So, could you explain your roles as an administrator for DotA?

Currently, I and some of the other administrators don't have clearly defined roles; we often just do whatever needs to be done. Some of the stuff I do includes managing our potential sponsorships and acting as a liaison to various DotA related communities. I also have behind the scenes roles in various leagues (such as CAL), and plan on arranging some LAN tournaments in the future. Right now however, I'm putting most of my effort into getting our website fully functional again as it is an integral part of the DotA community.

There have always been rumors of an official DotA LAN tournament in Las Vegas and an Asian country. What is the status of these events?

I want to plan a large LAN tournament in Las Vegas at the end of this year, as it's where I live and would be the easiest place for me to make arrangements. However, there are no official plans yet for a DotA All-Stars sponsored tournament at this time. We will continue to support various leagues in their online tournaments, and we are always happy to plug the many smaller tournaments that go on at LAN centers around the world

How much promotion have you done in Asia/Europe alone?

The nice thing about working with DotA is that we don't really have to promote it, the game promotes itself. I and the DotA staff in general, have mostly only been spreading DotA popularity through word of mouth, rather than through traditional promotional methods. We're currently working with several organizations however, to make DotA more mainstream around the world.

I believe that a observer slot for Waaagh!TV recording, which would allow others to watch the game, would definitely give more hype to the game. Will we see an observer slot in the near future?

That's something that's definitely being looked into. Due to the current limitations of the WC3 engine, and map development coding, it's not something that's particularly easy to do, but definitely a possibility to look forward to in the future.

What steps are you taking or going to take in the near future in order to change DotA from a fun custom to the potential next big game?

Unfortunately, I'm not allowed to talk much about that.

What is that supposed to mean? Are we saying that you can't reveal potential events, map changes, and deals with sponsors?

Hehe sorry, can't answer that! I promise we have big things in the works! DotA fans around the world will definitely not be disappointed.

If Blizzard decided to make a DotA ladder, would it have negative or positive effects on the game?

Support from Blizzard is always welcome, without their amazing work with Warcraft III, we wouldn't be talking now! I'm sure they wouldn't do anything to hurt the most popular War3 map on battle.net!

What if Blizzard wanted to take over the mapping of DotA?

Blizzard is a company that holds themselves to high moral standards. That being said, I'm sure they wouldn't try to force our project out of our hands; it would be an extremely unethical thing to do.

What would you think if both you and Icefrog had to decide to hand the map off to Blizzard?

I don't think either of us would want to pass off the work we've done with DotA, we've put far too much of our time into it to not see it through to its fullest potential.

One word, Necrobook. What's going happen to it?

That's something you'd have to ask Icefrog about, I choose to keep my hands clean of map development stuff :)

We see a lot more potential in Europe and Asia, especially in countries like Singapore and Malaysia. What allows those countries to have more tournaments and so many players? What have you taken from these countries and would like to bring to North America?

I believe that LAN centers are more popular in those countries; which really helps to spread the word. I know at a few of the LAN centers near where I live, DotA is becoming extremely popular. When I go there I have to make sure not to tell them who I am, for fear of harassment! The countries mentioned are also smaller countries, so you tend to have communities of people who all play games together, and as I mentioned before – DotA owes a large portion of its popularity to word of mouth.

What differences do you see with American and Asian/European DotA?

Tough to say, I mostly play on USEast so I couldn't tell you a lot about European DotA playing. I'm sure there are a lot of different strategies, because many of the strategies we see in games are "fads" -- I go to TDA and see one strategy, a public and I see another, USWest I see another, etc. It's amazing the kind of things people pick up

Rumors are that you received money to upgrade the site. Is that why it is taking so long to get it running?

Well, we haven't gotten any money yet, but we may be getting some soon. If we do, it's going straight to website upgrades.

Are you doing any promotions for this game to become an event at major tournaments such as CPL, WCG and other international events?

We are making an active effort to get DotA into the CPL and WCG, although I'm not allowed to talk about specifics at this time.

Do you see any teams becoming sponsored like coL.DotA?

Yes! I see a lot more competitive teams in DotA, and fully expect many teams to gain sponsorship in the coming months. Many people refer to DotA as the Counter-Strike of WC3, so this would be the next logical step in the popularity progression!

The learning curve for new players of DotA is immensely steep compared to other games. What efforts have you done to make this transition more smooth?

We're working on a web based hybrid guides/questions system, where official guides will be posted for certain heroes or situations, and players will be able to ask the author of the guide questions. With the forums returning shortly, new players should find it at least slightly easier to learn how to play.

Will we see a single player tutorial in the near future?

There are no plans to create a single player tutorial at this time, there have been talks (although nothing set in stone!) about releasing official AI versions, where people could play against computers until they felt they were capable of playing against people.

Do you put down DotA on your resume?

I don't have a resume, I'm self employed, but if I did I definitely would. We put tons of work into DotA, and I consider our efforts an amazing accomplishment.

In typical fashion, provide the readers with a random interesting DotA fact.

Getting additional damage items or adding stats to Juggernaut does not increase the damage done per hit! The ability does the same damage per swing, no matter what level the ability is, or what items the hero has.

Shoutouts?

I'd like to give mentions to the old school DotA admins, Guinsoo, Syl-la-ble, Eul, and anyone else I'm forgetting who put their time and effort into making DotA what it is today.