EPTA Summer of Starcraft
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This summer was one that Starcraft definitely played a huge component in. I've met a lot of people across the country now and have had a lot of fun with this game. Early in the summer I dreaded having to take a long flight from California to Washington D.C. to do a summer volunteer student at the NIH, but I found an opportunity for Starcraft that would be very rare. Returning home was difficult since the people over on the East coast were just amazing and really enthusiastic about Starcraft, but following what I did in Washington D.C. I had another amazing Starcraft experience.
When I first got to Washington D.C. I had to immediately start working the 9-5 for no pay at the NIH. It was definitely not fun for me in the place I was living in either - I shared a bathroom with three other people, had a terrible internet connection (9 people using the internet at once) and was furnished with nothing more than a few chairs and a bed. There wasn't even a TV! The internet connection was terrible for me because I would often get 1mbps or 2mbps on very low connection, or sometimes it would say 48 mbps very good but still be slow as molasses. Loading youtube videos took forever, and playing games on iCCup almost always lagged. In addition, my room was freezing since it was right next to the air conditioning and I had to do my own cooking every day, which I had never done before. Living by myself was definitely a fun experience though, because when I wasn't lagging terribly I got in a lot of Starcraft.
During my time I played one hundred games I think, getting myself up to B-. At one point in time I met lastshadow, and we decided to 2v2 after finding out that we didn't hate each other. Starting off was dismal, and we went something like 7-5 at D+ rank. But slowly as we started getting accustomed to each other we began getting higher and higher ranks, and though the lag was not comfortable, finally having a consistent 2v2 partner was amazing. We would often talk about the progaming scene, etc. I was definitely having a lot of fun with Starcraft.
In the same time period, I started a thread on Teamliquid asking if there were any people living in the area. I was planning to organize a LAN, even though I didn't even live in the area normally. Thankfully though, the response was enormous and we finally got a LAN date set up. The few days leading up to the LAN were so exciting that I would just sit and smile thinking about it. I was also very worried about the LAN though and extremely anxious - what if this went wrong, what if that went wrong? I researched tons of restaurants in the area and in my free time at work I would continually be looking at LAN tips and guides, etc. I was definitely consumed by this process! I remember one of the most nervewracking moments I had was calling the LAN center and asking if we could come in on the day we planned - I have no idea why I was so nervous and scared to talk to the dude, but with some convincing on Ventrilo by my friends I picked up the phone and called.
"Hi, how can I help you?"
"Um... is this... Seoul...? PC?"
"Yes this is Seoul PC, can I help you?
"Ya well uh... we... I was wondering... if maybe we could come in on July 11th and uh... ya if we could come in and play Starcraft on the 11th?"
"Ok, how many people?"
"Twenty-five."
"Twenty-five?! That's a lot of people... you can't make a reservation for that..."
As soon as he said those words I was really worried, but eventually we talked and, after I explained to him what "iCCup maps” were everything was settled, the LAN was set.
![[image loading]](http://img190.imageshack.us/img190/9580/p1000432b.jpg)
Seoul PC... Gamer's haven...
