EPTFor the many of you, who never been to Seoul, I might as well shortly describe Samseong Dong, the area where I got to live in my first “own home”.
As a few might know, Samseong Dong is the “business area” of Kang nam gu. Many of the gigantic buildings you see shining in Seoul at night are located there. Samseong dong is all about three main avenues, two leading accross the river han, if my memory is correct, and the third, if you keep walking it north, will take you to Chong nam dong wich is actually pretty close and also linked to Apku jong dong.
All of those very expensive areas, where you can party in the “high class” Korean way of partying ( wich by the way could be considered by some as totally “un high class” as it’s all a matter of perspective, just, the most expensive of the “Korean” styled night clubs, are all located there ).
If you like common folklore and warmer, noisy, small streets, having student bars etc.. this is not the place you want to be.
Around Apkujeong its all about pretty girls trying to look young in very expensive casual famous brand clothes. There’s nothing fancy really about people there, but the area itself, as a whole, is extremly attracting and nice. You can spend your entire life as a foreigner there, if you have alot of money to spend on drinking fun.
However, you can’t really say, or tag it, as an only “superficial” cultured area, as eventho its somewhat far from many other different Korean realities, it carries a big deal of what the country is and wants to be around its streets, the expensive restaurants, and the neverlasting, all week, nightclubing life.
Samseong dong is the business area. Most of the big trading and high tech companies “should” be located there. Everything there is about the cleanest you can find in Korea. Everything is new, shiny, modernly shaped, but with an underlying lack of financial establishement.
Everything is truely only about economics and national technology.
Korean business men that I met or worked with later on, all told me the same : “Koreans are very bad at business and trading.”. I’m not sure how or why, but evidences were often to show that this statement was actually true enough.
The very heart of Samseong Dong is it’s “international” trade center, aka COEX, a huge undergrounded mall, that has on its surface, vast surfaces for any event or exposition, such as the asian gaming conference or whatever it is called, that is beeing held there every year I think. COEX was also originaly, the place where OGN recorded and broadcasted their leagues. But that doesn’t mean, that as a player, you would always be around there. Rather not actually. As the studios were located within COEX’s pc room, Megawebstation, wich was about the biggest and the shittiest of the expensive pc rooms of Seoul.
Also, it was of course always overcrowded, by ugly preteen schoolgirls. I mean, you really didn’t wanna hang out around there, unless there was a special event, or you wanted to watch a specific game live.
Truth is about Samseong dong, that (maybe things changed since then), but going to COEX, there’s not a fucking thing to do. It’s not like the rest of Kang nam, where you got a bit of everything mixed up together. COEX is everything you can do, day time, over there. At night, you just go to apku jeong I guess.
Well, close enough to COEX, was the building of my sponsorship, right accross it’s front entrance on the other side of avenue. To be more accurate, it was in the street behind the building facing the mall’s entrance.
From a Pro gaming fan perspective, you could just picture it as it beeing a 2 minutes walk away from OGN broacasting studio.
Now, my life, within the matter of a week, had completly changed. I had money, I had a huge assed bed in midle of an empty and huge dorm ( I was the only one of the company using it at this time ), I had a brand new computer that was my own, and friendly faces all over the place coming to talk to me and get to know me.
I was the youngest person in the company, the only foreigner and every one there, was a gaming addict. Hell, it was a die hard mmorpg company. Every where I’d look, I’d see artists drawing crazy shit, 3d modelers modeling all day long, a whole bunch of game designers making plans and having non stop meetings, and lastly, an squad of coffeed coders that just looked like zombies.
Day I got there, we had a party for my arrival, with everyone, and people lining up to play games against me. They started to add handicaps and bet drinks, everyone was watching and having fun really ; I mean, I think (i might be wrong there), that it was different back then, than what I can see and hear about, what pro gaming is now.
Pro gamers were somewhat of a “rare” thing, foreigners even more. But, it was a true ascenscion.
I mean, before playing on GAMEQ or OGN or whatever, you’d just be a gaming bum I guess, but once you’d get in the pro thing, have your face somewhere, your status would just be something else right away.
I’m not sure today it’s same, but at that time, everyone in Korea, within this quite wide social spectrum, was a potential gamer. People loved games and the gaming industry itself, was just insane. At that time, about 100 Mmog companies were created each year, having only 4 them surviving past the year of their creation. That’s just freaking insane.
