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Starcraft 1 & 2 are very time-consuming.
TL is full of smart kids who have lots of possibilities in life.
Once you're out of high school, the way you spend your time is critical in regards to your future.
Video games often are an obsessive hobby.
There are many, many amazing video games to play, past and future.
I have a lot of free time on my hands right now. This means I can play a lot of Starcraft! Well...
I will try to enter a prestigious school in two years, and should probably prepare for that. I have two choices ahead: game design or political science. I will need to teach myself some programming languages AND basic economics alongs with some basic knowledge of the business world (I've studied mostly art, history, philosophy and literature so far). Not only that, but I also need to improve my english, my spanish, and my german to be able to pass some exams and have a paper that officially says that I'm quadrilingual (nowadays pretty much anyone says they speak at least 3 languages, even though it's not true most of the time).
Edit: Reading this I realize it sounds like bragging, but let's make it clear, my spanish is meh; my english full of flaws and my german is terribad. I don't know anything about the business world, nor economics, nor programming. In short, those things I listed are things I need to start from scratch or seriously work on.
So this is quite a lot, and it's only the serious part.
See, my girlfriend bought me the game Xenogears and a book called "Philosophy of videogames". Fun stuff to do! I'd also like to play FF7 again, hell, I'd like to play FF6, 8 and 9 too. I want to play Chrono Trigger, Baldur's Gate 1, Diablo 1, Tomb Raider, Abe's Odyssey, Gemini Rue, Braid, The Witcher, Skyrim... so many games! And I'm not even counting movies and books!
I think that my point is quite clear by now: while there are many beautiful, amazing, necessary and useful things to do, I spend most of that time laddering in Starcraft. I was on the verge to Masters, but couldn't get in, then switched to Zerg, but playing team games to learn the mechanics kind of took the fun out of it. It's just ladder-ladder-ladder, when I could be improving myself at so many things, discovering so many new songs, new movies, new games, new books.
I think I'm getting closer to the point where I just want to shout "screw this shit" and uninstall the game altogether. But stopping before Masters feels like a failure, and seems and odd conclusion to simply randomly stop even though I still want crave more games. What do you think? Should I just leave the game, or try some more? Have you already stopped playing, or considered doing so? Thanks in advance.
Sincerely,
Some random newb
 
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I agree on the part that us college should spend more time (generally speaking) studying rather than watching/playing starcraft. I find doing like 90% of my studying AT school, and playing games when I get home at night. As for starcraft being a very time consuming game, it isn't for me as it is very stressful, so I like to do things like ski/drink/hang out with friends too.
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I am a high school student from Canada, and I see you are French.
The difference between a North American high school and a European high school is ridiculous. I get marks between 80-90% with MAYBE 2 hours of studying per week. I play some music, so that is 30 hours per week total. I sleep around 8 hours a day. So I get roughly 90 hours that I feel obliged to spend living, and the rest of the 170 hours (I'm not good at math, it must be close to that number) playing video games and having fun.
All you need to know is how much you can afford to play, and once you know how much you can play you can have fun.
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A lot of people will say you're retarded and most likely give this one star. Not a single fuck should be given because what you describe is actually the better life. You have access to throngs of countries and their economies with language, and you have access to pseudo-acceptance at Blizzcon with more laddering. The best thing Starcraft has ever given me is friends--ones that I talk with regularly and have had amazing times with. Unless this is your first passion in life, do what you know is right, especially while you are younger.
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There are certain lessons about psychology, what kind of attitude to have in what situation, about the true values of talent and effort, about making your best shot but sometimes falling short still just because shit happens, that are better to learn in BW than say an embarrassing way in real life with the loss of a job or lack of direction your entire life. tl;dr: Starcraft is actually a better path to maturity than other things you do in your youth.
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It's not really a high school schedule, since I'm in University and here you're supposed to do 10x more work at home. You can skip on studying at all and still pass, or work your ass off and pass too. But it will make a difference later!
French high schools can be heavy, but don't worry, they're still pretty laid back in comparison to other models (the Korean one for example).
As for SC being stressful, I had an idea that I never tried: play an hour of SC, and do some stretching and exercices right away. It could be a solution, all ina very competitve mindset. 
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On January 24 2012 10:01 oBlade wrote:
There are certain lessons about psychology, what kind of attitude to have in what situation, about the true values of talent and effort, about making your best shot but sometimes falling short still just because shit happens, that are better to learn in BW than say an embarrassing way in real life with the loss of a job or lack of direction your entire life. tl;dr: Starcraft is actually a better path to maturity than other things you do in your youth.
