DuRuS speaks to Adam "vanner" Vanner after his busy period in the CoD4 scene

Everyone will know vanner for being one of the big players in the UK CoD4 scene. He was part of the Infused team that upset the CoD4 scene in 2008 during the summer.

But recently he has come back into the scene playing for NCE.i3D. However, most people will recognise him for the work he has done in the community. Most noticeably is the work he did in securing CoD4 at the upcoming CIC7 event as well as launching his recent idea, Vita Nova.

I took some time out to have a chat with him to see how things were coming along in vanner world.

Welcome back to Cadred vanner. It was quite a long time ago that we last spoke to you in the grand shape of things, and a lot has changed since then. But firstly, what was it that motivated you to get back into CoD4 after you went inactive for a period of time late last year?

Hello again! After YoYo-Tech folded I just wanted to spend a few days/weeks with friends and my girlfriend because I felt like I was working 2 full time jobs really... Watching the summer lans hadn't made me want to get back playing and it was Choobies constant nagging to play some pcw's with his team that finally paid off really. After i38 and the MW2 disaster I was more motivated than ever really.

Currently you are playing for NCE.i3D, but what was it that brought you back to play for them rather than other teams? Are they the right team for you?

Probably the only team who wanted me in all honesty. I had absolutely no other offers at all; maybe I should have taken that as a hint ;-). Yeah I'm actually really enjoying playing with them. In Thomas (choobie) I've found someone who really agrees with me in how the game should be played at the top level. The other members of the team know everything there is to know about the game and pass on that to me whilst I feel I pass on my experience a little. We've got the right kind of balance of experience and fresh blood desperate to do well.

How would you currently compare NCE to the other top teams around such as fnatic, Power and dignitas? Do you think you can realistically challenge them for a top spot?

Theoretically yes, realistically it'll be very tough. Each of the above teams all has their strengths and each is completely different to play against and more importantly beat. I rate us higher than the old YoYo Tech team and I'm confident we'll come top 8 at CIC7. Whether we can break through and challenge the top tier depends on if we take our A game to the lan events. This game is ever so close at the top and it's the little things that win rounds.

Do you think this is the strongest team you have played in for CoD4? Would you rate it better than the Infused team of 2008? Is it more fun to play in than that team?

That’s a horrible question to ask! I loved playing with Will and Revoltz in Infused, I'd love in a few years for us to reform and take it less seriously and go to a few lans or something. If NCE played Infused then NCE would win simply because the game has evolved so much. I'm going to give you a crap answer sorry... Infused was 6 months of my life I look back on with fond memories, we came out of nowhere and had some fantastic highs beating some really good teams and causing some big upsets. We all broke into the top 10 of Europe and myself and Tim have been there ever since (when we've been active). NCE is too early to call; I'll answer the rest of the question after the 2010 TeX final ok?

To me vanner was always the player who did some work in the community, but recently you have stepped it up to almost be the community person that plays as well? What has changed in your mentality to bring about this change?

I guess I always liked to get involved but lacked the maturity or the knowledge to really make a difference. I went to i38 as a spectator and spent a lot of time chatting to Revoltz, Wizinium, Nreo and a few others regarding the future and made a conscious decision to dedicate a few hours a week (which quickly turned into minimum 2-3 hours a day!) on helping the scene in any way I can. I had a lot of ideas stored in my head regarding what would work and what wouldn't and finally started to put them into place in the months that followed. Basically I'm just a poor man’s crow!

So do you agree that you are now probably spending more time on the community than you are on playing itself?

I have been of late; Choobie moved apartments recently so hasn't had any internet so I've pretty much been going full time with the community work. We are about to get fulltime active again and this is the time that will really matter in regards to our CIC7 placing so I know where my focus will be. However I can still put the time in to do anything that’s required and in the past few months we've formed a team of nearly a dozen people from around the globe who are all striving for the same goals. It feels like we're creating something special slowly...

Realistically, do you think CIC7 would have gone ahead if you hadn't taken control of the situation?

It would have gone ahead but there would not have been above 25 teams in my opinion. Although to an outsider it might seem like I just updated a list when a team sent me a screenshot of their payment I actually helped teams get their flights and hotels sorted whilst also bugging every potential team at least 5 times a week as to why they hadn't paid yet! Kudos should be given to Kleineman as well, he's definitely batman to my robin :)

The general mentality I have seen from CoD4 players is a "moan about things, but can't be bothered to do it themselves". They sit on the TEK9 forums and complain that things aren't right, yet aren't willing to put in the hard work. Do you think you have been a bit of an inspiration to everyone else to actually do something to help out?

I don't know you would have to ask other people to get the correct answer in my opinion. I hope I've made people sit up and realise what can be done when somebody bothers to put in the time and effort in a positive manner and focus their energy on the important things.

You missed out on winning the HM Award for the TEK9 community member of 2009 by one vote. How gutted were you that you didn't win it ahead of raf1?

