Writing: FOR ESPORTS!!!!

Skimming through this blog for the first time in a long, long while, I find myself amused at how many times I promised to kick my lazy arse into shape and maintain this blog properly. It even worked, on occasion, for about a week or two, though I quickly slipped back into my old habits of inconsistent, hurried and half-hearted updates. Ironically, though, it has been about two months since my last post - one where I promised to post more regularly, of course.

As you no doubt know (or can swiftly deduce regardless), that didn't really happen. There are a number of things I could blame for that, but it really just comes down to StarCraft. Basically, it suddenly became insansely fun for me. Like, really, really fun. I fell in love with laddering; spending hours on end playing game after game with the aim of hitting that spot in the Top 8 of Platinum League, advancing to Diamond, and getting indefinitely better because of the effort I was putting in.

I think one of the things which makes StarCraft so attractive is that there is a direct correlation between effort and reward, or, said in non-douche, it is easy to see the results of the work you put in. I played a lot of StarCraft, saw myself improving, and hungered for more improvement, so I kept playing.

Recently, though, I hit a slump. I started losing more than I was winning, and against opponents I knew I should be beating - my hands just weren't doing what my mind wanted them to. Laddering (playing games of StarCraft) became significantly less enjoyable because of this - 'this' not being losing (I always go on about how important it is to enjoy the game regardless of whether you win or lose), but being not playing at the capacity I knew I could - not fulfilling my potential.

Thus, I decided that it was time for one of my famous StarCraft Holidays. Fine, perhaps they aren't that famous (or even famous at all), but 'one of my ordinary StarCraft Holidays' doesn't sound nearly as epic, does it?

As you can probably infer, a StarCraft Holiday is a time where I don't play, you guessed it, StarCraft. I put my time into other games, or even occupations entirely separate from gaming, and get my mind off the game for a bit, so that I can come back after a week or so with a new perspective, feeling fresh and rejuvenated, ready to ladder and improve.

It was during this time off from StarCraft that I forced myself to sit down and think seriously about where I wanted to go and what I wanted to achieve with my love of StarCraft - casting or commentating? progaming? As in pro-gaming, by the way, not programming.

Going pro is all but out of the picture, as I simply am not prepared to devote so much of my time and effort into such a competitive sphere, especially when all of my effort goes into something I can't really make a long-term career out of. I don't have a competitive enough mindset. I don't want to put myself under the kind of stress pro's have to endure and, most importantly, I can't see myself putting 11 hours a day, seven days a week into StarCraft for years on end. I love the game, I really do, but there is so much besides it that I want to experience and do in the world.

Casting is more of an option - I'm a decent, relatively charismatic speaker and I think I would make a not-too-shabby caster. In fact, my main metagame-man, Greg 'Grack' Muller and I had the great privilege of casting the finals of a StarCraft Tournament held by Organised Chaos (a monthly LAN attracting around 1000 people, which takes place in Cape Town) this December. It was a truly memorable experience, one which I really enjoyed and would love to have the opportunity to repeat, but I can't help but feel that while there is a call for casters, it is one which I simply cannot practically answer. Streaming casts is completely out of the question - the price of South African internet dictates that I simply would not be able to support a stream at all, let alone one of high quality. This does leave Youtube, though I wouldn't fancy my chances given how saturated it is with content I would have to compete with. Even if, however, I did manage to make it on Youtube, I couldn't take my casting any further - I'm in school for another two years, and then there's the question of further studies at university - I wouldn't be in a position where I could attend events in Europe and North America to cast anyway. Betting university education against the off chance of being discovered as a caster doesn't sound like such a great idea, either.

So, with this analysis in mind, I found myself asking the following: "Why devote my life to a career with very little follow-up, or try to compete as a nobody in an oversaturated market?"

The answer is a simple one - there are no good reasons. The answer to the follow-up question, that of what I should try and do in eSports, is the reason I am here.

In terms of comparative advantage (what I am better than myself at), the answer has been obvious from the start - I've always been better at writing than metagame knowledge or general StarCraft ability, so I figure that the stupidest thing I could possibly do in my situation is spend hours every day developing a skill I'm never actually going to use, when that time could have been potentially spent on improving my writing.

Writing is great for me for a number of reasons - firstly, the world of eSports needs writers a lot more than they need commentators or players, and I believe that, especially if I start kicking the amount of time I put into writing into overdrive, I could actually be competitive in that market. Moreover, writing is not exclusive to eSports - all of the hours I've (hypothetically) put into writing about eSports have made me a better writer more than anything else - all I would need to write in another sphere is knowledge (which can be quickly gained), or I could just write a book. Lastly, I love writing, and now that I've actually articulated all of the reasons why I should spend time trying to improve myself as a writer, spending the rest of the day writing feels not only like the most logical course of action, but also the most awesome one.

