Ask and You Shall Receive: Round 2

So, in response to this nonsense, Slapnuts and myself have been working on compiling information on the interview and the Bey character in general. Yes I contradicted myself - don't care. For starters, here's the original transcript of the interview - It's long, and a giant wall of text, but you don't have to read it if you want. However, now the option is there. I've highlighted the main stuff, so feel free to go there if you don't want to look at the small differences. I also have an e-mail he sent me after I initially told him I couldn't post it, which is way down below after the interview.

Before though, here are a couple of links related to the username ssishtar

Ssishtar 1: Notice the similar grammar style and sentence structure.

Ssishtar 2: Evidence of possible EU origin and that the person using the username obviously plays WoW. This E-mail is also the one that was used to contact me.

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seven7xr : Basically, would you be willing to give anyone that might not know, a little bit of background info on your gaming career? Such as where you started, how you got into wc3 and what you were known for (IE playing undead etc)

ssishtar : sure
seven7xr : also let me know if you don't understand anything.

ssishtar : My name is Constantine Djuvara and I was a "professional Warcraft 3 player" back in the old days (that would be 5 ago) I guess.

ssishtar : hmm, I had my share on other games too, won several national tourneys of Doom and Quake, but nothing so important that it would worth to be discussed.

ssishtar : I started to play WC3 RoC in August 2002, initially as a random player on Northrend(EU servers)

ssishtar : then I started to play on Lordaeron, because there was this common belief that US players were better then EU ones, and I went there cause I was craving for the deadliest competition possible

ssishtar : but discovered later that top US players were under their equivalent EU ones.

ssishtar : I played UD cause I always loved the ideea of it, was nothing planned I guess

ssishtar : Anyway, I understood too late that EU was the place to go if you wanted cutting-edge-blaze-strats, best players etc. that ofc, till the rise of Kalmidor with its dreaded Showtime and Kenshin

ssishtar : which at that time were the absolute best of the best.<br />seven7xr : they wer ethe best players at the time?

seven7xr : or was thatssishtar : Kenshin and Showtime yes

seven7xr : gotcha

seven7xr : on kalimdor

ssishtar : yes ofc

seven7xr : cool

ssishtar : look, we talk here about what happened before Grubby and Sk Insomnia started to be famous

seven7xr : yeah

seven7xr : I enjoy hearing where everything started

ssishtar: that was my time, when I played, these guys kinda didnt existed hehe

ssishtar : but thats between us

seven7xr : okay =_

seven7xr : heh

ssishtar : want me to continue ?

seven7xr : sure

ssishtar : allright then

seven7xr : whenever you're finished an answer just let me know =D

ssishtar : One day, I think about 2 months tops form the official launch of WC3, I ran into a guy who had the nick lordBey.

ssishtar : We both had similar levels, something between 15 and 18 if I recall correctly

ssishtar : well, even if the guy was prety good, he was definitevly not top tier, he was fast , but not precise, he was loosing units pointlessly etc

ssishtar : basically the things that break or make a player

seven7xr : I see

ssishtar : anyway, after the 1st game lost, he started to harass me in a way that would be kinda innapropiate to discuss here, but later in the day he stopped with the aggresive talk and started it on a very different tone.

ssishtar : He was definitevly not stupid, and talking to him I learned that the dude was holding 1st place on the 1v1 ladder

ssishtar : the name was Bei

ssishtar : with I not Y

ssishtar : however, he was using also many other names like princebey, lordbey, beytheruler and so on

seven7xr : interesting

ssishtar : I asked him how the hell he was 1st place when he couldnt take 1 damned game from me ?

ssishtar : and he confessed that him and many other players

ssishtar : exploited a bug presend at launch on Bnet, a bug that awarded players 4 to even 10 times the normal experience you would be awarded, if you played at some specific hours.

ssishtar : it was fixed fast by blizzard, however he wanted to hold the top spot.

seven7xr : it awarded players 10x the normal experience at certain hours of the day?

