Dator recalls his best moments in ET!
Posted by: Ceres (Tuesday, December 8, 2020)
Ceres:
Thank you for taking the time to do an ET interview after 10 years since you stopped playing! When did you first start playing ET and how long did it take you to eventually figure out that you want to compete?
Dator:
So ET was released in May 2003, and if I remember correctly I was on a team within the first six months. I had played RTCW very casually but when ET came out, I started to take it much more seriously.
What got me into competing was playing on the Locked Box pub server and going against the top players at the time (Locked on Target/ )x(, Rotators/ (), & Suave/ suave>> stick out the most). I can elaborate a bit more on this if you want some history of the teams I joined or anything like that.
Ceres:
That was my next question, hah. Walk me through your teams very briefly with possible rosters if you remember them. Also, did you go under any names other than Dator?
Dator:
I believe the first team I was part of was |FAST|. They had a pub server I played on frequently before locked box and eventually impressed them enough to ask me to join the team. It was right around the same time I started to play on locked box and get more acquainted with the community through IRC and I was only on the team briefly.
This was the only team I was on before Rotators. I did try out for both Locked on Target and Suave but was unsuccessful. I didn't use any names but Dator in ET.
Ceres:
Who formed the Rotators and how did you guys come up to be such a dominant team especially when the game was still played 7 VS 7?
Dator:
Good question. I believe Chilly and Bignutz formed the Rotators. I think they had played some RTCW previously and then had transitioned over to ET.
The roster as I recall when I joined included chilly, Bignutz, Blacklabel, Madness, Klew, apathy, & Bloodymist (definitely forgetting people). Inferno had just left the team. Illshot may have already been on the team or joined slightly after me? Stiegl joined later on.
Haha, I honestly forgot it was 7v7 back then. I don't recall anything specific about that. In general, we practiced a ton. I don't remember exactly but it was at least 4-5 nights of scrims / matches. When we weren't scrimming or playing a match we were likely either playing in pubs or walking through strats. I think we had simple but innovative strats early on in the games life which helped us be successful. It also helped that the roster had lots of individual talent. Our comms matured over time. I don't think Bloodymist actually ever used voice chat until we transitioned to Deathtouch/ dT :)
Ceres:
As far as I watched back in the day, n0fx and St1fler also played for you but might have been aliases of other people.
Dator:
Yes!! Those weren't aliases I just couldn't remember their names. H3rf was another guy on the roster.
Ceres:
What brought the end of Rotators? Was it the competitive scene switching to 6v6 instead of 7v7?
Dator:
Not the switch to 6v6. Basically some of the roster had lost interest. So the core players who still wanted to grind practice and get better decided to start something new. Right around the same time I believe Suave was going through some similar roster shake ups so Seed joined our team who was an awesome talent.
Ceres:
Ah, Seed :) Anything interesting you want to share from the Rotators days? There was limited info available back then so I am hoping you remember something specific.
Dator:
I remember it was a lot of fun. Not much drama or egos. Back to your earlier question about why we were successful I probably should have mentioned that our biggest rivals were Suave. We had really competitive matches with them. The game wasn't as mature so going back and watching the matches the gameplay is much sloppier which probably helped us as well.
Rotators VS Suave TWL Season 2 Finals /casted by Trillian & WaCKSteVeN
Ceres:
Walk us through the formation of Deathtouch. Was Dator, ConF, Klew, Illshot, Madness, Seed, Stiegl, Bignutz, Bloodymist the original planned roster?
Dator:
ConF joined later I believe. So Dator, Illshot, Madness, Seed, Stiegl, Bloodymist would have been the starting 6. Klew and Bignutz as reserves.
One of the guys on the roster, who previously played RTCW, was friends with a guy who was initially in team Deathtouch, and I honestly don't recall why we decided to join that team in particular. I really just went along for the ride. I don't remember his name but it was his team, Deathtouch.
Ceres:
Was Seed the strongest player you could rely on in Deathtouch as it was lead to believe by demos and matches back in the day?
Dator:
The whole roster could be relied on. Seed was a really good player for sure. I think he mainly played field ops but could do it all. Bloodymist was really really good and our engineer. MadnesS was the panzer guy. Stiegl was a jack of all trades but pioneered the mortar in matches. Illshot was like me but actually revived people :)
Ceres:
How did you determine which players to use? Sometimes you were using Bloodymist and Klew while other times you would use ConF or Bignutz.
Dator:
It was based on who was available and had practiced that week.
Ceres:
Did you guys have a leader kind of leading the way or was everyone providing just enough for the team to run itself?
Dator:
No real leader. If anyone it was Stiegl. He would make in game calls from time to time but we were so in sync a lot of it was automatic.
Ceres:
As per the previous question about Rotators, anything interesting you want to mention about Deathtouch? Obviously there were many epic matches. Maybe give me a little something about the rivalry with Fatal Attraction/ .fa. ?
Dator:
Yeah .fa. had been around a while and back in the Rotators/Suave days I would say they were like a tier below the top. But they steadily improved and recruited some really good players. There was one match in particular I remember we had not dropped a round in a tournament or playoff and they were the first team to take one from us. I don't recall the teams being super friendly with each other so the matches were definitely intense.
2004 TWL Match: deathTouch VS Fatal Attraction
deathTouch VS Euphoric - CAL-I Season 3 Groupstage - Trillian Shoutcast
deathTouch VS c&f - CAL Invite Season 3 Finals - Trillian Shoutcast
Ceres:
Walk us through the Atlantic battles against Europe's best. Who was leading you guys, who determined the rosters, who did strats and so on? I believe you played in 3 of them in 2004 while the rest of the roster was always different.
Dator:
Yeah great question. Hmm let me think. I know that I think we lost all of them. There was someone who coordinated with the European side but I don't recall who. Sorry, I'm pretty fuzzy on this.. I just know they kept asking me to come back and play so I did.
As for strats, big reason why we lost was we did very little practicing together with the actual team, maybe one scrim if any and then just kind of all try to figure each other out in the match. The European side always seemed to be way ahead in their tactics. Like they were playing chess and we were playing checkers. They had some really good players including 2 players with similar names (talking about darkie and darky here).
The high ping did suck though. They tried to get a server in Iceland for the match but it really wasn't great.
EU vs. USA - Atlantic Battle #1 - TosspoT Shoutcast
EU vs. USA - Atlantic Battle #2 - TosspoT, Trillian, Kee_RinG Shoutcast
EU vs. USA - Atlantic Battle #3 - TosspoT Shoutcast
Ceres:
Were you not interested in playing in more of these during 2005 or were you not picked?
Dator:
I was not playing as much in 2005 so I don't recall being asked.
Ceres:
Since a lot of players were viewing your demos, your matches, idolizing you (as much as can be said about that so far back in the day), was there a player you looked up to? Maybe someone who taught you things?
Dator:
I recall downloading demos of Blue)x( and studying how he played and trying to copy the style. He was one of the first people who handed me my ass so I knew studying his play would help me get better. Never actually met him so don't think "look up to" is the right wording but certainly he was an inspiration to practice and improve my game. Muddy from )x( was another one. There were more along the way but very early those were the guys.
To be continued...
Riley recollects the early Commission days!
Posted by: Ceres (Saturday, May 1, 2021)
Ceres:
When did you first start playing ET? When did you start to compete?
Riley:
So this is a tricky one. I believe that I, like most of the RTCW community, started playing when the game was first released. I stuck with RTCW at the start as I was unsure if I wanted to make the switch. If I remember correctly, I was hanging around team fX in RTCW when ET launched.
Multi-game teams were starting to become a big thing and a player named rand0m was going to be leading fX ET. I decided to join but the team fell apart after the RTCW roster broke up pre-Quakecon. I chose to stick with ET as I was enjoying the new fresh feel and I felt it had a lot of potential.
As for competing, I starting playing with the Commission/ .com after Illshot introduced me to Sureshot. Both Cal and TWL weren't hosting leagues yet (if I remember correctly they were waiting for Quakecon to finish). However, STA's league was up and running and TWL had a few ladders open. Commission was playing in STA (8v8), I got along with most of the members really well so I joined. At that point I think the roster was Sureshot, Illshot, TwF, Hempy, Threebs, Glassman, and Shaky (I am likely forgetting some names).
Ceres:
A little throwback to RTCW then but do you mind sharing if you played for other teams besides fX there? Or do you mean you just hung around fX but didn't really compete at the time?
Riley:
I was definitely a late comer to RTCW, I never found myself on lasting teams. I just happened to make friends with Chao$ and J0ker who were a part of fX, that introduced me to WarRi0r, Vatican, Antidote and the rest of the team.
As for other teams there were quite a few but nothing to write home about. Once fX fell through, Commission became my home.
Ceres:
What was playing with the Commission guys like? I know you are thankful to Sureshot for helping you out. If you don't mind going through the team, atmosphere and plans for ET if you guys had any back then.
Riley:
Commission was unlike any team I had ever played for, a lot of the members were older so it had a much more mature setting. While winning was still important, overall the core group just loved gaming together and wanted to play in a relaxed environment. When I joined Commission, they were splitting time between RTCW and ET. As I said, I was definitely more interested in ET, and STA was our major focus at that time.
The first match that I ever played was on Radar vs. team Coalition. I remember sitting on top of the east Radar tin roof with Illshot mowing people down as they tried to push through the grass. Meanwhile, I only had 4 fps. Overall, Commission was hands down the best team in STA, as the majority of teams weren't interested in its rule set and settings.
As TWL and CAL began, Commission was slotted into a lower bracket and the higher skilled members began scrimming more regularly and preparing for the first season of ET's major competitive leagues. Since I was a newcomer, I didn't initially slot into every starting line up, and Illshot was looking to play with a higher level team. I stuck around with Commission through most of the initial first season but I too was more interested at competing in a higher division.
We were about a 500 level team (if memory serves me correct). I had always played a lot (in between pubbing and pick up games) as well as being active on ET-Center, I had made a lot of connections throughout the community, and I had already started playing with others in the TWL ladders.
Ceres:
I actually found an old file of you playing with .com. Sadly, there is nothing more available to us at this point. What TWL team did you land on when you decided to push up the rankings?
Riley:
That's so cool! After I stopped playing with Commission (the first time) I had become really good friends with Apathy from the Rotators/ (). He and I decided that we wanted to dominate the 6 v 6 TWL ladder. We created ShadowFlare Inc to pay homage to Hostile Inc RTCW's 5 v 5 ladder gods.
The roster consisted of: 90% of the Rotators, a few NoRemorse/ -r. members, and two of the top European teams at the time (Destination Skyline/ DSky., Dignitas/Rewind d. / [<<] ). The first two matches we played, I don't think we played anything other than meme classes, and absolutely destroyed the unsuspecting teams. It was so crazy having some of the DSky. and other European members in Ventrillo. The majority of them didn't speak much English so everyone was just running around like crazy but it didn't matter as none of the other teams on the ladder were anywhere near the caliber of basically the top ET players in the world.
NoRemorse had a team in the 7 v 7 (or maybe it was 8 v 8) called team Lumber and that led to me joining them for a short stint to start out the following CAL season. I never really fit in as well with NoRemorse. They were all really good people but I just wasn't playing enough so I went back to Commission, who had much more competitive roster at that point.
Ceres:
Oh, now you have to share the roster for ShadowFlare! Also, who were the DSky. and Rewind guys? I know you have a fond memory of one of them in particular :)
Riley:
So it was Apathy, Klew, BloodyMist, Illshot, Dator, BigNutz, stiegl and n0fx. As for DSky., it was Redcross, morty and SW. As for the Rewind guys, I don't recall their names as much, they only played one time. For NoRemorse it was slay, eyes and x11.
Ceres:
What's your memory of DSky. Morty at that time?
Riley:
I feel like the only word that Morty knew in English was "morty." He literally played a mortar in the most random positions like flag room or dock room or at command posts and would attempt to mortar the enemy team indoors. All while shouting, "morty!"
Ceres:
Seems like a fun guy! Any other memories from the other players? We are spending quite some time on this ladder team but it's a unique mix of players.
Riley:
The ladder was really fun and it took off with a lot of steam. Everyone was really having fun with it. It was kind of place where the guys could unwind, as the majority of the NA players wanted to just mess around and have fun outside of scrims, as well as try things they may have wanted to incorporate into their strats such as airstrikes or nades. I don't remember how many wins we finished with, but we sat on top of the ladder for half a year I'd say.
One of the interesting things was seeing some of the positions the Europeans played. I remember them doing something I had never seen before. For example, on supply depot, in the back axis compound, some of the Euros were able to get on top of the center bunker above the gate and I had never seen that before. The novelty of it eventually wore off, and it was exceptionally difficult to for the Europeans to play as the time difference was a major factor. I don't remember ever losing a match, but I think we removed the team when we weren't able to get enough bodies. I think we won a match a man down and we didn't want to keep doing that so we removed the team.
Ceres:
Okay, so you go back to the Commission to compete after ShadowFlare. How did you slot in the team again?
Riley:
This team featured TWF, shaky, threebs and myself. Overall, we had a pretty decent season - we made it into the second round of playoffs in TWL, I don't remember who we lost to. We weren't scrimming a lot, and while the team was much better (our team play was definitely better) and we were still the undisputed champs of STA, but at this point a lot of us were lost in the World of Warcraft. I also began playing RTCW with Commission, since I wasn't good enough to make any of the top tier ET teams.
My first real crack at a competitive team came when Definition asked if I was interested in Suave's/ suave>> new roster. It kind of came out of the blue and I wasn't familiar with most of the members of the team, but the moment I started scrimming with them, it was like I was playing with the same caliber of players like the Rotators or other top teams at the time. That roster was Definition, Silver, Spartan, Nomad, Axe, MegamanX, and Special.
Ceres:
Was this during the time Suave had that rivalry with Rotators/deathTouch dT?
Riley:
No, I believe that was the first Suave line up. I was not part of that time frame. I think that Suave team was jalapeno, Newdeal, etc.
Ceres:
You mentioned ET being this 8v8 ladder game at first. What do you remember of the competitive scene when it started forming with the first TWL and CAL seasons? Walk me through the most notable leagues, teams, radios and shoutcasters if you can?
Riley:
ET was vastly different than RTCW with the proning, mines, and vehicle objectives. I felt the elements at first were a lot more fun than the typical RTCW flat ground, headshot dominant, gameplay. I will say very early, the competitive rule set needed a lot of work, as the spam in the game made it very difficult with certain objectives, especially with the landmines. Also some of the maps were not exactly balanced. STA was nice opening to ET for me. I know others were not interested in STA, due to its more pub style gameplay, and were more focused on perfecting their shot and strats.
In the beginning there were a lot of people who moved over from RTCW and quit relatively quickly. Most of the really good teams were surprisingly not names that I was very familiar with. Of course people like stiegl, MadnesS, and the rest of the Rotators were so good, along with the original Suave team.
But I cannot for the life of me remember who even won season 1 in ET! I'm honestly struggling to remember.
I remember Rotators becoming deathTouch and cyno&friends/ c&f- etc
To be continued...
Interview with team Greater Than
Chaos|Generic:
Lets start by giving our readers a little run down on Greater Than’s history. Where did the name and tags come from?
gt-skeld:
The name dates back to the tfs days when tfs was considering a less offensive name. I think it might have been hunter who originally thought it would be a good name/tag for a clan. When tfs broke up, Skeeve took some of the tfs guys, most of which are no longer with us, merged them with a few other guys from various clans, and created greater than. Then that momo decided that lineage2 was a good way to spend time, and I ended up inheriting the clan.
Chaos|Generic:
How do you see TWL playoffs shaping up? Do you have any particular team you are looking forward to playing?
gt-skeld:
Well, obviously dT is going to be the team to beat, and I'd like to see us make it to play them in the finals. We have to beat casualty and the winner of f` vs .fa. to get there. Both those matches will be tough.
gt-revo1ver: I see dT in the finals as usual, but the other teams are who out plays who. But we are looking forward to hopefully playing fatal attraction again.
Chaos|Generic:
How do you see CAL shaping up? Any new teams out there you are looking at? Opinions on the new rules?
gt-skeld:
It's good to see many old teams coming back, I just hope they stick it out through any tough times. The more competition out there the better. As for the new rules, I'm a big fan of 6v6 with lowered spam settings. I'm also happy there will be separated divisions which will help keep matches more competetive.
gt-Tang:
I am looking forward to seeing newer teams stepping up to main. This season should be full of new teams proving themselves in a more competitive environment. I’m also looking forward to see eXe prove themselves in the season as well as WS coming back to the game.
gt-revo1ver:
I would like to see the leagues stay competitive with a main for ET just like TWL is basically. I can not wait to see what new teams show up playing for this coming CAL season.
gt-ONO:
hey guys some people like to play guitar...others like to play the drums...personally, I like to play the meat flute.
Chaos|Generic:
Speaking of newly formed clans, Greater Than was one of those new teams at the start of the TWL season some people said would never make it. How does it feel to not only prove those people wrong, but make it to the playoffs!
gt-skeld:
Well, it's been difficult at times. The initial roster for the clan had quite a few members that ended up not sticking with us. We ended up at one point with only 6 members who were so dedicated we all showed up every night for over a month. Those members were skeld, shade, def, noyb, tw1tch, and rogue, and they were really the core of the clan for a long time. Everything was going great until shade had to go inactive for his job, and def managed to earn restricted playing hours. That was definitely a low point. Later, tw1tch decided that being a surfer bra on the beach for the summer was better than playing ET. =\ We really had to replace half the core of the team. Luckily, we found some great additions like Tang, one of the best shots from team cfg, Revo1ver from No Remorse, whose ability to run the team in game has been a real boost, ONO from team sm and ventchoir (#ventchoir) whose vent antics are second to none, and cold of kp, the legendary trickjumper who also has a nice shot, and bootsauce who keeps our public channel up on politics when he's not raging with us. The new guys fit in right away with the originals and we've managed to surprise a few people along the way this season. It's quite a rush to knock off a team that most people expect to beat you, and I'm proud of our team's performances this season.
Chaos|Generic:
What is the clan's view on the rumors/news of Rtcw2?
gt-ONO:
I want to play RTCW2 because I like ET and I like RTCW so since I like to play them I want to play the new one because i like to play et and rtcw ;o ;o
gt-NOYB:
There is not really enough information about RTCW2 to make anything of it. It is good to hear that they're making a game. It would be nice to see whoever is working on RTCW2 contract Rhea or Bani to make a competition mod. So that out of the box, there would be a big push for competitive ladders. I believe that's what gives a multiplayer game its’ legs.
gt-Tang:
I concur with NOYB.
gt-tw1tch:
I also concur.
gt-skeld: It's good to hear news of RTCW2 , and I'll play it when it comes out, but like NOYB says, that will be a while from now.
gt-Tang:
I like the creativity of both game’s strategies. I’m sure RTCW2 will be great, I just hope it comes out unglitched.
gt-ONO:
ya.
gt-tw1tch:
I like the shooting of RTCW.
gt-NOYB:
What makes a game great is the community around it. That is what made the Quake series a success.
Chaos|Generic:
Any Shoutouts or general comments you want to say to the community?
gt-revo1ver:
shoutouts to my bro duster from com all my peeps from rtcw, Ralph, specopz, and the et community. Also, mad props to chaos for putting up with us during this interview.
gt-ONO:
shout out to: dator, dirty, rk, kp, hero, varuka, reks, drake, abom, spiti and of course ventchoir! join #ventchoir to sing your heart out!
gt-tw1tch:
I would like to give a shoutout to my *> peoples, uhh gL1tch for showing me the game, radea, ender and the whole |AE| crew, and all the people that owned me when I was a nub thanks; because I still am a nub.
gt-Tang:
Shoutouts to: Docz0r, Tscott and RRU, The Mercenaries (<3 Saura), Spiticon, Scsi, the VentChoir and it’s members, and all the clans we’ve scrimmed
gt-NOYB:
I would just like to say GGs to all the teams that stuck it out through the season.
gt-skeld:
Shoutouts to hunter for allowing us the usage of his server, all the former gt and tfs members and inactives, all our scrim partners, and all the people that do positive things for the community when they aren't getting paid. Thanks.
Interview with team deathTouch - dT
Chaos|Generic:
Personal question I have always wondered how do you guys feel about being referred to as the deathtators?
dT|Seed:
I do not really mind. I guess it makes sense, considering the team is all old Rotators with the exception of me and illshot.
dT|Illshot:
I do not mind at all.
dT|Dator:
Does not bother me.
Chaos|Generic:
What are your secrets? What do you most attribute to your outstanding performance to time and time again?
dTSeed:
We work hard to make scrims worthwhile - we learn from our mistakes. We also have very dedicated players, and some of the most talented players to play the game, which surely helps.
dT|Illshot:
I do not think there is any one secret to being a good team. You need a lot of things. You need good guns, smart players (both as a team, and the ability to think for one's self), well thought out strategies, good execution of those strategies, and it helps to have as stable a roster as possible. Your team will not perform as well as it could if your team members do not trust each other to be there when it counts.
Dt|Dator:
Teamwork. Most of us have been together for a while now and have learned each others playing styles and habits.
Chaos|Generic:
Any team you really have underestimated this season that gave you a run in a match?
dT|Seed:
It seems like every week we have had tough opponents for TWL. We have not made the mistake of underestimating anyone, and we have prepared well for each match. I do not really remember having too difficult a time with any team so far, but then again I am the newest member on the team and have not been around long.
dT|Illshot:
I do not think that we have really underestimated any teams much. That said, the closest we came probably would have to be our preseason GGL match with D`sky (we knew they were good, but they did work us hard), and overall Greater Than. I think Greater Than is probably my pick for the team that improved the most, in several ways. They have molded together into a solid team which wins (imo) based more on teamwork than outgunning their opponent. They have shown what they are capable of, several times, but are still not given credit for much by many. They have a good thing going, and I hope they know that and stick with what has worked for them so far.
dT|Dator:
No. I think we take all teams serious and prepare adequately.
Chaos|Generic:
How do you see TWL playoffs shaping up? Do you have any particular team you are looking forward to playing?
dT|Seed:
As far as I know, .fa. has folded and eXe and Asylum are in the consolation playoffs only. So that leaves Friction and Greater Than as the teams I'm looking forward to playing. Friction will bring a great game on a map they decide to prepare for, and Greater Than has been steadily improving for a while. Both are great teams I am sure will give us a challenge.
dT|Illshot:
Well with Friction and .fa. dropping out (so I have read and heard), I am not sure how playoffs will be. We will try to keep doing what we've been doing.
dT|Dator:
They should all be good games and I am looking forward to them all.
Chaos|Generic:
What is your guys take on the rumors/news of RTCW2?
dT|Seed:
Todd admitted that RTCW2 is already in the works, but it is most likely still early in development. However, it is still great news, and whenever it is finally released, I will surely be getting it. It will surely (hopefully) be a huge game and will reunite the Wolf/ET community. I can not wait.
dT|Illshot:
The fact that it is being made is not a rumor, though who it is being made by is. My guess would be Splash Damage. Most people do not like the thought of them being the ones to make it. However, I am indifferent. I just hope whoever does it does a good job. The team gameplay of RTCW is unmatched in my opinion. Hopefully, it will incorporate all the good things that have been learned from RTCW and ET and leave out the bad.
dT|Dator:
I will probably try it out when it is released.
Chaos|Generic:
How do you see CAL shaping up? With their new website, rules, cfgs? Any new teams you are noticing?
dT|Seed:
I like CAL's new website and stuff; they seem to be changing for the better. Some new teams to watch out for would be Asylum and eXe (and I am sure there are others that I do not know about that will bring a lot of competition).
dT|Illshot:
My guess is that CAL will turn out much the same as TWL has unless changes take place between now and the end of the season. I do not know about any new rules or cfg restrictions so I can not comment on that. Can not say I have noticed any new teams really either. Many people are anxious to see how Doom III (har, the game that ran ET out of qcon) will do, myself included. If it is fun, I will probably start playing that, so who knows.
dT|Dator:
New site looks good, but I have not checked out the new teams.
Chaos|Generic:
Any new maps you want to see tried in competition? Rommel? RTCW ports?
dT|Seed:
I would love to see new maps tried for competition, but not RTCW maps. Nobody wants to play RTCW maps in ET. I have been helping ChumChum build an ET map designed for competition, so hopefully we can get that tried out sooner or later. Rommel, sands, whatever other new maps are being tested on Locked Box currently, I also would not mind trying in competition. I am strongly in favor of giving maps a chance in competition, because more maps = more variety = more fun.
dT|Illshot:
I am willing to give most maps a try. I am however in favor of new maps over RTCW ports, except for mp_ice. Despite some people's accusations that it does not play well in ET, I believe that it does.
dT|Dator:
Rommel seems ok; the RTCW ports are ok too, I guess.
Chaos|Generic:
Any tips for upincoming teams or things you would like to share with them?
dT|Illshot:
The internet is a place where a wide range of people exist. From my experience, finding a group that you get along well with is the MOST IMPORTANT and often most difficult thing to do. If you do not get along with your teammates, then you are not in the right clan. Roster stability, having the same guys show up for scrims and playing their same spots, is the best way to get better as fast as possible. If your team does not get along with itself, you probably will not get anything done before your matches, and you will not need your opponent to beat you, you will have already beaten yourselves. Finding players that meet this all important requirement, and all the others your team may have, is not easy. There are enough players out there however to get it done if you try hard enough. No player is good enough to have as a teammate if they do not get along with the rest of the team . . . none. As far as actually improving in ET, you need a good config (the graphics part). Use your own controls, and stick with them. It is best if you use relatively the same controls across many different games if you have played more than one. Also, find a sensitivity and stick with it. Changing it around every week will not help you. Playing a lot will improve your game, but there is more to getting better than play time alone. The quality of your practice is a large factor as well. Scrim teams around your level, possibly a little better. Do not spend your time scrimming teams you can run over pub style or a team that will do that to you - if you can help it. Sometimes you might because scrims are not always easy to find, but try to limit it. Individually, learn from your mistakes. I have watched numerous players do something dumb, die from it, respawn, do it again, die again, . . . Learn from mistakes and try to build up a 'database' of things not to do, and also things to do. Eventually you will do everything without thinking about it, but you have to start somewhere. Lastly, do not get discouraged or give up. Improvement takes time. "Pain is weakness leaving the body."
dT|Dator:
Try to stick together and form some good teamwork instead of worrying about ratios.
Chaos|Generic:
Any shout outs or comments for the community?
dT|Illshot:
Props to all those that make online gaming a fun pastime and to my teammates, past and present.
dT|Dator:
all the guys from dT who have been cool and made playing fun. ONO, DIRTY, THUMPDAWG, all the guys from Friction :P
Zombie Accepts Position With ESL
Earlier today, Zombie, founder of Evil Territory League and WoCen, announced that he had accepted a position at Electronic Sports League, and therefore would be resigining as ETL's lead admin. Zombie will be an admin of ESL's EU ET section, and hopes to return to North American competition as an ESL Wolfenstein admin in the future. I had a little chat with Zombie about his experience with ETL and what his hopes for the future with ESL are.
Number1Dad:
Let's start with what you will be doing with ESL.
Zombie:
I'll be working for ESL as an admin in their European ET division.
Number1Dad:
Okay, simple enough. Why did you make the decision to step down from ETL and apply for a position at ESL?
Zombie:
A couple of reasons. First, when I started ETL, I had zero league admin experience. All I had was a poorly coded league script, some minor web design skills, a knowledge of the North American ET competitive scene, and a desire to give something back. I really had no clue what I was doing, which was fine with me, because I tend to learn by doing. Four seasons later, I have a much greater understanding of things, but I still lack in some areas. I think taking a position in an established league such as ESL will give me the opportunity to learn and become a better admin.
Second, much of the reason ETL enjoyed the success it did was purely out of necessity. TWL and CAL were no longer running their ET leagues or ladders, leaving STA as the only NA ET competition provider. We made sure not to compete with STA, and with no other competition, we did alright. With Wolfenstein on the horizon, I'm almost certain the major leagues will pick it up. I just can't see ETL being a major player in the Wolfenstein arena. It's well known we run a free public script that's less than professional, and to be quite honest, a pain to use for the admins, teams, and players.
Basically, I had two alternatives. One being investing a lot of money that I simply don't have. The other being finding a position in a major league that will hopefully allow me to provide the North American community with quality competition. The opportunity recently came up with ESL to join their European ET staff, and by doing so, I not only hope to learn a lot, but eventually move to a position with ESL America and help provide the NA community something with Wolfenstein.
Number1Dad:
I think everybody would like to see ESL do Wolfenstein competition in North America, but let's stay on ETL for a moment. Is ETL dead?
Zombie:
That much remains to be seen. I have to talk to some of the admins and see what their ambitions are. As long as there is a staff there that wants to continue to run ET, it's highly possible. The site & the league belong to Evil now & much will depend on what they choose to do with it. I'm pretty sure some of them want to continue on. As for my involvement, that ceased the minute I became involved with ESL.
Number1Dad:
I can see a few more of these Q&A; sessions coming out of this. Speaking of involvement, to what extent will you remain involved with the North American ET/Wolfenstein scene if and until ESL decides to expand to NA with Wolfenstein?
Zombie:
Well my priority is and always will be the NA ET/Wolfenstein community. Obviously I will continue my work with WoCen.org. As far as leagues go, there's just a lot of uncertainty right now. For me and I think the majority of the NA community, everything hinges on the success of Wolfenstein. If it's successful, I hope to be in a position (like I said earlier) where I would be helping to provie quality competition to the community, but at the same time if I'm not, it's not like that is gonna cause a shortage of competition for the NA teams. We'll still provide coverage for all the major leagues via WoCen. If Wolfenstein fails, I really don't know what will become of the NA community. A lot has to be seen.
Number1Dad:
Agreed. Okay, put your thinking cap on and describe your experience with ETL in one word.
Zombie:
Rewarding.
Number1Dad:
Well put. Anything else you want us to know?
Zombie:
I just want thank everybody for their ETL participation over the past two years and thank them for their patience with me. I've really enjoyed it, but I also want everyone to understand that I am ready to move away from an amateur platform into something a little more professional. I simply don't want to continue on as a low end league and I need to follow a path that will give me the best opportunity to provide this community with high end competition. Right now ESL has opened that door for me even if it is in EU comp for the time being.
Number1Dad:
Thanks for four great seasons. I think I speak for all of us when I say we are grateful for what you've done for the community. Any shoutouts?
Zombie:
Shoutouts are cheesy Just a quick one to Evil and the ETL staff for all their help and support.
Coffee Time with deathTouch - dT
Posted by: |Kurt| (Thursday, August 5, 2004)
I sat down recently with a few members of deathTouch for a nice cup of online coffee and had the privilege of interviewing them. We covered everything from Europe and DSky. to the TWL Finals, Future Plans, and more. Please enjoy the read.
|Kurt|:
Like to thank the deathTouch guys for joining me on such late notice and basically out of the blue before we begin.
dT|stiegl:
No. =0
|Kurt|:
We are joined tonight with Bignutz and stiegl, two former members of Rotators, and Seed, formerly of Suave/Eclipse Gaming.
dT|Bignutz:
In holy matrimony.
|Kurt|:
Anything you guys would like to start off with?
dT|seed:
Hello.
dT|Bignutz:
TWL is a good league.
|Kurt|:
I think we can all agree on that.
|Kurt|:
deathTouch is the only clan to be in TWL from the beginning of the season, till currently, and still have not lost a round. Some say Concept could of done the same in Beta, but without a doubt deathTouch is the best clan in North American ET, a good few steps above the rest.
