Cyberfight: Hello, have you got a free minute? We'd like to ask you some questions... zRaCk: Hey there, no problems..
Cyberfight: Please intoduce yourself to the readers. zRaCk My name is Till Schoofs, also known as zRaCk. I'm from germany and i started playing ut2k3 when the demo came out. I'm playing for the clan GMAG (frost,smu,titan,asi)
Cyberfight: What does "zRaCk" mean anyway? zRaCk Actually it has now really meaning, it's just a product of my fantasy ;)
Cyberfight: I guess you are older than 18, since you have to be 18+ to play the game, right? zRaCk: Nah I'm 16. But as the new german ut2k3 edition is for people 16+ it's ok.
Cyberfight: When did you play a computer game first time? zRaCk: I think I was 11 or something like that. My first games were Indiana Jones 4 and Doom 1+2 :X
Cyberfight: What was your first computer like and when did you decide to play computer games professionally? zRaCk: My first computer was a Cyrix 6x68 with 166 Mhz and 16 MB RAM. Playing games professionally? Never.. I'm still playing just for fun.
Cyberfight: What PC configuration do you own now? zRaCk: I've got an XP 1800+,512 DDR RAM, GF 4 TI 4200 and a 19" monitor, Intelli Explorer 3.0, a Cherry Keyboard and a Speedpad.
Cyberfight: So you consider yourself a progamer? zRaCk: I don't underestimate my skills but someone who is a progamer earns his living / a part of his living with gaming and you can count the people who do that on one hand.
Cyberfight: You played for Team Germany in RUSSIA-GERMANY match. What can you say about that game? It was really not the best match for Russian UT2k3-community. zRaCk: Well, the game was played on a German server. We had about 15 ms better than all russians. We expected Russia to do better but I don't think that Russia could win the game since Germany has got a very strong team with experienced people. Especially Askold didn't do that well in the game, this thing was quite unexcpected for me...
Cyberfight: As Polos said: " WCG without Germany is easy money". Do you agree with this statement? What do you think about ForresT, Lauke and of course Askold's performances? zRaCk Although I think we saw during all events (Eurocup,ESO,ESWC etc.) that Germany is still dominating UT, I wouldn't say that the Germans would have won the WCG for sure. Lauke, ForresT and Askold are really good players that can compete with the Germans. But there were only a few players @ WCG imo that could really show good games. So I think there would have been even more exciting matches with Germans participating.
Cyberfight: What do you think about the future of e-sport? zRaCk: I think that esport is going to develop well. There have already been several magazines and TV shows reporting about Events. With more events and more prizemoney there will soon be people who earn their living just with gaming.
Cyberfight: What are your expectations for UT2004? Do you play any other games besides UT, like CS, Q3, War3? zRaCk: I expect UT2004 to be really better than UT2k3, Epic has already fixed some things that most people complained about. Epic also asked the community to give their opinion about changes etc. That's a really good attitude imho. Although a lot of good players stopped playing UT2003, it's still a good game. Imho it just wasn't that successful because the people always blamed the game for their losses. They didn't try to change their style, they always wanted to change the game. I played some WC3 and CS but I don't want to spend that much time at the computer atm, so I focus on UT2k3.
Cyberfight: What is your usual day like? zRaCk: I get up at 6.30 a.m because my journey with the bus takes long etc. Then I go to school approximately until 1 p.m. After lunch I relax for 30 mins and then I do my homework. During the afternoon I play the guitar/meet friends etc and then I start playing PC around 6 a.m. I usually go to bed @ 10.30. I start playing PC at 6 p.m and at 7 o' clock I usually have dinner. I go to bed around 10.30
Cyberfight: What do you think about young pro-gamers, will there be a bright and perspective future for them? zRaCk: It's still too insecure imho as you saw in the case of fatal1ty, if you aren't in a good shape at a big tournament and lose then you can easily get money problems. As already mentioned above with more tourneys and prizes it won't be that insecure anymore because if you do very bad at a tournament you can train a lot to do very well at the next one.
Cyberfight: Final shoutouts? zRaCk: Greetz to all people who are still playing UT2K3. Especially to all people from gmpo.ut and GMAG. Thx for the iview, see ya on IRC ;)
