EPTSometimes I get so excited when I´m interacting with my fans that I end up writing an almost entirely new blog post in the comment section (though they are few and quite far between as of now, they are loyal as hell!). This just happened in a conversation with a good old high school and university mate of mine, Bozidar Stevanovic Rakic. In high school me and my nerd amigos mostly kept to ourselves. But this guys positive attitude charisma made him impossible not to like and so easy engage in small talk with. A spreader of joy, that makes you want to better yourself. I´m sure you guys know the type.
For instance, simply by giving a shout in a message and offering to buy me a beer at the next Barcraft on my stream, he prompted this wall of text. Stuff like that just makes me happy, and when I´m happy I write!
This particular piece of writing includes an announcement for the future, that I was planning on waiting with until the launch of my website. But there should be some perks for following and supporting me from the start, right? You get to be the first to know!
"Don´t worry, I´ll win you a whole keg worth of games in your honor if you keep showing your support to help keep me this motivated to continue practicing and writing about eSport. I wouldn´t get anywhere without people like you. Who keep me company in the stream chat, helping me stay positive during rough days on the ladder. Just liking and sharing my channels will help this project to grow. Hopefully allowing me to make some money for rent before.. Well I don´t even want to entertain that notion. We´re going to make it. There´s not a doubt in my mind. I just have a lot less time to make it there than I´d hoped with my financial situation. When the day comes that I can survive off of practicing the art of Starcraft, documenting failures and success - good times and bad. And writing a ton about it. (I´ve been averaging 5-10 pages a day the past week, I wonder how long words are going to pouring out of me like this, you guys can take all the credit for that).
When people are this supportive of my cause and excited about my progress, just off of my upates and thoughts in blog-form about my still borderline Amateur-level of play. When everything I put up results in likes and positive feedback, constructive criticism and ideas on how to improve the quality of the content I plan to continue putting out for you guys. . It gets me so excited I can´t wait to show what I have in store for you guys in the months to come! If you kinda like what you´re watching and reading now, you´re going to love what´s to come. Once the website is launched this week we begin for real.
I was going to wait until the launch of the website ( http://ThatGlaiveGuy.com/ ) to reveal the end-game of this whole venture but I can give you guys - my most loyal fans who have been supporting me since day 1 - the announcement little before everyone else! Because thanks to you I am now certain beyond all reasonable doubt that no matter how things play out exactly, all this work will culminate in an amazing end-product. Something that will be very unique and interesting for anyone with even a slight interest in the world of eSports. I don´t think something quite like this has been attempted with the intention of recording every step forward, and every two steps back. From start to finish. With daily reflections on the development of the situation. At least not with my intentions for the future when my "progaming" are perhaps behind me, at least not to my knowledge. Let´s find out together just exactly what it takes to become a professional gamer in this day and age!
The reason why every part of my journey from amateur to pro once again will be documented, written, blogged and vlogged about is not only so that others aspiring progamers may learn from my mistakes and follow in my footsteps (which of course would be fantastic if I can inspire people to make that commitment). But ultimately I plan to at least write a book (yes, a book-book) and perhaps even get to the point where all the material I´ve gathered can be used for in a documentary about eSports. And my own cumbersome personal struggles in life, overcoming them, climbing to the top - and cementing my place in eSports history. As someone who helps (first and foremost) RTS-games to continue evolving into the greatest, most exciting, challenging and complex spectator sport of all time.
I´m was lucky enough to randomly befriend the mother of a universty classmate I dated for a while, who happened to be Eva Runefelt, a pretty famous author in Sweden. She´s been an avid follower of my writing since 2008 and has been very encouring, insistent even, that I don´t "waste my potential as a writer". Or at least finding a creative outlet for my writing instead of just writing code as a programmer all day. Reading this blogpost you might be thinking, "What she´s been smoking? This guy couldn´t possibly write a book.", and I tend to agree with you. I´ve always been... bad with compliments, mostly shrugging them off as things you say to people, especially your friends, to be nice and ecouraging. But I guess at some point you gotta start trusting your friends to give you their honest opinion. Comparing this to some of my more serious texts in swedish is like comparing a Masters-players to a Bronze leaguer, they´re miles apart. Hence the practice. Most likely it will be in Swedish and in that case later translated by a pro. Besides, with this new "career move", why not take advantage of an incredibly valuable source like her, who might even give me some input or pointers on the book when it starts coming along - and create try to create something awesome for eSports!
There have been a few eSports documentaries done in the past, "Beyond the Game" comes to mind.
"Beyond the Game is a 2008 Dutch documentary film about the world of professional video gaming, most notably as related to the game Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne featuring world champion players Chinese Xiaofeng Li (Sky), Dutch Manuel Schenkhuizen (Grubby) and Swede Fredrik Johansson (MaDFroG) prominently. It is directed by award winning Dutch documentary filmmaker Jos de Putter. Filming took place in China, France, The Netherlands, USA and Sweden. Languages spoken in the documentary include Dutch, English, French, Spanish, Swedish, Standard Chinese and Korean."http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beyond_the_Game
- You can watch documentary in its entirety on youtube.
But I believe nothing quite like the vision I have in mind. And I really do think it end-product could be truly epic if I continue improving at this rate. Not much is really known to the public about the inner workings of a programing, relative to other recognized sports. It´s something we´ve always talked very quietly about amongst ourselves. I don´t really see the reason for this. I´ve only lived a taste of it myself during my Warcraft 3 career, but have many online friends who are already living the dream now that eSports have been taken to the next (and the next, and the next...) level.
I want to show the world that eSports is growing large enough for anyone that has the discipline and dedication to continuously improve on the flaws in his play, and perhaps a modicum of talent. The most important thing is to have enough motivation to spare to continue practicing at the insane rate required. Even when you´re so frustrated with yourself and the mistakes you keep repeating even though you know better. After losing to 5 different variants of Roach/Ling/Bane-busts and you´re for some reason still not producing that defensive Siege Tank... you´d kind of just rather spend the rest of the day screaming in your pillow than hit that "Play again"-button. Thankfully, I have some amazing people cheering me up during days like that.
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/JaDTn85.jpg)
But two years of planning, working when I´ve so badly wanted to call in sick to afford a computer, stabilizing my health condition and recovering from a severe depression - so much effort has gone into this venture already. I´m not about to give up aaaanytime soon. And now that we´re finally on the road, with so many amazing friends and even strangers (mostly Liquidians) who have gone out of their way to help me succeed in being able to record this "show". And all the material that I I´ll ultimately need to help me write the book and and potentially some day begin work on the educational (and hopefully also entertaining) documentary I´ve envisioned. This is all probably years down the line though, but that´s the commitment I´m willing to make to eSports as of today. My health hasn´t really allowed me do anything else lately, to be frank.
I guess it´s safe to say I have some new, very clear goals in life. But what I do exactly (other than practicing and competing of course) is unclear. But I will continue doing a lot of writing on a daily basis and provide you with as much interesting content as I can muster.
I will not let my supporters down. If there is one thing I want you to count on, is that if you chose to support and interact with me, you can be an integral part of this journey from start to finish.
In the mean time, I´ll keep working on the new blog format here on TL, tailoring it to this community which I´m still very much getting to know.
I can only hope that those of you whom I´ve made a bad impression on with how I started out running this blog, will warm up a little bit once they get to know me on my blog and at events a little better.
Have a great day, comrades!
