Qikz Interview

Clan Revolution wants to contribute to the community and its future. It's natural to want to lift up those who do a tremendous job in organizing events for us all to gather around, be it events we participate in or simply events to watch on stream. One such man, chief organizer of the Shinhan Tank Proleague (henceforth called STPL) James 'Qikz' Arthur, is committed to this ideal.

Q. Ahoy, Qikz! And thank you for taking the time for this interview. I think most people know the story, or at least the gist of it—but what brought you to StarCraft? And what kept you playing?
A: My story starts in 2007 where I had just started playing World of Warcraft and I met my now-best friend through another friend. Ever since I was a kid, I'd always loved RTS games—my main ones being the various Command and Conquer games, the Age of Empires games, and Total Annihilation—but I'd never really dabbled in any of the Blizzard RTS games. I didn't know anyone who played them, and I'd never had the money to buy them myself.

I decided because of WoW to try WC3 with my new friend and loved it—but I was terrible. The entire time we were playing, he was suggesting me to play StarCraft, and I didn't budge for the longest time. Thinking about it now, I missed out on amazing year of StarCraft history (2007) by thinking it wouldn't be very good and avoiding buying it. Enter 2008. I decide to buy Brood War because I find it in a shop cheap and ended up playing the campaign. At that point I'd just become a carer for my Mum, and I was at home all day working on my Open University degree and playing WoW as my main game for escapism. I can't remember how or why, but I found Team Liquid around September. I didn't sign up, and I very rarely checked it, but it was during the Incruit OSL 2008 that I happened to see a thread announcing the finals between FanTaSy and Stork. I guess it was the LR thread. At that point, I was a little more interested in playing multiplayer, and the fact there were people playing professionally astounded me. I thought to myself, "I have to watch this", and I kind of felt that Terran was the race I'd enjoy playing most, so it was perfect.

I tuned in the morning of the finals on the really low quality stream and lived vicariously through whoever was live translating it at the time to understand what was going on. And what I saw, I couldn't even begin to believe. This huge crowd out in force cheering for people playing a video game...I never even knew such a thing was even possible. I was enthralled, not only by the event and production, but also one of the players. The man who very quickly became the reason I followed competitive Brood War: FanTaSy. He lost, but his play made me realise just how fun playing the game could be, and while I didn't know it at the time, it'd be the reason I continued to stick around and eventually signed up for Team Liquid in 2009 after over a year of lurking.

I followed FanTaSy and SKT every single game they played. Proleague was on at 10-11AM for me, so I ended up watching most if not all of the 2009, 2010, and 2011 seasons because of it. I started playing in 2009, and while I've taken a lot of breaks in between, I kept coming back to the first game that I ever really felt was perfect—and I owe it all to Proleague.

Q: Shortly after answering your first question, your mother passed. How are you?
A: I'm doing ok. I've got things to look forward to, which is the main thing keeping me going, and I know my Mum wouldn't want me to be upset, so I'm trying to use those thoughts to drive me forward in my life. I'll miss her like crazy and always will, but I shouldn't feel upset about that. I should feel happy that I had such a good relationship with her that I will always feel like that.

It hurts that she's gone, but as long as I never forget all our times together, both good and bad, she'll always be a huge part of me. I wouldn't be here today if it wasn't for her and everything she taught me.

Q: What are your fondest memories of her? And which lessons from her do you value the most?
A: I have way too many memories of her to really have a fondest one that I could tell you about, but the main lesson I value from her the most is that she taught me how to be a good person and how to treat others.

Q: I think many respond to that in terms of you running STPL. You show great interest in not only the game itself, but also the players and the teams participating. Do you spend a lot of time researching and such or do you mostly enjoy getting to know the teams and players in your league?
A: In terms of researching, I guess the main research I do is based around the actual pro scene itself. I spend a lot of time going back to look at the maps I put in the league and the statistics from whatever leagues they were in to try and get a good understanding of how things will work. The largest amount of research I do is into techniques on how to improve my overlay code and overlay graphic design. Hopefully you'll all enjoy the work I've put into (with the help of NetWars' Radley on the database side of things) for Ro4!

Part of the reason I set up STPL is because I wanted people to get to know more about the players playing the game they love in the foreign scene. For a while, I've wanted to do more interviews, but along with everything else, I never had the time to properly keep up with it all. If someone wants to help out on that side of things, I would appreciate the help! I mean, the biggest reason I dislike individual leagues is you never really feel like you're rooting for someone in particular for any real reason. Team leagues break this boundary by giving you multiple players to follow, often on the same team, and it makes it easier to get invested (in my opinion anyway).

Everyone knows the major Korean teams from back in the Proleague days, but very few know much about the foreign teams/clans from the modern era, and I have to admit I'm in the same boat. I've learned a lot about various players, their playstyles, and their teams by casting so much of the STPL, and it's been a great experience.




