ESWC about picking up DotA

Did the decision to take in Defense of the Ancients to the ESWC get influenced by the huge response of people trying to get Defense of the Ancients into the "major events", such as your own, World Cyber Games and CPL?
- It didnt. We always take the time and the distance to consider all specifics of a game before taking such kind of decisions. In the case of DotA, we already had discussions about it last year and we have always kept an eye on its evolution.

As ESWC will be located in the USA in 2008, was Defense of the Ancients a game that was pushed in to ESWC because of its popularity in the States?
- No, it wasn’t. The game’s popularity is not only limited to the United States. It is also widely played in Europe and Asia. While its popularity in USA will probably help for the Grand Final, our considerations regarding the game choice are made on a world-wide level.

Why did you choose Defense of the Ancients and not the old but yet so popular game StarCraft which is included in your main rival World Cyber Games?
- Games-Services / Ligarena has always supported Starcraft. Back in 2000, our Lan Arena events were amongst the major Starcraft tournaments outside Korea. If we don’t have Starcraft at ESWC it is mainly because, for the moment, we have decided to select only one RTS game in our disciplines pool. This spot is currently filled with Warcraft 3 even though things may change with the arrival of Starcraft 2.
While its engine comes from an RTS game, we do not qualify Defense of the Ancients as an RTS game. It is more a new sort of game style that proposes a mix of Diablo and Warcraft 3 in a teamplay environment. By the way, such style has been so popuplar that several game editors have initiated new game projects based on the DotA gameplay.

Many, even Defense of the Ancients players themselves, agree on that Defense of the Ancients is not a spectator-friendly game and not at all as exciting as Counter-Strike of WarCraft 3. How will you act in getting the spectators to enjoy watching the game?
- It is indeed not such a spectator-friendly game. We are fully aware that i’s not easy to understand for newcomers and that there are some readability issues that are completely linked to DotA’s gameplay. We do however have a few solutions to enhance the game’s spectator experience.

We have always worked hard to provide the best spectator experience to our visitors. This includes the stage setup, the light setup, the commentators, and how we produce the video broadcast. We try to provide a readable and entertaining spectator experience that get the interests of both newcomers and enthusiasts.

We have developped several technical tools that help us manage the stage and video content. Most people don’t know these tools as they are mostly internal tools, but they still allow us to greatly increase the quality of our video broadcasts. For example, we have developped our own tools to handle the players life display and scoring system in Counter-Strike.

The ESWC aims to build a whole story around the game and the players. It is a teamplay game. It’s not only about what happens in the game, but also what happens with the players: their communication, their expression, their emotion. It is something that we have already worked with Counter-Strike and that we will also try to develop for DotA.

Adding another team game instead of a solo game into the list is for sure a much bigger project financially. Are you strengtened enough economically to invite that many teams to the global finals?
- Selecting an additional team-based game does indeed imply a few financial issues since the qualification process does include the travel and accommodation expenses for the winners of the national finals. The travel expenses, being specific for each country, are handled by our national partners. The ESWC organizing committee handles the accommodation of all the champions during the Grand Final. We were however fully aware of these implications when selecting a team-based game and are ready to handle all its consequences.

The ESWC Counter-Strike rules regarding the nationality of a team is determined on the relative majority of the players' nationality. Will the same ruleset regarding nationality apply for Defense of the Ancients?
- Yes! The DotA competition is a team-based competition and we will therefore apply the same team regulations as we have in Counter-Strike. We therefore invite DotA players to carefully register their team on ESWC.COM since the lineup composition will play a key role in the team’s eligibility.

A Defense of the Ancients game usually takes about 45 minutes up to an hour to finish. How do you plan on the time frame of the tournament? Will the matches be played best of one or best of three?
We are already used in handling tournaments with matches of variable length and binary results (win/loss, no score). DotA is not a new case in this situation and I am pretty confident that we’ll have little trouble in handling our DotA time frame. For the moment, we are aiming for a best of one format.

Being the first of the "major events" to pick this up, your in-game ruleset will most likely set a standard for future events, and as there is no "standard" at the moment as there is for other games, how will you deal with creating the rules?
- Since DotA is made and played by the community, there are already several rulesets used in competition that have proven their use. We’ll take the standards of the community and adapt them to our regulation standards. If there are a few significant differences between community rulesets, we will seek for the most representative and competitive settings available.

Coming in the ESWC as a new game, how much will the total prize sum be compared to more popular games as Counter-Strike?
- This has not yet been decided. We are still in negotiation with several sponsors that will define our policy about cash prize.

Do you think Defense of the Ancients is a good game for the future of eSport?
- We believe so otherwise we wouldn’t have selected it as an official discipline. We will do all what we can do to make it a good esport game but we still are limited by elements that organizers cannot control such as community interest, spectator interest or player attendance. However, we hope that the community will take the opportunity and support us on this.