Although I'm always light hearted on here this blog is not meant to be a joke :[
For the past week I've been seeing the numbers 444 at an alarming frequency. If you're unsure what this is, in Asian languages the word for "Death" sounds very similar to the word for "4". Three Fours, in repetition, refers to "death".
Now, I'm usually not that superstitious. I play poker professionally and have to absolve myself from being affected by any unusual patterns in probability and variance, and of course any superstitions, including the concept of luck. I think I do a pretty good job at this normally.
However I just see "444" way too much. I'd glance at my clock, 4:44. I'll see a stack size or a bet size amount in poker, $444. This has been happening a LOT for the past 1-2 weeks, and has been happening TOO much to just be a common pattern in chance/coincidence. I mean, of course statistically it could happen but it's very rare at this frequency, I'd estimate. To test that this isn't just a psychological issue, I told myself I'd give another arbitrary repetitive number, i.e. 333, added value and keep a look out for that. I've only noticed that maybe once in the past week, while I see 444 multiple times on average per day.
I'm going overseas for 5 months in a week, so I'm afraid maybe this is a sign that I'm going to die soon? :[.
Cross-posted from my blog at LP.net, whereas my blog is mainly for poker talk, I'd figure my TL blog is more for RL stuff. However, this blog kind of encompasses both pretty neatly, so I thought I'd post it here as well. Enjoy. ---
My weekend has been a rollercoaster ride. Friday started great, class wasn't too boring, I got back and immediately started grinding. I'd already put in 30k hands this months 6-tabling, which is pretty impressive for me. I broke even playing for like 3 hours, and quit. Later that night, I saw my favorite multi-tabling nit fish on. There's no way I can express in words how ginormous my edge over this guy is, so I waitlisted all his tables and played. I ended up dropping 15 buy ins at 1/2 that night, which led to my previous blog entry titled "Worst session of my life". Feeling absolutely shitty about that, I vowed that the next day I wouldn't play poker, and go out instead.
So Saturday comes along, I had made plans to go see Quantum of Solace with the girl I've liked for 2 years. Without going into details, she recently broke up with her bf and lately we'd been hanging out a lot and getting along great, which is saying a lot because we clicked really well even while she was in her relationship. I'd hate to sound like a pussy bitch in front of the hip LP.net crowd but that night I confessed to her and well, it wasn't like I was outright rejected or anything but whenever you tell a girl you've liked her for 2 years and the words that immediately come out of her mouth aren't "pls bone me now <3", then it's never really a good thing. So, with the implication that my feelings weren't mutual, I ended up dropping her back after we ate, and I drove home fucking miserable. I really can't describe how I felt that night, it was weird, almost surreal. It's like my life was a god awful dream wherein everything that could go bad for my life was doing exactly that.
People say that money isn't important, other people also say "fuck bitches", but no matter what, everyone can agree that the safety of their loved ones is a huge priority. Well, I woke up today and found out my parents had to evacuate our home in Southern California because of the fires. I'm not there right now (at my apartment near my university), but just knowing that my parents were being forced to evacuate and that my home could easily succumb to the fires really troubled me. Well, nothing I could do - the freeways to my home are blocked, so I just had to sit at my apartment doing what I can only do best, play fucking online pokers.
Since this is getting long I'll just wrap it up now. I played today, immediately started heating up a bit in cash games, and played a few Sunday tournaments, including 2 FTOPS events. Well, I managed to take 4th place for 9k in the Stars Daily Eighty and 300th (lol) for 1.2k in the FTOPS ME, marking it my first (and i hope of many) five-digit days.
While shipping it crucial in the tournaments, I also found out that the winds have started blowing the opposite direction in my hometown, meaning my house will probably crucial dodge the fire!
So I just wanted to share this story of how at one point within the same fucking weekend I was at an absolute low and now I'm rather happy . I'm still a lonely bastard but at least I'm not stuck on the month!
I'm absolutely exhausted and I should really sleep but I'd like to get everything written before I forget. BlizzCon, as expected, was fucking great. I spent roughly ~20 hours at the actual venue, and my time there was comprised of watching the progamers and playing SC2. I went to BlizzCon last year and wrote a giant essay on what I thought about the game. At the time I felt like I played enough to give a good critique on the game without the need to really theorycraft as I had hands-on experience right then and there. I think this applies again as well, as I probably played somewhere in the area of 30 games of SC2 at BlizzCon. So hopefully you guys will enjoy this, as I will be writing extensively about the game.
Sorry about the quality, there was some weird haze/fog in the area and until the middle of the 2nd day I couldn't figure out that flash would work better than no flash. I also felt that I didn't need to take so many damn pictures of progamers/the venue because everyone else with better skills/cameras than me prob already did so.
