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Pro Gamer Fatal1ty Talks Tactics, Endorsements
An anonymous reader writes "Quake master Johnathan Wendel, better known as Fatal1ty, talks about his life and the professional gaming scene over at ZDNet. Asked how he keeps his reflexes sharp, he said: 'I use the same tactics in 'Quake' that I used in tennis. It's all about mind games, knowing what your opponent's thinking, knowing where a shots going to go. Anything in a computer game, I can relate it to something in sports I've played. The rail gun (the heaviest weapon in 'Quake') -- that's like going for the overhead slam in tennis. You set 'em up and then you drive it home with your hardest shot. It's like all the shots in tennis are, back and forth, trying to get them off balance. And when you do, you slam it down their throat. Same as gaming.'"
He says he plays tennis...
I wonder if he blasts one into his opponents skull if he yells "HEADSHOT!"
Tennis? Ten-nis? What on this green earth is that?
Sorry, I only follow the professional sports, like Quake.
The railgun didn't officially appear until Quake II, though I gather the railgun and Quake mentioned above is III.
Really, he doesn't earn much money and probably would be earning more money had he gone to college and gotten a decent job (at least 50k) and I'm sure he's capable.
But he says he wants to create a company that makes the whole she-bang and doesn't just buy commodity parts. Lets presume that he will actually buy his chips from AMD/Intel. But he is actually going to create a company that is the equivilant of, say, Abit (motherboard) plus Nvidia (video) plus Creative (sound) plus Micron (memory). Seriously. He may as well start making his own CPU, too.
So if he thinks he can pull that off, well.... just never mind what I said about him making more money going to college. Stick to the parent's basement / gaming career.
It's interesting that he mentions in the article that in order to keep his reflexes up, he exercises and plays sports. This has two implications. First, this breaks somewhat the stereotype where professional gamers spends 20 hours a day sitting in front of the computer and practise, not getting much exercise. Second, professional gaming might argubly be categorised as sports. You'll never know. One day you might see a Quakefest on ESPN2.
He, and others like him fly around to different tournaments pulling down 5 figure prizes quite often. I was at QuakeCon 2001 where he got second, and $10,000, and had just come from another tournament, and was on his way to yet another. So, he needed someone to drive his novelty check home. A buddy of mine volunteered, and we drove it home. So, we took advantage of the situation. It was fun.
Or maybe I was played by him.
One of his sponsors had him set up in Kentia Hall at the last E3, going head to head on UT2k3 with hapless fools like me. I'm about an average to slightly above average player (I end up right in the middle when I play online)...with fatal1ty I think we wound up at around 0-30 after five minutes.
Before seeing him in action, I wouldn't have believed that there was such a huge difference in hand-eye coordination and reflexes between a normal player and a pro. Pretty impressive. He said that he had a perfect record for E3 - he hadn't been killed once.
Comparing himself to Micheal Jordan? Oh puh-leeze. Jordan could piss in a bottle and sell it as perfume. This "professional gamer" is worth nothing compared to a real athlete.
he sounds pretty gay.
You set 'em up and then you drive it home...back and forth, trying to get them off...And when you do, you slam it down their throat.
He does claim to put in 8-12 hours a day in the weeks leading up to a tournament. I know there were a lot of gamers out there expecting Fatal1ty to say "practice, practice, practice" somewhere in this article. (For those that haven't read it yet, no, he doesn't say it.)
Thresh played tennis in high school too, IIRC.
Not that anyone remembers him these days. The current world-champion DM player seems to be different every time I look >.>
I mean, Quake 3 is a lot more exciting to watch than Magic: The Gathering...
There are 10 kinds of people: ones who understand ternary, ones who don't, and ones who think this joke is about binary
UT2K3 added "Mega Kill," "Ludicrous Kill" and "HOLY SHIT" to the announcer's vocabulary. Incidentally, it's interesting to hear how...excited the Aroused announcer gets once you start racking up the consecutive kills.
Perhaps bellowing "HUMILIATION" in a low voice would be more appropriate for a tennis ball to the head.
I'm experimenting with something similar myself. I'm running a little site(Video Game Trainer) where we try and break down video game playing into the fundamental skills, and then work on them individually. So for example, you work on your hand-eye coordination for a while, then you work on your reaction speed. It's early days at the moment - anyone got any suggestions for exercises etc?
