Didn't had my net for two whole days ops: ops:
but here it is..
Zak: How are you today, you sound okay
Viper: I am fine, very very fine, United won 2-1 against New Castle so... my day is good, top top
Zak: ya not so good in my house, as I live with 3 guys from New Castle and they're sulking .. like drown their sorrow in wine and beer, so that's not so good, hehe
Viper: yea I understand 'em
Zak: But you're happy, you're a Man U supporter of course,
Viper: of course.
Zak: Indeed, we should probably talk about the GML because that's kind of the purpose of the interview. So you've been involved in this from the start because originally this whole thing was kind of our idea anyway, but then obviously as you're taking part, a little bit less that you can actually do because you are taking part, so you can't admin as well.
Viper: yea of course that willl be unfair to the other players so, I just help around with bit of forum administrations and moderation of topics and such, but I won't be taking part in any decision that can affect myself or them for that sake.
Zak: yea so people should know that as that's kind of something quite important and that's how rumors start and things like that, so now we have got that out of way, so people can understand that you are taking part in administration a little bit but not something that will affect you
Viper: yea
Zak: okay so, actually how confident are you feeling about the tournament.
Viper: Well I am getting pretty confident. I am going back to good shape again after I had a break from AoC so.. overall it should be good by the start of the GML.
Zak: Yea actually with the interview with DauT, he was saying that he tips you as the favorite to win, do you think that... that is achievable.
Viper: Well of course I couldn't have joined this tournament if I couldn't win, Well I probably would, but I am confident I can win but it's gonna be tough, it's only two games against each players so it's gonna be hard but I am gonna do my best and give my best shot.
Zak: yea that's good, I think the lot of players are all thinking the same sort of thing as well, they all are willing to give their best, and that's really all you can ask.
Viper: Yea I don't' see why you would join this tournament to not give your best like.., you're playing already against best players in the world so why would you just hand over some victories. you really do want to beat every single player.
Zak: Exactly, even DauT who has got an injury in his hand, he's still gonna be giving his best.
Viper: yea his hand is getting better so he should be fine.
Zak: yea I am sure he will be. Who do you think would be your hardest opponent to beat, or The hardest person to beat.
Viper: ah it's no doubt, my nemesis, my best friend, my biggest nightmare and my best opponent it's Jordan. He knows me incredibly well now so like everything I do, he knows it's coming he knows what's happening all the time, so ti's hard to play against him now, because we know each other so well , that's it's like impossible to pull something out of the hat and surprise him and stuff like that so.. He knows me very well and his style is quite good to counter mine so... He's definitely my biggest opponent.
Zak: okay so how are you gonna go about beating him in a sense, what sort of things have you got up your sleeve that you might be able to pull out to actually beat him.
Viper: He's listening now so I can't tell you now.
Zak: is he?
Viper: Yea he's in the chat.
Zak: oh I see him, He's hiding at the bottom of the chat there.. I see you. okay that was not question then that can actually be answered in that sense I guess.
Viper: But I won't answer it.. I don't' know I am gonna beat him. Did you hear that jordan, did you hear that.
Zak: So with jordan being your nemesis and obviously someone you've played against a lot I imagine that would really mean that he does know you better than anyone other than yourself obviously.
Viper: He might even know me better than myself. So.... I don't know it's a.. that's a tough part you know, he knows everything about me so... that's a real challenge playing him.
Zak: And also then, who do you think is going to be the easiest opponent in this tournament.
Viper: yeaumm... I am really not sure about that one , see a lot of people are wondering why FeAge is in the tournament at all, but umm. people have, most of us have not forgotten the WCL performance of FeAge and we all know that he deserves to be here like everyone else. But I think it all comes down to the shape of the players. I don't see GoodBoy play for months, so I don't really know clearly what shape he is in, Chris as well, he says he wont' practice much for this tournament. So it's kinda hard to predict... I actually think GoodBoy will be the weakest player this tournament.
Zak: okay, the thing with the Chinese players in that they have QQ zone as well don't' they, so for all we know they can all be playing over there without anyone knowing or seeing any recorded games. do you think that's actually possibility with GoodBoy.
