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Author:
Saito
2,358 Views
8 Comments
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Interviewed:
SEXBOT
Interviewed by:
Saito
Let’s get the simple stuff out of the way first; location, name, age, current team.
David Fleming
Richmond, VA
22
right now I play for DTS, SBP and Borderline. I’m normally playing as GATMAN I think everyone should know that’s me by now.
Your current team (DTS) seems to be fairly logical. Concrete and Cuzkey played on teams together prior, and Smooth is fairly well known and his clan at the time (NE) wasn’t really active. On the other hand you came from Yo! Which was currently playing. Why did Yo! Decide not to play in GGL, and how did you meet up with the guys in DTS?
YO decided not to play because there were only a few guys who were very competitive. To be honest the majority of the guys didn’t want to get raped game after game. I on the other hand am very competitive; it’s why I play UT, to try to be the best. So I started asking around if any GGL teams needed a another player. DTS said yes, which is good because without me I doubt they would have even had 4 for any of the matches.
Give us the defining roles of the players on DTS,and what everybody contributes to the team.
At the start of GGL concrete had major connection issues, but he still did what he could, but once he went home and got a better connection he really stepped up, he has good hitscan as well as “spam”, he’s a good all around player. He’s kinda the cheerleader always telling the team to not give up and to keep communicating regardless of the score and gives inputs on how we
should run maps.
Cuzkey is a brawler, I like to have him around the armor and with rocket/flak. He always has a good game and has put up some good NET’s against very good teams. I like to have him supporting me or whoever is running one of the tougher positions. He is good about getting to powerups on time. He has a lot of faith in the team, he kinda keeps us motivated as well.
Smooth is more of a defensive player, he likes to lg and shock people down from a distance, he has had connection issues the whole GGL, he’s often frustrated while playing but he sticks it out. He would like to be with a shock or LG, But with his connection issues he has been playing around the armors and trying to keep his deaths low since he can’t fight with 200 ping and 30 PL. When is connection doesn’t act up he can really lock down areas on the map. He’s more of the level headed of the group and just tries to
keep us calm and focused.
I kinda call the shots strat wise along with concrete .I like to put myself in the tougher positions on maps and I call any changes we need to make during games. I am a self proclaimed amp whore so I always try to time and get that, I usually have very good AMP runs, some of which have completely turned the momentum of games that we were losing.
At the start of GGL nobody even gave DTS a thought of making the playoffs. In your division everybody was watching SBP, CON, and Gravity for playoff shots. LCD was thought of as the distant fourth into the playoffs from your group. Do you think people just underestimated you, or just didn’t know about you guys since it was a new team with no huge names on there, and do you think this worked in your advantage?
Haha, I dunno why people thought/think LCD is better than us, not a slam against them but I never saw them as a threat to blow us out or anything. I found it shocking seeing RA and others saying it was an upset when we beat them. Some say its being cocky but I have a lot of faith in my abilities as well as the rest of my team. We were certainly underestimated many thought we would lose to m2, and that our games against imminent would be close, neither of which ended up being true. Yeah DTS has no big names, except maybe Smooth , I still think we do pretty well considering that. I think being underestimated was kind of a booster for our morale, seeing that we were winning when people didn’t expect us to.
The question you knew was coming. Your GGL conference ended up in a three way tie for third, with SBP, LCD, and DTS. The funny thing was the two “fluke” games that lead to this. SBP should have beat LCD, and LCD should have beat DTS. To make matters all the more confusing, LCD had to beat m2 to make the playoffs, and even though LCD couldn’t make the official match time (m2 was there) they got an FF win because m2 pretty much quit UT shortly after. The situation was mass confusion, and the teams that advanced were decided on quick playoff. In which SBP came in first, DTS came in second, and LCD came in third and thus didn’t advance. What’s your take on the whole fiasco?
Here we go again with the LCD shoulda beat DTS thing, anyway I think LCD shoulda received a FF loss for the m2 match. The only real upset was SBP losing to LCD, but there is a lot of talk and speculation about that match in terms of possible ringing. There were some amazing games in that best of 3 by some players on LCD, their games prior and after that match have not been as good, so it comes off kinda fishy. I kinda thought the playoff was dumb and a waste of time, I knew it was gonna end up with the current
result.
Where to do you expect to finish in GGL? Which teams left do you think you can beat, and which do you think you can’t?
We just lost to x6 In our 1st playoff game which is a given of course. We play h2o next I believe, I don’t know the maplist or anything but we will give it our best. If we beat h2o I’m sure will won’t make it much further than that, the playoffs has really good teams. My goal with DTS was just to make to the playoffs which we did. I’m kinda proud because the only time DTS plays is GGL matches, so for a team to make it this far with no practice I think that’s pretty good.
As most already know there are two more GGL UT events on the schedule for this year, one of which is another Americup. While the game type hasn’t be revealed to anybody yet I think most feel it’s a safe guess to assume 1v1 and TDM (after all everything is always those two). Does DTS plan to stay together for the next two events?
Well smooth, con and cuzkey are all in H2K so I’m sure they will be together. I will only be playing with SBP and Boderline after GGL.
New players in this community seem to have a rather hard time getting competitive. However you are pretty much as wet behind the ears as any of them, yet managed to improve, and crack the skill base to work into the Americup playoffs. Do you have any comments/advice to new players about how you pulled this off.
