It feels like just yesterday that I discovered Team Liquid. I remember it very well, I was feeling nostalgic, having left BW alone for like 2 years, I went on Youtube and found the WCG grand finals in China, from like 2009(?) casted by Tastosis. It was Stork vs Jaedong, and Stork (of course) came 2nd (T_T)
I remember watching around some more youtube vids and trying to find out, who were those two super informative, super funny casters? Finally I stumbled upon my holy grail, so to speak. A video with Tasteless at GOMtv, back when they had the GOMTv classics. I started watching those a lot, even though they were really old, and thats when Tasteless said it. The magical words. "Make sure to visit TeamLiquid.net"
Team Liquid? what is this? oh a forum, I dont really like forums, but I'll stick around. Slowly but surely this community showed me that internet forums and TL are not the same thing. I found informative posts, there were no retarded random flame wars. People respected each other and had discussions about a game they were passionate about, I made an account.
And here we are, something like a year and 1000 posts later. I may not be known in this community but thanks to it, my life is infinitely better. I've had ups and downs with you, dear TL.
The ups were numerous, when I started my TL apocalypse story(that i still need to finish! DAMN YOU UNIVERSITY) and the response people gave me, how much they loved it. Putting blogs on documentaries about my favorite Kung Fu actors, Jackie Chan and Bruce Lee. Meeting two of my favorite people, a Dutch guy named Aad, and a Norwegian named Thomas. These guys, I've known you two for what seems like forever now and I would have never had the priviledge to were it not for the practice partner thread.
Thomas, we've spent hours on skype just talking, playing and watching tournaments together, we've complained about zerg being imbalanced, we've theorycrafted, we've 2v2ed and seriously, I feel like you're one of my really good friends despite us not having met IRL, does that make our friendship any less real? no. I hope I can make it to Dreamhack next month so we can finally meet bro.
Aad, I remember the first time you spoke to me, a little bronze zerg who didnt know to inject or spread creep, you asked me (the high amazing plat player that i was) to coach you, and I did. We've spent so much time just screwing around, now you're in diamond and I've switched to Terran and am in platinum, funny how it goes. You trounce me almost every time we play. I know I give you a hard time and I make fun of you a lot, but I <3 you bro. you're awesome.
This site also made me discover the proscene, of SC:BW and SC2. something that culminated this Friday, when I went to Paris Games Week and met Adelscott. Adel, on the off chance you read this, thank you for talking to me, and thank you so much for the autograph, I was really nervous but you were super nice.
The downs were few and far between but they happened. From people posting such dumb comments that made me rage, to actually responding to those and getting temp banned. I've always tried to post informatively and well, or post in joyful excitement. I am only human though, sorry mods and admins, sometimes I do lose my temper but you guys are awesome.
This gigantic wall of text basically to say, Thank you Liquid, I love you.