EPTI miss my team dearly and am looking forward to them arriving in Kuala Lumpur at a later date.
This is somewhat of a Blog post, so feel free to move it, however, I am going to explain that its content is not a day by day diary of what was going on in Korea. Its a perspective that I hope changes the perspective of Korea for the better.
And so, it begins.
One of my initial thoughts upon arriving in Korea, was the convenience of flights from outside of Asia. It seems most flights from Asia, are red eye flights and tend to land early morning. The flights are always early/ontime and customs has no line up. It generally takes between 10-20 minutes to have your bags and be on the train to your destination.
However, flights from abroad, seem to arrive around the 5pm mark, and there is a higher density of flights. As we experienced with most arrivals, they were late by about 30 minutes, and customs was a relatively tedious exercise. However, a small price to pay to meet up with 'family'.
Highlight: When i picked up thegunrun from the airport, the guy infront of me kept doing yoga, and farting at the same time... Was relatively impressive how he blankly ignored that fact.. I quickly moved away.
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Now, this definitely wasn't the first time I had been to Korea, or overseas for that matter. I am on my 3rd passport since 2009, so I definitely know how to collect stamps. However Korea is a very unique place. The people all look somewhat depressed, however when you try to talk to them, they greet you with one of the largest smiles I have ever seen. Theres alot of public drunkeness on any single night and it seems like there is some sort of hidden pain in the country. Personally, I think this kind of culture in a relatively developed society, is somewhat interesting. I am not going to question why things are like this. It just needs to be known that even though the people have a depressed looking exterior say, in the street. When you actually meet or talk to a Korean person, they are the most friendly and respectful people in the entire world. There is another culture that is identical, but i won't mention them in order to not insult any koreans.
Highlight: QXC and I went to buy groceries one day at the supermarket. The lady forgot to scan one bottle of milk, and we were like "what about the milk". She then proceeded to scan it in as a gift and give it to us for free. Whilst I assume this came from her wages, she did it with the biggest smile, and a bow. And was trying to communicate in english as best she could. This moment made me feel very warm and welcomed. Its definitely something that wouldnt happen in Australia or the united states. Or malaysia for that matter. I was impressed.
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One of the things in the world that I love the most is food. I have been known to spend large sums of money just to eat my favourite foods in different locations. For instance, i wanted Mexican food in greece, I paid out the ass for it. But I enjoyed it. In Korea, you can get like 200 dumplings for USD28. We literally fed 10 of us on dumplings for $28. And they were damn good dumplings too! One of the other things we ate alot of was Korea BBQ, although a little more expensive than dumplings, for 10 people I was spending approximately $8 per person. Again, it was amazing food lots of meat. Um nom nom nom. Its one of the things I already miss about Korea, the only downside was, its hard to find a place to order something like a ceaser salad, for those 'diet' days.
Highlight: ChoyafOu came to BBQ with us after a Code A day where nuclear was playing. We then convinced him that tgun was a transvestite, and he seriously believed us. Score 1 team, 0 tgun
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Gaming vs Koreans can be a very frustrating, but insightful exercise. I have said it before on TL that there is such a high density of skilled korean players, platinum players would play high masters on North America, and most of grand master on NA would be low-mid master on Korea. Minus the obvious stars of course. The fact that you can go on ladder, and play vs someone who can execute things so much better than Americans or Europeans, means that with some time, you are going to get better. I believe after the 300 games I played in Korea, I am officially 'better' than I was on north america. For a bunch of reasons.. Firstly, I saw different types of strategies that North American ladder players do not do. Secondly, I played vs more refined players who don't have holes in their strategies. They can just make strategic mistakes such as making the wrong composition vs my own strategy. Which in the end gets me the win........ There were few of these.
Highlight: Watching the world cry at our FXOteam account being in platinum, whilst tgun and the likes are playing players in High masters and grandmasters. Players such as rainbow, slayers_legalmind, nuclearfOu, and of course NEXPuzzle. It showed to me, the world really doesn't know what matters in Starcraft 2. I hope this ads some insight.
Fact: We discovered that on Korea, you only get promoted league by league, IE Plat -> Diamond -> Masters -> GM. It also depended on the number of games you played, however I attributed that to a flattening of the MMR%. Optikzero was the first player to Masters from FXO. Grandmasters is not going to happen because its too active on Korean server.
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Player practice is one of the hardest things to organise in ones life. Being from certain 'lands of the free' and 'homes of the brave'. We are accustomed to pretty much doing whatever we want without recourse. Getting people from Western society into a solid practice regime took alot of time, and will power. But eventually we got it. Albeit, pretty much as I left, however success is success. I think the majority of FXO players now truly know what they have to put in, in order to be the best.
Someone mentioned recently about how the Westerners need the "western way" not the Korean way. I don't particularly agree with the phrasing on this. Purely because it should be "What works" and "what doesntt work". Rather than making it a somewhat racial issue. Which is what the community seems to be wanting to emphasize lately.
