Interview with L_Clan_Chris |
Profile |
Popularly known as: L_Clan_Chris
WiC Team: The Legion Clan
Status: AoC Legend
Life and AoC Past |
Ashby: hello chris
L_Clan_Chris: hey
Ashby: ok so lets let started
Ashby: firstly, thanks for agreeing for this interview
L_Clan_Chris: my pleasure
Ashby: So, can you tell us a bit about yourself?
L_Clan_Chris: I am 27 years old and have been playing AoC for more than half my lifetime now. I have my chemical engineering degree and am currently working as a process engineer in training although I am very close to getting my professional designation
Ashby: ok, so 1 big question raises in my headed, current life of work or old life of crazy gaming, which would you prefer?
L_Clan_Chris: hahah, I definitely loved crazy gaming, but I am loving my job a lot now too so I wouldn't be able to give that up
Ashby: hmm, so a diplomatic middle how and when did you come across age of empires 2?
L_Clan_Chris: I played the original age of empires and rise of rome a little bit, so when age of empires 2 came out I downloaded the demo version and realized you could play online. I was very enthusiastic about playing online because a few years earlier I even used the phone lines to play Warcraft 2 with my neighbour, instantly hooked
Ashby: wow, seemingly all experts i interview run into online play thruogh the Demo
L_Clan_Chris: it was a great free way to try a game before buying it. I remember you couldn't go to imperial age but if you changed the settings a bit you could build invisible trebuchets in custom games, and I felt castles were too strong! although I feel they are fair now
Ashby: omg invisible trebs, that would be so cool :P
Ashby: So, when did u make that huge climb from aoc player to Aoc god
L_Clan_Chris: I had 3 phases in early age of empires 2, when I first bought the game I was 1600 for a while then I learned the basics of the game and played (quite a bit) and made it to 1850-1900
L_Clan_Chris: then i met Pray_4YourLife, and we had a 2h+ game and he asked me to join Pray, so I joined and was Pray_2dayordie I learned lots of things there by playing with the good members and half a year later I started improving more than the best players on the team
L_Clan_Chris: and also met a few players like Magi and Dante and Djadja and played a lot with them which allowed me to increase my skill to the 2300-2400 range and gave me enough skill to make it to WCG 2001
Ashby: wow, so you had a very early rise to power
L_Clan_Chris: I guess I should add there was a 4th stage because I was probably top 10 at that point, but it took a couple more years before Daut and I both took the top spots and started winning many of the tournaments
Ashby: okay that brings me to the topic
Ashby: ok, so a question coming from a fan about your early gaming stages, and i quote: how it was being very young back then. There were many 20-30 yr olds who underestimated him. He was a 14 yr old "looking like Harry Potter" (quote) and was top 3 in the world. How did that feel in general and especially on live LAN events.?
L_Clan_Chris: hahah, brings me back remembering that 11. Actually the LAN events were boatloads of fun. There were some interesting conversations with the Canadian WCG team that I still wouldn't share on a public forum for how crude they were 11. For the game itself my age didn't matter so much because there were a lot of players who were 15 to 17 too
Ashby: chris, Boy wonder 11
DauT |
Ashby: How is you friendship/clash with DauT?
L_Clan_Chris: I couldn't ask for a more interesting rivalry over the years. I would definitely call ours a friendship PLUS rivalry for the better part of aoc, we were in legion together for a while, we played on different teams quite often but we had a similar group of friends too.. playing with geek and ruso and others, we played Warcraft 3 together for a few month and we tried to kill each other mercilessly in many many tournaments
Ashby: refering to one of ur recent and maybe biggest clashes, with no offense intended, how did the BO21 between you and daut feel?
L_Clan_Chris: it felt more like a rivalry but it was entertaining even though I got pwned ; )
Ashby: :P, ok now to create some hype, given the oppurtunity would you do another BO21 with him in the near future?
L_Clan_Chris: hahah, I'd consider it if the stakes were right
About AoC |
Ashby: Many people in the community have at some moment of time named you "the people's champion", if you knew of that name, how did it feel to be so respected by a big portion of the community?
L_Clan_Chris: That sounds like a big overstatement to me because this is a computer game and the community doesn't have a common enemy or big problem. I charge people to buy my book of AoC knowledge. I don't always let the community watch my games and sometimes I ignore people who message me. I do try to be a good member of the community.
Ashby: ok.. now a big question, do you like the older style of age of empires more? (Referring to the time when 100s of skirms ruled the stage) or the current style of age of empires?
L_Clan_Chris: I definitely prefer the current style because there is more variety and balance in the game
Ashby: on the topic of balance, again a fan asks: what's his view on game balance? does he think that the balance should be changed (with the AoC Balance patch for example) or whether it's just a better idea to stick with the 1.0c Balance?
L_Clan_Chris: That is a tough question. AoC is not far off being balanced with 1.0C. The variety in the game makes it interesting and if you made civs too similar it would get boring. Things that could make it more interesting would be allowing a few extra options for the games, such as: Vikings doesn't come up in 4v4 fr random civs games, or an option that allows you to choose which player gets pocket. I still don't know the right answer for this because lots of teamgames with the new maps already use many of the civilizations and many of the units, which keeps aoc interesting.
Ashby: ok, if you would like to reveal it, what according to you is your biggest strength and also your biggest weakness?
L_Clan_Chris: My biggest strength is that I usually have done so many strategies that I have a very good idea what is involved and how to execute them. My biggest weakness is that I sometimes change things up only to change them up or take unnecessary risks that won't add much benefit but expose me to bad losses.
War is Coming |
Ashby: ok, moving on to the topic of War is Coming. What was your reaction when you first got to know about the event?
