Besides the ENC and QuakeCon, why do you feel there are no LAN events in TDM or CTF?
We quite simply do not have the required amount of organisations who could fund 4 players to attend an event, and it's for that reason I do not believe that anybody has faith in announcing a LAN tournament. That said, even if somebody would actually announce a tournament, the gametype(as is with duel) is such that only 4 or 5 teams could really compete for first place and so to be realistic, I can't see too many teams attending one. I'd love to see more TDM and CTF show matches at events though, I’d certainly want to get Level Up TV involved with the broadcasting of those.
What would you change to Quake Live or do you feel the game is “nearing perfection”? The scene seems to be bigger than ever, or do you see this differently, as an active player?
If we're talking about the game itself, then I believe that it needs a slight increase in the size of the hitboxes - right now there is a lot of issues with server finding when players ping 45-50, it's ridiculous. I believe everything else inside of the game is pretty much polished. Outside of the game then of course, we could see vast improvements to the features of Quake Live. To put it quite politely - integrate the Heroes of Newerth backend with the game of Quake Live and voila.. a perfect game in my eyes. As for activity then Duel is great, TDM and CTF are as inactive as ever and this will never change, anybody that says otherwise is usually saying that at the beginning of every season where teams suddenly become more active until they realise that in reality - they are nowhere near the level of some of their opponents. It's a sad and vicious circle that I hope we at Level Up TV can begin to change with our commentary.
What is your take on all the criticism id Software is getting for their LAN support? I am sure you have had your fair share of problems, being one of the people who most frequently needs to access the events, due to lvl^
I went to ESWC UK and we all played with pings that spiked from 20 to 100 because the FIFA players were all using Xbox live to update their games and player profiles. Yes the fault was partially Game Frontier for a) allowing them to play on day 1 and b) not contacting ID for LAN servers. But secondly ID deserve all the criticism they get for LAN support because it's just so annoying to obtain for these organisations. That said, when it has worked fine the guys over at ID have always had somebody on hand to add our leveluptv ip's to the LAN servers and for that reason, it's not all that bad when we do actually have LANs. But I’d love to see more Quake Live events happening, and that can't happen when organisations have to consistently contact ID way in advance for confirmation, or of any costs involved. In fact, I attended i40 with TLR and intended to run some Quake Live 1v1 shootouts, but on day 1 the internet was down, and on day2/3 the internet spiked like crazy too, so we ran Quake 3 instead... Shame.
Will Team UK make a change for the next ESL ENC season, or will you keep to the same 3 IMmune players + deus tactic? What about the ddk comeback?
If ddk keeps up his activity with Reason-Gaming and his aim in Quake Live improves as a result, he will definitely be a player to consider for the team. I've been playing with him in this season of the Q3 CPM NationCup and there's no doubt that he's a very strong team-based player, so we'll see how he develops in the coming months but for now at least, I can't give you an answer. What I can say is that last season we lost to .NL by 1 or 2 frags for several stupid reasons, and so I’m sure the line-up won't change too much. But that door is not closed.
 Chilling after the games at i39
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Do you estimate Team UK will improve on last season’s ranking? Are you aiming for LAN finals?
We were aiming for LAN finals last season, I literally returned from a week’s holiday to play that game and to be quite honest it was my fault we lost it and didn't get there. There's a small joke going between our little community of how I tried to pummel the quad runner on the final map. I look back and laugh, but obviously they get quite angry and shout at me.. which is when I start to feel quite disappointed in myself! So yes, definitely LAN finals.
