EPTThere are a crapton of stuff I feel like writing down, but where do I start? I have no idea. I guess I could start with a brief introduction?
I'm your just above average nerd. I love music, movies and games. I've played games since I was a kid. If my memory doesn't fail me completely - I got my first console when I was around 4, or was it 5? Anyhow, it was a NES. Actually, it was a Famicom but that's pretty much the same thing. The only difference really is how it looks and two turbo-buttons on the controllers. I got it together with Tetris - a game I, and many more, still love. I proceeded on with Super Mario Bros, Zelda and all those games. Not long after I got my first console we got a PC into the household. A sweet god damn 133Mhz Intel something CPU, 16 (or was it 32?) MB of ram and a 200ish MB harddrive. It was a beast - or atleast I thought so. A friend of mine lent me his copy of Age of Empires - and I was hooked. RTS games, man, so awesome they were. I enjoyed them so much, despite being completely awful at them.
Fast forwarding a few years, 10-15 or so. A lot have happened - divorces, friends come and gone, financial troubles and so much more. Both positive and negative things. At this point I have my own computer, a really cool one with lots of green lights and decent performance. I played a crapton of different games but I always returned to the same few - World of Warcraft, Call of Duty and Starcraft. I was pretty damn good at both World of Warcraft and Call of Duty, but Starcraft (and other RTS-games) I really never understood how they worked. Somehow I thought that the more resources you had in RTS-games the better you were, and if you look at it from a 'real life'-perspective it's quite understandable. Money dictates pretty much everything in the real world.
Fast forwarding some more - July 2010. The release of Starcraft 2. Prior to this a lot had happened. I had graduated school, I had been studying some math in hope of becoming a gamedeveloper (I did not pursue this dream of mine), been working some at the local school as a substitute etc. With Starcraft 2 a lot changed in the gaming world. E-sport slowly became to grow outside of Korea, owned.tv launched and streaming games became more common and so much more. I'm not saying that it's thanks to Starcraft 2 that we have all these tournaments (WCS, Eizo open and more) but it did have a part of the growth of e-sports in general. I never really bothered becoming good at Starcraft 2. I still had the mindset of 'the more resources you have the better you are at the game'. I can today look back and laugh at how clueless I was, but it's still a very logical way of reasoning for a clueless person. I remember when I first realized that gamers actually could make a living of what they love to do. I too wanted to make a living of what I love to do, and I still do but it's no longer something I want more than anything in the world.
And it's time for some more fast forwarding - this time to late 2012. I've just been injured - or injured is probably the wrong word but I can't seem to find an appropriate one so I'll just go with it. I've been forced to bed because it hurt too much to move. I had a wound on my upper leg which just refused the heal (still hasn't healed by the way). How I got it is unknown still, but I'm finally being taken care of by the medical care. It only took them 4 months however, and this puts us in January 2013. Since I was forced to lie in bed for so long (roughly 6 weeks) and do minimal work I had lost a lot of musclemass and everything was exhausting. During these 6 weeks I spent most of my time watching streams and movies. I saw Stephano win WCS, I watched Demuslim stream his amazing play - but more importantly - I started to care for e-sports.
Watching Stephano win WCS triggered something in me. I wanted to become good at this game called Starcraft 2. I decided that when the new season starts I'm going to give it a shot. New season started in January 2013. I started practice a lot, work on my mechanics, learn a buildorder or two for every match up. I spent countless of hours in YABOT (Yet Another Build Order Trainer). I wanted to give this a real shot. In the middle of January I was ready to start laddering. Facing an insane ladder anxiety which I battled for weeks. Prior to this I had never been above Gold-league, and how I placed that high is a mystery to me because I was horrible, horrible. I didn't even know how to do a decent 4gate or how to properly wall a FFE. February 19th I finally hit Diamond league. It took me roughly a month from not knowing how to play at all to reach Diamond league. I might as well mention that I find it incredibly easy to learn. Once I learn, and understand, something I can take that and put it in play. It doesn't matter what it is about, if it's a game, work or just a social thing and I very rarely forget how I do things too. If I by any chance do forget, I just laugh at it, shrug it off and refresh my memory of how to do it.
If we rewind 2 months, to Christmas, a friend of mine sent me a beta key to Heart of the Swarm. Boy, did it make me happy.
Fast forward a few months - it's now March 2013. Heart of the Swarm is being released and I'm superpumped. I've practiced some on the beta, despite the delay, and I feel that I might do well this coming season - maybe even better than my previous. I had done a lot of research, working a lot on my mechanics, learning new buildorders and timings. A month after the release it finally happened. I hit Master League, I finally did it. A journy of roughly 3 months. I've never felt better about myself than I did at that moment. Hard work finally paid off. It might be sad to put it like this, but it's the truth. I consider it my biggest achievement to date - I am amongst the top 5% of the players and it means the world to me.
Then, what do I do today? I just recently (today actually) started an unpaid internship at a large factory. 1500, or more, employees and the work is quite boring actually. I spent the whole day assembeling the same thing over and over and over again. This is supposed to give me a job, hopefully, so I can move out, get my own place, my own sanctuary without anyone trying to hold me down from pursuing my one dream - to stand in front of a humongous crowd at Dreamhack, holding the trophy after beating a well known Korean in a close 4 to 3 set.
Yes, I almost forgot - my family, my mom especially, does not approve of my dream. She sees Starcraft 2 as a game and nothing more. What she wants for me is a typical '9 to 5'-job and she continously tells me that dreams are just dreams, nothing more.
I probably should tell you a bit more about me - I'm a dreamer. I want things, and things I really want I pursue, I chase them, I get them...eventually. The fact that I'm so different from the rest of my family is causing rifts in our relationship. We continously argue about what dreams I want to pursue and what I should do instead - that I should live in reality, get an ordinary job, live an ordinary life. Things I do not actually want, at all.
However things turn out my mind is set - I want to pursue my dream of becoming a professional gamer. I will pursue my dream of becoming a professional gamer. I will probably run into a wall countless of times while doing this, but it will be worth it 'cause one day I will stand on that stage. I will have beaten a Korean in the finals. In front of a humongous crowd.
Sparkles, signing out.
