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So ins, when did you start playing Quake? What is your Quake story?

I started Quake when I was around 16, which was pretty much the time I got a computer and internet connection. One of my cousins came around to my place and brought me a CD containing AQ2. All I did during the next 12 months was playing that game, it was my first online experience and I can’t really say it could’ve been better. I only played with the portuguese community which was small but great. Everyone got along very well, we all loved the game and we met up several times for huge dinners and LAN’s. So one year after, I was playing lots of different games, I just wanted to discover everything. I was playing CoD4, Trackmania, UrT, CS, and suddenly, Quake Live came out. Since I was already playing a Quake title, I decided to give it a go because even though the game was likely to be very different to AQ2, it had pretty much the same physics, which I loved. And so far it’s been the best game I’ve played!

Which do you enjoy more; casting or competing?

Competing, without a shadow of doubt. Casting is great, you get to watch and explain what all the players are doing and thinking, but being on their end is so much cooler. The thrill you can get of competing in tense games is so much more intense than the excitement of watching someone play. I love it, I can’t really feel something like this doing anything else.



ins casting with zoot

Do you have a goal in Quake Live? Do you play because you love it and enjoy it? Is it for the competition? Do you want to be the very best?

I love Quake, that won’t change. I could easily switch to any other game which has more tournaments, since I’m very competition-driven, but it wouldn’t be like Quake. Quake is quake and quake is great. And I’ll stick around for as long as the game will, so my only goal will be to try and keep Quake alive and kicking.

Why do you think the European Community is doing better than the other regions?

Thanks to the amount of players we have here and some very hardworking people behind projects like #tdmpickup and #ctfpickup, it’s very easy and organized for anyone who feels like playing a bit. As far as organized casual fun goes, whether it’s in team modes, duel or ffa, you can get a game going at any time of the night or day. We just have so many people in here.

Does the Quake Live esport scene need to focus more on team modes in order to get bigger? Is the emphasis on duel the reason why QL is in the state that it is in?

I think the emphasis is where it should be right now, which is on duel. It makes sense, it’s easy to watch and follow, and there are many more people and tournaments in duel than there are in other game modes. Obviously, if we switched the focus a bit from duel to other game modes, I’m sure more people and tournaments would pop up. But certain spectator features need to exist beforehand, because right now it’s pretty much impossible for someone new to properly follow a TDM or CTF game in order to actually get excited, all they see is people blowing the hell up. Sometimes with flags too.

Regarding the team mode question, do you think the problem with Quake Live esports is that it has so many game modes to choose from? If you look at other esports titles like Starcraft, CS, DoTA, they only focus on one game mode for esports. The other game modes don’t really have events.

I think it’s a good thing that we have various game modes which have the potential to become big in “esports”, it’s just a shame they’re not properly developped and marketed to do so. Or maybe it’s a good thing they aren’t, I’m not sure. I think we’d all hate it if (imagining TDM and CTF were now full of amazing spectator features and etc) we, as a community, had to pick just 1 game mode for a major tournament and leave two thirds of the community out. Maybe that would happen if the team modes were big instead of only duel. But all in all, I think it’s amazing that we have the potential to have at least 3 different game modes to choose from, competition wise.

It sounds like QL 2.0 is coming out soon, what does id software need to do in order to overcome the big influx of new arena fps games that are currently in development?

I think this questions has been answered in so many different ways so many times that it’s just not worth to keep enumerating the same things, a quick glance and ESR and you can get lists of 500 features and marketing tricks that would be great for QL. Id software knows, the community knows, it’s just a matter of actually doing it that seems to be the problem. But I think what they have in mind will somewhat work, so let’s wait and see!

Which new arena fps game are you most excited about?

Reborn and Unreal Tournament 4! Ever since I had stopped playing and practicing competitively in Quake (which was also the time I started casting) I’ve been waiting for a new arena fps to come out and be the next big thing so I could nerd it, but everything has been really bad so far. But UT4 will be great I’m sure, and 2gd won’t let Reborn fail either, so those two I’m really hoping to play!

How do you think you will place at Quakecon?

Top64, I hope.

Ok what are you predictions for Top 3 at Quakecon Duel and CTF?

I’m fairly certain Cypher will win the Duel, I’ll be very surprised if he drops more than a couple of maps during the whole event. Maybe during groupstage because it won’t matter that much, but when he hits the playoffs he’ll be unstoppable. So Cypher, Rapha and Strenx or Dem0n. I’m really not sure about the CTF because I don’t know most teams, I just think a european team will win and Chile will be Top3! So I’ll go with Unknown, whatever team id_’s in and Chile.

Shoutout to eden Much love going out to _nova, tina, jorinde, docp, twister, em_a, predath0r, menina, evilbollweevil, sietsem, hauer, zsolt, alf1to, christoph, kodisha, 0mek, cmss, tebeg, isoundstupid, orchound, biscuitpowered, da_coder, leffanc, cez, ccmwitboy, torzeland, zitageek, graagh and wookster. <3