Interview with S4N|Sun

Please Note that these questions were choose by different members of swat 4 community.

Question 1) Tell us something about yourself. Your history with swat, your previous clan, etc., prior to Swat 4 news.

I got the 2-pack SWAT CD as part of a purchase for an old computer in late 2007. I started playing multi-player in 2008 and loved the VIP Escort mode. Being born and brought-up on 1.0, I got accustomed to the rules of no camping, spawning etc. I wanted to join a clan and considered the 3 most popular servers on 1.0, which were «|US|», {FAB} and |Fs| at the time. The two latter choices only had servers based in America which wasn’t ideal ping-wise, so I chose USA Swat Team. They also had a pretty nice and unique clan tag lol, although many other clans have now since copied it.

Interview with »Cartel«BrK

There were very few interviews in a long time, so as a Christmas treat here is the second in the space of a week. Time for a chat with BrK (xfire: wannalife):

1 Tell us about yourself, an overview of your SWAT history…

I started SWAT4 (my first online game) 6-7 years ago after being asked by Gunes, my uncle, in 1.1. At first, we joined AiR clan which was originally ViP mode. Playing there a couple of years with the likes of Xabi, Ocboo, Micro and Tyler, I learnt the game well.  Thanks Xabii for everything :) I played so much with LSF and AE which was the core of the old Delta. Then Gunes left the game but I continued. A few years later AiR got closed - some members joined ELF, some WM and some left. I joined WM with Xabi and met some Turks there such as HecToR, KrAQL, ViRuS and SilverKnight. With this team including Storm and Kamikaze, we participated in the original Nation’s cup. Then I left 1.1 since it was going inactive and came to 1.0. In TRS I met VaLeRa who is now my best friend here. It was a Turkish clan and after playing there for so much time, we founded Cartel.

Interview with DExUS

With UAC3 shutting down in less than 3 weeks time, it's time to have a chat with the founder of it all, a person who has put a lot of effort into keeping the SWAT community (and other games) as clean as possible. Lads and gents, interview with {USSP}DExUS:

1 Tell us about the history of UAC - what inspired you to make it, the changes and developments (UAC4SWAT, UAC2 and 3). Initially, did you plan it just for SWAT4 or was it always in your thoughts to cover a range of games?

I was annoyed by the amount of cheaters in SWAT4 and since our team was one of the TOP 3 European SWAT 4 teams at the time and the fact that we competed in the Electronics Sports League (ESL), the situation with new cheating teams was very bad. So I decided to do something to prevent cheating at league level.   That is where SW4TCH was born.  The design and functions were very poor and it was dismissed by the community. However league admins did like the idea.

So later I put together UAC4SWAT with the help of Snipes who was ClanBase admin at the time. I was also ESL admin at the time of UAC4SWAT creation so we put our heads together and added all info and stuff that might be needed for league admins.  Even though UAC4SWAT initially had no security or protection whatsoever we managed to catch large amount of cheaters.  Since I got tons of requests to create CoD2 and CS version of UAC4SWAT, we decided to create a whole new product that would be capable of supporting any game, and thus the "modern era" UAC (UAC2) was born.

2 Give us an insight into the work you had to undertake (e.g checking screens and matches, solving queries on forum, rolling out new updates, etc). Coupled with the loss of time and money, running UAC will have been far from easy for you. Did you have many regrets/difficulties?

Well, even if you or someone else has LEAGUE ADMIN status at UAC pages they can see only about 30% of what I can see and do.  All error reports that happen to players - even those that are minor and have no impact on UAC functioning - are sent to UAC pages where they get reviewed. There are about 6000-12000+ error reports generated per day. It depends on the amount of matches.  The errors are minor, but sometimes it is needed to check some of them if they are repeating for a certain player and evaluate if there is a way to fix the issue and if the effort is worth it.

Interview with ||ESA||RIddIcK

1 Tell us about yourself - your general real-life and SWAT history...

I'm a bavarian in his early twenties. I'm in the last year of studying a physical subject. I started playing SWAT4 right after release, when I still went to school.  Some friends and I bought the game and we founded a small COOP clan (AMP). I mostly played COOP mode at this time, but also played some VIP and even more sporadically the other modes. 3 years later (2008), after we had several longterm breaks from SWAT4 we ended AMP clan. Soon after I got recruited by eXtyle (Ex-|WM|) for the BS/VIP-clan >c0p< and collected my first experience in (mainly) BS and VIP matches.

