Interviews

Apollyon: North Europe Division Admin - dK

You have adminned the first and second seasons of Challenge Smackdown for Northern Europe, how has it been?

Hm, where to start here? Most of all it has been a lot of work, a lot of fun, sometimes it was annoying but in the end it has been a rewarding experience. When Ego went to the Finnish army just when SD1 was about to start I stepped in as the division admin simply because there was noone else to do the job. I did not have the slightest idea how much work, trouble and stress I would face in the next months. In the first season we had a lot of problems. Mainly with the homepage, not having a backoffice and also with many games not being played. But all in all I was able to get to know a lot of teams and players I have not known about before. All the work and trouble was forgotten with the final game series between Flaming Fist and Euthanasia. They faced each other in a five map thriller out of which Flaming Fist emerged victorious. For me it was the greatest qw event I have ever experienced, even bigger than TGi. We saw a match that has already reached a legendary status, there were dozens (hundreds?) of specs and we had a long but great night. Knowing that I was responsible for large parts of this felt damn good and payed off for everything else. Concerning the second season I have mixed feelings as well. It started out really great with a functional webpage, many more games played and less tedious work for me. In general the experience we gathered in the first season now payed off and everything looked really fine. Then in the end came the big disappointment with the final not being played and I can tell you I am probably the one being most unhappy about it. I put a lot of energy and time into this project and not having it ended properly makes me still feel bad. But the season had its great moments too like the AMD-TOT game which was easily the best qw teamgame I have ever seen and I saw it live! There are ups and downs, sometimes you lose, sometimes you win but in the end if you put enough energy, time and determination in it you will succeed. And I think I will succeed with a perfect third season :-)

Yes I did. Actually I followed the North American division quite closely. Often enough when being finished with my business in the north european division at about 2:00 am I would join the ETG server and go to #smackdown, #challenge and #qwplayers, there I did talk a lot with the people there. I also often tried to watch games in the NA division live but this was often prevented because they usually needed like 4 hours to start and I was too tired to stay awake. Still watched a couple of demos though. I always read zzJohnzz's column and news updates of course. Even if I was not interested in his division I would because he writes so damn funny (and I think this is not even his intention...). Sometimes I even played on some NA ffa or clan arena server with hpw connect. I remember some duels, too. I always had a look on the AU division as well but not as close as on the NA division but I still read all the news and reports. I can't remember to have watched a single demo from AU during the season. Not because I think they suck or whatever I think it is rather that it is the other side of the globe and too far away for me to be really interesting. I made sure not to miss the AU final though. It was fun watching them play via qizmo. The almighty and all important CPL did not even manage to organize decent irc scorebots for their event taking place at the same time in london and we were watching a game going on down under, ha! Watching what is going on in other divisions is a must for every qw lover imo and I hope for the guys overseas that their scenes will grow bigger again so that they can have more games, more competition and more fun.

After keeping up with all divisions what two teams would you consider a great matchup?

Uh, to be honest I don't think the top AU or NA clans can match the top EU clans. They just lack the experience and level of competition we have over here. Thus seeing them getting stomped would be boring. But instead the big names you could think of the more mediocre teams facing each other. I would love to see my own team, TFP, to play an AU or NA clan for example but this probably won't happen. But you asked what would be a great matchup. We had many great teams in NEU but many never played each other. The most anticipated match was FF-E of course but we have had that in SD1 already. One of my favourite match ups would be Firing Squad versus Euthanasia on e1m2. There are many other possible matchups but that one would have been great. In fact I think if FS had had a little more time for practice they would have gotten as far as the semifinals and would have met E there

Will you be adminning Challenge Smackdown 3 for NEU again this season?

Yes, I will. But this time I won't be doing everything on my own. Znappe will continue to help out a bit more than just by adminning games like he did during the end of the last season. I am also very glad that Ego is back to help me getting more coverage like interviews etc.

Would you like to take the time to thank everyone who has helped you with Smackdown?

Hehe I hope I do not forget anyone. First of all i'd like to thank all the match admins of my division, even if they did just adminned a single game. Withouth them Smackdown would have not been possible to conduct. Then of of course the people from the "core team": Ego, Wart, John and Jjonez. A lot of people from #smackdown helped whenever required like 123, HangTime or Akke (for example during the FFA tournament). I could probably name many more but I am sure they all know who they are. Smackdown was started by a small group of individuals but it is the players and among them a large number of individuals that brought it to life. Last but not least Iwant to thank one of my real life friends called "Mathias" who often allowed me to use his computer and connection to watch matches, upload reports, attend meetings and a thousand of other things.