UT2K3 Community Interviews October 29, 2002 Rory McGuire

Who are HV?

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3 years in the making

A few months after Unreal Tournament was released, a team surfaced on several ladders called High Voltage or |HV. Five months later, they would dethrone an undefeated number one team in last minute overtime, and go on to hold #1 spots on seven other ladders, all at the same time. After ending their UT career, they would end up with a 223-33 record with a peak of a 42 game winning streak.

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So what’s the deal?

With the recent release of Unreal Tournament 2003, and a whole fresh slew of other FPS’ on the market, we sat down with |HV to reminisce about old memories and see where the team, and competitive gaming in general, is heading from here.

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The interview!

FiringSquad: Where did you boys get started at? What were your first games individually? Your first online experience?

ViolentJ|HV: My first game ever? Pong on my Atari. HV's first game was UT1, ‘bout 3 years ago. Grimdeath and I had played Ultima Online, and Starcraft online before UT. We played in the good ol’ day, not this new-age faction crapola.

GrimDeath|HV: Yeah, VJ, Silence and I were in a guild warring people all the time in UO.

ViolentJ|HV: Yep, Marduke Vengeance Squad

GrimDeath|HV: On Chessie.

ViolentJ|HV: If we killed ya...sorry.


FS: What about Unreal Tournament appealed most? At the time there were several products on the market, the Quake series, the Half-life mods were rising, Tribes, etc. What about UT made you want to spend the time mastering it?

ViolentJ|HV: I played UT because I thought it was extremely fun. It was the first real team-oriented game (over Quake 3, easily.) Its speed and gameplay were totally different than Q3, and CS is simply a spam/camp fest. Tribes had a real cool idea, but just couldn't get it together.

GrimDeath|HV: I had played the Q3 demo before I even heard of UT. It was my first online FPS and I enjoyed it a lot. But when I played the UT demo, I dunno. There was just something about it that put it above Q3A.

ViolentJ|HV: In all fairness to CS, I played UT for a long time before CS. But looking back at it I wouldn't trade UT for CS.

GrimDeath|HV: I think the main thing that brought us to UT was CTF. Quake 3 had TDM, but that was about it. UT's CTF mod had a good mix of teamwork and fragging which made it exciting to play for hours at a time.





SIDEBAR: |HV can be found idling in #Highvoltage on irc.progameplayer.com

Grand Aspirations

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FS: You boys played a heck of a lot of UT, specifically somewhere around 250 matches, what was your favorite match?

ViolentJ|HV: My personal favorite match was probably vs. BMF for our first #1 spot ever. BMF was undefeated at the time and #1 on the OGLWe played their best map, on Lava, and were down by 1, grim capped with about 7 secondss left to put it into Overtime and we later won 5-4, that was about 27 months ago.

Grimdeath|HV: I agree VJ, my favorite match was definitely vs. BMF on Lavagiant also. We hadn’t been much of a powerhouse team before this, and we were excited to get a shot at, and take, our first #1 spot.

ViolentJ|HV: Definitely a crazy match. Every #1 spot since then wasn't as good as the BMF match. First times rule.

GrimDeath|HV: Well, as for 2v2 matches. Xavier and I teamed together at the first Ultra Unreal LAN party and had a completely intense match vs Sonix and Phar0e 2v2.


FS: When did HV retire from UT? What inspired it?

GrimDeath|HV: HV first retired from UT after UTI4 around November of 2001. We hadn't lost a match since September and people were beginning to lose interest in UT. So as we started to slack in practicing, our matches were becoming closer and closer, and we decided it wasn’t worth it. So we retired. It wasn’t a good reason for retiring, I see that now, but it allowed us to play RTCW in the BoB tournament on OGL.

ViolentJ|HV: We had played the same team on the PG ladder about 5 times in a row.
First time we retired was because there was really nothing left in UT. We had done everything there was to do in it. So we wanted to try new stuff. We came back to for UTI5 because a lot of people wanted us to, so we did, won it, then re-retired.


FS: UT and RTCW while bearing similarities are entirely different games. What made it appealing? How was your run in RTCW? What kept you playing it?

