Christopher:

Hello listeners. My name is Christopher Lopez and I’ll be your host for a brand-new podcast that the starcraft observer is releasing. You may have seen the Starcraft observer on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram posting various types of Starcraft related content. From beautiful works of fan art of our favorite Starcraft heroes to beautiful crafted objects such as 3d printed battle cruisers, handcrafted miniature Reavers, and keyboard caps in the form of a probe or a dark shrine. Those are just a few of the beautiful, crazy creations that I've come across each day. Each day with someone creating something unseen or unheard. And this got me thinking about these wonderful creators. 

Why haven't I heard this story?

So this is what I'm trying to change and attempting to do. Creating a podcast where we just don't talk about the community but rather to the community. Over the course of this podcast, we'll be bringing you audio stories about the amazing, talented and gifted individuals within the Starcraft community which includes you, the very person listening to this podcast. Thank you. Now unfortunately, we at The StarCraft Observer have faced a lot of delays due to a lot of personal reasons. Life is just too unpredictable these days. And this podcast has been in the making for about a year now and our season is not quite ready, so sorry.

But today we'll be showcasing a segment that we're not quite sure what to call yet. And we'll basically be asking the Starcraft community a question. And if they're up for a short interview, not only will they get to share their response, but we will get to know them a bit. Think of it like opening up the phone lines and having people call in.

Well, we did this last month, we asked the community it's very first question. 

Why do you love starcraft? 

Alright, enough rambling. Let's just get straight into the interviews, and just a warning. There's a bit of mild swearing throughout this episode. So if you have kids around, you may want to listen later time.

[Discord Ringing]

[Discord Joined Call]

Seb:

Hello?

Christopher:

Hi.. Seb?

Seb:

Hey, can you hear me clear?

Christopher:

Yeah, you sound really, really good. Before we get into it, can you introduce yourself?

Seb:

Yeah, so my name is Sebastian. I currently live here in West Point, New York. And I've been a gamer for a really long time.

Christopher:

And how did you...how did you first hear about StarCraft?

Seb:

So...I play a lot of games. And realtime strategy games are the very first type of games that I got hooked. I remember playing this game called, I don't know if got popular in the US, but it's called Battle Realms. It's like a an RTS game as well. Where you collect rice and water for resources. After that, I played Warcraft 3, so I got really hooked into Warcraft 3, so I decided to check out Some of the other Blizzard games. That's where I stumbled upon the first Starcraft game.

Christopher:

So like I said I like strategy. And also I like, I like space, you know, futuristic stuff. space. Have you ever played Mass Effect? Right...So you had the RTS bug way before like Starcraft.

Seb:

Yeah.

Christopher:

That's awesome man!

Seb:

 But I remember about much about the first game. I remember only playing through the campaign and then a couple of custom games with the AI. And I didn't really get into it until I started playing Starcraft 2.

Christopher:

And what was it about Starcraft that appealed to you? Yeah, yeah,

Seb:

Yeah, yeah.

Christopher:

So that, that whole universe of being in space and the action like for it to be an RTS is like, Whoa, it has all the things that I love about a game in one.

Seb:

Yeah, it makes you think like, could this really be what happens in the future?  like if we really meet aliens?

Christopher:

laughter

Seb:

Is it gonna be like this?

Christopher:

Yeah, yeah.  Is that is that what you hope for one day?  like for us to be like in space and like for this to be like a real thing?

Seb:

I feel like humanity should be really focused on you know, space exploration you know, gathering all the funding because the earth is not gonna last long. All the stars in danger birds don't last forever.

Christopher:

Yeah, yeah, no, that's very true

Seb:

million years ahead that the suns eventually gonna die. So eventually we're gonna have to find a way to... you know to move out or I guess we die.

Christopher:

No, no, no. We just got to move out. I think that's it. laughter So the reason why you love this game so much because it has all your favorite elements and you love RTS. Where were you when you first heard about Starcraft II?

Seb:

I was still in the Philippines at that time. But I never really get to play it. I only got to watch it because at that time, you'd have to pay for it and I didn't get a job until I got here in the US. And the first time I played Starcraft II myself was back in. I think It was 2017? While I was still in Texas for my training in the military,

Christopher:

And what's, what's your favorite part about this game? Starcraft II that is.

Seb:

I really like how it's so balanced, you know, even though there's a little bit of salt, the other race, I play Terran it's very micro intensive, but I really like the...how they look. Y'know, Space Marines.

Christopher:

Do you feel like a connection with the Space Marines?

Seb:

Oh, yeah, yeah, sure. You know,

Christopher:

and it's because of your background too.

Seb:

Yeah, I wonder if that's gonna come up with upcoming U.S. Space Forces.

Christopher:

I'll be on the lookout for you, man. You're gonna be the first space marine, dude.

Seb:

Yeah.

Christopher:

All right. Well, thank you very much for talking to me, man. Have a good one. Yea h, you too. Thank you Alrite. Bye!

[Discord End Call]

[Discord Ringing]

[Discord Joined Call]

Christopher:

Hello, hello!

Glen:

Hello.