Guy in white on right looking at camera is ZILEAS (the man the myth the legend), guy to his right is his buddy who works for Blizzard on WoW.
Some balance: I played roughly 25 games as Protoss, 4 as Terran, 1 as Zerg. Zerg is absolutely ridiculously confusing and unaesthetically pleasing - I didn't even know I had an overlord at the start because it blended into the disgusting looking creep. It has all sorts of little units which all end up sucking. Lings at start seem a lot better now though, banelings are reportedly strong, and everything else gets raped by the Terran Hellions.
Terran is by far the funnest race to play atm. It's kind of like Human in war3 if any of you guys play - While it's not necessarily the strongest, it has a ton of pretty and interesting things that make it really fun to dick around with.
Protoss is probably the strongest race in this build, with Terran at second and Zerg at a far third. The effectiveness of Zealots early game has been diminished, and getting leg/charge tech (doubled into 1 upgrade) takes quite a while to research. Stalkers are the upgraded dragoon but control a lot better, but also arent as beefy I think. The real sexiness is found in Immortals which are expensive but an amazing tank and damage dealer (imagine giving Toss unsieged tanks to roll around with), Dark Templars which do 45 fucking damage, CARRIERS (which are atm incredibly effective vs every race, most especially Terran).
Some Strategy: I thought there was going to be an official tournament on the 2nd day, turns out that was a farce and I had been practicing build orders nonstop the previous day for nothing. Here's my results: - As a Zerg, your best bet is to make a lot of units and get raped by Hellions or Archons or whatever the fuck your opponent has.
- As a Terran, the current best strategy is Marine/Marauder into Medivac. This was exposed to me by Gaetele who stole it from some other TL.net member and I refined it and told my buddy Ghostclaws to try it out and he's been having amazing success with it despite not even being that good ;p. This works for TvZ and TvP - you can now do this safely against Protoss ground because Dragoons alone CANNOT take on an MM army because the terran focus fire is way too strong at this point (and you cant even micro out of it because Marauders slow whatever it's attacking). I've refined this build into getting 3 Medivacs and dropping the fucking shit out of everyones main because in SC1, everyone protects their natural and not their main which leads me to my first revelation - You CAN'T approach SC2 with an SC1 perspective. It's a different game in that you need to be creative enough to figure out due to the new unit/map selection, how the metagame will turn out. In SC1, ramp/1 choke maps are prevalent so no one defends their mains. In SC2 however, there's a lot more options as far as dropping and various forms of sneak attacking.
- As a Protoss, I'm currently 2 gate gooning into various builds vs Protoss and having tremendous success, due in part to the revamped control of the Dragoon unit (Stalker) which makes the game feel a lot like WarCraft 3, and I was always a ton better at war3 than I ever was at sc1, so that gave me a huge advantage. Against Terran I'm going Zealot into Immortal if they're dong Marine/Marauder, but that doesn't seem to be that effective, otherwise I'm going Immortals against terran which rapes the fuck out of any other build (which is likely to be mech).
Some Thoughts So the game isn't balanced, the game has huge inherent differences from SC1, and the engine is completely different. My second revelation would be that the entire pathing and attacking/animation system has been reworked. Advanced Micromanagement has thus been stunted. What this means is, you can't pull a NaDa and micro 2 vultures into raping a ton of lings chasing you. You can't pull a July with mutas and wreak havoc on an SCV line. What you CAN do is watch your units creep up to your target, animate itself a bit, and THEN fire an attack volley. So think "DRAGOON" but EVEN WORSE. This is one of the biggest problems I have with the game, because with MBS (which to my knowledge, has been reworked as well btw, but nothing too significant) making macro easier, and micro being restricted by the game engine, one has to wonder if this was a conscious decision by Blizzard to limit the emphasis on speed, and increase emphasis on strategy/thinking.
There's some stupid feature where everyone runs out of gas harvesting capabilities on a refinery/etc. after a certain amount of gas has been taken out of that building. It then "repairs" itself which takes a long ass while while your 3 probes are sitting there waiting to get in. Yes it's just that peculiar. So throughout the game you're constantly having to juggle your gas econ and timings due to that because sometimes you're going to have to pull probes off gas, and then back again, etc. Definitely a weird game.
