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hazelynut's blog

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  hazelynut, Nov 05 2009

Back when I started daydreaming about what an intercollegiate Starcraft league would be like, I would walk into my Physics lecture hall wondering if I could turn academic resources into Proleague stadiums. I could see it all -- the lights, the commentators, the booths and booth girls -- materialize where my Physics professor's lab bench stood.

It's been a year since then, and we've finally brought a little bit of Proleague into the United States. I apologize for the poor quality of this video, and the fact that I messed up Camtasia and couldn't get this video properly spliced between real life and gameplay. So, here's an insight into what live matches in the United States might look like. There's a lot of filler space in the beginning just so you guys can see the audience / players, but the game itself is pretty awesome.

I present to you: Rutgers versus Princeton, Set 1. It's actually an amazing match, if you can stand watching while Gretorp's head covers the minimap.

Cheers!



[RUTGERS]Clazz (T) versus [pu]Magneus (Z) on Asgard
Commentated by Gretorp
Guest appearances by Fanatacist, duckett, DimSum, and others


+ Show Spoiler [the rest of the videos] +



P.S. If you're too lazy to watch the whole thing and don't mind being spoiled, don't miss out on this amazing moment:

+ Show Spoiler +




*****

Comments (25)


  hazelynut, Jul 26 2009

Instead of packing for my second trip (or is it a return?) to China, I thought I might share this personal narrative that I wrote for a Freshman Seminar on un-rooted childhoods and global memoirs.

I struggled with this the better part of my fall semester. I wandered around campus remembering and reflecting, collecting and connecting moments and memories to the entirety of my 19 years. How do you really find one single underlying thread to all of your existence, and how do you express that in thirteen pages?

That being said, this is in fact thirteen pages typed, and this is in fact a personal narrative. Although there's something inherently self-serving and narcissistic in narratives like these, I hope my version of this common experience rings a few bells and brings out a few memories of your own.

Counting Leaves
数叶子


I remember a strong and beautiful voice—my grandma’s voice, I suddenly realize—reaching out through the darkness, telling me to “shu ye zi.” To count leaves.

“Count leaves?” I ask.

“Count them, one by one by one, and eventually you’ll be able to fall asleep.”

“I already tried sheep,” I whisper doubtfully. “What makes leaves any better?”

“Sheep? Pah. Try ye zi, and you’ll see. You won’t even be able to get to a hundred.”

So I listen to that voice—that sweet alto of elderly reassurance that always wraps around me and whispers that yes, everything is going to be okay—and I count leaves, one by one by one, as they fall from a slowly materializing tree that exists only in the sleepiness of my mind. Disembodied leaf after disembodied leaf falls to the ground, and I whisper to myself in slow, deliberate Chinese, “Yi, er, san…One, two, three…ninety-nine, a hundre—”

I fall asleep, counting my ye zi, anchored in the magical culture that counts leaves instead of sheep, lulled by my grandmother and her voice and my past.

+ Show Spoiler +



But of course, this isn't really the end. Maybe this trip in two days will add another thirteen pages to this ongoing story of my experience. Who knows? I've been told that the conflict between being Chinese and being American softens over time until you're either one or the other, but I don't even know if that's a good or bad thing.



*****

Comments (15)


  hazelynut, Jun 22 2009

I never would’ve thought that my first year at college would be defined by Starcraft.

I’ve been meaning to write down this story for a while now. I wanted to share something that began as a silly daydream and became something much, much more – something that both fortunately and unfortunately became reality. I guess it’s one of the side effects of throwing yourself into something – anything – wholeheartedly. You end up seeing both wonderful and ugly things about whatever you love.

