Ask coLstaff is a question and answer column which features the thoughts and opinions of the coLStaff answering questions asked by the coL Community. This piece does not necessarily reflect the official views of the Los Angeles compLexity or its parent companies.

Ask: coLstaff

Welcome to the second edition of Ask coLstaff, where CompLexity staff members Michael "Peawok" Fleming, Andrew "aMies" Miesner, and a mystery coL member answer your questions. Ever wonder what we get for working for CompLexity? Want our opinion on 1.6 and source? Want to know our favorite team other than CompLexity? Ask away here!

PLEASE READ: Please make sure you check the other 'Ask coLstaff' articles before you submit a question. We get asked many questions and cannot continue to answer the same ones. If you have a legitimate, mature question, we would be happy to answer it. We just cannot continue to repeat answers. As always, please be mature when asking your question, and make sure that your question is understandable.

How long did it take for you guys to start making profit from the "gaming thing"?

They make money, and we can too!

Peawok:: I’ve been playing video games for as long as I can remember and, in all honesty, never expected anything from playing. Even when I was fifteen I never wanted to make money, I just wanted to be known among the community as a great player. I played so hard and always worked my best. The January CompLexity switched to Source, I had a very successful team called Edge to Victory (e2v) going. We had had great success thus far, and I felt we would be one of the top six teams in CAL open. Nothing excited me more than being in the open finals or even semifinals. Yes, I was excited about having 100 people watching me. I can’t even begin to imagine what feelings the players have knowing millions could be watching them. I began making profit back in November, when I started to write for the Carolina Core. I needed a job in college and this just fit with me. Everyone who knows what I do is extremely jealous. It was never about money to me. Just having thousands reading my articles is enough for me. As a quick final note, I haven’t made money from gaming. Add on all the payments for internet, trips to LAN, new equipment… profit is hard to come by. My profit is seeing people write down ‘Good Read Peawok!’. Even when I don’t post on my articles, I always read my comments, and they are my “profit”. The money is always nice though. Hahaha.

aMies:: I've been one of the lucky ones. I've been profiting from gaming for about 3 years now. It all started when I first started working at my local LAN center, playing games all day. From there I was able to participate in various esports endeavors. I was able to take over a crumbling company called eSportsBuilder, an interactive esports site with various features for the customers to make money or earn gaming products. I was able to have the project funded by a pretty well know Game Server Provider. They bought the site from T3RroaR of TGS (Terrorized Gaming Syndicate) after some shady practices that led to the sites death. As we redeveloped the site I had high expectations, full funding and a monthly salary, however it was killed by a coder who walked away with everything, leaving the site in the development stage. The project slowly died, but my ideas are still active. Maybe one day...Anyway, after moving to Florida I was able to use my technical game server skills to apply for a job at NuclearFallout. I got the job and am currently working there to this day. I also get a monthly salary from coL, so life isn't bad.

DetonatoR:: It took me about three years to start making any decent amount from gaming. Once I started playing Quake competitively I won a lot of gear at random tournaments that added up to a pretty good amount of money when I sold everything. In regards to just writing, I didn't really make anything from compLexity until CGS came around. I'm an extremely loyal person, so even though I'd get a ton of great offers from different sites I stayed with compLexity, at that time working for the passion instead of the money. Once CGS came around, we received a staff budget so that's where my salary comes from with compLexity, but I've done a few things on the side as well to earn some extra cash in eSports. There is definitely enough money in eSports to make a decent salary, you just need to know where to look or -- to put it bluntly -- know the right people.

Do you believe that you can quit from e-Sports just like that and never follow them again?

Det, being perplexed by questions.
Courtesy of Gotfrag

Peawok:: Absolutely not. I love e-Sports. Right when coL switched to source I nearly left the scene. I had one summer left at home, and had college coming up. Then, I decided to give it one more go. I planned on playing big time in college but the internet up here was poor. I nearly left again but decided to apply to both Chimera and Core. I got accepted into Core before Chimera, and went with Core. I’m now with CompLexity as well as starting my own website called Insider eSports. I’m glued into this till at least the end of college, trust me. And even then I have a major in Computer Science.. so who knows if that leads to programming video games..

aMies:: Unfortunately, no. My life revolves around eSports currently do to my jobs. I am currently going to school to earn my Bachelors in Game and Simulation Programming, so gaming will always be part of my life. As long as it is, I believe I can do some good for esports in the mean time.

DetonatoR:: Yeah I believe that's possible. I've seen it happen to a lot of my friends, and even to me several times along the road. Most of the time people quit because their lives don't have room for them to focus entirely on eSports or it's just not worth it to them, so they start drifting away until they just stop paying attention all together. Once all the drifting starts, it's easy to stop noticing when things happen in the scene or you just stop caring. So, yes it's possible. It's hard to get back into it all once you 'quit' because you're coming back with no knowledge of what happened which gives you that whole 'catching up' period.

What do you do when you "run out" of ideas for next articles?
Peawok:: Ever see those short spurts where you don’t see “Written by: Michael “Peawok” Fleming”? Hahaha. Usually what I do is get away from eSports for a bit. I stop thinking too in depth and look at it from the outside in. Usually you find solid article pieces from just that. Other ways to find an idea is to read as many other articles as you can. Sometimes you see something that you say “hey, I agree but also feel that…” and that’s the start of your article. Other times, Jake gives me article ideas and says “write me this”. It usually all comes together in the end. I approach articles like I do a college paper. Find an idea, branch that idea out, write a small outline, and I’m off!

