Quake is a hard enough game as is, and that’s with a good connection. Now imagine playing in an international qualifier for a $1 million tournament on 200+ ping.
That’s the path that Daniel “dandaking” De Sousa walked on the weekend, carving his way through several Americans to qualify for the North American regional finals. Playing for Just A Minute (JAM) under the name “astroboy”, the Aussie Quake veteran managed to earn a spot amongst North America’s top 32 players.
The regional finals are being played online as well, so the chances of dandaking qualifying through that gauntlet are much, much lower. Nonetheless, you have to appreciate someone who can qualify through conditions like these:
And have a look at dandaking’s railgun accuracy on almost 280ms at the end of the second map:
Here’s the final frag, capped with a shotgun and a dial up internet quality ping of 230ms+:
Absolutely ridiculous. The qualification is a bit of vindication for dandaking as well, who played in the first North American qualifier only to be knocked out in the third round. A small contingent of Australians have taken part in both qualifiers so far, but dandaking is the only one so far to get within a whisker of qualifying, let alone actually making it.
After all, it’s Quake on 200+ ping. That should be astonishingly hard on any given day, but even more so in a tournament where North America’s best players are assembling for the largest Quake Champions tournament on offer. Dandaking now has the option of playing the regional qualifiers in North America, if he or a sponsor can stump up for the flights to get him there. Failing that, he can try his hand at the offline tournament at QuakeCon next month.
You can rewatch the whole of dandaking’s qualifying match below. The first map starts at 10h 31m.
This story originally appeared on Kotaku Australia.