[Crankenstein]

I'm training about 4 hours a day at the moment for IntoStarcraft and the UQ vs UNSW competition that The University of Queensland Starcraft Society is thinking of organising for ext semester.

I'm no pro either... these are just the hours I have to put in to compete on an 'amateur/social' level.

Also, it depends what you mean by "training"

There is a difference between playing ladder for 4 hours and (for example) playing 6 minute custom games repeatedly for 4 hours where you bunker rush a zerg and quit as soon as it succeeds/fails on one specific map. Or one rax fast expand against a 4gate and try and work out how to hold it etc.

And It's possible to do both... Spanishiwa is only 17 and still in school and he's fairly successful/famous.

[ETL.Santi]

I think that if you wanna go pro you should get a korean account and see your real skill. Then after training hard for a couple of months you would be able to play random name koreans and prob some day the top 200.

[HDPhoenix]

As I'm the oldie on the site, would just like to give my 2 cents on this.

We are hard-wired to be challenged, to make things difficult. That is why the definition of a game is the voluntary action to overcome UNNECESSARY obstacles. Golf means the ball has to go in the hole? Walk 500m away then hit it with a stick, you CAN'T just drop it in the hole. Basketball means getting the ball in the hoop? Move the hoop 10 feet in the air then. Take any sport, any games and there are set rules, set LIMITATIONS to make the game harder.

Ironically, we wish our lives to be harder, not easier. Imagine if zealots had 20 range and 100dmg and one-shotted everything. That wouldn't be fun. That would be boring, like cheat-coding your way to victory. No, we want our damn zealot to be slower than a worker unit, then be insulted by marauder slow even more. That way, the charge upgrade feels good, even better when my zealots creams your marine/tank line.

In our minds, we want life to be easy. In reality, we want it to be harder, to be challenged.

The problem is, school is too easy, too boring. There is no challenge, just a bunch of memorized bits of information we'll never probably use. That's the main reason why people do badly in school. It isn't fun. It isn't a game

However, you can take what you learnt from gaming and apply it to school. Make school more difficult. 20 dumb facts to remember for History? Make it into a song that MUST rhyme. Math equations too hard? Cover it up, start a timer and answer it in 30secs or LESS. Science experiments too complicated in the lab? Do the pouring while standing on one leg. Anything really that makes your life harder, with rules that limit you

I know its crazy, but challenge yourself with UNNECESSARY obstacles and it'll become a game. Games are hard-wired to be fun. Remember when we were kids and bored at the mall following our parents? Well, we made up a game that you could only step on white squares, not black or you "die". Or like classic hide-n-seek. If you truly wanted to find people, you wouldn't close your eyes but you did, for 30secs, counting out LOUD before you went looking for them.

Give this a try, and see if it works for you. I know it does for me. In my work, I often make mental games for mind-maps and when I do directions, a map style like CounterStrike forms in my brain. When I meet clients and have to remember names, I associated terms with their face that MUST start with the same letter like "Fat-faced Fred" or "LOL Lucy" (yeah, I know, I'm mean to my clients, so sue me =O)

TLR, life is boring. Make it fun and you'll enjoy school/work alot more

p.s. If you devote those 4 extra hours to school, you would be a scholar and get a 6digit job. The problem is school is boring and games are fun. Time to make school fun then, rather than scrap a 4digit job through gaming =X

Quick Comments

Crankenstein:

[Next_rim]

When I meet clients and have to remember names, I associated terms with their face that MUST start with the same letter like "Fat-faced Fred" or "LOL Lucy"

Whoa, excellent tip. I'm soo bad with my clients' names.

also what team did u play for?

Empire. It was wc3l season 5 qualifiers, loser's bracket vs n!faculty. I was a secondary backup UD in division 3. Got lucky to play in the first place

[Benji]

Phoenix, singing songs and turning school into a game since 2011.

Quick Comments

	nirvAnA:	lmao!!!!!
	ke_ivan:	LOL!

[Strafe]

Don't give up anything you are doing. Pour as much time as you find enjoyable into the game and see where it takes you. That makes a lot more sense than speculating about something tough as becoming a 'pro'. Whatever that is anyway.

