EPT
Certainly something I didn't expect, although now that it happened, I can see how it makes sense. He immigrated to the US in the 1970s, as South Vietnam fell to the Communists, starting out with pretty much nothing. But he soon jumped into a career in tech and engineering, so he's pretty tech savvy. That said, he has no experience in videogames - that is, until his children started playing them. Given the fact that I'm posting a blog on TL, you can probably tell that I'm a pretty big gamer, so you can tell that my dad would get a bunch of indirect exposure to games through my brother and me.
He's always been a big fan of military stuff: WW2 movies, documentaries, etc. He was also pretty interested in the games that my brother and I would play, and given his tech-savvyness, he always had an eye of appreciation for videogames, often complimenting their graphics and gameplay. We actually got him to try some games a few times, like Medal of Honor or Call of Duty, but in the end he would give up and be content to just watch us play, since he didn't really grow up with games and didn't have the hand-eye coordination to enjoy the games directly.
The first time he learned about professional Starcraft was actually exactly one year ago, at MLG Anaheim 2012. It came up when I asked if I could grab the car and take the 7 hour trek over to Anaheim with my brother and a couple of friends. Being awesome and open-minded, he said yes. That was the first (and only) big LAN I've been to so far, and it was an incredibly great experience. Saw amazing games, met a ton of amazing pros and people (I actually blogged about it earlier here - apologies for the emo title, I was pissed when I wrote that because my laptop was stolen).
Anyways, fast forward one year to MLG Anaheim 2013, and I just watched the entire first day of matches with my Dad on the big screen. I think the first time he watched a match was when I was up early watching WCS EU (early because in our time zone it starts at like 10am pacific). He stopped by my room, wondering why I was up, since it was extremely rare for me to be up before noon on any summer day. So I explained that I was watching WCS EU (it was Mvp vs. Lucifron), and he briefly paused, exclaiming in wonder with me as Lucifron smashed Mvp with his mech composition and hellbat drops. He soon got up to resume whatever stuff he was up to, but he mentioned before he left that maybe next time, we could hook up a laptop to the big screen and make watching even more epic on a big TV.
I was a little hesitant to ever capitalize on that offer, because although my dad is a fan of action movies and war stuff, he didn't really like science fiction that much (he doesn't like Men in Black. How could you not like Men in Black!). But, WCS Finals came around, and I thought that an epic championship deserved an equally epic viewing experience on the big screen, so I let my Dad know and we immediately set it up. And damn, were those some sick games! My Dad loved it just as much as I did, and wanted me to let him know when the next big tournament would be, and here we are now.
So he's one of the newest eSports converts (and he prefers SC2 over LoL, take that, LoL
), and we enjoyed an awesome day of Anaheim today. Now, he's still pretty new to it - I've been explaining the general principles of SC2, explaining minerals and gas as the basic resources, the general principles of building new bases to expand economy, of how early aggression can sometimes sacrifice economy or tech, and the types of units (air, cloaked), etc. However, he's still not too familiar with the specifics, and he asked me to find an instruction manual or packet that explains/describes all the units in SC2. Does anyone know any good links/sources that have all unit descriptions in one place, and preferably, a sizable picture/image of said unit? I'm trying to find something that is a mix of comprehensive (all units with pictures and a brief description of said unit close to image) yet not overbearingly detailed (to not be like a heavy textbook of information to study). I'm possibly thinking about just making my own word document to efficiently explain all units unless there are some good guides out there, any suggestions?