I know me and Seed talked about this the other day, but does it get boring with the lack of competition currently? Or damage how you guys as a team prepare for scrims with the lack of competition?
dT|stiegl:
yes. We don't really scrim that much in comparison to when I played RTCW.
dT|seed:
YES. Sorry caps, but yes, its boring and we cant find scrims often.
dT|Bignutz:
Yea, but I think the people that are sticking in there like us are only getting better.
|Kurt|:
Can you see this damaging the quality of the team and perhaps allowing a second team to step up there with you guys?
dT|stiegl:
I remember in rtcw when redemption won CAL-O, we scrimmaged 3-4 hours a night Sunday - Thursday.
dT|Bignutz:
Yes, as was exhibited tonight, the lack of scrimming does hurt us.
dT|stiegl:
The only teams I see with that chance are eXe| (refers to the eXecutives) and *> (refers to team Greater Than)
|Kurt|:
In a recent comment by eXe|ConF, he said give eXe one single month to catch up with you guys. Do you think they can follow through on that, and catch up to this teams ET experience in such a short time after coming from RTCW?
dT|Bignutz:
Thats like, his opinion man. Not mine for sure. ;p
dT|stiegl:
As far as I know they have been playing a month and I don't see any quality wins on their part yet.
dT|Bignutz:
Many of us, including me and bloodymist and some others that i can't remember, have been playing et since the demo.
|Kurt|:
So is that a Negative on them stepping up and not fulfilling that statement?
dT|seed:
I don't think they'll stick together long enough to fulfill anything.
dT|Bignutz:
So far, yes, but they are still a tough team.
dT|stiegl:
They can say whatever they want, but they have to win a quality match.
dT|Bignutz:
lol. I feel a ggl challenge coming on :o
|Kurt|:
Interesting, a few minutes ago stiegl mentioned the Sunday through Thursday scrim schedule many teams use. Would deathTouch (unsure if you can speak for the team) like to change match night to Thursday as mentioned a possibility by TWL admins, and if not the team, you guys individually?
dT|stiegl:
No thanks. I like Sunday/Monday nights.
dT|Bignutz:
No, thanks.
dT|seed:
Yes, I agree with stiegl on that one.
dT|Bignutz:
Sunday and Monday seem like excellent choices.
|Kurt|:
Wow, wasn't suspecting that, I've seen many teams try to siwtch the match nights over to Thursday.
Why I enjoy being in Beta, they don't plan to change ours from Monday, just don't try and drop down a tier.
dT|stiegl:
Ask us about the upcoming match and CAL season.
dT|Bignutz:
;p
|Kurt|:
I wish I could type faster. :-(
dT|seed:
Yes, I agree with stiegl on that one.
dT|stiegl:
np
dT|Bignutz:
lol
dT|seed:
It's okay.
dT|Bignutz:
We are here for you.
|Kurt|:
So, how are you guys preparring for the big match this coming Monday? A lot of members of deathTouch have finals experience from the Suave/RtR days.
Do you think this will help deathTouch as a clan greatly, or does past experience not really matter that much?
dT|stiegl:
I think our big game experience will calm any nerves we have.
dT|Bignutz:
We are scrimming as much as we can because we are a little rusty on oasis
dT|seed:
Yeah after a couple years of competing, big matches don't get to me anymore personally.
|Kurt|:
Were you guys nervous in the past in your first big maches, and do you feel that happening to greater than?
dT|stiegl:
RTCW CAL Open Championship I was nervous, but not since then.
dT|seed:
I'm sure they'll be more nervous than us. ;p
dT|Bignutz:
I would be nervous ;p
|Kurt|:
No team really suspects them to be able to beat you guys come Monday, they have no pressure on them, do you think this will help them relax or prepare better?
dT|Bignutz:
It's good not to be too relaxed when preparing for a match like this. So I have a feeling they will prepare pretty intensely.
dT|stiegl:
It can only help them. They are the underdog and have nothing to lose.
|Kurt|:
To my knowledge, the only defeat handed to deathTouch has been by Dsky on Oasis. From what I remember, illshot was fairly new on the team, and Seed wasnt there yet. Is this the only time you guys failed to pull out a victory?
dT|seed:
Yes afaik
dT|Bignutz:
I wasn't there either ;p
dT|stiegl:
aye
dT|stiegl:
The dirty crooked-teeth euros gave us some lessons on oasis.
|Kurt|:
I heard it was a great learning experience for dT as well, do you guys plan to pull out the almightly evil Euro tactics come Monday, and give Greater Than a euro style beating?
dT|Bignutz:
well, no. I wouldn't prefer to call it Euro style plz
dT|seed:
Our strats are super-secret...
dT|Bignutz:
Super-secret
dT|stiegl:
No they aren't. We'll use some ideas from that match and some ideas from our other scrims.
|Kurt|:
There is a lot of main line strags in ET now day, everyone uses the same defense it seems, and most teams copy the defense that comes from your demos. Do you think your oasis strag will fall to the same strag stealing as your radar and goldrush defense has?
dT|stiegl:
I guess I wasn't aware our radar and goldrush defenses have been stolen. ;p
|Kurt|:
If you run into a team using your own defense, are you confident enough to break through it when it has been so successful for you guys?
dT|stiegl:
But it just makes sense to use strats that seem to work and tweak them accordingly.
dT|Bignutz:
Yes, fortunately, we know our strats' flaws as well.
|Kurt|:
Predictions for Kicks, TWL Alpha Finals (Season 2), deathTouch vs Greater Than, Who Wins?
dT|stiegl:
Yeehaw *> 2-0.
dT|Bignutz:
Us 2-0-123099831209. Well since stiegl isnt playing, us 2-0.
dT|seed:
2-0 Us.
|Kurt|:
Round Two, TWL Alpha Consolidation Finals, The Commission against Kinetic Alpha, Who Wins?
dT|stiegl:
Kinetic 2-1.
dT|seed:
Commission 2-1.
dT|Bignutz:
Commision cause illshot and his buddies. 2-0.
dT|seed:
Good call.
|Kurt|:
What are deathTouches plans for the upcoming CAL season, plan to do anything different from the past 2 and a half months in TWL?
dT|seed:
With d3 out, who knows. only time will tell
dT|stiegl:
We will evaluate our desire to play another season.
dT|Bignutz:
Well, if we don't lose a round on Monday, I hope our plans aren't too different if we decide to play the season at all.
dT|stiegl:
I don't see the clans lasting on ggl ladder for another 4 MONTHS.
dT|Bignutz:
I guess we might still play ggl to get the MULAH. ;p
|Kurt|:
Possibility of playing in ClanBase or another organization besides GGL with European Clans?
dT|Bignutz:
Umm, no. :) 3 leagues is enough.
dT|seed:
Nope
dT|stiegl:
None
|Kurt|:
Where is the warrior attitude for christs sake :- )?
dT|Bignutz:
No one said we aren't lazy
dT|seed:
We've got some lazy bastards on the team.
|Kurt|:
Do you see yourselves as more of a challange, possibily even beating Destination Skyline with roster additions, team development, and lessons learned from the last encounter?
dT|Bignutz:
If we prepare like we usually do for big matches, I see that as a likely possibility
dT|seed:
Dsky are noobs
dT|stiegl:
I agree.
dT|Bignutz:
What I said = what Seed said.
|Kurt|:
Thoughts on the new ET Pro release and the b_pronedelay it introduced into the community?
dT|stiegl:
Fantastic. Prone is for lamers who can't aim.
dT|Bignutz:
Bloodymist hasn't stopped crying with prone delay.
dT|seed:
Pronedelay blows, I can't aim.
|Kurt|:
Yes Seed, we all know you suck.
dT|stiegl:
! Let me rephrase what I just said. Prone is for lamers who can't aim, especially fa.bob.
dT|Bignutz:
On a serious note, I can minimize ET and not have to vid_restart every time I come back in.
dT|seed:
lol
dT|Bignutz:
lol bob is a pioneer.
dT|seed:
He is comical to play against. The reason he kills me is because i am laughing too hard. woops !
dT|Bignutz:
Lmao
|Kurt|:
Do you guys see ET TV as being a huge impact and the community booster many have claimed it will be?
dT|Bignutz:
ETTV BETTER BE AT OUR FUCKIN MATCH.
dT|seed:
Yes ETTV will be good.
dT|stiegl:
I think ettv will be a fantastic addition.
|Kurt|:
Any opinons on the possibilty of CAL Pay to Play. Thoughts real fast?
dT|seed:
I don't care, shouldn't be a big deal if its cheap.
dT|Bignutz:
I don't care enough to pay for it. :
dT|stiegl:
Any other questions?
|Kurt|:
Anything to say towards the community; comments, suggestions?
dT|stiegl:
Synchronize TWL and CAL with maps and configs ffs.
dT|Bignutz:
Call all your buddies and tell them about ET!! And VOTE ETTV FOR TWL PLAYOFFS!
dT|stiegl:
Please shorten the GGl season by 3 months.
|Kurt|:
Don't forget to connection hack Seed on finals night.
dT|Bignutz: That was us. Shh.
dT|stiegl: Let's bring back 7s.
|Kurt|:
Shoutouts?
dT|stiegl:
no.
dT|seed:
Shoutout to fa.bob. HaHa. Just kiddin. I have nothing against prone.
dT|Bignutz:
The Pioneer of Prone. The pronaneer.
dT|stiegl:
Oh wait. Suggestion: If you are on a pub please work on teamwork you god damn rambo meds. Shoutout: That guy from |OUF| who always plays eng on a pub. AlmightyTDawg. People notice that stuff.
dT|Bignutz:
Shout out to bloodymist cause he plays too much d3 so he's gonna lose the match for us. Shoutout to me for being the only guy thats actually worse at medic than any other class.
dT|stiegl:
That it?
|Kurt|:
Unless you got any final words.
dT|Bignutz:
Nah. Thanks.
dT|stiegl:
Nope. Thanks and good bye.
dT|seed:
k demo time, thx kurt gl hf
|Kurt|:
Thank you.
Meeting the eXecutives - eXe
Posted by: |Kurt| (Sunday, August 8, 2004)
|Kurt|:
Like to say howdy again, we are joined tonight by Mindgame and Flogzero, two Team Trinity/Executive RTCW members who came over to eXe|, and Nothx, of formerly of Preminence. I like to thank you all for joining me tonight.
Before we begin, this interview came as a request towards me by one of the people being interviewed tonight. Have fun playing the guessing game.
eXe|nothx:
ROOOOOOOOOFL
eXe|Mindgame:
MindgaME?????
|Kurt|:
I know after the deathTouch interview, a few people said they found it boring, there is a chance this will be boring too if you didn't like the first one. Let me save you some time, and suggest you Alt + F4 now.
Now, thank you all for joinin me tonight, sorry for not having preparred questions, should be entertaining to say the least.
eXe|Flogzero:
Hello 8-D
eXe|Mindgame:
HELLO! xD
eXe|nothx:
Greetings.
|Kurt|:
To start off tonight, Executives comes to ET from RTCW, as one of the top RTCW teams, how steep do you all feel the learning curve is for ET when such a long time RTCW veteran for those of you fairly new to ET?
eXe|Mindgame:
Well, the panzer is not such a game breaking weapon, no damage panzer xD.
eXe|Flogzero:
Its alot easier to gib in et, and the learning a whole new group of maps takes awhile, but everything else is the same to me, except for the lack of FPS. I believe any good RTCW team could adapt to ET because they should have the basic elements.
eXe|Mindgame:
Agreed.
|Kurt|:
Do you sometimes forget to take into consideration those new weapons when making a strategy just because you guys are so used to a different game?
eXe|nothx:
They don't do the strats.
|Kurt|:
Is that your use in life Nothx? Exe strat man? :- )
eXe|Flogzero:
nothx spits out a strat hes used before and we tweak it :P Easier and faster than starting from scratch.
eXe|Mindgame:
Rifle granades are the funniest gun in the world. They make me giggle.
|Kurt|:
You guys came over to ET too late in the TWL season to make a impact on the standings and shift things up a bit, do you feel if you had join at the beginning of the season, you could have left a bigger footprint in the TWL ET Season 3?
eXe|Flogzero:
We believe we would have made it to the finals.
eXe|nothx:
Dunno about bigger footprint, more experience always helps. We'll this see CAL season.
eXe|Mindgame:
Agree with flog would have been at finals dT vs eXe =0
|Kurt|:
Do you believe you could have taken deathTouch if you had that extra 6 weeks of experience, despite their recent statements in an interview I did?
eXe|Mindgame:
Well weve been in this game for like 4 weeks now and I believe in time we will beat dT.
eXe|nothx:
Depends on map. More simplistic maps like supplydepot and radar. I think we'd do ok.
eXe|Mindgame:
Yes the more rtcw style maps. =0
|Kurt|:
Seed has stated that he believes Executives won't be around long enough to fulfill any statement made by you guys.
eXe|nothx:
I'm pretty sure anyone whos been on our vent would tell you the same thing. We always recover
eXe|Mindgame:
But me Conf, Anial and Flog have been together long enough to know we are not going to disband.
|Kurt|:
Does the clan have any possibility of disbanding soon, or throwing ET out the window, with Quakecon dropping the ball?
eXe|nothx:
I think a few may be playing Doom 3, but you can get a 1v1 or 2v2 any time of day. So we aren't quitting ET.
|Kurt|:
Do the Executives have any specific plans for the upcoming CAL season?
eXe|Flogzero:
Most important thing on our list is to get scrims with dT. Seems like the only time we get better is when we scrim dT.
eXe|Mindgame:
Owning face
eXe|nothx:
Only way to get better is to play tough teams. Playing teams we don't have trouble with, we tend to develop bad habits and slack off.
eXe|Mindgame:
We also need some challenge =( as does dT
|Kurt|:
What are your thoughts of the possibilty of a "Pay to Play" format for CAL? Would you pay if initiated even if the majority of the money did *NOT* go towards prize money.
eXe|Mindgame:
Don't matter to me its cheap.
eXe|Flogzero:
I would seriously consider going to play a CPL game.
eXe|nothx:
Personally if there aren't any prizes, its a load of shit. Paying incompetent admins doesn't make any sense (not ET specifically).
|Kurt|:
Thoughts were passed around that it could possible be like little league. Start off with a low fee, and each year it got higher until you got use to the idea of "Paying to Play", could you see that happening here too? And if so, still Pay?
eXe|Mindgame:
Their poor. All depends on the prizes they offer. If i have to put 15 bucks in a season for a chance to win a processor of course of would do it.
eXe|Flogzero:
The advertisements on CAL should be enough income if they aren't giving out prizes.
eXe|nothx:
If I'm paying I want guaranteed use of a CAL server on match night.
eXe|Mindgame:
Oh nothx and his demands =0 Cheap canadians =)
|Kurt|:
Has The Executives had any encounters with our European counterparts in ET yet?
eXe|Mindgame:
We played some euros today. e-motion, 3vs3. Conf, me and nothx vs some smelly euros. Didn't lose one round with 160 ping each =0
eXe|Flogzero:
Trying to get some scrims with them, but its hard because of timezones.
eXe|Mindgame:
On monday we have a scrim with Saevus at 3.
eXe|nothx:
We're going to get smoked.
eXe|Mindgame:
Kinda early. nothx isnt a very positive man.
|Kurt|:
Keep the Personal Business on Vent. :- )
eXe|Mindgame:
We try.
|Kurt|:
Earlier you mentioned Executives never planned to do Quakecon. Do you have any plans of doing other cash prize tournaments or ladder besides GGL?
eXe|nothx:
What cash tournaments?
eXe|Flogzero:
Let us know if theres a cash tourney :P We'll be there.
eXe|Mindgame:
and give me an airplane.
|Kurt|:
Demands Mindgame? I thought Nothx was the demanding whore of the interview.
eXe|Flogzero:
Its all a fascade :P
|Kurt|:
At least he is an honest man.
eXe|Mindgame:
Yea
|Kurt|:
What kind of adjustments has the team had to make moving over from RTCW to ET?
eXe|Mindgame:
Roster changes =0 We needed to replace our panzer with a gun because of the horible panzer spread damage.
eXe|nothx:
They had it in their minds that they could power through everyone with full team rushes and aim alone. ET is a different style of play.
eXe|Flogzero:
Alot easier to gib, and the more accurate smg's change the game. Hitsounds are a godsend.
eXe|Mindgame:
and eXe|opio moved to CoD instead of ET so nothx and nard came in. =)
|Kurt|:
Would you perfer a Sunday/Monday match night, or a Thursday match night as a possibility for Alpha teams?
eXe|nothx:
Thurs, nobody wants to scrim over the weekend.
eXe|Flogzero:
Yea Thursday.
eXe|Mindgame:
Thursday.
|Kurt|:
What teams that you have scrimmed so far in ET have impressed you?
eXe|Mindgame:
dT
eXe|nothx:
Dsky. and dT
eXe|Flogzero:
dT so far.
eXe|Mindgame:
Greater Than is getting up there..I love ONO
eXe|nothx:
they don't have the best guns, but their strats and teamplay are very solid.
|Kurt|:
Thoughts on Friction and Fatal Attraction?
eXe|Mindgame:
Friction was a bunch of cool guys. I prefer not to think about fa.
eXe|Flogzero:
We only scrimmed f'/fa. our first week or so of ET
|Kurt|:
Were you surprised with the high expectations put on Executives so fast after transfering over from RTCW?
eXe|nothx:
I think we woulda beaten em if we played em when they quit.
eXe|Mindgame:
Not really. I think we made them ourselves. It is always good to have expectations.
eXe|Flogzero:
I am sure if a good et team came to rtcw, we would put the same expectations on them.
|Kurt|:
RTCW maps being ported over to ET? Good or bad, and are the strats and the general way the maps are played out too incredibly different from RTCW?
eXe|Mindgame:
Et people do not know how to play base so they shouldn't.
eXe|Flogzero:
ET seems to have a lack of maps without the RTCW ones, so it seems like a good idea to me. Gameplay seems only changed by landmines.
eXe|nothx:
Played base, beach and ice in competition. All about the same gameplay as wolf.
|Kurt|:
Don't know if you are aware, but in Affliction's first week of playing ET, they entered the ET Open, at that time, TWL used 7v7 for ET. This tournament used two RTCW maps, (Beach and Base), made it 6v6, and took away riflenades. They won the tournament fairly easily beating Suave and Preminence, they later got beat in CAL and even later in the ND80 Blue and Gold Tournament.
eXe|nothx:
ET Open was retarded.
|Kurt|:
Do you feel that is the way should be play, under a rule set similar to that? Very nerfed Spam?
eXe|Mindgame:
I think it changing from 7vs7 to 6vs6 eliminated most spam teams. There's no extra room for the soldier class now.
eXe|Flogzero:
It would definitely make it easier for us, less spam = more skill, so I am all for less spam.
eXe|nothx:
Would be cool, but it wouldn't be ET.
|Kurt|:
It seems like, the less spam in the game, the less of a transition for old RTCW clans to make, hence why Affliction did so well in that tournament. Do you see more teams coming over from RTCW after your clan's such fast success in ET.
eXe|nothx:
lmao. Affliction did 'well' because they played suave on BEACH.
And a preeminence without its lineup on a map they hadn't scrimmed on a teamsize NOBODY had scrimmed prior to the tournament.
eXe|Flogzero:
I don't see any RTCW teams coming over to ET.
|Kurt|:
How come?
eXe|Mindgame:
There seems to be more competition in ET then there was in RTCW. Thats why.
eXe|Flogzero:
RTCW lost some people back in the day to ET, after that alot of RTCW people view ET as second rate RCTW
|Kurt|:
Why did Executives decide to make the transition?
eXe|Mindgame:
I mean what team would be good that came over? GGL
eXe|nothx:
Most of them judge ET from pubs. Would be like me saying RTCW is shitty because I played on a 10 v 10 assault pub.
eXe|Flogzero:
At the time we were interested in Qcon, and we doubted RTCW would be there so we switched over to ET for the money. "money"
|Kurt|:
Any other reasons besides GGL and the possibilty of Quakecon?
eXe|Mindgame:
no...
|Kurt|:
Greedy Gamers -p
eXe|Flogzero:
Something new, and community seemed to welcome us.
|Kurt|:
Many people have stated the ET Gaming Community is a bunch of hellions, do you agree with this statement fresh from RTCW? or Do you view ET as a better Gaming Community?
eXe|Flogzero:
ET community is surprisingly civilized. GG's after every scrim.
|Kurt|:
First time I have ever heard that about the ET Community.
eXe|Flogzero:
In wolf, the shit talking was pretty much expected.
eXe|Mindgame:
RTCW community is bad. Shit talking every direction you look.
eXe|nothx:
There is the occasionally beta team that think they are hot shit.
Get that in any game.
|Kurt|:
What about at RTCW's prime? When it was at its highest point, which is where many people consider ET to be currently.
|Kurt|:
Which would you rate as being better.
eXe|nothx:
ET's highest point was season 1, and wolf at its peak had many more 'top' teams
eXe|Mindgame:
A lot more
eXe|Flogzero:
I wasn't around for either. :(
eXe|Mindgame:
There was never one powerhouse in Wolf's prime. As in ET there always been one team that everyone agrees owns them.
eXe|nothx:
ET in europe is fairly competitive right now and always has been.
eXe|Mindgame:
Hopefully we can change that about the ET community.
|Kurt|:
I will have to disagree with that Mindgame, Suave and Rotators were dead even going back and forth there for a while it seemed, and then Rotators pulled away and Suave folded.
eXe|nothx:
season 1 CAL
|Kurt|:
What about Season 1 CAL?
eXe|nothx:
Had more good teams. suave, rtr, uprise, lot, 20id, arise, u5
|Kurt|:
So you also disagree with Mindgame?
eXe|Flogzero:
Mindgame knows nothing of early ET. :P
eXe|nothx:
Well everyone thought u5 would roll the finals. but they didn't.
It was close shit.
eXe|Mindgame:
So yes the community did believe there was a powerhouse?
eXe|nothx:
The community was wrong, idiot.
eXe|Mindgame:
Like sheep =)
|Kurt|:
I'll go grab some popcorn and watch this. Less work for me.
eXe|nothx:
rofl
eXe|Mindgame:
nothx is a fool.
|Kurt|:
nothx you have been selected to play in the Atlantic Battle this weekend. You excited to play? Curious as to see what mysterious power lies behind ET TV?
eXe|nothx:
Just looking to put on a good show for ETTV. Not really looking forward to the prospect of playing engineer :x
|Kurt|:
Who do you think will win? North America or Europe?
eXe|nothx:
Call it 2 - 0 Europe.
eXe|Mindgame:
or 60000 - 0 Europe. Could end up either way =) I am still confused how mooshu got on there =[
|Kurt|: How close? A few seconds, nail biter for the world to watch in the first ever ET TV event?
eXe|nothx: Hopefully we'll kick those shit-talking Euros in the teeth.
Inside TWL: Interview with TWL Admin cc`Durinia
Posted by: |Kurt| (Monday, August 9, 2004)
This time around I got the relief of interviewing a single person, speaking on behalf of a league. Durinia from TWL sat down with me earlier this afternoon and covered a wide range of topics with me. Please enjoy the read.
|Kurt|:
Hello there, I said I was going to have a couple special interviews in the upcoming weeks, and this is one of them. We are joined with the TWL ET Competition Manager Durinia.
cc`Durinia|TWL:
Thanks for having me.
|Kurt|:
So, lets get to know a little about you first. How long have you been playing ET? How long competitively?
cc`Durinia|TWL:
Well, I downloaded the ET demo and was instantly hooked. Looking back, I can't believe I played that much fuel dump, and actually enjoyed it.
|Kurt|:
Everyone likes fuel dump until their first competition map on it.
cc`Durinia|TWL: :
Shortly after the full game came out, I joined Chance & Circumstance to play ET, and occaisionally RtCW
|Kurt|:
So, is Punkless going to be a new competition team? Or just a team for fun, is Chance and Circumstance still going to be around?
cc`Durinia|TWL:
cc* got a little sick of league competition, so we're just playing campaign matches once a week to have a good time, for now. Punkless is mostly for fun - a collection of people from a few different teams that don't have a lot of time to scrim, but still want to play some SW once in a while.
|Kurt|:
How long have you been an Admin at TWL?
cc`Durinia|TWL:
Since the end of March. I knew ND80 from scrimming, etc. and he came and asked me if I was interested. I did a little bit of "match observing" for TWL CoD (don't ask) over the winter, and thought it'd be fun and a chance to do something for the ET players.
|Kurt|:
So, around 5 months now? Would it be crossing the line to say 5 enjoyable good months?
cc`Durinia|TWL:
They've been enjoyable, yes. Occaisionally stressful - its can be a lot of work sometimes, but definitely fun.
|Kurt|:
TWL Season 3 is coming to an end soon, your thoughts on how this past season went?
cc`Durinia|TWL:
I thought it was very successful! We made a lot of changes for Season #3, the biggest ones being going to two tiers and changing the format to 6v6. I think both of them worked out really well.
I think adding the second tier really contributed to a lot of competitive growth - there are a lot of teams in Beta this season who scrimmed and improved a ton because they actually feel they have a good chance to compete, and I'm not sure it would have happened to this extent if we only had one tier.
|Kurt|:
A lot of people feel Alpha has became a lot weaker though. Numerous teams disbanded, and deathTouch appears to have no competition. People feel Alpha clans play every week to have deathTouch eventually win the Finals.
Ever consider perhaps deathTouch in the invite tier? And then an Alpha tier. :- )
cc`Durinia|TWL:
deathTouch has definitely had a great year. But the pack usually catches up to the dominant teams eventually - and I think it will happen with dT as well. I think the Alpha teams are all happy they at least got a good challenge each week - hopefully it pushes them to get better as well.
|Kurt|:
What would you change about TWL Season 3 if you could go back in time and change anything?
cc`Durinia|TWL:
Hmm...honestly? I don't think I'd change anything. I think we did pretty well with placing teams, and the season went pretty smoothly. Maybe I'd take back my initial double-elimination playoffs proposal, lol!
Wait - more shoutcasts - something I'm going to work on for season 4.
|Kurt|:
Would you keep Generic in Beta? Flatline? Concept?
cc`Durinia|TWL:
While I won't comment "officially" on any teams status... Generic and Flatline have shown that they've got the skill and dedication to compete well in Alpha. They've proven it this season. As with last season, teams that are newer (or reforming, like arise) will get a good look from their peers and from the admins on whether they are ready for the Alpha "experience"
|Kurt|:
Would you of moved down "Not a Real Clan" from Alpha after their season of struggles, with their only two wins over teams that have disbanded?
cc`Durinia|TWL:
I'm sure there will be discussion about NARC. That team has had a lot of turnover this season. If they're really set on trying alpha again, I'm guessing they'll be allowed, but anything more than that is really wide speculation at this point. :)
|Kurt|:
What does TWL plan to change next time around? Anything specific that would greatly affect the players?
cc`Durinia|TWL:
Well, first off, we're trying to get feedback on what night people would like to play. We've scheduled everything on Monday for 3 seasons, mostly because of the things that Season #1 had to work around. We figured its about time we took another look at that.
cc`Durinia|TWL:
Second, we're going to be looking at new additions of ETPro 3.1, such as b_pronedelay. Because its pretty controversial, we'll likely try it a couple different ways and have a vote on it this pre-season.
I'd also like to re-organize the "match of the week", like we had in Season #2 to get more shoutcasts.
|Kurt|:
Is Beta and Alpha gonna be on different nights this season?
cc`Durinia|TWL:
That depends on the feedback we get. Some teams would like the ability to watch each others' leagues, but it also might put a crimp in inter-tier scrimming. At this point, I think I'm leaning towards "no", but that's definitely still up in the air.
Vote Here
|Kurt|:
Which way is the league leanings towards this early in talks, Monday or Thursday?
cc`Durinia|TWL:
Again, it depends on feedback. I think people would really like the simplified schedule that playing on Thursday would bring. Right now, I'm just putting ideas out there and trying to see what people think.
|Kurt|:
Early predictions for TWL Season 4? What teams do you see making a big impact, and have a chance of going the distance in both Beta and Alpha teams?
cc`Durinia|TWL:
I think Alpha will be very interesting. There will be several new and come-back teams, like eXe and arise, that could compete very well right away. I'm also very curious where some of the top beta teams from season #3 will rank among the alpha competition. My hope for Beta is the same as last season - that some newer teams work themselves up to be great.
|Kurt|:
A lot of people consider TWL the stronger league for ET when compared to CAL, which is different from most games when CAL is the front runner with more serious competition. You agree with these statements?
cc`Durinia|TWL:
No comment. :) We do our best to create the best competitive environments that we can, and we're glad that people seem to like it. I'm personally very glad to also have CAL around because a second league means more chances to play for more people.
|Kurt|:
You made the move to 6s first, and CAL followed, does TWL plan to "lead" competitive ET, and be the ones to make the changes, and see if they follow?
cc`Durinia|TWL:
We'll make whatever changes we think make ET the best game to play competitively. That was why we decided on the 6s format and 2 tiers - they were the best things to do for encouraging ET to grow and to be a better game to play.
|Kurt|:
Predictions for tonights finals?
cc`Durinia|TWL:
I think if anyone has a shot at dT, its *>. Both teams have worked really hard this season, and I'm sure it'll show in the finals.
The consolation finals should be great as well - kinetic and commission are both solid teams that are pretty evenly matched.
|Kurt|:
Who do you got to win?
cc`Durinia|TWL:
I'm an admin, I'm not supposed to take sides! dT and .com are my guesses.
|Kurt|:
Your not taking sides, your predicting. You have predicted 132 TWL Beta Matches correctly on ET-Center. :- )
cc`Durinia|TWL:
lol. I lost my touch with that when we quit scrimming people back in April. :-P
|Kurt|:
Hush :- ) Your just mad cause I took first spot on the money list over you.
cc`Durinia|TWL:
...that would be like me taking the #1 spot on a TWL ladder, Mr. ET-center admin. Might be legit, but always looks fishy!
|Kurt|:
We all know you don't have skill to take over a #1 spot on any TWL Ladder, where as myself, I have great intelligence and have the smarts. Like comparing Apples and Oranges, Apples are better, and I am the Apple.
cc`Durinia|TWL:
No, Apple plays for WolfJaeger.
|Kurt|:
What are your thoughts on the recent ET Pro Release and ET TV?
cc`Durinia|TWL:
Bani continues to do a fantastic job with ET Pro. I'm personally a big fan of the new anti-lag, but its also great having it as a client-side option. He's also given us some other good bug and physics fixes as well.
cc`Durinia|TWL:
I think ETTV is going to be fantastic. We were hoping to get it in time for the finals tonight, but as with any software project, we have to settle for "when its done".