I’ve always loved Starcraft, but I only got into the pro-gaming scene last summer – it was the summer before college, so I spent days and nights (the 4am kind) lazing around on the couch, watching VOD after VOD and commentary after commentary of Starcraft. I ended up diving into the world of Korean pro-gaming – learning that Bisu was the ultimate pretty boy, fangirling over the dramatic rivalry that would be FBH versus Savior, and finally venturing onto ICCUP for the first time only to realize that everyone was serious business: “D/D+ python u make” replaced the silly banter and sexbots that you usually find on b.net. I pretty much submerged myself into the game. I loved every aspect of it. I even tried to get better at it through whatever means possible, and actually made my way to what (I thought) was a respectable 120apm player.

In time, summer ended, as all summers do. But did my summer fling with Starcraft have to end? I had my doubts. When you’re a freshman and doing the mandatory rounds of, “Hello! What’s your major? What hobbies do you have?” to everyone you meet, you don’t want to answer: “Undecided /Starcraft.” Somewhere beyond that fear, though, a little corner of me wanted to pack Starcraft up into a metaphorical luggage bag and haul it into my new life at Princeton. I daydreamed during that summer. I thought, “Hey! Wouldn’t it be cool to make an intercollegiate SC league, just like Proleague?” I started searching trusty old Google to see if any collegiate leagues existed yet. They didn’t, and it surprised me.

In hindsight, it doesn’t surprise me at all. The Collegiate Starleague, CSL, is a simple concept that I am 100% sure has been thought of before in the past 10 years since its conception. People just dismiss the idea. I almost did. Wouldn’t it be weird? It’s STARCRAFT, was what I thought. It’s strange to describe the feeling now. Back then, in the summer, I could only consider a collegiate league as a far-fetched daydream because that’s what I expected other people to think of it as. I’m sure people thought of the idea, thought it was cool, but then decided to play basketball in college. Or maybe they tried and couldn’t get through all the mire of organizational and bureaucratic necessities. Or maybe, like me, the first person they went to with the idea scoffed and said that “competitive gaming is just nerds having seizures on keyboards in the dark.” Whatever the reason, CSL didn’t exist yet.

The moment I came onto campus, I was on the prowl to pry gamers out of their proverbial gamer closets. I always eyed Asian males with my SC radar, introduced myself carefully, and then proceeded to direct our conversations towards hobbies and “DO YOU PLAY SC?!” I mean, it wasn’t quite that bad, but it was bad. I’m pretty sure that while I was trying to assemble the ultimate collegiate SC team, I offended a few Korean males on the way. I happily drew these punny posters and put them all over campus:

[image loading]
At least, I thought it was clever.

I met a few lifelong friends – and I hope they feel the same way – through some of my antics. My friend from high school was on the look-out for SC players on my behalf and introduced me to In-Transit-HQ and raiame. I believe we talked about the OSL, Bisu (of course!), and our APMs. They scoffed at mine. They also proceeded to trounce me in every matchup, although I’d like to think that I’m still a semi-respectable 17-25 against raiame (the truth is, I’ve conveniently stopped counting after my 10 loss streak).

Raiame had what we called “Teamliquid dinners” every Thursday night with some of the other people on campus, including ktvkarrier, azndsh, and ark_the_avenger or whatever his name is – it involves arks and avengers and possibly the’s. I never actually went to one, but raiame told me that something like this transpired:


azndsh: If a girl could beat me at Starcraft, I would propose to her.


I did beat him, but he chickened out and changed the terms to “beat me consistently and when I’m not rusty,” to which I responded “qq more.” I haven’t won a game since, though, so I won’t need to pull out the oxen for the in-laws just yet.

In the meantime, I had been corresponding with CholeraSC, one of my personal commentator idols (ha ha), and asking him to promote the idea of a Collegiate Starleague to all his YouTube fans. He did, but for some reason, he thought that it would be a good idea to make me dual commentate with him. It was pretty terrifying and he was ruthless – my friends and family would laugh at me for quivering right before I began, and they would also commentate on how he sounded like a radio show host whereas I sounded like a 10 year old boy – he also didn’t let me back down and would just say, “Alright! We’re starting!” and break out into his intro. It was a “throw-your-child-into-the-swimming-pool” approach, and it was pretty hilarious in retrospect. I was terrified in the moment. I could do without public speaking for a lifetime.

