Interview: zP! APaX - TEK9 Networks

Heya Calle, Could you introduce yourself to our readers and tell us a few things about your gaming history?
» Hello Camiel. My name is Calle Stern, known online as APaX, and I'm a 18-year-old guy living just outside Stockholm, Sweden in a town called Gustavsberg (famous for its toilet factory with the same name). I started to play video games when I was very young, probably around 6-7 but not online until the summer/fall 2002 when we got broadband. Played a bit before that on our awesome 56K connection but not much more then a once a while.

The first game I started to play online was Day of Defeat, back in the beta version 2.0. I only played it on public servers back then but soon after the release of beta 3.0 I got my first clan, called The Patriots. The team was made up of some amazing inviduals and we had a really great time together, eventhough we really sucked. After about two months in the team me and another member decided to leave the team and tryout for another swedish team called Swedish Raging LynX. Both of us got a chance in the team and during the five months I played with them I visited a LAN arranged by them in Västerås and got the chance to play my first "top" games. I really remember my first game against a top team (K18) and it was really exciting.

However the SRL team had lots of member and a total of three of teams, whom I was incharged of the second. When we didn't get the support we wanted and needed we decided to leave SRL and start up our own team, which got the name owned by Skills! This was a very promising team with players who would eventually end up in one of the best teams in Europe in the later versions. During the obS! time I had a great experience and it was the first time I was incharge of a my own team. We had some cool sponsorships such as being sponsored by the drinks company behind 'Festis' and much more. During our time as a team the first version of Day of Defeat was released. When the summer came up we got more and more inactive and later decided to disband.

While most of the members went on to new adventures I decided to take a break from claning and focus on other, more important things in life. I kept on playing Day of Defeat though in BFE (www.dodstournament.com now) and stayed in contact with the community. After being “off” for about 6 months I decided it was time to make a new try, and joined up with the promising team Svea Livgarde in January 2004. In SLG some of the former obS! players played and that was probably the reason for me to start playing for them. During the first months in this team we went from a unknown team to one of the best teams in Sweden and later in Europe. Before the summer we were ranked as the 7th best team in Europe by Gotfrag? and it all looked very good for us. In June 2004 we got an offer to join a swedish team called TEAM zeroPoint! and we decided to do so. Back then zP! Consisted of a Halo and MoH:AA team, the latter one however left zP! pretty much right after we joined up.

During the 1½ year in zP! the Day of Defeat team developed into one of the three best teams in Europe and placed third in the CB EuroCup twice in a row. We also placed top 3 in pretty much every tournament we attended, both online and LAN. On LAN we only lost two games on 4-5 LAN tournaments. Our peak as a team was when we won the danish SLKS LAN in October 2005 in superior style, beating some of the best teams in Europe.

After that LAN event we all lost the motivation to keep playing and decided to take a break from Day of Defeat. Some of us started to play the then newly released game Call of Duty 2 and we loved it. In January this year we went official with the zeroPoint! Call of Duty 2 team and here we are today.

Though most of our readers probably know you from playing for the Swedish team zeroPoint!, your actually the leader and owner of the organisation, together with burner. Could you tell us a few things about the organisation, for example about the history and former teams zP! had.
» zeroPoint! Gaming was first founded back in early 2000 under the name of TRIBES (TRB) and had plenty of teams in different games. TRB was a pretty well-known team back then but in 2003 the management decided to make a fresh start and removed most of the teams and changed the goals for the entire organization. This is when zeroPoint! became more professional in it's way to handle different situations and the teams within the organization.

The teams zeroPoint! Gaming are most known for are the Halo team, the legendary one, who is one of the best teams in Europe through all times and the Day of Defeat team. Apart from those two teams zP! also had a Medal of Honor: AA team who placed third in the CB EuroCup and two different Call of Duty (1) teams.

Your a newsposter (www.zpgaming.net), managing director and active line-up player. Did I miss anything?
» Nope. Apart from that I also attend the last year at the upper secondary school (ONLY ONE MONTH LEFT 'TIL GRADUATION!!!) and is the head admin of the european CAL Day of Defeat 1.3 and Source leagues, one of the organizers behind the Playz LAN event(s) and much more....

What motivates you to do all those things?
» Well, some people think I'm crazy doing so much but I really love the games and I try to do as much as I can for them, whether it's a news item, article or arranging a LAN tournament. That's probably what motivates me the most. I don't think I would do so much as long as I didn't enjoy it as much as I do.

