We're gonna cross the pond in vol.3 with an i'view from 4K^ frontman, Riemu, star of the only decent Heavy frag movie I know of to date (only one worth watching, anyways). Enjoy!

Player Info:Riemu is a well known member of the TF2 community, having served as admin for ESL as well as leading 4K^, easily one of the best TF2 team in the world. He's been most well known for pushing the Heavy into matchplay to great effect, almost forcing the rest of the European scene to play along if they want to keep up. Oh, and he likes country music and long walks on the beach.. err.. nevermind..

Interview:

GotFrag: Lets start with the past - what competitive game did you start out in, and with what teams?

4K^Riemu: Well, basically I don't have much of a competitive background. I started online-gaming back in the days when Quake2 was released, but never made it big. The next game I jumped on was Team Fortress Classic, which I played for around 5 years, climbing up the ladder slowly division by division till I ended up at the top of Division 1 with Krümelmonster Invasion and Austrian Fraggers (never made it into Premiereship tho). Speaking of nostalgia moments, the best TFC match I´ve probably ever had was NTFCL Final with Austrian Fraggers against Krümelmonster Invasion. I believe there is still some coverage of "The-Man", Gunslinger himself, around. Unfortunately, we lost it to a stronger opponent *g*. After Austrian Fraggers decided to call it a day and the TFC scene was already starting to decay, I was trying out some new (to me at least) games and ended up playing Warcraft 3 for a bit. Since I have always been a big fan of the Warcraft series (and kinda sucked at playing Warcraft 3), the jump from Warcraft 3 to World of Warcraft wasn´t really much of a question for me. I played World of Warcraft for almost a year, but decided on Burning Crusade release to call it a day. I took a break from online-games till Team Fortress 2 was released, on which I jumped immediately of course.

GotFrag: How did you end up with the team around you?

4K^Riemu: Well, tbh it kinda just happened. I started out playing Team Fortress 2 with an old TFC buddy of mine, back from the Austrian Fraggers day, Norris (who unfortunately can't enjoy the game right now due to his enlistment in the army). We kinda joined the first german speaking team that looked promising - HerbsArmy. HerbsArmy was always our Austrian rival with Austrian Fraggers (both being Austrian teams), so it was kinda ironic to all of us. The team consisted only of former TFC players (at first at least), so it seemed like the perfect place for us. We soon transformed into one of the best european teams at that time and ended up playing heads-up matches with Cursed (now 4Kings). At the end of december I was approached by 4Kings and - with Norris departing, some of the HerbsArmy guys leaving/going inactive and the major disagreement in future "gamingstyles" (HerbsArmy has always been against no-crits and playing stronger teams) - they made me an offer I couldn´t really refuse. I already knew the guys from our direct HA-Cursed faceoffs and from several mixes and games I had played with them. To this day, I am proud to be a member of 4Kings and I cant imagine a better team to play with. Even tho they are all kinda slacky ;(

GotFrag: What drew you to competitive TF2?

4K^Riemu: Well, that's another thing that kinda just happened. Team Fortress Classic is the best online-shooter ever created, so not playing TF2 wasn´t really on the table to begin with. I never expected to come out on the top of Europe tho...

GotFrag: Do you like the way TF2 is evolving? Are you for or against the constant tweaking Valve's implementing?

4K^Riemu: Even tho I trust Valve with their changes and I do believe that they are necessary to keep the game fresh and new, I don't really agree with all of them. Valve´s primary focus is still on the public aspect of the game, which makes me kinda sad. The competitive side of Team Fortress 2 has so much more to offer and I still believe (or at least I want to believe), that with proper investement in the competetive side of the game, it could turn out to be one of the most played Team-games on Tournaments. But, as long as we only get "sideupgrades" (like the tournament mode without working stopwatch...) and Valve's focus stays on the public aspect of the game, I´m afraid thats not going to happen. The European TF2 scene is now at around 120 teams participating (last ETF2L signups), and thats just way too few. And from what I´ve heard, the NA´s aren't doing that well either.

GotFrag: What do you think of the tactical differences between the North American and European scenes? (ie. more Heavy-usage) Any opinion about which one works best?

4K^Riemu: From what I´ve seen there is no real tactical difference besides Heavies/Snipers. You have to keep in mind tho, the North American scene just recently turned their back on "playing with crits" and walked towards the true way of competitive gaming - no-crits. Heavies are pretty much useless when playing with crits in a 6vs6 lineup, so they only started to appear when the scene turned no-crit. From what I have seen on the GotFrag forums, Heavies start to pop up on NA side too. I'm not sure about the extend of sniper usage in NA, but we tend to stray them in on gravelpit/dustbowl too. As for which works best - Heavy or 2 Soldiers - I can´t really comment on that. It kinda depends on many things - a) do you have a good heavy or not? b) do you have 2 strong soldiers c) do the soldiers have a good teamplay?. I think every setup can win, it just depends on if you have 2 good teamplay soldiers, of if you tend to have "soloplayers". As for the later, Heavy works best ;)

GotFrag: What about the local scene - what two clans are the most fearsome in your mind?

4K^Riemu: Fracture and Excello (former syre).

GotFrag: What other players of your own class do you have the most respect for? Who do you think is the most dominating/fearsome in your class (aside from you, har har).

4K^Riemu: Sommie (Excello) and GLP (HwA.). With GLP turning his back on the heavy class, there is pretty much only Sommie left.

GotFrag: What do you think of the upcoming medic changes? Do you think they're balanced enough to be in matchplay?

4K^Riemu: You cant really comment on things that haven´t been released yet. I think the new Nailgun + Ubersaw could make a really good addition to competitive gaming. As for the critzkrieg... well... let´s just say there is a reason why Europe plays no-crit.

GotFrag: Excited for Goldrush? Think the style has a place in the competitive scene?

4K^Riemu: Very much sir. I think Goldrush can turn out to be a really good addition to the game (from the movies I have seen to far). But of course, you cant really comment here either. I just hope Valve brings this god d*** patch out asap ;)

GotFrag: Any final comments/shoutouts you'd like to make?

4K^Riemu: I would like to thank Deman and Kee_Ring/QuadV for being the best Team Fortress 2 coverage team - keep the good work up guys!

Ouch.. I do all this work to send the same email to a bunch of different ppl, and get slammed in Riemu's shoutouts :( lol jk, thanks to Riemu, who's been a great help whenever I screw up something in the Euro coverage :)