The Gathering, Banana Phone, and a smelly Bischu

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Story is now up on http://www.au-gaming.org/index.php?site=news_comments&newsID=92 as well. Visiting our site would be much obliged

As a lot of people lurking on TL are practicing starcraft hard, wondering what its like to travel to tournaments and playing as a progamer, I've decided to share you the experience of my first real big lan event..as a progamer.

It should be noted that I am not actually a real progamer. I am nowhere near being able to live of starcraft 2, and I'm not even really that good at it yet. But my ticket for the event specifically said "progamer ticket", and thats close enough.

The event in question is a Norwegian one named The Gathering 2011. This year we had 5400 people sitting under one single roof, in one huge single hall. The starcraft 2 tournament this year had a combined price pool of 45 000 nok (8000 USD), and names like Thorzain, FuRy, Sjow, Bischu, SaSe, NightEnD and several very promising Norwegian gamers. There was two ways to qualify for this tournament. One was through one of the online qualifiers several weeks beforehand, or you could pay for a seat, bring your own computer, and enter through the "offline" qualifier. As I did the former, my seat in this tournament was safe before I even payed for my ticket. Oh yeah, the gamers had to pay for the tickets too, somewhere close to 150usd. Quite expensive for a student with no job, only living off of scholarship. But as I'd come to learn later, it was all worth it.

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This is only half of it.

The worst part about the whole trip is the 7 hour drive to get to the event, and then the broken back from sleeping in the car, waiting for the event to actually open. I had been there once before, with a standard ticket, but I had forgotten how overwhelming the experience can be when you first walk through the doors: All the people setting up their computers, the smell of electronics, and the share size of the hall itself. The progamer area was at the back, closed off by a low fence so people could stop and watch as they walked by..and they did. Nothing is more cool than having people hanging over your shoulder, being awed at how good you are (even tho I am mediocre at best). I've heard that at most events, you're not allowed to use the computers except for warming up before the tournament. But the admins here was cool and let me use the computers as much as I wanted. The only rule was to not bring drinks without screwcork, and boy did I get to hear it a lot...Because I kept breaking it. My team was sponsored by Rockstar energy drink, and I could drink as much as I wanted. Note that Rockstar drinks are in cans..without screwcorks..
Sitting opposite of me was this guy who had traveled all the way from Germany to compete in Trackmania. Pretty cool guy. We got to know each other a bit, and we cheered each other on. (Btw, if anyone knows who this guy is or how I can get in contact with him, I would be grateful). Other than that I got to meet some of our other team members, some of my arch enemy's team members, and various other people I've only previously related to their nick.
Its a weird thing seeing the people behind the nicknames. Most of them turned out to be nicer in real life than over the Internet, especially the forum trolls. There was a couple of cases of the exact opposite as well, but the former far outweighed the latter.

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Spot the undead

This was a 4 day event, and I had been smart this time (read: enormously stupid) by saving expenses on not renting a hotel room, and sleeping on the concrete floor in the hall itself. Let me sum up the experience: Broken back, bruises on the hip, loud music, people climbing over you, kicked in the head by the person sleeping next to you, parades of teenagers screaming and hitting you as they run by, woken up at 7am every morning with "banana phone", and the sleeping bag stolen by the security in the morning as you're off brushing your teeth. Total amount of sleep during the 4 days: 1 hour.

Day 2 came along, and it was time for the group play. I had previously been set up in a group togheter with Sjow and a really good zerg from norway..Which is troublesome seeing as my PvZ was my worst matchup at the time. When I checked in to play I was told that the groups had been switched around, and I now only had to face off vs NightEnD and 2 other people I have never heard of before. I had to play first, early in the morning. I had spent the entire last day setting one of the computer's up to my specifics. But today I was placed at another computer, and it quickly hit me that I really had no clue what my optimal settings was. If you only take one thing from this story, let it be this: write, down, your, settings!. Everything from the mouse settings both in game, in windows, acceleration (should be off, of course), to your screen resolution, gamma, hotkeys and ingame settings..I had forgotten them all!
After half an hour of fiddling around, I managed to get the computer running in semi-familiar mode, but I was lacking real warmup and my first opponent was waiting. Luckily, my first opponent was another protoss. At the time, I had a really well developed PvP build that was aimed at hitting 10 seconds before 4gate was finished. and it really threw my opponents off. The games was bo3, but nothing says a semi-cheese can't work twice in a row. I 2-0'ed my opponent, and was immediately thrown into my second matchup: "Oh yeah, another protoss!"..and another 2-0.
Then I faced NightEnD, protoss yet again. This was an important match for me. If I won against him, it would mean facing off vs an easier opponent in the next round. To make it that much worse, it was streamed..featured on TL..infront of thousands of viewers.. Sure enough, after not even 10 minutes, the results was yet again 2-0..
..to him..

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As the day went on, more and more "stars" started arriving. Sjow and SaSe being the two I most looked up to. It's funny though, seeing and talking to the players in real life. You start learning a few things you would never have known otherwise. For instance, SaSe was really cocky during the whole event; playing with a hat, and trash talking his opponents. Sjow kept mostly to himself, I had to google Thorzain before I realized it was him, and Bischu smelled really bad. That being said, we all smelled bad, me probably worst of the bunch. I had forgotten my towels at home, and there was no shops within walking distance that sold them. So I could only shower once during the whole 4 day event, and I had to use my tshirts to dry off.

"Ring, Ring, Ring, Ring, banana phone!", the speakers roared at 7am again. "Doesn't these guys know we're gamers? What gamer wakes up at 7am?! No real sleep tonight either. Well, It's ok. I needed time to practice before the playoffs." It should be noted that all I had done since I arrived was playing Starcraft 2. I hadn't eaten properly, pretty much been living off energy drinks, and I was already sleep deprived. I was crashing bad, and I swear I started hallucinating. I also, for some odd reason, became extremely paranoid. Because of my failures the day before against NightEnD, I had to face off vs a teammate of mine: Fury. The Norwegian Fury, not the Swedish FuRy. As I was practicing with some other teammates that day, I KNEW that they where going to tell Fury my über build which I had only thought up that day. They where conspiring against me, all of them! What I failed to consider was that the build was shit, and I should just have played normally instead. But at this point, I was so paranoid I swear I thought fury was watching me play the whole time. Needless to say, the games was a disaster. I don't remember exactly, but I believe I went onebase allin on both games.
And that was it. No losers bracket, and I was out. My ride home wasn't going until the last night, so I had still a day and a half to waste. Luckily, being a spectator at The Gathering isn't a bad thing at all. Theres almost always something going on, but having constant access to the progamer area, and a computer I could use, didn't hurt.

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Fury vs FuRy

The finals between SaSe and Sjow was during the last day. Believe me, it was the most epic bo7 I've ever seen. It was back and fourth the whole time, and even included a draw. There was also a showmatch between the Norwegian Fury and Swedish FuRy, which was really fun to watch. I, myself, even managed to sneak a price from another tournament that was going on the last day, which was actually my first time winning anything in starcraft 2..quite proud of that. At the end of it all, it was an expensive, neckbreaking and tiring trip, but it was all worth it...Even though I did slip into a coma for 2 days afterwards..

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For anyone I might have freaked out during the event: I deeply apologize, but I was hallucinating.. I don't even know if you exist..

The Gathering, Banana Phone, and a smelly Bischu

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