Megablog: Past, Present, Future

Some people may get upset with what I'm about to say: I really had no knowledge or understanding of the BW scene up until the release of WoL. One of my closest friends, Jensen, from high school showed me TL back when it had white background and a bright-ass blue logo to show me games by some dude named "NaDa" up against some rando named "Savior". So yeah, I wasn't an RTS guy. I got bored quickly because he didn't know how to explain the game very well and whenever we played TvP, he would just DT rush me -_- He's plat in SC2 nowadays though and now I know how to scan so I'm sure the outcome would be different today

http://web.archive.org/web/20061214131322/http://teamliquid.net/
Link to Old TL. Too lazy to convert it to a picture.

It wasn't until MLG announced they were picking up SC2 that I was interested in the genre. That same MLG that is so cool to poop on because they are [insert slanderous greedy capitalist biz adjective] people out to make dem eSports dollars. This is why I was so sad to hear MLG starting to transition away from SC2. Sure, they could be back, but it's not their focus anymore which is a damn shame. They brought way more fans/personalities/players into the scene that most people could fathom.

So once I started getting into SC2, I started trying to compete on my local CSL team. I never won a game for my team when I was fielded (lol), but I faithfully showed up to practice. Duran Parsi aka Xeris aka Lord of the Chairs headed our CSL team, but transitioned away from being a part of the team towards running the league as head admin. He was holding practices remotely and couldn't load up SC2 on his laptop so he asked one of us to stream. I thought of a brilliant idea: since I couldn't get attention to play many matches, I would help the team by streaming our practices (which in hindsight does the opposite lmao)! This was the start of my commentating.

I was pretty bad. Somehow, on my livestream.com channel, we managed to get :O 50 :O viewers....because livestream had bad servers and capped you at 50 at the time.

From there, I got some positive feedback to feed my fragile ego. I started faithfully and diligently casting as much as i could -- clan wars, amateur team leagues, random online cups, local LANs, etc.

Pretty sure I've casted something like 100+ things online before I even got picked up by Playhem, the online weekly cup. I wrote most of the cups I did in my casting resume and it surprised even me. Wtf how did I waste this much time in college?

That brings us to the next step in the industry: an actual job. I got an opportunity cast because Xeris didn't want to cast with Gretorp one day and asked me the morning of the day if I wanted to cast an NASL S3 qualifier.

"Of course!! I'm not busy at all!!"

I had 2 classes and an exam that day. I cut the 2 classes. Instead, I showered and got dressed in the best clothes possible while setting up my room (this ended up being an important reason why NASL guys liked me initially).

Don't remember how the cast with Andre/Gretorp went at all, but I do remember that Russell, the CEO, asked me if I wanted a job that day. Hell yeah!! I squealed like a little high school girl who finds out True Blood got another season extended. Russ then told me I need to come work for NASL in April, which is the start of what would have been my last quarter at UCSD before graduation.

I know leaving school isn't always the smartest long-run option, but this was something I couldn't turn down. I sacrificed 95% of my social life and academic career doing commentary in college. Not that I didn't have any friends or got terribad grades, but I certainly limited my experiences dramatically in order to make the dream happen. I told my roommate peace out holmes and he was pretty happy for me. We called our only two friends over to celebrate by playing MTG and listening to Far East Movement for an hour.

Yeah...I forgot I had the exam, but I barely made it in time to barely pass the test. Success kid.

When I came to NASL, the overall perception of the organization was at an all-time low. Season 1 was a massive disappointment in the big picture and Season 2 only made it look more bleak. Russ and co. put on their man boots and strapped up to make NASL Season 3 superb. He hired Bitter, Rotti, and me as talent, an executive producer, few more live/post production guys, another office and refurbished the set. NASL went all out on S3 and I truly believed we were doing something special.

Our producer, Morgan (the guy that owns Chance), came to us and said "Okay guys we're gonna do SEGMENTS"


Oldie but a good picture Lots of fun on Blizzard campus!

Dafuq? Segments? People want to see kickass games and chew bubble gum, Morgan!

But he's the boss so we had no choice.

