The Singapore Adventure!
The nerves was on a completely different place this time around. I mean i was deadly nervous when going to Shanghai, but i guess that trip gave me somekind of flight-travel-confidence, because this time it was more smooth. Evenso we had a 2 hour longer flight, and im not really sure if the actual travel where easier, it felt easier.
We met up with Tom and Tim (I know its hilarious) at Arlanda. RUS_AGENT and Xoy for you who know them better using those names. Started to find out how to get out the tickets and stuff, was wierd, but whenever your at a airport just look for a nice smileying girl and youll get help. We did the same.
Food and then travel started. RUS was our travel noob, well XOY wasnt much better, but he had traveled alot before just never really been awake and taken part of the actual travel. RUS was more of a 4 y old kid who was clicking all the buttons, and feeling superamused by the fact that he could click and then someone showed up with a drink :-)
In Frankfurt we met up with Black. He was there before hes team and we hang out abit. Completely changed my opinion about this guy, who i knew from dota as just another somewhat whiny player. But, i definently had to reverse that opinion as it was clear that hes just an awesome guy.
Mr Black!
Anyways, Frankfurt germany a couple of hours. Getting on the flight. The snowstorm made us have to wait abit longer since they had to clean the wings of the plane with some wierd shit and then we started.
It was a doubledeckerplane, ive never been on a bigger plane to be honest. The actual flightexperience wasnt much different with a Boeing 747 but it was definently cool that it had 2 floors.
The flight from Frankfurt to singapore takes 12 hours. So you gotta find yourself a way to sleep. Worked out somewhat good, hard to not be pumped before sucha trip, and hard to be sleeping when ur pumped. But after some hours its easier. We sat next to the German team. Making some jokes on the way.
Before landing in Singapore we had some nice airbump-bang-experience. Almost made me shit my pants, but clearly its not that uncommon that that happens at occations, so i wasnt so stressed out.
So when you come from -16 celcius and Singapore is like +25 Celcius (Not more, cause it was rainy the first day) your body says "Thanks man". It was so nice temperatures, and i just love the heat. Weahter turned better, and we enjoyed the first day at a IT-cafe to get some warmup/practice games. We didnt use our equipment here, but it was fun just testing out the enemys. The replays from this event is up already, its really not much to look into. My biggest consern was giving away too much, so we played for example Gauntlet/Behemoth/Voodo lane. Basicly just played and eat noodles.
Day 2 was the drawings. All team gathered up at a place in the hotel, had some wierdtasting soup and some other better dishes together and made the drawings. Im guessing you could call the drawingresults bad. But in the end it was an honest drawing and i do support the hole drawing process. Basicly OK and EG first drawed to be in the same group. And then i also took a piece of paper and turned up in the very same group. Then in the end ICE and PMS-girls had a rock paper scissor about whos going where, since they both were late into this competition that would be most fair. PMS won that and they picked to play in the "asian group".
I hoped alot that we would play against EG first. Because i was thinking that the first game always have the most nerves, and in that way its better to play versus a team which we perhaps could afford loosing against. But our draw was ICE. This team ive watched some, but they had 2 standins meaning i had not much of a pickadvantage on them. They used that in a nice way. We got a good draft, a good start too. But in the end we were too nervous to really play our game as we needed. The need of pushing out sidelanes and putting pressure on them was there, but i dont know. We didnt do it. And ICE came out on top.
Second game was versus EG. EG who already pretty much dominated OK before. We decided to not give away anything for free. Again we got a solid draw. And a really good start. XOY played an awesome Dev. I got fairly ok farm, same for hyddae. The game was overall good. We performed better then OK, and i think we had the upperhand pretty long into the game. But EG managed to pull off 2 great teamfights, and Puppet didnt decide to die any of these. Meaning he got really pumped. A loss, but a good loss imo. THen the last game versus OK we decided we are not leaving this competition as last. And we didnt. OK first tried, but after a while it was clear that they had given up.
I wouldve wished that we got to the semifinal, but there was an upside with not doing it to. Since now we could completely relax and focus on watching the games and meeting people. That was really nice. The event was just lovely. Meeting the people was definently the biggest part of the joyment. but also just hanging around, watching the games live, listening to tobi and breaky live, meeting fans, yes. I met random people who knew who i was and wanted to take pictures. I never before experienced that in my gamingcareer, perhaps 1 or 2 times in total. But in Singapore there were tons of people who knew me before i even introduced myself. That was pretty wierd in one way, pretty cool in one way and hilarious in a third way.
I told breaky to look as sexy as he possible could. Heres what he did
Heres the gamingplace. In the background u see the stage.
Bottomleft of the stage is the position of the casters.
Bottomleft of the picture is the position of a horse.
Bottonright of the picture is AKKE. (Someone said hes the most good looking gamer ever, but
after seeing the standin that ICE used im pretty sure hes a good 2nd)
We hang around in the gamingarea off and on during that day. We took alot of pictures, and we got to
meet the kid that DYA gave a wish day too. It was a young and beautiful kid who had a serious illness, a type of cancer that pretty much would lead him to die way too young. He recieved 8000 sing from DYA so he would be able to go to hongkong and disneyworld. We met him, and gave him a Dalahästshirt, and he got to be showned around in the area. He enjoyed gaming. But mostly CS i think :-).
