This week, in part two of The Interview Man series, I bring you some lovely words from a man who absolutely loves writing those words. He can be found shooting the Breeze on Cadred.org, or working for ETF2L as a sort-of Team Fortress version of Clement Atlee. Recently, he spent a weekend bathing himself in the ivory soaps of a fabolous hotel while simultaneously providing coverage of the Multiplay i-Series LAN. Here’s the man, the myth, the legend – Jimmy Breeze.
The Interviewer: Alright Jimmy, let’s start off simply. Tell us a bit about yourself.
The Legend: Jimmy Breeze.
The Interviewer: … Right. You’ve been involved in TF2 for quite some time, but you’re known more for being a supporter rather than a player. Why did you leave the game?
The Legend: VERY hard.
The Interviewer: O….h. You, uh, you wouldn’t happen to work construction would you?
The Legend: Funny you should mention! I’ve just gotten back from work, I’m coming off of a twelve hour shift, it’s quite brilliant man, we’re erecting a bit of a hut on this beach near my house, I think our contractor is planning on turning it into some sort of banana stand. The hours are tough and the pay isn’t much but I can’t think of anything I’d want to do more.
The Interviewer: Fuck my fucking life.
The Interviewer: Rightio then. You are Jimmy Breeze, a TF2 legend-of-sorts whose reputation is currently something along the lines of “that guy who provides TF2 eSports journalism coverage, who proposes and brings about forward-thinking change in ETF2L, who represents the community on a deeper level than any other single player or figure.” Tell us some things about yourself that the community is NOT aware of – tell us perhaps about the lovely Madame Breeze who sits at home knitting a shawl for herself while you spend a weekend in Newbury getting drunk and watching a Finnish man pull out his balls.
The Legend: I have known Madame Breeze for ten years now, and been intimate with her for about eight. She knows quite a lot about TF2, not because she’s interested in it, but because I make sure to keep her up to date on the scene and cutting edge Gravel Pit tactics.
I quit playing competitively about a year ago. I do get the urge to play again, but it’s totally incompatible with my work schedule, plus I’m much more valuable to the community doing what I’m doing now rather than playing.
The Interviewer: As part of conducting this interview, I asked a few friends from the community (and a few people who know you personally) to submit a set of questions that they would want answered. Some are more humorous, but there are a few gems in there that invoke serious discussion, so:
“Are you the real JimmyBreeze?” – from an unidentified Knifeback Mountaineer
The Legend: No, the real Jimmy Breeze, featured in a cLOUDDEAD joint of the same name, is a rhythm guitarist based in the Cincinnati area. He looks good holding a guitar.
The Interviewer: “Why did you quit playing TF2 but still spend so much time in the community?” – from an unidentified Knifeback Mountaineer
The Legend: I spend a lot of time on community stuff, yes, but it’s still less than what I spent captaining a team and playing/organising games. And I can keep my own hours. If I want to write at, say, 10:20pm (like I am now), that’s fine and dandy. I don’t have to be online and ready to play at 7pm til late on set days of the week.
But why stick around at all, you say: I’m a massive basketball nerd and it’s kind of cool playing the roles I know and am fascinated by in basketball – player, coach, pundit, analyst, commentator, league commissioner – in an online game. I could, of course, spend my time trying to be an NBA blogger or whatever, but I can do all of those things and enjoy a disproportionate dictator-level effect in TF2.
The Interviewer: “Can I have more pics of your girlfriend… for science?” – from Sammage
The Legend: I’m afraid that exclusive digital image research and study rights are currently held by CERN.
The Interviewer: “Compare and contrast the TF2 community with other online gaming communities and evaluate it objectively.” - from someone who studies physics
The Legend: A cold and unflattering way of thinking about the relative harmony that we enjoy in the TF2 community is that maybe it’s all to do with there not being that many of us.
I don’t know which anthropologist came up with that 150 villagers theory, about the maximum size of group that humans can socialise in without everything breaking down into disorder/crime and in-fighting.
While we obviously have more than 150 people active/playing, I think that rule might partly explain our community, where we all feel like we know each other, so we maintain stable(ish) social relationships and no-one feels free to do major harm to anyone else in the group. (Notable exception: dearjohncarter)
The less scientific, but much more flattering, explanation is that because of TF2′s quirky art direction and challenging gameplay (at a competitive level), it attracts a certain class of discerning nerds who appreciate that kind of thing.
The Interviewer: “What was your favorite nostalgic moment in TF2?” – from Mar
The Legend: I’ve played too many epic down-to-the-wire rage rush games to properly remember them, they’ve all kind of blurred into one.
