Interviewing Peach 06/01/2010 - by huhuh

0 – Introduction

Most of you guys have already heard of Peacham, he is Saunamen's successful leader and Commander. Saunamen have recently won the ENSL's 13^th season against U GO?! . Peach has also been in the last 4 teams winning ENSL ( Nine Legends, Gang Bang, Saunamen twice ). I've had the chance to interview this legendary player for the very pleasure of http://www.nsfrance.net the website for NS1 and NS2 in France, and also for our lovely ENSL website http://www.ensl.org

Here comes the Suomi !

Note : every note I added for some explanations is labelled as [Note : ].

I – General presentation

huhuh : First off, you might want to introduce yourself by giving out your name,age and profession ?

Peacham : My name is Pekka Antinmaa, I'm 22 years old, studying electronics in Tampere university of applied sciences.

huhuh : How long have you been playing NS ? And how did you discover it ?

Peacham : I've been playing NS since late 1.04 [Note : that must be around summer 2003], when I saw my IRL buddy “kenguru” play it in his house, got interested and started playing.

huhuh : How did you come into competitive playing ? Can you tell me a bit about your clan history overall ?

Peacham : Well, at the time “kenguru” was playing in one of the best Finnish clans called Coldspell. I watched a few of their PCWs and got interested in competitive gaming. I started looking for a clan after 2 weeks of playing the game, got into some clans but got bored in the leadership we were having and decided to make my own clan with a couple of Finnish players. The clan was called Suomi Finland Perkele.

After playing a few months with them I got trial to coldspell and got in there. After that I've been in several clans, most were made by me, with almost every time the same people as in the previous one. I've always liked playing with Finnish guys so as to speak my native language, but enjoyed playing with different foreign clans as well.

Some of the clans I've played in: SFP,Coldspell,lucky,Saunamen,NineLegends.

I don't remember all of the clans, too many, too far !

huhuh : Have you been commanding in all of them ?

Peacham : At first I started on the field, but when Coldspell's Commander went inactive I started as the Vice Commander : when our comm wasn't there I would command. Every clan after that I've been the commander.

II – About Natural Selection I

huhuh : Favourite version of NS ? ( it may be subjective )

Peacham : Well, 1.04 had the most clans playing so I'd pick that one for that. 3.0 is good because its equal for Marines and Aliens to win but the skill has gone down from 1.04 times. Back then you had to play more to be good, now it's not the case, you just have the same people as before and make up some weird tactics to surprise your enemy. but overall its 1.04 that is the best to me.

huhuh : what do you mean by "skill has gone down from 1.04 times" ?

Peacham : It isn't the same anymore, no more “aimbotters” like it used to be like 3 Skulks with 1 LMG clip, but the Skulk movement has improved, but there are no more than a handful of people that can actually play good with skulk.

Also, teamplay lacks because of no PCWs

huhuh : But don't you feel that skillwise, since there have been changes of the hitboxes and the addition of free upgrades, the average level could have actually gone up ?

Peacham : Had never thought of it that way but it might have gone up.

huhuh : Can we have a top 5 or 10 aimbotters that you would like to have on the field ? :P

Peacham : perhaps now it would be Fana,Tane,zharp(Mokezi),Enigmatic and wltrs.

huhuh : Now, you mentioned that 3.0 is pretty balanced, do you think there still is some flaws in the balance ? Maybe because of the maps ? And what about the metagame ? According to you what are its biggest flaws if there is any ?

Peacham : Well, now that the Marine game has gone to sitting on nodes and teching up to Jetpacks and holding, the 2nd Hive armor would be nice to have back. But early game if there is a cap its due to the map. There are still some maps I consider as Marinemaps and some as Alienmaps.

huhuh : Could you give a short opinion about the most played maps ? Like ns_Veil, ns_Tanith, ns_Eclipse, ns_Origin ?

Peacham : Veil : definitely Marine. Tanith : equal. Eclipse : Alien. Origin : equal

huhuh : While we're talking about maps : favourite maps to command/play ?

