Four Kings about StarCraft 2

Creolophus - 20 years old from Norway. Grubby - 21 years old from Netherlands. FuRy - 21 years old from Sweden. ToD - 22 years old from France. Four stars in the WarCraft 3 scene, all coming from the team 4Kings. Being the reigning champions in the WC3L and having four WC3L championship titles (record holders), 4Kings is a team with superior skill and a history of success. Though will the success continue once StarCraft 2 opens its doors? Will WarCraft 3 suffer the same fate as WarCraft 2 did when StarCraft 1 came out?

We caught up with FuRy, Creolophus and Grubby some nights ago, not too long after the Blizzard World Wide Invitational. Grubby was there, along with ToD. FuRy and Creolophus was home and could follow the hype online, but for Grubby and ToD they saw the announcement in Korea along with thousands of screaming fans. ToD was interviewed by eSports France after him winning the tournament, and he was asked about StarCraft 2. Read on.

CREOLOPHUS. Olav "Creolophus" Undheim, Norway's absolute best WarCraft 3 player, and one of the top Night Elves in the world, thinks that Blizzard's newest game StarCraft 2 looks good. Like many others, he has faith in Blizzard. - It is the truth that the game won't be exactly like StarCraft 1, but Blizzard never ceases to surprise me in all aspects of a game. It seems like Blizzard still wants to keep the game as competitive as possible; meaning fast paced and a lot of patches if they are not happy about the balance in the game, he says. "I think most people will switch" Creolophus, having spent many years on WarCraft 3, does not think there will be much of a need to keep on playing WarCraft 3 when StarCraft 2 is released. - Most tournaments will start having StarCraft 2 tournaments instead of WarCraft 3, I think most people will switch to StarCraft 2, thus more sponsors and tournaments for StarCraft 2, he says and once again doubt there will be room for anyone to earn enough from WarCraft 3 and have it as a fulltime job like some people do now. - I won't try to play StarCraft 2 as a progamer nor a semi progamer, he tells us. Not tempted to put as much time on SC2 Instead of continuing his progaming career, Creolophus will continue his studies and do other things. - I don't find it tempting to put as much time as I did in WarCraft 3 in another game, I rather do something different with my time then, he says. "SC players will have the advantage" Looking to the future with StarCraft 2 becoming the game to play, Creolophus thinks that the players that jumped from StarCraft to StarCraft 2 will have the advantage, because of the sequel having many of the same features as the first game. - I am sure there are a lot of WarCraft players who can do well in StarCraft 2 too, most of the old school European players used to play StarCraft before changing to WarCraft, he says and adds that maybe WarCraft 3 players will bring some different thoughts to the world of StarCraft. GRUBBY. Manuel "Grubby" Schenkuizen has been the poster boy for WarCraft 3 for a long time, with his World Cyber Games title, winning Samsung European Championship twice, just to mention three bullets from his incredible list of achievements. Would Grubby actually leave WarCraft 3 to play StarCraft 2 once it's released? - I will definitely give it a shot and I know I'll find it fun, whether or not I'll play it professionally I don't know yet, he tells us. Grubby says that StarCraft 2 looks really cool with nice graphics and a promising gameplay. "Their support will guarantee it will be professionally viable" Manuel says that StarCraft 2 has a really good chance of becoming the future of RTS eSports. - Blizzard has never disappointed me with the quality of their games yet. Their support will guarantee that eventually it will be professionally viable, he says. "StarCraft 1 really has to go!" Unlike Creolophus, Grubby thinks that there is room for both StarCraft 2 and WarCraft 3 in the RTS community. - Yes, I think so, but StarCraft 1 really has to go, he says and laughs. In many aspects, he is right. Take the World Cyber Games for example, having both StarCraft, StarCraft 2 and WarCraft 3 as official games is highly unlikely - and it is more likely for them to have one game from each line rather than dropping WarCraft 3. Will be weird to drop heroes Grubby did play a lot of StarCraft before playing WarCraft, but not professionally. At the European qualifier for Battle.Net Season 4, Grubby and Ciara played some StarCraft afterwards, and we could see that both players played decently. Grubby thinks that StarCraft and WarCraft players will be at the same level when it comes to playing StarCraft 2. Although no longer using heroes will probably feel weird, he says. - I'll get used to it soon enough, he adds and smiles. FURY. The third player of 4Kings, FuRy, agrees with his team mates Creolophus and Grubby, saying it looks very promising. However Sebastian "FuRy" Pesic would like to point out that the most important part when it comes to games played on a professional level is gameplay and balance. FuRy was one of the players who switched from StarCraft to WarCraft 3 early on. Making the next switch would not be too hard for the Swedish Undead player. How did it feel switching platforms? Is it hard to put the old strategies to use in a new game? - No, not really. It's all in your mind anyways. If you are good at strategy, the game doesn't really matter in my opinion, says FuRy. According to him, if you have the micro and the head for WarCraft 3 you will surely have it for StarCraft 2. Advantage depends on the hit points He says that the StarCraft 1 players will probably have the advantage early on, but that it is hard to say because he does not know how the game play in StarCraft 2 will be. - If the units will have high amounts of hit points like in WarCraft 3 or very low like in StarCraft makes a difference, he says. Though he would like to point out that it won't matter that much. - If a WarCraft 3 player is extremely dedicated in StarCraft 2 he can become the best. Not afraid of Boxer Boxer has been FuRy's idol ever since he started his progaming career, so when we ask if he is afraid of meeting him in StarCraft 2, he says he has great respect for him. - I'm not afraid at all, but I have great respect, he says. The skill gap The skill gap in StarCraft when it comes to Koreans and non-Koreans is huge, not at all as in WarCraft 3. With the new game, FuRy thinks that the balance in the world will be like in WarCraft 3. Though whether FuRy will be one of the players fighting in the top in StarCraft 2 he is unsure of. - It depends on how the mainstream will go I assume, and what my friends will do, he says. He won't make a guess about whether the scene is big enough for both StarCraft 2 and WarCraft 3; he feels that time will tell.

TOD. After the Blizzard World Wide Invitational tournament, Esports France talked to Yoan "ToD" Merlo about StarCraft 2, and he seemed very positive. - I will definitely try this game as soon as possible, a lot of players want to switch to StarCraft 2 or at least try it really seriously like me, he says. He says though that it is hard to have an opinion without testing it. SC2 will unify SC and WC3? They also bring up the fact that StarCraft 2 might unify the two communities. - Yeah, it definitely has this potential, and maybe even more, says ToD. ToD versus Reach in a StarLeague final ToD's idol is Reach, and the journalist asked ToD whether a StarLeague final between Reach and ToD was reachable. He laughed, and then said: - I hope so, if the game is very interesting and if I do my best, everything is possible, he says and adds that anybody is beatable. The journalist said that the best StarCraft players are the Koreans, but ToD is not afraid of them. Go to » eSportsFrance for the full interview.