| DonKing: The basic questions, what's your name, location, age and how long have you played QuakeWorld? |
def: My name is Daniel Simanovsky, I'm 19 years old, I was born in the Slovak Republic and I currently reside in Toronto, Canada. I have begun my venture into the immerse world of quake in September of 1998.
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| DonKing: You are considered by many people in the QuakeWorld community to be a cocky player, what are your feelings about those people and what is it that they don't understand? |
def: People generally misunderstand me. The majority of the things I say online are meant as a joke, or towards the purpose of making me or others around me laugh a bit. However, sometimes people take it serious, and this usually causes problems. I wish that everyone relaxed and took the Internet a little bit less serious. The people that really do know me online (John, Anti, Stephanie, and others in my clan) know who I am and what I am about, and clearly see i'm not what others make me out to be. My cockiness is a direct result of me standing up for myself. Sometimes someone misjudges my skills or me ]=) and I get defensive, but this usually extends into being cocky. I'm not rude towards anyone; I respect others, unless they violate me in some way (like Haze did on DM3). People have to understand i'm online to have some fun, and I don't take everything 100% serious, sometimes I play with people, sometimes i'm serious. To set the record straight, I want to take this opportunity to apologize to anyone that I have unintentionally offended.
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| DonKing: You have played QuakeWorld on a p150 for quite a long time and have done quite well versus good players. What disadvantages does this give you besides the obvious FPS one? |
def: There are many disadvantages that come with an old PC. The ones that are the most important are; there are no PS2/USB ports on my P1 motherboard, meaning I have to use a serial mouse with 40HZ sampling rate. I also have to play on a lower viewsize (60) and field of view (90) in order for my FPS to be half decent, which makes it somewhat difficult to hit precise shots. The QuakeWorld engine presents another problem, the lower your FPS is, the higher your ping is. For example, on LAN if you set your cl_maxfps to 30, you will get 33 ping. However if you set your cl_maxfps to 72, you will have 13 ping. The difference between 72fps and 30fps in QuakeWorld is about 20 ping. What this means for me, is that once I get into battles, not only does my FPS drop, but also my ping spikes up as a direct result of a loss in FPS.
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| DonKing: Now for the opposite, what advantages does it give you? Do you ever use the FPS issue as an excuse for losing? |
def: The fact that I have an old PC also gives me advantages along the lines of that it makes me more aware of the game itself. Due to the fact I have played with low FPS for an extended period of time, I have developed a very stealthy, fast, and defensive style of game play. Direct confrontations versus worthy opponents with high end computers are not easily won, therefore this situation has forced me to develop and effectively use various tactics and strategies to overcome my opponents, rather than relying on my (somewhat weak) aim to dominate them. FPS is definitely one of the elements of a formula that determines a player's skill, however it is not everything. The near future presents me with a new system, which will add a lot of aim to my game, some more speed to my bunny hopping, and some more height to my rocket jumps. If I continue to demonstrate my abilities as a tactician, the combination of aim, speed, and tactics will be very hard to stop. On a final note, I haven't used FPS as excuse for losing, but rather brought it up as a 'valid reason' in any experienced FPS player's eyes.
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| DonKing: You are considered by some to be the best North American dm6 player, what is your secret to success there? |
def: The Dark Zone is perhaps one of the greatest 1on1 levels I have ever played within any FPS game. The level requires that a player possesses a complete array of tactics, from evasiveness to pure all out aggressive explosive fights. However, the most successful players on this level are the ones that understand tradeoffs the best (height for h/a, speed for h/a, position for h/a), and know when and how to use them. Definitely, some of my greatest strengths on DM6 are my movement, stealth, speed, and use of height and positioning, which in turn create a game style that is preferable to me, and force my opponent into situations one doesn't want to face. As I have always said, great tactics can overcome great aim.
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| DonKing: You have played [E]-Paradoks on NA and UK servers, how did the matches turn out, what were the pings and what do you think of him as a player? |
def: I have met some really nice European QuakeWorld players through my friend (and clan mate) John who is involved in the QuakeWorld community worldwide. One of these players is ParadokS, considered to be one of the best duellers in Europe. The first time we met on a US server, I seriously underestimated him as I enjoyed a roughly 50 ping advantage (70ms to his 120ms), and played a rather loose and weak dm6 duel which I lost "5-4". During the game however, I was blown away by his ultra sensitive shaft, which saved him on more than a few occasions. This game immediately reminded me to never underestimate any higher pinged players, and I've also gained respect for him as a player. Since then we've become good friends, and duelled about six times on US servers, which I have won all. Most of the scores of these games end up roughly (6-3, 5-2) etc. His aim absolutely dominates mine, even though he is faced with a 50ms disadvantage. I have to rely heavily on my stealth, speed and ability to force him to play my style, in order to control the game, rather than directly confront him. We have also duelled once on UK's Barrysworld server, where ParadokS pinged 40ms, and I pinged 120ms. Paradoks used his incredible shaft to defeat me approximately 23-10 if my memory serves me right. I would also like to address another issue. I'm aware of the fact that ParadokS was accused (and proven) of cheating in the Villains League, and I do see these accusations just in one point of view. ParadokS cheated by breaking the rules of the tournament (using a hacked proxy), however, he recorded the game, played from a public internet cafe, was observed by multiple people at the location, and spectators in game, which leads me to believe that he did not use any cheats. Additionally, his consistency for winning in the countless duels he has taken part in, presents the undisputed fact that he is in fact one of the best duellers in the world. We are all human (except for Yogic, he is a bot ]=p ), and we all make mistakes, furthermore I believe he has learned his lesson.