I started doing solo commentaries to try them out and found them slightly less scary, with a secondary objective of promoting CSL. I definitely know I wasn’t the most eloquent or technical commentator. I said, “this could be dangerous!” about 55 times in one commentary, miscalled things all the time, and stuttered over words. I did not, however, expect to be found on TL:


On December 27 2008 15:19 Straylight wrote:


Holy shit that was fast. When it comes to e-stalking you guys don't fuck around.


Straylight took the words right out of my mouth.

My commentator days also consisted of hilarious pick-up lines from a few internet trolls. After an “I’d like to put my marines in your bunker, if you know what I mean,” I responded in the only way I knew how. I issued a challenge to throw the best pickup lines possible in my direction, because they were endless sources of amusement.


Unnamed netizens:
-Girl, did you just upgrade cloak? Because beauty like yours just can be found :3
-Hey baby Id like to make an archon with you if you know what i mean...
-Hey baby, my reaver wants to explode some scarabs at you.
-I want to cast Dweb all over your base and have my way with you.
-After meeting you I had to return as a dragoon because you slayed my bio body with your beauty.
-I'd like to stasis field you, so people can admire you for all time.
-Battlecruiser Operational, Baby
-Hey baby, my name is Bisu.

My personal favorite:

-And a PSA, "Guys, remember to matrix your tank before you siege that skank"

And one NSFW+ Show Spoiler +




Things didn’t really work out as I had planned. I wanted to make a Princeton StarCraft team and jump into SC practices, OSL viewings, and live matches, but there simply wasn’t enough interest on campus. We needed 20 signatures and we had about 6 really devoted players. Instead, while sitting down at a round table in Whitman College for lunch, a Guitar Hero player, Smasher, and Starcraft player all gathered together and decided that:

[image loading]
From henceforth, we shall be called SMASHCRAFT HEROES.

We became a legit club and could ask for all sorts of things, like room reservations and money. HINT to all CSL participants: do this. It’ll make life a lot easier.

On November 21st, we held our very first intracollegiate Starcraft match. Unfortunately, we weren’t exactly established yet and were waiting on bureaucracy to grant us student group status, so we couldn’t get money for prizes and food. Fortunately, we had azndsh work his magic + Show Spoiler +


I learned a lot that night. I was still and probably always will be a newb Zerg player, but that I learned more about SC on the go than I have over the course of the year. In my match against who would become the best player on the Princeton SC team, DaisyP, I lost an atrociously played ZvP the first set and asked what was wrong.

“Build more drones?”

…and strangely enough, that was enough to change my perspective about how to play the game. I suddenly realized, OH, at every point in the game you’re doing something – getting an army, getting an army of child labor drones – and that if I wasn’t building hydralisks, I should be pumping drones. It’s an obvious and logical step, but it took that moment of having my opponent beat me to get it through my thick head. After the first set, I played two fierce and hard-won sets. Since then, DaisyP has far surpassed me.

[image loading]
Or maybe this is why I can’t play ZvP.

It was a learning experience in terms of organizing events like this, too. We discovered that even if you have the most entertaining of commentators, you really can’t commentate a D- game: “1 CARRIER VERSUS 2 HYDRAS AND A ZERGLING: WHO WILL WIN?”

[image loading]
The commentators putting on their thinking hats.

I also learned why we’re actually called SmashCraft.

[image loading]
And here I thought it was just because it sounded cool.

And most importantly of all, I learned that there are others of us out there.

[image loading]
I was so happy ;_;

Good games. The turnout was tremendous, with people coming from Princeton High School, Princeton Graduate School, and of course the actual undergrad program. Girls even came! I learned a lot under all the pressure, and DaisyP was good enough to teach me how to beat him, so I gave him the Logitech mouse.