However, when its done, I think it will make the competitive community that much more exciting.
|Kurt|:
ET TV for the finals tonight? You think it has a chance of happening?
cc`Durinia|TWL:
Unfortunately, no. Barring a short notice miracle. :)
|Kurt|:
Misread that there, I thought that said " we are hoping".
cc`Durinia|TWL:
ah ok :)
|Kurt|:
Damn, had an orgasm over nothing. How do you feel about CAL switching over to the "Pay to Play" format?
cc`Durinia|TWL:
To start, I'm curious if they'll actually try it. I really don't think it would work out well for ET - the number of teams that would have a shot at getting any of that money back are pretty small, and the reasoning of "it'll make admins more responsible" just doesn't fly with me.
But, who knows what'll happen? If they try it, I'll be very curious. And, to clear things up, in case there was any confusion, Mich told me that "TWL wont be charging anyone anytime soon for anything."
|Kurt|:
If they try and it suceeds, would TWL ever switch to a "Pay to Play" league type?
cc`Durinia|TWL:
No, TWL won't switch. Thats not a model that we're interested in pursuing
|Kurt|:
You recentlyed suspended two well known members of ET community, Cnav and Artists, for their behavior on a TWL Campaign Match. It became a bigger than issue than most would of suspected.
Story Here
|Kurt|:
Would you like to give your side of the story, and explains your actions and thoughts?
cc`Durinia|TWL:
There's not much to explain, really. The two players behaved poorly in a match, and this was the penalty they received. We want to make sure that good sportsmanship is upheld and encouraged in all of our competitions.
|Kurt|:
Can you specifically explain what they did? The situation and their actions?
cc`Durinia|TWL:
Nope, sorry. Its policy for us to keep disputes between TWL and the players.
|Kurt|:
I am a player :- )
cc`Durinia|TWL:
The *specific* players *involved* Good try though. :-)
|Kurt|:
Anything you would like to tell the readers out there? Commets? Suggestions?
cc`Durinia|TWL:
Try to do something for the community once in a while - upload a demo, or help out a newbie. It'll make things more fun for all of us in the future. :-)
|Kurt|:
Oh yah, hows the married life?
cc`Durinia|TWL:
Lovin' it so far! I'm doing my best to get her ready for me to actually play a season. ;)
|Kurt|:
Shoutouts?
cc`Durinia|TWL:
Cykosis for teaching me everything I know about the Q3 engine. ND80 for teaching me everything I know about being an admin, and for giving so much to the ET community. All the people in cc* for lots of good times, and not having a massive breakup everytime we argued. Oh, and TDawg for providing me with endless !setinfos.
|Kurt|:
Well, I apprecaite your time, and wish Punkless the best of luck unless they are facing me. Thank you for joining me today, it was a pleasure
cc`Durinia|TWL:
mine also, thank you.
Interview: Seed
Posted by: c[_]`Wippuh (Thursday, July 8, 2004)
You wanna interviews, we givva you ze interviews! This time with the championship sleeper of the wolf community, Seed! The man can not only sleep alot, he can give some seriously indepth answers to those questions that we've all been wanting to hear from a player that has been at the top of both Wolfenstein games!
c[_]`Wippuh:
Seed! Tell everyone who you are, what you do and how you got into gaming! What is the path you took to get to where you are? Are there truths to the rumors that you only stop sleeping in order to game?
dT Seed:
My name is Alex Donavon, I'm 19 and I live in a north suburb of Chicago, Illinois. I'm currently in college studying computer science and engineering, and I work part-time at Walgreens where I develop photos.
Along with many of my generation, I've been playing video games since as early as I can remember. Starting off with the Super Mario Bros. series for the Nintendo, I owned just about every gaming console available from then on up until the Playstation 2. Shortly after the release of the PS2, my dad bought a new family computer and I quickly got sucked into the addictive world that is online gaming. My first online FPS was called “No One Lives Forever” (NOLF). I tried the single player part, and got maybe halfway through before trying the online portion. From there, it was all over - I got hooked, sucked in, utterly addicted – never to touch the SP mode again. I probably played online for 5 or more hours every day, on a 56k modem, mind you, so when AOL disconnected me or when someone called my house, my game was interrupted (which seems hilarious in retrospect.) Anyway, I quickly became quite good at NOLF, and I eventually helped form a clan which became one of the top teams in the game: NbK. After being quite successful in NOLF, some of my teammates got sick of it and started talking about a new game coming out that was supposed to be extremely cool. They were talking about RTCW, of course! Eventually, all of my clanmates decided to move on to RTCW, so I followed suit.
I started playing RTCW nonstop – I became hopelessly addicted. For some reason, I played a lot on Happy Penguin, which was a 64 player server running mp_depot in Objective mode. After learning the ropes and playing for several hours a day, I became quite a respected and popular player on the server – however, I was criticized by my teammates in NbK for playing on such a “noobie” server, and was told to play on “good” servers like TimeLord, Konijin, and Texas Stopwatch. Playing on Texas Stopwatch for the first time was definitely a wakeup call. I realized that I was nothing compared to the players there, so I made it my goal to become a dominant player. I began playing on Texas Stopwatch religiously, and I became a pub-star - being able to get those leet 5:1 k/d ratios was my goal, and I became pretty good at it.
In response to the second question, I guess that's the path I took to get where I am. I simply pubbed a ton, in addition to nightly scrims, and I just kept working on my game. I believe that's still the only way to succeed as an individual player: practice, practice, practice. In fact, as I'm sitting here typing this response, I can't help but be a bit annoyed that I could be pubbing some ET or RTCW instead. That's just the attitude you need to have in order to succeed as a professional gamer! Har har.
c[_]`Wippuh:
Over your career you have played with several different teams, many of them successful. Almost all of them look like they have different personalities. Tell us about each and how the personality of the team worked to the team's advantage.
dT Seed:
My first RTCW team was Ni! (formerly known as NbK). These were a great bunch of guys - probably the most genuinely nice and non-egotistical team I’ve ever been a part of. These guys weren’t very serious, though - most of them were in it simply for fun. However, they’re still around today and remain friends, which just goes to show that teams that enjoy themselves and don’t get too burnt out or wrapped up in competition are bound to last. However, as my skill level eventually exceeded my clanmates in Ni!, I knew I wanted to join a more competitive team.
At the time, WyattC, ChumChum and Goose were forming a new team called The Outsiders. Wyatt pm’d me one night and asked if I was interested. To be honest, I really didn’t want to join them and help them build a new team – I wanted to join an already established team. Trinity was also recruiting me, and they seemed like such a better choice, having been established as a skilled team and having several widely respected players. However, Wyatt somehow worked his magic and eventually convinced me to join Outsiders instead. Looking back, I’m glad I did, because Trinity disbanded shortly afterwards. Outsiders was a great team: Chum, Goose, Wyatt, Nubs, Pissclams, Busty, etc. – all great guys with unique personalities. We had such a great time just joking around and talking on voice, yet we were fairly serious competitors at the same time - which is a rare balance to achieve, and was probably the main reason we had the success we did. In CAL that season, we made it all the way through the playoffs to the Championship match, where we played an extremely close game and lost to a very tough Team Redemption. I think the final score was 3-2-2 or something like that. Needless to say, it was a very tough loss, and shortly after we decided to take a break. I wasn’t ready to stop playing RTCW competitively yet, though.
After searching around a bit, I found out that Amish was recruiting. After one scrim with them, I knew it was the team for me. The atmosphere on their Ventrilo was such a contrast to some of the other teams I’d been looking into and scrimming with at the time. Amish were very laid back and fun to talk to - people like DeviantDuck, JimmyJack, Haas, Helmut, Gigolo, etc. were all really friendly, and comprised a very skilled team at the same time. We were a solid team and we did fairly well that season. We were said to be chronically underrated; perhaps the pinkish in-game tags and the name ‘Amish’ could be a bit deceiving? Hehe. Anyway, we stuck around and even qualified for Quakecon 2003, which we attended and competed in, but unfortunately we lost our first two matches and were eliminated early.
After Qcon, Amish decided to take a break, but I still wanted to compete. At that point, I had established a reputation as a panzer whore. Team Redemption had recently reformed, and they needed a panzer, so I fit in pretty well. We had a very strong team; however, we only lasted as Redemption for a month or so. People went inactive or quit, including our co-leader Riot, which was basically the nail in the coffin for Redemption, so to speak. Then, one night when I came home from work, I discovered that Redemption had merged with Global Assault Team, and we were now GAT. I didn’t mind at all as we acquired skilled players in Apoculos, Justin, and Dezarax. Our lineup was something like me, Apoc, Justin, Dez, Madness, and Stiegl. Unfortunately, we were soon plagued with inactivity and general lack of interest. Many of us felt that RTCW wasn’t going anywhere and we wanted something new. And so came GATs half-merge into smf-ET.
At the time, Apoc was an inactive member of a top ET team – smf. When we found little competition and interest left in RTCW, he started talking about making a switch over to ET, which was still a fairly new game at the time, competition-wise. I had never played ET for more than 10 minutes, and I had never heard of smf before, either. I soon learned, however, that smf was a successful multi-gaming team which had excelled in Q3:RA3, SOF2, and ET – and were, *gasp*, sponsored! Needless to say, I was drawn in by these claims, and I was soon invited to be a starter for smf’s ET division.
Suave (smf) was one of the best teams in ET for many months. We scrimmed frequently and devoted a lot of time to ET, yet again – we were close friends despite our seriousness, and this is no doubt one of the key factors that helped us survive many tough losses and other various issues. There’s not much else to say about Suave except that I thoroughly enjoyed my time there, and was extremely disappointed when Reed (smf>>Damage), the clan founder and overall leader, decided to move the smf Call of Duty team over to “Eclipse Gaming”. After less than a month, the CoD team decided to “take a break”, and all that remained of Eclipse Gaming was the ET team. At that point, we were still going strong, but after some serious inactivity issues and some very tough losses, we also decided to call it quits. Our starters just didn’t care anymore, it seemed – some not even enough to show up when we needed them. Personally, I felt that we had had our time in the spotlight, and there was very little potential left, so I moved on.
I took a short break from ET and played RTCW with Outsiders, and it was fun for a little while – but I knew I wanted to play ET competitively again. I joined deathTouch, and that just about brings me to where I am today. dT is a dedicated team, and the players (collectively) actually want to work hard in order to succeed – a quality that was obviously lacking in Eclipse.
c[_]`Wippuh:
In RtCW your last team was the Amish and then you went to ET and play for smf and now dT. Amish were in the upper echelon of RtCW and dT is a top team in ET. What are the differences and similarities in what it takes to be a top team in each game?
dT Seed:
There honestly isn’t much difference between what it takes to be a top team in RTCW compared to ET, being such similar games. It all comes down to hard work and dedication, both on the individual and team level.
While RTCW and ET are both team-oriented games, more so than pretty much anything else out there, the individuals comprising a team are still tremendously important. Each member of the team should, ideally, be a skilled and smart all-around player. Historically, every top team of their period has had a very skilled set of individuals. I’ve heard some people claim that a few teams, like Abuse or Doctors, didn’t have very extraordinary players, yet their teamwork led the way to their success. I think that’s true to an extent: they did have great teamwork, but their lineup of individual players was nonetheless very impressive, many having successful backgrounds in Quake 3 or Counterstrike.
On the “team” level, I think a vital part of any good team is in their leader. By leader, I mean the person who calls stuff out in-game. If a team has devised solid strats, and has a leader who knows these strats by heart and knows when to call them, they can’t help but be successful. It also helps if many members of the team provide input for strats – the more discussion put into strats, together as a team, the better. All this combined with a lineup of skilled players will surely produce a successful team.
There’s also the important quality that some teams seem to overlook: you have to have fun playing together! If you’re too serious and don’t have fun playing as a team, even if you are successful, it’s probably not going to be enough to prevent burnout, especially if you’re only competing in online leagues like CAL or TWL, which don’t offer any prizes. Every team I’ve been in has had its’ own unique style and sense of humor, and the close relationships between members have always been important in keeping the team alive and together through hard times.
c[_]`Wippuh:
In early RtCW days, demos from teams like D|S, abuse, drs, etc... were gobbled up by the community and commented on religiously. Those demos can directly be tied to many players stepping up their play and teams getting better, as everyone wanted the notoriety and skill that those demos displayed. How does it feel to be one of the players in ET that is setting the standard and what responsibility, if any, do you feel that requires from you?
dT Seed:
It seems really odd to think of myself as one of those players – but I realize it’s probably true and just not easy for me to see. As far as responsibility goes, I’ve always tried to be a contributing member of the community by occasionally uploading demos, giving help to anyone who asks, giving my config to anyone who wants it, etc. The most important thing anyone can do, no matter what skill level they are, is help out newer players. Not enough people, especially top players, help newer players out. I’m not saying people need to go out of their way, but giving some advice, config help, whatever, if someone asks, is really appreciated by newer players. I know I truly appreciated the help that was given to me in the past when I asked players I looked up to and they actually replied and were helpful, rather than ignoring me.
There’s also the importance of uploading demos for the community to share. This is especially important in ET, where ETTv is not yet a reality. So many people appreciate demos, from any team or player, simply because they’re entertaining as well as educational. Of course, there are various dilemmas inherently associated with demo uploading: isn’t it rude to upload demos of your victory over another team? Won’t other teams copy or learn to exploit your strats? Isn’t it kind of showing off, uploading your demo? I know I’ve asked myself these very questions many times before when contemplating whether or not to upload a demo. Yes, some teams or individuals will take it badly when their loss is displayed publicly, and yes, teams will be able to copy or perhaps learn how to counter any strategies shown through the demos. These are all legitimate concerns, and these are probably a large part of why we don’t see more demos made publicly available. I usually try to convince myself that it’s for the good of the community, which I know is true. I just think back to my noobie days in RTCW when I would get so excited when a member of Drs, Abuse, Darkside, NARF, or any skilled team would upload their demo. I would eagerly download it and study it. This has been greatly lacking in ET, as only a small percent of teams upload any demos. I hope some people will start to realize the importance of demo sharing, as I feel that the positives far outweigh the negatives.
c[_]`Wippuh:
Lets follow up some on the demo question. You say that you're concerned with the possibility of teams possibly copying your strats. Further discuss this in the relation it has to making the game stagnant. In RtCW you had Abuse releasing a few demos here and there and all of a sudden 90% of the teams out there were running their strats to a tee. This creates boring play that makes guys hate maps like Base because of the dreaded R1 d syndrome. It wasn't till NARF came along and really started breaking strat norms that this tide turned in RtCW. What are the pros and cons of copying a team's strat like that vs trying something new?
dT Seed:
The shift from 7s to 6s in both RTCW and ET was a major factor in the streamlining of strats, which is the biggest downside to 6v6 as opposed to 7v7. After a few seasons in RTCW, there were a defined and widely known set of ‘usable’ strats for each map, and very rarely did you ever see anything new or revolutionary. This wasn’t necessarily because nobody was trying to be creative, but more that the streamlined strategies were undeniably effective, and there may have been little incentive for most teams to try anything new.
The advantages of copying an already established strat seem to be obvious: it’s easy to assign people positions and responsibilities, and from there, all it takes is some practice to ‘gel’ and make the strat work for your team. The disadvantage of trying out a new strat is that it takes time in explaining it to your team and actually getting them to understand their new positions and responsibilities. It might be an extremely effective idea in theory, but many times because it’s too difficult to actually implement, teams will abandon their new ideas and resort back to the tried and true methods. Meanwhile, there are many teams don’t even try to think outside the box and simply use whatever strats have been out there for ever, which can indeed make the maps, and eventually the game itself, boring.
This is why new maps should always be welcomed by the ET/RTCW communities, instead of being shot down for silly reasons or no reason at all, as they commonly are. At first, so many people hated playing Chateau competitively in RTCW, or Supplydepot and Venice in ET, simply because they were new. But thanks to the leagues for forcing teams to play them, they eventually became quite popular and enjoyable maps. So, to keep the game from getting stale: players need to be more open to new maps, mappers need to try and make maps more suitable for competition, and leagues need to at least attempt to integrate new maps into competition. Perhaps a little off-topic from the question, but I think it needed to be said.
c[_]`Wippuh:
Congrats! In the Europe vs NA all star match you got voted as the MVP player for the NA team. With your experience at such high level of play, what did you see from the Euros that you feel dictates workin' on by the NA scene before possible Qcon matchups?
dT Seed:
The Euros have a good 5-6 month head start in 6v6 play, and it’s obvious from watching their demos that they’re far ahead of North America teamwork-wise. They also have some really incredible individual players. I guess that’s to be expected, though, considering their competitive community is much larger than ours, so there’s naturally more competition, which breeds talented players and teams.
Since ET isn’t at Qcon, the only time we’ll get to face the Euros is perhaps in scrimmages or in GGL (or maybe another All-star match?!?). Unfortunately, there will always be ping issues, with either one team having a severe disadvantage or both teams having 100+ pings (which isn’t really a huge issue, but still it would’ve been nice to play them on LAN). I’ve participated in several scrims against Euro teams, as well as the All-star match, and it’s always a very fun and unique experience, despite the ping conflicts.
c[_]`Wippuh:
With the NA leagues going to 6's many believe that strats will tighten up and it will become a less spamtastic game. With this, you also have the potential team/player killer in the time dedicated not to playing the game, but eliminating mistakes. How would you advise teams and players to avoid this in ET and how have you kept the game(s) so fresh for so long?
dT Seed:
Obviously, RTCW and ET require a great deal of hard work and dedication for any team to stay competitive, but this is especially true for top teams and teams that wish to keep improving. Personally, I keep the game fresh by constantly trying to find new ways to enjoy it. For example, on pubs I’ll do something that I hardly ever do, like play covert ops and actually try to make myself useful to the team. Or maybe I’ll go engineer and practice landmine placement, or something else I rarely ever get to do in competition. To keep the game new and exciting for your team, you could try switching up positions and classes of players. If burnout is a concern, allow people to play different spots or classes if they want to. And there’s always new tactics to be discussed and practiced, demos to be watched. etc. Watching synched demos with other people on vent is pretty neat, and it’s the closest thing to ETTv at this point. If all else fails and you’re getting burnt out, then just take a small break. This goes for both individuals and for teams: a short break here and there can be healthy, and is much better than the alternative of a large scale breakup.
c[_]`Wippuh:
The development of ETtv, or lack thereof. Tell everyone what your views are on the balance of maintanence releases vs ETTv development with ETPro. What are the boons that would come along with the release of ETTv?
dT Seed:
I truly do appreciate all Bani and the ETpro team has done for ET. ETpro has been a crucial factor in the development of competitive ET worldwide. Reportedly, ETTv is somewhere around 75% complete, and Bani and his team are working hard on it as well as on ETpro. It’s a bit alarming that there’s absolutely nothing to show for ETTv at this point, yet we constantly see new ETpro ‘texstbugfixes’ being put out, which mostly fix very minor bugs and seem to add largely unnecessary features. I have faith though, and I know ETtv will be around sooner or later. Bani and his team are dedicated to the ET community and seem to really love the game, and are therefore willing to meet the challenge of programming ETTv.
Why should we want ETTv? ETTv, assuming it is similar to WolfTV, will make a huge impact on the ET community, just as WolfTV did a couple years ago. Being able to watch and chat with other members of the community about a match in real time is, simply put, good times. It helps bring the community closer together, and also undoubtedly helps the competitive scene by giving teams a look at other teams’ strategies and play styles. I really do miss the luxury of being able to watch the big matchups on WolfTV. I suppose I even took it for granted. Anyone who plays ET who has experienced WolfTV (or QTV, or any other of FonFon’s GTV programs), knows what I’m talking about. For those who don’t - rest assured, when ETTv arrives, you won’t be disappointed.
c[_]`Wippuh:
Lately, we saw your return to RtCW, along with Apoc and Justin, to play with the Outsiders. What was the experience like coming back to play in Cal-M? What has changed and what is the same? Your play in ET has benefitted you in what ways?
dT Seed:
I still greatly enjoy RTCW, and coming back for a bit to play in Cal-M was much what I expected it to be. It’s basically the same as I remember it - the same strats, perhaps a bit more involved, are still being used. The only thing that has really changed, as the saying goes, are the faces. Players that I barely knew about or didn’t think much of back around Qcon 2003 are now dominant players or members of top teams.
Also, there’s something to say about the skill of the teams left in RTCW after so long. After many scrims with some of the top Cal-M teams, I was a bit surprised at how well we (Outsiders) were doing, and I was just surprised in general that the game hadn’t evolved much at all since I left. I think it’s safe to say that the skill level in RTCW has declined a good deal, which is unfortunate, yet understandable, considering it’s several years old, with little influx of new players, while CoD and ET are newer have been attracting more and more players from RTCW.
To your last question, it’s hard to say whether ET helped or hindered my RTCW skills. I had taken a long break, so naturally upon returning my shot was way behind what it used to be. RTCW is so much faster paced, with ping and quick reflexes being much more important than they are in ET. Also, headshots and corner camping are much more effective and important in RTCW. It took me a while to readjust, but overall it wasn’t too big an issue.
I really can’t think of any ways which ET helped me for RTCW, but the reverse was definitely true. After playing RTCW competitively for well over a year, I learned the ropes quickly in ET and soon became a fairly well-known player. ET is very similar to RTCW, despite what many people claim or would like to believe, only ET is a bit more complex – having another class, additional weapons, more objectives in the maps, etc. Honestly, transitioning between the two games won’t be a problem for anyone who started with RTCW. On the other hand, an ET only player might have a rough time getting used to the quicker paced RTCW.
c[_]`Wippuh:
Many RtCW guys look at ET in a negative light. How would you sell the game to them?
dT Seed:
It’s easily understandable why some RTCW players dislike(d) ET. The first two seasons of CAL and TWL were played 7v7 with non-Euro (aka “Spam”) settings. The design of many maps along with this spam-heavy style of play could cause long and tedious matchups, with frequent double full holds. Not to mention that playing with tons of landmines, leveled-up panzers, and leveled up field op spam could just get ridiculous. I’ll freely admit that I disliked ET with these spam settings. Perhaps the only reason I stuck around was because I was on a relatively successful team in Suave, otherwise I’m not sure I could have dealt with it.
Nowadays in ET, things are much better, thanks to a severely nerfed XP system and 6v6 instead of 7v7. ET plays a whole lot more like RTCW now: it’s more tactical, clean, and ‘skill’ dependent - skill referring to smg and med-work skill, as opposed to coordinated spam skill. All I can say to those who harbor some hatred towards ET for whatever reason is that you have to actually give it a fair chance. Playing a few times on a pub and dismissing it isn’t fair - give it a serious try in competition! ET has come a long way thanks to Bani and his team, and it’s so much more playable now, both in pubs and in competition, simply due to the XP limits and other competitive-based modifications.
c[_]`Wippuh:
You win the lottery and have millions of dollars. Besides doing 2 chicks at the same time, you decide to really pour your time into doing ultra positive things for the RTCW/ET scene. Tell us some things you would do?
dT Seed:
Ok, so let’s say I have hundreds of millions of dollars.
For starters, I’d host the first ever WolfCon. A massive LAN party dedicated to ET/RTCW. There would be both RTCW and ET tournaments for huge cash prizes. I’d make these cash prizes so big ($100,000 to each player for 1st prize, anyone?) that ET/RTCW would attract players from all other games and successfully kill Call of Duty and Counterstrike, for good (and CPL can suck it as well). Or maybe I could just buy CPL and make ET and RTCW the main games? Well, I’d do something to get ET/RTCW the attention and following they deserve.
I’d also hire Splash Damage (or another talented mapping team) to make a new set of professional competition maps. Why not?
Hmmm… I really like those ideas. I think I’ll go buy a lottery ticket now, hehe.
c[_]`Wippuh:
Shoutouts!
dT Seed:
Smf (tom, rick, steve, dustin, kev, apoc, justin), Amish, outsiders, and deathTouch. <3
Interview: kNoX
Posted by: c[_]`Wippuh (Thursday, August 12, 2004)
It's fun when you go out and look for those lesser known teams and what they're all about. Something about this team really is appealing (no pun intended) and just demanding some attention! Lets see what the fearless leader of Applesauce has to say about his team and the ET experience!
c[_]`Wippuh:
Introduce yourself Knox. Tell everyone how you got into gaming, ET, etc... We wanna wanna know!
(`)kNoX:
My name is Brandon Ford, I'm 24 and I live in the vast metropolis of Kingsport, TN. I'm an engineer in real life, and I make explosives. I am also (`)kNoX, captain of the not-so-world-famous Team Applesauce.
Gaming for me started with COMBAT! on the Atari. My brother and I used to play games together all the time, and as brothers usually do, we would compete with each other at just about all of them. I gradually moved on to PC games and was a huge fan of Warcraft/Starcraft and the Jedi Knight games. I wasn't ever really into FPS games very much. I played a little Q3 when it first came out and got about halfway through unreal before I got tired of it. I was in the middle of playing JK2 when I saw a review on www.firingsquad.com about this free WWII FPS that was objective based and team oriented. I downloaded it and I've been hooked ever since then. By playing a lot on their public server, I got involved with <-NoX-> which eventually lead me to Team Applesauce and TWL Beta Semi-Finals.
c[_]`Wippuh:
Applesauce's tag is damn spiffy! Who came up with that and which came first, the name or the tag? How important is a tag/name for a relatively new team in establishing themselves in a scene?
(`)kNoX:
As a bit of history, Team Applesauce is an offshoot of <-NoX-Cruciatus->, a relatively well known clan from the quake3 mod Urban Terror. The <-NoX-> members who played ET came up with a list of potential names for our little ET adventure. <-NoX-ABbazabA-> suggested Team Applesauce, mostly as a joke, and somehow it managed to come out ahead in the voting. Once we had a name picked out, ThorN and MillenniumT quickly developed the ('). About halfway through the season, it morphed into (`) because we thought it looked a little more Apple-like.
As far as importance goes, I think clan names and clan tags don't really play that big of a role. People mostly judge other teams based on ability or hype from the rest of the scene. At the start of the season, most people thought we were pretty much a big joke; hopefully we have proved them wrong by now. On the other hand, having a good tag does make people more likely to recognize or take notice of you if you give them a reason to look at you in the first place. People seem to really like our tags though, so I don't know how it would have played out if we had chosen something less spiffy.
c[_]`Wippuh:
You did extremely well this season in Beta. What happens if a TWL admin comes to you and wants you to step up into Main? What are the concerns that face you as the leader of (`)? What are the positives of such a step?
(`)kNoX:
From my perspective, we have acheived far more than I ever expected at the beginning. As a team, we have put in a lot of time and effort to improve throughout the course of the season. If we are asked to move into Alpha next season, I think we will just look at it as another challenge and opportunity to improve. My biggest worry is keeping the team's morale up, because I'm certain that playing Alpha level teams every week will result in many more losses than we've experienced so far in our brief career.
c[_]`Wippuh:
Egos. They're a big part of ET. No one will argue that individual confidence is a big part of a player's game. How do you pump up your individual players and help their game. Where does it cross the line though and hurt the team? How do you handle teammate's who might put themselves in front of the team?
(`)kNoX:
I try to pay attention to the things other people are doing well when we play together. It usually helps to point things out when somebody does something well. Some players need more reassurance than others, and I try to help boost them up more than some of the "self-assured" players on the team. There can be a point where a player believes they are more important than the rest of the team, although I don't really think we have any bad apples in this bunch.
c[_]`Wippuh:
As a beta team, what is your view of alpha? What do you learn from them both positive and negative? What is it that you absolutely detest in what they do and wish they would get rid of for the betterment of NA ET?
(`)kNoX:
I have a lot of respect for the abilities of any of the Alpha teams. I watch all the demos I can get my hands on from the Alpha clans here in North America and some of the more popular European clans. Negatively speaking, watching all the breakups in the Alpha tier this season highlights the need to pick members for your team so that you can get along and be friends rather than based solely on their abilities. The biggest flaw I see in the NA ET scene is the negativity and the egos of some of the players here. I know that all of the players aren't horribly evil people. In fact, many of the top players are very kind and helpful. Unfortunately many of the ones that are most vocal and visible in the 'scene' come across as immature and selfish, which tends to alienate new players and outsiders.
c[_]`Wippuh:
Every game has steps of evolution as the game gets older and older. Many associate it with teams and their style. p* to ()/smf to now dT. What did each bring to the game and what do you believe to be the next step in the evolution of ET? What do you hope is the next step?
(`)kNoX:
I think the biggest thing that the top teams bring to the game is something that people can aspire to. Newer players can look at demos and listen to shoutcasts and be inspired to push their own game to a higher level to be like the top players in the game. I think the et-center demo section is one of the best things for North American ET, and it wouldn't be a success without the help of the best teams in the game. Hopefully in the future there will be more competition at the top levels of competition. Recently there has only been 1 or 2 teams that anybody believed had a chance to win everything. I think everyone would like to see some more close matches at the top of the food chain.
c[_]`Wippuh:
There's a lot of different ways teams approach scrims. How does your team approach scrims and what goals do you set out for them? If you're strugglin' on a singular map, what do you do in order to try and remedy that?
(`)kNoX:
When we first started, we treated every scrim like it was a match. We were just trying to beat the other team and nobody was really working to improve anything specifically. By the end of the season, we were picking out specific things to work on in almost every scrim. We try to evaluate whatever we were weakest on in our most recent scrim/match and focus on that in our next scrim. We also use scrims to try out new strats and tactics that we wouldn't be able to try in a match. If we are struggling, I generally try to take a step back and look at where things are breaking down. If we are consistently having real problems, that generally means that the gameplan probably doesn't fit the players very well. I'll usually switch people around or tweak the strat a little bit to try to overcome the problems.
c[_]`Wippuh:
Talking about scrims, lets discuss a subject I'm particularly interested in. Scrims vs pubs. A lot of l33tzors say that pubs really take away from your game and hurt your mental approach in matches. Others claim that scrims only can really burn you out and kill the fun factor of a game. Where's the balance? How do you keep each fresh, interesting and beneficial to each other?
(`)kNoX:
During the work week, I really don't pub at all. Between work, taking care of stuff around the house, and scrimming, I really don't feel like I have the time to pub Mon. - Fri. If I have some freetime on the weekends, I like to jump on and play in a low pressure environment. For me the balance is finding the right pub server. Playing on a really bad pub does tend to make me play 'stupidly' because I feel unstoppable. Pubbing on Locked Box tends to just frustrate me because of the lack of teamplay and overabundance of stat-whoring. I do like to pub though, if I can find an average server where people have a general idea about what to do, I tend to enjoy those games a lot. Scrimming can be fun as well. You get a chance to hang out with your friends online, and the sense of team and being part of something greater than yourself is really incredible. The Team Applesauce members make just about everything fun whether we're just sitting on vent chatting or in the middle of an intense match.
c[_]`Wippuh:
When I think of Applesauce I think of Ben Affleck in Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back. "Applesauce bitch!" Since that's a great great movie, lets have some fun and meet the rest of your teammates. Introduce us to everyone on your team and tell us what movie character they'd be.
(`)kNoX:
Oddly enough, I think of that line every time I get on ventrilo. The phonetic name for the channel actually used to be "Applesauce, Bitch!" for a few months.
I have a feeling that some of these are going to get me in trouble, but here goes:
Bizkit613 - Biz was a great help to us in the beginning of the season, but he has kinda vanished lately. He reminds me of Kevin Bacon in "Hollow Man".
ez@ - ez is always there whenever you need him and willing to do whatever he is asked. For some reason, ez makes me think of Tom Servo from MST3K.
