Jesper 'Nordahl' Henriksen ist einer der erfolgreichsten Manager in WarCraft III. Mit seinem Team MeetYourMakers, das zu den besten der Welt zählt, konnte er erst kürzlich die auf der Games Convention 2007 stattfindenden NGL ONE Finals der dritten Saison überragend gewinnen.

MyStarcraft.de: As member of the organising staff, you probably have the most insight into the scene - how high do you estimate the willingness of the scene to change [to SC2]?

Nordahl: I think more or less everybody is willing to change. With that being said I think some people, or perhaps even a lot of them, will continue to follow the WC3 scene, that is to say if there still is any.


MyStarcraft.de: Many players, although highly interested, are reluctant to announce a possible switch to StarCraft II. As always, moving on to a new game carries the risk of not being successful. How can one as a team manager minimise the risk for one's players?

Nordahl: I dont think you can minimize the risk, and I dont know if the goal is to get the WC3 players over to SC2, hopefully there will be a scene for both games and some players have already announced that they will not be playing SC2 competitavely. And and when a change occurs, I think it should be up to every player if they want to continue playing WC3, and if they want to give SC2 a go. I assume most of the top players will be giving a SC2 beta key, so they will know if SC2 is something they would want to persue.


MyStarcraft.de: Some players, Taker and Madfrog among them, have declared their Warcraft 3 careers finished, stating "motivational problems" as the reason for doing so. StarCraft II might bring this motivation back - do you think we will mainly see the old faces again, or will a new generation of players form?

Nordahl: I think it will be a mixture of old and new faces. Ofcourse the "old" WC3 players have the advantage of having good micro, and a good understanding of RTS games, but like there are constanyl new faces popping into the WC3 scene, there will also be new faces on the SC2 scene.


MyStarcraft.de: Command and Conquer 3 was the first game to advertise its "e-sport capabilities" on the packaging. The same goes for StarCraft II, it is being developed with this aim in mind. Where are, in your opinion, the advantages and disadvantages of this new trend?

Nordahl: I dont know if there are any disadvantages for the players and the community. EA will have the disadvantage of basically already promising to continue to keep the game balanced and follow the scene closely. The advantages for us as fans of the game will be just that, that they will keep on improving on the game, and also I think it will open for more dialogue between the scene and the company devoloping the game.


MyStarcraft.de: Which features do you as a team manager want to see the most in StarCraft II? What would help to make your work easier or more exciting?

Nordahl: I think the main thing is to make the online games as lagfree as possible. I dont see how my work is made more exciting, but it could be made easier with some more integrated clan features, like supporting voice chat and maybe a cross realm messaging system, so you would be able to send messages from one realm to a player on another one.