bradsears
01-30-2011, 11:07 PM
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Part 1 : From the bottom looking up
Let's just cut to the festering core of this blog right now: I was the worst Joe at JvP but it turned out just fine.
You can equate my apprehension to beholding a scratch and win lotto card. Going in I knew I was going to stink it up but entertained vain hopes of sharing the lower tier with somebody. Not that weekend. My doomsday scenario was staring me in the face game by game. I was putting up consistent -17ish K/D and making more than my share of bonehead plays while I wasn't dying.
The truly sad part is I try hard to be this bad and spare no expense. Playing about 2 hours a night since H2, watching tips and call out videos and of course all the MLG events. I read all the bungie updates as soon as they come out, I bought Legend Pimp's halo 3 guide and even Fear is Sick's reach guide. Shame has left the building people. This is the essence of bad kid.
When you are so deep in the toilet, pressed against the curvy rusty bottom, you are one with the crap. You are crap. I became and accepted poop as part of me. Every ounce of halo ego was pressed out along with bits of corn. But what then? I emerged out the other side. Beyond pain is redemption. I was reborn. Just like boot camp I was reduced to nothing and rebuilt better. I had the most to learn and the crash course of the weekend changed my game for the better.
My team had Roy, Benjak and Evadur. All of them saints; tireless noble men of honor and charity. Never once did I hear a single negative thing about my play except by my own cursed lips. Not even one utterance and all the while they were carrying me like a bradley fighting vehicle. When I found the courage to meet their gaze my tears sucked back inward and vanished with little salty squeaks.
Part 2 : So what did I learn?
My shot needs to improve. That is something I'm not going to change in a weekend. Previously I has suspicions of spam but with the level of competition that weekend I learned, without a doubt, that I spam more than Monty Python. The people I matchmake against online are, to bungie's credit, of similar skill to my own and I seem to get by all right but when it comes to skilled players I lose almost all of my 1 v 1 battles.
I need to play more in the MLG playlist. There are some bad habits from H3 and from the other Reach playlists that are hurting my MLG play. The weaker melee and different weapon spawns shamed me quite a few times. I had stayed away because of how many quitters there are and how few serious players I know. One of the best benefits from the weekend is now my friends list is filled with the great people I met at JvP. All of them dedicated and obviously better than me.
Roy sat to my right for the weekend and did everything he could to help me even if it meant explaining the same concept a few times only so see it fail again. His level of focus I have never experienced before. Most of my stories to friends at home include something like "Roy watches 3 screens faster than I can watch my own. He calls things out on my screen before I can while he is going +25.". I assume all the pros have it but I got a full dose of Roy's eye of the tiger and it was scary.
There was one time when T2 was giving me live coaching in a game, goosing me in the back whenever he had a point to make. It worked. That session really helped because for whatever reason (old age) the talks after a game don't seem to produce the same change as on the spot live critiques.
A few of the other tidbits from the weekend that were new to me are:
- The correct callouts.
- Looking and calling out while being one shot rather than staring at the thing I'm hiding behind.
- Looking at other screens and calling out while respawing is very helpful.
- Push into their base and good things will happen.
- The glorious sound of "Good shit Brad" followed by the brotherhood of a fist bump.
- Staying alive even for one more second is worth it.
- Don't charge that green gun up all the time dummy. 3 shots takes shields down.
Part 3 : The Pros and The P family.
I'll start with Mr. and Mrs. P. You have heard it before and it may be getting boring by now but these people are exemplary parents and human beings.
Mrs. P gets lots of love for her food and it is well deserved especially because every meal gets at least one sauce. She is also a very down to earth cool person that you can talk to normally. That is rare. Even at 38 I still find most parents boring, lifeless and depressing. I avoid their company yet I sat and talked to Mrs. P and Michelle one night for 90 minutes and could go on for hours more. There is not an ounce of pretense to her. Some friends at home watched us on the web cam for a while and asked when I got back who my new best friend was.
When it comes to Mr. P look at it like this. He is probably walking around with a white garbage bag full of red bull cans and candy wrappers right this very moment. There he just picked up another can, shook it, asked if anybody was drinking it, winced at the dollar wasted and moved on to the next one. He does not stop. The guy went to the airport probably 15 times that weekend. 3 times for me alone. I did not have to spend a single cent the whole time I was there because he and Mrs P looked after every need. I personally had more red bull that weekend than the rest of my life combined. That stuff is expensive.