I mentioned it last year, but it deserves another mention. The graphics are BEAUTIFUL, but imo detract from the overall gameplay and feasibility of SC2 as a spectator sport (ironically). Look, this is coming from a warcraft 3 player - when I say that there's just way too much shit flying everywhere and going every which way in 15 hundred different color schemes, something is definitely up. There will be times where I'd say, blow something up with a tank, and for whatever reason that unit's remains will fly all over the terrain. I mean it's a cute touch, but come the fuck on, I'm not trying to visually impress myself when I'm playing competitively. The game just isn't visually simple, it's tough to really discern what the fuck is going on or why until you've had a lot of experience, which should be avoided if this game is ever going to become a spectator sport.
I also mentioned this last year, and Blizzard either said fuck you panorama i hate you, or just didn't read my awesome blog, but the sounds STILL aren't poignant enough. I NEED to be able to recognize instantly when a unit dies as opposed to when they're just grunting or whatever the hell they're doing. I need to know when units die so I can register the information subconsciously in my head and adjust accordingly. Half the battle I'm here trying to figure out just exactly what I lost and what I should do (medium battles+ obviously). I don't know if it's sincerely a problem or if it' just a product of habit, but I am very unsatisfied with the visual/audio aspects of this game past the "Wow that looks/sounds sweet!", which is the "But wait what the fuck.....?"
Some Conclusions Overall, this is going to be an exciting, fast-paced game. There are so many elements that are unique to SC2 at this current point in time that SC1 and War3 lack, which I think is pretty cool. It's a bit weird if a top SC player can pick up SC2 and say, become the best within a week of playing. I definitely think there should be a balance of new-ism and old shit in this game, and I think Blizzard has done a pretty good job. Builds, timings, styles of play will become so significantly different I can't wait to see how it turns out (most specifically in the dropping/countering department).
Update 10/12:
SaviOr vs YellOw SC2 short clip
Conclusions: Another great year. I wish certain people were able to come, but beggars can't be choosers. Special thanks to my man DKNIGHT for hooking me up with a ticket in the first place!
More shoutouts to people that I chilled/at least conversed with that I still remember: my main dudes at UCI GhostClawS and blabber, CharlieMurphy, NEOILLU, "Etter" Etter, omgbnetsux aka joe, cF trident, HajiRaMa, XCetron, intrigue/tuna (twins imo), LastRomantic, SemiOldGuy (SAWG), gaetele, retsukage, MAHHHHHHHHnini, LosingID8 who organized the cheers and did a damn good job, Sigrun, dude who I beat PvP with DTs, etc. everyone really was awesome and a great bunch of dudes. There really is no better feeling than walking around feeling superior to everyone because you play StarCraft and are from TL.net while everyone else is a huge wow nerd around you ("these guys actually make me feel happy to be a starcraft nerd" -omgbnetsux commenting on WoW cosplayers), also cutting a huge line and just walking straight into the convention while security guards are yelling at you and you pretend like you don't hear them, etc, etc. Great times, great job with the representation, TL.
Went clubbing the other day and apparently there was a bug living in my fucking pants so I got a few random bug bites on my leg. Went to sleep, woke up and I had some new bites, several which were a few millimeters away from each other, resulting in one giant, disgusting aberration.
BUT after applying some random ass Japanese itch cream on it and waiting several hours, it's now diminished to the size of a dime and doesn't itch at all. God damned amazing.
So I asked my buddy Ghostclaws on TL to paint a graffiti thing for me on facebook of one of my favorite players the man the master the MIND GEE EM. This was a while ago but up until now I didn't know it could be available to the public to see, as in you don't need facebook/add me as a friend to see it. So here's GHOSTCLAWS' mother fucking art yo:
(for those of you who don't know what the facebook app is, it's like a paint type program but is ridiculously hard to use, especially with mouse which is what he used. It's very time consuming in that you have to keep manually adjusting the size of your brush and its opacity and colors etc. etc. so doing something like this isn't as easy as it looks!)
This is x-posted from my liquidpoker blog (panorama.liquidpoker.net). I felt it was somewhat relevant enough to possibly include it into my now inactive TL blog too. acronyms: ssnl = small stakes no limit, msnl = medium stakes no limit. fish = newbies, cts = poker version of jaedong/savior/bisu/(whatever sexy bonjwa). ======
My essay today will be about my relative perception of "happiness" and what it means for the rising poker player. It is extremely relative in that people have vastly different ideas of what real happiness is, so what I'm writing isn't the end all for everybody, but what holds true for me.
This is my happiness meter. Yours may differ tremendously. On one hand I have the fish who are just regular people who may (or may not) play poker for fun and donk around. On the other side of the spectrum exists Cole "thuglife" South (I'm pretty sure that's what the T stands for) who I imagine to be the happiest person on earth. Your range may vary, but no matter what we all (inevitably) have a meter of our own.
