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Interview :  Heavens_Myst


 
Name: Heavens_Myst
ESO2 Nickname/Famous nicknames: Heavens_Myst
Age: 20
City: Chicago, Illinois

 

Hoy, can you shortly introduce yourself?

 

Hm, just turned 20 in November. I go to college and am in a fraternity. Thing is I'm a closet gamer, have been since I started in '97. So it's hard to keep this game underwraps, so I mainly play when I'm at home and over breaks :p

 

Can you tell us your history in the video games? Especially in the Age of series.

 

Started off when Age of Empires 1 had just came out. Didn't do much of anything special tournament wise in the game because there was really only the Praetor_ tournament, back in 1998, and that was never even finished. I played some RoR, but I didn't like many features such as slower shore-fish, mediterranean map, the new fog where you couldn't see cut trees through it, etc. So instead I started playing EverQuest. I was one of the first 50 druids on Rallos Zek, ended up selling for a good chunk of change in December of 1999. I went back to Age of Empires 1 from here.

The next game I played was Rise of Nations, which launched in May of 2003. That was an exceptional game. When I played I was easilly the best player. I think I won the first 4 or 5 tournaments, but got quickly fed up with Multiplayer issues and the fact that most of my friends (some from AOE1 that I lured to the game) had quit. I quit about a month before 2003 AOM WCG for the USA. I went into WCG almost 6-months cold turkey on AoM. When I got there I asked Chromage which civ was the most overpowered, I think it was Isis? Or maybe Set? Set was my civ from when I started, so he quickly told me the new strategies (which wasn't all that different from mine.. I think I had to summon animals or something though). I played a couple practice games, got a fairly easy bracket. I played Hope_ and Inc in my last two games, two games I could have won (They were pretty damn good!), but didn't and ended up 3rd.

When AoT came out, I had 4 names in the top 11, and then quit. I couldn't do anymore Age of Mythologie :p

Latest game has been World of Warcraft on the US:Archimonde server. My guild is <Dominion> (Killed Nefarion a couple weeks ago!), but my brother and I haven't really played since January 05 tongue.gif The grind to 60 was fun, but the constant "End game" instance runs was not. I prefered the feeling of killing Nagafen for the first time to killing General Drakkish or Ragnaros tongue.gif Those were nothin!

 

Let’s start from the beginning. Tell us more about the first time you played AOE 3.

 

The Demo. What a load of junk I remember that being. "375MB wasted," if I recall correctly! :p Online, I started AOE3 with Russians. Shrug, they're an O.K. civ, but they don't have the same appeal to me now because of their hard-dependancy on food, even for villagers. If you could create villagers single, instead of in packs of 3, I would like the civ more.

One funny thing about when I first started was that I was playing an absolute no-name character. I'm pretty sure he was bad. We were playing Carribean, I think. Long story short, I didn't know Galleys could attack because in their description it says they are good at fishing and transporting. So instead I made Galleons. The limit is like 2? And they have no broadside attack. So this guy comes crashing through my docks and I have nothing to stop him with, then lands a transports of units and kills me tongue.gif I was pretty pissed off! So I started picking cards for water maps after that :p

 

After more than one month after his release, do you think that this game feels like a real Age of game? Are you satisfied with the game or  is it a bad surprise for you?

 

The game feels more like what the series should be than Age of Mythologies made it out to be. I was pretty disgruntled after my shock-and-awe period of playing Age of Mythologies to finally realize that the game sucked, peroid. With AoE3, I think there are some refreshing ideas that bring it back to where it was, although the no-drop off points really shys away (and I wish they would bring shorefish back!!). I'm more satisfied playing AOE3 than I figured I would :) Now for a ladder and some competition !

 

Favorite civilization and why?

 

Ottomans. I like rushing in this game and keeping the pressure on a person, taking control of the map, and pushing them off resources. With Russian you could do that, but you were controlling 50+ units very fast in the game that were weak. I prefer stronger units and less of them because it feels a lot more like Age of Empires 1 where everyone picked Assy or Yam, and you would dance each chariot individually to make sure it didn't die, or put one cav on one chariot. Took a lot more skill than games nowadays, but I don't think these new players realize it.

 

Favorite strategy and why?

