His excitable tones are synonymous with the Wolfenstein community. As a start up caster, he broadcast from the internet equivalent of a radio rack shack, he found happiness and a home at Inside The Game and went on to develop a career in gaming. Having recently successfully hosted the Sixth Crossfire Challenge – Stuart Saw talks to Crossfire.
Gaming is an unnerving and constantly evolving profession. An industry that adequately supports relatively few, yet is the ultimate meritocratic profession. Raw talent can be developed and nurtured, anyone can progress from broadcasting in their basement to entertaining a crowd of thousands in the sizzling heat of Singapore. Dedication, passion and a natural gift for entertainment are just a few of the qualities required, and ones Stuart has in abundance.
My last confrontation with Stuart Saw, aka TosspoT was an aggressive and provocative exchanged back in 2006. It probed his financial situation, his personal casting style, the morality of gaming and ego. How has Stuart changed since then? How have his pet projects developed and where does he envisage the future?
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Hi there, welcome. We’ll start with a brainteaser…
If you had to write a letter to your younger sixteen year old self what would you tell him??
What a way to start!
Believe in yourself more would be the theme of the letter, at school I wasn’t confident in my abilities a point that was backed up by the average social insecurities of any high school student. Schools lie to you in suggesting that they're there to help you, really they aren’t. They want to get you through the system in a manner that reflects well on them when really you need someone to mentor your transition from child to adult, a helping hand that doesn’t come.
I look back with regret the fact that I could have done a lot better with my grades and that’s something I rectified at university but its still a blotch on the CV I'd tell my 16 year old self to sort out! Keep playing sport! I am still to this day trying to kill off a stubborn bit of fat on my belly that formed in the later years of school, I will rejoice the day that its dead....so long as it doesn’t take liposuction to kill the bugger.
How have you changed since our last interview in 2006?
I've changed a great deal from 2006. In the past 3 years I have learnt so much, my priorities I have changed greatly too. I'm lucky enough to live an enormously happy life, I've done university and I've moved out of home and come out of those two chapters with some great friends that I find myself very secure amongst. The childhood fear of being hurt is gone.
Backed by that solid foundation of family and friends I have much more confidence going into new situations, something that translates well into business and that’s the biggest change for me, eSports, my hobby is now, business.
Back to every gamers shameful secret – given your position, you’re now more well placed than anyone to comment. Do you think competitive gaming is becoming more socially acceptable and are you proud to tell people you work in eSports? Is the concept of eSports [sic] an easy sell?
I'm sure I just said I was more confident?? Well all except in one part, if I get chatting with a girl I never mention eSports! TV Presenter is the line, which whilst semi-true! But eSports is not socially acceptable and its decades away from being so. I have female friends that will happily invest their Friday night playing guitar hero in the most competitive manner possible yet refuse to see the link between what they do and what I do.
The flip side is that there are many perks to working in eSports, the travel being the biggest part of it. Though I'm now immensely bored of airports, its still something other people think is hugely glamorous so that part is an easy sell.
You’ve recently been openly critical of other aspiring casters in the scene seeking instant gratification, what advice would you offer to them?
Rome wasnt built in a day and neither were djWHEAT, ReDeYe, Joe Miller or TosspoT (insert any other commentator you admire). Every one of the aspiring English speaking commentators that has come through the Crossfire community has failed to put in the hours needed to succeed at the job.
Go and look at the iTG database that GamesTV brilliantly saved, roll back to the days of saevus, DSKY and co and look how many casts I was pouring out week in week out to improve my game. Roll back a few years prior to RTCW and the ridicule I took in the shadow of Warwitch and see the steep learning curve you will face doing a game with benchmark casters and stop feeling hard done by for yourself.
Everyone of those 4 I listed did exactly the same! It’s not by chance that the 4 people that have been doing this the longest are the people who are making a living out of doing it.
Its got to the point when I seen too many hard done by comments of new casters and I've flipped. They just piss me off, this sounds very cliché but kids these days have no idea or desire to put in the hours that we did back in our day.
So dedication and passion is what made you successful?
