GameStah: Firstly what drew you to Dystopia in terms of competitive play?

Rocky: Dystopia, being an objective based game, was always going to require close teamwork and constant communication between team members.  After getting a taste of the initial demo release on public servers, it quickly became clear to me that I wanted to take this further as I fell in love with the dynamics of the game.  From there, I was picked up by Up and played in my first organised match and, even though we lost quite convincingly, I was hooked.

GameStah: Who came up with the clan name?

Rocky: Uber Punkeration was created by Jerds, the founding member.  He was initially annoyed at some of his fellow pre-demo release testers when they formed a clan (Uber Corporation) and he was not invited to join.  As such, Jerds decided to make his own clan.  Choosing a name which was an obvious rip off of theirs, Jerds vowed to kick their asses.  Shortly after this Uber Corporation folded and, as they say, the rest is history.
 
GameStah: How did Up ^ come together and who are your current members?

Rocky: Up's founding member was Jerds, a pre-demo release beta tester.  Jerds decided to round together some of the players from the community and form a clan, which started with a couple of his fellow testers who came and went, with T`lexxi recently rejoining, eventually moving on to recruiting some of the public players.  Klaymen was the first of the remaining members to join, followed by myself (Rocky), wiko, Xhaos and Laguana.  Of more recent times, we have been lucky enough to recruit two of the dev team members, Fuzzy and Teddy.  Something which has helped the clan stick together is the fact that about half the clan know each other from university, meaning we have a core group of players which are always contactable and provides a base for which to grow on.

GameStah: How long has the clan been around? Could you tell us a little about your clan history?

Rocky: Our clan has been around since pretty much the day the Dystopia demo was released.  We played in the DGL CT9 tournament, in which we made it into the finals against Team Dystopia, who we beat in a very closely contested match.  Since then, we have competed in both STA seasons, however it has proved difficult organising times and servers for matches, considering the lack of Australian clans.  As such, we do not get to play as many matches as we would like these days, however we always jump at the chances we get.

GameStah: Who would you name as your teams most valued player?

Rocky: Laguana, although one of our newer members, has always been very active in our clan and in the greater community alike.  He is always involved in setting up matches/scrims with other clans and presents our clan in an outstanding way, not to forget his fearsome skills with the boltgun.  We are also very honoured to play along side dev members Fuzzy and Teddy, they made this game that we love and we get to play with them, it's an almost surreal experience.

GameStah: Which map would you say is your team’s favourite/best to play on? Including 3rd party maps.

Rocky: Vaccine.  All of us fell in love with it in the demo release and it is just such a well balanced map that nothing else quite compares to playing an organised match on it.  Having played on it for so long - over a year now - we have had plenty of time to form strong strategies, which helps us dictate gameplay to our strengths, which is a very satisfying feeling.

GameStah: What was the clan’s very first match, what competition, who was it against, and how did it play?

Rocky: Our very first match was in fact a scrim versus limetech, a clan formed almost entirely of Natural Selection players.  Being played on the initial demo release, the map was none other than Vaccine.  To put it bluntly, we got owned. 
    We learnt a lot from that match but most of all was the strength of the Laser Rifle.  As punks we were pinned down at the first objective for much of the match with limetech employing two snipers, which we were simply not prepared for.  We eventually managed to push through and capture the docks and with only a few minutes remaining we made a few unsuccessful attempts pushing for middle spawn before we ran out of time. 
    As corps, we didn't employ the sniper strategy, instead we tried to lock down cyberspace allowing them only a single point of entry into the building.  This proved a decent strategy for a while, except we were overrun after a few strong pushes and the docks were compromised.  Due to our use of heavies, our spawn time after the cap was quite large, allowing limetech to quickly push up and capture middle spawn shortly after we spawned.  Unfortunately we could not get a recapture in time and were pushed back to defending the core.  At about the 15 minute mark of the round limetech made a strong push, wiping our team and destroying the core.  It was a convincing loss, however it showed us how far there was to improve over public play, something which pushed myself to continue playing and practicing.

GameStah: How do you find Dystopia clan match play compares to playing on public servers?

