Interviews

Karras: Antrax member, Champions of South European division - ErAsEr

Karras is an ANTRAX member (http://www.geocities.com/clanantrax) who are the zinners of Challenge Smackdown 2, South European division. ANTRAX is an spanish clan, having fun playing QW exclusively.

First of all congratulations antrax for winning the last edition of Challenge Smackdown SEU and thank you for your time. Tell me something about yourself.

Well, my name is Pedro Antonio toledo, I live in Murcia (Cieza) at the south-east of Spain. I am 18 years old and I have been playing QuakeWorld since November of 2000 and qw is the only shoot'em up game I liked, I usually played rol games like balduirs gate...

Software or OpenGl?

openGl

Who is your favorite qw player at this moment?

In my opinion maybe ff.akke in teamplay, I like pietro as well: I think pietro is the most complete player, he plays so good in tdm, 1on1, ffa. On the other hand, I have to say that Paradoks shaft aim is the best i have ever seen.

Your favourite map?

I like all qw maps, maybe i most like dm6 in 2on2 and dm3 in 4on4. I prefer playing dm4 or dm6 in 1on1.

Only few people know that there are good quakeworld players in Spain. How is the Spanish QW scene going?

Qw is not in his best time at Spain. A lot of people prefer playing Q3, CS ... , I think maybe in 2 years qw could die out here in Spain. At the moment we only have 1 server. When we won´t have any qw server left, I hope we can play in North Europe with good conections. At the moment we have one of the worst internet technology of Europe. We usually play 80-100 ping wihle people in North Europe get 20-50.
Maybe in spain qw teamplay is not too advanced but now clans are starting to play what i call "nordic stile": who first locks a map wins. So I think the qw level in Spain is geting better and better at the moment...
Althought I think with the time people will change to another game like q3, cs ....

Spanish connections are not that good, could it be the main reason why there arent many known players here?

I don't think so, maybe yes in people who plays here in Spain. In Spain the problem is that not many players are active and, as I said, a many more people play q3,cs,hl... then qw. Newbies join the "Spanish gamer world" and they just find q3,cs..., but not qw. At this moment, I am connected to a LAN (www.campus-party.org) and I was quite surprises when I noticed that a lot of people didn't know anything about QW, and when they tried it they liked it A LOT.

Tell me something about antrax, are you a QW clan only?

4 years ago it was a NetQuake clan with torx and kang (now playing QW). When QW started seriously here in Spain, we decided to revive Antrax, so yes we are only a qw clan at this moment...., but we are not saying NO to new games like Doom3 or Quake4, maybe we will try them if they are a lot better than q3 is.

I see that you are not a follower of quake 3, what do you think about it? There are people who say that it was similar to q1.

I totally disagree that it would be very similar to quake 1. It's verty relative because it is similar only when you compare it with camper strike or unreal tournament.
The differences with Q3 at professional level are many and very outstanding. It's undeniable that qw has technical qualities and the differences in gameplay are huge. Q3 crawls at a low level but as far as speed mobility etc. (bunny, flight control...)
In general, the things which q3 lack make it a a game done for the rail gun. A rail gun in qw wouldn't make any sense. I think thay Q3 is less professional. I hope that Doom3 looks like qw more than to quake3 even though I realise that that's something almost impossible.

Being a relatively young clan in QW, of players fairly new to QW, did you ever imagine winning Challenge Smackdown SEU without too much trouble? I remember that Antrax only lost 2 maps and that was in the final...

The truth is that we didn't imagine that possibility. On the other hand, without meaning any disrepect towards other teams, I have to say that none of the games seemed excessively difficult to win, except for the final of course.
The reason it was relatively easy is, I believe, that the tactics of the other clans were pretty bad. We actually watched many, many demos of big clans like ff, E, tvs... and that helped a lot (thanks they!). DEFS also has good teamplay however.

Lets talk about the final against Portuguese clan DEFS. Before the game, did you think you had any chance? How did the final go? And what do you think about clan defs?

We knew that we had the possibility of winning of course. Before the game we were conscious that it was a match that brought a lot of expectations since we never lost a map and they never lost a complete match.
We were surprised when we saw defs training and saw frightful results of 450/1, 500/15... We were well aware that dm2 would be very very difficult to win. Portuguese people asked us if we thought we had any chance: "beating wining defs is imposible".
But we also realised that we could win indeed since them cause they needed 3 maps to overcome Talivanes in the first round, and they won the third map (dm6) by ony 2 frags! We had beaten Talivanes in the map defs lost and comfortably in our map.
I think defs is a great clan despite some comments I've heard about them. I have never heard them complain about lag, ping and that stuff, which other clans usually do, and that shows us they are cool people. Greeting to them and I hope that we'll meet again in the next final! :))

Which expectations does antrax have for the next season of Challenge Smackdown?

Wining our division of course and although we are conscious of the difference between elite of the north and elite of the south, we will try to lift antrax as high as posible :))

Would you like to meet important clans like cmf, and, or even ff?

Obviously that is a dream that I hope someday will come true. I know that day is very far away but I think the well-known tactic should work: the only thing to do to get better is training, training and training :))

Do you think that thanks to competitions like Challenge Smackdown will help to keep QW alive?

Yes, without all the work which people in SD are doing QW would die. I want to thank to all the people who take care of Smackdown, especially Appolyon who works a lot. Unfortunately in Spain people begin to play quake 3 cause of the graphics without givind QW a chance. That situation really can not be solved by a competition; promotions by ID and others of Q3 have a very important effect.

Thanks for your time, and good luck to Antrax in next season of Challenge Smackdown!

I hope qw never dies and new games like doom3, quake4 look like qw :))
Thanks for all and bye !