Hello Turkey Atarax, thank you for talking to the readers at Crossfire. Tell us first who you are and what you do, please.

Hello, I'm Anil "Atarax" B, a 20y old student living in Belgium. I'm studying Communication and Multimedia Design in Limburg and next year I'll hopefully graduate after 3 years of Bachelor. Next to that, I'm managing TLR's Enemy Territory team.

Most team managers come from a gaming or PC background in eSports. Can you please tell us your "road to TLR" if you will; when did gaming start for you and how did that lead to what you are at the moment?

My gaming career started with RtCW around December '02, but I never had potential to come out on top as a player. Around 2005, I kind of stopped playing RtCW and focused mainly on ET. I devoted myself to help teams with potential. Around September '06, I started aMenti as a professional ET clan (with former Team-ND) and it rapidly made progress. With Crossfire announcing the CPC2, I (and the team of course) wanted to be sure that we would attend that event. The Last Resort promised us support for such events, and a after a while we became TLR.ET. Upsets and setbacks but looking back to what I experienced it was a great trip!

What qualifications do you feel you have that make you qualified to be a Manager for one of the best teams Wolfenstein Enemy Territory ever had?

I think it's especially my commitment to the team. As I said before, we have had both good and bad times, and its from utmost importance to help each other in every fase. It has to come from two sides.

Can you tell us what you're doing in a clan as The Last Resort, I guess you won't play that much?

That's right, I don't play that much (a bit RtCW now and then), mostly because I don't have the time for it anymore. I am managing the current ET team and try to help within the management when it's necessary.

We see and hear many negative things about gaming in media, what are some of the qualities and better parts of the gaming culture in your opinion?

First of all, and I think this is the most important part. You get to know people from across the globe, friendships are built. Sometimes you even socialize with potential important people. People who could maybe help you within your career..
As for the disadvantages, there are several obvious ones. Speaking of the current commercial games, we have to deal with the violence and gender equity issues (I wrote an interesting essay about "Gender and Gaming" for school, you may wanna read that too, it's in Dutch tho :). Link

Next month, CDC3 will take place in Enschede. Last edition TLR was simply the best team over there. Do you think they can do as good as last year?

It's been 6 months actually :P and yes, we are confident about grabbing a nice spot at this CDC as well.
What to expect from the opponents this year?
Compared to CPC2, I think there are as equally (or less) skilled teams as there are now. This might show the situation of ET maybe…ET:QW may be a reason :P
However, time passed, and the other teams are getting better as well.

CDC3 tried to boost the prize money and the ET teams roster in a positive way. 6200 euros is pretty much for a free online game, don't you think?

Even though it is a free game, Crossfire realizes that ET has a huge fan base. And it is very important for a community like Crossfire to reach every single gamer out there. I also think this just shows how much Crossfire loves this game and works for it.

After CDC3, a big challenge is coming for the ET community. Many players will make the jump for ETQW and others will quit the game due to various reasons. What's your point of view on this?

For the ones quitting, I see their reasons. I think that ET:QW will benefit the Battlefield players more than ET. Having played it for some minutes only, It just doesn't feel familiar to RtCW or ET for me. So in my opinion, the Battlefield players have a slight advantage.

Being a manager means you like to organize, talk and take responsibilities within a team or company. Do you think there is a future for you later on in your career? Do you want to be involved in next generation esports?

Yes, if I won't be managing teams, I see myself working within the Gaming industry.
But I'm sure of one thing, the future looks bright!

I want to thank you for this little chit-chat. Some kind words for anyone?

Any time :) Thank you instead. Shoutouts to everyone I know, since there's too many to name right now.