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It's been a while since I blogged, so I decided to write one.

So November 2012, I went to MLG Dallas and worked for Quantic Gaming as their photographer.

My first face to face encounter with them was in a suite room at a hotel that we stayed. As I entered, Gwin (the interviewer) was getting ready to interview Brandi (Brightside).

There I met Ian, the one who I've been contacting on email to make this whole thing happen, and his couple of thousands of recording equipment that he had set up for the interview content they post on their YouTube. My first impression was pretty much "Holy ****, these guys are loaded"

Fast forward a bit, we decided to meet at the venue when the doors opened. So I had free time so I was tweeting at Mafia to meetup and we (Mafia, tgun, light + a guy from iM whom I forgot the name of) had breakfast on the first floor. Even though it was my first time meeting them, they were very approachable, oh, and same goes for the Quantic people.

After that, I collected my MLG Media Pass that Quantic has organised me, and wondered around taking general crowd photos. There were insane numbers of people lining up for Halo 4 Teams sign up, as it was (I think for majority anyway) the first time that these people gets to play Halo 4.

At this stage, I haven't met many players yet. The iM guys, Maximusblack and think was it so far.

I proceeded to chill around the venue, wondering around press rooms, and killing time until the doors opened for the players and press staffs.

The doors opened for us, and I got to enter before the spectators. I was carrying heavy ass lens and started snapping away at everything in the venue. I was, (and still is) quite noob about lighting, etc, so I was playing around with the ISO, white balance, etc.

Eventually more players streamed in, and my pace increased as well. I thought I'd be overwhelmed by all the faces, but surprisingly, I wasn't. They looked just like what I saw on streams. Only exception are probably Polt, Bomber and Stardust. They were so tiny ._____.

If I write about everything that happened, this blog would probably turn into a 60 page essay, so I'm just going to highlight it.

tgun vs MC
It was a series I was looking forward to. Prior to the game, tgun tipped me that he'd go for a proxy hatchery on Cloud Kindgom. I was excited, who wouldn't be? Unluckily, MC scouted with a probe, and took the last game of the set. I could see the emotion coming flowing through tgun, I felt as if I was guilty of something (no, I didn't MC), but that's just how I felt watching him. Hard to explain it in words.

flo vs incontrol

This was a saddening set as well. I first talked to her after flo vs MC set, and she seemed fine then. Talking about how MC beat her with a phoenix build, introducing each other, etc.

I was going around taking photos, as I should have been. I noticed a big crowd surrounding incontrol and flo. Flo was going through a nervous breakdown and was in tears. This was when she was 1 game down against incontrol. Smix and Garrett (player manager for Quantic) was comforting her. The other players who were spectating their game looked pretty concerned as well. Except for MajOr, he was being MajOr and telling people that she was crying (lol). The set had to be paused, until she sulked up, eventually winning the 2nd game and losing the last, resulting in 1-2 loss. This, and tgun's made me remember that these "professional players" are still humans. Frustration, sadness, happiness, it was all part of the game. It's hard to see these things when you just watch streams, it was really something.

mafia vs rossi
I literally stopped taking photos to watch this series. I grabbed a seat and sat behind mafia, along with the iM guy whose name I forgot ;; The game was so intense, I was literally covering my mouth with my hands, something I wouldn't do naturally. I actually didn't know that I was doing this, until after the game, the iM guy told me that I was doing so. This was when I got to experience the joy of being a spectator. It's not only the players that have the emotions running through them, but also the viewers. This was probably the first time I really enjoyed watching a game, from my heart (no homo)

Also should mention that MC vs Glade was another set that I literally said "**** it" and sat down to watch. That shit cray. Glade 2 - 1 MC

So those were the highlights (gamewise) Other highlights would have to include...

-Dinner with Steve the media guy, Connor the writer, Golden and Apoc at Subway, encountering a twin sandwich makers, whom had no ideas about Starcraft. Trying to explain who Golden and Apoc were was fun ^^

-Dinner with Quantic + Scarlett + Leiya

-Walking to the after party with Golden, stc and Ddoro

-Watching MLG Streams, 100m away from the venue in a hotel room with Garrett (the manager), Steve
and Ian, all on our phones and iPads.

-Watching all the interviews being filmed

-Meeting FXO.SeekeR (Translator for MLG) and Silverfire (Teamliquid photographer)

-Meeting theognis for the first time, while he was intoxicated (with a damaged foot)

-Everize not shutting the **** up about the photos he took on his iPhone with Apoc.

