,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, An interview of PeXi (kuski of month on September 2002): '''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''' -= When did you start playing? =- It was in October of 1997 I think. I saw Across 1.0 as the game of the month in Mikrobitti Computer & Game magazine, looked at the pic, thought "man that looks crappy, how can it be the game of the month" and forgot it. Few days later I was at my friend's, and saw his big brother playing Expert System. At that moment I knew I wanted that game and so I copied it on a floppy disk. It took like 1-2 weeks to pass all levels. -= Ex-teams and why did you change teams? =- I haven't had any other teams, just Team Finlandia. We currently consist of four players: Fulgore, kuiva, DMC and me. Also T0rPeD0, Junnu and Rampage, all of them IRL friends of mine, have retired. Hm, what have we achieved? At least we've had 10 WRs on one table, dunno if even more. We won Motomen Team Cup :). Also our members have done well on Totals lists. DMC and Fulgore drove many WRs, me and kuiva some too. kuiva is also doing pretty well in the current WCup. He also mentioned something about ALP :) -= Current total? =- 47:11,95. See the next question for the compulsory explanation :) -= Top10 newest and olderst personal records? =- Hmm let's see :) Top10 oldest: 05 Feb 2000 - Quick Round 0:53,44 05 Feb 2000 - Headbanger 1:11,28 06 Feb 2000 - Freefall 0:35,38 08 Feb 2000 - Animal Farm 1:35,66 14 Feb 2000 - Curvaceous 0:35,75 09 Mar 2000 - Shelf Life 0:40,40 09 Mar 2000 - Apple Harvest 2:06,60 13 Mar 2000 - Zig Zag 1:59,62 14 Mar 2000 - Labyrinth 0:59,37 18 Mar 2000 - Bowling 1:16,98 Top10 newest: 27 Aug 2002 - Tag 0:23,54 26 Aug 2002 - Uphill Battle 0:23,07 26 Aug 2002 - Twin Peaks 0:20,12 26 Aug 2002 - Flat Track 0:17,04 24 Aug 2002 - Tunnel Terror 1:09,18 28 Apr 2001 - Haircut 0:47,74 19 Jan 2001 - Turnaround 0:42,05 19 Dec 2000 - He He 1:04,64 08 Dec 2000 - Bounce Back 0:54,87 01 Dec 2000 - Pipe 0:34,93 Somewhat inactive player there, eh?-) -= Across Career briefly. Any WRs?, World Cup I and II and so on.. =- First time I saw the WR list was in Nov-Dec 1997. I think I didn't have any internet connection back then, so I must have seen it at my friend T0rPeD0's place :) I remember how we wondered how those times could be so good, and we were amazed when we saw Long Haul WR replay there available to download. The time was 46 something I recall. After that first time it took like a month till I saw the table next time. Meanwhile I played a bit, and when I noticed the shortcut in Hill Legend and drove 23,75 I was sure I got the WR, and called T0rPeD0 to print the WR list and bring it to our swimming trainings. Well, the WR was over one second better :) I still should have the printed list somewhere :) In January 1998, I was driving Loop-de-Loop, my neighbour came to visit me, we got times of 24-25 and were sure we couldn't improve anymore. Then he left and a couple of hours later he phoned me and said he had driven a WR! :) He had beaten Mikko's time by few hundreths, his time was 21,87. After that, he still improved it down to 21,69 but soon Nikke drivo it better, 21,4 something. My first WR: I played Slippery Slope, I had something like 14,40 or 3x and suddenly got 14,28. (WR was 14,27 or 26 then) and after some höyling I got 14,24, you probably can imagine how happy I was :) I sent my WR to Csaba but continued playing and soon my top6 was full of 14,22:s. And that 14,22 was a world record for over a year. Other WRs by me: Warm Up 14,99 (first ever under 15 legally :) #352-#368) Uphill Battle 24,54 (didn't get to table) Serpents Tale 1:17,97 Precarious 29,12 (early Jul 1998) New Wave 1:40,94 (late Nov 1998) New Wave 1:39,80 (early Dec 1998) New Wave 1:38,84 (at least #337 till #367) Bounce Back 5x,xx? Bounce Back 56,21 (#346-#367) Fruit in the Den 1:26,93 Fruit in the Den 1:24,xx Fruit in the Den 1:14,xx (not sure if it got to table) Framework 54,68 Framework 47,23 (May 1998) The Turnaround 23,29 (at least #337) The Turnaround 23,21 (#338-#343) Probably I forgot some :) "PeXi's Action SuperCross Site" Someone just might have heard of it :) Ages ago I had my own homepage which just had one section for Across, I had current WR list and some minor stuff there. In April 1998 I dedicated my site to Across only. What shoot this site to so-called fame, was the total times competition concept (which was even linked from the official WR list) It was hellalot work, there was no stats.txt back then, so I had to dig the times manually from states and type them into an excel table. Updating took way too many hours, so I had to reduce the list to Top-20. Tumex then took the control of the rest. Limit of 1 000 visitors was broken in May 1998, after the site having been online about a month. 