EPTI have loved Starcraft since the Brood War days, it's as much a passion for me as it is a hobby. When the game first came out, I couldn't have imagined investing so much time and effort, but I did take it seriously from the get-go. When Beta servers were first launched, I started practising against opponents, and when they were down, I would practice offline customs or watch HD/Husky/Day9/other great community voices as often as possible - I even remember faking an excuse and going home from work early to watch one of the first live SC2 Daily's on IdrA's macro. I learned a ton in the early days about mechanics and strategies, but it wasn't until I started writing guides and producing tutorials that things really took off.
By the time I started writing strategy content, I had also started coaching students. My first student came to me by chance - he happened to be watching an obs game of mine, and afterwards asked me if I would teach him if he compensated me for my time. Being the broke university student that I was, I immediately accepted - I had been tutoring English since high school and, to be frank, I needed to eat! But I also felt confident coaching Starcraft, I knew I had a lot to offer and I started looking for ways to get my content out there. Though at first it seemed reasonable, even helpful, for me to spam chat channels and post coaching advertisements in forums, I've come to regret the first impression I gave to some people.
The first Teamliquid strategy guide I wrote was immediately closed by forum moderators - I don't think one person got a chance to comment. My intentions were good, but looking back I admit that it was poorly structured, mediocre content at best. I made the mistake of drawing unnecessary attention to my coaching services by posting too many links, which I think left a bad taste in a lot of readers' mouths, because I was trying too hard to promote. No one likes a try-hard, but that was me. With a degree of embarrassment, I recall including my logo, biography, stream and website links in early guides - to think at first I found it shocking when people responded negatively!
Because I had annoyed so many community members with my spam and apparent pompous attitude, many were quick to dismiss my other efforts as nothing more than attempts to advertise. Several rumours even spread over Reddit and Teamliquid, implying that I paid my way into Grandmaster, that I created fake accounts to post/bump my threads, and even that I was arrested in a McDonalds parking lot for smoking pot (not kidding). Even though none of these were true, it was fuelled by the bad first impression I made, and I'm sure that I was one of the most disliked people in the SC2 community for a few weeks there.
Yet despite the negativity, I didn't get discouraged. If there's one thing I'm proud of in regards to my SC2 experience, it's that I've always kept a positive mindset. As hard as it was to accept, I knew that many of the hostile comments people made were justified - I was making mistakes, but I was not so arrogant as to ignore the vital feedback I was receiving. I applied this feedback and fittingly my first successful guide was called "Positive Mindset: The Key to SC2". I continued to learn from other guides, and applied feedback from readers to make more concise and thorough content. I had the honour of performing SC2 lectures for the University of Waterloo CSL Team, attending live events like the NASL, and writing articles for Team Dignitas and Quantic Gaming. I've also had the pleasure of meeting some of the most interesting and intelligent people in the world through StarCraft II, and the support and criticism I've received has helped me to grow as a person, a player, and a coach.
In regards to the future, I will continue to produce as much quality content as possible. I hope that my contributions have shown, and will continue to show, that I am someone who is genuinely interested and invested in community growth. I rely immensely on the support of my fans and friends to help not only with the sharing of content, but also presenting a more accurate image of what I'm about.
Thank you !
- TangSC
