- EsportsFrance.com

1584 publications
632 participations
Warcraft 3

2640 news | 397 posts
17 streams

01 Janvier 1970 à 00:00

English version

Nowadays Russia's pride is held in the hands of a seventeen year old undead player.
At the peak of the young generation of pro gamers breaking through the Warcraft 3 scene,
we can recall his 5th place in PGL, third at WCG and Blizzcon.
Esportsfrance got a hold of Dimitriy "Happy" Kostin, early February and right after his arrival in the rearranged MYM team, for a detailed insight on the Warcraft scene, his thoughts and hopes.

This version is a little different from the french one since we didn't divided the interview in several pages nor rearranged it. This is the original version.

Note that this interview have been made before fragster.de article.

Happy in real life

What are your hobbies besides war3?
Happy: No hobbies at all, wc3 is my biggest hobby from the past which grown up to be my professional occupation (known as progaming).

Are you still going to school? How do you manage to handle both your scholarship and your gaming career?
I have finished my school studies back in summer 2008 (in Russia there is only one type of school and it lasts about 10 years). Back in the days when I was in school it was really difficult for me personally, I honestly think its impossible to complete both things on a great level. Either you study well and end up being an average gamer, or you stop studies and play on the highest level. I never enjoyed studying and I just enjoy my life right now as it is being a progamer.

What video games did you start to play? Did you use to play it as much as nowadays?
In my childhood I just played computer games time to time, just for fun. Then when I’ve got internet I tried Counter Strike. It was just fun playing it - first competitive game for me - but mostly fun. I enjoyed it a lot with friends who played it as well. When wc3 was out I wasn’t really interested in it. I just bought it like one year after its release to play the campaign and forget about it for some time. Frozen Throne was out and I bought it like 3 months later because I wasn’t aware about the add-on (smile). I played the campaign again and then found out that this game was being played on a competitive level as well. I decided then to download replays which I quickly enjoyed to do. Then I tried my first game online, it was back in beginning of 2005 if I’m still correct.

Happy at the WCG

Are there any other games than war3 that captivate your interest?

Well I played some other single player games mostly just for fun because I enjoyed it. Online games for me were only w3 and cs.

How are your friends and family considering your progaming career considering your young age?
Well my family is like "dropping studies won’t lead to anything good", friends are like the same. Nobody really takes gaming seriously as long as it’s something new in the universe, people don’t know anything about progaming. I’ve never really taken into account the opinion of other people who think that what I am doing is a bad idea. I think my way of living only matters for me.

Random questions

Blondes or brunettes?
Blondes

Favorite type of food?
European food, nothing special just some usual food.

What kind of music are you listening to?
Well from time to time it changed from alternative music to metal right. Started with Linkin Park and Limp Bizkit, ended up right now with Disturbed and Slipknot.

What's your favorite movie?
There are too many, I watched a lot of movies and I can’t pick the best. I never was able to answer to such question to myself ^^

Who is your favorite actor/actress?
I’m not really a fan of any, there are many of them anyway, same situation as with favorite movies =)

Who is your all time favorite historical person?
Nobody, if I would need to select this person over all of people I would select myself.

According to you, who is the most beautiful girl on Earth?
If I would have a girlfriend I would name her, as long as I don’t have a girlfriend I will keep my words for her ^^

Would you pick miss Kournikova or miss Sharapova?
any xD

If you had a message to claim, what would it be?
Cheer For Happy xD

How do you see yourself in 10 years?
I can’t even imagine. I just know that in the next few years I’ll remain to be a progamer. What will happen in future – only time will tell.

Which Warcraft hero would you like to be?
dk, evil dk :D

His avatar on MSN
(Click on it to see
the bigger piture)

What is your motto in life?
There is always a way out in any situation.

Are you addicted to sports?
No, completely.

Why did you choose that picture as your msn avatar?
(laugh) I just like it lol, it's a part of a bigger picture.

How is Abver doing?
Abver left wc3 long time ago and as far as I know he is in army (maybe he came back from here already I don’t really know). We had some hum, some bad conversations once upon a time and by then never really talked to each other, then he just disappeared

His teams

In spite of your young age, you are already competing at the highest level of a video game, what was the turning point that led you into this?
Hard practice and huge motivation. Age doesn’t have any matter at all.

Your first official team was es4x where you stayed for 2 month, could you tell us more about it?
I really thought I would have stayed longer there .. But well since I don’t remember it doesn’t matter. Es4x was more likely just a battle.net team which tried to qualify for WC3L, we failed like one step before entering league. After most of players left team, I left as well and then joined up with Mouz. Honestly I don’t even remember our roster back then, it was so much time ago. Still it was my first team playing on leagues.

