Ping Pirates!

We were able to grab Jingwei, the former leader of the legendary clan, Gamblers, which was the number 1 clan in battlestations and held most of the positions in the top 10.

Interviewer: Arzhou aka Adrian

Before we begin anything, tell us more about yourself, what games you enjoy, music you like, food etc…

Name: Jingwei Chu

Age: 20

Location: Australia

Music: Music I enjoy include genres from Acapella, Acid Jazz, Ambient, Ballad, Bossa Nova, Breakbeats, Caribbean, Celtic, Classical, Country, CPop, Dance, Disco, Downtempo, Drum & Bass, Dub, Electronica, Eurobeat, Folk, Funk, G Funk, Gaming OST, Gregorian, Groove, Gypsy, Hip-Hop RnB, House (namely Deep House, Groove House, Handbag House), IDM (Intelligent Dance Music), Industrial, Instrumental, Jazz, JPop, Jungle, Kaskade, KPop, Latin, Lounge, Mambo, Medieval, Melodic, Metal, Native/Tribal, New Age, Oldskool Hip-Hop, Opera, Orchestral, Piano, Praise & Worship, Punjabi/Bhangra, Punk Rock, Rap, Reggae, Reggaeton, Rock, Soft RnB, Soul, Spanish, Swing, Techno(particularly Lange, Trance), UK Garage, Underground, 2Step, 70's, 80's.

Food: Italian such as pasta, Steak, and some other Western styled food I don’t know the names off lolz.

Study: Bachelor of Pharmacy

How did Gambler’s started and why the name Gamblers?

Gambler was an idea by me and one of my friends Jonathan Vuong. First of all I’d like to say how a lot of us got into Battlestations in the first place. Jonno recently joined Facebook so I introduced him to one of the Facebook games I was playing at the time. The game got boring though after a while so I told Jonno that I’ll search the Facebook Apps for more games. It was then I spotted a game called Battlestations. Read the blurb, sounded ok, added the App. Started playing it a while and my first impression was ‘Hey this game is very different from any other Facebook game. It actually feels like a game! Not some word texted crap.’ So I got Jonno to play it. We both joined when there were if I remember around 200 users so we have been around for quite around.

We got addicted fast and we got MANY of our friends (around 20) to play. Most of them that added the App got hooked. Engaging in lots of PvP, I managed to get into the top 10 and then quickly rose to the top 3. I enjoyed PvP right from the start and didn’t enjoy exploring at that time because I had TERRIBLE luck. For the record, I was level 20+ before I found my first ore -_-“. However, I did get quite a number of wood and found one plasma rock. There was no resource auction or resource transmutation back then.

So how did Gambler start? We had a number of members near the top but not in the Top 10 including Jonathan Vuong, Jack Gon, Eric B, Sara Low, Kim Yeun Soon and Kurt Truong. Many of our other friends were still very low leveled. It was then I wanted to form a group of fighters that will later become a bunch mass sinkers and feared in Sios. So I asked Jonno; “Hey, lets form a clan like those that exist already (Dragoons and Hegemon) but instead, our clan will be low profiled.” (The name Gambler was chosen was because it is a well known Korean Bboy (Breakdance) Crew). I didn’t want a clan associated with the name Pirates or whatever, I wanted it completely unrelated to Battlestations hence why we had that clan picture of those from the real Gamblers Crew if you guys remember XD. Gambler had NOTHING to do with gambling or casinos or cards etc…I don’t gamble!) Jonno agreed to form a secret clan but we needed something that was able to identify us as a Gambler member. 18 of my personal friends formed this initial clan so I thought, we need a sink phrase which people will eventually speculate that a secret clan was in existence. This was then where the sink phrase ‘Defeated by Gamblers Crew’ came to rise as there were no clan tags at the time and there was pretty much no other way to identify us as part of a crew. A number of people and some clans have unfortunately perceived this to be some sort of gloat phrase -_-“ but personally I don’t see what is so ‘gloaty’ about it. A phrase like ‘You got you arse handed to you by Gamblers Crew’ sounds more cocky.

We wanted Gambler to spread by name, not through publicizing in the public forums. We were hoping that someone would post in the public forum, ‘Who is this clan that keeps sinking us?’

People might be curious as to who was the first non personal friend recruit that joined Gambler. It is none other than one of the clan masters of EVA, Martin Lloyd piloting the Slippery Octopus. Why him? He was my favourite victim to sink multiple times(it wasn’t anything personal!) I remember sinking him once and he happened to be online and he revived(there was no protection at that time). So who was I going to sink? Him of course! How can you not resist sinking the same person over and over?!

http://www.facebook.com/topic.php?uid=18063885304&topic=3080

I felt bad sinking him quite a few times so I asked him to join the newly formed crew. We also invited a few others into Gambler through invite until…we announced our official public recruitment as Leonard told us that he was going to make a clan system.

http://www.facebook.com/topic.php?uid=18063885304&topic=3220

When I put up this thread, we had under 30 positions and people were applying like crazy. A few of the members even defected from other clans to join us! One of them, notably was Reuben Kee. Reuben was initially part of the 13^th Dragoons before we publicized ourselves. I had a very strict recruitment process in which I have used all the way until I retired and this included making sure he wasn’t part of any clan nor a spy. I said to Reuben, ‘Sorry, I cannot let you into the crew as you are part of another clan.’ He replied something on the lines of, ‘Ok. I’m leaving.’ I was like ‘Ok. All the best for your clan in the future!’ Then I realized from his next reply ‘No! I mean I’m leaving that clan! I want to join you guys!’ I was like lolz I hope your leader doesn’t get pissed off that you defect!

For the record, I literally spent half a day non stop interviewing each person that PM’ed me and let those that ‘pass’ the interview into the clan. However, it was worth it as we had formed a clan with extremely good clanship.

Does Gambler’s participate in several different games as well? Kind of like a professional gaming guild?

Hahahaha we don’t have much time for hardcore gaming! Gotta work and study!

How does it feel like to be the number 1 player in the game at one point in time? Was it difficult to maintain your position?

This is a question many battlestations players would be curious about. How is it to be number one? Well, honestly, being number one sucks lolz. Not only do sore losers start speculating that you cheat but being number one also comes with a fair amount of stress in trying to maintain the position. Fortunately, pretty much all the other players in the top 20 were members of Gambler so this took off the stress of losing the top position to another clan. Maintaining the position takes time unfortunately and I definitely spent a lot of time trying to maintain the top position. To other players playing Battlestations, I’d like to tell you guys that getting to the top 10 isn’t hard, its just how much time you wanted to put into it. Many of the Gambler generals started late such as Johnny Lau, Evelyn Lau, James Yek, Samuel Zane and they were able to get into the top 10. With certain tactics (in which one of them was the infamous Obsadian camping), many of our players levelled up damn quick. Those players that complained that just because I and a few of my other clan members started early, this meant that we would always be on top is in actual fact a load of BS, no, not a load of Battlestations. Many of my generals proved this statement false. Another one that proved it false was Gambler’s recruitment Speedy who started a lot later than us. Using Gambler tactics, she was able to get 6 levels ahead of the next highest player. You tell me if that isn’t skill.

6. You also had quite a knack for spotting who were cheating in game, how was that possible?

Well, I see many things, NOT just hot girls!!! LOL