[image loading]

Around that time, I tried out for Commentator Idol – not necessarily because I wanted to win, but because I thought it’d be a nice learning experience and that it’d be good for the community and my demographic to have a female representative in the commentator crowd.

It was nerve-wracking every week to commentate and then listen to the judges. Actually, during the week that Chill guest-judged, I was absolutely terrified. I’d only heard of his notoriety, but a friend from TL calmly informed me:


Bringer of bad news: There’s an ongoing joke that Chill and Rage should have their names switched.


I don’t want to say that I regret Commentator Idol, because it was a valuable experience and I love the people I got to work with. Unfortunately, I think it did kill off all my self-esteem. I became very aware of my lack of technical skill and made a secret vow to myself to only start commentating in earnest when I learned something about the game. I haven’t gotten around to that yet, so I’m sad to say no commentaries have come out as of yet. I turned my efforts to CSL instead.

Starcraft practices became regular now that the season had started. Dsh would even offer his room, pizza and insults for all of us who wanted to practice. We soon began reserving a room in Frist Campus Center every week. It’s a huge grey room full of electrical outlets and Ethernet cables. We all sit around the rectangular table, plugging in our battery chargers and headsets, ready to face off and test our abilities against our teammates. We have players from all kinds of skill levels. We watch each others’ games, laugh at each others’ mistakes — honestly, who builds two overlords at 9? – and buy each other drinks and candy from the C-store. There’s a kind of camaraderie within our team that I wouldn’t give up for the world.

[image loading]
Everyone hard at work.

Azndsh was our coach, and he would give us weekly assignments (how adorable!). First week was macro practice, second week was master-a-map, third week was something I wasn’t paying attention to because I was doing homewor—eheh. Sometimes, when I had trouble with PHY104, I would bring my homework to practice (I’m pretty sure this drove dsh crazy), and about half the team would jump up and know the answer and start scribbling on the chalkboard. I guess some stereotypes about gamers hold true – and for that, I am very thankful.

Sometimes, those stereotypes would come back and discourage us. It’s far too common – disgustingly common – for a group of students to walk across Frist 309 and immediately start laughing.

“It’s like a zoo full of Asians!”

“What are they all doing? Playing video games?”

“This is the funniest thing I’ve seen in my life!”

These students then proceeded to take pictures of us on their cell phones. These students, who I assume to be perfectly intelligent Princetonians on weekdays, managed to shut off their brains and political correctness for a few minutes, viewing us a subhuman culture. These students came from the Frist Performance Theatre just a few minutes ago after a dance show had finished. I assume, also, that they did not enter the theatre when the show started and yell, “It’s like a zoo full of African-American dancers!” It’s a sentence that I never want to have to say, but the parallel is necessary. Why is it funny that these students called us a zoo full of Asians? I don’t know.

But I’m jumping out of chronology. After our SC tournament in Princeton, we scheduled a match against MIT. It was pretty informal, actually. This elementary school friend of mine, Sedraxis, recently got into contact with me again, and it just so happened he played SC and went to MIT. We set a date: February 7th. The first ever intercollegiate Starcraft match. I had crazy ideas for this event – I wanted to make promo videos and beyond that, I wanted to make a studio production of it by having signs in the audience and cameras on the players. I wanted to make it just like PL.

[image loading]
Let’s pretend that wasn’t an image for SCII.

We went to Projects Board, the committee that grants student group requests for money. It was our first trip, and I was incredibly nervous. It’s really too easy for people to misunderstand Starcraft and think of it as an utter waste of time with no benefits to campus life, and it was very possible that everything would fall through because of the social stigma against playing video games seriously.

To my utter surprise, they were really excited about it. We asked for money to cover the cost of food, cameras, an LCD projector, and posters. They were a bit confused about the posters, and I was about to say something ridiculous like, “Of course it’s so we can hide females behind them!” but I refrained. But before we left, the Dean of ODUS looked at us a bit doubtfully and asked, “Well, what are you planning to do, in the long run?”

