Former Powerhouse Darkie

Once upon a time Denmark was represented at the highest level of Wolfenstein, with Darkie one of the most fanboyyed men in the game. He was an impact player who was on the tips of everyones lips, however after the dizzy heights of Dignitas he vanished like many a pro before him. Find out his story, filled with sex, drugs and rock and roll this is one tabloid shocker!

Mr Darkie, I want to sum up all the boring parts of an interview in the first question! So, please tell us alot about yourself and your gaming history

For the gaming part, I've been around the RTCW and after that the ET scene since 2003 I think it was. Maybe earlier. I started out in a norwegian RTCW clan called SJB, most likely forgotten or never known to anyone playing any of the games these days. After that I did a bit of clanjumping, untill I was picked up by the Estonian Rewind. We managed to put our little mark on RTCW history by winning both EC7 and rtcw.no premier league, now known as warleagues I guess. After that we had a couple of seasons without any big titles, and then somehow Pjoter convinced us to try out ET, roughly 1 year after it's release. Here we joined up with upcoming mgc dignitas, having our fair streak of titles, among others the EC and rtcw.no leagues again. We stopped after it was known, that quakecon wasn't gonna feature ET that year.
I've been making my feeble attempts at returning to ET since then, starting up dignitas2 with some of the austrian fameboys darky and potter, and finnish noob mystic. Sadly we weren't willing to give the team the time to get playing well, effectively killing Dignitas' venture into ET untill the seemingly unbeatable Idle joined them some time ago. I played for iNfensus some days as well! best 3 days of my gamingcareer ;)

So after 5 months away in Australia, you are a noob once again. You suck, I saw it, plain and simple for the first time in 4 years I'm better than you. How does that feel?

Well. You've bested me in other games as well, a little asswhooping in Q4 in my own homecourt of Copenhagen stands pretty clear to me, so I'm not entirely new to the feeling. I don't feel I'm that bad at ET considering my 5 months absense, but I've never had this much fun playing it before, I've somehow rediscovered the joy of ET, which I lost pretty much a couple of months before we won the EC. So despite sucking, the feeling isn't that bad

Lets delve into one of my favourite subjects, nostaligia and the old school

Oh, thats my favorite subject. Newschoolers suck, thats a fact and we oldboys will always be better! Fact :/

As mentioned you played in rewind and with some of the best names in RTCW history, yet for some reason the legacy of rew.rtcw dosent sit as highly as it should with the children, how does that sit with you?

We where really sorry about leaving Rewind as and when we did, starting to get big and winning in ET. After we left, they signed some new RTCW teams, who with surprisingly effectivity managed to kill all the love and good feelings the community felt about rew.rtcw name. It made me pretty angry the first couple of times some representatives of the new rew teams started to spam s*** around on xfire and various other pages, but when I saw the massive support, in the comments to newsposts concerning the new teams, the old team had from the community I felt alot better, but people still felt bad about the entire rewind team, which I find saddening, since it was a bunch of the coolest guys I've hung around with, who ran the clan back then and at the time our squad left for Dignitas.

Jesus once said, every cool, oldschool, pro, madskillsing Wolfenstein player gets to go to Quakecon. The swedes did, The Brits did, even the Germans did, but multinational rewind never did, is that a big regret to have given so much and not gone?

You're hitting a sore spot here. We missed out on it 2 times, first time RTCW being paired up with a more than decent American team, on an American server at 5am European time. We lost and decided not to put in any efforts in getting funding, since we figured there would be no reason to do so. But the American side didn't go, so digital herecy took the spot, after losing their own qualifier, but being the only team prepared to go, went and hopefully had a good time. The next miss we had, was when ET wasn't featured at Qcon, and since then I haven't been playing enough, haven't had the time or will to play for a Qcon-skilled team. Intact luckily got to go with u96d I think it was, I just wished I'd had gone with him a few years before :(

For whatever reason Quakecon 2003 had a really good representation of European teams, it was the best exhibition of the games talents. What does Quakecon mean to a team at your skilllevel?

At the time, it meant everything I guess, which was why we withdrew from the ET scene after it not being announced that year. It was at the time of RTCW pretty much the only big LAN around, and being the legendary event for Quakers as it is, for the 50% or more of the topplayers in RTCW who previously played Q2 or Q3, it was simply the one and only goal for any topteam. Now with ET having CPC and the recent big Danish LAN as examples. I guess Qcon isn't as big a goal as it once was, maybe for the old RTCW players, but I don't think the pure ET'ers have the same feeling about it, sadly. I might be wrong though, I've been outta touch for a very long time

As you put it, you were in 'touch' you were hardcore for years and then just like that you vanished. What was it like to suddenly not have the clan commitments on you night after night?