Of course, but what if you have an obsessive personality and mild success in the game?
I mean I love the game but damn I can spend 5 hours straight laddering and it hasn't led me anywhere! I haven't made a single new friend and I'm stuck in Diamond both with Zerg and Terran.
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Just play the game less?
Focus on other things and play team games with friends.
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The problem is that you're assuming that we can all function at 100% when we're not gaming. I don't game when I'm at 100%, I game to recharge and relax.
Trust me, I gave up on online games long ago, but playing games keeps me sane.
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quite true. I guess there's a certain point where you stop learning things you can apply to other parts of your life, but there is some merit to exploring games for cognitive purposes. The reason you crave more games is probably just from the fact that you've played a lot of games over time in your life, and have learned to use them as entertainment. So it could take a while to "get off" games, a weird way to put it. If you really feel like you need to invest in some other activity, you should probably stop playing and just immerse yourself in that thing, be it books, music etc...See how you like it after a while.
I know I'm going to lessen my playing over school periods and come back to it during breaks, but I know there's something more that I can explore in life. I've just gotta step outside the box and try it.
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i always wonder where i would be now if i hadnt picked up sc:bw in '98. maybe president.... then again, i may be dead from a heart attack. sc has always been my stress reliever. i agree everything should be done in moderation, sc:bw included.
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At first, I only played the game to get better at BW and try to become one of the better players. Then one day, I realized: wtf am I doing, putting school before videogames?
There are times that I still put videogames before schoolwork, but it has gotten better since. Instead of playing the game, however, I try to think about contributions to the community. For example, translations, video making for ISL, confirming/denying rumors in BW forums etc. etc.
In the end, TL is just a video game community, and you won't make something out of it unless you start taking an initiative. Some people try to take a step back and start playing the game more casually, while others try to better the community by doing community-related projects/works.
TBH, I know my translations still suck, but it has gotten much better since I joined TL.
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On January 24 2012 10:07 IntoTheheart wrote:
The problem is that you're assuming that we can all function at 100% when we're not gaming. I don't game when I'm at 100%, I game to recharge and relax.
Trust me, I gave up on online games long ago, but playing games keeps me sane.
Yeah, you should play games to unwind or relieve stress because imo the time you spend playing actually becomes productive that way because it's not really important but provides you with entertainment and enjoyment. Then you can spend your actual productive time working on learning languages/ programming.
Also your English is very good; don't worry about that. I didn't find any glaring issues besides mixing up an/and.
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On January 24 2012 10:21 Chocolate wrote:Show nested quote +On January 24 2012 10:07 IntoTheheart wrote:
The problem is that you're assuming that we can all function at 100% when we're not gaming. I don't game when I'm at 100%, I game to recharge and relax.
Trust me, I gave up on online games long ago, but playing games keeps me sane. Yeah, you should play games to unwind or relieve stress because imo the time you spend playing actually becomes productive that way because it's not really important but provides you with entertainment and enjoyment. Then you can spend your actual productive time working on learning languages/ programming. Also your English is very good; don't worry about that. I didn't find any glaring issues besides mixing up an/and.
I agree with the first point.
And for the second point, I believe that you've got me mixed up with the OP. Thanks for complementing my English though, feels nice, I've gotta say.
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I think you should first ask yourself what you will be doing with your time without starcraft.
If you will replace it with more study and more productive activities then yes you totally should reduce or even eliminate the time you spend on sc2.
If however, you are going to procrastinate and end up wasting your time anyway then you should stick with sc2. I don't know about you, but I for one prefer spending my time playing starcraft than checking facebook incessantly and waiting for someone to post in the funny pics thread.
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Time management will set you free. As long as you properly budget your time there is no reason you can't play videogames, do well in school and pick up a few extra-curricular activities.
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Hey man i'm way ahead of you i just browse TL, but i must say i've been doing much better without SC grade/life quality wise. But i replaced SC2 with study/ learning to play bass. Although i do miss SC2 i knew i wasn't going pro and i was painfully addicted to sometimes you gotta stop. If you can play part time good for you if not well then at least you got your values straight good luck!
if you want i also made a blog on this same topic
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If you haven't gotten into master league yet, I would just give up if I were you
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<3 Xenogears, I need to go buy a Ps1 and that game so I can play it again. BTW very time consuming game.
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EPT