Interview with |XF| duo Honeybeeh and Angelcrow

1 Tell us about yourself - your general real-life and SWAT history...

Honeybeeh:  I am super wifey, mom, mentor, educator, great community volunteer, sponsor for international children.  I worked for Protech Analytical Engineering International and enjoyed watching my family play Swat 4 for 8 years.  I got convinced to play 3 years ago and fell in love playing games with family and friends.  I started the clan because we played for fun and since we were stable enough we were able to get our own server. That way we could play anytime we wanted to and didn't need to worry about someone removing us because we made a mistake or whatever.  

Angelcrow: I am a girl who grew up with her older brother, since we were kids we were having fun playing all kinds of games. So I loved videogames since I was a child, I am loving them until now and I’m 29 and working as a professor.   Games have one goal -> giving fun and good moments to remember.

Interview with JF||ActinD

1 Tell us about yourself, which clan you reside in, and your history in SWAT, other clans (if any), the amount of time you spent in clan, roles and responsibilities in clan. 

I started playing SWAT4 3 or 4 years ago, I don't remember well. My first clan was «|PL|» Polish Legion, guy named Aljen invited me to join. My experience with SWAT back then was low so in a month or so I  accepted his invitation. I started playing from Adept rank and with high GameTracker score I was promoted to higher and higher ranks, till I've reached the highest General rank. Above me were only 3 clan founders: EdnA, DeoN and Aljen. I spent a lot of time in that clan and met awesome players there, and I am still playing with them in JF||. I can truly say that time in this clan was the best time I spent in this game.

Interview with Jax_51

Long time there has been no interview. Time to correct that. People from 1.0 might not know him very well, but on 1.1 he is a menace to all unfair players. Lads and gents, interview with Jax_51 (xfire: jax51):

1. You are probably the biggest catcher of cheaters in SWAT4 1.1 community. Xfire and YT are full of cheaters' videos with your "Jax 51 watermark". Do you know how many cheaters you have caught in your career?

563 so far, counting only SWAT 4. I started recording cheaters and uploading videos with my brother Neodiffer (Neod), and we did catch a lot, not only in S4. Every 100 cheaters we create a logo for it, check out our hundred videos. We play side by side, and it is easy: when one is distracting the cheater as enemy the other records him.

I started playing in Barricaded Suspect mode, which was full of cheaters. Then I started playing VIP Mode with Neod in different servers, where there were also many cheaters, but was easy to catch them together.

Catching that amount of cheaters makes you feel good and it’s great when people appreciates it, even  “World Mafia |WM|” gave me the “Most Valuable Player in SWAT4 non WM-member” award (http://worldmafia.net/forum/topic/2901-wm-awards-2011-results/) and Pwn’Star Clan named me in their clan song -second 27-, which I thanks (http://soundcloud.com/therealyung3rd/pwn-star-gaming-theme-song)

Personal interview with |WM|KrazyFire

Tell us about yourself, which clan you reside in, and your history in SWAT (other clans [if any], amount of time spent in clan, roles and responsibilities in clan etc)

Having started with World Mafia as an eager secondary school kid with a fair amount of spare time the ensuing transition to sleepless university "student" has seen my attention span for and devotion to the clan take a complete nosedive. In this Q and A I thought I might muse on what I have seen of the last 7 years of SWAT 4. 

Interview with {WRS}Kampfhamster

Although not technically a clan leader, Kampfhamster is arguably the most active current WRS ViP clan member. Click play below for his recorded audio interview! If for some strange reason you would prefer not to listen but to read a text-version, click here.

Interview with {KL}James_Bond

1 KL was born around 2006-07, but was restarted last year. Why did it initially die and what was the inspiration to bring it back?

To be honest with you KL never “died” it was just inactive. The reason it went inactive was because we had an older generation of KL - some got married, others started working; some had children and so forth. It was therefore quite hard to keep the clan together. However, it was brought back to life because we realised there were still KL members who were relatively active, who were still using the tag and were still playing SWAT 4. From the day it “died” many members tried their hardest to make things work again - and now we’re back! I also forgot to mention, the older generation members are starting to make a return too.

