Jida "Sodoes" Feng joined Sgamer in 2000 as a website designer during his time playing Counter-Strike. Formerly known as Ogame.net, SGamer is now one of the largest Chinese websites for Warcraft3 and DOTA content.

The SGamer crew has now expanded according to Sodoes, "Besides me, there are about 40 part-time guys and 5 full-time editors working for this website", and it was this crew that help co-ordinate the Road of the King.

The tournament was two months in the making, but RoTK along with the GS Pan-Asia final was just one part of a larget event, the China Anime Festival. "Three of us were working on the ROTK tournament," said Sodoes, "I was responsible for the tournament rules, card system and the scheduling of the tournament."

Malystryx: So how long did it take from the conception of the idea of the tournament to actually making it a reality? Was the card idea there from the start or added later?

Sodoes: As I said before we were working on the China Anime Festival for two months and the RoTK was just one part of it.At the very beginning, we decided it as a team event, and using a normal King of the Hill format.

I decided I wanted to make an event with some new creative ideas and after a brainstorm the first image that came to my mind is a Chinese TV programme called “Kai Xin Ci Dian”, which is full of Q&A puzzles with some options for help for the competitors.

After some though I came up with the six abilities but I also tried to balance them by changing some to “Non-Instant” ability and some to “Instant” ability to make sure they are fair to the tournament. I even made sure the names of the abilities are balanced, one from each race and two neutral!

We implemented the card system at the end because we thought that our original idea of shouting out the ability name would be too lame. To make the ability system more understandable from a viewers perspective we decided it was better to use cards to represent the abilities.

I used to play both Magic the Gathering and Yu-Gi-oh before so I realised it will be very exciting when one King shows a card and another use another card or counter it. However the first time did not go as well as I thought because some Kings [organisers] were not familiar with the cards and there were still some bugs in the rules for the card system.

Malystryx: Do you think perhaps you bit off more than you can chew by inviting so many teams to your first event?

Sodoes: 8 teams was manageable for us, the real challenge was to find referees who clearly understood the card system.

It was initally planned to have only 6 teams in the tournament but we received many requests when the ROTK was announced, so we decided to consider having half Chinese team, half foreign team, and so we ended up with four teams from China, and four teams from abroad.

Malystryx: What were the main obstacles in organising the tournament that you needed to overcome, and how did you solve them?

Sodoes: We have less experience than other organization for hosting such a large tournament, but our staff are good enough to handle things, for example we bought 12 fans to help keep the player playing cool.

The time management was the thing that took the most time because the duration of a KOF match is too flexible, making it hard to predict how much time is required. So it was really a challenge to get all matches finished in time.

Another thing we need to overcome is to get a good translator because nearly all problems were caused by the bi-lingual rules and the confusion over the card system. I found it is really difficult to explain the card system in English to make foreign players understand it, and I would like to thank you, SK.Malystryx, for rewriting the rules in easy-understandable English.

Malystryx: Haha no problem, So perhaps you will need some international helpers for the next event?

Sodoes: Yes, of course, you will be my first consideration. To be serious, it is too early to think about the next event because we will have a big DOTA event held in Wuhan this October, so are going to focus on the upcoming DOTA event first.

Malystryx: Now the tournament is over, will there be a next time? And if so what have you learnt from this tournament that you think would be important to remember for next time?

Sodoes: Yes, there will be a next time and we will make sure it is more interesting and fair and we gained a lot of experience from organizing this tournament.

Firstly that we need to get some proofreaders who are good at both English & Chinese to check the basic rules carefully. Secondly, make the rules more strict so the “Grubby v th000” case will never happen again.

I was thinking to implement some better system next time, maybe like Heroes series, each King has a Hitpoint bar and a spell book. Or stick to the card system but add 1-2 new cards to it, make them more friendly to the viewers and easier for the Kings/Captains.

Perhaps the primary point to be improved is adding some visual effect when using abilities. Make it cool! Finally, I think it is important to remember reis does not like Chinese food.

Malystryx: In my mind the tournament was a success from a spectator point of view, although the stream was a little unreliable. What were the positives in your opinion from the tournament, what were you most happy/impressed by?

Sodoes: I am happy with the tournament, although many problems exposed in the first two days but as we handle them quickly and the tournament went more smoothly in the following two days.

The things I felt happy about is that all the teams liked the card system and some of them performed like a master of it, especially the card strategy devised by SK, WE and MYM.

For example, WNV used a Charm, and MYM could use a Charm to cancel the effect. But Losemann did not want to cancel the effect, so he decided to use Anti-Magic shell to nullify WNV’s Charm first, so then his Charm is useable! Such strategy is very creative and I had never thought about it.

Malystryx: My first admin experience was at a ClanBase EuroCup LAN final and I found it a struggle to cope with the many demands of the top players, did your admins struggle at all? What kind of advice/training did you give them?

Sodoes: The demands of top players are not as much as I thought, “Need water”, “Need fan”, “Install driver” etc. And I think our admins were familiar with the environment of e-sports in China.

Malystryx: How many admins/helpers did you have in total? There seemed to be a lot… Were they all volunteers?

Sodoes: We had 3 admins, and like 50 helpers(volunteers) in total, the people wearing red shirts are volunteers, I agree there were a lot, almost like a sea of red t-shirts.

Malystryx: Many people commented about the great fans, how did you advertise your tournament and how many fans came to the event?

Sodoes: I have to say that Chinese fans are the best in the world, it is hard to express how much they like the game and the stars.

For the advertisement of ROTK, it is the same as other Chinese event like PGL and etc. I think the reason why we had success on advertisement is because of the new card system and the 8 teams.

The audience at the venue was not as many when compared to other Chinese events, it was around 1,000 people per day. However for online stream, there were 400 thousands people who watched the stream in the final day.

Malystryx: SGamer has an “interesting” reputation within the Chinese esports scene, how do you think this event will affect your reputation?

Sodoes:This is the first event that SGamer held, I believe that people has seen both our creativities and our faults.

We have made a daily conclusion during the event, and made improvements the following day. Besides the condition of the stream which cannot be changed by us, we have made other things perfect in the final day.

Also we believe that everything will be better next time, much better! think our reputation in China stays unchanged, and our global reputation grew a little.

Malystryx: Was there a party after the ROTK finished? Are any Warcraft3 players impressive dancers?

Sodoes: I am not sure whether the Koreans took a party after ROTK. But for me, I had a dinner with WE after the ROTK finished. No dance on the dinner table, so I have no idea about who is a good dancer unfortunately.

Malystryx: Finally any shoutouts?

Sodoes: I'd like to give a shoutout to the SGamer crew, the fans who followed the RoTK tournament and to the players.