The basis of this entry dwells on my belief that Money does buy happiness, but a material happiness and not an immaterial one. I think immaterial happiness refers to the genuine pleasure of doing things we absolutely love, being with people we love, and overall living a fulfilled life style. Material happiness is the happiness derived from spending money outside of what is necessary. I feel that immaterial happiness is superior, but as poker players we succumb to material happiness and our end goal (to be like cts) is to acquire both.
When we begin to start making serious money (anywhere between 100-400nl), we make a trade off between these two forms of happiness. Jurollo from the 2p2 forums said in regards to true happiness, "I think the job of online poker alone makes a lot of us unhappy. Its isolationist in its very essence and cuts us off from the outside world to an extent which contributes to [feelings of unhappiness]." btw anyone willing to pursue the topic further should really check that thread out: http://archives1.twoplustwo.com/showflat.php?Cat=0&Number=8966677
So the main issue when it comes to SSNL/MSNL and higher grinders is that we neglect fundamental aspects of our lives (social interaction, priority of values, etc.) for the pursuit of money which we think will make us happy in the longrun. If anyone has played WoW (and you haven't, just bear with me), you'll know that as you go through the level 1-59 grind, you anticipate the lavish joys of being a level 60 and doing all the "fun end-game stuff" (btw this is an analogy only suitable for pre-TBC expansion WoW). But once you get there you realize holy shit, I still have to grind so much more just so I can get to a point where I can be satisfied with my character. The point of this analogy is that we set goals for ourselves, which at one moment we think we'd be satisfied at, but when we finally achieve it, we yearn for more. Poker players are inherently greedy, and so by definition we could never be satisfied. When I grinded out 25nl I just thought "man if I could get to 100nl, I'd be sooo happy with 1k/month". What a jokebook that turned out to be.
So the MSNL player leads an unhappy life. We definitely make enough to sit back and enjoy our lives, but we're also at that critical point of "well I'm making $X now, but I just need to get this much better and then I can finally start playing 1knl and making $Y..". In other words, The MSNL player is frustrated because we're really at that breaking point between someone who can make good money from poker, and someone who can make an extraordinary amount of money from poker. Therefore we keep grinding, we keep devoting time to improving ourselves, and the sad part is many of us end up committing ourselves to permanently staying at 200 and 400nl because the extra stride is just too much (which results in increased unhappiness - to fall short of your goals).
On the other sides of the spectrum are the fish and cts. I believe the fish are happy because they only have one concern, money. Contrast to msnl players who have more concerns: money (because what we make is not "enough" ), and particularly meaningful social interaction (back to "immaterial happiness" ). We feel that we lack in both forms of happiness simply because material happiness isn't good enough for us - whereas the fish have the immaterial happiness, and would simply like some material happiness.
CTS on the other hand has officially won life and, ideally, has both. Of course in reality he probably has his own issues and whatnot, but my perception of someone like cts is that he has enough money to not care about being mediocre, and that allows him to set aside time to really cultivate his immaterial happiness. Just look at his blog and those pictures of Thailand, my god, what a gangster. I think I'm in love.
Well that's it for this topic so far. It's a hugely extensive topic that I could go on forever about, but I think I was able to convey the crucial parts of my thought process (lol) without being overly extravagant. Like I mentioned before, if you're interested in the subject of "true happiness", refer to the thread above where a lot of high stakes ballers chime in.
Cliff Notes: Lots of good self-improvement reading recommended, my life is like 20x better than before, if you want to improve yourself socially, financially, etc. keep reading!
When the TL.net blogs first came out, I was slightly interested, but on the other hand I figured no one cares about random emo ramblings. So it took for BlizzCon to finally break me out of this shell and start a blog. Contrary to what I had thought previously, a lot of peoples' blogs are devoted to contributing to other TL.netters. So here is my contribution. I guess it could be placed in General Forum, but at the same time it's still a bit centered around my amazing self, so thus it belongs in my TL blog.
Here, I want to discuss to a small extent my goals for the future, but more importantly the issue of molding oneself into what they want to become and how to do it. If you're interested in improving your life socially, financially, and/or spiritually (lol), keep reading on .
Quick background information: My first couple years of High School, I was considered the "gamer nerd" - this directly resulted in no girlfriend, no popularity (though your mileage may vary on how important this issue really is), low confidence/self-esteem, etc. Overall I was okay with my life, but that's really like saying Michael Jackson would be okay with just women his own age - I wanted to go that extra step and molest small boys. God that was a horrible analogy.
