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. Now I guess it's going to be cool to have a creative outlet for when ideas/thoughts (that always seem to spiral off into different directions as logical connections are formed) start coming to me but I have no one to talk to.Just a heads up, I like to rant. I also tend to get whiney. But I guess that's what's cool about a blog right? It's yours; the owner's; the writer's. I guess it's a safe place for opinion, as opposed to always being neutral/unbiased/politically correct.
I've been eager to start blogging for a while, so this will probably become a regular thing. This first one will probably suck and be boring for most.
I think I'll kick things off with a solid shpeal about my Starcraft "career". So lets kick it off The Meditations of FREEloss: My Starcraft Life - The Early Days
I was originally born in England, in a city or county or something called Buckinghamshire, just outside of Manchester. At the age of 7 (September 1996) my family immigrated to Vancouver, BC, Canada. Two years later I was hanging out at my best friend at the time, Josh's, house. His older brother had a cool new game called "Starcraft" that he wouldn't let us play but I was always willing to watch him for up to an hour. My earliest memory is of Josh's older brother flying his Command Center and barracks away to another base in what I remember being a 2v2 game on some Badlands map. A group of Zerglings were following his base, preventing him from rebuilding. I remember Josh saying as we watched his bro play, "The fucking zerg are so cheap, they're the cheapest race in the game...they always rush you and kill you in five seconds...they're so gay."
I fell in love with this game at first site. I grew up on Street Fighter, Mario, Duke Nukem, Sonic and Doom. But this was unlike anything I had seen. Even at the age of 9 I was fascinated by the concept of "...building guys to get money, then spending money to build buildings, which then allow you to spend money to build other guys, which you then use to kill your opponent". I was always eager to go over to Josh's house to hangout after school; deep down I only wanted to go to watch his bro play Starcraft, and to maybe have a chance to play it myself.
I wasn't allowed to get the game as Christmas was 2 months away, and my parents said I could get it until then. Me and my other best friend, Eric, kept ourselves occupied in the meantime with Starcraft: Shareware (The demo), which I bought for $15.00 at London Drugs ( -_-;; ), not knowing it was free on the internet. You could only play TvT, on only one map. We'd play for hours, making in-game rules like "no nukes", or "Marines only", or "BC's" only. We all (me and a bunch of my friends)would eventually get the battle chest for the following Christmas.
In the following years my circle of friends would change a bit, but one thing remained the same, we all played starcraft with eachother; on money maps of course. We even got into some money map clans (we were about 11 years old by this point). It would always be No Rush 45 minutes, and I'd personally always either mass 3-3 hydras, or mass carriers. We also played A LOT of UMS.
Then things changed. Nevin, who was the best out of our group of friends who played (years later, after the invention of BWchart, I'd discover that all of us, including myself, all played with about 15 APM, where as Nevin was around 50) got invited to Dark Legion (DL) on USEAST; his ID was Sluggy(DL). I could never understand why we couldn't beat him, but I think his speed (a concept I was ignorant to at the time) made a big difference. He started to get even more better than us (after joining DL), to the point where we couldn't beat him even 2v1, and one time, 3v1. We were still playing money maps and BGH of course.
A short time a while later, we all got into a clan called [TFP] (Thanks For Playing). We were invited based on our money map skills. This clan though would change Starcraft for all of us, especially myself. For the first time, about 3 years after Starcraft's release, we were introduced to what our clan members called "Real Starcraft". I remember my first game of "real Starcraft"; it was on a "crappy map with no minerals" called "Lost Temple" :D. We played a 4 person FFA in which I won because I massed cannons and then massed carriers (albeit, it took far longer without infinite minerals). There was a player in this clan called Wizard (who I last heard - which was about 2 years ago - played in WCG USA). He started to teach us for the first time a strange concept called BUILD ORDERS. After a while in this clan, nearly all my friends quit, but I kept at it for a short while (as a zerg). I was about 40 APM at this point.
Then the day came that would change my Starcraft 'life' forever; probably the most defining day in my Starcraft "Career"; I was 12 at the time. A few dudes were hanging out in our channel discussing strategies, friends of Wizard. One of the players, named Deltron3030, kindly invited me to come watch a replay with them. I had never seen a replay before. I had no idea what I was about to witness. Starcraft to me was just a game I played in my spare time when I felt like it, and naively assumed that's how it was for everyone else. I enjoyed money mapping and massing carriers, and giving "real starcraft" a try every now and then with the Zerg race (usually doing a 1 hatch muta build every game). I remember saying some stuff and being laughed at in the chat, and Wizard sticking up for me. I also kinda remember Deltron3030 saying "you're in for a treat".
The replay started: The awesome Terran Theme kicked in. The map was Lost Temple. There was a Protoss player at 9 and a Terran Player at 6. I had no idea who these two players were. Friends of Deltron and Wizard perhaps? They referred to them as "pros". I figured they were just "some Japanese kids that were crazy good at starcraft". The Protoss player went by the name Liquid`Nazgul and the Terran Player was named [ReD]NaDa. What I proceed to watch literally AMAZED me and something within "clicked", like the flipping of a light switch. The way the Terran player micro'ed his dropships and tanks BOGGLED MY MIND, as did the way the Protoss player would pick up his reaver just as it fired its scarab. That was it. At this moment, during these few minutes of gameplay, I would become forever engrossed in Starcraft. This moment sparked the years of competitive that would follow, and the drive and determination to play, within me.
Deltron3030 somewhat took me under his wing shortly after I watching the replay; I would play and watch replays with him regularily for the next few months; my APM naturally increased during this time to around 80 (I didn't know BWchart existed, or what APM even was at this time). There-after, he would stop logging on and I'd never see him ever again to this day. I had immediately decided to become a Terran player after watching this [ReD]NaDa guy play. Deltron3030 was also a Terran player. He taught me the 'maneuver' of "walling in" and also showed me replays of another player named SlayerS_`Boxer`. It was Deltron, as well as replays of Nada and Boxer, that brought me my first understandings of this game. In the years that followed, I would play this game on and off; the fire would always seem to burn out after 3-6 months of playing, but would always eventually be re-lit after a while.
I'm 19 years old now, and love this game more than ever.
If you made it this far, thanks for reading. :D
And incase anyone has any idea who Deltron3030 is or was, I'd like to thank him. For if it wasn't for him showing me that epic replay, who knows how my life would've of been different. But Starcraft has brought me a lot of good times over the passed years, and some good friends. At this point I'm reminded of one of my favourite quotes:
"Time you enjoyed wasting, was not time wasted." - John Lennon
I only really "discovered" starcraft 1 year ago, and i always think to myself "Imagine where i would be if I had been REALLY playing from the start..."
