Part 1: "imagination is very powerful"
Part 2: the last champion is the best"

You could link these directly in the news :)

1st question seemed legit at first but after 10s of thinking time it's really cheap

- there are at least 2 more highest level q players in poland (tdm players verb and zik)
- why don't you ask strenx why he's the only super top player in France?
- why don't you ask k1llsen why he's the only top dueller in a population of 80M?



and avek: you are a smart guy, but get glasses or lenses if your eyesight is lacking and: the conversion rate between zloty and eur doesn't work like you think (conversion rate is not the "worth" of the currency)

without rapha on the circuit, he's going to be in the top 2 all the time now!

TBH every country (besides Sweden) has only 1 top duel representative and one CS team that goes to LAN events. Yeah there are other great players in every one of these EU countries but they're not at that level yet and probably never will be, especially with lack of events and thus lack of gaining any sort of LAN experience.

For instance:
Germany has abso, reload, jaysson
France has l1nkje, winz, Kirua,
Russia has evil, agent, dazator
Poland has lotn1k, tox1c, prox

They're all excellent players, but not pro calibre. Most of them just don't care (about duel) and they play for fun. I bet if for instance zik took Quake seriously (duel wise) from the beginning, if he had proper sponsors he would be one of the very best players, he would become a fucking beast ;D The story can be transferred to every country out there I guess since in every one of them there are players with big potential but they just don't ever get a chance to spread their wings.

SC2 in this regard is quite different, and I guess it's the only game out there like that. Every country has several top/pro players, which is great.

"TBH every country (besides Sweden) has only 1 top duel representative"

USA: dahang and rapha.

DaHanG hasn't won anything outside of his country in QL, maybe some 3rd place once or twice, yeah but he's there thanks to EG :)

He darkhorse-d one of the tournaments at DHW10 and then got 3-0'd by Cypher, can't remember whether it was the regular Dreamhack tournament or Fnatic beat it
makes a big difference!!!4

It was the DH tourney. Rapha got knocked out early after beating cypher in the beat it final.

russia: cooller and agent

agent was on 1 LAN thus far afaik and won nothing (and it was in his country) don't think he will go ever outside of Russia, maybe Ukraine or Belarus but that's it.

I agree, that's why I think the question in particular is a bit stupid :~

You've repeatedly ignored some of the words in the question to create your own simplistic version to attack. Seems quite ignorant to me.

yeah that was not such a good question (by the way put cal1pt on that list for germany plz, hes one of those not taking it serious but beeing skilled guys ^^)

the more interesting question would be why it is that those countrys have 1 outstanding player and arent more like sweden. another great example is white russia: they had awesomely skilled players like k33per and cherya back in the days and today amai is also not shaby.. but they only got 1 who made it

the more interesting question would be why it is that those countrys have 1 outstanding player and arent more like sweden

People like you are beyond help.

why u attack him and everyone that didn't like ur question?

nice interview, really liked it, but ur attitude here is cheap, attacking ppl for expressing their opinion

Because they purposely ignored what I actually said, made it into a ridiculously simplistic straw man argument and then repeatedly called the question stupid while attacking their straw man argument.

So fuck off with your moral high ground position.

So fuck off with your moral high ground position

effortlessly exposed :)

u r welcome

What does any of that have to do with my question?

your interview is great, no question asked, but try to keep the sensationalism out esp. when it's just a small part of the feature

Glasses suck. I got laser eye surgery. Feelsgoodman

i heard laser eyes not2gud at night?

fine @ night. only issue i've had is some minor haloing but it's not bad enough for me to go back and get it done again, even though it'd be free

Perfect here.

kewl kewl, glasses dont have gud peripheral vision and contacts dont seem worth it. good to hear there is an option. +

Depends on the laser. Make sure it's lastest generation stuff.

so rapha decided to quit? i missed that.

he will go studying soon
doubt he will devote that much time to ql

the glasses part made me chuckle, very nice interview!

haha just like me, i refused to wear glasses in public till i was 25 :x his game would be so much better with them :P

PLEASE POST ANOTHER NAKED PICTURE MISTER AVEK!

he's a very cool guy

epic interview,great guy =)


looking forward to his interviews :D

naked pic 2? o.O

<avek3

nice one again

monster mass 8-)

Avekkk thank you for the interview!!!
I'll be cheering for you at DHW!!!!!

same =)

Nice again. I think 1st and 2nd were better but obviously that was due to intense nostalgia etc.

