[dippa]

If you guys don't know already, I have a weekly column that I write about eSports for games.on.net, and for next Sunday's column (which I'm getting started on super early, because I'm leaving for the TA retreat on Wednesday) I'd like to present a compilation of memories.

What are your best memories from playing competitive games? It could be an amazing match you took part in, the miracle of all miracle comebacks, the first time you got to represent your country at an international tournament, the first time you ever got to play on a big stage - anything that just really evokes a physical reaction or makes you crack a smile when you think about it.

It doesn't have to be a super long story, but a couple of paragraphs minimum would be great. (Don't worry about spelling or grammar that much - I can fix it up myself, but make sure it's readable at least!)

If there's some good stories here, I'll pick a few and use them for my column next week! Make sure you start off your memory with your first name and nickname, like this: Alex "dippa" Walker

=)

[TAminimat]

Matt "minimat" Hall

A memory of gaming that makes me smile every time I think about it is when I was playing Black Ops competitively. I had just joined a new team and everyone thought we were shit and would go no where. A few weeks into the season we had won all our games and moved up the ladder to about top 30 where we met mine and the leader of the team's (pRophecy) old team who when we were kicked absolutely abused us with how shit we were. Unfortunately that match our 5th couldn't get on which we found out about 1-2 days before. So we start scrimming 4 vs 5 and didn't win a single map. Going into the match we had some pretty good strats for being a player down. The first map was really close but we ended up loosing by a couple rounds. Second map we were down about 5 rounds but just managed to win it in the end which was a really good effort. Then the last map started after a bunch of shit talking in the lobby, especially from Dv8's clan leader, Hutto (a really bogan ****), and we won defence 7-1. We were feeling pretty good but attack on this map was the only thing we didn't strat so we had no idea. We only had to win 2 rounds but it got to 6-0 their way. We won the second last round without a death. The last round started pretty badly with one of them getting 3 of us with a grenade and I was the only one left. I killed off 4 of them and my heart was beating like crazy and it was me vs hutto. We were shooting at each other around the bomb site and he started to run because the game clock was about 10 seconds and it takes 6 seconds to plant and I didn't have the bomb. I knew where he was going to run to though and just aimed there and with like literally less then 1 second left he popped his head out and I killed him. Was awesome and shit talking the **** out of hutto was great too

[NvPinder]

For me personally it'd just be lanning at friends houses with anywhere from 2-12 people back in early highschool, we'd play games like counter-strike(pre-steam), starcraft (and later wc3) UMS/custom maps, soldat, unreal tournament vanilla, worms and diablo 2 and be up for 24 hours straight just gaming for the love of gaming. There was very little competitive nature to it, everyone constantly laughing/having fun, going through slabs of disgustingly warm coke each... Competitive gaming will never be as much fun as I had when we would play CS_Italy and I'd "team-down" with an auto-shotty (because I actually thought it was the best gun in the game), or when me and my friends would finally beat a team tower defense we'd been playing for 2 hours.

edit; but I guess this is kind of the opposite of the stories you were hoping to hear... But this is just what comes to mind from someone who's been 'competitively gaming' now for like 6+ years across like 5 different games. I envy the bronze-gold newbies who have no idea about any of the competitive scene and just play 4v4 all day laughing/talking shit the whole time.

Quick Comments

	TABottles:	I love to shit talk the na server in 2v2 :D
	TAcawkballs:	<3 old CS Lans!

[inFeZa]

Originally Posted by TAJPMoney

For me personally it'd just be lanning at friends houses with anywhere from 2-12 people back in early highschool

RIP old LAN... T_T

[ikki]

Back in the CS 1.6 Days around 10 years ago, me and some friends went to respawn lan at latrobe uni, known as shafted back then we made our little CS team and got matched against some older guys in Intel shirts they must have been 20 years old, we were all 14 at the time. We lost the match but the highlight was the one round we won with my 1v5 degal team down with no reload, nice to know that you can match it with the big guns so to speak.