Mr. P is the reason I was at this event. He reeks of integrity and I respect what he is doing. I am respected as a bit of an independent achiever in my little life. Mr. P puts my leadership and perseverance to shame. Up here in Canada he would be the greatest hockey dad in the neighborhood, first to the rink and picking up kids all over town. Watching one of his TLN talks when I had just found the site I knew I had found the right place. He's a student of the game, loves the pros, the events and selflessly contributes. Many of the things I took away from the weekend are from Mr. P. His sayings are stories are all from the heart and all true. We had some great talks and an encounter with some deer in a blizzard which I will remember forever, mostly because Mr. P sank deeply into his seat and made 4 little eek sounds. I'm planning to return this summer just to get me some more P. In his word(s) feh-NAAM-inul.
The pros were cool and genuine. To be honest going in I thought they would be jerks acting nice to get their paycheck. The jerk is me! All of them were approachable and did not show any fatigue even when bombarded with questions. They are insanely skilled and frustratingly hard to kill. My slaying is a disaster but a few times I had the drop on a pro and still they just turn and snipe me in the face or blow me up. Lunchbox in particular showed me new levels of humiliation but in a gentlemanly way. He did some sick things against me and as I agonized he would do the eyebrow equivalent of a wink. One game against T2's team, Tom was having audio issues and was not moving. I could not kill him out of pure respect. The few times I seemingly out gunned a pro the little man inside me would scream "Brad you will not say a single word. You will not smile, you will be motionless. You are way out of your depth.".
Fear Itself, who I thought would be aloof, turned out just to be a very chill guy. He sat down with a bunch of joes one morning and took all our questions about how he came up, certain events in MLG history and points about reach. He led his team to victory in a calm assuring way.
Roy I talked about above but I'll say one more thing. His only negative is a positive. He can't stand losing. Especially to Lunch.
Speaking of Lunchbox I did not have too much time to hang out with him. He started the weekend with great advice. I was getting my pre-interview with Mr. P and about to put on my JvP shirt kindly provided by Ken, Coby's awesome dad. I unbuttoned my shirt and asked Mr. P and Lunch if they "were ready for this". Lunch pointed out that there was a washroom just next door. That is map awareness, quick callouts and weapon control outside the game.
Totz was hilarious and open. He paid attention to my gameplay and tried hard to make suggestions that would not hurt my feelings, which is way harder than it sounds. I'm impressed with his intelligence and maturity at just 17. Hopefully things don't change when he hits puberty. I've taken him as a protege. If he accepts me as mentor and does the work you will be hearing some big words out of him in the future. Commodious words.
T2 is the man. He brings a level of excitement that is infectious. I want to assimilate his scream of "let's frikkin GO" but I doubt I can do it justice. He had lots of time for good old Brad and not an ounce of negativity. My greatest gaming moment was on my extra, flight delayed night at the house. I played with Benjak, Roy and T2 against Rambo, Bilalian, Cassidy and pr3miere. That is 2 pros on my team at once and it was thrilling for good old Brad.
I'm not going to overlook FlameSword the bonus pro around for most of the weekend. Guess what? He was cool too. Very relaxed. The kind of guy who will not leave a question hanging no matter how dumb it is. He's also super competitive like the rest of them and very fit like the rest of them. Did you know there was such a thing as trampoline dodgeball? FlameSword will kick your ass in it probably.
Part 4 : The Joes.
I learned as much from the Joes as I did from the pros. They were all so much better than me and willing to share tips and tricks. Evadur and Benjak alone gave me more tips than I can remember. Matchmaking with the amazing 14 year old terminator Coby, amiable Shred and Forefront was hilarious.
It is hard not to fall into sports cliches but I'll try my best. I did not get to know all of you as well as others but any time I spent with any of you was good. You were all cool and open. Perhaps it is our love if the game? I have been getting a lot of love for my jokes and so on but the reality is that you were the perfect group to dump 38 years of *stale* material on and I felt comfortable around you. I'm glad to have you on my friends list now and will be pestering you for charity games.
I was worried going in that I would be the wet blanket among a bunch of young amazing players. I'm proud to say my blanket was damp at worst. There were no cliques or losers or rudeness or jerks or tough guys or anything. If I had that kind of camaraderie in school we would all be lawyer astronaut doctors by now. I learned from you all and thank you.
I'm going to skip the single call outs except one. All of you know what I think about you and it is good. Coby gets a special shout out earned by pure skill and lack of ego. Coby you are so talented I dream of you getting a team together this year. I'm probably not good enough to really know how good you are but in my opinion there is a place for you with the best.
Part 5 : Will I be back?
