Polska G7-organisationen PGS Gaming som var ett utav de första "stora" att plocka in ett CoD4-lag (läs mer här) har ganska snabbt fått märka att livet inte är så enkelt utan CoD-rutin. Hittills har laget inte gjort så mycket annat än att misslyckas och man kan väl ganska säkert säga att de inte tagits emot med öppna armar av communityn som från dag 1 tyckte det var fel att satsa på "CoD-nonames" för en sån etablerad organisation.

Den tyska community-sidan dSLASH har ordnat en intervju med PGS där man tar upp hur den här första tiden har varit med laget. De svarar även på just den kritik som de fått och i den ganska långa intervjun får vi reda på både det ena och andra. Kort sammanfattat kan väl sägas att de slår ifrån sig ganska så bra och att de fortsatt satsar hårt på att nå toppen inom CoD4.

Först ut att bli intervuad var managern för PGS, Jakub "JoeBlack" Paluch:
"Q: Hello Jakub, please introduce yourself to the readers
A: Hi. My name is Jakub Paluch known in the virtual world as JoeBlack. I'm studying law at Wroclaws University and I'm also Communication Manager in PGS Gaming. I appeared in PGS four years ago so I'm with the organization nearly from the beginning. I saw birth of PGS and in some way I helped when it was growing. Now I'm still part of it and I'm not planing to change it. What's more, I'm strongly connected with Warcraft III scene. I was a manager of Wc3 team in Team Pentagram and nowadays I'm referee at many Polish tournaments. I try to support electronic sports in Poland as hard as I can.

Q: Can you tell us something about how PGS decided to pick up a call of duty 4 team? as one of the first real big clans to take cod4 in, you are some kind of shining signal example. do you see much potential in the game? will other teams like MYM or sk follow the trend in your opinion?
A: We were talking with zoom in the past about Quake III division. We didn't achieve agreement because of so many strange things going on Q3 scene. However, as soon as we have found out about zooms team in Call of Duty 4 we started to think about a new team in our organization. We where given bios of all squad members. Players who formed the team weren't unknown. They played games like Q3, AA or earlier parts of CoD on professional level. You can find lists of their achievements at our web site. And finally we decided to take them on the board.

The game, in my opinion, is brilliant. Extremely dynamic fight between two teams. It's easy to notice that Activision programmers took many things from the most popular esport titles. There are few things missing or needs to be improved but still the game has enormous potential. When you start playing you can't stop. I was sure that I won't find a game forcing me to play. Call of Duty 4 did.

The Future of CoD4 scene depends mainly on Activision. New patches made with help of professional gamers should make CoD 4 even better then it is now. As I said there is enormous potential in this game. Now it has to be used properly. I'm not afraid to say that CoD4 is the the first good game from a long time. What's more, we need new titles because we are still playing the same games. Counter-Strike, Warcraft, Starcraft, Need for Speed, Fifa all the time. If people keep on playing CoD we will have big tournaments with great prize pot. In Poland we already have CoD4 professional league ? Heyah Logitech Cybersport.

Q: Did you play call of duty 4 yourself and do you see any advantages compared to the direct rival "counterstrike"? will cod4 make counterstrike fade away from the throne of teamshooter-games slowly?
A: I think that the whole competition between CoD and Cs is strange. There are many players connected with Countetr-Strike for years and I don't think they will change the platform just like that. Maybe those who didn't have any achievements will but not pros. In Poland, for example, many CoD players, earlier played games like ET: Quake Wars, AA etc.. But what is unbelievable I also met my friends from Wc3 scene playing.

There will be the same situation when Blizzard will release Star craft 2. I'm curious if all programmers who sacrificed their life to Starcraft will switch to SC2 without problems and any doubts. Maybe we will be watching Starcraft and Starcraft2 matches at the same time?

Counter-Strike still is the most popular game ever. All the time we hear people saying that end of CS is close. And what we see? CS is number one without any doubts. Valve itself tried to make some new CS-like titles (CS:S CS:CZ) but the weren't popular. Maybe because of that CS players will try to find something new.

I hope that Call of Duty will become as popular as Counter-Strike. Confrontation of this title is unavoidable. Both have nearly the same rules. I don't know how CoD will look as a tournament game, but it's worth checking. If I could I would play all days but I have so many activities each day that it's impossible.

