EPTBut how did it get so bad? Where did I go wrong all this time... It was just one tournament right? That's the problem, in theory it wasn't just one tournament. It was my entire life, Even the successes I had in the past I could no longer take any pride in them, they faded in time with the world and eventually with me. I thought I couldn't feel any emptier, but I did.... I started competing in gaming by accident a long time ago in the year of 1993, with the Nintendo powerfest, it just kind of happened and I went and played. I was young, really young as in didn't really own a system of my own and didn't understand anything about what was really going on. No plan, just played the games and scored points or at least tried to. No big deal, But it was my start, It was the first competitive thing I ever played.
Along came arcades, the local bowling alley had an arcade and my parents being avid bowlers, bowled in leagues. So I spent a lot of time in the arcade at this point. My first brush in with the competitive side of arcades was with a guy I am just going to nickname giant. I never knew his name or anything else to go with it besides that he towered over the arcade cabinets and myself being really young, literally he was a giant.He was playing cash matches and a variety of other stuff, and I figured id get in one. Every one always told me I was great, Unbeatable, and well this is the first realization that everything your parents tells you for self esteem is all a flat out lie........Myself still being under 10 had to stand on a chair reach the buttons. He asked several times nicely if I still wanted to do this... and I said yes and I ended up losing my allowance so fast it wasn't even funny, and I had no idea what happened. It was a sad reality that I faced, but it opened the realization that there was more to just hitting buttons and winning. There was more to these games, there was thought, Specials, combos and a variety of tactics I never even dreamt about at this age. Of course I learned my lesson to never try cash matches again till I figure it out. But knowing these things existed opened new doors for creativity and a variety of other options. The older kids were getting more and more competitive in the arcade, And after that defeat several months ago, I really wanted to join them. However even just practice games never went well. It wasn't till I got my own console at home, till I started to figure out somethings. However there was a new game in the arcade, One that wasn't on consoles yet or at least where I could find it. Called Killer Instinct, Was such a classic game looking back. However It was a new start, Everyone in the arcade lost all their fancy knowledge and the field reset, I built upon what I knew and started learning combos, and more importantly the combo breaker. Time passed and then there was announcements of a small tournament going around, with a 5 dollar entry fee, On the night I would be there anyway. I knew I had to play in it, 5 dollars was my entire allowance, knowing if I lost it would have been bad for me. I entered anyway, It was a small tournament around 16 people or so. I Proceeded to steam roll everyone easily till the finals. Then had to face a familiar face, the giant. Now I know he was practicing some place else, as he hasn't spent much time in that arcade but he was there. I felt a strange feeling, I remembered what happened last time I went up this guy, I never felt nervous before, The pressure built up and I just collapsed under the pressure, I could barely stand, and proceeded to take a severe beating. It all seemed lost, then I have no idea what happened, My hand slipped or something and accidentally hit a button when I went to block instead and within literally no health left it stopped his onslaught and I proceeded to refocus and landed a nice air combo through in a mix up and got him trapped and came back to take the round that could have ended everything. I still had to do it again, The next round was much easier, I guess I found that zone and got momentum going again and soon it was over, from the edge of defeat, I won my first tournament, Against the guy that gave me my first loss. Giant stood there lost, but then congratulated me, and the person running the tournament handed me 50 bucks. I felt rich at the time on top of the world. One thing that I regret is never seeing giant again, Tournaments came and went, I won easily again and again. He never showed up. I became the terror of that arcade, No one could beat me, Participation in tournaments was down. People were getting angry and pissed that a kid was winning all of them. I had a bunch of money that no one knew about under my bed. I had a couple hundred bucks and for a kid my age that was almost the equivalent feeling of a millionaire lol, My parents assumed I was just good at saving my money, when I went and bought games for my super Nintendo with my own money. But all of that changed, it was now a year or so later, And the new hot game everyone in our struggling shrinking local community was mortal kombat, I played scorpion and abused all his fire stuff and ended with the fatality where he pulls off his mask every time. People kind of nicknamed me that lame fire kid. However when it came to tournament time, there was this new older kid that was there, never seen him before. He ended up on the other side of the bracket and as always I made it to the finals. This time was different after I beat him, I was arrogant.... And he pushed me off my chair(was more of a light push like your joking right?), and I lost my balance and face planted so hard into the ground. People asked if I was ok and I said yes, I took the money and went to the bathroom and the handicap stall, which had its own mirror, My nose was now gushing blood as it was probably broke looking back. Where I sat with tissue up to my nose not sure whether I should get an adult or not, eventually it stopped on its own and I was able to hide it.... But It was an awkward combo that caused me to have a wake up call and help people, be nicer and try to be respectable. I started shaking hands and telling people nice match or something similar, Win or Loss, And looking back on that I really acted really mature for that age. But when people BM it still gets to me even in today's world, partially because whenever someone BM's I remember that instance so long ago. And I feel really bad even when something does slip from me.
