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Lessons from the Master
#1
Gemakk needs no introduction.

Sure, there are some new players out there who have not witnessed his wrath, and fewer yet who are unaware of his longstanding reputation. The rest of us know. The rest of us remember. The rest of us were mercilessly beaten... and beaten... and beaten... for months by the player that is simply known as The Best.

I chose to conduct this week's discussion in my study. If there is somone who's game we would all like to study, it is Gemakk. It goes without saying, since he has all-but-left the game, that his dominance is not what it once was. As a player today he is in the upper average of the better players. We discussed his reputation and how it developed. Where is he now? What other games is he playing? How does he handle hauling around the reputation he has earned, while catching occasional and casual games? Settle in, enjoy and read on to find out.

Beastie: Gemakk, you have quite a reputation in the Ricochet world. Some say you sold your soul. Is this true?
Gemakk: I guess I could say I had a reputation in the Ricochet world. So much time has passed since I stopped playing Ricochet full-time...somewhere near 7 months now. As for my sold so- I mean about people thinking I sold my soul....let's just say they're nice and toasty someplace right now... :P

You heard it here first!

Beastie: But no, seriously. Are you the best the game has ever seen? People talk and they tell me you are.
Gemakk: To me, there's always been debate in any given game or sport in the world on who's the best. People are good at different kinds of things and some players are simply better than others due to one's advantage exploiting the other's disadvantage, so then you end up getting this sort of "I beat Joe! But Joe beats Mark and Mark beats me". I guess then that would make me somewhat of a kind of player who generally did well against most other players...and I'm talking most since I know of some players who simply own me in nearly all circumstances...say Davion for example. Also because of the fact that I played quite a lot during my prime time in Ricochet, would mean that I played against a lot of people and sometimes had a little advantage over others, causing me to seem to be extremely good at Ricochet.

Beastie: How does your reputation affect your play today? Do you find yourself using aliases?
Gemakk: Oh boy, it gets quite complicated when reputation is put into the situation. I noticed that after some months of playing, my standards were far too much above normal. I could barely stand losing to anybody, whatsoever. But then again, I was also given that sort of average. I had many people beat me and then say, "OMG!!!!! I BEAT GEMAKKK!!!!!!".
Well, after having a lot of people doing that, it sort of ticked me off and generally caused me to be nervous when playing anybody who has skill.
As for aliases, I never used them just because I was too nervous about using my reputable name. I happened to be an admin for two servers, KAH and APS. During those times, I would occasionally pop in using a fake name to look for trouble-makers. And I found out that after I play somebody I know and then I reveal myself, they also tended to become nervous and then made more mistakes. So, using my usual name would bring more positive effects than negative actually. As for my reputation today, I would say I'm just an "Old schooler" who appears every so often. I would usually go into the server and then have somebody ask me, "Are you really Gemakk? I heard you're the best." Being gone for 7 months and having seen how tons of players have improved in incredible amounts, performance anxiety really gets to me.

Beastie: You mentioned Davion as a guy that gave you some stiff competition. Let's leave the past alone for a second. Tell me who in today's game gives you the most grief.
Gemakk: Oh...well if not Davion, then RWS would be my vote. ^_^ His style kills anybody who likes to fly a lot (Me).

A veteran of precision and skill, Gemakk is a young man of 16 from Vancouver, Canada. It is common knowledge that he was a key member of the now famous KIA clan.

Beastie: Let's talk of clans for a bit. Jabba and I discussed a pattern last week. It seems the best players join clans and leave the game shortly after. Do they in fact get bored? Did you?
Gemakk: There were three causes that made me leave Ricochet. First, I was involved in another Team Fortress clan, other than KAH, called PFM. I realized that the clan required a large amount of dedication and effort, so I started to play TFC instead of Ricochet whenever I had free time. The second reason was that Ricochet did actually start to become boring. I found myself not wanting to wait for the rounds to end - my rounds are always lightning fast for some reason - and Ricochet had started to become a bit repetitive for me.
The third reason and the final draw was Tibia. 2 years and 7 months ago, I had started playing Tibia, an online RPG. I played well for about a year and then quit, because I didn't like getting killed by other players in the game. 7 months ago, Tibia released a new server - one that did not allow players to kill each other - and so, I was immediately drawn back into Tibia. You know how much effort needs to be put into Online RPGs...especially ones where everybody starts from scratch, so...I left Ricochet.

Gemakk makes mention of a game I will ask him to talk more about in detail later.

