EPTSo eight years of FPS experience and a lot of frustration at not winning a nationals, SC2 beta comes out. I literally ran around the house doing jew punches in the air; I can't remember being that excited for any game since I got a copy of Heroes of Might and Magic 3 for my birthday.
I was out of uni and doing some crappy freelance work, essentially part time. I had shitloads of free time for SC2. But I sucked, sooooooooo bad. Truly rubbish, and I ended up and stayed in Silver for the first phase of the beta.
Beta shut down and the second phase comes around: suddenly I'm in Platinum. Not bad, not bad. Unfortunately, Blizzard pulled a fairly dick move: not only did they reset the ladder, but they also altered the way the game transferred packets, which initially resulted in every Australian insta-dropping from their game.
Back in Silver again. You cunts.
Anyway, I worked my ass off and got promoted into Platinum again. Fantastic, I thought: I've improved substantially. I can actually feel and identify areas where I'm playing better. More importantly, I can recognise when I'm making the correct decisions, and I started to be able to telegraph basic builds.
I don't remember having this foresight in shooters for ages, and certainly not with consistent clarity. Maybe that's because I'm a massive worrier. "What about this?" etc.
Growing in confidence (and getting better against an old-school CSer, who was kind enough to play me repeatedly no matter how shit I was - even though he was competing for the top prizes in Australian SC2 beta tourneys) I entered some competitions of my own.
I didn't have initial success: I made it through a couple of rounds here and there. I finished around the top 32 of the first TransTasman Invitational. I thought that was a good result; my practice partner knocked me out of the winner's bracket, so no harm done there. I'm improving again.
Second time around, however, I qualified for the top 16. Not only that, I was one of only two Terrans in the entire bracket (the 3rd, who probably would have qualified and deserved to be there, forfeited his match against me, although I still had to play another best of 3 to qualify).
This was big. I'd actually gone from 0 proper RTS experience to achieving something notable. I'd even impressed my practice partner by playing solidly. I'd impressed myself.
A realisation also washed over me: why didn't I play RTS before? I was having a much better time handling the ebb and flow of SC2 than any RTS I had ever played. I was enjoying it much more. There's no rubbish about servers failing to register your shots. I've never encountered a cheater in SC2.
That last point is really critical if you're an Australian CS player. Cheating is rife in Australia. A lot of the top players all assume everyone else cheats, so as soon as you start hitting some good shots on them, BAM. Cheats on. Your chances of winning evaporate into thin air. What's more frustrating is that they don't need them at all - they're supremely skilled. But administrators refuse to ban them from tournaments (it's only a pug, or my favourite, it's only a practice war). So the cheating continues; the community is effectively dead, irreparably hamstrung by the immaturity of the most talented and a collective lack of a spinal column.
But I couldn't play the second day due to family issues (even though my first round opponent was someone I managed to beat in a practice match the day before). That's OK: life got in the way. That happens. I still managed to prove something to myself - that I could improve and be competitive to some degree, albeit only in the little gaggle of Australian gamers.
Baby steps, right? I was genuinely happier than I've been for a long time. Even banging my ex-girlfriend for four hours straight (I was, uh, bored) wasn't this much fun.
Unfortunately, life stepped in again; I got a new job that involved four hours travel a day.
Goodbye SC2. I literally had no time beyond two games a day, which wasn't even possible sometimes due to other jobs. Even when I had the time, I quickly worked out it wasn't worthwhile: if I lost the games badly - which will happen when you're removed from the scene and the game changes to a state that is almost a polar opposite of how it was played before - it just made me irrationally angry for work.
Also, you don't want to be thinking about a loss when you're spending two, sometimes up to three hours on a train. Especially if you need the sleep just to function.
So I gave up, and the time I had left over went into Call of Duty where I was still in a team that was one of the best. I barely got to play any of the scrims - work and all - but it was better than the alternative.
About eight months on, and I finally put together enough scratch (and grew a pair large enough) to move out of home closer to my work. The travel got cut down from 2 hours to 20 minutes, and I regained at least 15 hours of my life back a week, sometimes 20.
I didn't play SC2 straight away though. I couldn't. My housemate was one of my teammates in Call of Duty and I was looking forward to getting back into the groove just like old times (we'd been playing games together on and off since 2003). Unfortunately, he moved to a better team and I was left behind.
But I didn't want to play SC2, either. The game wasn't the same game anymore. Every matchup was almost completely different, and on top of that my mechanics had rescinded to their Silver-level self.
After a few months, I gave in. I suppose I had to eventually: I'm just not naturally talented at FPS games. Whatever success I got came through extremely hard work (the efforts of which I still feel occasionally, when my wrist seizes up with the most painful case of wanker's cramp on the planet).
So about two and a half weeks ago, I made a fist of it. I enjoy SC2, truly I do. But I wasn't going to be beholden to fear; I was always one of those players that finds the ladder menu a tad daunting.
Fuck it, I said. I just started playing, watched a few replays and worked my way into it. It was time to see if I was still capable of mentally and mechanically functioning in an RTS.
About half an hour ago, I found my answer.
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![[image loading]](http://i52.tinypic.com/opv1w2.jpg)
It's good to be home.
