,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, An interview of MP (Kuski of Month on August 2003): ''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''' *Introduction* This took quite awhile to get this interview, that's why I didn't do this before. It would've been much nicer to write it back then. I promised to some guys (at least ramone) that I'm going to write the longiest interview yet, now I'm bit dropped out of the scene and don't have that much energy left but I still try to do my best ;) Watch out for boring lifestories mixed with confusing typos. I think I have a quite good picture of my whole elma (and across) playing career but many of the timelines might be messed up. ..and don't take everything too seriously ----------------- -= When did you start playing? =- First impression in the beginning of 1998, 2001 got stuck with the scene. -= Ex-teams and why did you change teams? =- None, I don't change teams -= Current total? =- Sunday, 17 October 2004 Records #59 - at 18:49 EET by Abula 41. MP [CF] 40:55,20 26 August 2002 -= Top5 newest and oldest personal records? =- (check the last modified times of your replays) Can it be any newer than this?: 3. Twin Peaks 18,51 15.03.03 32. Steep Corner 44,50 25.08.02 29. Headbanger 49,69 25.08.02 6. Long Haulikko 33,78 22.08.02 9. Tunner Terror 1:04,53 22.08.02 Hell no have I ever even played these?: 48. Downhill 51,10 6.01.02 17. Labyrintti 58,73 10.01.02 25. Precarious 25,39 11.01.02 23. Quick Round 49,63 18.01.02 10. Teh Steppiouz 13,75 25.01.02 -= Across Career briefly. Any WRs?, World Cup I and II and so on.. =- Briefly? Ok here you go: I remember I was at sixth grade and had just got computer when my classmate told about this cool mopogame called Action Supercross. He recommended that I should take it too (from a pc gamemag cd). It was a shareware version with buggy graphics and under 20levels. It was quite challenging at first to finish the levels, especially loop-de-loop end where my friend had problems also. It didn't take long to learn the very basics though. After completing the all the levels it was still fun for awhile f.ex to do all kinds of "tricks", I saved recs like "cool" "COOOL" "best" "onewheel" ...well you get the picture. Soon it got boring though and I wanted more levels, one day I found the whole version of the game and to my surprise it had also better graphics and sound, wow! Bit my bit I completed more and more levels but then came zig-zag. It was just too hard for me so I finally quitted and forgot whole Across. Lot later (<1year) my friend Maku also took the game after I had suggested to try it out. It didn't take long until he was at zig-zag also and he finished it! This got me back to play again. We had small competition who is the first to complete the levels. It was fun all the way to Apple Harvest, I struggled it through but to our disappointment it was the last one. We then made few sucky levels of our own (and thougt they were great) but it wasn't that exiting to play those because you knew what's coming. The real breaktrough of my career, which got me really hooked, was the point when I found dozens of levels from various internet sites. I had thougt the real levels (internals) were good but how wrong I was, these had lots of completely new tricks like auto-starts and invisibility! After that I started immediately to make my own levels and oh boy those were so great. Of course one principle was the longer the better. So in a nutsell: all my across levels were damn long and packed with all kinds of special trick parts. How did this affect my future career? Well I got used to long and challenging levels: my skill rose tremendously much at the same time. And maybe this has had affect that I even today prefer that kind of levels more compared to short höylä ones. All the time I spent with Across I had no clue of the active höyling scene going on. I didn't even know people played to get good times, how boring is that hah? So that should be the answer for the questions in the topic. My biggest fetish fantasy was to get my own levels for others to download. I always kept in mind how the other players would react when playing my levels so I had to do some signs like "slow" "fast" "no gas" etc, everybody likes those right? But soon all my dreams were crashed when... -= Elma career? =- ...Elma came! One day when I surfed in inet I saw there was a new version of the game. Of course I immediately tried it but whaaat, 01 Warm Up? Same levels hellooo? What on earth is the maker of the game smoking. Now I had big trouble choosing which of these versions should I make levels to. Elma had different physics and I wasn't that used to them so I made few more levels to across but then I accepted the fact that soon no one plays it anymore. I tried to modify my best across levels to elma shape but it didn't work out. I didn't bother to start all new levels series. Every now and then I completed some more internals and at least there were few new ones to keep me going on. More levels were needed though and the answer was the official site, or was it? I took few packs and noticed they're the same levels I had played on Across, what a letdown. Nobody's making levels for the new version -> ok this is getting bored -> quit. What I didn't know was that the levels I took were acpacks (meant for across), not empacks. One day when I had almost forgotten the whole game my friend Mikki told me about some levels he had taken. He told about all the cool stuff (like a tree which was solid) and I was just amazed. Before that I hadn't understood the whole potential of elma conserning these "tricks" which you can do with the editor. Soon I had my old levmaking pace going on and Blade01 was the first masterpiece ;) At this point I also had to invent a nick, because I had seen that many other people used the "by xxxx" in the end. If you have played the first Blade levels you can easily see I was overexited about gravity. Otherwise the style was about the same as in my across levels, except the invisibility and auto-starts which had gotten boring. After Blade03 also gravity was almost completely dropped out. I also continued to download all the new empacks which were found in the official site. In the bottom of the page was a link to moposite's top10pack section and this was one of the first moments I realised people played levels also to get good times in them. At the moment NPhobiaz and dz were completely dominating the top10pack tables and of course I thougt they were simply the best players around. Bit by bit I started to browse the other parts of moposite also, soon I found total times table and took the target times list. According to target times I was a beginner!? No way, I am sure better than that ...so that was the first time I started playing internals höyling wise. I found the replay section (and was amazed of course) and quite easily dropped my tt to 49.45 (made to the top100 list, cool to have own nick there!). When I had done enough levels I finally fulfilled my dream and sent them the official packs, always two of each series to one pack (Blade, 2hard, Timex, Sword). I was eager to see how many of them would make to the top10 (I think dz was the one who rated them). But to my disappointment Moposite closed it's doors for whole summer. After the long and painful break it finally came back online and I was happy to see many of my levels in the top10pack list (even though few good ones were missing, doh). To keep you track the year is 2001 and summer just ended. I noticed #across and after some struggles with irc servers I finally made it there. Unlike almost all the other players (at least what I've read from the interviews) I wasn't impressed about all the famous kuskis there, didn't know actually almost any of them. In fact it was almost the opposite and it was a big letdown nobody knew my levels. I had already had high hopes that everybody are like "MP! Aren't you to one who has done all those outstanding levels!?!". I think it didn't take even one week when I had got the picture what is "the thing" in elma, best timz and ..TT! So my quest for rulze tt begun. As I started serious internal playing I found out that they are much more than eye can see. In contrast OLP was terrible and this led me to an idea -> completely new internal style levelpack with lots of tricky shortcuts! I mailed my idea to Abula and asked if it could be possible to get my coming set of levels to moposite. Unfortunately there were already plans similar to this, a guy called BarTek was hired for the job. I had already done few levels which I thougt were great and didn't wanna quit. My only choice was to make a levelsite of my own, but the question was could it be popular without the support of Moposite? I had extremely active period at the time. The list of things I did goes something like this: dropping tt, making new levelpack called ALP, planning website (started from point 0, thanks to the ones who helped), and höyled top10packs. Besides all these I also played two cups, SEC and mitik. As a result my playing skills started really to flourish ;) At the beginning of 2002 my total had dropped from 49 to 42 and I was even mentioned in front page wow! During the time I also started to know more and more fellow kuskis. Miguel was the first guy who begun talking with me. I had admired Ville_Js levels and he had just done a site of his own. So that got me into a conclusion that maybe we should combine our forces. After some discussions he was with my project but too bad his webpage skills were almost as bad as mine, fak! Ville told psy had helped him with some things, so I went to talk to him too. That way I got to know him too. Finally, summer 2002, Mopo Corner was finished. I started big advertisement campaing about ALPs and hoped to get all the best players to play them. I am very persistent in these kind of things and I didn't want all the big efforts to just fly away. So I convinced few players to give it a try. Soon there started to be more and more players and excellent records were driven. King Kon tests had a bit slower start but nowdays there are also nice amount of different players. Playing wise I was quite unactive after my I had driven total under 42min. Just once I had got in touch with mopobattles (even won one yey) Abu stopped arranging them. Actually whole moposite was pretty unactive but after summer the reason to that was clear: it had a major upgrade. There were new brilliant record lists and so on. This forced me to play tt once again, which was a stupid thing to do :P. I decided to drive under 41min and to tell you the truth it wasn't that fun. It just doesn't fit me to höyl same old levels again and again. So I got it under but haven't touched internals after that, just few tries here and there (FEM04 etc). Not long after that wcup4 started, but more about that later. After the cup was over I was absolutely fed up with elma. I thougt that I'd never play this game seriously anymore and in a way it has been like that. I've mainly driven some external contests and just random levels. One coalz moment was helding King Cup with Ville_J, I saw there is a question about it later on so let's leave this for that. So here was my elma career in a nutshell. I pity the ones who read it completely ;) -= Do you still like Across? Why/why not =- I still have Across on my computer for memories sake but I don't "like" it that way. It's unsmooth, especially in turnings, and the external lev ground texture is ugly ;( -= How did you get Across/Elma? Was it your worst mistake? or the best? =- As I told in the earlier question, my classmate got me inspired to try Across. We both ordered a finnish game magazine called Pelit and AC-shareware version was in the Pelipakki CD-rom which was free gift-away when ordering the mag. It was no way my worst mistake, but not the best either. I think it's been more positive in overall. -= Favourite internals / most irritating internals =- I could be boring and say "I don't like any of them" but let's analyze every internal seperately to see what I feel about them: 1. Warm "Ball Buster" Up Most legendary internal? I don't know about that but I've never liked it, it's just meant for warmping up ok. Good lev to learn gasing and turning, Karlis still practising? 