Game On #5.
Sol

I contacted Sol about this interview two weeks ago. He said he was glad to do it, but there was one problem. Sol left for Mallorca last week. He spent the last weeks in an appartment at the sunny island near the east coast of Spain. But... Sol loves us, he loves the community and doesn't want to miss a single word said on Xfire.be and IRC. That's why he took his pc and internet with him. This made it possible for me to interview him from my little room in the wet Netherlands, while he was sunbathing on Mallorca. Live ain't fair! So I thought, why not give Nellie a pleasure, and do this interview the way he loves. This one is for you Nellie :>.


- Good evening Sol

Good evening!

- How's Mallorca?

It's ok, been cloudly the past week which is unusual, not that I have much time to get out and enjoy the sun anyway, too busy with work.

- Work on Mallorca?

I'm doing construction work in a new apartment complex, just for 2 weeks, need to pay the bills! My father has business out here.

- Got a bit of tan on your white Irish skin?

A bit, as I said; I don't have much time to enjoy the weather due to all the work and aside from that the weather hasn't been great this week. Also, my skin ain't that white, I tan fast!

- Good for you. As usual: could you introduce yourself to the crowd?

My real name is Seán Ward, I'm a 21 year old Irish/Swedish student, living in Dublin, Ireland. I've been gaming for more years than I can count, it all started back when my parents bought me a 486 in about '94, and I played games without even knowing their title. My introduction to multiplayer gaming was when RtCW came out, I played on a laggy 56k connection.

- So where and when did the little Sol start to play ET?

Well, the fact that I initially played RtCW on a 56k connection meant I didn't get much out of playing it. It wasn't until about a year or more that I finally got DSL, by the time i properly got into RtCW, ET was only around the corner, and like most RtCW addicts, I dismissed the game without giving it much of a try. I did start playing ET when it came out but I didn't 'really start' until a couple of months after, when I played with Pheromones.

- So what happened between Pheromones and today?

Well let's see, good question, I'll see if I can remember. Pheromones played around the same time mTw, DSky, gunslingers and so on were playing and I seemed to just pick up ET reasonably quickly, it wasn't long before I excelled past my teammates and got better than the guys who were once better than me. My appetite to improve is what motivated me. I'm not sure how Pheromones died, all I remember is that BiO 'stole' 2 of our players, Eeekhorn and Pray. After that there wasn't much left and things just slowly fell apart. Pray and Eeekhorn constantly informed me how good things were at BiO and told me I should join. Admitedly at that stage I always viewed BiO as a kind of noob clan, as we beat them a few times while playing with Pheromones and I never saw them as much of a team. It's amazing how easy it is to forget...anyway, somehow I ended up playing with BiO after some deliberation about whether or not to join, Sphere asked me if I wanted to trial, so I accepted and passed the trial and there I was. Things went quite well with BiO, but there was always something holding the team back, I don't know if you want all the info, if you do, feel free to ask, but for now I'll just continue. Over time I grew more unhappy with BiO and it eventually came to the point where I left, alongside Eekhorn and Pray shortly afterwards. After I left BiO, I stayed clanless for some time until...once again my memory fails me...I contacted the former rA team (OpenCup winners from a few seasons ago) to see what their plans were (if they'd continue or not). As it turned out, a few of them were willing to continue, namely Nickee and Motion. Nickee became the leader and we started planning a new team, I tried to find some players to join, I got Holz & Ganon and some I forget! Holz would remember this way better, my memory sucks. Nickee and Motion drifted away after a while, leaving me in charge. After several roster changes and finally parting ways with dtekt, we started playing as rAtatosk. rAtatosk constantly had the problem of an unstable 5th/6th man. Admitedly I was fairly new to clan leading so I was learning as I went, even though I lead a noobish RtCW clan this was somewhat different. I eventually parted ways with rAtatosk, with Holz and mAx, and I joined idle.ee, which I played with for some time until I decided to stop playing due to a loss of my motivation to commit so much time to playing.

- But why did you maliciously attempted to slaughter rA and become the black sheep of the ET community? *wink to TosspoT* Because you could've stayed with them...

