So this weekend I went to a Barcraft event (Bar + Starcraft II), and a common question people asked me was "Oh, are you playing in the tournament?" To which I said no, and then the followup question was "Why not?"
I gave a rather hand-wavey answer at the time, but the real answer is because I wasn't good at the game. Current me is usually very open admitting when I don't know something or where my weaknesses are, but it goes back to my time in high school.
Back in high school, I was part of an insane number of clubs. One of the clubs I participated in was called the Real Time Strategy Club, but let's just call them the Starcraft Club cuz that's all they discussed during meetings. Not gonna lie, I joined the Starcraft Club because I had a huge crush on a guy that was very much into Starcraft II, and I wanted to become better at the game so we could share more common interests.
Eventually I showed up to enough to the club meetings to hear that the president of the Starcraft Club wanted to hold a LAN party for a Starcraft II tournament, and I was invited. This was the first time I had ever heard of a LAN party before, and it sounded sick. There was going to be free pizza and soda? :O DONE. I got so excited I even volunteered to advertise the event. The president of the Starcraft Club seemed hesitant about advertising the event, but regardless I went all out hand-drawing Starcraft artwork on some poster board, and placing the posters around the school as well as sharing about the event with people I thought might be interested.
Since I knew my crush was participating (he was Grandmaster 1v1) and I had heard a lot of Starcraft II build terms thrown around in the club frequently, I knew I had to master at least one build. Zerg definitely had the most appeal to me, but Protoss 4-Gate seemed like the easiest to learn, and team Liquid, a famous Starcraft pro team seemed to approve the strategy, so I practiced in custom games after school a few times prior to the event. I was definitely not the best at optimizing resources, but I got to the point I wasn't wasting resources for more than a few seconds.
LAN party day arrives, and I'm both excited today is the day, and apprehensive if I practiced enough. There was a lot more people at the LAN party that I was expecting, and I was starting to feel good about all the advertising I had done for the event. And then I face my first opponent in the tournament. I had no idea who he was, but I could tell he was in an older year from me. Game starts up, and initial plan is going okay. I get to his base with all my zealots & warp stalkers, and he just destroys them with ease. Like I couldn't even destroy even one structure. A few minutes later, he wipes my entire base.
Since the LAN setup didn't allow me to see his expression during the match, I was super curious what he thought of the match. His face said it all: frowned brows and a pout. The sheer amount of annoyance in his facial expression hit me like a truck; his face said he didn't like the matchup at all, like I was a waste of his time to play against. I looked around the rest of the room for facial expressions, and I was greeted with neutral and slight-frown faces. No one said any harsh words, but it was then it clicked. My view of this event was incorrect. This was a heated Starcraft tournament, and since I was deemed the baddie, they did not want me there. I felt so bad I misread the vibe, and that no one told me. I removed myself from the loser's tournament, and after eating some pizza, I went back home. I didn't even know how far my crush got through the tournament, I just wanted to get out of their hair.
Since the LAN party was on a weekend, when I got back to school, it started circulating around school how bad I was at Starcraft II. I didn't mind personally I was bad at Starcraft II, but because people circulated the information, it made me feel like I was supposed to be ashamed, which in turn made me feel even worse about the whole ordeal. Basically if I wasn't good at something, unless I was ok with people whispering about it around high school, I was better off not sharing/admitting.
Since then I always assumed Starcraft II players always had a strong desire for mastery and skill compared to almost any other PvP related game, and are easily aggregated when they have to face opponents of a significant lower skill than them. Additionally, I equated tournaments with high levels of seriousness and skill.
So flash forward to present day, I was expecting something similar at Barcraft. I just grabbed a viewing seat, and tried to play cool.
By the end of the night, I honestly regretted not joining the tournament. Everyone that attended were having so much fun. People who had never played Starcraft II before joined in on the tournament, and holy moly, people even offered to help coach them during the match. And the opponent(s)? They also looked like they were having fun, whether they were winning or losing. I was in disbelief how well this tournament was ran despite the clear difference in player skill, and people were still having a good time.
I guess this is how I wished my introduction to Starcraft II PvP, LAN parties, and gaming tournaments was, so I guess thanks Richard Kwok for showing me how wrong my view was all these years.