2. Flat "Ball Buster" Track (pornolize, you did it again) This might be even more boring. Once I had with my friend Maku a small competition in this, but then I found the moporecs and cheated my way to killer timz, under 18 at least! I've never tried the new style and my record is still almost under 17, you can't beat that can you? 3. Twin "Admiral Browning" Peaks I think I found the awesome shortcut myself, dropping straight to the apple below! This is the latest level where I have driven my personal best, that was when I tested the new style which Abula invented. No special thougts otherwise. 4. Over and Under Even if I drive the most perfect ride in this one it's still over 31. When playing for tt I few times wondered how even the noobest noobs have better than me, must play more I guess ..no no headbang again. Ok this sucks 5. Uphill "Mount" Battle This was also annoyng, I had to watch replays over and over again how it was possible to make it smooth jump (and watch out for headbang) to the middlepart. It was frustating when you "couldn't" affect the result, just had to hope for the best. Brutal style I've never tried. Few players that comes to my mind from this lev: mengerle (impossible timz with old style? can't be..), ZeiZei (he was first to make the brutal if I remember right) and Zweq (fav lev or something and has höyled it like hell) 6. Long "Motherfucker" Haul Seems like pornolize doesn't like this lev, but I don't think it's that bad. I don't remember any real pain this lev has caused, or maybe it is too terrible so my brain has swept it away? Anyway, this is the lev to fail in first 6 internals contest, ye that's cool ..to fail in this one. 7. Hi "The-Champ" Flyer OMG You NEeD TEH superDup3r tuUN3 t0 mAek teah baoucne, You get WRz BOUnce wiz dat VSYnx, Youz fAelz not SYNKRONAISED! Cut the crap, just play until you make the bounce and get a decent time or don't play at all, stupid bounces I'd say. 8. Tag Yay, first new level in elma. It was cool the first moment I saw it, not anymore ..not at all 9. Tunnel "Superdick" Terror I've never been that good in this one even though it's more like a level of my type, but I like it. There is so many different styles and tricks that you really must be amazed how lucky the levmaker has been putting the polygons just to the right places. I've only seen recs of the latest tricks, the style I höyled was mainly copied from pajen's rec ..and the middle part was damn hard with all the spinning ;/ 10. The "Ballbuffer" Screws I kinda compare this to freefall. Both have major shortcuts which had to be done when I started to play for tt. I asked people in #across which of them was easier and I ender up makin ff first. Getting over the pole is one of the "oh I never thought that could be possible" tricks. ..I presume mr has höyled this a few hours 11. Gravity "Big Cock" Ride First gravi level wow wicked apelz. I think there isn't anything special in this one, it just seems like it's made in five minutes. 12. Fucks in the Sky This is one of the levels which was cheated with the modified nitro patch. Moposite had a rec of it and it had a different style but the head went trough the ground. Later when I was in the same team with Weird AAL (Nostrada) he had tried to style some more and told to me it's possible to do without cheats. He said something like "now you can a drive a wr in it" (he had one year ban going on) but I was like blaa. Today everybody are höyling with that style and making sickor times. 13. Hill "Big Cock" Legend I haven't played this really much, only made the over-the-pole trick few times to get a decent time. 14. Loop-de-Loop I can't understand how I wasn't able to finish this the first time I started playing. The end was just too problematic. Once I completed this I saved a rec of course, it's over 2min long and I still have it hehe. Years later I was still quite bad in this one but with the help of moporecs it was cool to finally get under 20s and 19s. 15. Deep throats Tale Old style (the honest way): I never liked the turning points in the platform section, the points where you had to get the other wheel at the "side" of the polygon. Especially the second turn was annoyng (near the start part). This is quite messed up level in a way and varies from the most typical internals (talking about the old ones, across) New style: magicman was very close to be the first to make it, the bounce to the upper level. He always sent to me the latest "OMFG!" recs but never made it the whole way. Soon after that Zweq got the WR with a great under 1min time but he bounced to the lower level. Finally t0r did what magiskamannen had struggled with. The bounce is still one of the hardest tricks, at least what I've heard. 16. New "Cuntcleaner" Wave One of BarTek's fav levels, at least it has been. There is few nice and challening tricks to make, but the end part is really sucky made ...plain flat which you have to drive to both ways? Come on more it's like a desperate try to make a level longer. 17. Labyrinth There's something about this that I don't like, maybe because I'm quite bad in it (feels like I'm bad in every internals when I think of it). The bounce in the end must be really annoyng, but fortunately I don't have to force myself to try it ..aah yeah that's good 18. Spiral sUPerFUN High speeeeeeeeed weehee feels like rollercoaster omg the g-forces push my g-spot and makes me g-um to my g-lass. I remember my two classmates (before I had my first touch with across) had this one as their fav lev, in other words I mean ..aa just take a guess. 19. Turnaround HI, turnaround and dance ...dance dance dance and shake that booty yeyee. Blah why did I even start making these stupid explanations of each level, nothing to say about really I just force myself. Cool underground tunnelz in elma!1 20. Upside "Dripper Dick" Down This is better than gravity ride. The start spinning is the only worse part. I don't know too much about the WR history but at least Joni's Upside Down WR belongs to the most famous ones. He had the record for ages. Tisk also had his first and only WR in this one, so spinning flower was next to this level the first time I looked at the WR table. I never thougt under 1min could be possible. 21. Hangman Zyntifox, that is the first word that pops to my mind. , is the second one 22. Slalom No opinion about the level itself, but the let me tell you a short story. There were two man's, mAgIc and Mad. They were friends. Mad had invented something really cool and showed it to mAgCi. maGiC immediately started to try to do the same thing as Mad but a little bit better so his name would be shown in the table of fame. mAGfig had a homie "anonymoys coelzplaya" who was eager to see this new coelerestest stuff. but Mad had told Magies it's TOP SECRET thou shall not show otherz. ANd Meageig kept his head, which got "Anynymoys COelz niggaplaya" cry ;((( ok now I'm starting to cry, must have a little break. 23. Quick "Dildo" Round I always thougt it was hard to jump over the both killers down there. Nowdays you can just skip that part with the cheatbounce. Markku invented, mr was first to make, psy had wr also ...that's what I remember. 24. Ramp "Give it to me" Frenzy This level always had the "what if" aspect, for example Abula was certain that someday somebody makes it straight to the upper right hole and gets under 50s. I didn't believe that but I was still amazed when I saw the hole was made afterall, just with a different style (with the help of alovolt, maybe you can do it without also). After that is still came one new stylz (in the middle part) which I haven't tried. One more thougt: the first apple is annoyng 25. Sex fights (hmm and this level is? ..have to check) Oky, I think I've made the between-the-killer-and-ground trick well only once and that was enough for me. I know deadnite has had (seems like still has) a WR in this one, I think he is "few level" player imo (mr is kinda the same type). I mean that they both have their own "special" levels (for instance mr/the steppes). 26. Circuitous I think this lev is ok, not the best but not the worst either. The hardest part is the end, I think you need quite a much luck there. At least I do. MadMan had the WR in this, I'm not sure whether he invented the bounce and was the first to get a WR with it but that's what I think. Luther showed darm's rec at FEM04 and everybody laughed at the end where dmd's head was 0 pixels from the ground and he didn't reach, just took the flower and beated the record. But it was cheated haw haw. 27. Shelf "Spunksupper" Life This is example level for elma tuners "hey man you can't make the shelf life trick without vSYNCC". I don't know what do they mean but maybe I have the right tune then, at least I've done some trick. Of course the players today höyl with completely different styles, what do I know :/ 28. Bounce "Clitcollector" Back Petri has had a WR in this one, today's noobs don't know him but it's ok. I wouldn't probably know this fact either but psy always jokes about it. Karlis likes this level. There is some sick bounce or something else used in the latest records? I could ask Karlis to send me a rec but he doesn't trust me for some reason. 29. Headbanger Some people hate this (BarTek, because of the pipe), others like (dz). Anyway this must be one of the most "legendary" internals and there has been many copies of this one (even I have done similar, check ALPs). The level itself is too hard for me to do good, so much speed and things happening ..just can't control the bike the way you should. 30. Pipe Really boring level, not fun at all. The "styles" are mainly like rotating 0,01sec earlier. mr is patient with the bounce style hah, maybe someday maybe someday. 31. Animal "Jar Jar" Farm This was one of my fav levels for a long time. The reason was simple, I was quite good in it compared to other's. The reason for that is simple also, I could make the "over the cock's head" trick quite often. And the reason for that: I had the the right "tuning" in my compu and had invented the style everybody (at least the ones who can do it) use nowdays. For a brief moment I thougt about giving a shot at the WR. Then I realised it's not worth it. 32. Steep "Hengepikk" Corner Same as Pipe, only that that is slightly better. 