| TM Interview Project - riolu! | 14 Oct, 2012 |
| wormi | (7 comments, 12790 views) |
After a long pause with the project that I've had due to my military service, we have a new guy to interview. He is one of the best if not the best on Nadeo maps - yes, it's riolu! You can find more infomation about the project here. GLHF! -- 1. Why is your nickname riolu? Hah, I knew this question will come  Well, everything started with a fun cup (MiniFET I guess), where I participated with several guys from my old clan ((( (which does not exist anymore). For this little competition, we had to form small groups consisting of 4 people. We discussed a lot about our group name, at the end we decided us for the name Pokemon Rangers  To make it a bit more funny, we all changed our nicknames to classic pokemon names like Pikachu, Charizard, whatever. As I always loved Riolu for its cuteness and ultra epicness, I named myself riolu, and for some reason. I kept this name until today.
2. Could you tell us something about yourself? I'm 16 years old, living in a 80k citizen-village in Western Germany together with my family. Currently I'm visiting the 12th grade, expecting to pass my A-level exams next year. People were asking me if I'm a real german, but actually I'm not. My parents are from Bosnia, they came to Germany about 20 years ago, fleeing from the war which took place there. Beside all the school stuff I have to do every day, I sometimes meet with some friends to do my favorite sport of all: Parkour. It's definitely an extreme sport, but still fun as hell. I've already been practicing Parkour for about 2 1/2 years, fortunately I didn't break any bones so far, just several bruises, scratches, etc. The adrenaline kicks I get before every jump or flip are truly epic, I can't get enough of it  Also the people I got to know during these 2 1/2 years became to my best friends, always there to help and always friendly, I am so happy to know you guys! <3 Nevertheless, you also have to be fit, physically and mentally, in order not to fail, that's why I often do some workout in the evening.
And not to forget I LOVE TRACKMANIA! (and video games in general)
3. How and when did you find Trackmania? The first time I played Trackmania was in 2004. My mom and I were in a shop, buying some food etc., suddenly she came to me and showed me a game in a red box with a crazy track on it. She offered me to buy it, and I said "Yea, why not, looks fun!". Remember I was 8 back then. Unfortunately, I only played offline, so I lost interest quite fast (hey, I was 8! ). But I still remember how I enjoyed the Puzzle mode, stuggling on PuzzleA tracks together with my friend
In 2008, I got a new laptop and I looked for some free racing games. I found TMNF and instantly installed it. And I fuckin' enjoyed it. Just one month after I re-discovered TM, I bought myself TMUF. This was the beginning of a true love story..
4. You have hunted mostly Nadeo maps in your career instead of playing online. Why? Good question, I always enjoyed playing the solo mode in every TM game I played so far. The idea with the official ladder was quite appealing to me, so I tried some tracks, obviously running out of coppers every 10 minutes Of course I raced a lot online to practice, but after my favorite server went offline, I only played solo to win medals and coppers. I will never forget the moment I entered the top10 of my subsubzone with like 300k Skillpoints, I was just excited as hell I continued playing, going up in the ladder every day. I developed my skills a lot, especially on Desert, which was my best envi back then, already holding some official world records. After I reached the top 10 in Germany, people started to recognize me on online servers.
I got several clan requests, one of them was from NF», a formerly quite popular clan, which doesn't exist anymore unfortunately. Together with them, I participated in leagues, but I noticed that leagues are not my thing, so I continued nolifing solo tracks. Then, my laptop blew up, and I was forced to play on my parents' old stinky laptop which could barely handle TMUF. Fortunately I arranged myself with the graphics and stuff, so I got used to it quite fast. And I continued nolifing. I joined ((( together with some other good solo-nolife friends. We played in leagues, but like before, I noticed that league tracks are not my cup of tea, therefore I was still hunting official times.
With the release of TM2 I thought I'd get arranged with league tracks, but unfortunately my laptop could barely handle the solo tracks, so I was actually forced to play solo (That explains all the world records I have btw). Luckily, I got a new PC now, so I can play solo, online, and everything
5. Will you start driving online leagues now when you can? Probably yes, for the TWL2 I already joined Team Shade to gain some first experience in league tracks and to improve my skills a bit. Unfortunately, my original team, Lik3D, can't participate as a team because most of the members don't have enough time to train in order to keep up with Div1 teams, so we split up temporarily. After what I've seen so far, I think I will keep playing in several leagues, although I won't have time for TM in general in future due to my A-level exams. 6. Which is your favorite environment in Trackmania series to hunt and why? To hunt...hm..it might be Canyon, because it is always possible to shake off some hundredths with different driving lines, even if you were sure that it's a perfect time. That makes Canyon quite fun for me! But also, I enjoy hunting Rally tracks, even though some tracks are bugged as hell
7. Do you play other racing games with Trackmania? At the moment, I only play Dirt Showdown, just for fun of course. I try to drive as good as possible, but especially in arcade games like this there is no chance to hunt records or anything..I wouldn't even have the motivation to do so 
8. In hunting of such popular maps you need to take every one-hundredth second out of your time to reach and beat the top. In such hardcore hunting the controller's influence increases. How big is the difference between keyboard, pad, joystick and other controllers in hunting? As I was a keyboard player by myself for quite a long time (shouldn't sound selfish, but I was quite good with keyboard as I made it up to world rank 6 in the official ladder with keyboard only) I can probably judge quite well about the differences In my opinion, there are environments where you can keep up quite well with keyboard compared to players with analog steering devices (gamepad, joystick, wheel, mouse, whatever).
