Interview: “Louder” David Fells

Quiet little monster.

“Louder” is a misnomer.

If you watch his WCG interviews , that much becomes obvious quickly. For better or worse, no one expects an Idraism out of Louder or even for him to be a community pillar like his teammate, iNcontroL. He seems more reserved and anything but loud.

But maybe what the old Protoss means is that he lets his play speak for him. During periods of activity, Louder has been a mainstay at WCG USA. In StarCraft 2, he is 117-32. He’s rated 1409 and is 1st in Platinum division 5.

Inactivity is not unheard of for David Fells. As a father and husband, Louder has little choice but to place StarCraft lower on his list of priorities than many of his competitive peers.

“Noah is 5, Natalie is 8,” says Louder. “During the day, I work as a web app programmer from 11 am to 6 pm, possibly with interruptions to take one or both of my children to softball or baseball practice. After work, we deal with dinner, I help my daughter with homework, spend some time with my kids, and I usually get on by 9, though I’m often able to sneak on at random times during the day, and I don’t work at all most Mondays and Fridays, so I play during those days a good bit as well.”

This is not the usual list of worries for top players. Where most have to worry about a girlfriend, school or work, Louder has to worry about children. Still, there he is, always near the top of his division in Platinum league.

Does his family know about his gaming prowess?

“Of course my family knows,” says the the EG Protoss. “I’ve been playing StarCraft for longer than I’ve even known my wife. And I’ve travelled quite a bit in the last few years for it. My wife thinks it’s cool that I’ve gotten to travel all these places for free but is jealous as well. Both my kids think it’s really cool. As babies, both of them loved to sit on my leg while I played and point and watch the game. Recently, I had been playing League of Legends with my friends to get a break from StarCraft and my son knows all the heroes on sight and loves to watch the game.”

His previous competitive run years ago was with teams like HnR. After a half-decade long hiatus because his professional and family life took precedence, he has returned and become a more and more familiar name for those following the American scene.

In the days following the initial release of StarCraft 2 beta, he was one of the most watched featured streamers on TeamLiquid. Since then, his time played has declined each day.

“The more I play it, the more it falls short.”

The shortfalls? In Louder’s view, they are numerous.

“Limited build options in each matchup really hurts the game at this stage. There just aren’t a variety of viable builds. Micro is really handicapped in general as well. Auto-targeting of workers means if I Zealot rush and bring 3 Probes, iI can get free hits on your zealots while your Zealots auto-attack my probes, if for 1 second you forget to micro, and then you’re dead. Units can’t seem to run away ever – once you engage, you’re stuck. Far too often, units that you’ve move commanded to a certain place will randomly turn and fight before they get where you sent them.

“I’m really turned off on Protoss vs Protoss right now though. After someone proxy 2-gated me on my stream, I’ve had about 7 people do it to me since and it prompted me to test it out in some games and proxy 2 gate is just retarded in PvP. It’s not defensible.

“A huge issue is ranged vs melee is just terrible in this game. Ranged units all seem to have a long target acquisition period relative to melee. Marauders are okay because of the slow effect but Stalkers vs Zealots, for example, is just bad. Zerg’s speed boost on creep is also a problem because 2 Zerglings can deny scouting completely and they can switch tech freely. The strength of roaches make them very nearly the only viable opening for Zerg, especially Zerg vs Zerg, you just have no choice.”

But despite the criticisms, Louder is able to keep in perspective the fact that this is a beta.

“Oh sure, these can be fixed and they should be.”

If the game is good and, even more important, if he is any good at the game, Fells says he’d love to keep playing seriously and travel around for tournaments.

“The travel is fun whether the game sucks or not. I’m inclined to think the game will be good, though I’m concerned about feedback disproportion. Considering the number of players in the game from World of Warcraft or Warcraft 3 versus the number from Brood War, it could potentially lead the game in a direction that’s not satisfying to StarCraft players and in a direction that leads to an objectively less competitive game.
I guess time will tell on that.”

The biggest issue for Louder is the Automated Match Making system – and he’s in plenty of company here. Gaining only 1 or 2 points for a win and dropping 30 for a loss makes it not worth playing.

“I played nothing but custom yesterday in fact,” says Louder.

AMM problems aside, balance issues notwithstanding and in spite of new mechanics, he plays on.

If and when the AMM fixes come in, Platinum will be waiting for him. Or, more accurately, he’ll be waiting for platinum. Quietly.