Then you had a quick stopover in Play.it, why did you part ways?
Well I was in team just on paper, basically I wanted to play in the main squad, and they didn’t give me much opportunity. Still I just joined this team just for fun with Abver, he stood there, I left cuz I didn’t felt good there.

Here we go with the mouz chapter, what made you join them?
Well I knew some of old mouz members from battle.net (Hasu, Spell, Blunt if people still remember he was orga there), Gnollmann (was just a friend-hosting games back then). After some incup blunt asked me if I wanted to join the team, I couldn’t refuse this offer.

Happy playing for mouz

©SK-Gaming.com

In mouz you were granted the opportunity to team with players like ToD, SaSe or Fly100%, how was the team spirit (considering you come from different countries)?
Those guys were in team much more time, when I’ve joined mouz first time it was a Korean roster, who played on wc3l. I could play on any clan war but I didn’t really wanted to do so, I just continued playing online tourneys back then and tried to do my best. By the time I rejoined mouz there were only Sase, then fly was added with some other Chinese players, then ToD. Managers thought we didn’t have any team spirit when they disbanded team, and I would agree with them. Perhaps they were right because I can only speak for myself, I wasn’t looking for team leagues at all, it wasn’t important for me. Still, since I had to play clan wars I’ve played it and just tried not to lose (though of course I could have played better, but I had no real motivation at all). By the way Chinese players never were in really a contact with us, at least till it was online Since they almost don’t speak English at all.

What have you learned alongside them?
Honestly nothing, I never try to learn anything from somebody, I always try to improve myself. If you mean if we practiced a lot with each other - we didn’t, at least I did not, just because time-to-time it was harder due to internet/ping/motivation/else reasons. Basically by that time I just didn’t want to practice at all.

The team results did not go as expected, mouz had troubles to compete with the top but even though you were given the chance to take part to offline wc3l season 13 playoffs as a substitute to BeT disbanding but unfortunately you could not make it there, how did you feel ?
For my whole time in mouz I have missed WC3L finals 2 times. Each time I had a reason, first time it was I wasn’t 16 so I could not leave my country without somebody travelling with myself. And another time it was like next year I could not go because I had final exams in school, which I could not miss =). Sure I felt bad about it but there were nothing I could do about it.

Mouz managed to put a hard fight versus MYM, do you think that if you had been able to come the results would have gone the other way?
That’s possible, but who knows

At last, you finally left mouz after having spent two years bearing the famous german tag. Was that a difficult choice to make? What brought you into considering this?
Yeah it was really hard step to make for me, back then I had no any idea how my gaming future will look like. Well still now I don’t regret anything, I am even happier than when I was in mouz back then. Well there are many reasons behind my departure from the team, and I don’t think it would be a good idea to spread it. I thank my old team a lot for what they gave me. Showed me what pro gaming really is and helped me to develop as a player

Current Situation

About him

Happy during PGL 2009

As a matter of fact, we feel like that you achieved your best performances once you left mouz, we may remember your good results at Blizzcon or even PGL, do you feel the same?
Yeah, and I am going to show much more in nearest future

Russian gossips are you do not like training or spend too few time improving yourself. Why do they think that? Are they wrong?
Strange, I practice whole day long, I just love the game and play it daily. I am getting more than enough practice. I don’t believe in rumors or gossips, I am the only one source people can believe in.

Let's talk back about PGL, how was your stay in China? Would you like to take part in more events of that kind? We saw that Grubby had a huge fan base (some hardcore ones!), do you have some fans looking any close to this? What was the thing that impressed you the most there? Are you fond of asian lifestyle?
Well PGL was fine overall. But I would rate my stay here lower than stay in Europe, because it was my first time and I had some difficulties there . Like Chinese food, I honestly didn’t like it ; was a really hard time for me to be honest ^^. Well I can say nothing about asian life style, it just differs from Western countries, so I felt like an alien there . The event itself was pretty good, beside the "cold". I mean it was colder in the area than outside the building, that is why all played using heaters. The rest was pretty okay, when I played my pc never lagged or so, if I asked for something staff tried to help. Also they gave us PC's to our rooms which was a really good, to warm up, to practice . (though I had to change 4 pc's because no one worked and after I found one working it was rebooting like 4 times @ day xD). About Fan base : China Fanbase is really huge, I have never seen such amount of fans anywhere So many people asked me for an autograph, even though it was my first appearance in China. I was really impressed by it. And yeah I think if I would be offered to visit some tourney in China I wont deny, except if they don’t pay the flights xD.

