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Disclaimer: I am incredibly bored so I will just rant while also compiling to father’s wish to exercise my writing skills.
I’m going to be honest. I’m a terrible Starcraft player. I’ve honestly tried to be good, reading all the guides, memorizing build orders, and watching replays and VODS, but honestly I just can’t seem to get any better. During the one season I spent on ICCUP I achieved an impressive 1 win, and 12 losses. I recall looking at a replay and seeing with wide eyes that my average APM was hovering around 48.
After losing to the computer while practicing a build order I began to question my motives. “Was what I was doing really worth it?” I recall asking myself while looking in retrospect on the hours I spent nergasming to a Bisu FPVOD or the times I eagerly transcribed build orders onto a piece of paper. I will admit that the only reason why I started to try to become a “serious” gamer was the urge to conform to the rest the netizens, who were yearning for a chance to be called “pro.” But then I began to realize that Starcraft for me began to feel like a chore, and not a hobby. With that realization I decided that my desire to be loved by random people on the internet was not important to me and I decided to embrace the fact that I was a “noob.” Oh yes that dreaded word that people constantly avoid being labeled by, but at this point I learned not care. At this point I decided to decided to make the transition to a once forbidden place for me.
I decided to move to battle.net.
Sure battle.net has some forbidden things such as “latency” and “fastest map possible” but I decided to embrace all these things. Here I discovered I was able to do things I would have never been able to do before such as mass scouts or 200 probe drill. But I found my true savior to be the UMS maps, spending countless hours on “Evolves,” or “Can you stop 1 unit?”
And here I didn’t have to feel the tax of trying to learn build orders and execute them perfectly. Before when my base was being flooded with a max psi army of Ultralisks, I would bang my head in frustration. Now when the same happens I can just sit back and laugh at myself.
I guess what I’m trying to say is that many who play this game have lost perspective. Suddenly there is a right way to play the game, and anybody who does otherwise will be ridiculed. I’ve seen many people (especially in livestreams) just absolutely go insane because they keep on losing to a guy who all-in zerglings them. Honestly I see no reason to take this game so seriously. People should just play the game, and people should play the game how THEY want to play it, not how somebody else said to play it. It gives you personality and personally it’s just so much more fun.
And there is the conclusion to my absolutely meaningless blog post. My boredom has been cured.
  
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lol, i think a lot of us players here are treating and playing SC:BW on a more competitve level sorta like an intramural sport or a high school varsity sport. If you reflect back on it, it doesn't really matter that much it doesn't count for anything really just bragging rights. That's sorta how i treated BW, i was really eager to get good, and i am satisfied with my BW career. I don't regret any of the time i spent on this game, it was a pleasure for me to be part of a COMPETITIVE gaming community. 
Till sc2 came and fucked it up -_-
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I never even tried to be good at Starcraft. Hell, I haven't played it in months. Personally I watch SC, but play strategy games\single player games\online FPS like Battlefield 2.
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When I first started taking BW seriously is when me and my friends played matches every day between eachother and get together for lans on weekends, we are all very competitive by nature and pushed ourselves to get better and started learning pro builds and playing on Iccup only to get rocked by more experienced players.
We stayed away from ICcup cuz we were noobs and couldn't handle it but it did improve our play. Later on I went back on and just found a way to find pleasure in losing and I kept playing and now I dont suck as much.
Also not only has BW helped my SC2 play, but vice versa, I've noticed that instead of a measly 12% Hotkey prior to SC2, now during the beta hiatus I've been playing BW and my Hotkey percentage is now up to 20% on average and Im now D+ instead of D.
Still a noob by most standards, but I watch some replays from a few years ago and realize how much I've grown and improved. Feels really good man
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Isn't it "complying to my father's wish to exercise my writing skills."?
But yeah pretty much why progamer career is very hard
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On June 22 2010 06:37 eatmyshorts5 wrote:
I’m going to be honest. I’m a terrible Starcraft player. I’ve honestly tried to be good, reading all the guides, memorizing build orders, and watching replays and VODS, but honestly I just can’t seem to get any better. During the one season I spent on ICCUP I achieved an impressive 1 win, and 12 losses. I recall looking at a replay and seeing with wide eyes that my average APM was hovering around 48.
What about adapting to your enemies actions and transitioning and using your brain to critically analyse the enemy and situations? You won't get anywhere if you go by the "book" exactly as it says. Sure, you'll get a very solid grounding but that's not enough to be good. You have to deviate and be creative.
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Yeah, the sad truth about BW is that you only start to enjoy the game when the wins coming in.
I started on battle net playing 1v1 versus Korean map hackers and ICCUP was a savior for me.
When you get to C level, the game gets really fun.
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This blog is a piece of shit.
Replicate this blog in reference to any sport or hobby if you don't understand how terrible this is.
You clearly put zero effort into getting better at starcraft, and that's fine, it's just a game after all, however to say "many who play this game have lost perspective." is downright offensive.