33. Zig-Zag Real pain in the ass, this must be the hardest level there is. I was extremely happy once I made the under 1.20 style (got something like 1.17). ~1 year later when I again had to start höyling this (almost 10sec off from tt) I had maybe the most frustrating playing time ever. The bounce trick was just impossible for me. I actually made over 100 times all the way to the end until I finally did it. This took almost one week. I think this is the best prove of ramone's skill, he just owns this level ..and I mean it. 34. Bumpy "Omar Pussy" Journey These new levels made just for elma were all kinda nice the first time I cruised them through as a noob. But höyling wise I can't stand these. Mick had this one as his fav, and Zweq also (at least at some point), both have had a WR in this for a long time. 35. Labyrinth "Sniff-my-Ass" Pro This is a good level. I started my real tt höyling with this one. If there is a trick that saves half a minute you can't skip that one. At that point my total was 49.45. I tried and tried and knew that I _will_ make it in the end. After few days of playing (this was really new to me, usually I just played one level an hour or two). I finally did the bounce and got the apple ...but what happened oh me oh my I was so nervous that right after I made the most amateur bang there is: front wheel rose too much and I just slammed my head and was left mouth open. Fortunately I got another change the same day and got 2.45. After that my road "to top" was just a question of time ;) I just can't understand how people can drive so good times nowdays, I was satisfied with my 1.35 when I got it. Maybe it just needs quite a lot playing? Respect to Luther, t0r, Zweq and all the others who have made these insane drives I never could. 36. Fruit in the Den I don't like the start, middle part is ok, end kinda annoyng with the flower "too high" but it's ok. 37. Thrusts (have to check lev again) I once thougt that it would be quite sick to take all the apples from the spikes by just spinning downwards. Of course it was just a funny thougt but whad do you know, it was possible. Seeing the moporec left my eyes wide open. I also told to my friend about all these impossible trick I had seen but he didn't believe me. I think it's still really challenging to hang at the last spike. And that's enough, you have to make some bugbounce in the end oh no not for me. 38. Smacks (...and this is?) FM level again, Karlis and mr are the ones who have had the WR time and time again. Does the new outstanding style ruin it for them? At least the playability changes completely. 39. Haircut Really personal look compared to the other internals, I like that. Cruising is ok but serious höyling for killer times isn't, the end is boring and the new tricks in the beginning are too hard, at least they look like it. 40. Double "Dickwad" Trouble Back and forth back and forth. Slalom pain times two. 41. Framework Not a good level for me, but not that boring anyway 42. Enduro Jokke, Jeppe, Jokke, Jeppe ...it was quite long a duel between these two. The last level where Jokke had WR, and then norske torske beated it and everybody was sad. 43. He "Afterburner" He HeHe faney joke =) ...well I must admit I went to the wrong direction the first time also, but my friend did the same mistake twice (across&elma). Even funnier was all the crappy copy levels made which were found in empacks "hoOHO LOSER" "WRONG WAY DUDE HAHA" and all the texts written inside the ground. 44. Freefall Read Steppes. My best time is with the style Nostrada invented, the milagros one is impossible. 45. Sink Speeeeeed, and the legend about Jeppe who never sent his WR in bcoz too lazy, aight. 46. Bowling MUE, why? This is actually quite good cruising level but when you think of all the hard tricks which have to be done in the same run ...argh Again everybody laughed at dmd rec in FEM04, why? 47. Enigma This was quite an enigma at first. It was challenging to "invent" how to finish the level heh. Getting over the killers with enough speed was damn hard, and making the bounce was even harder. When I finally made it and was lucky to get 20,xx I went to our team channel to celebrate. Many can drive a better time than my record in few minutes. The bounce in current (Stini's) WR rec is still a mystery, bug or not? Not says pexi 48. Downhill Nice new level for elma, the best of them. This is the second lev where I considered about driving a WR. I was surprised how long it stayed in 49s. Currently nobody can challenge Luther in this one, I guess he has höyled this one quite much ..the rec is just great. 49. What the Heck There isn't any particular stories or thougts related to this level. I think this belongs to the better half of internals. Oh now I remember one thing, t0r was the first guy who got under 40 and a secret pic was published in #across where you could clearly see "39,99" (not 100% sure of the time), nobody knew who the driver was until table was out. ooo exiting 50. Expert "Anal" System psy had a WR for this one quite long, once it got broken he published the rec and after that the WRs got better in a fast pace. I think it was really cool to get under 1min, that would've felt impossible in the early höyling days. Across version had the moving killer, that feels really weird nowdays :) btw. if you wonder why almost half of my 51. Raunchs "Fannyfarmer" Abo Nice level. This wasn't that easy to finish the first you played it, and driving really carefully didn't help. Slix was the inventor of the completely new route which saved a lot of time. I was desperate to see it and finally, I think it was Miguel, who gave me rec. This was one the first levels where you clearly needed brutal for a better time. Until alovolt patch came the start was frustrating as hell because with my keyboard you need almost exact timing pressing two rotates at the same time. 52. Hang "Anusapple" Tight Ok level for a simple one like this is ..end is the best and worst part at the same time. 53. Hooked I wonder how many bug WRs have been sent to px, would be fun to read all those mails. Monzterman had once the best bugtime in the world, that was really something, at least according to GuyB who was exited about it in the Danish elmasite news. Congrats Monzter! 54. Apple "Fannyfarmer" Harvest psy once said apple harvest is not a level, it's a lifestyle. You can see his lifework in the current wr table, I wonder if anyone can beat it. I think it was sick that he played one level for several months, nowdays psymorffaaja agrees. It was a big day when one round style was invented, everybody were amazed me included. This happened almost the same time with new Tricks Aboun style and again Miguel finally sent me a rec, thanks for that! -= Your own best WRs? =- What is this question all about, trying to make fun of me? BOOHooo no Wrz *cutting wrists open* ;((( -= Best WRs in your opinion? =- I like all the longer ones, laby pro is one. Downhill is also coelz. But I'm not the right guy to answer to this. All of them are great I suppose. I never use the sentence "ez wr" -= What's the limit of WR times? =- As I'm the allmighty oracle I'd like to enlighten you with _The Truth_ ..from my elma forecast: 1st January 2006 Single WRs total: 39:13,35 ..and yes, that's the limit wr tt -= 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? =- Of course there are, externals are my thing. I've played dozens of different external contest during all these years. Even though the quality of levels is the most important thing you can't change to fact that a decent site is also needed for a contest to stay alive. A good example is skint0r's site, besides levmaking skills he has also done a great job keeping the site fresh. Ramones contests were also really cool, too bad the sites aren't up anymore. Well organized and long term contest pages usually mean the also the records are quite tough, that's why it's sometimes fun to just cruise some new noob contest. I almost forgot cups. I've participated to at least SEC, mitik, wcup4 and vicious cup summer edition (or something). The bigger the cup the more exiting it is. -= Best lgr in your mind? What lgr do you use? =- It's hard to say which is the best. There are some really nice looking theme lgrs but those aren't good as default. I've used Style and HighQ as default. -= Mention some good things you have gotten with Across/Elma? =- -got familiar with irc -> new friends to talk to -elma is a good way of killing time when nothing better to do -simply just having all those fun moments with the game, the feeling of achieving something, making levels has also been great -= Mention some bad things you have gotten from Across/Elma? =- -got stuck with irc, sometimes I sit here all day long without really doing anything -> elma+irc has sometimes taken too much of my spare time -some stress during the worst höyling period -"what if I never started playing" -> would I be this lazy (school matters etc)? better social life perhaps? -= What is the most frustrating thing you have faced in your career? =- There is no doubt about that, wcup4 round 04. There was problems with the mail I used and it took two days until it arrived to pexi (saturday-monday). So that meant my name was never found in the results. It was my best position that far and I have never been that disappointed in elma. I gently asked in #across if I could be added to the results because there were proof I had driven the rec. Px said something like "maybe if you do redo the results". I had already done about half of them but then some people opened their mouth and were "no no unfair". So I finally ended up with 0 points. I was so angry that I even slept a few tears of the pure frustration not being able to beat somebody :D After this unfortunate situation px started to use auto-response to know whether the mail has arrived or not. ...and did I change mail after this? Just take a guess. -= The biggest mistake of your Elma career? =- Hard to invent anything here. Mistake-free career! At least it was stupid to höyl tt under 41 but it's not that serious heh. -= Cheating, what feelings? Do you use level unlocker/1.11hb/1.2 etc? =- I think it's cool that people cheat and get caught. They always enliven up the elma scene. It's funny how even in a stupid mopogame people have to use unallowed methods to reach to good results. What is the reason to do that? Fame? Just for fun? The worst thing about xiiting is that it messes up the all the statistics. If I found out some ALP kuski would've used f.ex saveload for all of his records I'd ask him kindly to remake the statistics, otherwise I'd do teh voodoo to make his genital area more unpleasant looking! Shame on you boo boo! I use level unlocked if needed and also 1.11hb. That's why I pray everyday for God (not Balazs) to make him forget all the sins I've done. -= Elma tuning, have you tested? Opinion about it? =- In a perfect elma world the game would work same way in every computer. Tuning is boring and ruins the simplicity of elma. I have for curiousity tested vsync on/off few times without seeing any differences. Pity the tuners -= Best kuskis and teams? What are the things you value in another kuski/team? =- Best kuskis are the ones people think as cheaters, or at least have given a quick thougt. To be more serious, in my opinion there is two players who are just over the top, [TorInge] and [Zweq]. I claim that they would be in top3 in every contest they take seriously. There is a "but" though, these insanely skilled guys aren't the ones for my taste (as players, not talking about persona). If someone is too good it's hard for my simple brain to understand and that's why I don't like it (come to think of it, same thing has happened in watching sports too). Now we get to the part what things I value in another kuski. This might sound stupid/bragging/whatever but most often I seem to like players who are about equally good or a little bit better than me. Also liking and being good in same kind of contests that I play is one thing I value. All in all usually the older and more familiar "veterans" are coalzer, it's