GrimDeath|HV: We really decided to play RTCW because while we were sick of UT, we were still searching for another game. Hearing of the tournament, and the prizes involved, got us interested in Wolfenstein. After UltraUnreal 2, and retiring from UT for the second time. We were waiting for UT2k3 to come out, and hearing of Quakecon's RTCW tournament, we decided to pick up Wolfenstein once again because we were experienced with the gameplay.

ViolentJ|HV: Wolfenstein has a lot of cool things that UT doesn't. The first time we picked it up was blindly looking for another game. We returned to it because we found it to be VERY fun...the amount of teamwork involved in the game is phenomenal. It isn't simply about having better aim, it's about positioning, cross-firing, and helping the guy next to you.

GrimDeath|HV: We had picked up RTCW a week before the BoB tournament started. We did fairly well and won the three matches. Our fourth match was vs. the #1 seeded team in the tournament, Empire, on mp_sub. We took the game to 4 rounds, and lost by four seconds in the final round.

ViolentJ|HV:Yeah, after the Empire loss we took a few weeks off from Wolf. It's hard to handle a loss like that. After we came back to Wolfenstein, the best teams were a little farther on the learning curve (this is back when Punkbuster didn't exist, and Wolf was based on who had the better config files, not better skill) But we had to come back to RTCW. UT couldn't hold our attention. After UTI5 we didn't have any motivation to continue with it.

GrimDeath|HV: We quickly retired from Wolfenstein after that for stupid reasons. We picked wolf up again ten weeks ago and started practicing for the CAL-Open RTCW division. Our record in that is 10-0 with next week being the beginning of the playoffs.





SIDEBAR: Epic and Digital Extremes adopted a very liberal design philosophy during the creation of the first Unreal Tournament. Team members were permitted to come in when they wanted, and stay as long as they wanted.According to Brandon Reinhart, formerly of Epic, contrary to the alleged slacker nature of gamers most dev team members would come in, work for 24 hours, sleep for six hours on a couch and go at another 24 hour attack, all on their own free will.

The future?

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FS: Now HV has dabbled in UT2k3 demo pre-seasons, and are already being spoke of as a top competitor. What do you expect the ladders to be looking like in a bit competition wise? Will RTCW be left in the past?

GrimDeath|HV: I believe I can safely say that we are all disappointed by UT2k3. But, as for the competition.. I think all the competition will be in TDM with all the Q3 clans coming over who plan on playing at the CPL events that have UT2k3. I, personally, plan on staying with Wolfenstein.

Xavier|HV: I'm sticking with RTCW, might dabble in Bombing Run, but UT2k3 doesn't impress me. They took UT and found all the bad parts, stuck them in UT2k3. One of the problems with UT2k3 is that the major tournament that is slated for it, is a 1v1 tourney. As VJ stated earlier we like team-based games.

GrimDeath|HV: It’s not just that. Bad netcode, bad support from the creators of the game, bad maps, bad framerates, etc. There’s so many things just wrong with the game. The only thing that impressed me was the “Holy Shit” kill. That rocks.

ViolentJ|HV: Bad Game. Mark Rein can talk ‘til he’s blue in the face, but he won’t convince me otherwise. Though, we may have a 2k3 squad, most likely Bombing Run (for its teamplay ability) but we are taking the move slowly as to not disrupt our already successful, and enjoyable, Wolfenstein “career.”


FS: Bombing Run is currently popular, a lot of folks are jazzed for it, and also offering up a very different playing style to what has been seen prior, it's certainly team intensive and still requiring a high 'twitch' skill level. What are your predictions with Bombing Run, will it become the ladder of choice for teams eventually or is it just a fad?

ViolentJ|HV: It's new, and that's why everyone likes it. It also offers a more 'real life' gameplay. You can easily compare it to soccer. That's why people enjoy it. It isn't just running around shooting people. I wouldn't call it a fad though, I see a lot of potential in the game. Had ID thought of it first, it would be an amazingly good mod. Unfortunately BR is stuck with the very lacking UT2k3 engine.

GrimDeath|HV: It may get the public's opinion for most popular mod. But while the CPL supports UT2k3 Team Deathmatch, they will not support Bombing Run. Therefore people will play TDM.


FS: You've mentioned the CPL several times. After only 12 hours of open registration, the CPL filled up their 30,000 dollar UT2k3 championship this winter in Dallas. Can we expect to see any HV there?

