number of players and their preferences, for example, 4-man cup, 8-man cup, and Team cup formats were played. Tournaments were held frequently, and to participate, players had to download the mIRC messaging application and join the kz.ee channel on the irc.quakenet.eu.org server, where communication between participants and organizers took place. During the tournament, the game server was password protected. Points were collected from tournament participation, monthly rankings were created, and rewards like VIP status were given. The tournament server attracted many players and was a major value-add for the community.

To become a tournament admin, spr1n required at least one national record, which often meant a significant effort for future admins, but this was essential to ensure trust and competence.

At the beginning of 2008, a few more key players joined the Estonian community, including Avenger, who set a remarkable number of national records and later achieved the third world record for Estonia, and rtg800, who also collected national records and was promoted to tournament admin. Around the same time, essp achieved his first national record on the map kz_cfl_jost_ez with a time of 10:07 (beating rtg800's 11:21 record) and was also promoted to tournament admin.

By this time, one of the Xtreme-Jumps admins, eDark, gave the Estonian community leader spr1n the fpsDeath demo checker tool, which allowed spr1n to verify if submitted demos were cheated. This tool was extremely confidential and was only given to national head administrators. spr1n took demo-checking seriously and developed automated systems for reviewing demo submissions. Estonian demo admins reviewed the demos visually, spr1n used the fpsDeath tool, and if doubts remained, some demos were even sent to eDark for double-checking.

Estonians have always been a calm and cautious people, so rushing isn’t necessary. The second official Estonian world record on Xtreme-Jumps was made almost two years after the first one. This time, the honor was restored by spr1n, who achieved a strong result on the kz_canyon map on March 9, 2008, with a time of 06:41.00. By then, spr1n had practiced a lot with edgebug and jumpbug techniques, and on kz_canyon, he used the edgebug technique for the first time to pass a complex shortcut. This world record held for a long time until the next February, when a Polish player named rad beat it by just under 3 seconds. It was now clear that Estonians were competitive on the international stage.

In March, Do7Antipr0 was promoted to tournament admin. In April, the best time on the legendary bkz_goldbhop map in the game servers was 01:46 and belonged to NELEnOCTb. The longest jump distance was 252 LongJump blocks, held by dr0n, followed by snOOp and maDis with 251 LongJump blocks. By the way, spr1n had jumped only 249 LongJump blocks at that time.

In spring, under essp’s leadership, the first Estonian Kreedz community HideNSeek project was started. Essentially, it was a new game server where players could chase or escape each other against time. The server was special because it used Fatalis blocks, was played with 10aa settings, and drew heavy inspiration from international HideNSeek servers like KZMonkeys HNS. The Estonian HideNSeek server was named #KZ.ee HNS. The server didn’t last long, by fall of the same year, it was closed due to the low popularity of 10aa HNS and the existence of more popular 100aa servers. At that time, HideNSeek wasn't yet very popular in Estonia compared to the years ahead.

By the start of summer, the Estonian community had four game servers - PUB, CUP, HNS, and VIP. spr1n developed the VIP service with an SMS solution, and VIP players could play on a dedicated server. Additionally, VIPs received privileges like hook, noclip, godmode, VIP skin, /measure command, reserved slot, and much more.

The players with the most records in the servers were vaht, ou niou it's rE-, Avenger, Mkz|special, and Lithuanian etern1ty. The most successful national record hunters were spr1n, rtg800, dr0n, snOOp, and ButCheR. Around the same time, active player RemaKe joined the community, began hunting national records, and later played an important role. Player kASJAk also set a few national records. In early summer, a new competition game called #KZ.ee Challenge was launched, encouraging players to upload demos for specific maps. Best results earned points, and rankings were created. Unfortunately, the competition didn’t gain much popularity and was ended in the second week. The winner was Avenger, who won 4 months of VIP status. From that moment on, Avenger also started hunting national records and by summer’s end was in second place overall.

On July 4, 2008, active player RAJU was caught cheating. He submitted a 255 CountJump demo that violated several rules. First, he used the /speed plugin to see his speed. Second, he used a jwj script. Third, there were suspicions the demo was actually recorded by someone else. The cheater was suspended for two months. After being caught, he commented:

On July 13, 2008, player Avenger set a world record on the map kz_man_madness[easy] with a time of 01:50.00, which lasted for two days. This was Estonia’s third world record.

At the end of summer, people started dreaming about uniting the Baltics. On August 23, 2008, spr1n publicly announced the start of a new project: #KZ-Baltic, which aimed to unite the kz.ee, kz.lv, and kz.lt communities into a larger, more popular and dynamic network. The kz-baltic.eu domain was registered, displaying “Page is under construction. Be Patient.” A Steam group was also created. In hindsight, it was a large-scale project that took a long time before it launched. Until then, each community continued independently. At the time, #KZ.ee was administered by spr1n, everest, rtg800, Do7Antipr0, essp, miniL (aka Lorenz), and xevil.

In the fall of 2008, RemaKe published several articles in the #KZ.ee community forum about mapping, introduced the Valve Hammer Editor 3.5 program, and made tutorials on how to add sounds to maps, use the Kreedz timecounter, and explained the function of trigger_ entities. He didn’t map himself and most likely only translated the information for the Estonian community.

On November 30, 2008, good Estonian players Taavet and mrk were caught cheating. Taavet used 100aa (allowed was 10aa) in his 249 LongJump demo, and mrk used a jwj script in his bkz_goldbhop demo. Both were suspended for 2 months.

On December 24, 2008, player spr1n set a world record on the kz_man_eznasa map with a time of 00:41.42, which lasted a little over two months.

