EPTSo I've just poured myself a glass of red wine, and decided tell all of you a story about myself and my world of StarCraft. My girlfriend since 5 years has just gone to bed and I can already tell by her loud breathing that she's already fallen asleep. We're celebrating our fifth year aniversary July 12th and I'm kind of stressed about what to get her.
Despite my low post count, I can assure you. I am not new. I've been around Teamliquid since 2003. I can't explain why I haven't contributed in the past. I've been a lurker on and off for the last eight years. I guess it speaks to my personality back then I suppose.
I first encountered StarCraft when I was 12 or 13. My friend Michael had gotten a bootleg copy of WarCraft2 and we decided to have a LAN. It was just me and two friend and it was an amazing experience. Somehow we understood that there was a new game out that was called WarCraft, but in space. His older brother got us a bootleg copy of that game for our next LAN the following weekend. We were all mesmerized and instantaneously addicted. We gathered every weekend for almost a whole year just playing versus each other. Diving deep into the game we all know and love.
Somehow I pretty much always stood on top and seemed to have a better understanding of the game then anyone else which eventually led me to take the first step to competing online. I bought my own legit copy of StarCraft Broodwar and I was taken away. In those days all we had where I lived was a 56k modem which costed horrendus amounts of money per hour to be online I was limited to playing a few hours per night. Somehow I still managed to develop my skills as a zerg player until the point my friends didn't want to face me on our LANs since there wasn't any real point to it. Imagine a Grandmaster taking on a Bronzee. I was still welcome ofcourse, but the joy in competing was really gone once our skillcurves took different paths. We moved on to playing Diablo I and Diablo II together instead. But my love for StarCraft was always there, lurking..
I took my refuge in #swe-1 and eventually found some friendly people to play 1on1 with. All we ever played was 1v1 on Lost Temple and I formed my first and only clan. I met a guy named iNS]tHRAWN who introduced me to Lee and together we formed our clan [cNL]. Clan No Life was a fantastic experience. tHRAWN, Lee, me, Melchior and after some months Chaso. We share alot of online memories and I have tHRAWN to thank for getting interested in music more then casual listening. I also met a fantastic player and a really nice guy named WiLLEt who helped me develop my ZvP skills tremendously. I still don't know what drove him to take me under his wings and teach me the game. But we played for 3-4 hours every day for several years. Analyzing every game and every mistake I made. He also let me observe games when he faced 006Trevelyan who had an amazing and insane macrostyle zerg I guess before anyone else. WiLLEt was an amazing player who I guess alot of people to this day still recognize as a member of clan ToT and before that pG. We even went to a festival in northern Sweden together when I was 17 along with Melchior and a guy named tiAX. God, I sometimes miss those days.
The game of my life
So there I was, at the peak of my broodwar career when lightning struck. Literally.
It knocked my old saggy desktop computor to an early grave and I was in a state of panic. However, my dad brought home a laptop from his work the day after and I hooked it up to my monitor and connected the mouse. I logged in to an early day near empty #swe-1 and see that SaFT is online.
SaFT was just coming up and getting recognized as one of Swedens top players. Other contenders at that time was MadFrog, JessE, Kenka, 006Trevelyan, Daaman, DeliCato, WiLLEt as I remember it.
He kindly gave me a game and nervously I played my heart out and beat him with a 3 hatch hydra build. Back then I had no idea that it was an all-in build. Those concepts was unheard of, atleast for me.
I still remember the feeling I got when he gg'd out of the game and I remember sitting in the Bnet lobby, stunned. I beat the currently best broodwar player playing with the laptop keyboard.
I eventually stopped playing in '05 and got a job while finishing school. I've got my heart broken and broken a few myself. I've experienced love, traveled alot, lost friends and family, gained friends and family and made a pretty solid career as I currently have about 500 employees working as a regional manager for a swedish company.
However, one of the few things that has remained constant through the last ten years has been StarCraft. I've started and stopped playing again for distraction when life has been tough or when I've just not had anything better to do with my time. (Discovering iCCUP was an awesome experience last year, Lan latency!!) and when SC2 came out all my old childhood friend with whom I still talk to from time to time all bought the game and it was like I was 15 again.
It really is fascinating when I think about what this game has meant and still mean to me. Today my friend list is empty again when the same people who merely tried the game out left, but I remain. I don't have the time to play more then a few hours every week due to work, but I follow the community almost daily. Watching streams, reading forums and rooting for our upcoming swedish players. One of the best things about following the StarCraft community thus far has been discovering iNcontroL in various podcasts. I really enjoy listening to him and since I have trouble sleeping without listening to either music or podcasts, SOTG has been playing daily in my ears before falling asleep. There is also all of you. Both old and new community members who are currently helping this game grow into something I think is both unique and fantastic. SC2 from a business perspective is really something to look out for and I think it has a real "shot" at making it big in the west. The things we only dreamt about for the last ten years are becoming reality in no-time it seems. Amazing.
Even though I just wrote what some call a wall of text I still feel there is so much that I havent said.
I envy all of you who are just venturing into the world of StarCraft. It will bring you alot of memories even if you don't get to go to Korea and fight with the very best. Trust me.
5/5