Years later, I am reasonably happy with my life, I am making a decent amount of money from online poker, prompting many opportunities I plan to take later, and I am obviously a much different person with a newer outlook on my life. My future goals are to never work a day in my life after college (where I'm currently undeclared, but looking to go into something finance related), make tons of money, travel the world, and post a lot on TL.net.
Now that that's over with, here are some things I recommend to help out your own lives. Because I am a poker player, and because there is TONS of information that must be learned in [oker, I have become familiar with the task of reading an absolute buttload as a means of acquiring information. Therefore, my approach is largely based on learning via reading. If you think about it, reading on TL.net is a form of learning via reading, there is a LOT to be learned here, provided you stay out of the SC2 threads LOLOLOL JOKE.
Books I Recommend: These won't be traditional self-help books imo, but more of stuff that would help you exceed far beyond the rest of the masses.
- The 48 Laws of Power by Robert Greene: A VERY good book that has 48 laws one must follow in order to have absolute power/control in their lives that applies to almost every social setting. Greene doesn't follow moral values, so some of these obviously won't apply if you have a heart, but regardless this is a very good read and is read by many famous people which include rap stars, CEOs, etc. What also makes this such a good book is that each law follows with a historical example of when the law was followed and disobeyed, and the results of those famous people that chose either route.
- Rich Dad, Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki: There are a lot of self-finance books out there, and I haven't read many to be honest, but I really like this one. For one, it's not a hard read at all, I finished it in about 2 nights. Kiyosaki argues that the traditional idea of going to school, studying hard, and getting a good job is flawed in the modern age, and that to be truly financially independent, one must understand how money works, and a lot of that is taught in this book. The book is a bit controversial simply because it recommends a few high-risk ventures and discourages safe investing, and a few other points may be debatable, but on the whole this book is fantastic for anyone at college age or older who don't want to be stuck with a crappy job in middle management for the rest of their lives.
- Maximum Achievement - by Brian Tracy: Brian Tracy is a widely-renowned self-help author. I actually haven't completed this book, but it's designed to focus your own self-management abilities and hone yourself into becoming an efficient, positive human being, which has an application in almost every reasonable setting imaginable.
I've seen 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey recommended, but I read it in middle school and wasn't too impressed with it because a lot of it seemed like common sense. It's been a while, and I obviously have a different outlook and understanding of my life since then so I might have to review it one of these days. Feel free to Amazon.com any of these books, they're all pretty much like 10 dollars there.
Articles I Recommend:
HOWTO Be More Productive - by Aaron Swartz http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/productivity A guide to making your life productive, time-management basically. To be honest, time management is one of my worst problems - I spend WAY too much time browsing forums and talking about dumb crap on AIM where I could be doing much better things. It's similar to queueing up only more SCVs at your command centers even though there's a battle going on and your factories aren't blinking.
2005 Stanford Commencement Address - By Steve Jobs http://news-service.stanford.edu/news/2005/june15/jobs-061505.html Steve Jobs' speech, which relates heavily on finding out what you love to do. This is a HUGE thing for most people, especially those who don't want to be stuck with their Walmart jobs for the rest of their lives.
How to Find What You Love To Do - By Brian Kim http://briankim.net/blog/2006/07/how-to-find-what-you-love-to-do/ A follow up to Steve Jobs' article, this is an actual "guide" to finding out what you love to do and some extra stuff to prod you along your way. For what it's worth, my most optimal profession came out to be Asian Pop Star, haha. You guys will be seeing me on Asian TV soon perhaps
Ten Reasons You Should Never Get a Job - By Steve Pavlina http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2006/07/10-reasons-you-should-never-get-a-job/ This and Kiyosaki's book are both what inspired me on my current future goal of not working a day after I graduate. While it does have a little bit to do with me being a lazy computer gamer, it mostly deals with the fact that I'm the type of person that could never work underneath someone, and being completely dependent on that someone for my financial means.
On Seeing The 100% Perfect Girl One Beautiful April Morning - By Haruki Murakami http://www.mat.upm.es/~jcm/murakami-perfect.html This is a very sentimental, yet short and sweet story (lol alliteration ftw) that famous writer Haruki Murakami wrote back in the day. I won't go into it too much, but basically 95% of people who have read this have loved it. If you're not too interested in anything else here, at least read this.
---
I should also mention that I'm not even that huge of a fan of reading. In high school, I refused to read all the assigned reading (for example, The Scarlet Letter is the most ridiculous crap ever written), and I rarely ever completed a real "book" back then. In fact, I think the only book I had read from front to back in all my high school years was probably "Small Stakes Hold'Em" by Ed Miller. However, I've started reading a lot more these days simply because I feel that there are just so many valuable resources out there that I need to expose myself to, such as those I've listed above.
