EPTI won't lie, I came here and I'm still here because of SC:BW. While I like many other things about TL, most of it stems from the bw forums. (and one or two other places like the automated ban list, and the hope to see one of those improbable incredibly witty post (man, I'll always remember that bump after Idra cancelled is CC against Nony^^)). Oh yeah, and thanks to all the people who ever recommended Planescape : Torment, it was aweeeeeesoooooome. So anyway, i'm going to talk about myself, and how I got into bw and after on TL. No orginality, and wall of text incoming^^
I'm a 23 years old student in engineer school, and I'd love to become a maths researcher (that's reasonnable given the way the franch system work). And I'm not asian^^
I started playing sc1 at the age of eleven. My mother disliked the idea of me playing video games, so all i played before was tetris, some amazing breakout-style games and a mac version of minesweeper with pentagons instead of squares (much better in my opinion, but I can't find one anymore -_-). Then I made two new friends, one who introduced me to ff7 (...), and the other to many games: half-life (omg, I remember being so afraid at each corner), dungeon keeper, diablo 1 and 2 but more importantly sc1 (brood war was out at the time, but he did not have it). And while I loved many other games, the one I asked for Christmas, much to my mother's dismay was that very game. « Are you sure? Won't you have nightmares ? » she repeatdly asked (I already loved zerg for they seemed less straightforward and zergling and hydras were so cool...). But yeah that's what I wanted. Oh boy was I right.
I still remember vividly my first game. It was at my friends' flat on his mac, and I had chosen zerg because he thought it was the easiest race. I played against the terran computer, and with his advices, I managed to hold his first push, but lost to the second one, with siege tank (the beggining of a long hatred).
Then came those hours lost on the campaign or against the comp', with or without cheat codes (I'm pretty sure I managed to beat the comp on Baby Steps with only black sheep wall or something, but the campaign was too hard^^). I did not remember playing that much, but my sister recently reminded me that she couldn't stand the music in the end, so I must have played quite a lot in fact^^
I never had brood war at that period, but was really jealous of my friends who did, and who were much better than I(i got raped 1v2 against one, whose brother could beat him 1v3... I played recently with this guy, he still has over 100 apm and some very old strats down^^)...
The came LoD and war3, which made me play a lot less, and eventually no more during a few years. With LoD, I started playing a bit on internet, even though 56k sucked a lot (ahhh those random lag spikes into instant death^^). I returned to sc sometimes though, and a lot more when I got a cracked version of broodwar. I finally bought the expansion, but much later.
The second great meeting was with the korean proscene. What made me type « starcraft » into youtube ? How did I ended up watching those vods ? I still can't remember. But I do remember this :
I'm pretty sure I watched it shortly after the game was played, so in 2007. I was a very busy student at the time (I was in maths sup' for the French people who know what I'm talking about), but I was already hooked up. I became a sAviOr fan without knowing
, watching random english commentaries of old games (man that pimpest play serie by cholera was awesome) all the time. I was not really aware of how tournies worked, I was just enjoying those games for what they were. TvZ was already my favorite match up, I though TvT was boring (how wrong was I^^), and I could not understand shit in ZvZ, were every battle seemed random.I think I stumbled on TL for the first time while looking for pro maps. So the first page I saw was probably this one : http://www.teamliquid.net/tlpd/korean/maps/146_Monty_Hall (yeah that map is disturbing^^ btw I really love technical maps, even though they may be imbalanced, they add a lot to the game, and the better player can often find ways to exploit the starngeness of the map and reverse its balance... Monty Hall being a great example of course^^).
It took time, but I started to read about builds on wikipedia, and as I became more knowledgeable, I started to watch korean commentaries, before watching only them, because, you know, they are awesome. I did not start to really visit tl regulalry before discovering the beauty of LRs thread (the recent for allstar is absolutely amazing, thanks very much guys), and I still often read them even if I saw the game. It's also pretty fun to read the ones for very old series (Bisu vs sAviOr for instance^^).
I found many people cool witty, and more recently (a few months before I registered), I started watching live games, and man those are awesome. My favorite live experience ever was probably the Flash vs Fantasy serie in MSL semi finals. Just incredible. Nowaday I try to catch as many live games as I can (usually those in korean evening), and for the series I miss, I watch recommended games (well, I know my tastes so I'm usually wary of Bisu games or I avoided a lot of those sc2esque PvPs on central plains that were all recommended, I still wonder why...).
There are many people I'd like to thank. All the people that have ever uploaded bw content on youtube (moktira <3, marcoso <3 etc). Translators because I love ot learn more about those players I admire so much. Streamers. Guys you're all awesome. OGN for being easy to stream. MBC for having the best commentators I have ever heard in any sport (and I still don't understand 99% of what you're saying^^). The guys that work on bw iccup (. Sayle for being awesome (ISL has really been great so far btw, see Pholon thread for instance^^ (wasn't he the guy with the best cheese thread ?). Liquipedia uplaoder. Any person who has ever written a strat guide. Writer teams (so many good ones, from TLFE to the MSL selection ceremony, counting Ver's incredible OSL final battle reports. Yeah Ver you desever a special thanks too). People who update tpld. People who make live report thread. Community helper (lilsusie, nervergg...). And every other guy that still love bw as much as I do, who posts in lr thread, fanboy or not, funny or not. In a way I feel connected to all those crazy people, a lot of whom i've come to like, even though they live miles away, and the only thing we really have in common is a love for a 12-year-old game and those crazy koreans who play it for a living.
Random stuff :
I'm happy to see the bw scene still alive, quite sad when I read sentences about bw in the past tense (yeah in « in bw defilers could » should be in « in bw defilers can », please).
Funnily enough, I play 2 game a month and I'm low-D at best, I'd love to improve but I don't have friends with whom I could play)
I'd like to repay the community more, and while I have done at least one thing for that, I'm in debt with it for the countless hours of entertainment it has provided me. I originally planned to write a guide on how to watch TvT because it has become my second favorite match-up, but my post is already too long (I did not really know how much I had to way about me and broodwar, I'm a bit narcissic I guess), so I'll do it later I guess.
Anyway, thanks to you all. Long live Brood War.
. When I saw the "wall of text" i just said nah what the heck if the guy put the effort to write it I might as well read it 
