EPT![[image loading]](https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-roKZjDucUFo/UD4JnAgdaaI/AAAAAAAAASc/ONJcPSq0Mvs/s912/IMG_20120618_115629.jpg)
This summer seemed to be like another regular summer. Visiting relatives, playing games at the arcade, hang around in Seoul, while catching Proleague and OSL. Sure enough, as soon as I landed in Korea, I visited the hospital (family reasons), then proceeded to play endless rounds of Pump It Up. It was a regular routine that repeated for few days.
Watching Proleague was no different. Visit the stadium, sit down, watch the games, interact with the players after the game, then leave the building. I was just another regular fan enjoying the games. Sometimes, it was really easy to meet up with the players and chat with them; other times, it was really hard to meet them (someone like Reach), especially late at night.
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HEY IM NOT THAT SHORT!!!
I don’t exactly remember which Proleague match it was, but I happened to meet up with Moletrap at Proleague. Knowing him from BW days, I said “hi” and just started a conversation about BW and SC2, just another fan-personnel moment. He said he remembered my username from TL, I said that I was a streamer and also translated few things here and there. And then, I just spoke out what I was thinking at that exact moment
“What if you did official OSL cast for the last BW finals? Wouldn’t that be awesome?”
Moletrap did state that he thought about it and actually wanted to do it (in fact, it was his dream since his early days of casting, if I remember correctly). I told him to push for it, stating that they should at least get an official English service before BW is over officially. I also told him to call me if they need a translator. Overall, it was just fun talking with Moletrap that day. Really friendly, chill, and overall nice guy.
However, the tale began when Moletrap tweeted me that night.
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I gladly accepted. What did I want in return? Nothing really, except maybe dinner. I did this because I wanted to, not because I wanted to earn some money (in fact, this was the reason why I first started contributing on Teamliquid. Yes, getting something in return is good, but was never the first reason for translating).
Though I have translated before, it was my first time doing a video translation, face-to-face, along with the players. Moletrap told me: Don’t be a fanboy. Wasn’t a problem for me though, cause I recently started following the StarCraft 2 scene and didn’t know that many players. As the day went by, we waited and waited to see which players would advance, and asked the players for interview. Asking for permission was very simple (I’m emphasizing this at the moment for later story), and I tried my best to translate/interpret the players, while not making any mistakes (trust me, I made mistakes).
Translations at OSL Preliminaries, non-KeSPA.
+ Show Spoiler +
Back to TVing OSL. I had to root for JangBi, the last protoss left in the last BW OnGameNet StarLeague. And I had to watch it live. Starting at 3:30pm, I lined up in front of the entrance to the OGN studio. Yes, there was Proleague going on at that moment; however, I just couldn’t miss the chance of watching JangBi vs ZerO, front seat. My experience of the Ro4 can be found here: http://www.teamliquid.net/blogs/viewblog.php?id=352151 (don’t worry, its a TL blog. I don’t get any advertisement money for advertising myself, except TL staff who earn the money through website’s advertisements).
At the end of the day, I met Moletrap again. Too bad he cheered for ZerO, he wasn’t happy with the result (and thus I started rubbing it in =D). I waited till the end to get a glimpse of JangBi, Kim Carry, and few others.
However, this was just the beginning of my summer in Korea. Moletrap and I visited the OSL Preliminaries again (it was KeSPA qualifiers this time around), along with GTR, kjcwj, and MrHoon (btw I hope to see you guys again in the future. It was a pleasure talking with you guys).
This experience was little different from non-KeSPA, however. And by little different, I mean much different. First of all, the KeSPA coaches started staring at us, and started asking around to the OGN personnel who we were (fortunately, they knew Moletrap, me (as Moletrap’s translator), and Teamliquid (thank god GTR wore a TL shirt that day). We got a warning saying that we shouldn’t be near the players.
Funny story: People think KeSPA referees are complete dicks. Let me state this so that we can get some misunderstanding out of the way. Some referees are nice. Really nice. Who am I talking about? The one who refereed Shine vs Flash and ruled re-game (thus getting banned from TVing OSL). And trust me. He did make questionable calls during the prelims (even during the non-KeSPA Preliminaries). Thus, when he started walking towards us, I was afraid that we were going to get kicked out. When he asked who we were, I answered. He told us that we can stay, as long as we don’t stay near the players (same thing that the coaches told the OGN staff). Other than that, he was really generous. Sure, the referees make dumb decisions sometimes, but they are one of the nicer people that I met at the Preliminaries. (NOTE: referees don’t represent KeSPA, the group. They didn’t decide to pull out of GSL; that was someone else).
So we got to stay with those conditions. When Bisu failed to qualify, we tried to interview him on his thoughts on SC2 and few other things. However, we ran into another stop sign. He told us that we were supposed to talk to SKT T1’s coach for permission.
Wait, this didn’t happen during the other Prelim. What o_O;;
Continued in Part 2
