EPTInterview with NonY
He is one of the best Non Korean Protoss players currently. With a very strong record in the TSL. Besides his very popular VOD's, NonY has been a great guy to talk to in the TL.net community. I decided to ask him some more questions and this interview is the result!
The Interview
How did you start with gaming?
I started gaming with the NES (Nintendo Entertainment System) and progressed to the SNES, the PlayStation and eventually PC gaming. I was never a very competitive gamer until I played Red Alert on the PC. I competed in the official online ladder for Red Alert, Red Alert: Aftermath and Dune 2000. I won both the Aftermath and Dune 2000 ladders when I was 12-13 years old. After that, I switched between EverQuest and StarCraft and World of Warcraft up until now
what do you think of starcraft after so many years is the game perfectly balanced yet?
I think starcraft is balanced right now. I think maps are used heavily to balance the game and it has been a healthy solution for starcraft. I would not be in favor of any patches altering gameplay.
how did you start playing protoss and do you feel the pvz matchup is one sided towards z.
I liked Protoss when I first started because of reavers. I noticed how much damage they can do and I wanted to have more fun using them. I never tried to play Terran or Zerg seriously and I'm still bad at those races haha. I don't think the PvZ matchup favors Z. Certainly in the past, Protoss has had problems against Zerg on the professional level and on the amateur level, but nowadays it isn't so bad. The professional players have innovated and new maps have given Protoss some more options that weren't possible on older maps. I think the matchup is very balanced right now and it will favor the player who has better strategy and mechanics.
What does Nony mean
Nony is a nickname that my brother gave me when I was about 5 and he was about 7. It doesn't have any meaning at all. It is pronounced like the words 'knew' and 'knee'. Knew-knee with equal emphasis on both syllables. He still calls me that today and my friends called me that when I was a child.
What do you think are the pre-reqs for being a good rts/sc player
I think a good SC player needs to have a very fast mind. Handspeed is required but it can be learned and practiced. The state of mind is difficult to achieve. Most players play poorly because they will be focused on a single thing during the game and will ignore all other things. Their hands are fast enough but their mind fails to multitask. Beyond that, I think a person needs to learn to accept defeat and be willing to learn from every loss. If an opponent beat you in a "cheap" or "stupid" or "cheesey" way then it is your fault for falling victim to it and it's something you can patch up. So a good player needs to have an open mind and be eager to improve his game, not his ego.
and do you find shifting between games an easy thing to do and what are the skill sets one needs to transfer it over
Shifting between games has been difficult for me. It seems like my way of thinking changes completely with the game so when I go back to an old game, I forget how to think while playing it. The only skill I think is important for all games is to keep an open mind. Any game can become routine and it can lure you into focusing too hard on execution and that extreme focus will block out innovation
For the fast mind, you have to realize that the brain cannot truly multitask. You can only truly be focusing on one thing at a time, so you want to make many actions automatic. You want to have many things thought out in advance. The things that most players get caught up on, I put out of my mind after a split-second decision.
How do you group your units and buildings
I've never seen anyone else with my hotkeys.
1-Nexus 2-Gateway 3-Gateway 4-Units 5-Units 6-Shuttle/corsairs 7-nothing 8-Probes 9-Probes 0-Probes.
Usually I will end up hotkeying my first three Nexii as 1 2 3. As I get more and more units, I descend their hotkeys 5 4 3 2 1. I hotkey probes in case I need to run them away from something like a High Templar drop.
Have you ever tried warcraft 3 btw?
I played WC3 just a little bit. I played with my brother and some friends but I never tried the online ladder. I didn't think it was very fun.
Some players have shifted races from zerg to terran for certain matchups , do you thinkthat you would do the same to give you an advantage?
I would not switch my race for a certain matchup just for an advantage. I enjoy playing Protoss and when PvZ, PvT or PvP feel particularly difficult to me, I just stick to it and try to improve.
What does it take to shift between the races?
I think an open mind and perseverance are necessary. There are many facets of the game that are race specific, so an open mind is necessary to be prepared for the unique challenges of the new race. Perseverance is necessary because skill level will drop after switching so it's important to not get frustrated and keep learning.
What is the common ground for being good at RTS fundamentally ? What are the skills one should develop?
On-the-fly strategical thinking is the most important mental skill. A good RTS will have too many variables to have everything pre-planned so it's important to recognize optimal moves in new situations. Very good hand speed for both the keyboard and mouse are required for competitive StarCraft, though I have heard other RTS games are not as fast paced and physically demanding.
Assuming you were to start out starcraft all over again, would you do things different ?
I would use all of my time playing StarCraft to increase my skill. I have spent a large percentage of my time on StarCraft doing things just for fun. If I had used all my time on StarCraft to constantly seek out 1v1 games with the best players and to study replays and videos, I could be much better now.
How did you set about to be the one of the best toss players around ? What was your initial strategy/methods of practice that you used?
I paid a lot of attention to the strategies that professional players were using and I also watched replays of my peers to see how they were winning and losing games. I would try to decide what the optimal strategy for a particular map and matchup was and then I'd do that strategy every single game. But if a completely different style of play was better suited for a different map, then I would not be afraid to completely change. I also saw the importance of hand speed and multitasking, so I constantly attempted moves that were too difficult for me to do. After many failures, the body and mind adapt, so I became one of the fastest foreigners.
What are you doing for media gaming ?
This was held a while back, right now Nony is playing for Excello.
My only role in Media is to play in clan leagues.
Have you ever considered giving tuitions for Starcraft? What do you see as the common mistakes amongst gamers?
I used to offer a lot of advice to players of lower skill level but I have lost interesting in teaching. The most common mistake is to neglect something of importance at a critical time. It is difficult to pay attention to everything at once and most players could have prevented a loss by simply building units when they hadn't been building units or by microing their army when they hadn't been microing. At a higher level of play, the most common mistake is to get stuck in a pattern. Even at the highest levels of play, players routinely omit optimal moves because their mind has a preconception about what should be done and the mind is too occupied by the demands of the game to stray from that proconceived pattern when necessary.
you recently almost all killed everyone in the teamliquid games. What did you observe as the main things and what was it that most of them lacked?
They really seemed to lack in almost every aspect. I think I had better build orders, better macro, better micro, and I seized opportunities that were presented to me. It is tough to pinpoint what their biggest faults were when there is a large gap in skill overall.
Have you seen Starcraft 2, what are your thoughts on it ? Do you think you would want to shift to it as soon as it comes and go pro?
I have seen some videos of SC2, most recently the new zerg videos, and I think it is coming along nicely. If I'm still playing SC competitively when SC2 is released, I will switch to SC2 because there will be many more competitions and opportunities for a competitive player. I would be expecting to make a career out of it.
If you did see, did you see what were the similarities in the 2 games?
I think Blizzard is working hard and succeeding at keeping the most important elements the same. SC2 will be fast paced and will be strategically robust. Many other things may be different, but as long as those two elements remain, it will be a good game.
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I hope you guys enjoy this interview. And thank you NonY for being such a nice guy. You rock.
Hell, sometimes even beating said gamers who are professional!
