Sebastian ”Numlocked” Barton

Att bedöma vem som är årets värvning kan vara ett ganska tufft jobb, men rimligtvis måste man räkna in Sebastian ”Numlocked” Barton som en av de starkaste kandidaterna till denna okända utmärkelse. När han den 1. mars i år flyttade från Division 1 till Divsion 5 var det mer än en som blev förvånad.

This interview in English

Orsaken var ganska enkel. Numlockeds uppkoppling kan räknas till en av de mest oberäkneliga. Mitt i matcher kunde man se honom plötsligt stå stilla och tyst. Sen kom han tillbaks… och sen borta igen. Detta gick naturligvis inte an i division 1 och dunc anlitade Bash som backup-demoman. Kort tid senare var Bash main demo, och numlocked var backup. Detta ville han inte finna sig i, utan lämnade promt laget.

Sedan hände det oväntade. Först utannonserade Onlinegamer.se sitt mycket ogenomtänkta Onlinegamer Olympics där alla klasser skulle ha en egen tävling, samtidigt som riktiga OS utspelade sig i Vancouver. Numlocked anmälde sig till soldiercupen, och kom därmed i kontakt med undertecknad.

Ungefär samtidigt sökte undertecknads lag ”Team Onlinegamer” efter en ny demoman för att ersätta den hemske tonåringen traget (<3). Listan hade precis krympt samman till en ganska liten samling kandidater, och när en pcw skulle spelas fanns plötsligt ingen av dom där. -”Jag frågar numlocked” sa jag, och resten av laget höll andan. -”Sure” sa numlocked. Två dagar senare tillfrågades han om att gå med i laget i en vecka. -”Sure” sa numlocked. Det upptäcktes då att enligt ETF2L’s regler kunde han inte byta lag igen den säsongen, om han gick med oss. -”That’s ok” sa numlocked.

Snacka lite

Hello Sebastian, and thank you for letting us interview you. I understand you are not particulary keen on being interviewed? Stagefright?

SUPERNUMLOCKED

-”I just don’t like being so.. ”out there” and everyone watching what I do/say.”

Let’s begin at the very beginning. Where did you learn to walk? Where did you learn to blow stuff up, and where in Gods name did you buy that internet connection of yours? (literally!)

-”I started tf2 with a group of friends from cs and started out playing soldier. Coinz was the first player I ever spectated, and he made soldier look fun. I eventually saw byte’s frag movie and knew that class was for me. The first team I joined was coolclan so big thanks to them for putting up with me.”

-”Blame my parents for the Virgin Media connection.”

So you are 17 years old, you live in England – with your parents, your connection is shit. What else can you say about your life, outside gaming?

-”Not much really. College takes up most of my time outside of gaming, but I write the odd column for a local newspaper here, along with a little bit of web design/coding on the side.”

-”…and arguing with friends about why pro gaming rocks!”

You team history reads: scream2frag, Execute, coolclan, TCM, then TCM again, Team Romania, Team England, Atomic, scream2frag again, Team Numlocked, Team Onlinegamer, and now finally, TCM for the third time. Can you in painstaking detail comment all these teams?

-”scream2frag wasn’t really anything. me and some cs friends liked tf2 and played a few games. we were told about ETF2L and decided to sign up, but that’s where it ended. they all prefered cs but my love for tf2 continued. Atomic was the 2nd incarnation of scream2frag I made, just we chose a shit name.”

-”I made a recruitment thread over-rating myself at mid skill (at this point I had only played for a couple of weeks :D) and the only two teams to contact me were coolclan (or as they were known as back then, the welcoming committee) and execute. execute were the first to trial me and for some reason said they needed to add me to the roster. being new to tf2 I just went along with it, but after a few days of trialling they weren’t for me. they ended up folding a couple of weeks later. I spoke to coolclan again, played some games with them and got in :D great decision by me. the team that created top players such as wltrs, vaxjo, cube and admirable.”