About fan The results of the new NGL 1v1 league votes tends to make us think that you are respected by the whole community. Do you have any idea about how huge your fanbase might be? How do you (act toward/ respond to) their support? You are often listed as belonging to the very top undead players out there, may you share your thoughts about it?
The results of NGL vote pool wasn’t a surprise for me, it’s most a job of russian fans, because I think like 95 of russian voted for me there. Well I have a lot of fans, but it’s not as huge and for old wc3 stars (Grubby/Moon etc), still I’m going to impress fans more and more with upcoming results . Well I always thank my fans for their support, it’s always important and very helpful for my mind.

To you, who are/were the players that you admired the most? On the other hand, who are the ones that you wish you had not seen anything from them playstyle-wise? Who are the players that might have inspired your playstyle?
Well of course when I was just beginner I had favorite players to watch/learn. There are no players I want not to see, as more players appear it is only for the best ; professional wc3 needs a growth. I have developed my playing style myself.

About Warcraft 3

Young players are invading Europe, most particularly LucifroN and yourself, or even XlorD, elfi and a few others. According to you, is there an ideal age to be a progamer? ToD told a french radio that once you reach 25, it became nearly impossible.
Perhaps there the ideal age has to be 19-21 years old, that’s the best time you can realize yourself as a progamer. But well normally it could be any age before you turn older than 24 or so. Just because after games are as enjoyable as it was for you, and your hands are not as fast as back in the young age now. Also people just want to focus on other things in life and put their gaming activities on hold. Of course everywhere there are exceptions but it’s how it goes overall.

Happy focused

The russian scene is still very active, after giving birth to the likes of Deadman or Xyligan, newcomers like Nicker, Resolver or Cash seem to be ready to get the Mother Russia's flag to fly high, do you see them having a bright future ?
The only real progamer in Russia I respected (speaking about wc3) was Deadman - he was motivated and really strong when he was active, till something happened with him suddenly .. . The other ones never was really involved in gaming that much, it was just a hobby like having fun and being able to earn some money, they never wanted to be progamers. No I honestly don’t see progamer future for any russian player beside myself now, but still everybody has his own opinion about who progamer is. For me progamer is a person who's earning money to live on doing his job (in this case - gaming) and if you are pro and it is your job you should work and work is never easy.

Yeah, but even if they are not pro, do you think they can reach the top of the scene?
If they will get game enough serious maybe, I’m not the guy who can predict future of players.

There are more and more new maps available in tournaments or even ladder. Do those maps fit your quality critters or would you rather keep old school classic maps?
New maps are always good, they bring something new in the game, though removing all old maps and put only new ones suddenly is not good. But if there will be like 2-3 maps in the general old map pool its always fine.

Undead players barely make it to the champion title in offline events, most title bearers are humans or orcs but it used to be elves not so long ago. Has imbalance anything to do with this?
There are some imbalanced matchups in the game like human vs orc (for hu), orc vs ud (for orc), also I believe elf has no weak matchups at all, it’s always equal for them. That’s why I would rate night elf as a best race, and orc as a worst (very bad vs human, hard vs elf, good vs undead). And my personal opinion about title holders, I just think undead players aren’t good enough to win tournaments ; not all I don’t mean myself . Undead is a hard race to learn/play, requires a lot of practice/dedication, there are really few masters of this race Unlike masters of other races.

What is your actual undead top 5?
1/2 - Me/TeD, 3 - ReiGn, 4 - FoV, 5 - Space or Xlord

The future

About Warcraft 3

If Blizzard was to contact you for an hypothetical patch 1.23 (if they are to ever release one someday...), which changes would you bring? Any maps? Any heroes? Any nerf or buff?
Well, if I would suggest any change, this will change whole aspect of the current game, and there will be new imbalanced points in it. There are many nerfs I can suggest, but still the main one has to do something with Blademaster, something with its critical. Yeah I would add new maps, nothing else by far.

"Top players will find their teams..."

©MyMYM.com

Many people are predicting warcraft3 death once starcraft2 gets released, what about you? Will you give a shot to the game or even try seriously to reach the top?
When sc2 will be out ill buy it 100 % and play, but I won’t leave wc3 till its professional (not amateur scene) will die. Till tournaments will be held I will play wc3. If wc3 will not be so popular by then and tourneys will slowly disappear I will change for sc2. Honestly I think wc3 will still be alive and be played for a long time from sc2 out. And if wc3 won’t be popular I will change and play sc2 professionally.

Who are the people of the warcraft scene that you consider the most important, the ones you will probably keep in touch with for a quite long time?
Well I don’t have many friends in e-sport, mostly just contacts. It would not make me much sad anyway since I play the game for myself and not for them. Even if they won’t play the game I still will be in contact with them.

The new changes in WC3L and NGL are aiming the headlights on teams made out of 3 players, does this appear like a good thing to you?
Yeah it does, because I think only best players deserve to play in such leagues. These changes affecting badly on teams itself because they cut their rosters, but they keep only the best players who compete with the best players as well, it’s simply logic since best playing best, and the ones whose can’t compete falling down.