not fun when the new and entusiastic kuskis end up being better than you ;/ I've picked up some example players who fits to my taste heh. [psy] is a clear choice, something about that tells that I'm not even that disappointed (not exactly the right word) when he gets a better result than me in some more important contest. My teammate [ramone] I also appreciate really much, he is great in externals, battles, and whatever he tends to like to play. I should't forget [dz] either because he was the first kuski I prefered more than others. Some other guys on the list are [Lazy] -> battles , [Elbono] -> wcup, [MadMan] -> don't know why. [Jeppe] was kinda coel too but he is just too good and höylä, and nowdays he is almost the synonym of #across mongoing ;o I don't have that much to tell about teams. Same thing as with kuskis, older and long term teams are better. I've never really liked being stuck with a team, freedom and invidualism suits better to me. -= Your best achievements? =- Playing wise: Winning the fourth World cup (originally 2nd place which was almost as good) overshadows all the other stuff I've accomplished. I've sometimes had the habit to underrate it thinking that "oh he or she didn't play". But hey, they didn't and I did, so ..I'm still kinda satisfied with that \o/. Besides that I've also done well in mopobattles. I've been twice 10th in the moposites tt list (http://www.moposite.com/old/totals_elma.php ..this is the first time), it was kinda nice back then as a noob but it doesn't feel that special anymore. Levmaking: This stuff is in my opinion much cooler than the playing part. ALP is probably the most popular contest there has been, and it was the one which started the "levelpack" boom. Before that everybody just added the new levels at the bottom of the list (psy said this to me). King Cup was the second bigger contest project which had a happy ending, more about it later. -= Do you do any other neat finger-related stuff like playing violin, repairing watches, pick pocketing etc? Repairing watches :D ..I think this question has always been a joke among the others, nice one abu. I wish I could do more fingering but I guess all the girls have dildos nowdays :/ -= How much did you play in your sickest period? How much these days? =- Wcup anyone? Ye it lasted only 6 months and you had to höyl every week like crazy. I lost almost half of my höyling spirit in the end but the 10th event I played like 35h! That's sick isn't it. These days I only do some everyday cruising when I get stuck sitting here in front of compu. I usually alt+tab to elma, then exit it and after a while start again. I usually play around 2-5min at once, so let's say 1h active höyling daily. LATE ADDITION: past weeks I've played more than at the moment I answered to this question, so I guess it varies quite much. Sometimes you get these small "elma seasons". -= Have you had Elma dreams? =- Ye I've had some, maybe 5 in total (bad guess). Most of them have been related to the scene and irc, not elma itself. -= Strengts and weaknesses as a player? What moves you like/dislike? =- Aight nIgga ThiZ h0mie onlY d0es teh SweetaSS movezzz. Too bad my pimp car can't bounce, so that I don't like. My strengths are inventing decent styles fast and good basic skills. Once I think I play with the right style it's extremely hard for me to change it, only by accident or if I really REALLY try I might invent something new, so that's a weakness. I'm also bad in long-term höyling and my patience isn't the best there is. The longer I have to play one level the worse I become compared to others. Trickier and longer levels are also better for me, because I clearly need to see the parts where it's possible to get better, that's why I can höyl them much longer than some boring short and simple levels. -= Tips for average players? =- Enjoy your time playing the game and don't take it too seriously. If you want to become good just höyl and learn from the recs, I also recommend to try out many different externals contests. They are much better to practice your style inventing than internals. Be part of the scene, get friends and connections. Don't act noobish or annoy the old timers. That's about it ...and lastly do not listen to my instructions ok (except the first sentence). -= Best memories with Elma? =- I don't really know. Even though wcup was true pain sometimes there is also the exhilarating moments. The feeling when px pasted wcup results was always extremely exiting, and the feeling when doing good was great. There isn't any particular moments I can think besides that. I like almost all the memories that belongs to the past and elma is part of it. -= First time at #across? =- I told this already in elma career but let's repeat. Autumn 2001 I lost my virginity to irc and #across. As I said I didn't know any legendary players out there and I wasn't "nervous" about that. However I hoped people would recognize me because of my levels. The first day in #across I advertised my levels at least to Orcc, psy and Sathy and of course I had my typical "agressive" approach. It would be so fun to get the logs from that! I remember that during my first visits I also complained that everybody just join but no one talks, I had modem at that point and didn't understand why people just idle there hehe. At first I also didn't know about all the privates going on because I hadn't any activity there until Miguel started to talk to me. -= Best Elma friends? =- This is going to be a difficult question to answer :/ ..I know I will leave out many nice fellows I have talked with and so on. There is just too many to mention. Almost all my current best friends are in our finnish channel. We talk about all kinds of different subjects and not boring elma, which is fun. The ones who are active chatters there are the best, they know who they are. There has of course been many foreign kuskis too who I've had conversations with, most of them have been from Sweden or Norway. I also tend to like people who take part in my contest :P Here is a few example friends: psy: there is no doubt that he is my best elma friend, I've even met him four times. During the years we have talked more than an avarage politician speaks in his life. Game consoles was the first thing what was our common interest but the subjects soon spread to all matters in life. He has a same sense of humour than I do, also in real life which is important. Currently we don't flood as much as in the most active periods but it's ok. It's partly because my best irl friend also is an active net-nerd nowdays so I don't need to flood all my boring private life happenings everywhere Ville_J: 02 we talked the most, 03 little bit less and nowdays not that much at all. We have our own site and that also means good trust towards each other. We have a similar taste in almost everything related to elma levels and levelmaking, that's how we bumped to each other. Teammates: I think they all are nice guys, even though BarTek has been few times quite annoyng but hey that's just his personality ;). I haven't really been in touch with any of them lately, with magicman we had our best conversations during wcup. ramone is the newest CF member, I think it was nice to get him to our team because he is just way coelz. ramone is the only teammate I've met, that happened in FEM04 yey. People who I've met (excluding fem04): I already mentioned psy, the first time I met him together with Abula. It felt kinda strange at first to meet people you've talked only vie inet. At the beginning of 04 kimitys asked me to Helsinki and so I went. Karlis was there too to take a good care of me (oh ye, I slept with him TWICE). All these guys were fortunately just as nice people I had expected. -= Thoughts about Elma meetings? =- I think the best thing about elma meetings is to meet other kuskis who you've talked to many many times via inet. If someone had said five years ago that I would travel across finland to meet my gaming friends who I've met in irc I probably would've laughed. Last summer when I told to my friend that I'm probably going to Finnish Elma meet he had almost the same reaction and thougt I was joking or something, at least hoped so :P. FEM04 was a nice variation to normal holiday weekend. There were lots of new faces and it felt kinda strange at first to meet them all even though there were few familiar ones also. People played mostly elma in their own computers, I also took part in few contests, but we fun time elsewhere too. The best moments were when we sitted outside and grilled sausages etc. Beerbattle was better contest than I had expected, that was the only bigger one I took part in. I had brought frisbee and football with me and both had some use. Few times those were also found in the middle of the lake but fortunately I got them back o/. There were around 15 people in FEM04 and I think that was a quite good amount, even though sometimes it felt quite overcrowed inside. The environment could've been little bit nicer, despite that I hanged quite much outside. I'm not sure if I'll come to next fem, at least I'm going to army so maybe if it is after that. I've heard that there is a huge amount of people from other countries who are more than willing to participate. I think if there is too much the right atmosphere disappears :/ ..it was nice to have few "special guests" but there has to be a limit. International elma meet is another thing but fem should be kept the way it has been. -= What do YOU think should be improved in an eventual new version of Elma? =- Better level editor at least. Possibly some in-game battle time counter and stuff like that. Some new elements to the gameplay and graphics but not too much. Whole new set of levels (and few of them made by me of course). The game should be also harder to crack and hack and it should work sameway in every computer, tune free! ....almost forgot the most important: sPeeD-o-Meter!!!!1 -= How about battles? =- I think battles are great, especially mopobattles. The best thing about them is the huge exitement. Time is running, you try to find out the right style and after do the best possible result with it. I think most of this exitement is missing in #battle channel. Why is that? First of all there is only a few players playing at the same, then there isn't any actual pressure to do good because you new battles are just coming all the time. Like when mopobattles where held you had to wait for instance one week for the next one. Besides that most of the levels are terrible, 50% boring pipes and rest under 20sec höyläs. Lastly I really dislike the #battle atmosphere, it's even worse than #across! I really hope that in the future somebody would have the energy to arrange mopobattles. After Abula got tired skint0r took the job and arranged many battles, thumbs up for him! Who is ready to take the nervecracking challenge next? Respect is waiting for you ;). -= Have you got any negative feedback about playing Elma from your mates? =- Not that much, few of my friends have few times wondered how I still can play this game. But it's not really negative feedback, they're just amused heh. At one point I was the one to critisize my friends because they DIDN'T play elma o/ -= What games do you like beside Elma? =- Right now I'm not that active in any gaming area. But all in all console games have been a huge part of my life. I've owned nes, snes, playstation, N64, dreamcast and gamecube. DC and GC I still have. I especially like majority of games made by nintendo, they just make the most