And now, segments are the norm -- profiles, news, highlights, recaps, interviews, and general douching around stuff like Rotti's hotwing challenge. Everyone expects more. In fact, people often mislabel this as "production value" as opposed to "good content". That's a different topic for twitter warriors like TotalBiscuit, Kennigitand Heyoka to evaluate though As much as I'm jabbing them, they are pretty much always right so give them a follow if you like your shit stirred.

NASL S3 in Canada was my first premier event live cast and I choked hard enough to please Cheryl from Archer. I said some stupid ass things that I, as well as 90% of the viewers, know that are wrong. But then I hear other commentators make mistakes even in the biggest sporting events of the year like the Superbowl or the World Series and I don't feel so bad Stephano won easily. We partied with champagne. I fell off the stage and got a deep nasty cut in my leg. Day9 called me a pussy. I told the Canadian EMTs I didn't want their high-quality free healthcare. The event was awesome.


I remember messing up the last line: "Stay Fit" instead of "Stay Fierce" xD

Season 3 was a great foundation for Season 4. Aside from the rough regular season of walkovers, I felt like Season 4 was a home run. Yes, Fierce Fitness was my idea. Yes, I know it will live on the internet forever. Performing a workout session in front of a half-filled theater of eSports fans is simultaneously my best and worst memory. Nonetheless, the finals were so much fun from the FFA to exercising with Lauren to watching HerO claim the championship.

After NASL S4 finished, we were pumped for Season 5. Dozens of brilliant ideas and cool improvements were constantly being written on the board from segments to region-locking our own tournament and reshaping our broadcast. Around this time, we have been hearing the musings of the current-WCS format and how the new worldwide league, while a great initiative with good intentions, would thrust us in the butt and disallow us from daily broadcasts. As you know, MLG ended up getting the gig.

Damn! What do we do now? Well, we needed a reason to still get paid and stay relevant. Russ put us to work on a new project that he wanted to call The Pulse.

This is where it all changed for me.

One thing I quickly realized on The Pulse is how much eSports is lacking consistent, high-quality content and coverage. There is an over-abundance of commentators who are talented, well-spoken people. In the end, however, it's the stories and legends that carry the game. Jordan, Tiger, Gretzky. These are the badass mofos who put the sport on the map. While we honor legendary voices, they aren't what makes us remember the game. It needs to be about the players more.


Rotti did an excellent job, but maybe bring a light kit next time!

This concept has been hashed out and sensationalized even to the point of the commentator's benefit. Some casters say this with false humility and try to look like they're the good guys. Some casters do actually mean the best, but the players can't step up. I tried thinking of several ways to get the content out, but after doing the Pulse and seeing what we could do, I was convinced: this is something that's needed in the space. The thing is I can still go back and look at some of the stuff we did at The Pulse and think "Man we were so freaking good omg". I rarely can go back to anything we do and feel good about it. But The Pulse was something special!


#nofilter

An enormous thanks to everyone who has helped me, in some capacity, along the path, including but limited to:

Diggity, Xeris, Justin Ahn, Roscowe, xmShake, Russell Pfister, Mark Brown, Gretorp, MrBitter, Rotterdam, Morgan Stone, CHANCE!, Clutch, Lauren, Ken Silva, Josh Kulic + post crew, all our production ppl Mike/Elliot/Kiley, Ruukil, Parker Lewis, Tumba, Robin, Zoia, Neeb, Kibbelz, Joro, Schamtoo, Katu, Bonk, Luka, Steisjo, Kevin Knocke (who still is CatsPJs in my mind), Adebisi, Kennigit, Doa, Day9, Apollo, megumixbear, Crota, Gwin, CableSC, RUMCAKE!!!, Nestor Lizard, Chobopeon, Chanman, Bobby Omari, Marc Mounzer, Chris Puckett, Rob Simpson, David Ting, Slasher, TotalBiscuit, Scoots, HotBid, Heyoka, Tyler Spesick aka ecco, Silverfire, GHOSTCLAW, Leafeator, Carlton Beener, Kim Phan, and everyone else I forgot -_- TIL there are way too many people to thank.