Q: What does PGS expect from the team and wish for the time of call of duty 4?
A: Of course I wish them to became the best in Poland, then the best in Europe and in the end the best in the World. It's like in real sport. If you don't believe in yourself and your capabilities you won't achieve anything. You have to step by step achieve your goals. You have to believe, that you are able to win with better than you. Hard work and proper attitude is what you need to become successful.

If you asked someone from Poland about this team you would hear laugh. People think that it is the biggest mistake we have ever made. Our new team is stranger to the other Polish CoD teams because it appeared from nowhere. There is no love between PGS CoD4 players and other teams in our country.

Some anonymous people send screens with score from pcw of our team, to show us how weak they are. But nearly always it's like score after first quarter on the easier side. We had many situations like this. We will show what we can in official tournaments. We have to remember that we play under big pressure. After parting ways with CS we have more haters than ever. Only few people still support us. I would like to thanks all our staff members for their hard work.

I'm really sad that no matter what we do (winning, losing, making charity) there are always people who will flame us. For weeks we are under attack of pseudo media and teams which names won't tell you anything. Using not confirmed informations and lieing they create false image of PGS among young people in Poland. We wont fight with them or deny gossips. We will just show them that they are wrong.

Q: Do you think cod4 has a realistic chance to get picked for the WCG 2008 in cologne/germany?
A: I don't know the how the games are picked exactly because I don't believe it's only the pool at WCG site. Some time ago we were shown the list of ESWC games. CoD4 isn't there. However, if we notice that tournament games are produced by EA, Blizzard and Microsoft and add the fact that Activision is connected with Blizzard, CoD4 has chance to became WCG game. Activison game, Tony Hawk's, has been played on World Cyber Games last year so the company has some experience.

From the list of games, apart from CS, CoD4 has the biggest chance. The only danger, in my opinion, is Unreal, which was game of WCG between 2001-2004, and maybe Halo 3, played at WCG in years 2003-2005 and which is like a cult in US."

Nästa att bli intervjuad var spelaren, Michal "zoom" Broniewski:
"Q: Zoom, please introduce yourself and/or your team to the readers.
A: Hi. My name is Michal Broniewski and I live in southern part of Poland in city called Gliwice. I'm studying pedagogics and I'm big football fan. If you would like to check our achievements you should visit the team section at our web site www.pgs-gaming.pl.

Q: What are your experiences with the call of duty series. have you played it ever since or did u switch to cod4 from another game since a lot of players did not hear from the actual PGS team before.
A: I wish CoD4 will become so popular as Quake III or Counter-Strike. To make my dreams come true the scene needs sponsors and big tournaments like ESWC, which will help to increase popularity of the latest Infinity Ward child. From our team only huron played in previous parts of CoD, rest of us played Q3 or Americas Army like jzk.

Q: What do you expect from cod4, regarding competitions and chances to grow and perhaps become more successful than counterstrike.
A: Hmm, I'd like to have as much pleasure playing CoD4 as I had playing Q3. I also hope that the scene will become as big as the Quake3 one. Whats more, I wish that there will be many tournaments and that organizations like ESWC will become interested in Call of Duty. Although I don't think that CoD will become more popular than Counter-Strike. Cs has 'something' that forces people to still play it.

Q: do you think cod4 has a realistic chance to get picked for the WCG 2008 in cologne/germany?
A: If the game creators will take care of their child, CoD has big chances to become WCG game.

Q: Please tell us a bit about your attitude towards the different set of rules that are used. there has been quite some rumors about changing them during the last weeks. As it seems now settings without perks have been more dominant. do you prefer perks on/off?
A: It's hard to say if the game is better with perks or without them. In fact it was created with perks so it means something. I think there should be overal rules for all competitions.

Q: Is the cod-scene in poland growing as fast as in the other countries? there have been several good teams in cod1/2 in poland, but the amount of talented teams was not to compare with netherlands, germany, uk. will the polish scene be strong in call of duty 4?
A: I don't want to talk about the Polish scene. Whats more I don't want to have anything in common with it. PGS will be playing more 'abroad' than on our backyard.

Q: Since you have a strong organization behind you now, what are your plans for the future. any lans already booked, or are you guys still preparing for the "great assault" on leagues and tournaments?
A: I'd like to thank PGSPokerStrategy.com for support and giving us a chance. So far we practice a lot, because we want to catch up with top teams as soon as possible. If there are any lans in future you will probably see us there."

Text of wall.. men intressant läsning för den som är intresserad av e-Sport tycker jag..

Relaterat:
PGS.pokerstrategy.com
#pgs.cod4 @ QNet.