Best examples for this might be Desert and Stadium. Especially on hard noslide envis like Rally or Island, it is impossible to keep up with pad/joystick etc. drivers, because the cars in these envis tend to drift after a certain speed and steering angle. On the other envis Coast, Bay and Snow it depends on the map in how far you can compete with analog drivers. On low-speed tracks it is definitely easier than on hardcore fullspeed tracks, obviously. Regarding Canyon, I think the differences between keyboard and the rest are not that big anymore (what is good in my opinion). By tapping the arrow keys fast, you can almost have the same precision like analog players do, but as always, it depends on practice. To come to solo tracks, I guess you HAVE chances to drive top10 or world record times (not on all tracks of course), but its really hard. Pad/Joystick, etc. drivers are usually more consistent, therefore it may be easier for them to take off the last hundredth (at least that's what I experienced when I changed to joystick). 9. What is your favorite track by Nadeo ever? (and why?) IslandC3 is fun, thanks to that track I improved my Island skills a lot Ah, and TMN A-0 *cough*
10. And which is the best track that is not made by Nadeo? I drove tons of tracks, and honestly, I forgot most of them, but two tracks which always stayed in my mind are thrice»nice by Cuba and Go with the Flow by Joost...great tracks!
11. In hardcore hunting you need to know all the tricks and bugs of the game. Many people complain that bugs of Trackmania are bad but I think that they make the game more interesting. What's your opinion on them? I don't have a real opinion concerning bugs, but if you ask me most of the bugs in Trackmania are just frustrating and most of the time they just disturb people while hunting. Especially on dirt tracks, which are not calculated well (Nadeo tracks; the first drop on StadiumB2 -_-), you get a bug after almost every drop or jump and you barely can do anything against that. But, there are also bugs which are quite fun and which actually make hunting more interesting. Examples for this might be the grass slide or the sizzling trick on dirt, when I saw them the first time I was like "wtf is that" but now they are quite essential on certain types of tracks. Of course, in leagues bugs can turn the whole result, but I guess it's no fun for the driver to see his car doing multiple backflips after a landing, eh? 12. Your top 3 websites, games & songs. Websites: 1. youtube.com 2. haxball.com 3. tm-exchange Games: 1. Trackmania 2. Pac-Man World 2 (enjoyed it a LOT when I was younger) 3. Rallisport Challenge 2 (Xbox) Songs: 1. Bungle ft. Ayah Marar - The Siren (Camo & Krooked Remix) 2. Blackmill - The Drift 3. Feint - Snake Eyes (ft. CoMa) 13. You have built many tracks in Trackmania Forever, but the latest one is from 2009. Why did you stop building? Oh yeah right, I totally forgot I built tracks o.O Not sure why I stopped building, I guess I didn't have enough motivation or ideas, I was too busy with solo back then A comeback? Maybe
14. Describe yourself with four words. Lazy, humourous, happy, responsible. 15. Who is the best Trackmania driver nowadays in your opinion? Not sure, in my opinion the best Trackmania driver should be good in every envi, not only focusing on one, so maybe Blackcat or Tona. I'm sure I forgot someone, don't feel offended
16. What is your favorite drink? Hot chocolate
17. If you have something else to say, please write it here. Peace out guys
Thanks for answers to riolu! Let’s see if we will get more interview one day. Who knows..?
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| arzgaa writes ... | 27, Oct, 2012 |
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FEINT! Absolutely brilliant drum & bass he makes, glad to see him amongst us trackmaniacs as well
Good interview too 
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| Marius 89 writes ... | 16, Oct, 2012 |
very nice interview. Was fun to read 
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| Nesrally writes ... | 16, Oct, 2012 |
Always wanted to know more about this super fast precision driver, so now I know ! Tnx a lot ! 
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| tcq writes ... | 15, Oct, 2012 |
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Great interview, as always
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| Loe writes ... | 15, Oct, 2012 |
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| Minato writes ... | 14, Oct, 2012 |
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Yep, gg to both.
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| XT»Marti writes ... | 14, Oct, 2012 |
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Liked the interview, nice reading and nice answers
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