Toward the end of the year, player Spice proved himself by reaching fourth place in the national record rankings, even surpassing dr0n in record count. Willy Wicked set a few national records too, but they were quickly broken. By year’s end, the national record table had 12 names, including everest and alert. By this time, legendary players like dr0n and ButCheR had become inactive, and snOOp also took a long break. By year-end, demo admins had reviewed over 700 demos submitted by Estonians, 441 of which were published. The AUTOCUP system was being planned. It was a successful year. The community shared their year-end wishes:

Estonians Go International

While in previous years the activity mostly took place in a small pond of its own and rarely looked outward, in 2009–2010 the goal was to become internationally recognized, probably also because the skill level of Estonians had risen. Naturally, national records continued to be set and the Estonian community kept growing. It’s worth noting that Kreedz became very popular in Estonia, especially among schoolchildren, and it often happened that Kreedz was played together until late at night.

On January 17, 2009, player spr1n set a world record on the map kz_man_nasa with a time of 01:30.50, which held for almost half a year.

On January 27, 2009, spr1n announced that Estonians were involved in a major scandal when it was discovered that Estonian player Spice was cheating. The cheater used a slowmo cheat and was given a 6-month suspension from the #KZ.ee community, had their records removed, and was permanently banned from submitting demos in the Xtreme-Jumps community.

On February 1, 2009, members of the Estonian Kreedz community participated in the Hidenseek Cup #2 tournament, organized by the hidenseek.eu community. They played under the team name p0rn0-j2nkud#, with team members being Spice, essp, RAJU, snOOp, and everest. The tournament wasn't particularly memorable, and no victory was brought home.

By the beginning of the year, the legendary xPaw had joined the community. He set a few national and long jump records, but became mainly known for his programming skills, writing various plugins for servers, both free and paid. In addition to the Estonian Kreedz community, he was also active in the international AlliedModders community, which brought together Half-Life hobby software developers. Earlier, xPaw had also worked with the Russian myRun Deathrun server, developing plugins and making maps. Thanks to xPaw’s developments, Kreedz game servers and many other game modifications gained strong added value worldwide, and his plugins are still used to this day.

On March 13, 2009, the first Kreedz map involving Estonians was published in the Xtreme-Jumps community. The map was named kzblt_zigzaghop and was mainly developed by Estonian mapper ButCheR and German mapper FragGyver already in the summer of 2007, but due to some issues, the map was not accepted by Xtreme-Jumps. The necessary map files were unfortunately lost, and the mappers were stuck. Therefore, spr1n and xPaw stepped in to help, generating the required files and fixing the errors. In addition, spr1n visually enhanced the map. RemaKe and essp also contributed by testing and providing feedback. The map was also published in the #KZ.ee community. The first Estonians likely involved in mapping were ButCheR, everest, xPaw, and spr1n.

In early April 2009, Estonians launched the AUTOCUP game server, which was advertised in English. The server hosted automated tournaments that did not require the presence of tournament admins. Players could register themselves. Admins still had to pre-set waypoints on the maps so the plugin could automatically calculate progress based on the player's location. As with the previous manual CUP system, players could still collect points, rankings were created, and prizes, usually VIP status, were given out. The AUTOCUP system was a success and brought many international players to the server. In April, Hish, WarOO7, and kArhu <insilio> took the podium, and in May it was VoDkA`BoY, CrAzY, and KzcJ | Smit. The most active admins were essp, everest, and rtg800.

By summer 2009, many new faces had set national records, including GreeNwOw~, RAPZ, flezzN, Fors, SpeKu, and Silver`. To show how far ahead spr1n was compared to other Estonians, it's worth noting that by mid-summer he held 172 national records. The second place player Avenger had 57, rtg800 had 41, RemaKe had 10, and GreeNwOw~ had 8. dr0n, who had held the most records in the community's first year, now had only 6 and ranked seventh overall. At that time, 18 Estonians held national records. Getting a record wasn't easy, and keeping it was even harder due to fierce competition and a smaller map pool than today.

On June 24, 2009, player spr1n set a world record on the map kz_beachmountain with a time of 04:07.14, which stood for a full year. In this map, he executed a complex wallbug slide technique taught to him by player Numb, who had also helped him improve his jumpbug technique.

During the summer months, several players reached the AUTOCUP podiums: in June SpeKu, Silver`, and GreeNwOw~; in July zimpE, sibbis, and SnpR.-; and in August mrk, d0rk, and (1)wAw #NP.

The dream of a united Baltics was stronger than ever. Many players had already added the [KZ.Baltic] tag behind their names and eagerly awaited the opening of the KZ-Baltic community.

On July 17, 2009, spr1n announced that a security vulnerability on the kreedz.pri.ee website had been exploited and the website was hacked. As a result, the hacker FYFF obtained several users’ passwords, including spr1n's. It’s likely the passwords were hashed, and quickly changing them was enough to prevent misuse. The vulnerability was patched and the issue resolved.

On July 25, 2009, rtg800 stated that despite the effectiveness of slide/surf skills in Kreedz maps, slide was not part of Kreedz. Slide maps were being played too much in game servers, overshadowing classic climb maps. Estonian admins decided to remove slide maps from the servers. Today, the belief is the opposite: slide is considered part of Kreedz.

On August 1, 2009, a scandalous event occurred, not just in Estonian Kreedz history, but one that shook the entire global scene. At the end of July, Swedish player kayne (aka korall) had submitted multiple demo recordings to the Xtreme-Jumps community in which he cheated. A well-known Estonian, xPaw, had written an AMXX plugin that could be used in a local server for recording demos, helping the cheater gain unfair advantage. He gave this plugin to kayne and knowingly enabled cheating, but did not inform any community administrators. The plugin quickly spread to others; for example, s1z3 was also caught using it. xPaw received a permanent ban from the Xtreme-Jumps community for assisting in cheating. Additionally, xPaw admitted to having submitted cheated demos to the #KZ.ee community, although those had not yet been published. xPaw deeply embarrassed Estonia and damaged the credibility of Estonians. spr1n was extremely upset by the situation and the very next day punished xPaw with a 4-month ban from submitting demos in the #KZ.ee community.