GrimDeath|HV: Most likely not. While $10,000 is an impressive amount of money for first place 1v1. I don’t think anyone in HV enjoys playing UT2k3 enough to practice for that tournament. Besides, RTCW takes up a lot of time.





SIDEBAR: If competitive gaming isn’t your dig, try your hand at “The world’s premier sheep shearing and wool handling championships” in sunny New Zealand.

The New Era

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FS: One issue brought up by a number of UT1 vets moving into 2k3 is weapon balance. In UT1, some weapons were obviously better than others in some situations, but all the weapons were still useful in some capacity. A lot of folks feel that just isn't the case with 2k3. What are your opinions on this?

ViolentJ|HV: I think the complaining about weapon balance is simply people who are not willing to accept change. It is true, the weapons in UT1 weren't balanced. The Shock Rifle was easily the best weapon (for 60% of the community). I think what people mean to say when they bitch about weapons is that UT weapons were NOT Quake weapons. Unfortunately, with 2k3, it seems that the game is looking a lot more like quake. Instant rockets, much more useless shock-rifle, more useless translocator, and a very
railgun like Lightning Gun...these are all things that resemble the game that UTers don't enjoy. Make 2k3 and quake the same, and all of the old school UTers are gonna be pissed.


FS: Another major issue, particularly for CTF, is the translocator. It's been significantly changed compared to UT1 and "Transwhoring" isn't half as effective as it was in the past, is this for the best? Is it appropriate given the changes in movement?

ViolentJ|HV: Well, what made CTF in UT much more fun than in Q3, was the ability to catch up to a flag carrier that was already past you. In quake, either you couldn't move fast, or the carrier AND the people trying to get their flag back both had the stupid grappling hook. When you whimp the translocator you are taking away a big part of CTF - the ability to get your flag back.

As far as transwhoring, I never really saw it abused in UT. It was a loooong time ago, but epic patched the game so people couldn't translocate as fast as they could hit a key. But, translocator kills were a fun part of the game, mostly based on luck, which I did see save a few games for us. So as far as killing people with the translocator, I don't see it being a huge issue. It's mostly just movement.


FS: How do you feel about the addition of adrenaline? This is one of the major additions Epic/Digital Extremes brought in, is it superficial? Or does it change the game for better/worse?

ViolentJ|HV: Adrenaline I think is a really fun idea, kind of like relics. As far as official match play goes? It's stupid. In CTF/BR, speed is ridiculously good. In 1v1, invisibility and booster are too good as well. It just makes it that much harder for someone to make a comeback in a 1v1. 1v1's aren't about raw talent anymore anyway, just about timing/camping/whoring. Adrenaline promotes that. I'd like to see it taken OUT of the game.


FS: If you were making a patch focusing on gameplay changes, as inevitably Digital Extremes and Epic will, what issues would you make a priority?

ViolentJ|HV: The first thing I would do if I was Epic would be to fix the netcode. Currently, the netcode is trash. The second thing I would do, is wake up and realize that there's a lot of stuff that you can do with the engine that either they are ignorant to, or simply too lazy to learn. Epic had an opportunity to let my team play-test their game. We would have told them all of this then, and showed them hundreds more things that needed to be changed. They obviously have more important things on their mind than putting out a quality game.






SIDEBAR: How does translocation work? Only Epic truly knows. We can only theorize.

I wanna be a professional gamer when I grow up

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FS: One major issue brought up consistently nowadays is online athleticism, how close do you feel we are we to this? A few names have been able to make a name for themselves like fatal1ty, zero4, and of course the original: Thresh. All at Quake. Unfortunately it's still nowhere even near pro skating, much less something like football. What is necessary for this to happen? Do team games need to rise? Do the games need to appeal to casual observers more?

Xavier|HV: I think companies need to see money in sponsoring teams. If, say, Sony sponsored a team, and advertised them and got the public into the new "thing." I think it could be very big. I don’t think that cash tournaments are going to cut it. We need competitive leagues with big-name advertisers.

GrimDeath|HV: Currently, the CPL is planning on running a $200,000 Counter-Strike tournament for their 2003 summer event. $70,000 of that goes to the first place team. Team sizes are 5v5, and 70,000/5 = $14,000 per player. If they held 4 of these LANs a year, and you won all 4, you’d be making quite a sum of money.

