Posted on

After reading interviews in the past months, i have read some interesting and some not so interesting stuff. With interesting people and not so interesting people. Tonight i realised that i have never read an interview with Stuart "TosspoT" Saw out of all those interviews and decided it was time to take action!
Good evening Stuart, can you tell those of crossfire who dont know anything about you a few words to describe yourself?

I'm TosspoT, I run this very site you're reading this interview on aswell as commentate on video games for QuadV online and a variety of TV Stations! I'm very tall! I love football and alcohol and of course gaming.Lastly, we at Crossfire run the Crossfire Devotii Challenge LAN tournaments. Whilst I'm doing all of that hoopla I'm at university in my final year and to avoid doing any actual work I drink copius amounts of alcohol

Alot of that sounds interesting, specially the part that contains alcohol, but How are things going for you at both QuadV and Crossfire?

Well thats a big question! QuadV is going fantastically, we're growing stronger and faster than we ever imagined, each months we're setting new traffic stat records and hitting new viewer peaks. I've been in this 'commentating' game for a fair old while now and the growth of QuadV has really been a breath of fresh air. We've of course got our own goals though, we still consider ourselves to only just be out of stage 1 of setup and theres alot of work to do to maintain our growth however the goal and the hope is to become a fully profitable company that can pay the commentators for their time and produce a variety of content that gamers like you and me will want to consume. For QuadV to become a successful business model will take a great deal of work and somewhat a bit of a change in peoples perceptions of entertainment, but if you subscribe to the dream of gaming as entertainment then also know that it takes alot of time. We've exciting news coming up at QuadV that just keeps going to show what we feel we can achieve.As for crossfire. In the 16 months I've owned Crossfire, everything has doubled and more, userbase, hits, members, content has all gone up! So I'd call that a big success, I'm very proud of what has been achieved with Crossfire. I always felt it could do more and now I really feel that it does more than in truth most community sites do, and certainly what it itself used to do.

Now question i personally am looking forward to seeing your respond to, all this "et is dead" or "et will never die"…you as a man who has been one of the biggest parts of et from the very beginning, what are your predictions about ET's coming future?

I dont want to make any bold assumptions about ET's future. To say after this season it will die, or after next season it will die would be pointless. Death is in the eye of the beholder, there are some oldschoolers who say it died when they quit or something like that. I remember RTCW's death which for me personally was after the mysod vs kreaturen eurocup, but then it came back in EC X and whilst the scene was dead the Eurocup was still amazingly entertaining. All I can do is continue trying to get enjoyment out of ET and doing whatever I can to help sustain it. Its funny but I think my best ever shoutcast was the recent cZar game, I've already forgotten who they played against but the excitement levels were as high as ever. On top of that, Crossfire is never going to say "we no longer support ET" we'll keep beating the horse until the horse stops kicking and that means that if ET is successful at the next CDC then we'll try again with it even after that. Theres no reason not to and even though RTCW is the game I love the most, I have a special attachment to ET and nothings gonna make me forget that in a hurry.

Well, atleast to me and many others, that means allot and is good to know !
The Crossfire lan series have been a growing success from the first one, and just for the people who dont know much about the work behind them, how does the preparation work ? who is behind it amongst you ? how much time and work is put into them? etc..

The Challenge series are an incredible amount of work. In the week before the event you basically have to realise that you need to be attached to iRC and Email to sort out last minute problems and in the week after you need to realise that you're not gonna get outta bed! However its alot more, We're working now for CDC4 which just this weekend the event was almost finalised and thats 3 months away! Then will come the announcements, then will come the questions, then will come the complaints, then will come the invites, then will come the supermega whine, then will come the seeds, then will come the hateful whine then comes the event and out comes the love. If you were to write it on your CV is that you need to effectively manage and coordinate every gamer that wants to play at your lan, and then coordinate everyone that cant come but wants to know about it. Its stressful, but I feed off that stress for enjoyment. Right now we're poised to announce the initial prizefunds and tournament layouts along with the dates for CDC4, that will be followed by a period of trying to make some sponsorships happen so we can improve upon our initial offering. So even in periods of potential downtime, theres always something extra that is being done to try to improve upon the last event. The events are a whole Crossfire Crew effort, Myself and Cash take point but in varying levels everyone of the Crossfire admins has helped making the events what they are, whether thats answering and querys and helping teams with information or whether its running the tournaments to a tight schedule, everyone does their bit and credit should always be directed to the whole crew not just the people at the top.