As time went on the arcades and stuff closed or fell completely dormant for the competitive side of things, But there was this new arena that was rising in the late 90s. The internet. The internet opened so many doors for multiplayer games. I started online using the name armored_figure, Seemed cool at the time as I just played Baldurs Gate and that was the name to the unknown villain at the start, before your character knew who he was. But on sites like the MSN gaming zone there was this awkward confusion around it. Everyone assumed I was a girl... And it frustrated me greatly that no one understood the reference at all. I then changed to armored_shadow just because I thought the figure aspect was what caused it. And I was right. After winning alot on the MSN gaming zone, alot of stuff still felt missing as compared to the old days, as the prizes were tshirts and stuff not money. But I still played for the competition, As years went on I moved on to Quake 3 and the unreal tournament series and continued competing on with them. There were two things that happened around the 2000 range, Shadow felt like it was a popular name for immature kids on the internet. So I wanted a new name, and came up with the idea to use stuff from my past. Hence the first variation of my online name I still use today, KiFireLedius. Ki for the game of the first tournament I ever won, Fire for the nicknamed I had, and a variety of other smaller aspects that added on several variations, However after my loss to fatal1ty and joining a few small clans, The tags wouldn't fit, I figured I would continue using it, But I shortened it to KiF1rE in the end and left it ever since. I put the 1 in my name just to remember the past that in that period, I always looked at fatal1ty as who I wanted to be. The champion. And that second thing I never mentioned yet? Yeah that was the quality of competition going up 10 fold in that era. I struggled with a variety of aspects, Age and skill. Age restricted me from entering a lot of tournaments, and skill was an awkward point since I couldn't really even get many games to see how I stacked up against the strongest. There was no matchmaking at that time there wasn't much of anything.
I did manage to compete in quite a few tournaments in between here, However I failed repeatedly. No big deal as I wasn't trying to live off of it or anything, My primary goal was school. Which I wanted to complete but not be at, at the same time, Bullying was severely bad for most of it. That didn't help with a lot of my isolation and social issues I still carry with me today. As far as gaming went I still kept fighting on though, I always felt accepted there. Fast forward a ways till 2004 and I was competing in Unreal tournament 2004. I was becoming quite strong, However I also ran into the strangest wall. I was starting to not be allowed into servers and a variety of stuff, Because people assumed I hacked. Which spread around and got worse, My base attitude didn't help that as I always thought, No need to defend my innocence when I am innocent, the truth will come out and every one will understand. right? wrong.... Well as time went by it didn't deter me much, I still competed to qualify for the larger stuff, Like WCG and other events. However I was still cut short. While I got to top 8 in a few qualifiers I wasn't good enough. Not to mention my reputation was ruined at the same time, till a few people in the pro scene actually stood up for me a bit. And analyzed demos and stuff and said there isn't anything suspicious at all here. One of the few times someone actually stood up and helped me in the gaming community. I still became strong, Had games casted by djwheat and his crew, and kept attempting to win, Though looking back I always wondered if He had any of those old matches on a copy or something,Though never got around to asking him. unfortunately as time past it was now 2006 and that golden era in esports was coming to an end. The big FPS titles were no longer being put into major tournaments frequently and everything was kind of settling out, Was it the end for esports? I had no idea, But I do know it was the end of that genre, the 1v1 fps was a thing of the past.
