Interview with FragDStrokke
September 7th, 2007
HeavenGames: Can you introduce yourself for the community?
FragDStrokke: Hey I’m FragD^Strokke, Captain of Frag Dominant. For those who don’t know, we recently placed first at Dallas CPL over Dignitas and 20id. And I guess this is actually a good time to publicly announce that we are cutting ties with Frag Dominant and we will be playing temporarily under the “Pursuit of Perfection” clan. Frag Dominant is a great organization, but we ran into a financial argument and we both decided that a mutual split would be best.
HG: Tell us a little bit about your team.
Strokke: The 5 we had at Dallas were myself, Swoosh, Mame, Ratty, and Xanath. Xanath is the newcomer to the clan, the rest of us have known each other for years through Warcraft III. We’re good friends who have met several times in real life and have a long history before World In Conflict. This truly was a team effort. Everybody played well overall, and everybody had their moment to shine.
The team we brought to Dallas was actually a lot different from what we were expecting to bring, so I’m glad it all worked out for the best. Our original air player ran into problems with his parents, and our armor player Jhavlin was, believe it or not, hit by a truck and put in a coma. He’s luckily back now and starting a long recovery process. The Dallas win is dedicated to him.
HG: What brought you and your team to the World in Conflict world?
Strokke: I had actually been out of gaming for about 2 years when I got a call from Ratty, my old Warcraft III partner. He said that CPL Dallas was going to have some new RTS game called World in Conflict and that we should get the old clan together and compete one last time. It sounded like a great idea, and we thought we had a legitimate chance to make enough money to cover travel costs given our background in RTS. Then we started playing the closed and open beta and realized that “Hey….we’re actually decent at this game.”
HG: How does a typical game start out for you guys?
Strokke: First thing that happens is we pick the roles we are playing. We shuffle around based on what people want to practice, or what map we’re on, or if there are any strats we’re testing. We do things as a team so it’s usually a group consensus, and people only look to me for a decision if there’s an argument.
HG: What’s it like to be the captain of such a dominant team?
Strokke: It’s fantastic. Like I alluded to earlier, we really do things cooperatively. I am not by any stretch the leader of the team, and I love it that way. We share the various responsibilities so that I can focus on preparing our team and making sure we can perform our best. The biggest asset I bring as Captain is that the rest of the guys, who can often get very emotional, can look to me to stay calm no matter the situation. Also I look the best in our Russian commander hat because I have a dominating mustache.
HG: How do you coordinate during the game? Is it constant discussion of what should go where or are you all in a groove by now?
Strokke: One of the strengths of our team is the variance in player personalities. We have a couple players who are really vocal, and a couple who are very quiet. We also have a lot of people that can get extremely emotional. And the combination works. The cool thing is that during Dallas our team started doing a lot more by feel, so that we could focus more on the macro decisions that had to be made. A personal example of that is that I started giving our anti air extra smoke protection with my tanks without Xanath needing to call for it. A week earlier I was not playing like that. We put a lot of effort into preparing for the event, and it all clicked at the right time.
HG: What was the final match like?
Strokke: In the 30 second countdown I had a slight moment of panic. I realized that the map on Riviera (the second time we had ever played the map) was going to be worth the $3,000 difference between 1st and 2nd place, the $20,000 razer sponsorship, and months of bragging rights
Then the timer hit 0, I spawned my units, and focused on the game. Dignitas surprised us and played the map different than we expected them to. They took an early lead, but we were able to adjust and took control of all the points. It was a great victory for us and displayed a lot of our talents. Swoosh and Mame in particular played their best games of the tourney that map and were the keys to that victory.
HG: Anything else you want to add about your team or World in Conflict?
Strokke: World In Conflict releases September 18th, so make sure to get out and buy it. The multiplayer is a lot of fun and easy to pick up, plus the game has been getting fantastic reviews. We also love the current competitive scene and hope to hang out some more with Dignitas and 20id at future events. Both clans are full of really cool guys and so far everybody has been able to compete respectfully, which I believe is foreign to American gaming. I personally hope that as new top teams join the scene, everybody continues to stay pleasant with each other. Hate is so unnecessary in games like this where everybody’s goal should be to enjoy themselves.
HG: Thanks so much for the interview, and good luck for your future matches.