A few days before the LAN I met up with David (duckett), a TL lurker. He was also working at the NIH so over the next few weeks we would often meet up during lunch and eat some pizza together. On the day of the LAN, I took the bus to his house and after about 15 minutes, Mona (hazelynut) and her brother Peter showed up. Then, it was time for a drive to Virginia! It was really nice talking to them and easy too because we were all Starcraft fanatics – they introduced me to some kpop and everything and Mona showed off her amazing Korean skills. When we got to the LAN center we went and got some lunch and continued to talk. We were in Koreantown, so it was easy to get some Korean food. They were showing tons of dramas on the TV and they were really weird and awkward (though Mona loves those k-dramas :D) so we actually asked them if they could put up MBC Game on TV, but unfortunately they didn’t have it
After lunch we went to Seoul PC and waited outside for the other people to come. As soon as 1:30 PM hit it was amazing how many people just showed up out of nowhere, wearing SKT shirts and TL shirts and etc and being almost perfectly on time. We went in and announced to the guy working inside that we would be planning to be there for like 10 hours, and he dropped his mouth and was like “10 hours?!?! We thought it was just going to be like 2!” but they let us in and gave us all the computers in a tiny crowded section of the LAN. It was really great getting to meet everyone and the LAN was one of the best experiences ever. We ended up playing from 1:30 to like 3:00 AM so more than 13 hours or something like that. My worries earlier were not completely unfounded - we almost didn’t have room in the restaurant because I didn’t make a reservation early enough, I messed up the brackets over nine thousand times because of people being late, me not knowing what to do and also me just being very inept at using binarybeast, and when I was leading to the restaurant I was really scared for a second when we saw the building and instead of saying some gooldongae restaurant it said “Honey Pig ++!” with a big picture of a pig on the wall. But overall it was great!![[image loading]](http://seoulpcworld.com/yahoo_site_admin/assets/images/seoul_network.209203549_std.jpg)
I thought it would look like this...
![[image loading]](http://img440.imageshack.us/img440/6158/cimg3974800x600.jpg)
But actually... it looked like this!
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The next few days would be spent working and then looking at the thread and seeing everyone’s posts. I would go out and watch two movies with TL.net members from the LAN in the course of the next week (Transformers and Harry Potter) and go hang out with Mona/David/Peter several times, in which we did exotic things like eat Hagen-daas ice cream from the Giant store, eat chicken wings, eat Peter’s homemade kung pow chicken, clean out the garlic drawer, get sprayed by a broken faucet and do some commentaries in the living room. Spending time with people who were just as interested in the same thing I was was just really amazing. Leaving kind of sucked, but when I finally got back home I knew exactly what I wanted to do…
Organize another LAN! I immediately started another thread and people started giving suggestions of where to go. The people in the Bay Area definitely seem a lot less enthusiastic about LANs. I remember in DC it was like – “Yes! A LAN! Any time, any place, let’s do it! I can help too, I’ll go and bring my camera, and go to Seoul PC and ask the owner what the rates are, and etc. etc. A LAN!” and now they’ve done another LAN and a finals meetup, and are planning another large LAN in October. They definitely have taken their enthusiasm and really run with this Starcraft meetups stuff People drove from over one hour away to get to the LAN. People donated a total of $90 to a prize pool! This is in stark contrast to here – “Oh… can’t do this day and can’t do that day, before the 22nd please but after the 13th!” but I guess it’s understandable because the people here are spoiled by a lot more LANs. Still, we had a great turnout (15 or so) and some people drove from pretty far away to come (although no one donated to a prize pool but me
). As well, I should have put more effort into the organization and been less ambivalent about the date, but I only realized this bad attribute thanks to their lessened enthusiasm. In DC, all the work was practically already done for me by everyone else! So all in all I’ve learned a lot about LAN organizing in just two LANs and I’m definitely planning to do a lot more. LANs are just really the most amazing, wonderfullest awesomenest thing! I’m hoping to have ones that aren’t as big either because sometimes tournaments aren’t that fun for those D’s and D+’s, so we could do some more relaxing things like UMS (we did this in the last 2 hours of the BATTL I) or maybe even “normal” things like going bowling or something LOL. Seriously it would be really cool to just go watch movies with other Starcraft friends like what I was able to do in Washington D.C. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_DsYkH7qrGM
Oh, hello yosh's face!
Oh, hello yosh's face!
One of my worries is that when Starcraft 2 comes out the things will be way out of my league – but who knows? It’s still a long ways off and I’m sure I’ll be doing a lot more LANs leading up to that. Hopefully I can make small steps and get bigger turnouts each time, and make it more professional and fun to come to, etc.