Thorin your interviewing is top quality and I hope to see more interviews from you in the near future as long as quake continues to semi-live :D

Great Interview again ^-^

nice interview

I'm surprised how adamant he is on pursuing a "career" in competing in fps's. I mean 1v1 dm is pretty much dead, unless RAGE is amazing for e-sports, but even then, as a long term "career", I see it as a dumb move. If making 10-15k a year makes you wealthy in Poland, I'd just look into jobs that you can export your services to via the web. I.E digital art, web coder, well something you're good at lol, that you can freelance. A "career" in 1v1 dm sounds really silly to be honest, especially when you know how things operate. Potential sponsors ( cpu/vid card manufactures ) are the backers of these tournaments, and rpg's seem to be edging out everything in terms of numbers, so who knows how silly competitive gaming will be in the future. I'd be careful man, and look 10 years down the road.

u jelly?

He's using common sense like most people do i.e rapha for good example. Quake or any game (Even sc or 1.6) isn't a secure career path. If he has sense he'll go back to college.

Or perhaps you wanna spend the young years of your life doing something you absolutely love and a amazing passion for, not going on a "safe road" because you are too scared what the ride will be like if choosing the first option.

Dude, competitive gaming will never take off and reach the dizzying heights of say football or cricket. It will always be for the underground and basicallly almost impossible to make some form of living from.

There's more to life than sitting for hours playing a computer game and making just enough to get by.

Get a life and a reality check friend seriously.

Have you seen the latest numerous pro-gaming houses which have been set up in for example Sweden, the US, S-Korea, etc.? People can finally live of their pro-gaming salaris, and have to lesser extent been able to before that.

Quake might not perhaps be the game for this, or it just might be!, you never know :), and things have been looking kinda bright lately.

"There's more to life than sitting for hours playing a computer game and making just enough to get by."

Really, you wanna have that discussion on a esports website which ius solely devoted to computer games?

"Get a life life and reality check please"

^
^

ty sir good day

If that;s true then that's the saddest thing I've ever heard of. It is the most unhealthy thing anyone can do with their time and requires little to no physical activity.

Good luck living off just enough to survive. Why don't you do yourself a big favour and get a proper education and career so you can earn alot more and have a much better quality of life instead of waiting for the next cheque which you may or may not recieve in your crappy run down apartment.

Have fun with your deluded imagination and terrible career you're obviously crazy.

You can look at it in different way. If gaming is your work then you have more time for other real life activities. Standard ESR working user has full time job (8h), reading ESR stuff + playing QL (avg. 2-3h per day), sleeping + eating + etc. (7-9h), what all together gives you 24 - (8 + 3 + 9) = 4h free hours for other stuff. If you merge esport with your job, then you earn 2-3h free hours.

In matter of fact I'm pretty sure that most of pro players play less than 8h per day if it isn't close to the upcoming tournament. Thus pro-gaming seems to be pretty good way to live your life, because you have so much time to do other things and by the way spent time in the work having fun.

competitive gaming takes a lot of outside problem solving from just playing the game. My career deals with commercial art, so I'm constantly thinking about art, it's history, science, etc, more so than executing it. Noway could I juggle both worlds. A lot of artist I know do dumb jobs (lifting boxes), while doing so, lend all their thinking strengths to art. Similarly, guys like spartie do the same. Work a brainless job, where you can focus on the game the whole time, and then play the game, and compete at a higher level. Well that focus is dead weight to me, it should be used for something that can live with you to the grave. What? are you going to be 45 talking about t7 routes? I'm not hating, and I'm not saying being a pro gamer can get you nowhere (look at 2good). I'm just saying you could use that thinking ability and attribute it to something more worthwhile, that isn't hanging by a thread

safe road lol, everything has a gamble. You should comprehend the shit i wrote

I think that getting a full time job and earning a guaranteed income if you don't act like a complete plank is alot different from being a professional gamer and needing to place top 3 to actually make a living every event.

I'm done

yeah I totally agree, and the thing I'm trying to point out is that 1v1 dm tournaments may not even be available in the near future, so to have this as some "career" sounds insane to me

I totally agree with your point of view.

Games are extremely enjoyable (at least for us), yet devoting a lot of time to them is a waste of time in my opinion. Of course one may say "How do you define waste of time?" or "If something gives you satisfaction and pleasure, it's not a waste of time".

For a "career"/"profession" - the future of gaming is pretty uncertain (especially 1v1 FPS). In 5 or 10 years in can be just dead. Besides that there are not so many tournaments. You take a cursory glance at some tournament info and you are impressed by the prize purse. I don't know how much those professional Quake players earn so using exact numbers might be not wise, but let's say you win 20 thousand euro per year. Is that much in the most developed countries like Sweden? I don' think so... Most likely they get some additional money from their sponsors/teams, but still...

