Dear AoC community,
I had the pleasure to do an interview with Chinese Game Poster Fine
about the Chinese AoC community, with some answering assistance by Paladin:
1. Hi, what is your position in the community and which nickname(s) do you usually use?
Hello, everyone. I am a Game Poster of the Chinese community, going by the nickname Fine. My job is to post some of the games from AoCZone or Voobly/Voobly China on the community forums.
2. How old are you, when did you play Age of Empires II the first time and since when online?
I'm 22 years old. The first time I played this game was in July 2012. After playing for a month, I was looking for other players to play on the Internet.
3. Do you have a clan and what does your clan name stand for and what can you tell about it?
My team is QY. QY is the abbreviation of a Chinese word: QY = 情谊 [qíngyì]. It means friendship or friendliness. Our goal is friendship first, win or lose second. We often play some unusual maps, mostly like MR (MegaRandom) or Michi - in contrast to most other AoC players playing Arabia or Nomad.
4. About Voobly China: For longer I saw the maximum amount of players being online in the China Lobby at around 400, now I have more often seen 600. Is that thanks to more streams of Paladin (fengxin) and _VG_F0rgeT (qiuqiao)?
I think so. There are more people, who know the game through the streams. It also makes a lot of people remember that game, they have played before. But those new players at Voobly China mainly like to play with the Barbarian 11.
Voobly China RM 1v1 and TG Top 20, 2015/09/30 12:30 GMT
5. How much growth potential for Voobly China do you still see in the next few years?
I think there is a lot of potential. In fact, there are many people playing AoC in China, including Single Player (with AI) and online. People who play online use different clients including Tencent and HF. Voobly China is the least used client in China.
The total number of people playing on these other online clients is close to 5000, I guess.
But why don't these people focus on Voobly China? I think there are 4 main issues:
1) There are a lot of FP (Fast Proxy). This is due to the special causes of the Chinese network.
2) The settings of Voobly China are more complex. In other clients, just setting the game path. But there is still need to set up NAT to avoid FP or downloading some important mods like small trees. On the other hand, if they have problems during setup, they can look for Chinese guidance on Baidu [Most common and popular Chinese online search engine, comparable to Google]. However, since the time since Voobly China's establishment is too short yet, there is no guidance they can understand to teach them how to solve the problems. I am very happy to translate some guidance into Chinese about Voobly China. But now I have to prepare for the entrance examination and college thesis. Once I succeeded with that, I will do these.
3) The number of Chinese AoC players knowing Voobly is too small.
4) In China, there are a lot of players, who just like playing AoC 1.0. Those players don't want to play AoC without for example the farming bug. Although the 1.0 version can be played on Voobly China, it is not the same. It did fix the farming bug. These stubborn players can be ignored, I think. FengXin (Paladin) has said that the FP problem will be resolved within 1 year. I know little about the Internet issues, so I can't tell more details. And after the big tournaments - Nations Cup 2015, WSVG and Top Team Invitation (a little TG tournaments sponsored by SY, inviting TyRanT, zZ, NaBs, VNS and WolfpacK), he will teach the new players how to set up Voobly and how to play a good game, live on stream. I think it can make more people know Voobly China and more people interested in the AoC. I predict that Voobly China will reach 800 or more players by the end of this year.
6. Where do the new players come from and which other clients do they still use? How many average online players do they have? How many of those do you think would be 2k+ players?
The main source of new players now are two ways: Baidu Post Bar and Douyu.tv streams. Baidu Post Bar and Douyu streams can guide some of the single players to play online. Apart from Voobly/Voobly China, there still are the Tencent and HF game clients.
HF has around 1500 players every day and Tencent around 2500, including RM, DM and other maps as "14A Bloody Castle", "War of the Three Kingdoms" and "Grassland", which you can compare to CBA and other custom scenarios on Voobly.
I think that none of those players would be 2k+ on Voobly. Most expert players (above 1900) are in Voobly/Voobly China already. The two other clients are more used by casual players or for relaxed and lower level games like the New Player Lobby in Voobly or Steam.
7. When in the Nations Cup Chinese players play or there are big 1v1 duels of Yo for example, douyu.tv streams often reach multiple 10,000s of viewers. Do you know how many have played AoC or are very interested in it? Or is it more that they want to support their proud nation, but know less about the game?
