Hi guys, could you first please introduce yourself and tell us about your Quake background.

JoCKo: Hello man, my name is Jan "JoCKo" Balada, will be soon 26 and i live in Slovak city called Zilina. My first experience with cleaning the bots out of a map was in Quake 1 in 1997. I made my first clan in 1999 with 2 cousins and we called it Satan`s Proxies - enjoyed everything around quake. Since then I have been virtually playing all quake parts up to now with few clans: neophyte, miel, dignitas, shuuk, wCm and some others. Meet nice ppl like my czech bro krysa and dk + many others. Among my greatest achievements – I consider my attendance on WCG 2k2 in South Korea and several victories at local TDM LANs.


(JoCKo playing and drinking with msth)

dk: Hey there, my Name is Cris and I'm playing Quake since ages. I started playing online with Quakeworld in 1997. Switched to Quake3 around 2000 and played during that time till today several Games ( Quakeworld, Quake3, Quake4, Doom3, Quakelive and some Painkiller ). I played for Teams like SP, dignitas, 4Kings, mTw, shuuk, medusa and Gunzoids and a lot of more. With my m8s JoCKo and Krysa I have been playing together for around 5 years .


(dk with his wife)

What's your current Hardware Setup?

JoCKo: Intel c2d E8400, ATI 4850, Samsung 19" CRT 950p, 1.1a and razer goliathus (with dahang`s face!). Using new hud from cpt. Picard :P. My config.

dk: My QL Setup is some old almost broken Notebook, 2ghz duo, atix1700 1 gb Ram, 1.1a and an old Fatality Mousepad. My config.


JoCKo, what's up with your connection? :D

JoCKo: Well internet conditions are sometimes like in outer Uzbekistan here, but now I can finally choose some nice fiber isp in future so it should be better.

Do you have any plans to continue dothedk.com?
(Personally I would really love to see more guides, especially for the new maps and communication maybe. A lot of players come back to TDM atm or try it out for the first time and they don't have a lot of learning resources.)

dk: I really would like to but writing Guides is a huge "time eater" and due work, my project I'm working on and of course other stuff in my life, time has become a precious resource.
So if anyone has the feeling to help... the one is really welcome :)


4K had a really stable lineup in the past but now, before the first major QL TDM LAN, v3rb and zik have left you. What happened?

JoCKo: They went their own way, everything bad is usually good for something.

dk: Me and Verb doesn't work together. Zik wanted to stay with Verb, and the rest with me. Thats the way it goes sometimes :)


How does the changed lineup affect your play?

JoCKo: Yeah, badly. We miss the aim part of v3rb and some nice decision making by zik. At least now we have new Swedish OVEchkin-dibbe.

dk: Verb and Zik are great players, pretty aggressive players tho, JoCKo and krysa are able to adapt on both styles, my one ( the fucking camper def style ) and the aggressive style.
Check our results in the past, i think they didn't change that much, so i think we are doing fine still :)


We have seen quite a few TDM Tournaments pop up lately, do you prefer those 1/2 day Tournaments over Seasonal play like the EuroCup? How would the perfect competition look like for you as a player?

JoCKo: I prefer both, QL needs more activity like in past if we want to play it in future. CTF draft was nice idea, would be cool if we see something fresh like that in TDM and more FFA tournaments for casual players like tony does! My dream is EU version of Quakecon in Prague :P.

dk: I like both to be honest so the answer is easy. I would like to see both in the future, the Seasonal play and the 1/2 day Tournaments.
The perfect competition is of course an Event like DreamHack, even that it wasn't the answer to your Question :)


Who do you expect to meet in the EuroCup Grand Final? Are you confident that you will win the title again?

JoCKo: Every title is special, if dk doesn't ruin it, we will be able to get it. 100% Metsu, they have really cool team players that I like to watch, especially Danish aim aces juven1le/v1um, Hungarian product of SP - s7ry <3 and busted Serbian general zeroql :)).

dk: We try of course to win, but meeting srs, Metsu or XT in the finals will be hard, no matter which Team. I expect Metsu in the finals. If Metsu will have Topteam for the future Games they will make it.
Metsu has besides some fucking Aimwhores like Juvenile, Vium and the GL whore zeroql some really nice Teamplay. They showed it in the DH Online Tourney and other Tourneys against lots of Teams.
But still, surprises always can happen. So lets see !


Lets talk about DreamHack!
Are you excited to play TDM on LAN (again)? Do you think it well differ a lot from online play?

JoCKo: I'm excited to finally meet dk after 5 years of ragequitting on voicecoms ;). Of course, important is team spirit and preparation.

dk: Yea, I'm really looking forward meeting my m8s and of course other great guys, being the first time in Sweden ( even that its Nowherecity Jonkoping ! :) and playing probably my last TDM LAN.
An offline event is of course different then from online play. Everyone plays on the same requirements and everyone is more or less prepared for the event. No excuses about Ping etc.
And of course your sitting next to your mates so the communications are usually much better, about QUakelive... do we play on offline Servers ? :)


How is your preparation going?

JoCKo: We try to face all best tdmers around, the bill will be shown at JoCKoping!

dk: It is good, we are playing not 24/7 but its enough i think. Thanks to all that cups in the past weeks at the weekends :)


What is your goal for the tournament?

JoCKo: I will have a happy face if we end in top5.

dk: Well ... the goal is the same as for everyone. 1st Place. But i really don't know :)


Who will be your strongest competitor?

JoCKo: Everyone, on first (hope not last) QL TDM LAN u never know ;).

dk: All of them are our strongest competitors. There are a lot of fucking good Teams and Players. I mean everyone expect a lot from Reason and clown ( me too of course ) but as well Metsu and all other teams has a chance. Basically all of them are good and since it is an offline event, as i said before everyone will have same requirements. I guess and hope that we will see a lot of unexpected wins and losses.


While we have seen a lot from the European players and teams there are still some Teams who are hard to judge. What do you expect from the Russians and the Americans?

JoCKo: They play both with similar style, great individual players but only few of them have teamwork mentality ingame. If they switch on same flow they will be top contenders fo'shizzle.

dk: There are only great names in both Teams. cooller, evil, jibo, mikes, czm, dahang, clock, and rapha. It depends how good they did prepare for the tournament. Both teams has the potential to do really good on that Tourney.


Thanks for your time and good luck in your next matches!

JoCKo: Thanks man and sorry for k3l rape :P.