Gaming is very fun for sure. Is it something you can make good use of in your life, though? You can learn to play some music instrument and it may be something you will be able to do for the rest of your life (unless you get paralysed...). You can do many different things that will contribute to your life much more and in a better way. If you stick to games - what will be you reminiscing in 40 years?:-)

Of course you don't have to spend 8 hours a day playing games. You can do many different things and still play games, treating them as one of your hobbies. That's the healthy approach, in my opinion.

avekkk talking about exchange rates was awesome :D plus, he can see the timer and the enemy model - he clearly does not need glasses.! :)

btw: I loved the last question. It seems like Rapha's game style is pretty similar to the way he approaches things in real-life. Very calculated etc.

What do you think about cypher, strenx or cooller?

Rapha: Prediction
Cypher: Reaction
Cooller: Premeditation
Strenx: HURRR DURRR

you should wear bra

cool geezer! i hope he wins more.

nice guy and all.... but he's kind of clueless about early quake.
aka his comment in the earlier part about rapha's game.. the 1st guy who times more items and estimates hp ye right.
Back in the good old q3 days (and before) that was the only way to play (timing more items and estimating hp better than your opponent) as it was the only stable way to win a match.

did peeps time to the second or just by feel?

within the second

i think he's talking about more than listening to the hurt sounds the opponent makes.

and i think these pro players, who actively talk to one another know more about who timed what at which time than any of us do.

i know item timing has been around since the beginning of quake. but i believe its a whole different story nowadays.

as i mentioned in another thread, 2gd once mentioned that in 2008 cypher was surprised to hear that rapha was timing more than one item to the second.

most pro players don't actively talk to eachother about their games.

and well about timing stuff to the second... there are a few different ways to time stuff which often do get you there really really close to the spawntime.

But in general when you're out of control the most save way to get back in is to time all items to the second.
I would like to refer you back to all games czm played in q3. He timed all items np (still does btw). And also people like fatality and zero4 (although fata was more timing and zero4 more possitioning / entries into fights with instant hit weapons) had good timing... My memory doesn't go back much further than that (for how people played) as I didn't watch any streams etc when I started (first couple of years)

most pro players don't actively talk to eachother about their games.

i know you're a good duel player, but do you really know what cooller, av3k, rapha etc speak about when they are bootcamping?

i am just referring to something 2gd said, who was cyphers manager or something for quite some time.
and allthough i do not want to discredit what you are saying, i would like you to think really hard about what you are suggesting.

i am well aware that players timed items back in 2000. i myself started playing quake3 2002, and after 3 months it was no problem timing items. if i was in control i'd even have them to the second. but never by clock, everything timing was done by routes. i remember back then on dm6, take ra, go ya, get back to ra, and it'll spawn right away(my movement was very weak).

but honestly, timing like its going on today, i doubt it was even considered by most players.calculating health? i'd honestly question anything going beyond listening to hurt-sounds.

I know how their games changed... and that pretty obviously shows they don't really talk to eachother.

btw I tested this yesterday to see how accurate I estimate dmg in a warmup vs someone who was kind enough to tell me his hp (after I gave an estimate).
Maximal value I was off by was 9. and that was because he took fall dmg earlier which I forgot.

Oh, I'm sorry weird I didn't know you were a professional duel player

if you discard my crap aim and especially my inability to aim at warpy people... I could very well have been professional.
Mind you that Bodzo got into SK by beating me in pretty much every final/semifinal (of tournaments I played in) when ql was in the beta and already back then I wouldn't shut up with how much he lagged / warped etc. In fact I think that during the whole first year of ql (when spart1e / stermy / cypher etc etc didn't play tournaments yet) I pretty much only lost to polish people. (being bodzo / 1o1 / some other guy)

I was also in one of the first IEM's for ql but missed out on getting to the lan finals (ended in the best of 32 poule stage).

I'm not denying playing warping players can be annoying but it can just be hard for said player to aim as well as they're warping. Makes their lg and mg alot harder to determine.

you don't know how the netcode affects the game :(

Pretty sure I do

your previous posts heavily suggests otherwise.

Don't you mean post*?

Please get off your high horse and realise you don't have all the answers.

There's plenty of great players out there that never made a decent income in video games yet know what they're talking about. wtf are YOU talking about...

Does anyone else have trouble watching the vid? All sk-gaming vids just keep loading with a blank white rectangle, waiting for stream.sk-gaming.com. I could watch them without problems a week or so ago.

Whenever that exact problem occurs (white box, no video to be played) it is a problem with the FTP server. It is supposedly being fixed so you'll just have to wait a few days.

Yeah I was getting that yesterday and thought it might have been something to do with adobeflashplayer. So when I updated it and I still couldn't play any of the videos I cried ;__;

Same here.

;__;