innovative games out there. PC games haven't never been the ones for me, most of them lack the fun-factor. With snes I've had the best gaming memories, sometimes I feel like having the old golden days back *sob sob* -= Did you buy Elma? Why not? =- I haven't bought it, too much trouble I guess? Kinda stupid but what can you do :/. Kinda strange situation because I'm really against all warez. -= Have you thought about if you could stop playing Elma soon, or anytime? =- I stop elma when I want to, currently I see no reason to do that. I'm not completely quitting elma anytime soon, it's just too easy to cruise few tries when hanging at the compu. -= What gets you still playing Elma? =- Irc, scene, lazyness, externals ...all these are reasons why I still play -= Are you at the top of your career now? If not, when? =- I'm the king of the world \o/. Not exactly, I'm not even close to my career "top". Probably the peak point was and will be the period during wc4. Back then I managed to get a status that I'm somewhat good in the game, some silly guys still think so. -= Forecast the future of Elma. How the scene will be in five years? =- Five years is damn much. If people still play the scene will look very different than now. I'm not that convinced that elma2 will ever be done. I hope there is still few original veterans left because I think they are the soul of elma or something. -= Was it a surprise to be voted for the kuski of month? If it was who should have won in your opinion and why? =- I hoped to win much much earlier. I had been nominated ca 10 times and few times it felt like the wrong people took my victory ;). When I won I wasn't that active but I still didn't think it as a surprise, I was kinda sure it would happen sooner or later. -= Mopolauta, thoughts? =- There isn't much stuff for me anymore. I open it daily and check sections with new messages but quite rarely I actually read any of them. I think mopolauta is mainly for the newer guys, at least they have taken over almost the whole place. -= Opinions about Elma Crime, MUe's animations and stuff like that. =- Stuff like that eyh, comics are ok at least. I guess all these kind of things give some extra colour to the scene, even though I could live without them also. -= You are the updater of the Mopocorner page. How's that feeling? =- What could I say, great? The updating itself is kinda stumbling block for me at the moment. Some people have complained that there is too few updates but fortunately I have a good excuse: there isn't almost anything to update! Ville has lately been more active than me (before it was always the opposite). Anyway I'm really happy about the whole Mopocorner site and I wanna thank all the guys who have played our contests. Many also rank our site as one of the best around and that feels really nice, hugs and kisses to you. Keep on playing and sending other stuff to our sections (fav lists, pics, levels)! I will go to army soon but I'm soon I will find time for updates also ;) -= Had you thought the cup you held with Ville_J, King Cup, would be as popular as it became? Other thoughts about it? =- The idea behind King Cup: When px informed about the need for wcup4 levels I made few of my own. I was really satisfied with them and I had a feeling that at least some of them will be chosen. To my disappointment px didn't pick any of them. I was wondering what should I do with the levels, because various section in mopocorner wasn't a good place for those. So bit by bit the idea of helding an own cup begun to grew. I talked with Ville and soon there was only one question left, _when_ should be the right time for it? There were some rumours about wc5, also dz had it's own cup at the moment, but finally we decided not to wait anymore. At the same time we thougt that the look of Mopocorner should be improved, so it was a bigger project than I had thougt in the first place. The KC campaing: When we were ready with the site, levels and stuff it was time to start the advertisement. Just like with ALPs I really hoped the hard work would be rewarded. I had few key things in my mind which could get people exited. Firstly I wanted to people to know the levels are high quality (it helped that Ville is considered as on of the best levdesigners around and some people tend to like my levs too). The second thing was to get few representantive top players who are going to take part, so people think like "oh he is going to take part, maybe I should too". Soon there was information in mopolauta, moposite front page and people talked about it in #across, yey! The cup itself: Even though the first event was the most popular subject of the week it was released the amount of participants really exceeded everything I had thougt! During the final minutes before deadline mails were like coming and coming and I didn't know how to react. Bit by bit the players started to fade out, that's what happened in almost every contest. I wanna thank all the kuskis who took part, especially the ones who lasted to the end. There were also many people who supported us and gave feedback and so on, updating the results needed a LOT of work but I think it was worth it. Special KC features: One of my plans was to invent something new the normal cup theme, nothing radical but just something. I think the stories section was at least a success. The .txt file system wasn't that accepted at first but at least currently there are many others who use it too, so it wasn't that terrible or? Reason I wanted to make the .txt was because of the special rules some events had. Also the events had some variation: two events in one week, two events at the same time, event which consists of three levels (tt counted), one extremely long level, and remake of old ALP lev. King Cup 2?: Once in awhile there have been questions about the next KC. As I said the whole fuss around it requires a lot of time and energy. Despite that I don't completely close the idea of having one in the future, and of course Ville must be there with me. I even have made about five new levels which won't be published anywhere except possible kc2 ;o ..now that gets you exited doesn't it hehe. Meanwhile you can re-visit the old site and watch those amazing recs and read the stories again for memories sake: http://www.grafopoint.com/KC.htm -= What's your favourite Elma website (not moposite)? =- I have usually browsed the sites where I have records, currently there isn't much left. Too bad ramone quitted his contests too :/. Skint's site might be my fav, of course there are also many other nice ones or maybe even better but I'm too tired to think (it's like 2.30am). -= Your relation to OLP? =- Nothing special here, except OLP inspired me to make a better levelpack. I've played them all twice trough I guess. -= Why that nick, MP? =- I give you three alternatives, choose the right one: 1)MP is shortened from MediaPlayer, I watched damn many porn movies back then and mediaplayer was always running 2)It's my initials, I have no imagination 3)My father is a Military Police and I wanna be just like him when I grow up -= Your real life. Do you have it (school/work, other interests etc)? =- I'm like the synonym of lif0r. I go to school and I even have other interests! At the moment I go to school in University here in Vaasa which is also my hometown. That isn't feeling like my top priority at the moment, I just try to hang in there. Once or twice a week I go out and try to have a good time, sometimes I do othertimes I don't. I also enjoy being home just doing nothing except sit here. I'm really lazy and I don't like to do anything if it doesn't especially interest me. Weekly I try to do some workouts to keep me in shape, gym, floorball (football at summer) ..stuff like that. Oh and soon it's time for army ..funk dat -= Write something about the game, fellow kuskis, moposite, #across, etc =- The game is nice fellow kuskis are nice moposite is coel #across was coel I got this stupid idea to mention all kinds of different names, I guess people like when they are mentioned in an interview: BoneLESS, SveinR, cyre, Boomer_88, Ramza, Juzam, Ismo, Capo (he ownz!), axxu, ANpDaD, nh, MIF ...ehh this got boring pretty fast, I quit it :P -= How did this interview make you feel, like a moviestar? =- You bet, actually writing this makes you feel like a some kind of superhuman. Someone, who has a place in the world, and not just any place, the place to be, to be the best, better than rest, and eat from a crest ...wow, did you see that, only real superdudes can do rhymes like that You can add more questions, if you have some interesting ones. DO I!?!?! I was surprised there weren't any questions about wcup so let's flood something about it -= Write something about every World Cup 4 event and try to, ok? =- wcup401: First lev yey and everybody was exited. I thought wc time limits would be quite tough but to my surprise I got first ride about 20sec better than it. Everybody was playing the lev and pasting their times to #across, the feeling was coul and I got hooked at the very beginning. After few hours of höyling I thougt the time is so good that I can't get much better. I was so sure under 30 is impossible. We had much conversations with magicman about the lev and times. Also Ville_J was there playing and had suprisingly good times ;). I told him to keep quiet about the times/styles so we don't help the others. Later Hibernatus published his rec (30.5x) and I was quite angry. I had done lots of höyling to get just a tiny bit better than him and now the styles got spread. Me and magicman were sure it's byebye top20. On Monday happened a big bang. Roxxor ride result was 30.2x ...that must be my final time because impossible to get any better. Week went on and I was still höyling and trying to find new styles to ramp part and very end. At weekend also psy started his optimal höyling and soon he had 29high ..WTF! Saturday evening I finally invented something really usefull to the end but was it too late? I got little bit better with this style quite fast but couldn't get whole ride work. I knew it was under 30s style but I had to go to sleep with 31.1x. I woke up early enough to play some (there were ~1½h left). The pressures were so high and it showed in the rides. The clock was ticking and my heart was beating (hahah). Little bit before 12.00 I went to wc (wc everywhere yaarghh) and thougt: ONE MORE RIDE then I have to send. I made the tough start part YEAH, soon it was the pole...it succeeded too. Then I was just nervous like hell. Ramp went good omgz. Now the end and the new stylz.... I was so panicing and don't know what happened but soon there was text "best time" and 29.90 showed at the screen. I don't remember what thougts I had but my hands started to shake like hell :D. I looked at the clock ...only few minutes time left to deadline! I quickly read the rules once more trough and sent the mail. This must have been the most (only?) lucky ride in this wc wc402: I hoped there would be not-so-höylä level this time, because if somebody still doesn't know they aren't the ones for me. Ok the level was quite different than the first one but not in a good way. Actually it was quite terrible: no special styles and just maximun struggle trying to avoid the vertexes. We cursed the level togehter with magicman. Second by second I improved my time and ended up with 46½. It was one of my worst results in whole wcup and after the event I thougt I should've played some more. Me and magic weren't the only ones who hated this level. Nostrada was so frustrated