Peacham : Definitely ns_Origin. It has many different options tacticwise to deal with, for both Aliens and Marines. So Origin.

huhuh : Have you tried the Ayumi & Mineshaft remake by Yogi ? And what about Orbital ? Anything to say about these ?

Peacham : The remakes I haven't tried, I kind of liked the old Mineshaft but hated Ayumi, and Orbital is quite good when you learn to know it. I heard the new Ayumi is good though

huhuh : What about scripting and tweaking in NS? Do you think we all should play default.cfg or let anyone do his own config ?

Peacham : the making of a config is an art but I like an almost vanilla NS, apart from some modifications that do not give you that much of an advantage. I was first against scripting but now that I've been playing with pistol script, I don't know how I would do without it. its so slow without pistol script !

III – About Natural Selection 2

huhuh : I bet you must have pre-purchased NS2 already, right ? Have you had a look at the Spark editor yet ? Any thoughts you would like to share ?

Peacham : Yeah I bought it already. Have been waiting for it like a child for Christmas. I hope they make it NS-like and don't spoil it by doing it shit. I hope it brings more fun games and more players than there is now in NS. Haven't looked at the editor yet

huhuh : So you're expecting it to be in the same genre as NS1 ( and so am I ) - what about the released screenshots and lifeforms ? Did you worry after they were published ?

Peacham : Well I've been trying to avoid the concept arts and talks about NS2. I am just waiting for a version to play then I will know if it's good or not.

IV – Community, ENSL Finals, Misceallenous.

huhuh : A special French question : who's your favourite player/team from France ?

Peacham : Player tutu-. Team would be the national team against Finland in Nations Cup Finals. [Note : 2006, Finland versus France. Demos on Ninelegends.com]

huhuh : Ah, was that match any special ?

Peacham : It was for me at least, we have been celebrating the victory on Ventrilo for like 2 hours or so. The fight they put us through everyround ! It was awesome. Just like last ENSL's season Finals against U GO?!

huhuh ! U GO?! brought up a more interesting match than expected ! Did you feel you might lose the Champion title on this occasion ?

Peacham : Well I felt confident with the team after the Marine rounds but on the Alien side we had so many problems that I kind of hoped those would have gone better to end the finals in 2 maps

huhuh : Nowadays you're generally considered as the best commander left in NS. How do you feel about this ? Who in your opinion could or could have claimed that title in the NS history ?

Peacham : I feel I've been overrated. There are so many good Commanders nowadays, but sometimes I'm glad that they keep me in such a good value for my commanding. I liked evilness style back in the day. Justme was good in bm too. I don t know really who was the best then or now

huhuh : About Alienplay, I remember a few seasons ago Saunamen used to play a lot with DCs first. What happened then ? And who brought up the original idea ?

Peacham : Well I Kind of liked DCs and we had no Fade back when we started to use them so fading with DCs was fun. At least they didn't die so much.

V – Bonus questions

huhuh : AsCommander, Observatory or Arms Lab first ?

Peacham : Arms Lab.

huhuh : Heavy Armour or Jetpack ?

Peacham : Jetpack.

huhuh : ns_Bast or ns_Machina ?

Peacham : Bast. Machina is too much vallanhaamu.

huhuh : So revolving door > revolving elevator ?

Peacham : Elevator.

huhuh : Relocate or not relocate ?

Peacham : Both are fine. Well, if you have to choose : no.

huhuh : ENSL #4 or #5 ?

Peacham : #5.

huhuh : Sieges or Shotguns ?

Peacham : Shotguns.

huhuh : Any reason to make electrified RTs ?

Peacham : To have fun, counter SCs, fuck up people.

huhuh : Last question. How can she slap ?!

Peacham : With a large trout.

huhuh : Nice :p If you want to add a personal message, link to your Facebook profile for the girls or some love for Kuitmo, go on !

Peacham : Kuitmo likes moped cars.

huhuh : :D Well, thank you for your time !

Peacham : Thank you.