Shoutouts to the players who were always kind and patient with me whenever we talked whether about the game or life: ToD, SeleCT, Harstem, Fuzer, HuK, TT1, Vibe, CatZ, giX, Sase, Shew, Beastyqt, Demuslim, KawaiiRice, Sasquatch, Suppy, Illusion, Axslav, Stephano, Morrow, Violet, Hyun, Golden, Taeja, Hero, and MacSed my new buddy :D I'm definitely forgetting people here so I'm gonna definitely try to ninja edit before they find out.

I won't spend too much time on this subject. These are just some observations that come to mind randomly.

Overall, I feel the progression of commentary has stagnated greatly.

+ Generally speaking, for what casters are getting paid, as a whole we aren't doing a sufficient job at the moment bringing it in a presentable way. Lots of casters simply steal analysis (and jokes/isms) from other people -- players in interviews or from the mouths of knowledgeable commentators. This sometimes leads to false analysis being passed around too which is lulzy, but bad! Another thing that irks me is the often overused inside jokes that don't carry over. When I ignored reddit/missed tournaments for a week even I don't get why apparently some phrase is really funny. This doesn't really apply to ppl like Tastosis since they are their own hilarious rolling comedy train.

+ It disappoints me to see when casters become lazy by looking up TLPD/Aligulac and improperly use those statistics to judge a player's skill and likelihood of winning.

+ If we expect players to gradually improve their level over time, shouldn't our commentary improve along with it?

+ Want to give a special shout out to Rotti. I pride myself in my work ethic when it comes to SC2, but this guy takes it to the next level. He watches sooOoOoo much SC2, ladders at high level, does his best to keep in touch with players, and really doesn't BS at all on broadcast. His passion is worthy of praise in the ranks of Artosis IMO.

+ I've noticed that strong presentation of analysis is often during the breaks or post-mortem. So far the best incorporation of proper analysis is IEM; MLG has kinda done well with it. I realize this is a bit too idealistic because SC2 has no hard breaks like timeouts or referee rulings other than maybe the occasional Grubby pauses Hahaha jk Manuel love ya man!

+ Most analytical commentary has become somewhat unapproachable to many of my relatives. To no surprise, the analytical styles that my relatives enjoy are IncontroL and Apollo because they know how to deliver a logical explanation, whether they're right or wrong. They especially didn't like me and Gretorp because we try and go super-indepth of everything (sometimes to a fault since we try really hard but end up looking foolish lol). Something worth noting.

+ That said, for me personally I still very much enjoy listening to Apollo, Artosis, and Day9. No questions asked. Don't care what anyone says, they're exceptional Lots of other ppl are good too, but they still are the top 3.

+ Casters read into reddit/TL threads way too often, me included...especially during live events.

+ No matter what, someone will find a way to not like your commentary. A fan will think your voice is annoying or you're too biased. A player will be critical towards your knowledge. A new spectator won't understand a god damn thing you're saying. Maybe you made an offensive joke and someone has to "fire" you on stream. I know I've said way more offensive things in the past lol...poor Terry. Ah, also for the record, Terry is my little Dongseng. I helped get him the internship in the first place. I like him a lot! He's a talented and super funny kid, but damn is he also a terrible intern! Much love Terry

I lied. I spent too much time on this section :3

Album: http://imgur.com/a/lRfPp

Image 1 (Dark Red Shirt) / Around 2007 I believe
This was me in high school. Not obese by any means, but certainly overweight by a big margin. I was around 5'7 and almost 190 lbs. This didn't change until I went to university.

Image 2 (small glasses mirror shot) / April 2012
About the time I joined NASL. I grew a little over an inch in height (5'8 - 5'9) and had slimmed down considerably to about 150 lbs during university. Guess not going outside or doing anything really thinned me out lol!

Image 3 (messy medium hair, big glasses, same color boxers as image 2) / April 2013
One year picture! I had only been lifting and actively exercising for about 7 months at this point. My weight dropped super low to almost 135 lbs. This was because I was at the end of a no-wheat, no-gluten 3 month diet that I did with MrBitter who was an absolute beast at his peak. Ben managed to clean bench press 260+ lbs and deadlift something like 350!! Wtf! Rotti is a cardio beast btw. Really loves to keep his body moving. He swears he can run a quarter mile in less than 60 seconds while eating 6 Krispy Kreme donuts. I believe it.

