DoW: Interview with X3M

This article was originally written by Jason “cjc81″ Chin.

Nicknames: Shade[X3M] / Xelium[X3M] / Kura[X3M]
Who they are: Keith Lim / Terry Tan / Chin Kah Leong

Game Played in WCG: Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War

Keith introduced himself as a 25-year old freelance game events organiser. He is also a game reviewer for GameAxis at the moment. He is mainly into FPS (First-Person Shooters) games and RPG (Role-Playing Games). Keith also administrates Unreal Tournament & Dawn of War tourney servers.

Terry is 17 this year, currently pursing an A level certification in JC. He told us that the bulk of his time is split between gaming and studies. Terry enjoys outdoor sports.

Kah Leong is an avid gamer.

How long have you been together playing Dawn of War?

Keith: X3M has been playing together for over 5 good
years. Our Dawn of War division was created when the game first
launched. Clan X3M started in 1999, as a Unreal Tournament clan. We
were a bunch of Quake players and friends who set up the clan. Our
success in many tournaments helped us expand into other games, forming
different divisions for various games. GameAxis also offered us
sponsorship to keep us motivated and constantly strive to live up to
our good name.

Terry: I’ve been playing Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War for about half a year, started a few months after it’s release.

Kah Leong: We played Dawn of War as early as its release. Some of our guys have been playing games together for as long as 7 years.

Did you guys played an earlier version of Dawn of War?

Terry: Not me, I started the game pretty late
compared to the rest of my clan mates. Some of them started as early as
its beta releases.

How did your team prepare for the WCG CyberCafe Preliminaries?

Keith: X3M is using the prelims for clan exposure in competitive gaming events. We have online training sessions twice a week.

Terry: We participated in several other tournaments to gain exposure and it prepared us for the competitiveness of WCG.

How far do you think your team can go for WCG this year?

Keith: I would say at least climb the ladders to the top 5.

Terry: I hope we will make it to the National Finals. Anything beyond that goes further than our wildest dreams.

What did you think of the WCG Preliminaries this year?

Keith: I find the organisation this year to be very interesting and unprecedented concept. Its good to see fresh ideas.

Terry: It is pretty well organised thus far. However, being
unable to pre-configure my hardware, such as my mouse, becomes a huge
disadvantage.

Kah Leong: In my opinion, it went well, perhaps one suggestion is to change the choice of maps.

How do you see professional gaming as a possible career path?

Keith: I find that there is not enough companies who
are willing to sponsor clans and players fully and supply enough
allowance to cater for a gamer’s basic survivor needs.

Terry: I consider my clan to be semi-professional. However, I
do not think any players can make it big playing games full time in our
country, at least in the near future.

Kah Leong: Its definitely something i’ll be interest to do.

Keith also pointed out that he is serious about continuing his gaming career and keep his clan going in future through national service and further studies.

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