Continuing OnionKnight's thrilling blog post about the character of JoeDirt, I thought it would be interesting to cover the second one of the three founders in a short interview. Additionally I've integrated four questions from our members, namely Alexandra, Thundercunt and Kimbohunter.

Could you quickly introduce yourself?

I’m 28 years old and live in Delaware. I enjoy playing outdoor sports when I am free especially volleyball and Ping pong is my favorite indoor sport. I also play Tennis, Cricket and Golf once in a while when I get chance.

What's your educational background?

My background is in Electronics and I completed my MS in EEE with VLSI as major. Lately I got more interested in different database and other web languages.

When did you start gaming and when did you discover W:ET?

I started playing single player PC games in around 2000-01 and then I started playing multi player FPS games in 2005-06. We used to play ET after the mid term exams in LAN and that’s how I started playing ET.

The first server, I joined for playing ET was {NB} and there after (SB) (South Bunker). Then I started playing on [FAG] clan servers and was invited to join there clan after one year or so. I met Tipsy (yoyo) during 1st on 2nd week while playing on FAG server and then I found Rainier and Joe. Rainier used to play around evening/night time and so was Joe.  In the mean time I found one new server run by .bb. clan.

It was perfect server with decent settings. I played there a lot with nickname ‘Blacky’ and that’s how .bb. members know me. I made some very good friends while playing on .bb. server and to name few Corey, BH, Blade, Dixus, Z, Nerfy, etc. and the list goes on.

What happened to .bb.? When did you found =F|A=?

The first clan I ever joined was [FAG] clan. It was server with no rules but then eventually things started getting worse. Server was down for many weeks and owner Chris didn’t cared much. Server was not doing good and at the same time admin abuse was getting on peak. Players used to get abused for getting higher kill spree, you kill admin, you get !splatted. Motto of FAG was if you get offended on internet you shouldn’t enter FAG server. Players can b*** on any race, person, player, etc they want. FAG actually started when HESS clan head admins started banning Chris and his night crew for admin abuse and constant whining. HESS had there servers on 2.6b and they knew that if they started server on 2.6b none of ET players would be joining there server. So they started server on 2.55. 

To say in short, after being in a FAG clan for a while, I left the FAG clan to stand by my friend Tatul. In the mean time Rainier was also getting !splatted on continuous basis for using 60 maxpackets by FAG leader. So we decided to start new server in order to provide better gaming environment where players can enjoy. FAG said we would die in few weeks and started rumors and what not but eventually you can see the result which is other way around now. Most of the clan websites has ‘history’ of there clan which technically is b*** fest of there old clan. We never had history page on our website and we never will. =F|A= was born to provide better gaming environment to all players around the world and that’s our Motto and history. Rest doesn’t matter to us.

Why "Fearless Assassins"? Is there any motivation or deeper meaning behind that name?

The name is what it conveys.

Fearless - without fear; bold or brave; intrepid.

Assassins – a murderer, especially one who kills a politically prominent person for fanatical or monetary reasons.

We enjoy playing FPS games and after all we do is kill players in FPS game. The name, Fearless Assassins fit’s us well.

What's your role in the clan? Are you keeping everything together? Managing the servers? Taking care of the members?

I basically manage/fix ET and COD4 servers, website and forums related issues. Black Ops servers are managed by Dan and Duckie. Counter Strike server will be managed by Kai. The rules are made by internal discussions and managing members is a joint effort of every member within the clan.

Mentioning Counter Strike, what will be the future plans for the clan? Are you going to expand further?

I am looking forward for CS:S, L4D2, BC3 and Brink. I have plans to open up new forums for our community which mainly focuses on RPG, Simulation and Strategy games. Nothing is yet decided because it depends on many things. Managing communities take decent amount of time from your life and I don’t want to open something which can’t be managed in a decent way.

Some malicious tongues say that you are spending your evenings on our COD:BO servers. Do you spend a decent amount on the W:ET and COD4 counterparts as well?

Yes, I pretty much enjoyed playing Black Ops. I still play it on random basis but not as often as I used to. It’s no joy for me to play that game with blue screen error and fluctuating FPS from 120 to 40. I also play BC2 randomly. I have played ET long time but lately I am in mood to explore other PC games. ET has just turned into memories at present.

What advice would you give members who are trying to climb the ladder to a leader?

For promotion we look for many things and various factors play role when we promote someone. I would suggest new members including trial members to read the topic posted in private section.

Being a dedicated member of PBBans Staff you show no mercy to cheaters. What are your impressions of the "war against cheaters" and what is PBBans' role in it?

