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Interview with toogoooood

Written by Malc

Sunday, 27 November 2005

Malc

Incase people don't know sometime in q3 dc became Dignitas

toogoooood

in q4 :)

Malc

what were the benefits in that?

toogoooood

Its support from sponsors and also having a manager like odee, I mean for example, me and blunt are off to dreamhack on Thursday and that wouldn't of happened without help from A-Bit and QPAD, something we could never of done playing under demoniccore! we also knew odee from q3, and were all fond of him. so it was a natural change for us :) I mean theres so many clans now in q4 who are sponsored

Malc

So you have moved to Dignitas

toogoooood

Correct!

Malc

but 4k have the better reputation, how can you show you are as good or better?

toogoooood

hard question :( well only way is to beat them in officials, theres no point going round claiming to be better. matches is what matters, blunts already made a excellent example of that playing vorv in the ec quals. and I'm sure more Dignitas vs 4kings games will go this way :) lately I think one of the main things that separates Dignitas and 4kings is commitment atm my team are very dedicated to playing, and I feel that 4kings have maybe run out of steam alittle, but I hope I'm wrong. they certainly got talent and alot of experience, I mean there team has been playin since QW that's 9 almost 10 years yeah? my team didn't pick up till 1 year after release date of q3! and the fact were considered level pegging is a great achievement imo :) but I'm ready to take Dignitas to the next level of this saga :)

Malc

The next level that includes lots of European clans can you win (or at least qualify from) your group?

toogoooood

well I'm optimistic, and I want to win the group and think we can! but theres so many good teams out there and its a new game anything could happen! EC I'm sure will bring alot of surprises, but I'm hoping to be on the good end of surprises :)

Malc

You mention blunt beating vorv, yeah unlike the 4kings website

Malc

do you seriously think that will translate to Dignitas beating 4k?

toogoooood

no, but I feel blunts commitment to training to beat vorv, and vorv not really caring and just showing up, might translate into tdm. I know all 4kings players very well apart from q50, there playing styles and speeds. and I know my guys very well and I will be training them with tactics that I hope will overcome the solidness 4kings will bring to every tdm game

Malc

So your hope is that you can "out know" the uk opposition? you say you don't know about q50 how will you cope with him?

toogoooood

I'm not sure yet, I have an idea how he's gonna play, I'm expecting like a more defensive deus, playing in between the front line of vorv/deus and helping mist/gun/blokey still hold those key areas, so I got an idea of how he's gonna fit in but skill for skill with me and my players? only time can tell me that since we haven't actually been able to get a practice game vs them yet :) a tdm team must harmonise and not get in each others way, I'm sure q50 will fit in straight away. its why iron were so successful in q4 tdm, they all had there own styles that complimented each other same as iceclimbers

Malc

You've mentioned this before

toogoooood

cus I'm crazy!

Malc

Which other (none UK) clans do you see harmonizing?

toogoooood

AAA should, with the lose of thefou is a shame, as he was a creative attacking player, but they have added winz who seemed to play very similar. I have yet to see eyeballers in action I know they got some new players to replace desp. I mean I have yet to play vs all of the teams in eurocup. I'm excited to see how some turn out, will be interestin also if some of the q3 teams will be able to stay ontop in their countries, or teams like mouz with gitzz / frag^em / daddy will be crowned best German clan in a few months time? or will stelam and his crew walk it :) Because some of the ut players have impressed me, and I still think they need 2 months of competitive q4 play to adapt to the quake style of tdm, not just having a job each like in ut

Malc

rB won their qualifier what's your take on them?

toogoooood

I like the guys first and foremost :) volatile and so on, but I honestly think there gonna find EC very hard.. 1 or 2 wins in there group @ most.. being that theres 48 invites they should manage that :) but yes they did beat levi, but in ut levI were more of a name to recon with than rb were in q3 and maybe if we give levI 2 months @ quake style tdm, the quals coulda gone differently. but that's next eurocup :) but I hope rb prove me wrong and represent ze uk! o and btw, where did you get it reptile was in our q4 team? stop reading clanbase rosters, they're lies! but you might of seen abyss will be joining us soon in q4 :)

