Dan “Artosis” Stemkoski, a very big name in the United States Starcraft scene, recently sat down for a chat with GameReplays.org. Read on, my RTS brethren.

[NOTE: The picture above is of Zeratul's ship in Starcraft II, the Void Seeker. So tasty.]

In case you’re not as familiar with Artosis as you should be, you’re in luck–that’s the first question he answers in the interview.

Gamereplays.org: Hey Artosis, the Gamereplays.org community may not know a lot about you, would you mind telling us a bit about yourself? Where you’re from, your name, age and so on?

Artosis: Well, I think some of them might know me as I used to play Age Of Empires 3 when it first came out =P. I am a 26 year old StarCraft player from USA. I’ve played the game competitively for about 11 years, been to 7 USA Finals, 2 World finals, and more recently became a commentator. For this, I moved to South Korea about a year and a half ago. I now work for the International Esports Group, the same company that owns the eSTRO professional StarCraft team.

So, like I said, Artosis is a pretty big name. He also runs the site SCForAll, which is a very nice Starcraft resource. On to his stay in South Korea:

Gamereplays.org: How is life in Korea?

Artosis: Korea is absolutely a gamer’s paradise. Everyone in the whole country seems to know StarCraft and to have played it. StarCraft is always on TV, and even the government recognizes eSports as legitimate. On top of that, the people are very nice, the food is delicious and healthy, and Seoul is a great city, where you can always find something to do, no matter what time of the day it is. A great place overall

I can’t even begin to describe how badly I’ve wanted to live in South Korea since Starcraft released. One more question here, and then I”ll link to the full interview:

Gamereplays.org: Do you believe the Korean teams will invite more foreigners to compete in their StarCraft 2 scene or that they’ll rather stay as hermetic as they currently are? What’s the likelihood of having the next Hexatron, meaning an entire team consisting of foreigners?

Artosis:There won’t be a team entirely consisting of foreigners over here most likely. Will the Koreans invite more foreigeners to Korea to compete in StarCraft 2? Absolutely.

Hopeful news! If TAGJ is successful someday, maybe I would even be able to afford the trip to Korea. I can dream…

Now then, I know you want the rest of this interview. It has tons of great material, including Artosis’ predictions for the top players in Starcraft II, the adoption rate of Starcraft II for veterans of the franchise’s first installment, and more. Notice that the link goes to Starcraft 2 Armory, not GameReplays.org. The reason? Starcraft 2 Armory is where I found it, and the definitive resource for Starcraft II news. Check that site like crazy. I can’t plug them enough.

So, Starcraft fans: what do you make of this? Are you opted in for the beta? How long have you been in the Starcraft scene? Have any stories to tell about the “good old days”? Posting a long, well constructed comment just might be a good way to get featured on the site. WINK WINK NUDGE NUDGE.