As I said, leading a clan at a high level was new to me so I was learning as I went, therefore I didn't notice faults as quickly as I would have if I was more experienced. I was frustrated by the fact that the team hadn't progressed much and stayed more less on the same level without really improving much, for so long. Our 'success' came from the individual skills rather than being good as a team. It was rather hard to be good as a team when the lineup changed so frequently. In the end I realised the problem was the fact that our players wanted different things and had varying levels of commitment. After u96d died we wanted to try to take Night into the team, but he too realised we weren't going too far with the problems within the team. He then made the suggestion of rebuilding idle.ee, an offer which was too good to refuse. So I accepted. I wasn't happy that certain players were taking it less seriously than others. Myself and Holz were very active and wanted a stable lineup, Ganon and Shewie constantly thought it was no big deal missing 2 pracs or so each week. They were both very good players and really nice guys, I enjoyed playin with them. I also don't frown upon people having a real life, however it's hard to go far as a team when people have different levels of commitment. Also, I felt there was a patronising tone from them with regards to my contribution to the team, shortly proven wrong after the team collapsed not long after I left. However I'm not claiming that I didn't like Ganon or Shewie because that is not true. I really liked playing with them and they were nice guys, but I wanted to win and be at the top, that's pretty hard to do when you can't have a stable and active lineup.

- Why didn't you think of your unexperiencenessthat before you started with rA?

I didn't ask to be leader of rA, nor did I put myself forward to be a leader. As I previously said, Nickee was the leader and he left because he thought the team would be better off without him. He asked me to take over because he thought I was the best for the job, and saw I was eager for the team to go far. Even though I had minimal clan leading experience, I didn't want the clan to die like a random 2 weeks clan that everyone forgets about, I wanted to go far. I can only assume that is the reason why Nickee asked for me to take over, because he saw I was eager for the team to continue and knew I wouldn't give up. I didn't 'start' rA, I was one of the founding members and certainly helped a lot to create it (dtekt/rA) but I didn't start it by myself nor did I have the initial intention to lead it. Things just turned out that way. Such is life! Another reason I left rA was the fact that it became increasinly clear to me that the team wasn't going to go far without big changes, which were impossible to make.

- As you said, you went to idle.ee after rA... Nowadays you're not active in idle.ee, why don't you just leave the clan?

Because I'm clinging on to the fame. Not really, although many people would love to hear that. I keep telling Holz I should take the tag off, to which he replies I should leave it because it's pointless having no tag. Who am I to argue? Doesn't really bother me that much. I'm sure galahad would have said something if it bothered him, or perhaps punched me in the face when I met him in person. I think he likes me, not in that way though.

- So you're only idling at idle.ee (somehow that sounds pretty logical to me), are you still playing ET?

Only on public, Holz repeatedly asks me to merc but he has a habit of asking at the worst possible time, so I can't play when he asks! Just playing public these days. And trolling xfire.be.

- If you look back on what you've done while playing ET, are you proud?

I can't deny I'd love to have won something big, but then again I am proud of what I achieved throughout my time playing the game. I had fun and I made some friends as I played. I really enjoyed playing ET, I have no regrets.

- I have to be honest, I was planning on giving you some bitching questions, but you gave me no chance! Nice...

Gotta cover my ass.

- Hehe, now some personal stuff. How did you combine your private life with your ET "carreer"?

I still maintained a healthy social life, however not as healthy as I would have liked (the reason I quit), I can't see myself going back to a 5 nights per week prac regime now, too time consuming. My Uni work didn't suffer too much, kept passing the tests like I'm supposed to.

- Allready tried Warsow?

I tried it ages ago when I guess it was in one of the beta stages? Must have been a good few months ago now. I haven't tried it since this new wave of enthusiasm for it has come. No time.

- Shoutouts!

If I start naming people I'll surely forget people, therefore those who know they'd get a shoutout...well, shoutout to them!

- Thanks for your time and Game On!

You're Welcome

Phew, he had alot to say and make clear to you guys. He really made me search for good questions, and I almost had to erase all the questions I prepared... Well, it's a long interview but it contains alot of interesting answers. You allready know next week's guest:
Sheep
We'll see what he has to say.