By Husain on 23 Feb, 2010 at 4:24 PM

eGameFame — The wobbly South African pillar, Travis “Shase” Weedon

In this weeks eGameFame we are going to be touching on the life of a local Warcraft 3 legend. He was the best Warcraft 3 player in South Africa at the height of his success, and if you don’t know who he is, go and read your local Warcraft legends book.. Or just continue reading. The question is what spurred him to reach these heights? Sorry, deviated there rather the question is who is this legend? Well his name is Travis Weedon, but he also answers to Shase.

Travis began his humble beginnings being beaten by his elder brother (in gaming is something very hard to accept), which led to him practicing more and more. This intense rivalry is what made up a lot of his practice (like Michael Western says: the best karate you learn is from fighting with your family). Before his days as a Warcraft legend lays a portion of him hidden away from public. He was a CS groupie, having managed to shake that evilness, and where he entered the RTS world.

Shase started with the likes of Total Annihilation, Command & Conquer series and Red Alert to name a few. After competing not once or twice, but rather 3 times in overseas competitions he decided to give it a rest. The question that plagued me as to why would anyone give up something of this nature? And the answer I received is one that satisfied me to a degree, and gave me an understanding of what happened.

He talks about the fact that in only being able to compete locally, he never had a chance to play against international players and challenge their strategies which counts for plenty. At one point he came as close as 1 point to leaving the groups stage, but alas it was just not meant to be.

Thus began his decent from RTS legend, but not to leave him no other avenue to go, with the downturn of his RTS passion so grew his passion for FPS.

Taking up Quake he soon rose to the heights of legendary ph4ntom (not me ^_^), and this even took him overseas to Dreamhack. Again, a genre plagued by similar problems but not totally; seeing as other teams have made it against international opponents with lots of practice. Speaking on it, he mentions problems he faced leading up to the event. The game was released only 2 weeks or so prior to the event in S.A. Having to move also resulted in long stories, but to shorten it he was so distracted by the time he applied for Visa, it ended up coming on the day he was leaving. He still plays QL (Quake Live) and will be participating in local tournaments.

Dreamhack, like any competition, is ruthless and due to not having much time to practice, followed by little sleep after his super long flight, he was thrown into his first round against someone who already played a game. Note: His first opponent ended in second position.

On a more hilarious note, he tells the tale of a CS player who was with them. It begins as they arrive at the station where they were waiting at the stop. The CS guy decided it would be a great idea to buy a chocolate from the vending machine, just as he pulls away the train pulls in and with a 4 sec window all hop aboard. When the train leaves, the question is asked “Hey where’s CP?”. What we learn? Do not mess with European efficiency, as it will leave you running behind the train with the most horrified face ever.

Though we might see him rise as the prodigal RTS legend with a subtle comment he made. Travis said that, at Dreamhack, he managed to get time to play Starcraft 2 which he hopes will allow S.A players to compete internationally (the unified Battle.net system) which might just tempt him, if our bandwidth problem works out to rejoin the RTS generals.

Nowadays he sits around playing poker online and earning a living through it (been proved that RTS players are better at poker then others). He still jams other games, and just he’s generally looking for a path in life. It does not look like this is the last we have seen of, Travis so be on the lookout as he could pop up somewhere doing some random thing and you could miss out because you did not recognise him.

It’s pretty safe to say that Travis is a star gamer.. He’s done well in everything he’s played. Congrats, buddy!

This might or might not be the last of the South African pillars series, stay tuned.

eGameFame is your chance to let us review someone in the gaming world. Give us your thoughts or opinions and we'll be sure to include these to our delightful story. So, if you'd like us to write about somebody, don't hold back, email us. -- This series has been discontinued.