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I. Experience is never a waste of money - only a wasted opportunity, if you're lazy.

That sounds a lot better than it looks if you got knocked out in the first round of the lower bracket on Saturday - especially if you copped the brunt of the lag and FPS drops, which was particularly brutal at the start of the day.

That said, first in has never really been best dressed in eSports - anybody that got the opportunity to play later on in the day typically has a leg up. Gamers aren't that good at waking up around 7-8am, especially when you factor in afterparties/late night drinks and dinner after flights (which were delayed for a lot of people on the Friday).

But part of the experience is just learning how to cope with situations like that as well, not so much mechanically - there's very little you can do about a 4G stick crapping out, which was the internet used for the event (four 4G sticks, to be precise) - but mentally. Big tournaments like major qualifiers and LAN nationals have always commanded a certain degree of concentration beyond the usual. It's much more of a marathon than a sprint, the latter of which could apply to a Masters Cup, wT weekly, Playhem Daily and so on.

And it wasn't just a battle of endurance for those playing initially. To my detriment, I found out that while it was highly enjoyable hovering around the venue that first day offering candies and chips to all and sundry (more on this later), my body wasn't that pleased; playing a game at 8-8.30pm after being at the venue since 9am was astonishingly difficult.

This isn't anyone's fault but my own - in truth, I shouldn't have been there, as awful as that sounds. If you're going to come down to these kinds of events, part of the preparation is being smart about conserving your energy, and walking around for several hours on end does little for that.

I was tired as all shit, and I didn't want to be there mentally. I started secretly praying for technical difficulties just so I could have a sleep and come back refreshed, although it wasn't to be: Pox and Plunkers were waiting in the wings, and I wouldn't keep them waiting.

I don't know what the result of the games would have been if I'd been able to sleep (Pox is really quite ******* good), but I know my performance would have been a lot better. I had a couple of encouraging games against Light and Mafia in particular (more so Mafia than Light, in truth), as well as my solitary win against Biggun (I'm really sorry about that 12/14 faggotry, honestly) which give me hope.

But what's done is done, and I should know better. Hopefully my hoarding of ACL points like a big gay by flying down to Melbourne and playing in every event humanly possible will be enough to sneak me into the final ACL nationals later this year. (The absence of many names from the pro bracket, like Westley, Kez, Fourby and Yang will have an enormous hand in me squeaking by, which sounds awful in a sense - would you prefer they got a spot compared to myself? - but I'm playing by the same rules as everyone else. )


II. Working night shifts has its advantages.

So, if anything, one of the stranger things that most people will remember ACL Melbourne for will be the presence of this fat guy in a jacket who wandered around with food.

Constantly.

I started doing this not long after the team I used to work with was made redundant. In truth, I was doing it before then, but not as frequently. I've always been fairly generous, when circumstances allow, and I started to feel bad that I was offering nice treats to the people I worked with and not the rest of the office. (Ask anyone in TA - I have this bizarre tendency to frequently feel bad about completely inconsequential things, although whether it's a by-product of thinking things too deeply or more of a emotional reaction to a phenomenally delayed sense of thoughtfulness, I have no idea.)

At this point, I'd already begun to realise that there were a couple of staffers that just really enjoyed being offered random bits and pieces every now and again. But the true treat was when, by chance, you presented something that was completely and totally what that person wanted at the time.

Most people have experienced this; the feeling of consuming something that your body just wants. It could just have the perfect amount of sodium that your body has been crying out for, that nice little sugar hit to help you get through the day or maybe just something to tide your stomach over. Regardless of the base reason, the result is usually the same: a guttural, primal reaction of complete and total satisfaction that triumphs even decent sex (although the latter's a lot better for working out the abs, particularly if you're humping the, shall we say, larger end of the scale).

So, I decided to try my hand and start being a little more adventurous with my offerings. It wasn't a hard decision: I have the money to do so, since I just sit at home, work and play Starcraft (or curl up into bed in the foetal position, crying myself to sleep because my photographer housemate decided to ninja several gigabytes of uploads and didn't bother to say anything).