MillenniumT - MillyT is another one of those guys who will do whatever it takes to help out the team. Mill is our official worrier and nervous wreck. On match days, Mill reminds me of Jack Nicholson in "As Good as it Gets".
Pele - I'm convinced that Pele being a sexy woman is the only reason we were able to find scrims all year long. If it weren't for her we'd still be as pathetic as we were at the start of the season. She's like a Bond Girl because she hooks us up with the right people to get the job done.
Saniko - Sani reminds me of Silent Bob. He doesn't really say much, but he kicks some serious ass.
sickshot - Sick just kills people. I turn him loose in a general direction, and he keeps fighting until he dies or there isn't anything left to kill. He's like the Orcs in the Lord of the Ring movies.
The Punisher - Pun always seems to be in the right spot at the right time. He always seems to be making clutch plays at the last second. And he's obviously The Punisher.
Red4Eva - Red is new to the team, and our youngest member. He is also one of our best players. He reminds me of the kid in that movie "Rookie of the Year," where he hurts his arm and ends up pitching in the major leagues.
Deuce - Deuce is master of the mobile MG and TKing with airstrikes. He can be a bit quirky at times as well. If anybody, I'd have to say he is like Caboose from Red vs. Blue.
Valdrak - Val hasn't played much ET recently, but he's always around to play if we need him in a pinch. Val is like Tom Arnold in True Lies. He's not really in the spotlight, but he is there when you need him.
We've also recently picked up some new members who will be playing with us in CAL and the next TWL season. Be on the lookout for Incubus, Ant, and RivrStyx
c[_]`Wippuh:
Shoutouts!
(`)kNoX:
I'd like to give a big shoutout to ThorN for all the help he has given us, even though he is no longer able to play with us because of schedules and his soon-to-be father status. I'd also like to thank all the people who have helped us to improve over the season, especially |D|Soul and all the players who post demos that i've been watching all season long. I'd also like to say a big hello to all the <-NoX-> members who aren't playing ET with us.
Team Casualty - +
Posted by: Px.Chaos (Saturday, July 24, 2004)
These 8 interviews comprise my first et-center interview series. For all of you that are about to flame me for it, I just want to say I did not see anyone else doing interviews and I promise you as I pump out more series with different people and ideas that they will get better so be patient with me! I just want to thank everyone and the clans that made this series possible (Casualty, No Remorse, Fatal Attraction, Saints, Greater Than, Operation Urgent Fury, Friction, deathTouch). I would also like to say from having been on vent with these clans that they each have their own unique atmosphere that I noticed from my short time with them. They get along well and just gel. Check out my interviews! Constructive criticism for my next series is appreciated!
Chaos|Generic:
CASUALTY! Let’s begin with a little history of the clan’s humble beginnings to now for everyone.
+Dashiva:
Casualty originated as an RTCW team in CAL-Open, in which we played pretty successfully in for a season or so. When ET came out I was looking into playing it and didn't have any leads on a team so I decided to get some people I knew together and start the clan back up again. We had some early successes in RBG and GFO tourneys and have stayed pretty constant since then as far as position goes. We're still what I kind of refer to as the 'anti-clan' because we're more laid back and don't take things too seriously.
Chaos|Generic:
How do you see TWL playoffs shaping up? Do you have any particular team you are looking forward to playing?
+Blacklabel:
Not fucking deathTouch! I'll tell you that.
+PaleH0rse:
Not any team that we really want to face. I try and be careful what I wish for. Just have them all forfeit and give us the AOL disks the winners receive!
+Dashiva:
I thought about smurfing some players from Affliction.
+Zapt:
Just happy to be in the play offs! Right guys? guys?
Chaos|Generic:
Casualty is also featured in the GGL-Ladder. Any matches or international matches you want to comment on? How does facing Europeans compare with NA teams.
+Blacklabel:
I like playing Europeans, they play differently and it is refreshing. They are also quite joyful and have some skill. They do not even care about the server or argue about anything really, they are just happy to play. They make it fun. I mean there are obviously good sportsman-like teams in NA, but there are some that are not.
+PaleH0rse:
We are in that? I think we have a couple of forfeit wins. We got hammered by dT and D`sky that I can remember. D`sky has really good teamwork.
+Mooshu:
Watch the syn. vs D`sky demos then tell me that. I hear the women do not shave too over there.
Chaos|Generic:
What is Casualty’s take on the rumors/news of RTCW2?
+Mooshu:
It will never happen.
+Blacklabel:
I missed the question.
+Zapt:
I'll answer for you. RTCW was better than ET. Players were nicer and less spamtastic game play. I enjoy both though.
+Dashiva:
It will happen, but RTCW was better than ET because of how the game play flowed.
Chaos|Generic:
Followup question on that then, would you mind commenting on your switch from RTCW to ET and any major changes you noticed.
+Blacklabel:
Well I was excited when ET came out and it was really fun when we got started. Although, having played both I want to go back to RTCW. I sucked really bad in RTCW, but the game was just smoother and the players were not e-thugs. I really do miss RTCW and just want to go back.
[u]b0bn00gen former casualty player:
The panzer sucks in ET.
+PaleH0rse:
Yeah, the panzer is nerfed. Lots of cannon fodder people on ET pub servers also... the people that came from RTCW had a big jump on the other people playing ET obviously so the switch was easy at the time, for me at least. One thing that drives me insane is the proning though. It is annoying, and no, not because I get owned by it. ;p
+Dashiva:
I have played both games on a LAN and I have to say that RTCW is quite a bit more precise and fast paced than ET is, especially with a really low ping. ET seems to be its’ spammy imprecise self over any connection. On a whole I think RTCW is a better LAN/Tourney game and ET is a better Internet game.
Chaos|Generic:
How do you see CAL shaping up? With their new website, rules, cfgs? Any new teams you are noticing?
+Blacklabel:
New website looks fantastic. Glad they got rid of guid thing cause I smurf all the time you know.
+PaleH0rse:
same old stuff/teams for the most part. Immortals may be a new force when they get their team in order.
+Zapt:
I'm looking forward to the 3 pt win system and all for the tie. Glad they split into main and open division though I do not see a lot of change.
+Blacklabel:
Yeah, looking forward to that. And I'm gonna google search how to hack by the time we play dT.
Chaos|Generic:
Your roster has gone through some drastic changes recently, how is the team atmosphere feeling?
+Blacklabel:
Bad idea recruiting me. It will just go down hill from here. But, I am glad to be here. I am friends with just about everyone in this clan, so it is good to be here.
+PaleH0rse:
I feel good about it. We just need to get our teamwork down better now.
+Zapt:
I am glad we picked up Mooshu and everyone cause a lot of our people are missing in action for various reasons.
Chaos|Generic:
Any shout outs or comments for the community?
+Blacklabel:
Shoutout to my buds in deathTouch, uprise and Cnav.
+PaleH0rse:
Shoutouts to Friction and Fatal Attraction, and thanks for the interview Chaos.
+Mooshu:
Syndrom, do not forget to shout out to syndrom!
+Dashiva:
All those beta teams out there that play every night and do not get the credit and attention they deserve.
+Zapt:
Shoutout to Canadians out there. We receive a lot of flack but we are really better than those Americans.
Team No Remorse - -r
Chaos|Generic:
Could you give a little history on the clan. From creation
through surviving the hard knocks.
-r.Friendly_FIRE:
Basically, we are a group of pub all stars that came together by evolving our teams and merging with others. Most of us came over from RTCW when ET first came out. Half of No Remorse are the original members of the TWL ET team DwI Season I. Those guys are Friendly_FIRE, x11, OneManClan, Caboose and Demoman. After Season I, DwI ran into the same things lots of teams run into where half the team wants to improve and move up while the other half is burnt out and wants to just play for fun. At that point I decided to go looking for another competitive team to join.
I was pubbing Locked Box when I came across a couple of guys wearing a familiar RTCW tag /aln/. Those guys were WheresMyGun, Yoda (from
XtremeWunderScourge), Eyeamboard (from XtremeWunderScourge) and Guinness (from US love Gman ;)). At the time, /aln/ was controlled by Vitriol and his RTCW bud Haplo. I tried out for the team and after a few scrims was added to the roster. The team was still looking for a few good players at which point I recommended the former DwI guys that were wanting to remain competitive. We also picked up Jibba (from SM) and Revolver (fresh out of RTCW) before all was said and done.
The season went well, but towards the end management became a little rocky. Power shifted and people left the team (WheresMyGun went to play Lineage with the guys from Clan Smile and Yoda moved on to CoD). Also, the two founders rarely even played (Vitriol and Haplo). So, we decided we would lead ourselves from that point on. A few more changes were made in order to minimize inner team conflict at which point we had to let go a couple of great guys in Revolver (who later joined Greater Than) and Jibba (who later joined Asylum). We quickly picked up Lucid from KP and by the next season we had picked up Slayer from KP as well making our roster look pretty solid.
Soon we realized we were starting to burn out a little and we were trying desperately to improve our game in order to beat teams like deathTouch and SMF so we injected Nard and Nothx into the team (both formerly of Preeminence). We quickly realized that we did not want to win as bad as it would have taken with Nard and Nothx. They were great players, but we were not ready to commit as much effort as they required so we let them go (they ended up joining Executives but we know Nard will come back to us for Guild Wars).
One of our main starters ran into some personal problems near the middle of this third TWL season (we dedicated our last match of the season to him) so we needed to pick up another guy. That’s when we found General Wanker formerly of WJ. Our current roster consists of Guinness, Lucid, Eyes, Slayer, General Wanker (Geedub), x11(Mex), Caboose (Booser), Friendly_FIRE, Demoman (Lama), OneManClan(Plush).
Chaos|Generic:
How do you see TWL playoffs coming together? Have any team
you are looking forward to facing.
-r.Friendly_FIRE:
deathTouch pretty much has it locked down, but I’d like to see No Remorse vs Greater Than in the finals. I think that would be a pretty friendly match. We love scrimming those guys. I think that the Beta playoffs will be more interesting to watch than the Alpha playoffs, though I feel sorry for the winners of Beta who get to move up to the dramafest of Alpha, though recently the Beta drama has picked it up a notch...I guess that’s the nature of the playoffs ;).
-r.x11:
deathTouch is going to win. It does not really matter. We do not look forward to things like that. We just look forward to playing every night. Maybe eyes looks forward to playoff’s though. He is all about the win.
-r.Guinness:
I like how you just put eyes into that and he is not saying anything.
-r.x11:
Kind of looking forward to playing Greater Than, but all kind of meaningless when deathTouch is playing. But seriously, after we got nard and nothx we realized that being that good is not worth it.
-r.Slay:
Ya, in the playoffs it is all emotional.
Chaos|Generic:
any news maps the team wants to see tried in competition? Rommel? RTCW ports?
-r.x11:
Frostbite. Less Goldrush and Oasis. I hope ice stays. But face it we are a shrub clan that wants customs!
-r.Slay:
Rommel & frostbite. I hope less Goldrush. Ice played out really nice.
-r.Guinness:
Rommel & Frostbite. Interested in seeing those European maps played out. The RTCW ports played different with mortars landmines mg42 almost like new maps entirely.
Chaos|Generic:
What is the clan's view on the rumors/news of RTCW2?
-r.Friendly_FIRE:
It does not matter, we will all be playing Guild Wars by then, even x11, though he will tell you otherwise.
-r.x11:
Hey! I found those. RTCW2 is the only thing that will take me away from ET. Even if No Remorse leaves, I will play ET.
-r.Slay:
Looking forward to it, but I can not handle too much more Goldrush
or Oasis.
-r.Guinness:
Yeah, me too. And yeah seriously Goldrush and Oasis...
Chaos|Generic:
What is your take with all the recent CAL news and updates?
-r.x11:
Website looks a little bad, better than the last one though, but still as disorganized as the other one. Do not forget to write about our new recruit!
Chaos|Generic:
Alright, follow up, how is your new recruit Wanker fitting in?
-r.x11:
Great! We have lots of fun. He just fits in perfectly and that is all that really matters is when you're having lots of fun. He's Wolf Jaeger season one.
Chaos|Generic:
do you see ET growing at all or staying the same?
-r.x11:
I see it growing every season. Especially with the RTCW teams coming over. I do not know if any RTCW teams are left over there. I never played RTCW, but here is eXe in ET. So, it looks like it is growing to me.
-r.Guinness:
Flatline came over too; there is a bunch of RTCW teams converting, r3formation and all them. I guess asylum is RTCW basically except for jibba.
-r.eyeamboard:
Well, you hear all these people talking about how ET is dead and dying. But it is a free game people download it every day. It just keeps growing.
-r.Slay:
I really think split tiers help the community grow. They give up
when they go and get railed by teams two times a day.
-r.x11:
That is the problem. Teams get railed and they disband. Talk to alpha teams and they all think they are the next deathTouch, but their guns just are not there.
Chaos|Generic:
Followup, do you think three tiers would help keep teams from
disbanding?
-r.Slay:
well kind of, I blame it on the lack of leadership. They got good
players without leaders.
-r.x11:
Too many teams just run around thinking they are the top when they
are not. No Remorse runs itself as far as leadership goes.
Chaos|Generic:
Anyone you would like to shout out to or last comments on
anything?
-r.eyeamboard:
LMC!
-r.x11:
Where the hell is Dezarax?
-r.Slay:
Plush was our primary engineer. We were rocking with him. He had to
leave for personal reasons, but now we got everyone doing it. Wow, we found
wanker for the job! Shout out to Kernal Panic. Because they own and their video's own.
-r.Friendly_FIRE:
Shoutout to all those pub teamstackers, “Don’t give up tha fight!” Shoutout to e-thugs, “You’ll kick their asses some day!” Shoutout to proners, “How’s the view down there?” Shoutout to beta teams, “Don’t be so excited to grow up just yet, it’s ugly
up here ;).”
Team Fatal Attraction - .fa.
Chaos|Generic:
Any new maps you want to see tried in competition? Rommel? RTCW ports?
fa-miXer:
Well we (me bob and I think cyanide) checked out the Rommel map. It looks promising except we did not like how close the axis spawned to the allies at the beginning, but as for the RTCW ports… I am not sure how they will work out. Ice was alright.
fa-alea:
Yes. Rommel seems like a very good competition map. Ifurita can tweak it up well! RTCW ports: no. They come out unbalanced and stupid with mines and mortars and such in my opinion.
fa-bob:
Rommel looks like it could be a good map for competition, but that is it that I have seen. :p
fa-cyanide:
I personally have not heard or seen Rommel in a pub, ever. Therefore, I do not know about that one. I think an exact beach conversion would be perfect for ET because of its’ gameplay. Something like castle would be interesting to see in competition as well and some of the lower quality maps from wolf. ;p
Chaos|Generic:
What is the clan's view on the rumors/news of RTCW2?
fa-miXer:
We are very excited about the news of RTCW2...while most of us have not played RTCW all that much with the exception of me, alea and cyanide. We feel that we will most definitely play RTCW2 whether it is as fa or other teams.
fa-alea:
We are extremely excited to hear the news about RTCW2. I think it is going to be great if the right company develops it. I hope it stays a little more true to RTCW instead of ET though. I think the SMG battling brings out the competition more!
fa-cyanide:
We are going to look into it. Some of us were very active on planetwolfenstein when the news came out. I think we will get it-we have fairly recently started a RTCW division and some members have actually left to CAL-M teams.
Chaos|Generic:
Any fond memories Fatal Attraction has of the ET scene?
fa-miXer:
I think we had a pretty good run with ET. When I started the clan after breaking off from the power house known as ]eVe[ of Domination, I did not really expect much all. All I wanted was to prove we were better than they were, which was hard because… I mean they were ]eVe[!
fa-alea:
I have some memories of the ET scene. Mostly playing with the p* guys back in season 1. It was really eye opening to see some the best RTCW in ET. Also matches with suave and syndrome were very memorable. I think the best part about ET though was pubbing on the Terminal Insanity servers with my Fatal Attraction friends. z1g from TI really had some great servers up!
fa-cyanide:
Yes actually, some of my fondest memories were from way back when mixer would come on |Dx3|’s (my old clan.. yes flame thx) clan server. He once asked me how to play the game, and I taught him and that is how he is good. :o Even though there was some rough times within fa, everyone got along well and it was the best group of people that I have played with. Everyone has made a place in my heart.
fa-bob:
This was by far the best group of guys I have ever gotten to hang out with.
Chaos|Generic:
Since Fatal Attraction is breaking up, any other games members are heading off too? Any of the guys still actually have a thirst for ET and looking for a new team?
fa-miXer:
I do not know if any of the members are going to join other clans. Right now we are just going to sit back and hang out. I know alea, hotel and I want to try out Doom 3. I do not know how good it is going to be or how good we will be at it, but that is probably where most of us are headed.
fa-alea:
Nah, we are not breaking up for the most part. We are going to hang out on vent and irc. We just will not be playing ET as much as we used to. I think bob might be looking for a new team because he loves this game, but we will just wait for Doom 3 and RTCW2.
fa-bob:
Some fa members are going to try Doom3. I think I am the only one in fa who is going to be looking for a team in ET.
fa-cyanide:
Personally, I have a little thirst for more competitive play in the et community, but I think mixer is taking a break, and if you hear this fat bastard on vent you know he does not like the game. I think alea has gone to RTCW full time with BC (#billcarleton). Like I said, we are looking into RTCW2... some of us got quake3 because we have signed up for quakecon... and made it! BOWDOWN! I think Doom3 will be very big too.
Chaos|Generic:
Any reason why Fatal Attraction chose now to fold over after playoffs?
fa-miXer:
As far as I was concerned, I did not want to play after the TWL playoffs. Friction, who are some good friends of ours, are looking pretty strong; therefore, we just figured we would have fun on our last match. Getting worked up now even when we would win seemed pointless to me, I just wanted to go back to how it was for us in season one being all about the fun.
fa-alea:
We have not really been trying hard since the ND80 tourney. Recently, people have had a ton of shit to do so we decided to just quit now. We will still finish the playoffs though.
fa-bob:
Mixer has lost heart for the game, and mixer was the heart of fa. Without mixer we are nothing and most of the fa guys were just tired of being in a "top" clan and tired of the ET for the most part.
fa-cyanide:
Mainly because mixer decided to take a break, and as some people put it he's the daddy of the clan (with no wife, what a fucking coincidence) and we are the kids. We basically follow him; we had the choice to keep the clan going, but we just gave up. I guess when mixer said he was taking a break after this season. No one has much interest into this game anymore…
Chaos|Generic:
Any shoutouts to the community or general comments?
fa-miXer:
Shoutouts to Casualty, Friction, deathTouch, all the players that put up with our bs, to ryjock the official fa black member, lionheart, GUNIT and to www.gameforceone.com and www.terminal-insanity.com for providing us with servers and support.
fa-alea:
I would like to give a shoutout to Casualty, SMF/SUAVE/whatever they want to be called, dT/RTR, uprise, Terminal insanity, ND80, Amish_Eclipse, Eternal, BC. For the people I hate, no remorse, drunkz clan, anonymous clan, and......PaleH0rses devil music. LOLLERSKATES. By the way, miXer is a fatty that everyone will love forever.
fa-cyanide:
I want to give a shoutout to deathTouch because they have totally turned it around for us and have become our allies.. :o. Shoutout to opp, xcalibur, convulsion, and reverence. :o You might see fa in the near future - without the proning.. hopefully. :o
fa-Def:
Likeomg! I have an upcoming frag video coming out. WATCH FOR IT or I will stab all your eyes out.
Team Saints of Eviscero - Saint*
Chaos|Generic:
How about a short history on Saints to start our readers off?
Saint*Cow:
The clan was formed in an nd80 public server and we started on a campaign ladder and just kept going from there.
Chaos|Generic:
How do you see TWL playoffs shaping up? Do you have any particular team you are looking forward to playing?
Saint*Cow:
I would like to play Friction in the finals just because we have never played them before.
Saint*Cup:
Yeah, I would also like to play Friction for fun just because we have never played them.
Chaos|Generic:
Often viewed as the underdog in lots of matches, you have come from behind to win and not only that but make the playoffs. Any memorable matches this season you would care to comment on that really reflect this for you?
Saint*Cow:
Defiance was a big win. They have always seemed to out play us and out gun us and we managed to beat them on radar.
Saint*Cup:
Yeah, the Defiance match was a big win this season for us.
Chaos|Generic:
How do you see CAL season coming together, with their new website and rules? Any new teams you are noticing?
Saint*Cup:
The new rules are going to actually help. Immortals definitely is the team to watch out for. Also, the RTCW teams coming over.
Saint*Cow:
We play Immortals in preseason this week.
Chaos|Generic:
What is your guys take on the rumors/news of RTCW2?
Saint*50cent:
ET will be done by time RTCW2 comes out.
Saint*Cup:
I can not wait! I will play ET until it comes out. Doom3 is overrated.
Saint*Cow:
I really want to play RTCW2.
Saint*Bobby:
Ugh, doom3 pass. Go RTCW2
Chaos|Generic:
Any new maps you want to see tried in competition? Rommel? RTCW ports?
Saint*Cup:
Sub because it was my favorite RTCW map. It would do really well in ET with mgs. Ice, I did not mind and I think should go in the rotation. Supply Depot is really good, but most customs are just too big and give you the run around.
Saint*Cow:
Base should go in too; it would be the best, but anything should get a shot because we really need new maps.
Saint*Bobby: I love Supply Depot!
Chaos|Generic:
Any Shout outs or general comments for the community
Saint*Cow:
johnnyb from ballz. He really helped us when we started. TWL and CAL admins for all their hard work and the et-center staff.
Saint*Cup:
Friendly_Fire and the good people in the ET community. Remember it is just a video game. Many others, but too many to sort through as individuals.
Saint*Bobby:
Our weekly scrim partners.
Team OPERATION URGENT FURY - |OUF|
Chaos|Generic:
Would you mind giving a brief history of Operation Urgent Fury to start us off?
|OUF|Slipwind:
HiTech was the founder. He started out admining a group of CS servers way back in the day (it’s all on our website).
|OUF|TDawg:
CS turned over to Tribes2, which they played extensively - for any of you who have tried to find our ET league history can attest. They dallied in JK2 and RTCW for a short time, but basically died for months until ET came out. HiTech and Mustard are early adopters with a nice bandwidth pipe, so they put up a popular pub server OUF Sloth. There was a recruitment period then in roughly August of last year. We gamed on ladders up through Season 2 (peaked at #3 on 7v7), then joined league in Season 2 and dropped ladders.
|OUF|Slipwind:
I would like to point to the "homegrownness" of the team. All pulled from pubbing OUF Sloth.
|OUF|TDawg:
We got into Alpha for Season 3 but had some interest drop off, most notably Mustard and BobDole. So, we recruited Boris, Reks, and then Drake to fill us out and make us merry again. We are straight... just merry.
|OUF|Slipwind:
Most of us never had any clan experience before and for many it is our first competitive game.
|OUF|TDawg:
Well, until Reks and Drake, They look on us nublins with a modicum of disdain, but they tolerate us.
|OUF|Slipwind:
Tribes2 noobs who became ET noobs who got lucky and became Alpha. Bottom line.
Chaos|Generic:
Congrats on making the play offs, being paired with deathTouch first round you are predicted as once again the underdogs. Do you have any super secret strategy to beat the powerhouse team?
|OUF|Thanatoaster:
We are all going out for pizza, screw that.
|OUF|Slipwind:
Everyone will be a soldier.
|OUF|reks:
I like Drake's idea of leapfrogging mortars with flame support.
|OUF|Drake:
We plan to make them work for their win.
|OUF|TDawg:
…all plans go to hell on first contact.
|OUF|Drake:
We are not and will not be a pushover. We come to play and will do our best to win no matter how touted our opponent may be!
|OUF|TDawg:
Drake's the official clan cheerleader.
|OUF|Thanatoaster:
Go go motivational speaker!
|OUF|Drake:
That was Boris was it not?
|OUF|Thanatoaster:
Slipwind, Boris, you, what is the difference?
Chaos|Generic:
Often viewed as the underdog in lots of matches you have come from behind to win and not only that, but make the playoffs! Any memorable matches this season you would care to comment on that really reflect this for you?
|OUF|reks:
Yeah, Amish.
|OUF|TDawg:
Amish was big largely cause of the predictions (like 12:1 against) and it being our first real quality win. A workable strategy came together in the 11th hour in our Kinetic warmup, and everyone just seemed to have an “on” night.
|OUF|reks:
The Greater Than match was a big one too even though we lost that one. I believe it was 1-0-2. Given Greater's continued success, I think that was a great match.
|OUF|Drake:
Yup, that it was.
Chaos|Generic:
Any new maps the team thinks should be tried in competition? Rommel? RTCW ports?
|OUF|reks:
I like all of the RTCW ports. Drake and I came over from RTCW. Most of the customs out there are designed to be pretty first and practical second. While the old RTCW maps are tired in some respects (having been played so often), they are fairly well balanced. New customs like supply depot work well and the more the merrier. I hear good things about Rommel and if 1/2 of the newly released customs make it, I think next season will be fun.
|OUF|Slipwind:
RTCW ports are rather unfair for groups without old RTCW recruits.
|OUF|TDawg:
But you can breathe new life into them with ET techniques like this week's match with Defiance. Pulling out an MG on the North spawn gave us an edge that I think not many teams used.
|OUF|Drake:
The interesting thing about that though, is that ET brings new possibilities to the RTCW maps.
|OUF|Thanatoaster:
Some of them unintended - mines on Base, anyone?
Chaos|Generic:
What are your views on the rumors/news of RTCW2?
|OUF|reks:
My 2 bits: I think WW2 is a tired genre, hopefully they will take it in a new direction. The scene really needs a new game.
|OUF|Thanatoaster:
I do not have anything in the way of specific requests for it, but just something new to mix up the current gaming scene, which is getting a bit stagnant. That is my one hope: that it is not a rehash of the original RTCW.
|OUF|Drake:
I personally want to see a new cooperative multiplayer like wolf and ET with a new theme. Granted, it has to revolve around some kind of military combat or you would not have Medics. Hell, space marines revisited!
|OUF|TDawg:
RTCW brought some excellent class interplay that you did not get out of old games like Team Fortress. There was a lot of that in terms of roles rather than classes in Tribes, so for us... when it is a team-oriented and not twitch-dominated game, we are good.
|OUF|Slipwind:
As long as Splash Damage is involved, at some level, I think it should be fine.
Chaos|Generic:
Followup, what type of genre/idea do you suggest for a new fps/team oriented game?
|OUF|TDawg:
Heh, it is all aesthetics to me. Genre seems to matter more to me in terms of SP experiences like COD or Operation Flashpoint.
|OUF|Slipwind:
I would have loved to see an UT2k4 class based game type. Actually, BF:2 looks quite interesting.
|OUF|Drake:
Doom/Quake space marine type storyline, with RTCW/ET Coop play!
|OUF|reks:
I think a futuristic shooter would offer more options in terms of game balance and game play. Sticking with past or modern weapons really frames the kinds of things you can do.
|OUF|Thanatoaster:
I will take whatever people give me as long as it plays well - games like air buccaneers for example, an FPS without any actual shooting.
|OUF|TDawg:
Yarrr!
|OUF|Thanatoaster:
There was one gun in the entire game, and it did practically no damage, but it was still an FPS, and it still kicked ass. It was just a completely different style of gameplay - while touting that as the sole feature of a game is not a good sale, little bits of novelty worked into it could help.
Chaos|Generic:
Your website says Operation Urgent Fury is folding ET. Would you all like to go ahead and comment on why to save your quiet irc channel from being flooded with those questions later? Does the clan collectively have a game in mind to move onto? Will some of you be looking for a new ET team?
|OUF|Slipwind:
Yeah, our ET team is shutting down. We are going dormant until a new game is released that is interesting for the group. We are looking towards T:V, HL2, and Doom3 MP.
|OUF|TDawg:
That is why the dT match is so good for us. OUF has never played THE top team competitively... it is a nice sendoff.
|OUF|reks:
We have been discussing this at some length. There are still a few people interested in ET. Do not be surprised to see some of us next season!
|OUF|Drake:
Some of us will likely be looking to play ET with other teams, but we will be keeping an eye out on what OUF wants to get involved in next.
Chaos|Generic:
Any fond memories Operation Urgent Fury will keep of the ET scene that you would like to share?
|OUF|TDawg:
We learned something in Season 2. That is with all the smack talk and people looking for self-validation and people looking to exploit trivial rules to pull out wins they do not deserve… the most fun we had, and the only thing that kept us around was finding a good set of people to scrim against. Teams you build a rapport with and people that actually make the gaming enjoyable. Charter Phalanx and Kinetic, for example, were the first clans that we found that made competitive ET fun and not a chore.
|OUF|Slipwind:
Kinetic was a great clan to play against for our weeklies. Almost always close, hard fought matches.
Chaos|Generic:
Any shout outs or general comments for the community?
|OUF|Thanatoaster:
Slip's mom.
|OUF|Drake:
I would like to give a shoutout to my boys in Greater Than. Since, both NOYB and Bootsy (as well as Skeeve) were under my lead in [B].
|OUF|reks:
I would like to wish Greater Than good luck in the playoffs. Maybe someday, a clan can win without using straight up gun skills and get some respect.
|OUF|TDawg:
I would say to our consistent weeklies... Saints, Syndicate, Fear Factory, Charter Commission Phalanx, and of course Kinetic.
(Though not obvious, |OUF|Syxxpk was present and silent the whole interview.)
Team Friction - f'
Chaos|Generic:
Would you mind giving a brief history of Friction?
f’DRooGz:
Well, it all started with me T3K and 3P1C playing SoF1. We got very bored with that outdated game so then we heard about this new game ET and how it was free. So, I started playing it then I got T3K and 3P1C into it. We all played in a shrub server Xx elite xX and joined their TWL team. We picked up sphinx and navatna all from the same shrub server. We soon found out that we had to move on so we brought back 187 from SoF1. We then merged with a clan called b0rk and made uni, but that did not go as planned. So, we went back to 187 then we got sick of ET and sat for a while. Then, navatna wanted to start a new clan; we thought up a new clan name for a few weeks and made Friction.
Chaos|Generic:
How do you see TWL playoffs shaping up? Do you have any particular team you are looking forward to playing?
f’DRooGz:
Well not really, everyone knows dT is going to win.
Chaos|Generic:
How do you see CAL shaping up? Any new teams out there you are looking at? Any opinions on the new rules they have setup?
f’DRooGz:
CAL :( I do not think we are going to play cal this year. We are kind of like ET… blah.
Chaos|Generic:
Any new maps you want to see tried in competition? Rommel? RTCW ports?
f’DRooGz:
No, not really. I am not a big fan of the RTCW ports.
Chaos|Generic:
What is the clan's view on the rumors/news of RTCW2?
f’DRooGz:
That is the game we plan on going to, but until then we are going to give CoD a try and play Doom 3 when it comes out.
Chaos|Generic:
Any shoutouts to the community or general comments?
f’DRooGz:
ET is dead play a new game.
Bani
Posted by: Amish Gigolo* (Sunday, February 29, 2004)
Amish Gigolo*:
Many people are interested in an average day for Bani After work, how much time do you spend on ETPRO or any of your mods in a given day or so?
Bani:
Depends, I spend a couple hours a day on average after work on ETPro. Reading and responding to emails like this one :), reading the etpro forums and others, coding and testing the mod.