And you know what? For some reason, I answered with complete confidence, “It’s so that one day we can make pro-gaming a reality here in the United States, in the form of an intercollegiate Starcraft league where we can have our family and friends cheering us on for what we do. Posters and all.” (except that’s not exactly what I said, because I remember what I said being a bit cooler)

I also convinced half of my team to undergo the slow torture that is known as a photoshoot.

[image loading]
He was supposed to be our Bisu, but he’s camera shy.

[image loading]
Team imba for International Mountain Bicycling Association.

[image loading]
This is about 5 out of 10 guys. The rest ran away.

[image loading]
Our posing isn’t quite pro-gamer level yet. Neither is our ICCUP rank.

[image loading]
So the story behind this one: this is an emotional, dramatic, wonderful picture. However, DaisyP was holding a hamburger. We photoshopped it out.

We also made a hype video:
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x83jc8_princeton-vs-mit-promo-video2_videogames ,

MIT responded with even more cinematography!


An outtakes video, which is better than both hype videos combined


Since the sound system was set up early, we started off the pre-match show with karaoke time. One of our team members, ktvkarrier, knew all the words to the Wondergirls and could even dance some, too. We were, needless to say, very entertained.

When it came to the actual match, we were less prepared. Nothing turned out like my original vision of Proleague. We had live streaming of players/commentators/audience, but for some reason the camera decided to break down every 5 minutes. Everyone was, however, very enamored of one of our SmashCraft Heroes:

[image loading]
“Show him again! Zoom in on him!”

We also didn’t check Tau Cross UMS, so we had about an hour of delay before we finally realized what was wrong. And d.arkive, our ace, decided to be a no show – he was our best player at the time, and he abandoned us for a night of drunken debauchery and whipped cream. We lost 2-3, and to this date, we still blame him and make him do all our artwork.

Still, it turned out to be a pretty fun event. The turnout was amazing, and some of these people have never touched a video game in their life. But more importantly, colleges wanted in on all the fun. And fun it was:

[image loading]
Do you know how long this took? Do you? Why does no one know what a “V” is? And why is azndsh so contrary?

All our antics paid off, and The Daily Princetonian featured us in an article about the video game life on campus. We were also featured in the and The Crimson as the CSL.

We had a wonderful writer, Sara Wallace, who honestly wanted to understand what SmashCraft was and did. She honestly had no idea about anything in video games, so I was absolutely astonished and delighted with the accuracy of her message. She also gave us our new motto, “Game On,” which would appear later in the Cotter Cup.

Fun note: I almost said something terrible in my interview. Instead of: “Girls, in almost any culture, are brought up playing with dolls instead of Gamecube controllers,” I almost said, “Girls, in almost any culture, are brought up playing with dolls instead of joysticks.” I’m glad I didn’t.

I also got in trouble for (fondly) calling the atmosphere of the club: “a lot of political incorrectness, male humor and crass jokes in general.” The club members denied all accusations, but the day before, they had been scheming for ideas to get freshman to join the club, some of which involved cosplaying and zero-suit Samuses.

While the CSL season continued without us (;_; ), we were introduced to Tsinghua University by a graduate student at Princeton. Let me tell you, from experience, that whoever thinks CSL should be international is a little touched in the head. Sure, Tsinghua could speak pretty decent English. We had a few problems with 12 hour time-delay emails, but we started planning pretty early.

Two things about international matches will probably never have solutions: lag and in-channel communication problems. I was far more concerned about the latter. Since individual players don’t necessarily speak the language but translators do, it gets to the point where you sit in channel spamming, “Could we get Set 1 started? 我们可以开始第一..uh…set?” Except we can’t type in Chinese. And they can. But we can’t read it. But they can, and they will, and they’ll have conversations in indecipherable symbols while you tear out your hair. We actually had one player fluent in English who sat around talking about the girl he banged the night before instead of starting his game. We’re not sure how that happened.

