PRE QCON'15 Interview Series Vol.3 team "BREAK"

Our third volume of interview series features Andrew 'id_' Trulli, Tim 'DaHanG' Fogarty, Gaven 'whaz' Sorensen, and Kevin 'kgb' Holowchik of team BREAK.

Firstly, tell us a bit about yourself (name, age, location, hobbies, interests, work, etc...):

id_: Hi there! Well, my name is Andrew, and I'm 27 years old, living in Toronto, Canada. I currently work full time as a commercial film producer, and spend any of my free time at the bar, gaming or travelling. I do stream some Quake Live on my twitch channel: id_tv.

DaHanG: My name is Tim, I'm 26 years old, and I live in Florida. I play Quake, and poker, enjoy comedy podcasts/shows, and listen to heavy metal. I work as a consultant in HR software.

whaz: Sure. I'm Gaven "whaz" Sorensen. I'm 24 years old, I work in Harrisville, Utah in IT, and I love to compete in e-sports!

kgb: My name is Kevin Holowchik, and my alias is kgb. I live in Memphis Metropolitan, Tennessee. My hobbies, and interests include making money, playing Quake competitively, women, traveling, and anything competitive that involves little to no luck.

How do you feel with two weeks left until QuakeCon 2015, and what are your thoughts on the event, and the format?

id_: I always get excited for QuakeCon as it approaches, as in my experience it has always been great fun to meet the players, and compete. At the outset I wasn't a big fan of the Swiss style format, with the Tri-Masters component, as it made forming teams a challenge, however, it has resulted in a wide range of teams attending the event (mainly from Europe), and it will guarantee more maps are played as each match must play three maps.

DaHanG: It would be nice if it wasn't a winner-takes-all sum game for every game-type but I like the format since it gives us a chance to play a little bit of everything.

whaz: I think the winner-takes-all format adds a lot of excitement. With the tournament being points based, you can easily upset the favourites by a single awesome performance. I think this QuakeCon will be the best one yet with CTF, and TDM being in the mix.

kgb: I feel confident in my abilities, and my team's abilities. We just need to execute properly. I like the format, and the extra prize pool, as it draws in more teams.

How are your's, and your team's preparation going so far? How would you rate your chances to win the event?

id_: We are basically practicing whenever we can get it... Our CTF practice has been pretty solid, and we feel really good about it. Unfortunatley, TDM is basically non-existent in North America, and that part of the tournament will likely be our weak point, but we're hopeful. DaHanG has been focusing more time on duel during the last few weeks, and has been getting back into form. I'm confident he will have a strong duel showing at the event.

DaHanG: I feel like we have the best chance to win CTF, and we hope to surprise people in TDM although we don't expect to win. We want to win the Tri-Masters overall. In duel, I hope to go as far as possible, and I think no one person has a great chance at winning. Maybe rapha, and cypher both have like a 30% chance each, then myself, cooller, evil, toxic, and others have the other 40% covered. I think the map-list benefits rapha the most though.

whaz: It's going pretty well. We try to practice four days a week, but we will pretty much take anything we can get right now. As long as we focus on the tournament and the game, we should do well :).

kgb: Personally speaking I do not claim to be a top four player going to this event but I'm not scared to face-off with any player showing up to this event. The European teams seem to be practicing four times more than us, but we have one of the best CTF teams ever assembled from North America. The only edge we have in TDM over the other North American teams is that SyncError showed us where the switch was to open the door on Ragnarok, at red armor, early on, but the two boxes of rail slugs contained behind the door won't save us from the 16 years of experience the European teams have over us. I figured I'd be fair, and tell all the European teams now instead of us having an unfair advantage at QuakeCon. There are six good teams going that I know of, and any of the six can win the Tri-Masters event. If I had to pick a favourite team to win it, it would have to be rapha's team. They have consistently beaten us in every game-type, their whole team is unemployed, and they have unlimited amount of time to invest in practice. Psygib dropped out of summer school to practice 12 hours a day for this event, so they are the favorite to win it all.