Is the gaming craze still the same ? Is it still there ? I can’t really tell, but I get the feeling, that it somewhat left. Actually, a mere 18 months later, it already was feeling different. I somehow believe the very peak of it was when Guillaume first got to Korea.
My crazy and adventurous begenings in Korea turned very fast into a very casual confortable way of life. We had one entire floor for the company. Floor was huge. Half was the office itself, on the other half, you had a big brand new dorm, as the owner was planing to expand alot it’s working crew within the incoming months.
The owner was basically spending his father’s money, aka, millions upon millions, on this gigantic assed game he wanted to get done within a year wich was basically an impossible task. His main mistake was to believe money could make coders code faster I guess, and disabling any possible trouble on the way. He had a very flawed view of game design it seemed.. but he was an awesome and very nice person nonetheless. Just like Richard who was monitoring my stay over here.
Basically, I would wake up around 3 or 4 pm, wash, go play some games, then, after everyone started to leave ( you always had ppl staying over at night to work more ), I’d walk to COEX and have diner and a movie, and then walk back to the office to play starcraft until dawn.
Now, this retirement like, life schedule, would be spiced up by evenings where Soo jee would come by, or me going out with Guillaume in a Night club, or going with Jaeyong to soju bangs or karaokes when Su yeon was there. Otherwise I’d often go with Guillaume to his league games, as we were good friends and his girl friend at that time ( most awesome Korean girl I ever met ), would come along as well and we’d be cheering him together in a corner of megawestation. Then we’d go have some food or go back near Guillaume’s place.
I was spending my money accordingly to my increasing social, life and partying needs. That means I was spending every single dime I was getting right away.
That’s the only way I ever lived in Korea. Prolly not the best, but, unless you’re making more than 3 or 4 thousand a month, there’s no way on earth, living in the center of Seoul, you can spend less, unless you’re planing to go ramen / pc room style, wich sucks, and I know what I’m talking about.
Eventho I had a great time in my sponsorship and got into two different relationships, with some of the female artists, there’s only one person, really worth to mention here and that I miss.
This person was my desk acolyte, a tall and nerdy young game marketing assistant, freshly graduated. He knew about three words of English when I got there, and when I left, he could have a decent conversation in English.
Now, he was staying like me, sleeping in the office, but way LESS than me. For every hour he’d sleep, I think I’d sleep 3 or 4. His main duty was to open and read and answer and send mails, all day long.
We’d eat most of our meals together, when I wasn’t going outside, eating the cheapest and untasty sort of crap you could pick up at the 24/11 down the building. Sometimes we’d order pizzas, but that’d be sort of an event. I never knew that fact, until I left, but he was getting a third of my salary for actually doing something that made money for the company.
So, Mr. Han, he was going by that name, the cheekiest companion I ever found over there, on top of making only 600 bucks a month, was saving every single dime he could.
Unlike me, he had to be up at casual working hours, but he was a Starcraft watching addict, and while I was practicing on Gamei all night long, he would stay up as well, watching me and playing random fucked up heroic fantasy Korean RPGs, that were coming in boxes of 10 discs and 5 drawn art books.
These games, were the thing he was spending his savings on. You could think the guy would save up for renting a place or something dunno, but no, he was spending it on fucking lame game boxes special assed edition of the millenium of the gayart book thing with boobed pre teen fairies screaming like candy whores in the precut opening game animation movie.
But heh, that was cool with me, he’d roam Korean BBSs and get me the games I wanted whenever I asked.
I recall the first time I went washing and he was around, he came naked to me with these green rough towels that Koreans love, to peel someone’s back. That’s actually a very high mark of manner a male can show to another one, peeling his back with a raugh green plastic kind of towel, but to me, it just looked gay, so I let him do it once, to not piss him off but then dodged everytime he tried to.
So the guy as I said, would stay up all night long with me and then get flamed day time, by Richard who was his direct superior, because he’d fail so hard because of his lack of sleep, at the most basic things he was asked.
Early mornings, at 6, 7 or 8 am, actually, every single morning, we’d run to the nearest subway exit and buy vegetables and ham and sugar toasts – basically big hot sandwiches, with a vegetables omelet and ham, sugar, cheddar and ketchup in them. He’d buy one, I’d buy five. God these owned so bad. Prolly what anybody would be missing the most from Korea, would be this sort of casual addiction.
Me and Han were good friends, spent most of our time together I guess, I even secretly made him smoke a huge chunk of a joint of Afghan very pure haschich, that I had smuggled back from France after christmas week ( company had paid me the trip for christmas, yes, the boss was very generous ). It drilled the crap out of him, that was pretty fun.