Viper: yea well people are telling me that he's really really busy in life so I am not sure about that.. that he's even playing in there so you never know but. I'd predict him to be in the worst shape.
Zak: Oh okay. so one of the biggest thing about this tournament obviously is the map pool and having the 15 maps that you can choose from and planning which map to choose against which opponent, how do you think that's going to affect you and how have you decided to play this tournament.
Viper: I actually think that it's kinda good for me, because I don't feel like I have some really weak maps, I am kind of an all rounder, pretty strong on all sort of maps like water land nomad type and regicide is okay for me as well. I think I am kinda an all rounder so it's a bonus for me, yea compare to some other players.
Zak: Yea defintely, what you think is going to be your strongest map on the pool.
Viper: umm I think it's without doubt Islands. I am very comfortable playing it and it suits my style so.. Islands is definitely my strongest map, too bad you can only pick it once. I don't think anyone else would pick it against me.
Zak: yea I guess that is one of the unfortunate things about it, you can only pick a map once, also that means it's gonna be lot more variety in the tournament.
Viper: yea that's true.
Zak: Also as well, I don't know if it is that clear to everyone but civilizations are free to pick. Do you think we're actually gonna see a lot of Hun wars in this tournament.
Viper: I think we'll see less Hun wars. I think Hun will be the least pick civ actually in the maps, most I think will be picked will be Vikings, Mayans and probably Aztec on Arabia. Okay Vikings and Mayans would probably be the most picked civs. Somebody might prepare something with other civs just to surprise people and.. but I think vikings and Mayans will be the most used civs.
Zak: okay that's kind of good because a lot of people when I produce videos when it is Arabia hun wars they're like , Aw No.. not another Arabia Hun war, so it's kind of nice to give the players the choice to pick their civilizations that vary in varied maps it means that they are not going to be picking Hun every time.
Viper: Exactly, also you can, if you face an opponent you know what map he can choose, you can do another civ like Mayans on a water map just to surprise him and do another strategies and it'll create more entertaining games. So yea it'll be fun, definitely.
Zak: so how do you think perhaps the tournament can be improved for future seasons.
Viper: Well the only problem I see so far is the thing that everyone is trying for the people that didn't get the spot, that's the biggest issue. That's why I think in the next season, if there will be a coming season which is in the plans that we are going to add another league like we have the premier league and we have the first league, the follow up league, and people will play to get promoted and demoted and it'll create like a league system, where the best players are in the top but the players below have to fight to get there. So it's not like those players would be in the top forever. It's possible for lower players to actually fight their way up, and that's what is going to be really entertaining to watch if we get it to work like we're planning to.
Zak: yea exactly, something we want to actually achieve is to have it so that we can involve more players without increasing the length of the tournament, because one of the biggest problems with the round robin style of tournament is the length of time it takes to complete it, and having it in separate league would really help that. so yea, that topic in AocZone that said, who should be invited to the grand masters, that is something unfortunately is unavoidable at the moment. We can't invite more than 8 players, because that's how big it is, but next time we do it, we'd aim to invite more players.
Viper: Indeed, this is just a trial season so.. we kind of, if this turns out to be a success it's like it's obvious we would have a follow up and that will probably be the improved settings and another league division or 2 and invite more people and we'd have every single top player participating at one point.
Zak: Yea do you think that's actually be going to provide good motivation for not the very top players, but the players slightly below that, the people who are like 1900 to 2k.
Viper: If I was 2k, and I saw this 3 league with 2k2 players I'd do everything to try to improve to get to that level and actually get in to one of the leagues. Till then try to promote myself from there so yea I think it's a great motivation for both the lower rated players as well as for the higher rated because they'd have to stay and shape and keep performing in order to stay on top, since everyone else will try to improve so.. yea definitely.
Zak: We should keep the competition high.
Viper: Indeed.
Zak: I actually wanted to ask you a little bit about StarCraft 2. because for those of you who don't know, you and jordan have been playing quite a lot of that recently, how it actually have affected your age of empires
Viper: Well at first, the starcraft habits to bring into the aoc game it's really they're really hurtful. you mess up everything and every click and the speed pace in starcraft is so much faster than aoc, so it's really hard to adapt to aoc game after you've played statcraft, but in the end I think it's going to improve both my speed in the game and overall .. I am kinda out of the question now.
