Ever since I picked up an NES controller when I was five or six, I've been hooked on games. I always had friends who were also into games, but I only had one friend during my youth who loved video games as much as me.
As a child, and throughout my life, I never had any idea what I wanted to do as an adult. When adults would jokingly ask my peers and I what we wanted to be when we grew up, most kids gave answers like a policeman, astronaut, doctor, or teacher. I was never able to answer the question, and I thought it was very peculiar that no career seemed to interest me - particularly as I matured and entered high school, when talk about careers became an everyday topic. There were times when I thought I would love making video games, but for some reason I considered it to be an unreachable goal, sort of an immature dream, if you will - similar to an 18 year old without a driver's license insisting he would become a Nascar driver. I just didn't think of it as a realistic career goal, for whatever reason.
About two years ago, I bought CS:S at a coworker's suggestion. The very first day I picked up the game, I ran into a guy named c0ke, who seemed to be really good at the game. Three days later, two other guys (Rob and Unbe) who were each playing for the first time happened to come into the server when c0ke and I were playing there. Over that first week, the four of us realized we all got along with each other really well, and traded X-Fire account names so we would be able to stay in touch and play CSS together. Three months later, I applied for admin on that same server we all met in (a 24/7 Assault, coincidentally enough) and was accepted. The server ended up being shut down by it's owner a month later for personal reasons, and the four of us decided we would all pitch in and start our own 24-player pub server, which we ran successfully for the next four months.
Right around that time, I got orders for a six month deployment to Iraq. Rob and Unbe decided they would shut down the server and give World of Warcraft a try, since they'd heard from friends that it was a great game. c0ke was offered a spot on a CAL-O team, and was eager to give that a shot. So I deployed to Iraq, Rob and Unbe left CSS for WoW, and c0ke entered the competitive gaming scene. When I got back from Iraq, I joined Rob and Unbe in WoW, leaving CSS almost entirely for the next year. Backing up a bit, c0ke's team made it into CAL-IM, and c0ke gave his spot up for a friend of his (who had been on a different team the prior season) about three months after I got back, so he could join us in WoW. At this point in the story, it's around May '07. I applied for a spot on the Honor Guard team here at Nellis AFB and was accepted. This gave me a lot of free time during the days, when the rest of my posse (=P) was still at work. So I started playing CSS a bit more, but still spent the majority of my gaming time on WoW.
My Honor Guard tour ended 1 Oct - about six weeks ago. The time I spent playing CSS during those four months got me hooked on the game again, and I left WoW completely the first week in October. During these past two months playing CSS, I've improved immensely, and I'm now playing on a level I've never been at. I was recently invited to join Reverse, a team I've played alongside in 108.4 from time to time. I'll be a recruit until the team's leaders decide whether or not I should be officially accepted onto their roster. If I make the cut, I'll be competing with Reverse in CAL-O next season, which will be the team's first season in competitive gaming. Obviously, I'm very excited to see how the cards will unfold in this, because I've been eager to give competitive gaming a shot for some time now.
Looking back on the past two years, it's really interesting how things have played out. When Rob, Unbe, c0ke, and I started our server, we also started a clan called L33t Fl33t, with the intention to enter CAL-O, play our best, and just see how things ended up. We never entered CAL, and I think my unexpected deployment had a lot to do with that. c0ke was always the most skilled player out of the four of us, and he actually did end up competing in CAL-O, and had what it took to proceed into IM after his first season ever.
Now Unbe's engaged, and he's lucky to be allowed to play video games with us even three or four days a week (LOL). c0ke has a job that gives him immense freedom, so he plays video games now as much as ever, but says the time he spent playing WoW has made his FPS skill all but disappear, and that he'll never again reach the level he was playing at when he was in CAL. We know he's lying though - he [i]still[/i] plays better than the other three of us. =P
Rob and I became good friends soon after meeting in that first CSS server, and always joked around that we were long-lost twins. We're both in jobs we don't enjoy doing, and have dreamed of making video games for some time. Rob's older brother, Dave, develops video games for a living, and he's told me about his education, given me a day-in-the-life scenario of a game developer, etc, over the past year or so. Talking with Dave has really made me realize that game development is far from being an unrealistic career goal. So during these past two months, Rob and I decided to finally set the dream we share in motion, and who better to go through it with than a long-lost twin? XD So we're currently applying to Full Sail, a school with an exceptional game development program, and plan to begin the course together upon my separation from the Air Force in September 2008.
I'm very eager to see what the future holds. When I joined the Air Force nearly four years ago, I had never played any online game whatsoever. I never would have guessed my life would take this kind of turn.
Comments »
cpnichol @ 2007-11-16 06:09:15
Nice blog. Good luck with your first CAL season and with the game development course. If that's what you want to do, go for it.