Thankfully I could compete in just about everything, And proceeded to continue playing weird off the wall racing games, guitar hero and stuff, Promotional tournaments near launch and stuff were quite common and easy to win. But those smaller events while being nice I could compete multi genre and stuff, I wanted that competitive edge back. Heard about Stacraft in korea and stuff around this time, Looked into the game regrettably, I didn't get into it as the game outside of korea looked dead, and Warcraft 3 was doing well, So I got that instead, But its been out for a while and its now roughly the year 2007, And WCG released their official title list. Enjoying RTS games WC3 was announced, but there was something more. A game in a series that I played a long time ago just for the Single player was on that list. Command and Conquer 3. After only a few short months I stoppped playing WC3 and when CNC3 was released in march I promptly switched. The competitive scene was thriving, Everything was growing, the competition was there, EA was putting in alot of time and effort into growing esports, They had shows and stuff developed by them with high production value, example www.gametrailers.com/videos/qyjtrg/command---conquer--battlecast-primetime-episode-2
I even have a game highlighted at the 3 minute mark of that episode, And several other episodes as well. Anyways, as WCG approached once again, after failures in UT and stuff. I proceeded to sign up and try to qualify. The field was full of experienced RTS players, and the RTS genre was one of the last few genres for me to explore competitively, an uphill battle. Sadly I had to miss the first qualifier due to the real world. But managed to get time to go into one of the later qualifiers to get to the regional. Signups were a bit weak at this point as majority of the stronger players have qualified and back then WCG broke up the qualifiers by several regions for the US, so it spread everyone out. I only had to play 2 matches to get to the regional qualifier the rest were no shows. But those 2 matches were Torch(yes the sc2 torch) and Avilo(then known as fritobag) But I won those avilo put up a bit of a fight and qualified for the regional of the north. Which was in Indianapolis. Helped me out considerably as that was only an hour or so drive. But the regional was where the tough competition began, A player that I haven't beaten much before ended up in the finals with me, But my practice paid off and I won it and advanced to the national finals where my trip and everything was paid for. That ended up being in, Orlando Florida at universal studios, Where I ended up playing my first stage match at a live event, casted by none other than DJwheat. While I won that stage match, I failed to make it out of my group. But I did have some other memories from that event, Such as the people I met, Ate lunch with incontrol back when he was with ToT. That was the year he won the national final, and I watched his games as he played on. Showing me how great SC1 really was. However I stayed with CNC3, and kept competing taking a few online tournaments and local tournaments, Qualified again for WCG the next year, Which was probably the best major event Ive done. I cashed in several tournaments, even taking top 3 in the WCG nationals and winning an IEM event for Unreal tournament 3. Which was a FFA with qualifiers but still had several EG players and quake pros competing in it and I took it all. Probably the event I took the most pride in, It was a game from a lost era and the competition never left. Sadly not a trace of it remains that I can find on the internet. Which is a reality that time naturally takes it course, as tournaments and organizations fall so do their sites and records.
There does exist a few old photo galleries on flickr taken by wcg themselves over the years.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/42856172@N07/3960457561/in/photostream
http://www.flickr.com/photos/42856172@N07/3960385203/in/photostream
perhaps one of the most awkward candid pictures of that gallery with me in it, IdrA smiling while playing air hockey =/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/42856172@N07/3958275407/in/photostream
Yes after CNC3 fell, I played red alert 3 and a variety of other titles to fill time, I was sad that I didnt make it on to WCG ultimate gamer as competing was my entire life and the players they did pick most of them I never heard of or seen at events that I was at. But That set a precedent to me. No matter how much I accomplish, If I have to apply for something, My dedication, practice and accomplishments dont mean anything and I will fail. And it hurt deeply,Though it didnt discouarge me from competing and winning stuff. However during all that I was left without a main title to play.
