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I love how this game brings people together. I've seen it happen multiple times and I'd like to share an unlikely friendship I formed while playing Brood War.
I'm currently working in China and playing on the China servers to get good ping. There's actually tons of games on this server (not nearly as much as KR, but easy enough to find games quickly). I wanted to practice my PvZ so I joined a custom match against a fellow noob.
I always say Ni Hao and nearly all Chinese players say hi back. Well this dude kept writing to me in Chinese and I of course couldn't understand a lick of what he was typing. So I Google translated a message telling him to add me on a Chinese messaging app. He befriended me right away and we started talking about the game and how it influenced our life (this app translates all languages to whatever you want).
Turned out the dude is born in the same year I am, and has been following Brood War as long as I have! He knows about Boxer, Savior, July, and all the other old school BW players! We started talking about Zero's 9734 build because he couldn't beat my Protoss. I sent him jinjin's translated video that was retranslated into Chinese. He loved that. Once he learned the build, he tried it and then sent me a screen shot of him winning with it!
He also follows ASL like a true fan! He kept calling Flash a bug. I asked him to explain and he said it was because Flash is unkillable. Like bugs that you kill and kill but there's always another one. Hahaha. So true. We've been watching ASL together and basking in awe of the Flash.
It's awesome that a game like this can connect us to people from all over the world and even people who don't speak our language. And with the tech we have now, language ain't a barrier anymore. He lives in in a remote place in China and his English is primary level, I would never have met him if it wasn't for BW.
We've been playing together for over a month now, nearly every day. He's such a good and funny dude. Incredibly helpful and always making jokes when I send DTs to his base. I really like spending time with him because he is highly competitive and always seeks to improve himself. We always ask each other when we're getting home and if we can play a game. We're also teaching each other our native language.
I guess it's because there's not a lot of BW fans left or they're hard to find nowadays, it just feels damn good to have a friend who loves BW and plays it with you. I'd like to meet him one day. That would be swell~