December 2003

|E|volution - Tribes 2 Interview with Knightro
Conducted by CLIMaX

|E|volution is a Tribes 2 CTF team from North America that has made a name for itself under the careful leadership of founding members Knightro, Calipso, Human Typhoon and Biggie. Guided by a strong desire to kick a** |E| has followed a formula to success that makes practice and having a good time priorities. Tribes 2, the PC kin of PS2 Tribes Aerial Assault, is often overlooked as an important multiplayer first person shooter in comparison to games like Counterstrike, Quake and Unreal Tournament. Some say that's because T2 requires you to think and enjoy the challenge of using brains and brawn to win, especially in CTF. But whatever the real reason may be |E| couldn't care less. They're too busy defending high positions on league ladders where the action never stops.

A tribe interview from Knightro and personal story provides a close up view of the evolution of |E|volution. It's a short interview, but Knightro is long on enthusiasm. You can tell right away that you're dealing with a hardcore T2 guy who loves the game and the people he plays with. Isn't that what gaming is supposed to be all about? You know it.

______________________________________________INTERVIEW

[CLIMaX] How did |E|volution come to be and what are your roles in the tribe?

[Knightro] Well, to be honest, there is more than one founder: Calipso, Human Typhoon, Biggie and myself all co-founded what is now known as |E|volution.

But, if you really want to know the founding story we need to go back in time to the year 2000. Biggie and I came from another tribe. It was known as (LoN) Legionnaires of Noire. Not a very well known tribe except in the Mouse mod community. (LoN) had a reputation of being the best players to have ever played Mouse mod (at that time). (LoN) did not just let any one join, they were only recruited based on their performance in game. Human Typhoon joined (LoN) at the end of its reign, when Biggie and I were the only two leaders left. (LoN) did try to compete in the TWL, however they were met with a surprising difference between mouse mod and base ctf. That didn’t last very long before the lack of organization caused the mighty to fall; you see it takes more than just skill to win, you need teamwork and coordination to go along with it. Dissention spread among the ranks.

The original founder was MIA due to real life issues and a couple of the other leaders just plain didn’t get along. (LoN) was through. That’s when Biggie, Human Typhoon, and Calipso (the founder of Black ops) started a new tribe known as The Elite. The Elite was primarily made up of the best and most active players in (LoN) and a few others who showed what we would call the right stuff. Even if you had the right stuff, if you didn’t have the same historical continuity we shared as a team, or if you failed to attend practices and such, then you were kicked out. We never wanted anyone who would make waves. Thus, The |Elite was formed. We then started doing everything together. You could not go into a server and see only one |Elite guy in there. If you saw one then you pretty much saw all of them logged on at the same time. The |Elite spent a few months playing together before we considered joining a ladder. Garr and I actually did join a 2 vs. 2 arena ladder during this period and took |Elite all the way to the #4 spot before quitting the ladder.

Soon after that The |Elite joined the Team Warfare League (TWL) 7 vs 7 base CTF ladder. We were very good as a team and all of our continuity and practice showed. The funny thing was that we very rarely practiced CTF. We spent most of our time playing arena. Playing arena did taught us some important skills. It promoted teamwork because you needed each other to survive, you depended on that guy being right there with you, and he was. And, one of the most important things we learned was how to survive when someone is shooting at you. The single most important thing we learned was how to shoot. We were all getting to be very good shots.

Despite all the success several of us felt it was too arrogant to call ourselves |Elite so we changed our tag to |E|. After the tag change we all felt inspired by the new look and we made new skins! We continued to be successful but were still uncomfortable with saying what the |E| stood for because no matter how good you think you are there is always someone out there that is better. So, Calipso, Human Typhoon and I had a meeting one night. We determined that we needed to come up with a new tribe name. We loved the |E| tag, just not the name. We spent a few hours brainstorming. Finally, we came up with |E|volution. We all felt it was absolutely perfect. We kept the tag that we liked and the name seemed to fit because we all started as mouse mod players and were evolving into a very good CTF team.

Along with the new tag and tribe name Human Typhoon rented a server for us called The Deep End. And I paid for a website Tribalevo.com. This is where we are today. We have a very good team that has competed and taken #1 in several ladders and is definitely one of the best teams in Tribes 2. We will continue our reign when Tribes Vengeance comes out, too. :)

[CLIMaX] What is Tribes 2? How is it unique in comparison to other FPS multiplayer games? Isn't Halo for PC a better Tribes 2?

[Knightro] Tribes 2 in my opinion is the best first person shooter game out there. It can run servers that can hold up to 64 players and run smoothly. There are so many different aspects to the game that make it one of the most complex and interesting mulriplyer shooters out there. Let me give you an example of what I am talking about. There are three armor classes:

• Light: Fastest most evasive and probably most popular, can carry 3 weapons, only armor that can use a cloak pack and sniper rifle.
• Medium: A little slower than the light, can carry 4 weapons to include a rocket launcher, has stronger armor and is used in most cases for deploying turrets and other defensive tasks.
• Heavy: This is the slowest of the three classes but also the most powerful. Can carry 5 weapons including a mortar launcher. Heavy does defense, of course.

Light armor can use a cloak pack which will make the player invisible for a limited amount of time, however there are several things that can be used to counteract a cloaker. One is a motion sensor that can be deployed by anyone. Another is a jammer pack that will hide the player and anything in a small radius of the player from the sensor array or radar. It also forces someone who is cloaked to become visible. Any armor can use the jammer pack.

This is was just one example of how sophisticated T2 is. To me, that's what makes it unique and totally fun. The many different weapon and armor combinations give you the ability to have many different strategies to win a game. Another thing about Tribes 2 is the ability make your own maps, skins, and even mod their own games. And, Halo is nothing like Tribes 2, doesn't even come close.

[CLIMaX] What were some of the most memorable moments in |E|volution's history? [Knightro] Memorable moments have to include when we first became |E|volution. We also got rid of a few bad eggs back then who would have caused our tribe to fall apart, that was good. And, winning the #1 position on league ladders. Our friendship and team spirit mean a lot to us, of course. But winning does help you to appreciate all of the good times you have as a tribe.