EPTAs each year goes by I like to take a little time to write about my thoughts and experiences so far, the ups and downs and whatever else. This year is no different - only I have a lot more to talk about because this last year has been absolutely insane for myself and for SC2Improve, with so many new experiences and big events.
Before I get started, here are some links to my previous years of text in case anyone is interested, though I suppose when you read it all together it is a lot of the same!
One Year - Two Years - Three Years
I don't really know where to begin because I have had so many amazing experiences this year and have made some major moves for my own future and the future of SC2Improve. I ran my most successful event ever - the SC2Improve Team League Season 4 - as well as working at some major SC2 events (Gfinity). I got the chance to travel to multiple tournaments such as WCS Season 1, Blizzcon and HomeStory Cup as well as competing in LANs in three different countries. Among all of this I graduated with my Masters in Physics and decided to go full time with StarCraft 2.
The SC2Improve Team League Season 4 started early in the year and ran throughout the first half of 2015. With a €2000 Prize Pool and no other major team leagues the competition was incredible. With teams such as Liquid, Axiom-Acer, Dignitas-Dead Pixels, Baguette, mYinsanity and many many more the league was stacked from top to bottom with fierce competition.
The Team League has definitely become my favorite event to run. It's a lot of work - especially because I opt to do everything by myself (WHO NEEDS ADMINS?). I like to do it this way because it presents a challenge which I want to overcome. I really managed to break the boundaries in Season 4, from the number of streams through to pretty much anything. Viewership was absolutely insane (over 4,500 viewers were tuned in when Team Liquid took the final game in the grand finals) and something I could have never imagined.
When you think back to what SC2Improve started as, a small group of people who enjoyed StarCraft who then set up a weekly cup for a bit of fun, it really is crazy to see how far the community has come. From $5 to €2000, from 8 players to over 500, from tens (or even just ten) viewers to thousands. The story of SC2Improve continues to amaze me and I hope that with the upcoming SC2I Team League Season 6 I can once again push the boundaries and create something amazing that nobody expected.
The success of the Team League was definitely one of the major reasons I decided to go full time with StarCraft after I finished University. After seeing how successful the league was when I was also balancing my workload from my final year of University, I really wanted the chance to see what I could achieve if StarCraft was the only thing I had to focus on.
You can read my going full-time post here.
When I set out to go full-time I had major goals : SC2ITL, consistent streaming, YouTube Content, travelling and building the UK Scene. I fast learned it's not possible to do all of this and so my plans for the year changed a lot. I decided to use the first 6 months of being full time as my chance to really travel and then from the start of 2016 (and the very end of 2015) to really focus on my other goals.
I'll talk more about my travelling in a bit. For now I want to focus on the last month or so when I have been streaming a lot and have been really focusing on working 8-10 hours a day minimum on creating content on my website, YouTube or on the stream. It's been a lot of fun and I really look forward to continuing this routine into the new year. It feels really awesome to be casting on a very regular basis but also knowing that if there is nothing to cast I can still be productive in other ways. As the new season of the team league starts up in January there will be even more content to create, with top play videos and more.
I've started casting a lot of online cups as well. In the past I only ever really cast SC2Improve events and the odd qualifiers. Now I am making an active effort to stream everything that I can. Consistency is by far one of the most important aspects of growing a viewer and fan base. This effect was heavily demonstrated to me in July, when I streamed for 8+ hours every day because of how many qualifiers etc were going on. My stream numbers, followers, subscribers all grew significantly during this period, but dropped off again when I went travelling for the next months. I would love to stream every day - some days it doesn't make sense to however with other larger events on and time is better spent working on the website or elsewhere. Finding the right balance feels really important and hopefully it is something I get the hang of with more practice going into the new year.
Overall I feel I am really making positive steps in all of my goals which I laid out when I went full-time. I don't really want this to be a massive wall of text so I'm going to wrap it up now with a bit about my travelling in the past year.
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/3ZLxP4j.jpg)
It's amazing how many places you can go, people you can meet and experiences you can have simply through StarCraft. This year I have been to over 10 different events because of SC2. I have made some amazing friendships - friendships which in themselves have given me the opportunity to travel away on vacation.
These opportunities are invaluable. It's just amazing, to get to see so much of the world with people who share the same passion as you. Going to Blizzcon has to be one of the highlights - an event I have wanted to attend since I started playing WoW many many years ago. I was like a kid at Christmas in the Blizzcon Store - buying all sorts of stuff.
Again I don't really want to blab on and give you all the details, so I'll just say once again : the friendships and opportunities I have gained through my time in StarCraft 2 have been absolutely amazing and incomparable to anything else so far in my life. Hopefully I will be able to continue travelling to some smaller weekend events in Europe in 2016.
TL:DR : 2015 was pretty amazing. I actually made something of my life because of StarCraft 2 and SC2Improve and hopefully it continues into 2016.
Thanks everyone for reading my mess of thoughts. As always before I started writing I had a really good plan and idea of what I wanted to say, but instead I just wrote whatever came off the top of my head so it probably isn't very well written or anything.
Merry Christmas!
xo
