EPTOh boy, has it been a long journey through the internets. To tell you the truth, I’ve lingered around TL for awhile, but never made an account until StarCraft 2’s beta came around. I was always fascinated by Brood War and the huge scene that followed it, but frankly, I sucked at Brood War, and had very little interest in trying to bang my head against a wall trying to break D+ on iCCup. I did try, though. I played Terran, and was terrible. But it was fun! I was having a lot of fun, indeed. Eventually, I got two of my best friends to play Brood War with me; one of them was new to the game as a whole. I’ve been “playing” StarCraft for over 8 years (since I was 10 or so, presently I am 18), and only in 2009 had I actually decided to “play” a game of StarCraft. Here’s something to think about: I remember my first game of StarCraft online EVER, was on some map (melee), and I couldn’t figure out how to chat. It never occurred to me to hit the damn Enter key. I had no idea what I was doing, or very little anyway, and someone was trying to teach me how to play. But I couldn’t chat. It’s certainly a different world in StarCraft, but some things don’t ever change. Seriously, the SC community is so ridiculously nice. After that, I did figure out how to chat later, and the most I had done was UMS maps on occasion and every once and awhile a FFA Fastest Map Possible. Yeah, I was one of those guys, I know. I think I knew about TeamLiquid.net around 2004 or 2005, but I must have overlooked it and really never returned until a couple years later, when I became interested in the professional scene.
Before I go on, I’m just going to go on a little tangent here. To be honest, I really don’t have much purpose of writing this. Nothing I’ve said is too special or important to the rest of my fellow nerds on TL, but I really feel the need to say how this damn game has changed me as a person. StarCraft ended up being the thing that really strung me friendships after moving to a new home – I wasn’t very socially adept after moving, I felt frozen. I didn’t really feel like trying to make new friends, I just wanted to hang out with the ones I had. It turns out one of my neighbors was around my age, and he actually disliked me initially. But, alas, I was playing/showing him StarCraft, and we found out we had much more in common than we thought. Today he is still my best friend out of the few I have. I won’t go too far into his life, but he eventually started a Clan on Battle.net and a lot of the leadership skills and technical work from running a Clan website and other functionalities have helped him tremendously in starting his career, and he now works with my dad who does similar work. Ok, so there are two people that have been positively impacted by this game. Seriously, there hasn’t been any negativity in ANYONE I’ve shown StarCraft too. It just keeps helping people, wtf. It certainly makes you a better thinker, that’s for sure.
So after 2006, I stopped playing Brood War for about a year and half. StarCraft 2 was then announced in May of 2007, and shortly after I played through the entire campaign of StarCraft and its expansion in two nights. I was certainly in denial – I figured the game would be out at the end of 2008 at the latest at that time. Tehe, boy was I wrong >.>. Anyhow, all of my buddies and myself had fallen to the WoW addiction, so I had kind of lost touch with StarCraft, although I did occasionally go and play some EVOLVES every once and awhile with my buddy. It wasn’t really until early 2009 that I decided to go check out what StarCraft was really about. At this time, I was actually interested in being challenged by a video game (el oh el WoW), and decided that StarCraft was the only choice. That entire year I played Brood War (mainly LAN with my previously mentioned friends), and a couple of iCCup games in which brought me to D+ and then I would sink straight back down to D- after a couple more games. I loved it, but I was terrible, so I decided to wait it out for a beta key, which a friend of mine “acquired” shortly after beta phase 1 launched for SC2. That was probably the best thing that could have happened to me, because shortly after I discovered Day[9] (thanks for getting me to Diamond, <3) and TeamLiquid once again through HDStarcraft on YouTube. We shared that account to death, and eventually he got a friend referral. I was a pretty happy guy at that point. I would probably be terrible still had I not gotten a beta key, but maybe not (Day[9] <3).
Competitive StarCraft was just this kind of “Oh I’m bored, I’ll watch these crazy Koreans nail each other with pixels” up until I realized how fun playing it actually was, and now I’m happy to spend hours upon hours of watching more StarCraft then actually playing it. I’m not concerned with being the best, I just love watching it. eSports can become so huge in the west, and I’m stoked for it. To be honest, I’m probably much better than 1k Diamond, but I don’t really play enough games to improve by another 500 or 1k points any time soon, because I’ve been too busy watching all of the tournaments happening EVERYWHERE that feature StarCraft 2. I love this damn game. Brood War may be a little more entertaining to watch right now, but SC2, that shit is the future. I’m excited. This whole eSports thing has really got my going, and ingrained new personalities in me – one of a competitor and one of a crazy fan. TeamLiquid.net – there are no amount of words that can described how awesome this website is. I read the fucking news on this website, TL helped me pay attention to politics and whats going on around the world. I was actually concerned about other countries for once, because TeamLiquid is so damn global. I love that. This is the best community I’ve ever been apart of, and not just on the internet. The best damn community EVER. Thank you!
I think I’m done ranting now, but THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU TEAM LIQUID. <3 <3 <3
