,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, An interview of skint0r (Kuski of Month on October 2003): ''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''' -= When did you start playing? =- I first tried it once late 1997, but wouldn't say I really started playing it before early 1998. And I've pretty much kept playing it actively since then. -= Ex-teams and why did you change teams? =- First team I made was with two of my friends in hm.. 1998 or so. The team name was PC, Pimp Crossers. We sucked, but it was about that time I first started making levels, which sucked as well. Me and my friend almost had some sort of competition going about who made the most levels, in the end I think we both got above 200, untill my friends quit playing. I guess the Across lifestyle wasn't for everyone. As far as I can remember I didn't join any other teams before mid 2002, when elg, totalnewbie, zyntifox, zeth, LocDog and I made a team together. The name was FS, Fleinsoppene, which later changed to flein because of another team called FS. It didn't exactly last too long (surprise :). I think the team was some attempt at a "reunion" with those old veterans, but most of them lost interest just after a few weeks. After IRK got kicked out of IC, I joined Cloud and TorInge in December 2002. It lasted a while and everything was rather good untill October 2003 when me and deadnite found out Cloud and TorInge had formed a new IC team together with Zweq and DarMoeD. Even though Cloud and TorInge may never have said the actual words that they kicked us out from the team, Zweq and DarMoeD didn't want to be in team with us, and now they were in IC, so... Deadnite and me then decided to make a team together, took a while to find a name for our team but we ended up with IV, Incauta Vulgo, which is supposed to mean "reckless spreading", but those latin words are probably conjugated wrong. It wasn't meant to be so similiar name as IC, but that's what we ended up with. And that's the team I'm still in, perhaps not so actively. -= Current total? =- 41:53:21 -= Top5 newest and oldest personal records? =- (check the last modified times of your replays) Top5 Newest: 25. Aug 2004: 28. Bounce Back 0:53,50 22. Aug 2004: 30. Pipe 0:34,14 26. Mar 2004: 29. Headbanger 0:51,82 26. Aug 2003: 11. Gravity Ride 0:26,83 5. Jul 2003: 25. Precarious 0:26,58 Top5 Oldest: 22. Sep 2001: 47. Enigma 0:30,82 27. Sep 2001: 34. Bumpy Journey 0:39,89 6. Nov 2001: 17. Labyrinth 0:59,85 11. Nov 2001: 38. Curvaceous 0:34,43 15. Nov 2001: 8. Tag 0:22,58 -= Across Career briefly. Any WRs?, World Cup I and II and so on.. =- Not much to say, made some levels, sent in for one event in WC1, and I believe I made one level for WC2K as well. -= Elma career? =- Not much more to say here either, made some levels. -= Do you still like Across? Why/why not =- Still max respect for Across, but don't think I could ever play it again now after playing Elma for so long. Like everyone knows, it doesn't work too good on XP, and even if it did, the playability is sort of gone. -= How did you get Across/Elma? Was it your worst mistake? or the best? =- Like a lot of other places, it was spread at school through class mates. And of course it was the best mistake I have ever made. It's unbelievable how much fun I've gotten out of this little game, getting to know great people and all that. Time couldn't go away any faster when playing, it's the perfect game to fiddle around with when you have nothing else to do. I'm almost ashamed of myself for not having registered it before this year. Insane to think about the fact that I've played this game for 7 years now, that's 1/3 of my whole life. -= Favourite internals / most irritating internals =- Favorites has got to be Headbanger, lovely to cruise around. And also Lab Pro, Animal Farm, and Bounce Back. Least favorite is all höyla levels, specially the new ones like Sink, Steep Corner, Tag, etc. -= Your own best WRs? =- Never had any. -= Best WRs in your opinion? =- Currently Apple Harvest, Zig-Zag and Serpents Tale. My favorite WR ever however, is easily Mazor's The Steppes (I hope it was him). Anyway, the first ever WR over the pole, I think the time was 28.xx or something around there. It was quite OMG at that time. -= What's the limit of WR times? =- Hard to say nowadays, every time someone says a limit it gets broken anyway. But right now I can't see how the WR totaltime could ever go much lower than 35.xx. -= Are there some kind of external contests you like? What kind of contests do you like? Are there any new competitions you would like to see? =- I hate playing contests, because I have no energy to defend records. My favorite levels would have to be anything made by sexy boy MP, max respect. Also worthy of mentioning: yoosef, Jeppe, cyre, psy, Abula, onla, Chazz, jonsta. -= Best lgr in your mind? What lgr do you use? =- I use default mainly, sometimes I'll use Across lgr for a while. I should probably try some of the newer ones, but I just don't care enough to spend time finding something better to use. -= Mention some good things you have gotten with Across/Elma? =- Gotten to know lots of cool people, something to make the time go away, and to keep my otherwise boring life busy. -= Mention some bad things you have gotten from Across/Elma? =- Absolutely nothing, except some small frustration with other players. -= What is the most frustrating thing you have faced in your career? =- All the annoying people in #across, specially BarTek. -= The biggest mistake of your Elma career? =- It was during the Across days, I was still semi-n00b. I once made a level based on one of psy's launch things he had in one of his levels. It's funny to think back about it now, how he wrote some news about it on his levpage after discovering my level, something along the lines of "levmaking scandal" ;D. And how I went to IRC max nervous and wrote this long line with an apology to him, and the relief when he said some mega short line back "is okiz". -= Cheating, what feelings? Do you