L_Clan_Chris: Extremely excited! I threw $500 in the pot for wcl7 because we didn't have a big teamgame tournament in a while. I am a huge fan of teamgame tournaments because they use so many additional elements of the game that don't get utilized in 1v1, and you are competing with your friends against other teams! and it is the biggest aoc tournament to date!!!
Ashby: Hell Yeah!!! 11
Ashby: So whats been your best WiC related moment so far?
L_Clan_Chris: We had an extremely fun game this round which was our first loss in the tournament. Miguel was in a brutal spot on the map and got really owned because of it. There was some Portuguese frantic yelling that I didn't understand so I knew things were bad! We still tried and tried as hard as we could to bring the game back, slinging massive amounts, having close calls with mangudai in our trade, losing both waters and trying to get them back, moving our trade route, and an inordinate amount of fighting all over the map. Despite losing, it was tonnes of fun!
Ashby: cool.. must have been a fun game to play
Ashby: tell us about the present L_Clan
L_Clan_Chris: I can't tell you much... other than we decided to tag ourselves legion for this tournament, once again! I feel like we are living up to the name
Ashby: feels very good personally to see the Legion name back in action, brings back atleast many memories of me watching old legion play
Ashby: so where do you see yourself reaching in WiC?
L_Clan_Chris: I actually don't like to make any predictions or even think about that at all while still in a tournament. It is much better for me to just show up and play well on each of the days. The very first time I thought about what place I would get was in WCG 2001 when I was in the top 4 and I thought I would clear the rest out of the way. I ended up losing to kmkm and grunt and getting 4th! Also, I won a fortress regicide tournament many years ago, and literally 3 weeks later, there was another fortress regicide tournament. I thought I would win again, but in the very first round I played a 1600 and lost my king scouting and was out!
Ashby: omg, talk about Epic gg 11
Ashby: ok, you already said you dont like to predict, but if you were to answer the question, what do you think would be the TOP 8 of WiC, if it feels tough, then you can leave Legion out of the equation
L_Clan_Chris: I think the seedings will probably be pretty close to the outcome, maybe not in terms of which seed will get which place but I think most of the top 8 seeds will make it into the last 8
Ashby: okay, a big question as you have strong game knowledge, even with the WiC mod in place, is sling still worth it? Do you like the mod?
L_Clan_Chris: I love the mod. It is exactly the same suggestion that some aocers were talking about many years ago. I agreed with it then and agree with now. Sometimes sling can be worth it if you are in a situation where you can do a lot of damage but in most cases it is going to be much more balanced
Ashby: okay, moving on to the Map Pack, do you like the new set of maps? any grievances?
L_Clan_Chris: I do like that there are lots of new maps because many of the strategies are already determined on the old maps. Most of the maps have good thought going into them and some randomness and they are trying to improve the balance for a tournament. The only thing I would change is that maps should be out for a tournament of this size several months in advance so that they can get lots of player testing to work out the kinks. Also, I believe all maps should be part of the wic_map_pack because there are many maps that won't get played until the later rounds which means that the bugs might not be worked out by then.
Ashby: now for the big question, what is your thought on TyRanT, do you think they are still practically unbeatable??
L_Clan_Chris: I have no idea. They train in private and have a sponsor. It is possible that they are all sitting in the same pc café training together and know all the ins outs of all the maps. They have very good players, and if you can add that benefit, as well as knowing the maps and knowing your strategies, as well as seeing and/or studying the rec games of all their important opponents, they might be eons ahead of everyone else. That would be like putting a professional hockey team and do it full time against the guys who just play in the beer league for fun. On the other hand, maybe they are doing exactly the same like everyone else, just playing in their free time and a couple games per day.
Miscellaneous |
Ashby: What would you say as to the level of skill difference between when you and daut were practically unbeatable and now?
L_Clan_Chris: There have definitely been a lot of improvements to the top skill in aoc. Some of them have been because the game has evolved and players get better over time and know the best strategies. Some of them have been because the game has been made easier (such as spectating top players, pussywood, and widescreen patch).
Ashby: Moving on to your personal life if you can answer, do you have a girlfriend?
L_Clan_Chris: I do not at the moment, but I am going on a date tomorrow with someone new ; )
Ashby: 11, well my next question was about to be does having a girlfriend make aoc playing harder? 11
L_Clan_Chris: haha I've had those problems in the past and yes, it sure does!
Ashby: ok,, lets do a quick Rapidfire?
L_Clan_Chris: sure, shoot
Ashby: 1. AoC
L_Clan_Chris: best game ever
Ashby: 2. Drinking during AoC
L_Clan_Chris: an improvement on the best game ever
Ashby: 11111.. 3. DauT vs Chris
L_Clan_Chris: killer instincts
Ashby: 4. WcL 7
L_Clan_Chris: brutal
Ashby: 5. Voobly
L_Clan_Chris: brilliant
Ashby: 6. War is Coming
L_Clan_Chris: best f___ thing ever
Ashby: 111.. 7. [13ad]_Taff
L_Clan_Chris: helpful mod
Ashby: 8. Miley Cyrus
L_Clan_Chris: ewww
Ashby: 9. Ashby
L_Clan_Chris: entertaining!
Ashby: 10. Future of AoC
L_Clan_Chris: hopefully awesomeee
Ashby: after this one i will maybe interview TheViper, what would you like to ask him?
L_Clan_Chris: After we beat Tyrant in the dreamteam match, why did you desert me? =]
Ashby: 11.. ok, lastly, what would u like to tell your fans (a huuuuuge no of them)
L_Clan_Chris: You are awesome!!! and sorry I don't know if I will ever have time to write that 2nd or 3rd book. and sorry #2 I have stopped personal training.
Ashby: 11.. thanks a lot for being with us for this interview, we all love you
L_Clan_Chris: =] thanks for having me!