Hi Fire, you may be a new name to people, so please can you introduce yourself to all the prospective CSS players at the event and outline your history with Multiplay and event organisation in general?
Hi I'm FiRe, my real name is Dave Carter and I'm a HP Support Engineer. I've been a tournament admin for CSS at i30 and i31, and am the on-line community liaison for CS and CSS. I've been to several i-events in the past, 18 in fact, with my first being i5.

The November event is traditionally the smallest and coldest, will you be braving it in a tent for the camping/festival atmosphere or do you have a warm hotel room set up for you? If you have a hotel room do you think you will miss out on some of the late night socialising that goes on?
Thankfully I have the warm comfort of a Travelodge bed at the end of the day. I wouldn't say I miss out on the social aspect at night since the front door is always open thankfully at travelodges. Still, we have to at least get up in the morning and be ready at the event for 9am each day so we can't stay up until all hours of the night unfortunately.

I've heard that you're looking for more staff members for the event. Why would you recommend people help out at the iSeries? Tell us some of the perks!
Helping out is great fun. It brings you into a close-nit community with many great people. Plus you get into the event for free for your efforts. Some of the perks are free staff pizza, reward points and people buy you drinks!

And for anybody interested in helping out how can they apply?
If you are interested in joining the i-series staff team then please send an email to This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it to start the process.

What is the situation surrounding the increasing turn-around in the CSS team at the iSeries events. Are the CSS players really that demanding?
You can bet on it! It brings an early growth of grey hair. In reality, it's mainly down to work commitments.

A while ago I was asked to provide a tournament structure for the event as the previous system of 2 high seeds in the same group had been criticised. Do you know if this is being implemented for the event?
Unfortunately I don't know if this has been implemented yet, the tournament structure is decided by myself but the inner-workings of it is down to Boffbowsh, tournament manger for i32.

Are there any rule changes from last event that people should be aware of such as map list or server settings?
As this is my first event being lead I'm hesitant to change any aspect of the tournament too drastically. The format is the same as previous, and it'll decide on maps nearer the event.
The increased prize pot was well received by all the CSS players and is something that has been called for a long time. Do you think that this increase in prize money combined with the TUP computers will see a lot more European teams coming over to compete?
Definitely, a lot have signed up actually, via TUP and BYOC. It's a welcome change.

The last 2 events have seen a fairly popular "losers tournament" with a nicely sized prize fund put forward by the competing teams. These have been run by players with servers provided by Multiplay. Are there any plans to set up a larger, more organised event, for all those teams that go out at the group stage?
Nothing has been discussed of this with me so I highly doubt it.

There is so much going on at the iSeries that perhaps people don't notice at first. Aside from the obvious pub quiz on Saturday night what other things would you recommend to anybody attending?
Besides the pub quiz there are several other social inhibitions for people to conquer. Such as the boat race (drinking comp.), DDR, Karaoke (!), and there's sometimes some interesting talks hosted by people from the gaming industry. Plus there's a lot of exhibitors at this event on the Ground Floor of the Grandstand building. Definitely worth a trip down to browse the stands.

For anybody feeling drunkenly generous what's your drink?
Fosters or Strongbow please!

Thanks Fire, and see you at i32!