N8Diaz managed to find contact information for this World Champion of Red Alert, a man who won the 1998 AMD sponsored Pro Gamers League RA championship and $7500 first prize. Next follows a very information Q&A with a legend of our game who has not played since his famous victory 23 years ago. [DeepBlue answers in bold]:
1) Can you tell us a little about yourself and what are your first memories of playing Red Alert online?
About 12 years after the PGL tournament I moved to the UK, where I currently live. I've got a family now, and while I still love gaming it only happens as a secondary thing now. This naturally means competitive play is out of the question, as it requires a lot of dedication. I recall, with a degree of nostalgia, a lot of the experiences that came as a result of online competition, namely via Red Alert on TEN. Lots of memories of playing with rivals Nukewintr and CnC_God in particular.
2) Why did you ultimately stop playing? Did you feel you had reached the top of the game after the 1998 PGL win and there was nothing left to achieve?
More accurately you could say that I stopped playing competitively. I stopped playing RA immediately after winning as I had achieved the ultimate goal at the time and newer games would keep being churned out. I was quite content with having won at RA and didn't plan to compete in other games which would require so much practice and testing for competition that would, for me at least, steal most of the joy of actually playing the game. Don't get me wrong, nothing beats the thrill of beating other favourites in a competition, but I was quite content with my 15 minutes of fame and to be honest didn't want to put my reputation on the line on games that I hadn't dedicated as much devotion to as I had for RA.
3) I noticed on Google that you had a short but successful career playing Starcraft. Is that the only other RTS game you played and can you tell us a little about it?
When Everquest came out I got pretty hardcore addicted to it (would spend hours corpse camping rivals, hehe!) and much later WoW. I skipped season 2 of the PGL because as I was testing with my brother (Rui) I noticed that the tanks of a player on a faster PC would always outperform their rivals in battle if that player had a slower PC. I only dabbled a little in Starcaft because it was an RTS game and being new it was quite cool. It was selected as the PGL's season 3 RTS game and I decided to play under a pseudonym (powerpeon) as since I barely played the game (as mentioned I was playing Everquest all the time), I did not expect to go far at all. In fact, I was honestly in disbelief when I won my bracket and gained access to the live finals. At the live finals I knew that most, if not all of the others would have devoted their time to Starcraft and it came as no surprise that I didn't go far.
4) Honestly, have you ever returned to the game in the last 20 years or so? Are you aware that EA remastered the game and re-released it for its 25th anniversary in 2020 and it has been quite successful?
I never returned to RA for the reasons mentioned in second reply. I believe I had seen that it was remastered at some point, but that wasn't enough to get back into it.
5) Does it excite you to learn that there still exists a large community for original Red Alert on CnCNet in 2021 and your playername is remembered as a legend? Dare I say it, you even have some fans.
I was quite surprised to hear that it is still actively played, but I am glad to hear it.
6) Can you remember the name of the map on which you defeated Soulja in the PGL finals? Which maps were used throughout the tournament as the press release doesn't provide much information?
I had to beat him twice to win the competition as he did manage to win the 2nd game we played, which setup a winner takes all 3rd match. If I recall correctly, there were 3 maps that were specifically made for the live finals, with one of them being a modified (basically symetrical) version of Path Beyond. But the one we played the final match on wasn't that one, it was one of the others. I still vaguely remember it, including where I sent my sneaky infantry assault!
7) Do you still keep in touch with any of your old rivals? If not can you remember their names/location and message in private and we'll try to get in touch with them and do a similar style interview?
Nukewintr, CnC_God and I think hoggleford/snodgrass I have as friends on Facebook, although we're distant to say the least.
8) Do you remember any of the other legends of the game such as Niklas, Porker, Nike1, Milo234, JJFjr or FallenAngels? Can you tell us a little about your encounters with them. If not, do you remember who was your toughest ever opponent?
This was sooooo long ago. Either Niklas or Nike1.. or both, I remember, I think! Can't recall specific matches, but as a norm a few other great players came over from other services such as Mplayer, etc to play on TEN shortly before the PGL competition started. Can't recall too much about the matches with them. I think the only one that concerned me a bit initially was Soulja as I think after 5 matches he had taken 2. So I did more hardcore testing of tactics with my brother to improve my win rate against him.
9) How do you think the top 90s players would compete with the top players of today? (Ill send you links to current top player vids)
Nowadays players have a huge advantage of being able to learn from watching replays from others, something I had no access to at the time. The sheer amount of what one can learn by watching different replays would give current players an edge over ones from the 90's as I believe you could say the level of play has improved as a result. However, if one of those players from the 90's continued to play until now, and also took advantage of this new thingymajig called 'Youtube' (haha, I did that on purpose to show how long ago I was playing RA), good luck beating them!
10) Finally, is there anything you would like to say to the community? Is it possible we could ever see you return, maybe even to do some commentary on a path beyond tournament, if you feel like playing isn't an option nowadays?
I have one question, although I know the chances of it ever being answered are low... Who the hell were the two guys (likely aliases) that joined TEN and only played in 2v2 (I think they may have been using names like tech_100 and unloaded or something). They were incredibly good as a team and I don't think that my win ratio in team games against them was positive! I think they were the only people to ever have that over me in RA.
Thank you very much for your time. It is greatly appreciated. And you sir, are a legend in our community.
Thank you! It was fun revisiting this bit of my past :-)
Bonus question to follow, which you may remember...
Steelbeed also played in the 1998 PGL and reached the 3rd round. He remembers you and others you mentioned. His question is: Do you have your Solja rag on?
I do remember a player with Steel in his name, I know it had around 9 characters (odd how memory works!). It was probably Steelbeed as there weren't THAT many players with similar names back then. I think he liked 2v2, or at least I played him in some. To answer his question, I had to google what the hell a solja rag would be, lol. That sort of asnwers it.
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