Image 4 (no glasses, spiked hair, white shorts) / July 2013
At this point I was trying actively to put on some mass and bulk up a tiny bit. Managed to pull my weight up to around 145 - 150. By now, only me and Rotti were going to the gym because Bitter got tied up with massive amounts of work.

Image 5 (no face, watch? why would i wear a watch with just boxers...) / August 2013
This was the one year point of starting to lift. I clocked in around 150 - 155 lbs which is the perfect comfort zone for me. Any more mass and I need to get new clothes because it would feel uncomfortably stretched. I also loosened up on my diet a lot because of traveling and events. Why not live a little?

Image 6 (no glasses, dorky smile, IPL5 shirt) / End of August 2013 aka today!
Took this picture after my workout at the gym. Not sure what I was trying to show but I guess it's a "just me" picture to show you how much I enjoy an active lifestyle! I measured my bodyfat with a trainer today who was doing it for free and clocked in a little over 8%!


I'm not the go-to guy for fitness advice. That's mainly guys like Khaldor and Adam Apicella who are complete monsters at the gym. Bitter is a good guy to ask too.

Instead, I'm posting these pictures to be another guy that encourages you to keep reaching for your fitness goals. I still eat out quite often which I know isn't good for perfect health either. I'm gonna try to step it up once I go to Germany and become real shredded!

Stats
I found my notebook for when I was first starting to lift with Bitter and Rotti. I don't really care about lifting stats, but they are certainly nice to know

August 2012 weight: 158
August 2013 weight: 152

Bench:
August 2012: 135 x 4
August 2013: 195 x 4

Squat:
August 2012: 185 x 8
August 2013: 275 x 8

DL:
August 2012: 205 x 3
August 2013: 315 x 3

Maxes are fun but not what I aim for. Starting out I felt like such a little pussy. I'm not terribly impressive nowadays either, but it's nice to compare those numbers and remember how desperate I felt just trying not to look like a fool. In the end, no one is paying attention to you unless you make a donkey out of yourself by being unsafe or acting like a clown by being loud/obnoxious.

I worked out 5-6 days a week for about an hour. Always do a little bit of cardio and abs pre/post workout. It's not just sit up abs, but also mean, raw core strength work outs!

I'd be glad to answer anything as best as I can with my Fro science, but keep in mind I don't have too much experience in this area other than my own anecdotal evidence.

Are you leaving commentary?
As my main job, yes. My primary position will be news anchoring and content production. I am certainly open to guest commentating once in a while because I still love doing it, but it is not within my job description

Are you leaving SC2?
Not necessarily, but somewhat. I am broadening my scope to cover as much of the eSports scene as I can. I will forever hold a strong bias towards SC2 though!

Okay srsly what is Clauf?
There's lots of mystery as to what Clauf is that has caused people to even question the legitimacy of the company. The people I work with are legit and have strong reputations within the industry. In addition, they been pretty transparent about the entire process of moving and future vision Really cool group of people!

Cool story broski, but you still didn't answer the question!
What I can tell you is we will be doing really cool things in eSports soon that will blow people away. As mentioned earlier in the blog, I don't just want to try and copy what other people are doing. We will bring something new to the space and it's gonna whoop ass!

So...you're not gonna tell us exactly what Clauf is?
Clauf will come out and announce things when they are ready to launch. Until then, lots of preparation for it! I will be working pretty hard until then which means I will be somewhat off the radar for now.

When can we expect cool things from you?
This part I really don't know yet...so technically it's not an announcement of an announcement! I don't know the time table but when I do, then I will hype the living doodoo out of it!

From Twitter: Are you ever going to finish school? What's your educational background?
I studied Economics as my major and Environmental Studies as my minor at the University of California - San Diego (UCSD for short). I stopped my studies 12 credits from finishing and I plan on finishing it one day. When I told my friend that, he told me "I would be glad that you finished your degree, but let's hope you never have to!" :D What a pal!

From Twitter: What is your favorite/least favorite moment from all this?
Like I said earlier, performing Fierce Fitness live was both the most fun, yet degrading experience I've ever felt. Thank goodness I had Lauren there or else I would probably have ended up weeping on stage from the humiliation and begging people not to club me to death with their thundersticks as I dance around in purple tights from American Apparel.