So, if there was any tangible contribution to the eSports community I could make, I think it would be through my writing, and this blog (as well as eGamer, of course), is where it starts. The huge mistake I made in my previous attempts at writing here is that I tried to appeal to or please other people with what I wrote, meaning that my writing was not only inefficient, but tedious and it really amounted to nothing more than a chore. What I realise now is that this blog (just like any other medium in which you develop a skill) is the same as the StarCraft ladder... well, perhaps there are one or two pretty distinct differences, but go with me on this:

Just like the budding StarCraft player must, at the core of it all, play a butt-tonne of games, I, as the budding writer (or you, as the budding photographer) must write a butt-tonne of articles (or take a butt-tonne of pictures). So, this is my ladder-blog. My goal here is ultimately to improve my writing through two methods: writing a lot (mainly about StarCraft, but with a bit of everything as well) and getting feedback and criticism on what I write. 

So, with that in mind I encourage you to check back at this page regularly, and spam my Twitter (@TydVirTaal) if you don't see anything new (for the good of eSports, of course), and also to please, please (please) tell me what you think I can improve in my writing.

Duncan 'TydVirTaal' Hobbs
Out

I'm Alive! And Other Schemes for the Future

Wassup kids!

My word, it's been a while since I posted. In fact, it's been a while since I really wrote anything.

Waterpolo started up about two weeks ago, and I've been physically powned ever since then. My days pretty much revolved around killing myself for an hour and a half at either 6:30am or 5:15pm, surviving school, eating and sleeping. I only barely managed to get my column for last Friday done, and it was of a quality which, I believe, was far below my capacity. But we'll talk more about that in a second.

I'm going to be trying to post a lot more. It should become easier as I adjust to the rigors of waterpolo (he said hopefully).  In terms of what I'm going to be posting, I'm going to keep doing what I have been, with the addition of another column piece on every off week (to make it once a week, basically), and I'm also going to start doing 'Retro Reviews'. These are born of the insight that I need to get more experience in terms of reviewing specifically, but I'm too povertous to afford most new releases and there are a lot of good games that I've missed out on in my time. In all honesty, the games really won't be all that retro, but they will probably be releases from at least a year or more back.

Stay tuned for my Portal review, coming tomorrow!

On to my column. I really would like some feedback on this one, as it was done in great haste and I feel like there are a lot of issues with it - if, however, it still manages to be of a decent quality, it would be a good indicator as to the extent of my growth as a writer, and the areas in which I really need to focus on improving.

I'll just shut up and give you the link now. Here it is.

One last piece of news. First off, I'm in the process of downloading The Witcher 2, which, by all accounts, sounds truly epic. Before I do that, however, I need to finish installing and patching StarCraft 2.

Why, you ask? Because, being the genius I am, I was going through my Games folder in a fit of conscience and deleting all of the games which were pirated (there weren't many - promise). In the process, as you've probably guessed, I managed to accidentally my StarCraft folder. By accident. So yeah, now I'm stuck applying all 21 patches for the rest of eternity before I can play again. Durptacular!

Anyways, that's about all from me. I've got some zombies to shoot, or something. Until tomorrow (he said hopefully)!

Duncan
Out

Please, Don't Be A Fanboy [Column]

Before I say anything else, I would just like to mention that the original Portal is now free on Steam. Until Monday. So, all of you cheap asses who couldn't afford it before (myself included) best start downloading it. Right now. So, without further ado, here's some writing in italics:


This is a column written for eGamer.co.za, where I have an internship. If you want to see it on eGamer instead, for some weird reason, click here.

Before you read this, I would like to point out that this is probably the strangest thing I've ever written, and the strangest thing which I am likely to write for a while. Oh well. That's what happens when you write columns at 4:30am.

Were I a lesser man this would usually be the point where I once again hate on Adam for being a Durbanite and stealing my column ideas. Luckily for Adam, however, I am not a lesser man, and everyone already knows that he is a Durbanite. He also didn't happen to steal my column idea, but that's more of a peripheral issue.

What isn't a peripheral issue, however, is the epic story of how I got given a flying high-five by Tarryn van der Byl of NAG/MyGaming via Twitter. Yes, that happened. I'm going to tell you the aforementioned epic story now. Before you say anything, bear with me here – I swear I'm going somewhere with this.

I can't actually tell you the epic story in question, however, before we give it a bit of context. So, here's some context:

I've been an avid NAG reader since about Grade 7 (which isn't as long ago as some of you may think), and when Tarryn started writing for NAG I began to follow her writings on an almost religious level. Every time I got my shiny new edition of NAG, I would open at the back to read her column, before working systemically through the previews and reviews to find which ones she had written, prioritise them in order of relative awesomeness, and then read them. And then read the rest of the magazine.