I was totally shocked I was even nominated! I was nominated before CIC7 was announced if I remember correctly and I hadn't done anything to deserve it. Although winning something like that would have been a nice personal achievement I'm glad raf got some recognition for all his hard work on promod (even if he did most of it in 2008 :p). He put in so many thankless hours and without him we wouldn't be playing CoD4 to the standard we are today.

I have even heard rumours that you might be getting contacts from people in the CS:S scene to come and kick that scene into shape and get teams to signup for events to try get a similar turn out as CIC7 got. Would you ever consider doing this?

Haha 1st I've heard! Who's your source!?!? It's not something that’s ever come into my mind and I lack any kind of in depth knowledge of CSS to be taken seriously. I'm motivated to help CoD4 because the scenes been good to me and I've been a part of it for over 6 years now.

Earlier you talked about the failing of MW2. What do you think it was that caused MW2 to fail as it did? Did you personally like the game?

I have played the game only once for 15 minutes on Lighters PC at i38 and for that I am eternally grateful. 10 Minutes proved that it was a hopeless effort by Activision and I think that was reflected by the masses after reading PC gamer's letter page recently! The main problems were no dedicated servers and the lack of mod tools meaning the game was doomed to fail. I think the final straw was when Activision forced multiplay's hand to host a MW2 tournament and didn't announce the prize purse till midway through the tournament. Oh and they didn't even turn up!

How would you rate CoD4 as a game now compared to what it was this time last year? Will it reach the same heights as CoD4 did in 2009? What about compared to 2008?

It'll be bigger than 2009 without doubt. The games just had its biggest turnout at a TUP lan and the only way is up. There will be bigger lans than 2009 as well and hopefully we can get all the summer events announced as soon as possible to keep everyone really motivated and excited. 2008 was really special; we had 3 events in 3 weeks with nearly £75,000 in prize money. If we get to that level again then I'll be a happy man!

Do you think CoD4 as it stands in the finished package or can we expect some more versions of Promod and finally some custom maps added to the map pool?

I think now is the time to make long term changes. There are some real quality custom maps being made such as mp_Dahman and I believe they should be given real opportunities as competitive maps. I know it's something we'll be discussing in great length (we being vita nova). Last I heard there were going to be a few bug fixes in regards to spectators and very few gameplay changes in a new version of promod. Personally I enjoy the game how it is and the only gameplay changes I'd support would be some kind of standard for configs and anything to help online reg as sometimes it can be quite inconsistent.

What do you think it will take to get CoD4 to the next level? i.e. at WCG or ESWC?

Stability, Structure and finally Consistency.

The game has had some memorable highs and some pretty dismal lows. I'm confident CIC7 is just simply the beginning and once the summer lans are announced we're going to see some big signups. There is something big brewing that I would love to discuss but I know only sketchy details myself. From what I gather this would get the big 1.6 organisations back into the game once again and with the big names would come the big tournaments as long as the community holds firm. End

Do you think CoD4ESWC was a good idea just with poor leadership and motivation or was it an unrealistic challenge?

It was a bit of both really... I felt at the time the idea was fantastic but things weren't done correctly. Nothing should have been announced until some long term goals had been set out. Things then seemed to go to a complete standstill when in reality it wasn't the case as things were being worked on it was just taking a little bit of time. 2 weeks is an eternity in gaming and unless you keep people regularly updated then they lose faith. I believe CoD4 can hit the big-time as it's the first CoD game to last more than 2 years which is an achievement in itself! As I said above what we need now is some consistency and everything else will fall into place. The scene is big enough and we've got teams from South Africa, America, Canada, Austrialia and even Malaysia who contacted me regarding CIC7.

Vita Nova was something that you have recently brought about to try and help the CoD4 scene. Is it just going to be another league or is there more to it? What was your motivation behind creating this in the first place?

Vita Nova itself is more like a governing body really. The league itself was just the first thing we tackled. We're now moving onto some really big issues and will be putting things into motion over the next few days in relation to setting up the website and a few other things that will become public knowledge very soon. My motivation comes from wanting to take CoD4 to a new level and I'm motivated to prove people wrong.

You have recently partnered with Heaven Media and Enemy Down to push Vita Nova forward. Are they the partner you wanted when you first started up Vita Nova?

It's a huge step forward, we identified HM as being a major power in Esports and using Wizinium as our contact we managed to sort a partnership which I think will be highly beneficial to both of us. I've been nothing but highly impressed with the team at HM and hopefully this will be a long successful partnership.

What can we expect from Vita Nova in the future?

Continued progression for the scene thanks to a dedicated team of individuals. I don't really want to go into our goals right now.

You mentioned on the TEK9 forums that you might be holding a UK LAN in the summer at some point. Can you give us any more details on that?

I simply was asked by a potential investor who was very interested in what kind of numbers they could expect at an event they are looking into. Nothing more, nothing less

Vita Nova has nothing to do with the lan. It was purely something I was asked to do.

OK, well thank you very much for the interview vanner. Before we finish any final words our shoutouts you would like to make?

Thanks for taking the time out to do this. Shoutouts to Tim Denton, Adam Cheshire, Will Nye and Bo Hesselink