Interview with Yiska Personally, Includes Previews, PvP in Cataclysm and more.

[Ahzlan]

coL's manager Yiska about IEM World Championship
http://wowriot.gameriot.com/user/Yiska
www.hydramist.net

Norwegian Gaming Community
ARCTICNOVA.ORG Presents:

We caught up with Complexity and Hydramist's Yiska for a Q&A session regarding the recent previews, the state of the game and arena in general. Enjoy!

Greetings Yiska, and thanks for taking the time to have a chat with us!

It's my pleasure really. Thanks for having me.

Would you like to present yourself?



Sure. I am Yiska, a 22 year old student from Germany. In my free time I write for Hydramist and complexity gaming. I used to run my own show at Eurospective and wrote two guest blogs for World of Ming which is probably the biggest blog about WoW on the internet.

Who introduced you to World of Warcraft, and what do you think of the game today, looking back on how it used be?

I played Warcraft III competitively 7 years (or so) back. I loved the idea of playing my units in a MMORPG and I kind of enjoyed the universe. I was pretty interested in role playing back then as well as I was on a RP-Realm in Ultima Online and that's why I started on a German Roleplay realm. My focus switched quickly to a more competitive mindset. I raided from MC till a couple of bosses into Blacktemple. That's why I'm not really qualified to talk on PvE things since then as I only pugged my way to PvE gear for Arena. Personally I think the game got better with the patches while naturally the game got older for people. There is little doubt in my mind that the game as it currently is, is the most enjoyable for players on average. Looking at the previews for Cataclysm, it looks like it's going to improve even more.

What eventually led you into creating a blog?

I used to follow all these WoW blogs including but not limited to WoM, radikalnoise.com and Dahis' all old blog but I always felt Europe was missing something like this, as all these sites were centered around the American Community. First I wanted to start writing really casually, interviewing a friend of mine who happens to be an awesome Mage (Trigz). Alca asked me if I was interested in teaming up with him as he was writing casually as well. We searched for a couple of other people and started writing. I started to invest more time into it and kind of took over. My goal was to put up a blog on a daily basis as this was the only way to really make people read your stuff. I always liked writing as I liked to entertain and inform people about inside happenings. I always was that kind of guy in school as well. It just came natural to me.

If you were to name one thing that contributed a lot to your fame among the bloggers of the warcraft universe, what would that be?

Probably Ming. I created Eurospective on WoWriot for a reason. Without riding his coat tail, it would've been way harder for me to get people to read my stuff. Thinking about it though, Trig introduced me to all these big European players and without his help, I would've never been able to do what I do. Hard choice. I guess a combination of both which would be... "Tring"?

Speaking of Ming, how did you first come into contact with him?

I think I contacted him first when applying for a job on WoM. I knew I wasn't to keep the pace of writing once a day for a long time so I figured two days a week would be just fine. Ming had always been promoting to write on WoWriot (probably because he gets a certain % of the WoWriot portal hits) and I was one of the few who tried to take his advice. I knew he had picked up Zilea because he knew he had experience in writing as he won the blogging contest himself.(Gameriot has a blogging contest for price money for the top 3 blogs in terms of hits). He told me that he was interested and I just had to wait a little longer.

Over to another World of Warcraft-superstar, Hydra. How did you guys meet and what was it like, meeting the lord?

I think that was kind of Syeren's work (he's the site admin of hydramist). Syeren used to cover live blogs for Eurospective but I always felt that was kind of the plan. Get involved with me, see how I work and potentially recruit me for hydramist as it had been an idea floating around in their group of friends for quite some time. After a while Syeren asked me if I was interested in writing for a new site and I agreed as I was fed up with gameriot. I hopped on vent and there he was. I kind of met Lord Hydra before, as he wanted to get out of the hall at GamesCom, which his team won. He had this huge check and was running through the crowd. He accidently poked my butt cheek. I don't think he remembers it. The real first conversation we had was in this vent channel and it was of course awkward. Being the immortal he is, welcoming a pawn like me in his Elysium. Let's just say not too much other than "Hey I'm Yiska", "Oh mint, what's up?" "Nothing much" "Cool" had been spoken, but we kind of got to know each other over the weeks.

How is it like working for two of the biggest World of Warcraft-related blogs out there (Hydramist and WoM)?

It's awesome and I generally tend to get a pretty good response for my articles. I have to admit, I read almost all my responses and I like the occasional pat on the back. The experiences are completely different. On Hydramist, I decide what makes the front page and if I like it or not. On WoM, I am hired to write for an audience a bit different from the hydramist one and while Bodi didn't limit me in terms of content at all, I still feel obligated to write (or act *cough*) WoM'ish.

If you were to compare all the sites you have written for/on, which one is the best and why?

