Gamestah!SpearDave: TF2 has never been considered a hard core competitive game, especially when you compare it to the likes of CS or what not. Is the beta, do you think, partially a result of that, that Valve can see there is a competitive community out there that want to play it competitively and want to take it a little more seriously?

pvh: I think so. In the past, with the games I've been aware of, a lot of the competitive tweaking has come from the community, and it’s only later on in the life span when people are playing the game beyond the expectations of the developers that they start picking it up and supporting it. Where if Valve can get their shit together pretty soon, then it will provide some longevity for the game competitively.

Gamestah!SpearDave: So if we look at Competitive TF2 in Australia, the DOGZ reigned supreme, and since their departure x5 have been almost as untouchable. There are always comments about the skill level of them and the next group of teams, and with the return of most of the DOGZ into other top teams, how do you see Australian Competitive TF2 going?

pvh: I think the situation we have now is more competitive than it’s ever been. There is not a massive difference between the top team and the others below them. It seems for example x5 and pg could put up a good fight between each other on any given day. I think we are seeing less 5-0 wipes in Div1 and matches are becoming a lot closer. Everyone is keen to get games in rise to the challenge. For us it’s really good as anyone could really be number one depending on how much time or practice or effort they want to put in on the day.

Gamestah!SpearDave: What are your thoughts on maps? Are you the granary/badlands type of guy or do you see to a wider variety for the map selection in the comps?

pvh: For me coming from the Quake background, I'm a little bit of a dinosaur when it comes to playing new maps. I’ve played the same 8 or even less, 5 maps in Quake for the last 10 years. So learning new maps for me is a little bit of a curve, I really haven’t got the art down. As far as the TF2 community is concerned, yeah we love badlands we love granary, and gravel pit has an interesting twist on it. As far as the customs I really haven’t had a lot of time on.  However on one of our matches on freight wasn’t too bad, but it seemed the other team also wasn’t up to speed or practiced up on it. I guess I've watched more matches on custom maps, either here or from overseas competitions and they do look interesting. I don't know if the community is stale based on the maps, but maybe custom maps might shake things up and bring more teams into Div1.

Gamestah!SpearDave: So much time do you spend practicing positioning rollouts, etc compared to playing around with HUD's and particle effects?

pvh: Ha-ha, now-a-days it’s more of a case of sitting around and obsessively, very much Asperger-like, tweaking of various things like that. With the clan I’m in these days, we are relatively relaxed, we don’t tend to sit down and plan things and work out strategies, which sometimes doesn’t work out so well for us, but the time I spend playing is usually scrims and the odd pub play so it kind of evens out in the end.

Gamestah!SpearDave: So which players wow you when you watch them play or play with/against them?

pvh: Umm not really sure... as far as my team is concerned you have to give a shoutout to bluebaggrz who just tends to rock up and kick arse every now and then without too much forethought. 

Gamestah!SpearDave: Greatest player that you have seen?

pvh: I'm going to go out on a limb here and say happychef back when he was playing, always in awe of what he was able to do. He always had absolute precision and seemed he was one with the computer at times, which is a little bit scary. He could just pick up any class and game and just be amazing at it.

Gamestah!SpearDave: If TF2 was to need 1 more thing, what do you think would make it better?

pvh: Well TF2 has party hats already, so maybe instead of the unlockable hats, maybe we could have unlockable moustaches. Being that the spy has a camera beard; mustaches are the way to go.

Gamestah!SpearDave: Ha-Ha - Thanks for that, and thanks for your time. Any final comments on TF2?

pvh: No, just enjoy what you’re doing, and if you don’t enjoy it, then just don’t play.

Gamestah!SpearDave: Any shoutouts?

pvh: No. No. I don’t like anyone so I guess I’ll leave it at that. If I'm going to give a shoutout, those people know who they are.

Gamestah!SpearDave: Well thanks heaps for your time, and we look forward to seeing some of your input in the TF2 Beta filter through, and to help make competitive TF2 a little better.

pvh: No worries, SpearDave, thank you.