Christopher:

Hi Glen. How's it going?

Glen:

Not too bad, how are you?

Christopher:

Doing  well, doing well. Um... so where are you calling from?

Glen:

 I am calling from Maine.

Christopher:

How did you first encounter starcraft?

Glen:

Um, so.... I started playing World of Warcraft first. I played, I think it was "Warlords of Draenor" and I saw Starcraft on sale. I think it was like 40% off or something like that. And I said, You know what? I'm give it a try. Started playing it. I didn't understand a damn thing. I hop right into multiplayer. I didn't take the time to like learn anything. Like before actually having a knowledge of what the units could do with like campaign or how the game works in campaign. I just kind of hopped in completely new to the genre game and I put it down for two years after that one day.

Christopher:

You're just like completely traumatized. Like there's too much going on.

Glen:

Oh, yeah. It was god awful.

Christopher:

So when you came back, what race did you choose?

Glen:

Uh, I chose Zerg.

Christopher:

What was it about the game that just like, drew you back?

Glen:

Yeah, it reminded me of playing with my little army men as a kid, actually, it kind of reminded me a lot of Terran even though I don't really play Terran or understand it, you know, trying to like, imagining each one was an actual character and having each army man go from point A to point B, I set up Lincoln Logs and my Legos and things like that. I'd always captured my imagination. If there's a game like that, where I could like, take every unit that I wanted, have them go to point A point B, point C, have them rally here, there, things like that. And I didn't understand that as a kid. And I didn't know that until, unfortunately, in my late teens, 18...19 years old, so...

Christopher:

and you decided Zerg instead of the Terran race?

Glen:

 Yeah!

Christopher:

What was that?

Glen:

I think, Zerg, just felt more natural. I like the appeal of Terran. I do play it every once in a while, but I can't. I just I can't wrap my head around Terran at all. But Zerg kind of felt more fluent, more natural. And I started to understand it a little bit better just because I had someone teaching me. Literally standing over my shoulder telling me, "Hey, put this down, put that down, you'll be better off prepared for this or that..." and things like that. So it helped out a lot in that sense. It made me kind of push more towards playing Zerg.

Christopher:

That's so cool. And what was it about the you know, when you encountered starcraft? What was it that appealed to you about it?

Glen:

Oh, dude, it's a gorgeous game. I'm extremely competitive just from high school sports. I've never lost my need to compete. I always it's not an I want to win it's and I have to win. And Starcraft gives me that.....It's...it's me or you feeling that you really only get in a 1v1 and like Call of Duty or something like that.

Christopher:

Right

Glen:

It's always 1v1. When you're playing ranked. Yeah, yeah.  You don't have to rely on anyone but yourself on making mistakes.

Christopher:

Wait, are you playing right now?

Glen:

I'm currently not. I'm uh, I'm on CS:GO.

Christopher:

Oh wow. So you're playing CSGO and you're doing this interview that's cool. How do you do that?

Glen:

I...I...multitask kind of well sometimes in the talking sense in first person shooters. I used to play a lot, a lot of Call of Duty way back when. Way too much time logged when I had no family, no time.

Christopher:

And Is that why you like Starcraft II? Because it's like multitasking to the max.

Glen:

Yes, it keeps me focused in. In Call of Duty, the only thing that I felt would hold me back was if I wasn't staying hydrated; wasn't drinking enough water, that was the only thing if I didn't have a bottle of water next to me all the time... I was gonna lose a game or lose around or something like that. But in Starcraft, I can be hungry, I can be thirsty. But there's nothing better than the hunger for someone else's ladder points.

Christopher:

Is there anybody that you'd love to give a shout out to?

Glen:

My buddy Sebastian Darling was the one that was coaching me actually back to get to gold. He kind of got me into it, kept telling me I'm an idiot for doing this, an idiot for doing that, and not sticking to his guns and how stupid I'm being. So that definitely help put a foot up my butt to keep working on getting better.

Christopher:

Thank you for doing this interview, man. I really appreciate it.

Glen:

Yeah anytime.

Christopher:

 All right. Well, thank you very much.

Glen:

Yeah. Nice to meet you, man.

​

Christopher:

Nice to meet you, too.

Glen:

Have a great day.

Christopher:

You too, Bye!

[Discord End Call]

[Discord Ringing]

[Discord Joined Call]

Christopher:

Next, we have Michael from Baxter springs, Kansas, who is heavily involved in Starcraft community, and also goes by the name of, "Gravity". Through his accidental discovery of Starcraft, it would eventually change his life and lead him to discover his love for something else that he didn't quite expect.  And how did you hear about StarCraft?

Michael:

Um, well, it's actually funny. Whenever I was younger, I had actually stumbled into Warcraft II. And it was on like a demo thing at a store. And I spent a long time actually trying to find that game. And in the middle of trying to find it, I actually stumbled across Starcraft. I played since Brood War. And so a lot of that time I started just playing into Brood War and then I taken a break and actually came back for Starcraft II. So, it was just kind of by accident, but that accident kind of has changed my life. So it's been really cool.