-”After a great period of time they decided to kick me because I had an attitude and obviously internet problems.”

-”Vale then invited me to trial with them. I was incredibly nervous about playing with them :D we only played one game vs TmGamers, winning 4-2 on badlands and losing 2-4 on granary. after that game I was invited to join and the vale reform was complete. me, springer, arnold, skinnie, boomeh and riemu. one of my favourite teams that I had played in.”

-”6 months later and we were in YoYoTech, one of the top teams in Europe and had recently come off a UKeSA win and I decided to leave. The famous 3 games a night was just too much.”

-”Straight after I had left YoYoTech, dunc invited me to join TCM (Ubersexuals). I couldn’t refuse and joined without hesitation. unfortunately I joined when everybody was deciding to go inactive – we only played 3 games or so together before not playing for 2weeks and folding.”

-”The team romania thing was a huge fuck up :D me and dny were bored and decided to convince Nightbox we were romanian, although I’m pretty sure he knew we weren’t anyway :D We got in and dny started to get worried, so he sent a message to an etf2l admin (kop) asking if it was in the rules that you can’t fake your nationality. kop decided to be a dick and play with us a little :D He told danny that we would be banned for joining Team Romania so he panicked and left.”

-”I was then asked to play for both versions of Team England. Ehere was a dispute between dunc and appz at the time over who should run Team England. Both felt confident they could win the Nations Cup so they were both fighting for the same players – dunc obviously got them all :D”

-”www [Team Numlocked, and various other names] started because I mithered dunc a lot about how TCM shouldn’t have folded and we could start a new team with some of the players. He eventually said okay and spoke to some of the old TCM, I recruited members outside of TCM. It was more of a joint effort than dunc’s team.”

Demoman in all teams?

-”All except for scream2frag, I was soldier then.”

Now obviously, of all these teams, all-swedish Team Onlinegamer is the most odd. Explain the reasons that made you accept our offer to join our team.

-”ahhhh OG :D it all started when I met ulv when I entered the Onlinegamer.se 1v1 soldier cup and talked to him for a while after it. He asked me if I’d be interested in joining them for a season to help out and I couldn’t refuse, they’re such awesome guys :D”

before joining OG I was thinking about quitting tf2 – there were no div1 teams looking for a demoman and I wasn’t interested in switching class at that time. I played a couple of games with OG before joining them and things went swimmingly :) I enjoyed playing with them and thought it would be a great excuse to learn a bit of swedish :D

You were worried about the language barrier at first. Was it actually a problem? From our point of view, speaking english is quite easy. Sweden is nearly bilingual with swedish and english, but out of all people, actual native English people are the hardest to understand.

-”Yeah I think it was a problem. When I call in tf2 I call everything as fast as possible, like I’m reading out a list. It gets even worse when I’m telling people what to do, and it was quite problematic for you guys sometimes. I could understand you guys perfectly fine, your English is great. Learning new calls was pretty weird too, although I still use some of them which confuses the shit out of team mates :D No one knows where trash or finland is :D” [Trash is the corner area between spire and lobby at Badlands, Finland is between 2nd resup and the main door to lobby, also in Badlands.]

You took some initiative to improve our team tactics during your stay with us. How do you rate our tactical evolution during season 7?

I’d say you guys have improved a lot. when I first joined the playstyle was a bit random and people did as they pleased (correct me if I’m wrong :P). everyone was willing to learn something so we all got on the server and went through all the maps we would have to play that season, one by one. I definitely think it paid off. we should have won the season, or at least come 2nd, but we were slightly unlucky with certain things (SUP MB?)

When you joined us, you immediatley explained that you would leave after the end of the season. Was the season in Team Onlinegamer worth the time and effort, even though you knew you were going to leave?

-”Definitely. I had a lot of fun playing with them and it was nice to have a laid back season. we learnt a lot during that season and I’ll be taking that back with me to div1. hopefully you won’t have any issues next season and will get the div4 spot they deserve. :)”

Now, the moment of truth. Teach our english readers the one Swedish word you know, and what it means.

