ViSo Cup and CB admin Videl, one of the few known female Warsow players, talks about personal stuff, gaming and Warsow and general and her part at the Clanbase.
The first part of the interview contains questions by met. The second part contains my questions about her latest Clanbase activity.
Gaming and Warsow
met: Hi Elena, thanks a lot for accepting our interview.
Hi. Thanks to you for giving me this opportunity.
met: Let’s start with the beginning. How the hell did you get in the online fps world?
Nearly 5 years ago I was wasting hours a day on IRC with my friends (nothing changed :P), but sometimes they were missing for hours and when I asked them I discovered they were playing Quake 3. So, taken by jealousy, I bought the game and started to play with them. Since I was a girl they kidded me saying I was going to stop playing after one week, but being here is the proof that they were wrong :D
met: So, you played Q3 for like 4 years then you started with Warsow. What was that made you do the change?
Quake community is full of flamers and whiners, especially on Italian servers people tend to freely insult other players. Also playing always on same maps, defection of most players and migration from osp to vq3 made me go away to other games. Warsow seemed a worthy Quake successor and it’s fast, dynamic and has a really nice community. Players are very helpful and there are a lot of tourneys. :)
met: What do you think that Warsow needs?
Warsow already has the potential to become great. Probably the big tournaments doesn’t consider it for a matter of sponsors, software houses and hardware producers tend to invest on their new products with super graphics and whatever. But the real FPS gamers doesn’t care about graphics, and Warsow already offers an amazing gameplay and game modes for every taste (duel, ca, tdm, ctf, duel arena, race).
met: Do you think pure FPS are dying?
I don’t think so. It’s just with new consoles and games there’s a gamers dispersion and it’s not so easy to organize big events. People wait a lot for new games that results in failures and get abandoned soon.
met: Most FPS communities are for major part made by men, have this ever been a problem for you?
Well in my real life I’ve always had more male friends than female ones because I’ve always had interests for “men’s stuff”. Let’s say that when I was younger I exposed myself too easily with people that I shouldn’t have to with many photos, so I’ve always been known as “Videl the girl playing Quake” rather than Videl the player. So now I tend to be more to hide myself without showing off that I’m a girl :)
met: Have you ever been offered something for the fact that you’re a girl and not for your player status?
It happened a lot of times. For example a few days ago I was thinking about trying to play UT3 and when I was installing the game a big Italian clan contacted me asking to join them. Similar facts happened in WSW and Q3, most of times I felt honored to being appreciated as a girl, but I give the priority to be a player. I prefer to play with my friends on Viso rather than joining a bigger clan where I would never play a clanwar (also if I’ve got no problems to say that I’m pretty happy of my skill :D )
met: Lately you’re becoming more popular, other than as player, as event organizer. Viso TDM cup was a fairly good success, getting a lot of clans involved. Have you got any plan for the future?
Working on videogames world it’s always been my dream. I think that’s everyone desire to get paid for doing what you like to :)
I’m sure that you need to practice by starting from the lower step, make people know about yourself. I organized Viso cup cause TDM is my favorite game mode and clan were on a crisis situation. It went pretty good and I’m intentioned to go on making other editions, possibly with more collaborators and professionalism :E
I’ve also been asked to organize a CTF cup so, if CB doesn’t pick me as supervisor, that will be on my future plans.
met: Do you ever thought about join progaming’s world?
First of all I don’t think I got the necessary skill to make my game become my work. It needs a lot of constancy and hours every day. Also my parents never approved my passion so, even if I’m 20, I’ve to go to LANs in hiding. So the most is because I lack of skill but I’ll tell you that is cause I lack of time :P
met: Let’s talk about last Warsow LAN tournament, that you won. Congratulations, could you tell us something about that?
Thanks a lot, I’m pretty satisfied. I was worried because I always find difficult to adapt on a PC other than mine. Big names from Italian duelers were missing (like met, ksn, yemminator) so it was not an hard victory (even if I whined a lot anyway ;) ). It was really fun and my congratulations go to Gatz who was a valid challenger on finals. GG everyone
met: Right now CDC is biggest Warsow event in the world. Are you gonna participate it?
I would really like to but the trip is too expensive… who knows maybe in the future. Surely not this year, I’ve got other LANs in Italy that I’m looking forward to.
The personal part
met: Now we know who’re you on gaming world. Tell us something about yourself in real life.
Well I’m lazy, messy and I like to sleep. I like to go to disco and I love alcoholics :O°°
Generally I’m pretty shy with people I don’t know, but as far as I get a little confidence I become another person :)
It’s like I’ve got 2 different personalities, one is slippers, PC, videogames… a nerd. Others is an alcoholized disco girl that loves to party and have fun to be happy :D
met: Do you perform any sport activities??
I’ve performed a lot of sports: basket, volley, tennis, horse-riding, water polo and soccer. Then I discovered Quake 3, and byebye sport career.
met: What music do you like?
I like electronic music most, Prodigy, Daft Punk, Chemical Brothers, Lali Puna, Depeche Mode. But most of all I love Queen, Don’t stop me now it’s the song that give me the power before the clanwars :D
met: That’s all. Thanks again to Videl for giving us her time. Any else you want to say?
Thanks again to you. I wanna salute all my Viso clan, met, ksn, yemmi, t-b0n3, aimowy, adasq, kalorie and the Italian Warsow community :)
Thanks to all the people who motivated me to go on and helped me to grow up as a player!
Clanbase part
lokirulez: After some overheated discussions in viSo TDM cup you said you wouldn't admin any further cups. Now you go for three cups on Clanbase. How's so?
I'm sensible, it was a bad moment for me. i lost a match, and when i came back in irc all people start with complains about cup rules. I know that it's not good for an admin reacting in this way, and it will no happen again :D
Anyway CB is not an amateur site made by me, there is a policy to respect and i will recruit other admins who will help me. So please forget that! :D
lokirulez: How do you judge the independent character of Warsow in the context of hosting cups in a huge league like CB? Were the CB guys nice and helpful or did they just pick Warsow to have it running (hint: more cups, more visitors)?
CB staff is really nice. We work in team, and they don't think that warsow is a secondary game. We didn't start lot of cups only because i was alone and they want to give quality to players, so they though i can't do all alone :) (but i can!)
Honestly i don't know if the eurocup wasn't start for the same reason. They remove other EC cups too, anyway i'll try to request it again next season
lokirulez: Where do you see your own gaming? You call yourself the best female player in Warsow (for duel). Do you plan to train a lot for the upcoming TDM cups and who are your hardest opponents?
There are other good female players in warsow like Rikku and Sady, i don't know if i'm the "best". Anyway the first reason because i play it's because i enjoy it. Honestly my team is not playing a lot as "tdm team" in this period, maybe because it's really hard find a praccy and because lot of players are away for holidays, university, and other things.
Our hardest opponents will be cube, sohei, and qah, as usual.
if tbone come back and if we train more, maybe we can have some chances to stay in the top3. As dueller i don't playing really much so i don't think i'll do a nice season this time.
lokirulez: What do you think of CTF these days? Would it be worth a try to have a ctf cup in next CB season?
CTF in 0.4 is simply AWESOME. I hope that all clans will start to play and i'll surely add a ctf cup in the next cb season. I'll follow the order ctf cup to understand how many clans play ctf and how much they like it.
Thanks for your time, Videl.
Links
Videl's profile @warsow.ning.com
met's profile @warsow.ning.com
viSo TDM 4v4 Cup
Clanbase 1v1 cup
Clanbase 4v4 TDM cup
Clanbase 2v2 iTDM cup
Italian LAN Party