Games like golf, tennis, basketball, chess, etc have been around for a long long time. If you're pro in these games, by the time the game changes significantly due to technology you'd have retired or something.
In contrast with computer games, people tend to _change_games_ quite rapidly. OK so people are still playing counterstrike and starcraft, but will enough people be playing it in years to come, in order to make it worth being a pro? Not many people are still playing Doom, or Quake 1.
Thresh was very good at Doom, Quake but is he still a pro-gamer?
He says he played it for 2-3 hours on one quarter. If he could be more full of shit, I'd be amazed.
Sad thing is he could use an improved education (his lame way of speaking screams that fact) yet he probably thinks he's got it made.
of combative sports.
In the course of my life I've participated in various forms of swordplay (sabre, shinai, boken, medieval styles, etc.) and have coached others on the same. In all forms of combat, there is a fundamental truth - the person who controls the space between the combatants wins. This is true for his tennis match, a football game, a chess game, hand-to-hand, swordplay, or total war.
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During a typical contest, there will be moments when you have control and moments when you don't. When you do, you strike - immediately. When you don't, you get the hell out of the way and re-engage under more neutral circumstances. The whole trick is to get control of the space between you and your opponent and strike before he can react.
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Between novice fighters, combat is like a game of "rock-paper-scissors" as both opponent throw various moves and techniques without much thought as to what the other person is doing, where his center of gravity is, etc. However, between experienced fighters, it's like watching an intricate dance as both opponents try to out position and out think each other....very cool to watch.
A goal is a dream with a deadline
But don't get too jealous. He travels too much to settle down and still lives in the basement of his father's house.
Did you HAD to mention that in your article Zdnet? I pretty much doubt this guy HAS to live with his parents, you already stablished he makes enough money NOT to, I also doubt he doesnt have at least a girlfriend (/boyfriend if thats his taste I dont care) you are just mentioning he is not married or in a serious relationship the guy is 22! what was the point of making hardcore gamers look like rejected kids who live in basements? you tried to be one until you remembered how much you sucked in quake or what?
Seriously is time for the media to realize GAMER is not a social stereotype, anyone can be a gamer we are just people who like videogames just like people who like reading books or watching movies, thats all! We dont tattoo pacman to our foreheads, we dont go screaming "HALO/MARIO FOREVER" through the streets thats nonsense, we are guys and girls with normal lives and normal jobs. not a small ethnic race desserving study.
Computer Geeks on the other hand...
Go ahead MOD my day!
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While its shots might have passed through enemies, the lightning gun did not fire in bursts, but rather continuously fired until you released the fire button or your cells ran out. The only time it fired in a burst was if you used it underwater, and in that case it had a (albeit painful) BFG-like splash spread if I'm not mistaken :)
As for a railgun-style weapon being "impossible" in Doom, while you definitely couldn't make a projectile trail animation (though you can in the modern remakes of the engine), it is entirely possible -- nay, common -- to take out multiple enemies in a single line with the regular shotgun because each shot is composed of several discrete projectiles, which upon firing immediately reach their point of impact (be it an enemy or a wall). A Doomly "railgun," then, need only have a relatively dense and tiny spread of projectiles. Heh, even a shotgun blast compressed into the rough span of a pistol shot could take out four or five zombies if you aimed it properly. I do agree, though, that the general Doom/Quake weaponset has changed fairly little since it was invented.
Now im gonna go out on a limb here and explain a portion of the community as it existed back around 1999 and 2000, and perhaps after that..
Fatal1ty was straightedge in a community of partiers and drug users. If they ever instituted drug testing in these competitions, 90% of the participants would fail. Weed, speed, coke, underage drinking were some of the things that were quite prevalent from what I saw.
John visited some friends of mine in Illinois and we all went out to dinner at a local TGI Fridays. He wasn't what you'd call blessed with the social skills. Egotistical and just plain annoying and/or boring to be around. One of the main reasons he was so succesful is not because he was particularly better then anyone else, but he was one of the first to realize there was genuine income potential competing, and that maybe it wasn't all just fun and partying, that maybe practicing daily was necessary to stay on the top rung. Many others in the community didn't realize this at first and were quickly left behind. I'm sure they've caught up by now.....
Food: It's whats for dinner