EPTSo yeah. From now on each entry will be presented with a few titles, so people know what they can expect, and be free to not have to read the whole thing if they don’t feel inspired by those.
Day before KBK finals officialy start, as I was staying in the PC room with my French companions, spending most of our time laughing our ass off at what we could see of Korean TV on the huge screen standing in middle of the place ( while having everybody staring at us because we were laughing so hard for no apparent reason to them), Hong suh came with an angry look. What he basically told me was that he went up to the KBK office in the morning, to complete my registration, but he couldn’t. Reasons :
1. KBK managers were pricks.
2. He didn’t like them.
3. He was too late. Final registrations were closed since yesterday.
4. They had filled up all the remaining slots of ppl not showing with actual players in Korea that didn’t make it into the top 128, but that were willing to play.
5. That KBK managers were pricks and he didn’t like them.
6. And that Grrrr... without even playing the ladder, somehow got into it, because Pillars couldn’t come to Korea. KBK then asked Grrrr... if he wanted to play instead of Pillars and he agreed.
7. KBK managers were pricks and he had history with them. (He used to work for them at some time, and got fired or something like this).
Eventho he was sincerly pissed, and so was I, he promised me that it was allright and that anyway KBK sucked, because nobody in Korea actually gave a shit. He also told me he was already getting me scheduled to play some broadcasted games very soon, and that all I had to worry for now, was to practice and get used to the country.
And that’s how I saw my two friends going for the KBK finals, with me staying at the PC room alone. I have no clue as today, why I didn’t go just to watch the people playing. I really can’t remember. Maybe I was pissed, or maybe I went on smoking weed in my hotel room with John, OR maybe, I was just stucked to the chair of my computer and not really caring at all because of all the fun I was having already at this place.
I have to say right now, that during the 5 first days in Korea, because of the Jetlag and that huge excitement I was feeling, (would I have been the first man walking on the moon, I’m not sure I would’ve felt as much thrill), I didn’t sleep for the first 5 days. I think remembering at some point, that Elky forced me to take a 1 hour nap, but that’s about it. Needless to say that the 40 cents ice coffee cans I was consuming every 10 minutes, did help to raise the cafeine level in my blood.
John, who was a 14 years old Korean american, that Hong suh had stucked to my tail as my official guide and acolyte, was staying all day long with me. We were basically doing comes and go from the hotel bedroom to the pc bang, smoking bongs in the room, until the point where he would explain me that since weed was so illegal and so rare in Korea, people wouldn’t even notice the smell if we were smoking joints right in the Pc bang. I politely denied the offer, and we spent the time the KBK was taking place, getting high, playing games, and him introducing me to as many online Korean player as he knew; while paying me huge assed meals from the sandwich shop.
=]ABS[=Slayer won the KBK, in such a dominating fashion, that everybody for one year long in the Korean gaming community, kept saying he was a god amongst mortals in this game. They weren’t so far from the truth. If Slayer had stayed in Korea to be pro gamer, he would’ve make so much money. For months, because I knew him a bit, I had people from the community coming up asking me to convince him to consider moving to Korea. He never accepted any offer. And I’m pretty sure he got some real nice ones. See people, it always has been this way with the foreign players that had a REAL POTENTIAL at this. Not a single one actually went to Korea, but Elky. Saft, Slayer, Soul and Sven to some extent, all could’ve done real great. They were basically the next gen of westerners, after Thor, Pillars, May and Grrrr.. But they weren’t tempted. They actually disregarded it, much like a failure in life. That it’d somehow sink them for the rest of their life.
But the main thing, to me, was that at that time, at a whole different degree than today, to actually move over to Korea and live off starcraft and nothing else, you either needed to be extremly naive (like me) or have some guts. Yes, it takes some guts for a rational beeing to do that. Hopefully, I was of the naive kind. See the prince Mychkine of Dostoïevski ? Here I am.
So, the night KBK ended, Elky and Storm just popped in the PC bang as I was basically staring at one of the girls of the staff, debating in my own self, if all this was a very unrealistic dream or not. They told me that after the KBK ended, all the foreign players were guessed to Boys&Girls team headquarters that was located nearby in Kang nam to eat, drink, and spend the evening playing. As you will often notice, later on in my stories, progaming was a very tight community back then. You’ll often hear very touching stories about gamers helping each others, sometimes just as close as it gets to a family. The pro gaming community at first, eventho if for the most, it was scattered in a huge variety of teams and places, always had this warm feeling of fellowship. It was very hard for everyone but a few, and everybody knew it. In lan tournaments, nobody would disregard anyone but for that little bragging that goes on in all sorts of competitions. Wherever I have been, through the pro gaming trip in Korea, and I have been to many places, I always met friendly faces.