Beastie: KIA of yesterday (with Knightmare) vs RiP today (with Knightmare) in a corn-dog eating contest. Who takes it home?
Gemakk: I'd say RiP of today - the skill in Ricochet has dramatically increased since the KIA, KAH and APS times.

Gemakk read through my subtle pisod. He gave me a straight answer to a hidden question. Admirable!

Beastie: You were in your hay-day as the patch was released, bringing a large influx of new players. Can new, clumsy, inexperienced players add to the boredom phenomenon? Could a new patch hurt the game instead of help it?
Gemakk: Actually, I was part of the influx of new players. I was that new, clumsy, inexperienced player who jumped in straight lines and shot only when my feet were both on the ground. But as for the question on hand, yes, new players definitely bug those who just want to play. Don't you just hate getting stuck in the tournament round cycle that pits you against the same new player again and again every other round? And you have got to hate those players who play for 3 minutes, talk about his incredible skill in CS, about how he could own us all in CS and then promptly leave after swearing at us. Well, at least those ones leave when we ask them to...

We all love those guys! :angry:

Beastie: This RPG you brought up earlier, I understand you recently acheived somewhat of a milestone there. Please tell me about that. Also about the game its self.
Gemakk: You must be talking about Tibia - www.tibia.org (Site might not be working at the moment) and my recent accomplishment of gaining level 100 - tibia.gamigo.de/forum/showthread.php?s=&threadid=24442
Tibia is an Online RPG created in Germany. It's about...6 years old and although the graphics are not as good as, say Neverwinter Nights or EverQuest, it's a simple, addictive game that you'll enjoy once you get into it. It's in a medieval setting with Dragons and Warlocks. There are many different servers to choose from, including some American servers and servers that don't allow players to harm each other, like the one I play on, Secura.

Beastie: Where did you learn about the game and where can others? Is it something I need to pay for and if so how much? What type of connection do I need?
Gemakk: I learned of Tibia from an old friend...we went back a long time, but he quit Tibia. We both used to play an online game called Silencer and then after it stopped beta testing and stopped production, we muddled around trying to find another online game and stumbled upon Tibia.
Tibia is a free game, completely free and you don't need a good computer to run it, but there are such things called "Premium Accounts", in which you pay money to obtain extra features in the game, such as new spells, new hunting grounds, new vocations and such. But playing as a "Free Account", which the majority of people do, doesn't have too much of an effect on you..you would just have less opportunity to do things.
As for connection, Tibia was designed specifically to be modem-user friendly. Although the original servers are based in Germany, there are many American servers available. And even though you choose a German server, you wouldn't notice much lag at all, it barely affects Tibia. I play on Secura, which has its server in Germany and I'm fine...maybe I'm just used to it :P

Beastie: Gemakk, you are obviously very good at learning and mastering games. Are you a perfectionist? Does this carry over into any offline or even off-computer games? Sports?
Gemakk: Strangely enough, I tend to become quite good at whatever game I choose to play. It's either that or I only play games that I'm good at :D
I play TFC and it's a very fun game to master. In Tibia, when I quit, I spent the next few months and years planning on what I would do if a non-player vs player world came out. Ricochet was simply quite easy to master...I took some aiming and movement rules over from TFC. I guess I would be a perfectionist B) Oh, and I suck at sports.

Beastie: Y2K? No... really the name. Why are there two K's and where did the name come from?
Gemakk:I think I get that question from every single person I meet, one day or another: "What does Gemakk mean?" "Where did it come from?"
Basically, I had many old names before Gemakk, but they couldn't be used everywhere. Accolade, Lord Spoon, they all went down the drain. So then, one day, with Google in front of me, I decided that I wanted the first part of my name to be "Gem". I was considering making my name simply "Gem" but then it would be quite common. So then my brother suggested the double K since he always wanted to create a name that has a double K....so then...Gemakk was born. I looked up Gemakk on Google and got no results.(although if you look it up now, gemakk seems to be a word in some European language...at least two of them. I did some research and found out that Gemak means "Easy" in some language and "simply" in another) That was my new name and I have been using it for everything. So far, Gemakk has not been already taken for a single thing that I have signed up for, or in a game so I'm happy with it.


Humble, yet determined. Young, but accomplished. Smart and learning. This is Gemakk, your Ricochet all time best.


Look for next week's when I will have another in the many names. A hint? Never.
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#2
*re-posting for the benefit of newer players*

please see date of original post for accurate time frame.
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