I think it is more that viewers support their proud nation or just enjoy watching a game show. Whenever an important tournament is held, the Douyu administrator will put the AoC stream on the front page and it attracts more visitors' attention. So whenever the national team has a an important match, for example China against Japan (interesting because of historical reasons) or China's number 1 against the world's number 1 (Yo vs. TheViper), the viewer count can reach 100,000 or more. Indeed, the real AoC players among those are only 10-15,000.
8. People often ask about Tim and he has even played together with some SY/China A-D members recently, but did not participate in the WSVG World Cup or Nations Cup.
Tim seemed to lose enthusiasm since he failed in CoT (Clash of Titans 1v1) and he spends a lot of time at work to earn money. He is the father of two children. So even if he is back now, it is almost impossible for him to participate in any big tournament [by Paladin].
9. Obviously Nomad is a very popular map among Chinese AoC players. Has that always been like that? And do you know why? I have read opinions that they love the luck factor, or that the Chinese civilisation is one of the two best on this map being a reason. Is something about that true?
The opinions are not exactly correct. The Chinese civilisation is also one of the best in Land Nomad, but LN is not as popular in China.
So my view is:
1) Some Chinese top experts are not so good at micromanaging (e.g. Tim, Paladin, Geoffrey, LoveCheng). Their advantages are experience and using the right strategies appropriately. On Nomad, experience and strategy are more important than micromanagement. So these players like to play Nomad a lot. This has made Nomad the most popular for other players and clans too.
2) The pace of Nomad is slower than on Arabia and there are some luck factors. So this is very suitable for leisure and entertainment.
10. Are these huge amounts of Nomad games only for fun, or are there Chinese 1v1 Nomad tournaments too? If an international 1v1 Nomad tournament happened, would you think many Chinese players would participate, also some that have been 2k+ rated on Voobly China, but were not part of recent big tournaments, for example _IamAlone, _VG_Breeve, _Myx4ever_ (_XinYan_)?
China will not hold a 1v1 Nomad tournament in the near future. But if an international 1v1 Nomad tournament happened, I think it will have a lot of Chinese players participate. But Chinese players' English is not good, some have network troubles and scheduling will be difficult. So maybe they would need some AoCZone or Voobly staff come to the Chinese community to help them scheduling.
11. Are there some important tournaments happening in China (both 1v1 and TG), that no one outside knows of?
As I mentioned before, after the Nations Cup and WSVG, probably in November, China will host a top team invitational. The total prize is $5,000. TyRanT, WolfpacK, NaBs, zZ and VNS will be invited. SY will also participate.
12. Are there map packs made by Chinese community members too? Like we have had MegaRandom, UltraRandom, Light_Random, SY_Map_Pack, WiC_Map_Pack and many more.
Yes. The Chinese community has created some popular map packs, but not for RM, more CS. Download a selection here: http://www.aoczone.net/viewtopic.php?f=104&t=115849.
13. Can you tell something about some big and/or important Chinese clans apart from SY? I see a lot of players being members in CBJ, HN, VIP for example. VG and Air are some I have noticed a few famous players still keeping in their names, but they are now members of other clans. What happened to those for example?
SY is an international clan. Only in international tournaments, China's top players will be concentrated in SY. In China's domestic tournaments like the JX Cup (TG tournament) and JiangJun Cup (1v1), the international clan is not allowed to participate. The same goes for CKF and NFQ.
For example in the JX Cup IV those clans participated: JX (goodboy, qiu, james, _Myx4ever_), CBJ (Thepen, LoveCheng, Lyx, _CBJ_lang), FJ (NO_23 (Miss_Xue), Yo, Yu, Abu, if), VG1 (vivi, IamOK, Duck, cl (happyhappy)), VG2 (Tim, Paladin, geoffrey, _VG_lang) etc.
Those clans' names are a city's or region's name abbreviation, like JX = JiangXi, CBJ = Chinese BeiJing, FJ = FuJian, HN = HaiNan. Now many Chinese players' name, if the join SY or CKF is [International Clan Name]_(Regional Clan Name)_Player Name, for example [_SY_]Air_Abu_, [CKF]_VG_ForgeT_, [CKF]_VG_lang etc.