It felt..good.. :) I find myselfnot believing the amount of time I used for the gaming, it was a huge part of my life. I do miss the rewind times, but thats more due to the clan and players around the community, but I don't know if I would be able to play as much again. Maybe for a limited period of time, but definetly not for years. I simply don't have the time for it anymore, 3-4 hours of pracc each day takes it's toll on your social life. And seing how I seem to begetting older, I don't wanna throw away a great amount of friends for ET :)

You're enjoying ET now you said, but back in the days of the RTCW transition I can remember many comments about how X was better RTCW. What was hard about the transition between the games?

It was easy for us RTCW'ers, since ET was pretty much just an easier and slower version of RTCW :p I was one of the loudest bashers of ET, as I didn't wanna let go of RTCW. Had RTCW been as popular, had the amount of support or being as free as ET, I still don't see why anyone would wanna choose ET over RTCW..So the hard part about going to ET was basicly letting go of RTCW tbh..I'm one of those lousy bastards who can't admit that other people might like other things than me :)
The biggest differences I recall noticing, was ET being much slower and with the hitsounds and lesser spread, much easier to hit enemies obviously. The higher rate of fire in RTCW allowed you to take down 3 people in the space of time it takes you to put 10 bullets in a guy in ET. But thats just a matter of opinions I guess, I liked the pace and maptypes in RTCW over the ones in ET, which struck me as being to big and slow.

Now you like ET? Perhaps because of the break?

I'm probably to biased towards RTCW for such a question and theres most likely some good things about ET which I haven't given credit, but thats the way with us old nostalgic RTCW'ers

And what about now, you're back from Australia. Are you one of those people that has become a hippie after time down under? You're gonna drive a hybrid car and all that shit

I allowed my hair to grow for the entire time, and I look like...a hippie now :( I bought a car down there and used an ungodly amount of our planets fossil fuels, and I loved every second of it. So the hybrid car will be in another 10 years along with the supermodel wife of mine and my small pair of Beckhams.. untill then I vote killing nature.

Tell us a bit more about your trip? 5 Months what did you do?

Ehh arrived in Sydney, spent all our money on a car and just drove around half of Australia, got some iPods and cameras stolen. Enjoyed the beaches, the lightly dressed girls and the cheap crappy Aussie wine. Good stuff, recommended to anyone with a desire to spend 5 months doing nothing and who got some money they don't know what to do with :D

Back in the old RTCW days, you were slapping idle^holz and de.nVidia Night about with rewind, and when you were ET'ing up r3vers was in sD and names like Urtier and Senji were german only names. How does it make you feel to see them now ruling the roost? Are you in your prime better than them? What respect do you have for the modern champion, after all you have beaten them all before?

Impossible to say with online games, being as dynamic as they are. However some of the players of this age seems to act a tiny bit to arrogant, atleast when comparing them to how their clans used to do against the former topteams.

For Example?

Example would be idle
I played with a mediocre team against them a year a go or so, yes I was fakenicking cuz I am lame, but the way they acted was really far from championlike. People we used to scrim against with rewind and pretty much whoop all around whatever maps, acting as if they had dominated the game from the second they put their hands on it. Not the entire team, but there was a fair share of them acting less than modest :p

I don't worship any of the current champs, I have respect for their accomplishments and skills, but I don't really feel they are much better, if at all, than the past topteams. Any age of RTCW or ET had it's Mystic and Ferus, it's just with ET's current vast amount of players and apparant worshippers, that much more hype around.

And so darkie's lifestory is over, but what does the future hold for the one true "former powerhouse", will you come back? A sensational CPC appearance? Quakewars? Pro Gaming?

uhh. I'd love to play at CPC, but I fear I may not be able to spend enough time to get back to past times strenght, or atleast have to many people to see after the trip to become a useful member of any serious clan :p I will definetly try out QuakeWars, however I'm starting school again in september, so can't really say now if I'll have time enough. Maybe pro poker :p Will require I start playing I guess, but that's a small obstacle. Time is an annoying thing, never enough of it :(

Quick fire round

danish or swedish women?

Swedish

Pjoter or intact

Pjoter by a small margin. His screaming helped tip it his way

Team you hated the most?

iNfensus. A bit too hyped and never got to play them with our strongest lineup vs theirs :p don't really remember old hatred, so that's the best I can do :(

Most overrated wolfenstein player?

SyL

Thank you Mr. Bacon Boy, former powerhouse, Shakes #1 fan, and whatever nicknames you may have collected. Do you have any shoutouts, closing statements or threats to those who challenge your 'most interviewed' status?

haha, guess that sums up my collection of names picked up over the years. Shoutouts is a strange concept so I'll leave those out, but the threats thingy sounds reasonably original and goes out to anyone finding themselves playing on a random polish or german pub, you might just find yourself face to face with a grumpy old RTCW'er.
I hate to admit it, but that status probably fell away a long time ago, although I reckon I'm the one enjoying being interviewed the most. :D Keep fraggin and have a good time, if the petition of RTCW MP 4 Free by a miracle goes through, then please do yourself a favor and test it. It beats ET by quite a margin ;D Love to TosspoT and all the other people who has been pwned by the former powerhouse at one time or another :D