Like I mentioned earlier, your a part of the zP! Call of Duty 2 team. What kind of role do you play in that team? Team Captain or?
» Yes, I'm team captain/leader. I take care of everything outside the server, such as arranging matches, servers, taking care of issues and so on, and of course all the normal team leader stuff (or crap? ;D). Ingame I'm just a 'regular' player.

Could you introduce your fellow teammates with their ingame strengths?
Robin "rivieRa" Holmén - Probably one of the craziest players I have met and played against. He's very unpredictable ingame and is usually the one who frags most. He's also our clutch player, eventhough he don't think he is.

Pontus "poppe" Geijer - Together with myself and Nuker the two players left from the old Day of Defeat team. Have been with us the whole, long road from the first frags in COD2 to the EC invite. A great player and person who can top frag one round to bottom frag the next :)

Patrik "Nuker" Flodin - One of the former Day of Defeat players who decided to quit gaming in November but returned for the Level7 LAN event and been with the team since then. Ingame he's one of the fastest and most accurate rifle players I have ever seen. He's a real "progamer" and don't need much time to learn a new game and become one of the best in it.

Mikael "zsilts" Smedberg - Our latest recruit who also has his roots in Day of Defeat playing for some of the best teams in Europe through the years. He was one of the best sniper players I ever played against in Day of Defeat and he brought his sniper skill to Call of Duty 2. He have only played COD2 for a very short time so watch out for him when he get some more experience!

The beginning of March zeroPoint attended the Level7 LAN with two stand-ins and eventually got knocked out rather quickly. What went wrong back then?
» Well, basically we got screwed already before the event when two of our ordinary players couldn't attend the event. It all start with tidde deciding to take a break from COD2 a week before the event. We decided to give it a try with Nuker, who had not played COD2 since a week after the release and had been on a break from competitive gaming since then. It went really good and it looked very promising...until rivieRa called me the day before we were supposed to leave and told me he had still not received his ID papers, which were required to be able to board the ferry, and couldn't go. We had to take in a last minute standin who we had never played together with before, and that was eliR's "mix" friend acid_burn.

With two really late changes we couldn't use the strategies we had been working on for months and it didn't turn out good at all. Allthough we got knocked out early we had a great experience in Finland and lots of fun, especially on the way home, right eliR? :D

Shortly after Level7 the team took in a new player, Nuker, who started playing not that long ago. What made you guys decide to take in someone rather new to the game?
» Both me and poppe knew Nuker back from our Day of Defeat time as a great and stable player and he have always been a friend of the team. When we noticed he got the gaming spirit back in Finland we knew he would be a great asset to the team and decided to add him, as tidde was still inactive and would be for a long time.

Eventhough he was rather new to the game he didn't have any problems learning it and is in my opinion already one of the best rifle players in Europe when he play on top.

After Level7 another LAN a lot of teams got interested in the Swedish Playz LAN, which turned out to be a big success. Could you tell us, you as one of the main organisers, what does it take to organise something that big, with teams from all over Europe attending?
» I believe one of the reasons behind the success was that the LAN was arranged at a gaming center and hence was not BYOC. This is sooo much better and soooo much easier for teams coming abroad, as they don't have to bring their own computers. Apart from that I think we were pretty lucky to have it not too long after the Netgamez and Level7 LAN events, as people started to really want to play on LANs.

We always tried to be as professional as possible regarding everything about the LAN and I belive that paid off, plus that we had such a great support from Playz Hall of Game.

What kind of problems did the organisation had to take care of before the actual event started?
» Actually we didn't really have any PROBLEMS prior to the event. Was just some minor issues but nothing vital or important. Everything went a lot smoother then we could ever expect them to be.

The competition went really well for the zeroPoint! Team, finishing on a respectable 5/6th place. Your thoughts?
» Prior to the event it was decided that eliR were going to leave the team after the event, which kinda screwed our motivation and prepartions for the tournament. However we did our best before the event and tried to practise as much as possible.

As for the actual tournament our first goal was to beat the two "weaker" teams in our group, Velvet and Attractive, and do our best against the other two, dSLASH and Northern Darkness. Proceding to the playoff would be a huge bonus for us and once we made it to it we were really happy.