Interview with {SWT}LoveMonkey

1 SWT clan have been running for over six years. What do you think has been the key to this longevity?

In my opinion it is keeping a fun and friendly enviroment, making a member feel that he's part of a family and not just a gaming clan and that you will be kicked if you are a bad player. Ofc we have our "Pro" players too in Elite team, you can also be there if you are "pro" and love wars and stuff but it's not the main focus.  People can come and meet new people and make friendships that can last for long and not really focus only in game; like recently I started a Pool league in SWT, it has nothing to do with SWAT but who cares as long we have fun together, that's SWT in my eyes. 

Interview with {FAB}Nikki

1 FAB is one of the famed 1.0 ViP clans. In this long journey, what have been the highs and lows for you personally?

It has been a tough journey that is for sure! Back in 2006 when it all started of course it was all great and smooth until you find out a member is cheating, or that a senior admin wants to leave to start his own clan and take our members with them, or that a previous member attacks your server and tries to crash it, we have definitely had our lows but we always overcome them somehow! But as always the good outweighs the negative, I have made many friends {FAB} and non {FAB}, I found many great admins which make the server a happy place, which to me personally is our “High” - we are not the one of the most famed VIP clans for no reason so we must be doing something right!

Interview with {EPIC}>Bluesman

1 EPIC clan have been running for over two years. Tell us about how it began, and your relations with FoX

First of all I wanna say thanks to the S4N staff for this interview, and my best wishes to keep the good job with this website. How did the EPIC adventure begin? As many things, from the end of another one. In 2010 I left my 1st beloved clan, TFE, and I joined with some other friends to NoobDude, specially in the Dream Team. But, for me, it was not like my real perception about being in a clan; and also... well Coert is a great person and a good buddy, but we are incompatible to stay in the same house. So, instead of screaming, I decided to just go away and say a big thanks to everyone. Then after some time I found those crazy Netherland guys, YellowPete and JackTheRipper (Roy and Tom); they created EPIC as a joke, but I saw in 'em the opportunity to create another little and friendly family as was TFE for me. I knew it was going to be hard work, but I was full of enthusiasm: I started calling my old friends from everywhere, and new cool friends joined... and today the dream is true :)

About FoX... well I just can say that without those guys probably today EPIC should be not what is today. They were the first who really considered us a real clan (and that's very important believe me). Also, the perverted passion of Spider for my graphic works allowed to us to have 2 servers at this time and our own website with a real domain. We are in debt with that bounce of gays? Probably, but everyday we reply with our friendship, trustness and loyalty to our friends ;)

Just one thing: Nobody can explain our perverted love for bananas. I don't remember exactly, but one day someone posted something funny about bananas, we started putting videos etc. on website... then I created the EPIC logo with a banana instead of the "I" and the monster was born. God Help Us.

Interview with |Fs|Dreadnought

1 Along with FAB and US, Fs is one of the longest-standing ViP clans in 1.0. How do you think it has achieved this longevity and how has the journey been personally for you?

A good foundation with good members is the clue. United, friendly and responsible members (in the majority) is what has kept Forgotten Soldiers alive. I've seen that many members changed in the course of years, and being able to keep good members is how we've managed. Since the day I joined Fs, curious to experience playing ViP mode, I changed my attitude a lot. I joined Fs as a recruit, not interested much in the more complex matters regarding clan, other than playing matches and being on server. But as months and years passed, I became more and more interested in the clan eventually becoming leader. In Fs I experienced many things for first time. For example, being admin, being leader, playing the number of wars I played, being on server and enjoying game with people that have now become my friends. So, for me, the experience has been amazing overall.

Interview with KoN||MrElie

1 KoN has been running for over a month now. How do you intend to make sure it survives in the long-run (unlike the previous time)?

To be honest with you KoN might be a clan but for me it's more of a concept. I am very well aware of what everyone is saying regarding that Swat 4 is a dead game and not supported enough, this is why my concept was to create only a war team, a group of guys who have a minimum amount of skills, to play together in wars, using teamspeak, teamwork, etc.

Interview with 3A|»SkyWalker

1 It has been over 3 months since 3A formed. What were your reasons for leaving an established US clan and setting up one of your own?

There was no single reason for it actually. Three of us left for different reasons then we decided that we wanted to stick together to have fun since we always like playing together and then the idea came to us. We believe we left some good friends behind and I guess at some point of your life you feel like you need to change, to make something different. We had the tools to do it so we gave it a shot. It seems it was not a bad decision after all.   

Interview with |WM|SabbatH

1 WM clan has gone into general inactiveness over the past few months. Do you plan to bring a permanent server into 1.0 or do you think the inactiveness occurs because of a different issue?  

