As part of Twisted Play Week, I sat down with Tony “Gom8z” Oldfield and asked him about TP.
Now this man, rarely needs an introduction to any of you, but if you were say “who?” then I would answer, “one of the most funniest leaders I have met, and someone who always puts himself out to better the community”, other people may say “leader of those ugly *cough* I mean sexy gamer’s”. However you want to see Tony, he has been a genuine character of the Counter Strike Community, his witty banter and his general immaturity has made him renown throughout the scene. In fact I would go as far to say that you can see the majority of his banter in this whole interview, which makes it very special. However underneath the witty banter and the rest of what Tony does, there is a man who loves the game, loves the people around him, and loves having a good time in the game, he suggested an idea to the Enemy Down Admin Team recently in the form of trying to “freshen” up the Counter Strike Source Scene, with his “Mez’s Mystery Cup” in ED, which included a whole set of different maps including alternative’s to de_inferno, and his own favourite which is de_losttemple_pro which if you got him talking about it, he may just keep you there for days upon end. On that bombshell we will move on to the interview, have a good read of this.
Looking back on Twisted Plays History, do you feel it has been a success to you, and did you ever think Twisted Play would ever stand the test of time?
TwistedPlay is to me a definate success otherwise I wouldn’t still be in the gaming scene spending so much time with the people I now see as good friends.
Whether I knew it would stand the test of time is something you never know but TP simply has the goals of Gaming to make friends and then enjoying the competitive side. Aslong as we always have that mentality then I can’t see it ever dying.
What was Twisted Plays first ever team, and which leagues at the time did you compete in?
Eek that’s a hard question! when TwistedPlay first starting making mini teams under the community we had multiple teams TP.Aces TP.NyC TP.Yarr I really can’t remember all the names but we played against each other for fun really and had no real clue of thinking strats or flashes or normal spots to prefire. From there two teams decided to make the jump into Enemydown but were not able to get to close to the top 10 as in those days Ed was blessed with some strong teams like Zboard, Sykotic & uQ.
Our first lan was the big jumpstart for us in the competitive side as TwistedPlay ended up making it to the last 8 only to be completely outclassed on train without having any clue where they were getting shot from. From there we met the Zboard team without even realising they were the previous lan champions (I26) and instead of begging to watch them shoot heads we proceeded to tell them how crap they probably were at other games and said if they were real men they would try and take us on at Super Smash Bro’s!! Needless to say.. the wankers were good at that too. But from making friends with them and other big contacts it allowed us to see the difference in play-style and also better ways to practice and i owe that to what has got me to a high”-ish” standard.
Did Twisted Play start as a friendship, or was it just a bunch of players who evolved to become friends?
TwistedPlay just started from me and my cousin creating a public server and then leaving it to run. At that time i didn’t have a pc that could play css so while i was watching tv i would leave hlsw monitoring software going and chat to all the players. The fun thing was it became almost like a chatroom the amount of banter that went on that i can’t imagine they even got to shoot anyone when they played!
Over the years Twisted Play has become a “Power House” in community terms, have you got teams in other games?
The problem we’ve always had is the people in TP all play souly because they enjoy the people in TP. I probably stand alone but the truth is if TP died it would be very hard for me to stay on and keep playing the game. How that ties in with the question is that we all play CSS and barely anything else that we don’t have many people in other games to help stretch us across the market. Just recently though one of our founder TP members has become part of a Team Fortress 2 team and they are now tearing it up in the Enemydown Divisions. I’ve had the pleasure of joining them in a few mixes and although I could already tell that id be a tf2 superstar..it sadly just wasnt for me.
How many teams do you currently have in Counter Strike Source, as I have often taken the mick that Twisted Play & Rasta are like Tesco, in their way of taking over the world?
TwistedPlay will support as many teams as it can. because I have a spare server and I can save another team of sound gamers I will. My question to you is what other shit you been saying behind my back gumpy you snake?!?!
Well I call you a naughty man, who only likes hair Gell, however people asked me to ask you, what gell do you suggest using?
I don’t suggest Gel fella (all about the paste and gum), tbh i don’t recommend any of the crap you see on the shelves in boots and superdrug.. What I did is simply kept trying different hair dressers finding a stylist with a great wrack or fashion sense and let them just style my hair.
I got a lovely Polish lass called Kate who’s the manager of an Upper Cuts branch in essex and I just buy their products.. .can’t go wrong!!
http://www.uppercuthairgroup.co.uk/swf_files/p_styling.swf
Ah looks good man, moving on though, what describes Twisted Play best?
Theres so many words I’d say like Fun, Genuine or Banter-City but I’d go with Aoura because everywhere else has those things but in TPlay theres just something that sets us apart and whatever we do we stand out.
How does the Twisted Play community function, do you have a specific leadership team who make decisions or does the community have the say?
