Quakeone:Rampage, thank you for taking the time out of your busy schedule to stop by Quakeone.com and, enlighten us with your Quake memoirs. I would like to point out a guilty pleasure of mine really quickly. Above this, in the introduction, the last word is your name spaced apart with multiple exclamation points. I almost always say your name like this in my head when I see you pop up on a server. I have no idea why either. It could be the countless hours of sitting in front of Nintendo playing Rampage or the numerous MMA fights watching the person who stole your name. Regardless, I don’t think I am the only one that takes notice when you join a server. How did you come up with that name?
Rampage: hahah, yeah Rampage used to be one of my favorite fighters in Pride too (not so much in the UFC), but he’s not the reason I came up with the name (didn’t know him at the time). I’m not really sure to tell you the truth. My first nickname I ever used in Quake was when I started out on multiplayer at around 12-13 was ‘Dead Angel’, I then moved onto ‘Happy Gilmore’ once I started playing more regularly (having just watched the movie I decided to take on that moniker). At some point in my teenage years age 15-16 I made the switch over to Rampage because I thought it was a bad ass name, and it represented some sort of suppressed aggression I had inside as a teen. By the way it’s kind of creepy that you say my nickname like that every time I join a server, but we’ll let that slide J
Quakeone: I would say that most people know you by your first name and as much as I would like to continue saying your name, would it be alright if we continued this interview addressing you by your birth name, Tal?
Rampage: No. Kimp would like that too much, and start asking me random questions about my life, or telling me he loves me in Hebrew (“ani hoav otha” – as he puts it).
Quakeone: Okay…. Rampage it is.
Quakeone: I want to be truthful with our audience today and explain to them how long I have been trying to get you to do an interview with us here at Quakeone.com. I have begged and pleaded with this guy for MONTHS until he finally caved in. Again we are grateful that you chose us as your primary media outlet and I hope we can live up to our reputation.
Rampage: I don’t think I deserve that kind of praise. I spent some of my later years in Quake trying to be cool with people and make up for being mostly a douche teenager who didn’t know himself too well, as well as being a good influence in the community – and I look at this interview as an extension of that; that despite the fact I’m not really playing anymore and I’m living overseas, that I can still do something for a game that is many years past it’s expiry date and somehow still has a bunch of people who care about each other whether they admit to or not.
I honestly spent a lot of time in my earlier years trash talking, clan hopping, and involving myself in shit throwing battles with people who saw me as some sort of a competitive threat to their Quake being (it didn’t help that I had a short fuse and a few words could trigger me to respond). For me, this interview is all part of a self-discovery process that lets me connect with people who I’ve played with for a long time. I’ve played many other games competitively (StarCraft, counter-strike namely), and many console games as well, but somehow I always shelved those and kept Quake around despite how many fucking times I’ve deleted it because I had some sort of inferiority complex about being addicted to it. Nothing really ever gave me an adrenaline rush like this game.
“Rampage has always been an extremely talented player. He's been a great friend (if you can call these e-gaming relationships those, I can and DO) throughout the years and I'm 100% positive that we'll stay in touch even after a thick blanket of dust covers this game we love and hold so dearly in our nostalgic minds and softened hearts.”
–MindfieldzX!
–MindfieldzX!
Quakeone: Rampage, I have to ask you right off the bat, no bullshit, how, are you so good at Quake? This is not meant to flatter you or meant to embarrass you. This is a question that has been pondered by thousands for more than a decade, and demands a scientific answer. How did you become so great at Quake? You know what, don’t answer that right away. We will come back to that.
Quakeone: I have played Quake since about August of 1996… I have never been a great player but I have had the opportunity of watching many great players over the years. All different mods from the original DM, CTF, CA, RA, etc…. These great players make the average player like I look like neophytes, but once in a blue moon (not the beer); a truly epic player is witnessed. Epic old generation players like Thresh, Unholy, Rix, Frick, Gollum, Xenon, Nikodemus, Lakerman, Chaoticz, Reptile, and next generation players like, Lenny, Bruce, Spoon, Cata, and Wolv. These are some of the top players to have ever played the game of Quake and you are right there with them if not better in some aspects. We are talking about 10s of thousands maybe hundreds of thousands of players over the last 17 years and you are easily in the top echelon of players, the top 1% of people to have ever played this game. That impresses me on so many levels and I am going to touch on that later. For now I want to give you the floor. Please explain yourself. Explain what separates you from the other 99%.
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