EPTPart 1
The early noob years
"In the beginning, I was a noob."
I had obtained a copy of StarCraft and BW at around the ages of 9 or 10 from a friend who had brought back a "bootleg" version back from Malaysia. He also brought back tall tales of players so good that they "could use only the keyboard, but play as fast as a computer."
The copy of StarCraft that I borrowed did not require the disk to play (as it was the bootleg version), and also came with extra scenarios such as Retribution. The most notable thing to come on the disk, however, was the Gundam Century mod, which converted each race and its units into Gundam related sprites, complete with names and abilities!
![[image loading]](http://mechazone.eu/media/gundamcentury-screen06.jpg)
This was extra badass after watching a few episodes of Gundam as a kid, then logging on my computer to play this and feel like a commander.
Between the Gundam Century mod, the campaign, and games against the computer, I poured a ton of hours with friends into playing (note: When I say "play with friends," I mean we gathered around the same computer and co-commanded units. We weren't smart enough for LAN or online :p). I distinctly remember one afternoon where I spent 4 hours just playing around with Battle Cruisers against 8 computer AIs.
This time let me experiment with a ton of ridiculous unit compositions. It helped me realize that corsairs can’t shoot down, seige tanks were really good, and lurkers completely ate bio alive. Other than hard unit counters, something really fun to play around with was discovering the personality of each unit. The voice acting and style behind each unit is probably a huge reason why the game was so appealing - there was just so much personality behind each race, arguably the main reason why Brood War was so successful in the first place.
"Bnet 1.0"
I first ventured into the realm of online play around the age of 11-12 with StarCraft, with my first online game being some unknown custom game called “A Day at School” or something along those lines. Needless to say I was completely lost in trying to play.
The next game I tried was a variation of Sniperz, which is something I came to love instantly. The premise was simple - CTF where you control only one ghost, and you had to kill other ghosts on the opposite team while trying to capture the flag. There was a tactical element where you could hide in fog of war or behind trees, and you could only attack manually, there was no auto attack which made the game much like a quick draw on each encounter. I still have fond memories of playing endless games of Sniperz in BW, and I think it was the first game that I didn’t completely suck at. I’m sure an SC2 variation of it exists somewhere.
I began to pour a lot of time into UMS games such as Godzilla, Bunker Warz, Evolves, RPG’s and every variation of Bunker Wars.
![[image loading]](http://www.creepcolony.com/ss22.jpg)
ERRNGG ERRNNG ERNGGG, anyone who has played these mass type games will have this sound embedded in their brain forever. Error when no more units can be spawned.
Bnet was the first time I ever experience online play so the experience was exhilarating knowing that was interacting with people across the country through this game. At that age it was pretty mind blowing, especially since if your limited perception of multiplayer games was purely playing games on the same console.
My story probably doesn’t deviate far from other BW players - starting off with games against the computer with cheats, then playing UMS online, eventually moving on to Fastest Map Evars and finally playing the actual game. Next blog I’ll chronicle more online experiences along with stumbling on to the pro scene. I hope to also hear from your early SC experiences.
Also let me know if you'd like to read anything else that'd make this more interesting. gl hf GG
, just campaign and multiplayer. Good Times.