I guess my sponsored life wasn’t as exciting as the previous one. I was entirely free, and from there on, with the money I had, I spent more time to explore the social network and the city.
I’d often wander alone in very far away areas and populated discrits, that are after the river. Basically, I spent most of my money leaving Kang nam gu to see the rest of Seoul. I’d go into random Hip hop or techno clubs, that are so different, and where you can actually like in Europe, go up to people you don’t know, and talk with them. I’d cheat alot of my girl friend and meet with many many girls, that I would not see more than a week.
Within these few months, I was getting much older, like anyone does at that age. Only difference is that I was totally alone, free, very young, and to some extent, extreemly anonymous.
Alas, the word that’d describe the best my sponsored life, would be “nocturnal”.
I’ll end this entry with a description of a PVZ I played on Lost Temple, at KGL, against a once quite famous Zerger player, TheWind.
Now I had practiced a crapfuckton for this one. Plan was 14 nexus, get two gates going, pressure into corsairs – templar if he’d go hydralisks, but unlikely – and from then on, pew pew pew.
Back then Zerg players were not familiar with very early expanding protosses. Well, Guillaume would do it quite often, but they never really tried or wanted to figure out how to beat it.
What’s more, they often neglected the economical powerhouse this thing was. Reason for this was that, but me and Guillaume, and Samjjang in one famous game, nobody would ever do that. Especially in offline tournaments, that were the thing you’d practice the most for at that time.
I mean, of course in offline events, every single god damn zerg is going to 9 pool speed your protoss ass, so there’s no point going nexus 14 on temple.
But on Tv, it’s a different thing. Different players, higher caliber. They don’t auto 9 pool you. I knew TheWind, I knew he wouldn’t 9 pool me. Maybe a pool first, but after the overlord. That was enough time to get the zealots up, and with my probes hold it back, until too many zealots would force him home.
Of course, now we forge up wich is a complete different philosophy.
Using early gates with a 14 nexus would result in you wanting to make your economical advantage pay off right away – either by denying his speed lings all in with zeal / probes / photons if needed, or getting zeal gang fast enough so he had to sunken like a madman his natural. From there on, if you were lucky and denying the scouts well, you could break out with 16 zealots, and rape his 3 sunkens before the tech, or just guess muta or lurker cliff, what would come.
Holding that with corsair and canons was very doable and very easy, and you’d still hold a very high advantage over him.
Anyhow, of course, something totally different from that happened.
He pooled first. I went heavy zeals. I thought he’d power up, and he didn’t, he made 0 DRONES, just planted his natural hatchery as a decoy.
His initial lings did nothing, even when speed was done, I was at six, and he couldn’t approach my zeal / probe gang at all.
Now, I was able to sneak a probe around, check his empty natural and his low drone count in his main, even mining gas and a third hatchery losely making. No lair.
I had enough zealots already to press him back home. I instanly added 2 gateways, dropped a forge, and started to walk out my natural repelling his moving lings with about 12 zealots and 8 probes.
I mean, guy was fucking dead.
Then, the gayest thing ever, that could remotely happen to someone, playing a broadcasted game, happened right there.
Now back then, broadcasting games was much more heavy on computer ressources I guess, than it is now. It was somewhat of a hazardeous thing to do, and quite technical. Well...
My zealots were illuminated by their winning aura and that probe formation, in front of them, was so fucking perfect and so cute. Lings would melt, his building sunkens as well.
But, the game froze.
Now, it didn’t crash. No, that would’ve been actually better.
It physically fucking froze.
Froze for a good five seconds, during wich, like the stupid white boy I am, I stood there, waiting, while my smart and vicious zerg opponent, decided it would be a good thing, to spam his move command to my main with boths his lings controls, eventho the game was froze.
When it unfroze, 24 speeded lings passed right by the clueless gang of Aiur and by the time my units would actually reach the gateways level, my main nexus was already gone.
From there on, I hold several ling and hydralisks all ins, desesperatly building photons over and over again at my natural. At last, when my nexus was kicking back in, one last all in wave, got rid of me.
That was fucking sad, I swear.
That’s it for this one. Came sooner than expeced.
Next entry will revolve over the first OGN King of Kings tournament, that Grrrr... totaly raped and that was the last tournament he ever won I think.
Other things prolly, not sure of anything yet, but King of Kings is sure a nice memory, and cool “starcraft” story to tell.
Enjoy & thanks for reading.