Yes. This took way longer than I thought but I got to relive it again. I'm working on my game with renewed vigor and I will be back in the gaming house. Thanks TLN
Part 1 : From the bottom looking up
Let's just cut to the festering core of this blog right now: I was the worst Joe at JvP but it turned out just fine.
You can equate my apprehension to beholding a scratch and win lotto card. Going in I knew I was going to stink it up but entertained vain hopes of sharing the lower tier with somebody. Not that weekend. My doomsday scenario was staring me in the face game by game. I was putting up consistent -17ish K/D and making more than my share of bonehead plays while I wasn't dying.
The truly sad part is I try hard to be this bad and spare no expense. Playing about 2 hours a night since H2, watching tips and call out videos and of course all the MLG events. I read all the bungie updates as soon as they come out, I bought Legend Pimp's halo 3 guide and even Fear is Sick's reach guide. Shame has left the building people. This is the essence of bad kid.
When you are so deep in the toilet, pressed against the curvy rusty bottom, you are one with the crap. You are crap. I became and accepted poop as part of me. Every ounce of halo ego was pressed out along with bits of corn. But what then? I emerged out the other side. Beyond pain is redemption. I was reborn. Just like boot camp I was reduced to nothing and rebuilt better. I had the most to learn and the crash course of the weekend changed my game for the better.
My team had Roy, Benjak and Evadur. All of them saints; tireless noble men of honor and charity. Never once did I hear a single negative thing about my play except by my own cursed lips. Not even one utterance and all the while they were carrying me like a bradley fighting vehicle. When I found the courage to meet their gaze my tears sucked back inward and vanished with little salty squeaks.
Part 2 : So what did I learn?
My shot needs to improve. That is something I'm not going to change in a weekend. Previously I has suspicions of spam but with the level of competition that weekend I learned, without a doubt, that I spam more than Monty Python. The people I matchmake against online are, to bungie's credit, of similar skill to my own and I seem to get by all right but when it comes to skilled players I lose almost all of my 1 v 1 battles.
I need to play more in the MLG playlist. There are some bad habits from H3 and from the other Reach playlists that are hurting my MLG play. The weaker melee and different weapon spawns shamed me quite a few times. I had stayed away because of how many quitters there are and how few serious players I know. One of the best benefits from the weekend is now my friends list is filled with the great people I met at JvP. All of them dedicated and obviously better than me.
Roy sat to my right for the weekend and did everything he could to help me even if it meant explaining the same concept a few times only so see it fail again. His level of focus I have never experienced before. Most of my stories to friends at home include something like "Roy watches 3 screens faster than I can watch my own. He calls things out on my screen before I can while he is going +25.". I assume all the pros have it but I got a full dose of Roy's eye of the tiger and it was scary.
There was one time when T2 was giving me live coaching in a game, goosing me in the back whenever he had a point to make. It worked. That session really helped because for whatever reason (old age) the talks after a game don't seem to produce the same change as on the spot live critiques.
A few of the other tidbits from the weekend that were new to me are:
- The correct callouts.
- Looking and calling out while being one shot rather than staring at the thing I'm hiding behind.
- Looking at other screens and calling out while respawing is very helpful.
- Push into their base and good things will happen.
- The glorious sound of "Good shit Brad" followed by the brotherhood of a fist bump.
- Staying alive even for one more second is worth it.
- Don't charge that green gun up all the time dummy. 3 shots takes shields down.
Part 3 : The Pros and The P family.
I'll start with Mr. and Mrs. P. You have heard it before and it may be getting boring by now but these people are exemplary parents and human beings.
Mrs. P gets lots of love for her food and it is well deserved especially because every meal gets at least one sauce. She is also a very down to earth cool person that you can talk to normally. That is rare. Even at 38 I still find most parents boring, lifeless and depressing. I avoid their company yet I sat and talked to Mrs. P and Michelle one night for 90 minutes and could go on for hours more. There is not an ounce of pretense to her. Some friends at home watched us on the web cam for a while and asked when I got back who my new best friend was.
When it comes to Mr. P look at it like this. He is probably walking around with a white garbage bag full of red bull cans and candy wrappers right this very moment. There he just picked up another can, shook it, asked if anybody was drinking it, winced at the dollar wasted and moved on to the next one. He does not stop. The guy went to the airport probably 15 times that weekend. 3 times for me alone. I did not have to spend a single cent the whole time I was there because he and Mrs P looked after every need. I personally had more red bull that weekend than the rest of my life combined. That stuff is expensive.