What does stand out, though, is the first “competitive” games I organised for the Knifeback Mountain public server versus Hampshire Heavies, Dustbowl 12v12 with crits on. They are pretty special to me.
The Interviewer: “At i39, you didn’t really drink or play, you just wrote for Cadred and kind of chilled and had a good time. What’s going on in your non-playing TF2 career? Do you just like writing or are you trying to get a foot in the door on e-sports journalism” – from Tapley
The Legend: I’m an advertising creative/copywriter in real life, and believe it or not, there is some crossover with what I do in TF2 (in that I need to come up with and execute a good idea for a tournament or an article).
It’d be great to get paid to write about video games, even just as a part time thing – a freelance specialist, if you will. If an opportunity ever came up like that I’d jump at it.
The Interviewer: “How has TF2 made an impact on your non-TF2 (audible gasps from the audience) life?” – a 12 year old girl.
I stopped writing fiction and started writing about esports.
The Interviewer: “Do you ever get the desire to rage quit your position as an e-sports journalist due to the general and widespread idiocy of gamers (or due to any other reason)?” – the queen of potatoes.
The Legend: The widespread idiocy of gamers doesn’t really get to me. I’m lucky to be writing for a pretty smart and receptive audience. When I ragequit it, it will be because something else grabs my attention.
The Interviewer: “I hear you have a state of the art mobile phone, what’s the crack there?” – Zach Braff
The Legend: I own a classic 1990s style green-screen Nokia. No photos or internet. It sends texts and makes calls, and has awesome battery life.
The Interviewer: “Do you regret that your girlfriend isn’t Indian?” – a fucking wanker.
The Legend: A little bit. I have been pretty close to two hot Indian girls, though, and they both ended up being super crazy.
The Interviewer: The hot subject for interview questions of late is the 39th installation of the i-Series LAN hosted by Multiplay. You were there, you spent the better part of three days handling Cadred’s coverage of the event – in between trips to your four star hotel, of course. A lot of fuss is being made over the turnout and the reception for our game at i39. TF2 is several years into its life, it has loads of problems (ranging from the lack of legitimate, prestigious leagues to the constant loss of top teams/top players and their replacement by those of lesser skill). Can this game turn into something more than it is in a competitive sense, and why do you believe it will or will not?
The Legend: It definitely can. With the Valve partnership, the new to competitive play Highlander tournament and the sponsorship team making its first baby steps towards securing prize money, ETF2L will be at the heart of it.
Cadred is a big deal too. Rather than just posting about how awesome the i39 final was on the ETF2L forums, we write about it on Cadred and get thousands of non-TF2 people reading about it.
Whether it will get bigger competitively or not is pretty much up to the players themselves. Teams need to stick together. It does worry me that we’re so reliant on a handful of players/teams (like Coinz and/or Haunter not being able to go to LAN, or whatever, is really bad for TF2), and that so few teams and new players seem unable to crack the top flight.
The Interviewer: How strong do you think the valve partnership will actually prove to be? other game companies put money directly into competitive gaming; what is Valve offering besides a few medals that we couldn’t get ourselves?
The Legend: It depends on how much we put into it ourselves. The stats we get from being linked on the Valve blog are huge. People are interested in playing competitively, they just don’t know how/where to do it. Valve’s support is a huge asset to us in ensuring growth in an old game. The big stats and being able to say “we run Valve endorsed tournaments” also makes a difference when we approach potential sponsors.
Another good thing: Say we have an awesome simple fix for the equalizer, like “move the damage buff to the shovel”. We can get that straight to Valve and they will listen and maybe change it. Same for TDH. We can now say “hey, we played with TDH for a season, and here are our findings:”, ask them for some tournament mode specific tweaks like removing mini-crits and one-shotting, and there’s a chance they might actually do it.
I don’t think Valve are the kind of company to financially support a game at LAN, but if we make a case to them, and it makes business sense, they’ll at least listen. And who knows. They really love what ETF2L is trying to do, want to help us as a community, and so far we’ve enjoyed a really great relationship with them.
The Interviewer: TF2′s “community figure” presence has seen a growth in recent months. By this I mean, there are now people who are identifiable with podcasts (The Direct Hit, featuring Anderson, Swarley, and spence) or a radio broadcast (featuring, correct me if I am wrong, Dave, Byte, and yourself along with various other guests), and for the first time in European TF2′s history, there is an admin whom is “available” to the community in the form of D2M.
First, provide some brief commentary on the value TF2 gains by having some sort of centralized figures that compile the “coverage” side of our game. Do you think these figures are the proper choices to serve as “ambassadors” to TF2?