Zak: The question was how has playing StarCraft 2 affected your Age of Empires.
Viper: Yea well it's just a habit from age of empires that really screws up my aoc game at the moment but I am getting used to it now so,..I am back to AoC now and that's where I would stay for the whole GML .
Zak: Okay, and do you see yourself playing a lot of StarCraft in the future.
Viper: Well the thing about StarCraft is that it is so easy to get a game. You wait like one minute and you have a game so if you wanna play like spend an hour or two for fun then you can just go the open starcraft click find a game and then you've a game in like one minute so... . In AoC you have to sit for like 15-20 minutes may be to get a one against one so that's the huge part of the StarCraft that makes it so easy and fun, so yea I'll definitely playing more StarCraft well yea I'd have my breaks between AoC.
Zak: Okay, see a lot of people are gonna be a little bit dissapointed in that but at the end of the day it's your choice and if it's so much easier to get a game and if it's not so much sort of controversy about being the top ranked and such then really, I can't really blame you for that
Viper: yea.
Zak: Also while we're on the sort of topic on finding game and such how do you think the Forgotten Empires is actually going to affect Age of Empires Scene as a whole.
Viper: That is actually a big question mark for me as well. It can turn out really well, if everyone commit to try it and give it a chance but there's a lot of people that want the game to stay the way it is. But umm. my experience so far if we get the small error that the forgotten empires have at the moment if we get them fixed we will and we keep balancing the game after it's release and we've to keep giving updates and reporting in like what's balanced and what's unbalanced. If we get those things fixed I really have a faith that forgotten empires can be really really good thing for the community. yea.It might bring in new players as well so...
Zak: Yea I agree I think a lot of people are actually waiting for its release before they come back to the game. There's a hell of lot of people on the Facebook page. I think 7.. 6 and a half 7 thousand or almost 8 thousand likes on the Facebook page and lot of those aren't actually the active players at the moment. So it could do well in actually bringing back lot of people or even reaching new people.
Viper: Yea definitely.. hope so.
Zak: Okay so moving on to the few questions from the chat. I got it scrolled up quite a bit, so if you have any questions for Viper type them now and I'll get through them. I think the very first question sorry if I missed one before this but the very first one was "What's the DPI settings of your mouse ? " When you play AoC
Viper: Oh ehmm. I use my you know when you fix your mouse settings I've got like eleven what's it's called. 11 dots you can pick from from 1 to 11. How fast mouse can go, I got that on seven. and umm I am not sure about the DPI 1800 or 3500 I am not exactly sure.
Zak: Yea I have it quite high as well and I imagine you have it fairly high but now stupidly.
Viper: Well I use to lower it before I play StarCraft, so that's another part that's gonna improve my AoC game, I got my mouse speed a lot faster now.
Zak: I see. so could you now change it for the AoC between the two.
Viper: Whatchu say ?
Zak: Could you not change it between the two games.
Viper: ah. No. I'll say I've gotten used to this speed. It's not good to change keep changing it because now that I am used to the StarCraft speed of the mouse, I'd want to bring that into my AoC game in order to be faster there as well, so I am definitely gonna stick to this.
Zak: Ah okay great, Are there any civilizations that you feel are over or under used.
Viper: I think the best civilizations are the one that are being used at the moment but uhh it's kind of hard. because there's a difference between team games, one against one and differences between maps and overall.. so I think the civilizations like Britons and Britons basically, that civ and Spanish and Mongols are underused given the whole amount of.... well every civ is underused besides Huns and Mayans and Vikings. But those are probably the three civ that I think are underrated compare to how good they are.
Zak: Yea.I also think that when the forgotten empires does comes out, that's gonna be great for actually bringing introducing new civilizations, well obviously you get the new civilizations as well but may be making other civilizations more used. As it's obviously gonna be nerfing and tweaking civilizations.
Viper: Yea it will, it will probably see more people having those rare civ as their standard civ.
