StarCraft Love

A few notes before the text:
1. This is the first installment of a series of essays I will be writing and sharing with Team Liquid entitled "The 50x Essays." They are so titled because I will release them every 50 posts I have, starting with my 250th post on Team Liquid.
2. This is in no way meant to bash, ridicule, or in any other way spread malice or bad feeling to the thread "Why We Love Brood War." I began writing this a couple days before the aforementioned thread (http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=261719) came out, and, personally, I think it's great. I just read it, and I kind of repeat some of its sentiments in my piece.
3. This is my first blog post, but that's more of a tidbit of information rather than a warning.

That being said, enjoy!
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Why I love StarCraft

I like a lot of things. I like reading, fine dining, and appreciating art (even if I cannot contribute much of it myself). I like cooking and laughing, writing and watching the West Wing, and I try to bring an intrinsic joy and love of life that I believe I owe to the action I’m taking. It is not nearly enough to merely partake in the Cup of the divine love you feel when you do whatever it is you like; you must absorb the flavor of it and you must reflect and emit the feelings of that inexplicable pleasure it gives you. You have to show the universe that you are happy with what you are doing—that’s what I’ve always thought, anyways. If it is good, let it be good—and I’ve found that the easier I can abide by this principal, the more I find I enjoy what I’m doing. There is a power in the universe that brings energy and passion to life. There is a beauty and a science that molds and guides mankind towards the state of feeling. There has always been and there will always be an inherent love of life that pushes humanity closer and closer to the edge of the metaphysical door, which holds the key to the lock of an unknown paradise beyond—merely beyond.

I have told you what I like—I have bestowed upon you now the arbitrary and unspectacular knowledge about me that may have bored you to death. With that behind us, I confess that I love StarCraft. I began playing StarCraft II midway through the beta. I began thinking, this will never replace World of Warcraft for me. My brother got a beta key from his friend, and he was moderately good for a complete and total beginner—by that I mean he was god-awful by the standards to which I hold myself and my peers today. I remember sitting in his room, looking at the computer while I waited to play my first game. My brother sat behind me, trying to tell me how StarCraft II was different from Age of Empires, the only game with which I had any experience in the world of strategic games.

The game started, and as I sat, staring like a zombie up at the flickering screen, my brother channeled his strategic mastermind through me, giving me some semblance of a plan. I was Terran, and my brother’s vision was one that was simple, yet beautiful, elegant and simultaneously badass: build Thors.
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This was a time before counter lists and unit compositions, a time before economy management and expansion timings, a time when all one had to do to win was pick a particularly kickass unit and build a lot of them. Unfortunately, picking an extremely high-tech unit to mass doesn’t bode well when, on the battlefield, there is someone seeking your demise. I lost my first game, and as my brother sighed heavily, leaning intensely on my conscience, pressed upon me silently the curious and strangely devotional words: what did you think?

If he asked me that question today (and it would be a silly question—he knows how I feel now), I would tell him that I love StarCraft. Another mundane and useless tidbit of information about me is that I despise and deplore commonly used words and phrases that are not expanded upon or defined. So if I were to leave the word “love” at its own merits, this reflection would be an utter failure for me. So what do I mean by “love?” Do I love StarCraft, or am I “in love” with StarCraft? What do I love about StarCraft? This is what I mean:

I love sitting down at my computer and watching VODs and streams. I love absorbing the information that flows from the LED lights on my monitor into my eyes and my ears, and I love to learn the intricacies of this immensely complicated game. I love that I can share an idea and get feedback from people just like me, that I can absorb more and more information from each and every soul of StarCraft and that I can, sometimes, regurgitate that knowledge and share my inexpert opinion to people who once I was like the people from whom I once learned. I love that I can ask questions and get answers, that I can reveal my ignorance and stupidity and not feel foolish; I love that, in this community, ignorance isn’t a gaping hole, it is an opportunity—being ignorant in this community means that you have a chance to learn and grow—ignorance does not make you stupid in this community, it only gives you the opportunity to become smarter. I love when there is a right and a wrong answer, and that I can figure out which is which, and I love when there is no right answer, but as the debates rage back and forth, arguments entwine with each other in a spiraling band like Jacob’s Ladder, bringing us upwards, rung by rung, towards the heaven of truth.

I love physically playing StarCraft II. I love the tension and excitement I get as I stare into Jim Raynor’s face. I love the mounting, pulsing anticipation that bubbles and froths from my stomach to my throat like a fountain of joy as I sit, waiting to find a match. I love counting down along with my computer: 3—2 – 1, and swelling with the wondrous cacophony of feeling and thought that marriage together as I mentally prepare myself, and when the rising tides of movement glide through my soul like a symphony, and the final notes are played as I finish loading, I love to think and play. I love the feeling of the keys beneath my fingers;
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I love the sound of the clicking and the flash of my cursor boxing workers and setting hotkeys. Despite the changes in 1.4 I still spam like a /b/tard without a job, and I love the feeling, and I’m proud of it.

I love moving out for a +1 mech timing push designed to deny or kill the Zerg’s 3rd. I love sieging at the edge of creep, scanning, and killing creep tumors, and slow pushing up to the enemy’s front. I love getting cleaned up, going back to my base, and finding a new army waiting to be controlled. I love the feeling I get when I win; I’m addicted to winning. I love seeing the victory screen, and I love tracking my progress on the ladder. I don’t love typing “gg,” but I do it anyway, and I love that I do it despite my anger. I love raging because it proves I’m still human; I love not being perfect because it gives me something for which I can work, and something I can achieve.

I love StarCraft II like I love music—it is, in its perfect form, unique, enchanting, beautiful. It speaks with the authority of a Presidential Address; it moves with the force of a nine millimeter hunk of metal forced through a cylindrical tube, exploding through the night with a crack and a kick; it sings and it laughs and it lives and acts through the community that loves it so. That is what I love about StarCraft, and that is why I love StarCraft. People may read this, and they may not understand that StarCraft is more than a video game. StarCraft reaches beyond the mortal strains of man and asks him to go further, to do better. StarCraft is an art, and it is a community, and it is a way of life.

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Thank you for reading this incredibly long post (for those of you who read it). I would love to hear what you all love about StarCraft, and I hope I have aptly described the beauty and the wonder of this game.

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StarCraft Love

Completed

Ongoing

Upcoming