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The original was posted on /r/starcraft by /u/Weekly-Ostrich-1791 on 2024-05-22 14:41:46+00:00.
I was always a gamer. I've personally been playing video games since age 4, and I love them. I was always better than my cousins and friends, because I always believed video games were a test of wills, and I believe my will is unbreakable. I was introduced to Starcraft by a friend from my 8th grade middle school, Chad, who had let me borrow the disc and either forgot about it or didn't care to get it back for almost 6 months (I think). It was my first time being introduced to online, competetive gaming, and the first time that I wasn't the best around. I was instantly in love. I quickly realized clans were where it was at, all members sharing a prefix or suffix tag to symbolize their membership. So I went searching for anyone that would have a n00b like me.
I found Ultimate Races, {UR}, after personally playing a couple good 1v1s, or 2v2s with my closest friend of the clan, Hydra{UR}, who later used the name De(V)oN{UR}. His real name is Jay. He asked if I could join, after my incessant hounding. C-Zero{UR} was our leader. He was the best of us (at the time), and was exactly what you'd expect as a leader. The strong silent type, he wasn't prone to the chit chat of the rest of the clan, but I remember he was a beast with Zerg. Other members that I remember were Omar, who was like co-leader or underboss (Sorry Omar, I can't think of ur gamertag right now) and JRowan{UR}. My tag was Black_Lotus{UR}.
It was the time of dial-up modems, when there was no deep web or surface web, and everyone was using AOL. A time of Icq and Napster, and Winamp and .mp3s. I never wanted to be a pro more at any game (not even COD, and I was top 30 weekly in BO1 for Xbox 360). I literally wasted 5 years of my life playing almost 12-16 hours daily. I once made a girl sit naked in my bed while I finished a 50 minute game, that I expected to be over in 15. I shouldn't be that proud of admitting this, but I totally am. Cause we still banged, and she actually waited without much protest. I always loved how respected the elite, gosu players and clans of the times were. A time before replays, where u literally had to know a friend of a friend who was either participating, or spectating in order to get one of the coveted 6 boxseats to view a 1v1 between 2 legendary players. By boxseats I mean choosing terran, destroying your scvs down to 1 left with 5hp, and lifting off to a corner while the competitors allied and gave u vision to enjoy the show. God bless the person who invented the observer map, which finally offered 12 spectator seats, I think, in addition to whoever was playing, without requiring you be in the game, and which also revealed the entire map without fog.
If you werent privy to Clan -x17's channel (or clan chatroom), you probably wound up in the Ladder channel, where the famous SCers clan used to hang their hats. I believe it was SCCHeMy who got me the invite to obs a game of LiquidDrone Vs X'Ds~Kiwi, and I was giddy as a schoolgirl because X'Ds~ was the most famous clan I knew of, and Team Liquid was newly formed with few members, who were known by reputation to all be individual giant slayers. Drone was my personal favorite player, as a local server legend who was still seen and talked about often, because he mingled with the public. Honestly, I can't tell u what Drone did for the SC community, it's immeasurable. Eri, if u read this, you're my personal hero and the reason I gave my life to this game for 5 years straight. Because I wanted to wear the Liquidbadge so bad, and wanted to be good enough for you to personally acknowledge and respect me. Thank you for the drive, for the forums, and for personally organizing competitions and your own seasonal league that literally replaced battle.net's own ladder system. God I forget what it was called, but the entire world took part, with national flags and everything!! You ARE Team Liquid to me. Nazgul might've gotten more famous, and that always pissed me off because you were ahead of the curb before replays came around and stole everyone's secret build orders and caught up to u, but u took so much time into helping and building and giving back to the community that it's a shame your name isn't on a plaque in gold letters somewhere.