Amish Gigolo*:
Most people from RTCW know you from BaniMod, which was a &quot;fun&quot; less serious mod for RTCW...much different from ETPRO and the "serious" clan/league scene.
How different are the two communities to work with?
Bani:
The banimod community was just an informal group of players who happened to like playing banimod style, not serious in any way. There wasnt any expectations for the mod, and it wasnt competitive, so there wasnt any pressure to do anything in particular. One gametype of banimod, goldrush, did become somewhat popular and players made various requests to refine the gameplay, but again nothing serious and no pressure to perform.
Working with the clan/league scene hasnt been terribly different, though the communities themselves are definitely very different. Clans/leagues tend to be very elitist :)
I guess the main differences are that i was coding banimod primarily for myself, while ETPro is catering a lot to clans/leagues. And now there's some pressure to deliver product on some kind of schedule :)
Amish Gigolo*:
What is the current status of +dropweapon in ETPRO 1.2? It was defeated in a poll on your site 43-41, but posted that it was going in anyways.
Is it still planned for ETPRO 1.2? Any changes from the RTCW version of +dropweapon?
Bani:
Sadly +dropweapon wont make it in the initial release. I made an initial attempt at it thinking it was going to be easy, but there was too much other stuff which broke. Splashdamage designed ET to sabotage any easy attempts at adding +dropweapon back in :)
It will eventually happen, but it will be slightly different than RTCW's. In RTCW you could use +dropweapon to defeat the weapon overheat/weaponswitching time. You could run the venom to overheating and then immediately switch to pistol, for example. Clans/leagues made it clear they wanted the balancing aspect of weapon overheating/weaponswitch times to remain in ET, so you'll still be able to drop your weapon as in RTCW and pick up others, but you won't be able to defeat the weaponswitch times or overheating with it.
What it will let you do, which you cant easily do now, is plant a mine then drop an SMG on top of it as bait :)
Amish Gigolo*:
How much does (or has) OSP influence ETPRO, if at all? Any thoughts at all in incorporating some of the newer OSP features (/kill counting as death, gib stats, ammo count on crosshair hover) into ETPRO?
Bani: The only real influence OSP has had in the design of ETPro is in the goal of the mod -- competition. Rhea did OK using some of the OSP media in ETPro, so a couple of familiar things from OSP will return in ETPro.
Ammocount on crosshair hover is a pretty recent thing, and a bit too late to add into the current ETPro. It may find its way into later releases though.
/kill counts as a death now btw. statwhores beware.
Amish Gigolo*:
How has the feedback been for the new map changes to Battery and FuelDump? Your thoughts on the changes and its effect (hopefully) on cutting down full holds?
Bani:
It's been totally positive. Battery should be a very balanced map now, I think it should be comparable to radar in terms of offensive balance. It should be interesting to watch teams explore new strats as it really is a completely new map now.
As for fueldump, the changes are not so dramatic but it should help. I don't know what else could be done to fueldump to make it better without completely changing the map though.
Amish Gigolo*:
How do you balance the needs of ETPRO pubbers in comparison to the needs of Leagues/Clans? Do you try to work out a peaceful medium with having alot of changes as server side cvars for server admins to enable/disable?
Bani:
Basically leagues/clans come first, though when possible i do try to implement features in such a way that they can applied to pubs as well. Everything is cvars, we never force anything on anyone (except cheat/bug fixes. :)
Theres a lot of league/clan stuff which applies just as well to pubs, so its often not an issue at all.
Amish Gigolo*:
How tedious was the process of getting use of the ET Engine Source code? (Necessary for ETTV) Anything you can comment on, on who helped the ETPRO Development team along in acquiring the Engine Code?
Bani:
It took a while :). When I approached ID/Activision they were very open to the idea, it just took a long time for them to deliver since everyone is busy with Doom3. One of the Quakecon staff helped prod them into finally delivering the goods though.
Amish Gigolo*:
After the release of ETPRO 1.2, will the major focus of the ETPRO development team be on ETTV? How will you balance the development of ETTV and ETPRO at the same time?
Bani:
I expect full focus of the team will be on ETTV after ETPro is released. The only ETPro development for a while after release is likely to be bugfixes.
Amish Gigolo*:
One of the more annoying features of WolfTV was the sychronization issue with shoutcasters. (Shoutcast was delayed X Minutes, WolfTV was delayed Y minutes) Any initial thoughts on this problem?
Bani:
It's a difficult problem because you're trying to synchronize completely separate programs which do completely different things. I don't think reliable/automatic synchronization will really be possible without some sort of collaboration between shoutcast software developers and ETTV developers. And TBH we want to get a working ETTV before we worry about synchronization issues with shoutcasts.
Amish Gigolo*:
Many people think of just Bani when they talk about ETPRO, but don't realize the others involved in the team.
Just to finish up...can you comment on some of the work the other members of your team has done on ETPRO?
Bani:
Rain has written nearly as much ETPro code as I have, he comes from a background of running the Bluecherry RTCW server and having written one of the first mods for RTCW when the SDK was released.
Ikkyo has been modding longer than any of the rest of us, he wrote a halflife mod called 'desert crisis'. Sadly their website seems to be down, but you can read a FAQ here and reviews here and here. Ikkyo introduced me to RTCW modding in the first place, so everything can sort of be blamed on him :). Most of his contributions to ETPro are currently SUPAR SEKRIT and cannot be discussed (they will be revealed at official release time). He did do a lot of the work for the new ETPro network protocol which helps low bandwidth users considerably. Ikkyo recently got hired by s2games, so who knows how much time he will be able to continue putting into ETPro...
Zinx is a relative newcomer to ETPro - having joined in mid January - and as such hasnt had much time to contribute to ETPro, but he has solved a couple of the more difficult bugs in ET related to player movement, fixes which are in the new ETPro. We are expecting great things from him for ETTV though, and if he doesnt deliver -- its off to the gulag for him!
Fretn brings extended demoviewer, trickjump lines, and some other demo related features to ETPro, based on the work he did in his RTCW mods. Fretn is also a member of clan BooZZe.
Apoculos
Posted by: c[_]`Wippuh (Wednesday, February 18, 2004)
Despite playing for a team named sauve, there is no doubt that Apoc is decidely NOT suave. However, he has managed to let a few good teams let him into their ranks upon occasion. This includes in both ET and RtCW. We had a chance to sit down with Apoc and chat it up. Below is the results!
Amish z8'):
Tell everyone who you are and what brought you to gaming. From the earliest clan to suave, let us know the history that is Apoc!
suave>>Apoculos*:
Well my uncle got me my first computer when I was like 12. I started gaming in things like diablo and starcraft.. My first clan was a sc clan called BnR (Battle net rebels baby). My first fps was a mod for q2 called expert ctf, and imo still the best game I've ever played!
I also played realism mods for unreal tournament (which is where I started -GAT-). Then when the rtcw demo was released I knew I'd be playing it. Lets see.. for wolf I've led several different forms of -GAT- along with being in notable clans dT and cK.
Now I'm playing and leading Enemy Territory for Suave with a lot of my most recent -GAT- guys. I did have a small break from et to play for suave at cxg in the call of duty tournament.. we were one of the four teams left when they cancled it. That was fun and all... but I enjoy the wolf/et style gameplay much more than that of COD, so I'm back!
Amish z8'):
You played with the multigaming clan cK at qcon2k3 in RtCW. What was that experience like, and do you think that ET would translate well to a game featured at qcon? What was the highlight of the event for yourself and how were the animal crackers?
suave>>Apoculos*:
The qcon experience was great for me. It was my first big tournament and I played really well. Before qcon cK lanned a week in advance which was tons of fun, probably as much fun as qcon actually. The goal of the lan was to quickly become unbeatable at rtcw, but instead we all improved at quake3 and dungeon siege lol.
The highlight of my time spent there had to be the narf match. Noone expected us to really give them a fight, but we won and it was a great feeling. Talking trash with obliv and the narf guys was great as well, but being the one to back it up was even better! I think ET is very similar to rtcw and even better in many ways.
With the maps being tweaked and spawntimes being fixed its only getting better. I think ET will do great at qcon if it in fact is used.
Amish z8'):
Since you've played at a high level in both RtCW and ET, tell us the differences between the top echelon of teams in both games. What is the most difficult hurdle to clear in making the switch from RtCW to ET and which is harder to compete in and why?
suave>>Apoculos*:
Well the main difference is in the glory days of wolf.. there was just more competition and more top teams. As far as a difference in top teams I don't think there is much of a difference, except the top teams in ET do not have to work near as hard as the top teams in wolf's glory days had to. The biggest thing from going to rtcw straight to et
that bothered me and the wolf guys was learning the new maps, and getting used to the more wide-open style of play.
The shooting really doesn't bother any wolf vet, because in rtcw the bullets shot faster and the spread was 5x what it is in et. Hard to say on which one is harder to compete. I feel that ET requires more teamwork, but you can make a mistake and still be able to recover; in Wolf often one mistake is all it takes to lose a point. Anyways I'd say it really depends on the level of clans playing the game, and right now as dead as wolf is, ET probably has the competitive advantage.
Amish z8'):
Also, in the same category, if you could bring one thing from RtCW to Et, what would it be? From ET to RtCW also.
suave>>Apoculos*:
Well I feel the main difference between the two games are the maps and the shooting style. I'd REALLY like to see how ET played with RTCW's shooting style and its teamoverlay (no more A1 bs.. I want real locations!). RTCW should have the ability to let medics pick up thompsons or mp40s.. when I pub I always run out of ammo so fast in wolf now!
Amish z8'):
Suave is widely recognized as a top team in ET. How do you keep your level of play so high and what would you suggest as advice to teams that want to attain that level themselves?
suave>>Apoculos*:
Well we try to scrim alot.. we really love playing with each other, so I guess that helps to. We always try to work on things reguardless if we could close our eyes and beat the team we're scrimming. To attain a high level I feel you need to play with people you like, and play/practice alot :).
Amish z8'):
What are some of the things that you believe that are needed to keep ET from following the same path that RtCW has? To prevent the ratio and /kill whores from ruining the game, to prevent smack talk from becoming the norm?
suave>>Apoculos*:
Well I don't really think that ratio whores can ruin the game.. yea they can be annoying, but all that matters to me is the win. Let the idiot go 10-0 in a match against us.. so long as we win it doesn't matter, some guy /killing won't cause us to lose. Theres alot of trash talking in ET already, and I don't really see a problem with it.
If people wanna make themselves look like idiots, or enjoy doing it... eh whatever :p.
Amish z8'):
Who do you enjoy to scrim and why? What makes for a good scrim and what does suave hope to accomplish in them?
suave>>Apoculos*:
Well I just love playing with the guys. For me a good scrim is any scrim we have fun in or learn something. We're always trying to get better, figure out why we didn't do something faster, why our defense broke down, or whatever.
Amish z8'):
Going back to the qcon subject, what would happen to the NA teams if ET were set to 6's at Qcon? What would one less man change in the dynamic of NA teams and what would be the hardest thing to adapt to because of the change? Also, what would be a hidden benefit that many teams might not see right now?
suave>>Apoculos*:
Well I think it'd for sure favor the euro teams, I mean they've been playing 6s since the begining. The main thing NA teams would have to adapt to is regrouping and rushing ala RTCW. In ET right now if you lose two guys on the way to the rush you can still put together a good push with 5 guys. In RTCW for example.. you lose 2 guys on base and you're down to 4, so that means you gotta wait another 20-30 seconds and regroup, if you wanna have a chance at breaking the defense.
I'm in favor of 7s just because I think 6s does slow down the game a bit. I feel that with all the map changes we're making the spam people complain about will not be such a factor. If we do go to 6s the panzer probably won't be as important or used as much.
Amish z8'):
Say qcon organizes a tourny for 16 teams. 8 from NA, 8 from Euroland. Which 8 teams do you feel would best represent NA right now and why? Who do you feel like are darkhorses who could possibly step up and make it?
suave>>Apoculos*:
Lets see.. right now I think the top 3 clans in et are us, Rotators, and Casualty. Beyond that things do get a little fuzzy, but I see no remorse is working hard and getting better. The Amish newbies are still getting their ET feet wet, but I think they'll be a top 5 team in time. Can't forget -a-, if they do end up playing et they'll be a top team for sure.
For the 7th and 8th spot I see wS^ and .fa. improving alot. Both of those teams scrim tons and its paying off. Another team to look out for are those syn. guys. They have some solid players and a good leader in swink, so I expect them to make some noise. If ET is at qcon.. you can expect lots of old wolf players coming to et and forming all sorts of clans, so who knows!
Amish z8'):
Finally, the hatred directed towards you from Amish Gigolo. Where does it come from and how does it make you feel? Talk to us a little about the relationship between the two of you and how it has spiraled out of control for so long.
suave>>Apoculos*:
Well hes a newbie... I mean obviously. His own team makes fun of him and openly calls him a bad leader in their public channel, and can you blame them? My hatred for him is not just because hes a newb, but it goes back to august of last year.. amish vs cK was getting ready to happen early on the 3rd day of qcon! We were all hungry, but had a match to play. I bragged in the server that I had managed to sneak some animal crackers in the tourney room.
Finding out the Amish were hungry and being the nice guy I am I offered to share my crackers with them. Gigolo sent over the THIEF jimmyjack. I accidently poured the whole box in his hands and he quickly ran off before I could correct my error, so you see I hate Gigolo and the amish because they are petty animal cracker theives. After that I was so enraged that I asked my cK teammates to drop from the server, they did and I played the match 1v6 and managed to win 3-0. We play Amish this week in twl and I can't wait to get further revenge.
Amish z8'):
Shoutouts!
suave>>Apoculos*:
Shoutout to my team, suave as a whole, and of course my mom! EDIT: AND THE MCU!!!!
Eclipse
Posted by: c[_]`Wippuh (Monday, May 2, 2005)
Who is this kid and why is anyone interested in reading an interview from him? We're not sure but there were some questions and Eclipse felt obligated to answer them so there could be more than just ettv spam on the front page. So read up and begin to hate Eclipse even more than you already do. What a douche.
c[_]`Wippuh:
Come on now Eclipse. Give us the rundown of who you really are and how you came from being just a weee lil' nup to a CAL-I champion of the world!?!?
|* |eclipse:
I first started my online gaming from StarCraft/Warcraft. I was at BestBuy one day looking around for games, and I picked up Return to Castle Wolfenstein...it looked pretty cool. I installed that and started playing on shrub servers, OSP every now and then. My favorite RtCW server had to be the Xian's Base/Beach/Depot/etc.
From that server, I found a few friends and started up a clan in OGL with them as, =Xf= Extreme Forces. Out of that team, only three guys continued to play FPS games, Enigma (Plays as Av3rice) and we still talk to each other on irc, after 3 years of playing with each other.
Then I started playing on OSP servers, the only reason I did was they had all the cool name colors like the light blues, and silvers...same colors as ETPro now. I had no idea that it was the "right" mod to be playing, competition etc., very similar to ETpro. About a month of playing OSP, I started getting pretty good, then my computer crashed, which resulted in five-six months of no online gaming, which was around RtCW CAL season 4-5. The following christmas, I got a new computer and installed ET. At the time, ET looked awesome, the covertops, mortars and riflenades. After a week of playing I joined my first ET team, {Zer0}, and we use to scrim =MLK= 8v8s all the time on Fueldump. Thats where I met Def, (Memnoch), Bulldawg, Illogical (Played as something I cannot remember :x )
After about a month of that, I was pubbing on day and Amish Gigolo* and Amish AtomicFish connect, and I was very impressed with them. I pubbed with them a bit, went to their forums, hung out with them, and before I knew it, I was a butter churner. Gigolo pretty much shaped me out to the ET player I am now, and deserves most of the credit for my success. I played with Gig and Fish for a good year on Amish World Order, along with Malenkov and Marco.
As the season(s) went on, a few members had personal/real life issues, we went downhill. We lost our leader and our best player to personal things. I didn't really know what to do, We were on a 3 week/game loosing streak and at the moment I had enough. Malenkov, Marco and myself left to form Commie Bastards.
As we played as cB for the first few weeks, we were desperate for players. We picked up ABK and his two buddies, Demon and Circa/Tectonix. That lasted for a week, then we decided we need new faces. We picked up this kid Illogical, former =MLK= allstar :P He was an amazing medic, but all of the sudden he disappeared and never came back. Then Malenkov gets this PM from someone named Mercy...
Mercy, to be honest, saved commie bastards from folding on many occasions; he's the true reason we are here now and so successful. Mercy stuck it out with us, he never jumped ship, although I'm sure he had many other offers to join different teams.
We recruited Murda (AoP) and Synergy (Deathtouch.RtCW) to play as our 4th and 5th for the first two weeks, Mal also had his long time e-friend viju (q3 all-star) join our roster as backups.
A few days later, Malenkov, worked his connections once again to his old rtcw buddies, and got Madness to join our team. We had a solid 5 man roster, in search of one more, then I see our long lost Amish team leader show up on irc, Gigolo. I convinced Gig to play for us in cB, making him our 6th and final member finally giving us our solid lineup.
Fast foward a bit to week 8 match vs syndrom on Delievery...we were WoW'ed, myself included. After a heartbreaking loss to syndrom, followed by a huge upset loss to converge. We pretty much disbanned after that, when the next season was announced, I told mal to play another, so we did.
Our line up was: Eclipse, Illkilla, Klew, Malenkov, Mercy, Redzone. With Elusive, Eternal and Fenix all backup players (All exodus rtcw players)
In my mind, this roster was much stronger than last season's and I suppose it all worked out. After about week 5 we were doing great, and our long lost buddy Madness decides he wanted to play with us again, which we desperatly needed, because Illkilla was having problems IRL. And the rest of you guys now what happened then. =)
c[_]`Wippuh:
It was just the beginning of the season when we last spoke of your retardedness. You mentioned then that you believed that cB really had a shot to take some titles this season. How did cB come together and what was that point when you looked around and thought the team could be something special?
|* |eclipse:
My retardedness is still here, sadly :| Right Gig?
We came together by the great relationships we had with eachother, there were no problems, and ventrilo was always a happy atmosphere, even during our losses. The way we succeeded was simple, we never gave up, we never threw in the towel, we always had a positive attitude.
c[_]`Wippuh:
Looking back over your entire body of work this season, what were the more memorable scrims and matches you had? Why? When cB was getting burned out from the constant work of ET, what was your "escape" of choice? What did the team do to lighten the load?
|* |eclipse:
My most memorable match was probably just last week against Pandemic (Fatal Attraction) to qualify for TWL-Alpha Finals on Radar. I'm sure everybody reading this knows how it went :P
Another memorable match was against Fatal Attraction, at the time, last season week two on venice. We finally got all of our 6 starters, and we took the first round against them, but the really pushed us around and ended up defeating us 2-1, but from that moment on after we almost beat .fa., I knew this team was going to do something well.
Back to this season, we all were getting burnt out. We decided not to scrim friday-saturday, and only limit our scrims during the week, Sun-Thurs, to no more than two scrims a night.
Personally, my "escape from ET" was playing WoW with old Amish buddies, Gigolo and Kith. (Kith's a rogue) :P
c[_]`Wippuh:
cB isn't going to attend Qcon, why not? Instead you're going to hook back up with the old man Gigolo and rage the pink and black for Amish. What are your feelings about going back to the barn? Who will be at your side in the Amish? How do you believe the Amish can do at Qcon and finally, what will be the biggest obstacles between the Amish and that 1st place Qcon check?
|* |eclipse:
I love Amish, and Gig, always have and always will. The Qcon deal is, 2/6 players from Commie Bastards cannot make the trip, right there is the reason :( However, I'm playing with Gig, NewbdeaL, Cam0, Aimology (rtcw allstar), Mercy and Marco.
I think if we all churn enough butter, we'll do very well at QCon. I know I'll be flamed by all the arrogant assholes in this community, especially Def, but that's alright. Because I know Amish, is clearly overrated, Just like Commie Bastards were this season, right Def? Back on topic, however, I feel we will do just fine at QCon.
c[_]`Wippuh:
From your entire career, how do you look upon your days with Zer0 > Amish > cB > Amish? From being a new player to a CAL champ. What are the differences from USA till now? Do you see the game differently now? Are the goals different from then to now and how so? What do you miss most from those early days of playing ET?
|* |eclipse:
I'm just very thankful for always playing with good teammates, you cannot be successful in anything, let alone video games, if you are working/playing with the wrong people. ET is all about teamwork and chemistry.
This game is totally different from season 1-2, less spammy, the guns have improved tremendously, as well as the teamwork.
The thing I miss about old ET was the great match ups, ie. Suave and Rotators. Rotators and Preeminence/u5. Deathtouch and Syndrom/Cyno and Friends (Most fun I've ever had watching ETTv).
c[_]`Wippuh:
Now you're at the top of online gaming for ET. Now comes the inevitable backlash of "not dT/c&f;/smf/blah, blah, blah. What do you have to say to those players? What are your feelings about how cB would have matched up against those teams?
|* |eclipse:
I think commie bastards would be a strong opponent to those former teams, in all honesty.
c[_]`Wippuh:
The big problem with the question above is the obvious evolution of ET. It's different now than it was back in the day. Hopefully Bani and crew will continue their great work and there will be more evolution in the game. What would you like to see happen with the game? You get ultimate interweb power and can ban anyone who whines that "(insert phrase here)". What is that phrase?
|* |eclipse:
I think ET has come to its peak in evolvement. Bani and Co. have changed this game all for the better, the newest ETPro 3.1.13 is amazing.
Like any game/community I'd like to see changed, would be all the kids who play it. Grow the fuck up and swallow your ego. Too many people brag/whine, which I feel will be the inevitable downfall of ET. Locked box for example. All it consist of, is a bunch of whiners and complainers and of course, the shit-talking-cornercamping-medpacking player.
c[_]`Wippuh:
Being l33t. cB has come in and won a title without being the prototypical team full of assholes who rant and rave about how great they are and how everyone else sucks. You've got to a have a certain level of cockiness to do what you guys did. How do you balance that cockiness vs being an ass to others?
|* |eclipse:
In any winning team, there is always a level of cockiness. However, we try not to show it, nor are we dicks. I occasionally get PMs from people shit talking to me, most of the time I'll ignore them, but every now and them I'll tell them to fuck off. That is what is so great about my team, we arn't arrogant pricks. I see this team as a nice group of people out playing a game and whats most important, having fun. I cannot speak for everyone, however, but I rarely see one of my teammates trash talking, being a douchebag to other people.
c[_]`Wippuh:
World of Borecraft, the great archnemsis to the serious gaming team! However, it's a great subject for this goofy question. Take a few of the more notable people around the community and fill out a WoW class profile for them! Have fun :)
|* |eclipse:
Class: Kith
Race: STUCK IN THE 80's
Description: A kith generally runs around bragging about "phat loot" items.
Talent Tree: Snapple > Rebook Pump-Up > Geek
Talents:
Snapple, Go immune to attacks for 10 seconds
Rebook Pump Ups, increased running speed by %60 for 20 seconds.
Specialized /emote: Word up!
Quote: "I use rebook pump-ups!" "Word!"
Class: miXer
Race: One of the bigger species around the land of WoW
Description: Consumes enemies to improve strength and stamina
Talent Tree: Subway > Ghetto Moreno Vally Ganstas > Charlie Brown Skills
Talents:
Consume, Eats an enemy to gain strength and improve their HP by 100.
Sandwich, Makes a subway sandwich to throw and distract an enemy
Specialized /emote: "good game noob"
Quote: "RAWR RAWR IMMA EAT YOU!"
c[_]`Wippuh:
Shoutouts!
|* |eclipse:
All of Commie Bastard members, former and past. Amish, Old Casualty team (Pilot, b0b, Dash, Pale, Sheffra, MC), Dator/Dates, for all those late nights we spent alone on vent together...AtomicFish (Crazy drunken french canadian) for the funniest times I've spent on vent. The old Suave guys. Kith, you and your highlight reel nade! Word up! Fenix, the Gary and Ace dueos of Satchels, Knife and Smoke kills on locked box. Amish z8') No Remorse and Kinetic, our scrim partners, and of course my bestest e-friend, Gigolo.
PHX Dator
Posted by: h3rf (Monday, January 31, 2005)
H3rf:
So who are the current best shots in ET, besides yourself?
Dator:
I really have no idea, I haven't been scrimming as frequently and havent seen many people lately.
H3rf:
What do you forsee PHX chances at winning a championship this season?
Dator:
If we stay active i think our chances are very good.
H3rf:
what are your teams chances of staying active? who is losing interest?
Dator:
I've been losing interest as of late and i have been playing some counterstrike: source, the rest of the team except bloody and ep1c plays world of warcraft so i cant be sure if they will want to play all the time or not.
H3rf:
How does PHX teamwork rank against rotators and dT currently?
Dator:
Well when we first started PHX we scrimmed pretty frequently for about 3-4 weeks so we do have some teamwork. I wouldnt say that it is as good as what i experienced in the Rotators or dT but it will get to that level sooner or later.
H3rf:
So, if you had to give odds, whats the chance that PHX will "stay active" this season so that your "chance are very good" to win it all?
Dator:
hmmmm maybe like 90% chance we stay active
H3rf:
So who calls the plays on your team?
Dator:
When stiegl is around he does and when hes not I am the playcaller but stiegl is probably the best i have seen do it.
H3rf:
So who are your medics and your engineers, liets, soldiers and utility players, hows the team breakdown
Dator:
Me, t3k, and sphinx play medic, navatna and seed play field ops, ep1c and bloody play eng, madness plays fo/med/soldier, stiegl plays anything that is needed, and conf likes to think of himself as a utility player
H3rf:
In general, in regards to teamplay, pushes, etc what tips would you give to the et community?
Dator:
I'd say to to coordinate a good crossfire and make sure everyone knows what they are supposed to be doing. protect those engies :x
H3rf:
Does PHX do a lot of coordinated offensive pushes?
Dator:
On a few maps such as goldrush we have really coordinated rushes but only on the few maps that we have focused on in scrims
H3rf:
What do you think of the riflenade, and the recent limitation from 2 to 1
Dator:
Doesnt really effect us, we dont normally run more than 1 rifle nade, but i dont see really why the limitation was put in i never ran into a problem with teams using 2 rifle nades.
H3rf:
How would you describe your teams play style?
Dator:
Pretty aggressive on offense. Moderately passive on defense. We try not to rambo around too much since it usually ends up getting you in to trouble.
H3rf:
Does Phalanx have a mix of player types, like rambo facial fighters, and then guys who like to play back?
Dator:
Yea theres defiently a mix of players, t3k is defiently a rambo facial fighter, I like to get up in facial area but i have taken up the play back style to try and account for that fact that none of us are good meds, seed likes to play up, stiegl is a play back style, the rest of the guys i see as being able to do both
H3rf:
In terms of offense, what percentage of time does Phalanx call out offensive pushes, is it every spawn wave or about every third or fourth? Whats the offensive philospy (to use the term loosely : P)
Dator:
We call out stuff before some parts of offensive pushes and during some everyone just knows what to do and does it. It really depends on what part of the map we are on. If its something like attacking the guns on Oasis then we are probably calling out rushes every other spawn or whenever one of our rushes doesnt work.
H3rf:
Have you improved on your own shot in the past two months?
Dator:
Well i switched from no mouse accel to using mouse accel so i had to re-adjust to that but na i wouldnt say i have been improving on my shot much in the past 2 months, just maintaining it.
H3rf:
why did you switch to mouse accel, and what value do you use?
Dator:
I dont use the ingame mouse accel i just turned it back on in windows, i dont know what that is in the ingame values.
H3rf:
Were you able to lower your sensitivty because of it?
Dator:
I've never been a fan of lower sens so when i switched over i didnt lower my sens at all. My sens it pretty fast compared to most peoples.
H3rf:
whats your opinion of the new CAL no leveling up restrictions?
Dator:
The no XP doesnt bother me really its just something new to play and it might even make for even better matches.
H3rf:
what do you think of the new maps, reactor, vengeance, sw_goldrush, beerrun etc?
Dator:
Reactor isnt a bad map for 3v3 but i didnt like it at all for 6v6. I havent played vengeance, sw_goldrush was a nice change of pace compared to the old goldrush, and beerrun isnt bad in pubs but i havent scrimmed it and cant say anything about its competitive value
H3rf:
Any question or point you would like to make?
Dator:
Some shoutouts i'd like to make, ONO, DIRTY, everyone in PHX, Thumper, Bobby, the rest of .ia., cB, and to anyone i forgot :)
ETPro Dev Team
Posted by: c[_]`Wippuh (Sunday, August 22, 2004)
Returning to the oldschool, we sent this interview off to Bani and got responses back from the ENTIRE ETPro development team!
Read on!
c[_]`Wippuh:
There's not really a reason to ask you an opening intro question. If people do not know who you are, how old you are and where you live, then they're not true fans. Instead, we will ask you to describe what the average day is like for the rabid et-center clannie! Fill it up with stereotypes!
[AV]bani:
Hmm sorry, I have no idea. I don't read et-center. I think the only time I read it is when I follow links from xfire or swertcw :-)
BzZIfretn?:
*wake up at 11-12am, power on the computer, checking some forums, checking irc
*after 30mins eating breakfast
*whine on forums
*make some fun on irc
*play some pub and whine ofcourse
*play a scrim
*eating some crappy food
*play another scrim
*flame at another forum
*watching a movie
*playing some pub
*3am go to bed
Rain:
Uh, I dunno... wake up, whinge about RtCW being better than ET, and add another lens flare to your signature, and then go to play ET anyway?
:P To be honest, I don't regularly read the et-center forums (I have enough trouble keeping up with our own and SD's), and the threads I *do* end up seeing are usually filled with some of the...louder...members of the ET community. I did notice a few useful posts on ETTV there recently, though, so maybe I'll have to make a habit of reading them occasionally.
Zinx:
Well, I wake up (somewhere between 12:00AM and 12:00AM the next day), fetch
my email (note: fetch, not read -- I'm on way too many lists!), plop down on IRC and program/procrastinate programming all day.
c[_]`Wippuh:
What is the ultimate goal you're setting out to achieve with ETPro? If an employment opportunity arises from it what does it have to include to be truly inviting?
[AV]bani:
The ultimate goal for etpro is to make ET the best game it can be. I'd say we are about 3/4 the way there.
If an employment opportunity arises from it, it would have to include linux. I'm not averse to coding for win32, but i'm completely opposed to excluding linux.
BzZIfretn?:
paying me so I can quit my current job :) But that's not really my ultimate goal I'm just learning and trying the best I can do, but if the opportunity would arise I would probably take it, actually I never thought about this ... (sometime later) well I think, it's fun to have a gamedev job, but I think it's just like other jobs, there are a lot of boring/frustrating/stressy moments because you _HAVE_ to do a particular thing buuuuut on the bright side, when people are asking you what job you do, and you can say "I'm making games" then I think it's funny to see their faces :)
Rain:
I think our ultimate goal is to essentially have an improved version of etmain - as many bug fixes as we can manage, some spiffy new features, and some minor gameplay improvements. The gameplay improvements are the trickiest and most deliberated part of the whole thing. First, we want to remain close to pure ET where we can, since a lot of people expect gameplay to be pretty consistent; second, if we do anything too drastic, the collective force of all the *particularly* rabid clannies' heads a sploding could throw the earth off its orbit.
