While I've long been known online as trillian (no relation to the chat program... I was here first, damnit!), my real name is Alison. I'm 27 years old, live in Seattle, Washington USA, am married to citizen from Team Abuse, have no kids, two cats... Oh yeah, and I work for Speakeasy, Inc. with an official title of "Operational Reporting Analyst"... don't ask me to explain that one.

Actually, no. I joined TsN back in October of 2002 and cast maybe 2 Return to Castle Wolfenstein
matches. Then, I went into hiding (aka, was scared to cast because I had stage fright). Starting in January 2003, I picked up casting again with a couple of RtCW matches. On February 7th, I casted my first Quake 3 match... a dual cast with Red Barchetta covering the #Challenges 2 CPMA tournament. Of course, two days later I found myself covering NINE HOURS of ESo gaming. Talk about trial by fire! But it was fun. I had an absolute blast. Any fear I had over casting quickly disappeared and I've
been casting 2-3 matches a week since.

To be honest, I get a lot of, "Your voice is so sexy!" "Will you marry me?" "You make me horny!"
But, there are also plenty of people who will give me positive thoughts, telling me I'm doing great and to keep up the good
work. That's always great to hear as a caster, that someone appreciates your casts and looks forward to listening to them. The
best comments, though, come from the people who are looking to help me learn more about the game. They'll message me to give me more info on an area I might've been discussing in the match. For example, in promode matches I try to give some info on the differences between promode and vanilla quake3. If I get a little fuzzy on the particulars, I will get some help from the listeners so I can get it right next time.
I think most will say I know what I'm talking about when it comes to Quake 3, but there are always
more things to learn. :)

I don't ever plan on locking myself into one game type, but I think all casters have to focus on just a couple of games. You start spreading out too much, and you get into the difficult situation of being spread too thin. For now, I'm focusing on Q3 and RTCW, but I will gladly take on new games as the opportunity presents itself. To be honest, both Q3 and RTCW communities are picking up speed and I think I'll be kept nice and busy with those games for now.
I admit I do have UT2003 and Urban Terror loaded up on my machine as well, so you never know what the future will hold. I'm keeping my options open.

The rumors I've heard have wheat and me dual casting for the ESo finals, so I guess the best bet is to tune in to TsN and see if those rumors are true! ;)

Typical day: Wake up at 05:45AM and go to the gym; After my workout, I head into work usually
stopping to get a coffee or some such caffeine-laden drink; Work my day away at Speakeasy, occassionally getting distracted by
the wonders of IRC; On crazy days, I'll leave at lunch time to cast a European match :P; After work, I come home and check up on IRC and any scheduled matches; If I have a cast, I get my machine set up, do some sound tests, and get my playlists ready to go; The rest of the evening is spent doing any one of a number of things... casting, gaming, chatting, watching TV, listening to music, taunting various TsN staffers on Ventrilo... all good fun; Then, I sleep. The End.

He has been very supportive of my casting, giving me encouragement as I have expanded my casting.
He'll answer questions about gameplay if I ask them, and we sometimes discuss what expected strategies might be used on a certain map. For the most part, he doesn't offer pointers unless I ask for them, but he always has good information when I do ask.
When I'm casting, he spends much of that time sitting in front of the TV watching basketball with his headphones on (so I don't pick up the game sounds from the TV)... or he'll be playing in CPMA 1v1s or TDMs in the background. If you ever hear the loud clicking of keys while I'm casting, that's citizen playing games on his computer. He's such a loud gamer and yet he rarely says a word.

I don't have a favorite player, but I've fully enjoyed the CPMA matches I've cast. It's a great mod with a lot of fast movement and action. Plus, I've had many an overtime match in the #challenge 2 tournament. Most of all, I'm a fan of close matchups that keep you guessing until the very end. And since no player can guarantee that level of excitement every single time, I will just have to keep casting as many different players as I can.

Do I have to pick just one?? I think fox vs. cooller is going to be an incredible matchup... as well as reebHimself vs ZeRo4. If they are all on their games, aim strong, ready to go, it's going to be impossible to predict the outcome!