Besides organizational problems, we lost pretty badly, 3-8. It was pretty terrible because there was such a lively audience that day:

[image loading] [image loading]
[image loading]

I won one, and the commentator had this to say about me:

[image loading]
“Princeton’s team may be a little off today, but in GvG, our girl always comes out on top.”

I also commentated, for the first time in ages. There’s just something wonderful about commentating in-house games. Not everyone understands SC, so I try to make it understandable and dumb it down so much that it’s funny.

[image loading]
“So, today we have a ZvT on Destination! And for those of you who don’t know what that means, it’s a race playing another race. On a map.”

[image loading]
“Now you don’t want to have flying things in your base when you don’t have things that can hit the air.”

[image loading]
Why, what’s this? Cameras on cameras?

So maybe my Proleague scheme never worked, but at least we made a documentary. It required brute forcing my way into azndsh’s dorm and 6 hours spent by balladechina in a dark processing room. Thanks to the both of them.



Princeton v Tsinghua was also covered by the The New York Times, where this atrocity happened:

[image loading]
Blizzard’s Blizzard, amirite?

By then, I was dead exhausted from all the organizing. In the midst of all those activities, we were still running CSL playoffs and finals, having midterms, and running around preparing for the pre-frosh that would grace our doorways in April. We were happy with what we’d done that year, but we were glad it was finally ending. We all needed a little time to ourselves (and our exams). Unfortunately – or fortunately? That’s how everything seems to go in life – Dean Dunne informed us that an alumnus was interested in sponsoring the team.

Kevin Cotter ’96 came to us and offered a collaborative project – the Cotter Cup, an international intercollegiate tournament for 8 schools from around the world, to be organized in 3 weeks. Princeton versus Tsinghua had just taken us two, and in three, finals were also around the corner.

[image loading]
This is great! But…why =(

I don’t really know how we did it. Around that time, I got hit by three different diseases, one of which included TMJ – this really dumb disease that has a vague cause of “stress” and whose only symptoms were pain and more pain. At the time Cotter suggested the idea, we actually were in contact with one Chinese school and one Canadian school. Luckily, with the help of Peanut and luck, we got into contact with a few more schools – what are the chances of having a Swedish university stumble upon you, 1 week before the tournament? I was a little crazy at that point, I think. One morning, I got an email from the Chinese school in complete Chinese, with a little note saying, “I really hope you can read this, and for God’s sake, write in Chinese.” My Chinese is abysmal.

During the cup, I realized why I hate people. Actually, that isn’t fair. I love people. But sometimes I just wanted to, you know, break out into crazy laughter and never stop. For example:


Player: “I can’t play right now because I’m going to go get bedding for my gerbil.”
[image loading]
I guess you really can’t refuse something like that.

Player: “I’m actually in a taxi right now.”

Me: “Can we get the game started with HOT NAKED. Does anyone know where HOT NAKED IS.”
Player (15 minutes later, under the name of COOL MAN): “What? Oh, I am hot naked.”


We really never would have guessed.

The Cotter Cup also got me into a little bit of trouble with some dear friends from other universities. Why didn’t I pick them? No one really asked straight-out, but I knew a few coordinators from CSL were feeling unjustly excluded. I wish I could have invited everyone, and I felt pretty terrible about being so selective. It was a difficult situation after announcing the Cup, and I can’t really say much about it that I haven’t already said.

[image loading]
“The team pict is great – very intimidating, well everybody except the guy third from the left, he looks a little gassy. Like he had 3 too many Wa dogs and 1 too few multivitamins” –Brian Cotter

I was secretly very glad it was over.

Although…it wasn’t really, not quite –

I received this in my email from a Cotter Cup player, and I’ve roughly translated it.


ENGLISH
Guy: Hi, I hear you're a "MM" (pretty girl). Hey hey I want to be friends with you~ Give me one of your pictures so I can see, okay?~

Hazely “Oh how naïve I was” Nut: Sorry, what's a MM?