Koreans are what? 12 years ahead of the rest of the world with gaming mentalities and ideas? They know their shit (to put it bluntly). I have effectively learned from them, and taken note and tried to apply it to my own team. Now its just a matter of time until we see the progress.
Highlight: Players originally said that 8 hours could be too much practice. So we scheduled 8 hours practice. Un-beknown to the players that I already knew that when practice was over they'd play.. They ended up doing 10-12 hours practice a day... HAHA SUCKERS.
Fact: A true practice schedule is no shorter than 8 hours, and no longer than 14 hours. Anything less is under doing it anything between 13 or more can be over doing it. One must sleep, eat and poop in order to be somewhat comfortable. Those with 'natural' talent will probably slip and fall if they can't keep up with those who put in the large number of hours to become the best. This is one thing I salute HUK for.. He has proven that he wants to be the best, and has improved significantly by putting in the hours. Although a great player he was not the best before going to Korea. <3 Huk
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GOM Studio experience.
I love GOM, I really do, well.. I love most of GOM. (Hi John). And they certainly have done the best for us, and helped us be as comfortable as possible. I have huge thanks to them and I owe them in some way. Without them this all wouldnt happen. But now its time to get critical.
Firstly, THE FLAMEGUNS...
What the hell are you doing making people walk between fire? I almost got burned numerous times, and I think a bunch of other people almost got burned also. I doubt insurance covers that
I think it was TT1 who had an ear miss with one of them during Korea vs the world?) Its only a matter of time before someone gets hurt from them. Secondly, The team Bench.
The team bench is a bit dangerous. When we sit down, we can almost move the whole thing with one butt movement. If it collapses, i can see someone getting impaled with timber. Its dangerous.
Thirdly English casting.
Although 90% of the time the english cast is done well, there are a bunch of things that need to change. The cast needs to be more scheduled and less random. The crappy jokes need to stop (not the good ones, just the crappy ones). Heres a pointer, if you are laughing mid joke at your own joke, its probably not funny. It also needs to bring more insight into the game, more facts more figures and probably a 3rd person.
Good things about GOM studio
Its efficient.... Things get done quickly and as best as they can be. Players have ample time to set up, are given help, and they always help out with english translation no matter what.
The crowd is minimal, this allows players to focus more on playing. During MLG I had to drag certain players from FANs whilst it was game time, because my players were clearly distressed. I'm not saying to keep fans away, just that there is a time and place
The korean casters. The most prepared, professional, amazing casters out there. They don't talk crap on stream, they talk serious starcraft sport. They are what e-sport should represent, even if they do silly video introductions to players
They talk about a players play, they are ex progamers, so they know their shit. I think eventually the western e-sports scene will get english commentators of similar charisma, when the scene starts to get a little older. Kudos to Gisado and the gang.Highlight: After make up is done, tgun looks like a transvestite... Discuss (j/k love you tgun)
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I left this discussion till last. Mostly because although my posts go unnoticed in the TL community to the majority. Its the most important one and I feel a necessity to all gamers.
CODE A QUALIFIERS.
Ever had so much tension in the air that you could cut through it with a knife? This is the place. When you see players like PUMA lose first round, DRG lose to Hero, QXC go through 2 base trades then lose to DRG. Cezzane lose to i think puzzle, and burst into tears. There were many a tear shed at the code A qualifiers. It is the most intense gaming environment ever. And theres no crowd at all (thank god). If a progamer doesn't ever go through code A qualifiers, then they most definitely haven't done it all. It is an experience to boost expectations, to understand how good you truly are or truly can be, and to understand that sometimes someone is better than you. I almost had a heart attack at the event, and I was just watching (my games didn't last very long TYVM zenex player). But I had alot more pleasure watching players play. Its an amazing experience, and its not to be over looked. If a team has the budget to send their player just for that tournament. IT WILL MAKE THEM BETTER! Its a worthy investment.
Highlight: Watching FXOz's bracket and noticing that if he were to qualify, he would have to play PVP EVERY GAME to make Code A.... If he didnt lose to classic.prime, his opponent would have been NEXPuzzle. Thats just the way the cookie crumbles
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Conclusion:
I may have spent alot of money on Korea, but it was totally worth it minus a few hiccups. My players are now able to say they know how to do it. They have made friends with other pro gamers who respect them and WANT to play with them. They have the knowledge to teach other gamers how to do it.
I love Korea, and so should every gamer out there. Without Korea, gaming is just a hobby.
Thanks to TL, RAZER, Redbull, Coca cola, Mountain Dew, Asus and all our other partners for supporting us through this journey.
Thanks to my players for helping me help them, and a huge thanks to GOM and especially Torch for making us feel welcome and comfortable.
And finally, thanks to Korea, for being the awesome gaming beast that you are. I look forward to creating something similar to you in Malaysia
Ciao
FXOBoSs