Uh, you know, I will answer politically correct here but honestly, all sites have their ups and downs. The thing I like the most about hydramist is that I can just moderate stupid troll comments and they can run to their mommy for attention. That's what kind of bothered me about Gameriot. Trolling is a business model there.

If we travel back to WoW again, if you had the chance to get a level 80 instantly, fully equipped with the best gear possible, what class would you pick and why?

In the current meta game? Probably Elemental Shaman. It's easier to pick up the class and to achieve with than most other classes at the moment. I happen to have a lot of classes at max level and decked out across my group of friends. If I want to run a comp, we are probably able to run it within 2 month on a respectable level both gear and skill wise.

And what setups would you run in the different brackets?

I really only like to play 3s. Two's is too lame and always has been for me. I loved Rogue/Mage in TBC but it kind of got bad in WotLK unless you play it on a top level which I can't. I recently picked up a Shaman after kind of failing to be dedicated enough to run RMP (it's really not that great on live anymore and we didn't have gear luck yet). We will be running Shaman/SP/Rogue. I'd like to try RLS as well. Wizard cleaves should be fun for the first couple of games as well, laughing about WotLK'ing people but it would get boring rather quick. I'd also like to try out Ele/Pala/War. In 5s gear matters a lot as well. I would probably run anything that is a solid 2 healer 3 DPS line up. I kind of hate the 4DPS cheese.

If Blizzard were to release a new bracket and remove one, how many players would you prefer having on each team in the new bracket and what bracket would you remove?

I think 3vs3 is where WoW is at it's best. 5s is too chaotic to spectate and some people argue even in 3s that is already the case. I don't know if 4vs4 would work. Rather than a new arena bracket, I would love to see 5v5 battlegrounds.

If you were to put together an arena dreamteam for the three versus three (including a manager), who would you pick and what setup would you run?

Tough one. There are a lot of great teams that are already dreamteams for me. Back in TBC I would've said Carecoala/Hydra/Cherez and this team would've won every single tournament they attended. Today you can't really afford to have a bad team mate or you will just not make it. There are so many possibilities: Kalimist/Tenderloin/Inflame, Woundman/Pookz/Sodah, Hydra/Orange/Reckful. I'm really excited to see my favorite team of TBC Carecoala/Paperkat/Inflame making a comeback as well. As the manager position I would suggest ButtonBasher's Pii, because he's just sexy.

You recently published an article regarding the state of the game when it comes to arenas, and how the game doesn't have enough tournaments troughout the season. What do you think should be done in order to make WoW more of a "viewers" game, like Counter-Strike is?

Two questions in there, you're sneaky... Alright, I'll get you!

First: There has to be a WoW league other than the live ladder. I know people have been crying for a permanent tournament realm more than for Megan Fox to share a room with them and it kind of feels like beating a dead horse, but in both cases it's for a good cause. Players need to be able to train against each other with whatever gear is available at live tournaments. These 10 tournaments around the globe just aren't enough to keep people interested. "The Named" does it in Korea and it seems to work. With these permanent tournament realms we get the chance to organize leagues which are required. The current situation is the best way to describe what's wrong: No tournament player is actually playing the game seriously right now as there is nothing to train for. They are all waiting for the Tournament realm.

Secondly: I really think we need something to take the spectators hand and walk them through these games. This can only be achieved by either only absolute top level players who also happen to be quite good with words or WoW Arena can just be too hard to understand for many. The alternative is to have a smaller scale battleground, like I said above, so that not only the action because more observable, but also handable for sponsors. You can't send a WSG team of 10 players to an offline event. Organizing 10 player teams are also a pain in the ass for the normal guy. We need a 5vs5 battleground, preferably Capture the flag, that doesn't feel lame (because games take ages), with an observer tool like HLTV. This way fans could observe and also look up to these pro players. If you don't understand why someone is so great that he wins tournaments, you won't be inspired by him.

I hope I answered your question sufficiently Mr. SneakySneak.
You're sneaky.

The recent previews, what do you think about them?

Love 'em. I had a few concerns about Cataclysm feeling too old. The game has been around for so long and it's hard to attract players. Every expansion introduced something to WoW. TBC it was Arena that was the big thing (among other things like flying mounts etc.). In Wrath it was the DK Class that stood out. In Cataclysm, all we knew was that old zones will be reworked and that the big selling point for PvPers are rated BGs, which are by all we know BGs that we have been playing for years in some cases. Wrath needed a bunch of great revisions. The new abilities really add flavor. I remember watching the first DK footage of Death Grip and everyone was like "Woah, that's innovative". I feel every class will get an ability like that in the expansion. Don't you want to toy around with your Shroomkin just now?

What setups (according to the changes currently made, if remaining unchanged) will be sligthly more "overpowered" than others when Cataclysm arrives?

Nobody can tell. Honestly NOBODY can and everyone who tries will end up being wrong unless winning the lottery. We have nothing but ideas, no damage numbers, no durations, no talent trees, no nothing. On top of that they might even change. Oh wait... RMP! Of course I'm kidding.

