[crAzerk]

Feeling blue on a Monday? Time for an uber article!!



Get To Know Your SEA!

Welcome to this new series of interview articles, where I will sit down and have a chat with certain members of the SEA community, just to get to know them more (Apart from your typical 'What's your favourite SC2 build' stuff!).
For each series of interviews, there will be a certain theme to the people we talk to. For this first series, we will look at...

Popular Members of SC2SEA!

To kick things off, I've got a pretty long interview (I warned you. It is loooong!) with one of the most prominent people in Australian e-Sports! He is a name known to all, being a frequent organizer of SC2 events, heavily involved in the SC2SEA community, and always contributing in some way to the SC2 Scene! He is none other than Derek 'Dox' Reball!

I know you want to read more. Go on click it.

+ Show +

crAzerk: ok hi derek/dox! Or should I say, wolf?! Tbh I don't quite know about your past. Why did you change from vvolf (wolf?) to Dox?



Dox: Hi there I originally made up the name "VVoLF" in StarCraft 1 'cos it was my first time playing an online game and I used to draw lots of pictures of wolves and stuff when I was a kid. I used the name for like... 13 years until it started feeling a bit childish, so when SC2 came out I decided to start fresh with a new name, new community, new mindset, all that sort of stuff.

Dox is a character in a series of thriller novels written by my favourite Author, Barry Eisler. He's a marine sniper who gets his nickname for his unorthodox tactics. I thought it suited me quite well.

crazerk: So you like reading thrillers? Like Tom Clancy?

Dox:

+ [ Doxs reading habits] +

I've never really been able to get into any Clancy, I dunno what it is about Barry Eislers stuff, it really engages me. The guy is an ex-CIA operative who specialised in surveillance and counter-surveillance, and all of his books are written from his own experiences in the CIA and using locations he has lived & travelled in his life. So it's like he's sharing his own experiences through his characters (John Rain & Ben Treven). I usually read a lot of crime novels like Alex Kava and Kathy Reichs (the basis for the TV show "Bones") and read a lot of Animorphs when I was a kid.

Dox: After reading Barry's novels, you develop a bit of social paranoia. You can't help but analyse every person you see on the street and gauge their threat levels. It's really quite cool, you learn a lot about how to identify people by their movements and gait.

crazerk: You seem like you'll be an excellent criminal profiler

Dox: Hahahaha, yeah if the whole programming thing doesn't work out, maybe I'll look down that alley. ^_<


Nice shades! (Stop looking elsewhere).

crazerk: oh yea! i recall you mentioning you're working in programming for an MNC right?

Dox: Yeah, it's a global engineering firm. Enviro, Mining, Geotech, Civil, we cover all sectors.

crazerk: Don't suppose you get to utilize that ability of yours in your job eh? hehe. what do you do then? just write codes? (sorry i'm pretty ignorant about this)
Do you do things related to the mechanisms and operations of stuff?

Dox:

+ [Doxs complicated-sounding but highly-impressive job] +

There are several elements to my job, it's a role I "invented" for myself within the company and it's something that is really starting to fly. Prior to my project, there weren't really "IT" opportunities within an engineering firm beyond helpdesk and infrastructure management, whereas this is an ongoing development role. My roles include engaging with manufacturers to develop reliable hardware platforms (ie. ruggedized tablet computers) to be used by our engineers and scientists in the field. I've since developed and optimised a software package to be used by the aforementioned field staff for logging their data digitally, rather than using the older archaic methods of pen and paper.

Dox: It's a pretty cool, streamlined process. We went from pen and paper with admin staff re-typing everything that was sent back to the office (covered in mud) with a 1-3 month turnaround to a national SQL database syncing with a fleet of 50 tablets around the country on a daily basis. Turnaround improved to less than 4 hours.

Dox: It's been my own personal project I've spent the last 5 years building and it's culminated to a fully-fledged national standard. We're taking it global (to our american/canadian offices first) early next year. I'll be presenting at a mining conference in Perth about 3 weeks from now.
And of course because this is something I've developed myself from the ground up, I've had to bring on additional developers and teach them the ropes, whilst also designing user-friendly modules for support staff to use, training them, training the engineers, blah blah blah. So it's like... two thirds development, one third marketing.

crazerk: Ok so you're not just Sir Superman on SC2SEA.com but you are also Superman in your career! Being a pioneer of something this big definitely has to mean you have pretty solid rep with your company and the industry!

Dox:

+ [More about Dox being amazing] +

Yeah it's had a pretty big impact on the industry, we're winning a lot of bids on huge NSW and QLD projects simply because we can offer our clients a new service that our competitors are struggling to keep up with.