My success came from a hell of a lot of hardwork combined with taking my chances. My first LAN event was WCG 2004, to put that into perspective WCG is the biggest eSports event out there pulling in 7 figure online stream audiences for last years finals. We didn’t have a WC3 caster at iTG and I said I'd learn it and do it, the management took a leap of faith in me (considering I'd never done anything outside WW2 shooters) and I put in the hours over the 6 weeks before the event to learn a game prior to that I didn’t even own. Off the back of that learning experience I now cast the majority of the major events in WC3 and got hugely complimented in a recent column on SK, yet I've still never played the game competitively.
Why so successful? Hard work combined with taking a chance.
Why did the iTG management take a chance on me? Because I was putting in the hours in ET, it was a reward for me as I was firing ET casts out left right and centre and pulling in huge listener figures. We got 1200 people on an audio only stream for Atlantic Battle 2, an event I ran and casted. So that goes back to my earlier reply about new casters, hard work does pay off.
Since your takeover from Raza Crossfire has changed exponentially. What makes Crossfire what it is?
crossfire.nu/?x=journal to be short. Here is where you can see the heart of a community, you can see the worst of Crossfire and you can see the best of Crossfire in the Journal section. It separates Crossfire from every other eSports site out there as nowhere else is there the same level of activity and originality being posted. In black and white the journals are a forum by a different name, but in colour they are something different.
You could argue that CF may have done this with or without me, however I've deployed many tactics to grow crossfires userbase and hense feed into the journal section.
Has this popularity lead to an income?
Yes and No, eventually anything that comes in gets reinvested regardless. Though I've a plan in the pipeline that I hope to lead to an income that I will dance around in a later question!
Large organisations with multinational sponsors, such as WSVG, have not long since collapsed. What happened to former challenge sponsors Devotii and who now finances the CC events?
Devotii itself is dead or becoming dead, its apart of the TNWA group which owns Enemydown (the uk's largest league site). Each CC event has pretty much had different backers. 1 had Prizefight backing it and Quakecon money, though this didn’t arrive until after CPC2 so it was basically me backing it. In hindsight 1 was a bad event financially, it made a big loss. 2 & 3 if I recall right were barely backed at all and I covered the shortfall after the Qcon money, this despite having PF and Devotii in their names - you may ask why? Well this good will gesture was repaid when Devotii sponsored the CoD tourney at CDC4. 5 was backed by Heaven Media and 6 was sponsored by YCN-Hosting. Its a very hard product to sell, CoD is the only game you can sell (PF and Devotii weren’t interested in sponsoring the ET tourney for example) and Enschede is not an easy location to sell either! Particularly if you're in England trying to get English budgets for a dutch event.
Has the weakening £ effected the viability of the CC events?
HUGELY on CC5. To begin with I cocked up, when I receive money into the CF account its instantly changed from Euro into Pounds. Now if you think about it money comes in 3 months before an event and you don’t pay it out until about 1 month after an event if all goes well, in those 4 months the pound went from being worth 1.28 Euro to being worth at point over Christmas 2008 1 Euro. So effectively 28% of the value of the money I received would have been wiped out. Fortunately I stopped that about 2 months into the process, but I still lost maybe 10%? However of the amount Heaven Media was paying for to back the event, that money depreciated from the agreement to the payment by about 20% (the pound recovered in January to around 1.10)
After that shit storm, not really - it makes QuadV more expensive as they're a British company, but other than that not really.
It’s nearing six years since ET was released and you covered RTCW before that, do you still have a passion for casting Enemy Territory?
A Passion? Yes, the same passion? No. There was a time when I'd orgasm over those three words "prepare to fight" and they are gone now, even for a big final. The game has become in many ways far too predictable, and if a guy who hasn’t played in years can predict what’s going to happen then its bad news. For ET to become compelling viewing again as it was at CPC2 then it'll require new maps that have less stages.
I fully understand the players perspective on why Supply & Bremen are the best maps, and if I were still playing I'd say the same thing. However there are 5 stages on those maps which remove the element of excitement should something go wrong as there are too many opportunities for the better team to recover. On Radar for example, there is always excitement because one cock up at west and the map is all but lost, or an even better example, in RTCW there are no 3 stage maps!
On 28th November 2008 in the news post announcing your position at Heaven Media you stated “Forward from that this whole project should see some real tangible rewards for everyone involved here on Crossfire, whether that's more money in your game or a better community experience, the goal of this project is to deliver it.” Considering this, have you failed in your role to ensure a better future for Crossfire? And if not, what have you achieved?
