TEK9 Interview Element Kevlar

TEK9 sit down with Andrew "Kevlar" Heppinstall, current manager of Team Element. Andy was the brains behind the tournament at i38 which definitely gave hope to a lot of people throughout the community. Due to this tournament, everyone has realised how the community can stick together and can work together. We believe Andy deserves this spotlight so let's get started.

Thanks for joining us Andy. Could you tell everyone a little about yourself, your own gaming experiences and how you got to where you are right now?

Hey all, my names Andrew Heppinstall 21 years old been gaming since I was 13 from Joint operations and Age of Empires up to Battlefield 2. I made my very first Clan in BF2 when I was just 16, being the leader and the youngest member was hard but rewarding and to have 40 year olds saying I was doing a great job just made me work harder to be all I can be.
 
You have a full time job as well as managing Element full time, how do you find time to combine both activities?

Active, wake up do things for Element, then work then get home dinner and carry on with Element and a social life and a girl friend gets thrown in their somewhere. I love working on the site for Element and projects, it all keeps me busy and focused with what I need/want to do. It also does help with having such great people who are willing to get on with things and put the effort when I ask for it.

With i38 fresh in our minds. How was the event for you?

I loved the event, first time for me at Newbury as well. Getting down took about 4 hours from my house and as we were about 10 minutes away from Lan but we slide due to the rain in to a different car and had slight back pain when arriving at the event. I had brought my pc etc with me to the event so A BIG THANKS to Ryan and Jakey for coming and giving me a hand with my stuff. We carried it all upstairs then found out there was a lift 5 minutes after. A bad start really, but with our Guitar Hero 5 player coming along and taking 2nd on guitar and 1st on the drums turned things around and of course the cup. It is a big place and i liked the fact you can sleep where you want as well, shame it wasn't better weather otherwise would of been nice to sit and chill outside instead of huddled up inside.

At i38, things were getting worse by the minute in the MW2 tournament and little hope was left for the COD teams at the event. What made you decide to get in contact with the Multiplay management and host your own COD4 tournament? Were there any complications with the management due to their contract with activision?

I was frustrated, angry and annoyed when we were told we could not play, but you take the bulls by the horn, if it is bothering you, shut up and do something about it, which I then did. I put the idea to GeoSnipe and Chef who then pointed me to Harribo which then guided me to Neophyte, after sitting down thinking how would we do it all Myself and Aerox came up with how to make the prize money and how to get it covered etc. Aerox spoke to Heaven Media who covered it for us whilst I sat down and talking about how to run it and how we could announce to people about the cup as it "had to be" Element Cup and nothing to do with MPUK. If there was ever any complication we sorted it out within a matter of minutes. My phone never stopped ringing as we were trying to get it all sorted and find enough teams to play in it. Really helped that the admins were really excited about doing it and teams wanted to be a part of it thus forth bringing the community together. 

We have heard about an unfortunate situation about stealing at i38. A manager of Team Element named Joe stole a Multiplay TUP steam account and sold it on a forum. Can you shed some light on this matter?

Yea, myself and the entire organisation are gutted and ashamed about what he has done. We had no idea he had done it until Wizzo was standing at the end of the row with a security staff member. We tried calling him after the cup had finished as Multiplay wanted to make sure he got home ok but there was no answer. When I tried to call him to say we are releasing him from the organisation there was no answer. I woke up with a very long text saying he is very sorry and he will be leaving the organisation. From a personal view until Lan he was a good guy i would not of imagined him doing anything like this. I fully agree with Multiplay and personally apologize for any harm that this has caused people and I hope this does not impact on our reputation within the community. This does mean though that I will be looking for someone to fill his role, so if anyone is interested please send some information to me. 

With people once again starting to take an interest in the state of the COD community, what do you feel are the main points to look at?

Personally we need to look at a new mod/maps and I really would like to be more coverage and bigger prize money online and offline. I think people have come together to settle down with COD4 and appreciate it once again. I love the game it's the only one I am kind of good at. I'm cod4.wars med+ skill.

Eurokreig is also starting up soon which will be a massive new league / tournament site which I am going to be a part of and I will be guiding in the right direction.
 
Let's move away from i38 and start to focus on Element as an organisation. How did Team Element come about?

It happened 03/05/2008 my Birthday, I had a week off and had my game face on, I suck at games so I thought I would give managing a try. It went from one thing to another to be honest a lot of experiences a lot of different choices and the motivation from the teams / staff at Element have pushed me further and further to creating Element and making it what it is today.

We have seen your organisation following infused’s example by picking up a female COD4 team. Was this based on results from the females or was it to do with marketability?

I brought the girls team in because I support female gaming a lot more than most people do and when i saw the girls looking for a new home to help push them in the right direction I did everything I could to secure them and after a few talks and me meeting them they were happy to come and join us. The marketing side of things is that I support female and male gaming at the same level and I do not always think you have to have a all male team or a all female team but you can mix them together and still get great results. The girls are working harder now they have joined us to become a lot better and to take ok some really good teams focusing on Clanbase and soon to start ESL.
 
With a number of somewhat more controversial players within your Call Of Duty 4 team, what kind of rules do you set? Do you let them post what they want and hope they act in a professional manner or do you have any strict guidelines that must be followed to preserve your organisation's reputation?

With this I am lenient. At the end of the day EVERYONE has a opinion so who am I to stop them?  Anything that I do find going a bit too far is shut down straight away. People flame and have banter online and most of the time that is all it is. Unfortunately it does sometimes go too far, and again I step in and sort it out.  The guys know where the line is placed and if they cross it they know they are in trouble.

With regards to the future, what are your plans with Team Element?

More Lan events, go to more exhibitions similar to the SCAN event we went to and pull in some further teams for the games we have not yet covered. I am also really going to be looking in to the cup side of things as I am very interested in doing a team pay in and bigger prizes, I already have spoke to ZOWIEGEAR who have jumped at the chance to sponsor another cup.

Thanks a lot for your time Andy, any last shoutouts?

Firstly SteelSeries, Expoze Media and Acorn printing. I would like to thank you for the interview is very much appreciated, the community without you guys cod4 would not be the same. Shoutouts to: Baker, Evz, Alpha, Erasus, Jakey, Aerox, Ashlee, Gareth, Snowzey and the rest of Team Element, ZOWIEGEAR,  Durus, Dfb, Minx, Jamma, Asuka, Infused guys/ girls, Georgie, Shox, Odee, Cheif, Geo, Harribo, Wizzo, Donna my girl friend for taking me to Lan and always supporting me, anyone else that I have missed sorry but i know a lot of people :(  Peace Out.