14. Chinese AoC culture has brought some new words to the international AoC language. Everybody knows the story and meaning of "grass". But can you explain phrases like "sb", "cowb" and "cowz"? I know a bit more about it, but most people don't.
"B" has the same pronunciation as a word for vagina (屄 [bī]) in Chinese, "S" stands for silly. The cow is a strong and useful animal for humans. So cow stands for powerful and strong. CowB is the best, while CowZ is the worst, since Z is the last letter in the alphabet. What a shameful question!! 111.
15. In the international AoC community there are very few 1800 rated female players and none above 2k, how does it look like in China? Is the game also much less popular among girls? I know Paladin once said that his wife also played it and some profiles of better players on Voobly China say that they are female, but you can never know the truth about online gaming profiles.
Yeah, I think AoC is less popular among girls, Chinese girls prefer playing business or role-playing games. Nevertheless, there are still some girls playing Age of Empires. In each clan there always are a few female players. There is even a clan composed entirely of female players. But it's the same as for the international AoC community, there may be none above 1k. But there are some 1800-1900 rated ones like [VIP]GEM on Voobly China and she is truly a female player, maybe she is #1 female Chinese player right now (http://www.vooblycn.com/profile/view/1867 ; maximum 1v1 rating 1955, now 1914).
[One game against Abu here: viewtopic.php?f=91&t=115243&sgexp=136320 , 4 games against 1989xiaoyi here: viewtopic.php?f=91&t=113754&sgexp=134707]
16. Why do some Chinese players (as far as I know) still play more or only on Voobly International: For example __Duck, _CCS_Acuo, _LK_SkyWalkeR_? Do the prefer more different opponents over more smooth games or do you know different reasons?
I think there are two reasons. Firstly, there are more players on Voobly International. They can start a game faster. They are keen to play 1v1 against others, for which there are more chances than on Voobly China. Another reason is that the Voobly International ranking are better established and are better to prove their strength in a worldwide field of players.
17. If you would rank the top 10 Chinese 1v1 players right now, who would it include?
1. Yo (of course)
2. Tim and Yinghua (LoveCheng) tied
4. Paladin (Fengxin) - although he pays more attention to TG, he is still an excellent 1v1 player, especially on water maps and on Nomad
5. Abu
6. IamOK
7. vivi - perhaps he is more powerful on Arabia, could be top 3 on Arabia, but still unstable performances, like losing 1-3 to IamOK in the WSVG qualification
8. Miss_Xue
9. Lyx - is a famous rush player
10. fangxiaoqi (Win_wu_kong)
In addition to these, xiaoxiong, cl (happyhappy), _XD_xiaofan and Whoop also have the potential to enter the top ten.
18. Do you have anything more to add or any related questions?
I want to say something about the communication between Chinese AoC community and International AoC community:
1) I know that China's network is very bad so that it causes lag in game. I can understand the dissatisfaction and complaints from some international players. But this is not the fault of the Chinese players. It is China's network operators who made the enormous firewall. Chinese players are also trying their best to improve the quality of the game with purchasing proxy servers or using VPN. So please show understanding and tolerance. I think this situation will become better and better.
2) China's AoC is a big AoC community. But the Chinese and international exchange is limited to language and networks. I think this is a loss for both sides. For example every tournament's Prediction Contest did not have the Chinese people participate. Registering an account on AoCZone in China's Internet is a very difficult thing, so, although many Chinese people want to discuss and participate in the activities in AoCZone, it is impossible. So I hope AoCZone can have a representative for the exchange to collect some information from the Chinese community such as tournaments sign up or prediction contests.
3) Thanks to all staff and administrators of Voobly and AoCZone, and all sponsors of tournaments. Because of your contributions and efforts, making Age of Empires II, a 15-year-old game such a strong vitality.
Thank you for your interview!
Thank you for your contributions!
Links:
Chinese AoC community main site: http://www.diguobbs.com/forum.php
Voobly China: http://www.vooblycn.com/
Streams: Paladin: http://www.douyutv.com/fengxin, _VG_F0rgeT: http://www.douyutv.com/qiuqiao, YingZi: http://www.douyutv.com/yingzimm