EMS Headadmin Junior: The WC3 community is still far from dead

ESL-Radio.de: Hi Mr. Godderis. In the beginning I always ask for a little self introduction for the people out there who might not know you so could you please tell us a few words about yourself and your work for the ESL Major Series?

EMS|Junior: Hello. I’m Johan ‘Junior’ Godderis, 29, coming from Belgium and moved to Germany about 9 months ago. I work for ESL in the League Operations department and I’m the tournament director for the ESL Major Series. I co-decide the involved games and I’m deeply involved in all of them on a day to day basis together with a lot of hard working Admins.

ESL-Radio.de: Since the history of WarCraft III in the ESL Major Series has began with the WarCraft International Premiership, I would like to ask you a few questions about the WCIP first. In the fifth season the EMS announced that the WCIP will be part of the league and the fans were really happy to hear that and it was a great season. Afterwards D4nny announced that there will be another season of the WCIP in the EMS Season VI. Can you tell us why the WCIP didn’t continued in the sixth season?

EMS|Junior: The main reason for that to happen was the massive attraction StarCraft II has, the number of WC3 teams quickly declined when the beta was launched and while we announced another season of WCIP before that happened, we had to draw the conclusion that the WCIP just wouldn’t be what it was before and took the painful decision to end it together with D4nny.

ESL-Radio.de: After the chapter WCIP is closed now the EMS has announced to start a WarCraft III solo-league in Season VII. Why your admin-team decided to include a 1on1-tournament into the next EMS Season? Was it planed as an replacement for the WCIP, did the end of the German WarCraft III EPS had anything to do with this decision or what were the main reasons?

EMS|Junior: League Operations decided that with the loss of WCIP and WC3L, the WC3 community is still far from dead and is completely worthy of having an 1on1 EMS, instead of a team based cup, as we believe quality and quantity will still be on a professional level, which is a requirement to run an EMS.

ESL-Radio.de: At this point I would like to ask one more time the most discussed question in the WarCraft community for the past few weeks. This is a quote from Grubby after the eSports Symposium in Copenhagen: “A successful eSports doesn’t necessarily have to be played by many to be liked by many.“ With a respect to his words can you understand the step of the ESL to decrease their engagement for WarCraft III in the past months?

EMS|Junior: The focus is primarily on the European market which has seen a definite decrease in WC3 teams. I personally think that a league has to be strong in numbers both spectators, (top) teams and players to be called successful.

ESL-Radio.de: Okay lets move back to the EMS. When you look back at the WCIP in the EMS are you satisfied with the content, viewers, clicks and the attention of the WarCraft III community that the first Season brought to you and what expectations do you have on the new solo-league?

EMS|Junior: We were certainly happy to have WCIP in the EMS especially because the community invested a lot of time in it and we were definitely satisfied with the numbers, until SC II came out. I hope to have a lot of pro and serious players in the EMS with a ton of exciting matches, which will be broadcasted live for the most part by ESL Radio and ESL TV

ESL-Radio.de: So after we know what you await from the first EMS WarCraft III 1on1 Season, can you maybe tell us a little bit more about your plans or some details about the season? What can the fans expect from it?

EMS|Junior: Right now not too many details are known, we are discussing it properly to make sure it’s perfect. The cup will be 1on1 as widely known and the season will start in September 2010 and will end in January 2011

ESL-Radio.de: What do you think about the future of the ESL Major Series and WarCraft III? Might WarCraft III have a chance to be an EMS discipline for a long time?

EMS|Junior: If the numbers are good and the community remains interested we might see a couple of more seasons, but I’ve to be careful here since there is no way to be sure what the future brings us :>

ESL-Radio.de: In the past seasons of the EMS you had games like StarCraft: Broodwar and Defence of the Ancients here. In the seventh season we will see besides of WarCraft the second edition of the Avalon Heroes league. What experiences have you made with strategy games in the last few years and how do they fit in a rather FPS dominated league in your eyes?

EMS|Junior: The EMS is not supposed to be dominated by any sort of game, or at least we don’t look at it like that. The composition of the games depends mostly on the community and the 1,000 Euro poll is a prime example of that. Games that are played a lot of more likely to become part of the EMS as well. We do try to have some variety, which includes sports and strategy games, we always had about 2-4 RTS games as well as 2-4 sports games. Maybe we can even expand on the genre mix in the future.

ESL-Radio.de: Nearly two weeks ago you announced a vote for a 1.000€ extra for the game what gets the most votes. Well I’ve to say and think the most gamers will agree with me, I was really surprised to see such a vote and really happy at the same time. How you came on that idea?

EMS|Junior: It was inspired by Michal ‘Carmac’ Blicharz, our Product Manager. For a moment it looked like it wouldn’t go through since 1,000 Euros isn’t peanuts but we made it work!

ESL-Radio.de: After one week you’ve published a news with the current results of the vote where we could see that Call of Duty 4, Counter-strike: Source and WarCraft III had the most votes. After CoD4 is leading with around 900 votes do you think the decision is already made or might we see some big surprise here?

EMS|Junior: At one point CS:S was catching up with CoD4 but that was a short lived race. The CoD community definitely wants it more judging from the comments, votes and match tags.

ESL-Radio.de: For which game have you voted and why?

EMS|Junior: I remain neutral

ESL-Radio.de: So besides of having such great ideas like this vote or selecting games for the EMS there’s much more work for an admin in your league. In that case I would like to ask you a little bit more about the work as an EMS-Admin. What games are the easiest to administrate in your eyes?

EMS|Junior: There’s no such thing as an easy game to administrate, all the games have ups and downs, e.g. America’s Army was running very smoothly, right until a cheater was caught, that was no laughing matter.

ESL-Radio.de: So in case any team has a problem and opens a support ticket, is the decision-making process in every game the same or are there differences and can you tell us more about the way from opening a support ticket until getting an answer and a decision about it?

EMS|Junior: The rules on non-game specific matters are the same for all EMS games so the process is always the same. Most tickets are about adding more players or rescheduling a match. We try to handle every ticket within 72 hours but in some cases when one team is being difficult finding a new date it takes a bit longer.

ESL-Radio.de: So well thanks a lot for your time and good luck to your team for the seventh EMS season. If you want anything else to say just go ahead the stage is yours.

EMS|Junior: Thank you and I want to thank all of my admins for their hard work and time invested, and of course ESL for continueing to fund the EMS graciously.

Page 1: German version
Page 2: English version

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