Hey Kenneth, thanks for joining me, could you please introduce yourself to the readers?
Im a young guy from the suburbs of Copenhagen who got hooked on cod series by 2 of my friends named Hmzy and Gzuz (ingame). They got me into this brand new game at the time called Call of duty. From there it all snowballed into where I am now, I've been in several teams and also a team leader for a while now.
I am also doing some extra activities on gotfrag, but lately I've been involved in the planning of the-experience.dk in august, that will feature COD4. Besides gaming I study Multimediadesign here in cph and I work parttime at a publishing company named Egmont Forlaget.
Starting off with eSports in Denmark. Last year gaming in Denmark took a big step towards mainstream acceptance. Could you tell us what exactly happened and the current status of eSports in Denmark?
Well yes, the major thing that happened was that the eSport clubs got accepted into real sports unions. And that meant we could start searching for support from the government like any other sport club out there and not only private sponsoring.
Roskilde-eSport was one of the first to get accepted and one of the pioneers behind all this work is our own manager Jens. He is passing all the help on to other clubs, so they can benefit of all his hard work.
The next thing that happened was that eSport Danmark was founded with 10 eSport clubs in Denmark represented, and they all elected Jens to be the chairman of this union. What happends next is just something you will have to keep an eye out for.
Roskilde is also no ordinary organisation, as it represents the town of Roskilde. How does this feel and what kind of advantages does it have?
We have the advantage that Roskilde Township is supporting us with the clubhouse and funding to keep our club running and also giving our team the opportunity to compete on a international level. It gives several advantages to our teams, but also to the planning of an event like tex 08.
They gladly give all the help they can and try to support us in any way they can. I must say that it feels pretty awesome to be a part of something different that a private corporation that most MGCs are. Where it will take us to, I have no idea, but we are not planning to go anywhere else.
Two weeks ago Roskilde Ravens attended the Dutch CDC4 event. Right before the it was set to kick off, you told me the the event might come a bit too soon for the team. What was the main reasoning behind this at that time?
Well one month before the event we had to change our lineup a bit, the reason was that the long time member Adagio did not fit the lineup anymore. So I made the choice of adding Champ back to our team in the main lineup, and I think it was a really good decision. Considering how he did at CDC4 and keeps improving. This goes for the whole team, we've really improved after the last lineup change.
And does this mean the team was still not playing to their full potential at the CDC4?
I am sure we did not do our best. Our play is still being affected by personal mistakes and poor choices, but if we keep pushing ourselves to the limit and we keep together, I am sure we can become a well established top ten team.
After you won the group stage at the CDC4 so easily, beating all the good teams, were all these wins a bit too overwhelming too get enough focus in the playoff stages?
I think we had all the focus on the match as we could, but the experience was lacking, so we could stay in the "zone" for the whole match and that made some individual mistakes. I wouldnt say we were overwhelmed, because we did have the feeling we would beat our group.
Looking back at the team's CDC4 results, defeating Serious Gaming and LowLandLions and placing 9-16th. Is the team happy with the overall performance or did you expect to go further after winning one of the toughest groups?
I am pleased we did so well vs L3 and srs, but the exit vs SK was something we could have survived, if we had kept our A-game. But this is something we have in mind for the next events. As they say, what doesn't kill you, can only make you stronger.
In what way do you think the CDC4 and the bootcamp right before it has benefited the team?
It was a real thrill to have a bootcamp not only with fnatic, but also VAE and Infinity. It all did a lot for our team, it gave us experience and some nice confidence. Proving that we could keep up with fnatic on lan, and it gave us the last few fixes we needed for our strats.
It is really great to have the opponent on first hand after a match and talk to them about what they think of your tactics. As for team bonding, it has been one long journey so far, we keep getting closer and closer since the bootcamp. It is really great playing with these guys, and I hope we can continue like this for a long time.
With i33 coming up, the expections of the Roskilde team itself and the community have obviously changed. What does the team personally expect and how have the preparations been going?
This time we're actually a bit worse prepared because Champ have just been in Prague for 1 week. So R3CoR my brother had to step in for a week and snipe. So the next 4 days before i33 we're gonna take longer prac days to get up to speed again. We would have loved to bootcamp, but it wasn't possible for all our players to do so. We don't come to i33 with the expectation of winning it, but we want to attend in the thought of gaining more international experience for the team and the younger players.
Can we expect Roskilde to play to their full potential at i33?
I would love to say yes, but I really can't. In one to two months I believe you can expect a team worthy of being at any LAN in the world, but for now we're loading up.
In what way do you think the Turn up and Play feature will affect Roskilde and the other European teams attending, in comparison to the UK teams who will be using their own pcs?
I don't really think it will be a problem for us, since it is gonna be the same pcs we used at cdc4, so we're really comfortable with them already. I've always thought that the team able to adjust fast to all kinds of pcs, are better at playing their full potential. It doesn't take more than 5-10 mins for us to setup our stuff and settings, and then ingame warming up. I don't think they will have an advantage, but I certainly hope some admins will keep an eye out for the infamous nadescripts.
Amongst the more notable teams attending the British event we find the North American powerhouse Team EG (The Doctors), who recently lost the Nerv LAN Grand Final to Nexus. Have you been following the American scene and if so, in what way do you think their style differs from European teams?
I honestly can't say because I've been busy with our own stuff since we came home from CDC4. So I haven't really been paying attention to the American scene.
What are you're expectations from Team EG?
I expect them to do good of course, since they are the team to beat in NA. I think they can end top ten if they adjust to our ruleset.
Thanks a lot for your time Kenneth, we would like to wish you guys the best of luck at the i33. Any last words or shoutouts you would like to add?
Thanks to Jetset for this interview, it was nice. Thanks to Jens our manager for making all this possible and to Roskilde-eSport for sending us out in the world. Shoutout to fnatic, vae, infinity, morg, Otto, Jan, H2k/L3, kleineman.
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