One last thing before we split up. There's a lot of players out there not quite on your level, I'm sure you are aware of it allready. If you were to give these lost souls, like myself, three advices on how to become a better player, what would the advices be?

Were we ever engaged? You pay for the kid, I tell you that much.
All joking aside:

1. Watch Movies of players who perform on a daily basis. I think Woundman is one that's going to do this every two weeks from now on. Watch these players. You can watch other movies on Warcraftmovies.com as well, but they won't show you mistakes or rarely strong play by their opponent and how they react to it. Alternatively you are invited to watch streams on hydramist. We got a wide range of world class players for almost every class. Learn by immitating.

2. Search for people who you like and who you feel have the same kind of ambition you have. If you want to make it to the top while the other guy doesn't really care, you should "split up" both team-wise and romantically. Especially romantically. Search people to play the best comp for you class with.

3. Practice, practice, practice. Very few players made it where they are without being absolutely awful. There are people who have a talent for WoW and I honestly think these people have what it takes to become jet pilots because of the amount of information they can gather in a short time and react to that. For the others, tough situations have to become routine for you until a point where you don't search for your keybinds, where you know how you counter what your opponent did. When you are at that point, you will begin to get a feeling for your opponents actions other than being concentrated on your char.



Thanks a lot for taking your time to talk with us, it's been a pleasure - both the interview and our litte 'romance'.

Caught in a bad romance.... lalalalalalaa.. Thanks for your time.




The original interview can be found here: http://www.arcticnova.org/article/18...ainsider-yiska

[Job for a Cowboy]

who?

[Video Games]

who?

[mogulkhan]

So... who's this guy again? kthxbai.

[supfresh]

nice interview, for those who dont know yiska..dont even bother reading it


pii is sexy :>

[Lind]

who?

I thought exactly the same ...

[Dyz]

Hes a euro, most of you wont know him.

[Azutael]

Hes a euro, most of you wont know him.

i'm also from europe, still got no clue who this person is whatsoever.....

[Deleted]

Put some links up to the things where he writes, maybe some people will get an idea.

[Ahzlan]

Put some links up to the things where he writes, maybe some people will get an idea.

They're on the top now, good idea by the way.

[rhorle]

90% of this interview has nothing to do with PvP in cataclysm, and the part that does is saying nobody can know since nobody has experienced it yet.

[xtqx]

PVE Heroes just avert your eyes : )

[Spurmwhale]

esport wow is a joke. for the people who blame arena for everything, the real culprit is kalgan and his fancy for the 0.5% into it being some serious sport, where balance MUST be perfect. arena is fine as a minigame for wow but not as the basis for the whole pvp system thanks to kalgan's side hobbies. i swear i hope he doesn't head dev any games with monopolies in genres in the future...

[Metallikiddd]

read my sig...

[Deleted]

nice interview, for those who dont know yiska..dont even bother reading it


pii is sexy :>

but pii is a baddie lmao dutch noobs all over button bashers ;o

[K4ge]

esport wow is a joke. for the people who blame arena for everything, the real culprit is kalgan and his fancy for the 0.5% into it being some serious sport, where balance MUST be perfect. arena is fine as a minigame for wow but not as the basis for the whole pvp system thanks to kalgan's side hobbies. i swear i hope he doesn't head dev any games with monopolies in genres in the future...

blablabla, I don't like keybinds blablabla I backpedal blablabla..?

[Deleted]

blablabla, I don't like keybinds blablabla I backpedal blablabla..?

Do you call pillarhumping Warcraft? Seriously?

I have no doubt that you are skilled at that part of the game, certainly a lot better than I could ever achieve. But it is not what the game is about. It was originally focused on PvE content. Think how much of the developing time has gone into PvE compared to PvP (all the instances and quests, compared to what, a few battlegrounds and sandboxes?), then think about it again.
The arena PvP has been a hugely bad influence on the core PvE game that is WoW. I enjoy some PvP now and again, I'm not saying it shouldn't exist, but those people who say PvE is scripted for scrubs, how about you actually try some PvE more than pugging 4/12 ICC. How come only around 100 people out of the supposed millions have defeated the final challenge of WotLK. If it was so easy, why haven't mroe done it?

Not everyone who complains is bad at it. I have reached 1.5k in 3/4 pvp gear and full pve spec as a healer, not a high rating, but not too scrubby. And I'm not that good at PvP. Spam dispelling, interrupts, stunning, pillarhumping - all a specific skillset, but it is not Warcraft.

[K4ge]

I somewhat agree with you, however any kind of lore in an mmo is very difficult to implement. Personally I'm just not that big a lore person and really enjoy the thrill and competitiveness of arenas.

Also I have 9/12 hardmodes down in icc25