ssishtar : something like that

ssishtar : some players were boosted artificially big time cause of this

ssishtar : but what comes is more interesting, fasten your belt

ssishtar : Our business relation started when he offered me bug money, 50$ for each game won by me with his account, and for me this was an incredible opportunity.

ssishtar : big money*

seven7xr : wow

ssishtar : I couldnt stop to ask myself how much money he had if he made such an offer to me ?

ssishtar : still, the dude was absolutely mental to maintain the name Bei 1st on the US ladder

ssishtar : he knew that he couldnt do it alone and he was prepared to do anything in order to have it.

ssishtar : at that time I was a student at informatic university, for me this was the type of offer "you cant refuse".

ssishtar : I played more then 700 games with his account, over a period slightly more then 1 year, covering the 2002-2003

seven7xr : for 50 bucks each?!

ssishtar : I basically played untill Frozen Throne was launched and in that period I was 1st in 1v1 ladder 90% of the time. Maybe occasionally I was 3d or 4th for some days, but was as I said occasionally

ssishtar : yes got over 35k in total from him

seven7xr : holy crap lol

ssishtar : I think I did my job pretty well, cause the money were flowing monthly through Western Union to me, and I still have the bank receipts, hehe

ssishtar : anyway

ssishtar : By that time, I was undisputed 1st place on Lordaeron, but I also was int he last year at informatics and the exams were bloofy though.

ssishtar : basically the time for training and implementing new strats was with each day more and more limited, not counting that at horizon was Frozen Throne with its share of complications.

ssishtar : one day I forced a talk with him and I told him that I simply dont have the time required to continue this thing in Frozen Throne too

ssishtar : and we both agreed that was best thing to stop. He continued playing on his own, but not with big success from what I saw/heard.

ssishtar : words came to my ears that he sold the account 1 year after that, when people played Frozen Throne

ssishtar : that was the Bei episode

seven7xr : very interesting

ssishtar : btw I am deeply sorry if I missdirected anyone with the name

ssishtar : the word Bey, ethimologic speaking, is a hgih Turkish rank, and was misspelled byt he guy I played for, he actually told me that when he realised he spelled it wrong, he was already on 1st page

ssishtar : but the other names contained Y at the end, lordBey, princeBey etc

ssishtar : basically it was a typo

seven7xr : I see

ssishtar : But also have in mind that the player Beyblade from US-EAST is not me

ssishtar : His named appeared on us-east with 2-3 months later then I was 1st ranked on west

ssishtar : he may be a fan joking ofc

seven7xr : haha

ssishtar : seiously

ssishtar : there was a time when I was as Bei 1st on West and beyblade was 1st onEast

ssishtar : people were talking like 'this guy is insane, the absolute nolifer, he is 1st on 2 servers same time"

ssishtar : but as I said, It was not me, completely different person, I never played more then 15 games on Azeroth

ssishtar : allright, lets see what happened later

ssishtar : after the wc3 episode from my life, I joined the force.

ssishtar : hanged with them some years from personal reasons that I dont think I want to cover here.

ssishtar : decided to stop playing games completely for a long period of time, well around 5 years if I count 2003-2008

ssishtar : My personal life had its up and downs and even if I liked to play, sadly thete was not enough space for such thing.

ssishtar : there*

ssishtar : however, the friendships developed in the WC3 period with various characters involved in pro-gaming are still standing, so I still am a person constantly fed with the latest info from everywhere, tourneys, leagues, gossips.

seven7xr : I see

ssishtar : ask me something, my fingers hurt

seven7xr : haha

seven7xr : okay lets see

ssishtar : you are playing wow same time !!!

seven7xr : nah

seven7xr : GF woke up

ssishtar : heh, mine stays near me at her computer

seven7xr : haha

seven7xr : yeah mine doesn't play anything, but she supports my addictions so

seven7xr : can't complain!

ssishtar : !

ssishtar : well tell me where you want this to go

seven7xr : hmm

seven7xr : well we can talk some more about wc3

seven7xr : and then your transition to WoW

seven7xr : and then dramas

ssishtar : allright, ask me anything you want from WC3

ssishtar : cause I dunno what to talk about more

seven7xr : Okay.

