Name: Therese Andersson
Nickname: trito
Age: 26
Hometown: Karlstad, Sweden
Tim: There are also some dangers to international travel especially when you're in places like China where you don't speak any of the language and you're getting out to the bars with boys who you don't know very well, who are into double groping. Tell us about being a girl gamer in Beijing.
Therese: We went to Beijing ahead of the launch of the Chrome S27 graphics card. We went there a couple of days before just to look around, go to nightclubs, do touristy stuff. The funny thing was, we saw these taxi bicycles (rickshaws) so we figured "let's go on one of those" and go sightseeing. What we didn't realise was that [eurl=]dressed in a Chrome hat in Beijing, not speaking Chinese... I think they thought we were weird.
The driver picked me up and put me in the bike. I thought "OK. This is kind of weird, but fun" until I felt his hands grabbing all over me. (laughs) We were sitting there in the bike and thought it looked pretty fun riding the bike. So we asked the driver if we could drive. So I got on the bike, riding, and he got in the back with Alana and then I heard "No. No. You don't do that" - he was feeling her up too! In the nightclubs it was the same. Then Tim and Keith (Kowall, another VIA marketeer) came and nobody wanted to bother us.
Tim: Except Tim & Keith.
Name: Livia Sophia Teernstra
Nickname: Liefje
Age: 19
Hometown: Auckland, New Zealand
Little Livia - all 5 foot 2" of her - is a long way from home. 17,000km she tells me, not that anyone is keeping count. Many Kiwis have never left NZ and here she is travelling the world on the pro tour.
What countries have you been to that you would never have been to before if you weren't a professional PC gamer?
Livia: Russia. I've always wanted to go to Russia. My Dad is super jealous because I left to go to Sweden for ten days for an event and never came home; I've been here for like five months. Russia was definitely on the top of my list of dream places that I wanted to see. The visa was a pain but it was so worth it.
How did you find being a pro gamer in New Zealand? It's miles from anywhere, so surely the ping just sucked?
It was horrible. You could only play with Australia and even then, a ping to Australia was like 70-80ms or something crazy. I actually had h4X0red ADSL when I was there, so to New Zealand servers I'd get like 30-40ms which was reasonable, even though no Swedes would accept that.
After all the interviews were complete, it was back upstairs for a round of fingerfood prepared by the girls and a main course of gamerfood: pizza and beer, of course. There were attempts to convince the assembled press that this was a special occasion and that the girls normally ate quite healthily but at the end of the night there was a substantial stockpile of unopened beer that would have to be disposed of somehow...
We couldn't fly all this way without dusting off our rusty FPS skills and a press vs press mini tournament was hastily organised. Having never actually played Quake 4 before - believe it or not - it was amusing to see just how Quake II-like it felt with the girls' graphical "optimisations". It's like a riding a bike - you never forget really - and after a few minutes of practice, friendships were put to one side and a four-way free-for-all ensued.
Having once made the quarter finals of a UK CPL tournament for Quake III, this reporter had a slight advantage over some of the others gathered but that did nothing to diminish the satisfaction felt to see my name top the table by 24 frags to 18 after the first game. Sadly, Round 2 did not go to plan as a ringer from the GGL was drafted in and proceeded not only to dominate the n00b-fragging, but also rarely failed to pwn yours truly given the opportunity.
Press aside, the launch party also presented a unique opportunity to chat to a veritible who's who of pro gaming. The grandfather of the UK professional gaming scene, Sujoy Roy was there with his posse from ESReality. Fox and FooKi, ranked 5th and 6th respectively in April's GGL Quake 4 World Rankings, were there, as way fellow Swede and bartender maestro, Purri, himself a Top 50 player. The UK was represented by James Harding aka TooGoood who is currently living up to his name by being the only Brit in the Top 10.
Team Bit-Tech may have missed out on the top prizes, but we manage to go home with a Limited Edition Chrome hat, as skillfully modelled by Ingrid Magnusson from VIA (above right).