Some of you who might be feeling a little creeped out by my obsession devoted interest at this point (#pedobear?) will be glad to know that my pseudo-religious following of Tarryn has calmed down a bit over recent months. It may be more a product of a lack of this resource called cash monies than a regression of my aforementioned devoted interest, however.

The question I'm sure we're still asking here, however, is what did I find so appealing about Tarryn? I'm going to have to call 'inb4 bcoz gurl' really quickly, 'cause if anyone actually manages to get biologically interested in a gaming column because it is written by a girl, they should probably seek the attention of a specialist. Unless it happens to be of the vaguely NSFW variety, in which case you'd probably be afforded a fair trial.

But I digress.

The point I'm making here is Tarryn van der Byl was and still is one of my personal legends of gaming journalism. She wrote (and still writes, I'm sure) about some of the most arbitrary, awesome stuff ever. She uses a lot of words which sound really cool, which I don't understand at all, and she was (is) funny besides. I really just dug (and continue to dig) her style of writing.

So, imagine my surprise when on Thursday (also known as yesterday), after getting Twitter the day before (also known as Wednesday), I found out that not only did Tarryn have Twitter, but our good old friend, Caveshen, followed her. And knows her. Virtually.

It goes without saying that when I found out that Cavie knew (on a virtual level) one of my personal heroes of our games journalism generation and idols in terms of writing, I had to get out of my chair and do my little Jig of Awesomeness, which I choreographed a while back to celebrate moments like those which I just described.

Story even shorter, Cavie totally twitterduced us (like 'introduced', but via Twitter), and Tarryn totally tweeted me a (and I quote) 'FLYING HIGH FIIIIIIIIVE!'. Needless to say, my Jig of Awesomeness following this was significantly longer and more energetic than my previous one.

What am I trying to say here? Tarryn van der Byl, one of my most admired writing idols, totally tagged me in a tweet. It was awesome.

What's the point I'm making? A good question; we should move on to that, shouldn't we?

You see, while I may regard Tarryn as a quasi-deital figure, and herald her writings as text of near religious value, at the end of the day I'm still a noob who has hardly earned the write to call himself a gaming journalist, let alone say that I'm part of the South African gaming journalism community. The thought of Tarryn van der Byl actually being human only really occurred to me yesterday.

Other people, like Caveshen for example, who are part of this South African gaming journalism community, might actually know her on a semi-personal level. They probably aren't as likely to idolise her as much as I do, because they're less starry-eyed about pretty much everything to do with games and South Africans who write about them.

Yet still other people might hate what Tarryn writes, comparing it to things like stomach bile and the proverbial turd on metaphorical toilet seat of life. I'm not sure why they would, I think it's pretty awesome, but there you have it – views differ.

“So wait, Duncan, what are you getting at again?”

Fanboys, dear Martin (that's my hypothetical reader, just by the way), fanboys.

As you may or may not have noticed, over this last week eGamer has been covering the Modern Warfare 3 versus Battlefield 3 debate pretty extensively (and, in my subjective opinion, pretty objectively as well), in an attempt to be able to wash our hands of this nonsense for the next little while. At the moment, the MW3 vs BF3 debate is probably the most fanboy-rife one out there, although luckily none surfaced on eGamer (who lived to tell the tale, that is).

What we learnt in the process of doing research for the articles in question, however, is that fanboys suck. They have this innate ability to degrade every comment section on the interwebs to the most deranged, facepalm-tastic flame war you're ever likely to see. Sure, they may have their benefits, and I'll talk about those in a later column, but some of them just deserve a good punch in the face (even more so than dolphins, in some instances!).

Loving something (whether it be a game or a writer) and engaging in an intellectual manner about the pro's and con's of it are, contrary to popular fanboy belief, not mutually exclusive. You can do both and, believe it or not, you won't defy any laws of physics in the process.

Like I said, I really dig Tarryn's writing. Not only do I enjoy the style, but she's been an idol to me for a good few years now, and I'm not just going to turn my back on that. That doesn't mean that I can't accept the fact that she has faults and that her writing may not be the best the world has ever seen in the history of forever, but it does mean that I stand by her and I stand by my advocation (that is totally a word. I swear) of her despite those things.

So, all you fanboys (if any are reading this. If not, please just go to a BF3 vs MW3 thread on reddit and then link them to this, so that there are fanboys reading this). Instead of loving something and crapping on, from a dizzying height I might add, everything that isn't the thing you love, how about loving something and replying to those that differ from you with something that doesn't start with a public display of your homophobia or of your intimate biological relations with their mother (she's probably like, thirty years older than you anyway – if you need to hit something that old, you should probably start rethinking your life).

Hell, it's just a thought. But then again, so is Einstein's Theory of Relativity.