Everything shifted in esports like it always does, thankfully Starcraft 2 was announced but it was a long way off. The beta eventually came I hit rank 1 in 2v2 and 1v1 in the beta, whatever league was the highest I was always there, I didn't stream much as I had bad experiences back with CNC3 and streaming such as the community getting pissed off at me for streaming replays and matches and stuff, Stuff those players wanted secret and turned the whole community against me, So I kind of regrettably brushed off streaming. Though looking back I wish I started my old show up again where I went through pro level games and broke them down, But I was afraid that the negativity train would start again. Even after being in esports for a long time I never thought streaming as a player would become the norm and a great way to make money. Always knew that the expansion of it would drastically increase tournament coverage, Just never imagined the player side taking off so quickly. As new technologies that were like this came and went. For example cnc3 essentially in game streaming and wasn't very popular for most people. You could watch live ladder games and stuff and even live commentate ladder games with alot of features and stuff that SC2 doesnt even come close to touching, but it wasn't very popular on the scale that streaming is now. But throughout the beta in SC2 I was always up there getting games versus huk and sheth, trying my hardest and eventually failed in gaining any recognition or popularity, The stuff I won people simply didnt care about. I kept competing and kept on winning smaller stuff, Tried to get out to as many live events I did. But it didn't matter. But whenever I talk to someone about my career they tell me to not give up and have patience... Some times players even say this, but how long have they been trying to go pro before they went? I bet its alot less time than ive spent.
The whole patience thing is something of a really awkward concept, that most people dont understand as they jump to a fast conclusion and assume things. Like when I talk about my struggles in SC2 and finding a team etc... People will jump to the conclusion that I should be patient, It takes time etc, because they think im fairly new to esports or something and cant grasp what my skill level actually is. Thats the part where patience evades me, As I am truly a really patient person, Though I sound hasty and not patient at times. Like in my post in that thread I gave a small TLDR back story about my esports career, Im 26 now and been pretty much been involved my whole life. Back several years before SC2 came out, I was out there competing in other titles vs players on check six, EG, quantic and a variety of other pro level teams that never made it through the years and winning. The intel extreme masters event I won for example was for UT3 FFA, the qualifiers consisted of several pro quake players,unreal tournament pros and other games. The finals consisted of me, 2 EG players, one of which was a former national champion in UT, check six quake player, and a few others. And I mopped the floor in that final round making it not even close, I hit the kill cap with a score of 50-0, with the next closest at around 13... But at the time what happened next didnt really bother me, But it bothers me alot to this day. Why? and what was it? Well the EG guys and the other pros received interviews while I got my prizing and money and stuff. What did this happen to do? I won the tournament and not a single trace exists of me winning it. Nothing to show from it at all. Granted the older interviews are gone as well, But the fact of the matter is nobody knows, I gained nothing in the long run from it. And thats essentially the story of all the events ive been to. Some of that is introversion kicking in, and some of that is biases to people that looked professional at those events. And the few traces that exist of me are random photos floating around that have nothing much to do with anything, Essentially I am a ghost that doesnt exist. Atleast thats how I feel about my esports career. As everything is condensed into a few random pictures scattered about.