10 000 visitors limit broken in Nov 1998 20 000 visitors limit broken in Feb 1999 60 000 visitors limit broken in Sep 1999 200 000 visitors limit broken in Sep 2000 The counter was removed from the Moposite ages ago, it did manage to exeeded the limit of 400 000 visitors. Quite a lot I'd say. World Cups then. I didn't play those so much, surprise surprise. Arranging those was about enough :) Yet I have to thank Fild0 for the basic idea :) One night we were talking in IRC about something and he suddenly asked why don't I arrange a cup with several events and give some prizes to winners. He wasn't that serious though but a couple of days later I announced about the upcoming World Cup on my website :) The first cup was a great success so soon there was to be another cup, World Cup 2000 with full versions of Elasto Mania as prizes. -= Elma career? =- Mostly about managing the MopoSite :) This project got started soon after the release of Elasto Mania 1.0. I did renew my site elma-compatible, it was hellalot work but I was quite happy to the result. At the same time I realized though that I couldn't manage the site alone, it was growing too big. Surfing around the Across/Elma sites ended up to Abula's site which I thought had lots of potential and I got the thought of us merging our sites. -= Do you still like Across? Why/why not =- Sure. It's fun to casually start Across and rememeber the good ol' times :) -= How did you get Across/Elma? Was it your worst or the best mistake? =- Across 1.0 from a friend, 1.2 from Balazs (I had WR on Slippery Slope so he probably thought I had bought it or something :)) and Elasto Mania from Balazs directly, I distributed it to WCup2k winners and also organized a group registration for 15 non-credit-card-finns. -= Favourite internals / most irritating internals =- The favourite one must be Bounce Back nowadays. Back in Across times, also Fair Trial, Slippery Slope and Framework. Most irritating ones: The Steppes, Headbanger, Sink, Tricks Abound, Enigma -= Your own best WRs? =- Maybe Warm Up because it took like 5 minutes to drive it. My 2nd best time was 15,10 when I did 14,99 :) Or then Slippery Slope for it was a WR for over a year :) -= Best WRs in your opinion? =- I cannot tell if any WR is better than others. -= What's the limit of WR times? =- Quote from ASC: "Sky's the limit". Though you can always improve 0,01 secs :) -= Are there some kind of external contests you like? What kind of contests do you like? Are there any new competitions you would like to see? =- Battles, IRL battles, World Cups. -= Best lgr in your mind? What lgr do you use? =- I use default usually with low details. Across and Cemetery are nice too. -= Mention some good/bad things you have gotten with Across/elma? =- New friends, both IRL and web ones. I didn't know the MC guys (Abula, Tuska, Carju, Ultra) at all before these games. Learned english and swedish in practise. HTML, designing and other computer/web stuff. Also that improved organizing ability Abula mentioned. I guess playing still is somewhat relaxing too. Sometimes just the opposite though :) Other bad things could include the obvious waste of time and money. Frustration. -= What is the most frustrating thing you have faced in your career? =- I can't recall any. I guess there hasn't been anything that'd be clearly above others. Nor are the others too irritating for I can't remember any of those either :) Maybe some lost WR, deleted replay or some retarded visitor :) -= The biggest mistake of your Elma career? =- You tell me? -= Cheating, what feelings? Do you use level unlocker/nitro etc? =- Cheating ruins the scene. Come on, it's just a game. What do you achieve by cheating? Read Abula's interview for more. Level unlocker I use only if someone sends me a locked wcup suggestion lev. I don't use it for playing. Nor do I use nitro. I do need to merge some replays when checking WCup results and World Records though. -= Elma tuning, have you tested? Opinion about it? =- Haven't tested. Still it feels somewhat weird that graphics card could affect your gameplay. I don't like this thing but it doesn't seem to be a big deal. Fortunately :) -= Best kuskis and teams? What are the things you value in another kuski/team? I can't sort WRs according to whether one is better than other, nor can I sort kuskis. What I prefer though, is helping and advancing the scene some way. And you who have, do know it. -= Your best achievements? =- If about the scene: my old site, my WRs in Across, the Moposite. -= Do you do any other neat finger-related stuff like playing violin, repairing watches, pick pocketing etc? =- I've been playing the piano for 10-11 years now. Also