Rocky: The chance to function as a tightly knit unit, with privately developed strategies and tactics, is far more satisfying than jumping on a pub and getting 'medieval'.  You get a greater sense of achievement and a hugely more intense experience because of the amount of time and effort invested in your teamplay.  It's truely a time when the whole can be greater than the sum of the parts.

GameStah: With the lack of other Australian Dystopia clans to play against, what keeps your team together and playing Dystopia instead of other more popular/populated games?

Rocky: It is a little bit of a bummer that we don't have any other AU clans to play (come on TLA!), but we've been able to get a bit of clanplay action against overseas clans, albeit at a high ping. It can be a bit of a pain playing with the higher ping, but in a way it forces you to be more strategical in the way you play, which can be good.
    The other thing that keeps us playing is that a fair proportion of us are testers or developers, so we talk to each other alot which brings us together. We've also seen a lot of the amazing additions coming in v1 which makes us very excited and makes us want to continue playing.
    With regards to playing other more popular games, no other games provide the high level of strategy and fast paced gameplay that dystopia does. We have no compulsion to play a game like counterstrike, because I think most of us aren't personally attracted to that type of gameplay.

GameStah: Carrying on from the last question, why do you think the Dystopia clan scene in Australia is so small compared to the US and Europe? As it is after all an Australian made Mod.

Rocky: The gaming community (and raw population) in Australia is much smaller than that of Europe or the US, thus with the same percentage of gamers playing dystopia there is a smaller community.  Unfortunately the fact that it is an Australian mod doesn't seem to help the cause, it wasn't a deciding factor for me playing the mod to begin with, however being able to speak with the developers regularly at convenient times and the common ground between us was something which has helped us stay with it. 
    Another factor initially was the lack of maps, which meant those players who may have been interested in the clan scene did not necessarily stick around long enough to be noticed by the active clans.  Of more recent times, the Australian public servers are mostly empty, meaning the Australian players will join the populated US or European servers for a game which further reduces the likelyhood of people trying to populate an Australian server, providing a vicious cycle.  It often happens that once 3 or 4 players join an Australian server, the rest of the players will flock to it and we will get quite a few good games, but eventually people leave and the server is empty once again and the cycle starts again.

GameStah: Of the Dystopia League Competitions out there, which ones do your clan play in?

Rocky: We are currently active in the STA league.  We are also registered with the DGL (Dystopia Global League) however it is currently inactive, pending the release of Dystopia 1.0.

GameStah: With a lack of other Australian clans to play against, how does your clan practice/train? Do you practice at all?

Rocky: To be honest, this is one of the hardest things we have had to overcome.  With the lack of regular matches it is hard to keep members active and interested.  Luckily, however, we were approached by the dev team some time before the release of update 4 to become beta testers, which we gladly accepted.  So, as such, we are able to have regular games with other extremely talented players and keep our skills honed.  We play public matches quite often, or join an empty server and have some shooting practice with each other, but that is about the extent of our practice.

GameStah: If Up ^ could play against any Dystopia clan in the world, free of any lag, who would it be and why?

Rocky: Well, if we had to chose one team, it'd probably be TCF. They're the european team who won the last DGL, so hopefully they should provide a decent challange, worthy this mythical "lagless" battle.

GameStah: Will Up ^ be sticking around to dominate the Australian Dystopia clan scene for Dystopia's V1 release?

Rocky: Of course!  Although, as much as dominating the scene would be fun, our aim is more to help the Australian community and clan scene grow.  We love this game and we know there are plenty of other people around who would feel the same way if they were given the chance to play regularly in organised matches.

GameStah: GameStah would like to thank you for time and wishes you and your clan the best of luck. To finish this off is there anything you would like to say or any shoutouts you would like to make?

Rocky: Thanks to all the members we have had along the way, you all contributed to what we are now.  Thank you to the greater clan community (US and European alike) for their flexibility with match times and for all the good times we have had in game.  Finally, a big cheers to Team Dystopia, we really appreciate all the hard work which they put it for the mere thanks they receive.