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Similar story here with WoW arena cept I made it to the top(destroying r1 players from every bg when everyone xferred to bloodlust)
I disagree with the statement that you just sometimes can't make it. You just need to improve at improving if that makes sense... The argument came up in an earlier post 'It isn't wrong. Not everyone is capable of following their dreams. If willpower and hard work was the only barrier to being a professional athlete, there would be a lot more people in the NBA.'
With so many people sharing one dream, you need to improve faster than everyone. Also sports are a lot different to gaming, physical injury / limitations play a MASSIVE role in any sort of sport. Gaming on the other hand is entirely about hand eye coordination and thinking.
All in all, the most valuable thing I've learned is that being number #1 is irrelevant, because soon after you are someone who is more dedicated than you(and there always will be) will dethrone you.
These days I prefer using the term challenge over competitive. I want to challenge myself to play guitar as best I can, play sc2 , play quake, play mario kart ffs AS BEST I CAN. Not for glory, not to cure any insecurities but because it's HOW I FUCKING LIKE TO DO SHIT.
Long rant from me, good blog(first one in months on TL)
Totally feel ya on the social skills, if I didnt move out of home at 18 I feel I still would be a massive loner. Luckily Wrath of the lich king ruined any fun that was WoW arena lol.
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the thing is that even with a game that is essentially entirely based around an online community, you can't just play the game 12 hours a day and just hope to make it to the main stage. becoming pro has a lot to do with networking, connections, and being more than just someone who is capable of playing all day everyday - something that pretty much anybody can attest to.
this applies to pretty much every single thing that you could ever want to do in life. You can't just make it to the top by being willing to train all day. There are thousands of others that are just as willing but also have other things going for them that get them recruited and realized as people worth spending money on. Without the willingness to make opportunities for yourself, all your training simply becomes wasted time.
I see what you're saying, but it's kind of a jaded view imo since I personally think you didn't go about your path in the best way. You did more than what others who strive for the same probably did, but I still don't think you did enough.
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On January 12 2012 15:22 pjw wrote:
Similar story here with WoW arena cept I made it to the top(destroying r1 players from every bg when everyone xferred to bloodlust)
I disagree with the statement that you just sometimes can't make it. You just need to improve at improving if that makes sense... The argument came up in an earlier post 'It isn't wrong. Not everyone is capable of following their dreams. If willpower and hard work was the only barrier to being a professional athlete, there would be a lot more people in the NBA.'
With so many people sharing one dream, you need to improve faster than everyone. Also sports are a lot different to gaming, physical injury / limitations play a MASSIVE role in any sort of sport. Gaming on the other hand is entirely about hand eye coordination and thinking.
All in all, the most valuable thing I've learned is that being number #1 is irrelevant, because soon after you are someone who is more dedicated than you(and there always will be) will dethrone you.
These days I prefer using the term challenge over competitive. I want to challenge myself to play guitar as best I can, play sc2 , play quake, play mario kart ffs AS BEST I CAN. Not for glory, not to cure any insecurities but because it's HOW I FUCKING LIKE TO DO SHIT.
Long rant from me, good blog(first one in months on TL)
Totally feel ya on the social skills, if I didnt move out of home at 18 I feel I still would be a massive loner. Luckily Wrath of the lich king ruined any fun that was WoW arena lol.
Playing an FPS game, at least, depends on reaction times, twitch shooting, hand-eye coordination, and decision making. all of which(imo) differ from person to person based on talent to begin with
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This was moving. I can actually relate myself. I failed a semester of college back in 1998 because of Vanilla SC. I played day and night and stopped going to classes. I ended up having to drop all of my classes and take a semester off to quit playing. Luckily, it didn't affect my life significantly and I still did well in college overall. I even got accepted to grad school and got my Ph.D. in genetics. But I could see how it could have really ruined my life if I hadn't stopped as soon as I did.
I hope you get your life back on track.
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In our society, as we grow older things like gaming become less important, and they are replaced by things like education, a job, a wife, kids etc... With the emerging eSports scene; maybe our society will change and playing a video game will be an honourable thing.
However, as it stands, playing video games still seems like a "waste of time" and you, the writer, and me, the reader, are both under that notion, so we can sit here and read what you wrote and think "yeah, bro, you screwed yourself in a way...."
However!!!!!
I don't think you screwed yourself. You were passionate and stoked on the game, and you followed through to try your hardest.
