FACEIT recently uploaded several player interviews from DreamHack Winter 2013. Conveniently uploaded on YouTube and alphabetically sorted below, enjoy.
Dude if you don't mind me asking, your accent doesn't sound at all eastern european. It sounds more american than anything else. Did you spend time living in the states growing up or something ?
No. I didnt learn English at school either. What really shaped it was me watching tv and movies along with playing video games in englush with swedish subtitles
I would have loved something like 'faces of quake': interviews with all mid and low seeds players with questions like: "what made you play quake? Why do you still keep on playing?" Because quakelive only exists because of the mid and low-seeds players, who just love the game. As much as I love the pros like rapha, cypher and especially av<3k perform, it's the guys from the lower seeds, who keep the scene alive. So yeah, really enjoyed the interviews of the lesser known players.
Also: people from Israel should not have to give a statement about the political situation, only because they are from Israel, lol.
I really don't get it. The guy actually requested an interview, then when asked if he had any shoutouts, he says he'd like to comment on the political situation because that's what everyone in the community keeps on asking him when they see he's from israel (never seen a single occurrence on ESR), then says he's pro-palestine, despite sporting an israeli flag and israeli country extension. He's a chill guy and all, and I couldn't really give a fuck what anyone's political ideas are, but all that just raised more questions than answers for me.
Well I'll like to give you my take on it and try and explain myself although I think it's because its only because I feel weird about the whole situation myself as well.
So first off I didn't really ask for an interview, I asked memento if he's interviewing all the players and whether I'll be interviewed or not myself. I had just seen laskij being interviewed earlier and thought they were interviewing all the attending players and not just the high/top seed ones.
Now I really don't want to be that guy that brings in politics when its out of context, I generally try and keep my political opinions to myself and it's a topic I'd rather not discuss with people as they always get too emotional. Now saying it never comes up and that there is never a single occurrence of it being brought up on ESR is just straight wrong. Ever since I've become a more active player and more involved with the quake community more people know who and how I actually am as a person it's been getting mentioned less often,although even in this thread you can find a random 'free palestine' post, but before I was more well known it was an issue that got mentioned almost anytime I posted something.
First time I ever posted on esr was about a 2v2 cpma/vq3 nations cup thread in 2009 for which I and a friend signed up to play for team Israel. I remember people posting about how they were gonna try and sabotage our matches because some football club or whatever did something similiar and from then on the thread turned into another political debate about israel.
Atleast 50 percent of the time when I go play some duels and decide to have a smoke break or whatever they ask me about my flag and politics gets brought up once again. At DHW it was a topic that was brought up several times as well. It even got brought up within the first 30 minutes after I just landed in sweden after I saw thorin and ddk with some LoL/korean SC2 and went up to say hi and have a quick chat and ask if I can tag along with them for the the ride to DH which DH itself organized. I think after mentioning I was from Israel the first thing thorin asked me about was politics, this happened at least a dozen more times while I was at dreamhack.
Regarding me sporting an israeli flag on esr and in QL (not to mention the IL in my name), It's where I'm from and I don't believe I need to be apologetic about being from israel, I don't think it should really make any difference. The only reason I use the nick no_il was because 'no' was already taken when I made my QL account and it was the first thing that came into my head at the time, I didn't really give it to much thought at the time. Lately I've been wanting to send a request to support at ID to get my nick changed to just 'no_' or w.e, just been too lazy so far.
So while I do thing I honestly brought up the issue because I'm genuinely tired of discussing politics and talking about zionism all the time, something which was especially prominent while I was in sweden whenever my country of origin would get brought up I honestly do believe I'm in this state of limbo between not wanting to identify myself as an Israeli and on the other hand believing I shouldn't have to apologize for it either and am still confused regarding the whole situation.
you know, one of the TDM players who attended the prague tdm lan is israeli but chose not to sport an israeli flag in-order to not let it identify themselves, I don't want to 'out' that player but I know it's not an issue that only I am not sure how approach.
It seems that the more I become involved within the QL community and on esr the less people judge according to which country I'm originally from and more according to my character and that's great. I'm sorry for this very long rant, it's something I've put a lot of thought into myself but still haven't reached a decisive conclusion in regards to what to do.
Also consider that not everybody who asks about politics means it badly.
Imagine you have one wooden leg. Every single person you meet in life will ask about the leg, though of course you will have heard it a million times already.
Ye, i'm not mad at anyone who asks. I'm consider myself a pretty open person and love chat with people in between games, the social aspect of quakelive is just as important to me as the game itself. I don't think that the people who ask me these questions have any bad intentions and to be honest I prefer having a more meaningful conversation with someone over polite small-talk. I'm just trying to explain my actions.