San Alex — With the aim of promoting and practicing the competitive Team Fortress 2 on the asian continent, natapon and his crew developed a cohesive community that brings together the various countries of this continent and the result could not have been better. If you handle well the jet lag and fancy long trips fasten your seatbelt and join us on this trip to the eastern Team Fortress 2!
First I would like to thank this opportunity to interview you, before we begin, please introduce yourselves to our readers. Hi, I’m natapon and I have been running AsiaFortress for a number of years as the community leader. I’ve played competitive Counter-Strike 1.6 before picking up TF2 over the Christmas of 2007.
Seven AFC Seasons, a series of competitive events and even a Community vs Pros. We can say without a doubt that AsiaFortress is a successful community, how comes the idea of creating this community?
AsiaFortress started out through the vision of a local Singaporean player called ‘adsf’ who wanted to fire up and combine the Asian competitive communities through one website by emulating sites like ozfortress, natf2.com etc. After some initial road bumps in Season 1 and some political infighting by the admins back then, me and spammah were voted in by the Asian competitive community to step in and take charge from Season 2 onwards. spammah now lurks in the background as an armchair adviser while I head up all current AsiaFortress activities.
AsiaFortress encompasses all TF2 communities from Far East and South Asia such as Singapore, Malaysia, Korea, India, Japan, Hong Kong, Taiwan and more.
AsiaFortress has undergone multiple community contributions, donations and sponsorship drives for its cause and promotion.
We wanted a competition that united Asia and so far I think we have done well in that regard. We have grown from a 16 team competition to a 28 team competition, pretty small still but we are growing steadily.
From what I know the Asian competitive TF2 is full of potential, tell us about the best Asian teams and their players.
The Koreans always have their iteration of their post-dizziness dream team ( Muk Eun Ji etc). Their top-tier talent pool is immense compared to the rest of Asia and it seems that they build around their key player and star demoman OPD (his frag video – disable your eyes). This guy is a living legend. Despite his 2 year absence from the scene to serve in the army, he has come back even stronger. The best Korean teams are usually led by great leader Life (also known as W40kLife), one of the best medics in Asia. He is the brains behind the successful Korean teams. Other notable players from Korea are xeta, phex, hsk, babel and rex.
Another top team to emerge and quickly make a name for itself was – Team Choice (now known as LsD) which was a mix of top players from Japan ( dohash, horihori, ACFefnir), Taiwan ( Cassis, BubuChaCha, xvo), Hong Kong ( KENNEL), Singapore ( Summer) and Australia ( Yuki). Under the leadership of Yuki from Team Immunity, these guys made a huge impact at AFC6, demolishing an Australian division 1 mix team (with players like Amril, snowblind, xe) which was no mean feat.
– Kuso Scout ( namida, natto, toki, peanut, vaac, ozr, natapon) is also another top team made of the remains of teams like dpN and execute crew (another powerhouse).
– GreenLeaves ( *aniki, * gappo3, yoru, hicook, hoshimi, dandan) are also a mix of upcoming and veteran players that placed 2nd after Muk Eun Ji in the last competiton we had. hoshimi and gappo3 amazed the community with their deathmatching ability and effective play in the recent mercenaries cup grand final.
With the growing number of streams, and casts that convey the worldwide competitive tf2, how much is the asian community influenced by the european, australian and north american playstyle?
We take in play-styles from all competitive regions and modify it to suit our game. At the top here, we play very aggressive and free flowing TF2. It is what we enjoy here, fast and exciting play.
Nowadays with the i46 and i49, intercontinental duels between teams are now a reality, do you think it would be possible to take an Asian team to the next i52?
It is possible but at this moment very unlikely without sponsors or community funding. It would also be unclear on who to send especially with schedule clashes and real life commitments. Our pace of life here does take a toll on us.
We all know that it’s hard to compare teams over the internet, but on a possible duel between the best Asian team and the best team from other continents (Europe, North America, Australia) what do you think would be the outcome?
We certainly won’t be pushovers. But I’d imagine that we would struggle to find our footing even if we manage to throw them off with our playstyle for a while. We certainly are not lacking in the DM department, but I think we got some catching up to do with our teamplay.
And we come to the end of our interview, once again I would like to thank this opportunity to interview you, would you like to leave a message to the tf2 competitive community?
Thank you for the wonderful opportunity. Thanks to all our community volunteers, contributors, sponsors and teams for being part of the Asian Experience. Our Asiafortress Cup 7 grand finals are coming up soon so be sure to watch it live and get entertained. ASIAFORTRESS HYPE!
Originally published on VanillaTV (vanillatf2.org) on 2013-09-08 by san alex.
Recovered from the Internet Archive (archived copy) as part of tf2esports.com's preservation of VanillaTV's TF2 coverage. The original site is no longer online. All rights remain with the original author; reposted for historical reference.