Zinx:
ET is a great game, and currently the only team-oriented FPS for Linux I feel is worth playing. I've always loved being able to fix programs I use when something goes wrong, or add new features I think would be nice, and hacking on ETPro is a great way to do that :)
I'm more interested in design aspects than programming, but I do enjoy implementing new designs or better designs -- Any job would have to give me a bit of room for [re]designing things.
c[_]`Wippuh:
Since ETPro is a small group of individuals working on the game in their spare time, it's easy to say that your love of the game is great. However, there has to be some times where you get frustrated, etc... When does your work go from being a joy to being actual 'work'. How do you and your team avoid this?
[AV]bani:
I think we pretty much ignore anything that feels like 'work'. Everything I've coded has been because I was interested in it. I won't bother writing
code for something that I have no interest in.
BzZIfretn?:
the biggest difficulty is actually: synchronising not being lazy and having time. I never had the feeling I was doing actual work because it's fun stuff to do.
Rain:
I'm notoriously hard to frustrate, but I've often noticed myself wandering aimlessly around a level on an empty server while I hashed things out in the back of my mind - it's usually something I only notice I'm doing after I've been doing it for a while. Sometimes, Zinx and I will goof around for a bit on an otherwise empty server in the process of testing a bugfix or discussing a problem.
Discussion is a good way to vent frustrations and get fresh ideas, as well - all of the members of the ETPro team have a great deal of overlapping knowledge, of course, but we also each have our areas of expertise as applicable to ET. Sometimes, an answer to a problem one person has been mulling over will be obvious to someone else, or someone else will at least have a different perspective and some fresh thoughts on a problem.
Zinx:
There's not really any way to avoid this, but we like the game enough that one of us will eventually get around to implementing/fixing anything that will make it better.
c[_]`Wippuh:
Everyone knows your contribution with ETPro, but what is the one thing you're most proud of with your contribution to the scene? What is the one little knitpicky problem that took you forever to figure out, yet no one probably notices except for you?
[AV]bani:
I think the thing I'm most proud of is helping keep ET alive. ET is one of the top online games and I'm pretty sure it wouldnt have stayed in that position with just etmain.
The most annoying problem was the phantom tracers / bullets bug. That took a long time to figure out and fix. It's a bug which dates back to RTCW...
BzZIfretn?:
fixing self-made bugs, you just overlook them (at least I do), and I can just stare a long time at a piece of code without seeing the actual mistake ... frustrating
Rain:
I don't think I can point out any one thing I'm particularly proud of, but on the other question.... I don't think anyone notices the prediction fixes I made, but they drive me mad if I play etmain or RtCW. Trickjumpers are probably most likely to notice the difference, which may be why the people who still play etmain don't know any better, but you'll notice a big difference if you try to bunny hop in place in etmain vs. etpro. etmain is *really* jumpy, switching rapidly between showing that you jumped again (you didn't) and showing that you didn't (reality.)
Zinx:
"improved" prone physics (No more proning inside a wall, more unified code, etc)
Re knitpicky problem: I can't really think of any. There were quite a few problems, but most of them annoyed everyone.
c[_]`Wippuh:
In RtCW, your Banimod was a pub influenced mod. Now with ETPro, you've added another huge demographic with the competitive player. Tell us about how your approach to feedback/interaction has changed from Banimod to ETPro and what the positives and negatives are of the competitive and pub player weighing in vs just the pub player.
[AV]bani:
The only difference really is that Banimod was mainly stuff I wanted and stuff I was interested in experimenting with. There was very little public input into Banimod features. ETPro otoh is the result of pub and comp player input as well as my own interests and that of the other programmers on the team.
For instance EDV was entirely fretn's concept, it didnt originate from any outside input. The shoutcaster features were also purely my idea.
BzZIfretn?:
/me pokes bani
c[_]`Wippuh:
While visiting your forums it's hard to not notice that here's a lot of quality ideas that are instantly flooded with pages upon pages of "OMG, it's not RtCW!!!1". Why is there such an adverse reaction to doing anything that is even slightly related to RtCW in your mind? The strengthening of the sniper rifle seems like a perfectly logical thing to many, yet this is really the only argument that we see countering it on the forums for the most part.
[AV]bani:
Shrug. ET *is* RTCW. Full stop. People whining about "omg dont make et into rtcw" are silly. Its really a universal problem, the whiners are almost always more vocal than the supporters. This isnt a problem unique to RTCW or ET, it affects Q3 and CS and almost every other online game. Go read the urban terror forums to see what happens when they make gameplay changes. It's really no different.
It really doesnt matter what the supporters or opponents think -- the only way to know for sure if something works is to test it out in actual gameplay.
If anyone thinks that the tired old argument of "0mG d0N7 m4ek et in2 RtCw!@&" in forums has any effect in our decisions, youre only fooling yourselves. Well defended points have far more influence on our decisions. The "dont make it into rtcw" argument has less than zero.
BzZIfretn?:
see 1st question, some people have no life, and the only they can/want to do is whining without thinking, without knowing everything is optional
Rain:
There seems to be as large a faction who thinks ET *should* be more like RtCW, but they don't appear to be as interested in lobbying for/against changes! I think the reaction comes from some people who are afraid that any change will lessen their '1338 5k1||2', some people who are afraid of ET falling to RtCW's popularity, and some people who genuinely think that certain changes are a Bad Thing for the game overall.
We usually don't pay much attention to that type of response, and ultimately, such changes are almost always controllable by the server/league admin and usually default to the way etmain behaves. Except to the extent where people want consistent gameplay across etpro servers, it's usually much ado about nothing.
Zinx:
A lot of players are pretty stubborn about changes, and will search for any reason they can to keep things the way they are. This particular change doesn't matter too much for ETPro, though, since one of ETPro's focuses is keeping the gameplay fairly true to the original. Look forward to such changes when we finally start on BayonET :)
c[_]`Wippuh:
When you talk about strengthening the sniper rifle, you're talking about opening a whole new dimension to the game for both offense and defense on a few maps. In a much more difficult move, how would you shorten the length of matches by strengthening the offense? People talk about reducing offensive spawns but that opens a whole new can of worms. What are possible solutions you have thought of?
[AV]bani:
Eliminate the award system
(or completely change it so it gives abilities other than those directly related to 1vs1 combat)
Eliminate distance falloff.
Make SMGs fire faster.
Reduce damage required to gib bodies.
BzZIfretn?:
more offense-based (very fast gameplay) maps, like mp_sub in rtcw, but everyone hated it because it was a luck map etc, it's imo just a map where 1 mistake can cost you a map-loss, now you can say, hey, 2mins is much to short for ET, yes it is, but multiple fast-gameplay objectives may make it more interesting ... OH NO I WANT A CHANGE THAT ET TURNS INTO RTCW !
Zinx:
We've already implemented a few of them, by changing maps around a bit based on suggestions from the people actually playing. There's not really much we can do in the way of gameplay tweaks to increase just offense -- But Rain's added some nice things to the map scripting to make it easier for tweaks to the maps to be made, which can definitely strengthen offense (See the changes already implemented to fueldump/battery, for instance).
c[_]`Wippuh:
The awards system combined with stats seem totally contradictory to what a team game is all about, individual vs the team. What are your thoughts on their relationship to the game? What do you think of the trend of pubs turning into little more than ego fests of health stacking meds that talk trash? What is a possible solution or two for this?
[AV]bani:
Changing the awards system as described above. Giving awards which affect teamplay, but dont affect combat ability is the way to go imo.
I have always felt that the awards system is completely antithetical to competition. Imagine a football game where the team who is doing better gets skill upgrades to let them run faster, and throw the ball farther. It's called the "runaway train" syndrome and it has no place in competition.
I see leagues over the past few seasons gradually nerfing the XP system more and more, so there's at least some tacit agreement by leagues that there's a problem.
I wonder which league will be brave enough to completely eliminate it (the current awards system) first.
BzZIfretn?:
* no xp levels at pubs ?
* removing stats (d/k ratio, awards, etc) at pubs ?
* play other games on pubs, like hide somewhere, and somebody of the other team has to find you, or sit down, when an enemy passes, ask if he wants to be lazy together with you, and hope it works (I once discovered a guy who asked this, and we were sitting there for several minutes untill a teammate killed my axis friend, THEN I TEAMKILLED THAT BASTARD !)
Rain:
ET's award system certainly makes it...unique, for better or for worse. I think that it would/could be better if you had to actually be helpful to your team to rack up XP (this is difficult to determine programmatically, though), and if the rewards were more team-oriented. A good example of this idea, which has remnants left in the ET SDK, is the leadership skill (level 5 field ops.) Teammates near the field ops with the leadership skill would have their sprint bars recharge at 2x speed, and this kind of upgrade would (hopefully) encourage teamplay a bit more than most of the current skills do. The chances of changes like this making it into etpro itself are slim, though - it's the type of thing I'd like to experiment with in Bayonet, though. Pub play needs all the help it can get.
Zinx:
I've seen a lot of people who only care about their stats (many who, even after losing horribly, flaunt how wonderful they are because they have more kills or XP). We've considered a cvar to turn off display of XP to others off completely (so you can only see your own), and admins can already disable the awards if they like.
c[_]`Wippuh:
ETtV. It's coming along nicely it looks like. Why was the decision made to depart from the traditional GTV/WTV setup of the cameraman perspective? How has the progress been so far in the debugging of it and how close are you to being satisfied with ETtV?
[AV]bani:
I think everyone's wathed a gtv/wtv or demo where they were annoyed by the cameraman or recorded viewpoint. Either the cameraman is zooming about like they're on crack and making viewers dizzy, or they decide to take a break in the middle of a match, or they're just plain retarded and spec the wrong things.
It was obvious from the beginning that free spectator was the right way to go.
Most of our progress comes from finding bugs during the public beta tests.
I'm mostly satisfied with ettv now, just a few remaining issues to be sorted out.
Fretn:
being able to see what you want, especially when an incompetent camman was camming
Rain:
One of the major complaints with GTV/WTV is that viewers are left stranded whenever Real Life interrupts the cameraman/camerawoman. Some people feel they can do a better job of tracking the action on their own, and ETTV gives them the ability to do that.
When you do have a good cameraperson, the ability to just sit back and watch the game is attractive (especially when listening to a shoutcast), so ETTV allows you to spectate spectators on the match server (which, of course, goes hand-in-hand with shoutcasts and the more traditional GTV/WTV experience.)
I think that ETTV is coming very close to being generally usable, and I really have to congratulate bani on this since ETTV has been mostly his work so far. Real Life Syndrome has kept most of the other developers busy, and up until recently I personally haven't been able to contribute much except for the occasional bug hunt and brainstorming.
The ETTV broadcasts we've done so far have been a huge help as far as testing, and we're currently focusing on reducing CPU and bandwidth usage. When we get to a point where we're happy with those, and we get a proper way of doing delayed broadcasts, we'll probably be very close to a release.
Zinx:
We wanted a lot more flexibility in what could be done with the relay; things like freespec and following any player you want. The setup we've chosen lets us implement as much stuff as we (or any other mod) would like. There are still a few bugs remaining, and a lot of features we'd like to see go in before releasing.
c[_]`Wippuh:
You've mentioned that you've talked to the original developers of ET several times. Tell us about those conversations and their purpose. What kind of feeling do you get from them about their work on the game? Do they still pay attention to the community and what do they say/feel about your work?
[AV]bani:
Most of my conversations with splashdamage predate ET, they were back in rtcw days. Most of the conversation seemed to be us or them going O_o and o_O at bugs as we discovered them. As we became familiar with the engine code during ETTV work, there was a lot of /o in addition to x_X both of which are an order of magnitude worse than O_o or o_O ...
Splashdamage has been rather too busy with doom3 to talk to us for the past year or so. Obviously they do still pay at least some attention to the community, because they still post on their forums.
I really have no idea what they say/feel about my work. I havent seen any of them publically comment on it. I'm sure they say all kinds of things behind my back though
BzZIfretn?:
I talked sometimes to someone of splashdamage before et was released, and I was most of the time asking dumb questions :)
Rain:
I annoy digibob, mostly, when I'm out to harass the SD folk, although I've received helpful info from RR2DO2 and ydnar, too. Usually, the conversations range from questions about original intent of the game (e.g. garand/k43 balance) to questions about/requests for insight on something particularly insane the game does. In general, SD seems very supportive and helpful with regards to the community, especially modders. This isn't surprising, since the Splash Damage folks were originally modders themselves, but it's very nice to have such support from the developers nonetheless.
c[_]`Wippuh:
We have just seen slight mention of it, but what is bayonet? What is the timeline on it?
[AV]bani:
Bayonet is intended to be a superset of etpro. New weapons, new gametypes, etc. etpro would be 'pure competition', but theres really not much in bayonet that would preclude it from competition play.
Once we get ettv "done" I think we may start on Bayonet. That is, if we're not completely burned out at that point.
BzZIfretn?:
A blade adapted to fit the muzzle end of a rifle and used as a weapon in close combat. (http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=bayonet)
Rain:
Bayonet is where we'll make major gameplay-affecting changes without fear of any rabid clannies coming to eat our brainmeats. One of the things people have come to appreciate about etpro is that the changes that *can* be made are pretty minorâyou'll get pretty consistent gameplay regardless of where you decide to play. That's good and all, but it can also make new experiments (even targeted towards competition play) difficult, especially where there's the potential for major gameplay/strategy change. I suspect, for example, that we'll eventually experiment with re-balancing the covert ops in Bayonet. If the leagues see the changes we've made as a Good Thing, they may then be pulled back into etpro.
It's our intention to make BayonET a superset of ETPro; so technically, a lot of work has been done already. A few silly that may end up in BayonET have already been dreamt up and coded, but serious development probably won't start until ETTV is in a more stable state.
Zinx:
BayonET is going to be a "pub" mod based off of ETPro; it will have many changes to gameplay (which ETPro specificly has stayed away from).
c[_]`Wippuh:
When will you know you've done enough?
[AV]bani:
When I lose interest in the game.
BzZIfretn?:
When there's no whine anymore ? Actually that's a difficult question to answer, I think it's when we (read: bani!) is/are satisfied :)
Rain:
I think that'll largely be determined by our interest in ET, which - for me - will very much be related to general interest in ET. While I don't have the time to play ET competitively, I do play on pubs fairly frequently, and as long as I can play good games on pubs (they do happen, really), I'll probably be interested in working on ET. Considering the turnout for recent ETTV events, I think the ET community is perhaps healthier than many people think.
ETPro is fairly mature at this point, with only a few more things I *really* want to see included (location names being top on the list), but I have no doubt that more changes will be made based on feedback and requests from competitive players.
Zinx:
I never complete anything - I feel there's always something else that can be done. I guess in the future ET and ETPro/BayonET will get old, but I don't see it coming any time soon :)
c[_]`Wippuh:
Where do you see yourself going after you stop your work on ETPro? Does Doom3 interest you? Do video games at all interest you for the future?
[AV]bani:
Doom3 does interest me, I have a copy sitting on my shelf and I bought a new Opteron + Geforce 6800 to play it. I'm just waiting on the Linux client...
BzZIfretn?:
haven't thought about it actually, I heard doom III has a lot scriptable stuff, dunno if I will like it, I'll have to see the sdk first...
Rain:
After ETPro, BayonET will probably still have a bit of life left in it... after ET in general, it's hard to say. Doom 3 modding interests me, although by the time I get so far as seriously looking into it, it's quite possible that there will be another more fascinating game based on the D3 engine will catch my eye. As far as multiplayer gaming is concerned, heavily team oriented gameplay (including cooperative gameplay in games with an SP portion) interests me far, far more than free-for-all gameplay. I'm very much interested in video games along that line, though, now and for the future.
Zinx:
I'll probably have many other things to do when ETPro's time has ended - I don't see ET dying any time soon, and I need something to relax with :) Doom3 isn't terribly interesting right now, because anything I would do in it would probably be total conversion, with more team-oriented play and networking code that supports more people. If I'm going to put that much in to it, I want it to be with my own engine too. I'm sure there will be other games I like, eventually ;)
c[_]`Wippuh:
Reader Questions
- TheHammer - Did he have any dealing with qcon about the possiblity of ET and ETTV being at qcon?
[AV]bani:
Citizen helped Id/Activision to get us the engine source code to make ETTV possible, I think he wanted to see ETTV there, and when he left qcon any chances of ET @ qcon left with him.
BzZIfretn?:
passes to bani
- DG - PB vs ETPro anticheat, or both? Do you still plan to develop fixed GUID's now PB is rolling out hardware-based GUIDs?
[AV]bani:
Both. PB checks for things etpro cant, and vice versa. PB also does auto updates and screenshots, neither of which etpro do (yet). We do still plan to do hardware based guids.
BzZIfretn?:
points at bani
Rain:
Personally, I'd like etpro anticheat to eventually be able to replace PB's core functionality - that is, I'd still like to see screenshot capability and some degree of auto-updating. We've done some brainstorming on the former (the hardest part is figuring out a sane way to upload the screenshot without killing the connection), and the latter is just a matter of implementation.
While I'd like etpro to provide the same functionality, peaceful coexistence is a priority, and we'll probably always recommend using both unless PB breaks in some horrifying way.
I haven't been paying much attention to PB's hardware-based GUIDs, but my current impression is that they'll only be used for global bans and not be sent in lieu of the current GUIDs, where they'd be most helpful (especially in ET.) Regardless, I think we're still likely to eventually sort out the remaining problems with our own hardware-based GUIDs, if only to provide equivalent functionality.
Zinx:
Generally I'll recommend both, except when PB starts doing things like disconnecting all the Linux users. PB currently supports some features ETPro doesn't (GUID banning, screenshots), and has a different model for detecting cheats, which is better for some things (but worse for others). ETPro has had some experimental hardware-based GUID for some time now, but it's still not completely functional.
- Threshold - What is the one thing that is in ET you wish you could fix but can't? ie Take to much Time, Not enough time.
[AV]bani:
The borked download system. Until we get the remaining code which lets us build the client, we can't fix it.
BzZIfretn?:
per poly hitdetection <3
Rain:
Redirected downloads. Redirected downloads are easily one of the best features ET has (and a long overdue feature, at that), but we don't currently have the resources to fix the bugs and crashes. I think that it will be a Very Good Thing for the ET community (especially where custom maps are concerned) if the problems with redirected downloads are fixed.
Zinx:
Complete rewrite, especially of weapon handling/pmove.
- fretn - how many hours has rain once worked on etpro without sleeping ?
BzZIfretn?:
hey that's my question, and I +/- know the answer and it's is a lot !
Rain:
I respectfully decline to answer the question on the grounds that the answer would tend to incriminate me.
- Ragnarok|GER - which complain about etpro drives you crazy / which complain do you hate most?
[AV]bani:
"OMG DONT MAEK ET INTO RTCW!@(&*$"
BzZIfretn?:
actually I ignore all complains who don't have a 'I don't like this, would do it this way' part ... so no much complains are left people can complain if they list some alternative ways of fixing an actual problem, saying something sucks without actual a good reason is for the lill' kids ?
Rain:
OMG WTF WHY DID U HANGE/ADD {ANTILAG,BATTERY,FUELDUMP,PRONE,STICKYCHARGE,DAMAGEXP} IT SUX NOW WHY DONT YOU JUST LEAVE THE GAME ALONE!11one1' Sorry. :P
Zinx:
Mostly the ones about the engine that we can't fix in ETPro, especially the ones that deal with improper handling of the engine (e.g. Unzipping the ui/cgame so the engine will use it), and have already been answered numerous times.
c[_]`Wippuh:
Finally, lets have some fun. You're mysteriously captured and held hostage by the evil doppleganger Bani! During this time he gets a hold of the etpro source code and starts changing it to annoy both the pub player and clannie. The ransom is high, but he thinks he can extort the money from the community by making these 6 changes...
[AV]bani:
steam
double jump
redeemer
inverse aimbot
client_unknown_to_auth
"please insert coin to continue"
BzZIfretn?:
*pink panther
*steerable missiles <3
*colored player models
*tank rally
*custom animations (player defined), so you can enter a room, sit down, chat with people, and do all sorts of crazy things (much more fun than irc!)
*hardcoded-hardware-guid based hax for me
Rain:
- No XP reset, ever.
- Infinite rifle grenades that don't use charge!
- Medic max health increased to 175.
- Realistic panzerfaust - affected by gravity, much less splash damage, more effective vs. tanks.
c[_]`Wippuh:
Shoutouts
[AV]bani:
A big :P @ everyone who doesnt mention etpro when making etpro'd movies ...
BzZIfretn?:
the usual: BoozZe (I <3 them all), [fun]rambo (he will not read this interview unless someone points him to it, he is still stuck at rtcw (me too) :D) , all my snowboardmates (they won't read this either ... yes I'm going irl), my family, THA HOOD o_O, and the others in etpro for letting me annoy them with annoying things, all people in #etpro, |FF|Im2good4u for betatesting lots of my stuff (and for his funny spell-mistakes) and YOU for all the whine o/
Rain:
Hello to the other folks in |NE| who keep me sane while I'm playing on pubs, to everyone in #etpro, to the folks at SD (especially digibob, but he knows I luff him, even if he doesn't luff me back), and of course - the people keeping ET and ETPro alive by playing the game and running servers (from rabid clannie to casual pubber.)
Gigolo
Posted by: c[_]`Wippuh (Wednesday, August 18, 2004)
In a return visit with the Amish headchurner, we get a different view of the NA scene. It's a little bit harsher than your average response, but it sounds freakishly true. Beware, you might not like what you hear :D
Gig tells it like it is.
c[_]`Wippuh:
We spoke a while back right when you, Fish and Helmut begun constructing a team for ET. How do you feel about Amish's performance in ET so far?
Amish Gigolo:
It's been a disgrace. Thats a pretty strong word, but I'm not sure how else I can describe it :P I'm a very proud person, and so are Malenkov, Eclipse and the others and I can't speak for everyone, but alot of us are embarassed over some of our losses and over some of the teams we've lost to and if people aren't, they should be. To be honest, I think we're part of the problem with NA ET right now, we're a team that should be alot better then what we've showed. And I think there are alot of other clans in Invite/Main...that are just like us, teams that have to step up a little.
c[_]`Wippuh:
You're very active in the NA scene. From being a GGL admin to leading the Amish in their butter churning ways. One thing that many people know you for is your involvement in the picking of the NA team. What was your personal opinion on how players should be picked for that team? If you had to pick 6 players to represent the NA right now, that haven't been on a previous team, who would they be and why?
Amish Gigolo:
Personal Opinion...I'd just give it to the league admins. Let CAL/TWL admins choose it. The Euros that organize the match asked me for the first one and kekk and myself for the 2nd one, because we're from ET-Center etc and know the community, but that hasn't worked too well...so just give somebody else a shot.
I know how it shouldn't be picked and thats by the "1 person from top 6 clans" thing, that some people talked about. Kekk and myself talked about that for the last one...and came to the quick conclusion that, those 6 players would get raped. Because, bluntly...some of the top 6 teams in TWL just aren't that good and the 2nd, 3rd best players on dT etc would give us a better shot, plus using that we couldn't use any of the Executives, who...at the time were the 2nd best team in NA ET.
And 6 players that haven't been on, I don't know. I'd pick Nard, so he can shut the fuck up already...and let him pick 5 others, or grab the top 6 fraggers from Locked Box one night...our chances would be the same :P
c[_]`Wippuh:
The NA team got beat up on pretty good in the battle across the Atlantic. In almost every other major video game community the rivalry between Europe and NA is huge. In ET, the only huge thing about the rivalry is the amount of apathy that is seemingly present over here. nothx tells it like it is, in what can be called a major wake up call to the NA teams, and it's just taken with a yawn and another med pack stacked on a corner camp. What is wrong with the NA scene? How do you get past the egos and get the focus back on team? What is it going to take to have teams step up to the top level and raise the standard?
Amish Gigolo:
Whats wrong with the NA scene is, we have one good team. deathTouch. And thats it. And evidently they can't scrim all the time, because teams are scared to scrim them, which is just fucking sad. So, what we're left with is a shitload of second tier teams scrimming each other and who knows if they're getting any better, you have to scrim teams better then you to get better.
To go along with that, we'll scrim dT on a Wednesday and see their strat for a map...then I shit you not, the rest of the week we'll see that setup 3-4 more times from other teams. Totally unimaginative. I mean, I'd wet myself if we played teams that used our defense all the time...who else would know how to beat it? You're gonna have to go above and beyond and try different things, which alot of teams just don't do.
c[_]`Wippuh:
One thing that we know you're very big on is team chemistry. While playing for the Amish, I noticed that it was only from a small lack of consistancy that prevented them from being a top two or three team imo. How important and difficult is it to get 6 to 7 guys on the same page and buying into the same philosophy? What is preventing the Amish from taking that next step and making dT look like Paradigm Shift at qcon2k3? ;p
Amish Gigolo:
Well there are two kinds of team chemistry inside the game and out, we have it outside of the game. Everybody genuinely likes each other and we all get along, I think thats important as well. But, what we and alot of other clans don't have is ingame chemistry, and thats having a set 6 or 7 people, playing with each other for an extended period of time. Not just playing together, but...FO/Med combos, playing the same spots more then a few times.
Amish in RTCW had it, we had 2 brothers (Jimmy/Duck) who we always put together and Haas, Redbird and myself all knew each other really well and pubbed/played with each other for 2-3 seasons. (Our 6th was our panzer/loner), either Seed or Fish :P I think now...maybe 3 of us have a good chemistry. Mal, Eclipse and myself. We're maybe halfway there.
Thats just one of the things that comes over time...and it can take longer/shorter for some clans. Most clans just aren't patient enough. And as far as making dT look like Paradigm Shift, we'd need a small miracle right now :) We'd need Seed to turn on them all, panzer them in spawn scream "Viva la Amish" then quit the server or something. But...chances of that are remote :x
c[_]`Wippuh:
In an upcoming interview with Bani, we asked him what his solution(s) would be for shortening matches. What do you believe would be a good way to shorten matches, to place the emphasis back on offense instead of defense? Do you believe that this is really a nonexistant problem and that the game should focus on other problem areas instead? What would those areas be if so?
Amish Gigolo:
I don't think its that much of a problem right now, if anything I'd call for b_stickycharge 2 to be the accepted standard (Charge bar stays the same, regardless of whether you die by /kill, by an enemy whatever). People may not think its that big of a deal, but...play a round of Battery with stickycharge the way it is now, then play it with it set to 2. Just another decrease in spam is all.
And if matches like went 1-1-1 tied, I'd just do a knife round to settle it. Euros have done that for some of their Cup matches and it just sounds really fucking fun. Which is what this game is supposed to be all about anyways :)
c[_]`Wippuh:
Cal just came out and announced their teams designated for Main. What do you think of the list? What are the pros and cons of having teams like Dead Penguin in Main vs Open? Is there a point where you hurt the game by placing teams that are excellent representatives for the community in positions where they will suffer?
Amish Gigolo:
Its a fine line :/ I know how those teams feel, trust me. Amish was put in CAL-I RTCW too early imho, we had to face Abuse, Doctors, Darkside, wSw etc and we just weren't as good as them. It made us a better team in the longrun, but we never got a chance for any titles or glory. It might sound arrogant (I really don't care), but we would have won CAL-M if we were put down there any season. But, instead we struggled in Invite and tried to break even.
I've always been of the demeanor, I'd rather be bottom half of Invite, then winner of Open/Beta. And that may come off as a huge insult to alot of teams, but...its how you have to look at it :P
c[_]`Wippuh:
Speaking of Main/Open, Alpha/Beta, how do you prevent sandbagging? People will always have accusations to throw around, but there does come a time when it's painfully obvious that the goal is not to step up into the next division. Teams sit around and focus on slacking and winning in the easier division. How do you prevent this and keep the luster of steppin up there?
Amish Gigolo:
I honestly don't know, I never understood sandbagging to be honest. If a team needs to win a lower title to feel good about themselves, then I feel sorry for them. Thats just an open declaration that they can't hang with anyone else. For the true new teams and teams that truly belong in Open/Beta, thats a title to be proud of and means you should be able to move up a level.
Like teams in RTCW, that used 2-3 Invite players and would win. All that says to me is those Invite players aren't that fucking good. You had to pick on noobs to win anything, they shouldn't even be called "invite" players anymore.
c[_]`Wippuh:
Compare and contrast these two llamas (refers to Eclipse and Kith) and introduce the rest of ET to them.
Amish Gigolo:
Eclipse... its pretty disturbing. We're trying to expand his horizons to [more] adjectives, but its not working out that well.
Kith...will try to take the average everyday play, you make in every scrim and try to turn it into a highlight video. He'll grab the flag on SupplyDepot with a second remaining and scream out "OH HELL YES. FUCKING HIGHLIGHT REEL BABY" Or do a 360 degree highlight avi of him killing 2 guys with a nade, wondering how to get nade cam to work.
Also, no matter how bad the stats, he'll find something positive. 4-16? "Wow. I had the least amount of damage taken, you guys are fucking meatshields" "Gig you took like 1600 more damage...damn".."And fucking Mal...1500. Jesus Guys"
Eclipse is better then Kith, so we put up with hi[m] alot more. We just mock Kith endlessly for his.
c[_]`Wippuh:
The last time we conducted an interview with you, we did a character thing where you matched RtCW players to Family Guy characters. That was a big hit. Now that the ET community is well established, lets do the same for it. Match players from the ET community with the characters from Family Guy (or some other show).
Amish Gigolo:
I honestly don't know enough people in the ET Community to compare :/ But, I'll try with Sesame Street. (Already handled Family Guy)
The Count - ABK or Revolver 2 Clans...muhaha...3 Clans! muhaha. 4! 4 Clans! muhaha
Oscar the Grouch - Cyric. Just a pissy individual, turn that frown upside down there fella!
Bert and Ernie - Shatter/Chef. kinda fruity, always together...wtf is going on? Nobody knows...
That Black Guy - Friendlyfire. Is he playing? Is he retired? wtf is he even doing on Sesame Street? Just kinda hangs around with the kids and puppets.
Cookie Monster - I have NO IDEAS for Cookie Monster. God DAMMIT.
c[_]`Wippuh:
Shoutouts
Amish Gigolo:
Shoutouts to the all of maybe one or two teams that both A.) Ready'd up on time and B.) Didn't hit on or harass one of our members during a scrim.
So in other words, Shoutout to Kinetic :P
Team Warped Sanity
Posted by: Px.Chaos (Monday, August 16, 2004)
WARPED SANITY IS BACK.
Chaos|Generic:
Let’s start with a little history of yourselves and the team.
“Lizzard”:
WS formed in RTCW test days. Our first match ever was against GAT. At one time we had 3 teams: red, blue, green.
“Art”:
We have been around for ages
“H3rf”:
We would prefer to be know as the orange WS team now....
“Art”:
We played in ladders, leagues cross games
“Lizzard”:
Most of us meet on Symo's Wolfenstein server.
“Art”:
We had a bf1942 team for a while.
“Mzeo”:
Indeed, the asylum, best RTCW server ever, that is where I meet all the WS noobs back in the day...before playing with them.