[TABottles]

I used to get pretty competitive in Runescape back when it was the shit. Back then I barely played games and achieving 99 in two of the like 18 skills was a huge achievement and gave the primary school me chills for like two weeks. 99 Fletching 99 Hunter !!S?S#@%#$53

Quick Comments

TAminimat:

RS FTW!

[NDG.Stitch]

Haha, I remembered the first time I started casting back in late December in 2010, it was quite awesome. When I came in to sc2sea at that time, there were literally 4 role models for me, there was Unstable, Benji, Phoenix and Kelly. Luckily for me I got to communicate with all 4 of them at that time and I got some really good advice. The first I practiced casting with HDPhoenix, i was SOO nervous. I could barely talk and my hands and throat was all frozen! As I got more help from him, I was suddenly put onto the spot to help cast Code A of SEASL with Kelly, (how would I know that she'd become the GSL co-caster in less than a month?!). After that night I got a lot of positive feedback from the crowd, and all my friends at school went onto the stream, facebook, twitter and all gave me lots of support. It felt like that dream of having support in an online community does come true. That was one of the happiest moments of my gaming life! Hope I get featured :P

[deL]

I have a couple

I remember back when I used to play WarCraft III casually mostly doing well on the 2v2 AT ladder with a mate that came over to my house and played on the second PC, and I had just found out about the competitive scene. It started me getting interested in Solo ladder more and I was especially passionate about the Aussie scene. One time in AUS-1 or a similar chat channel I saw none other than mOOnGLaDe at the top of the list of channel members with his high level and mighty PoTM avatar and I remember being very excited about that and saying hi!

After WarCraft 3 I went in to competitive Guild Wars PvP and GvG. This was the first (and last? xD) game I was truly competitive in, playing with many of the top players, or 2nd tier high level players at the time. I was in a few top100 guilds and won HA many times and this gave me a hunger for competitive gaming that I haven't lost since. The depth, teamwork and thrill of participating in or just following results of these top tier teams was addictive.

My best moments, however, have been in BW. I was introduced to Brood War through now TL mod Pholon after we met on a folk metal forum, of all places. I had played SC1 at LAN before casually in FFA mode but having already played WC3 I overlooked it as a serious game. Pholon introduced me to the pro scene and the GOMtv tournaments with Tasteless and I was instantly obsessed. FlaSh quickly became my favourite player and I practiced on iCCup, with over 350 games played between myself amd Pholon. While I was never even close to being a standout player, iCCup did unlock my real passion for the social side of eSports and also the administrative/organisational aspect as I learned a lot about the Aussie scene and history. I got in to BW just as it had just about lost all popularity within Australia, but legends like Legionnaire inspired me to keep it active and I hosted some Australia and New Zealand tournaments which grew in popularity on iCCup. The best moment was watching all of this unfold and seeing the scene blossom again with a new generation of top players and some of the old players coming back to play - it culminated in the State of Origin series for BW which was my most fun tournament to host to date and I made a lot of friends, and it founded TA. Legionnaire came out of retirement to play in it, and a lot of future SC2 stars could be seen in the rosters! This could probably be identified as the point which lead me to go further with the Australian and now SEA scene and has resulted in me being so involved in it as I am today.

Another SC:BW moment was my first major tournament with big name international players. The prize was a SC2 beta key and it showcased greats like IdrA as well as some lesser known Australian and New Zealand players competing together. It was won by IdrA and I would never have had the confidence to run such an event so smoothly and interact with these top players without the good feedback and support I got from local guys after running the Aus/NZ events.

FXO was another big step that I remember well, as it was the SC2 equivalent of the above tournament with lots of huge GSL names and all the drama and difficulty of having a truly international event across the servers, with big prizepools. A step below that was running Psi Storm 2010 basically solo (though CG admins did help a bit ) with such a huge prizepool ($5000) and major sponsor (WD), just as nerve-wracking but probably not as big an achievement as the FXOpen Invitationals. Paid work after putting in more than 12 months of volunteer administration, writing and graphics work for iCCup and the Aus scene was also very motivating and rewarding.