Zak: hmm definitely.So it's gonna be great. Okay, How many games of AoC will you be playing a day whilst training and practicing during the GML.
Viper: Umm.. it depends.. at the moment we are, the TyranT team is sort of practicing for the SY cup that is gonna start on 1st October but after that I'll only probably only play 1 against 1 so, I'll try to get a few games everyday, probably practice a lot with Jordan. So probably have to help DauT to get in shape but umm. so probably I hope 5 games everyday to stay on top of my game.
Zak: Okay one here.. ahemm. Will you be playing all of your matches in your perfect playing style or if you feel like you've the opportunity will you be douching at all or laming at all.
Viper: Well the question is.. I really wanna win this and I think most people will lame each other this tournament, so I don't' think staying like no lame .. I don't think that will be a good idea for me, because if I lose like one boar then it's gonna be a really big disadvantage so... I think I'll probably be stealing boars if I found them and laming villagers and basically against everyone but I'll probably keep it in a more polite level for example against Jordan.
Zak: okay yea so friendship sort of comes there to play as well.
Viper: Yea I think it's kind of a gentleman style between us, we don't lame each other, because we know the other doesn't lame. but I think against someone like FeAge who steals boars all day long, I am gonna take both his boars if I can.
Zak: Yea whenever I sometimes watch FeAge, he's always like, OKay I am gonna start this game I am purposely going to steal his boar, I haven't found it yet, but I am gonna steal it. I kinda like this about him though, it's funny
Viper: Yea it's a style. like everyone else. so.
Zak: Some guy called [TyRanT]JorDan_23 has a question, Why does the Viper give away free stalkers if he play StarCraft 2.
Viper: umm It's like I want to make the game even you know.. I am so above everyone else so ( sarcasm voice ). I sort of give something away sometimes in order to make the game to make fun for myself. It's not fun when you own everyone so... yea. that's the answer.
Zak: Nice. Okay another one. Does your skill and reputation makes playing AoC less enjoyable knowing people expect you to perform so highly.
Viper: Umm.. The amount of players around my level at the moment I'd say is really low, so like there are , when I play sometimes against 2200's for example, I sort of know that, this is probably gonna be an easy game if I play my best, so that quite often lowers your motivation to perform top, and you sometimes just like you do things you normally wouldn't do, just risk things and do mess around styles sometimes, yea it's kinda hard to stay motivated all the time when there's so few people on the top level that are active, see for example Chris, he's been away from the AoC Scene for like months, two three months, because there is no tournaments or anything going on. So yea's it gets hard to stay active and be motivated for AoC on top level to compete everyday. But yea.
Zak: yea I think the more tournaments tehre are, the more sort of repetetitive. .. things that repeat like the league idea the more the players are gonna stay around a bit longer.
Viper: yea Exactly that's my hope with this one, that the top players will stay active keep practicing and pushing each other all the time.
Zak: Yea exactly, do you use the default hotkeys and do you use all of them.
Viper: No I don't use default hotkeys, I've changed pretty much everything almost. you know H and C for villagers that's obvious, but besides that I've changed pretty much every hotkey I use in order to try and make them efficient.
Zak: And it's just something that works for you I imagine.
Viper: yea of course I am comfortable with them. If you push those hotkeys over to another one, he'll be like ehhh wtf. Yea I sent my hotkeys one time to SorcK, StorM_SorcK, he was like how can you play like that with those hotkeys, so yea I think it's more like from the individual to other individual, it's what you feel comfortable with and what suits you best so ..
Zak: So yea, instead of just lifting someone's hotkeys and try to use them yourself, work on creating your own set, that's what you're getting at.
Viper: Yea Exactly.
Zak: Okay And I think the last one. before we go because it's been quite a while now already. Have you ever had your hands on AOE III
Viper: I think my dad bought it when it first came out, and I think I've tried it out before but I really can't remember anything from it so I really can't give comment on that.
Zak: Okay and I think well that's pretty much it.
Viper: All right.
Zak: Nice one, thank you very much for coming.
Viper: you're welcome
Zak: It's pretty cool and yea I am sure you'll do pretty well for yourself.