use level unlocker/1.11hb/1.2 etc? =- Facking idiaths ;(. I did use level unlocker during the WCup days. At first when the alovolt patch came I thought of it as cheating and didn't use it, but changed my mind some month later perhaps. Right now I'm using Elma 1.2. -= Elma tuning, have you tested? Opinion about it? =- It's really stupid that people have to use this, it should of course be the same for everybody and on all computers. Personally I don't care enough to change my settings for each level, but I've changed Hz and sometimes I will change vsync on or off to make bounces on certain levels. -= Best kuskis and teams? What are the things you value in another kuski/team? =- I think of Zweq, TorInge, Markku and Jeppe as the most skilled players. About what I value in other players however, it would have to be trust to some extent. -= Your best achievements? =- Not much except my levels and my site that I try to keep alive. Maybe making new battlebot after MagnusB quit, although I've stopped working on it now. At least it works for general battling. -= Do you do any other neat finger-related stuff like playing violin, repairing watches, pick pocketing etc? Not that I'm aware of. -= How much did you play in your sickest period? How much these days? =- Sometimes well over 8-10hrs a day in the sickest period I think. These days I might play elma 1hr average a day. -= Have you had Elma dreams? =- Way too many times, and they're all too complicated to explain in detail I'm afraid. It's also been a while now, so I can't remember too much anymore, wish I had written it down somewhere. -= Strengths and weaknesses as a player? What moves you like/dislike? =- I believe I do quite ok in battles, as I tend to be able to find styles pretty fast, I suck at actually improving my times much though, so I hate long battles where others have the chance to catch me. -= Tips for average players? =- Don't go pro and ruin your life, play for fun!!1 :Z -= Best memories with Elma? =- KGB page has got to be it, although not with Elma, but Across. Seeing all those "crazy" styles for the first time. Getting op in #across? ;D. -= First time at #across? =- Late 1998 or early 1999 perhaps? I think I idled there quite long before I actually said anything though. I was too scared to say something stupid to all those famous players, I managed to do it anyway though. I don't want to think about all the stupid lines I wrote there for the first time now. -= Best Elma friends? =- Lots of good friend, but these I've at least talked to a bit more than others: zyntifox, onlainari, oizo, Abula, Luther, Jeppe, Karlis, psy, yoosef. -= Thoughts about Elma meetings? =- Always wanted to go to one, hopefully the dream will come true at FEM05. -= What do YOU think should be improved in an eventual new version of Elma? =- Keep the physics, much better editor, more security against cheating, and general improvements to small things like stats, limits on levels and filenames. -= How about battles? =- I love to play battles, sorry to say it hasn't been much playing lately, too many good players playing all the time :\. I hate losing. -= Have you got any negative feedback about playing Elma from your mates? =- Nope. Only comments from my parents every time they come into my room and see I'm playing the same game. -= What games do you like beside Elma? =- Quake 3, Freecell, Crimsonland, MUD. -= Did you buy Elma? Why not? =- I finally did in 2004, about time I think. -= Have you thought about if you could stop playing Elma soon, or anytime? =- I'm quite sure I could quit any time I wanted to, but I have no reason to and I don't want to either. I don't have any plans to stop playing Elma, hopefully I'll still be playing it in 3 years, so I can say I've played it for 10 years. And even slesker would be to play it 5-6 more years, then I would have played it half my life. -= What gets you still playing Elma? =- Everyone still playing Elma knows why I think. -= Are you at the top of your career now? If not, when? =- Definately, my skills are starting to deteriorate in fact. -= Forecast the future of Elma. How the scene will be in five years? =- New version out that's for sure. Lots of n00bs, hopefully some of the old veterans will still be playing, at least still hanging out in #across. -= Was it a surprise to be voted for the kuski of month? If it was who should have won in your opinion and why? =- Of course not. -= Mopolauta, thoughts? =- Was good for a few weeks, sucky nowadays. -= Opinions about Elma Crime, MUe's animations and stuff like that. =- Loved Elma Crime, and of course MC Studios. -= You are the updater of you own level page; skintatious. How's that feeling? =- Uhm.. great? Nice to know someone still keeps playing my tired levels. -= What's your favourite Elma website (not moposite)? =- I don't really check any other pages regularly. Once a week maybe I'll check Mopo Corner. -= Your relation to OLP? =- Hated it ever since it came out, must be worst levelpack ever after RLP ;D. -= Why that nick, skint0r? =- That might have been the worst mistake of my life, it's what I regret most. It was originally Skint, because I liked Fatboy Slim ;(. For those of you that don't know it, skint was/is his record company. Then I added the infamous 0r ending in.. 2001? Nowadays I like to think I chose the nick because of it's meaning (check a dictionary), but who am I fooling? -= Your real life. Do you have it (school/work, other interests etc)? =- Unfortunately I was blessed with a life, if you can call it that, in April. Right now I'm doing my civil service, working at the Norwegian Radium Hospital, at the photo and graphic design department. And another lif0r brag, the week before I even had a girl in my bed (!). It was the highpoint of my romantic life, which is quite sad really. -= Write something about the game, fellow kuskis, moposite, #across, etc =- BarTek sucks. -= How did this interview make you feel, like a moviestar? =- Not really, seems like any idiath can win this now :). skint0r 26th October 2004