Wellplayed

Hey guys, miss me? No, of course you didn't I don't have a viewer-ship! (viewership? viewers hip?)

So I got in contact with some of the wellplayed.org people and they were quite friendly, unless the tone of that email was significantly different from what I perceived it to be, which would be weird.
 Short story long Stong shory lort Long story short, I'm going to be writing an article on, well, pretty much anything. Somehow I doubt they'd like it if I did an article on the manufacturing process of glass though. Just a hunch.

So in thinking up content I asked some awesome people and I got a great suggestion: write an article about the longevity, wow that's a hard word to say, of games and what causes it. This idea is a cool idea to say the least and for now, at least, I'll be sticking to it.

I think the main points that are going to arise are replayability (fuck you red squiggly line that is a word), the skill ceiling, how competitive it is and the community surrounding it. Brands and how widely played will come into it too, I think.

All in all I'm really excited and thankful to the wellplayed.org guys in being so quick to respond and to do so with open arms.

Before I gg out, I've been failing a bit on ladder. I'm down to rank 20 in my division and can't seem to break top 8. Hope I work something out in the end!

GLHF
Grack

One of those days...

You know those days where things just don't go your way?

So this morning I woke up fairly early and, hearing that Duncan was on teamspeak (a VOIP program), I immediately jumped on and jumped into my first game. I lost. I was a bit pissed off but I figured that I should man up and play again. I lost again. this went on for a while and I think I racked up something rediculous like 8 losses 1 win. Somehow I managed to stay cool, calm and collected and in the last games I decided "Censor it, I'm just going to decide to just do my best not to get supply blocked. So I did and I was able to come out of the games saying that I had improved.

It's very difficult to do this and look back and realise that you have improved. The negative connotations that come with losing whisper in your ear, telling you how bad you are and how ashamed of yourself you should be. I refused to listen to the voices (you're jealous cause they only talk to me) and actually managed to become a bit proud of myself. The losses still stung though and, wanting to get into diamond, it felt like such a setback.

This brings me to my last point, unless I have another one. I was reading Duncan's blog tonight and he was talking about how all the pressure, all the desperation to get better and to win was subtracting from the fun of StarCraft and how, having played some random games which didn't really, well, matter, he had a lot of fun and now that he has resumed StarCraft is having more fun as a result.

I thought about this and it's funny cause, frankly, I disagree. In the past few years I have become super competitive as a person. Rowing, debating and now StarCraft, plus my genes, have moulded me into a person who really hates losing to the extent that I just need to become better so I can avoid that. The thrill of winning is so great, gives me such a rush that I can't do without it. I don't think that I could have as much fun in other games as I do in StarCraft purely because who the fuck cares what happens? StarCraft has this amazing ability to let me be happy about my results because they feel like they actually mean something. The feeling off rolling over a Terran is great and I just get happy inside. The ability to have a tangible way of measuring my success has had me so addicted that I've already won 100 games this season in 1v1 alone.

I live for the competition, the ability to be able to get on every night and load up a game to have my mental toughness and brilliance, my hand speed and efficiency and sheer luck thrown against my opponent enthrals me and thus I'm thinking about it 24/7. I'm feeling StarCraft slowly start to be more and more important in my life, taking up more and more time and while some people may see this as a bad thing, some naive menopausal columnist (you guys should go read Duncan's columns.) may decide that I'm throwing my life away, I, on the other hand, find it to be an improvement.

While writing this I think I've figured out why: because I'm actually good at this game. I'm not Noblesse, I'm not Idra, I'm not the best player in South Africa, yet at least, but hell, I'm starting to get some modicum of skill and I like it. I've never been the best at anything I've done, not that I ever really will be, but with StarCraft I can see myself being better than my friends, better than a lot of people and this gives me purpose. It's not an endless tunnel that ends in a bottomless pit which I push myself through only to end up screwed anyway. It's a well that I'm at the bottom of that has a way up and while it might be hard, it might be gruelling and will sure as hell require some work, it's worth the effort and I'm glad I've found something that is.

Hope I made sense with this late night post and didn't seem as cocky as I think I did.


Grack

Fuck this shit. (just off 2 losses)

FUCK YOU TERRANS.*




Yes, at the moment I am pretty angry. I just lost to a bullshit mass marine SCV all in completely viable opening cause mules, lol. I lost because of my own stupidity! I had plenty of time to plan it and get ready but instead of doing the logical thing and lining up a perfect FF, I botched it, allowing a flood of SCVs to come in my base and with the over 9000dps of marines I was eventually owned.

