NiP Uncovered
You may remember just recently we brought you coverage of the ELSA CPL London Event, where Ninjas in Pyjamas (NiP) came up trumps in the Counter-Strike event, beating [aT] in the final. Our resident interview guru, Myers, has sat down with one of Europe's finest players, NiP-XeqtR-, and had a little chat about arguably Europe's best clan at the moment.
To begin with, how did you & NiP come to be in the form you are today?
NiP-XeqtR-: Old NiP i dont know much about..since i didnt join em before they were called c9 and lots of changes had been made prior to that i think. I joined c9, after leaving SoA...how i got to join em..well i asked first kuros on irc, and then he got pott1 for me and i was c9...this was after i had left soa. The new NiP got formed after CPL holland...were Pott1 and I had played in all* and Medion HeatoN and Hyb played for SoA.swe. After some weeks we found out that neither of us were "content" with the situation in the different clans...and we missed some of the owning we had in team9:P and we got savage in our team aswell, and now Souledge joined us from GOL.
So when you and the other NiP players, were clans like SoA.swe a bit annoyed with your actions? Many people claim it cost SoA.swe the clanbase eurocup
NiP-XeqtR-: Well first of all i dont think that was such a big loss...or i dont consider clanbase to be more then a ladder for newbies to have some fun on..i dislike all form of inet competitions...so i might seem harsh in my judgment...The biggest loss for SoA.swe must been to lose 3 of their best players...all clans would've suffered from losing players like they did.
Yes but saying that the final of clanbase eurocup took place between aNc (E.) & TAMM on a lan with prizes
NiP-XeqtR-: And yes the Final took place on LAN...but the whole tournament was played over inet and clanbase as an organisation is based on INET activites. NiP, and I consider ALL form of competitng over inet to be merely praccs.
Recently you came to the london cpl, with the hope of finising in the "top 3", how did you feel about winning?
NiP-XeqtR-: We aimed for top3, and placed ourself first...ofcourse we were very happy about it.
How did you rate the competition from the UK at that tournament...clans such as NoC, 4k, LCA etc..?
NiP-XeqtR-: We only played one clan, and that was LCA, i dont recall the exact score, but i remember it was a real cool clan to play against...But talking about pure skill, i rate Scandinavia to have an "edge" from the rest of europe. That including UK.
An article appeared on ukterrorist.com recently putting that down to scandinavia having better internet connections, do you believe this to be true?
NiP-XeqtR-: Countries like Sweden and Finland got nice Broadband coverage, but i dont think thats the only reason. Cuz countries like Germany have got good inet connection i think aswell...and they arent at the same level as the .sca clans...I dont even play with more then ISDN, and even if it isnt optimal, it have been enough for me to come where i am today.
True, but compared to the UK, where BT is strangling the broadband scene Germany still have clans such as TAMM & Sk. who compete at the highest level
NiP-XeqtR-: I dont believe that TAMM is a clan who are competing at the highest level since they never manage to perform @ LAN events. SK is indeed a very skilled clan, tho they lost to both us and GoL..both .sca clans:P @ last cpl event in London.
On your visit to london were your travel expenses covered?
NiP-XeqtR-: We got sponsored by www.gamingeye.com including plane hotel and cpl registration expenses.
Nice, how easy is it 2 get sponsors in scandinavia?...in the U.K it's very rare
NiP-XeqtR-: Its never "easy" to get sponsors...it require hard work, and showing ourself as something worth sponsoring...Give credz to our main guy Savage for fixxing us up with gamingeye. He can do more than just playing cs:P
How many hours of CS do u play today?...you've just missed about 1 hour chatting to me
NiP-XeqtR-: I sit more on irc then playing cs...and thats no lie...ask the others:P...i spend all my time with cs with NiP..maybe max 1 hour a day on public. If we pracc hard...i spend 5 hours a day approx. If we dont none.
So do you still find time for a social life admist all that cs playing?
NiP-XeqtR-: i dont think i have the greatest social life no..:P I spend most of my free time online..irc or whatever...
Usually i would ask a question or 2 about cheating, but do NiP really face that problem?...playing on a lan kind of prohibits cheating i would suspect from my experience
NiP-XeqtR-: what i find amusing is that many of the clans we play, seems to perform "less" when they enter LAN environments...without going further into that topic:P
So those players wishing to put there skills up against the best players in the europe, where could they find NiP playing on pub servers?
NiP-XeqtR-: U will seldomly find some1 called NiP-Pott1 for instance on a server, unless its a fake....We usually use "alias" while playing on public servers.
Many top players do that, is there a reason for it?
NiP-XeqtR-: I cant speak for the others..but i find it more relaxing to play under a different name then my "real-name" ...and i dont think cs is supposed to be like irc...chatting so much while playing..and i tend to get alot of questions while playing with my real name...can get tiresome sometimes.