-That Apoc is probably the most friendly out of everyone I met there, that guy is a total bro.

-That Golden was a total bro too, as you guys may have seen him on NASL4.

-Hwangsin, that guy, has really good English and always waved at me when he saw me. (Didn't tell him I was Korean until the very last day hueahuea)

-All the Nv guys, so chilled. Especially YYJ, that guy, I'm disappointed to meet him at his last event

-Ofcourse, also the iM guys. Meeting up through twitter, having breakfast together, you guys better come back to another MLG.

-Finally, meeting TubbyTheFat from Infinity Seven. This is probably the most important thing that happened to met over at Dallas (NO HOMO)

So, here, I'll end the first part of the blog about Dallas.



Moving on,

I joined the Promotions Team for Quantic after MLG, basically coming up with ideas as to how to promote the sponsors, etc. Every Thursday, we (keyhunt from xSix, Mark Ferraz, and other guys) would hop on Skype and talked about sponsors, etc. It was a whole new experience, getting to learn about sponsorships and what not.

Then came IPL5, which I was suppose to attend but somethings happened and couldn't go. I think it was the 2nd day of IPL, Mark Ferraz, the CEO and founder of Quantic messaged me on Skype and asked me if I wanted to grab some drinks. It ended up with Mark coming over to my house (we live 15minutes away) and chilled. It was probably the biggest wtf moment I had in my life. One moment, I'm watching IPL streams, and nekminnit, CEO of my favourite team is at my house .____.

I could tell that he seemed tired, and we (my parents included) started talking about "eSports" It was a whole new thing for my parents, and yet at the same time, it wasn't. Running a team is very much like a normal business, except there is no such thing as a guideline. I could tell how much passion Mark had in Quantic. He even showed me new player expectations that he had in plan for the coming weeks (basically a list of things that players must do in a month). A couple of weeks back, I, kind of bitched about Quantic to the CEO himself, that players really need to do more self promotion. The expectations that he had printed, he told me, was based on what I said. I was quite happy that Quantic was going to grow even more.

He even told me top secret information that Blizzard has planned to happen in 2013. I cannot share this one, but be excited ^___________________^

He was like, I guess, Peter Pan. A boy that never grew up. He was so passionate about Quantic, especially his Call of Duty team. That guy really loves Quantic.

Rest of the night, he showed us videos on YouTube of his CoD team on his iPad, sang Karaoke 3 in the morning (wut). It was overall fun. Weird, but it was something new. I learnt a lot about the scene in just couple of hours.

Few days later, Quantic disbanded.

Ofcouse, having heard all the great plans that he had in 2013, this was shocking. A joke? Is Illusion leaving Quantic? They were the first thoughts.

I'm not going to go in detail about this matter, but it was a sad day.


As funny as it may sound, I was "team-less"

Quantic were the first friends I had made over in US, and seeing them disband was really upsetting to me as well.



Going back a bit in time, after Dallas, I started to play Dota everyday with iSTubby, eventually also CaliberLight and Thundertoss.

I was spending my days playing Dota, Skyping and making jokes with them. We became, in Tubby's words, "bros"

Thundertoss, out of generosity, has been giving me coaching (spartan style coaching, holy shit, this guy makes you realize how terrible you are) and I can already feel that I'm improving.

To save some typing, Tubby started playing HotS with me, and is coming over to live at my house in February to practice HotS full time with me.

I'm kind of tired now, so I'm going to wrap it up.

Goal for this year, is to go big scale. **** "I'm going to be Top 16 GM!" "Going to be a better player! hueuhe" Nope. My plan is to travel. Go to events. How? Joining a professional team.

My first event will be in March, MLG Dallas 2013.

With practice partner like iSTubby, and coaching from iSThundertoss, my plan (before the upcoming MLG Dallas) is to join a team. There are infinite number of clans and teams out there in the scene, but my mind is only set on one team ^^ Things are already looking good, I just need to do what I am doing now for the next few month, and I'll join a team.

hokeh, tired, peace, bai.

ps.
#fuckblizzard HotS patches makes me want to cry. Korhal City is a trash map. Do something about maphackers in HotS. Fix the match history bugs. Someone preorder me HotS, I'm poor.

kk, bai.

excuse grammar, spelling, blah. no proofreading, #yolo