Q: You spend a tremendous amount of time on STPL. Every week you cast ALL weekly games in the entire league. Even when having help from others (i.e. casters, Radley, etc.), where do you find the drive and energy?
A: The main reason I do it is because I enjoy it. Eventually, I would love to be able to make STPL big enough that the teams get a real financial incentive for taking part. I could perhaps become a more full time caster as well as paying Rapid for helping me cast as much as he does. That's a ways off, but it's the thing I want to work towards.

I've been happy to do this completely off my own back, but I do and would appreciate any possible support. If you want to help me and the STPL grow, then you can support it on Patreon or sub on Twitch/donate using the donate button on Twitch below the stream.

Q: On your Pateron page, you mention wanting to host some showmatches between STPL players. You also want to conduct interviews. Are there any other plans you would like to see happen, if there was either time or more hands to do it?
A: Showmatches I'm planning myself. The interviews would be a case, that with a full time job, I personally don't have the time to do everything. If this was my full time thing, I could do it, but until then I'd need another set of hands to manage that, and I don't have the money to pay someone. I know how much work it is.

My entire mantra has always been do as much as I humanly can to make sure nobody else needs to do things I could do. I've got help along the way since then, and I appreciate that more than anything. Special shoutouts to Rapid who casts with me at 4AM and Radley, who's helped me with my new database model.

Q: In addition to your work with STPL, you've also started the Twitter Initiative, and in general often taken part in discussions in regards to the stability and growth of our scene. What are your views on the future? And what do you consider to be our most important steps to take henceforth?
A: I think there are viewers there. KSL proves that. We just need the right content to draw them in. I think we can certainly expand the scene. The most important step is to generate more content and share it with more people.

Q: How much time do you have for actually playing? As seen in your recent highlight reel made by JuicY_JuSt, you're training hard to become the best. Any games in particular or things you've achieved that you're particularly happy about?




A: I don't have much time to really play. I want to play more often, but I find myself getting far too frustrated with myself. Although the new ladder maps suit me a lot more than the previous season...I love Colosseum II, Neo Ground Zero and Medusa!

I think my favourite ever victory was beating Jordaddy with 1 dropship and 4 vultures.

Q: You've talked some about your future. Are there any particular goals you've set for your near future? And in addition to what you've mentioned prior, is there anything the community can do to help you reach these goals?

A: Well, I'm working on currently getting my own (albeit shared ownership) flat at the moment, and I'll need to secure that by the end of February. So I have to say without doubt that that is my main immediate goal.

There's a little bit of possible STPL merch I'll be showing off on Monday, so I'm hoping to see if there's enough interest to possibly sell it on Patreon as a tier for people to get one of their own. It'd be a cool thing for people to want to buy and also help out one of my friends online since it would generate more work for his business.

The STPL is starting up again as of this Monday, and I've been working on a ton of stuff, so on the chance that people enjoy it I'm going to try and ramp up production even more to make things look even better. I've always felt that's where a lot of foreign tournaments lack: the production side of things. I've got other projects lined up to run alongside STPL Season 2, so I guess outside of the Ro4 and looking further into the future, it's setting the STPL up for Season 2 in the best way possible so I can hopefully continue to help grow the SCR community viewership-wise and be able to show people some good games!

There's a lot of fantastic series planned for the Ro4 and honestly—while I'm biased—I can't wait to broadcast them to you!

In terms of things the community can do to help reach those goals, just do what you can to share more Brood War content, be it STPL, BSL, HAY or any other tournament. If you see a cool bit during a game, CLIP IT. Don't wait for others to clip it because its possible nobody will. There's plenty of places for you to share. Twitter, TL, /r/starcraft, and /r/broodwar. I posted a clip of one of the up and coming casters who does a lot of CPL stuff on /r/starcraft and it ended up with over 5000 views. That's 5000 views that may never have seen that awesome Chessz moment. Sharing is key if we ever want to expand the reach of StarCraft: Remastered content.

Q: We'll be looking forward to further supporting you and enjoy all that's to come! As we wrap it up, are there any final words you'd like to say to the community?

A: I'd just like to say thanks for all the support you've given me so far, and I hope that you all enjoy what's to come in the foreign Brood War scene and especially STPL!

One other thing I want to say is never take for granted any time you get to spend with people you care about. Cherish every single moment, because you never know what is going to happen and you don't want to regret a thing. Make the best of all the time you have.

Epilogue: Clan Revolution would like to that Qikz for his time conducting this interview, and wish him the best of luck in his future endeavors! We would also like to thank TL.net for helping us with the formatting.
Questions by: ReV Clan
Editors: BLinD-RawR, EsportsJohn
Graphics: BullDog[ReV]