Christopher:

So you start Starcraft II during, "Heart of The Swarm"? How did you go about improving like, what resources did you, did you use?

Michael:

Well, I had some friends that were better than me. That would give me tips. I also had went to YouTube a lot and started doing a lot of research on just like builds and stuff like that. And "Day9" was a really big influencer for me back when he was doing his dailies and stuff and so learning from him and then you know, watching like, Lowko. And some of these, like older players, there was actually a Terran player. I don't think he plays anymore. But his name was...it was like Fox or something like that. And I just watched a lot of his builds and stuff and just really started getting the improvement down. And then my team has really helped me through as well. So...

Christopher:

You mentioned your team? Who's your team?

Michael:

Right now I play for the Risen community. Right now we have our pro team which is RNG Pro, but I do a lot of stuff for them. And then also because I cast as well as play, I do events for like Alpha X and stuff like that. So even though my main team is Risen community, I also have a lot of influence with a lot of the other teams and stuff and doing events for them. So...

Christopher:

 That's awesome. So you're really involved with the Starcraft community then? Like you're, you're in there.

Michael:

Oh, yeah, I've been casting for I believe about...two...or three years now, and really just within the last year or so have been taking it really seriously. I actually work under, or I'm contracted technically through like WESG. So I do a lot of casting for them. And then like I said, for Alpha X, I cast, like Alpha Pro series, which is sponsored by Afreeca TV. And then I also do a lot of like community casting for like, WCS. And I know some of the newer stuff coming down. So constantly staying busy.

Christopher:

So you go from being this player and then getting into casting. How did that happen?

Michael:

Well, our team did a lot of like clan wars and stuff like that. And I had seen some of my friends on the team doing it, and it's something that's always kind of interested me. I've always liked Artosis and Tasteless, I just, I liked the hypeness of it that they would bring. And I was like, "You know, I really want to do that." I've always been kind of a people person and trying to like, not necessarily influence people, but just kind of bring them the excitement. So, I gave it a try and it was just kind of like, "Oh, it's okay. You've never done it before. Just you know, give it a try." And since then, I fell in love with it. And it's just, it's one of those things I love to do. So, it's been it's been awesome.

Christopher:

And is it hard to be a caster?

Michael:

I think... I don't think it's necessarily hard to be a caster. People do put a lot of emphasis in like, overthink it. It's just as long as you kind of know what's going on. And when you start doing a lot of events, you start seeing patterns and what certain players like to do. And it helps you kind of predict what they're going to do, so you can kind of talk about it. And sometimes it is, like especially if you're really tired and some matches where they just seemed to drag on, it does get little bit tough, but overall, I think it's it's really easy. It's really fun. And if you're a person that likes to commentate, or just kind of talk about, like stuff that's going on, it's really fun. So..

Christopher:

Is Artosis and Tasteless your main source of inspiration? Who else do you draw inspiration from?

Michael:

um, they were my big ones that I followed for a long time. iNcontroL was really nice to watch to see him cast, which, you know, I hate that we've lost him. But just people like that. I think another one is like, Rotti, and ToD. A lot of the main casters that we have today have really been kind of an inspiration to keep doing it. I actually got to talk with Artosis and iNcontroL, and just some of the encouragement that they've given me was really cool.

Christopher:

And what kind of advice did they did they offer you?

Michael:

Um, a lot of it was just, "Don't care what other people think". And like, you know, "If you get chosen for an event, don't feel bad because they chose you". And just kind of giving you that encouragement, that, "Don't feel bad that you know, so and so didn't get in" or "Don't feel like worried because, you know, it's something new. Just be proud that you've been chosen for that and take pride in your craft and to keep practicing."

Christopher:

That's really awesome man. Really inspiring.

Michael:

 Yeah. Yeah, it really is. It's It's definitely been a driving force for me to keep going and to keep getting better.

Christopher:

Yeah, yeah man. Well I look forward to your casts. I hope you make it to WCS someday. If we still have WCS'.

Michael:

I definitely am hoping to do the live events sometime. That'd be really nice.

Christopher:

yeah, man, keep at it. Keep at it, man. Where can people find you?

Michael:

You can find me on Twitch: twitch.tv/gravity620  Where you can find me on Twitter @realgravity620. Right now, I've just recently moved so I'm like, not streaming as much right now. I do still cast and stuff. So, I don't have a set schedule right now. But definitely you can find me over there. Just hit me up on Twitter. I'm always happy to talk with people.

Christopher:

that's awesome. And anybody you'd like to give a shout out to.

​

Michael:

Ah, I'd like to give a shout out to Renegade she's actually an up and comer like me. She's been doing a really good job in casting and I think she's, she's got what it takes as well, but just that anybody that's looking to try to get into casting or just playing in general, don't give up. It's a long process. And you know, you're gonna get some frustrations, but as long as you keep at it, keep trying to improve, you're gonna do better. So

Christopher:

awesome. Well, thank you very much, man. I really appreciate you taking the time to speak with me and like you've inspired me.