Outside of being a manager in the scene, the best moment for me as a fan/spectator was at BlizzCon SEA in Sydney. Although I was running it with Dox and riiChard the majority of the week was spent socialising with friends from TA and SEA, making friendships that may last for years with great people. All of this was after a period in which I thought I was growing tired of SC2 and considering giving it up totally to focus on something else.

Quick Comments

TAriiChard:

omg i got mentioned!

[rizE]

Memories of Counter-Strike 1.6 Miles 'rizE' O'Connor

Having played the game for nearing 10 years in total I have some really great memories of playing CS and some not so good ones, and met some of my best friends now in real life through a game. An outsider of hardcore gamers will most likely never understand how big the community was or fierce the competition is just like any 'sport'.

Memories
The first awesome memory I have was joining a team called XR in 2005 in melbourne who were the best team in the state since practically the beginning of CS, if you played CS alot back in those days you wanted to be in XR and you had to be lucky or know someone in the team to get a shot, I guess it was a little bit of both for me. Even though we never won a national competition (coming 2nd at ACON5 losing to f-zer0 was the closest) we didn't lose a comp or bo3 series in Melbourne that entire year, it was one of my favourite teams because I got to play alongside people I groupied in CS (snoopy and destroyer).

Without a doubt the greatest memory I have in CS and gaming entirely for that matter would be representing Australia for the first time overseas in WCG 2007, a feeling you can't quite explain when you have put alot of years and hours into a game and it finally pays off. Everything about that one competition was pretty amazing for me because it was with the most fun and best team in terms of ability i've played with (SQL - rize apoc pupajon soren messi) and being in my hometown of Sydney. We beat our old rivals Immunity to win WCG.au and had some intense games in semi finals vs some other players I used to groupy in StensGaming (dav1o and co). At that stage I didn't think we would 100% win the comp I just knew we had a shot if we played well which we did. Going to America and playing vs the best teams in the world for the first time is something I (and the other SQL guys) will never forget as it was all our first time to play in something as big as that, even though we didn't get out of our group we tried our best and had an amazing time.

Best Game / Comeback
At that same WCG tournament we were placed in quite easily the hardest group in the tournament and had to face up against the #1 team in Denmark (NoA) and #1 French team (emL) also another really good underated team at the time called K23 from Khazakstan. After losing the first game in our group to NoA 16-10 we beat the Colombian team and were up against K23 who had just knocked off emL in a huge upset. Our entire chances of passing through came down to this game and we were in a bad position halfway through losing as the easier side (CT) on de_nuke, one round changed the whole game when we managed to eco them and bring the scores back to 14-14, the final round I was left in a 1v3 rotating to topsite through the lobby, I managed to kill two people and had no time to search for the 3rd person before the bomb would blow, I threw my grenade at the ladder and jumped onto the bomb out of all the places he was up there and we won the round and the game and kept our chances alive, everytime I think about that I get a smile on my face.

In the end we weren't good enough to pass through our group after we lost badly to emL but we finished the groups with our heads held high after being 3W 2L and finding out later that emL won the entire competition and NoA came 2nd with K23 the only team to beat emL that weekend.

The End d.

[Sedz]

So you're the fabled Sunday eSports guy
I'm Jnr, don't know if you've seen me around at all, been there for a good few years.