I was so excited when I was finally good enough, and kept good company enough, to be given the invite to Clan -x17's channel, where ALL the big boys played. Local legends like Maynard and X'Ds~Grrrr..., LiquidNinja along with LiquidNazgul, long before he donned the [pG], SCMarine and SCF!R3B@t~ (hope I got that right) and legit anyone who was anyone were there chillin' like it wasn't a big deal. Names that inspire greatness, that are in SC history FOREVER, and I was apart of it. Quietly sitting there in utter awe, hoping I wasn't noticed and banned for being a weak link, secretly bugging Maynard and Grrrr... for a match with my annoying whispers, chomping at the bit for a chance to test my prowess. I played X'Ds~KiWi in an online tourney once, TvZ, I think, me T. Got smoked. Might've been under my EchoOfDreaMs tag. I was upset because I'm a P player, but I had a really good TvP game, and someone tipped me incorrectly, saying he was playing P at the time, though I remember he played Z vs Drone. I wish I had just played my P, cause that's always been my race. And I take pride in that, because P was long considered the weakest of the 3 in tournament play, at the time having never won a championship since season 1 with Grrrr... That is, until Oops[Reach], the material toss, gave us something to believe in. I personally smurfed under the tag MaterialToss on U.S. West vanilla because I heard they called him that due to his insane macro and for hotkeying like 5 gates (I personally only hotkeyed 3 to 4 on keys 5-8).
I myself always believed my macro was phenomenal. It had to be, because my micro is what made me quit competitive play, and I ruled U.S. West under the name iDoMiNaTe, a tag I stole from [CREW]iDoM on U.S. East, cause the name was fitting. I never claimed to be him, and actually ran into [CREW]Arrow once on a rare East server appearance for me after moving West, and asked if iDoM still played and that no disrespect was intended. He told me he didn't personally think [CREW]iDoM played anymore, but I paid my respects. Your name on Starcraft was everything, and games and 1v1s were so hyped that many famous players, and make no mistake, I became famous on U.S. West in the vanilla community under iDoMiNaTe, played incognito on smurf accounts, and I would never claim to be another player.
I remember when I knew, without a doubt, that I was the top dawg around on pub servers, when familiar server players started challenging me. Ling...br00dling??? He was an active member and had some respectability, though he talked like he was amazing. He goaded me once, talking smack for a good hour, trying to get a game. He had remembered me from like a year or 2 before and was saying I was a nobody, and not that strong. Small thing to a giant, but I finally agreed to 1v1 him, and I mopped him in a PvZ in under 20. I look back now, and realize that was the highest form of honor I could've gotten, and what I must've looked like to Eriador (Drone) and Maynard a year or 2 before. Some months later, I saw him again and he had a link to a tourney he had played that he won (of course, showboating as always) with some player under the tag ThePrelate (iDoMiNaTe), as a runner up. I was personally offended that he thought or assumed it was me, cause it wasn't. I said something to him personally. Like dude, that wasn't me and I'm more than a litte upset u thought it was please take it down or fix it. He kinda shrugged it off, but that's how important your handle and identity on Starcraft was.
So now that I've given most of my history as an amateur SC player, I'll tell u why I quit. For 1, I met and played Artosis personally at the 2002, I'm pretty sure it was 2002, state qualifiers at Comp USA in Braintree, MA. HoVz, a name that disappeared into obscurity, had won the previous year in 2001, with Artosis coming in second at that time. I live in Lowell, MA, and Braintree was almost an hour and a half away for me, and I had to go through Boston to get to it. Anyway, I finally got there in 2002, playing under the name I had been most known as, iDoMiNaTe. My best friend came with me for moral support. We blazed a joint of some bomb skunk weed in the parking lot before it began, to settle the nerves amd take the edge off, and I came in reeking of some dank nugz. I believe they'd say that stuff was LOUD AF nowadays, and I got quite a few glares. Fuck em, I do what I want. I want to stress that I never enjoyed BW. I prefer the balance of original SC, casually known as vanilla. But I knew if I wanted to be pro, I had to play it. I got slaughtered by KiWi in that tourney, not just cause of the TvZ matchup, but also because I didn't have the right balance of units and he came in with more lurkers than I expected. Even though I expected some, the amount was overwhelming and I had marines with range/medics, and teched fast to science vessels with irradiate. I was missing a key component, though. If I had included firebats and had brought siege tanks, and waited to tech to vessels with irradiate later on, it'd have been diff. I think I lost to Liquid`Ninja in the same tourney, double elim, to a DT (Dark Templar) rush. He went right for my c...
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