We have a new installment in my ongoing quest to interview every CAL admin the league has ever had. At this pace, I should finish around the same time the NHL gets popular. Or the Cubs get good. Or people like Barry Bonds.
I could go on, but I’ll spare you … this time.
Tonight, CAL|Shawn, the Counter-Strike: Source CAL-Invite Division Manager is in the spotlight. I believe that’s CSSCIDM, for short. Thanks to CAL|Shawn for taking the time to answer my questions, and I hope you find his answers about his gaming career, map rotations, and the placement tournament enlightening.
1) So, I think we should start with a hard hitting question: if your real name is Chris Davis, how the heck did you end up with CAL|Shawn as your CAL handle?
CAL|Shawn: Great question and I’m sure many people are curious too. It was just bad timing I guess. When I became a CAL admin in October of 2005, there was already a CAL|Chris and a CAL|Davis. So they suggested CAL|ChrisD and I responded with my middle name, Shawn, instead. About a season later CAL|Davis became free, but I had already put in a lot of time as Shawn and I didn’t want to lose any potential community credibility I had gained with this name.
2) If the name Shawn was already taken in CAL, what would your name have been? Would they have let you make up a name, like, say … CAL|Grabthar’sHammer?
CAL|Shawn: It's CAL policy to use your first name or last name, so if CAL|Chris, CAL|Shawn, and CAL|Davis were all taken, I would have probably had to do something like CAL|CDavis, eh.
3) How long have you been a gamer, an admin, and what’s been your favorite parts about both?
CAL|Shawn: I've played single-player games since jr. high school, but I don't recall playing multi-player games until my senior year of high school, which was about 8 years ago. One of the things I've enjoyed most about being a CAL admin is the fact that I am in a position to help change the direction or environment of the gaming community if I give enough effort. I think one example who most people are familiar with is Wim Barleds, how his savvy knowledge of the game and its components rewrote the book on AC policies and exploit variables, just to name a couple things. Another person who made a significant impact was Mike Sek, who helped thoroughly update the CS:S ruleset and established a strong admin community and structure, something I didn't feel we had until he took the position of GM and held for 8 or so months.
4) One more question before we get to CAL. I want to focus on one of your other jobs: being the manager for the Check-Six Source team. I’m sure neither of those really pay the bills, so have you ever had problems juggling both of those duties, in terms of time or a possible conflict of interest, and do you think there are any similarities between managing a team (for x6) and managing sixteen teams (as an admin)?
CAL|Shawn: These days they’ve learned how to handle themselves responsibly in all regards I don’t really have to do much for them anymore. I advise them from time to time but they pretty much make their own decisions. I’m almost reluctant to use the term “manager” anymore. As for conflicts, I don’t ever recall having to make a CAL decision that affected the team even indirectly. They’ve been in Invite for some time and I was only this season appointed to manager the Invite division. Conversely, there have been moments sporadically in the past where I had to keep them motivated in CAL and I’m grateful they at least respect that request.
I think non-playing managers can make great admins because for both, you have to be able to see the bigger picture. Grover, the former AC manager for example, was also the manager of his Invite team. There are several other current and past admins who have been leaders of upper division teams and in nearly all cases they help bring stability to their teams and the league. I think it’s a good thing.
5) Alright,onto CAL questions. There have been huge changes to the league, and the Invite division specifically. Is this just the first step, or have you implemented most of the things you envisioned and now you just have to tweak it as you go along?
CAL|Shawn: There are a couple things to consider. The first is the state of the game as a whole by mid-August, and my guess is that even after dozens of teams are sent home following failed attempts at becoming one of the contracted CGS teams, the interest in playing by their match settings will still be high. On the other hand, if the last 4 spots in CGS go to 1.6 organizations when it is obvious that some should not be selected, the Source community could be appalled and infuriated and want to reject all things CGS. So that we'll have to see about.
The second is that it's difficult to tell what the extent of my control over such matters will be for Season 9. A lot of the changes I announced in late April were my own policies, but I have no idea how my successor will want to run Invite next season. De_cpl_maps might be used again, or the returning starters rule might be reset to 3, I don't know. Plus, there are other people helping me this season and it's hard to say if those people (such as you, Mike) will have the same rapport with the next admin. Hopefully I can smoothen the transition but we'll have to see how it goes. I'll be around until the next Placement Tournament, so I'll be pushing for increased season prizes next season, but other than that I can't really think of anything major to happen that I wasn't able to implement this season.
6) Obviously this is going to be the first season with the new changes, do you foresee any problems as teams adjust or do you think everything will run smoothly for the most part?
CAL|Shawn: I think teams are adjusting fine. Some people were concerned that it would be such a big change from the traditional CAL rules to the mr15-CGS config in Invite, but honestly, what upper-tier team hasn't already played with the CGS config? I think a larger percentage of the Invite teams this season are used to consistently playing two CAL matches a week than it has been in previous seasons. I am, however, hoping that teams don't overdo themselves in committing to too many leagues. Along with CAL, CEVO, and CGS, two more leagues are opening up in TGL and CGESA. It can get pretty crowded.
7) You mentioned that you’re going to be the Division Manager for one season because of a temporarily relaxed work schedule. Will you stay on with CAL in any kind of capacity (advisor, etc), or do you think it will be a complete exit?
CAL|Shawn: Well unfortunately, there is no shortage of people who want to tell admins how to do their job, yet there are never enough mature, qualified, active people to actually fill all of our administrative vacancies. During my two months off, I did stay in touch with some admins and helped periodically, but to me it always felt like the phrase "In for a penny, in for a pound." I don't think I'll be involved at all once I leave, and hopefully the staff will have been replenished at that point so that my absence won't be felt. I just got my masters degree and I'm continuing on for my doctorate, so I think this would be a good time to start focusing on my work and career.