As of right now, I'm not exactly the perfect human being. I have my fair shares of upsets, but I take solace in the fact that I'm only 18 and that I still have a ton of things to learn, a lot to experience, and so much opportunity to grow. If one thing is for sure, however, I am MUCH better off than I was in high school, when I played 8 hours of War3 everyday.
There's a lot of stuff out there for anyone who is interested, and I've only just touched a little bit. For now, here is a very good quote from the 48 Laws of Power that essentially wraps up everything in a nutshell:
"The Promethean task of the powerful is to take control of the process, to stop allowing others that ability to limit and mold them. Remake yourself into a character of power. Working on yourself like clay should be one of your greatest and most pleasurable life tasks. It makes you in essence an artist - an artist creating yourself."
Well, that's it for BlizzCon. This Summer has been pretty eventful for me, but this whole week of hanging out with people I know from an internet gaming forum probably stands out as the best. In this post I will discuss a lot that's going through my mind right now (and obviously show more pictures) and hope to also entertain you guys who have been reading my BlizzCon blog report so far.
Didn't think I'd get it, but I GOT IT BABY. Reach is a cool guy it seems, and after the photo was snapped, he said "Thank you" to me as if I had just helped or given him something. Maybe he felt me mentally caressing his buttocks and liked it?
So before the SC match they had a WoW Q&A session where a bunch of socially incompetent WoW nerds went up to complain about some aspect of WoW and question when appropriate changes will be made. This dude here is the most hilarious looking WoW downy I've ever seen. I hate to be mean, but really, this guy talking with a high-pitched voice and hilariously crossed eyes had us (TL guys) absolutely rolling.
yubee and hot_bid on a date, look how cute they are together . The vintage 2005 wine bottle is totally appropriate.
On August 05 2007 00:54 GTR-2-Go wrote: tell us everything about the progamers, everything
This is actually a pretty hard question because it's not like I was hanging out with the pros all day long (whereas, if you wanted the inside scoop on TL.netters I'd be able to slander like no other ), but here are some things I recall:
- SaviOr practices using Terran - YellOw practices using Protoss - YellOw's Protoss was actually pretty good, but still lost the game vs someone's main race (IriS i think?) - The pros practiced on Longinus, nothing else. - Everyone is shorter than you would think. Yellow's face/head is a bit smaller than I remembered, IriS is still pretty tall however. - Reach has soft hands, I liked touching them. - The CJ coach is still pretty close with Nal_rA and would ob his games and talk to him afterwards. - After losing in the loser bracket vs rA, XellOs and the CJ coach went over to the corner of the practicing area, wherein the coach lectured a dismal-looking XellOs. I really don't want to imply or suggest anything, but all I'm saying is that XellOs had the face of a player who looks like he's ready to give up/retire. - My favorite guys there were Nal_rA, IriS, Reach, and sAviOr in that order. XellOs looked very glum throughout the whole thing, and I didn't really get to see YellOw much (he was behind the scenes for the most part).
Here are just some quick 1 min clips of XellOs playing. I would've taken longer videos but I was still unsure with how the video feature works on my camera (which isn't mine), so I didn't really plan to make a long recording. For some reason, when I uploaded it to youtube it seemed to have gotten darker. I even use a pretty high brightness level on my LCD. But meh, hopefully you guys can enjoy it or something.
I said I wasn't going to make this write up, but I think I have to, considering I am currently among the top 25 best SC2 players in the world (according to yubee, due to TL.net's absolute domination in SC2, we're probably at the top of the top right now ). We played somewhere around 10 games today, 15 games in total, I was partnered with NeoIllusions who has some sick protoss ground macro. I'm not going to write an essay, and I think it'll be easier to follow in bullet points anyway, so here are some thoughts:
- "Death" in SC2 is confusing and detracts from actual gameplay. In SC1, when a marine dies, there is a loud cry and he pretty much explodes and red blood goes everywhere. Even for SCVs, there is a poignant sound to be heard, that if you hear it, you instantly think "dead scv", and there's still a bright explosion. In SC2, units take a tad too long to die, with no distinct death sounds. Some mechanical units diminish into rubble, and for the time being it's not really noticeable that something had really died there. This isn't a HUGE issue, but it does detract from the game in that sometimes you want to know exactly, at a glance, how many of x has died. Additionally, as a spectator sport, it helps the audience understand certain things better when things simply blow up, not take an ice age to slowly deteriorate.
- As far as balance goes, obviously there isn't much because it's still so early. Terran, as I see it, is completely useless as of right now. Right now meaning, with no Zerg in SC2 yet, and with certain Protoss units just being too overpowered.
