EPTEveryone enjoys different things at an on-site event. For me it was less about the actual match but more about the people, this blog will mostly be about interactions with the crowd.
Due to my day time job I wasn't able to attend Day 1, missing the legendary matches where Jaedong and Bomber was defeated by Taiwanese players Ian and Sen. It was easy for me to get to Taipei Expo Park, but from talking with other people, I found out a lot of them have came all the way from all over Taiwan, some of them were students who saved up weeks of allowance for the hotel and travel expense.
Important figures from Blizzard, TeSL, and other organizations show up for the opening ceremony, even the candidate running for mayor of Taipei gave a short speech (and left shortly after). Many people weren't happy about it since it was just for show, it's a sign showing that the eSports community is no longer being ignored, but treated as a vital group (to win the election?). Imo it was a step in legitimizing the eSports industry, despite the negative comments that were expressed thereafter.
I met a polish friend by the nick name of Mizu, who came to Taiwan to study, currently writing a dissertation on Taiwanese eSports scene. I was very interested so we walked together and helped her (I wasn't helping much tbh) hand out surveys during each break time. It was a very well-designed survey that targets the more hardcore fan-base. As soon as people saw it was an eSports survey they were all very eager to help out. Some of the questions were about how and what will help out the eSports scene in Taiwan, what has changed throughout these few years. It was all filled with well thought answers, some even stop watching the game and spends 10+ minutes in discussing, thinking, and filling out the form. Everyone was extremely helpful, we also talk about how the matches and event were. It was an amazing experience to see that everyone was polite, friendly and very easy to talk to.
It was also really cool to meet some of the friends that I know from working in eGamers. Won't go into much details but they were all amazing people, a lot could be learnt by just talking to them. Commentators are well known and appreciated, but the hard working staff from event organizations and game publisher are a vital part for providing the community ...basically everything. I could not have asked for more from them.
Breaker was an awesome host, sometimes at international event when there's another foreign language host, you don't see the crowd reacting to them too well, at times even slightly awkward for the viewers. But Breaker has been working very hard in Taiwan to fit in, to truly become a part of the Taiwanese SC2 community, resulting the crowd responded very well to his hosting and translation. We are fortunate to have such a passionate and talented individual in the Taiwanese SC2 community.
Slightly dissapointed that there wasn't a place for the audience to listen to English content, I assume that it was very difficult to do properly with the limitation of space and how the whole TWOP section is set upped inside the building. Dan and Nick (Artosis and Tasteless) were very friendly. As few people went up to them and talk, I had the very fortunate opportunity to chat, took pics, and thank them for their hard work. They were very happy about the crowd and definitely hope to come back to Taiwan in the future.
There may have been a lot of pictures of the crowd cheering when Sen won, but I also see a lot of people had tears in the eyes, overwhelmed with joy and pride. We know that when any Taiwanese player won such a major event, there will be SC2 and eSports in mainstream media, that we will be seen, be heard, that more people will care about eSports, the value of sponsoring such event and players will rise. No matter how short-term that attention seems to be, it will always be extremely beneficial.
After a long day of enduring the stress from competing at the highest level, the RO4 players signing were absolutely awesome. They looked tired but happy and thanked the fans for coming at the signing booth.
Since I was tired from the event, I didn't stay on-site like always and headed back home. On the MRT (subway) the whole train were filled with conversations about starcraft and today's event. For some reason I was very touched and there were tears. Even though when people get off, the conversations about sc2 thinned and everything went back to normal, I know that all the passionate fans will still be out there, supporting the community and the game that they love. There may be less streaming numbers, smaller event, less MAU and ARPU, but with the awesome community that we have, SC2 is far from dying.
A proud Taiwanese Starcraft 2 fan
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/nKCKHMJ.jpg?1)
<The moment when Sen won>