8) One of the huge changes was the addition of a placement tournament, and I was to focus on that for a second. From what I know, there are a couple different ways to do placement tournaments. Professional soccer leagues demote/promote only a couple teams every season. In contrast, anybody that didn’t make the semi-finals in CEVO gets thrown into a tournament (only four of 16 teams were given guaranteed spots in CEVO-P). This season CAL promoted eight teams from the tournament while giving eight teams an auto-berth into Invite. Do you think that number will be smaller in future seasons, like the system pro soccer uses, or do you think it will be more similar to CEVO?
CAL|Shawn: The optimal number of teams in CAL-Invite is 16, while in CEVO-P it's less, around 10-12 (there were more teams last season due to the late adding of 1.6 transfers). So as I see it, roughly the same number of teams are invited to the top division via the Placement Tournament, only there are fewer auto-berthed teams in CEVO to begin with. As for CAL-Invite Season 9, I have to wait to see how the situation is at the end of this season first. There are a couple of things I know will be improved and then a few things we just have to wait to see how many vacancies there are in Invite before the PT even starts.
Another thing that's really hard to tell right now is how everything is going to pan out after the CGS teams have been selected. Right now there are about 2 dozen teams out there that are only concentrating on CGS and maybe CEVO, and if you take CGS out of the picture for them, they might want to turn to CAL. Who knows, we might have prizes more appealing to the upper-tier teams next season. So I think it's safe to say that the next PT will be similar to this last one, but it will address and improve upon the concerns people had about various things.
9) Staying on that topic, some people were miffed about a few teams in the PT; specifically, why teams from Open and Intermediate, the two lowest divisions, were given spots. What was the thought process behind that?
CAL|Shawn: The first concern I had was that I didn’t want to devalue the Season 7 Main playoffs, so only the top placers were given a chance to play along with some Invite teams. But there were still some spots left and since this tournament was only open to existing teams, I had to expand beyond Main and Invite and in doing so I spoke to my colleagues and picked a couple teams we felt could compete the best from the lower divisions. In future seasons, we can look back on how this went and make changes where necessary, but we ended up making this PT somewhat of a CAL-wide event and I’m happy with the way things turned out.
10) Why Prodigy for preseason? Was Aztec considered too T-sided?
CAL|Shawn: I thought it would be funny to see the terrorists try to get to a bombsite in 1 minute and 20 seconds. I know that no one will practice for the map so we might as well try something fun. I would have thrown in a map like cs_assault or cs_office, but I know the teams would just shoot the hostages and camp out in the closets just to be funny. I’m sure we’ll hear of some interesting things on de_prodigy but hopefully nothing quite so…happy.
11) What considerations go into choosing a maplist for the season? Is there any rhyme or reason (splitting up CT-sided maps, for instance) that go into it, or is it just whatever provides some change from the schedules of previous seasons?
CAL|Shawn: There's no pre-existing formula on how it's done. Seasons 6 and 7 were synchronized with CEVO but this season we released our maplist first so it looks like only 3 or 4 maps overlap. Back in Seasons 3-5 when Ruth was the GM, he felt that we shouldn't have two de_cpl_maps back to back anytime in the season. I think every season we try to end with a popular map, such as de_train, de_nuke, and de_cpl_mill as has been done in the most recent seasons. Newer maps to the CAL rotation never seem to be last, and the more pub-friendly maps always seem to be toward the beginning of the season. So yea, this is probably more information than you needed.
12) The WSVG announced a deal with CBS broadcasting and the CGS has DirecTV. Do you think that online leagues will gradually be phased out as the action moves more towards LAN play? Or do you think there is always going to be a place and usefulness for CAL, CEVO, etc, as a place where people can play for fun instead of playing to “go pro”?
CAL|Shawn: I think there will always be online leagues and that its importance will remain high. For one, gamers who do not meet the age requirements for some of these LAN and TV-broadcasted competitions, or players who are too young to be traveling to LANs, will still need places to have fun in competitive environments. For the older and more professional players, it wouldn't be that wise to enter into LAN events without online preparation because without it, a team could think they are incredibly strong, only to travel a long way and pay a lot of money to be pummeled in LAN competition. Teams have to know where they stand as a unit before they commit to such conditions.
13) Lastly, it wouldn’t be a LANDodger interview without a crazy question that makes readers question my sanity. With that in mind, if you were stranded on an island with a solar-powered computer, what game would you have on it? And when you’re escaping from the island in a raft, and you had to choose between your laptop or your only companion – a volleyball named Milson – which one gets left behind?
CAL|Shawn: One of my favorite games of all time is Deus Ex, and if I had to pick only one game that would probably be it. But I'm a practical guy... when escaping the island I don't think a water-dead heavy laptop would do me much good. The volleyball might not be much better, but I'd still go with it.
Quick Recap
– I totally forgot about Deus Ex, but that was a really fun game.
– Maybe we should have fun maps every preseason. Bring back Aztec, Tides, Port. Convert Scouts’n’Knives into a de_ map. How could that not be fun?
– CAL|ChrisD, one of the alternate names he listed, has a nice rhythm to it for a CS rap.
– And lastly, if you’re ever stranded on an island with CAL|Shawn, I hope you float better than a laptop.
Just kidding. You only need to be a better companion than a volleyball. That's not so bad.
