_____________________________________________________________INTERVIEW

[LadyGamers]:  Team Ground Zero was founded by you and Misfit in February 2004, just last month. Please let me know a little more about the clan's background, what games you play and why it was started?

[PeriodMan]:  Team Ground Zero revolves around the theme of "Back to Basics". Games were meant to be entertaining, to take us away from the seriousness of real life. Lately, it seems reversed: that people are more concerned with the seriousness of gaming (clans, competitions, etc), taking away the essence of what games were created for: entertainment. We've decided to go back to the beginning, back to what games were made for.

In short, we are a clan of gamers who hate clans. We realize that it's goofy to make a clan for people who don't like clan life, but, for some reason, it just works.  We cater to both types of people by offering two divisions, competitive and pub teams. The competitive divisions allow for those to be in CAL/CPL (and with most members being local in TX, can participate in LANs). The pub team allows more of a "community" environment, to play and enjoy video games with other folks.

The members of TGZ come from all sorts of the spectrum, pulling resources from various CPL events, CAL-IM CS members, CAL Halo members, and many others. TGZ pretty much play everything: Counter-Strike, Halo, UT2K3 (and UT2K4 demo), CoD, BF1942, Painkiller, and we're looking forward to Doom III (as is everyone else).

````````````````````````````````````

[LadyGamers]:  You stated:

"In short, we are a clan of gamers who hate clans."

[PeriodMan]:  Not really the organization of clans, but the politics of clans. Where the leaders try to take credit for things that they don't do, or the jealousy that comes out when particular members get more attention then others. Even the fighting; I hate that. The thing I never liked the most was the fact that leaders did what they did, because they could.

For example, picking clan members to play in CAL matches not based on skill, but based on "favorites". Why would you join the CAL league if you weren't going to play your best players and try to win?

````````````````````````````````````

[LadyGamers]:  How long have you been playing Halo, and how did you get into the PC multiplayer game? Did you ever try the game on Xbox?

[PeriodMan]:  I've been playing Halo for a long, long time. I looked forward to it when it was first said to come out on PC, before they bumped it to XBox. Since it came out on XBox though, it was the only way I could play, so I picked up an XBox and Halo and got after it. I was never enticed by Microsoft to pay for XBox Live, so I just played with buddies who came over, and my roommates in my apartment. When Halo was finally released for PC, I picked it up almost instantly. I can't say that I'm really impressed with the PC version because there's still alot of work that needs to be done with it to make it a better multiplayer game.

````````````````````````````````````

[LadyGamers]:  You mentioned that most of the clan is looking forward to Doom III. Did you have a chance to go to Quakecon to check out the multiplayer version? What gives you the impression Doom III is going to be awesome?

[PeriodMan]:  I've never been to Quakecon before, so I didn't get to test the multiplayer version. The single player is pretty cool, for what I've been able to play of it (Pleading the 5th to having played the Alpha or not...). I get the impression that Doom III is going to be awesome just because of the fact that there has never been a bad Doom game. I've owned it on every platform it has ever been released on (I think); PC, SNES, N64,and PSX, I owned them all. I've already preordered Doom III and got my kick-ass Mancubus pewter figure, and as soon as it hits the shelves, nobody will see me for a week.

````````````````````````````````````

[LadyGamers]:  As a clan founder, what is most important about leadership in a clan?

[PeriodMan]:  Being attentive, responsible, and respectable. A clan leader has to know what's going on in his/her clan at all times. They have to pay attention to the attitudes and concerns of not only their members, but the community that surrounds them. A leader must always follow through on their word and anything that they say. If you can't trust a clan leader, then perhaps they don't need to be a leader at all.

As for respect, you have to understand that it goes both ways. I respect the members of Team Ground Zero because they follow through on their responsibilities, and they respect me because I follow through on mine. I've been in past clans where this wasn't the case; team members would do all of the work, and the clan leaders would try to take all of the credit. If a member of my team does something well, then I put the attention on them. You can't have an ego and try to be on a team; it's just a conflict of interests.

[Back to FotM]