Viper: I will.
but here it is..
Zak: How are you today, you sound okay
Viper: I am fine, very very fine, United won 2-1 against New Castle so... my day is good, top top
Zak: ya not so good in my house, as I live with 3 guys from New Castle and they're sulking .. like drown their sorrow in wine and beer, so that's not so good, hehe
Viper: yea I understand 'em
Zak: But you're happy, you're a Man U supporter of course,
Viper: of course.
Zak: Indeed, we should probably talk about the GML because that's kind of the purpose of the interview. So you've been involved in this from the start because originally this whole thing was kind of our idea anyway, but then obviously as you're taking part, a little bit less that you can actually do because you are taking part, so you can't admin as well.
Viper: yea of course that willl be unfair to the other players so, I just help around with bit of forum administrations and moderation of topics and such, but I won't be taking part in any decision that can affect myself or them for that sake.
Zak: yea so people should know that as that's kind of something quite important and that's how rumors start and things like that, so now we have got that out of way, so people can understand that you are taking part in administration a little bit but not something that will affect you
Viper: yea
Zak: okay so, actually how confident are you feeling about the tournament.
Viper: Well I am getting pretty confident. I am going back to good shape again after I had a break from AoC so.. overall it should be good by the start of the GML.
Zak: Yea actually with the interview with DauT, he was saying that he tips you as the favorite to win, do you think that... that is achievable.
Viper: Well of course I couldn't have joined this tournament if I couldn't win, Well I probably would, but I am confident I can win but it's gonna be tough, it's only two games against each players so it's gonna be hard but I am gonna do my best and give my best shot.
Zak: yea that's good, I think the lot of players are all thinking the same sort of thing as well, they all are willing to give their best, and that's really all you can ask.
Viper: Yea I don't' see why you would join this tournament to not give your best like.., you're playing already against best players in the world so why would you just hand over some victories. you really do want to beat every single player.
Zak: Exactly, even DauT who has got an injury in his hand, he's still gonna be giving his best.
Viper: yea his hand is getting better so he should be fine.
Zak: yea I am sure he will be. Who do you think would be your hardest opponent to beat, or The hardest person to beat.
Viper: ah it's no doubt, my nemesis, my best friend, my biggest nightmare and my best opponent it's Jordan. He knows me incredibly well now so like everything I do, he knows it's coming he knows what's happening all the time, so ti's hard to play against him now, because we know each other so well , that's it's like impossible to pull something out of the hat and surprise him and stuff like that so.. He knows me very well and his style is quite good to counter mine so... He's definitely my biggest opponent.
Zak: okay so how are you gonna go about beating him in a sense, what sort of things have you got up your sleeve that you might be able to pull out to actually beat him.
Viper: He's listening now so I can't tell you now.
Zak: is he?
Viper: Yea he's in the chat.
Zak: oh I see him, He's hiding at the bottom of the chat there.. I see you. okay that was not question then that can actually be answered in that sense I guess.
Viper: But I won't answer it.. I don't' know I am gonna beat him. Did you hear that jordan, did you hear that.
Zak: So with jordan being your nemesis and obviously someone you've played against a lot I imagine that would really mean that he does know you better than anyone other than yourself obviously.
Viper: He might even know me better than myself. So.... I don't know it's a.. that's a tough part you know, he knows everything about me so... that's a real challenge playing him.
Zak: And also then, who do you think is going to be the easiest opponent in this tournament.
Viper: yeaumm... I am really not sure about that one , see a lot of people are wondering why FeAge is in the tournament at all, but umm. people have, most of us have not forgotten the WCL performance of FeAge and we all know that he deserves to be here like everyone else. But I think it all comes down to the shape of the players. I don't see GoodBoy play for months, so I don't really know clearly what shape he is in, Chris as well, he says he wont' practice much for this tournament. So it's kinda hard to predict... I actually think GoodBoy will be the weakest player this tournament.
Zak: okay, the thing with the Chinese players in that they have QQ zone as well don't' they, so for all we know they can all be playing over there without anyone knowing or seeing any recorded games. do you think that's actually possibility with GoodBoy.
