Kevin “arQon” Bleckinsopp, best known in recent years for heading up the Challenge Promode Arena mod team, has been interviewed on eGames.de about the mod scene.
The blinding truth spit from his mouth caused me to wear sunglasses when writing this. Here’s a lengthy excerpt that explains the dire situation mods find themselves in today:
From CPMA’s ‘Deathmatch Perfected’ gameplay detail-driven mindset, to Freeze Tag, Clan Arena gametype variations, to CS’s, more accurately, ‘Action Quake’s’, total conversion, these are the mods that matter, but they end up starved for assets because the artists are all off doing prettymods, so the newbies look at screenshots of them and go ‘durrr, looks the same, why play it?’ If those two groups could actually work together, the end results would be so much better for both of them, but it seems almost impossible to get that to happen. Every once in a while one does – and is invariably a success, duh – but it’s the exception rather than the norm, so overall there’s just a colossal waste of talent on both sides most of the time. The featureset mods like OSP, Q4MAX, PK++, HL2DMPro, and so on, are simply doing a job that should have been done by the company that sold you the game.
Visit eGames.de for the full interview.
Shortly after Evil Geniuses announced its Unreal Tournament 3 squad, GGL Wire was able to get in touch with manager Alex Garfield and the rest of the team for a thorough grilling. We covered the impetus for creating an EG UT3 squad, the selection process, and some background information about the team. Let’s get to it:
GGL Wire: Is the EG UT3 team salaried?
Alex Garfield: No, however with this EG covers all travel, hardware, and competition costs. It also means that we do not take a percentage of the players’ winnings.
GGL Wire: What was the impetus for forming the EG squad? Do you (Alex) know something that the general gaming public doesn’t about next season’s CGS game picks?
Garfield: The reasoning behind EG’ venture into UT is extremely straightforward. First of all, it’s a very well-tenured brand of dueling game with an already-established community with its own stars and history. Secondly, it looks absolutely incredible, and serves any hardware company well (this, I believe, is proven by the fact that it’s already becoming a relatively popular “booth game”). Lastly, its cross-platform appeal is a huge plus. I believe the gap between PCs and consoles is quickly closing; in 5 or 10 years, there very well may be little to no difference between the two. And so I believe that cross-platform titles like UT3 are crucially important from a broader perspective. Read more »
The crew over at ClanBase has interviewed superstar game designer CliffyB about e-Sports, the gaming industry, and his gaming background. This is the first of many more mainstream interviews that ClanBase plans, so check this excerpt and head over there for the full story.
ClanBase: Do you see competitive gaming as a sport?
Turn on ESPN late at night and tell me what you see. Trick shot pool. Log cutting. Poker. I believe that if a part of your body is moving, your brain is engaged, and people are willing to watch then it’s a sport.
Source: ClanBase interviews Cliff “CliffyB” Bleszinski
GGL’s Reid Landeen translated this interview from Chinese into English for GGL China.
With 2008 underway, details about the big e-Sports events of the New Year are coming out. Recently, ESWC has officially decided that the location for China’s qualifier for the finals will be held Wuxi, in Jiangsu Province.
It is understood that this year’s ESWC China will have brand new organizers running the event. Since China is hosting the Olympic Games this year, what kind of surprises will the new 2008 ESWC China competitions ultimately give us with this non-Olympic sporting event? Bringing a ton of questions, we interviewed Lu Chen, the person in charge of the Wuxi Digital Media Company who is hosting the ESWC 2008 China competitions.
Hello Mr. Lu. Can you first explain a little about the undertaking organization of ESWC 2008 China’s competitions?
Mr. Lu: Hello. The undertaking organization for the ESWC 2008 China competitions is the Wuxi Digital Media Company. Specializing as an e-Sports company, our team is mostly made of people who come from China’s e-Sports industry, so they have a very deep understanding of e-Sports competitions as a whole. So, we have a lot of confidence that we can make the ESWC 2008 China qualifiers the single most successful competition in ESWC history, while at the same time making this become one of the most influential and prosperous cultural events in all of China. Read more »
GGL and Epileptic Gaming are proud to welcome Michelle McLaughlin, Playboy magazine’s Ms. February, to the show Tuesday. Join the beautiful Michelle and the usual cast and crew as we take a look at Playboy’s 2007 Games of the Year as announced in the February edition of Playboy.