On August 7, 2009, player spr1n set a world record on the map smk_hnseu_suicide with a time of 00:34.38 and improved it two months later to 00:33.74. This is likely the first world record by an Estonian in the Cosy-Climbing community. spr1n wrote in the Cosy-Climbing forums in response to congratulations: “thanks, but demo was made even before any community started accepting unoficial kz maps”.

On October 25, 2009, player spr1n set a world record on the map kz_man_redrock with a time of 05:37.74. It wasn’t until 2016 that this record was broken, meaning the record stood strong for 7 years! This was significant because it was the first world record where spr1n demonstrated his jumpbug technique skill.

On October 29, 2009, player Panda Style set world records on the maps smk_hnseu_surf_tropical and smk_hnseu_suicide2. The latter was completed in 00:05.47, and Finnish player jusuuh beat it four months later. Panda Style bravely improved his time, but a month later had to concede to the Finn.

At the end of 2009, player mrk achieved notable results by collecting many national records and placing fifth on the overall leaderboard. Toward the end of the year, players botik and appeAr^ joined the community and also began chasing national records. On December 4, the Estonian community reopened its own HideNSeek server, #KZ.ee HNS by Serverid.ee, now sponsored. At that time, maps with the c21_ tag (e.g., c21_kitty) became popular. Unfortunately, even this time, the HNS server did not stay online long and was soon shut down again.

On December 5, 2009, player spr1n set two world records on the map kz_giantbean_b15, one for the [1337trees] path with a time of 01:06.00, which he later improved, and another for the [sequoia] path with a time of 02:14.91, which stood for 7 years. That same day, another world record by spr1n was released on the map kz_cg_wigbl0ck, with a time of 02:14.00, which he also later beat himself. These are some of the most well-known records in Kreedz history. Even though spr1n had previously performed jumpbugs twice in kz_man_redrock, this was the first time he demonstrated three jumpbugs and one edgebug in the same map, including one on an invisible platform. Finnish players KeltA and Flibo had shown spr1n that it was possible to execute jumpbugs and edgebugs on kz_giantbean_b15.

After spr1n’s legendary records were published, the international community was divided. Some cheered and admired him, while others believed he was cheating. Rumors spread that xPaw had made a plugin for spr1n to automatically perform jumpbugs. The suspicion arose because of xPaw’s past and their shared nationality. spr1n denied all cheating allegations. He then took it upon himself to teach the jumpbug technique to the entire international community, creating guides, explaining the mechanics, and helping others, proving to many that he was legitimate. Even today, some still believe he cheated. But many who played with spr1n claim his success came from skill and hard work, and that he would be the last person to cheat. This remains one of the biggest conspiracy theories in Kreedz history, still unresolved.

On January 2, 2010, player spr1n set a world record on the map fof_32 with a time of 02:08.00. Unfortunately, the record was broken the very next day by a time 13 seconds faster.

On January 19, 2010, player spr1n set a world record on the map kz_giantbean_b15[1337trees] with a time of 01:03.97, breaking his own previous record. The record stayed under the Estonian’s name for over 9 years!

At the beginning of 2010, the bans for players Spice and xPaw in the #KZ.ee community had expired, and both resumed submitting demos. Estonians continued to set national records and submit demos. The most active players at this time were RemaKe, mrk, Spice, botik, d0rk, rtg800, appeAr^, taavet, xPaw, essp, and Chiki. Of course, the legendary spr1n remained active. At the same time, spr1n was developing his own innovative kz timer.

mrk achieved strong results in long jumps, for example, on March 13, his Count Jump - 264 Units (260 Units) demo was published. mrk was also strong in LongJump, with a record of 255.598 units on a 255 block. His main rival and jumping partner was rtg800, with whom he practiced long jumping. rtg800 jumped 255.191 units on a 255 block. Strong long jumpers also included RAJU, Fps, and everest, all had jumped the 254 LongJump block.

On March 30, 2010, player spr1n set a world record on the map rpz_downfall with a time of 00:05.20. The record was only broken two months later.

By mid-2010, new active players had joined the community: eThZ`, who focused on national record hunting, and AnDroMeDa and c0r0na, who were more interested in long jumps, though c0r0na managed to claim some national records as well.

In June 2010, spr1n released the revolutionary spr1n kz timer, which replaced the classic Kreedz Timer and even the SadPuppy timer. Previous timers weren’t accurate and timer bugs could add 1–3 seconds to the real time. This was problematic, and spr1n solved it. His timer removed the timer bug and added decimal precision to time measurements, previous timers only measured to the second. One of the biggest advantages was resource efficiency for map building. Although plugins are now used for timing, mappers still use spr1n’s timer to this day, and it has been used in thousands of Kreedz maps over the years.

At the end of 2010, technical issues with game servers and the admins’ focus on the new KZ-Baltic community until September 2011 led to a drop in activity, and the Estonian community became very quiet. Many players became inactive or disappeared entirely. Still, some national records were being set, and the top 5 included spr1n, rtg800, Spice, eThZ`, and RemaKe.