All members are free to do as they please. All we do is try our best to make sure people in our community don’t turn into trolls or give abuse to people outside our community.Don’t get me wrong I love banter and will happily have a slagging match with someone if its just on a server and means nothing but I do try and keep a curb from people arguing away on cadred and other places..
The only time I think thats ever needed is if your trying to defend a friend who’s been abused. Other than that we just let everyone do as they want as long as it never upsets anyone else.
Have you built strong friendships with other “rival” communities?
And in response to your question.. The great thing about source is…. if you look past the 60% ego maniac elite uk players and get yourself to the communities like Rasta and CK, you find some cracking people and all of them enjoy a good banter like we do. Obviously our official statement is Rasta are a bunch of dirty hackers and Damage is the spawn of satan proving that by joining the Mpuk staff, but off the record there’s nothing but love for them.
Our main TP team Good Looking Gamers have recently lost a little bit of their way with maybe becoming a little bit to serious and have decided to get back in the swing of things on the ED ladder and have already had some enjoyable games with some sound fella’s who although might not be at the standard of EPS, they do suprise you with some flashes or smoke tricks that they’ve actually made up instead of watching what verygamers or redline are doing. So yes TwistedPlay have a great relationship with all other communities… whether they feel the same about us.. only they know.
Twisted Play’s trip to Alton Tower’s not sure how the theme park coped with these fun lovin criminals!
Now we know Boostey’s reputation is that he is a bit of the “ladies man”, do you aspire as leader to be like him or are you proud that you have unearthed a hidden talent from him?
Boostey has a reputation as a ladies man?!?! Please… that innocent puppy still has a lot to learn about sharking, sealing the deal and without doubt he definately needs to touch up his wing man skills! Last time I paired dan off with some lass’s mate he went to the toilet, came back and instead of going back to the girl he was talking to decided to claim that I was infact talking to the wrong girl and subsequently both of them decided to do a runner. Let’s get the fucking record straight here… GLG is a combination of sexiness in multiple features, not just looks.. but none of them mofo’s come near me when it comes to hunting the female species… its like Lambs to the slaughter. Sadly though, a relationship has become serious as of late and I find myself retiring from the game.. yes there will be a lot of broken hearted women out there…but Im sure someone will slowly come through the TwistedPlay ranks to take my throne. All i can say to those aspiring MEz wannabe’s…Don’t be afraid of the big ladies… they’re a good learning curve and they will do ANYTHING!! >
On Day 3 of the same interview, Gom8z invited his “agent” Osh to come and help out with the interview, so here comes the trouble maker as it were joining in with this sensitive interview.
What was the decision behind GLG not playing in Enemy Down after the ROCCAT event on the ladder?
Osh: I’ll let tony answer this one
Tony: Oh Gump you dirty devil you… trying to bring up old wounds and cause trouble with GLG and ED. Well simply put there had come about a question that maybe the enemydown ladder wasn’t becoming inactive because ed.eu had failed or that source is slowly losing its popularity, the question was asked whether it was the enemydown ladder to which there was a 50/50 argument naturally…..the top teams defending their position and the new teams wanting a swap.. this actually was discarded in the end but once the Roccat competition came about it appear their was no debate about it and the competition was destined to wipe the current points and allow everyone a fair crack at the prizes..
Now your question do we feel hard done by in the fact that we had battled against … the top uk teams and some in europe, yet always maintaining we were an ed team for 2 years and when the first prize came about from the new admin team we were wiped off any advantage and in fact with the fact of how many competitions we in.. had no chance of competiting with other sides to out point other teams as you have to recognise who would want to play us knowing they have a high chance of losing points. Well the answer is we did feel it was a shame but if it was for the greater good then so be it.. Michael Schumacher made me stop watching Formula 1 and i didnt want GLG to be the Schumy of Enemydown.
What would have been nice is maybe some smaller prize as a show of acknowledgment but alas it is ok.. I still chat to the ed admins and do my best to help them out with multiple comps.. what … with the Mez Mystery Cup not to far back and we are now looking to get our sponsors ZOWIE Gear to provide some prizes for cups run by Enemydown, saying that if they reset the counter again maybe will go Eurokrieg instead! Fuck me that was a mouthful……DOES THAT ANSWER YOUR FUCKING QUESTION TOM!?!?
Osh: I was gonna go for ‘THEY TOOK OUR POINTS’, so good thing you answered that one
Your epic i38 match against Fnatic, what was going on in your heads and what was being said to make you play incredibly well during that match, did you do any extra prep for the game, or did Fnatic underestimate you as opponents?
Osh: I thought this was TP interview not GLG….