Xavier|HV: But that's still only 5 people making quite a sum of money.

ViolentJ|HV: Yeah, like Xav said, the bridge needed to be crossed is serious corporate sponsorship.

GrimDeath|HV: The 2002 Summer event was only $100,000. That’s a double increase in prize money for only 1 year. If the CPL goes at this rate, it won’t take that long for individuals to be making $50,000 or even $100,000 at a single LAN party.

Xavier|HV: But for gaming to be compared to football we need a bigger audience and seasonal play, not 4 weekends a year.

ViolentJ|HV: As soon as companies are paying people to play and win games, while promoting the company’s name, professional gaming will get huge. Anyone can be a gamer. Not everyone can play football. Plus as we all know, the internet is a great way to get people together. There just needs to be incentive for gamers, and companies willing to capitalize.

GrimDeath|HV: I’d say we are closer than 99% of people realize.

ViolentJ|HV: The same example could be used for car racing. A bunch of idiots used to race around a track, and it never got big until companies began putting their names on cars. Now NASCAR is huge. Mark my words; you'll see a group as large as the NFL running online gaming. The changes to make that happen have already started. People are simply stupid to the fact, or ignorant, but professional gaming is taking steps in the right directions. It just needs a good kick in the ass.


FS: Alrighty gentlemen, thanks a bunch for your time. Here's to many a win in Wolf, 2k3, or whatever the future holds.

ViolentJ|HV: Danke. Any time.

Xavier|HV: Thanks, Hubris

GrimDeath|HV: Thank you.

Xavier|HV: Tell Thresh I said hi.

Related links

High Voltage has a number of demos available on Cached.net, a few highlights include:

HV vs. BMF in UT for OGL #1
HV’s most recent match in Wolfenstein vs. Shotglass.
HV vs. HVS for the finals at UltraUnreal 2.

For more demos, take a look here.

Asia Carrera Interview

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Who is Asia Carrera?

If this question has to be asked, you are either profoundly out of the loop, or married. Asia Carrera has for the last several years been a household name in the adult entertainment industry.

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But that’s not all

If Asia were just a porn star, you’d probably be reading this interview with a flashing pop-up showing you an eyeful, but that’s not all Asia is. Ms. Carrera is also an avid UT fan, and has been for a number of years. Asia has released skins, maps, been to every E3 in the last few years, and for the most part is as passionate a dork about UT as most gamers are about their pastime of choice. Asia’s computer interests extend far beyond UT. She created and runs her site all by herself and has been spotted at various E3 shows.

We got the chance to bug her for a bit and talk about the UT of the past, and the 2k3 of the future.

The interview

FiringSquad: What or who got your started in gaming?

Asia Carrera: I actually stumbled on Unreal by accident - I've never really liked playing games on my computer (the 'games' folder is always one of the first things I delete right after installing windows) My boyfriend Clarke bought Unreal for himself and a newbie pal to play, and as usual, he handed it over to me to install and configure for them. I'd get the proggie up and running, figure out the gist of what to do, and then give them a quick overview, so they could start playing right away, without wasting any time with manuals or helpfiles! We'd gone through this routine many times before, and I'd never had any interest in continuing the gameplay after handing the reins over to them... until now. This was the first time any of us had ever played a LAN game, and we all got a huge kick out of seeing and hearing each other's reactions as we fragged our asses off.


FS: What are your opinions on UT2k3? How does it compare to UT?

Asia: Well I'm still loyal to UT, which I play nightly. The new UT2k3 is growing on me, but two things that keep intimidating me enough to run back to the comforting familiarity of UT are:

(a) trying to identify the new weapons when scrolling through them in the heat of battle gets extremely frustrating - the first person perspective of the weapons is hard to match up with the side view shown in the weapons menu, and I always seem to end up with a pea shooter or rubber-band thrower, which don't seem to be listed on the menu at all...

(b) the new map levels, while graphically rich and diverse, are a bit visually overwhelming. The players, weapons, and even pathways are harder to spot peripherally with the busy textures of all the landscaping in every direction. I suppose it will get easier as I become more familiar with all the maps, but when you've only got split seconds to take in unfamiliar surroundings, well, there's a lot to take in.