Could you describe your teammates in a few words, and what roles they play in your team?

id_:
DaHanG -- Always calm, reliable and focused on the objective. A good communicator with tons of high-level tournament experience. Roles: Dueller; CTF: High Defender; TDM: Timing machine.

kgb -- A grunting, angry human being, with good aim, good damage, and plays solid flag defense. Roles: CTF: Flag Defender; TDM: Damage doer.

whaz -- Dynamic offensive attacker who thinks fast on his feet, using his exceptional movement, and aiming skills. Also has excellent one-on-one combat skills. Roles: CTF: Primary attacker; TDM: Damage doer.

DaHanG:
id_ -- Offense. Probably biggest handful for a defense to deal with in terms of damage output, and timing enemy items in CTF. He has also picked up TDM quite well, without having a real history of playing it.

whaz -- Offense. Amongst the top players in terms of movement, and rocket-jumping abilities in North American CTF. Also just solid all-around with timing, and a very good railer.

kgb -- Flag Defense. Great aim, and health management in CTF. Shot-gun and rail-whore in TDM.

Myself -- High Defense, and third offense player as needed in CTF. I try to make calls to determine when an offensive player should stay back, or when I am leaving defense to attack, etc... In TDM, I am more of a lightening gun, and rocket player, fighting, and dying on key items, not hitting 10+ impressives

whaz: We are all dedicated players who want to win. Currently id_, and I are playing offense while DaHanG plays in a supporting attacker/defender role, with kgb as our main flag defender. We don't have roles in TDM as it's strictly about timing and improvising.

kgb:
whaz -- A top three CTF flag runner worldwide.

id_ -- A top three CTF flag runner worldwide.

DaHanG -- Our dueler. We are all good at all three game-types but DaHanG is especially good at dueling.

Considering the recent decline of activity in Quake Live, are you surprised by the number of teams (especially European) that have formed, and are attending QuakeCon?

id_: Yes, I am actually quite surprised at the number of teams attending QuakeCon this year... But I believe it has a lot to do with the tournament structure, and the prize pool, especially compared to recent years. In my opinion, by incorporating multiple game-types into the event they've opened it up to a wider range of players, and audience.

DaHanG: Not really since donations are so common now.

whaz: Not at all. Europe has a much larger player base than North America, and as long as there is a large enough prize pool, with reasonable game-types (TDM & CTF), you can expect the best to show up.

kgb: When the prize pool is as big as it is, teams will assemble, and all the old greats will come out of the woodwork to play. No matter how much this game dies, the die-hard competitive players will always be here.

Your team is widely considered as one of the favourites for the upcoming event, especially in CTF, however, this year's QuakeCon promises to be extremely stacked in terms of high level teams attending. With only a few weeks left to the event, have you scouted any of the practice streams broadcast by other teams, and if so, what are your opinion on those teams?

id_: This year's QuakeCon definitely has some difficult competition, and we are not discounting any teams in any of the game-types. I try to keep a tab open in my browser at work, and catch some of the European streams during the day. Based on what I've seen MD is definitely a strong CTF contender, and 102RC are a favourite for TDM. I feel that Averagers are the most improved team overall, in both CTF/TDM, and could upset a few teams if they perform well at the event. I haven't seen anything from iG really, and from what I hear they have not been practicing all that much.

DaHanG: I don't find much time to observe other streams. My thought's are that MD is the European favourite for CTF, and 102 is the overall favourite for TDM.

whaz: Yeah, absolutely. This year is going to be a really sick one as all the teams are really strong from Europe. MD is probably the biggest threat as they are going to be really competitive in every game type. :)

kgb: All the European teams, and the sole Russian team, are just as smart and as talented as we are, if not more, so I'm looking forward to the challenge. If it was going to be easy, I wouldn't make an appearance.