Malc

I heard that after I thought DC was entering a seperate team. You are in the EC are there any other leagues/cups you are planning on joining

toogoooood

As far as tdm is concerned, were enter anything worthwhile, tdm is alot of work to get all your players there on the night, and make sure uve had sufficient practice. so atm EC is great, I think we could mange another online cup. but I'm more interested in quake4 tdm lans. that's something I wouldn't hesitate entering! on the 1v1 front I'm entering all I can, trying to sink my teeth into the duelling scene

Malc

is sujoy making a comeback?

toogoooood

I honestly don't know! sujoy has been practicing vs me abit, but I think he's holiday right about now :) but if he's not up to the modern day quakers that's nothing a bootcamp with some top euro duellers cant fix, I've heard he's entered cpl Dallas that right?

Malc

that's the rumour

toogoooood

I think he'll be there, and I wish him gl :)

Malc

any last things to say?

toogoooood

nah just lookin forward to the fraggin! :)

Malc

ok thanks for your time

toogoooood

THX MALCOLM IN THE MIDDLE!

Malc

good luck in the eC

toogoooood

save it for 4kings :) *puts on evil face* healthy rivalry = fun ;)

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Interview with RiGHT

Written by Malc

Sunday, 27 November 2005

Malc

You have been a Clanbase admin for sometime, when did it start?

LKFF|RiGHT

hmm good question must have been somewhere in 2000. Could have been 2000, cant remember. At the last EC LAN finals we looked it up, to find out if sput or me was an older admin... We eventually decided that hellspawn was still the oldest active admin :)

Malc

Talking of hellspawn, up until recently he was the face of q3tdm and you were more ctf, why are you doing the q4 tdm ec?

LKFF|RiGHT

Well.. history lesson :) a general misconception is that LKFF has been always been a CTF clan. we actually started with q3tdm and not till after I started adminning we also started playing CTF with the clan. Actually nEo vs S5 for the ClanBase opencup q3ctf was my first ever encounter with Q3CTF and it was cool. Action packed and interesting. I didn't know shit about CTF back then, but loved it. With LKFF we also found out that CTF was fun and.. we actually were better at CTF then TDM ;) So we focused more on CTF and with ClanBase there was a very good Q3TDM supervisor (hellspawn) and after Ethereal had left ClanBase as supervisor there was no good CTF sup anymore. So I took the position and it never really changed anymore Now Quake 4, hellspawn isn't really active anymore and tbh, Q4CTF is crap. ;)

LKFF|RiGHT

But with erazor there is a good and dedicated CTF admin again, he wanted to do Q4CTF, I didn't, but I did want to do something with Q4, so the choice for TDM was logical. So basically I just took whatever was available :) Or where I felt needed.

Malc

Well, yes q4 ctf is a bit crap but q3 ctf was crap when it first came out, and it really wasn't until 3wave released their maps that it became popular

LKFF|RiGHT

q4ctf is even worse. with q3ctf there were at least 2 proper ctf maps now there basically is only proper map and the FPS is extremely bad in CTF which is an even larger problem. I don't even know which one, its the one where there was a mega health in the mid and quad under the bridge, quite open mid. heartbeat or something like that its called, I think

Malc

you mention the FPS issues but recently there has been released the fps maps for ctf

LKFF|RiGHT

yeah I know, Drach has been doing good work on the FPS side of things and he also changed some items, weapons and player spawns, based on input by erazor

Malc

getting back to tdm and the EC for a minute you chose 48 clans, that's a lot what was your reasoning behind that?

LKFF|RiGHT

at first i wanted 24 the cup supervisors at ClanBase (The 'bosses') are Killerman and Yash and they decided we would go for groups with 6 clans each. So it was 2x 6, 4x 6 or 8x 6 with 24 it was impossible to select the clans I've spent an enormous amount of hours on finding out who was good, talking to all major Q3 clans and also the big names from UT2K4 but I ended up with about 42 teams I had to all consider and practice results were very unreliable (if someone asks you if you win or lose and versus who, its only natural that you mention just your wins and not your (heavy) losses, right? :) ) so to make sure we would have all the big clans... I eventually decided to go for 48. When I came up with my decision it was supported by the cup bosses who said it was the best thing to do and so said several other 'important' people. By that time the number of clans I wanted to consider had grown to about 58 or so ;) )

Malc

The EuroCup started with Q3 and godsmurf running very successful competitions hellspawn then took over and he ran very successful comps too. Now we have a new (but similar) game and you are at the helm. Do you feel pressure?