he had half boycot round and sent in his first finish or something. It was quite fun to watch him complaining in #across. The top10 was quite different than in other levels, team REC guys Uube and Miguel did really well and this was the only event where Jeppe took part (with extremely höyled time of course). wc403: What a level! The map was a complete maze and instead of apples there were tens of flowers. I think everybody were pretty amazed the first time they played this. At first it was time to try to find out the best style, there were damn many routes to choose from but finally I thougt I found the right one. I got some 1.03 and thougt that under one minute is possible with a perfect run. Here is some logs showing how secure I was about the style: wich hole did u takE? same as you ehm ? how do u know otherwise it's impossible to get so good time there is only one route imo And how wrong I was, as usual. I heard ramone had made under minute already and that it was easy to improve so I started to suspect that maybe there is still some other route. I talked with onlainari and he gave me some hints about the style he had and then it was clear to me. After this it was only a matter of höyling. The level was quite fun to play and I improved one second at the time and top10 wasn't tight at all. When I finally got my best I was really satisfied with the ride. Saturday evening I went to sleep with a smiley face and knew that for instance psy had about 1sec worse than I did! Next day wasn't as smiley, psy had had serious morning höyling and was now ½sec ahead of me, besides that even Abula had better! Now that is something to be ashamed of ;). Oh and I had forgot to tell, me and Abu had our own "vs" battle , both of us were sure we could beat each other in the final standings. Back to subject: psy's sudden improvement was kinda lucky because Tapzu had asked help from him and sent his rec to psy to look at. In the rec was an easy time saving trick and it was a wonder how psy hadn't invented it before. Anyway when the final results came I was quite satisfied, this time Abula had the best FM time so the other members were still behind me and I got a decent position. Nice event overall. Nostrada won this easily with the help of ramones unique style. This was the only event where Lazy showed his real skill and he was second (took the win after Nostra got caught, but I rather write as the the way I feeled back then). During the event there were of course typical wcup rumours around, like if it is possible to get the top right flower. wc404: Finally a longer lev wohoo. This was also a two week event. I liked to play this but there was one thing bothering me almost the whole event. At the very beginning I spoke with Jeppe and he said this: minulla on 1:09:22 ja heleposti saan peremaan translation: I have 1:09;22 and easily can get better *one sidenote: toringe has said to me afterwards he almost stopped the playing when I spread these rumours forward* Of course I thougt he must be joking or something but you never know, Jeppe is Jeppe and so on. I had around 1.13 at the moment. The problem why I wasn't sure was because in the lower part there was this big dick-like "bump" and with psy we wondered if it could be possible to jump straight over it. Despite all this extra fuss I continued my höyling with a good spirit. ....hmm now I found quite funny log, all this is not completely wc04 related: luther HAVE 1.11 :DDD 6hours he say... 1.09MAX ;D ask him the rec please please beg beg :D tell him that you really need help to get better than 1.17 :P or something...try to sound sucky so maybe he will have sympathy :D yep I get a rec 1.13 but same style :p blaaaaaaaaaaaah hmm..have you ever seen luthers name in any tables? is his elma nick luther? strange ye what ever :D ... it's NOT whatever if some luther will get better than me must improve martin luther damn it, he should be in church and mengerle, TuA and matte must have something like that too ;D you reeeally seem to enjoy this haha NO! :D but take all the bad things with a little laugh ,) ME neahter :DDDDDDDDD this is terrible :DDDDDDDDDDDDD OMG i feel like dying :DDDDDDDDD yes it's this serious ;) My main target was to get under 1.12 and at the end of the week I finally made it " OMG OMG OMFG! 1.11,41 :D". After this I just had to wait the next week for event to end, because the jump to my second best time was quite big and I didn't see much room for improvement. So I waited ..and waited ...FOR NOTHING. That really sucked, especially as it was my best result so far (ye all the rumours ended up false). I was third and dmd won with quite a big margin. At this point I had two choices, quit or continue playing ..I felt like the competition to Abula was lost and everything else was lost too ..but finally I decided.. wc405: ..to continue. My only hope was that next lev would be a great one. It wasn't. Pexi had done some major changes to this one but I'm not sure I would've enjoyed the ramones original one either. This was just too höylä. You could drive this lev both clock/anticlock-wise but it was quite clear anticlock was faster. I tried to do my best but managed only some 30½. At the very end of the week I had still the same sucky time. When psy started his weekend höyling he quite fast invented a good style and got under 30! I was like wtf and started my rec begging. He gave some hints but it didn't help. Finally he gave up and sent me the rec as I promised 100% sure I won't give the style to my teammates, and I didn't. One requirement was that I won't drive a better time than he had. So I tried to höyl as near as possible and managed to do that. We were both satisfied to our 29low´s and didn't bother to höyl more, it was a top time for sure. The funny thing was that everybody else had thougt about the same, I mean there were damn many who had the same feeling that they had a secret stylz. In the end there were quite many disappointed kuskis, except Uube who won the event. There is one more story that I have to tell you. After round 4 catastrophe I changed mail. I had sent my result and closed compu ..time for sleep. As I brushed my teeth I suddenly remembered that holy crap I had forgot to attach the zip in the mail! So I turned compu back on, sent new mail to px with explanations and how silly I was. Ok another sleep attempt, I was laying in my bed thinking how close it was. I started to recall about the whole new mail I used, and wonder how the attachments work ...hmm, WHAAT? I hadn't even seen the whole attachment screen yet! Back up, compu on, and even longer explanations this time AND with zip. My mail topics looked like this "wcup blabla" "wcup blabla WITH ZIP" "wcup blabla WITH ZIP 100% SURE!" The next day I was worried whether I get some penalty but pexi just said that maybe few extra points for giving a good laugh, hah wc406: Complicated level at first look, and that's good. kuiva was one of the guys who was unhappy about the previous round results (sick drive but with damn hard and slower style). And now it's time to reveal the well kept secret: he suggested that we should do co-operation. I first felt like it's not a good idea but decided that maybe it's worth to try. First it was time to find the right styles. kuiva gave some ideas and I was the one who testplayed them because I tend to get good times faster. Many times I already thougt that we have the right style but always something new was found. I had clearly better times than kuiva whole week and when I made ~49½ I thougt that would be enough. kuiva continued his höyling, he is completely different type of player than me. All the time I thougt he wouldn't be that big of a threat but soon he jumped ahead of me. Of course I had to catch him. We both tried under 49 and suddenly kuiva got absolutely great time, not just 48,9x or something but 48½. I talked some with ramone and he was in the same situation with me, desperate to get under 49. Finally I made it and was pleased with my time, of course it would've been cool to beat kuiva but what can you do. The co-op seemed to work fine. One more thing, at the end of the week Tisk had invented a sick bounce style for FM. Karlis was of course one of the biggest höyläs of the team and he made a great time, but the funny part was his KYRPAAAA.rec where he missed the apple by 1pixel or something, of course the time would've been great. *Late addition* I almost completely forgot to mention about kuiva's höyling strategy. Always when a new level came the first thing he did was to open it in editor and do a bunch of test levs. I (and many others) had of course done this but kuiva was like THE testlev maker. He placed the apples, flowers and so on and they ended up being like small parts of the track. So the first parts of the week he usually just höyled these testlevs (that's also one reason why I usually had better times than him at the very beginning) until he felt like he can handle all the parts in one single ride. Especially in longer levels he had done like WC06A WC06B WC06C WC06D etc! Sometimes I got quite confused with all the different recs and levels he sent. psy was the complete opposite, no testing, just playing ..I was there between wc407: BarTek's headbanger type lev, pexipekka_t had made it a longer version and of course I liked that. Btw if you wonder why I haven't mentioned Bart at all was because he hadn't inet connection at home so I never could talk to him via inet, we only changed some mails with recs. If kuiva was the main style inventor last round now it was my time. There weren't any real troubles in the whole week. The times felt always possible the improve and I also found few nice new styles. In the end I banged one great ride few pixels from the flower. My final best time was about ½sec worse than that, would've probably been better if I hadn't been a total noob in the end. There were many people who didn't like this level and that's why I probably got a quite easy third place. This time kuiva was behind me and that was good, because one of my targets was to get past him even though at the moment that seemed quite impossible. dmd won -> +1sec to dz -> +1sec to me -> +1sec to bart ...so the top4 was kinda funny. wc408: At this point there were already many quitters: zynti lasted only few rounds, psy fed up after round 5, nostra made some not-höyled result in round 7 but I don't remember any results from him after that. dz also made his final good efforts in the previous headbanger lev. I was kinda disappointed they quit because at least psy was one of my favs to win the cup and he was the "only" finnish hope to win the whole thing. There started to be some new kuskis who really begun to höyl like crazy, at least one ..Jalli. This event lasted only few days and it was a short and terrible höylä ...pexi's rollercoaster ;O. These kind of levels are like made for kuiva, he seemed to enjoy inventing new styles to this one, for example pushing left rotate 0,02secs earlier in 14,03secs part. So you could say kuiva was the driver and I was the one who watched. In the end I got a time I wasn't too ashamed of. Meanwhile kuiva had driven some more killer times. Too bad Jalli took the victory by 0,01secs (that describes the level pretty well don't you think). I felt kinda sorry for kuiva but in a way it was a good thing thinking about the competition between us. I hadn't really any communication with magicman in this one. He had one part better than me and I was kinda "angry" because he didn't share his recs earlier, I got it aproximately 1h before deadline but couldn't get it better in that time. I remember Pexi also had höyled this one Abula complained to him about that after results (he was between me and abu, nice) wc409: Same level again, good prank =)) ..NOT. So if someone doesn't still know the lev was an extended version of 08. At this point I started to get quite frustrated. Last round winner Jalli had to go to some trip or something so he wasn't a threat this time. kuiva was of course in his form again. I don't know why but also I got quite good results this round. 