Michael:

That's that's always been my goal, like even in casting is to inspire people to want to become better to do better things. And I think that's one of the biggest things I took away from Like de nine stuff was to help people become not just a better gamer, but a better person in general. So thank you very much for for telling me that brings joy to my heart. And I hope anybody else listening, it gives you an inspiration to keep doing what you're doing. I appreciate it.

Christopher:

Awesome. Well, thank you very much, and I appreciate you. coming on to the call, man. Thank you.

Michael:

Yeah, any anytime, man.

Christopher:

All right, have a good one man.

Michael:

You too!

Christopher:

 Alright, bye.

Michael:

Bye.

[Discord End Call]

Christopher:

And before we go into our next interview, I'm going to pause here for a minute because in talking with our next guest, I was really blown away by the comparisons that were made between Starcraft and other well known games, and I didn't realize the depth of how much Starcraft had to offer. Our next interview not only reminds us of how there's always room to improve, but gives us insight into how to break your opponent's brain.

Paul:

My name is Paul, I'm from Dallas, Texas. My handle is Kilkenny.

Christopher:

How did you first encounter Starcraft?

Paul:

I first encountered Starcraft in 1998, whenever I bought it on a CD ROM and got it and I played it a lot, I played it through Brood War. And I remember I stopped playing for a while. And I didn't pick up Starcraft two until I graduated from graduate school. And I promised myself I wouldn't buy Starcraft two until I finished graduate school because otherwise I would not have finished graduate school.

Christopher:

Wow, I can barely like, Wait for my Amazon package to arrive and like not open it big, big props to you, man.

Paul:

Thanks, thanks. Yeah, no, I I knew that that would have been a mistake.

Christopher:

And so you go from like Starcraft one and to Starcraft two. And, you know, what is it about this game that you love so much? Like, what is it?

Paul:

I think it's, it's kind of like chess. It's got this dynamic where you can there's always so much room to improve. Like if you see people who play Tetris, for example, which is a great game, I love Tetris. Um, but you understand how to play Tetris. And it's just about how well can you execute. And there's people who hyper tab. But other than that, everybody pretty much plays Tetris the same. But there are players who play Starcraft entirely differently from each other. And you can play the same race and learn different styles from different gamers. And there's this huge learning curve at every step. If you're playing Protoss and you want to play as you know, if you want to follow printf you know, p plays Protoss differently than anybody else. If you want to follow Florencio, he plays differently than anybody else, you know, and, and, but still successfully.

Christopher:

So you basically love this game because of the complexity and the challenges that come with it.

Paul:

Yeah, yeah. And you have the ability to put your own personality on it. There's no other game that's quite like that.

Christopher:

And how would you describe your...your personality when you're playing this game?

Paul:

Uhh...annoying...Yeah! A lot of players have really great mechanics and other players really a, you know, great strategy. And my way of playing is to distract my opponent to the point that they that they make large mistakes, and then capitalize on those mistakes. So I'm a big fan of pig and I'm in his lamb clan, I'm in taste the bacon, and he does a lot of great twitch videos and one series that he has is I see far I cast your freaking awesome replay. And so he'll have a theme, and you follow that theme and if your game is really good, and he'll pick it and cast it, and on his twitch channel, and so I, for example, I had a game the other day that was cast on icfr, where nothing much happened in the first eight minutes of the game. And then I nuked my opponent four places at once.  And... what's cool about that is that if you time it just right, the way that the game is structured, is you get the nuclear launch detected, you know, sound right, but if the nukes are close enough to each other, you don't get four separate nuclear launch detected. Sounds right? You only get one. Yeah, so you're only looking at one new and there's four. And so and so even if you even if you were good enough to defend all four to find all four and kill the ghost, you only get one notification so you don't know how many nukes just fired. And then later on in the game, I did it again. And, and so things like that. I'm just I'm relying on my opponent not being present enough, right? Right to deal with whatever with whatever is coming. We call it breaking their brain. Awesome.

Christopher:

And any shoutouts that you'd like to?

Paul:

Oh, I guess I'll do it. I'll throw a shout out to pig who I get coaching from. I've gotten coach pig for about a year now. So, yeah, he hears this. Hi. Hi, pig.

Christopher:

Awesome. Paul was great talking to you, man. I'm really excited to have this into the episode. It was really great talking to you.

Paul:

Yeah. And good luck with the podcast.

Christopher:

Awesome. Thank you. All right. It's great talking to you! bye!

[Discord End Call] Chrisopher: Coming up after the break, how one person fell in love this game and pursues their passion to the esports capital of the world, Seoul, South Korea.

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Chrisopher:

Welcome back, we left off with Paul from Dallas, Texas Chang a story of nuking his opponents bases and how he tries to throw his opponents off by breaking their brain. When I'll be speaking with somebody who's very active in the Starcraft community, on Twitter, and on the Starcraft, Reddit forums and speaking with him, we also discover how his love for this game had him proceeds passion all the way to the esports capital of the world, Seoul, South Korea.

Gemini:

My name is Gemini, I am a Protoss player, been around the scene for quite some time ever since the beginning of wings beta and stuff. I've just been doing a lot of different content creation, playing the game, loving it as much as I can, and doing all kinds of stuff.