Viper: yea well people are telling me that he's really really busy in life so I am not sure about that.. that he's even playing in there so you never know but. I'd predict him to be in the worst shape.
Zak: Oh okay. so one of the biggest thing about this tournament obviously is the map pool and having the 15 maps that you can choose from and planning which map to choose against which opponent, how do you think that's going to affect you and how have you decided to play this tournament.
Viper: I actually think that it's kinda good for me, because I don't feel like I have some really weak maps, I am kind of an all rounder, pretty strong on all sort of maps like water land nomad type and regicide is okay for me as well. I think I am kinda an all rounder so it's a bonus for me, yea compare to some other players.
Zak: Yea defintely, what you think is going to be your strongest map on the pool.
Viper: umm I think it's without doubt Islands. I am very comfortable playing it and it suits my style so.. Islands is definitely my strongest map, too bad you can only pick it once. I don't think anyone else would pick it against me.
Zak: yea I guess that is one of the unfortunate things about it, you can only pick a map once, also that means it's gonna be lot more variety in the tournament.
Viper: yea that's true.
Zak: Also as well, I don't know if it is that clear to everyone but civilizations are free to pick. Do you think we're actually gonna see a lot of Hun wars in this tournament.
Viper: I think we'll see less Hun wars. I think Hun will be the least pick civ actually in the maps, most I think will be picked will be Vikings, Mayans and probably Aztec on Arabia. Okay Vikings and Mayans would probably be the most picked civs. Somebody might prepare something with other civs just to surprise people and.. but I think vikings and Mayans will be the most used civs.
Zak: okay that's kind of good because a lot of people when I produce videos when it is Arabia hun wars they're like , Aw No.. not another Arabia Hun war, so it's kind of nice to give the players the choice to pick their civilizations that vary in varied maps it means that they are not going to be picking Hun every time.
Viper: Exactly, also you can, if you face an opponent you know what map he can choose, you can do another civ like Mayans on a water map just to surprise him and do another strategies and it'll create more entertaining games. So yea it'll be fun, definitely.
Zak: so how do you think perhaps the tournament can be improved for future seasons.
Viper: Well the only problem I see so far is the thing that everyone is trying for the people that didn't get the spot, that's the biggest issue. That's why I think in the next season, if there will be a coming season which is in the plans that we are going to add another league like we have the premier league and we have the first league, the follow up league, and people will play to get promoted and demoted and it'll create like a league system, where the best players are in the top but the players below have to fight to get there. So it's not like those players would be in the top forever. It's possible for lower players to actually fight their way up, and that's what is going to be really entertaining to watch if we get it to work like we're planning to.
Zak: yea exactly, something we want to actually achieve is to have it so that we can involve more players without increasing the length of the tournament, because one of the biggest problems with the round robin style of tournament is the length of time it takes to complete it, and having it in separate league would really help that. so yea, that topic in AocZone that said, who should be invited to the grand masters, that is something unfortunately is unavoidable at the moment. We can't invite more than 8 players, because that's how big it is, but next time we do it, we'd aim to invite more players.
Viper: Indeed, this is just a trial season so.. we kind of, if this turns out to be a success it's like it's obvious we would have a follow up and that will probably be the improved settings and another league division or 2 and invite more people and we'd have every single top player participating at one point.
Zak: Yea do you think that's actually be going to provide good motivation for not the very top players, but the players slightly below that, the people who are like 1900 to 2k.
Viper: If I was 2k, and I saw this 3 league with 2k2 players I'd do everything to try to improve to get to that level and actually get in to one of the leagues. Till then try to promote myself from there so yea I think it's a great motivation for both the lower rated players as well as for the higher rated because they'd have to stay and shape and keep performing in order to stay on top, since everyone else will try to improve so.. yea definitely.
Zak: We should keep the competition high.
Viper: Indeed.
Zak: I actually wanted to ask you a little bit about StarCraft 2. because for those of you who don't know, you and jordan have been playing quite a lot of that recently, how it actually have affected your age of empires
Viper: Well at first, the starcraft habits to bring into the aoc game it's really they're really hurtful. you mess up everything and every click and the speed pace in starcraft is so much faster than aoc, so it's really hard to adapt to aoc game after you've played statcraft, but in the end I think it's going to improve both my speed in the game and overall .. I am kinda out of the question now.