- The Phoenix is the most imbalanced unit in the game right now. They control somewhat like mutalisks in SC1, but are much deadlier. For harassment purposes, it only takes 4 Phoenixes to kill a probe (off 1 volley of shots). It is relatively cheap, can be made VERY quickly (it's basically a corsair that owns everything on ground), and there aren't many counters to it, ESPECIALLY from the Terran side.
- As far as strategies go, we kept devising new strats and constantly improved on them. As of right now, the most optimal strategy in my opinion for 2v2 is double protoss, with early game builds being flexible, just as long as you eventually mass archons and phoenixes. Archons may be the only viable counter to the Phoenix right now, but Archons are pretty much on the high-tech side, whereas Phoenixes are medium tech and are much easier replaced. Archons might not even be that great of a counter simply because of the Phoenix's mobility as an air unit. The Terran cobra should've been able to counter the Phx, but it's too slow and can't keep up with a smart Phx user. Same with the Viking, even with air-transformation upgrade. I expect the Phoenix to be changed within a week.
- The game engine is roughly more like WarCraft 3's. This isn't too bad, as it wasn't particularly the engine that stunted War3 (it was more the hero and creeping premise instead). The biggest problems, however, might be the overabundance of "noob-friendly" features that are a controversy amongst us SC1 elitists. Such features have been addressed already, including multiple building grouping, auto-worker splitting, rally-to-mineral functionality, combat log (tells you when something is completed in text version), etc.
- On the brighter side, as I've said before, gameplay can be fast-paced, especially if players opt for early game confrontation instead of FE macro whoring. Mostly because marines will still die in 3 hits to a zealot, etc. Also, as you progress in tech, certain units start oscillating in their effectiveness due to the armor/attack types (such as in War3 and SC1), which means the unit you were massing before can be rapestomped in 2 seconds by some unit some kid made by grouping all his high tech production buildings together and pressing one hotkey. What this essentially means is that micro and macro still play a huge factor.
- Like SC1 and War3 before it, SC2 relies a lot on adaptability to your opponent's builds and trying to stay on top of game flow. The biggest things are basically, if you go MM (there are no Firebats btw, which sucks because mm sucks vs charged-zealots), your terran opponent for example, can tech to Vikings (vulture-level tech) and have an advantage because Vikings are light-armor killers. You have to respond accordingly, by having enough Cobras (a combo of a vulture/goliath, only assume the vulture also kicks ass and doesn't do crap concussive damage) to take out the Vikings, etc. I thought this specific aspect was cool, because it spawns all sorts of unit compositions that complement each other, for example viking/cobra, phoenix/zealot, etc.
- I think there are more, but I'm getting a bit tired and have forgotten quite a bit. Regardless, it's been fun, especially noob-stomping with NeoIllusions.
Final Thoughts - The highlight of this event really wasn't SC2, or the Pro Gamers...well just kidding of course it was and nothing can top that. However, the TL.net crew I've met over the week have been really good people. A quick shout out to the people I've hung out with and have talked to starting since Wednesday: CM, Chips/trident, Mani, HB, yubberz, afk-illusions, Etter, omgbnetsux aka tawt in control, Meat, x_woof_x, Hurricane, dknight, semioldguy, mnm, tasteless, and jesus christ the list just goes on. All these people are stand-up guys simply because this is a great forum and community.
- Regarding XellOs, I talked with Autumn (aka translator lady) and I mentioned that some from the community may have acquired the impression that XellOs is annoyed by the fans (probably as a result of his cheerful). In actuality, XellOs appreciates his fans very much, and although he wasn't THAT fond of his cheerful, he still enjoys meeting his fans etc. etc. She even told me that she wasn't lying just to save face for XellOs, and when women tell me they're not lying, then that's good enough for me!
- Blizzard Staff, at least in the SC2 area, had been courteous, helpful, and friendly throughout both days, despite having to deal with a bunch of kids and a ton of smelly WoW geeks. I was really surprised, simply because if I had their job, I would've been a total asshole by Day 2.
- Watching and meeting the Pro Gamers was an awesome experience that I probably won't forget for another, I don't know, 2 months. But seriously, I've been to Korea before, was even in the audience during rA's famous Parallel Lines game against GF where he mass hallucinates his Arbiters to double recall, and that doesn't beat being able to share this geeky hobby of mine with other guys with the same interest, on the cold, hard floor of the Anaheim Convention Center. It probably had something to do with the Fighting cheers, which had officially given me a huge sore throat (we had to yell over thousands of people okay?).