The Legend: I don’t really know what, if anything, the rise of the “community figure” signals. Services like these are great, particularly ETF2L Radio. It’s something we should have been doing a long time ago. Anything that brings the community together like it does, and also goes some way to teaching the game to players, should be supported regardless of who is running it.
The main guys at ETF2L radio, Byte and Dave, are excellent ambassadors for TF2. They’re hardworking and just get on with it. The fact that they make stuff happen and do a good job – rather than just talk about doing it – is all I care about.
The Interviewer: D2M is a special case, as he is very outspoken – to the point where I know of several people in the community who have privately decried his words/actions, citing them as “immature,” and he had a very public spat with the Paroxysm lads. What do you think of his method and behavior in terms of his public persona?
I know D2M can be an arse in game, but I don’t have any problem with how he handles himself and his duties as head admin. And at the end of the day, he does a really great job. He has to deal with a lot of shit as head admin so if he’s grouchy or short with someone, big deal. It’d be impossible (and pointless) to micromanage any of the admins anyway.
The Interviewer: You generally advocate a sort-of “no-care-zone” game of TF2, admonishing people for their utmost dedication (often to the point of actually ceasing to enjoy the game they play). Your Cadred articles are always light-hearted and, as an example, you advocate keeping maps like CP Well in the game to avoid TF2 becoming nothing but a Badlands/Granary fest. What has been the reaction to your fun-and-fancy-filled attitude of “TF2 is for fun?” I know that in particular, upper division Finn m0re hates fun and went so far as to call your thoughts “d4 insight from idiot (sic).”
The Legend: While I don’t understand people who continue to play even though they say they don’t enjoy the game, I do love teams who play a lot and work hard while having a good time.
The top players, by and large, are very supportive of what I’m trying to achieve. Even if I have to make an unpopular decision, like about Gorge, for instance, most of them can see the bigger picture and know that I’m doing it for a good reason. I talk daily with a bunch of them, mostly Darn and Dunc, about what we can be doing better and how to move the scene forward.
I do sometimes get jibes about being “noob friendly”, especially with the new to competitive play Highlander tournament, but again, it’s a big picture thing. And I work just as hard trying to service the existing playerbase.
The Interviewer: What has the community reception been to Gorge thus far? NA-TF2 has a rather large distaste for it but seem intrigued by it from watching STVs. Have you given Valve any direct feedback on the map and do they intend to put it into play?
The Legend: I think it’s fair to say that it’s had a mixed reception. I’ve personally watched over 30 or 40 Gorge demos and I’ve seen some great games on it. That doesn’t make it a good map, of course, but it definitely can be entertaining. I’ve had to endure a lot of whine about it, as well as some very valid criticism, but that’s all part of the process. I’m pretty sure the map pool will be trimmed for next season and it wouldn’t surprise me if Gorge doesn’t make the cut.
I sent Valve one feedback document about Gorge (when I was collecting demos before Season 7 started), and they were super interested in what we had to say and implemented a few of the changes we suggested. They asked for more feedback about it after the season ends, so if I get some spare time, hopefully we can get that done too.
The Interviewer: Being the guy that all of the pub players turn to (your friends list has seen quite the growth in recent days), what “new” challenges do you have to face? Who is it tougher to handle, a div6 Russian who doesn’t understand English or a pub player who just desperately wants to snap a medal on to his cockie?
The Legend: They’re as bad as each other. I gave up taking !admin requests a long time ago and I gave up accepting Steam requests about the Highlander stuff yesterday. We didn’t actually ask Valve to link to us yet. A lot of stuff hasn’t been decided.
The Interviewer: Your TF2 career was fairly short, all things considered – you did manage to bring Knifeback Mountain from the lowest of lows into a respectable, strategy-oriented division 2 team despite a plethora of problems (let’s just be honest: all of the problems were Fisshu). You avoided the big problems, like scheduling yourselves to play two hours of games a day with five game days a week, and had the genius idea of creating a clan of friends rather than a clan of random street thugs filled with tons of talent but having no heart or compassion. How was your personal experience as a player affected your role as a commentator and TF2 enthusiast?
The Legend: The things that I preached about as a captain/caller/player – efficiency and accountability – continue to fascinate me when I’m watching games. And a lot of what I write, whether it’s a game report or a feature article, usually ends up being about one of those two things.
Not that I’d ever take any credit for it, but I’d like to think that I’m at least partly responsible for those values seeping into the way we play TF2 today. Division 4 and 5, at least, is very different from the 4 and 5 that existed when I was playing. Everything is a lot tougher now.