Kreedz Subcultures Begin to Emerge

Since 2009, standalone Deathrun, HideNSeek, and Surf game modifications became extremely popular among Estonians. These modifications can broadly be called subcultures of Kreedz because they share Kreedz’s fundamental principles like strafing, bunnyhopping, and sliding, although they are not directly related to Kreedz. These modifications were mostly played on separate game servers with 100aa game settings; Surf was also played using the 131fps setting. These modifications were fun, playful, and built around movement-focused gameplay. Just like in Kreedz, the winner was the one skilled in technical and fine motor abilities. In Deathrun servers, the blue team had to complete obstacle courses while the red team activated traps to trick the blue team. In HideNSeek servers, the blue team had to chase the red team through challenging maps, against the clock. In Surf servers, the goal was to eliminate the opposing team while surfing at high speeds on sloped blocks.

These game modifications were offered to Estonians mainly, but not only, by communities founded during 2010 and 2011, such as Kohila Serverid, Saaremaa Serverid, KillZone Gaming (KZG/KZ.EE), and Relaxx Serverid. These communities provided all kinds of Counter-Strike 1.6 game servers, including Paintball, Public, Jailbreak, War3FT, Zombie, and many others. However, Deathrun, HideNSeek, and Surf servers remained among the most popular. Estonians' love for Counter-Strike 1.6 grew immensely during those and the following years. For many Estonians, those years represent a memorable childhood, and without exaggeration, those times are still longed for today.

One cannot forget Zip.pri.ee, presumably the very first Estonian Deathrun community, founded in 2009, which later became known as FaYa GaminG.

Another notable community was surfnkreedz.eu, established by the player Twizek already in 2009. Twizek introduced a game modification called Surf Speedrunning to Estonia, which combined Surf and Kreedz. Essentially, players completed sloped block maps against the clock. This modification used the 100aa game setting. The community also accepted demo recordings for a separate project called Surf-est.eu. There was an attempt to create separate 10aa Kreedz servers, but they did not gain enough popularity, mainly because there was already an active Estonian community focused on Kreedz: kreedz.pri.ee (#KZ.ee). Development of the server plugins was handled by Radeom. The most active Estonians in the surfnkreedz community included euph, azL, krs, Pister, Twizek, cf3, MR.Pidur, RedBull, DeluX, Radeom, botik, Jux, and AvasT.

It should be noted that these different game modifications were already being played elsewhere in the world before. Estonians didn’t invent these game modifications, but thanks to the local communities and especially individuals like flawless (Kohila), k2ska (Saare), shell.W (KZG), chriss (Relaxx), HeiTch (Zip/Faya), and Twizek (snk), who maintained these communities for years, Estonians developed a strong interest in movement-based game modifications, paving the way for new Kreedz players to emerge.

In any case, it was clear that the game setting sv_airaccelerate 100 had won over the hearts of most Estonians. To this day, there are Estonians who can't play without the 100aa setting, it doesn't feel natural to them, since they’ve been “riding with training wheels” since childhood. Playing these game modifications on 100aa was significantly more beginner-friendly, with easier strafing in the air and smoother, faster surfing on slide blocks. It didn’t take long for unofficial Kreedz servers using the 100aa setting to appear in various Estonian communities. Some of the more skilled 100aa Kreedz players included khMm, Sammal, LSD, ropz, hgjaa, mefkinJ, Logitech, c0c0n, atsikan, c0r0na, and play_hard.

Even though 100aa is not the official way to play Kreedz, this unofficial playstyle, along with the other Kreedz subcultures, has contributed greatly to Estonian Kreedz. In addition to being a fun way to spend time and offering an easier learning curve for new players, it has helped develop the motor and cognitive skills necessary for playing Kreedz and eventually led players into the official Kreedz world. Several Estonians started their journey through Kreedz subcultures and later achieved strong results in official 10aa Kreedz. Among the most well-known are ropz, botik, AvasT, c0c0n, LSD, c0r0na, and atsikan.

Baltic era

The KZ-Baltic Community is Launched

Already on August 23, 2008, it was planned that the national communities of the Baltic states kz.ee, kz.lv, and kz.lt would be merged into a single KZ-Baltic community to create more competition and gain more visibility worldwide. The central idea of the emerging Baltic community was that national records could still be set, but the innovation would be that records would be submitted under the joint community, combined leaderboards would be created, and national records could also become Baltic records. Players across the Baltics eagerly awaited the arrival of KZ-Baltic.

Preparations and development work took more than three years. RemaKe was a great help in the development and later administration of the website kz-baltic.eu. Finally, on September 24, 2011, the KZ-Baltic community was launched under the leadership of spr1n. With this, the golden era of Estonian Kreedz had ended, and a new chapter in Estonian Kreedz history began: the Baltic era.

The Baltic Community Unites

The first active Estonians in the Baltic community were spr1n, essp, everest, RemaKe, Spice, AvasT, AnDroMeDa, WillyW, rtg800, Fps, c0r0na, eThZ, ilovcola, and botik.

The first active Latvians were LeTHaL, slay3r, random, LAKIKS, keig, laachux, vM, and the first active Lithuanians were etern1ty, chela, who, swr, Trolis, Groove, Balcer, torex, cFF, kSiunkaS, At_GoD, dustiN, Kicius, GodXen, and PozZ aS.

The Baltic community also had a Kreedz game server, similar to the earlier Estonian community. In the beginning, essp and everest helped financially support the game server. The Baltic community administration included Estonians spr1n, essp, everest, RemaKe, Latvian laachux, and Lithuanians etern1ty, Balcer, and winkuz. The first official partner of the community was Cosy-Climbing, later also Xtreme-Jumps, KZ-Random, and Insilio, and at one point also kzlv.

The Baltic Scene is Active

On September 8, 2011, player spr1n set a world record on the map kz_cg_wigbl0ck with a time of 02:11.50, breaking his own previous record. The world record remained under the Estonian's name for exactly 8 years.