Probably the best memory I've had came in the middle of last year, at Red Flan Lanfest, the biggest LAN event in WA. So I was competing in SC2. I was a mere platinum player, there with the AsG crew and Mr.Yang. So, I was knocked to losers in the first round by a delayed sentry 4gate, I felt enraged, and left without a gg. At this point in time, as many zergs will know, zerg had a ton of trouble dealing with protoss deathballs, so I wasn't feeling too confident having already vs'd a protoss first round and being knocked to losers. At one point in the day, I was talking to yang and I was like 'Looks like I probably won't get to vs you, you're lucky' and he was like 'All you have to do now is win every match in loser's then lose to me in the finals', sounds good I said. Anyways, my next few matches went by pretty quickly, 2 terrans a zerg, and then I found myself facing one JesseYL, the winner of the last RFlan and a GrandMaster Protoss. So, I was like, I'm so fucked, it's a GM Protoss (Worst MU) and on Xel'Naga. Anyways, I remember saying to myself, let's just try and deal with the 2 base timing, so I did, the 6gate came, I had infestors out in time, I dealt with it, at that point I was super far ahead (He had flown his obs into my spore, so he had no scouting info) I took the gold and my third and proceeded to tech into ultra-ling. All I remember was the final engagement with my lings and ultras running to his gold and clearing everything out, then me re-maxing on 102 lings whilst the whole AsG crew were around me encouraging me . I ended up winning. I then had to play 2 team mates in a row, both which I defeated and I found myself in loser's finals against a Masters Terran. I was playing on stage at RFlan, it was pretty cool for me, I ended up winning 2-0 then I had to face the fabled Yang in the finals. No dramatic story here, he crushed me 3-1, anyways, I took second at RFlan. It's pretty big for me because at the time I was only platinum but felt I was getting better at the game, and I showed it that day.

Quick Comments

	iM yang:
	Nemo:	Nice story :)

[jayaiwhy]

hmm I have a memorable story

So it was December 2011, my family went on a holiday to Korea. We stayed at my uncles place, and I spent most of the time playing Starcraft II on my laptop, while watching BroodWar on TV on the side. (Korea isn't really that fun when you come with your family)

I literally played 8 hours straight for about a week and a half straight, laddering up on SEA, trying to get promoted to Masters. I was reading TGM (The Grandmaster Manual) and watching lots of replays of pro players. Then one of those days, I was lurking around TeamLiquid, and I found out that WCG 2011 Grand Finals was to be held in Busan, Korea. Luckily, where I stayed was only an hour train away from the venue!

I found out about this WCG event just the night before, and I made my way to Busan the next day. I got my TeamLiquid shirt on, and my DSLR around the neck, I was excited.

Memorable moments at WCG for me was seeing all the pro players. MVP, IdrA, Sen and our very own mOOnGLaDe and Nirvana! I really felt like a stalker taking photos of the players, but come on, who wouldn't when you have a $2000 camera hanging off your neck ^^

IdrA was the first one I approached, oh god, how I was so nervous to approach to the foreign star of Zerg, and also that fact that he's bad mannered .___. I asked him for a photo together, and although he sounded like he had no emotions, I had a nice photo taken by his manager(?)

Besides the times when I watched MVP vs Splendour & XiGua vs Kas on the big screen, I was pretty much spending my time watching mOOnGLaDe's play. It was quite awkward standing on one spot and staring at a monitor of someone playing a game...

When the day was about to end, I finally approached Nirvana, I noticed his sc2sea.com shirt, and that's how I recognized him. I asked him for an autograph on my Razer headset. Oh how cute he was, he wanted to practice his signature before signing onto my headset ^^ Then we chat for a bit, and he introduced me to mOOnGLaDe, and also got a signature from him too They were both really nice and friendly...

Then I ended the day with abit of chat with Sen, and an autograph from FnaticMoon.

It was kind of bloggish but yup, that's my memorable day in Starcraft II. Seeing the best players around the world, taking lots of photos and most importantly, motivated me to get better at this game...Hopefully I'll see all those people on ladder one day

Quick Comments

nirvAnA:

<3

[TARane]

Beer Dota. a can per 3 deaths... was great - laughs all around
back in the day, we asians dont have much opportunity to play games at home (parents and whatnot).
Initially the LANs were just a form of pregame for most friday nights, but eventually we brought the party to us and ended the nights with heads 'smashed' on keyboards .

Quick Comments

TABottles:

I would be completely trashed in one game