Zak: The question was how has playing StarCraft 2 affected your Age of Empires.
Viper: Yea well it's just a habit from age of empires that really screws up my aoc game at the moment but I am getting used to it now so,..I am back to AoC now and that's where I would stay for the whole GML .
Zak: Okay, and do you see yourself playing a lot of StarCraft in the future.
Viper: Well the thing about StarCraft is that it is so easy to get a game. You wait like one minute and you have a game so if you wanna play like spend an hour or two for fun then you can just go the open starcraft click find a game and then you've a game in like one minute so... . In AoC you have to sit for like 15-20 minutes may be to get a one against one so that's the huge part of the StarCraft that makes it so easy and fun, so yea I'll definitely playing more StarCraft well yea I'd have my breaks between AoC.
Zak: Okay, see a lot of people are gonna be a little bit dissapointed in that but at the end of the day it's your choice and if it's so much easier to get a game and if it's not so much sort of controversy about being the top ranked and such then really, I can't really blame you for that
Viper: yea.
Zak: Also while we're on the sort of topic on finding game and such how do you think the Forgotten Empires is actually going to affect Age of Empires Scene as a whole.
Viper: That is actually a big question mark for me as well. It can turn out really well, if everyone commit to try it and give it a chance but there's a lot of people that want the game to stay the way it is. But umm. my experience so far if we get the small error that the forgotten empires have at the moment if we get them fixed we will and we keep balancing the game after it's release and we've to keep giving updates and reporting in like what's balanced and what's unbalanced. If we get those things fixed I really have a faith that forgotten empires can be really really good thing for the community. yea.It might bring in new players as well so...
Zak: Yea I agree I think a lot of people are actually waiting for its release before they come back to the game. There's a hell of lot of people on the Facebook page. I think 7.. 6 and a half 7 thousand or almost 8 thousand likes on the Facebook page and lot of those aren't actually the active players at the moment. So it could do well in actually bringing back lot of people or even reaching new people.
Viper: Yea definitely.. hope so.
Zak: Okay so moving on to the few questions from the chat. I got it scrolled up quite a bit, so if you have any questions for Viper type them now and I'll get through them. I think the very first question sorry if I missed one before this but the very first one was "What's the DPI settings of your mouse ? " When you play AoC
Viper: Oh ehmm. I use my you know when you fix your mouse settings I've got like eleven what's it's called. 11 dots you can pick from from 1 to 11. How fast mouse can go, I got that on seven. and umm I am not sure about the DPI 1800 or 3500 I am not exactly sure.
Zak: Yea I have it quite high as well and I imagine you have it fairly high but now stupidly.
Viper: Well I use to lower it before I play StarCraft, so that's another part that's gonna improve my AoC game, I got my mouse speed a lot faster now.
Zak: I see. so could you now change it for the AoC between the two.
Viper: Whatchu say ?
Zak: Could you not change it between the two games.
Viper: ah. No. I'll say I've gotten used to this speed. It's not good to change keep changing it because now that I am used to the StarCraft speed of the mouse, I'd want to bring that into my AoC game in order to be faster there as well, so I am definitely gonna stick to this.
Zak: Ah okay great, Are there any civilizations that you feel are over or under used.
Viper: I think the best civilizations are the one that are being used at the moment but uhh it's kind of hard. because there's a difference between team games, one against one and differences between maps and overall.. so I think the civilizations like Britons and Britons basically, that civ and Spanish and Mongols are underused given the whole amount of.... well every civ is underused besides Huns and Mayans and Vikings. But those are probably the three civ that I think are underrated compare to how good they are.
Zak: Yea.I also think that when the forgotten empires does comes out, that's gonna be great for actually bringing introducing new civilizations, well obviously you get the new civilizations as well but may be making other civilizations more used. As it's obviously gonna be nerfing and tweaking civilizations.
Viper: Yea it will, it will probably see more people having those rare civ as their standard civ.