Ahh, i see, so if CS or online gaming ever progesses to a professional sport can we expert you to be wearing dark shades while shopping hoping not to be recognised? :)
NiP-XeqtR-: I dont say i dont mind getting some attention..but when i play cs i just want to play the game...hehe...that thought havent crossed my mind....if it happens someday that the gaming becomes that big...i dont think it will happen in my gaming life
Ok, how do you feel about recently cpl rule changes regarding configs & player names?..do you feel it's for the best?
NiP-XeqtR-: Configs i dont mind...Ive basically used a default cfg setup on all my cpl events except maybe the last event in London where i was most prepared regarding my cfg...but i still played worst at that event soo..cfg is just a fiction in your mind making you think u will get sooooo much better..nothing more.
And use of surnames?
NiP-XeqtR-: Im not gonna use it.
Anyway, looking ahead, cs 1.3, what are you hoping for?..and what are u expecting from it?
NiP-XeqtR-: IF it ever releases, i expect that the HLTV and Voicecom will be 2 nice features....The opengl hack fix sounds promising aswell...i hope they havent changed the weapons..like they claim they havent, and i hope that the new maps will not only "look" good but also have nice gameplay on it. I hope nothing less.
And for NiP, what is your next goal?..CPL berlin?..cpl world championships?..world cyber games?
NiP-XeqtR-: CPL Berlin is just next week...but we havent prepared ourself aswell as we should've...and i dont consider ourself as the biggest favourite as many others claim...we simply havent been praccing after cpl london.
CPL Dallas i want to call it..not world championship..its more a US championship with their rules...with some european clans there to try to take away the 1st prize
So who do you expect to take the tournament if NiP don't?
NiP-XeqtR-: Many good clans are gonna attend...atleast 3-4 clans that might win. mentioning some clans and ill leave out some clans..most likely..so i wont go there.
So when all the talk is over, and the top european clan (NiP in most ppl's opinion) sit down to play X3 (supposed top U.S clan) would u feel the pride of europe on your shoulders?
NiP-XeqtR-: I play for my team and myself...not for any1 else.
Now that 4k have announced that they'll only have 6 players and aim for major lan comps from i8 onwards, do you feel the U.K will finally be on the CS atlas? :)
NiP-XeqtR-: I think its the way to go...and if u have the right settings u can go as far as you want to...matter of time and commitment.
Ok, now..c'mon...give ukterrorist a scoop :)...something no-one else knows about NiP :)
NiP-XeqtR-: When we play we wear woman underwear?:P
Oohhhh...kinky...thx...i must try that
NiP-XeqtR-: np:>
Ok, and if you could recommend one & only 1 config change for every player to make...what would it be?
NiP-XeqtR-: sv_cheats 1
Ok..and finally...any messages u want to send out to the millions reading this? :)
NiP-XeqtR-: To some1 very special...love you. :P
anything else?
Nah that's it, thx for ya time
NiP-XeqtR-: np, you can edit away my final words and replace it with bye or something :P
* Myers turns off recording equiment *
Thanks to XeqtR for the interview, and on behalf of UKTerrorist....good luck at any future events.
Comments
01:56 13/12/2001
at the competition...someone whu uses artic and run but a profesional...i dun dare to say whether issit true
but according to some people playing cs and irc....these guy appears once in a blue moon.. unlike others whu use carbine or shotguns and those
hops tht gives headshots.....but one of mi friends said these guy seldom talk and finding him was quite hard until once we saw him on
an internet playing cs....cool 70 kills 3 deaths...the most incredible is...he uses artic (or kwn as awp) and hops around
idunknw maybe u pros..like to do tht too...or maybe he was not tht gd it's juz tht we are lousy....but i dun haf to say anithing but he
was really good....i only saw once in action whereby he only have a life of 20 .....yet he kill the rest of tht clan with his awp and desert e.... quite strange
he never appear again.....don't know...but i still have an impreession of this guy name...his nick on that particular game i saw..was hmm if i did not remember wrongly
.......ThE>< SHaDow oF hE!L....check it out .... [ Comment: Report | IP: Logged ]
Editor
UKTerrorist
14:44 14/1/2002
10:50 8/4/2002
13:55 16/5/2002
i sa a CS movie where NiP Played and someone whase named NiP I Engstrom
Hey Nip Seeya at DreamHack Summer 2002 , good luck whit the match against MatriX
QQ SoR Gandolf [ Comment: Report | IP: Logged ]
18:15 27/10/2002
21:23 24/12/2002
14:48 1/6/2003
I saw NiP-Heaton video...My favourite piece was where he threw a grenade to the left of him turned to the right and got an HS using two bullets from his USP and then the grenade blew up and he had another kill!!! Twas ace
I wanna see more
07:20 28/8/2003
is it NiP| HeatoN?? [ Comment: Report | IP: Logged ]
19:43 15/12/2003