FIGHT FINISHED

ANDREA MUJICA STAFF WRITER

For Ocoee native and current Winter Garden resident Tom Wilson, video games — especially Halo — have captivated both his time and imagination.

Wilson believes his passion for esports and video-gaming sparked from watching his older brother, Jonathan Beverfjord, play when he was little.

“He’s about 8 years older than I am,” Wilson said. “Always kind of looked up to him, always kind of wanted to hang out and do the things he did so he got me into gaming when I was about 4 years old. So, very young, I started that out, always a big passion of mine just gaming with him and gaming with friends in general, always very into it.”

Wilson grew up in an Xbox household, and his love for the Halo game was born from the first moment he picked up a controller. When he turned professional during his junior year of high school, that was his game.

“I never imagined or set myself to think — even as a kid — that I was going to be playing video games for a living … but there’s plenty of possibilities, now that I’m at the point that I’m at, to kind of work with it. … It’s a very good opportunity, and I had to take advantage of it.”

— Tom Wilson

most official capacity of competitions in ‘Halo 5’ is four on four, where there are two teams fighting against each other.”

Despite teams in the gaming community varying quite often — and regularly — from tournament to tournament, Lucid, Tripppey, aPG and FormaL have been playing together since last February and have been coached by Jason Brown (gamertag Lunchbox).

Wilson currently dedicates his days to getting better at “Halo 5,” working on his technique and playing alongside his teammates. On a normal schedule, he practices from five to six hours each day. Whenever a tournament approaches however, his daily practice increases to about eight hours daily.

Behind The Gamertag

Initially known in the gaming community as Saiyan, Wilson decided to changed his gamertag — or alias — last year to Lucid.

“Saiyan was from anime like ‘Dragon Ball Z’ that my brother and I used to watch, so that became the kind of name that was my gamertag for the longest time,” he said.

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“I would say a lot of times with getting into any competitive games, especially with where Halo is at, it’s more like a passion type of thing, it’s more where it stems from, I’ve always been playing Halo,” Wilson said. “With my brother, that was the game that we played growing up, and it was super really popular a long time ago. It’s still pretty popular now, but I just integrated enough with it that it became like a natural thing. I’m good enough, now I can go to a competition, and here I am now being able to make this my job. … I’ve dabbled here and there (with other games) but nothing really as serious as Halo.”

And most recently, Wilson and his OpTic Gaming teammates — Joey Taylor (Tripppey), Bradley Laws (aPG), Matthew Piper (FormaL)— were crowned champions in the Halo World Championship Grand Finals at the Halo Championship Series, which took place Oct. 21-23 in Seattle. For the win, OpTic Gaming won $400,000 — 40% of the tournament’s $1 million prize pool.

Training Days

The competitive world of esports, specifically for Halo, is usually structured as a 4-versus-4, where players get together, create their teams and intuitively assign one another specific roles during the competition.

“There are competitions for different sizes of teams,” Wilson said. “The

“It can vary, because there is a mixture of what a schedule can look like daily for a player … in the competitive stage of the (gaming) community,” he said. “We (play) a scrimmage against other teams at a set time — 6 p.m. is when we practice for about three hours — and that’s a very dedicated good practice in like a tournament format, (where) communication is actually flowing, it’s all of us together. (But) I (also) can be playing by myself online.”

LUCID’S DREAM

Wilson took a break from his collegiate studies at the University of Central Florida a little more than a year ago; he was two semesters away from graduation. It was then when he began to see the promising future he could have as part of the professional gaming community. Eventually, he plans on returning to school to earn his bachelor’s degree in marketing.

“I knew this decision was going to be the right one and that I needed to put everything into streaming and into competing, because I want to win,” he said. “And if this is my end goal, this has to be it for now, and I will absolutely say I made the right decision. I’m absolutely blessed and over the moon that this is what I can do.

“I never imagined or set myself to think — even as a kid — that I was going to be playing video games for a living,” Wilson said. “Even now, I don’t know if this is the thing I am going to be doing for 20 to 30 years from now, but there’s plenty of possibilities, now that I’m at the point that I’m at, to kind of work with it. … It’s a very good opportunity, and I had to take advantage of it.”

“But, at least with getting more serious, more money more eyes, I kind of needed a name that wasn’t really associated with copyright (issues) so ‘Lucid’ was a word and a name that sounded clean, to the point, simple that I just kind of rebranded to before the release of the current game that we were playing last year. … The actual definition of the word I’d say is respectably fitting for how I am as a person, but I didn’t really even consider it at the time. It just sounded good.”

Console Preference

Despite previously playing with an Xbox console, Wilson now prefers to play on his PC as the power and the technology of PCs are much stronger than that of the consoles.

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In Other Business

n Commissioners adopted a resolution that imposes a revised residential solid waste collection and recycling service charge of $17.45 per customer per month. This marks a 50cent increase in the residential rate. This amount covers the $17 cost from the service provider and includes an additional 45 cents to cover the town’s administrative overhead costs. The search for a new provider will begin by July 1, 2024; the contract ends January 2025.

“I know people get frustrated sometimes with the speed, or you don’t get it collected the day you’re supposed to,” Mayor Kathy Stark said. “The (solid waste) committee looked at our options a few years ago, and it was not economic to move off the contract at this time. Our fees would have gone way, way up with anyone we would be using. So, the committee made a recommendation that we stay with the current contract we have until it expires. … While we’re going up, I just want people to understand we’re trying to maintain … and keep the service acceptable, but it’s not perfect and we try to work with that as much as we can.” n The commission approved the consent agenda, which included an easement acceptance for Duke Energy to construct electric facilities on town-owned property along Catherine Ross Road. Typically, Duke Energy utilizes existing rights-of-way, but they do not yet exist so the facilities will be constructed over the townowned properties that eventually will become the Catherine Ross right-of-way, Public Works director Mike Parker explained. The easement will be 10 feet wide and about 350 feet long. n Koontz announced about 2,500 people attended the Jan. 28 Oakland Heritage Day.