Within a year of launching the project I was approached by pretty much every big name firm in the country! Everyone wanted in on it. (Mining companies have been doing digital data capture for like a decade but their systems are nowhere near as sophisiticated)

crazerk: I gather that you're a very driven person - to be able to innovate and develop something like that, and bring it to the scale it is at - would certainly require passion! Talking about passion, it is apparent that you have a passion for e-sports as well! I mean, sponsoring your own tournaments!

Dox: Hahaha yeah... with a whole new generation of players popping up with SC2, there's a great number of people who don't know that I've actually been driving Australian eSports for 11 years now. It's been a pretty bumpy ride but I wouldn't trade it for anything. For me, it'll always be nothing more than a hobby but it's the most fun you can have!

crazerk: 'Nothing more than a hobby' is probably an understatement - it seems to me that you're more involved than just that! I understand you have some 'big plans' on the way, care to share about one of the more exciting ones?

Dox: I'll be making announcement posts sometime within the next few days, but here's a brief outline:

+ [ IGN ProLeague!] +

* IGN ProLeague #4: Pacific Qualifiers - This is something I've been cooking up for a while, and to dismiss all skepticism, I've written contracts and had them signed before making any noise. So I'll be hosting the Australian qualifiers for the event over the next 2 weeks. (Short notice, but there are plenty of opportunities.)
So the way this event will work, is there are 64 spots available for players to sign up. These players will be divided across 8 groups (of 8) and play off in a series of round robins to determine the best (2) players in each group. The top 2 in each group will advance to a 16 player, Double Elimination bracket.
The top two Australian players from this 16 player bracket will receive an all-expenses paid trip to compete in the IGN ProLeague Pacific Qualifiers, held in Manila in November.
I'll be seeding players / teams throughout each of the groups to ensure a fair and balanced distribution. Players can only participate in ONE group.

Dox:

+ [Team iCHOR Corsair Events] +

Team iCHOR Corsair Events
This is essentially a smaller, weekly event that I'll be using to populate an otherwise "event-less" Tuesday night. $100 cash and some hardware up for grabs every week. Thanks Corsair and MWave!

Dox:

+ [Thermaltake Charity Challenge] +

Thermaltake Charity Challenge: Just a BSG event with a small sum of prizes (cash & hardware) to generate money to be donated to charity. Small entry fee.

Dox: And the big one... Dox Cup #2!
Here's the gyst of it:

+ [Dox Cup #2!] +

- Around ~$1500 prize money at this stage, will probably escalate to $2,000.
- 128 player bracket
- Top 8 players from the previous event seeded to the Ro32.
- 8 International Invites have also been seeded to the Ro32.
- Some of these players will include EG.iNcontroL, FXO.qxc and Grubby. I'll leave the rest as a mystery for now.
- 2 day event. Ro32 proceeds on Sunday.

crAzerk: omg Grubby! My fav WC3 player!

Dox:




crazerk: Anw thanks for the heads up! These events sound exciting and I'll be looking forward to your announcement posts
And talking abt Blizzard games, I've heard you've been a beta tester for Blizzard for quite some time now.. how long exactly? Were you playing since WC1? (I did :P )

Dox:

+ [Blizzard-games history!] +

Hmm, yeah... I played WarCraft 1 when it came out and I fell in love with Blizzard RTS with WarCraft 2. I couldn't go back to games like Total Annihilation or Dark Reign after that. And C&C just didn't compare. I remember running to the newsagent to buy the PC PowerPlay magazine which had the StarCraft preview and talking about it with my friends for ages. I was the only "good" player amongst all my friends at school, so we'd sit around and I'd explain build orders and unit counters to them in our lunch breaks, hahaha.

I've beta tested Diablo 2, WarCraft 3, The Frozen Throne Expansion (beat PussInBoots in a HvH in a Beta Tournament hosted by Blizzard, my claim to fame lol), World of WarCraft & all it's expansions (provided a lot of coverage to the WoW community via my old guild - TDM Blackrock - forums), SC2 and most recently Diablo 3.

Dox with the lovely Zie!

crazerk: No idea how you find time for all that (WoW especially)
Speaking of which, are you married?

Dox: It's tricky to find the time, I admit my management is pretty poor. I spread myself across so many things and it hard to really do any of them properly lol. I don't sleep much. Not married. :P Won't be for a while at least!

crazerk: Hehe so those single ladies (not that there are many in this community) who like an overachieving capable programmer have a chance eh :P
Hmm so it seems you're a real loyal Blizzard fan - do you play other games though? FPS and the sort?

Dox: Hahaha, I have a girlfriend at the moment! But who knows, there might be hope for any such ladies out there. :P
I also play a LOT of console, all of my favourite non-Blizzard games are on console.

crazerk: Well this has taken much longer than I said, because you're such a willing interviewee Let's wrap it up with a final question - Tell me something that's interesting about yourself! Something that you want to share with the SC2SEA about YOU.