Recently our 1.1 server has been empty but I would not say that we are inactive. WM members play from time to time on other servers. As a team we had 2 matches in April and about 9 in the year…so that’s not so bad. But of course “golden era” of Swat 4 has ended long time ago. In the past we had a 1.0 public server but you need many active admins to keep it full so currently we are not planning to open one. We create 1.0 servers only for matches which require servers with password.

Interview with }S|H{I_AM_SUSPECT

1 It has been over a month since LuckyBicz left SWAT. How hard has it been to fill the legacy he has left in Suspects Heaven?

Yeah, of course, we did have a bit of difficulties while our 1st Generation Community Leader LuckyBicz left. But he did not leave us without notice. He did announce his retirement from }S|H{ Community and discussed with some of the 2nd Generation Community Leaders (}S|H{TiredLookInHisEyes, }S|H{SsssS, }S|H{DRD). As a community, we could handle very quickly after LuckyBicz left over because we are well organized community among Swat4 gamers.

Interview with {|4U|}JoJo

1 It has been over a month since {|4U|} formed and things are running smoothly. How do you intend to ensure the clan remains successful in the longer term (and not die like many ViP clans in the past year)?

Well, everything can happen but as founder for this clan, I will go very far for it. Personally I’m not a very experienced guy but I have awesome friends and managers in 4U that supports me. They are experienced and I believe together we can keep this clan alive. I just wrote a post in our forum that I wanna see more activity in our server instead of 2 guys going to another server just cuz ours is empty. When there are a few guys playing in 4U server other guys will come too.

Interview with {SoE}PimpMyGun

1 As a clan, SoE has gone into general inactiveness over the past year. Why do you think this is and do you think it will ever become as active as it used to be? How tempting has it been to switch to a more active clan?

SoE is inactive much longer, even since 1.1 RD Tournament 2010, when we did not move out from our group and people started to leave clan. I just woke up few old most loyal members to play 1.0 VIP Tournament 2011. Many people moved to other clans, when SoE started losing matches vs 1.1. You can find some ex.SoE`s in WM and ND. Many people just stopped playing SWAT 4 and now they play some more `fresh` titles. We are now a totally not attractive SWAT 4 team to join in, with empty server and inactive leaders in game. People that made most of work for SoE have not much time to spend on it now. Some more ambitious players moved to more ambitious teams, even I was leaving SoE several times, because I was angry for lack of discipline and will of change in SoE, but old love never gets rusty :) also only Maverick and Viper had most patience for my frills, some leaders like Olsen or tony_montana had not so much patience as they had :) anyway SoE is now pack of mates to laugh at forum or our shoutbox :) for me it is totally fine :)

About the future, we are going to become a community, we have some BF players (Battlefield, not Boyfriends :D), also some people are playing GTA online, so the plan is to expand to another games. Just stay tuned at www.sonsofearth.eu :P

Interview with «|US|»Narko

1 It has been almost two years since you were appointed as acting-leader in US. How has it been, what have been the highs and lows personally for you?

Being part of the leadership of «|US|» has been, and still is, great. I have been in this clan since I started playing Swat 4, and leading it with my two best friends in the game, is awesome. Of course there have been ups and downs, the worst parts being when good friends leave the clan to join other clans, or leaving because they quit playing the game. Naming the best parts is hard, since 95% of the time has been good. But I guess the best times has been playing and having fun with friends for thousands of hours. And of course, making new friends through the game as well.

Interview with FoX|Mig

1 The Rapid Deployment area in 1.0 has very little activity with only a few active servers. Why do you think this is the case?

Since I started playing SWAT4 (4 years ago?) RD was the mode with least servers. BS being first, maybe also thanks to the fact that it is first in the list when you filter servers. I'm not sure why was it like that back then. Today, new RD clans still emerge. But in this mode, there are few clans that really know how to play this mode (WM, KL and some BS 1.1 clans are also able to form strong RD teams for tournaments). Now imagine, a new clan appears and we, like carnivores immediately challenge them for war. Look their forums: me, Sabbath or Freddy/EmoPig are spamming everywhere :) The match usually ends 8:0, 6:0. Rarely new clan wins one round. It must be pretty disappointing for them so they loose motivation and change to BS or VIP, where you can find a number of clans of all quality levels - everyone can choose an appropriate opponent.