- I'm very glad that Iris, sAviOr, and rA were able to show us such fantastic games (watch savior vs iris game 1, iris vs ra games 1 and 2, and savior vs ra game 1). Nonstop yelling/cheering for these guys that we've only been able to see on SC2 was a very fulfilling experience.
- Pro Gamers in Real Life: I would say Hot_Bid's RL Pro Gamer ranking system does well here, it's very accurate though of course XellOs' 4 rating can be disputed. But the KTF guys know marketing (well it's their livelihood - they're not being paid big bucks to win OSL because they never do - instead they're being paid because they're icons). Oh, and, savior looks kinda chubby on tv, but is actually a skinny, boy-ish looking guy in real life.
If you guys want to hear about anything pertaining to BlizzCon, the pros there, SC2, other TL.netters (such as HB and yubeast's little relationship), feel free to mention it in a reply and I'll be glad to answer. I've accumulated SO many memories at BlizzCon and I'd love to share them with you losers who couldn't come .
BlizzCon Day 1 Pictures and Report Post aka ENVY ME MORTALS!!!!!! Post
As expected, Day 1 was an incredible day. It's so hard for to me to even recollect each and every single awesome moment at BlizzCon (p.s. those that couldn't come because of laziness or whatever, you've seriously missed out on something spectacular. Kill yourself, probably).
I took about 90 pictures here. Most of them were of Pro Gamers, the overall BlizzCon area, random TL.net crap/people, etc. Other people took a lot of pictures too, so you can probably expect even more as people return home and upload everything.
Before bombarding you with the millions of pictures (which I'll try to organize within subgroups), it was a real pleasure meeting class acts like Hot_Bid, yubee, NeoIllusions, MANI-FUCKIN-FESTO7, etc. among many others. Mani is an intelligent, generous, hilarious person in real life, just as he is online. Yubee has the biggest exclusive hard-on for sAviOr and is apparently my partner tomorrow for some 2v2 SC2 tournament action (we have perfected (well not really) a build that is sure to reign superior for at least 6 months after SC2's retail release). Overall everyone's been cool to meet and hang out with etc. etc. except for a certain somebody who had to piss all over my kitchen floor (I had to mention this again).
As far as SC2 observations go, I don't think I'm really qualified to give a detailed analysis. I'm sure Mani, Hot_Bid, and the others will have writeups for this that are much better than I could ever imagine myself writing, so I'll leave that to them. I took a few pictures of SC2 in-game stuff, but really if I have anything to say, it's that SC2 is extremely fun to play, is still pretty fast paced considering it isn't even on fastest speed on the demo computers, looks amazing (though this might cause some slight problems imo to those that liked the simple, traditional feel of SC1), and lives up to at least my expectations thus far.
Quick, awesome points of today - Me and x_woof_x got interviewed by some ugly asian chick who works for yahoo games. I totally lied in my interview but w/e it will just be cool to be on yahoo games. Well not really, but whatever. - While the pro gamers were practicing in the "Pro Gamer Area", I yelled out to REACH "Park Jung Suk!!!" ::Reach turns around to look at me:: "SARANG HAE YO!!!!" (I Love You) ::Reach looks slightly confused, then lets out a shy, curious laugh and smiles at me:: (LR, I am now +1 on you). - XellOs seemed like an asshole, but I am hoping it's just because he's an emotionless pro gaming terran machine and not because he sincerely hates all his fans - semioldguy was generous enough to give me a copy of a XellOs 8.5x11 poster he made that I got XellOs to sign. Personally I'm not that big a fan of signatures but it was still cool to have him sign it. To be honest, getting a signature from all the players was pretty easy but I'm satisfied with just XellOs'. - I HATE(d) sAviOr before, but after meeting him in real life, he's a very nice, cool guy. IriS, however, is the king of chill and is just an overall awesome person as well. Same goes for the CJ coach who was just delighted to see some CJ fans. - Shouting out "3, 2, 1 [Player] FIGHTING!!!!" with TL ranks among the top with the most random, yet purely awesome things I've done in my life. We also yelled out Manifesto Fighting in the 3rd game of IriS vs sAviOr but I don't know if you guys could make it out. - BJs dinner, for the most part, was hilarious. I'll probably leave this for HB to explain though. Happy birthday mnm!
Big screen overhead with new gameplay trailer stuff.
Ditto
Me and Hot_Bid absolutely tearing it up vs x_woof_x and nemY. I sponged like a beast vs a double 2 gate zeal rush while Hot_Bid techs to dt and manhandles everyone.
yubee talking mad shit about how ez it is to pwn nubs in sc2