Zak: hmm definitely.So it's gonna be great. Okay, How many games of AoC will you be playing a day whilst training and practicing during the GML.
Viper: Umm.. it depends.. at the moment we are, the TyranT team is sort of practicing for the SY cup that is gonna start on 1st October but after that I'll only probably only play 1 against 1 so, I'll try to get a few games everyday, probably practice a lot with Jordan. So probably have to help DauT to get in shape but umm. so probably I hope 5 games everyday to stay on top of my game.
Zak: Okay one here.. ahemm. Will you be playing all of your matches in your perfect playing style or if you feel like you've the opportunity will you be douching at all or laming at all.
Viper: Well the question is.. I really wanna win this and I think most people will lame each other this tournament, so I don't' think staying like no lame .. I don't think that will be a good idea for me, because if I lose like one boar then it's gonna be a really big disadvantage so... I think I'll probably be stealing boars if I found them and laming villagers and basically against everyone but I'll probably keep it in a more polite level for example against Jordan.
Zak: okay yea so friendship sort of comes there to play as well.
Viper: Yea I think it's kind of a gentleman style between us, we don't lame each other, because we know the other doesn't lame. but I think against someone like FeAge who steals boars all day long, I am gonna take both his boars if I can.
Zak: Yea whenever I sometimes watch FeAge, he's always like, OKay I am gonna start this game I am purposely going to steal his boar, I haven't found it yet, but I am gonna steal it. I kinda like this about him though, it's funny
Viper: Yea it's a style. like everyone else. so.
Zak: Some guy called [TyRanT]JorDan_23 has a question, Why does the Viper give away free stalkers if he play StarCraft 2.
Viper: umm It's like I want to make the game even you know.. I am so above everyone else so ( sarcasm voice ). I sort of give something away sometimes in order to make the game to make fun for myself. It's not fun when you own everyone so... yea. that's the answer.
Zak: Nice. Okay another one. Does your skill and reputation makes playing AoC less enjoyable knowing people expect you to perform so highly.
Viper: Umm.. The amount of players around my level at the moment I'd say is really low, so like there are , when I play sometimes against 2200's for example, I sort of know that, this is probably gonna be an easy game if I play my best, so that quite often lowers your motivation to perform top, and you sometimes just like you do things you normally wouldn't do, just risk things and do mess around styles sometimes, yea it's kinda hard to stay motivated all the time when there's so few people on the top level that are active, see for example Chris, he's been away from the AoC Scene for like months, two three months, because there is no tournaments or anything going on. So yea's it gets hard to stay active and be motivated for AoC on top level to compete everyday. But yea.
Zak: yea I think the more tournaments tehre are, the more sort of repetetitive. .. things that repeat like the league idea the more the players are gonna stay around a bit longer.
Viper: yea Exactly that's my hope with this one, that the top players will stay active keep practicing and pushing each other all the time.
Zak: Yea exactly, do you use the default hotkeys and do you use all of them.
Viper: No I don't use default hotkeys, I've changed pretty much everything almost. you know H and C for villagers that's obvious, but besides that I've changed pretty much every hotkey I use in order to try and make them efficient.
Zak: And it's just something that works for you I imagine.
Viper: yea of course I am comfortable with them. If you push those hotkeys over to another one, he'll be like ehhh wtf. Yea I sent my hotkeys one time to SorcK, StorM_SorcK, he was like how can you play like that with those hotkeys, so yea I think it's more like from the individual to other individual, it's what you feel comfortable with and what suits you best so ..
Zak: So yea, instead of just lifting someone's hotkeys and try to use them yourself, work on creating your own set, that's what you're getting at.
Viper: Yea Exactly.
Zak: Okay And I think the last one. before we go because it's been quite a while now already. Have you ever had your hands on AOE III
Viper: I think my dad bought it when it first came out, and I think I've tried it out before but I really can't remember anything from it so I really can't give comment on that.
Zak: Okay and I think well that's pretty much it.
Viper: All right.
Zak: Nice one, thank you very much for coming.
Viper: you're welcome
Zak: It's pretty cool and yea I am sure you'll do pretty well for yourself.
Viper: I will.