Topic: What type of content do I want to write about/discuss with other about?
This would be a rolling list of questions (no particular order) that would be constantly updated:
1) How do you explain why Starcraft is so exciting with the least amount of technicalities to someone who never cared about chess or computer/video games at all or knows very little about games?
2) What will happen to Starcraft pro-gamers as they are unable to play the game competitively anymore?
3) Is Starcraft (as an ESports) sustainable? (Aka: Will it exist 40 years from now?) What about ESports in general?
4) How will the growth of Starcraft be similar/different to the growth of sports (baseball, football, soccer) in history?
5) Why don’t as many females compete in Starcraft. Or in a more general sense, why don’t as many girls play Starcraft? Is there a physical disadvantage or a social trend, and if so, what factors into these social trends?
6) What do adults (of 40 years and older) see in Starcraft? Obviously college kids like me see it as a platform to compete on and share experiences, and we have many pro-gamers that are around our age. But what about much older people?
7) What steps are being done/need to be done in order to legitimize Starcraft to the point that playing Starcraft competitively can compared to playing any physical sport competitively?
8) How will people generations from now remember Starcraft based on what we write about it today?
9) Is it possible to mathematically model a Starcraft game as some sort of probability tree or something of that sort? (A more math/modeling question)
Submit to me your thoughts and/or questions you’re wondering about Starcraft as a phenomenon! I’ll try to write about each thing over the next few years. I really want to get out there and talk with more people from the Starcraft community :)
1) Contribute content (via short articles or interviews) about topics related to Starcraft in relation to various questions. (Due to midterms, these won’t even start until a few weeks. However, within the span of my college life, I’ll try my best to post solid content at least once every month.)
2) Post news articles related to the growth of Starcraft as a legitimate sport (ESports) Probably at most once a day?
3) Fan-boy about tournaments and /awesome/ things within the Starcraft community.
4) Blog about my own experiences on the Starcraft ladder as I improve and/or going to live events.
5) Post pictures/posters I make related to Starcraft.
6) Hopefully make this a solid Tumblr so I can meet new people through it and/or show it to others as proof of how big of a deal Starcraft can be.
:D
Topic: Getting to know me
Hi!! :D
I’m Uikos. It’s a rather new username that I have decided for myself. I usually go by “Linny” as in my SC2 account, but that’s gotten old. But Uikos will do.
I always wanted a name that’s like Idra, or Naniwa, or Sheth, or Thorzain, etc. Names that aren’t quite real names, but have the quality of being so.
I’m currently a student at your very own Princeton University. I study ORFE (Operations Research, Financial Engineering) which basically deals with creating models and dealing with risk/probability. How do you define risk? How you do create a value for probabilities, and how do you test it? What actions do you do if a certain outcome realizes itself?
People like to think ORFE is only about finance — working on Wall Street, iBanking, etc. But that’s not true. That’s not where /my/ passions with ORFE lie. For me, it’s with the decision-making. ORFE essentially teaches me the tools to qualitatively make decisions. When is it better to do A rather than B? (You can see how it fits very nicely with Starcraft.)
As for finance? Eh, not /that/ interested. I don’t hate it ofc, but that’s not where my passion lies.
I draw. I play the violin. I read comic books (DC and Marvel. Batman and Green Lantern are my favorites.) I love asking really hypothetical questions in a philosophical sense. The classes I take mostly relate to math, compsci, econ, and ORFE.
And then there’s Starcraft. Oh man. There have been so many inspirations in my life that stem from Starcraft. People I’ve never met (Day9, Tyler), people I’ve actually met (hazelynut, the founder of CSL, the most awesome girl I’ve ever met), events that made me cry in sadness (Huk leaving TeamLiquid) or cry in happiness (the StarNation trailer showing how beautiful of a community Starcraft has created), things that made me laugh so hard (Thorzain’s TL attack) or events that just made me so.excited (Huk vs Moon in Dreamhack Summer 2011, Hero vs Idra in Dreamhack Valencia, Idra vs Bomber in MLG Orlando 2011).
I can’t explain in a short post on how Starcraft changed my life.
So that’s why I made this Tumblr. :D
I really do think it’s a shame that a lot of my friends look at me weird when I just talk about Starcraft. “Hey, how are you doing?” “I’m doing prettyyy awesome :D My favorite Protoss is still fighting strong in MLG.” And then I get strange stares.
Hey man. Don’t feel sorry for me because you think I’m some deprived gamer who doesn’t have a “real” life. Excuse me. I feel sorry for you because you’re never going to understand the phenomenon that’s going to be more popular than soccer in 40 years. I’m calling it. Starcraft > World Cup in a few decades.
I’m not a great gamer currently. Schoolwork bogs me down. I really want to get better though. My appreciation for Starcraft has elevated so much after starting to play.
And I’ve gotten to meet such great people through Starcraft.
I want my friends to understand why this is an awesome sport. Not just a “game.” You wouldn’t call a World Cup match “just a game.”
Hopefully you (the reader) will relate. :D
Ask me anything via Tumblr’s Ask.
Battle.net ID: Linny
Teamliquid Username: Uikos
Topic: Introduction, Opening Questions
Yooo :D
My personal blog has been getting more and more outdated. Usually I’m able to post pictures of my week every weekend, but I’ve been so busy and into Starcraft lately that it’s been impossible. xD
But I decided to move into the world of Starcraft in terms of my blogging.
It’s interesting though. Starcraft (or a similar game) as the forerunner of ESports in the future. Can Starcraft carry through in the years to come? How do you explain Starcraft to a person who doesn’t give a shit about gaming? Will MC dominate once again? How does Starcraft fit into my life? Is it simply a hobby I participate in when I’m bored, or is it a genuine source of excitement that can carry through my entire life? How can I contribute back to Starcraft?
Add those questions with “What do I want to do with my life?” and a very complicated conversation starts to form. But first, I need to show that Starcraft really is more than just a video game.
It’s not a Super Smash Brothers. It’s not a Pokemon. It’s not a WoW. It’s a sport that has (and will) developed into a cultural phenomenon.
You know, there was a moment when I thought I could switch over to Chess since Starcraft was too intimidating for me. So much strategy, so much mechanics, etc. With Chess, it’s only strategy. Sounds fair enough, no fast reaction time required.
But then, I realized: Where’s the Chess community? Has Chess already stopped growing as a sport? Is Chess going to be solved in the next few decades? Why hasn’t Chess moved into the digital realm yet? All questions to be answered on a later date.
And then I started going to our college Starcraft practices. And it was /wonderful/. Turns out I can actually play. It’s my finger speed, not reaction time, that’s hindering me. I can deal with that. And the Starcraft community is just /too/ appealing. Chess, like golf, is just too stagnant. Too quiet. Too reserved. That’s not where the future of ESports lie with.
Follow me on Tumblr! :D There’s going to be a lot of content, newsclips, and fan-boyness coming out of this Tumblr. Since I don’t know how to make a website, Tumblr will do. :]
Hello World<3 Starcraft, it’s been only a year, but man, you do look so fine.<3