My advice to new players would be to play to learn and not just to play. Don’t be afraid to hop on other teams voice and scrim with them. You may learn somethings your current team doesn’t do. For me my big leap in skill came from finding settings that allowed me to shoot off reflex. A lot of players have settings that they aren’t comfortable. There is no right or wrong in terms of sensitivity, use what works for you, not whatever stryfe uses. Play on pubs, and work on timing and knowing where to be instead of trying to have a good shock %. One thing you will notice about good players is they always have good positioning, that’s a big part of TDM.
Alias if you have to, I know I did when I was really working on my game. Not to talk shit as an alias, but to be able to play and work on my game without worrying about my ego getting bruised from seeing my name with a -20 net.
Another big part of UT is attitude, you shouldn’t really be cocky (I know I’m one to talk) but I think you should think highly of your playing, even if it’s not so hot. You can get away with a lot in this game just by showing opponents that you don’t think they can stop you. I’m not saying play stupid, but every once and awhile don’t be afraid to fight the stacked dude with mini when all you have is a lg. 3 Lg’s later you might have more faith in your ability, and have put some fear into your opponent.
But at the same time everyone can’t be good, some people are just good at games and some aren’t. don’t get frustrated, sometimes you can play the game too much, take a break for awhile if things aren’t getting any better. When you come back you will play a lot better.
We both know the competitive community can be a very cruel place, or at best hard to understand at times. What has been your experience as a player working into it, and what would you like to pass on to other people looking to work their way in.
UT is a game, so the only thing that represents you, is how good you are. The better you are the easier it is to get on good teams and be apart of some of the cliques of good players that UT has. One thing I have noticed the players that aren’t as good seem to think everyone good is an asshole. I used to kinda feel the same way, but as I got better and started talking to the better players you see that they aren’t assholes, its just they see the game in a different light. But at the same time I think a lot of the
new players who speak their mind get a bad rap. DS is a good example.
Also, do you have any over all comments looking back, and looking forward about the advantages of either community?
I’m a competitive person so I find the competitive scene a lot better, the casual playing is ok, it’s just not for me. The old saying is “play for fun” but for me I only have fun when I win. I’m really glad I got into UT like I did, I have met a lot of cool people and had a lot of fun playing.
For the future i plan on continuing working on my game individually and to help take SBP to the top.
You’re one of the more active players. You play in pretty much every pug there is, and you are constantly looking for scrims. You’re also one of the most vocal players in griping about how people don’t scrim or pug in this community. I’m curious as to what you think the problem is, and if it’s going to get any better.
There are several problems with the community one kinda created the other. The 1st problem is stacked teams, right now x6, con, SBP, gravity, h2o and dx rape every other TDM team, the other teams can’t compete due to lack of teamwork/good players. It’s impossible for the other teams to get big name players to really help their teams. So they get stuck at this mediocre level of play. Most of these teams either have quit UT all together, or have switched to TAM.
TAM is the other big killer of the community, I dunno how many teams play it now, I have lost count. But this is kinda what TAM was made for, it lowers the life of the team winning so the losing team can try to catch up unlike TDM. I wish all those TAM clans would pick up TDM, sure they wouldn’t be able to compete at the level of the teams mentioned earlier, but just think about how big of a community it would be if all those TAM clans played TDM. That’s a good 15-20 teams that could all be scrimming and working on their game. Who knows they could even work their way up to the level of some of the better teams.
Sadly I don’t think it will get any better, the only hope is more tournaments like GGL and OLB, cause before GGL the community was really big again, lots of scrimming and playing by almost every TDM clan. But of course that’s to be expected when money is involved, unless there are some more money events I see UT being completely dead by 2006.
And of course MMORPG’s are a problem for every non MMORPG game.
Unreal Tournament 2007 is still a long way off. How well do you think Unreal Tournament 2004 is going to hold up till then? Is there anything that’s going to hurt it, or can anything be done to make it better?
Honestly I haven’t paid much attention to the new UT, I hope it’s good but I fear it’s gonna suck. I know they dropped the LG for the sniper rifle though which is lame. But with any game series no matter how bad the latest one is, people will continue to play it so I’m looking forward to being
around when a UT is really popular.
Shout outs?
Shout out to YO for being cool guys, I kinda owe everything in UT to them they kinda got me into this whole competitive scene when I was just a noob running around on DM servers with a ball mouse.
SBP – for giving in to my stalking/spectating and letting me play with them.
Saito for doing this interview, nice of you to interview a non-top player.
Tex- for being my PUG buddy
Cursive, RA and DP – for being cool guys
Solid and Stilz for talking shit to me on the factory back in the day, which motivated me into wanting to play more and get better.
Special shout out to RA for admining the playoff matches and pausing for smooth, I know I pissed you off that night with some of the stuff I said. My bad man, I really wanted to win and I felt I was being pressured into RUPing while smooths connection was fishy.
Micah for scrimming with me back in the day when I had no clue of what to do, and listening to me whine about clan stuff. :*
PUGBOT – I like pugs, so I like you.
Scrimbot – I like scrims, so I like you.
Chu – I know I cry about the sever and the map selection, but atleast I have somewhere to play.
Finally shout out to Everyone that knows me on UT. |
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