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Behind the Controller: A Look at Wolfkrone

Posted on January 3, 2011 by five

Right around the time of the November 2010 announcement of EVO Online at Galaxy4Gamers.com…

bb …a Super Street Fighter IV gamer named Wolfkrone showed up on the site. Right after making his first deposit, and entering the EVO event, he began competing in cash head to head challenges and single elimination SSFIV tournaments hosted by Galaxy4Gamers.com. In just over a month’s time, he played in an astonishing 120 plus matches at G4G and earned over $1000.00 in winnings. When the day arrived for first round of EVO Online bracket play, Wolfkrone, along with fifteen other competitors, found their way to the top of the sixteen regionally divided brackets, moving each of them on to the finals. Day two of the event was held a week later, and after all was said and done, it was Wolfkrone who was crowned the victor of the tournament. As his reward, he won a free trip to EVO 2011 and an exclusive online title of “No One Comes Close.” Shortly after the event was over, I got a chance to interview Wolfkrone…

Five:
How’s it going today?

Wolfkrone:
Everything is going good today. Just finished up a little Christmas shopping with my family.

Five:
‘Tis the season…I just got mine finished up yesterday,. all done..ready to go…glad it’s over with!

Wolfkrone:
LOL

Five:
So…your username is Wolfkrone. You are a pro Super Street Fighter IV player, winner of the first ever EVO Online Tournament, and exclusive owner of the online title: No One Comes Close”
Before we get into all that, can you tell us a little bit about who Wolfkrone is?

Wolfkrone:
 Well…my real name is Joshua Philpot, I’m from Detroit Michigan. Right now I’m 20 years old, and currently going to college. I’ve been gaming since I was about 5 years old and have played just about any fighting game you can name. I didn’t really get serious about gaming until Street Fighter IV came out.

Five:
Where exactly did the username Wolfkrone come from?

Wolfkrone:
It came from one of my favorite fighting games Soul Caliber IV. One of the stages in that game is called called Wolfkrone Monument, and that’s basically where I got my name from.

Five:
We (Galaxy4Gamers) met you for the first time at EVO 2010. If I’m not mistaken, you visited our booth, signed up for Galaxy4Gamers.com, played in some cash tournaments, and even won a HORI Fight Stick…

Wolfkrone:
Yeah…that was me…I was there…

Five:
Shortly after the announcement of EVO Online at Galaxy4Gamers.com, you came back to the site, and as of right now, you have played in 128 online cash tournaments on G4G…

Wolfkrone:
..Yep…

Five:
What I want to know, is do you think playing all those matches helped you get ready for the competition in EVO Online?

Wolfkrone:
Yeah…the site definitely helped me get ready for EVO Online. Playing on the site got my way more in tune to playing online than I was before. Playing the matches helped learn new things and gave me an idea of what to expect.

Wolfkrone:
When I was younger, everyone used to beat me down in Street Fighter and other fighting games. I would always lose…bad… I think that’s what got me into Street Fighter and made me competitive…When I got be around 10 or 12, I started going to Wizard’s Arcade…it’s closed down now, but…when I was going there…for like 4 years…all they had was fighting games. They had Third Strike, Cvs2…they had King of Fighters…they had all the fightin’ games…going there…that’s when I became really competitive.

Five:
When was the first competitive tournament you ever played in?

Wolfkrone:
It was in February of 2009 right after Street Fighter IV came out. It was at a Michigan Ran Bat (Ranking Battle)

Five:
How did you do?

Wolfkrone:
I placed around 13th…

Five:
Out of how many players?

Wolfkrone:
I think there was like 40 or so…

Five:
That’s not bad for your first time…
How often do you go to LAN tournaments?

Wolfkrone:
Here in Michigan, we have Ran Bats every two weeks, so I go to those…I uhhh…usually win those…

Five:
lol

Wolfkrone:
…and if there is a tournament in either Chicago or Ohio, I usually go there too.

Five:
You went to EVO this year…what did you think of that?

Wolfkrone:
It was my first EVO…It was different…it was alot of fun. There were so many different people there. I got a lot out of it because I got a chance to play against so many really good people.

Five:
We all know you have a killer Viper… do you ever play with any other characters?

Wolfkrone:
I mess around with a lot of other characters, but when it’s time to be serious and play for real, I choose Viper. I can play with any of them but when it’s time to get down to business, it’s Viper.

Five:
How much time do you spend a week practicing.

Wolfkrone:
A lot.

Five:
LOL..A LOT huh? Should we just leave it at that?

Wolfkrone:
Yeah. lol.

Five:
Do you have a sparring partner…someone you play with on a regular basis…

Wolfkrone:
Nope.

Five:
…do you get online and get into endless battles for practice? What’s your practice like?

Wolfkrone:
Usually it’s just practicing punishes in Training Mode. I mostly just play by myself or online. I usually don’t train with anyone. I like to put myself in situations in Training Mode and see how I can get out of them.

Five:
I play SSFIV a little bit and although I suck, I find Training Mode to be the arena for me, because they don’t hit back! How do you practice your timing?

Wolfkrone:
Oh..yeah…I get online…there are a lot of good people online. I have fought a lot of pretty good people online… and when I lose, I go back to the replay and look at that setup and find out what I did wrong, why I lost…then I go back to training mode and try the same thing…figure out my options in that situation…

Five:
I hear ya…
A lot fight gamers use a Fight Stick, like the ones you can get from MadCatz…it’s my understanding, that you don’t use one…

Wolfkrone:
I use a default PS3 controller.

Five:
Why the controller over the stick?

Wolfkrone:
I’m self conscious about people listening to what I am doing or watching my hands while I play. Using the controller they can’t hear or see what I’m doing. If people watch your hands or listen to the button presses, they can react to it.