Guy: MM means beautiful girl. en en, give me a few of your pictures so I can see~~~~~ en en, I want to see~ I want to know you~ ha ha

Hazely “gets friend to write Communist-toned response” nut: I think your reprehensible behavior is an insult to the dignity of all women, everywhere. Even if we're on the internet, this type of roguish behavior is crude.

The guy ends up apologizing profusely, but ends like this: SORRY SORRY. Of course, I still want your picture to see what you look like

MANDARIN

+ Show Spoiler +




I was sick of things, a little bit like what lilsusie said in her blog – the more I worked with something the more I got disillusioned with things. Right now, I haven’t touched or watched SC in about 2 months. I can’t bring myself to play quite yet, and because of that I can’t bring myself to commentate, either. I thought that maybe I was tired, and needed a break. Hopefully when I go to the Washington DC LAN, I’ll remember why I play SC.

---

There are a few loose ends that I couldn’t figure out how to incorporate.

One: Commentary Bear. I love him, he’s so adorable, and he basically made promo videos for me for CSL on my YouTube account.

[image loading]

My brother ordered a Nada bear for me from WeMade, and I think the day I get him, I’ll celebrate by making Commentary Bear commentate a game by Nada Bear. My first commentary in half a year, maybe.

Two: Love in CSL
Our new slogan should be: “Come join CSL, we have girls!” or “CSL: Matchmaking in More Ways Than One”

Story Number One

[image loading]

When I first started CSL, I immediately commissioned an artist friend of mine from back home and this programmer I knew from high school. Who could’ve guessed? They are now a happy couple.

[image loading]
Her boyfriend and my boyfriend molesting each other.

Story Number Two

To preserve anonymity, let’s say we have a nice gentleman called Jon Dot, looking all his life for a laid-back, pretty, smart, and funny gamer girl.

We also have a lovely girl by the name of Laney Hen who has never fallen for a boy in her life, but has instead fallen for Gunz, Ragnarok Online, StarCraft, FPS, RTS, MMO, you name it.

One day, Laney realized that her university had a CSL team! Jon Dot graciously hosted a wonderful spring break of watching OSL/MSL/GOM on his TV for all the team to see.

Laney Hen and Jon Dot met.

And the rest is a story I’m not really allowed to tell ^^

The Future

So I’m done with my first year of college, where I ended up chasing pizza cars in the rain, trying to snag ourselves 16 TVs for $10 on eBay, trying to teach “So Hot” to a disgruntled Starcraft team, and crashing banquets as SmashCraft Heroes. I wanted to write this partially just to share…well, the possibilities of college. I never would’ve thought this all could’ve happened, just because I started watching a few SC commentaries. I skipped out on a few anecdotes because my wrist hurts and I don’t want to sound more melodramatic than I already do, so those will have to wait. Maybe next year.

So what is in store for next year?

I’m stepping down as President because I apparently whip all the boys. As my VP puts it, he can’t get whipped by two girls simultaneously – he recently got a girlfriend too! But not because of CSL. We’re thinking about a Smash invitational, and we’re going to ask Cotter if he’s up for it. East Coast Smash, anyone?

I hope, if anything, that you at least enjoyed the story. I just wanted to share the experience, I guess, and let people know what one hell of a ride you can find yourself on because someone sent you a Flash v Boxer video. Where would I be if they hadn’t? I can imagine my college life being a lot more normal…a lot more relaxing, too. But it’d be a lot more boring. I’d probably be in martial arts and a book club, instead of trying to organize things cross country and cross seas. This blog wouldn’t have been nearly as long. Laney Hen and Jon Dot maybe would’ve never met each other. I would’ve never met the people I now know and love. I also probably would’ve failed physics.

I’m a SmashCraft Hero, and I couldn’t be happier.




*****

Comments (57)


  hazelynut, Apr 03 2009

I thought this might be an interesting read for some of you =). The article, for those of you who tl;dr, is mainly about the creation of SmashCraft Heroes, a video gaming club on the Princeton campus. We've gotten some really positive responses, and I think eSports is definitely starting to get somewhere in colleges around North America.

