An Interview With Paul 'ReDeYe' Chaloner

On a rainy evening I had the pleasure to talk about previous events, playing competitively and most importantly the weather with Paul “ReDeYe” Chaloner. A titan in the history of E-Sports and more recently a host of Blizzard’s World Championship Series.

 

Hi Paul, How are you?

ReDeYe: All good.

 

You’ve been in E-sports for what seems like forever, playing casting and most recently hosting. How much do you currently play?

ReDeYe: I play loads, I play pretty much every night. I don’t complete or play in lans any more. You never stop being a gamer.

 

Would you consider going back to playing competitively?

ReDeYe: I stopped competing around 2005, when I was playing in a clan. We were top of the clanbase international ladder, we had won Euro-cup. At a smaller lan I had a 2v2 CTF tournament where we beat David 'Zaccubus' Treacy and Gareth 'GaRpY' Marshall in the final. I’m still massively competitive, I still whine like a little bitch when I lose at a Counter-Strike.

Ultimately I don’t think I have the time, or the patience to practice as much as I used to. With Unreal I was playing 6-10 hours per day for weeks on end, I was really lucky to play with great players, which let me be carried a little. At the same time I had a decent aim, a good brain so FPS was relatively straightforward for me, whereas now I’ll not play for a couple of weeks, then I’ll play some Counter-Strike GO, and I’ll think ‘how the hell are these guys hitting me’.

I’ve had a couple of opportunities in the past few years, and one this year where Zaccubus told me ‘Red, you need to come and play Shootmania with us, it’s fricking awesome, and you’re gonna be really good at it. All it is aim’, which was quite a compliment coming from Zacc.

I’m coming up for 41, the wrong side of reaction times; my hand-eye co-ordination is getting worse. But if there is a new Quake or Unreal, which is amazing where I can hold my own, then maybe. It’s unlikely, but never say never.

 

What drew you to compete?

ReDeYe: I’ve always been competitive, I’ve played Football, Badminton at county level, Pool nationally. Someone was jealous of me for being able to be competent at almost anything, but I was jealous of him being the national Badminton champion or something. I would like to be outstanding at something, but I was never great. Even in Unreal Tournament we were not the best, sure we won the tournaments that were available, but we probably weren’t playing the greatest of players.

 

You’ve worked with almost every E-Sports personality out there, is there anyone who you believe that you have a particularly good synergy with?

ReDeYe: I’d turn the question around and say is there anyone I have not worked well with? The answer is yes, there aren’t that many.

I’ve worked really hard to complement whoever I’m working with. So if the person I’m working with is a dominant character then I’ll take the backseat, but if they are quite shy I’ll take the lead. In the early days djWHEAT was a dominant figure, and I would sit back more to listen and learn. Though I wouldn’t say I was an equal with him as he’s a bit of a god. But I think we work well together, certainly there is a great flow, we can have some fun. Marcus is really easy to work with. All the big guys are easy to work with:TosspoT, Joe Miller, 2GD, Tasteless, Artosis, the list goes on and on. But there are still those that I don’t work well with, no different to any other job.

 

That isn’t to say that those you don’t work with are bad, maybe their style doesn’t complement yours?

ReDeYe: It’s a bit about style, it’s probably more about working well with others. Plenty come from solo casting. Where there are a many great solo-casters, there are less great casting duos. I was one of them, you need to learn when they are going to speak, when they aren’t allowing me to talk, something you have to learn. Some never learn though, and I’ve worked with them. They don’t understand the dynamics of a duo.

Another element is that you never throw your commentator under the bus. EVER. You just don’t do it. There are ways of correcting something other than saying ‘hey Wheat, you’re a bit of a dickhead’, there are subtler ways where you can have a little fun. But you need to have each other’s backs.

 

You’ve been to so many tournaments over the years, for so many games. Do you have any particularly fond memories?

ReDeYe: I always say WCG Singapore in 2005, because everything about the tournament was right: The tournament itself, the games I commentated were fantastic, my co-casters Tasteless’ first major event. It was the first time I was in-front of 4000 people, which blew me away. The city, the people, the weather, the food, local reception, just everything about it was amazing.

The only thing I didn’t enjoy was a pair of Greek players, sitting behind TosspoT and myself, on the way out, that kept digging us in the back. As a treat for them, when we got on the second plane, on the count of three, we forced our seats backwards, making them a little upset. This was the only negative thing about the event, and we had a laugh about that. It was almost the perfect event.

There have been two events this year that have matched or surpassed that: IEM World Championship, and last weekend’s WCS Europe finals, which may have minorly topped Singapore

 

How about any negative experiences?

