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Hey all, I wanted to hear some stories and discussion from the community about how you all got into watching esports and progamming. Obviously, if you started watching with a game other than SC2, since I personally started watching Brood War, and I know a lot of other people started watching casts of War3, CS, Halo, and any other assortment of games that have a pro circuit and are casted in front of a live audience and/or on a stream.
I personally started watching BW by complete accident. I was living with my dad in 2009 after taking a year off between high school and college. While playing soccer, I fractured my patella (knee-cap) and was looking at about four months of recovery and at least a month where I wouldn't be able to walk. It was absolutely devestating since I'm a really active person, and it also prevented me from working, hence the reason for moving in with my dad (I had been living alone) and this, in and of itself, was not a pleasant experience.
So, one day, I was extremely bored and had this weird itch to play Starcraft. I decided to find my old BW CDs from when I was like 8 or 9, and try to install it and play. unfortunately, my old BW CD seems to have been lost forever, although I still have the vanilla SC CD, and will hopefully keep it forever.
Anyway, I bought a CD key on e-bay for about $10, and loaded that into my B.Net account and started downloading the game. I had recently done a report about video game addiction and learned that BW was played professionally in Korea, and had risen to the status of a national sport. Because I had to wait for a couple hours for the game to download, I decided to surf the web a bit and see if there was any information about pro BW.
My search led to the BW Wikipedia page, so I scrolled down to the professional competition section, and read about the SKY proleague finals, where 125,000 people attended a single gaming event. I also read about the stars such as Lim YoHwan, Ma Jae Yoon, Lee Yeon Yeol, Kim Taek Yeong, and Kang Min. At that time, these were only weird names to me that ment nothing. But, as I scrolled down further, I found the link to GOMtv, and checked that out.
The first Game of BW I ever watched was the Ro32 match between Effort and Mind on Neo Medusa. It was an awesome match, and I remember being really impressed at how aggressive Effort was with scouting Zerglings, and how meticulous Mind was with his army positioning. Also, SuperDanielMan and Tasteless made the game really enjoyable, even though I didn't know anything about the game.
I then scrolled through the list of videos and saw that the one with the most hits was from a tournament that had taken place a year before, called the GOMtv Star Invitational. This tournament sounded exciting since I knew that the players were supposedly the best in Korea, and were all invited to play in that tournament. I decided to watch those games as if the tournament was playing for the first time, and I was watching the games live. I fell in love with a Terran named Flash. I had no idea who he was, but I remember seeing something in his play that just excited me, so I rooted for him to win.
Somehow, through these games, I was directed to TL and iCCup, where I learned of the fierce competition of SC first hand and through vods, both in english and korean. I had a respect for what these players could do, and continued following Flash to this day, even though I have completely stopped playing BW for the new frontier that is SC2.
In the end, I'm still amazed at how this happened, since it feels like a complete accident. had I not broken my leg, or got that weird itch, or moved in with my dad, none of it would have ever happened. But I'm glad it did, since SC and SC2 are continuously making me the person I am today.
 
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GOMTV star invitational!!!!!
"t.g. sambo Intel classic"(sp?)
omg tasteless i loved you so much... i guess i still do but i mean i really fucking loved you.
I think he used to be even funnier if that's possible
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H to the usky Husky youtube > TL > GSL > Day9 > Dreamhack > Anything and everything SC2 ESPORT
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i remember being on bnet and seeing a link in somebody's profile to teamliquid around 2003-2004ish. i still had dialup back then, so i couldnt watch as much as i wouldve liked. first finals i ever caught was ever04. hooked 'ever' since lololol
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I always remembered hearing that Starcraft was a professional sport in Korea and then just one day it clicked in my head that I might be able to watch some games on youtube. When I searched it I found a few videos of Boxer and became an instant fan :D Sadly my internet wasn't good enough to play so I was just watching from 2005-2008 and I could never play  (Satellite internet, what a joke.)
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On June 09 2011 02:22 Legatus Lanius wrote:
hooked 'ever' since lololol
Oooh, witty. 
It was too long ago, I can't remember what got me into progaming. I played BW but didn't know about the scene, but I jumped in during the Savior era (I <3 MJY.). Then I got into WC3, watched an buttfuckton of WC3, then got a deal hosting the GomTV WC3 invitational tournament for the players to have a server based in NA - so I got to meet and first person spectate all sorts of players. Grubby, Moon, Grubby, Sky, Lyn, Tod.
Good times.
Then through that "job" I head about the BW Averatec Intel classics and invitationals and etc. etc.
Got into it then and have never looked back.
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Playing Warcraft 3.
Playing a competitive game made me wonder who was at the top of the competition. So I started watching a few VODs on youtube(The 10mins limit on videos was really killing me at the start haha), then I ended up watching some streams.
Man, that eternal Moon vs Grubby finals match made me an addict of watching progaming streams.
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SC2. Trying to learn the game in more depth during the Beta, watching Day9 regularly and being introduced to the wonder and awe of watching the best-of-the-best beat the living shit out of each other in the same game I enjoy.
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kpop -> kpopflash -> teamliquid -> tlpd -> sc2 -> gsl -> ESPORTS (-> gaming -> "extensive" gaming)
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Germany2762 Posts
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I'm not sure, I just kinda started watching brood war vods on youtube one day (commentated by klazart, moletrap, etc.). I knew about TL and BW progaming way before I started watching it or reading the forums here, I didn't even register for an account on TL until way later. I mainly read the write ups and LR's for games that I couldn't watch due to limited bandwidth.
I think counter-strike got me into competitive gaming, though. Never watched as much pro CS as I did BW (and now, sc2), though
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When SC2 first came out, the thread on a forum I read ocassionally, PC Powerplay, had a link to TL. I browsed around, found the streams, randomly clicked one, and have been hooked on SC2 since. Around the same time, was browsing youtube for Quake videos, found some ESL stuff, and loved it, and that got me into fps progaming. And TL got me into the fighting game competitive scene.
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EPT