Five:
Wow…that’s not what I expected to hear…something to think about…smart…

Wolfkrone:
Yeah…in this one tournament…I lost in the first round and the guy was like, “I knew I heard you press something”…

Five:
So it’s a whole strategy thing then…

Wolfkrone:
It is…


Five:
Aside from Super Street Fighter IV, do you play any other video games?

Wolfkrone:
Right now, I play Call of Duty: Black Ops…that game is fun…

Five:
That’s cool…Black Ops is MY staple game…

Wolfkrone:
That’s pretty much it…those two…that’s all I’m playin’ right now.

Five:
What does your family think of your gaming?

Wolfkrone:
They are supportive…at first they weren’t…after I started doing good, they started supporting me. Now they cheer for me…when I come home from tournaments, they are all shoutin’ because they watched the streams…it feels pretty good.

Five:
That’s awesome…I think what makes it even better doing something you love and being able to make some money doing it!

Wolfkrone:
Yeah…definitely!

Five:
Okay…so in this relatively new industry that is competitive gaming…what do you want out of this? Where Do you see this taking you in life?

Wolfkrone:
Right now i see it as fun. I do see a future in this though…through sponsorships. There are a lot of sponsorships out there and there are more coming…I believe it’s going to take another five years or so for things to really get goin’.

Five:
For anyone who is thinking about getting into competitive video gaming, what kind of advice can you offer?

Wolfkrone:
The best advice I would say, is spend a lot of time with a game…study it…dedication and hard work…

Five:
Before we wrap things up here, It has been a pleasure and an honor. I thank you for your time, and I wish you the best of luck in EVO 2011. In closing is there anything else you would like to offer up to our readers?

Wolfkrone:
For everyone who is reading this…Galaxy4Gamers.com is a really, really good site. Go there, and play…you will level up by playing there. It will help you with your competitive gaming and you will improve, because when you play there, you are playing against people who WANT to win, and playing against people like that will definitely make you a better player.

Five:
WOW! Thanks Wolfkrone. Again, Congratulations and Good Luck at EVO 2011!

Wolfkrone:
Thank you Five.

Posted in: Arcade, Benefits of Gaming, Fighting Games, Gaming News, Interviews and Podcasts, Online Video Game Competitions, Uncategorized, Video Game Conventions, Video Game Humor, Video Games
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Gamers make faster decisions than nongamers, just as accurate

Posted on September 14, 2010 by jon

When set loose on this task, both groups performed equally well in terms of accuracy, but the gamers produced the response more quickly than their peers….

This article by John Timmer was originally published on September 14, 2010 on arstechnica.com.
View the original article

Gamers make faster decisions than nongamers, just as accurate

by John Timmer

Halo Reach

There’s a significant controversy over the value of games that are designed to improve people’s mental faculties, as some studies have indicated that brain training only helps prepare you for similar tasks, while others indicate that general improvements are possible. But there turns out to be a type of game that is known to boost a variety of skills, from decision making to tracking multiple objects: standard action games. A study, released today by Current Biology attempts to explain how these video games can produce such wide-ranging improvements.

The authors of the study argue that the root of all these tasks involves making a probabilistic inference, where complete information is missing, so people have to make a best guess based on known odds. Video gaming, in their view, increases the efficiency at which people can process the odds and make an accurate decision—gamers simply can do more with less. As a result, any task of this sort sees benefits.

The work started with two sets of subjects, gamers and non-gamers. Both were shown a screen that had a set of randomly moving dots, and asked to determine whether there was any coherent motion, meaning that, despite the apparent randomness, the dots had a tendency to head in a single direction. The participants had to decide when they had seen enough motion to make a decision, and they also had to pick an accurate direction. The former involves a probability judgement: have you seen enough to know that you can detect a trend?

When set loose on this task, both groups performed equally well in terms of accuracy, but the gamers produced the response more quickly than their peers. The same thing happened when the test was switched to a similar task based on tonal differences, indicating the success of gamers wasn’t simply the result of their focus on visual cues.

Of course, as the authors note, this doesn’t demonstrate causation: “It could also be the case that are individuals who have been born with improved abilities at performing probabilistic inferences.” To rule this out, they took the non-gamers and gave them 50 hours of training and practice on action games (a control group learned to play slower-paced games). After the training, the same sort of pattern emerged, with the action gamers displaying an enhanced decision time.

The other issue they controlled for was twitchiness—gamers might get the task done more quickly simply because they could hit the key required to complete it faster. To eliminate this possibility, they showed the random motion (or played the tone) for fixed periods of time, and then let the subjects provide an answer at their leisure. When the time allowed for the test was short, gamers were more accurate than their peers. Overall, this supports the conclusion that they can do more with less information.

How might this actually work on the biological level? The authors favor a model where there’s a two-part system for judging probabilities: one part registers the relevant information, then transfers it to a second that integrates the information and makes a probability judgment. They argue that gaming enhances the connection between the two, allowing more information to be transferred per unit time. With the additional info, the part of the brain that performs the evaluation can do so more quickly.

Why should gaming exercise this bit of the brain? In short, because action games place a premium on variety and novelty. “Unlike standard learning paradigms, which have a highly specific solution,” they argue, “there is no such specific solution in action video games because situations are rarely, if ever, repeated.”

The last question they address is why, if this sort of sped-up evaluation is so useful for a variety of tasks, aren’t we all born with the abilities of gamers? Here, they claim to have information that they’ve not yet published, which indicates that shuffling too much information to the evaluation center actually overloads it, leading to poor performance. We’ll have to see if that paper ever makes it to press before evaluating whether that’s the case.

In the meantime, you’ve got one more excuse to go out and buy Halo: Reach.

Posted in: Benefits of Gaming, Gaming Articles, Gaming News, Uncategorized, Video Games
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