LKFF|RiGHT

No, the only pressure there is, is GGL changing their mind every other day ;) We had settled for X-Battle and all maps were chosen and suddenly everything was debated again. I guess some there was some successful lobbying from the Q4MAX team done and of course the decision from CPL to chose Q4MAX instead of X-Battle was a something we had to seriously consider, since it would mean we'd split up the community between two mods. Or at least risk doing that. But other then pressure from the side of the GGL (who are btw very cooperative and a good partner with their first priority being the gamers and the community), I don't feel pressure at all. I do my best and do what I think is best. That's all I can do. I only hope that we wont see a cup with 50% or more dropouts, but that's something I cannot do much about as its the community and the game itself which influence that.

Malc

So you say the pressure is to move from xbattle to q4max, that sounds like a move from Germany to the UK. However, the clans invited to the EC see 12 out of 48 clans being German. I know erazor is German and he is your co admin. Some people might say that it is a bit biased. Is that the case?

LKFF|RiGHT

Well no not that, its more the pressure in every way you can think of. GGL has to be involved in every decision, since the 2 finalists from the AmeriCup will meet the 2 finalist of the EuroCup on the big event somewhere in March 2006. That's what I meant by pressure. On a final note regarding X-Battle vs Q4MAX, there's talks of the mods merging together. About your other question, 12 German clans out of 48... true. It's a whole lot. But erazor only had very little to do with the invites. He only gave me input on which clans were not much good as he played versus them and based on his input I actually should have chosen less .de clans than more ;) I think it was your interview with Vorv, Vorv already said too that it's truly amazing how many German clans there are. It's completely Q3-revisited. In the early days of Q3 there was also an enormous amount of top .de Q3 clans. What also helps I suppose is that in Germany almost any big team has a serious sponsor, that makes it easier to attract good players from other games if you, as a big clan, want to set up a team for a certain game.

Malc

Most people will probably agree that the top 3 nations in Q3 (at least in Europe) were Sweden, Germany and the UK but they might be surprised to see Germany with more clans than Sweden. Not wanting to sound bitter but the UK being in 3rd place will not be surprising as that always seems to be the way.

LKFF|RiGHT

don't forget that there's 10 Swedish clan's as well. Not just a lot of Germans ;) Well the UK will have to first re-establish that 3rd place. It's being contested by The Netherlands and Italy

Malc

Benelux and Italy have also been major players in the past, but I notice Tulls are in the OC they were the only clan to make all EC's up in till recently so what has changed?

LKFF|RiGHT

Tulls has a qualifier. They are alphabetically listed 2nd behind Maechina, so they are now listed as OC. Tomorrow is the Italian qualifier which will determine where they will play

Malc

ah I forgot about that

LKFF|RiGHT

Tulls currently is cocisnuts, miso, ripper and impaa. Which means 1 Italian and 3 non-italians ;)

Malc

Who do "you" think will win?

LKFF|RiGHT

Well hard to say. ms did surprisingly well in the previous Q3TDM 2v2, but they had a problem getting a team together so they merged with the team "Players Bitterness" Purely based on lineup, I'll say that Tulls will win, but it remains to be seen if they had time to practice and what their level of dedication is.

Malc

If they do qualify they have always suffered from ping disadvantage do you think they will they do so again?

LKFF|RiGHT

I'm not sure. Quake 4's netcode is still extremely ping reliant and although Tulls does seem to have a link with the big Italian pro-gamers clan Play.IT they aren't really sponsored. So I'm not sure if they can get their people on a decent connection for the matches.

Malc

That's been a problem in the past

Malc

I know this is a bit presumptuous to ask but who is going to be in the knockout stages?

LKFF|RiGHT

unmatched(SK), Dignitas, team64, ic, team, eye, unnamed, mayhem. These I expect to be with the last 8 mayhem is a bit of a question mark since they are Norwegian and will likely be troubled with ping issues, if not mayhem then it will likely be mouz

Malc

You think Dignitas over 4k?

