EPTI want some tips on my first console since I basically can't play computer games anymore. I will also put the background story into writing to do my mind some good. Now before you read this please note that any criticism to my English is welcomed so don't feel bad advising me regarding that.
Anyways the story starts around one year ago. Then I was a man with a plan regarding how to make the most out of my love for sc2. I was finishing up school (bachelor in informatics) and I was getting plenty of playtime in while doing so. Then as now I loved playing and watching the game. The "plan" I had had started to take form in oct-nov 2010 and came from me wanting to get more out of the game. A big stopper for me was my ladder fear. For me personally the root to that is probably my lack of a competitive nature. See, what drives me to put work in to be a better player is not the competition, it's rather the feeling of getting that improvement in skill, getting results and to be "good" or "great" in the eyes of others. Sharing experiences, teaching/coaching and such things also appeals to me a lot. I also often play games only to have fun and to pass time.
But playing 1vs1 ladder for me was pretty brutal I could only play a few games before feeling exhausted. So to fix this I decided to be a team player indefinitely. 2vs2 play was actually helpful for my 1vs1 as well because the elements that stressed me the most in the game was the rush situations and those occur even more in 2vs2. Part of that is me having a playstyle heavily influenced by NTT. I really like to play long and economic centered games and the longer the game gets the more comfortable I get. So the extra early game practice in 2vs2 would do me good I felt like.
Around here you are probably wondering how good I was and my answer would be that I was not terrible for being a random amateur. Once they launched masters I instantly got into it with about 100 ladder games played and following that I did well there while almost only getting ranked up against players with really good ranks in masters. This is nothing special at all but I wasn't a total scrub.
Just when I was really getting into 2vs2, the game was still fresh and since my friends grew up with brood war like me it was great playing with them and I liked it a lot, and 2vs2 gave me zero ladder fear. Sadly friends dropped of to wow expansion and minecraft so I started doing 2vs2 random. Mid November I decided that I was good enough in 2vs2 to start a blog series about it here at teamliquid. I still enjoyed laddering the 2vs2. But I never dropped 1vs1 completely.
Around this time of my 2vs2 focus I also took part in in the [url=http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=170066Adopt A Noob Program[/url.]I got plenty of requests for coaching had my own little channel with low ranked players that I matched against each other and trained. One of my best friends in sc2 was my first student, a bronze/silver player who turned into plat after a weeks coaching. I loved coaching (still do) and I gave my students a lot of time and played with them a ton. I even coached a protoss player in "how to play" while avoiding the deeper Protoss aspects. As a veteran from sc:bw (played that game since it came basically) I had some game knowledge to give out and Day[9] was a great resource. I really worked with some of his ideas and suggestions on how to better. I only typed with my students but I felt like it worked out well even so. I gamed a lot with random allies at this time to so to communicate good with typing only was a must for that as well.
Now it's time to get back to the plan. As i mentioned earlier school was finishing up and I knew that I wanted to start of being a Java EE developer and here is were it was all coming together. I wanted a development project to learn more about writing web pages with java related technology. I decided that I was going to write my own little website featuring free coaching in 2vs2 and some private coaching for money. My blog here about 2vs2 would be my main offering besides coaching in the free model.The actual coaching would be me observing games sprouted from my channel and give advice after, talk about strategies in groups etc, live coaching and more. But to actually play with me in 2vs2 or to get private lessons or coaching in1vs1 would cost. I was planning to stream the open stuff as well.
Why do all this? Well for fun of course. Why not offer coaching totally free anymore? Well making a little money of your hobby is not wrong and since I planned on getting at least some success figured I would never be able to give free private coaching to everyone anyways and the charge would restrain the interest for it a little. Worst case scenario I had some fun and learned more about web development.
