Martin "nKM" Bowman speaks to vorty, the Epsilon Esports co-captain about his new squad and his expectations in BFBC2

Battlefield Bad Company 2 has been out almost a week now, and already the competitive scene is shaping together getting itself ready to start treating BC2 as a competitive game. The public servers are full, and soon the clan servers will be with teams playing against each other.

One team that has been at the forefront of recent Battlefield 2, Epsilon Esports is definitely looking to do just that. nKM wanted to find out more, and went and had a chat to Gary "votry" Millar, the co-captain of their BC2 team.

Vorty, thanks for taking the time out to talk with me today.

A lot of our readership is yet to acquaint themselves with BFBC2 and the community that surrounds it. Can you quickly give the Cadred readers a run-down of your past experience in the Battlefield series and your current situation with Epsilon eSports?

As far as my past experience with the Battlefield series goes, I started playing BF2 competitively in late 2007 with Team Rush, the team responsible for the live casting service rushTV. With pretty much the same squad, we played under Team YoYoTech and PowerGaming banners and did really well in all competitions. My goal has always been to build the best team possible which has led me to bring my best players to Epsilon for BFBC2. I have now been made captain of Epsilon and have been given the backing necessary to bring me closer to achieving my goal.

There's been a lot of coverage of this latest Battlefield title, and many would agree that the game has some great qualities. What are your first impressions of the retail release and what kind of feedback has your squad given you?

Yes, the game is very nice and a good step forward I think for Battlefield fans and the competitive scene. I was really sceptical it at first, mainly because I’m a BF2 player and never seen a game which captured the core BF2 values like teamwork and tactics. My view of the game soon changed when I started to play the conquest mode which has impressed me a lot.

I have a lot of infantry players in my squad and the main concern I think is the infantry mode which is really bad at the moment. I mean, all major competitive games are 5v5 and this squad rush 4v4 is a bit too random, I think. Coming from a BF2 infantry team where tactics were a big thing, we now find ourselves in a situation where it feels like we are fighting in a tunnel and have no other option but to hit the opponents head on in middle of the map which is a bit robotic.

There’s been some fixes to the retail release already, including a customisable FOV which has been warmly received so far by many I’ve spoken with. What do you think of it?

The FOV fix has really changed the game for the better; now instead of playing with the standard 55 we can switch to 100 or more which makes the game very fast and fluid. For a lot of people it is just what the game needed.

Has it been hard to gather a squad for this new game? I’ve noticed a lot of ‘old-school’ Battlefield players have started popping up recently. How has their appearance on the scene affected your plans for building a competitive BFBC2 team?

It’s not been hard to get players, no. We have had a lot of interest from players wanting to come play for Epsilon which we have took advantage of and feel we have some very impressive players on our roster at this stage. The only problem we have now is adapting to the game and evolving as a squad.

The fact that the old school BF guys are back is great motivation for me personally since I used to watch these guys on live streams and now we could be playing against them, it’s just great. As for affecting my plans for the game I don’t think it does apart from give us more motivation.

Competitively, many people at Battlefield see great potential in this game, but agree that there is work to be done. Can you summarize your thoughts on what this game needs to cement our aspirations for its development for LANs and online tournaments, such as what we have been assured by the likes of ESL?

To be honest the game needs a lot of tweaking if it’s to reach its full potential. I would personally like to see a ProMod to iron out the ‘public’ aspect of the game, like unlocks and squad sizes. ESL do great online tournaments but unless the community produces a mod its very unlikely they will do much more than any other leagues apart from offer some premium accounts.

The games future, I think, will depend on a mod - so fingers crossed that we can attract the right people to make this game work.

Epsilon eSports played the EA Masters beta tournament, what are your thoughts on that and how did you think the tournament went for Epsilon?

The admin on this cup were some of the best I have seen. Having people on-site to deal with any problems quickly was something I have never seen in BF2 before so was nice to experience. As for the tournament itself, the idea was OK, but soon some teams found ways to win without actually fighting, the bomb site could be taken out with tanks from range which a lot of teams decided to do rather than risk losing with infantry pushes. This was something the EA Masters, of course, could not prevent but it does give us more ideas on how to improve this game mode.

As for Epsilon we used the tournament as practice and just wanted to try out some new faces for the games release.

Competitive Battlefield is all about the tactics and teamwork. Are you worried about teams coming in from other games bringing a rogue element to BFBC2 in that respect? It’s a brand new game, so anything can happen, right?

The fact that a lot of new teams are coming in from BF2142, COD4, ET:QW and so on is great, they will all bring their respective game minds in to play which I’m sure will make for some very entertaining matches, especially in Conquest mode. All of the games mentioned have a little Bad Company 2 in them so the transition for them should be fairly easy.

Tactically, there has been a comparison drawn to the popular game mode found in Enemy Territory which looks a lot like the new ‘Rush’. How have you found that compared to the traditional Conquest game mode?

It can be a very good game mode as soon as they make the bomb sites detonate only because right now every man and his dog is blowing it up from range which ruins the whole idea of Rush. I’m sure if they made it detonate only it would force all the teams to push more and in turn make for a more exciting game.

You have a lot of experience within competitive Battlefield. What kind of advice can you give to new teams entering this game from other titles such as COD4 or Counter Strike/CS:S? What’s the main things for them to expect and what, for you, are the main factors which will determine success in BFBC2?

The only thing I can say is practice - this game offers way more in terms of learning than any other game ever made so would require a lot of practice and brains to master. With the destructable environments in this game changing as you play anything can happen at this early stage – it will be interesting to see how other teams decide to utilise the maps.

Finally, what does the near future hold for you and for Epsilon? Are you travelling soon and can we expect to see you at the summer LANs?

Right now, my only focus is to build the best team in this game and win everything there is to win, you may think I’m asking for a lot but tell that to my 3 year old son who has to compete against me at wrestling every morning just to get food, I’m joking of course... it’s my daughter! We intend to represent Epsilon at all major LANs in the summer - if they have BFBC2, that is.