“Art”:
Symo back in the day scripted his own stats gathering program, which he also updated and modded through the life of RTCW. Well, my cousin, who is no longer with us, started pestering me to form a team. My wife Jen and I had pubbed a lot since making the change from RTCW to ET and had still kept in touch with Symo and the old crew. When my cousin wanted to put together a team I called upon them to see if they were interested. I had known Mzeo and Wingz from pubs; thought they were pretty noobish but had talent (j.k). So, we nabbed them up and started Team Deviance.
“H3rf”:
Yeah, heh, jk, we all just noobish, no talent.
“Art”:
After a season of doing very well and since most of the team was original WS. We decided that we wanted to go back to the old team, since no one was competing under the WS flag and revive the name. So, we moved back to WS a lot of the old school RTCW peoples remembered us and it was nice to be back in the fight again. After our second season, much changed within our team, some members burned out some had kids others just got frustrated playing the panzer. You know normal team stuff, but there was always a heart waiting and watching for great talent to take us back into the limelight. We missed out on season three trying to rebuild, and that takes us closer to today. A few weeks ago we made probably our two greatest pickups H3rf and Gimmick.
Chaos|Generic:
When I spoke to a lot of alpha teams in the past on who they were looking forward to scrimming, you guys were always mentioned, because as one team put it, "there is no class act better than Warped Sanity." So, where do you see the team headed in the future, cal, twl season 4?
“Art”:
To the top, of course!
“H3rf”:
Yeah, cal for sure. I see us hanging around for a long time not going to die out like a lot of clans; we have great core group of guys here.
“Gimmik”:
Pretty sure twl season 4 too. Lots of talent, maturity, and team work involved in here.
“Lizzard”:
We are a team comprised of "mature individuals" and that is one of our key requirements in any member we pick up.
“Art”:
No matter the game we will be there; I do not see us dying out well till we can not type anymore or till confounded zboards move all the keys to the right and ya get all discombobulated.
Chaos|Generic:
What makes you guys proud to be you, including team accomplishments or overcoming of hard knocks and times.
“Art”:
Well, I for one am just glad to be part of a team that can truthfully say we are a class act. Not to mention, WS getting to the playoffs pretty much any league we played in ET that is.
“H3rf”:
Well, from my viewpoint, that remains to be seen in terms of accomplishments, but I think this team has maturity and ability to last through hard times.
“Lizzard”:
I think one of the reasons we have been around for so long is we have fun no matter the situation.
“Art”:
preach on lizzy
“Mzeo”:
Well, for one, I am very proud of our team's history competing against great, tier 1 teams... (locked on target, rotators, suave). Not to say we had success against them, but we hung in there. I am also proud of our twl playoff run in season 2.
“Lizzard”:
I'm proud of Mzeo!
“Art”:
We almost beat affliction, but I missed a key grenade.
“Mzeo”:
Oh, yeah!
“Art”:
I mean… Mzeo did it! Yeah… that is my story and I am sticking to it.
Chaos|Generic:
What would you say your strongest point is as a team and how do you utilize it in game and with your strategies?
“H3rf”:
Teamwork and good comminications, no one "looses" it on vent. We are really developing as a team, but I think we take a view that each one of us is a "professional" and try not to judge each other per se, and get into a lot useless tit for tat arguing.
“Gimmik”:
Our communication is very good for one and same with our teamwork. Since everyone is a lot older than the average gamer in here, it is very mature and easy with communication and teamwork.
“Art”:
Also, our commitment to the game, doing the nitty grity of getting into a map and making demos of things for others to view at their leisure as well as taking the time out to determine exactly what we are talking about in reference to the maps we are playing.
“Jen”:
Productive criticism.
“Art”:
Wait a sec he just called us all old!
“H3rf”:
kick him from clan!
“Mzeo”:
Symo is the only old guy.
“A-C”:
Symo is a grandpa.
“Art”:
Oh, he is not here let’s rag on him!
Chaos|Generic:
Time for some fun questions! Cake or pie?
“H3rf”:
I like pie...
“Mzeo”:
Pie of course!
“Art”:
DEATH! No! Cake!
“A-C”:
Cake!
“Art”:
Cake please!
“Lizzard”:
Peanut butter and Jelly!
“Art”:
TIME!
“Jen”:
Depends on what flavor.
“Mzeo”:
My old friend from undergrad days called my quake1 gaming 'nerd pieing' so I am partial to pie as a gamer.
Chaos|Generic:
Favorite flavor of icecream?
“Jen”:
CHOCOLATE!!!!!
“Lizzard”:
Rocky Road.
“Mzeo”:
Mint chocolate chip.
“Gimmik”:
Chocolate peanut butter.
“Art”:
Why do I need a favorite! I just stay away from blue cotton candy. bad things happen with blue cotton candy.
“A-C”:
Zucchini
“H3rf”:
and yellow snow.
Chaos|Generic:
Favorite pub smurf name?
“H3rf”:
inferno
“Mzeo”:
butta
“Lizzard”:
it's like butta!
“Jen”:
Satyricon
“Mzeo”:
*ahem* yes...yellow letters 'butter' is my fav.
“Art”:
grumpy
Chaos|Generic:
Any shouts or comments for the community?
“Mzeo”:
Shout out to all the fellows of No Remorse. They make scrimming a blast. Also, shout out to old school morbid_x rtcw'ers. Shout out to Marco...the original rambo med.
“Art”:
For the com: Watch out, we are back. Ditto with mzeo, Shout to to former –r.
“Gimmik”:
I would like to give a shout out to Repent.
“Jen”:
It is good to be back.
“Lizzard”:
Shout out to Rmc, my pubbing boys from the Austin ET server community. Shout out to everyone I've stabbed in the past with my knife!
“Art”:
Shout out to jen, lizzy, h3rf, mzeo, gimmik, a-c, symo, and wingz.
“H3rf”:
Shout out to Symo for taking me in the clan
Nothx
Posted by: c[_]`Wippuh (Monday, August 16, 2004)
In the final little bit of this quick run of ET interviews, we set out to do a full interview with nothx of eXe. From coming to ET from a high level in RtCW, he gives us his view on numerous subject and talks a little more about the 'dT in a month' comment.
c[_]`Wippuh:
Everyone knows where eXe came from, but tell us more about yourself. The nitty gritty on how you came to gaming, what drew you to the RtCW/ET waters, etc...
eXe|nothx:
I'm 17, living in Kingston, Ontario (yes, that is in Canada and no, I don't live in an igloo) going into my senior year of high school. Exciting!!!!!
When I was little I was always into stuff like NES and simple PC games like comander keen. Cool stuff, until I saw my dad playing doom, which I then HAD to play. I've been in love with FPS games ever since. Played all sorts of games for a while, never really competing in anything until RTCW was released. I ended up passing wolf up for Jedi Knight 2 (what can I say, Jedi Knight 1 was really good :x) which I played until the release of UT2003. Competed a bit in that with my crappy connection before moving to ET. It was something different, had a larger community, and I remembered having fun playing medic in the wolf test. So I gave it a shot.
c[_]`Wippuh:
eXe had a pretty good name in RtCW. From tTt, qcon qualifiers and Cal-M playoff experience, what has really benefitted the team the most from RtCW? Give us 5 factors that really help RtCW teams crossover into ET.
eXe|nothx:
The basics. Most rtcw have them down, many ET teams neglect them.
Shooting - Although your guns won't get you far, wolf experience is a HUGE advantage when moving to ET.
Aiming in ET is similar enough that a good shot in wolf can be a good shot in ET with a little bit of adaptation.
Gibbing - Your 4 person smg kill streak doesn't mean shit if they all get revived.
Class skills - Matters more so to medics than LTs, who aren't going to know where to arty/can.
Playing with people you've played with for a while also helps a ton.
c[_]`Wippuh:
There's the quasi controversial statement that you guys would be able to take out dT within a month or two. What weaknesses do you see in their armor? Do you still stand by that statement? What happens if dT has players go semi inactive, you beat them and then everyone starts clamoring about 'oh they weren't the dT of old'? Finally, what are the pros and cons of having a team like dT in the scene?
eXe|nothx:
I don't think its necessarily one weakness, more like I don't think their armor is very thick. People have it in their heads that dT are god's gift to ET, which is false. They are a very solid and consistant team, meaning you never see them make huge mistakes or deviate too far from their gameplan. I think dT are an example of what any team could be if they focused on the basics: gibbing, med pushing, timing and splitting your offense etc. In my opinion they are very beatable, and I do stand by that statement. Depends on the map really, we've practiced certain maps alot more than others. Experience is their biggest asset.
Obviously it would suck if any of them went inactive, I don't think anybody wants to play a team when they aren't at their best.
c[_]`Wippuh:
Lets follow up on that one. As you're pretty aware of from RtCW, teams build their reps, do well, etc... Some keep on playing, some go off into the sunset. Eventually these teams become bigger than life, myths almost. Guys like Drs, Abuse, p*, Rotators, etc... Who are the teams from RtCW that you would like to see in ET? Who do you think, both team and individual wise, would really do well in ET if they made the changeover?
eXe|nothx:
I'd like to see ALL wolf teams make the jump to ET, but the majority of them either haven't or won't give the game a legitimate shot.
Any team or individual with experience competing at a high level in wolf will be able to reach a similar level in ET relatively quickly, since they will already have the basic gameplay mechanics down (also considering the sad state of ET competition). Honestly, I'd rather not have people playing if they dislike the game. Stay out, fuckers.
c[_]`Wippuh:
Qcon '05 ET looks like a distinct possibility. You've participated in the 2nd Battle of the Atlantic, where the NA team got beat up on pretty good. Needless to say that this was an organized pub game with many chaotic factors, but what did you see in that match that you believe NA will have to work on in order to challenge the Euros at Qcon '05?
eXe|nothx:
Strats. Both on offense and defense, the euros had far superior strats on oasis. I haven't seen any north american team successfully run anything like the setup that was used against the atlantic battle team. The european team was able to play so cohesively in such a short amount of time because all of the players are used to running a similar strat on oasis. Also, I've seen far too many teams seemingly neglect strats for offense. People seem to think that a full team med push will get them where they need to go. On maps like oasis, its far too easy to setup a crossfire to totally cut down any full team rush, no matter the direction. Don't skimp on your offense strats and expect to get anywhere but full held. Unfortunately, the current top teams can get away with relatively weaker strats because the level of competition in north america is quite low. Truth is, the strats I've seen used most often would be dismantled quickly and easily by most mid-level european teams. Goldrush would be more even. Its hard to say on radar, since they've always played with grass (makes it easier to do east radar D) while we removed as soon as we could.
c[_]`Wippuh:
You make the jump from RtCW at the tail end of both seasons almost. What was the biggest adjustment you had to make? What was the biggest surprise?
(changing this to jumping TO wolf)
eXe|nothx:
Biggest adjustment would have to be getting used to bursting, with the increased spread of the wolf SMGs. I also couldn't pull of running/jumping revives like I could in ET.
Biggest surprise..the crappy netcode. In ET I really don't bitch about my pings, but playing wolf would turn me into one SERIOUS pingwhore. I did enjoy wolf, but it wasn't really as fun as it could have been had I started playing in the game's prime. It just felt played out I guess, like everyone already knew the nuances of each map, with everyone running the same strats etc.
c[_]`Wippuh:
A lot of people complain about the spam factor in ET. One thing they don't complain about though is the weaker pf. Lets say I propose the idea of putting the pf back on the level it is in RtCW. What do you think of that? Does that stop the mindless med rushing and deeply fortified spawn positions?
eXe|nothx:
Let me start by saying I really don't think there is a spam problem in ET anymore. I think the 6v6 format and class restrictions really did alot for the game.
I don't like the idea that one weapon can make/break a game. The panzer in ET is very situational, and in my opinion, its better that way. There's always the RIFLENADE to compensate for the weaker panzer..its very effective for taking out certain positions. As for the mindless med rushing, full team rushes get mowed down pretty quickly by any team with decent gibbing..which SHOULD be everyone.
c[_]`Wippuh:
RtCW2 on the Doom3 engine! Wow, the possibilities are endless. Take the best aspects of both games and tell me what you want to see in the following areas for RtCW2...
- xp, map design, classes, speed, cvar tweaking, etc...
Tell us 5 things from each game that you would want to eliminate also.
eXe|nothx:
I'd like to see the same sort of classes (medic, LT, eng) and gameplay with a bit more emphasis on individual skill. How would you accomplish that?
Guns, lots of guns. SMGs, rifles, or whatever is cool as long as they have the 'wolf' feel to them. Firing the same SMG with no spread is getting kinda boring. Maybe building command posts at the forward bunker would give you access to more guns? Yeah. Also make it faster. More sprint, continuous strafe jumping on flat ground (with decreased accuracy of course) and increased run speed while not using sprint. Get rid of the medic health advantage. So I guess my vision of the perfect wolf is a bit more deathmatchy than most peoples'. I also think using a setting other than world war 2 would be nice.
Maps need to be simple, fast and have less fucking corners and hallways. I really think every map should have a forward bunker ala ice.
It needs to be difficult to set up crossfires and getting to the objective(s) shouldn't take 30s.
To eliminate from ET:
Mines - Because it sucks when I get killed by them.
Covert ops - You can't have my pants.
Riflenades - Piece of shit gun.
Heavy Weapons
Locked box - I'd rather people played pickups and learned how to play for something other than stats.
STATS -Eliminate annoying ass statwhores, lets get people playing for the objective on pubs again.
I like that engineers in ET are just more than just an smg with pliers, even though landmines and riflenades are kinda lame. Maybe in RTCW2 engineers could..construct breakdancing robots to do battle in the FAR FUTURE, or whatever.
c[_]`Wippuh:
Shoutouts
eXe|nothx:
The entire weekendmix crew on quakenet (I love all of u <3), si, lolyoku, slayer, mindgame, shea, zach and eXe. Also shoutout to everyone who volunteers their time for the community. Oh yeah, coke too!
CodeWarrior
Posted by: c[_]`Wippuh (Friday, August 13, 2004)
Sometimes you have to give back to the community. With a recent rash of high profile l33tz0rs being interviewed, it was decided that we attack someone who is definitely not l33t. It didn't take long to find the most unskilled clan ever, tUx. Here he is folks, in all his nonflight glory, Codewarrior.
c[_]`Wippuh:
introduce yourself to everyone. Tell us who you are, how you got into gaming, how dead penguin formed, etc...
tUx.CodeWarrior:
Aight, well I play under the handle tUx.CodeWarrior, I live in Regina, Canada and I just turned the big 3-0. I started Dead Penguin with some friends and some regulars on our pub in order to play in BOB1 for shits and giggles. We had some fun preparing for our first BOB match, working out some strats, getting scrims and whatnot. We went into our first match not knowing what to expect but feeling that we could probably do OK in the tourney. We played the Drs the first round. We became enlightened.
c[_]`Wippuh:
now that you've introduced yourself, tell us about the rest of the characters on your team. What are the pros and cons of having so many Canadalanders on tUx?
tUx.CodeWarrior:
Oh man, our roster has alot of peeps that are part-time and honorary members its kinda hard to keep this readably brief.
ABM - old school penguin, still active, this one time, at boot camp, he stuck an mp40 in his pussy.
AssGasket - old school retired pub all star, still hates Wippuh tho ;)
Disko - been around along time, getting more active starting this season
Jimmy-Hoho - pimp from way back
Bluejacket - did the ICF thing for a while, mostly inactive now. Ars guy.
Bee - cool headed penguin, plays with some noob rtcw team part time
play0r - came from DooM/Ars along with Bee, inactive due to work :(
Storm - came from .com and previously DooM with Bee and others...
Shake - unhealthy fascination with cartoons, another Ars guy
2sleep - another one from the Ars school, fucking pwns in trivia so hard no one bothers to play anymore
Got two more noobies to help us out next season too:
Zerito - formerly Omni of D|A and .com storm wouldnt stop talking about this guy
Panik - formerly of Deliverance, has access to really strong glue
shoutout to Tariq and all the old penguins on http://deadpenguin.com/clan.html
Disko, JHo and myself are the only canucks still active. We're all in Regina and we tried doing the lan thing once but all that led to was having all 3 of us go 999 when the ice gophers start chewing the line. We've got guys in the clan from New Jersey to California too so we're pretty spread out. The American players are always asking us to sneak them across the border for free health care and good beer too, so thats sometimes an issue but in the end I think we've got a great bunch of guys and that keeps us going season after season.
c[_]`Wippuh:
try to provide us a firsthand view of the hate directed towards penguins? From flash games where the Yeti smacks penguins with his bat, nothx blaming penguins for chewing through his dsl line, all the way to Chilly Willy the penguin getting sub par roles with Warner Brothers studio, why is there so much hate?
tUx.CodeWarrior:
Everyone knows those Yeti are punk bitches man. They gotta do flash and shit to make themselves feel all cool and stuff but they never bring it man! I dunno what part of Canada nothx is in but out here in the praries its ice gophers chewing the lines. In the end tho I think the real hate direced towards the Penguin is just a manifestation of the publics preconceptions. Most ppl are like, "A flightless bird? WTF? Fly you fat bitches!" And the penguin is all like "Dont opress me! OPRESSOR!" and you know, maybe we all need to take a step back and just say like its ok for each of us to be ourselves. Except Batman, fucking Batman always trying to keep a brother down.
c[_]`Wippuh:
Speaking of sub par, DP has been around forever in numerous games. However, they only secured their first playoff win just a week or two ago. What went wrong there? How has the team managed to stick together so many seasons despite obvious lack of ability ;)
tUx.CodeWarrior:
Heh, yeah. I dunno what happened there. Our long standing tradition of losing the first round of playoffs went out the window. We really didnt prepare much at all for any of the games this season but somehow we pulled off a lightly better record than we have before. Deliverance pulling out changed our division quite a bit. We really are more of a social club than a hardcore gaming team so the losing thing doesnt usually bother us too much. Some of the matches that we had the most fun playing were the ones with smf. There just wasnt a hope in hell of winning so theres no preassure, we laughed our asses off at our selves the whole time. I think we ended up running 4 coverts and so did they. Some sten maddness going on there. Good times, good times...
c[_]`Wippuh:
Qcon '05 includes ET and the guys wanna hit Dallas to show it some
sloppy lovin' First you've got to get through qualifiers though. By a miracle of chance Minesweeper 2 is released that week and the 3 other teams in your qualifying bracket forfeit in order to concentrate on it. Being that minesweeper is too advance for your team, you concentrate on the qualifiers and narrowly make into the tourney. Now that you're a progamer, you've got to of course go through a lan bootcamp the week before Qcon. As the fearless leader, tell us how you would set up the bootcamp and the goals you would establish for your team!
tUx.CodeWarrior:
Obviously for a team like ours we need to all get to the same level. I would be hauling cases of beer down there to get our US counter parts into shape. I expect I'd end up spending alot of time keeping ABM away from the hookers though too. This would lead to us getting eliminated the first round, thus restoring order to the universe. I'd then take the whole gang and a sack of doorknobs to find Wippuh and give him his comeuppance. I might even buy Wipp a beer after his savage beating. Arent I a nice fellow?
c[_]`Wippuh:
Of course, making it into the Qcon tourney would likely nominate you as an alpha team. In almost all games with multiple tiers, there's a lot of sandbagging and teams try not to step up into the upper leagues for fear of losing and constant beatdowns. Your team faced this dilema in the past and you've stated that you didn't believe your team was ready but that you would step up as losing and beatdowns are things you're all too familar with. How do you solve this problem and make Alpha the goal for beta teams to achieve?
tUx.CodeWarrior:
Yeah us in Alpha still make me laugh. I think they need to make/keep Alpha a larger division. I think that teams will be less likely to sandbag if they think there is someone in Alpha that is beatable. Personally I like playing in beta and dont really aspire to do any better. There are some really cool people ET beta, I think I've met more ppl in ET-beta than I did rtcw. Of course, if I actually had any kind of clue I'd just go start my own league.
c[_]`Wippuh:
In ET, there's not a lot of variation seen by many. What works for dT is going to be used by the large majority. What are the pros and cons of this vs using unorthodox styles in matches, and more importantly scrims.
tUx.CodeWarrior:
Well, copying strats from the top teams makes alot of sense for nubs like us as it gives us somewhere to start. From there though I think teams need to tweak the strats to suit the abilities of thier membership. I think that the lack of variation in strats comes alot from the fact that the maps really dont give teams alot of options. Over time that will evolve though as offence strats change the defence strats will change. I think if things get too static for too long, its time to retire the map. Customs, even shitty customs keep things fresh. Scrims? What are scrims?
c[_]`Wippuh:
Everyone's moaning about the decline of ET. Since the end of the 1st preseason in TWL, everyone has been predicting the death of the game. The game isn't going anywhere, with a strong playerbase and a very reasonable price. However, if the game is going to continue with a strong following in the competitive scene, what do you think needs to happen?
tUx.CodeWarrior:
I'm not sure what people want from a game that will keep them playing. I stopped playing rtcw cause I just couldnt play beach/assault/base one more time. So for me as long as theres new maps coming into play and decent people to play against I'll stick around. It'll probably end up being me vs abm in the TWL Beta championship Season 256. I suppose though that it would help if the people that are playing in the leagues got more involved in the community. Volunteer to help at ET-Center. Articles and interviews are always good to see, any aspiring writers should start writing now! I remember back in the day you interviewed every single cal-open rtcw team. I thought that was a great way to get and keep people involved. Something like that for ET would be awesome (subtle hint).
c[_]`Wippuh:
Finally, by some miracle, you make it to the playoffs again next season. You want to continue the winning streak in the first round and you see the golden opportunity. TWL has given you, because of your low seed, the chance to handpick the players you will play in the first round. You've got to have a full roster to compete so you can't pick the obvious "anyone with a tUx tag". Tell us the 6 starters you would face off against, and the bencher that's gonna come in when abm chews through someone's connection. Don't forget to tell us why!
tUx.CodeWarrior:
Awww man, anyone who has taken as many losses as I have instinctively does not care about winning. I will say though that I do miss some of the old school rtcw homies. I'd like to get some game on with JGo and Deathstar from Goons, some really decent peeps there. And Buddah from 7Angels/Overdrive, what happened to that guy (C&C; I think?) He was a good shit. And Soul from |D|, a good player and a really cool cat.
c[_]`Wippuh:
Shoutouts for ya homies!
tUx.CodeWarrior:
Shit, I think I gave out most of my shoutouts here and there in the interview all ready. Maybe shout out to Rahl and the SoS crew, havent seen them guys in a while. A big shoutout to the RAS guys, good people man. A nod to smf who gave us the most fun and most severe beatings we've had. Also a shoutout to all our former clans .com, D|A, Overdrive, 7 Angels, Deliverance, ICF, aUv, FBA... a shoutout to all the people that expressed an interest in playing on the penguin team next season, you must be crazy, but thanks! And a big shoutout to Johann for his help this past season.
Mudda
Posted by: Virus047|STA| (Wednesday, November 21, 2007)
Today I sat down with Mudda from Team Cross Breed to discuss some things important to him and to the community and to generally just get to know him a little better. I’m hoping this return to interviews will spark renewed interest in the community as well as bring something positive back into a community that really could use it. I’ll attempt to interview some players who you’ve never really heard of or perhaps don’t have a huge name in the community. In reality it’s those players who make up the vast majority of what’s left of the active NA ET community anyway so let’s get to know them better. Today we start with Mudda.
Virus047:
Welcome Mudda! Thanks for sitting down with me and answering some questions.
Mudda:
I had to leave some horrible new map on et box for this! I hope its good.
Virus047:
First off would you please describe to the community a little about yourself. Job? Hobbies? Etc. anything that can give the community an idea of the person you really are.
Mudda:
I'm married, have a 7-year old son, and insomnia.
Virus047:
Awesome. You’ve been around the gaming world for a long time. Not only in ET competition but in RTCW as well. Go ahead and give us your gaming history. Clans. League experience. The works. What got you involved in gaming? That sort of thing.
Mudda:
Well shit. My gaming experience is often overstated. I've been around forever, yes. But my competition experience is not overwhelming. Life has frequently gotten in the way. I've always been into gaming and the first real computer game that I rocked online was Command and Conquer. A buddy of mine introduced me to the beta test for rtcw. I remember we used to go eng and just run around tossing dynos in the trans room, go through toss dyno in doc room...30 seconds later boom. You didn't have to arm it in the first beta test heh. Then came test2. My friends name was NaziMotherFucker so I went by NaziMuddaFucka, originally. I ran into some guys on some server whose name is escaping me now. We founded an rtcw-betatest2 clan called Da Dirty Dozen (DDzn). We were aweful. We had no verbal comms, basically just pubbed it but it was fun. I was Clan War coordinator. Haha! It was fun and interesting. We went to the full game and pretty much fell apart.
I joined M2, another betatest2 clan because they knew me and I knew them. I played comp with them infrequently for a few seasons, but quit the game because I was hardcore addicted. My wife (girlfriend at the time) hated that game with a passion. ET was released and I was itching again so I tried it out. Luckily my comp absolutely sucked (PIII 500 mhz voodoo3 grphx crd) So i was pretty much unable to play comp with M2 in ET until I built a newish computer back a few seasons ago. It still sucks compared to most of yours I'm sure, but when coming from 5-15 fps, it was night and day. I tried to bring M2 back to gaming but we never could get 6 for a match.
One night, out of the blue I was pubbing with wolfandbeer and he asked me to ring. I then joined pr/and1 ,=- and learned a lot about the game and et comp. I joined after week 2 of season whatever that was and somehow found myself in alpha with never playing a full gaming season at any level. We scrimmed a lot. That team was perfect for me because I was a late nighter and many of my teammates were left-coasters. And1 was just for fun and we screwed around pretty much. A "retired" from ET. Virus contacted me and asked me to help out team crossbreed and tbh the only reason I did is because I didn't have to show up for anything all week and they'd let me play in a match hell, I would disappear for a few weeks and still get playing time. So I was never around until this season and we started scrimming a lot. And that's today. So this is only my 4th clan in nearly 6 years.
Virus047:
What was your most memorable match you’ve played in personally? From ET or RTCW? Doesn’t matter. Details!
Mudda:
Well, there's two. First, I had quit playing rtcw (at least that's what my g/f thought) and I decided to come back for a match against the Alliance of Soup Nazis because she wasn't home or something (now that's addiction). It was on ice and was absolutely a blast. Score was 2-2 going into the final round and we capped in a reasonable amount of time. I had snuck to the trans on defense and their best player Johnny was running docs with under a minute left. I had that shit CC'd and completely failed. We lost and before the match everyone knew it was going to be my last. I threw my game away because I realized I couldn't stay away from it any other way. So my last match in rtcw was a 3-2 intense match where I failed at the end. My other memorable match was my et victory with pain redefined over .com in the playoffs. I'm sure I've covered this enough but I can't tell you how great that feeling was pulling off that upset. Truly is the reason why I play this game still, to prove people wrong.
Virus047:
That sucks. Johnny was a quality guy though, I played several seasons with him. He still trolls around IRC and CB vent from time to time. Next question! Who in the current community do respect the most? Who do you respect the least? Why?
Mudda:
wow, I think I respect most of the old u5 guys above anyone else, especially nomad, radea and alea. No matter how I've run my mouth (which I did a lot against emanonk and after the gameface incident), they still treated me with respect. They let their guns do the talking and play the game the way it should be played. I respect what they did @qcon also. I think it's difficult to pick one person I respect the least...personality wise maybe a&w;, gameplay style maybe muslim, shit talk with no reason to like coppacity, forum whores who call the game dead but won't go away. I would also say I respect guys like H3rf who have provided stability to the community and he is missed by me.
Virus047:
Favorite ET or RTCW Map?
Mudda:
beach...i was born there and for some reason it never gets old to me. I miss the days of test2 when i was a noob and learning at such a high rate.
Virus047:
The NA ET community is almost dead. That’s a given. It is hard to find scrims on any given night. Very few active teams are still around. New games are attracting current players and teams and generally the ET community is continuing to get smaller. There is a lot of negativity in the community. Hackers and hack accusations are rampant. Other than STA continuing to hold its leagues/support for ET and a few random Cups members of the community have held, the competition is very limited. What is keeping teams and players around still? Where do you see the ET Community going in 2008? Will there be a NA Community in 2009?
Mudda:
Well, being a free game has its benefits and its downfalls. Hacking is an extraordinary problem because of it, but there is also the continued stream of new players. This season in STA, many new teams were formed (and some legit!) and overall I didn't find it too difficult to find a scrim. Early in the season, we scrimmed sandals like every damn night it seemed. It doesn't seem to go through irc like it used to. I used to be able spam on there and have my choice of scrim, now you get no responses. I usually get asked on xfire now and that's where all my contacts are. What I think is keeping people around is the game itself really is a great game. This community has its issues and the hacking problems are obnoxious, but overall the team play of this game is wonderful. It's dynamic, yet simple. It's fast paced but not overwhelmingly so. I really think the game keeps us coming back for more. Will the game be around competitively in 2009? I think it depends on a release of rtcw2. I think that would effectively destroy the last remaining competitive community. I find it amazing that people still play RTCW season like 20 now. This was a good season and I think one more year of this game is doable.
Virus047:
What is the main reason you’ve stuck around this long?
Mudda:
insomnia mixed with disdain for late night television and too lazy to learn a new game plus, I don't know if i want to be a noob again with a new game...look how long it took me to be decent at this one!
Virus047:
This community needs any and everything positive it can to help keep it from degrading past the point of no return or better put past the point of having no community left! What is something that could be done to help?
Mudda:
I think I would really like to see people doing objective on pubs again. I know it sounds absurd but the game is much more fun that way. I've never understood why the same noobs that go out full constantly can't wait the same 30 seconds for a new map to load and bitch about it. Pubbing in today's ET is bad for an individual's game play and I get so pissed so often on pubs because of how aweful the players are on there.
I think playing pubs the right way OR completely fucking around makes it fun. If you want to scrim around and go knife only or flame or whatever, fine...but don't just be an idiot medic who runs past revives to chase down a possible +1 on your ratio. Also, playing like a pussy ass bitch does not make you a better comp player.
Virus047:
Are hacks really that rampant in the community? Do you think they are that big of a problem as everyone says they are?
Mudda:
In pubs yes. It's pretty obvious, but I really can't believe that that many comp players are hacking. I'm one of those people that you will almost never hear accuse a real player of hacking (except storm and serbian circa rtcw days). I believe those are like the only two people I recall calling out blatantly. Some people I've been suspicious of but the typical accused like matt and kuaii I've never really thought were. so I really don't know, but I don't think there's much that can be done anyways anymore. So I just play and make believe everyone's legit. Like u5 used to say, you can't hack team work.
Virus047:
You and several other pride yourself on high levels of damage given in a round and gibbing kids like crazy. Why?
Mudda:
haha, you never know when that extra bit of damage can save the day because a med couldn't pass out one more pack or because the nade gibbed a guy low hp. Basically high damage means your making life tough on your opponent. It means you are throwing them off their game in some way. When I was playing with wolfandbeer it was all about spawn camping and getting people out full so I gib naturally. I frequently gib like 20 people in pubs just out of habit. It also probably relates to when me and cranky used to soldier smg and have high damage wars on pubs.
Virus047:
Are the Cleveland Indians going to win the World Series in 2008? Outlook?
Mudda:
ah, I'd like to think so. We pretty much were 1 win away from winning it this year (no the National League did not count this season). I think a lot hinges on resigned C.C. and getting some productivity back out of Pronk. Otherwise, we have the best farm system in baseball and have a plethora of young talent coming up. Things look good for a Cleveland-Boston ALCS repeat for basically another World Series to the winner
Virus047:
Brady Quinn or Anderson? Who should be the Browns QB in 2008?