seven7xr : were there any e-sport wc3 competitions during your peak years of playing?

ssishtar : outside the online ladder no

ssishtar : I didnt catched the sponsored things

seven7xr : What is your opinion on how E-sports has elvovled with wc3? Do you feel that the current players deserve all of the recognition? Such as grubby?

ssishtar : lol u have a fixation with grubby

ssishtar : everyone has

ssishtar : dunno why haha

seven7xr : well any of the big name players

ssishtar : ok lets see

seven7xr : he's just one of the ones I'm most familiar with

ssishtar : seriously, he is good

ssishtar : very

ssishtar : If you look at SC and WC3, you will see that the random factor was prety non existent overall

ssishtar : and apart of some luck at item drops, a game basically evolved how it was calculated by the players.

ssishtar : You never had a bad player win over a doog ond because he simply had his share of luck

ssishtar : Wow however is a different animal

seven7xr : doog ond?

ssishtar : The whole damned game is about procs, crits, resists

ssishtar : and seriously the thing has to stop if Blizz want WoW to evolve to the rank of a honest E-Sport, there is simply no room for RNG in an E-Sport

ssishtar : I think that the biggest quality of a sport or an e-sport is to have the biggest audience possible

ssishtar : thats what makes or breaks it

ssishtar : and wow definitevly has it already, all blizzard needs to do is to stop the bull**** with the RNG and nail a clear path for the average pvp-er, shorten the damned duration needed to farm the items the player need to start arenas.

ssishtar : hmm, at this moment I think the average player need around 2 months to level from 1 to 70 and to get full dressed in honor items.

ssishtar : and thats only for starting, not for being effective in it, sad part is that the bull**** is not stopping here, but it continues in end game and beyond with legendary items available only to a special segment of players, without any relevance with the pvp part. This imo is extremely e-sport breaking compared to other games, WC3 didnt had anything even remotely close of this imbalance

seven7xr : its true.

seven7xr : there's no doubt about it

ssishtar : You asked about WC3 players vs WoW players

ssishtar : or not

ssishtar : lol i think i got your question wrong lol

seven7xr : no that is perfectly fine too =D

ssishtar : thought you asked about wc3 vs wow in terms of e-sport

ssishtar : you need to tweak the question if you want to keep it heh

seven7xr : will do

ssishtar : allright

ssishtar : anyway regarding your question

ssishtar : with the new players and recognition

ssishtar : they are better at it then lets say, TillerMaN, me, Hazeem, Insomnia

ssishtar : saw some Tod replays that I didnt believed at first that was possible to see such thigns

ssishtar : well we were not bad too, but obviously the game evolved, players too

seven7xr : yeah

ssishtar : it grew up at bigger levels, things were discovered, it morphed

seven7xr : what do you think are some of the biggest changes from when you played compared to now? (whenever you're done this question)

ssishtar : (for last question )but current players are very good and their performance comes from hundreds of hours of playing (even more), and I am 100% sure that they deserve everything

ssishtar : well I didnt played now

ssishtar : to see how the game is

ssishtar : I didnt touched a game from 2003 July

seven7xr : do you watch tournaments and what not though

seven7xr : like any differences you might have noticed

ssishtar : doh

ssishtar : I dont wanna burst the bubble really, but I didnt watched tourneys very much

ssishtar : I saw some replays from the last tourney that had wow in it too

ssishtar : MLG that is

ssishtar : the one where Nihilum was 2nd spot

seven7xr : yep

ssishtar : they had WC3 in it too

ssishtar : and saw online some games

ssishtar : or was it that time ?

