for the last few months, I've managed to keep my interest in Starcraft 2 pretty casual. I have a few friends who are still refusing to buy it because they "can't trust themselves with that game in the house." these are, of course, non-trivial concerns; a number of us went through some epic binges with the original Starcraft during college. nevertheless, that was college; I figured I'd be older and wiser now*... or at the very least, too busy to indulge in a horrendous, life-ruining video game binge. I've been pretty actively resisting taking the game too seriously. I was nonchalant about losing matches and refused to look into build orders or other "vetted" strategies of any kind. I didn't even play every night; sometimes I would even a whole week or more off (*gasp*) to do things like go outside and hang out with people in the real world.
all in all, I gloated about the fact that I was a fairly terrible player.
I should've known that it wouldn't last. this is something that began to nag at me-- being terrible. with some activities, I can handle not being awesome and I can definitely be fine with average. being bottom-rung terrible and watching peers put time in and get better and better; it would gnaw at my sense of nerdity. monday mornings, I began to whine to obsessed co-workers about a bad run of matches-- my casual weekend gaming was becoming less entertaining and more frustrating as I seemed to lose match after match. repeatedly they offered to examine my style of play, my strategies, etc. and repeatedly I rebuffed attempts to "formalize" my play and get better. a few more weeks, my frustration grew steadily, but so did my resistance to formally researching and memorizing build orders and other aspects of the game. my co-workers (perhaps out of being tired of hearing the same complaint week after week) suggested that I "casually check out" a blog by a high-level player. this sounded suspiciously like research to me, but on a slow facebook news day, I watched a few episodes.
my casual attitude is currently in serious jeopardy.
let me take a small digression. I love watching people geek out about things. making things and getting better strategically at games, writing, programming or even just hashing out great ideas. I love all of it. I especially love when the geeking involves a non-traditionally nerdy realm; cars, sports strategy, ufc, law / politics, cooking or formulating some complex theory of human behavior. I'm fascinated by the energy of creation. I'm particularly fascinated when the act of creation itself goes through a thorough refinement process. I may not always understand the details, but I love the sentiment. people who freak out about some incremental increase in status ("omg, I acquired a new [xyz]") is not particularly interesting, but whatever process or minutiae that makes you better at doing something or improves your understanding-- "optimization of complexity comprehension"-- I dig it tons. h summed it up when she called me "basically a strategy nerd."
sean "day [9]" plott warms my nerdy little heart.
day[9] is a top-ranked player and 11+ year veteran of Starcraft. his vblog / show, "the Day[9] Daily," offers commentary, strategy and bouts of hilarious, face-palming geekery. people who view themselves as "normal" tend to get dismissive if you use the words "strategy," "vblog" and "Starcraft" in too close of proximity to each other, but what day[9] does is truly fantastic. he is a surprisingly inspiring example of a nerd's pure love of an activity. more about this later.