I've been gaming since I was a small child. And at 27 I'm still gaming. So the day I stop gaming,
that's the day I'll no longer want to cast ESports games. I really don't think that's going to happen any time soon if ever, so
let's just say... "For as long as I'm able."

Back when Team Abuse was playing RTCW, I got my first taste of TsN and a caster named WarWitch. I was inspired by the thought that these online games I've long watched could have this new dimension to them, the addition of voice. So I started listening and enjoying and wondering if maybe I could do this, too. When QuakeCon 2002 rolled around, I had the opportunity to meet a number of people from TsN, and I was even more amazed by this varied group of people with one major thing in common, the love of gaming.
After QuakeCon, I knew I wanted to try out, but I was so afraid. I didn't know anything about shoutcasting. I had no idea where to start. But I was lucky... I met up with Archvile and JeffT. Archvile was instrumental in giving me that first push to get a demo cast (hey, he even set it up for me) and JeffT gave me the most complete critique I have had to date. I sent off my demo, and the next thing I knew, I was sporting a TsN tag.

Anyone who thinks casting a game is easy has never seriously tried it. Or if they have, they've never let anyone else hear it. The setup alone takes a lot of work to get right. You have to find what works for you, what you can maintain and still have a good sound, what you can do and not lose track of the action. Once you are setup, you have the daunting task of trying to not only call the play-by-play action, but also to convey excitement, status of the various players, tone of the game, interesting tidbits about the team, and whatever might be going on in IRC.
You should've heard my first cast. As far as I knew, I was excited, interesting, really into the game. But you play it back, and I sounded like I was totally not enjoying myself. You never realize how much more you have to work to make it sound like you are there and enjoying every second. It's kind of like putting on makeup to go on TV. They put on TONS more than you'd wear on any given day because otherwise you'll be washed out. With casting, you have to put much more enthusiasm and variation than you'd expect, because otherwise you sound bored.
The biggest challenge I face is casting a game that is a blow-out, because it's hard to maintain interest when one team or player is dominating the other. So you have to be able to point out interesting things in spite of the
skill differences in the game.
So no... casting isn't easy. :)

First, I find shoutcasting to be very satisfying. I get to take games that I love to play and
share my excitement for it with others. I get to show the world that I know what I'm talking about and can make your spectating
experience even better. And I love to spectate great matches! So what better way to do so than by shoutcasting that match.
Plus, as I said before, I find that shoutcasting adds a new dimension to online gaming. There's
nothing quite like loading up GTV, loading up TsN, syncing the casts, and sitting back to enjoy all the action.
And, I admit it... I love the fact that people seem to enjoy my casts. I've had a very warm
reception from the gaming community that has encouraged me to cast even more. That's to be expected, though, isn't it. When
someone says, "Hey! I look forward to hearing you cast!" you're going to want to do it more. If I was getting negative feedback,
it'd be much harder to feel good about casting.

I have my fingers crossed that I'll be able to cover QuakeCon 2003. I will definitely be there
either way. And I would not be opposed to covering other LANs that come up if TsN is providing coverage and I'm one of the
people they decide to send. LANs are a great time and I think TsN coverage makes them even better.

It is very important that a game casting station have casters that know what they are talking
about. Anyone can sit down and babble on a shoutcast stream. Anyone can say, "And sizah picks up a weapon and shoots it." But it
takes someone who knows the game to actually bring you into the action and make you feel like you are right there in the game. It's not to say that the only good casters will be top gamers, but rather to say that a good caster will take the time to make sure they know what they are talking about before trying to present their talents to the world at large.
I think we are all working towards that day when a game caster will get paid for what they do and
be able to approach it as a job rather than a hobby. But for now, I do it because the gaming community is important to me and I
see this as a way I can be involved and share my love of gaming with others.

Thanks to citizen for being supportive and putting up with how very loud I can get when I'm
casting. To my long time teammates in QGirlZ, love you all! Thanks to Archvile, JeffT and WarWitch for encouraging me to get
into casting in the first place. To TsN for giving me a place to learn how to cast and make some great friends in the process.
AND! A huge thank you to all you listeners who have encouraged me to keep casting, even if you do feel the need to tell me when
you're horny...