On November 12, 2011, spr1n created a map called kz_memphisblock. The project took quite a long time, and the map was published not only in the Baltic community but also a few weeks later in the international Xtreme-Jumps community. On December 6, 2011, the first Estonian record on this map was published in the community, and the record holder was botik with a time of 06:10.70. In the Xtreme-Jumps community, the first world record on this map was already set on December 3 by Lithuanian player chela with a time of 05:52.63. Interestingly, the Lithuanian did not submit his time to the Baltic community.

Player rOPZKAH (aka ropz) made his first personal record in the Baltic community on December 7, 2011 by jumping a 240 Bhop LongJump Block.

In January 2012, botik jumped a 253 LongJump Block, which was not a national record but still a noteworthy result.

In the summer of 2012, Valve released a new game in the Counter-Strike series. As known, the game was called Counter-Strike: Global Offensive. At first, Estonians were hesitant to start playing the new game, but soon it became clear that the decline of Counter-Strike 1.6 had to begin eventually. Kreedz gameplay and record-setting continued. It should be noted that Estonian player rOPZKAH (aka ropz) was very active in Kreedz at that time, doing long jumps and chasing national records.

At the end of summer and beginning of September 2012, several updates were made to the Baltic community’s Kreedz game servers. For example, a new game server was launched not only in Estonia but also in Lithuania. New features were also added, such as AUTOCUP in every server, pause option, custom start, and much more.

The AUTOCUP tournament of September 2012 was won by Estonian rOPZKAH, second place went to Lithuanian MEEL, and third place was claimed by Latvian supreme. Players were rewarded with VIP status.

At the end of 2012, essp, who played an important role in the community, became inactive, with his last records made in September. From then on, Estonians everest and remake became more active in the Baltic community administration. The most active Estonian players at that time were ikx, Fps, c0r0na, azL, appeAr^, LSD, rOPZKAH, Bu7ler, botik, AvasT, and Kkassu. Latvians and Lithuanians became more active overall than Estonians. AvasT was one of the best Estonian players at that time and had quickly gathered the most Estonian records.

In March 2013, Estonia’s best player at the time, AvasT, showed true mastery by breaking Estonian remake’s record on the map kz_ea_canals with a time of 03:37.82.

By the summer of 2013, new Estonian players had joined the community: Sky^, Freeze, Chupa^, Dookie, Ghozt, C4ndy, and mkz, all of whom also made some personal longjump records.

On June 23, 2013, spr1n expressed great frustration, feeling that several players had started cheating. Here it is worth emphasizing spr1n’s stance on cheating, and it is up to each individual to decide whether and how much this influences spr1n’s years-old jumpbug conspiracy theory. spr1n wrote:

Estonians Slowly Lose Popularity

From the second half of 2013 and the beginning of 2014, Estonians were rather quiet in setting records. AvasT made a few national records, and some players achieved personal longjump records. On January 10, 2014, Estonian play_hard jumped a 254-unit Longjump.

In 2014, rOPZKAH continued chasing national records and was active in the AUTOCUP server. Another Estonian, kristofuz, joined the community and submitted several records. Estonian Freeze helped the Baltic community by editing some ROTM (Run of the Month) videos.

In November 2014, the Estonians who had collected the most national records were AvasT, spr1n, Spice, botik, and rtg800. The strongest Estonians in the game servers were TAAVET and AvasT. Overall, Estonians lagged behind their Baltic counterparts, with Lithuanians being strong competitors to both Estonians and Latvians.

At the end of 2014, the Baltic community's game servers were shut down, and only demo submissions continued.

During the first two months of 2015, Estonians did not submit a single national record to the Baltic community. Only in March and April did kristofuz, as the only Estonian, submit a large number of records. There was a clear decline in player activity, signaling a kind of stagnation. Lithuanians and Latvians remained quite active, especially Lithuanians Kiskis, eMurkt, MEEL, PuKiS, Winkuz, etern1ty, zmlandas, and Latvians slay3r, vodkamouth, zmokiE, random, nucles, and BuTaMuH.

In April 2015, a few maps made by Estonians were published in the Baltic community: azl_lcyo by azL, bhop_dustzone by xPaw & Grim, deathrun_roadoffear_rc by xPaw, kg_sneakster by Sky^, kzee_firstblock by everest, kzee_xenon_f by Sky^, viz_ferreira by viZ0r, and xpaw_bhop_b1 by xPaw. The map kzee_firstblock was actually built by everest back in 2007, and it was also published in the Cosy-Climbing community in 2009. This map is likely the very first Kreedz map made by an Estonian.

In the second half of 2015, the Baltic community's administration became very inactive, record announcements were delayed, there was no innovation, and spr1n had already been quite inactive for over two years. Other administrators had also moved on with their lives. Apparently, there were not many Estonians left who would submit demo recordings to the community. In the following years, some record-making and international community news sharing continued, but nothing particularly big or grand happened in the community. Attempts were made to find other communities or teams to hand over the project to, but without success. The Baltic community did not have a definitive ending yet, but it could be boldly claimed that the community, at least from the Estonian point of view, had clearly fallen into stagnation. Even Lithuanians and Latvians were concerned about the future of the Baltic community. Eventually, it was mostly Lithuanian MEEL who continued submitting records to the KZ-Baltic community, and later it was jokingly said that KZ-Baltic had become a large database of MEEL's records.

Surf Speedrunning Continues

In 2015, the Estonian community Surf Gateway, led by Kushfield, launched game servers for the Surf Speedrunning game modification in Estonia. This community can be considered the successor to surfnkreedz.eu, which closed its doors in 2014. From the start, Surf Gateway focused on an international target audience. It can even be said that Surf Gateway became the most well-known Surf Speedrunning community in the world, and it certainly still is today. The most legendary Estonian players in the community are probably krs, who has played on Surf Gateway game servers since their opening for a total of 1823 hours, ranking fifth in the overall standings in 2025, holding the most completed maps and some world records, and dinosaurus, who has held records since 2016, played a total of 1721 hours, holding several world records and ranking 12th in the overall standings. Some other active Estonian Surf Gateway community players over the years have been cf3, Yoshi Mikimuki, azL, манго, J6uluvana, Twizek, Sirc, Fx, and FreXzOn. Over the years, more than 660 Estonians have set times on Surf Gateway game servers.