Live with no regrets my friend! Just give as much passion to other things when they come up in your life when you feel the need to chase after them as well ie: girl friend, job ect...
Keep on keepin on...
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On January 13 2012 06:13 ComebackKid wrote:
In our society, as we grow older things like gaming become less important, and they are replaced by things like education, a job, a wife, kids etc... With the emerging eSports scene; maybe our society will change and playing a video game will be an honourable thing.
However, as it stands, playing video games still seems like a "waste of time" and you, the writer, and me, the reader, are both under that notion, so we can sit here and read what you wrote and think "yeah, bro, you screwed yourself in a way...."
However!!!!!
I don't think you screwed yourself. You were passionate and stoked on the game, and you followed through to try your hardest.
Live with no regrets my friend! Just give as much passion to other things when they come up in your life when you feel the need to chase after them as well ie: girl friend, job ect...
Keep on keepin on...
thanks for the support my fellow canadian!
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good blog, very realistic...
makes my remember my cs days too
we were like a family and had so many fun moments in vent
anyways be glad you had the experience and learned from it!
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On January 13 2012 10:00 leo23 wrote:
good blog, very realistic...
makes my remember my cs days too
we were like a family and had so many fun moments in vent
anyways be glad you had the experience and learned from it!
yeh some of the funnest times were just fucking around on mIRC, or waiting in a server waiting for a scrim to come.
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On January 12 2012 12:38 Yenticha wrote:Show nested quote +On January 12 2012 10:22 Lewan72 wrote:On January 12 2012 07:07 voo05 wrote:
[This is about counter-strike:source, not sc2 unfortunately]
*Edit* This is probably really shitty writing, but I just wanted to blog about it.
When I was very young and growing up(8 or so) we had one computer in the house. It sat between me and my brother's room, and we were got a DSL connection fairly early on. With me being the younger brother, and my brother being addicted to counter-strike, I got very little time on it, however, when I was on it, I was playing counter-strike[1.6]. This was maybe 20 minutes a day and it was quite a fun time.
At some point, my family got another computer that was more up to date(2004 maybe) and naturally, that was the computer my brother took, and he switched over to playing counter-strike:source(css). I continued playing CS1.6 and longed for the day that i would have a computer powerful enough to run the game that looked like so much fun that my brother was constantly playing. Well... I eventually got that computer, and this is essentially the story of what happened.
When I first got a computer capable of running counter-strike:source, I pubbed quite a bit. I was maybe 13 at the time and pubbing was a source of enjoyment. In 2008, near the collapse of the CGS, I discovered(through some pub clan) the enjoyment that was that of competitive gaming, and I never looked back. I constantly played scrims through mIRC and gamed essentially all day. After about 6 months of this I got truly competitive about the game.
I began trying my best to be the best. I watched juansource(CSS's equivalent of a day9 in depth daily) all the time, often falling asleep watching it, and while I was up I was either scrimming, deathmatching(to improve my aim) aim mapping(to improve my aim) or sitting in an empty server thinking up strategies for my team to use the next time we scrimmed. Let me get this straight. I didn't play this game just "a lot", I played it korean style, 10-12 hours a day(even on school days) every day, literally every moment I had I was on the computer and every moment of that was spent in game trying to get better.
I lived this "life" for approximately 2.5 years, culminating in my grade 11 run in which i went to less than 40% of my classes, and failed every non-academic course i took. This game was my life. For those 2 and a half years i was dedicated to never losing, always improving, and being the best that I could possibly be. I can tell you, however, I didn't even almost succeed. My best css achievement was going 9-0[full season is 16 games] in the lowest league division, and then having the team die on me due to unreliable fucking crazy people on the team. That was essentially the end of my css "career"(if you would call it that). I quickly realized that even though I spent every waking moment trying to be the best at this game, and it was literally two times the amount of any pro that touched the game since the death of the CGS, I would never be good enough to even call myself almost nearly there.
The moral of this story, essentially, is that even if you put your heart and soul into something, if you don't have the innate talent you cannot, and will not, ever make it to "the big leagues" even when it's just a game, and the big leagues don't even pay more than $5000 to split between 5 people for a first place victory in the biggest tournament.
I won't say that what I did was stupid or a waste of time because I honestly don't believe it was. It taught me a life lesson that I'll never forget, however, I should have realized much sooner that it wasn't going to happen, and in the end, I sacrificed all too much for a dream that never came to fruition.