So here we get with Elky and Storm, inside that brand new, shiny building. Elevator spoke to us in Korea (we don’t have many talking elevators here in France). All the lights of all floors were off, and as Kook ki bong ([B&G]Theboy, very famous player back then and leader of his team) leaded us from the street to the team headquarters, we had that feeling of sneaking into some sort of sanctuary, that no mere mortal beeing was comonly allowed in. Gosh, I was so fucking thrilled ! I remember every second of this evening. Slayer, and all the other foreigners were already there, drinking and chating, but Grrrr... who as usual (yeah hes kind of like that), denied the invitation (Grrrr... doesn’t like to mix with people he didn’t chose. He was very picky back then. But that was part of his charm I guess...). I recall beeing the youngest, and people that didn’t see me at the KBK finals asking me, either who I was, or what I was doing here. I knew some of them, from battle net, and some where here that I didn’t like. However I had played with Theboy several times before on battle net, and after a couple of minutes, we were sitting next to each other, drinking beers and playing 2v2’s with random players in X17 channel. We had some fun raping, and beer was of some help. Half of the people in the room was also using computers, and it might sound stupid now, but at that time, it was REALLY SOMETHING, for a gaming community, to have players all together so far away, sharing the fun on battle net with others people that didn’t make it to the Korean finals, aware of what was happening.
The team headquarters were brand new. The team itself didn’t last long, as many of these teams, that got sponsored by companies that wanted to give a shot at pro gaming, but a tad early in regard of the market exposure that the young Esport was able to provide then to it’s investors. However, you have to thank all these companies that lost alot of money sponsoring pro gaming at first, because they were the true bielivers and game lovers. You all look up to SK telecom, KTF and other big things now, but before they all got into the thing, let me tell I and many others, met most of their people, the ones in charge now, that were so cold and didn’t want to spend a buck on gamers or leagues, saying it was basically trash and it would die very soon. Let me tell you SK telecom didn’t do shit for pro gaming. GameQ people did, Gamei did, OGN people to some extent, and before and more than any company or sponsors, gamers such as Grrrr..., Boxer and tons of others did. Oops, sorry. Back on topic ^^.
So here we were, getting drunk, in what could possibly be the closest thing to a gamer’s dream. You had mutiple bedrooms, a kitchen, showers, living room with TV, everything so big and large, storage room filled up with korean junk food, and giant fridges filled up with all sorts of drinks imaginable. All this serving the sole purpose of supporting teenagers playing Starcraft. I was prolly telling to myself something among these lines “ how the fuck can that be possible ?” “So, that’s what I’m gonna get ?” “Huh, that’s actually what I came for.”. Yeah, I was pretty extatic. Alcool helped to carry on the night with even more team games. Then I see some retty good looking chick picture on some desktop computer. Picture looks real. I ask Theboy who is that chick. He basically tells me it’s his GF and that she’s pro gamer as well, on the same team than him, and living here. She’s just not here tonight because she went to her parent’s, but otherwise, she lives there in the same fucking room. That was it. On the fucking top of it they get hot gaming chicks ? Since 2 hours I was looking up at this skinny and fun asian dude as a greek hero – now he just had turned into a fucking god.
As I was too busy getting drunk and playing, I hardly notice people leaving the place, I have a vague memory of chilling out for a couple of minutes with Slayer asking him why he didn’t want to stay in such a country. Elky and Storm somewhat tried to tell me they were leaving, but I promptly told them to piss off as I was experiencing chained orgasms, by enjoying my time in this modern time paradise, with my new officialy divine 2v2 brother in arm. Around 3 am or so, I suddenly began to look around and notice only me and Theboy remained, and realised I had to go back to the PC room. Theboy tried to explain me the way back to my place, but seeing I didn’t get shit of his explanation, he just grabbed the keys and took me back to N.E.T.
N.E.T. was a 3 minutes walk from the team head quarters. It took us 30 minutes to get there. We then experienced a new way of walking, as we couldn’t keep going straight because of the random hilarity bursts alcool and joy were giving us.
Next day, I bumped into Grrrr... in the sandwich shop next to the PC room. He was very friendly and happy to hear a new foreigner was planing to stay. Furthermore, we were both french speakers, and this felt kind of exotic to him. He was on his way to something, but promised he would drop by very soon to meet me, Elky and Storm, and gave us his phonenumber, stating we had to come clubbing with him. (I will later on talk more about Grrrr... and his personality.) He also let us know where was located the PC bang where he was hanging. As I told my French companions the news, Elky promptly ordered that we had to go right now to this PC bang, and just camp the place until Grrrr... shows up. That exactly what happened. And we spent the day in the first floor of this other PC room, that was reserved to Grrrr... He showed up after lunch, suprised to see us there. Elky was all about “play me, play me, I want to own you” while me and Storm were trying to have some fun mocking his canadian accent and asking him stuff about his life in Korea.
He then told us, as we enquired (just like tourists actually, we wanted the whole fucking tour haha), where was Maynard’s place, that was the next starcraft legend on our list to visit. After getting his phonenumber and because Grrrr... had to leave, we went back to N.E.T. and spotted maynard on battle net. We then called him, he gave us the adress of his place and we agreed to meet for diner over there.
Little we knew, how fucked up the evening would turn out.
Sorry, in the last blog entry, I promised a little more than what I just wrote, but as I got carried with memories, I went on much longer than I thought. So I’ll take another break now in the story.
Maynard’s crazy evening and the first clubbing with Grrrr... will be next. And maybe a little more. Not sure yet. If this goes on and you want more, I’ll have to plan ahead and not just write.
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