Upon completion of Sunday's Fnatic.Play event I had a chance to sit down with Fnatic and some of the top players from the event. I will be releasing the interviews in four parts, two of which will come out today followed tomorrow by the remaining two.
Today's focus will be on Fnatic and forever from team bubbels.
Interview with Fnatic's "roy_chez" and "razv":
First off I would like to thank you guys for the tournament and for having us do your coverage, I think today was a great success.
<fnatic\roy_chez> It was our pleasure, you guys did a terrific job!
<razv> thanks to you for the great job you did today :)
What made you guys decide to do the event over at Fnatic.Play and what made you pick Quakelive?
<fnatic\roy_chez> PLAY is developed by Fnatic together with Bestpoker to create fun Sunday cups with a bit of cash to win for the motivation. Quake has always been a big part of Fnatic and we want to do something back to the community, so we thought this would be the perfect way.
For anyone who hasn't heard of fnatic ( that lives under a rock) and hasn't heard of fnatic.play, can you give me a little background on your organization and Fnatic.Play
<fnatic\roy_chez> Fnatic is one, if not the, leading gaming teams in the world. We pay gamers to travel the world and do what they're best at: game! We've won numerous of prizes and are revolutionary in many ways, such as with PLAY.
<fnatic\roy_chez> PLAY has been released about two weeks ago. It's a tournament with weekly one-day cups for various games. BestPoker.com sponsors us with cash prizes, which can be doubled if you get a set amount on the BestPoker.com website.
Being one of the only organizations around right now offering cash prizes for Quakelive, do you think that other organizations/companies will follow suit and start offering online tournaments with good prizes/cash prizes for Quakelive?
<fnatic\roy_chez> We certainly hope so. We see Quake Live as one of the largest eSports games for the future due to its uniqueness in the way of being able to play it through your browser and being free. We do not want to compete with others but help and build the Quake community to something great. Hopefully others will follow and I have no doubt in my mind that they will!
Being that Quakelive is still in beta, what do you see in the future of the game?
<fnatic\roy_chez> I see Quake Live PRIVATE Servers (Come on ID)!! Also, I know for a fact that LAN organizers are looking to get deeply involved with Quake Live and are waiting for the right moment. When all the bugs are worked out, and LAN and private servers are available more result will be seen as in LAN and cash events.
<razv> Well i guess we all hope that we'll can rent a private server for example in a near future
Ya I think everyone is awaiting the use of private servers, I think its hurting the community not having them right now.
<fnatic\roy_chez> I think id realizes that too, but I'm sure they have a valid reason for waiting that long - that's what I like to think at least..
Today was an European based event, do you have any future plans of doing any North American tournaments?
<fnatic\roy_chez> We do not have anything planned yet for Quake Live. With this I'm not saying we won't host any events, we will for sure! But we don't know what the plan is yet since we like to think out of the box! We do like to give this opportunity to everyone though, so North Americans will have a shot too.
We would love to see that happen, I know that personally I haven't seen many tournaments run as well as yours was today, and that none of them really feature good prizes/cash prizes
<fnatic\roy_chez> Thanks, the players helped a lot, they were extremely friendly. The only real problem we ran into was the servers.
Ya I would say that the European community is a lot more friendly than the American community by far, I didn't see a single poor sport or bad attitude today and that was really nice to see.
<fnatic\roy_chez> Indeed, they were simply amazing. Great attitudes and true sportsmanship, the way we all like to see eSports be represented
Are you planning on doing any more Quakelive European events? Any other mods or are you going to focus on Clan Arena?
<fnatic\roy_chez> Like I mentioned earlier, we have no real plans yet and we like to think out the box. Think of something you haven't seen before in Quake and we might just do it!
I know you had mentioned possibly doing an event where teams would have to compete in all mods [ca/tdm/ctf] in one event, do you think this is just something in the air or could we possibly expect to see something like this down the road? Personally I think it would be amazing to see and great fun for everyone.
<fnatic\roy_chez> You could expect that in a later stage. We need to figure that out a bit since it isn't as easy to do as it seems. But it would show the true and most complete team and it would be unique as well as a great show.
I agree with you 100%, I haven't seen anything like that to my knowledge in the 12 years of Quake I have personally played.
<fnatic\roy_chez> if anyone has crazy ideas we'd be happy to listen :)
What do you think attributed to the success of your event today and the success of your organization as a whole?