Follow your dreams, but don't fuck up your life in the process. Great except.... "The moral of this story, essentially, is that even if you put your heart and soul into something, if you don't have the innate talent you cannot, and will not, ever make it to 'the big leagues'" This is SO wrong and I hate it when people say this because it is just an excuse. Oh that guy beat me because he was just born smarter and more talented. This is wrong. What makes someone the best is hard work and dedication. You said it didn't work for you, well its not suppose to work the first time. Almost every successful person has had a major fail like you've experienced, except the difference is that they kept on working at it until they become the best. errr... even though there is some truth in what you said (every successful person experienced failure blabla), it does *not* mean that talent does not exist and/or does not matter a lot. Take maths. Some people naturally get it waaayyy quicker. We've all seen it. Some students will understand everything in like 5 minutes, and it'll take days for others. So yeah, sure, with hours of work, no-talent guys can improve. But there are only 24hrs per day, and only about 80 years in a life. So if someone learns 40 times faster than you, and works a decent amount of time, then you're just screwed. And you should do something else.
I know someone who came into college having taken absolutely no calculus, had a shitty math SAT score, was just all-around bad at math, but decided to become a math major, and then did just that. He's now working on his math PhD at a prestigious USA research institution.
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On January 13 2012 10:40 babylon wrote:Show nested quote +On January 12 2012 12:38 Yenticha wrote:On January 12 2012 10:22 Lewan72 wrote:On January 12 2012 07:07 voo05 wrote:
[This is about counter-strike:source, not sc2 unfortunately]
*Edit* This is probably really shitty writing, but I just wanted to blog about it.
When I was very young and growing up(8 or so) we had one computer in the house. It sat between me and my brother's room, and we were got a DSL connection fairly early on. With me being the younger brother, and my brother being addicted to counter-strike, I got very little time on it, however, when I was on it, I was playing counter-strike[1.6]. This was maybe 20 minutes a day and it was quite a fun time.
At some point, my family got another computer that was more up to date(2004 maybe) and naturally, that was the computer my brother took, and he switched over to playing counter-strike:source(css). I continued playing CS1.6 and longed for the day that i would have a computer powerful enough to run the game that looked like so much fun that my brother was constantly playing. Well... I eventually got that computer, and this is essentially the story of what happened.
When I first got a computer capable of running counter-strike:source, I pubbed quite a bit. I was maybe 13 at the time and pubbing was a source of enjoyment. In 2008, near the collapse of the CGS, I discovered(through some pub clan) the enjoyment that was that of competitive gaming, and I never looked back. I constantly played scrims through mIRC and gamed essentially all day. After about 6 months of this I got truly competitive about the game.
I began trying my best to be the best. I watched juansource(CSS's equivalent of a day9 in depth daily) all the time, often falling asleep watching it, and while I was up I was either scrimming, deathmatching(to improve my aim) aim mapping(to improve my aim) or sitting in an empty server thinking up strategies for my team to use the next time we scrimmed. Let me get this straight. I didn't play this game just "a lot", I played it korean style, 10-12 hours a day(even on school days) every day, literally every moment I had I was on the computer and every moment of that was spent in game trying to get better.
I lived this "life" for approximately 2.5 years, culminating in my grade 11 run in which i went to less than 40% of my classes, and failed every non-academic course i took. This game was my life. For those 2 and a half years i was dedicated to never losing, always improving, and being the best that I could possibly be. I can tell you, however, I didn't even almost succeed. My best css achievement was going 9-0[full season is 16 games] in the lowest league division, and then having the team die on me due to unreliable fucking crazy people on the team. That was essentially the end of my css "career"(if you would call it that). I quickly realized that even though I spent every waking moment trying to be the best at this game, and it was literally two times the amount of any pro that touched the game since the death of the CGS, I would never be good enough to even call myself almost nearly there.
The moral of this story, essentially, is that even if you put your heart and soul into something, if you don't have the innate talent you cannot, and will not, ever make it to "the big leagues" even when it's just a game, and the big leagues don't even pay more than $5000 to split between 5 people for a first place victory in the biggest tournament.
I won't say that what I did was stupid or a waste of time because I honestly don't believe it was. It taught me a life lesson that I'll never forget, however, I should have realized much sooner that it wasn't going to happen, and in the end, I sacrificed all too much for a dream that never came to fruition.