But that's not all folks! Today I have some more bullshit to rage about! Terran units counter everything. I'm pretty sure a hellion can 1 on 1 an immortal if this race holds true to form! The terran comes with an army, quite high marauder composition and of course I get charge-lots and should roll this army. Through magicks I haven't quite worked out I only barely survived each time, my drops in the back of his base were futile because I forgot, a Terran only needs 6 SCVs to saturate an expansion. I ended up getting beaten in a game I shouldn't have lost by all logical reason.

Fuck everything about this.

Grack


*I'm a scum who doesn't want to lose vieweres any viewers of My StarCraft Story do not apply to said group, be they Terran or what have you

Daily number 341

Hey guys.

For any of you that don't know: I censoreding love Day[9]. Not only is he incredibly handsome (lawl), but he has also truly made me a better gamer. Day[9] is the guy who got my to Platinum league, obviously it was a bit of me too but I don't believe I could do it without him. I watch every daily to my knowledge. I haven't missed one in months, unless I am sadly mistaken. I've even watched some of his dailies live, which is difficult in SA because even if it is Euro week I get censoreding lag.

Why am I telling you this? I'm telling you this because I need subject matter and am too lazy to come up with my own I intend to do some writing about specific dailies. I'll be talking about the stuff he said and how it affects me. I'm probably not going to write about funday Mondays because that's just a barrel of laughs which you have to watch.

In this daily, number 341, which is a newbie Tuesday, Sean talks about multi tasking and takes a look at some games where people consciously prioritize certain, slightly less vague, concepts like creep spread and probe production as opposed to broad things like macro and map control. The basic thing he is trying to drill into our heads is that we must overcompensate and over prioritize certain things so that in the future we do then without even thinking. He gives a hilarious example where as this guy/girl's losing his/her whole censoreding base he/she spreads creep across the map and says something along the lines of "gg but look at my creepspread! top that!"

This daily got me thinking about my play and how I can better it, what I can focus on and the truth of the matter is I don't really know. I'm going to play a few games and watch the replays. Hence I will find something to work on and will probably keep you updated on that. Thinking about it, however, I'm not so sure what I will be able to find. I feel like my probe making is good and that my macro is fine but that's probably the point: that we're not sure of what we're doing that is so bad.

Before I finish this, for those of you who don't know, Funday Monday is that you may only make drones, queens, spores, spines, overlords and overseers as Zerg. Newbie Tuesday is you must have perfect lava injects and then still lose (don't try to lose, just submit one where you do even though your injects are 100%)

TLDR; Day[9] is awesome, watch him, I'm gonna be writing about dailies, 341 is about prioritizing tasks, I'm not sure what to prioritize and CENSOR you, I'm not shortening the Funday Monday/Newbie Tuesday rules.

GLHF
Grack

Sup son

Hey guy's, sorry I haven't been posting much but I've been under the whether of recent and only just starting to get better I'm lazy as fuck I'm posting now 'cause fuck yeah antibiotics! just shut up, I'm posting now, okay?

So apparently Day[9] is starting up newbie Tuesday again. This is awesome news, especially for Nirv, but I'm wondering if newbie Tuesday will really help me that much, am I beyond it or am I still enough of a newbie to appreciate it? To be honest I couldn't give a fuck, I watch all the dailies and I think that even if I only pick up small things then that's fine too.

I haven't been laddering so much of late and I've dropped to (as of 2011/08/23 02:28PM) rank 9 in plat. It's not that much of an issue but I still really want to make diamond. I guess the Wheel weaves as the Wheel wills (FUCK YEAH WHEEL OF TIME, GO READ THAT SHIT!)

I'm really angry at Puma. I like EG in general. (General dot [HIMYM reference]) The problem I have with Puma is that fucking all in he did vs MC in game one. It's not, if I think logically, his fault but who gives a shit who's fault it really is? The incident in question is doing a 1/1/1 all in (with workers) and being able to do it AGAIN after MC held it off miraculously because of mules. Complete and utter BS. It's not really an issue, if I think logically, but it felt so wrong that he was able to do that. I laughed quite heartily, though, when MC refused to shake Puma's hand.

To all who read my blog and don't read Duncan (TydVirTaal)'s GO FUCKING READ IT. Duncan is such a great writer and focusses on some important stuff. He talks about actual issues in the gaming community and has some actual analysis. He is such an asshole, being good is just not okay, it makes me feel bad, but as the most awesome person evar my older brother told me last night, there will always be those better and worse than you. I'm sure some philosopher said it too, it's half the reason I'm posting now. Go check the asshole Duncan out though, he's great.

Before I'm off I'm just gonna give a shout out to HungryDeer, a guy I met on ladder. He beat me in a good PvP (i.e. it lasted more than 10 minutes) but said, as I had told him that I was listening to the Lord of the Rings sound track, that I was the real winner because of that. It brightened up my day and I wish the rest of the StarCraft community was as friendly as that!

