Lobsta (May 2000)
Interviewed by Jem'Hadar

Lobsta does not need an introduction. He was one of the three Quake 3 players who won BDI, and earned their free flight to the US to attend the RazerCPL event. At the US, he surprised us with a 14th at the RazerCPL, and a 3rd at i2e2.

First off, I'd just like to congradulate you for doing so well in the US. How did you find your experiences in the US?

Thanks, My experiences in the US were awesome, firstly the comp was for me a success and I had a great time there. All the people I met in Dallas were all great, Phong is a bit of a legend :) and so were all the CPL crew including Angel who was very approachable and on the same level as us quakers. Only grip about Dallas is theirs fast-food EVERYWHERE, so that didnt go down too well :P I also spent about 9 days in LA before leaving and that was a blast, I didnt want to leave :( summer ownz me ..

You lanned with Mirage, Fatality and some other US players before RazerCPL. What was your first impressions of them?

Unfortunately I didnt get to lan with Fatality before CPL, I did go around to Rix's house where he was lanning and spectated that was about it :(

I did get to play Mirage at Mainet Internet cafe leading up to CPL and as I expected he was playing very well, as were Matador, Vise , Rimshot the Koreans and the South Africans. They were all very good and it was interesting cause they all had different styles. Everyone had their best maps and i got the feeling that the Americans were very strong on T2 the Koreans were better at maps like T4 and Powerk was a bit of a animal on dm13 :P

Did your 14th at RazerCPL, and 3rd at i2e2 surprise you in anyway?

Not really , I was playing quite well while in the US and was aiming for top 24, making top 16 was great and considering the great players that were attending im happy with my result :D i2e2 we were expecting to win, actually we were sorta running out of money and was counting on winning :P

Who did you think was your hardest opponent during your trip to the US?

Well unfortuntely I didnt get to play as many people as I would of liked as I didnt have my PC there :(( I cant really say who was my hardest opponent, there was heaps of quality there and alot of tough and smart players. Gloatm Lakerman and Moonshine were all very good.

Did you find any differences in the style of playing between the Aussies and US? eg: defensive/aggressive? And did you adjust to THEIR style, or try to get the best of both worlds?

Before I left for the US i watched ALOT of demos and pretty much knew the standard I would need to achieve to be competitive, but that still isn't the same as playing foreign players so yeh, of course I learnt a few things and came across different tactics, I dont think I changed my style though. Some of Q3A's maps are very simple and aslong as your hitting a high percentage of shots you usually do quite well.

Do you have any aspirations to become a "pro gamer", and how do you think the industry will progress in the next few years?

Of course, playing Q3A competitively is very exciting and is (for me atleast) the best way to play .. when your pushed by players that are just as good or better than yourself it makes things a whole lot more interesting and the drive to get better is there, I don't get that from playing on the internet locally. I can see the scene getting bigger and stronger in the US, there's alot of people there that really believe that Q3A can be a Pro-Sport and from being at CPL I don't doubt it will happen. As for the Aussie scene nothing is happening and nothing has been happening for a while, the Gamers or even Wireplay, Optus@Home need to generate an online competition and if this happens hopefully we can take FPS gaming here in Australia to the next level and not be left behind.

What do you think of the US gaming scene?

The US scene is HUGE , there's 19 million online gamers in America which is close to our total population :(. And they take it alot more seriously but so would us Aussies if their were regular competitions to decide who is the best Clan in Australia (TR btw) and who is the best dueler. Hopefully these things can come into place for our gaming comunity as we desperately need it.

How would you compare a large US lan (eg: CPL) to a large Aussie lan (eg: BDI) in atmosphere, people etc?

Well the major difference is the financial and media attention the CPL generate. The Razer CPL Lan was about 300+ people so the size wasn't really out of the ordinary for me, but the whole environment was almost convention like with stalls everywhere giving free stuff away, Dreamcasts and Playstation 2's to play on, seminars with various experts like John Carmack explaining the engine of Q3A and there was also a guy who did a seminar on overclocking which was very interesting, then their was the GameCast guys who were performing interviews and even taping some of the seminars. Overall The Razer CPL wasn't just another LAN it was a major event that shows just how serious some people take FPS gaming, and i loved it :P

So tell us about your FPS gaming history, what games did you play before Quake3?

I played online QW Clanarena, that was my first FSP game .. I then moved to Q2 and mostly played on Lan at QGL's, other than that I played a bit of doom2 on the playstation.

What do you "really" think of Quake 3? and what do you think of the Pro-Mode?

Q3A was at first not really that attractive as I still enjoyed q2 when q3a was released, but the fast weapon switch's and combos you can pull of in Q3A make it a very fun game .. and when their's some good players Dueling or Teamplaying its very exciting to play and watch. Only thing it really needs is some more maps, and I've heard ID are bringing out a teamplay add-on pack so hopefully that will get more people into teamplay, cause for me teamplay is the best way to play Quake. As for more maps the Quake community is so big there must be some guys who can produce some spanky custom maps? The only one I know of is Jude's map and its very playable and heaps of fun.

As for Pro-Mode it hasn't caught my interest, and i havent really given it a chance but from what I have experienced pro-mode feels rather akward on the ID maps.

So what's the future for you? More CPL's? CPL-Asia, CPL-AU etc?

When I think about immediate future im planning on saving some more money so I can venture overseas again. If I can play Quake, travel, meet people and have a good time that would be tops.

And lastly, what computer setup do you have? Mouse, mousepad?

Ive got a p3-450@560 a Geforce SDRAM , 128 megs o ram, Logitech Mouseman+ and a $2 foam mousepad.