Mudda:
ah, great question. A lot of hype has surrounded Anderson this year, but he is still completing under the 60% magic number for a top flight NFL QB. He misses a lot of throws and I don't think Brady will. Brady Quinn WILL start in 2009, 2008 will probably be Anderson still and hopefully we can get something for him. It's really eerily similar to the Drew Brees/Philip Rivers situation. I thought it was possible Marty would be back in Cleveland next season if Crennel lost his job or even Bill Cowher, but that doesn't look like it will happen now.
Virus047:
You’re a very solid shot in game. Better than me for sure. What’s your sensitivity?
Mudda:
I'm very high sensitivity. I can't handle having to pick up my mouse to turn. I think I'm at 3.27 but my windows mouse stuff is all up high (which I'm told is bad for your mouse movement, but I'm too lazy and old to bother changing).
Virus047:
Almost finished! Match up members of the current ET community with the crew of the USS Enterprise from Star Trek. Why those players?
Kirk:
Spork:
McCoy (Bones):
Scotty:
Sulu:
Uhura:
Chekov:
Random Klingon:
Random Red Shirt:
Mudda:
ol I've never watched that show in my life, but I'll try. Kirk: Captain linsen (cuz he's an amazing leaderer) Spock: Ouro because he fronts like an intellectual but is really just full of shit. McCoy/Bones: no idea, how about suffer because he likes bones? Scotty: Beams people up I think. Pink because he's an idiot. Sulu: Lindsay is asian Uhura: Mercy (I think this one was black) Chekov: no fuckin clue. Random Klingon: those dudes are ugly as fuck so how about rivrstx Random Red Shirt: Apparently these people just run to their deaths, so I nominate my whole team crossbreed
Virus047:
Shout-outs to friends? Family? Clanmates? Sladden?
Mudda:
haha, honestly too many to name. I really love a lot of people and things about this community. My only shout out goes to jookyz for being one of the only people I've met on vent that I still couldn't stand. Oh and keddy from the Guild for officially ruining Pain Redefined. And to any kids out there, I could be your teacher so don't piss me off in game or you'll regret it later.
Virus047:
Thanks again Mudda! It’s been an honor to frag with you the past few seasons with Team Cross Breed and a pleasure doing this interview! See you on vent!
Mudda:
you can see on vent? hacker
Axcess
Posted by: BYE|david (Friday, September 7, 2007)
Alright, I have finally gotten off my ass to give you guys an interview with an all around great guy that has been in this community for quite some time. He finally agreed to this, so here is Axcess.
[David]
For those of us who don’t know you, give us your name, age, and where you’re from.
[Axcess]
My online alias is Axcess obviously, which I started using after I saw it at Kohl's Department Store (men's clothing line or some shit). My real name is Jake, but many people already know that since I always use a voice activated mic and people bother me IRL. I think the best is when my mom calls me down for dinner (hi epic). I recently turned 20 years old and am from Madison, Wisconsin.
[David]
Let’s not forget your dad snoring downstairs :)
[Axcess]
Lmao, yeah.
[David]
Where do you attend school? And do you work as well?
[Axcess]
I'm a full time student at the University of Wisconsin - Madison. And rofl at working, you know how lazy I am.
[David]
What do you do in your free time, when you’re not dominating the Enemy Territories?
[Axcess]
Recently my favorite activity is finding random parties along Langdon or somewhere thereabouts and drinking the shitty beer they provide. Otherwise I enjoy poker (where I rape my friends), watching TV, eating monstrous amounts of food (recently went to a rib joint and ate 3 racks of ribs, fries and bread in one sitting), and casual frisbee.
I should mention that along with my favorite activity goes trying to hit on girls and failing miserably.
[David]
What about that famous Wisconsin cheese?
[Axcess]
I only eat the fake cheese in Kraft macaroni and cheese. Wisconsin cheese can suck a pimp.
[David]
What teams have you played with over the years?
[Axcess]
I started on the usual shitty unpatched teams, and eventually patched it up to play CAL. My first real team was Triple Zilch. After that I changed my name, even though bull (not guild) caught me :P I guess the next team I was on was decrepit, an unbelievably terrible team me and blazen made. After that folded (pretty quickly mind you) I think my next team was =N4RC=. From there I moved to BYE, where I stayed for almost 2 years. Then following my short stint with Sinners Revolution, I joined you, Blue, Colin, and Jason to form gameface. And, the rest is history
[David]
What was the best team you played with during your time in ET? The most enjoyable one? Why?
[Axcess]
The best team was easily gameface. Even though during our time u5 still raped us, we still did pretty well, especially season 9 when we actually scrimmed. I would say that team BYE was more enjoyable though, I really miss Hammer, Sith, Slad, Storm, Whoops, etc. :(
[David]
You don’t miss yours truly???
[Axcess]
LOL FORGOT SORRY
[David]
What player helped you the most in becoming as successful as you are in this game?
[Axcess]
Assuming I'm successful, remember I still can't aim for shit :D
[David]
True, but you can r-nade somewhat decently ;)
[Axcess]
I would definitely say that Plush aka OMC and Alea35 helped the most. Back in BYE, I played medic/fop basically until the end of CAL Season 5 when we won (yay). The next season, no remorse played smf on oasis, and I watched omc basically tear them apart. I realized how powerful the rnade could be, so I started looking for any demo I could to help me learn it (plus I pubbed locked box endlessly). Oh, and alea's stuff from qcon 05 against idle and etc.
[David]
So demos were also a big part for you?
[Axcess]
Yeah, I watched quite a few trying to get those shots down with the r-nade.
[David]
Do you plan on sticking with ET as long as it holds out, or will you move on to another game? Like ET:QW.
[Axcess]
Competitive ET is long dead. Playing against so many shady fucking people makes me want to choke a bitch. However, I still enjoy the game itself; no game can ever or will ever replace ET at its prime. I'll probably keep a team like SNL going for a while in STA and just pub matches (scrimming these days is laughable at best). And, et:qw is gay as hell, even though I've only played it for a few hours.
I’ll give it a try once It’s finished.
[David]
And play with BYE of course, right?
[Axcess]
:p
[David]
How was the whole Quakecon experience when you participated with Warped Sanity in 2006?
[Axcess]
It was actually a lot of fun despite being a complete sausage fest. Meeting some people you've played with online for so long is great /end standard qcon-question response. Boi Herf Lizz and Blazen are all awesome. Although, being made to sleep on the floor only to wake up with Herf's feet right in front of your face is a little disturbing, but w/e. I bought cigarettes for Blazen and got drunk with bL-matt. Also seeing how the euros play as a team taught me a lot about the game. During this time I also improved as a player quite a lot.
Oh, also Lizzard didn't pay when we went through a pay toll, and I don’t know if they ever caught him :)
[David]
Is Blazen as big of a paki/noob in person?
[Axcess]
Yes he's definitely very brown. I don’t know if the airlines were suspicious or anything, but he's a cool guy :D
[David]
Do you have a match that was most memorable to you? Why?
[Axcess]
gameface vs. oNpoint Season 8 TWL Finals is probably the one I remember best, especially following the whole u5 guid BS. After losing adlernest so badly, I didn't figure we were going to win at all. Then came supply and the most fun I've had in an ET match (love you anim). :)
[David]
Alright, any shoutouts to finish this off?
[Axcess]
No, everyone else is ... :)
[David]
Haha, if that is the case, then thanks for the interview.
[Axcess]
Love you too :)
Slurpee
Posted by: [M2]Mudda (Saturday, August 25, 2007)
Ok, I just wanted to preface this by saying that I came to a realization about this game and this community recently. I think we as a community can continue on for a while and even improve if we keep our attitudes right and keep having fun or we can fall apart right now. This interview series is my little part in this attempt to bring something positive to the game. My first interview I chose Slurpee because probably one of the nicest guys on the netz and been around the game for a long time. Go go gadget interview!
[Mudda]
First, the intro stuff. Who are you? How long have you been playing the game? Past clans?
[Slurps]
My name is Corey Leavenworth, im from New Zealand and attend Western Michigan University for finance. I started playing ET early 2004 and started to play comp a few months later. Played with RAS]]] for a bit and then joined and played with //Concept in Alpha/Invite for a few seasons, then moved onto Sinister 6 which later become United*5. Soon after was bit wth the irl and css bug.
I played for ftw, .fa., and some other minor teams in my free time but really haven't taken the game seriously since i took a 6 month break in 05'
[Mudda]
So Western Michigan. Do the girls like your hair there?
[Slurps]
rofl yes :D I do alot of traveling and MI is the only place you really see alot of guys with long/curly/shaggy hair, we're weird up here by Canada.
[Mudda]
yah, that shit is contagious
[Slurps]
>8]
[Mudda]
Out of all your past teams, which was the best team to play for while you were on it? Why?
[Slurps]
Haha, Sinister 6 by far with Def, SpeciaL, kiss, conflict, spartan, LUDA, Palehorse, billusional easily the best skill wise (sw_goldrush was our bitch when it came out) and the best vent, i still keep close contact with nearly all the members. But it all really came down to Concept skill wise, i learned very early they were a serious, disciplined, gib/dg oriented squad.
[Mudda]
Was et your first comp game? or did you have a virgin experience?
[Slurps]
Funny story, my dad was a actually a great Quake/Doom player (Single Player) in the mid 90's so i got into FPS that way, but as far as online goes, i bought RTCW and the game itself broke, but it had this little thing called ET FOR FREE!! that came with it, i gave it a go, thought online gaming was pretty dumb at first, then i discovered covert ops, and just fun pubs and i got into ET quick.
[Mudda]
haha, "I'ma covert ops!"
[Slurps]
Seeing an FG-42 FOV 90 cg_drawgun 1 with default config is pure lust.
[Mudda]
Do you miss those pub days with the leveling up xp and thinking everyone tagged up was hacking because you couldn't understand how they got that good?
[Slurps]
When someone first called out the term AIMBOT, i thought it was aol instant messanger, like an away message, AIM-Bot, that would store your missed messages :D But yea, leveling up and covert ops on fueldump is the best times for sure lol
[Mudda]
lol... What's your favorite thing about et/competitive gaming? Least favorite?
[Slurps]
Favorite i would say the game itself, the game of ET w/ bani is amazing. Im sad it didn't have a bigger audience, but it was free, so its understandable that it didn't go "LAN" - Least Fav i would say is sometimes the audience as well, its kind of annoying (even w/ antilag) to play against 100 pingers with the massive amounts of crouch/prone in ET, takes away from aim you see in cs 1.6 and q3
Especially playing cs, when its all under 30 ping and slower moving
[Mudda]
In moving up the et world, what one (or more) player(s) had the most influence on you?
[Slurps]
In my early days i would watch Swink in pubs, and be amazed how he played the game and his aim and 1v1 skills. Later on when i started scrimming i was in awe of the teamwork of dT, and some of the shots i saw in the Casuality Movie, my first Frag Movie viewing.
[Mudda]
Did you watch a lot of demos?
[Slurps]
Yea, when i started to play Alpha/Invite with Concept, i would watch any good LT demo i could and just watch how they positioned cans and such. As i got RIGHT into comp when i started ET, i kinda figured out the game via spec/demo/ or playing in scrims rather then being a pubratiostar to learn the game
Which i am very thankful for as my backbone of the view of the game, i remember Spoogee aka Broken grilling me on vent when i wouldnt gib or /kill when all i was worried about was accuracy and stats.
[Mudda]
I think every clan leader still does that.
Do you have any advice for players new to comp or looking to improve?
[Slurps]
I remember when i went back to leisure ET and taking it easy in beta i told FTW guys to always look up, have your xhair directly on where you think the enemy is going to go, i would tell them dg and shooting far > mostly anything in ET. So many players rely on being 2 feet away in a 1v1 due to pub play learning the game.
Crossfire and DG will win against 99% of teams instead of CC and playing for 1v1 stats. :x
Im not sure i was "directly" involved, but some very good players came out of there in Kenyon, Vegetable, Pedro and so on
[Mudda]
haha, Ill ask them in later interviews ;)
[Slurps]
haha
[Mudda]
Any comments on the closing of TWL|ET?
[Slurps]
It was inevitable. The game was starting to slow, WoW was killing good et players left and right, im glad it's done honestly, i really didn't want it to pull a wolf and have 5 teams playing on a ladder in season 35
Summer League and STA are a great change, i was very skeptic at first but their different configs and teams forming, its a nice change.
[Mudda]
If you could get rid of and/or bring back one player to et, who would it be and why?
[Slurps]
DefinitioN, hahahahaha hated by so many but i love Sam. He was a great medic and shot, and could make an entire vent comical and brought the best out in players.
[Mudda]
ok one last question New Zealand or Michigan?
[Slurps]
NZ 4 life. I 8]
Anim
Posted by: Zombie (Thursday, October 25, 2008)
The North American Wolfenstein Enemy Territory competitive scene isn't blessed with the player depth that the rest of the world may enjoy & as a result we don't see as many great players. My personal theory on this is that we enjoy a greater number of freedoms than most therefore we go outside more.
That being said there are some however & a few are still active such as the subject of the interview, the world renowned anim.
zOMBie-
Hello anim thanks for taking some time to sit down with us. Lets get the usual formalities out of the way for those who aren't in your inner circle, tell a bit about yourself (Name, work/school, hobbies, etc.)...
anim-
My name is Brandon McKaig, I go to school at Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada, and it's my major is Mass Communication. As far as hobbies go, I play ball, workout and some say I love the internets. I've spent a fair time playing et, and seeing as it's my first fps on the computer, I wouldn't be surprised if you saw me playing in the upcoming title release of wolfenstein.
zOMBie-
How long have you been playing Wolf-ET & tell us a little bit about your early career?
anim-
I've been playing Wolf-ET since around late 2003, but never really got into competition until mid 2004 when I got my new graphics card - which at the time was a Radeon 9800 Pro. I started with a team called Dark Rangers, who were mediocre, but still on the low-end scale of beta, then slowly worked my way up to better teams like mimic and unfaithful, when I decided to make a few of my own teams such as iLLicit and vital-signs.
zOMBie-
What teams have you played for & out of those which was the most enjoyable?
anim-
For me to list all of the teams I've played for, I would have to literally list about 40 teams, so I'll just keep it to the ones I've played for, for the longest amount of time and the ones I've enjoyed.
[*] Mimic
[*] Unfaithful
[*] iLLicit
[*] vital-signs
[*] oNpoint
[*] evil cadre
[*] naett
[*] excel
[*] oceans6
[*] euler-massacre
[*] SNL
[*] oxygen
[*] and within the past year xf, facial, nag, and neb
The most enjoyable probably was excel, however a lot of the competition was diminished by then and it wasn't as much as a challenge as I would've liked.
zOMBie-
What leagues have you participated in & what are some of your achievements in those leagues?
anim-
Oh wow, I've played in CAL back when ET was still hosted, TWL 4 through 10, STA 9 through 12, ETL 1 and 2, Clanbase, the past 3 years so however many seasons that is, but I've played with one team that was in Eurocup - kojak, and another currently, team vital-jacks however I'm just bench. Achievements look something like:
[*]2nd TWL Season 8 (onpoint)
[*] 1st TWL Season 10 (excel)
[*] 1st STA Season 9 (SNL)
[*] 1st STA Season 12 (facial)
[*] 1st ETL Season 1 (NAg)
[*] 2nd ETL Season 2 (NEB)
zOMBie-
Have a most memorable match or moment?
anim-
A few actually, the 2 biggest ones I can remember in iLLicit would be when we played against Darkside, which had a lineup looking like stiegl, whitefire, plush, illshot, slay and nothx, we ended up losing but lost 2-1-1 in a 4 round battery game, which was quite an accomplishment for us because they were considered one of the best teams next to u5 at the time, and also playing u5 in the playoffs with vital-signs and losing 2-1, but taking a map off the hefty, experienced team with our makeshift team was also considered an accomplishment, also Silver wrote after the game "That was the best game we've had in awhile," which kind of made me laugh, but at the same time had to be taken as a compliment from a quakecon finalist.
There's also been a few with say SNL, a couple tight games in which were very enjoyable such as SNL vs ascend in the finals of STA season 9 or SNL vs xf season 11.
zOMBie-
Ability is a big a part of the player equation but as everybody knows ability only goes so far without a decent rig. Whats anim playing with these days?
anim-
Well to be quite honest, the majority of the time I played et, I was playing on a pentium 4, 512 MB RAM desktop with a Radeon 9800 pro, and it was still able to give me about 60 - 70 fps with my config, but my laptop can handle it much better, kind of ironic but, I now have a Intel Core 2 Duo, 4 GB RAM, with a NVIDIA Geforce 8400M GS as my video card so, quite a step up in performance.
zOMBie-
What about game settings? Whats your config like, heavily tweaked, conservative or lots of detail?
anim-
It's configured for me, I've never used anyone else's config and that's what worked for me. It used to have low - detailed graphics, but with my laptop I was able to boost my settings and maintain high fps. However, I would describe my config as simplistic, but also something a lot of people probably wouldn't like to use.
zOMBie-
On the subject of ability, I've watched several of your matches & it amazes me the amount of damage you inflict with a SMG. Whats the key to your aim & is it just experience that makes you so keen on enemy location?
anim-
Well I've been playing for so long that I know how people are going to react, and at any given situation it's usually easy to outsmart them, I think it's a
balance of being able to not only outsmart the people you're playing against, but also a reliance on my team to keep people off my back. It's fustrating playing with a team that camps and hides because as anyone has experienced, it sucks being baited. As far as my key on aiming, anyone who has played with me will be like "WTF how do you get headshots," but it's a combo of reaction time and being in the right place a the right time.
zOMBie-
Even though I'm terrible anymore, at one point I was "ok". Alot of that was the result of one person who spent countless hours teaching me everything he knew, a mentor if you will. Did you have any kind of ET mentor or even a group of people who taught you how to play the game at the level you can play now, or are you a self made player?
anim-
Well I think every player makes it to a certain degree where they are satisfied with how they aim and play, but at some point they start playing with better players and they in turn become better. As far as a mentor, I never really had one, I would say sublime from the former excel was the first person to help me out, but he never really "taught" me anything. I was always left alone to do my own thing and I made it work, I particularly remember one season, it was several months before Quakecon hosted ET for the first time, and teams were searching for players. It was almost impossible to get known and recruited or given a shot, so I had to make my own team and do it myself to create my own name.
zOMBie-
Any idols or players you respected coming up or still do?
anim-
Coming up I looked up to dator, seed, plush and stiegl a lot. A lot of the old deathtouch and syn players were very entertaining to watch.
zOMBie-
All of us get bored of ET from time to time. Most of us play other games. What other games do you play & enjoy & do you play any at a competetive level.
anim-
To be honest with you, when I get bored with ET, I'll just go do something else, go work out, go do homework (haha like I should be doing that before I play) or go out with friends, but I like to stick to one game as far as competition goes, you keep switching and it messes up your aim.
zOMBie-
ET is over 5 years old now. It's funny to see some of the old players pop in from time to time & flame cause some of us are still playing. Whats your take on the state of the ET competetive scene & those who critize those (such as yourself) that still play?
anim-
Well a lot of those players if they were to play would be garbage now anyway so they're just talking trash for lack of better entertainment, but personally I think they're just surprised that this game has kept on trucking, even though the state that it's in right now isn't very healthy.
zOMBie-
Given the age of ET & the promise of the next installment in the series, Wolfenstein due out next year, do you plan on making the move to Wolfenstein barring it's comparable to Wolf-ET & not another fail like Quake Wars. Do you have any concerns about the type of gameplay it will have & if it is a flop, what will you do?
anim-
I plan on moving to the new wolfenstein as I mentioned earlier, I do have some concerns on the gameplay yes as it's being developed through the XBox 360, and most computer addicts hate console games, but I do hope it isn't a flop. Quakewars had some neat aspects, but obviously a lot of things didn't appeal to ET lovers. I think the trailer looks promising for wolfenstein, and they are clearly taking their time with it, so I would expect it to be a good game, even if it might be different from the ET "style" it'll still have objective based gameplay with teams, which I really enjoy, seeing as how the teams in ET now aren't really teams, but more like gatherings. If it doesn't turn out well, I'll still probably play it, just not as avidly or frequently.
zOMBie-
Back to Wolf ET... You've assembled a pretty solid team (excel) for the Don Baker GCR Cup which until now nobody is aware, is sponsored by Don Baker's grandaughter & my wife, Sue. Talk a little about the team you've put together & what your expectations are....
anim-
Well basically I saw the opportunity to put together an old team with old players that have been playing with eachother for a long time through this cup. Of course the opportunity to play euros was an enticement, but kenyon and vegetable were itching to get back into some et fun, and convinced vader too as well, bliss was easy, as well as axcess, and then convinced our old coach and bench revildab to come back into the game, as well with a couple of other new add ons as backups, wiz and smurftang. My expectations for this team are pretty good, we have the shots, it's just the teamwork will be a bit rough seeing as we don't scrim all the time, however we have scrimmed a few times with 4 out of the 6 members and had some pretty good results so I see us doing fairly well.
Obviously our biggest rivals will be mamut, TLR and VAE, and everyone besides them we feel pretty confident about beating. It should be very interesting especially with the server at our advantage.
zOMBie-
Well thats about I have for this interview, I appreciate you taking the time. I have a ton of respect your game & activity in the community & it's been an honor.
Final Thoughts & Shoutouts...
anim-
I just want to thank you for all the effort you've put into not only the Don Baker GCR Cup, but through the new community site, ETL and your involvement in the community, and also to everyone I've enjoyed playing with over the years.
Mistaken
Posted by: Zombie (Saturday, October 15, 2008)
Over the past year the North American Wolfenstein Enemy Territory competitive scene had seemingly been read it's last rights, loaded into the back of the hearse & sent on it's final ride to the cemetery. Long gone are most of the great NA teams of the past, replaced by random patched together teams composed of somewhat or completely unknown players. Purchased skill seems to replace acquired skill & those that earn their skill are often accused of purchasing it.
A little over a year ago TWL dropped it's Wolfenstein Leagues leaving STA as the sole NA league. Less than a year later, the NA community hub for Wolfenstein ET comp players closed it's doors for good & disappeared off the net leaving us only the comedic knock off site "Flames-Center" which while humorous, was not intended to be a replacement. It truly seem the end was eminent.
However in that time several steps have been taken by a small group of people to salvage what is left of this community. ETL was born out of the closing of TWL's ET leagues & while it's original intent was never meant as a replacement or an attempt to live up to what TWL was, it has helped to fill some of the void that was left. STA has recently entered a mind boggling 13th season & has placed itself at the forefront of the NA competitive scene. More recently STA & ETL have come together to fill the void left by ET-Center by creating Wolfenstien-Central & with the help of several players in the community, hope to reinvigorate & revive what is left of that community & carry it into the much anticipated upcoming Wolfenstein release.
The latest installment of this movement & most popular amongst Americans & Europeans alike has been FPS-Radio which has skyrocketed a person I like to consider my personal protege, the subject of this interview, Mistaken into E-Stardom.
Zombie:
Mistaken first of thanks for taking the time out of your busy schedule to answer some questions & allow the community a chance to get to know the man behind the voice.
As much as I hate these formalities that seem to start every interview, they seem to be a necessary evil so give us the Mistaken stats & a little about yourself & what your like or into outside of gaming.
Mistaken:
I'm currently still a high school student, living in a small town on Cape Cod, MA. I used to play football at school,but now I only play rugby due to easier scheduling, and nonstop action.
Zombie:
In all the various projects I am associated with, I have several people who are a part of those projects. You're involved in just about everyone of them. Like you most of the people who work with us on these projects are either in High School or College & as you know I always preach real life & schoolwork come first. How does all of this play into your school schedule & does it interfere at all?
Mistaken:
It doesn't really effect it much, the main thing it affects is my social life, because when your shoutcasting at 9:30 or 3:30 pm Sunday afternoon, your whole day is gone basically. I've adjusted to casting, and being involved in those various activities with WIMG(Wolf Interactive Media Group), and it really doesn't bother me that much because the people that I work with, such as yourself and Rocky are good guys, and fun to work with.
Zombie:
What classes do you take or major & what sort of career is in Mistaken's future?
Mistaken:
Well, when I graduate from high school I plan on taking a year or two off before I attend college, which will probably be at uMass. I plan on going for journalism and media classes, but hey, who knows after I graduate I might have a different opinion on what I want to do.
Zombie:
When I first met you, you & friend of yours came to me seeking help for a project you were working on at that time, Wolf-Radio. Talk a little about that experience & what you learned there & maybe walked away with.
Mistaken:
Well, that experience didn't fare too well, as it failed before the regular season had even started, but it did give me the recorded casts to send to rocky, and to ultimately land me where I am at FPS-Radio. I also learned what lines to cross, and what lines not to cross, as internal arguing was the downfall of Wolf-Radio.
Zombie:
I know you have a great admiration for TosspoT & what he's been able to achieve in what really started out as hobby. When I first met you, you were constantly sending me videos of his shoutcasts especially the one from Quakecon were he gets extremely emotional & excited. I hear an eerie similarity in your casts. Talk a little bit about that & is he I guess you would say your shoutcasting idol?
Mistaken:
Well, obviously I have the greatest respect and admiration for TosspoT, seeing how far he has gone, from radio itg, all the way to quadv, and the success he has had with crossfire has certainly inspired me to be where I am. I would not be casting if it weren't for TosspoT and for that I am thankful to him for.
Zombie:
On the subject of TosspoT's success in casting, where do you see yourself going with this. In today's gaming world there's really only a couple paths you can take to success. The first being a player which let's face it there's a marginal chance any of us can achieve any kind of glory as player. The second being an organizer or admin of events & competitions & lastly would be in media coverage. Now I know you still play several hours a day, you're an ETL Admin, you're a News admin for Wolfenstein Central & you have this little thing going on with FPS-Radio. You've got your hand in all 3 pots. Thats got to be overwhelming, at what point to give up the others to focus on just one & if & when you do which path will you focus on?
Mistaken:
I would obviously love to see myself where he is in 5 years, or even after that, but I'm not quite sure where this will take me, it obviously has gotten me involved with various communities, including ETL, and Wolf Central.To answer the last question, my list of priorities right now goes in the order of shoutcasting, league admin and site admin, and I am completely stopping my gaming in ET. I just lost the interest I once had in playing ET, although it is still fun to cast and I will continue to do so. I think that if I were to continue going on in a career in the gaming world, shoutcasting would take me farther than being an admin or community poster, but those are the three things that make me feel like I'm contributing to the gaming world.
Zombie:
You've also had a project in the works for awhile now, a community for gamers from the Northeast US I think it was, tell us a little about that & where you stand with that now with everything that has transpired over the past month or so?
Mistaken:
Well, the project your thinking of is called the Boston Massacre. Boston Massacre is really just a local lanning team of CSS players from my area, although we wish to expand and become multigaming, I do not think that will be happening anytime soon due to my involvement in FPS Radio, ETL, and Wolf-Central. We will continue to play CSS, and LAN, but I highly doubt a site, or a community site will be going up during the 2008 year.
Zombie:
As far as shoutcasting goes, you noticeably stumble on your words from time to time & I'm not criticizing by any means, god knows I'd be a nervous wreck & never get a word out but, ET is an extremely fast paced game. How difficult is it to keep up with the action?
Mistaken:
ET isn't that hard to cast, if you focus on the objective. I think it is easier to cast than probably CSS,CS 1.6, or COD 4. Those games have so much camping and waiting in them that I think I would go crazy casting them.
Zombie:
FPS-Radio has stated that it intends to not only shoutcast ET matches but venture into other games as well. What other games are you guys looking into casting & have you done any yet?
Mistaken:
Well, I know that I am planning on shoutcasting CSS, and Cs 1.6 matches, and I would like to continue casting into RTCW 2, but that is a ways down the road. We also plan on expanding to cod4, and possibly cod5 if it goes big in comp. Rocky plans on covering Americas Army matches, which is his mother game.
Zombie:
Thus far you've really been the face of FPS-Radio, but there's another person behind the scenes who is a vital part of the organization , a good friend of both of ours, Rocky. Tell us a little about Rocky & your relationship with him & how he's helped bring FPS-Radio to what it is from what it was, a lonely 32 slot ETL Radio server.
Mistaken:
If it weren't for rocky, I would still be casting matches in vent to my friends. He has been a mentor to me so far in my shoutcasting career, with plenty of tips and advice, along with teaching me a lot about management and sponsorship deals. He was the one who got us the sponsorship with Primary Target, and got us upgraded from a 32 slot stream to a stream which is capable of going up to 500 slots. Last, but not least, rocky has been a good friend to me over these past few months, which have been tough on me, with all the social adjustments that have been going on.
Zombie:
Since you've bursted onto the scene you've had several offers from some very reputable organizations & even done some moonlighting. What's it like to be sought after by these organizations & what are plans?
Mistaken:
Well, I have to say that it made me feel somewhat different at first, getting offers from NerdVibes radio, and Fatgames radio, who I moonlighted for. It obviously feels good to be sought after by such known organizations, but I decided to stick to my roots. I realized that if I had gone to any of these stations I would just be another caster in a grou of many, while at FPS Radio, I have a creative means of casting. Also, I believe that I need to have a manager type person, who is also my friend, which is Rocky, and also you Zombie. I mean, if you did not introduce me to rocky, then I wouldn't be casting. Also, you guys have taught me a lot about websites, and computers, along with admining Ethics, and experience that I would be nowhere near where I am today.
Zombie:
OK on to actual playing, you play for a few different teams at the moment & have played for some of the more notable NA teams, give us a list of current & prior teams along with any achievements.
Mistaken:
My most recent team had been fAith gaming which was a team with a lot of potential, but we had so many roster changes over the teams month long life that things just weren't happening. I wouldn't call Cross Breed a notable team(at least not for skill ), but I spent a year in the organization, playing under the ETQW, ET, and Cod4 Division. I also managed to come third in ETL Season 2 3v3, with my 3v3 team TeamCP, and I came fourth in 3v3B with Alchemy during ETL Season1.
OK onto the final trivial questions...
Zombie:
Favorite Map?
Mistaken:
Goldrush
Zombie:
Favorite team to watch/shoutcast?
Mistaken:
Excel, Button Bashers, Vicioius and Evil, and mamut, and Bus Drivers.
Zombie:
Favorite player?
Mistaken:
I'll pick a safe answer and say that my favorite player is probably a toss up between Chronic and Toxcimityyy. I've been playing with both for a few years, and we've shared so many experiences, ET Related, and just hanging out on vent that they are my 2 favorite ET Players. Out of the "pros" I would have to say that I enjoy watching winghaven, perfo, anim, alea, axcess, nozz, m@x, punkk, shaun, and raveneye.
Shoutouts-
Everyone at the Cross Breed organization, everyone who is working at ETL, and everyone who is signed up or working on Wolf-Central. Also to cody and chronic, you guys know why. To everyone I've played et with, and to all the friends I've made over the years.
Zombie:
Thanks Mistaken for taking the time to answer some questions & I truly wish you all the best in all your endeavors weather they are on a project we are working on together or elsewhere. You have a great talent & tremendous potential.