Food was like the theme of this trip, at one point we found a place where u could get butterdipped bread who then was fried and then got additional butter on top of it. Serious heartcondition in breadform. We had that for lunch one day simply cause we didnt have energy to find anything else. It was okey atleast :-) The best thing with Singapore compared to Shanghai was the breakfast tho. This was much more international, and the drinks were COLD not HOT. So that was definently appriciated. And the coffie was fairly close to real swedish coffie, but then again, there is no coffie like my own, so i guess there is no point of even comparing.
_______________________________
I just realise, during 6 months of this year. Ive been to the Swedish Dreamhack, and winning that tornament led us to both Shanghai and Singapore. I met the other teams, they are amazing, but i also met alot of people who really put pride and joy into gaming. The Digital Youth Awards people, who not really just are people behind desks or behind e-mail adresses, but real people who enjoys this. People with respect for gamers, for other people. People that have humor, people that are for real.
I got to meet different cultures. Alot of different cultures. Ive becomed a better player after these series of events, but mostly a better person. I got to overcome the flightfears, and i got to overcome the travelfears. I got the chance to go 2 times to Asia, and everwhere where i have been over there i have recieved the same amount of respect as my very own family provides me with.
I have to take my hat off for these people, and i really hope that these events will continue to happen. Because Digital Youth Award took gaming and all its joy and made it 3 times more meaningfull. They put in some of the missing pieces to make gaming a proper thing.
Some days its hard to be proud of gaming. But after the DYA events i will never again hesitate when i tell people,
that i am
a true gamer.
Frank and Scott
So i send my regards to Digital Youth Awards. And i also would like to thank all the people that we met over there. Just brilliant, im not gonna start namedropping simply since i dont wanna compare anyone to the other, you all mean the same amount!
Thanks also to Q-pad and Kaspersky who are our mainsponsors.
Thanks to Ts-Gaming, and make sure to check out their new cool page at http://www.ts-gaming.se/
Special thanks to Mattias Lies who made our tributesong, listen to it again and again at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qNYW_oc_Iso
Thanks to all the fans that followed us, be prepared for a new TsoG era after this. We met up with some people and perhaps if everything go well we are gonna be an interenational team after this event, and we are aiming to become stronger, more powerful and have even more fun in the future!
Also a special thanks to my wife, who i always loved, but im realising after this that perhaps my love isnt even close to enough when it comes down to her approval and cheering for me and my gaming.
//PapaDrayich, who today almost is abit touched by everything.
Here comes some more randompictures from the travel and event...
We met up with Tom and Tim (I know its hilarious) at Arlanda. RUS_AGENT and Xoy for you who know them better using those names. Started to find out how to get out the tickets and stuff, was wierd, but whenever your at a airport just look for a nice smileying girl and youll get help. We did the same.
Food and then travel started. RUS was our travel noob, well XOY wasnt much better, but he had traveled alot before just never really been awake and taken part of the actual travel. RUS was more of a 4 y old kid who was clicking all the buttons, and feeling superamused by the fact that he could click and then someone showed up with a drink :-)
In Frankfurt we met up with Black. He was there before hes team and we hang out abit. Completely changed my opinion about this guy, who i knew from dota as just another somewhat whiny player. But, i definently had to reverse that opinion as it was clear that hes just an awesome guy.
Mr Black!
Anyways, Frankfurt germany a couple of hours. Getting on the flight. The snowstorm made us have to wait abit longer since they had to clean the wings of the plane with some wierd shit and then we started.
It was a doubledeckerplane, ive never been on a bigger plane to be honest. The actual flightexperience wasnt much different with a Boeing 747 but it was definently cool that it had 2 floors.
The flight from Frankfurt to singapore takes 12 hours. So you gotta find yourself a way to sleep. Worked out somewhat good, hard to not be pumped before sucha trip, and hard to be sleeping when ur pumped. But after some hours its easier. We sat next to the German team. Making some jokes on the way.
Before landing in Singapore we had some nice airbump-bang-experience. Almost made me shit my pants, but clearly its not that uncommon that that happens at occations, so i wasnt so stressed out.
So when you come from -16 celcius and Singapore is like +25 Celcius (Not more, cause it was rainy the first day) your body says "Thanks man". It was so nice temperatures, and i just love the heat. Weahter turned better, and we enjoyed the first day at a IT-cafe to get some warmup/practice games. We didnt use our equipment here, but it was fun just testing out the enemys. The replays from this event is up already, its really not much to look into. My biggest consern was giving away too much, so we played for example Gauntlet/Behemoth/Voodo lane. Basicly just played and eat noodles.
Day 2 was the drawings. All team gathered up at a place in the hotel, had some wierdtasting soup and some other better dishes together and made the drawings. Im guessing you could call the drawingresults bad. But in the end it was an honest drawing and i do support the hole drawing process. Basicly OK and EG first drawed to be in the same group. And then i also took a piece of paper and turned up in the very same group. Then in the end ICE and PMS-girls had a rock paper scissor about whos going where, since they both were late into this competition that would be most fair. PMS won that and they picked to play in the "asian group".