Nickname: trito
Age: 26
Hometown: Karlstad, Sweden
Tim: There are also some dangers to international travel especially when you're in places like China where you don't speak any of the language and you're getting out to the bars with boys who you don't know very well, who are into double groping. Tell us about being a girl gamer in Beijing.
Therese: We went to Beijing ahead of the launch of the Chrome S27 graphics card. We went there a couple of days before just to look around, go to nightclubs, do touristy stuff. The funny thing was, we saw these taxi bicycles (rickshaws) so we figured "let's go on one of those" and go sightseeing. What we didn't realise was that [eurl=]dressed in a Chrome hat in Beijing, not speaking Chinese... I think they thought we were weird.
The driver picked me up and put me in the bike. I thought "OK. This is kind of weird, but fun" until I felt his hands grabbing all over me. (laughs) We were sitting there in the bike and thought it looked pretty fun riding the bike. So we asked the driver if we could drive. So I got on the bike, riding, and he got in the back with Alana and then I heard "No. No. You don't do that" - he was feeling her up too! In the nightclubs it was the same. Then Tim and Keith (Kowall, another VIA marketeer) came and nobody wanted to bother us.
Tim: Except Tim & Keith.
Name: Livia Sophia Teernstra
Nickname: Liefje
Age: 19
Hometown: Auckland, New Zealand
Little Livia - all 5 foot 2" of her - is a long way from home. 17,000km she tells me, not that anyone is keeping count. Many Kiwis have never left NZ and here she is travelling the world on the pro tour.
What countries have you been to that you would never have been to before if you weren't a professional PC gamer?
Livia: Russia. I've always wanted to go to Russia. My Dad is super jealous because I left to go to Sweden for ten days for an event and never came home; I've been here for like five months. Russia was definitely on the top of my list of dream places that I wanted to see. The visa was a pain but it was so worth it.
How did you find being a pro gamer in New Zealand? It's miles from anywhere, so surely the ping just sucked?
It was horrible. You could only play with Australia and even then, a ping to Australia was like 70-80ms or something crazy. I actually had h4X0red ADSL when I was there, so to New Zealand servers I'd get like 30-40ms which was reasonable, even though no Swedes would accept that.
After all the interviews were complete, it was back upstairs for a round of fingerfood prepared by the girls and a main course of gamerfood: pizza and beer, of course. There were attempts to convince the assembled press that this was a special occasion and that the girls normally ate quite healthily but at the end of the night there was a substantial stockpile of unopened beer that would have to be disposed of somehow...
We couldn't fly all this way without dusting off our rusty FPS skills and a press vs press mini tournament was hastily organised. Having never actually played Quake 4 before - believe it or not - it was amusing to see just how Quake II-like it felt with the girls' graphical "optimisations". It's like a riding a bike - you never forget really - and after a few minutes of practice, friendships were put to one side and a four-way free-for-all ensued.
Having once made the quarter finals of a UK CPL tournament for Quake III, this reporter had a slight advantage over some of the others gathered but that did nothing to diminish the satisfaction felt to see my name top the table by 24 frags to 18 after the first game. Sadly, Round 2 did not go to plan as a ringer from the GGL was drafted in and proceeded not only to dominate the n00b-fragging, but also rarely failed to pwn yours truly given the opportunity.
Press aside, the launch party also presented a unique opportunity to chat to a veritible who's who of pro gaming. The grandfather of the UK professional gaming scene, Sujoy Roy was there with his posse from ESReality. Fox and FooKi, ranked 5th and 6th respectively in April's GGL Quake 4 World Rankings, were there, as way fellow Swede and bartender maestro, Purri, himself a Top 50 player. The UK was represented by James Harding aka TooGoood who is currently living up to his name by being the only Brit in the Top 10.
Team Bit-Tech may have missed out on the top prizes, but we manage to go home with a Limited Edition Chrome hat, as skillfully modelled by Ingrid Magnusson from VIA (above right).
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