Andreas "bds" Thorstensson is one of the Managing Directors at SK Gaming. He built the team's website and was one of the architects of the unsurpassed SK Sweden Counter-Strike team of 2003.
In this interview, bds talks about the reasons behind the success of Emil "HeatoN" Christensen's generation, building a successful CS squad, the current lineup of SK Gaming, World of Warcraft as an esport and more...
More 1on1 interviews (every Wednesday):
* Oskar "ins" Holm (CS player, Fnatic)
* Christian Linke (musician from Panik)
* Mariusz "Loord" Cybulski (CS player, MYM)
* Johan Liden (eSports League of Champions CEO)
* Alexander "TheSlaSH" Mueller (SK Gaming General Manager)
* June "SK.Lyn" Park (SK Gaming Warcraft 3 player)
* Sasha Tsapaev (new owner of CPL, April Fools)
* Mike Pasley (director of the "Frag" documentary)
* Christine "SK.Potter" Chi (SK Ladies CS player)
* Robert "RobbaN" Dahlstrom (SK Gaming CS player)
* Yoan "ToD" Merlo (Mousesports, WC3 player)
* Tomas "TeRRoR" Pilipiuk (Wicked, WC3 player)
* Jonas "whimp" Svendsen (mTw.dk, CS player)
* Jakub "kuben" Gurczynski (MYM, CS player)
* Ralf "Griff" Reichert (SK founder, ESL General Manager)
* '2004 interview with Anton "Cooller" Singov (Q3 player)
* Neil "Neilyo" Mosunic (SK Gaming WoW player)
* Sander "Vo0" Kaasjager (legendary PainKiller player)
* Vance "serennia" Phuoc (SK Gaming WoW player)
* France "gore" Burghardt (Mousesports CS player)
* Nathan "Kintt" Quinn (Pandemic WoW player)
* Marty Stratton (QuakeLive producer)
* Paul Hossack (FIFA 09 PC producer)
* John "ZeRo4" Hill (SK Gaming Quake 3 player)
* Shane "rapha" Hendrixson (SK Gaming Quake 3 player)
* Alexei "Cypher" Yanushevsky (Serious Gaming Quake 3 player)
* Kim "ReMinD" Sung Sik (SK Gaming Warcraft 3 player)
* Marcus "zet" Sundstrom (SK Gaming Counter-Strike player)
News
1on1 with Andreas "bds" Thorstensson
Many fans have been waiting for bds to be featured in a "1on1" ever since the series started. They no longer need to.
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Not a fan of those serious iviews, where you get hit by a info-wall.
Well;
You cannot practice the game regularly, you cannot custom game people. How are you supposed to have a GOOD practice, you rely on ladder match-ups.
The format is 3v3 and if you lose 1 person, you lose. How is that...even remotely acceptable?
The RNG is so dominant in WoW that the NA players say that it is 60% rng and 40% skill.
As a spectator sport, I personally, have no clue what is going on. It is like watching the flintstones + xmen cartoons.
If the envorment changes (with the points you said) then it might be ready to be called an eSport. For now, it isn't.
Right now, no. In the future? Most likely yes.
"The format is 3v3 and if you lose 1 person, you lose. How is that...even remotely acceptable?"
Not entirely correct, check the finals at ESL Montreal. And keep in mind that CS for example was played 6vs6 with timelimit in the beginning. Games will change and adapt.
"The RNG is so dominant in WoW that the NA players say that it is 60% rng and 40% skill."
RNG is a factor, yes. Is it getting better in WotLK? Yes. If it was so much RNG based we wouldnt have seen the same top 3 teams over and over in tournaments which we have over the last couple of years.
"As a spectator sport, I personally, have no clue what is going on. It is like watching the flintstones + xmen cartoons."
Ask ESL, their number of spectators from the WoW events have been very very high.
is that because WoW is spectator friendly or just because there are a lott of WoW players?
I was in Montreal, seeing the 'finale' was fun. But if you are not a WoW player. You won't see 90% of whats happening, even with shoutcast on.
But you got a good point. Games can adapt, change. But in CS or Quake its more or less the community that do the changes. In WoW you have to wait till Blizzard makes the changes. And Blizzard keeps track of what everyone want. So maybe these changes will take to long?