Dox: hmm... let's see. How about 3 random facts:
1) I practice a burmese style of martial arts called Arakan. It's really fascinating. I'm analytical by nature and I love studying the technique and practicality of Arakan.
2) I can read and write Korean, I used to speak fluently (Korean gf) but that went to shit after a few years.
3) I have not beaten mOOnGLaDe in a single game of ANYTHING since the WarCraft 3 Frozen Throne Beta tournament - I beat him in the semi finals only because Human had Speed Scrolls from their racial shop, making Defend Footmen stupidly strong. We've met in several dozen tournaments over the years but I've never been able to touch him.

crazerk: Well for me 1) I have never lost to mOOnGLaDe in a single game of ANYTHING before...

also because i've never played him in anything before lolol
Ok anyway, thanks alot for your time! You were a great interviewee!

Dox: Np man!

The next part of this series will come out either in a fortnight or next week, depending on the response. And this is THE longest interview I have, the rest are considerably shorter don't worry! I've already tried to spoiler-tag many things here to make it look less intimidating to read. Dox was just a great interviewee so it kept on going!

What do you think about this series? Too boring? Too long? Too short? More pictures? Who do you want to learn about? Leave your comments below!

Quick Comments

	neon:
	Mezza:
	ToRDeathsFang:	<3 both the interviewer and interviewer
	nirvAnA:
	TCPLemminks:	great questions ^^
	Nemo:	Awesome

[nirvAnA]

Really liking this series, looking forward to the rest!!

didnt know dox could speak korean fluently thats sick.

Nice shades! (Stop looking elsewhere).

opps

Quick Comments

	TCPLemminks:	I know, it's obvious that Dox went that in on purpose, I mean look at the girl in the camo, cover up sheesh
	ToRDeathsFang:	i nodded approvingly

[neon]

Nice work crAzerk, well written article with some interesting questions, I like it.

Dox - what console games do you play / favourites ? and do you still play WoW currently ?

[iM tgun]

Dox, the true baller of Aus Esports.

[PiG]

really fascinating read keep up the good work crazerk and wow its cool to see dox has been involved in esports for so long!

[Dox]

Hmm? I'm the one without shades in that photo! One of my friends was sitting on my shoulders at Summafieldayze and she knocked them off my head.

Originally Posted by neon

Dox - what console games do you play / favourites ? and do you still play WoW currently ?

Hmm, well, my PS3 died the same day Little Big Planet 2 came out, and I've been really slack with regards to getting it fixed/replaced. Doing that right now, actually. So I haven't played any console games for a while, but what I'm looking forward to most in the upcoming months:
- Zelda: Skyward Sword
- Assassins Creed: Revelations
- Uncharted 3
- Mario Kart 7

And as for some of my favourites, in no particular order (excluding obvious precedents to the above titles):
- Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots
- Bayonetta
- Darksiders
- Final Fantasy 8
- Metroid: Other M
- Little Big Planet
- Super Mario Galaxy 2
- Ninja Gaiden series
- Final Fantasy 10
- Halo series
- Super Mario World (SNES)
- Secret of Mana
- God of War Trilogy
- Final Fantasy VII: Crisis Core
- Smash Bros. series
- Kirby's Epic Yarn
- Kingdom Hearts
- Bulletstorm
- Blur (The best thing since Mario Kart 64)
- Dead or Alive series
- New Donkey Kong Country (Wii)
- Lumines
- Final Fantasy: Dissidia - Duodecim

Just a few off the top of my head.


And nope, I don't play WoW anymore. I cancelled my account as soon as the SC2 beta begun, and came back for 1 month (free) when Cataclysm came out to see what was new. I don't plan on playing the game again, but I'll probably end up buying the Mists of Pandaria CE just to support Blizzard. WoW was literally the game I played to keep me entertained between WC3 and SC2.

Quick Comments

	neon:	Mariokart 7 Yesssssssss
	TCPLemminks:	one of these kids is not like the others
	iM yang:	i LIKE YOU, yOU nice GUY!

[neon]

Originally Posted by Dox

Hmm? I'm the one without shades in that photo! One of my friends was sitting on my shoulders at Summafieldayze and she knocked them off my head.

I uh...

Nevermind.

[DtorR]

Excellent interview and article CrAzerk!

Dox is a king among men, he is going to carry SEA E-sports all the way to the future!

[TAhackdZ]

I heard from a friend of a friend that Dox has a HUGE....

Also he is a gentleman and a scholar....

That is all

[crAzerk]

Thanks for all the positive comments guys, I'll try to get part 2 out next Monday

And yay I haz silver star

[gezza]

because he's the hero SEA deserves, but not the one it needs right now. So we'll hunt him because he can take it. Because he's not our hero. He's a silent guardian, a watchful protector. A sick nerd baller.

Quick Comments

neon:

touching