Christopher:

And when did you first encounter StarCraft?

Gemini:

I was originally introduced by my brother when he was having a Brood War. when he was a kid. I was like super, super young then. And he kind of showed me how to how to play it. I kind of just toyed around with it was always trash added. Because I was like, you know, eight or nine years old or whatever playing this game. Yeah, and so I could only ever really do custom maps, this is this is my shtick, I literally would make a custom map with infant like as many minerals as I can, and then make a ridiculously broken high ground position, and then have a zerg funnel into my massive amounts of cannons, rivers or tanks, until they died. That was my that was my Brood War, you know, nine, eight year old experience. I was it was I looked at my brother's if he you know, he was like a witchcraft black magic like, you know, wizard when he showed me that I could put things on a control group. instead of selecting everything I was like, Oh my god, this is amazing. That that was my that was my big StarCraft experience. I would just kind of toy with it. Every now and then I played a lot of Warcraft, three customs and stuff like that as well since we had that too. And then I just kind of picked up StarCraft II, when it was almost into beta, as well.

Christopher:

Yeah. And then you eventually made the decision to pursue it professionally. Correct.

Gemini:

Yeah, I did. At one point, I didn't take off from school in 2014 or 2015. And I tried to put my hand in playing professionally full time. didn't work out, obviously. But it was a it was a cool experience. I just it was something that I wanted to get off my chest to like just try out to see what would happen. But I mean Ever Ever since it was released in 2010 I've just been like this This game has been my life basically. So even if I'm not doing it, technically full time, I do it as about as full time as my as anything else will will let me so

Christopher:

and how did you go about that decision of pursuing it professionally was there like did you have to like sit down somewhere and think about it or like, like what, what was going on through your mind?

Gemini:

It was more so a lingering thought that I've had wanted ever since I started playing like ever since I saw the old Artosis videos that he would make with the the GSL qualifiers and the team houses and stuff back from like 2010 2011 I was just like, I need to do that. I need to I need to experience like that need that is my life goal.

Christopher:

That's so funny that you brought that up because yesterday I was looking through some old footage and I came across the Artosis footage that you're talking about. And I was looking at the empty house and I was just like, Oh, yeah, what I would give to be there like just to like experience it all over again.

Gemini:

Yep, the IM house, the fOu house those videos were super super inspiring to me, I was like, that is just the coolest fucking thing in the world that you know, these, these, these players just play a game for a living and just live in this house together and just live breathe, eat the game is super, super cool. And it's still something that I would love to be able to experience because I've never actually been in a in a team house. So it was just a lingering thing that I've always wanted to do. And I had to at some, at some point in my life pulled the trigger and I just I needed to see what would happen. So

Christopher:

that's so cool man and then like so you start pursuing it professionally and then you end up in Korea.

Gemini:

Yep, I'm in Korea

Christopher:

Was that because of this game?

Gemini:

A large part of me being here is yes, because of Starcraft. Once I stopped, like I basically went perfect, like tried to be a pro for a year and I went back to school. It was during that time that I'd also did actually take a step away from it for just a bit. I was still generally following what was happening, but I just wasn't really playing as much as I was. And basically, I decided that I was going to be a teacher through my education. So I kind of generally followed that. And then it wasn't until I did some study abroad stuff in 2017 that I was like, you know, what, what if I, what if I teach in Korea, that would put me you know, close to the place that I've always wanted to be, close to the scene that I love. And slowly the the thoughts, the lingering thoughts of you know, I could do it but maybe it wouldn't be a great idea. They eventually formulated into me just wanting to be here. And now I'm here and it's sick!

Christopher:

Why do you love Starcraft so much?

Gemini:

So Starcraft, for me personally is the only thing that I've really connected to in my life for more than, you know, a couple years at a time. You'll you'll have certain things in when you're growing up that you like, you know, I want to be a football player I want to, you know, be an artist or something. But they wax and wane over time, you just have certain things that will be kind of phases in your interest. But Starcraft has been something that just has stuck over 10 years at this point. It's something that challenges me it's something that taught me how to learn. I never knew how to be self critical or just to improve myself after until I started playing Starcraft and learning how to do that through that. It gave me a sense of belonging. I was the you know, the the alone You know, depressed kid. In high school that just wanted to fit in you know didn't have any didn't have the big friend group want to be the popular cool kid in class but never never was so Starcraft basically gave me that because I found the I found out about the the game and the fact that it was coming into beta soon through an old school community site called the armory and I will always be indebted to them because they basically gave me a family to enjoy a game with that I didn't think was possible so they Starcraft as a lot of a lot of meaning to me more than just playing a game getting some MMR and then you know getting some feel good chemicals in my brain. It's a it's it's got a deeper connection for sure.

Christopher:

Thanks, man. Thanks for sticking to the schedule. Thanks for like, just...Thanks for everything. I really loved your response man.

Gemini:

Yeah, of course, no problem.

Christopher:

Alright. Have a good one!

Gemini:

Yep, you to mate, bye.