some keyboards and synths nowadays. Yet I have a score of about 16 000 000 kills in The Kill Everyone Project of which I'm quite retired of though :) -= How much did you play in your sickest period? How much these days? =- The "best" day must have been when I did that 24h total thingie. Besides that, I don't think I've ever played over 40 hours in a month. These days I play about 1-8 hours per month maybe :) -= Have you had Elma dreams? =- Don't think so. Correct me if I'm wrong :) -= Strengths and weaknesses as a player? What moves you like/dislike? =- I don't think I have any specific strengths. The number one weakness is the lack of ability of höyling and willing to play :) Above all, I dislike all bouncing stuff. -= Tips for average players? =- Quit. No you can't, sorry. Okey, seriously, if you want to improve, just play more and try to ape better players :P -= Best memories with elma? =- Satisfaction and joy of getting the first WR of my own, across and elma meetings, style inventing, old irl battles :) -= First time at #across? =- In 1998. I was the founder of the channel, with blue. -= Best Elma friends? =- Abula, kuiva, Toble. Also Tuska, Carju and Ultra. -= Thoughts about Elma meetings? =- Thumbs up :) -= What do YOU think should be improved in an eventual new version of elma? =- More statistics, better protection against cheating. -= Do you have a life when playing elma? Your real life. Do you have it (school/work, other interests etc)? =- When playing elma, probably nope. I very seldom play elma though, guess I do have a life outside of it then :) The most of my time I spend with my beloved one, other friends, the piano, my Korg N264 keyboard and working as a part- time ice cream van driver. I idle some time at the university when there's nothing else to do :) -= How about battles? =- I've #battled once. I became 2nd I think, I made better time like 20 seconds after the deadline though :) Yeap it was somewhat fun, so when I'm extremely bored, I might try it again. IRL battles are nice too, kismas etc. -= You've got some negative feedback about playing elma from your friends? =- Not actually. Most of my friends even somewhat liked the games. -= What games do you like beside Elma? =- Skijump games, Simcities, Traffic Giant, many racing games. I guess I've spent a three-digit number of euros to Sega Rally 2 :) -= Did you buy Elma? Why not? =- Didn't, because I got it for free from Balazs. Yet I organized that group registration which was worth of about US $150 so I think free elma was the salary for me for all I have done :) Disagree if you want :) -= Have you thought about if you could stop playing Elma soon, or anytime? =- I have about stopped playing, I can't ever completely stop it, because of our site. Quitting then, it's 99% impossible. Adapting Abula: If I wanted to quit, I should delete 10% of computer stuff, stop ircing and meeting Abula. -= What gets you still playing Elma =- My job as updater of the Moposite. It still is somewhat fun though to just play a bit now and then. -= Are you at the top of your career now? If not, when? =- If it's about my career as a player, it was some time in 1998-1999. My so-called career as a kuski and as the other main updater of the Moposite haven't faded out yet though :) Hard to say whether I'm at the top or not :) -= Forecast the future of Elma. How the scene will be in five years? =- I wouldn't like to forecast anything for I'd be wrong anyway :) Hopefully the scene keeps on growing and cheating won't ruin it. -= Was it a surprise to be voted for the kuski of month? If it was who should have won in your opinion and why? =- No comment :) -= Mopolauta, thoughts? =- Nice. Good especially for people that don't/can't come to IRC. I agree that I should visit it more often though :) -= Opinions about Elma Crime, MUe's animations and stuff like that. =- They're just astonishing :) Honestly, acts of this kind keep the scene rich and alive. We want more! -= You are the updater of Moposite page. How it's feeling? =- I am responsible of something "important" :) -= What's your favorite Elma website (not moposite)? =- Not any specific one. I liked ASC's and EMT's team sites back in Across days. Also our american fellow, Acrosser's site was a good source then. -= Your relation to OLP? =- As the updater of the OLP records I mainly hate it. Just kidding :) -= Why that nick? =- Would the old Pekka_T be better then eh?-) And PeXi was suggested by JJSaari. I usually use just px nowadays though. Yea, contortions of my forename. About everyone call me pexi or px nowadays. Maybe I should officially change Pekka to px, huh?-) -= Write something about the game, fellow kuskis, moposite, #across, etc =- Read above :) - PeXi / px, 10 November 2002