I love you guys all, sorry this post was so all over the place.
GLHF
Grack

Air/Ground Funday monday.

Hey all
This week has been tones of fun. I'm now rank 1 platinum and pushing to try get into diamond. I'm noticing that as I get higher I don't outright hulksmash every Zerg I ever get, which is a pity, but I guess that's how life works. What has been great fun, however, is metagaming some Terran's. My basic strategy at the moment is to hold of the inevitable push that comes from the Terran then transition into carrier-mothership and just destroy them. It has this inane ability to cause me a great deal of laughter and happiness which is an amazing change after the high stress of playing PvP! I feel so sorry for the players that just get destroyed by an oversized pie in the sky and a swarm of flying binoculars!

Before I get into the meat of this article though, I want to share with you some absolute brilliance: one of my very good friends has started StarCraft 2 and all due to my and my friends' influence! I intend for him to be great and hence when I taught him at first I didn't even tell him that he was capable of clicking icons to make buildings, I just told him the hotkeys. I should sign up for Gosucoaching! It brings me so much joy to watch him hotkey his command centre without me even telling him to!

Okay, now that I've bored you with my own joys, onto Day[9]'s niftytastic (that is a word!) Funday Monday theme, namely: one player may only makes air units and one player only makes ground units. In theory that sounds fine but when you think about it you realise that what you're basically doing is crossing your fingers and saying "Please don't early aggression me!" Surprisingly enough that seems to work rather well. Often I would just manage to get out a Voidray as we got hit with roaches and the like, and while roaches may be good they don't fair well against Voidrays, regardless of what TydVirTaal tells you!

These games became epic. Not because there were a lot of back and forths, not because the games were close. The reason theses games became epic is because FUCK YEAH MOTHERSHIP. Carriers and Battlecruisers may be cool too but Motherships take the lie cake.

The best game of the lot, unless I play a game which is better than this in the future, which I doubt I will ever do, has to be a game me and Nirv played in our diamond league 2v2 team as random, because it feels so good to dominate diamond league while playing offraces. We both got our worst race, Terran but we didn't afraid because Terran is designed for twelve year olds (if you are a Terran reading this, and are offended, please submit your complaints to itsaninjokethatyoudontget@gmail.com) I went air and he went for ground and almost completely unopposed we got to fairly big armies. So we attacked with a force of Battle cruisers, medivacs, tanks and other awesome units and we were dominating pretty hard. Then we noticed that we had been ling/ultra dropped and both of my expands had gone down. Due to some terrible micro on our part this turned into an epic game where we were all low on resources, desperately trying to kill off each other's expansions. It came down to the fact that we just had more resources for longer and eventually we  won the game and we were both laughing uncontrollably in shock from this epic game which we had just played. It left me with a slightly hollow feeling, as if I will never play a better game.

So in closing, this week has been epic! I'm getting high up in my leagues, I'm carriering (shuttthefuckupthatisaword) Terrans, my friend has started StarCraft and HOLY MOTHER OF FUCK Funday Mondays are so fun.

GLHF
Grack

Got me some new headphones

Hey guys, I got some new headphones. they're so cool, go awesome sound quality and are so comfortable! Now what you may want to know is "why, Grack, would you buy new headphones when you have perfectly working headphones at the moment?" To you I would blush shyly and turn away.

But this is the internet! So be ready to be regaled told an epic story get your eyeballs amazed by the epicness of the tale I am about to tell you hear some random uninteresting story. I was playing StarCraft and had not been having a very good week, there were a whole bunch of issues that would bore the hell out of you 'cause you don't care about me as a person I don't want to discuss. (Never date anyone, all girls are horrible and icky ><) So I was playing and losing a bunch, getting more and more angry with Gavin on in the background, talking to me, doing what any good friend does when the other is raging: making me rage even harder.

I just came out of a game where I lost to them damn Zerg critters, Jimmy. I was whining like a little bitch about how impossible it is to play and how annoying it is and how hard a time I have playing them and Gav says something along the lines of "No, you're just a bad player" to troll me. Oh boy it works. I would love to tell you how I ripped my headphones out of their sockets, pulling the motherboard with it while a lobster is hanging on and trying to bite my nose but first of all I haven't thrown my computer in the ocean in the past.... well.... ever and second of all that's not what happened. I just threw them onto my desk and stormed off, breaking my headphones. So up until I bought these awesome Sennheisers I've been using earphones. Ow. Luckily the mic from my old set works perfectly so I could buy non-mic headphones!

Before I end off you might like to know that my cupboard is hanging on one hinge after I bumped into it the other day. My bad! Go follow me on twitter @GrackStarcraft! I hope to have a Facebook page up soon so I can have my ego decreased by the low number of fans I have!
Grack