ReDeYe: [laughs] Yeah my worst tournament was WCG 2006, the next year from Singapore. Which may have had something to do with it.

It was in Monza, Italy, as a massive F1 fan It was an ‘Oh My God!’ moment. I was going to be commentating on the circuit where legends have driven. It was such a disappointment. The hotel was two hours away, traffic was horrendous, Italian people were horrible (I’m generalising, I don’t hate Italians, it just seemed like everyone hated each other). The weather was miserable cold and wet. We were stuck outside most of the time, no-one turned up, there were no memorable games, even though we had quake. It was a major letdown for myself.

 

Considering your competitive background is mostly FPS, how much StarCraft do you play?

ReDeYe: Recently I’ve been playing it pretty hardcore, but before I’d not played that much. Infact it’s the only thing I’ve played in the last three weeks, despite having beta and alpha keys for plenty of big games, lying unused.

It’s really bizarre, when I started playing games, the game I played were all strategy. Early on I played Championship Manager, on the Amiga. The early things I bought were Command and Conquer, Dune and Total Annihilation; they were Real Time Strategies. I played all those games, but because they weren’t multiplayer the games that turned me on were Unreal and Quake as they were. I never came back to RTS until recently. When I played RTS you just had the mouse, unlike now, where I am playing StarCraft mouse only, I realise how silly this makes me sound. I’m determined to break the spell of old, and start using the keys otherwise I’ll get creamed when I play online more.

 

Other than the events you host do you follow much StarCraft?

ReDeYe: A stupid amount. I was doing an interview yesterday which was supposed to start the same time the DreamHack finals were on, which of course I had to postpone until 10:30, when that time came ForGG was 2:0 up, hoping that ForGG would wipe Taeja 3:0. But then of course Taeja won the next game, so I did the interview with the stream on. Half way through Taeja won the fourth game, and I completely misheard what the interviewer said, so I made an excuse that I was doing something else, which I was, and apologised.

 

Do you have any favourite players in StarCraft?

ReDeYe: You can’t have favourites.

 

You Can.

ReDeYe: You have to be independent, you have to be professional. I like characters though. I quite like that Nerchio has played every race in a tournament before, and won a match with each, that’;s fun. I like Grubby, but that might be more due to friendship, though is play is often very ballsy. And I like Stephano, because, well, he’s Stephano, who is fun and interesting.

Moon, Grubby and Rotterdam were my favourites in WarCraft 3. Funny story about Moon actually: We were in Shanghai in 2005, Moon heard we were in China to do the games and it was his birthday. He invited TosspoT and myself to his Birthday as the guest of honours. Which was a little weird, he should be our guest of honour at our party. He had a chef, a noodle maker,a magician and a posse of fans going crazy.

I’ve never had many favourite players in many games, Thresh was the first, Second was Cooler in Quake 3. I try not to show much favouritism.

 

Is there anything you might have changed in E-sports?

ReDeYe: I’d ask CGS to not spend all it’s money and go a bit slower. If they had they might still be around. My CV is pretty full so I don’t really regret any particular events, if anything I’d want to do more events, particularly an MLG as I’ve never done anything but Quake in the US, I’d love to experience the knowledgeable crowds that MLG draws.

 

E-Sports have very much been on the rise since StarCraft II launched, do you think it’ll continue that way, or there will be a slump like in 2008?

ReDeYe: Even with so many tournaments falling in 2008. I don’t think that E-Sports was as badly affected by the recession as other industries. The last 12 months have been the best we’ve had.

I think that we are at a peak, and there is likely to be a trough, it won’t be as low as the last one and there will be another peak that surpasses the current one. E-Sports has always been on the rise, and will continue that way. I don’t for a second think it will be all one way traffic; we’ll have some good years, some bad years. There will be the proclamation of ‘E-Sports is dead’ it’s happened before and it’ll happen again.

 

Thanks Paul, is there anyone you’d like to thank?

ReDeYe: I get asked this question a lot. The answer never changes, djWHEAT, TosspoT, Dman and Joe Miller, I’ve been very lucky to work with some amazing people.

The biggest influence I had was when I started doing TV in the states, with Mike Burks who was involved in the Olympics, the Super Bowl and other real sports. He was very good to me and Marcus, giving me advice that made me a much better commentator. With someone like Mike you can’t fail to do better, he wouldn’t let you.

 

You can follow Paul On Twitter: @PaulChaloner or on Facebook: facebook.com/paulredeyechaloner