-”Val. It means whale, choice (?) and election!”

About TCM-Gaming

Now that our readers are enlightened, we move on to your new team. TCM-Gaming. Formerly known as ^wotr^ and Team CoolerMaster. There have been three editions of teams here. The classic one being the one based around players like Byte, Evil, TopGear and Xman himself. Then there was the Übersexuals edition with dunc, weqo, haza, and the likes. Now it is the old Vale-based team, with Skinnie , Coinz and Haunter being core players. Last season, while you were in Team Onlinegamer, Byte was demoman for the team.

You are now taking over the position of demoman from Byte, who is moving into a new position as Medic. Can you explain this switch to us?

-”Basically Springer has less time to commit to TF2 so he’s had to take a step back from playing as much. Byte also had an increasing workload so he wished for a more laidback class. He switched to medic and they took me on.”

You have played for a week or so with TCM now. How do they compare to your past teams in terms of play style and player chemistry?

-”The player chemistry in TCM is great since the core players have been there since the start. I enjoy playing with TCM though, it’s very relaxed. With haunter and byte in the team it also helps stop me making stupid mistakes.”

How good of a feeling do you have regarding your teams chances in Season 8?

-”I think we have a good chance. Time will tell.”

Which is your strongest map right now?

-”I think it’s a bit early for me to say that, but we’re playing pretty well on all of them. I’m just gonna go with turbine, my favourite.”

Byte is known as a very defensive demoman, how would you describe yourself?

-”Stupidly aggressive.”

…and how is your connection doing?

-”Surprisingly well. Haven’t timed out once since I was in OG :D”

One place where connections don’t matter is a LAN. You were most recently at i39. You played with some friends of yours there I believe. What results did you achieve?

82 frags

-”We beat mmv3 (I think, can’t remember their name too well. It was a mix of two teams) 30-0 on turbine which is the only cool one I remember :D. We played nvc’s team too and defended pretty well, but lost 3-0.”

How was i39 overall?

-”Lots of fun :D I didn’t really drink much after Friday night. me and the rest of my team bought loads of cider and stella and went back to our hotel. we smoked and drank a lot and I was sick all over the bed, floor and bin :D I passed out near my sick :( We played a game called ”I have never…”, basically you say something like ”I have never won a season in etf2l”. if you have, you take a drink. we found out danny masterbates to loose women, sonixzr gave a friend a highfive whilst his friend was receiving a blowjob (we don’t know if sonixzr was giving the blowjob, should ask him) and I got my tummy rubbed by crzy and plumbed (it was good) and you can’t fit 6 gamers into aveng’s peugot 206.”

Do you find you play better, or worse at LANs? Concidering things like stable connection, people watching you live, not being in the comfort at home, and so on.

-”Hard to say really. at UKeSA I was incredibly nervous – I had ryb and hymzi watching me at one point and that got me a little shakey :D I think I play better at LAN, especially when using one of the sponsor’s computers. No fps lag and a stable connection = win. As for people watching, that really gets me nervous, but it’s fun to play under pressure – that’s the point of lan.”

Whats your greatest tip for someone who is going to i40?

-”Bring lots of money for drinking, sleep as much as possible before the event and keep evil the fuck away from your shirts or he steals them”

About being a demoman

Following the theme of great tips. Whats your greatest tips for someone who wants to become an awesome demoman?

-”God, tough question. Utilize your traps well, but don’t rely on them too much. Watch demos of multiple players and watch what they do right and wrong and use it in your gamestyle.”

-”Don’t waste time practicing 1v1s, it’s useless considering it’s nothing similar to 6v6 situations.”

One more. Your greatest tip for someone who cannot stop himself from changing his steam nick 50 times a day? [One of numlockeds trademarks]

-”Join an org that makes you have one nick.”