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| DonKing: Your clan American Gangsters won the North American SmackDown Division quite easily with the help of Haze who is no longer playing QuakeWorld as well as a few other players. How do you think AG will do in SmackDown 2 without players like Haze and Skitter? |
def: American Gangsters, was a clan ahead of its time in the North American QuakeWorld community. The Challenge-World SmackDown tournament brought a plethora of changes to the NA QuakeWorld community; literally it is almost a new game today. Noteworthy changes included, Kombat Teams 2.21 servers, Qizmo 2.91 Proxy, bunny hopping, and team play on new maps such as DM2, DM6, E1M2, and E3M7, which was absolutely non-existent. The North American QuakeWorld community was far behind its European counterpart. We used to 1on1 on DM6 for 20min DMM1, and team play only on DM3 on ClanRing servers without any proxies. The team that best adapted to these changes, and learn to use them advantageously would win the North American Division of SmackDown. American Gangsters was that team. The fact is, we owe allot to John, who patiently explained and taught us everything from how to use Qizmo, to how to Bunny Hop, and yell at Fuman when he snoozes off during matches. Additionally, American Gangsters SD1 team compromised of certain players that made their name stand out from the crowd, like Haze, Skitter, Snakes, and Daw. Haze was our all-star Quader (in fact if you inspect the quad model closely, you will notice that in the bottom right corner it says "property of: haze"), who never failed his team in securing one of the most important items in team play. Complementary to Haze, stood Skitter (Mr. RL-BOX) himself, unmatched in skill at securing DM3-RL by himself, the man walks through discharges, and spawn frags faster than Fuman's body fat calories can rise. AG's SD2 team is radically different than that off our SD1 team, with tons of new faces, even some from Europe (QH-Terror). The presence of the above mentioned legends will be dearly missed, but never forgotten. SmackDown2 will be a relatively much more difficult tournament to win than SmackDown1, however we plan to do what we always did, practice, practice, and more practice in order to attain our goals.
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| DonKing: Who do you enjoy watching in demos more than anyone else? |
def: I can't honestly say that I enjoy watching one player more than the rest, but what I can say is that I enjoy watching really close games, weather that entices team-play or one-on-one is irrelevant. I find that close games have an irreplaceable suspense factor that blowouts rarely deliver, however I don't mind seeing blowouts from time to time. Also I like to watch a variety of demos, from old school to new school, as well as from continent to continent. I find that each style of game is very different, and each has its merits, and faults. It's really interesting to watch a really old school demo in QuakeWorld 2.21 and find elements of it within say Pietro's new school game.
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| DonKing: Do you ever plan on getting a better PC? |
def: As a matter of fact, by the time that you guys will be reading this, I will be fragging away on my new computer provided to me by my dear friend and clan mate John. Therefore I want to take this chance to thank him publicly for his actions, and also state that everyone in the QuakeWorld North American DM scene is really lucky that we have a guy like John keeping it alive.
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| DonKing: I know you haven't tried CPM on your current PC, but if the time when you get a better PC comes along, will you ever give it a shot? |
| def: I can honestly say that the game play of VQ3 does not impress me, everything from weapon strength, physics, to the quirks of the game. I'm very doubtful that I will get as competitive in Q3 as I'm in QuakeWorld, due to real life time constraints, however I will definitely give CPM a try for a few fun games (hopefully). The combination of Q3's graphics and QuakeWorld game play could make for a very interesting game. (Update: Well I'm on my new computer now, and I have done some testing of CPM and VQ3. I won't comment on VQ3 since I played a good amount of team play games on east.tp.net and it was as far from team play and fun as Bulldozer getting a decent ping. CPM allowed me more control over my player, which was good, but it felt laser sharp, and way too precise for what I'm used to. The most upsetting factor of CPM however was the maps. I have played about 10-15 maps online, which almost all looked like were designed by inexperienced level designers, that really don't yet know the ingredients to death match, and had very little control over the environment and level elements. However I definitely agree that CPM is better than VQ3, but I don't think I'm ever going to play Quake 3 at all as I nuked it off of my hard drive tonight.) |
