CommunityFortress

A relatively old and short interview (about a month old) that I was too lazy to post until now. It's with eHfK, head ESEA TF2 admin and discusses the upcoming ESEA LAN, ESEA's future plans with TF2 and more.

You’re stepping down as an ESEA admin after this season, any reason why?

I've really enjoyed everything I have done with ESEA and trying to build a community around it for TF2, although it wasn't as successful as I had hoped it would be. It is a very stressful job, as some could imagine. I often find myself being the middle man between an upset community and management that doesn't want to budge. It has also become a very time consuming job, and as I am nearing the end of my university career, I think it would be best for me to focus on my studies. Who knows though, I may just pull a Brett Favre.

How much longer do you think ESEA will continue to support TF2 before they expect to start making a good amount of profit? They seem to have taken a huge risk by adopting this game.

I really don't know, that stuff is solely decided by Torbull, and I have no idea how much money we actually make (if any) from TF2. Talking to him they seem very invested in the community though, as always, and are hoping that the LAN is a huge success in giving the game some well deserved recognition. I consider this season rather successful in terms of number of participants, quality matches, and other various things, so I don't see the game being dropped in the near future.

Anything you want to tell TF2 players to do if they want more support?

There is nothing really to tell them, you can't force people into something they don't want (which I know seems kind of ironic coming from me). The higher skilled teams will always be more interested in ESEA than other leagues until leagues like CEVO step up and offer better prize pots. The only point I’d like to make is that most people don't even "support" ESEA as they pretty much a majority of their premium fees waived.

Was this season more successful or was it a bigger flop than you expected?

It was very successful in the quality of competition. I am really pleased that a lot of open teams stuck it out, and that we had such a large number of teams to start the season. I am also pleased that we tested out both ctf_turbine and koth_viaduct. King of the hill seems like it has a lot of potential in competitive play, and it will be nice to see if we end up seeing more of these maps in competitive play. However I think the management of the season, which falls partly on notor and myself, wasn't up to par. Needless to say client updates and rulings are something I am sure ESEA would like to rectify.

Any clue on who will be admin next season?
Some of GotFrag’s finest.

Give a prediction of the rankings after the ESEA LAN.

I really think it comes down to what maps end up being played in the finals, but right now I’d have to go with 1) coL 2) EG 3) Pandemic 4) MmM

Do you have insider information on anything ESEA is planning on adding next season? Each season they seem to add something (Invite division, LAN playoffs, per minute stats).

Nope, but hopefully I can convince them to get a main division and introduce scrim mod before I leave.

Anything important that you feel ESEA needs to do for TF2 if they want more support?

Rework their approach to TF2, ESEA offers a lot; they just need a better way to market it, or to improve the "product".

What will the Invite playoff format be? I know many would be disappointed to see a double-elimination playoff and fly all the way there to possibly only play two matches. Will there be a double elim bo3 tournament?

I'm pretty sure I have said this before, but oh well I will say it again. The invite playoffs are double elimination, each round consisting of a BO3 match up. In the finals the winner of the upper bracket will only have to win one BO3, where the loser will have to win two (which puts the winner of the upper bracket at an advantage, like normal double elimination brackets). So every team will be playing at least 4 maps (2 matches).

Any shoutouts?

Tyler "Unibrow" Morgan.