[staLcHiLd]

Play as much as you like per day, its all up to you, the more you play the better you will be. just stay away from assholes like del and you'll be good

[HDPhoenix]

Originally Posted by Benji

Phoenix, singing songs and turning school into a game since 2011.

QFT, who's up for class?

[duanloves]

5 games on a weekday and 10 games on a weekend.
I usually stop playing when i have losing streak of 3 or more

[Mezza]

p.s. If you devote those 4 extra hours to school, you would be a scholar and get a 6digit job.

I'd like to dispel the notion that being a scholar would get you a 6 digit job, and that by inference that studying hard will make you 'successful' in life.

Firstly, there are very few "scholars" in their 30s-40s who are hauling in 6digit per month paychecks. If you're honestly looking for that kindof pay, you've got better odds NOT being a scholar.

Which brings us back to the previous point phoenix made, studying hard in school. A basal amount of studying is needed for anyone in this modern day and age to be literate and educated enough to at least make a sustainable (or close to) amount of money to feed ourselves. That being said, studying is not the be all and end all of "success" in life.

Most of my friends who are government scholars hardly enjoy the work they do. They hardly do anything directly related to what they've studied in the Uni, which they've picked out of interest/prestige, and these people are literally the cream of the crop, studied their guts out and at the end of the day, only making 4-maybe low 5 digits a month at around ~30 years of age. At the other extreme end of the scale, I've got friends who didn't get straight As, no S papers, or whatever they call it nowadays, living it up in Manhattan. So clearly, a base amount of booksmarts is important, but its not the be all and end all of it.

So what about the rest of the guys who aren't scholars? (Which I'm guessing is majority of the world.) Some lucky few get to enjoy what they do for a living, and this should be a small minority (they're either absofuckinglutely clueless about what life is, or just incredibly ******* lucky), but the rest of the world would trudge along through life working in a shit job which probably makes the real money for someone sitting around on a beach chair somewhere sipping a cocktail with a slice of pineapple and a mini umbrella while getting a massage from some exotically hot babes, apologies, I digress.

But the point is, majority of the world doesn't find much satisfaction in their jobs, so they turn to other endeavours. So enter Starcraft. People play this game for different reasons, but if you've already told yourself that you're never gonna go pro then here's some advice, just play it as a game and enjoy it, let it be your pressure valve, get online, have a couple of games for fun, blow steam off, and head back to your mundane day job. And let it be your distraction till the awesomelyorgasmicmindblowingfulfilling job comes along. And in your context, that probably means sucking it up and just putting in the regular hours everyday to hit your books, not to become a scholar mind you, but more like to prevent you from becoming a useless turd for the rest of your life.

p.s. SONATA, I'm speaking in the context of a Singaporean, not too sure where you're from, but hey, if there's a country which pays scholars (and cabinet ministers) more than ours, please let me know.

Quick Comments

nirvAnA:

[Next_rim]

Looks like an unsatisfied average frustrated chut^

People don't play games because they hate their jobs. Or because they come home so angry and frustrated that they have to blow steam off. They play games to differentiate their activities. Doing different contrasting things appears to be the foundation of a happy life.

But hey, if you feel like you need to pwn someone just to feel better, cuz at work you get shit on, it's time to change your employer.

[Mezza]

next, true, I may have worded the part about people hating their jobs abit too harshly, but nevertheless, its generally true that most people don't find their jobs satisfying, because sad fact is that, for the majority of the world, they exist to do a job that will make someone richer than themselves, or they're time is the one being leveraged on.

however, I do agree with you on your point about doing contrasting things.

and as for starcraft, I guess I didn't mean blowing off steam literally, but as a way to unwind and have fun after work, sure, why not.

and as for being an average frustrated chut, maybe you're right but in the small little contruct of my own mind, I love my current job (and I think I'm a lucky as hell to have gotten it), and testament to that fact is the lack of time I'm spending here on the site compared to as before, and my ever growing bonus pool.

the post I made before however was more to dispel the whole notion on how study hard = scholarship = success, because you should always, always walk into everything with your eyes wide open

Quick Comments

SONATA:

[johnnyli]

I'm no pro but i play about 20-30 games a day during tafe breaks. and about 5ish games during tafe days.