[Discord End Call]

[Discord Ringing]

[Discord Joined Call]

Christopher:

Hello....hello?

Subsourian:

hello, I coming through.

Christopher:

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Awesome, man. How you doing?

Subsourian:

Oh, not bad. I've liked your stuff. So I'm excited to do something like this.

Christopher:

Awesome. Thank you man. Can you introduce yourself?

Subsourian:

I am Richie Brezina, also known as Subsourian. I am obsessed with the Starcraft lore.

Christopher:

How did you first encounter StarCraft?

Subsourian:

I'm actually I've got it when I was seven back in 1995 or 1998. My dad had bought the original game. And so I mean, I was really bad. So I just played the campaign a lot. And I was never particularly good at RTS but it was the first kind of gritty sci fi story I'd actually dug deep into. So yeah, then I saw I would play with him for like, I played the campaign for years, we had shitty dial up so we couldn't actually do any online or anything like that. So I just replay the campaign and that gradually kind of just evolved into me getting into the books. And then me getting into like more of the expanded stuff. So I've been with our following for a while, and eventually it just spiraled into what I be what, what I became now, which is very deep in the lore community. So,

Christopher:

Wow, that's so cool. So wait, so are you the lore guy?

Subsourian:

I mean, it sounds kind of Yeah, yeah, I would say so. I've gotten my name in the game because of it!

Christopher:

like, where we're in the game?

Subsourian:

Um, I'm in the service, the service overseer description, they have a Rudolfo sub story and which is me and in makes call downs. They reference my character character they made so that's, yeah, I'm really honored for that. I don't I mostly just one of the rookie complaint about lore, so I don't I definitely don't think it's, like, deserved but i'm i'm happy they did it.

Christopher:

Yeah. Yeah, I mean this through your hard work you're really doing it because you're passionate about it,

Subsourian:

essentially. Yep, definitely. Yeah. It was It is definitely a work of passion. I do love this series and I it's kind of the neglected child anymore Blizzard especially now that Diablo has gotten in the forefront. So it's Yeah, just got to keep the keep the lore flame alive. That's kind of my goal.

Christopher:

You said you get you got deep into the lore. How did Yes, how did that happen?

Subsourian:

Oh, it just kinda like it was a series I really got attached to I started getting into the books and then like expanded media around it. And it eventually got to the point where I then started editing the wiki and I'm actually the main admin of the Starcraft wiki. So the like fandom one, not the teamliquid one

Christopher:

yeah, so what do you do for like, tricky parts of the of the lore that haven't been expanded? Like what do you do? Do you have to like reach out to Blizzard and take to get some more insight?

Subsourian:

I've tried I, I literally have a I go to Blizzcon. Every year I have a 14 page document that I've actually showed to the devs but Currently, there's really no writer. Like there's only a few more people there. But no, so it really Starcraft isn't as tricky as like you'd expect because the Wikis goal is mostly to just put out what is there and try not to, like try to fill any gaps for you. And for the most part, like, the Lord gets a lot of crap for being a little inconsistent and it can be but there's not really too many tricky areas. And when we do we just put a note in like, oh, like, hey, this says this, but it actually says this. And sometimes you got to make a judgment call on like, Oh, well, this is a this came sooner or this is from the games and not a book. So just take this one is probably the main source or whatnot. Oh, is there counsel? Like around the floor? Uh, no, it's Yeah, it used to be a few admins, they mostly dropped out. So it's, it's a lot of judgment calls. But really, like there's a there's kind of just a hierarchy of like, oh, like as long as you know that this is the there's a bit of a contradiction here. Just put out the one you think is more like the important and make just make sure you note that there might be a bit of a mix up or contradiction, but it really doesn't come up that much. Surprisingly,

Christopher:

why do you love starcraft?

Subsourian:

The best The thing I love most about Starcraft is the fact that there are so many passionate like smaller communities like you have the you have eSports scene which everyone knows, but you have the arcade scene, the mapmaker scene, the co op scene, the lore scene. And you could be in that and just almost insulated from everything else. But everything still kind of interacts and flows with each other, even if like you don't necessarily see it if you're just watching it in an Esports match. But the fact that there are just so many like it's a game that's just spawned so many different separate passionate communities. It's amazing to see it, at least for me.

Christopher

Well, thank you very much and thank you for everything man!

Subsourian

Yeah! No Prob!

Christopher:

All right. Have a good one. You too. Bye

[Discord End Call]

[Discord Ringing]

[Discord Joined Call]

Christopher:

Hello, hello!

Hyperturtle:

good evening.

Christopher

Hi. How's it gone? Oh, thank God. All right. Awesome. Awesome, man, thank you so much for doing this. I really, really appreciate it. Can you introduce yourself?

Hyperturtle:

My nam e is David Japanische. I also go by the name HyperTurtle. And I run Minnesota Barcraft, also known as MN Barcraft. I did not start Minnesota barcraft. I started a local LAN group. I also had a Nintendo 3ds StreetPass group. So I was kind of riding the whole meetup.com thing.

Christopher:

Right, right.