As for the playoff matches we took one game at the time and tried to make the best out of the situation. We knew we would be the underdogs in every game we played and that the pressure would be on the other team. I think we did really, really well against cZar in the first playoff game on Matmata, only losing 7 to 11. We could just as well have won that game with a bit luck. As for the other two games we tried our best and managed to beat j52 but then our time was over as we lost to TMGamers.

We were all really happy with out performance at Playz and we finally got to show everyone how good we really are!

Can you, in any way, explain the big difference between the performances at L7 and Playz?
» The main difference was of course that we played with our regular lineup at Playz and not with two last minute standins as we did at Level7. Apart from that we didn't have the problems with computers at Playz as we had at Level7.

What did you think of the competition. Who, in your eyes, suprised a lot, in a positive or negative way?
» At Level7 I were really surprise by spite's performence and really looked forward to see what they could do at Playz, unfortunately they screwed everything up before the tournament and we didn't get a chance to see them make another L7 tournament. At Playz our own performence was one of the most surprising in my opinion together with WHO's fantastic third place finish, which is awesome for a team who barely played anything together prior to the event.

As for the negative part I must say both the german teams weak results. I were surprise to see that none of them made it to the playoffs when I expected both to do so.

What was it like meeting almost the complete European top, people you normally only speak to online.
» It was great and it always is with LANs. One of the reasons I play nowadays is because of the LANs, it's always great to attend those and meet all the great persons you normally just speak to online, or in some cases hate online. It was an awesome experience seeing all the top players and teams play and I have personally learnt quite a lot just from watching some of the players play.

Shortly after Playz, you informed everyone that the organisation will possibly be hosting a second edition. Could tell us a few things about this?
» Before the 'Rumble At Playz' we discussed the possibility of a sequal to this event if everything went ok with this tournament as it was not only our first at Playz but it was also Playz first tournament. As everything went better than expected we will hopefully see another event take place at Playz later this summer with more prizes (cash and products) involved and maybe another format of the tournament. Though, everything is up to Playz Hall of Game, Tony and Hanif, as they are the guys hosting the event. I will keep you all updated about this!

Next to that zeroPoint! Announced some changes just a few days after Playz. Jonathan "eliR" Hjälmheden would be leaving the team to team up with his old friends from Redemption. Did the team know eliR would be leaving after Playz?
» Like I mentioned earlier eliR had decided to leave zeroPoint! before the event and we all knew about this for several weeks. His reason for the chance was that he felt everything was not ok in the team and that he needed a chance as well as that he wanted to play with his old friends in Redemption. One problem was that he was still under contract with the zeroPoint! team for another 2+ months but that was solved in a mature way so everything is ok now.

Shortly after his departure the team took in Mikael "zsilts" Smedberg, former player of Team*Pixie. Would you be able to introduce zsilts with his ingame strengths?
» I can start with saying that myself, poppe and Nuker all knew him very well from the Day of Defeat time. He have always been an awesome and respected player who I personally have had the chance to meet on LANs several times.

Ingame he is our sniper and he is a really great one. He's really fast, accurate and always in the right spot at the right time. He's a great asset to the team and the fresh blood we needed to keep on developing ourselves both invidually and as a team.

In what way do these changes affect the team?
» Of course these are big changes as we changed a very experienced player against a newcomer. However we all belive in Mikael and thinks he will keep on developing together with the team. I personally only see this as a positive change, what's the point in keeping a player who is no longer motivated?

nd solz: are "zP! are in a shitty position"?
» Haha, I love you too solz.

Ruubij: What player would u add to zP if ''YOU'' could?
» Would probably be one of our old Day of Defeat players, maybe Antrax (my brother) or exel.

Audacia:vir JaM1e: horru din javla fitta!
» Silence mini-hitler!

dignitas plaZma: why are swedes retarded?
» No, you got it all wrong. Norwegians are the retarded ones!

kalle: Why do you like emprisa so much
» I do?

I would like to thank you for your time and cooperation. Any shoutouts you would like to add?
» Thanks to you JETSET as well. I would like to thank the guys at Playz Hall of Game and then especially Tony, Hanif and Ralf for the great opportunity they gave not only us to arrange a tournament there, but also to the whole Call of Duty community. I would also like to thank the entire zeroPoint! Gaming team and staff as well as our sponsors through the years, Steel Series, Icemat, Razer, Endpoint, DCS and Norman.