LKFF|RiGHT

yes, unless blokey and or mist started practicing in secret already and will be playing with the team and actively practicing before the cup starts.... I can't be sure of course, but I have the feeling that 4K is not as actively practicing as they would like to themselves. A team like i.e. aAa plays (nearly) every night.

Malc

deus, q50, vorv, gun are weak?

LKFF|RiGHT

No, but they cant do it like they did in Q3 with their various clans (4K/nEo/iron) and only play Cup matches and don't spent time practicing. I haven't seen 4K spamming the big public channels for practice matches i.e Dignitas' players are either playing 2v2's, duels or 4v4. I wonder if either of them still has an hobby ;)

Malc

as far as I know they have been but I don't idle in the 4k channel so I could be wrong

LKFF|RiGHT

ok, I don't either so not sure ;)

Malc

let's leave the UK for a while Holland has produced some good players in the past Serious gamming seems to be your only representative how do you rate them?

LKFF|RiGHT

serious gaming is the new name for the ancient Q2/Q3 team post Mortem. They haven't played for some 3 years, but when they stopped playing they were one of the best teams in Europe for both TDM and CTF if I remember correctly. They have good teamplay and they are actively practicing, but I'm not so sure on how good their aim is currently and I'm a bit afraid that they are still too far off of their old level to be a Serious Contender

Malc

Lets talk about coverage. In the past GS and HS have covered the EC's they have been brilliant do you plan to do the same?

LKFF|RiGHT

Planning yes, but Quake 4 is mental... today finally things have settled down, but the last 2 weeks or so running the cups have been a daytime job. Completely crazy. Q3 was always coping with a whining community, but that was ReLaxed compared to the how 'this' is. I haven't been able even to chose a logo out of the various logo's that were sent in by people ;)

Malc

I guess you have q3 clans, ut clans and other clans all thinking they are the best

LKFF|RiGHT

Q2, Q3, UT, UT2k4, CS, RTCW, SOF2, COD and ET Masterblasters from Germany even signed up with the note that they had won the Jedi Knight 2 cup at ClanBase ;)

Malc

Have you given each game a weighting when rating clans?

LKFF|RiGHT

Well a bit in any game the top clans should be about the same level, at least if that game's community is large enough. I do believe however that Q3 clans need less adjusting to Q4 than i.e. UT2k4 clans, although Quake4 still feels to me like it's Quake3 ported as a mod to UT2k4 or the other way around ;) clans coming from i.e. RTCW/ET/CS/COD I rated a bit lower, since those games are fundamentally slower and more aim-dependant. Any quake player will always say that Quake is extremely fast-paced and is less about aim, but more about being able to make decisions super fast and predicting where your enemy or enemies will show up and if you mis-predicted then you need to change your game entirely in a split second

Malc

Another aspect of coverage is the commentary the 1v1 have TSN covering their games the TDM seems to have ITG. I thought CB was all about global entity?

LKFF|RiGHT

It's not an exclusive agreement with TsN / iTG We basically have 3 to chose from, Gamesports.de (doing both German and English casts) is available as well. At the moment I have only been in contact with iTG though, but I do want to talk with TsN as well. CB uses 'preferred partner' Basically the idea is that the preferred partner gets to chose which game they want to cover and then other stations can sign in on the remaining leftovers :)

Malc

Would you consider any other stations?

LKFF|RiGHT

Sure, if they are professional and dedicated I'll consider any offer

Malc

QNR may be starting up again

LKFF|RiGHT

Right now, since there is no GTV yet for Q4, my preference is for the bigger stations which might be able to provide a videostream like TsN i.e. will try to do for the v games. iTG is not sure yet if they can provide that also ;( But sure, if you're planning on signing up you're most welcome. Video streaming is something I am looking at

Malc

I guess we have come to the end any last words?

LKFF|RiGHT

Well I was thinking about the clans I mentioned for being part of the last 8, I think I should add Rush3D and aAa as contenders to that list. Forgot the Russians ;) With a lineup with cooller, mikes and likely polosatiy and maybe even Begrip`Jibo, they have a very nice team indeed. Last words... I should get paid for doing this shit ;)

Malc

Yes, you should