Michelle will sit in with djWHEAT and company and will also pick up the mic and guitar for a live Rock Band session. For sure, this is an Epileptic Gaming you won’t want to miss.
Join us live at 7PM ET/4PM PT on epilepticgaming.ggl.com and wire.ggl.com to watch and take part in all the action.
2007 is the year when Ola “elemeNt” Moum put his mouse and headset away and moved on from professional Counter-Strike 1.6 to “real life.” elemeNt announced his retirement from Meet Your Makers and gaming in general several weeks ago.
The Norwegian player will be remembered for his dazzling spree of success between 2002 and 2004 with goL/eoL, SK Gaming and Team NoA as well as the controversies surrounding elemeNt’s transfers between teams.
And perhaps one more thing - giving good interviews. Enjoy this exclusive Christmas feature.
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The 1on1 series continues with an interview with Paul “czm” Nelson, arguably the best Quake 3 player in history. In the feature Paul talks about life, Quake, switching to other games and how dumb he can be at times, despite graduating from Princeton with a degree in math.
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John “ZeRo4″ Hill is one of the most accomplished Quake 3 duelers in history with three QuakeCon titles, a World Cyber Games 2001 gold and the CPL Babbages championship, to name just a few. In an interview, ZeRo4 talks about a possibility of a comeback for the ESWC 2008 and throws down the gauntlet to one of his biggest rivals, Johnathan “Fatal1ty” Wendel.
Read more »
The story of the week in Counter-Strike 1.6 was the transfer of PGS’s team into Meet Your Makers. The switch was surrounded with a lot of controversy - the champions of WCG 2006, Extreme Masters and ESWC 2007 were said to be unhappy with the organization, and PGS was said to have wanted to sell them.
The truth? Find out from the interview with the team’s player, Jakub “kuben” Gurczynski. Read more »
This week’s 1on1 features the legend that not many gamers will know. He is one of the most prominent players in QuakeWorld and the winner of DreamHack’s QW tournament, David “ParadokS” Larsen. How does one stay faithful to a nine year old game and what is a QW player’s perception of today’s esports? Find out in the interview:
Read more »
GGL Wire’s Jonathan Wood tracked down Syanide of =OLD= Renowned Fraggerz to discuss his ClanBase experience and thoughts about Unreal Tournament 3. =OLD= is currently leading a ClanBase UT3 ladder that hasn’t seen much activity, but hope to see it ramp up in the future.
GGL Wire: Where did your clan name and nick come from?
Syanide: The team name stemed from when we initially set =OLD= up. It was a clan for over 30 year olds. And in the gaming world you could say we were =OLD=.
That was about 5 years back..but since then we did relax the rules and have guys now from 20+.
On my nick.. initally I wanted a nick that sounded a bit mean…tried a few but didnt like them, then settled on cyanide but wanted something slightly different so it becoame syanide.That was in UT1.
GGL Wire: So far, what do you think of UT3’s competitive prospects?
Syanide: Pretty good.. it seems to have gone back more to the roots of UT1. Shame they seem to have removed the double dodge from the game, though. Probably because of the console games, I reckon.
We’re looking forward to the cups. Mainly TDM but have a few interested in duel and CTF as well. Read more »
Jordan Pennekamp hunted down this interview.
Last month Total Gaming League (TGL) announced official sponsorship of the highly successful Defense of the Ancients pickup match league, DXDLeague (currently known as Total DXD). In conjunction with Total DXD, Total Gaming League would facilitate tournaments approximately every thirty to sixty days; thus, Battle for the Throne (BFTT) was born.
I recently had the opportunity to sit down and speak to Jeff “Hunter_” Hunter, head administrator of Total DXD and commissioner of Battle for the Throne, to receive some more details on the tournament.
GGL Wire: Please introduce yourself and provide a little of information about yourself.
Jefferey Hunter: My name is Jeffery Hunter and I currently reside in Modesto, California. I am employed at the local school district; my official title is Information Technology Coordinator.
GGL Wire: Who contacted whom first; TGL or yourself? Please provide a little insight on how DXD and TGL became involved with one another.
Total Gaming League’s owner, Greg Howard, was at the time working with a colleague of mine who had previously managed Check Six Gaming (our former sponsor). He suggested that I should speak to Greg about becoming involved with his network of gaming organizations. The first time I spoke to Greg it was mutually apparent that we had very similar goals and ambitions, and a shared love for the e-Sport community. Read more »