Jake: GET ME AN ARTICLE PEAWOK!

aMies:: Well, I'm not a writer so I can only answer this partially. When the writers run out of ideas, I tell them to find one or their fired. It's simple really. =D

DetonatoR:: When we start running out of ideas, that's when our team's the most dangerous! We have people like Jake, aMies, and myself constantly trying to think outside of the box to put out something entirely unique in content or concept. On top of this, we have writers trying to think of new ideas, as well -- this ask coLstaff feature being a great example of that. But, to be honest, I don't think we ever really run out of ideas, we just hit slow days; We're always coming up with new ideas because we're always under pressure to think outside the box.

How you get over the flaming from the haters?
Peawok:: Sometimes coL fans post our articles on websites like GotFrag. I’ve had comments like “this article sucks, the original was better” or “this guy can’t write for shit”. I just laugh them off. Sure, they sting a little, but you can’t please everyone. If I wrote it to please that guy I’m losing who I am and how I write. Nothing is more important to me than remaining true to me. When I first arrived at college I had a speaker give us the five most important things in life, to him at least. One of them was “remain true to yourself”. I plan on following that to the day I die. So forget the haters and just know you do it for you.

aMies:: Flaming? What flaming? I just tend to ignore any immaturity, as abundant as it is.

DetonatoR:: You just need to learn to stop caring. These guys can flame all they want, but they aren't getting through to me because I honestly don't care. They have their own opinion on things and I have my own. Just gotta stop caring and move on :p

What you prefer more visits or more comments?

No relevence, but this picture of storm
as a kid is sick!

Peawok:: Well, technically to comment people have to visit. However, if you mean more people reading the article and only a few commenting versus less people reading the article and all of them commenting, I would have to go with the latter. If people aren’t commenting, they obviously didn’t feel that the article hit them in any specific way. I’d rather have a discussion with fifteen people who care than know one hundred people read it and didn’t care.

aMies:: Under my current position, I'd prefer visits more, however if I was a writer I would prefer comments. It's nice knowing that people read your articles and liked (or disliked) them enough to comment on them.

DetonatoR:: Honestly, I'd prefer more visits because at the end of the day visits are what matters. That doesn't mean I don't care about the amount of comments, though!

How did you all become staff members of complexity or who ever you joined first?
Peawok:: Usually you see a “NOW HIRING” on the respective teams website. Carolina Core and Chicago Chimera both had it going, and I applied to both around late September. Chicago got back to me first, but Flander wanted more ideas before he would accept me. I sent him some and he never responded back. By that point, however, Mark Dolven had said he wanted another article before he agreed to use me; it was to be published on the main site as well. I wrote one, and at first he didn’t respond. I finally approached him on AIM, and he said he hadn’t gotten around to it yet. A week later I was accepted and he said he would send me all the necessary paperwork. Another week went by, and CEVO was just about to start. I wrote an article which I sent to him through the CGS mail. He got it, and it was up in time. My paperwork was pushed ahead of all his other work that day…

aMies:: I became staff of compLexity last year. I was an avid fan with some ideas that worked out in the sites benefit, so I was brought on to keep it going. I slowly worked my way up the chain and here I am today.

DetonatoR:: About four years ago I was still getting into Counter-Strike -- I think it was either 1.3 or 1.4. I 'moved on' at one point to a silly game called Graal Online which was very fun, but once I came back into Counter-Strike all of my friends moved on and made teams together. At one point, they set me up with IRC and started claiming they were on Team 3D, which at that time I couldn't care less because I had no idea what a 'Team 3D' was. After getting on IRC, I started learning more about professional gaming and most of the big teams. I sort of knew who compLexity was at that time, but didn't really think of it as 'oh wow, a pro gaming team!' I forgot why I came into their IRC channel one day, but when I did I saw Brian Dunn, who at that time was compLexity's new Head of Coverage/Head of Staff, advertising that they were hiring writers. I said 'what the hell, I'll do it', messaged him and got the ball rolling.

Who is your favorite player?

He's so sick!

Peawok:: I never had idols when playing. Again, I wanted to remain true to my own play style and build my own persona. There were players I usually watched, and one of those was Storm. If anyone has ever played against me or with me, they know I’m a fantastic defensive player. I almost always lead my team on the Counter Terrorist side. Like Storm, I shut down areas of the map with ease. So, I’d say he is one of my favorite players. I also enjoy watching n0thing. Before Vilden left 1.6, I loved watching him as well.

aMies:: Honestly, I don't have a favorite player. I have a deep respect for every coL player, as I do for the players of many other teams. Unfortunately there are still some "professional" teams that still don't understand that they are "professional." CAL-O was soooo last year guys.

DetonatoR:: For just compLexity, this question is a tough one. I've known the guys for a while now so I can't honestly pick one over the other. Each one has their on or off days. Outside of compLexity, though, OMG SPAWN HES INSANE WTF!

What is your favorite team other than CompLexity?
Peawok:: Really, I don’t have any favorite team. CompLexity was my favorite community and that’s why I first joined the forums. Usually I judge on the character of the people leading or playing for a team then their win to lose ratio or gamesense statistics. I have always enjoyed Alex Garfield. He’s extremely quiet but is a very bright owner. Mark Dolven, too, is one of my favorite GMs. Lemley is also a very bright man. I’d be honored if I was compared to any of them. If I had to choose a team, I’d say Lemley’s Pandemic. They were rarely the winner, but were always consistent. Having four out of five drafted in one draft just shows how good they were.

aMies:: I'll assume this question is talking about other sports teams. As a true New Yorker, I am and have always been a Giants fan. This past Superbowl win was probably one of the best days of my life, but it sucks that it had to happen the year I move to Florida. I am also a Mets and Nets fan, but its so hard to watch games down here due to regional programming.

DetonatoR:: Hmm.. probably EG because a lot of my friends are players/staff.