Tony: yer Gump wtf.. plus i didnt even play in that fricken match!! I was fucking ousted for Jack “Callisto”
Gump: I am interviewing all aspects of TP which does include GLG
Tony: You want an aspect of TP….. I GIVE YOU….. BOOSTEY
Boostey: What was going through my head while i was playing was simply “fuck, need to hold apps, not letting these foreigners beat me!!”. When we played we simply played out game like we would anyonme else. We went into the game thinking we would lose, but telling everyone we would smash them meaning there wasnt any pressure on us or our performance. We just played like we would have played against anyone else, everyone was laughing and having a good time like the usual GLG laid back lan and we simple played our own game and didnt let anything get to us. We didnt do any prep at all before that lan apart from simply playingt together, playing mixes with other tp members and simply having a good time. I think fnatic did underestimate us massively. We did have a few big names and up and comers in the line-up but no one expected us to do anything that lan.
Tony: For the record I wanted Fnatic to win… needed something to wipe that arrogant smile off Boostey’s face
Over the last year Twisted Play have expanded beyond Good Looking Gamer’s & God Damn $exy Gamers, did you guys feel there was a need for more teams, and did you feel at the time it was the right decison to bring more teams in?
Tony: Osh can do the honours on this one
Osh: yey i get a question…. Well IIRC which I probably don’t, it all started with GlG and after they started playing a lot together and getting noticed the rest of the community began to pick up their interest and the majority of the other members formed GfG Good Fooking Gamers, from there we picked up a few other guys to represent us as GsG and thats when we started getting noticed a lot and suddenly we had a lot of teams coming to us wanting to be part of TwistedPlay, it was never a case of we went out to pick teams up really, but TwistedPlay has always been a community rather than an Org, so when teams came towards us we generally brought them on board as with all communities they want to expand, we probably did over do it a little bit at first but then after a while a few flaked away and we were left with a core couple of teams that got to know us and got close to us and as a result TP grew in the way we wanted it to.
Tony: mention the scousers osh mention the loyal scousers
Osh: fuck the scousers
Tony: POW?!?!?
Osh: We do generally like to keep our community to 18+ to fit in with our ethos of drinking, but we made an exception a few years ago with TwistedPlay.Net who I christened TP Juniors, the young scousers, we picked them up and they have probably been our favourite pick up, sure they’ve had their little immature squabbles but we’ve watched them grow n improve so much and stuff like that really makes me feel good about TwistedPlay and i’m sure it does with the others, to be honest watching these teams come in and watching them improve and get involved in the community is really the thing i enjoy the most in the community apart from the TP Events. i miss anything mez?
Tony: *cough*tf2*cough*
Osh: dead game! we also allow our community members to branch out if they want to start playing a new/old game we try our best to help them out, we currently have teams made from the community representing TF2, Hon and 1.6.
The infamous Twisted Play House, will it ever be seen in that light again?
Is there a strict process of joining Twisted Play, or are you guys quite relaxed?
Osh: We are very relaxed about people joining TwistedPlay, all people are welcome. I’d say if people are really keen about getting their team in to TP that is probably the best way, join up to the forums, chat on our mumble where everyone is free to, get to know us then ask, and most of the time we will accept them.
Now this may well be an interesting question, but do you guys at Twisted Play have a special initialisation process at LANs?
Osh: Yes, that is all i am saying, because it is also a written rule you don’t talk about your initiations once you’ve had them as we don’t want to spoil our new bies fun, especially at this coming lan where we have aobut 8 initiations due!!!
Aside from doing things together offline, do you have regular community events online, and what do these events include?
Osh: Not as such really, we used to do 2v2s alot but they were hosted on our old website, since were currently in limbo with our new one due soon which will have features on it enabling us to do all our little fun cups and leagues we used to do, also with our new sponsor ZOWIE GEAR we will be getting prizes from them for competitons for our community members, so that’s something to look out for.
Now I have noticed you guys looking for sponsorship, but as a community how do you keep yourselves afloat financially?
Osh: tbh thats more of a mez question but i’ll have a hash at it, we’re lucky that all the things we need to run as a community are provided for us by our sponsors, our mumble is sponsored by ESN, our website is sponsored by VITAL and OVH.com has just sponsored us our own dedicated server so we don’t really have many out going costs.
When it comes to LAN’s how organised are you and the community at paying and seating together?
Osh: I’d say for a community were shockingly well organised. This is mainly because me and Mez run round like idiots before lan sorting everything out haha, but also because when we take on teams we make sure the leader of each team is well organised so we can trust them to get their act together and make sure if they are attending the lan they get their team sorted quickly, though that said we have had a few problems this lan with it selling out so damn quickly, we’ve got the majority of our guys together but when you’ve got 50 people going to this lan it makes it hard to get everyone sat next to each other.
What has been your funniest moment as a Twisted Play manager?