Follow your dreams, but don't fuck up your life in the process. Great except.... "The moral of this story, essentially, is that even if you put your heart and soul into something, if you don't have the innate talent you cannot, and will not, ever make it to 'the big leagues'" This is SO wrong and I hate it when people say this because it is just an excuse. Oh that guy beat me because he was just born smarter and more talented. This is wrong. What makes someone the best is hard work and dedication. You said it didn't work for you, well its not suppose to work the first time. Almost every successful person has had a major fail like you've experienced, except the difference is that they kept on working at it until they become the best. errr... even though there is some truth in what you said (every successful person experienced failure blabla), it does *not* mean that talent does not exist and/or does not matter a lot. Take maths. Some people naturally get it waaayyy quicker. We've all seen it. Some students will understand everything in like 5 minutes, and it'll take days for others. So yeah, sure, with hours of work, no-talent guys can improve. But there are only 24hrs per day, and only about 80 years in a life. So if someone learns 40 times faster than you, and works a decent amount of time, then you're just screwed. And you should do something else. I know someone who came into college having taken absolutely no calculus, had a shitty math SAT score, was just all-around bad at math, but decided to become a math major, and then did just that. He's now working on his math PhD at a prestigious USA research institution.
bad grades and/or bad level at time t does not imply no talent. It can be because the guy:
a/ has never studied maths a single second before (in this case, he had taken no calculus classes?)
b/ has never given a shit. Maybe spending all his time thinking about other stuff (sports, friends, work, whatever)
c/ has been to classes/tried, but with stupid professors, wrong environment
d/ so many other reasons
long story short: no, talent is not big flashy number tattooed on your face. So yes, you can *look* bad but actually have talent. There is no way to know for sure if you have talent for one particular thing or not (precisely because this information is not written anywhere). For the OP, given his experience, he came to the conclusion that he was lacking talent. Maybe he's wrong, and what he was lacking was a super good mouse? We will never know. But in my opinion he made the right call.
Oh, and mentioning one guy you know who succeeded despite an *apparent* lack of talent doesnt prove anything. I actually know dozens of students who have studied maths like crazy (like 18hrs a day for 2 or 3 years) and never got even close to the level of other dozens of gifted students who would just study 2hrs a day. So yeah, maybe the former were just using the wrong methods to study, maybe they were not eating enough vegetables... you can look for other reasons to explain that sometimes 18hrs/day <<< 2hrs/day. But I'm pretty sure in 95% of the cases it's just pure talent difference.
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I had the same experience with counter-strike source. The only hope you have of going pro is to 1) LAN [and do ok] 2) Be in with the medium+ teams, which is easy when you LAN, and hopefully getting in to a inter team, then pro only coming once you've established yourself there). Every single Pro team in Aus started at LAN/bunch of friends. There was never any 'getting in' on the pro scene here, every other pro team was maybe 1 or 2 inter team players and recycled players from dying/reforming Pro teams.
Of course, I couldn't achieve 1 or 2, I live in regional Australia, so no LAN for me, and an endless cycle of amateur teams, and having hopes dashed once I got to main+ teams because of cheaters and dying/failed teams. Didn't matter if you spend 100 hours working on strats and aim becoming the best player in a team game like CSS.
But none of that translates directly to RTS games like SC2, they can be played with 200 ping, and travel is possible....so much easier to fly yourself or one person overseas than an entire team ($10,000 A TRIP?!) - even with huge sponsors like Intel only make that possible if they fund most of it.
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Wow it's like reading what happened to me... Exactly the same, I went hours playing non stop and school work dipped dangerously low... My saving grace? The parents not paying the internet bill.
The closing line is so true, I've seen so many people throw away their lives because they want to "go pro" when half the time it just isn't plausible. I mean the best we managed at a LAN was like, 16th and I can only recall one time we reached the latter stages of a tournament online, we were good but compared to the real teams no where near.
Edit: Someone mentioned that their CS/CSS team were like a family, I remember every person in the team I was in who was what and their personalities. I sure as hell miss those guys but we've all parted ways. The real world should always win
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On January 13 2012 15:10 Yenticha wrote:
Oh, and mentioning one guy you know who succeeded despite an *apparent* lack of talent doesnt prove anything. I actually know dozens of students who have studied maths like crazy (like 18hrs a day for 2 or 3 years) and never got even close to the level of other dozens of gifted students who would just study 2hrs a day. So yeah, maybe the former were just using the wrong methods to study, maybe they were not eating enough vegetables... you can look for other reasons to explain that sometimes 18hrs/day <<< 2hrs/day. But I'm pretty sure in 95% of the cases it's just pure talent difference.