Mr. P is the reason I was at this event. He reeks of integrity and I respect what he is doing. I am respected as a bit of an independent achiever in my little life. Mr. P puts my leadership and perseverance to shame. Up here in Canada he would be the greatest hockey dad in the neighborhood, first to the rink and picking up kids all over town. Watching one of his TLN talks when I had just found the site I knew I had found the right place. He's a student of the game, loves the pros, the events and selflessly contributes. Many of the things I took away from the weekend are from Mr. P. His sayings are stories are all from the heart and all true. We had some great talks and an encounter with some deer in a blizzard which I will remember forever, mostly because Mr. P sank deeply into his seat and made 4 little eek sounds. I'm planning to return this summer just to get me some more P. In his word(s) feh-NAAM-inul.
The pros were cool and genuine. To be honest going in I thought they would be jerks acting nice to get their paycheck. The jerk is me! All of them were approachable and did not show any fatigue even when bombarded with questions. They are insanely skilled and frustratingly hard to kill. My slaying is a disaster but a few times I had the drop on a pro and still they just turn and snipe me in the face or blow me up. Lunchbox in particular showed me new levels of humiliation but in a gentlemanly way. He did some sick things against me and as I agonized he would do the eyebrow equivalent of a wink. One game against T2's team, Tom was having audio issues and was not moving. I could not kill him out of pure respect. The few times I seemingly out gunned a pro the little man inside me would scream "Brad you will not say a single word. You will not smile, you will be motionless. You are way out of your depth.".
Fear Itself, who I thought would be aloof, turned out just to be a very chill guy. He sat down with a bunch of joes one morning and took all our questions about how he came up, certain events in MLG history and points about reach. He led his team to victory in a calm assuring way.
Roy I talked about above but I'll say one more thing. His only negative is a positive. He can't stand losing. Especially to Lunch.
Speaking of Lunchbox I did not have too much time to hang out with him. He started the weekend with great advice. I was getting my pre-interview with Mr. P and about to put on my JvP shirt kindly provided by Ken, Coby's awesome dad. I unbuttoned my shirt and asked Mr. P and Lunch if they "were ready for this". Lunch pointed out that there was a washroom just next door. That is map awareness, quick callouts and weapon control outside the game.
Totz was hilarious and open. He paid attention to my gameplay and tried hard to make suggestions that would not hurt my feelings, which is way harder than it sounds. I'm impressed with his intelligence and maturity at just 17. Hopefully things don't change when he hits puberty. I've taken him as a protege. If he accepts me as mentor and does the work you will be hearing some big words out of him in the future. Commodious words.
T2 is the man. He brings a level of excitement that is infectious. I want to assimilate his scream of "let's frikkin GO" but I doubt I can do it justice. He had lots of time for good old Brad and not an ounce of negativity. My greatest gaming moment was on my extra, flight delayed night at the house. I played with Benjak, Roy and T2 against Rambo, Bilalian, Cassidy and pr3miere. That is 2 pros on my team at once and it was thrilling for good old Brad.
I'm not going to overlook FlameSword the bonus pro around for most of the weekend. Guess what? He was cool too. Very relaxed. The kind of guy who will not leave a question hanging no matter how dumb it is. He's also super competitive like the rest of them and very fit like the rest of them. Did you know there was such a thing as trampoline dodgeball? FlameSword will kick your ass in it probably.
Part 4 : The Joes.
I learned as much from the Joes as I did from the pros. They were all so much better than me and willing to share tips and tricks. Evadur and Benjak alone gave me more tips than I can remember. Matchmaking with the amazing 14 year old terminator Coby, amiable Shred and Forefront was hilarious.
It is hard not to fall into sports cliches but I'll try my best. I did not get to know all of you as well as others but any time I spent with any of you was good. You were all cool and open. Perhaps it is our love if the game? I have been getting a lot of love for my jokes and so on but the reality is that you were the perfect group to dump 38 years of *stale* material on and I felt comfortable around you. I'm glad to have you on my friends list now and will be pestering you for charity games.
I was worried going in that I would be the wet blanket among a bunch of young amazing players. I'm proud to say my blanket was damp at worst. There were no cliques or losers or rudeness or jerks or tough guys or anything. If I had that kind of camaraderie in school we would all be lawyer astronaut doctors by now. I learned from you all and thank you.
I'm going to skip the single call outs except one. All of you know what I think about you and it is good. Coby gets a special shout out earned by pure skill and lack of ego. Coby you are so talented I dream of you getting a team together this year. I'm probably not good enough to really know how good you are but in my opinion there is a place for you with the best.
Part 5 : Will I be back?
Yes. This took way longer than I thought but I got to relive it again. I'm working on my game with renewed vigor and I will be back in the gaming house. Thanks TLN