Many talented players are now free agents, will many of them be able to find a team able to pay them up to what they are worth of?
You mean many top and old players are clan less. Sure top players will find their teams sooner or later, some will go inactive because they are old enough to stop their gaming careers, others will continue playing on fun/amateur level. You just have to wait and see how it will go. What’s certain is that the period of huge salaries with SK & MYM has ended

About him

As we said earlier, there are many agents actually, how much will it harden your task in finding a new home?
Honestly I’ve lost hope finding my team long time ago, that’s why I don’t expect to find it at all. It’s up to teams not to me after all

Talking about that, it has been quite some time that you are going on as a free agent despite your performances, could you clear that for us?
Mm, nothing to clear, I just haven’t received any serious offers from teams.

Have you already refused many offers?
I’m not really in contact with unserious offers which were very few, so to answer your question – no.

This part have been made before he joined MYM, we contact him again after he's been recruited.

You've finally joined a team, how was the negotiation?
It was fine, I’m happy and satisfied with everything concerning it.

Do you think you'll enjoy more playing in league this time?
Since I’m in the team I am going to try my best to bring it on the most top of the ranking, and I think that is what we are aiming for with Grubby o-o

So you think there won't be any third player?
Well even if I knew about this - I wouldn’t tell, just wait and see

His seriousness brings him to MYM

©MyMYM.com

Something to add ?
Well as final words I want to thank all the people (including fans and rest) for the support they giving me just for cheering when I am playing.

Summary

Page 1 : Introduction (In french)
Page 2 : Random questions (In french)
Page 3 : His teams (In french)
Page 4 : Current situation (In french)
Page 5 : The future (In french)
Page 6 : English version

Sommaire

Page 1 : Esportrait : Happy
Page 2 :
Page 3 :
Page 4 :
Page 5 :
Page 6 :

Signaler une erreur

Esportsfrance.com est édité par Oxent / Gaming Oriented Agency
Déclaration CNIL #1556825

69 commentaires (1 à 15)

Robby

23-02-2009 @ 15:13
#1

Gj!

1
marou

23-02-2009 @ 15:26
#2

bon timing et tres bon "esportrait"

1
dude_next_door

23-02-2009 @ 15:26
#3

Mais quel newser !

1
Revenge

23-02-2009 @ 15:28
#4

C'était déjà mon avis mais...
Il est vraiment bizarre Happy o.O. Sa façon de voir ses rapports avec les gens...

1
SyDe

23-02-2009 @ 15:29
#5

bj !

1
AcTa

23-02-2009 @ 15:33
#6

"Je suis le meilleur"
"Je n'ai besoin de personne, parce que je vous pwn tous"
"Je vais devenir encore plus ouf dans quelques mois, parce que je suis le best"

La modestie, il n'a pas l'air de connaître.

1
Revenge

23-02-2009 @ 15:34
#7

J'aime bien le passage sur l'imba.
'Elfe est la meilleure race car cette race n'a pas de match up faible'.
Oui oui bien sur, Happy est undead donc il ne reconnait pas l'imba dans son match up vs NE xD

1
akai77

23-02-2009 @ 15:40
#8

"Mais normalement ça peut être à n’importe quel âge avant environ 24 ans. Parce que quand bien même on apprécie d’y jouer, les mains perdent en vitesse avec l’âge. "

i lol'd

1
azeN

23-02-2009 @ 15:42
#9

"Qui est ton personnage historique préféré ?
Personne, si j'avais à choisir cette personne parmi tout le monde, je me sélectionnerais moi-même."

L'elephant de mer se voit déjà faire les pages des bouquins d'histoire.

1
BuZ

23-02-2009 @ 15:43
#10

#8 pour le vitesse des mains je sais pas, mais pour les réflexes qui diminuent avec l'âge ça me semble assez vrai.

1
Didi

23-02-2009 @ 15:43
#11

Excellent esportrait

1
AmO

23-02-2009 @ 15:51
#12

sa va à 24 ans on a encore des réflexes

1
Lord!

23-02-2009 @ 15:52
#13

Merde, il écoute slipknot.

1
G5.DaNnY

23-02-2009 @ 15:57
#14

#8 xD
bon ben esperons que c'est n'est pas un peteu et qu'il va vraiment explosé =)

1
MKS

23-02-2009 @ 15:59
#15

je sais pas si c'est moi qui suis un vieux maintenant, mais il fait vraiment gamin en photo !
sinon il a quand même un sacré ego le petit bonhomme !
et pour les réflexes, ça diminue plutôt vers la 30aine, par contre la condition physique elle en a déjà pris un coup bien avant

1