On a very serious note, could you rank the top demomen in the world, say top 5, and explain to us what it is that makes them great?

#1 is ryb. Everything about him is near perfect. His movement, his deathmatching, his abilitity to correctly play aggressive or defensive. You’d be stupid to think he wasn’t top.

#2 extremer, without a doubt. Watching him when he’s on form is lots of fun because of his deathmatching. His pipe aim is incredible.

#3 has gotta be byte even though he doesn’t play it anymore. Incredibly intelligent gamestyle which benefits his team hugely. His unpredictable sticky traps were always annoying.

#4 is bash, I’ve always found him hard to play against. When he was in wotr I always found myself raped at middle or in duels with him. Quite sad to see him leaving the scene for sc2.

#5 is hymzi. Love his aggression, quite an inspiring demoman :) I love his deathmatching and the amount of damage he can output.

What is the Golden Rule for a demoman? The first thing he must learn in order to be a proper demoman?

-”The rollouts to mid. The faster a demoman can get to mid, the better the chance his team have of taking the round.”

On the flip side, what must he never do?

-”Play too aggressive. I know that’s kinda ironic coming from me, but you shouldn’t over-do it.”

Looking at the game as a whole, as a professional gamer, what do you think TF2 is lacking, in terms of what Valve can, should, and perhaps wont give us?

-We need less maps. It’s so annoying to see everybody trying to make new maps when all we need is like, 6 at maximum. Look at other games and the main maps they have, we have like 10 wannabe main maps. Recently the Natasha has come back into play, I’ve seen a few top teams start using it again. In my opinion it’s overpowered. I’d love to see Valve tone that down, or stop it slowing them down as much as it currently does. Giving heavy some runningfastgloves would be good too.”

-”It’d be nice if top tf2 players could help Valve with making the new unlocks. like, tell them what competitive tf2 needs or doesn’t need.”

-”Valve should make a promod sort of thing where when in tournament mode, you receive all unlocks (or legal-to-use unlocks) for the duration of the game.”

Can professional TF2-gaming continue to grow? Are we still growing, are we at the top of the wave, or are we on the decline. Is TF2 even dead, as some like to say?

-”It’s on the grow, definitely. we’ve got so many good LANs coming up: dreamhack, i-series, assembly, and then there’s the smaller LANs in France, Russia and Germany. With all those you can hardly say tf2 is dead.”

We thank you for taking the time to answering our questions Sebastian, and we really hope you and TCM will do well in the coming season.

-”Shoutouts to sam, danny, toby, dougie, adam, ben, dan, greg, cobby, josh, woody, faint, jabba, browns, steve, chris, plasma, jono, steveyjj, vazzan, xavier, dave, arcy, lawrence, gibbz, tpk, edd, mathis, no0, nos, spanna, squeak,  inuy, all of coolclan/wotr2, www/team numlocked/team dunc, all of TCM and of course TCM’s sponsors – www.TCM-Gaming.com – and of course Team Onlinegamer and Onlinegamer.se, and you for letting me write so fucking much and having to edit it :D”

Dom coola länkarna längst ned

• TCM-Gaming – ETF2L-profil
• TCM-gaming.com
• Numlockeds hemsida – med download av hans egen HUD
• Artikel på Onlinegamer om när numocked joinade Team Onlinegamer

GO TEEN WONDER!!!

Onlinegamer TV castar live från finalerna i ESH

Vår egen superkommentator Jazzman drar åter igen på sig castingmössan och kommer i morgon att casta live från ESH-finalerna där först Illegal möter TCM gaming i upper bracket-final, och direkt efteråt förloraren från första matchen mot våra kära svenskar och norrmän i broder. Vinnarna i båda finalerna möter varandra senare i veckan i Grand Final. Vilket Onlinegamer TV kommer också casta.

Första matchen beräknas börja kl. 21:15, här på Onlinegamer TV.

• Läs på ESH-sidan här