RTCW 2018 Interview Series: #2 - Reker
Virus047: Our first interview with Warrior was a blast and we decided to go ahead and provide the RTCW community with yet another look into the hearts and minds of one of the RTCW’s most underrated players, Reker!
Virus047: We will begin the interview with the traditional opening salvo of questions. Tell us a little about yourself? Fill in the blank for the community on the man behind the nickname!
Reker: I grew up in the southwest suburbs of Chicago. Currently living just northwest of the city, recently married, employed as a guidance consultant and clinical counselor. I like to play guitar, relax with herbal assistance, and play some RTCW. I’ve been playing this game since I was 12 years old. I’m fairly certain there was never more than a 6 month to a year period in which I wasn’t playing the game in some capacity; never could really put the game down.
Virus047: Some of the older members of the community might not recognize your name immediately, so would you mind telling the community how you came to RTCW and provide us a little background in to your early days in the RTCW competitive community from your time in 1.33 to 1.4 to 1.0 experiences etc.?
Reker: Sure. Actually, the guy who got me into Wolfenstein is one of my IRL friends, who eventually ended up joining |DaRk| with me, Fury. Him and a mutual friend of ours helped me install the game and kind of gave me a 101-tutorial for multiplayer.
I started playing Wolfenstein when I was in 7th grade, shortly after GOTY came out. Started playing 1.33, went to 1.41 shortly after, and when 1.4 started to die down a little, I ended up playing 1.0 as well. I started playing 1.41 OSP & shrub competitively in the mid/early seasons of TWL.
I played for a handful of different teams along the way.
I was in:
|DaRk| (eventually xwa’)
Paco’s Familia (briefly)
.:tool-crew:. (basically the OSP version of .>h3rbsm0k3rs<. , which was a solid shrub team that were regulars at the ganja palace)
cellular [::]__ (mix of tTt, blur guys if I’m not mistaken, oh and Luna)
Plus a bunch of other clans in 1.0 & 1.33
Virus047: You played with |DaRk| for a long period of time during the early/middle days of RTCW from 03-07 (estimated because my memory is horrible). For many current members of the RTCW community, |DaRk| might not be the most recognizable team name. However, |DaRk| at one point in time had on its roster Source, Brujah, Knifey, Neo, Fury and Messiah to name a few notable big names along with yourself. Would you mind diving into your time while you tagged up with |DaRk|?
Reker: Sure, we were a pretty solid team. Definitely a better shrub than OSP team, we had a lot of success in shrub tournaments, including OLTL ladders. We were probably around a .500 OSP team.
Virus047: |DaRk| played both OSP and Shrub in competition. Generally speaking most of the time your greatest successes as a group were on the Shrub side of things. Can you describe why you think your group did better in Shrub when you had such a good lineup of players (as mentioned above)?
Reker: Great question! Almost everyone on our team had a great shot. Our defense was always pretty solid, we could full hold the best of them. Unfortunately, our offense was seemingly never coordinated well enough. Our best offensive strategy was having non-stop med trains, which we were great at. But we weren’t great at keeping track of timing & coordinating split-pushes.
We had a lot of raw talent, but not a lot of know-how. Our comms were good when they weren’t infiltrated by me complaining about how horrible my lag was. I was kind of a hinder on our team b/c I had DSL connection w/ 100+ping and could barely hold a stable 43fps. I would also regularly complain about it lol :-/
It’s hard to say why we were better at shrub than OSP. Maybe the hitboxes were easier to land HS on. Maybe because we had more access to ammo as medics b/c we could drop & pick up mp40s or Thompsons. Maybe both. Perhaps the teams were less skilled, or the shrub mod is more forgiving with our play style &/or my lag + ping.
Virus047: You are known as being a fairly aggressive player in game, I assume much of that comes from your background playing RTCW 1.0 and in some of the Ganja Palace servers? Can you provide a little insight into what makes you such a force to be reckoned with when it comes to attacking and being aggressive?
Reker: This is actually a hard question to answer. I honestly think I’ve always been an aggressive player. When I was playing 1.33, I dueled w/ Messiah all the time. We would literally spend hours dueling, just waiting for the nade to explode & see who kills who first. I developed a certain level of competency with my strafing/movement & crosshair control for close-up fights.
Because of that developed skill, I always believed I can beat whoever it is that I may end up in a duel with. I am more comfortable bringing the fight to someone, than someone bringing the fight to me. I just feel like I have more control of the situation.
I think 1.0 kind of intensified my aggressiveness b/c it’s so much faster w/ drop-reload, and if you’re around competent people, the revive-trains can be comically epic in speed, timing, & resolution.
Virus047: Given the fact that most competitive matches require you to have both good teamwork and coordination, how has moving from 1.0 back to a more teamwork-oriented setting of 1.4 been a challenge for you as the previous question stated, you are known as being fairly aggressive.
Reker: I think the kind of teamwork required in the traditional 1.4 OSP Objective is far more complex than that of 1.0. Don’t get me wrong, 1.0 is excellent for developing tactical medic skills, but that’s about it. In 1.4 you need to be aware of yours & the other team’s spawntimes, you need to be aware of how quickly people can get to certain spots in the map, and you need to be aware of the potential skill set on each team.
My aggressiveness gets me in trouble when I’m playing with people who don’t share the same intuition of when to rush & when not to rush. I can also be overzealous if I have had a good string of kills & think my actions won’t matter if I get out full. Sometimes I will even risk going out full if I feel like I can grab the team’s flag & make them spawn back… leaving my team vulnerable lol.