Asia Carrera is a member of MENSA

New kicks

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FS: What are your opinions on weapon balance? Do you dig the way weapons are balanced in UT2k3?

Asia: I can't really say for sure what my favorites are yet. I figured out early on that the rocket launcher is still virtually the same old reliable buttkicker, so I confess I've been using that gun predominantly until I feel more comfortable with the rest of them. I still haven't had an opportunity to try linking up the link gun with another player yet, and I'm sure I've probably missed a few other new weapon tricks as well, so I reserve the right to declare my favorite weapon at some future date.

However I can say definitively that I HATE the new translocator that only allows 5 transfers before needing recharge time. I'm addicted to using my translocator to get around quickly, and now it's like someone keeps clipping my wings every 5 throws and grounding me to stodgy landlubber status, which really drives me nuts!

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The good, the bad and the pretty

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FS: Do you see any holes in 2k3? Anything that needs to be addressed by Epic/DX?

Asia: Well I hate to say it, but I felt like I was testing a beta version when I sat down and tried to make some skins for the new game. They've included a disc with some new proggies to assist skinners and mappers, but after I finished installing UnrealEd, UPaint, and Maya, I was unable to use any of them immediately. UnrealEd and UPaint both needed patches before they would run, and Maya needed to be registered at a website online first. So that was pretty annoying.

UPaint is a cute 3-D app for viewing and editing your UT characters. It will offer a lot of potential benefits for UT skinners once the bugs are ironed out, but I found myself saving my work repeatedly like an obsessive compulsive, 'cause the proggie kept crashing so often. And one of the most useful commands -'export character to Unreal'- froze the proggie for good every time I tried to use it.

Eventually I decided that UPaint wasn't quite ready for prime-time yet, and I went back to working on my skins 'the old-fashioned way' - graphics in Photoshop, import them with UnrealEd, then open UT2k3 to view the 3-d model in the Player settings.

Maybe more skillful users will find the new proggies handier than I did - I'm merely a self-taught 'trial-and-error' geek myself, but I admit I found it easier to go back to the skinning methods I used with Unreal Tournament. Oh well, whatever works, right?


FS: When can we expect Asia skins for 2k3? Maps? Are you considering playing
competitively?

Asia:Playing competitively? You mean for money? You mean someone would actually PAY me to play Unreal? Aw quit teasing, you're making that up!

As for the UT2k3 Asiaskins, keep a lookout for 'em, they'll be coming soon! I just finished my first one last night, and I've only just begun!





SIDEBAR: It is unknown what caused the collapse of the classical period of Mayan civilization. The collapse happened quickly, cities which flourished at the beginning of the ninth century were abandoned by the turn of the tenth.

What’s to come

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FS: I saw some footage of your machines and their cases on G4, those things are tricked out. What are you running?

Asia: At any given time, I have between four and six computers here in my computer room, and there's always a couple partially dismantled boxes sitting around, 'cause I mix n' match hardware like tinkertoys. But here's the specs on my main buttkicker, which is the one I use for fragging:

AMD Duron(tm) @ 1.8 GHz
512 MB RAM
NVIDIA GeForce4 Ti 4200
VT8367-8233 mobo
Hercules Game Theater XP audio
Logitech cordless keyboard
Logitech optical dual-sensor mouse


FS: Are you playing anything besides UT nowadays? Are you looking forward to something in particular?

Asia: Nope, I am purely an Unreal addict, 100%. God knows I spend way too much time fragging in UT/UT2k3 to even THINK about starting an addiction to another game!


FS: What does the future hold for Asia Carrera, in games or otherwise?

Asia: Good question! Unfortunately my crystal ball is at the shop right now, or I'd be picking out winning lottery numbers instead of slaving away over email interviews, hahaha! No seriously, I don't know, but I don't want to know! I like that my life is always full of unexpected surprises and sudden opportunities - that makes life fun for me! I would probably just keel over and die if I ever wound up stuck in the monotony of a 9-5 grind where all my actions are dictated by a corporation, and my entire future is pre-mapped out for me, right up until my retirement. AK!! Perish the thought!





SIDEBAR: So what did you think of the community feedback that we scrounged up? Who’s got a better handle on UT2K3, Asia or High Voltage? Sound Off!