But thats the thing when we come back to patience, Ive been literally around forever... In SC2 I was in the top during the beta, competing with players like huk, sheth etc... and holding my own. unfortunately they won the events early in the beta, while I lost 2-1 and literally went no where. I did find a smaller team/organization a few months after release called H2O. which was the male side of PMS, which was the all female team. They helped with travel and stuff for a short period, until Flo left for quantic,but she got a salary, granted quantic died but still. And then we lost aurora to lgn now FXO, we had sasquatch temporarily till he joined complexity, and the team essentially fell apart as everyone went every which way. Teamless for over a year atleast now, unable to find anything new at all. Never gave up. Kept on competing and winning stuff. Patience.... Its something that wears down, because ive had what happened to H2O happen before in other games. Where everyone just jumps ship to pro teams, acquire my dreams... the ones that I dream about. and I'm the one always left behind. Left to fend for myself. But yet what is patience when Ive essentially done 20 years of that? Its truly a hell when its your entire life and only goal. The only thing that I can work hard and achieve something in. Unfortunately When it comes to making connections, And applying for things Ive always failed, The connections I made through out the years have pretty much all left esports, or dont remember me because its been so long. Always wondered how awkward of a moment would be if I actually got another game casted by Djwheat, would he remember those old days?
But regardless im not even worthy to be included in such teamless pro lists http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=378957 such as that thread, Why? I dunno, When you look at some of the NA players that have been added there I have accomplished much more than they have. yet here I sit. Ive won almost 3k worth of stuff from SC2. Quite a low point in my career, But better than majority of the community atleast, If that is even a bright side to it.... But every up and down is just meaningless on the grand scheme of things, For example In 2011 I took out violet in a tournament to only be met with death threats and my favorite quote that I got, "You ruined the entire tournament for me by knocking out my favorite player thanks alot asshole"... Yea apparently I made a few "fans" that day lol... But the hate is sad, While I know everyone has to deal with it, Take incontrol for example, hes mentioned the hate and stuff before, But atleast he has real fans that actually care about him as well. For example when he beat violet in a ladder game, not a tournament. It was all over reddit for some reason. That wasn't the only instance Ive dealt with players directly that have sent players on major teams to my stream to troll me intentionally during a tournament... Why? I have no idea... But this stuff has just essentially left me believing im 100% worthless, Ive come to learn when a team says they have to many protoss players sorry. And then signs more protoss players. Its just a polite way of saying to get lost. Teams will state they care about their reputation then sign BM players that tell me to kill myself, yet that's fine for their reputation. Hitting me in the head with a back pack during a MLG match is perfectly fine as well, not even worthy of a im sorry? Instead its a "oh didn't notice you sitting there,not like your in a live match anyway" And in reality I was, My matches were running behind. But that's the type of stuff pro or even mid tier teams pick up. And I honestly get frustrated whenever I see those announcements from teams, Hey we added this player. And All I do is sit there and be like yeah, I just beat them or remember our negative interaction.... =/ but in reality im just a worthless human that tries way to hard.
Photo of mlg columbus 2010
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=392386770793349&set=pb.100000660870874.-2207520000.1356995607&type=3&theater
Ann arbor open lan victory, with trophy
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=392387854126574&set=pb.100000660870874.-2207520000.1356995607&type=3&theater
Where do I go from here? Its taken me a few days to write this and its now 12/31/2012, A new year awaits, but for what? Heart of the swarm will hopefully be a decent new beginning. But im not sure, I hit rank 2 GM in the beta before taking a break from it to focus on WoL stuff again. Will anything change no idea, Though I really hope to find a new team before HOTS official release. What im looking for is a team that could help market me when I do well, help at major events and practice with and a massive bonus would be able to actually give me the opportunity to help and maybe potentially get me the skills to actually find a job with in or outside of esports, As that's my greatest flaw in life, Is im trapped I have no way out even if I wanted to get out. Even if I don't find a team though I will still be out there competing, I plan to get out to all MLG's next year.My goal is to actually win a major tournament, its been that way for a while, ive come close in the past, Though I feel further away than ever in sc2, I plan to give it an even better fight than before. I just wish I could show more progress on this path. Really my only resolution for 2013, is to push forward and show progress, get back what I once had, and actually achieve something.
I remember meeting you in Orlando AND I remember hearing the legend around the tourney of your dreaded momma rush (or something like that) apparently you were crushing nerds with some vortex haha