I myself have not been to any of the previous crossfire LANs but i have heard from several people that they had a great time, and met some really nice people there, but hopefully i will be attending the next! Now onto a bit more important question. Do you have any tips for those who admire your hair ? What shampoo, what conditioner, wax? gel ? molding creams ? spray? etc.. I have also heard there is only one crossfire member who has better looking hair than you, and that he has my name backwards, sAs that is, and what do you know about this mistery man ? is he a potential threat to you if he will attend cdc4?

rofl! I'm not sure why anyone would admire my hair. My two housemates take the piss out of it on a near daily basis "Stu you're not going out like that are you?" but the secret is regular washing and matt clay! Plus you'll notice that my hair always looks different in each and everyone on of the horrible photos of me, because I'm never happy with it! When being bald becomes fashionable again (Sorry Ronner) I'll be the first to do it! As for this mystery guy called sAs…I hear he spends hours on it in the icelandic volanco glacier spa things to get it just right, nobody can compete with that!
Rumors have been that if you ever have some spare time from all this work, you might want to travel with some of your friends ? is this true and have any plans been made ?

I love traveling, I think you're referring to a trip to Iceland and if the chance arises I'll certainly do it! Fortunately/Unfortunately gaming travel keeps me busy enough and I usually muster two international trips a month which is about all the traveling I can handle!

Im gonna be a pain and ask you to name ONE outstanding moment in your career related to gaming !

Thats an interesting question! I've had the pleasure of having so many amazing moments in gaming, which in truth I never thought I'd ever say so I'm quite proud of that fact. I guess the moment that stands out the most was the Quakecon 06 final. Although Crossfire got owned in the final, they either won or set a time on Radar and the doc run on radar from the perspective I was watching was insane. With just seconds remaining it looked as if Ferus had shut Crossfire out and won the map for Idle. Out of nowhere r3vers came from behind him and just took the radar parts without shooting him, as he ran away and down onto the main road, ferus triple luger headshot him but the parts were taken by the last men of Crossfire to either set the time or win Radar. It was just perfect spectator gameplay for me at least. Quakecon generally has been outstanding for me, I've been to 3 and you can bet I'll try to be there again this year.

Lol. im not oldschool enough to have been around to see that, but you wont avoid getting me that video/demo ! Now about your future plans.. Have you thought about what you want to do after you have finshed university for example ? and basically your coming future ?

Thats a question that is the foremost thought in my mind these days. I would ideally love to stay in gaming, but theres the reality that I want to be super mega rich! Is it possible to do both? I hope so and I'm certainly going to try. I've got a variety of options on that front, as I mentioned I'm doing more TV work related to gaming these days and that has the potential to pay well. On top of that I see that if properly done events could be profitable, for both organisor and attendee. There are other things aswell such bringing advertisers into gaming. Basically if you want to make money in gaming you've gotta be able to find yourself a hole in a very small enviroment. I don't know whether its possible, I guess in 18 months if I'm still here we'll know the answer to that! The reality is, I've had the opportunity to drop out of university for fulltime jobs in gaming a few times and I've not taken them. Once I came MIGHTY close, but I dont regret it. In 6 months I'll have a degree and I have even better prospects of getting a job outside of gaming and now I'd like to think I know quite alot more of how things work, I've experienced an incredible amount as a result of gaming that I can put on a CV that other people my age cant. Its a dilemma, but I want to see how long I can stay in gaming.

Well it seems you have everything needed to become "super mega rich" and I wish you best of luck ! but we all hope you'll stick around for as long as possible !

Now some useless stuff !

Now playing? Bloc Party – Flux
Now wearing? I'm in bed so not a great deal!
Current mood? Positive, yet apprehensive of my presentation tomorrow at uni!
Currently looking forward to? Next night out on the piss, they're few and far between these days with the uni workload mounting up.
Toothbrush color? I just bought a new one!!! Blue'ish with white
Favorite Jean producer? Diesel of course!

Last but not least ! Favorite band/solo artist of all time ? And yes, you have to pick ONE!

Its gotta be Queen, a song for every mood and occasion

Well, i think that sums up for a nice interview..some interesting facts have been revealed ! and i would like to Thank Stuart "TosspoT" Saw for taking the time to answer my questions, and would like to take this opportunity to thank him personally for all the hours of work and effort he has put into et, and YOU! should to aswell when thinking of what to post here !