seven7xr : they did

seven7xr : WWI as well

ssishtar : could be

ssishtar : well, what I was astonished to see was that the players were uber precise in controlling all the units at all times

ssishtar : which we did too, but not at the current level

ssishtar : they seem to be extremely precise all the time and know perfectly if they engage this second and retreat after 10 secs, what they will loose and what will happen

ssishtar : which we didnt

ssishtar : we played more aggresive, the usual style of playing 5 years ago was very risky compared to this one

ssishtar : there was some openers, then you sudenly had an encounter and that encounter was decisive

ssishtar : novadays its all one big encounter from the 1st minute to the end

ssishtar : Also the additions of FT over Roc came as I said with their complications

ssishtar : and this thing its visible in today's games I think

seven7xr : real quick you said this earlier :

sishtar : You never had a bad player win over a doog ond because he simply had his share of luck

ssishtar : Wow however is a different animal

seven7xr : what did you mean by doog ond?

seven7xr : was that dodge' and?

ssishtar : lol

ssishtar : sorry

ssishtar : was good one

ssishtar : bad player win over a good one

ssishtar : basically what a series of unlucky RNG could bring

seven7xr : gotcha

seven7xr : Okay lets see

ssishtar : yea I kinda covered the WC3 and my past in it I guess

seven7xr : so I hear you're moving to WoW now, what inspired the move and what are your plans? Can we expect some impressive arena peformance and maybe some tournament attendences? =D

ssishtar : lool

ssishtar : and you said that your interviews are relaxing, how can it be relaxing if you ask if I will break Serennia in half :? !!!!

seven7xr : hahaha

seven7xr : it's plenty relaxing!

ssishtar : ok lets see

ssishtar : well if you combine strategy, fast thinking and 3d shooting, I guess you have WoW

ssishtar : and I think that at my time, I was an effective player at both 3d shooters and strategy games.

ssishtar : Will I be good at WoW, as I was at WC3 or Quake ? I guess thats an answer that only time will be abelt to tell if I will succeed ir not to maintain the high quality of playing in WoW that I did in warcraft3 .

ssishtar : At this moment WoW for me means 2 things. One is playing 2 hours a days in a 2k rated EU team with a friend's account for learning purposes, the other is leveling a hunter to make money for my future deathknight.

ssishtar : I made about 3k gold so far at lvl 56 so with that its going good I guess.

ssishtar : The biggest problem I had so far was that I needed to pass through 3 years of knowledge of classes that other players laready have.

ssishtar : and it was a bit traumatizing for me at begining, but now I think I'm cool.

seven7xr : how the crap did oyu make 3k gold by 56 lol

ssishtar : Also was bloosy impossible to get a spot in the beta, and despite the connections I have, nothing could be done so far. Would be nice to be able to know everything about Deathknights before the expansion will appear, so if anyone from Blizzard reads this, send a key to princebey@ymail.com

seven7xr : I'm beta testing and leveling a DK right now

seven7xr : if you want to know anything

ssishtar : I did, if you are not focused on leveling and you are focused on selling, its not too hard I guess. but boring like hell

seven7xr : I see

seven7xr : So are your intentions to be one of the best WoW players?

seven7xr : or is it merely entertainment at this point?

ssishtar : look

ssishtar : My friend dragged me in this at begining, I played his characters, he has a warrior and a holy paladin that I played both pvp and dungeons, I was impressed how the game is

ssishtar : but still, after I checked both factions and classes, I dediced at begining that the game is not for me, because you couldnt make any "badass" character in it

ssishtar : that apart the well known undead rogue which I consider too lame for me.

ssishtar : seriously, for me this was a detrimental aspect that I could simply not get over , and I will not deny it, the DK hd a special place in my heart from begining.

seven7xr : I see

ssishtar : I played only undead and always with the DK as 1st hero, I had some rated with lich 1st too, but were only for test purposes. I can raise it even higher and say that the addition of DK is the spark that ignited it all for me and I am also informed that many odl WC3 players will be back in gaming because of Blizzard's decision to implement hero classes, its a very powerfull trigger of old memories.

ssishtar : but sure, I will go with full throttle

ssishtar : what will be, will be

seven7xr : well good to hear =D

seven7xr : are you ready to dip into the drama story? =D

ssishtar : sure

seven7xr : I'm not sure how to even approach it

ssishtar : haha

ssishtar : me too

ssishtar : lets see