That role didn’t last long to be honest! I've stepped back from my position at Heaven Media. One of biggest parts of that role was delivering the future of the Crossfire events and a profitable model for the upscaling of those events. I am convinced in my heart that it is possible however I wasn’t able to do that at heaven without great risk, risk that would kill the reputation of anyone involved should Rome fall. When the risk factor is that high, and not only yours but other companies reputations are weighted onto it you have to sometimes step back and say I failed.
So to answer your question, yes I've failed to deliver a better future Crossfire SO FAR, I still have every intention bringing Crossfire to the promised land and am busy working to that goal.
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Due to the length & the range of topics covered, this interview has been reduced down to two parts. The more substantive second part of “TosspoT: An Interview” covering the questions you all want answered – what next for the Crossfire Challenge events – will be posted Sunday evening! Here’s a taster
Keep checking the interview section here on Crossfire!
It doesn't need new maps to be succesful it needs to have a new audience. ET is just getting old and seeing the same faces all the time just makes it boring and especially when there's about 30 players who are the best and they just mix themselves up from time to time to make the same teams again.
Pretty much everyone in ET knows eachother and especially the higher skilled people do play a lot with and against each other. Playing the same old players every week, week in week out just makes a boring game. It's time for a new game with new fresh players we all haven't heard about.
et is made to eliminate pure skilled players from reaching the top... my friend after just 2 weeks of playing was in one of the best polish CoD clans back then... in ET its impossible because its teambased game, and to play at high level you have to play in a defined way...
you need 2-3 years to reach the top, after you became quite known, some big team might take you as padawan...
Well, I have my own opinion of things. For example, I am 1 of very few people that actually likes adlernest. Delivery does bring something different to the table and because of that, I enjoy it as well, even though I absolutely despise the box camping by the truck. I still enjoy playing Radar, even though my team have been losing that map in 90% of our games for the passed year (generally getting raped on it). And grush I still love.
Those 4 (delivery adler grush radar) maps for me without a shadow of a doubt, are my favourite 4 maps that I still enjoy playing. But after that....
supply is a quality map, but jesus christ i dont enjoy playing it in 6on6 anymore.
bremen's concept is good, but i was never its biggest fan, just always found it tremendously boring till you get to the truck stage.
Those 6 maps for me are still the maps that should be played. I absolute hate frostbite with a passion. Braundorf I still like as I think people just didnt know how to play it as such. Secret weapon was always a fun map to play, enjoyed Karsiah as well. But after that... can't think of many other maps.
So I'd actually like to see a new maplist and try and get a change and invite some innovation towards some new maps, but I just dont think there are the maps out there to provide this, adler braundorf secretweapon karsiah are really hated by alot even though i still think they are good maps, delivery is like marmite, grush and radar are loved and so is supply. So yes to a maplist change but only with decent maps, I still remember you promoting frost_comp and some showmatch polar played vs TLR which was the most boring match ever.
When I read this this, this moring;
"Considering this, have you failed in your role to ensure a better future for Crossfire? And if not, what have you achieved?"
I laughed pretty hard, reminds me of the harsh interview you originally made xD
so much text but it felt like reading it all in one minute.. so definitely looking forward to the next one
as for the map issue i feel like new maps dont get enough playtime, one show match is not gonna tell anything
i would like to see supply, radar, goldrush and delivery stay for sure and then adding likes of reactor, karsiah and railgun
or as someone suggested put two docks on adlernest its a relatively easy way to improve it :P
not only do ur's and the other admins effort especially when it comes to lan keep et alive but ur all so sociable, especially urself stu, hence the amount of ppl saying they are willing to attend crossfire weekender. I think this is why crosssfire and et is still so popular - im pretty sure u may find the game boring and i myself at times do to, but i bet the ppl that turn up to the crossfire lan provide more humour and entertainment for u in particular than any other lans. e.g water over tyyrd's head !
A great interview but I feel that is because TosspoT was being honest for a change. In some ways the first question casts a shadow over the rest of the interview, and the transition between ET and eSport topics is quite repetitive, though, I imagine that is only because I am too well placed to appreciate the 'experience'.
From my own personal experience at school I would disagree with your initial answer, but I have recently been mentoring a number of GCSE students and the sheer lack of confidence in some students surprised me.