That's like saying every single professional sportsman or athlete has lost perspective because they take their chosen contest seriously.
You are not a low tier player, in fact this post is a huge insult to this particular group of individuals.
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what i'm getting here is that you played 13 games on iccup, said "fuck it this is too hard" and now you play UMS on battle.net. no offense intended but eeewwwwww.
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Lot of rage ITT despite OP's shiny wisdom. If you think that just being happy instead of demanding perfection and pro-gamer like reflexes is something to be frowned on then I don't know what to say. If competing makes you happy, have at it! But the essence of this blog was finding happiness aside from competition vs others if that isn't what you enjoy. At least, that is what I got out of it.
Exemplified by OP's words: "People should just play the game, and people should play the game how THEY want to play it, not how somebody else said to play it"
Didn't say you shouldn't try to be the best if that is how you want to play it.
I think we should make a movie advert out of this.
He was caged; stuck trying to fit in to TL's pro-competition bias. Now, he is ~*free*~ and ready to play that UMS map to DEATH.... and then laugh about it and play with his kitten.
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Quitters can't be winners.
Edit: 13 games? Come on....
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On June 22 2010 06:37 eatmyshorts5 wrote:I’ve honestly tried to be good, reading all the guides, memorizing build orders, and watching replays and VODS, but honestly I just can’t seem to get any better. During the one season I spent on ICCUP I achieved an impressive 1 win, and 12 losses. I recall looking at a replay and seeing with wide eyes that my average APM was hovering around 48.
That's not honestly trying. People will play 13 games in one day. Hell, it sounds like you spent more time reading and watching than actually playing.
I call it entitlement syndrome, where people think they are entitled to a certain skill level because they are more familiar with pro-play than the people who actually play. I've had it with Tekken 5 and 3rd Strike and Super Turbo and until I actually sit down and started to mass-game.
Until you actually grind it out, you didn't really try.
I guess what I’m trying to say is that many who play this game have lost perspective. Suddenly there is a right way to play the game, and anybody who does otherwise will be ridiculed. I’ve seen many people (especially in livestreams) just absolutely go insane because they keep on losing to a guy who all-in zerglings them. Honestly I see no reason to take this game so seriously. People should just play the game, and people should play the game how THEY want to play it, not how somebody else said to play it. It gives you personality and personally it’s just so much more fun.
If you wanted to go have fun on UMS instead of playing competitively, that's cool.
But then you decided to say that "other" people have lost perspective and saying that what they're doing is wrong. What gives?
I'm so sick of this crap where people say they play games "for fun" as if the competitive players were not having fun, and that their way is the only fun way.
Yes, it has its down moments when we're learning build orders, learning what units do, how to counter. Yes, there's frustration when we get 4-pooled or lose to an all-in, or when a misclick changes your small advantage into a lost game. But that just makes it so much sweeter when we do win, when we worked so hard after all those losses, to transform it into victory. And that's our own victory, not the internet's.
And seriously, no one cares and no one will ridicule you for playing UMS. Just don't talk about how much better it is to people who don't care, and you won't get ridiculed. I don't go around to soccer fans telling them about how great American football is.
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Nobody's ridiculing the random east player for using wacky strats, or the random D player from 'playing the right way'.
Being competitive does not mean we have 'lost perspective', but if you try to come and tell us we're too serious about being competitive, then you're being hypocritical by insulting the way we play.
Edit : the above post
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Only 13 games total on iccup? Man I played that today in a 3 hour time frame. If you ever want to be good at the game, you need to realize that grinding out 10+ games a day is almost priority, especially at lower levels when you need to learn tons of memorization etc.
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I must agree with many of the posters here. What in the world would give you the right to say you've "honestly tried to be good at this game" when by simple math, you've accumulated only 13 games not in a day, or a week, but a whole season? No matter how many vods and replays you watch, I guarentee you won't be able to compete beyond the starting red ranks until you put in the hours to practice. But 13 games? That's hardly what an iccup player does in a single day.
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On June 22 2010 08:20 Reason wrote:
This blog is a piece of shit.
Replicate this blog in reference to any sport or hobby if you don't understand how terrible this is.
You clearly put zero effort into getting better at starcraft, and that's fine, it's just a game after all, however to say "many who play this game have lost perspective." is downright offensive.
That's like saying every single professional sportsman or athlete has lost perspective because they take their chosen contest seriously.
You are not a low tier player, in fact this post is a huge insult to this particular group of individuals.
This, and
an APM of 48 just simply means that you aren't trying at all.
Every one of my friends who has started SC has started at around 60 apm. Keep in mind that the game is pretty much completely new to them and they haven't watched any fpvods of bisu or anything.
In conclusion, you have not come semi-close to semi-close of trying, since according to numbers people who are playing the game once and not touching it ever again are putting more effort into it.
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Your last several sentences have holes, but since many people have criticized you already, I won't add to it.
Reactions to losses vary. In any case, I'm glad that you seem to be having more fun now.
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the best way to learn is to lose.
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EPT