Stagnation

Nature of Stagnation

Several coincidences, such as the release of the new modern Counter-Strike version in 2012, the passivity of the Baltic community administration, niche culture, the aging player base, and the natural progression of processes, led between 2016 and 2022 to a decline in the active player base and Kreedz falling into stagnation in Estonia. By the end of the period, the number of active Estonian Kreedz players could be counted on one hand. Nevertheless, quite a bit still happened in Estonian Kreedz during this time, and Estonians continued to set world records.

Estonians Keep Playing Nonetheless

At the end of 2015, c0c0n, who joined the Baltic community, started chasing national records. The first national records were set on the maps kz_ins_industryrun, kz_ins_trainrun, and kzee_firstblock.

On January 11, 2016, kristofuz set his first and only world record on the map risk_compound[full] with a time of 01:20.16, which lasted only a month, but it was a proud achievement as he was one of the few Estonians to hold a world record in the Xtreme-Jumps community.

At the beginning of 2016, ropz was quite active as well. Besides the records submitted to the Baltic community, on February 10, 2016, he set his first official world record on the map risk_inertia with a time of 01:34.34. Two years later, Argentine player marc0z beat that time by over 0.04 seconds… But just a month later, ropz took back the world record by improving the time by five seconds. The record stayed under ropz’s name for the next 6 years until July 2024, when ropz came back and improved his time by another one and a half seconds. On March 7, 2016, ropz set his second world record on the map kz_bkz_egyptbhop, but unfortunately, that lasted less than 3 weeks.

At the beginning of March 2016, a new map prochallenge2_speed_hard was published by Estonians spr1n and xPaw. The project actually started in 2009 and the map was originally meant to be called kzblt_lostcanyon. The map was also published in the international Xtreme-Jumps community. In March, some long jump records were made; Estonian mrk jumped 256 Longjump blocks, which became a Baltic record, and Estonian c0c0n recorded 260 Countjump blocks.

In spring and summer 2016, Estonian mapper, Deathrun player, and Deffuclub clan founder DefertLeek05 created some Kreedz maps, the most well-known being kzee_deffuclub_short, kzee_assault, kzee_assault_h, and bhop_relaxxeu. These maps were not published in any official Kreedz community, but still became popular on Estonian game servers. He also managed the Estonian 100aa Kreedz game servers under the name Deffuclub.

In August 2016, AvasT and kristofuz set some national records. There was great concern about the future of the Baltic community, with members presenting various plans and ideas about what to do next, but the community was at a dead end. Several Baltic community members became more active in the international Cosy-Climbing community.

During 2017, AvasT was the only Estonian to set several national records. At the end of the year, spr1n announced deep concerns about the future of the Baltic community. In the statement, spr1n asked the community for help in any possible way, as the administration was no longer able to be active and keep the community alive. Unfortunately, nothing special followed this.

At the beginning of 2018, spr1n contributed to the Xtreme-Jumps community joint project kz_xj_experience with map creation, along with six other mappers. c0c0n and AvasT (under the new name SlasHeR) set some national records. Player atsikan set his first and only Cosy-Climbing world record on May 12 on the map deathrun_dojo_timer[no_hp_booster] with a time of 01:09.78, which lasted just under one month.

At the end of 2018, ropz managed to claim some Cosy-Climbing world records on the maps azl_lcyo, kzbr_wetbhop, notkz_kx_bhopwater, bkz_beachbhop, and smk_hnseu_adulthops.

In 2019, SlasHeR set only one national record. c0c0n started chasing Cosy-Climbing world records and set his first world record on March 1 on the map chk_graystreet. The world record lasted a solid 4 days.

In 2020, c0c0n and SlasHeR set a few more national records. ropz and GameChaos jumped 255 LongJumps. c0c0n continued chasing Cosy-Climbing records.

In 2021, ropz set new Estonian long jump records, jumping 257 LongJump blocks and 244 HighJump blocks. SlasHeR jumped 260 MultiCountJump. c0c0n set one national record and LSD broke the legendary player dr0n’s time on the map bkz_goldbhop by half a second.

In 2022, there was silence in the Baltic community, with Estonians not submitting any records. Probably also because there was no one to review them. Estonian GameChaos, known from CSGO Kreedz, released an innovative plugin called GCLJS (GameChaos LongJumps), which displayed useful information to Jumpstaters for practicing long jumps.

In 2023, c0c0n, LSD, and SlasHeR set some national records.

The Baltic Community Closes Its Doors

In November 2023, spr1n announced that the KZ-Baltic website will be permanently closed in March 2024. In his public statement, he explained that since 2014 there has been no active development in the community and it existed as it was. Over the years, the Baltic community tried to find other communities and developers to transfer the project to, but unsuccessfully. The community’s maintenance costs, the uncertain future of Kreedz, and the lack of community activity left no other option but to end the project.

“We had great times, but unfortunately this must end! I am very proud to have been able to provide you with a platform to play Kreedz and to connect with this community for so many years! KZ-Baltic cooperated with the Xtreme-Jumps community, hosted many national records, game servers, tournaments, and welcomed both new and experienced players. For all this, I want to thank everyone who supported our community, especially our core people remake, etern1ty, Winkuz, Balcer, laachux, MEEL, random, everest, essp, rtg800, zmlandas and thanks to everyone who was part of our community! It was a wonderful journey!”, spr1n said in his statement.