PBBans, is an anti cheat community which provides many features for server admins. Most of the admins don’t take full advantage of features which is provided through PBBans and PB. Then few server admins whine saying PB isn’t doing anything. All PB does is ‘kick’ cheaters and if your server is streaming to PBBans, GUID get’s banned permanently on your server and on all streaming servers. Rather then helping players in updating there PB, admins decide to disable PB saying PB doesn’t do shit but fact is either he himself is busted or his clan mate is busted. If PB didn’t do anything how more then 3000+ cheaters are busted on our server? How are cheaters still getting busted each day? 

I would agree with the fact that PB needs to improve in order to catch cheaters more effectively but at the same time I would say its better then nothing. 

To name few of basic criteria to stream with PBBans are you need working website, clan roster and 100% clean members. Most of the applications at PBBans get’s denied because they have cheating member in there clan and they don’t want to remove that member. PBBans doesn’t allow any server to stream which is run from home due to security reasons. There are also other Anti cheat communities which allow you to stream without any background check of clan or server IP’s.

The donation bar shows that it takes more than 4,500$ to run the services =F|A= provides. That would be about 380$ a month! How are you able to cover these costs? Did you win the lottery? Are donators able to come up with such a sum?

No, I haven’t yet won the lottery and I have never bought the lottery tickets either. I will give general idea of our monthly bill:

@ET Servers: F|A 1 = 61$, F|A 2 = 60$, F|A Beg and NQ 2.55 = 80$. F|A HC and Silent = 52.  We run 3 redirects. One from EMS, one from gs.com and one from godaddy and all 3 cost around 17$/month. All redirects and server run on 100Mbps line.

@US COD4 Servers: 55-60$. At present we are using ET redirect for COD4 custom map servers.

@Black Ops: It’s around 30$/month which Duckie and Dan pay. Any donation received with comment for Black Ops goes equally to them for monthly bills.

@CS:S: It's donated from Kai. 

@Website: 40$/year for domains because we run 3 domains:

fearless-assassins.com fearlessassassins.com and clan-fa.com

@Forums: We use same hosting for forums and website which comes around 30$/month + forum cost. Forum cost can be calculated from IPB website. In short, it’s one time 329$ and then renewal which comes around 160$/year and then add on charges for the forums. Example Tutorial mod is of 40$/one time and then 10$/major upgrades. We have purchased several mod’s to provide better feature and even the decent forum skin cost around 20-50$.

@Miscellaneous charges: 1 time set up fee of dedicated server cost around 250-300$ upfront, 2x Windows Server 2008 R2 license (Google for price) and then adding KVM charges of 25-50 Euros each time if there is any issue with machine. Paypal also take’s it fee and so does credit card. I have to pay extra 6-8$ on each bill pay for Euro servers because of currency conversion.

I will be honest and up front. We try to get donation but not all like to donate and the remaining one we pay from our pocket. We don’t give unbans based on donation neither we let donor keep level if they admin abuse it. We don’t run clan based on membership like 40-70%+ big clans out in world do. BC2 was closed because of lack of donations and less members in that game. 

I would like to mention props to donors who donate for the community welfare. The donation bar on forums show how much we have received and how much it's remaining for 2011. I will be amazed to see if we ever reach that goal because since last 2 years we hardly reached to our 50%  of yearly goal.

Talking about donations you introduced some new VIP membership models and gameserver hosting plans recently. Are you planning to extend the store even more this year, maybe by focussing more on gameserver hosting?

At present, I don’t see any extended plans, to expand our Game hosting but it might change in future. I will soon add few more new games in the store and couple of other things. I don’t want to enter into hardcore game hosting business. All I want to do is make some money so the monthly payments going out from our pocket’s is less. At present we provide servers at Chicago, NY, NL and Germany location. We might soon add France location also. 

If anyone who is interested in providing services through us, can always reach me at admin@fearless-assassins.com

Are your clan friendships limited to the virtual world or have you ever met some of the members in person?

I wouldn’t say online gaming friends comes in Virtual world. It’s real to me because the person talking to me on another side is real. We live in 21st Century and not some stone age. Now a days, people see and talk with each another using webcam and VoIP. I would probably call online friends as 21st Century pen friends. I haven’t yet met any online friends but if given opportunity, I would like to meet them.

A classic: What's your favorite movie/book/musician?

My favorites keep changing depending on my mood and time. But overall I enjoy action and sci fi movies and I like to read new articles instead of books. As far as music goes it totally depends on my mood.

Do you like pie?

I do like Apple Pie.

Warm apple pie?

I prefer at room temp.

Why are indian people so much smarter than the average person?

I think it changes from person to person but I would take that statement as a compliment.

What kind of car have you got?

I don’t have any car after I became a hardcore fan of movie ‘Gone in 60 seconds’ and ‘Transporter’.  I use public transport since I moved to DE.