I hoped alot that we would play against EG first. Because i was thinking that the first game always have the most nerves, and in that way its better to play versus a team which we perhaps could afford loosing against. But our draw was ICE. This team ive watched some, but they had 2 standins meaning i had not much of a pickadvantage on them. They used that in a nice way. We got a good draft, a good start too. But in the end we were too nervous to really play our game as we needed. The need of pushing out sidelanes and putting pressure on them was there, but i dont know. We didnt do it. And ICE came out on top.
Second game was versus EG. EG who already pretty much dominated OK before. We decided to not give away anything for free. Again we got a solid draw. And a really good start. XOY played an awesome Dev. I got fairly ok farm, same for hyddae. The game was overall good. We performed better then OK, and i think we had the upperhand pretty long into the game. But EG managed to pull off 2 great teamfights, and Puppet didnt decide to die any of these. Meaning he got really pumped. A loss, but a good loss imo. THen the last game versus OK we decided we are not leaving this competition as last. And we didnt. OK first tried, but after a while it was clear that they had given up.
I wouldve wished that we got to the semifinal, but there was an upside with not doing it to. Since now we could completely relax and focus on watching the games and meeting people. That was really nice. The event was just lovely. Meeting the people was definently the biggest part of the joyment. but also just hanging around, watching the games live, listening to tobi and breaky live, meeting fans, yes. I met random people who knew who i was and wanted to take pictures. I never before experienced that in my gamingcareer, perhaps 1 or 2 times in total. But in Singapore there were tons of people who knew me before i even introduced myself. That was pretty wierd in one way, pretty cool in one way and hilarious in a third way.
I told breaky to look as sexy as he possible could. Heres what he did
Heres the gamingplace. In the background u see the stage.
Bottomleft of the stage is the position of the casters.
Bottomleft of the picture is the position of a horse.
Bottonright of the picture is AKKE. (Someone said hes the most good looking gamer ever, but
after seeing the standin that ICE used im pretty sure hes a good 2nd)
We hang around in the gamingarea off and on during that day. We took alot of pictures, and we got to
meet the kid that DYA gave a wish day too. It was a young and beautiful kid who had a serious illness, a type of cancer that pretty much would lead him to die way too young. He recieved 8000 sing from DYA so he would be able to go to hongkong and disneyworld. We met him, and gave him a Dalahästshirt, and he got to be showned around in the area. He enjoyed gaming. But mostly CS i think :-).
Food was like the theme of this trip, at one point we found a place where u could get butterdipped bread who then was fried and then got additional butter on top of it. Serious heartcondition in breadform. We had that for lunch one day simply cause we didnt have energy to find anything else. It was okey atleast :-) The best thing with Singapore compared to Shanghai was the breakfast tho. This was much more international, and the drinks were COLD not HOT. So that was definently appriciated. And the coffie was fairly close to real swedish coffie, but then again, there is no coffie like my own, so i guess there is no point of even comparing.
_______________________________
I just realise, during 6 months of this year. Ive been to the Swedish Dreamhack, and winning that tornament led us to both Shanghai and Singapore. I met the other teams, they are amazing, but i also met alot of people who really put pride and joy into gaming. The Digital Youth Awards people, who not really just are people behind desks or behind e-mail adresses, but real people who enjoys this. People with respect for gamers, for other people. People that have humor, people that are for real.
I got to meet different cultures. Alot of different cultures. Ive becomed a better player after these series of events, but mostly a better person. I got to overcome the flightfears, and i got to overcome the travelfears. I got the chance to go 2 times to Asia, and everwhere where i have been over there i have recieved the same amount of respect as my very own family provides me with.
I have to take my hat off for these people, and i really hope that these events will continue to happen. Because Digital Youth Award took gaming and all its joy and made it 3 times more meaningfull. They put in some of the missing pieces to make gaming a proper thing.
Some days its hard to be proud of gaming. But after the DYA events i will never again hesitate when i tell people,
that i am
a true gamer.
Frank and Scott
So i send my regards to Digital Youth Awards. And i also would like to thank all the people that we met over there. Just brilliant, im not gonna start namedropping simply since i dont wanna compare anyone to the other, you all mean the same amount!
Thanks also to Q-pad and Kaspersky who are our mainsponsors.
Thanks to Ts-Gaming, and make sure to check out their new cool page at http://www.ts-gaming.se/
Special thanks to Mattias Lies who made our tributesong, listen to it again and again at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qNYW_oc_Iso
Thanks to all the fans that followed us, be prepared for a new TsoG era after this. We met up with some people and perhaps if everything go well we are gonna be an interenational team after this event, and we are aiming to become stronger, more powerful and have even more fun in the future!
Also a special thanks to my wife, who i always loved, but im realising after this that perhaps my love isnt even close to enough when it comes down to her approval and cheering for me and my gaming.
//PapaDrayich, who today almost is abit touched by everything.
Here comes some more randompictures from the travel and event...