Virus047: You returned to the 1.4 scene during one of the earlier revival cups back in 2012 with GFU (Ground Force Unit) with KillerMike and company. Later you bounced around from GFU to Game Over (Donkey, Crucifix, etc.) for one cup and finally wound up with Team Cross Breed during the final major revival cups. Discuss what you felt was the major factors or events that lead you to each team. What was different about each roster and which roster do you think was the best of the collection of Revival Cups you played on and why?
Reker: So I heard that 1.4 was having a revival cup & almost immediately posted a message on the forums about teams in need of players. Killermik3 messaged me saying he was in need & so I jumped on the GFU team. We were better than I think people expected us to be, not that we were great or anything. Tr3y had some pretty good panz moments. Fury, Tragic, Killermike, RyKnow, c@k-el, & myself were a solid group of medics for the team.
I’m not entirely sure how I got to be on Game Over w/ Crucifix & co., but I’m glad I was on that team. They were a cool group of guys to play with and everyone was fairly skilled. Crucifix, Marc/Smoke, Daniel, Elegy, Pain-Train, Donkey, myself – not a bad line up at all.
Actually, it wasn’t until I was on Game Over that I was finally able to hold a steady 125 fps. D@n!el had an extra computer that he was kind enough to send to me for free. Prior to that, I had been using a laptop w/ a watered down cfg and couldn’t hold a steady 76fps when I was outside &/or airstrikes were going off.
Both GFU & Game Over were a random throw-together group of guys that weren’t meant to last more than the one respective tournament that each participated in.
Team Cross Breed was probably my favorite revival team to be on b/c of the regular gameplay & rivalry between Cross Breed & Birdz. Cross Breed had one of my favorite teammates to play w/ -- Tragic, and a handful of other knowledgeable & skilled players. Eventually it even had some of the |DaRk| players I had grown accustom to playing alongside with throughout my early years—Brujah & Knifey. Eventually this team just felt like home.
Virus047: You have played with a lot of talented players over the years on various teams, does one player in particular stand out to you that you still play with or played with in the past that you thought meshed well with your play style and turned you in turn into a better player?
Reker: I think there are a lot of players that mesh well w/ me, as well as helped turned me into a better player. Tragic is the first person that comes to mind when it comes “meshing well”. We have almost identical instincts when it comes to being a medic, which probably comes from experience in 1.0.
Players that have helped me turn into a better player, Brujah comes to mind first. Brujah is a natural leader. He is knowledgeable & skilled and thoroughly explains progressions of strats, and what to do when xyz happens. He also is the person that convinced me to go to 1.4 from 1.33 with the |DaRk| clan, he kind of took me under his wing from the very beginning.
Second person that comes to mind is Messiah (who was on dark, then eventually ExE) -- he helped me to develop into a power house dueler from the very beginning.
Virus047: Do you have a favorite match story or moment from your career that stands out above the rest?
Reker: Believe it or not, nothing really comes to mind. I was never on a team that “made it all the way” – except for the 2 most recent 3v3 tournaments.
I would say my favorite moment was kind of recent. When Cross Breed played Birdz in the 2Con1Cup tournament. Not only was this a close match, with a lot of rivalry shit talking, but I’ll never forget my role in the first doc cap on beach.
I was a medic with 2 or 3 teammates coming across from upper base to upper bunker. Birdz seemingly had a shit ton of people in radio room, and we were pushing right before Nazis were about to respawn. I was pushing while simultaneously watching our back to ensure no one would be back raging from side stairs/upper base.
My teammates ran into upper bunker from antenna first (including docs), they both died and there was a swarm of Nazis in radio room about to return. I shot & killed the guy who killed doc carrier instantly after the doc carrier went down (the guy who killed docs was an inch away from returning), I grabbed the docs, killed another guy and swiveled around whatever remaining Birdz players existed to cap.
Virus047: I’ve already asked this same question of Warrior, but is there a player in the current community you enjoy playing against? And why?
Reker: I like playing against Parcher, Murkey, Luna, Booty, Elusive, Common, and Brandon the most. They’re incredibly skilled guns and I get an e-boner the random times I’m able to best them in a 1v1.
Virus047: The current cup has a mix of veteran old school players and relatively new talent on most of the rosters. Give me a rundown of your team’s current makeup from a captain’s perspective and as a follow up give the community a quick look on how you think your team will do during this cup?
Reker: My team is pretttty fricken solid.
N!kon -- dedicated panzer who has proven to be an asset to any team he’s on, b/c he’s always a threat to the opposing team.
To answer your question on how I anticipate my team will do in this tournament – I would say we have potential to be the best team. I think that everyone on our team has something to offer. I wouldn’t consider anyone on my team a “weak link”. I also think that we can all work well as a team.
I honestly think we have the best all-around team, as well as the best shot at winning this thing.
Virus047: What team do you feel is the greatest threat to your team winning the entire cup? Why?
Reker: Probably Make a Wish Foundation (Team Warrior). They have a lot of players on that team who are skilled in a variety of ways. It’s hard to beat a team like that. They’re fast, smart, have great guns, and can jump walls + make amazing doc runs!
Virus047: Thanks for the interview! Much appreciated! Best of luck in the coming cup!
Reker: Thank you! You too! The pleasure was all mine.
Virus047: Any shout outs to the community? Friends? Family? Enemies?
Reker: Shout out to Fury, helping me re-install windows a million times so I can play wolf. Daniel, for being generous & giving me a computer that had the ability to hit 125 fps. Also, I would like to give a shout out to everyone that still plays this game, it’s amazing to see such an old game being played. Lastly, I would like to acknowledge everyone who has become a friend or has helped me along the way. Cheers!
NEXT INTERVIEW COMING SOON!