<fnatic\roy_chez> A good structure, hard work and a reliable team. Next to that everyone was really flexibly, from the Quake-Live.tv crew to the players, everyone was great and that made our job a hell of a lot easier
<fnatic\roy_chez> of course the prizes supplied by bestpoker.com helped too, as it attracted the "creme de la creme" of the Quake scene
For future events do you think that both the success and popularity of this event will attract more of the top European players to come out for the event?
<fnatic\roy_chez> I think so. Many of the top players are still "laying it low" till the LAN events kick off. Also, Clan Arena doesn't see as many big names, yet. We hope this has carried in the progress of changing that as CA is a great mode.
<fnatic\roy_chez> CTF and TDM are commonly seen. They will get their cups and already got their fair share. Clan Arena isn't known to many Quakers and non-Quakers, so we hope to have caught their attention with this cup.
<fnatic\roy_chez> it's also easy to follow for people who don't really know the game. No Red Armor or Yellow Armor to pick up and other complicated things like that
So you feel that Clan Arena was a nice buffer for both new players/teams to the game and teams that are more established as well as "pro" teams?
<fnatic\roy_chez> Yeah, you could say that. Bringing competitive gaming to "the people" or mainstream if you like, is one of our missions and CA is much easier to understand for those who haven't been following the game for years.
<fnatic\roy_chez> it's more accessible for new players also as they can just start and shoot and they won't get owned by someone who controls the spawn times, etc.
I totally agree with you.
<fnatic\roy_chez> and I love you for that gibz :D <3
I know that you guys are doing events (and have played various games for years) for other games as well as Quakelive, what is your personal favorite game out right now, not only to do events for but to play, and how do you feel that the skill level of Quake stacks up against other games?
<fnatic\roy_chez> My personal favourite game has always been Quake. I've never played it "hardcore" but it's great to watch and the community is awesome. I've been in the Call of Duty community for years too, but that's no where near Quake. Much more immature and unstable with line-up changes dayily and a new game every year.
And that's why I love you roy! ;D
<fnatic\roy_chez> haha XD
<fnatic\roy_chez> CS has been on the top of the shooter chain for years now, and it's time for a change! Let's go QL!
Speaking of CS (Counter Strike), do you think that Quakelive has the potential to overthrow the game and become as popular?
<fnatic\roy_chez> It's hard to say. I think QL's future lays with duelling, and that's where it can grow into the number one game and get major backing from large events. CS will be the #1 team game until the pro's move on and the fans follow.
If you could just pick a few things, what do you think could happen both in the community and on ID software's behalf that would help the community grow?
<fnatic\roy_chez> Private servers are numbero uno on the list of important features! The community must stick with the game and grab every chance. Attend every event hosted by big companies such as ESL and slowly grow into something good. Behaving like an adult in public and not nagging SyncError's head off will also work :P
In your opinion would it be in ID's best interest to give people like Fnatic.Play, ESL, Quakelive.tv and so forth, their own private servers like they did for GGL,ClanBase,Quakelive.se,tehleet.org so on?
<fnatic\roy_chez> Yes, the more private servers the better. I don't know why they haven't done that yet, but I guess they don't have the capacity to host them or haven't worked them out properly yet.
<fnatic\roy_chez> They have plenty of work to do, they have already told us that private servers are top priority to them so we must have faith in id and keep supporting them.
What is your favorite mod for Quakelive and why? What do you think is the most interesting to play and the most interesting to watch and why?
<fnatic\roy_chez> Don't laugh at me, but I prefer to play instagib as it doesn't require to much skill ;) I really like Duel as it's simple to understand for new players, but also has the debth with armors, etc. I also like CA as it's something rather new to me and it's pure action and easy to understand.
<fnatic\roy_chez> I don't see the reason why not to add it. If it's fun, bring it on! I don't think it would suit competitive Quake, but it will be fun for the noobs
Just to kinda wrap things up a bit, do you have anything you would like to add?
<fnatic\roy_chez> I just want to give a shout out! :D
<fnatic\roy_chez> Big thanks to you guys, Quake-Live.tv have been amazing, great stream and great staff. The community who and the teams who entered, thank you so much, you're ace! And last but not least, Bestpoker.com who made the prizes possible and who make the prizes possible for the upcoming cups! Keep an eye on play.fnatic.com everyone!
<razv> we all hope everyone enjoyed this event and hope we will have some great time forward with the next upcoming tournaments on fnatic.play! :)
Michael "gibz" Beck