Rebirth

Pealinna Kreedz

At the end of January 2023, the Pealinna Kommuun, led by r0byN, reopened not only the Public game server but also the 100aa Kreedz game server. This gained more popularity among Estonians than Public. At that time, the only Estonian Counter-Strike 1.6 game servers were Pealinna Public and Pealinna Kreedz. From then on, Pealinna Kommuun mainly focused on developing Pealinna Kreedz. Plugins were developed, new maps added, advertising done, and the website kz.pealinna.eu was created, which started showing the real-time status of the game servers, the map list, and also a leaderboard of the best players. The first more active Pealinna Kreedz players were r0byN, Taurify, stiiven, [b]actoryof, c0c0n, SHRIMP, kris, lahecoq, kry and Syps0.

In March 2023, the second Pealinna Kreedz game server was opened, one with easier maps [Easy/Medium] and the other with harder maps [Hard/Extreme]. This was a clear sign that there were already enough players to separate them by skill levels. At the end of March, Longjump statistics also started showing on the website. The best longjumpers were Pmqztav (Gustav) [259.776], 2001/KZ-JUMp/ (n1kitos aka master64) [258.882], kris [258.027] and Taurify [257.468].

During the summer of 2023, the community continued to grow, game servers and the website were made more efficient, a League system was created, and focus was put on developing the Anti-Cheat system. At the end of summer, a separate Pealinna Kreedz Discord server was opened. By that time, more active Estonians had joined the community: DefertfLeek05, Valoodja, MuumiMoll, Wepsyyy, KavabaNga, lahe SecreT, vaht, Flux and Player2.

On October 6, 2023, Pealinna Kreedz made an important step by opening 10aa game servers and focusing on 10aa going forward. “100aa is comfortable, easy, and a favorite of many Estonians, but the default sv_airaccelerate value is 10, which is also the Kreedz standard. … This decision is important for Pealinna Kreedz to achieve authenticity in the Kreedz community overall. 100aa is mostly played because it’s fun, but the times and jumps done there are not seriously considered. … I encourage all players to be as active as possible on 10aa servers to rebuild the map tops. Of course, I expect understanding and optimism from everyone because personally, I believe that as a community we will develop faster and further if the focus is on 10aa.”, said r0byN in his statement.

The Kreedz.ee Community is Launched

On October 11, 2023, Pealinna Kreedz took a step that marked the beginning of a new era in the history of Estonian Kreedz. Pealinna Kreedz had already grown larger than the Pealinna Kommuun and underwent a rebranding, resulting in an independent Kreedz.ee community. After a long stagnation, Estonians once again started playing Kreedz together, which can be called the rebirth of Kreedz in Estonia.

“... Pealinna Kreedz carries a bit of the name of a passing phenomenon, something that comes once and soon goes, but that is not our goal. Our goal is to stay, to remain the flagship of Estonian Kreedz. Therefore, the name change could increase the community’s seriousness, reliability, and ambition. Kreedz.ee is the heart of Estonian Kreedz: we bring together all Kreedz enthusiasts in Estonia, enable playing on quality game servers under the Estonian flag, and stand for the preservation and development of Kreedz. We have made great progress over the past year and, of course, plan to continue creating a better environment for every Kreedz enthusiast. … We are glad to have come this far, and everyone’s contribution here has been invaluable. Thank you to everyone who has contributed to the creation of Kreedz.ee and good luck to us going forward!”, announced r0byN.

The Estonian Community is Growing Again

According to the community, the future of Kreedz was in online game servers, not local LAN servers, mainly because it is more modern, brings people together better, allows submitting times without manual review, instead there is a real-time Anti-Cheat system on game servers and a large amount of data is collected about players, which also helps to better fight cheating, especially since nowadays it is very easy to manipulate demo recordings. That is why the first main focus was to make game servers competitive with other Kreedz servers. A Record Bot was added, which saved the TOP1 time and it was possible for other players to watch it live. The League system was updated, making the gameplay more engaging. A Map Ratings system was created, allowing players to rate completed maps using a five-star system. The opening of a HideNSeek server was planned.

Within the first month, about 120 different players from around the world played in the Kreedz.ee community and about 1400 Pro times had already been made during that period. “Growth is visible and Kreedz.ee plans to continue growing and offering a quality gaming experience. I am very glad to see that Kreedz still interests Estonians in 2023.”, said r0byN in mid-November. By the end of November, players such as SH (aka AvasT, SlasHeR), GameChaos, Kr6hvan2gu, Splinter, LehT, and Ludinant had joined the Kreedz.ee community.

In January 2024, the focus shifted to an international approach, and the community’s main communication language switched to English. Development of game servers continued, adding a revolutionary feature that allowed players to see the time difference in real-time with the Server Record holder. This feature made the game server instantly unique and proved it could stand out from other game servers. By the beginning of the year, players who collected the most Estonian Server Records (SR) were vengeance (aka c0c0n) [143 records], SH [136 records], Ludinant [80 records], r0byN [64 records], and Kr6hvan2gu [39 records]. The 100aa Block HideNSeek game server was opened with the help of players Karuisa Kizka, Crowly, and Splinter, but its popularity disappeared in the first month and the server was soon closed.

In February 2024, a problem arose with difficulty levels, namely the Easy/Medium server was too difficult for many beginners, and the Hard/Extreme server was too easy for experienced players. The Estonian community opened a third game server, essentially segregating players now by difficulty into three different game servers: Beginner/Easy, Medium/Hard, and Extreme/Death. This system was significantly more player-friendly.

On March 8, 2024, player `Player became the first Estonian to complete a Death difficulty slide map. The map was slide_hb_BLoly_x and he did it with a time of 26:50.369.