I know dozens of incredibly stupid people who had near perfect GPAs...
I have to wholeheartedly disagree with the emboldened comment.
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While your story indeed is sad, I think you might be taking things out of context. While to you it may seem like you just never had it in you to go pro, chances are higher that you were simply doing something wrong and didn't realize it - stories like this won't shake my belief of hard work being enough to become a pro (even though I'm not trying to do it.. yet?), because the possibility that you made some mistake you didn't realize are simply higher and more probable.
That said, nice story.
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While I like the ending quote, I don't really agree with the talent thing. IMO, work ethic and just having passion for something is a talent in itself...but since CSS is a teamgame, it might've seen like you didn't have talent, when it would be the lack of dedication of your team.
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For such a young poster these are quite wise words. Welcome to TL. Thoroughly enjoyed reading this and appreciated the message personally. I know the feeling : /
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On January 14 2012 01:02 OutlaW- wrote:
While your story indeed is sad, I think you might be taking things out of context. While to you it may seem like you just never had it in you to go pro, chances are higher that you were simply doing something wrong and didn't realize it - stories like this won't shake my belief of hard work being enough to become a pro (even though I'm not trying to do it.. yet?), because the possibility that you made some mistake you didn't realize are simply higher and more probable.
That said, nice story.
That's quite possible, however from my POV it's hard to think like that when I spent so much time just entirely dedicated to one thing, and my skill only measured up to mid esea-main(equivalent of mid-high masters maybe)
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Thanks for sharing the story, I hope this can reach out to all the delusional teenagers who are ready to so easily throw off the important things in life for an incredibly slim chance at a progaming career.
I believe the root of the problem is the accessibility of computer games. All careers require hours and hours of dedicated studies, training, experience, teamwork, and on top of that, you need talent and luck. It's the same with progaming. Too many gamers, including those I've seen here at TL, are under the wrong impression that couple-hours-a-day counts as dedicated training, and beating a couple others counts as talent enough to be on par with some of the best in the world.
Just as not everyone is born to be a professional athlete, not everyone is born to be a progamer.
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On January 12 2012 23:46 voo05 wrote:Show nested quote +On January 12 2012 15:22 pjw wrote:
Similar story here with WoW arena cept I made it to the top(destroying r1 players from every bg when everyone xferred to bloodlust)
I disagree with the statement that you just sometimes can't make it. You just need to improve at improving if that makes sense... The argument came up in an earlier post 'It isn't wrong. Not everyone is capable of following their dreams. If willpower and hard work was the only barrier to being a professional athlete, there would be a lot more people in the NBA.'
With so many people sharing one dream, you need to improve faster than everyone. Also sports are a lot different to gaming, physical injury / limitations play a MASSIVE role in any sort of sport. Gaming on the other hand is entirely about hand eye coordination and thinking.
All in all, the most valuable thing I've learned is that being number #1 is irrelevant, because soon after you are someone who is more dedicated than you(and there always will be) will dethrone you.
These days I prefer using the term challenge over competitive. I want to challenge myself to play guitar as best I can, play sc2 , play quake, play mario kart ffs AS BEST I CAN. Not for glory, not to cure any insecurities but because it's HOW I FUCKING LIKE TO DO SHIT.
Long rant from me, good blog(first one in months on TL)
Totally feel ya on the social skills, if I didnt move out of home at 18 I feel I still would be a massive loner. Luckily Wrath of the lich king ruined any fun that was WoW arena lol. Playing an FPS game, at least, depends on reaction times, twitch shooting, hand-eye coordination, and decision making. all of which(imo) differ from person to person based on talent to begin with
aim is directly related to how good the people you are playing. Like, aim maps never really help except warming up. I found that when i was getting better, you have to play people who have better aim to get better aim, cause the better players have faster reactions and better movement, they force you to aim faster and more accurately. I honestly don't think its a talent thing, just that you were not practicing the right way. The thing that happens for a lot of people around that good but kinda not so good level of skill in team games is that they practice in ways that are really bad. Like, they will play a shit ton of aim maps, but against players with bad aim. Or they scrim a lot, against players of similar skill, so they never are forced to get better. I never think of talent, especially at such a low level of CS play, a mental hurdle blocked you, not some innate talent in the rest of players.
If anything korea's starcraft dominancs shows that mechanics is truly a developped skill. Idra can practice his mechanics all damn day in America, but if he's not playing the best his mechanics will still not be the best, same with aim or any other skill.
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EPT