 

Making abus guns :p Jeez, I hope Ensemble gets their heads out of their asses and realizes they need an unpacking time (Range is fine, Longbows have the same range.). I hope they destroy the Lancer unit too. What an imbalanced unit that is! It's like a Lakota dog but with multipliers everywhere!

 

Favorite map and why?

 

Anything without strong natives. Even as Ottomans I hate natives.

 

Mercs were a big problem in AOM/TT…What do you think of the new mercenaries in AOE3? And what is your favorite merc unit?

 

They're strong and can change a game pretty quickly. If they are a hard-counter to any of your main army, yikes. I don't have a favorite as I don't find myself using them much, but getting them used on me!

 

In a general way, what do you think of the balance?

 

French vils need to be toned down.
Abus guns need to have a repacking timer.
Skirmishers need to have something done to them, possibly the same.
Lancers need to get destroyed.
Otherwise, pretty fair.

 

Your point of view of ESO2, the online servers?

 

Too many idiots in Experts Chat!! Otherwise, I prefer the Zone. Much more community atmosphere, regardless of the length it took to get a game it was always fun because you could talk to everyone and you knew everyone, for many years at that!

 

Are you optimist about AOE3’s future (Tournaments, cash, sponsors, online people…)?

 

Not really in it for any of those. I've found that I have very little fun if my goal is to make anything from a game. I'm sure there will be tournaments, but if they will be allowing online-Home Cities is the next question because I can see many offline not allowing them.

 

If you could add one feature into the game or change a thing, what would you do and why?

 

I would make scouts have a lot less line of sight. I think scouting in games nowadays is catered to the casual player and is not very skillful, when it should be. Why should you be able to see the entire map in 3 to 4 minutes? If you had 100% exploration in AoE1, pff you kiddin me?

 

Opposite way, if you could remove a feature or something?

 

No-dropoff point feature

 

What do you think about the international community? And the French one?

 

A lot of good players are international, a lot. Since I haven't really been around since AoM, I don't know many of these new experts on Age Sanctuary, especially the international ones. I could list a few but I wouldn't want to embarrass them on my crappy little interview

 

How long do you play per day (or week)?

 

Being the closet gamer that I am, I really only get to play at home, but I went on a stint of about 60 games in 2-3 days with Ottoman. It really depends. I got a lot going on when I'm at college (getting fruited up), and when I'm at home I gotta deal with my buddies coming back from college or that don't goto college!

 

What is your opinion about the recorded games feature?

 

It's terrible in this game. Get some chat recorded, and get some upgrades/unit production recorded!

 

Can you give the us some tips you use while you are playing?

 

Before you can really be good, you need to learn the games in parts. I still haven't learned hotkeys, as I think they come last. First, I look at the military point of my game, IE getting out troops, putting pressure on. Once I've been able to fully understand everything I'm doing there, I work on economy. In Rise of Nations, I did the opposite because the game truly allowed you to boom, so military was last for me!

 

Hotkeys are a very important aspect of the game and the speed for a player. Can you tell us how you set upped your hotkeys?

 

Actually, just two days ago I changed Janissary to "T", and idle villager to "TAB". Otherwise I haven't changed any of the hotkeys! I think I know them all now too :p

 

W3 and Starcraft have professional players. What do you think about that progaming aspect of the game? What do you think about the future of that progaming in a general way?

 

AOE3 will never have pro-gamers that stay in the series. Otherwise, good luck to those players. I like playing competitively, but I still can't play a game like this over 6-10 hours a day, everyday.

 

Your personal purpose in the next weeks or months in AOE3?

 

To have sex with [TmG]paranoia. You want to know something funny-- Chromage stole that name from one of the best AoE1 players ever, _paranoia_, aka Clan_Leo, so he could pretend to be good !!

 

Little game, word association. I give you a word; you have to tell me quickly another one, just what you think.

 

AOE 3? new
ES? swinger
Ottomans? abus
French? couriers!
HC concept? pokemon
Amazonia? nile
Skill? none
Pgm? ... yikes what the heck is that
Patch? never
Iamgrunt? skipper
Sanctuary? robo

 

Final step, do you have something special to say to the crowd?

 

I hate you all for reading this. Time to end my life. Zzzzzzzzz.

Ciao

 


Thx a lot, take care.