I think, WoW shouldn't be 3on3 deathmatch. I mean, CS 3on3(or 5on5) deathmatch would also be really hard to follow (and boring). You need a goal, an objective. Spectators want to know if "he makes it or not". If you have that, as an spectator, you care less about all these tons of spells and counterspells. Because you can actually watch the game by knowing whats the goal and if a team succeed yes/no.
I think something like Capture the flag would be more fun to watch. Don't know if it would be more fun to play.
Every game has its own way to win, if u dont want to accept it , why then complain, its not like its going to change cuz of it.
Its like Sky vs someone ( I dont care lol ) he decides to make a FE, and the fe failed... and he loosed a match cuz of that, and then I dont remotely accept it? Or, Zet just killed the whole team in a echo round with usp? Or mb , u loosed ur king in a chess-game?
Its not like I go to a chess-club or smthing and complain about how much I dont like how people beat eachother in the game...
just like you said, in CS even in an eco a team can take the round. In wc3, starcraft you see players that are having the advantage in a map by having better army or heroes and somehow they are able to loose the game.
Painkiller was awsome because you had the stake-thingie. The default weapon where you could kill some1 instantly but was extremely hard.
So as a spectator you ask the game to be excited. Things must be able to "turn" arround in favour of the other team/player. And in WoW that just doesn't happen much.
They should add a stopwatch mode into wow, start with a capture the flag cup and make something out of that. The 3on3 DM thingy is rather boring to indeed especially for the non wow player! So absolutely agree with you!
Yes that is true, if the game does change it COULD be an E-Sport. But when it comes down to it, I don't want to watch 3 cartoon looking characters run around with poor camera angles. It isn't enjoyable. Also, I honestly do not have the time nor the will power to remember 35 abilities per character....I really don't. By watching the game, you cannot pick up the rules/abilities.
With other sports/E-Sports, you can pick up all the rules by simply watching it. Even with Blizzard doing the cast, and 4 people from Blizzard around me answering my questions while watching, I still resorted to watching the 6 green bars on the screen as opposed to watching the actual players. And to me, that isn't fun.
To Johnny--
It isn't that I don't like it, because as you said, if Sky does something and loses because of it I wont get mad because of it. However with WoW, I don't know whats going on, and the game itself with the RNG is random, and then when you fear someone or blind them and they just run off to the other side of the map and you kill one person since its then 3v2. How is that remotely a good game?
Like, the way the game works now is that your objective is to kill 1 of the 3 people, and it doesn't even matter which one, and you win. That does not happen in any other E-Sport.
And your chess analogy does not work, if you mean QUEEN, not king (to kill the king is the objective of the game...), then it sort of works. But you can still come back with not having a queen, there is still a good chance. In WoW, you have maybe a 1.5% chance to come back in a 2v3, and this with GOOD circumstances (like if one of their guys was really low, and you managed to make it 2v2 almost instantly)
Thx )
nice iview =]
Also he said Starcraft is hard to follow. But Starcraft was made 10 years ago and has extremely basic graphics which is one reason it is so popular. Because the primitive graphics allow you to know exactly what is happening in every moment of the game.
But I do see why there are so many complaints about wow. The game is generally played by people in their teens, and moreso, in their early teen years.
There are a total of 9 classes, which mostly have different abilities. Some pick a shammy and think they can pvp hardcore, others went for hunters and couldnt play the class to its full extent.
There will always be the ppl who are just terrible or just don't like the fact their class is not overpowered (anymore).
For instance, I've never really got the concept behind that "orange cloud" the defilers could deploy or something like it.
Blizzard has much to learn with the Team Fortress 2 guys, for example. Because everything in that game is so easy to understand you feel they respect you (also known as 'the costumer') even more.
but why pink letters ? :P
I disagree about Starcraft though, I think with tasteless casting he can really hook in people who do not know about SC and get newbies into it quickly. Warcraft3 has yet to have a caster who has that kind of magnetism. Also SC is more war like (similar to action films) Much easier to get a feel for who is winning than with WC3/WOW where the heroes make it hard to know who has the edge >_>
SK has great quake roster, but without tournaments in useless :( You probably have some impact on the esports scene, perhaps you can do something about it ?
QuakeLive should definitely be back! I have said that in other interviews, I believe it is one of the most important esport games.
QL is bloody great, but yes it's still in need of new things.. However, those are definitely on their way. ;)
Loved the interview btw.
Just awesome..
btw: id like to see the old shots
Nice Interview!