How many QuakeCon's have you personally attended so far, which one has been your favourite, and what is, in your opinion, some things to look forward to at the event, outside of the tournament itself?

id_: This year will be my sixth QuakeCon. My first one was back in 2009 with Team EG, and was actually my first real LAN event! I would have to say that last year's QuakeCon (2014) was my favourite, as there was a real good mix of teams from both North America, and Europe, making the competition strong. Apart from the tournament itself, I look forward to just meeting the players, and seeing people I haven't seen since the last QuakeCon! It's also great to look forward to what Spart1e will do when he's completely shit faced.

DaHanG: Eight so far, and the Quad Damage tournament in 2007 was the most fun. Nothing apart from the tournament itself is of interest to me.

whaz: This one will be my fifth QuakeCon. I'd say that last year (2014) was my favorite due to the fact that we were such underdogs to win the whole thing. Hopefully the room isn't below freezing this year, besides that, I'm excited, and ready to just show up and play. :)

kgb: This will be my ninth Quakecon. I am strictly going for the tournament, and to shake SyncError's hand in person for doing so much for this game, and organizing this event.

With quite a number of upcoming arena-fps games (Unreal Tournament 4, Overwatch, DirtyBomb, Doom, Reflex, Diabotical, etc...), have you had a chance to play, or review any of them, and if you have, what are your thoughts on them, and do you plan to switch to any of them once they are released?

id_: I'm not sure how much gaming I will do after QuakeCon as I am quite busy with work, and life right now. Overwatch probably looks the most promising if it actually requires a good amount of skill to move, and aim, otherwise it may be too newbie-friendly for my liking. Unreal Tournament 4, and Doom will also be on my list of games to try but not necessarily invest a lot of time into. Reflex, and Diabotical look alright but I'm not a fan of air control. I've tried DirtyBomb, and I just straight up don't like it... lol.

DaHanG: My general thoughts at this moment in time, with limited information, are that none of these games will be a major e-sport with the exception of Overwatch, potentially. Consequently, I have no interest in playing any games, no matter how interesting, or fun the game-play is, unless they become a major e-sports. So we will wait and see.

whaz: I've played a bit of DirtyBomb, and Reflex. DirtyBomb is a pretty fun game where you can just run around as different classes, and frag out. In that sense, it's a lot like Brink, and has a lot of potential. Reflex is basically just cpm, but with a different engine. :)

kgb: I could not care less about any new games coming out. Quake is the ultimate game of skill. I am not a gamer, I am a Quake player. Quake is the only game I have played in the last 13 years. I don't own consoles, and never cared to play another game since 2002.

Have you recently liked any old, or new book(s), movie(s), band(s), or activities?

id_:
Movies: Ummm... I've recently watched TED 2, it was hilarious.
Music: I like a lot of different types of music, U2/Metallica/Drake are probably my favourite.
Activity: Is drinking an activity?
Book: Currently reading Warren Buffett's 'Snowball'

DaHanG: Skeletonwitch.

whaz: Actually yeah, I've been digging my friends' new band lately. They are called "I Am Haunted", go check them out on Spotify, or Youtube! :)

kgb: N/A

Favourite Quake 3/Quake Live frag/defrag movie?

id_: Probably Cypher's latest frag movie, I'm a big fan of his duel movement, and creativity.

DaHanG: Don't really have one.

whaz: f33l by w3sp the Quake 3 defrag movie.

kgb: N/A

Any last statements or shoutouts?

id_: rooooooooooooooooooooooof

DaHanG: No.

whaz: Thanks for the interview! Shout-out to all my "Whazzle Dazzle!!!" minions, and to all of my friends out there (too many to name). :)

kgb: Thanks to SyncError for putting together the event, and putting together the sponsors for it.
Thanks to br1ck, Avenged, Effortless, Fear, Prophecy519 and Dead1y for helping us practice for this year's QuakeCon. Special thanks from chance sent to sparks for playing him in 40 duels a day, and preparing him for this year's QuakeCon. Special thanks to DKT for providing endless amounts of entertainment on his stream.

Thank you for the interview, guys! Best of luck in your trip to QuakeCon 2015 :) hfhf