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Hopefully more professional than THIS masterpiece work of art, however…
My dream would be to get like 30+ people and have some energy drink company sponsor us with free energy drinks. That would be the culmination of AWESOME. Or maybe get a big enough event to rent out some school gym or something which would be pretty cheap, but then I’d have to learn how to do power management, table setups, routers, hubs and networks, but if there was someone skilled in that that would be really cool.
Getting B+
This blog, as I think about it now, is just going to turn into a big conglomeration of ideas and things that have happened that I want to slap down on writing. It’s not well-written at all, but I really enjoy Starcraft now. I went into a very long stint of no Starcraft – it was a several month long hiatus in which I played DotA with Testie and the TL Crew and poker (for playmoney -_-). But LANs, getting to meet people in real life, etc. has really rekindled my flame for Starcraft. Just today I got B+ for the first time. I still remember when I was a D/D+ newbie making commentaries with a high-pitched prepubescent voice. I’ve always wanted to get back into doing that, and I still do, but there’s so many put-offs for me
For one, the scene is already dominated by Cholera and SC2GG, moletrap, etc. (Oh yeah, and I’m surprised moletrap didn’t come to the LAN!) If I do a progame commentary, it’ll already have been done and uploaded by one of them, and no one will watch mine because they want to watch their favorite commentator. Also, FPVODs and commentaries of replays are annoying to make because for some reason uploading them to Youtube takes me forever. But anyways, back to the topic of B+. The road to B+, heh. I’m not sure whether my “knowledge” of the game has really improved, because when I look at it I still feel like I know so little about the strategy of the game. But the reason I am in love with Starcraft is just because it is so in-depth. I’m not the fondest fan of its community a lot of the time, but that’s just from my perspective (I really haven’t made a good first impression when I first came and it’s lasted for quite a while). So while it feels like I’m the same skill level as before, but now a higher rank, I question whether iCCup has been getting easier or whether I actually have been getting better. This season I achieved the high B with lastshadow (90-49, 7755), and probably could have gotten A- if we had continued or if I got another solid partner. But it’s always impossible for me to get a partner. And my 1v1 rank is 92-60, 8085. Two seasons ago when I got B for the first time, I was 64-27 and in the top 20 in USA (ladderwise). Now I’m B+ but in the top 30, so I’m not sure if more people played this season or if the ladder really has been getting easier. When I played yosh in the BATTL I, he still played me like a D- newb and I was completely dominated. He seemed to know my every move – I try to expand and he has a turret there in the middle of the expansion, waiting for me. I try to go around his army with lurkers to cut off reinforcements, he is ready for me and kills the isolated lurkers. I really never feel anywhere close to that level – I don’t know any of the “timings” of a Terran, like when they SHOULD have an ebay or when they SHOULD have their 3 raxes, or whatever. Protoss I’m a bit better with knowing what they should have and when. But I never seem to have accomplished the level of thinking in which you are analyzing your opponent as much and more than you are even making decisions for your own play. But I am proud of the B+ this season because I started playing early in the season, unused to a tiny laptop with a tiny screen and with lots of lag, and played often in Korean time (as opposed to two seasons ago, when I played late late season only and stopped playing as soon as Korean time started to begin).
http://www.iccup.com/gamingprofile/smi.suppy.html
Ah well, I guess as this year begins my love for Starcraft will have to be put on hold. I’m still only going to be a junior in highschool, as opposed to how most of the Starcraft people are college aged. I’m going to busy with sports, lots of AP classes, SAT, etc. but hopefully I can still find time to have LANs and to continue enjoying this wonderful game. When Starcraft 2 comes out I am a little bit afraid of the masses upon masses of new people that are going to be playing it. But for now, Starcraft is the best :D
![[image loading]](http://www.teamliquid.net/tlpd/images/players/587.jpg)
Conan Wolf signing out!
![[image loading]](http://img196.imageshack.us/img196/5641/cimg3988800x600.jpg)