Osh: fml trying to pick out one moment, not sure why you ask as a manager because there is no division between us all, were all the same crazy bastards no real one upmanship, the funniest moment that i’ve had as a TP manager I probably wasn’t even there for, it was MegaPhoneGate at the last lan, I’d already gone home with Rain leaving the Megaphone with Silky and Abi as they still wanted to have some fun but seems like they had too much fun which is why I no longe rhave a megaphona, having them call me up and try and explain the situation just left me in a flood of tears…from laughing and I am truely gutted I missed it!
Now you once told me about how you had been named a trouble maker at the iSeries, would you like to explain all this?
Osh: See I’m not too sure about this, I was playing public one day and some guys goes….Your not Osh from Lan are you? I reply yeh, and we get talking he tells me he’s a staff member from I series and then adds me, so we get talking and he tells me about how he’d heard about the stuff we got up to, so I asked him jokingly if they were warned about us lot, he goes not TwistedPlay but your name is always brought up, telling me that the staff are always told to keep an eye on me as apparently I’m a trouble maker! Now I was deeply offended by this as there is nothing I have ever done for people to suspect i am a trouble maker…cept maybe getting on the PA system and announcing Waylanders car had been broken into, hiding the CLUK banners, Filming Nero on the toilet, parking a car in Infuseds tent and maybe one or two other things!!
Now what do Twisted Play make of the update to CS: S, is it good or bad, and do you guys believe it could change CS: S for the better?
Osh: Tony you wanna answer this one?
Tony: My personal opinion is Counter Strike as a whole needs a re-birth of the game to come out, not just updates to source.
The source update to me has changed the feel of the game and Im personally struggling with it at the moment but who knows maybe in a few months when they have kept making more little tweeks it will be the for the best. I still hope tho that a new Counter Strike game comes out along with a new half life but obviously it all depends on if it is commerically viable for Valve.
Ok, so lets look into the future, a year has passed by, where would you like to see Twisted Play as a community, more of the same or something a little different?
Osh: We aim to have stopped lanning by then and dedicate all our lan money to yearly holidays, well thats been the aim for a good while now, whether it will happen or not who knows, maybe we love gaming a lil bit too much for that to happen, but I guess it’s always onwards and upwards, along our same gameplan thats got us to where we are now
Now The “Twisted Play House” came around during iSeries LANs, can you explain a bit about this house?
Osh: Ah we have to think the mummy of TwistedPlay for this one Kate / Katalina, We came up to i34 at Stonleigh park and as we usually get hotels at Newbury we thought we’d do the same so Kate did some research to find the best place and came accross this house which we could rent for the weekend that worked out cheaper, so we did it and then it just kicked off it was insane, much better than a hotel really, i think it helped bring the community together mor as we were constantly with each other all helping each other out with cleaning and cooking after a night in. It’s a shame lans are no longer at Stoneleigh as we definatly miss it.
How do you see yourselves compared to other Communities?
Osh: to be honest we don’t really think about them, it’s not a competition really, we have a good bit of banter with Rasta boys but we all have our own different targets and generally leave each other to them
What fuels Twisted Play’s goals essentially, is it because you all enjoy each other’s company and don’t want to let anyone down, or is it because you strive to be “top dogs” as they say?
Osh: it’s all about having fun at the end of the day, we all enjoy gaming so we all want to do it in a fun environment. We feel TwistedPlay provides that and as I’ve already said bringing people together and having a good time is basically what fuels my efforts into TwistedPlay. Being the top dogs in terms of a gaming team really is a side effect, it is great, but I’m sure most of us wouldn’t mind if that element was taken out.
Twisted Play having a meeting at LAN, discussing the new tactics for their side!
How many teams from Twisted Play are attending i40?
Osh: 4 or 5 i think
What attracts Twisted Play to various leagues?
Osh: erm the league must have a good reputation, admins are important, we know a lot of people in the scene so we are especially attracted to leagues where we know the people who run it and know we can rely on them if there are problems but throughout our teams we are fairly well spraed through diff leagues
What teams did you look upto before you were in Twisted Play?
Osh: Can’t say I did, Mez is the better one to ask bout that as he was a glorified Fanboy even at the beginning of TwistedPlay
Finally is there anything you wanna say to your rivals in the scene?
Osh: We’re better looking than you, and you know it!
Any Shoutouts?
Osh: ZOWIE GEAR , OVH , All our Lil TP Friends , Support Beno!
Tony “Gom8z” Oldfield at his finest, when he sleeps, he dreams only good things!
So thats it then, we have come a step closer to finding out what really happens at Twisted Play, and with the help from Gom8z, Osh, & Boostey for a special appearance. Some things are left unsaid but this bunch of gamers love what they do, how they do it, and they just go out to have a good time. Can you blame them? Later On today, (as I am slightly behind schedule haha!) I will bring you the memories and thoughts of people within Twisted Play, and how they cope with Tony and his antics!
Good read, great community.
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