Hyperturtle:

There was another group who had started Minnesota Barcraft and one of the people from my LAN group got me to come along. And it was a lot of fun. And it was at the height of this whole thing where there'd actually be sponsors who would donate, raffle prizes, and things like that. We had a whole....they had a whole movie theater, basically. Where they had hold like different kinds of events; And that was one of them. They were serving food and themed drinks and stuff. So what happened was, you know, the bar craft scene kind of started to die out, there wasn't a lot of attendance. And the big problem with a bar craft... is the problem you're gonna have with any big event at a bar. And that's what they expect a certain food and drink minimum. And if you can't bring enough people in, then you got to cover the rest of it yourself. So it's a risky, it's pretty risky if you don't know that there's people coming. So they actually gave up the meetup.com account for that, and I jumped down and they were happy to help me out. I started finding some different businesses like gaming stores as other places where we could just set up and start sort of rebuilding

Christopher:

and with all this like, yeah, that you've done. And you know, you've encountered...because of Starcraft, like what is it about this game that you'd love so much?

Hyperturtle:

Um, well, I mean, I guess it's more than just a game. It's umm...several games all packed into a couple of different titles. You got, you know, got a campaign with these iconic characters you've got multiplayer that you can play at pretty much any level you want. You've got all these people creating arcade games, maps, you've got a professional scene to follow, you've got these really great personalities that aren't so flooded with fans that that they don't notice when you when you give them a good fun comment to play off of. There is books, you know that you can read, comics, some really great collector's items.  So it's one of those things where, kind of no matter who you are, I think if you dig a little bit deeper, you're likely to find something that's really fun. And something that can be, you know, really great to just share with other people, whether it's lore, whether it's gaming strategies, whether it's....whether It's very complicated analysis about what the heck's happened to Blizzard Entertainment. You know, there's always something to talk about and people love sharing....  Well, if you love something you love sharing it.

Christopher:

And where could I find Minnesota bar craft?

Hyperturtle:

Just look up MN for Minnesota. MN Barcraft on Facebook. And there is no invitation needed to join you can just like it and follow it.

Christopher:

Yeah, thank you for doing that. Like, you know, there's not a lot of barcrafts happening or just like small intimate, fun events like that. Like I missed those days. And you have Thank you so much.

Hyperturtle:

Yeah, I think there's a lot of....there's a real untapped market when it comes to actually getting gaming fans together in person.

Christopher:

Yeah, yeah!

Hyperturtle:

 You know, it's it's easy to do it on the internet but it's great to just sit down with people and chat about it. Even I found even like at the mall or something someone notices you got a Starcraft t-shirt or something. There's a real immediate interest there.  Yeah. yeah! Starcraft is one of those things where it's big enough to support a very powerful community, but it's not exactly something you hear mentioned on TV all the time.

Christopher:

Yeah. Yeah, for sure. And is there anybody that you'd like to give a shout out to?

Hyperturtle:

Well, you know, my wife of course, who is currently going by the name diamond back, um, shout out to everyone who's been participating in Minnesota barcraft and has made me feel so important. And you know, just to everyone who's got this little connection off of Starcraft I  and Starcraft II. Awesome.

Christopher:

All right. Well, thank you very much and have a great night. All right.

Hyperturtle:

Carry on!

​

Christopher:

bye!

Hyperturtle:

 Entaro Adun...

[Discord End Call]

Christopher:

My next guest is Murat who hails from the Netherlands. I encountered him via our Instagram where we also put out this question. One thing that stood out to me was not only how enthusiastic he was about participating for an interview, but just how young he was, 16 years old. 16 years Old and from the Netherlands. Well, what's the big deal? Right? Well, for someone that's young to be playing this game and loving it for what it is, I was a bit surprised because years after Starcraft two is released, you still have a younger generation of gamers showing interest in this game. Up until now, I've only encountered people in their mid 20s to mid 30s, which is another reason I wanted to speak to Murat.

[Discord Ringing]

[Discord Joined Call]

Christopher

Hello....hello?

Murat:

Hello?

Christopher

Hi!

Murat:

How are you Christopher?

Christopher:

Hi. I'm doing well. How about yourself?

Murat:

Oh, I'm fine. I'm fine.

Christopher:

And where are you from?

Murat:

I'm born in the Netherlands.

Christopher:

 And what time is it? Right now for you?

​

Murat:

Uhh...Four AM

Christopher:

I'm so sorry....

Murat:

Oh, no problem. I'm just playing Starcraft all day. It's the vacation on the...in the Netherlands.

Christopher:

What is it about Starcraft that you...really enjoy?

Murat:

It's just strategies. There are a lot of strategies in this game. And not just like a simple shooter game, or just kill your enemy. That's also Starcraft but you can do many strategies you know go Stargate opener, go a Starport opener, or a battle cruiser opener, a 12 pool or something. So many strategies to kill your opponent. It's just really fun to me.

Christopher:

Wow. And how did you discover starcraft?

Murat:

Well, actually, I played on my PlayStation some random games, never really touched a computer at all

Christopher:

 Right!