By April 2024, Estonians held over 705 SRs, Russians placed second with 116 records, and Spaniards third with 79 records. Estonians had played more than 2600 hours on game servers and made over 5600 Pro times. Mostly Estonians played on the game servers, but there were also Russians, Swedes, Spaniards, Finns, Germans, Americans, Lithuanians, Latvians, Poles, and Czechs. The players with the most Estonian records were vengeance, SH, `Player, TAAVET, and crN (aka c0r0na).

By summer 2024, the game servers had undergone several upgrades. SR Path (Trail Beam, Bhop Squares), Custom Start, Pause Movement, Teleport to Players, Teleport to End, Personal Best features were added and FOG stats, Spraypaint system, Record Bot, Nightvision, AFK system, and more were improved. Game servers were competitive, innovative, and the times made were increasingly serious. Kreedz.ee had proven itself both as a community and in the quality of game servers, and an official partnership with the international community Xtreme-Jumps was natural. An attempt was made to revive the 100aa Block HideNSeek game server, initially opened earlier in the year, with the help of players ipix, Karuisa Kizka, and Apprehension, but it again did not gain popularity and was soon closed.

At the end of July 2024, the Kreedz.ee global leaderboard was conquered by Lithuanian MEEL, Estonians vengeance, 999 (aka j0benz), Player, and Russian Sly. Not far behind were Estonians mustamäe hirm, SH, crN, AnDroMeDa, and TAAVET. On July 25, Lithuanian MEEL earned one of the community’s most desirable titles - Grandmaster. This title is only awarded to the most skilled and experienced Kreedz players. The first Estonian to earn the Grandmaster title was player vengeance (aka c0c0n) on August 4.

In August 2024, Kreedz.ee started organizing a new tournament format called Weekly Tournament. A separate game server was opened for this, where every week there were new maps for players to complete, and a leaderboard with combined times was displayed on the website. Winners were announced at the end of each week and received various prizes, including VIP status in the community and cash prizes. The winners in the first week were players kappa (from Israel), MEEL (Lithuania), drizz (Spain), rawe (Argentina), and marc0z (Argentina). The prize pool was 100 euros and VIP statuses. The tournament format was hugely popular, attracting top-level players worldwide to Kreedz.ee servers. Thanks to this format, competition and overall activity on game servers improved. The tournament format was paused at the end of October the same year, because its organization was too time-consuming, with plans to revive it later in an automated form.

In autumn-winter 2024, the game servers gained huge popularity worldwide and the hardware performance of the servers could no longer handle the system built on poor architecture. The game servers did not use a database system, but data was saved in text files. The website was built on a script that generated the website code every minute using text files taken from the game servers. All this caused inefficient resource usage, the website took too long to generate and had a long delay, servers were slow and there were frequent errors. It was clear that updating both game servers and the website architecture and creating a database was necessary. This whole process took about half a year. At New Year's, the new game server architecture was launched, which unfortunately caused the old website to go out of sync, and only in April 2025 was a new website opened showing real-time data. The website was mainly developed by Valoodja, with r0byN handling the database and design. Physical resources of the servers were also increased. After all the improvements, players could again enjoy quality and updated game servers and the website.

By Christmas 2024, Estonians had played over 8400 hours on Kreedz.ee game servers, made over 10k Pro times, and collected 541 national records. Estonians made up just under half of the community. Over half of the community consisted of foreigners, mainly Russians, Finns, Lithuanians, and Swedes. The Estonians with the most records were vengeance, `Player, SH, 999, and mmmmm (aka ropz). Some of the more active players included ipix and 11:11.

On January 1, 2025, when ropz had just left the FaZe esports clan, FaZe released a video dedicated to him, featuring an interview and discussing ropz’s connections with the Kreedz community. It was noted that Kreedz had given ropz significant skills, which were also useful in classic 5v5 formats.

On February 2, 2025, vengeance (c0c0n) set a Server Record on the map kzee_deffuclub_short with a time of 00:15.782. This record can also be called a server world record (SWR).

In February 2025, official Kreedz.ee maps started to be made, labeled with kreedzee_. The first community mapper was Splinter, who created the maps kreedzee_ancientcanals, kreedzee_lastdeal, and kreedzee_mineshaft. Players rated these maps above average, with ratings of 3.52, 3.41, and 3.96 respectively.

In April 2025, new bunnyhop training features Scroll Trainer and Bhop Analysis were added to the game servers. Both tools allowed players to analyze their bunnyhopping patterns. The tools were developed with help from sekai.

The best slide player in the Estonian community was undoubtedly `Player. A player with a background in CS:Source Surf, he had proven himself on many fronts, achieving remarkable results in both extreme/death difficulty maps and lighter speedslide maps. Additionally, he was capable of completing complex bhop and climb maps. Even on the world stage, it was hard to find slide competition for him; the only real international competitors like BloLy, flores, and meln0n had already become inactive. `Player earned the Grandmaster title as the second Estonian on October 2, 2024. Skilled slide player `Player had completed, among others, the following slide maps by June 2025: slide_hb_BLoly_x (26:50.369), qcg_slabs_x (71:11.520), kz-endo_slide_svn_steep_x (63:07.560), slide_spm_simple_h (18:10.869), hb_gorbachev_x (02:52.554), slide_hama_epic (38:44.310), slide_spm_hieron (23:55.270), and qcg_longslides (06:49.955).

In July 2025, the Kreedz.ee community consisted of only one third Estonians. The community administration included r0byN, ipix, Dez, and sekai. The community was more international than ever before, but Estonian nationalism remained strong. The players who managed to gather the most national records were vengeance, `Player, ipix, and 999. Overall, Estonians had played over 12,000 hours on the game servers.


… you have reached the present day. History is still being made!