North America - Fresh off the recent controversy surrounding its CSS team's playoff push, Team Devastation has popped up in the news again with it's return to TF2. After it's original TF2 team collapsed early on in CEVO-P's first season, the Devastation organization has picked up CEVO-P's Saget in Tights. Currently sitting in last place (amongst active teams) with a 1-4 record, SIT has had a tough run in the inaugural season of CEVO-P, although their one win was against TGL Champs 20ID in an exciting cp_granary match.

I first caught up with fellow Canadian and Northern Resistance regular dev^boodah, but having never done an interview for GotFrag before, he was afraid he couldn't live up to such an enormous responsiblity, and begged me to find another. Luckily, dev^paladin was around to give a much more interesting viewpoint about the move and the state of TF2:

Well first the basics, how'd SIT and Dev come together? Were you guys actively looking or did the stars just kind of align like a cheesy Hugh Grant movie? :)

Haha, well we had been team SIT since the days of quake3 so we were very attached to the name and whatnot - but it seemed like it was just the right time to move on from such an old team and enter the new generation of multi-gaming teams. We did our research and found that DEV had a very solid foundation of staff and a great CS:S team, so from there it looked like a great organization to join up with.

So i assume you were aware dev was actively looking? Considering what happened to their previous team (ie. falling off the face of the earth).

Yes, we had been contacted previously as our team member glue was part of their old team, so we had that connection right off the bat. It also gave us a great source of inside information on the organization and really helped us make a complete decision. So you can say we knew they were looking and we were holding out making sure to weigh all our options and we finally decided on what we thought was the best place for us, and that was Team Devastation.

Do you have any hints yet at what kind of benefits you guys will get?

Ah yes, benefits.. Well, it's always nice to have a server, ventrilo and a website completely taken care of for you. Not having to worry about updating information on your team and deal with the day to day managerial tasks, so those were definitely some of the benefits we were looking forward to. We have been offered the chance to get our expenses paid in th event of any TF2 LAN (fingers crossed). But aside from those things we aren't really out here to get 'things' or anything like that, just looking for a solid foundation to build our team off of and I think Devastation really provides that for us.

What are your/the team's feelings about the way the CEVO season has gone so far?

I'm really glad you asked that quetion because it needs to be asked - and the first thing I will say is: CRITS. It's painfully obvious that crits were specifically designed to improve the flow of play on PUBLIC SERVERS; they work great in pubs where you are routinely facing a defense of over 10 players and without them it would be nearly impossible to break through. However, when we apply crits into competitive play where the numbers are MUCH, MUCH smaller we begin to see a problem. You start to notice that the ebb and flow of matches become determined by crits because when you can take out 3-4 players with 1 rocket (crit pipe etc.) you obviously have just turned the tide in your favor. I think this simple fact alone - that 1 randomly generated percentage can change matches - has driven many competive players literally mad with rage and caused them to quit. I would add also that CTF maps have not shown themselves to be conducive to competitive play in the way that they encourage teams to play all defense. On a CTF map the team that starts out all defense and does not risk any of their players to early kills always has the advantage. This is a HUGE flaw in the flow of gameplay by my estimation and should be eliminated by promoting CP maps for competitive play.

Will you guys be pushing for changes come next season?

we have already voiced to the CEVO staff our stance that CRITS SHOULD BE REMOVED INDEFINETLY AND WITHOUT HESITATION FOR THE SURVIVAL OF THIS GAME. CTF maps could still be included but only as a rare pace change in the schedule, NOT THE BULK OF THE MAPS!

Any comments/shout outs you'd like to make?

I'd just like to say, to my fellow TF players: KEEP playing and KEEP pushing for the RIGHT competitive changes, this game offers a BEAUTIFUL change of pace from your average cookie cutter multiplayer FPS' (cs, cod4). We just need to come together and get the right changes in place. Aside from that, I'd like to give a shoutout to my guy ... my dood ... the man that is FIGHTING FOR TRUTH AND JUSTICE IN A WORLD GONE MAD ... The GREAT ... REMULOUS ... ROMULOUS. Thank you all and god bless.