There is a tangible relation between your experience as a student and your response as 'TosspoT', though. Your response concerning shoutcasting is the perfect example. No one denies that you, ReDeYe, Joe and djWHEAT put in a lot of hours, but those hours should have helped make the job easier for prospective shoutcasters. It is the prevailing attitude which all old-school have.
This elitist, isolationist and protective attitude you have makes it incredibly hard for new talent to progress because those involved are either paid unfairly for their established name, or they fail to provide the right example. It is as if you are gatekeepers passing judgement: “Ye shall not pass until you have worked the same hours I used to work”. Most prospective admins, shoutcasters and writers simply do not have what it takes but the attitude (with regards to work, i.e. being Jewish with money for one; I find I get on more with older more experienced members of the community) most oldschoolers have does not help.
I see your point, but people with talent who dont have to put in those hours (tasteless & 2gd) get where they should be (in front of a camera), but those people who have to work at it like those I mentioned are the majority of wannabee casters and those who want to cast dont cast 'hard enough'.
You are right, but I would go further. I have not seen enough of Tasteless to give a legitimate opinion but 2GD is not a good shoutcaster at all. His charisma (if that is what you want to call it) is as subtle as a sledgehammer. I cannot hear or see any vocal change when he shoutcasts which suggests he is not concious of what he is doing, or more appropriately, perhaps, not doing.
It was not a personal dig more a general consensus of the entire industry.
Was way too long in one chunk (7 odd pages size 10) so was broadly cut into career/general crossfire & CC – this saw it butchered somewhat (: The original had slightly more continuity though it was done via email so there’s only so much narrative that can be built ^^
well if you actually want to change something in ET map-wise you should find and affordable way to host your own "eurocup" events, seeing as clanbase just won't push it. I think i speak for everyone if i say people cant be arsed praccing and preparing new maps when they know its just a one-time deal. If you give them a proper reward for playing these maps (prizes or pride) you might actually get somewhere, if not, don't bother (or buy clanbase and esl?)
other than that nice interview. i have to say though your et shoutcasts are becoming just a repetition of every other et shoutcast of you ive listened to, the same phrases coming by all the time and you missing half the action. i've never heard you casting another game so i reckon its just you being bored with the game which doesn't surprise me too much.
yeah maybe, but then i wonder are there any good competition maps for the players? I like maps like supply and goldrush because they have several stages and if you fuck up one stage you can still manage a good time on either offense or defense, obviously. I don't think bringing in these "random" maps where on paper, less skilled teams can beat higher skilled teams by the random factor, will actually make the game better or more popular. It might be fun to spec, but then where's the point in preparing and praccing before any event if it's result is mostly decided on this factor anyway?
what is fun though, is the ever evolving new tactics. e.g. the supply last defence slowly going from the upstairs defence to an outside defence, same for the old oasis, which at some point comes to a halt. Bringing in new multi-stage maps then is the key I think, not the lucky maps.
I agree, learning new maps & watching the tactics develop is the fun part for me - and only something available to multi-stage complex maps (even silly things like the Supply CP can etc that're standard nowadays).
I think meez raises an interesting point in the news post, it's no longer the maps - the gameplay of ET is now set & ported across, should people wish meaningful change (I'm non committal either way) you'd have to do it through changing the gameplay. Be it further weapon restrictions, playing with spawntimes, team size or some other overlooked aspect.
the one with 480 comments? I'd only read them if id written the story myself i think. if you could put it into one sentence id be grateful. the first thing that comes to my mind after reading the interview would be the lack of interest for et of anyone but the et community itself/
Nice interview and something should be really done for the map list. I've mostly just specced games lately and I gotta admit that many games are boring to spec with these many-stage maps. I like adlernest myself and would like to see more maps like that. But rather some totally new stuff, not bringing back anything already used.
Seriously, why try to analyse to such an extent one game. Why isn't crossfire actually actively encouraging the playing of other games? There's so much bias towards et here, to a game that obviously lost it's sparkle years ago.
Great, great interview. Good questions, good answers, I want more of that quality! The community owes you a lot and it's probably not an overstatement to say that without CC enemy territory would wither away.
Good times, back when you were casting EC, with no ETTV yet. I recall you as a really friendly person, open-minded, with lots of good attitude. And I must admit I kind of envy you of the determination to keep on shoutcasting, keep on shaping the ET scene the right way, especially when you were also occupied by university. I couldn't gather the motivation to do it.
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