And it's really entertaining to just cheer people up. I'm used to working nights, I've been doing it for three years, and I was never really a day person before that anyway. My mum and I used to stay up to 4am sitting next to each other in the "computer" room ... because we weren't tired and why the **** not (standard response from her, profanity included, which explains oh so very much).

As time passes, you get a handle on what people like as well, which is a nice way of learning a bit more about people. There's even the added satisfaction of seeing someone come in (I arrive half an hour before everyone else, except one guy I'm good friends with who trains in from Newcastle, where his schedule means he either gets in early or doesn't arrive at all) with that look on their face that says "**** you I don't want to be here" and watching that vanish with the little bit of kindness and consideration shown by offering them their favourite treat.

Now imagine all of the above feelings replicated at ACL - indeed, a good deal of the people reading this blog probably experienced some degree in cheer since most of you paid a visit to Mooney Valley last weekend, and therefore ate one of the various goods I wandered around with.

It's important to note that some of the food was provided by Infeza, who works with USA Foods, supplier of all candies and chocolates American. The peanut butter cups and Tootsie Rolls were actually amazing, Phil, although I didn't eat any of them myself, but I was more than happy to wait to see everybody else's reaction to the food.

Strangely, people didn't find this as bizarre as I expected, most likely because I was being nice to them by giving them food they didn't ask for and also because they would have done the same if the shoe was on the other foot, or at least wondered what the reaction would have been.

This was more a thing with the wasabi and soy almonds though; people were pretty reluctant to put what looked like little balls of fire into their mouths, although those who had experience with wasabi woofed it down and quickly recommended it to nearby spectators that were understandably more anxious. I'm well acquainted with wasabi peas - it's a loved snack among most of the night shift, since the heat of the wasabi is a great way to wake up without having to absorb the calories of an energy drink or the eventual crash that a cup of coffee/tea brings. (Plus, it's free, since either myself or another colleague, who has the wasabi pea bug, is offering them out.)

But even that wasn't really the main purpose of the objective. The food was just a larger scale version of what I do at work, which is trying to cheer people up. Part of the basis for feeding people on the night shift because I'm lucky enough to be super efficient at my job, and offering bits and pieces throughout the night makes people feel less put out by the fact that I get a couple of hours each night to do things like this, while they're facing a mountain of work that never disappears.

I wouldn't do it if there wasn't genuine enjoyment in it though; generosity can't survive on job preservation alone. I wouldn't have the heart for it anyway. It's just that brief moment of seeing people's faces light up when you run into them at the perfect time with the perfect snack - and ACL was an enormous breeding ground for that.

Admittedly, some people had their reservations, which I'd like to take the opportunity to clear:

- I did not offer you food because you were my competition and I was secretly hoping you'd contract diabeetus before our games
- I was not offering you treats because I was concerned about your anorexia nervosa
- No, I'm not just trying to mass poison everyone; Pinder's the one with the killer jawline

It's a very unusual answer to the question "why do you do this", but when you get asked about 20 or 30 times over the course of a weekend, it helps to formulate an answer. Maybe a shorter one would have sufficed, but that's more for your benefit than my own, and at the end of the day - like everyone else - I need to be able to explain why I would go to the trouble of feeding everyone else to the point where I forget to leave the venue to get a meal for myself.

An answer that doesn't involve drawing attention to my rotund figure, anyway.


III. Everybody's starting to get onto the Grooveshark/Spotify bandwagon down in Australia, but something that's just as good as either is Pandora internet radio.

Like the two aforementioned sites, Pandora has been region-locked to the United States for a while, with Australians using a VPN or other shenanigans to gain access.

It's now available in Australia, and it's sick good.

The principle is that you select a song or artist you like, and an algorithm behind the hood uncovers various traits of the song - influences from electronica, a particular set of vocals or harmonies, the use of certain instruments and so on - to recommend other artists and tracks with similar features that you might like.

It can take a bit of work for Pandora to get a proper handle on what you like - I went from Moves Like Jagger (above) to some song that had similar elements to Gotye's Somebody That I Used To Know, which is a bit like going from driving down the freeway at 100km/hour to switching to a horse and carriage and then being drowned in cement. It makes no sense at all, but then again, try listening to Maroon 5 and then Gotye and you work out the logic between the pair.