Also, check out azndsh's CJ SHIRT WHAT. Also, I touched it.

http://www.dailyprincetonian.com/2009/04/02/23236/



*

Comments (20)


  hazelynut, Mar 16 2009

There are many reasons I love Starcraft, but I’ve just found another one.

I spent most of my first few months as an undergraduate at Princeton running around on campus, putting up posters of zerglings on lampposts so I could find fellow SC’ers in college.

[image loading]
My efforts.

It took a lot of posters and a lot of time, but soon, little by little, our little Princeton Starcraft family drifted together—some we found through TL, others through our SC tournament in November, and still others through word-of-mouth. We found enough people to join the CSL—which is, perhaps, a different story that’s simultaneously inextricable from this one—and now we spend Thursday and Saturday nights either practicing or battling colleges from around North America.

Now, I don't want to be too cheesy and declare my love for my newfound Starcraft family. That would be a lie. Imagining azndsh as a Starcraft father (whatever that would entail) is pretty ridiculous, and claiming raiame to be my little Starcraft sister is just a bit more ridiculous. But strange as it sounds, the Princeton SC team actually does have a Starcraft Papa in the form of azndsh, who tells us regularly at our Friday night practices that we need learn "mechanics, mechanics, mechanics." He gives us weekly match reports, looks at our replays and tells us why we sucked, picks the line-up for the week after considering all our strengths and weaknesses, and encourages all of our D- players to greater heights by letting the regular team members star brain them (it's kind of like having two trainers battle their pokemon).

Friday nights, we reserve a room at Frist Campus Center from 8pm to 2am, practicing for our matchups and devising strategies for our Saturday games. We pokemon battle the newbies, and sometimes we'll hook up a laptop to the projector to watch whatever PL match is on at the moment.

Saturday nights, we hold our breaths and watch our teammates play, or else we try to desperately warm our own hands as fast as possible before our own games. Sometimes the stream is running—when that happens, we crowd around the screen, sharing headphones and thumping each other on the shoulders when we're ahead or laughing when someone places a CC, starport, and factory down at the same time because he doesn't know how to macro. One of our players, DaisyP, is in another room, commentating the match—we always hear him through two solid doors and a hallway, yelling as the tension rises and Princeton comes back from a 0-2 beginning to a 1-2...2-2...3-2 win. There's something absolutely magical ("epic" is a word that one of our teammates described it as) when your whole team is in the room after hours of practicing together, staring at the screen and waiting in breathless anticipating. Maybe that's how the Korean progamers feel whenever their teammate is in the booth—it's a thrilling experience.

It really sucks to lose a game—a lot of us may know this from ICCUP. It sucks even more when you lose a game that matters for your team, or when you lose a match that matters for a league. But even when we lose 1-4 to UTexas, or when I lose clutch games because I don't know how to build hatcheries or drones, there's something wonderful in the soon-to-come depression that hits your entire team. You've seen Firebathero crying on his keyboard, but now you know why he cries on his keyboard. It feels terrible to lose—but isn't it strange, how a RTS game like Starcraft can make you feel these extremes of emotions? I used to wonder why basketball players took all their games so seriously, crying and being overdramatic about wins or losses. I've only begun to feel a little bit of that emotional spectrum, but with this week's Ro5 being the deciding factor to who goes to the top 8 single elimination bracket, I have a feeling that all of us are going to throw ourselves into the game over spring break. Dedication leaves us vulnerable to disappointment, but it's proof that we're actually living the game, and not just playing it.

There's something that I really love about Starcraft, that so many of you probably understand far better than I can—the beauty of the game, the world that it's created in South Korea, the drama that comes with cheering your favorite pro-gamer on—but there's also something else, something new and wonderful that Starcraft's brought to me—an SC family and something worthwhile that I can dedicate myself to.

[image loading]
Hey, we may have lost to MIT, but we look damn good.



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Comments (52)




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