The Interviewer: F2′s gossip site, Cadred Part I, Resupply Part I, FakkelBrigade, Resupply Part II, TF2 Street, Resupply Part III, Cadred Part II, and now Vanilla TF2. The list is incredibly long, with the only real “successes” being gossip.krus.dk and FakkelBrigade, both of which did so well because of a focus on a relaxed way of getting information out there. How will this new effort with Cadred be different? What has changed with the company behind it, or the people who run the site, or the people who contribute to TF2 that will make this attempt become something “big” or “real”?
The Legend: The only major thing that has changed is our audience. Rather than writing for people who read ETF2L fifty times a day, we’re writing for people who have no clue what ETF2L stands for. The fact that we have the opportunity to improve TF2′s reputation as an esports title on a big deal of a website is definitely a motivating factor.
That said, it’s important that the community continues to support it and doesn’t just take it for granted – comments, reads, sharing with friends etc – because part of our mission there is about showing how great our community is, especially compared to the other big communities. And when I write 10,000 words about something and get 2 comments, we don’t look that cool.
The Interviewer: On the flipside, what was it that caused all prior efforts to stumble over their own feet, focusing (if you will) especially on Resupply and the previous incarnation of Cadred TF2?
The Legend: Too many self-appointed “directors” telling people what to do and how to do it, but never actually willing to get their hands dirty and getting it done themselves.
The Interviewer: Think of all the people who exist in the TF2 community, both the good and the bad and the decidedly neutral and the utterly boring and the extravagant. Who out there do you think does not get enough credit, either for their contributions to the league (like what FakkelBrigade does), or for their dedication to playing (some of these clans who have been here for five, six seasons), or whatever other criterion you wish to attach?
The Legend: All of the community teams that send multiple squads to LAN – when you hear some bitching and moaning about prices/distances/whatever from the top teams – never cease to amaze me. They just love the game. i40 is going to be even bigger for TF2 than i39 was, and those guys are a big part of that.
The Interviewer: Ten seems a good spot to stop the inquisition here (and when I say inquisition, I mean more like a gentle tickling with a feather while we sip chamomile tea and chew on sweets while bunnies bounce around our heads, as this site is a No-Hate-Zone). Games like Heroes of Newerth and Battlefield: Bad Company 2 are starting to get legitimate attention as competitive, sponsor-worthy games – BC2 is hosting an American tournament that concludes with a LAN finals with a significant amount of prize money, the creator of HoN contributed a large amount of money to the prize pot for the i39 tournament. In addition to this, StarCraft 2 is in beta and pushing ever so slowly towards full release. When the dust settles, when the click-spam nerds return to their strategy games and people consider splintering off to the new, fun, team-based FPS – who will be left carrying the torch for Team Fortress 2? Will it just be you, CantFitMyN, and the seven boX clans making up an intense division 1?
The Legend: I don’t think I’d do what I do for TF2 if I didn’t see a better future for it. Equally, I’d lose interest if the top end disintegrated. They’re the guys I enjoy watching playing and writing about.
And with that, we’ve finished up what was a quite enjoyable time, picking the brain of one of European TF2′s smartest (and sixth sexiest, according to recent polls) players. As I think so highly of Monsieur Breeze, I polled several of his former teammates to see what they could offer in terms of essentially a tributary statement. I’ve included them here so that you can understand just the sort of impact that Jimmy had on his own team, the Knifeback Mountaineers (a.k.a. Envision):
“He has the most fucking weirdest Scottish accent! Everyone will say some shit about what an inspiration he’s been to their life in video games, but let’s face it – that accent! What the fuck?!”
“Second map not included!”
“Jimmy Breeze is a tactical genius, leading Knifeback to victory against all odds.”
“Never forget our frenzied passions in the stalls at i40, Jimmy. My small, soft, feminine Finnish hands cradling your pepé…”
“Jimmy essentially taught me how to play this video game, giving me the strategic foundations that I would need to actually step up my game and move into the upper divisions.”
“OH MATE I’VE FUCKING SHIT MYSELF BLOODY ROTTEN AND YOU’RE GONNA ASK ME FOR QUOTES?!”
Rest in Peace,
Jimmy Breeze
September 18th, 1983 – April 13th, 2010
Originally published on VanillaTV (vanillatf2.org) on 2010-04-14 by theinterviewman.
Recovered from the Internet Archive (archived copy) as part of tf2esports.com's preservation of VanillaTV's TF2 coverage. The original site is no longer online. All rights remain with the original author; reposted for historical reference.