On another note, listening to Carly Rae Jepsen ... taller version of Livibee?


Similar? (Sorry for the public nature of this Livi, just thought the comparison was interesting -.-)

IV. Everybody's got tournaments and events down pat - they're not perfect, but we understand the basic principles and the technical requirements of what's needed for players to play - but it's time to start thinking about different ways of bringing things forward.

Enter Livi from stage right, who recently finished the touches on a little book of eSports including plenty of figures from the local scene. I didn't get to read the whole book - I think Livi thought I had a really low opinion of it, particularly after I asked about the spelling of a word on the blurb - but the idea really quite fascinated me.

She didn't know this at the time, but earlier that day HuT and myself ran into a couple of guys from Melbourne who were putting together their own company that had several "projects" in eSports and lots of things they wanted to do. The whole conversation was pretty abstract, but it largely revolved around the perceptions of gaming and the principle that the next route for growing the eSports pie lies in taking it to a more mainstream audience, one that can get people engaged and hooked on the atmosphere and the depth of competition that skips over the image problems of fat pasty nerds that is harboured by so many.

Barcraft's the most obvious example in this regard - it's very easy to enjoy Starcraft when you throw in a few hundred cheering passionate/drunk people (half-naked in HuT's case). Things like Livi's book are another great way of just thinking outside of the box about eSports and Starcraft, taking the latter to a medium that isn't a traditional fit.

Melbourne Symphony Orchestra made a similar comment recently (well, the conductor) when giving an interview to the ABC about the Video Games Unleashed event, which is just the orchestra banging out your favourite tunes from Final Fantasy, Castlevania etc. Apparently the band's still not used to people cheering, laughing and sounding like they're having a good time until the last note, but the idea was the same: take what we do and try and spice it up in a way that can interest a different crowd.

I'm going to go out on a limb and say that Livi's book is probably not going to change the world of eSports (sorry) but the idea really could have some potential. I'm thinking a series of still photographs covering people's passion at events: a picture of Kez with his head on his keyboard after being knocked out of the tournament, a shot of Ray pumping his fist after he took out Glade's hatchery in the second game on Shakuras, people going ballistic at a Barcraft, tgun mid-rage and so on.

You could even just literally call it "Passion" - but the basic principle would be to capture the very visceral, emotional feelings that course through people at an event, the kinds of emotions that people witness, empathise with and experience themselves when they play say, tennis or soccer. But there has to be some way to bridge the gap between the perception of competitive gaming - which is lambasted even among casual gamers - to something more mainstream that Australians could eventually be proud of.

After all, we love our sports. We just need to show that gaming takes just as much effort and skill, but presented in a package that doesn't bore non-fans to tears.

V. Casting's a lot more fun than I expected it to be.

I used to be pretty reluctant to even talk on Teamspeak/Ventrilo/Mumble. I once got told that it was good that I got sick every now and again, because it was the only time I sounded like a man. And I'm pretty camera-shy too, which is understandable when you don't have a killer jawline/Richard's Asian-pulling-polaroid-powers.

I got my first taste with the ACL Online bracket, most of which was largely on my own. I still don't know how that went deep down; when you're innately sceptical, it's difficult to absorb positive reinforcement as anything else than the well-wishes of friends.

It sucks that I only got the one crack at ACL Melbourne, although watching HuT systematically slap Sunder down was entertaining enough, given the fears of most Terrans (and the almost universal dislike of more ZvZ pool play matches).

Any criticism or comments is pretty useful, if you were around to hear the cast. I'd like to know if its something I should do more often if the opportunity presents itself. Casting was something I always wanted to try - now I need feedback to know if I should try it more often.

VI. Random bit of trivia to end tonight's blog - who do you think had the fastest APM at ACL?

There are some pretty obvious candidates. PiG perhaps: he won the event after all and he's pretty bloody good. Glade's a smart pick, and Rossi's certainly no slouch himself. And of course there's the big man himself, TargA.

As it turns out, all of the above, including everybody else it seems, got well and truly schooled by the most surprising candidate.



Just another surprise from what was a fairly surprising weekend.