6th in a rollercoaster event hah. DarMoeD took the 1st position once again, Tapzu surprised with 2nd position before kuiva. Nothing special to mention about this round really, bla. wc410: Holy moly this level is long like hell, that's what I'm talking about! magicman had done this lev the day (or two) before and it immediately got chosen, pexi made the serpents tale part and the result was great. This was the level I played the most. It wasn't easy to get all the parts work in a single ride. I had already a decent time but then came precious magiska mannen and showed me some new style to serpents part. He wasn't sure if it was faster, I quickly testplayed it and oh boy it was faster. I optimimized (is that a a word?) the style and soon it was almost 5 seconds better than the old one. The end part was somewhat mystery but I think I finally invented also quite good styles there too. I was the first in our team who got under two minutes, at first I thougt that is enough but BarTek followed. In the end also magicman was cathing me and I had to continue höyling my ass off. Finally I got a run without any bigger mistakes. I was really happy and knew that I have a shot at the first place. But then Karlis pasted his top10 in across and ALL the times were better than mine! I was like NOOOOOOO how could it be fak fak fak. I immediately thougt that also whole FM is ahead of me with their killer style. Karlis' top10 ended up being a joke (I heard that the next day), and I'm not sure but it was supposed to look like it? The funny thing was that my time was so close to Karlis' faked one so I truly believed it :P. On Sunday before the results pexi said dmd owned me, I was thinking of myself like blaa I knew it. I talked to dmd in private we changed times: lets swap times here? k 1:58:91 ...!!!!!!!!! OMG OMG OMG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Ok you can probably imagine that I was pretty happy, one of my big targets was now accomplished. wc411: Kinda strangelooking level. I was quite sure it would be shorter level this time and so it was. I talked some with psy, he said the lev is cool "oldschool style", I disagreed and said "more like höyläschool". As he had quitted the cup playing he teased me something like "well enjoy the playing, maybe take a second win straight?" ..."ye sure". After few hours of playing I was still a little bit lost with the style, Sathy gave me his and it had the trick which I hadn't yet tought of. ZeiZei was whole week bragging with his times, finally he got 32,54 and it was the best time around. In the meanwhile I had invented a great time saving trick in the start, a small bounce. Now the level became much more antihöylish and by this I mean you don't finish that often, that suited very well for me. kuiva and I tried to get the perfect bouncestart and ending of course, kuiva had some troubles with "too good" bounces so the bike flew too far. Until Friday I hadn't höyled that much really. As I started the real playing I really didn't dislike this lev that much anymore, it was kinda challening and even pretty fun to play. I got a time like 32,56 and remembered that dame so close to zeizei. Of course I continued and soon got better. That didn't feel like good enough and I ended up with 32,49. kuiva was still behind me and it felt like there weren't many guys who had this good time. I had banged some 32.low times and as I knew a better time could be "easily" done I continued playing on Saturday evening. Finally on Sunday 2am or something I got 32,34! That was enough, sent in and then sleep. So I ended up winning this event too (beating Zei would've been enough). Even though this was one of the most less höyled events (at least I think so) it was still a wonder how I won. 30sec level!? Actually the bounce style made the difference and I was lucky this wasn't a "kuiva's lev" for some reason. Anyway of course it felt coelz to get the winning time again. Some people (Karlis) started to joke something like "what's the reason playing when MP is the best player in the world" "oh ye he is so cool he doesn't even bother to try WRs". At first it was kinda funny but as he continued and continued it wasn't that nice in the end ;/. Also Abula was like "how's school going?" wc412: Hey this time it's a longer lev again, thanks px. Many people said right from the start that this is like made for me, and at the same time they pushed me to try a hat trick (which wasn't never done before). I didn't really like the situation, at the beginning of wcup nobody really expected anything from me (except I) and now it was the opposite. kuiva was of course in form with his test levs again. Together with him we planned some alternative routes. The times got better bit by bit and I thougt we had the best style, but kuiva was the one who invented the final trick and I was like "that's cool man". The style was kinda hard but rewarding (the one where you fly upwards and then comes the big spinning to the upper polygon). I invented one smaller trick to the end (it could be done even faster, but don't wanna risk it in a good run) and then it was a matter of höyling. I liked the level and it was umm ..Friday I think when I got 1.10,5x. Nice time, I'm satisfied ..kinda. Magicman was also around with his usual rumours, this time all the czech players had under 1.10 or something and blabla. We max hoped those weren't true, but I was concerned of course: all have under 1.10 :((((((((((((((. At the first days of höyling I "knew" that under 1.10 is impossible. Well of course that turned out to be false as even I was now quite close to it. Saturday I played some more and made at least one ride that would've been 1.09.low. I knew that if I don't get better it won't be the end of the world but it's annoyng when it's so close? So I continued and bang ..1.09,xx! BarTek got the style pretty late but managed to get a nice 1.10 just before the deadline, magic was a little bit ahead of him. The next day was just waiting and finally it was time for results. 5. Jokke 4. kuiva ... ok at this moment it was clear, CF took triple victory and I got the third win in a row, YEEHAA! That was maybe the very peak of my elma career or something. wc413: Back to planet earth. The level was this: terrible höylä. Zebra's levels are nice but at least these two (402 and this) would've suited lot better for simple cruising, not wcup. But hey this was just my personal opinion, at least kuiva seemed to like this one ..same with deadnite (they did also some co-op during the cup). kuiva had some really strange end style which I couldn't just do, deadnite had also some problems but in the end I was the only one struggling with it. Maybe I just had the wrong tunes, anyway as it the bug-end (as I called it) turned out to be impossible my only choice was to try to "keep up" with kuiva all the way to the end where he then made the difference. In the end of the week already few guys had got under 31 and I tried to get as low 31 as possible. I had promised some guy (don't remember who) that I won't get under 31. First I made some 31,0x few times and then 31,00. That was kinda faney time as it wasn't under the limit I had said I wouldn't get. Even though I planned that to be my final time I played a bit more and got 30,98. Now I wasn't sure which of recs I would send in, I thougt like "nobody is between that 0,02 anyway". But I hadn't the courage enough to send that ,00 and it turned out to be a good solution because TorInge had 30,99, whew. kuiva got his first well deserved win, ciph there right after. But that real subject was who the hell is The OooO (and Munkki). They were seen already in round 11 but now The OooO was like 5th! Everybody suspected Cloud but he didn't admit. Not until now the rumours have started to fade away, they are just themself hehe. wc414: Pip0r! This was the time I still liked these and I had waited for a pipe event. The best thing was that kuiva really hated these and now it was my chance to continue to catch him after previous round loss. Already at the first day I got 47 apples (the first guy to do that). I even thougt like what's the reason to play anymore this is siCKCKCK! 48 seemed impossible but of course it was always possible to get a faster 47 rec. Once you got used to the level it got easier of course and soon I made pretty fast 47 drives but never got trough the tiny pipe after that. In the meanwhile many people were still struggling with the earlier parts of the stage but there were few challengers who I knew would be tough, like Jalli. I had a training level to the end part and made 48 there a couple of times, so it's possible but hard. I kept on trying and lastly made it, yea! The ride was also pretty fast, only ~1sec slower than my best 47 ride. Cloud said to me that he knows who is going to win, so I presumed Jalli had got 49 or something. I ended up being wrong, he had 50! Damn lucky bastard hehe. DMD seemed to handle the pipes too, he was second with 49. Zei was even with me but with a worse time (I had the fastest rec btw yee yee who's the man). BarTek hates pipes and he got some sucker 44, but magicman got 47 also with 5 other kuskis. Everybody were amazed of Jalli's sick drive but the best rec has to be kuiva's. The ones who have seen it know what I mean. Some amazing head first driving, sick dude ok. wc415: The pipe event had not even ended when this was published. I have no special comments about this one. This was a pretty solo-drive, not much co-op. I sent recs to kuiva but he was surprisingly "lame" with his efforts, no signs of the sick höylä periods. I didn't know much about other times, BarTek was the only threat I was aware of. He was ahead of me for some time but in the end I got a bit better. My time ended up being just perfect for me, because top2 guys Jokke and DarMoeD were over a second ahead of me. You could say this event had the worst results in overall. My third place was really a steal, easy points there. wc416: Great level, not so good memories. My höyling spirit had started to drop already in the 13th event and even though this should've been a lev for me it wasn't. There seemed to be loads of different styles. Some guys in mopolauta had like 5secs better than we did so it was clear something must be changed. Together with kuiva we invented a nice route which seemed to be really fast. It was, but not enough. I made a pretty good time quite fast and lost my interest there. At the beginning of wcup I would've continued to höyl but now I just hoped for the best. Saturday evening I talked with Jalli, I asked his times and said I won't play anymore. He didn't tell until I sent in. Jalli had 0,0x worse than me and I tried to get him to stop playing. Of course he didn't (hey, he even continued playing after getting 50 apples in the event 14) and soon he got like 1 sec better! I was like that can't be true. So he sent the rec to me and DOH ...different style. Crap, I wasn't used to this. In the end BarTek got 0,05 better than me and even FM guys Abula and Tisk were ahead (driven same way as Jalli). The event winner was DarMoeD once again with over a 4(!)sec margin, he had even a better style which TomCat also used. The annoyng thing was magicman had shown me that style at the very beginning of the event but he had driven it SO DAMN SLOW that I thougt it no way could be faster, daaamn you hahah 417: skint0r's level this time. It was quite nice to try to find the right styles. There were few options to choose from but with some testplay the right one was found. psy also rose from his grave and started to play this one. We talked some and I said the style I ended up with. The top left apple was a real pain in the ass. I had enormous struggles with it and in my opinion it wasn't a fun part at all. psy found a way to get it quite fast and I asked for a rec. He didn't wanna send it to me, soon I got pretty angry because I felt it's really weird he doesn't even wanna help a good elmafriend. I left the whole irc (same stylz as people bang the door when leaving the room heh) but got back later and soon the rec was in my folder too, aah it's good to be a crybaby. I apple style was still kinda hard for me. When I got 49low I felt like it's enough. Later I heard psy making some sick times but I didn't wanna start playing again so I just sent in. psy ended up winning the event, quite cool comeback I must say. I really admire how he can choose the levels which fits to his style and then just beat everybody. This has happened many times. Oh and he had also drinken some vodka when the winning time was driven, Absolut Coolness I must say. 418: Yaaaaaaaargh. Piece of höyläshit. To make it even worse kuiva was back to his form. At this point he was really intense fight about the second place. kuiva used some unhuman bounce style in loop part before the end. I never tried to follow his example but naah just not possible. I was all the time too much behind him. I don't really remember how my times improved, not any big jumps at least. I ended up with 26,72 while kuiva got 26,32. I had some scary scenarios painted in my mind that kuiva wins and I'm like 10th or something. Fortunately there were a different style and with the help of it Raider and TomCat got ahead of kuiva, Jalli was third and the best guy with the "normal" style. So that meant kuiva got "only" 29p more than I did, we were almost even in total points. 419: This level was ok, bit höylish but not too much and the look was fine. This time kuiva turned into "chilling mode" again and I did all the style inventing work and so on. The event had a very typical time improving progress: "maybe 46 with a good run" "MAX 45high" "got 45½ but under 45 impossible" etc. I think the coolest trick in my style was the one in the right part of the lev where you turn. I was certain that 44½ would be my final time, Abula asked my time and this time I even said it. I had to leave somewhere but I tried few more tries and suddenly got 44,29 and then sent in of course. Cloud hadn't taken really part in whole wcup before this round. He talked about some quite good times that could be done but I really hadn't any idea how it could be possible. Obviously the style was wrong again, the bounce was done in a wrong (and harder) way and the middle part was the biggest factor where I lost main of course. Cloud hadn't taken really part in whole wcup before this round. He talked about some quite good times that could be done but I really hadn't any idea how it could be possible. Obviously the style was wrong again, the bounce was done in a wrong (and harder) way and the middle part was the biggest factor where I lost many precious hundreths. While waiting results I asked Abula's time, he was pretty quiet about it but when I asked "45?" he just said "~". So of course I thougth that at least he is behind me. When the results came there were no Abu's around 45 no no ...he had 0,04 better than me! HELLOOOU have you ever learned to round numbers in math ;) So Cloud won the event but 2nd was a surprise, Karlis wtf!? Oky that silly höylä had lied the whole event that he quits wcup because Jalli is already too far away in standings (and he really was, at least everybody thougth so). I don't know if this Karlis' fake quit affected Jalli's playing but he was only 16th. 420: Last event, this is the final battleground. DarMoeD already won the cup, but a tight battle between me and kuiva about the second place (and Jalli and Karlis having their own battle). Karlis again tried to convince he won't play but nobody really believed him anymore. I was kinda disappointed that pexi didn't choose the level he had specially requested for me to make even longer (it ended up in king cup). I guess he didn't wanna be the one who "settles" the fight between and kuiva. The styles in this one were invented quite fast. Everything seemed to work my way, I improved my times almost one sec at the time and already on Tuesday I got 51,57. I was quite satisfied with it and already gave up playing, magicman really wondered how can it be possible to get time like that and kuiva said something like giving up the fight. Whole week I just waited for the event to end, kuiva was safely behind for a long time but at the weekend he started closing in. As my worries grew I made few tries on Sunday (deadline was Monday this time) but it was no use to start playing anymore because the touch was gone. In the last moments kuiva was only 0,06 behind me. Just a better time wasn't enough though because I was leading with about 15 points. The last hour was kinda exiting, it felt like wathing some football/hockey game which has gone to overtime. The clock was ticking and when the deadline was like 5mins away I said to kuiva something like "Stop it already!" "quit it" "CHEAT CHEAT DEADLINE JUST PASSED!!!!" ...finally he quitted. And you know what means! Me teh 2nd best player in the universeee \o/ !!! ...well not quite but if was still great. Oh and you know why it was even bigger relief? ALL the time during my playings I always remembered the missing 75p from event 4. If kuiva would've beated me that would've haunted in my mind for the rest of my life ;) ..now everything went just perfect Some after wcup thougths: *As all of you know DarMoeD was teh xiit0r, but as I already said I wanted to write the stories how I felt back then. Too bad it requires quite a lot of work to change the results afterwards but I hope it will be done someday. *I seemed to be quite into elma during this wcup, some unnormal behaviour at some points hah, looks pretty stupid nowdays *As I now read some logs trough when writing this I really remember the good spirit we had with magicman, we supported each other all the way and he was his usual positive self *Thanks to everybody who gave styles to me because it's almost impossible to invent everything yourself, the biggest help I got in 05 (psy gave hanging style), 10 (magicman and the serpents style) and 12 (kuiva, spinning style) *And of course thanks to everybody else who played for giving a good and tight competition! Here are some extra questions people asked me: Abula: -=Why you are not idling in #across anymore, are you too cool for it?=- Hard to say, maybe I am. Naa but seriously, I don't really feel like hanging there all the time. If I had some temptations to be there but I just wouldn't join, then it might be more like trying to be cool or something, right? The reason why I'm not especially interested in #across is that there aren't many subjects that interests me. It's sometimes happened that the whole channel just annoys me with all the stupid mongo talking and subjects and serious elma playing people. I'm no way trying to flame the people who are there no no, it's just that I choose rather to visit it every now and then. Of course there are some coelz kuskis missing from #elma.fi (for obvious reasons) that chat on #across, like skint and ..umm jsim popped into my mind now when I browsed the channel list (even though I've never really talked to him that much but he has absolutely no annoynce-factor heah). Same thing with aavv and he's even relatively new kuski. -=Same question about total=- I'm too cool to play total was the question? I've played total few times pretty intensively when I was a noob and that's enough! I don't like to play any levels too much in the end, I usually get bored and then switch to other. Of course it affects if it's a more serious competition or just normal crusing. I like to play elma the way I enjoy the game most, and if I would start playing internals again (höyling like hell for wrs and great tt) the only reason would be to get respect from others. Many internals are great levels, and I've also played them more than an avarage great level, but it's hard for me to understand how some people play them year after year. -=Would it be cool to earn money by playing elma? Like $1000 per month? How about $100?=- Why not, but it's clear if you could earn money the game would suddenly become whole lotta more serious. I can't really imagine how it would be like in the end with the money involved. $1000 is at least quite much and I would of course increase my playing, but it also depends what you have to do. If teams just hire you to their payroll then it would be cooler than getting some money by beating single sick records ...ehh what am I talking about :P BarTek: -=If u had to wich kuski would you consider having sex with if you were forced to such act?=- Xiit answer: some female kuski like ronimox or nju. Answer that gets Bart's cock hard: If I were forced to have sex with some (male)kuski I'd choose someone who hasn't got too huge penis so my ass wouldn't hurt as much. And rather someone who is relatively cute and not too hairy. DacBitch: -=Why did it take so long to write your interview?=- The answer to this is few lines farther down -=How did you feel after the January deadline?=- No special feelings about it, once I got the interview in mail I would have written it anyway before that deadline I think. But in a way the deadline was a good thing to get some other lazy asses to do theirs ;) ----------------------------- Now let's analyze my introduction which I wrote at the beginning: "This took quite awhile to get this interview, that's why I didn't do this before. It would've been much nicer to write it back then." Ye it took pretty long to get this, 1½years or something. But the writing took also more than I had thougth ...1½months or something. But this certainly would've been easier to write right after I won, all the wcup stuff and others "I promised to some guys (at least ramone) that I'm going to write the longiest interview yet, now I'm bit dropped out of the scene and don't have that much energy left but I still try to do my best ;)" Hmm I think this should be the longest heh. And no I'm not the ones who think "the longer the better" but I just wanted to do this ..and quite much energy this required :Z "Watch out for boring lifestories mixed with confusing typos." Boring lifestories? You bet. Confusing typos? I'm sure there's a nice bunch of them, as my english is far from perfect and I don't bother to re-check this whole interview so ...it's just up you to find them "gotta catch em all!" "I think I have a quite good picture of my whole elma (and across) playing career but many of the timelines might be messed up" Yeh, nothing to comment really "...and don't take everything too seriously" This might be the most important one ;) ..there might be some annoyng bragging or whatever but ye, at least those who know me should know this MP 13th December 2004 :*