Becoming a pro, and thanks Kennegit! - Page 2

On February 14 2012 13:52 shizaep wrote:
Anybody else feel another post coming up in a couple of weeks: "I lied about everything in my last blog and was trying to get people to say nice things to me."

No, I'm just kidding. Don't take it the wrong way.

On a serious note, I'll say that I am doubtful at best that you will ever have any success at SC2. Unless you devote yourself completely to the game, you'll never have any tournament success. If you think you can be the next HuK, you should think again. There are a handful of people who are the best at the game and they have left school, family to get there, pretty much dedicating their whole lives to it. There are a lot of progamers in Korea but the reality is that none of them will ever find any success. They have no job, no education, barely a social life and grim prospects of the future. They believe they are following their dreams but 5 years later they will come to the realization that they just wasted their youth playing the game that they grew to hate. I probably sound pretty depressing right now but I'm just trying to make you realize that real-life progaming is far from what glamorous TL biographies of the best players make it out to be. My 2 cents: play casually, maybe get to masters or something but do not sink your life into this. You'll be sorry later. Do something productive on your other time.

However, I am just an online identity that you will never meet. There's no reason for you to listen to me. It's your life.

On February 14 2012 14:05 dGHaiL wrote:
Hey Frostfire,

Starcraft 2 was the first RTS game I'd ever played seriously. Sure, I'd played Brood War as a kid, but I really just messed around against the AI and used cheat codes. I had never ACTUALLY played against an online opponent. I also played a little Warcraft 3, but I did the exact same thing.

My point is: SC2 was the first RTS game I picked up and said to myself: I'm going to be good.

I started playing in March of last year, starting in bronze as terran. I bumped up to gold after a day or two, and then switched to zerg and fell to silver. After another week, I was back up to platinum. I spent the summer with the Navy and was unable to play, so I put SC2 back on the shelf. When I got to school in September, I had more time on my hands and began to play again. After a month I had worked my way up to a promotion to masters with the beginning of season 4. I was ecstatic.

My point is, you don't have to be dedicated to Starcraft to improve relative to the people around you. I'm going to toot my own horn and say I was a highly ranked Feral Druid in WoW, back when the level cap was 60. (Vanilla WoW, yeah). I've always been good at video games, and I played a LOT of chess in high school. I don't play much Starcraft since I don't have the time or a good computer at school, but somehow I placed into masters. If you believe in yourself, I think you can do it.

If you want a practice partner, I used to go by Foe 558 on NA, but now I play under WoLveRine.321. (Opened a random account and now play mostly terran). I'd love to play with you sometime if you want a practice partner of any race. My P is probably only Low diamond level, but it could still be useful.

Keep your grades up, though, but otherwise man I say go for it!

glhf

On February 14 2012 14:15 dGHaiL wrote:
If you want to be a professional athlete of any kind, starting at a very young age is almost always required.

I played tennis from the age of about 9, but I know I'll never be a professional because I didn't start when I was three. I'll settle for playing in college.

Its also worth noting that yeah, he's platinum, but he's also only 14. Maybe he won't be PRO in Starcraft 2, but HoTS will change things, and there will be other RTS games that come out. I wonder what some of the pros would say if you asked them what age they were when they decided to go pro?

You can't really be playing competitive starcraft at 5 years old like you can be playing tennis or basketball.

I'm not trying to push this kid down a bad road - merely trying to point out the differences.

On February 14 2012 14:26 krndandaman wrote:
lol only 14 is not a big issue. guess how old Flash was when he won his first individual title? and he made a promise to become a progamer and win a title within 1 year. alot of progamers get good really quick and spend insane hours practicing.

On February 14 2012 14:31 dGHaiL wrote:


Flash was 15. And this kid isn't saying he's going to win GSL. He's saying he's going to go pro. Comparing him to Flash, one of THE BEST Starcraft players ever, is like comparing Rafael Nadal to Jack Socke. Rafael was 18 when he won his first major title. Socke is 18 now, and hasn't won a title. But he has the potential to be very good if he goes professional and keeps training. Should he quit because he isn't the best pro on the tour?

Let the kid have a dream!

On February 14 2012 15:06 krndandaman wrote:
inachievable dream.

On February 14 2012 13:11 seRapH wrote:
I don't like to be harsh, but the simple truth is that you're not going to become a progamer. You won't ever make it to korea. In all likelihood you won't even be a relevant name in the foreign scene. The skill gap between you and the pros is much wider than you think, and no amount of practice will get you there. It may seem unreal, but better players than you have tried. People who were smarter than you, who practiced more, who had more support and who were more talented have tried and failed. They fell back on their schooling and concentrated on their studies. You're not going to do better.

If you really want to be a presence in the starcraft community, this website is a great place to start. You don't have to be good at the game, you can just be entertaining, or learn to program and make something useful for us, or if you're an artist draw something. But please don't waste your life chasing an impossible dream. If you're telling the truth about your grades then that's great, keep it up, but don't see starcraft as anything more than a hobby. That's not to say you shouldn't keep trying to improve, of course, but remember that it's secondary.