Murat:

And my friend just told me about his brother who plays Starcraft for like 10 years. He gave it a try. So, at the end of the day, he suggested me to play Starcraft and I immediately fell in love

Christopher:

and was it Starcraft one and Starcraft two?

Murat:

Starcraft II

Christopher:

Did you start during Wings of Liberty or do did you start recently like during Legacy of The Void?

Murat:

I literally started like four or five months ago.

Christopher:

Oh wow so you're you're fresh fresh fresh to the game that's really cool man.

Murat:

Yeah, I'm New

Christopher:

and what race do you play?

Murat:

I play Terran...uhhh... look at my profile

Christopher:

I would assume so but a lot of people love that Terran logo and you'd be surprised like they'd play like Zerg or something but yeah, when I saw your logo on discord I was just like, okay, he might be a terran player, but he also just might like the logo. What fascinates you about playing Terran?

Murat:

When I first started opening terran, you know, Starcraft II, I just saw a dude in a astronaut costume with a gun. I pressed up the zerg button and I just got jumpscared by that hydralisk, then I pressed on the Protoss button and just saw an alien with a laser sword and shit. And I thought why don't I play the humans? So I played with my friends a little bit and just... you know terran is not my comfort zone or when I want to just try Protoss or Zerg it just feels weird to me.

Christopher:

Mm hmm. Is it because you find zerg scary still?

Murat:

 Nahhhhhhhhh I didn't expect that hydralisk to jump on my screen

Christopher:

Yeah, it really...there's, there's something about it that just like pops out at you when you just click on the zerg button. And just like pops out of nowhere. Was anybody that you'd like to give a shout out to?

Murat:

Yeah, shout out to my friend. Coony boy.

Christopher:

Awesome. Well, thank you very much Murat!

Murat:

Thank you too.

Christopher:

Alright, I'll see you! bye.

Murat:

See ya!

[Discord End Call]

Christopher:

And from the Philippines, a Terran player by the name of Gian. A few months back before we got the idea for this podcast episode, we posted a general question asking the Starcraft community, "When did you first play Starcraft?" That was a long time ago. And out of the many responses we got, Gian was the only one who replied with two photos. One picture was an eight year old scruffy looking Gian wearing a Starcraft II shirt with a Starcraft II metal dog tag hanging from around his neck, while holding a copy of the first expansion, Wings of Liberty, next to his face making a tough look toward the camera. The second was him, 10 years later, holding the same exact copy, next to his face, not as scruffy looking and kind of giving the game a look of, "How long have you been following me now?"  With 10 years of playing, and now with 10 years of Starcraft II... I was really looking forward to speaking with him and getting to know him a bit more.

[Discord Ringing]

[Discord Joined Call]

Christopher:

Hello, hello.

Gian:

Hello?

Christopher:

Hey, how's it going?

Gian:

Uhhh pretty good?

Christopher:

Let's see if I remember correctly. On Instagram, there's a picture of you holding that game as a kid.

Gian:

Well, yeah, I was like eight or nine when I got that

Christopher:

And you've played it since then?

Gian:

Yeah, yeah.

Christopher:

So you fire up this game, what's your reaction?

Gian:

Well, like, it just felt like amazing because you got to control these large units. Like with thors and battle cruisers and controlling these said units made you felt like you were a god or something, a Commander.

Christopher:

Yeah. Like you're in control of your army, essentially.  Yeah, that's what separates Starcraft like MOBAs like Dota or League of Legends. You control all your army, and all entirely on you. And what was it about this game that you loved so much as you kept playing it? Since you were a kid?

Gian:

Well, since I've ever Karen, I love the idea of like humans as like Space Marines or controlling mech that was like really eye catching for me during that time. And just the idea of controlling the turn of like, the static defense was a really amazing idea.

Christopher:

So is there anybody that you wanted to give a shout out to?

Gian:

Actually....I don't know. Ummm....my girlfriend or something?

Christopher:

Would you like to say?

Gian:

I'm in a fucking podcast! Hello.

Christopher:

Awesome, Gian. Thank you so much, man. 

​

Gian:

All right. Thank you, thank you.

​

Christopher:

All right, have a good one. Bye

[Discord End Call]

Christopher:

This is just one of many episodes to come. And in future episodes, we'll sit down and speak to people individually from the community, where not only...do we get to know them a little bit better, but we get to find out what events in their lives led them to Starcraft and how for some, it saved them. And who would have thought that 22 years later, since the time of making this episode, Starcraft would still have such a huge influence. It's amazing. And one last thing we want to ask all of you listeners right now, what should we name this segment? Send us your replies on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook and wherever you follow The Starcraft Observer. Thank you once again to all those who participated in Episode One. Without you, none of this would have been possible. 

Christopher:

Editing music and production was done by your host Christopher Lopez.  Once again, you can follow Starcraft observer on Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest or on Facebook. Outro music done by the talented Televangel. Head on over to their Bandcamp or YouTube. You can also find Televangel on Spotify. More details about Televangel in the podcast show notes. 

Christopher:

Until next time, friends. Thank you very much