Now to actually be able to coach well in 1vs1 I was going to switch back into being mostly a 1vs1 player. but how to approach that more seriously? After some thinking I came to conclusion that I wanted to develop my way of playing into a consistent well thought out style. But by now I had gotten a taste for the early battles from my 2vs2 play and I really felt that games that had an unusual flow at first and then turned into a macro game was my favorite kind of game. Rushes, Base trades, trading blows to economy, doing weird strategies - all with the aim to make the game a little confused while I sneaked the game into macro mode and my true comfort zone felt like the way to go. Also I wanted strategies that could kill early, would deny scouting well and could transition into late game.
Before talking about this further I should mention that I am a mech player much like Goody but I feel my inspiration is NTT but I ofc did take a few notes on his builds. I have also always been really fascinated by the mindset of [url=http://wiki.teamliquid.net/starcraft/V-Gundam]V-Gundam[/url] and the bamboo rush and it always came to mind for me (and still do) when seeing all the strong one base plays utilized a lot by koreans in GSL. So for TvP I decided that I was going to utilize a strategy as potent and flexible as the bamboo rush: the oh so hated 1-1-1 rush and use it with the one size fits all philosophy. To really learn the odds and ends of that and also how to transition out of it into a macro game was something I was really excited about doing. I would try to sneak in a CC before going and bring no more then a few scvs in most cases. When doing my initial practice I had really great results most of the time. I also experimented with ways to fake it and to use "pins" etc to keep my opponent in his base while I expanded. One example of that was a reaper opening (to get some map control) into hidden expansion and then try to make it look like a normal 1-1-1. For TvZ two rax was still really good and I liked to open with that to deny some map presence and do some damage while expanding and going into mech. Having enough marines to stop scouting ols while doing the transition makes sense as well. For TvT I never really got time to play around deciding what would be my thing.
Because in the midst of this sc2 prime time for me it all took a pretty swift ending. I only ever made a single blog post about 2vs2 and I never really came around to any of this and my plan crashed and burned. So what happened? Simply put I got [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Repetitive_strain_injury]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Repetitive_strain_injury[/url].
Over one year later it's slightly worse (all though I have decent periods) but I basically cant play much at all. I actually cant use the mouse very well. Luckily for me I wrote this guide a while back [url=http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=114116][find it here][/url] on how to use keyboard only and that's what I mostly do. I have to use the mouse with my right hand for a few things, hell I even play sc2 if I have a good day but overall I just avoid it due do my arm being so messed up. At work I use this
![[image loading]](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/31TvMkmzKHL._SL500_AA300_.jpg)
with my left hand.So yeah... That's how I stopped playing I guess. I have seen three doctors and a physical therapist. They basically all agree on it being a muscle thing and that it pressures a nerve. I got some exercises I need to do etc but so far they are far from curing me. So i'm thinking about stopping with the computer completely while home and only use it at work. (there I have great desk, chair, mouse etc so not as bad)
Now being a gamer in heart I have played a lot of pc games for single player fun through the years and to not have at the computer I know I need a substitute. I have gotten a Kindle since the accident and I read some but I want to play games. As I mentioned earlier i'm not all that eager to compete with others, being able to play with my girlfriend will suffice. I'm not really looking for a console that has games similar to sc2. I'm rather looking for single player time sinks, games I can beat a time or two and then play something else... Also note that I never really played a console game. Might be a shock for some but that's the truth. I mean I tried a few times at friends and I played a little super mario as a child and turtles in time but overall no real clue about this.
PC games I did like that comes to mind that might even work better on console are Skyrim, mass effect, halo, hit man and similar games. I'm unsure if I will like games like super mario but I want to try them.
Im not sure if Wii offers much besides the gimmick of the hand controls? You guys will understand what I need in terms of depth. Then again my girlfriend who is super hostile against pc games would probably play Wii with me... Any advice here?
What's your favorite console and what's a console for a newbie like me?
Thanks for reading. Felt nice putting this to print i'm a little sad this still but it felt great just putting it out there. Cheers!
Those things are the beauty of console gaming to me. I also spend 4 months a year without internet (gasp!) and that is when I console game so yeah....
I play relaxing games on PC though, like SWTOR, because then I can sit in a way that doesn't hurt my neck. But as soon as I load up SC2 and BW it hurts 
