12Qs: Shootmania FPS Is It Back?

Twelve questions with one part of the new Team Dignitas Shootmania trio Ted 'Kowa' Hansson.

Welcome to 12Qs a new series of sit downs and a chat with Pro Gaming community members from all around eSports, here exclusively for the Scan Pro Gaming page.

New FPS title Shootmania Storm is currently in beta but building momentum in the eSports scene with weekly tournaments and a recent €8,000 tournament at Gamescom. In attendance was Kowa and we have asked him twelve questions.

Q1. Where did your inspiration to become a pro gamer come from?

Well basically I always played games casually while at the same time doing sports at high level but I found out I had a heart disease which forced me to stop and after that I just couldn’t stop competing it was my lifestyle and since I played games already I soon found out that I could do what I had done all my life without making my heart issue worse and that’s where it came from.

Q2. What is it about your personality that draws you to team based shooters?

As you just found out I played sports in teams at high level and got addicted to the team spirit and the feeling of winning tournaments together that just is awesome. I like making friends and in a team based shooter you become really good friends almost like family since you spend so much time together.

Q3. For anyone who is not familiar with yourself or your past, could you explain what your past involvement is in eSports to date?

I started with Unreal Tournament at the age of 9 and I played it much with my older brother I got into good clanbase teams until I ended up with a team called [SR] which later started playing some Call of Duty 2 for fun and then later Call of Duty 4 more seriously where we joined an American org called Pure e-Sports. The team then died after my first CoD LAN in Denmark, after that I got into a team that I played with quite a while in orgs like YoYoTech and Infused. After that I got picked up by a new team in Team Dignitas where we folded after a short time but I decided to stay within the org and then one day Zaccubus came to me wondering if I would like to try out Shootmania with him and GaRpY and here I am.

Q4. Shootmania is an FPS gaining ground in eSports do you think it has the ability to become the go to shooter in eSports?

I think it certainly does! Nadeo is doing a good job eSport wise making sure events pick up their game and the game itself is really spectator friendly but maybe a bit too simple and could get boring after a while I know they’re making loads of new maps to prevent it but they need something else and also look to push it worldwide because its big in France but they need to do the same thing globally. To make the game huge enough they should make a ladder system like LoL/SC2 because everyone likes to earn those e-points for winning a game! If they do all this I’m sure it will go massive.

Q5. Apart from Shootmania what are your first go to games to play when your chilling?

It changes every month, I would say I’m a huge fan of Final Fantasy which I could play over and over again and games like it. Also sometimes Unreal Tournament, LoL, Dota2 but mostly some Starcraft II which may sound crazy for a game to play while relaxing but I like it.

Q6. How often do you Zaccubus and GaRpY practice as a team and how often do you practice pugging?

Not as much as a team as we should to be honest GaRpY has got a time consuming job which makes it hard to practice as much as we should do, only playing 2-3 hours whenever he can get on. If u compare that to the top Starcraft players that easily do 10h+/day of Starcraft of some sort you could comprehend how we are behind other teams practise wise.

Q7. You all recently attended Gamescom and finished second overall, how did you feel about your performance that weekend?

Well I hate to lose and since we beat Eclypsia in the groups it felt even worse knowing that we could easily beat them but we didn’t and that made the defeat even more soar. Also from my time in Call of Duty I got loads of 2nd place finishes and I/we got known for forever 2nds and it became a curse!! I thought I would finally end it but yet again another 2nd place...

Q8. Firefall is a shooter also currently in beta did you manage to have a look at the gameplay and if so what do you think about it in terms of eSports potential?

I’ve seen some of it and what they are doing is pretty cool I haven’t got a chance to try it out yet it’s very different and looks exciting to play. For eSport potential I say every game has got a chance if the developer wants to make it an eSport it will go eSport it’s about time and money put into the game.

Q9. What are you plans moving forward in eSports?

My plans right now is playing Shootmania as long as it lives or another epic game that fits my taste and just try to break my 2nd place curse ;)

Q10. Any advice for gamers who want to put a team together and become competitive?

Find guys that matches your own skill level and make sure your chemistry together works out and then become better together and before you know it you will be at LANs playing against me ;)

Q11. If you could be any video game character which would you be and why?

Hmm I’ll say Tidus from Final Fantasy X because he was good at sports (Blitzball) and then got dragged in to a parallel world to save the world. You could say I’m the same that got dragged in from my sporty life to the world of games to conquer it or something haha.

Q12. If it was your birthday and you could buy any three products from Scan what would they be and why?

I couldn’t imagine only picking three products from Scan so I really don’t know, probably hardware that would make me able to stream my games more solidly I think.

Thank you very much to Team Dignitas Kowa for answering our 12Qs, keep it locked here on the Scan Pro Gaming page for more 12Qs. If you have any suggestions or Qs of you own tweet them @ScanGaming.

Kathryn 'theWarrden' Notley