Sunday, March 24, 2013

When You Keep On Going


This is a post about League of Legends. Yes, the MOBA game that took the world by storm although DotA purist saw it as an act of blasphemy, condemning LoL by calling it 'kiddie', 'bad graphics', 'game for noobs,' 'League of Lesbians' etc.

But this post is not about the actually game of LoL. It is about the people who play LoL, specifically my two brothers.


Unfortunately, I can't get the hold of a good picture of those two but whatever.

My brothers are HUGE LoL addicts. When I say addicts, I meant REAL LEGIT ADDICTS. They would play on average 7 games a day (approx 3-4 hours) even during school days. Heck, my youngest brother played it during his UPSR! (And he even got 5As for it) Weekends are worse, they would be glued to the computer from day until the wee hours of the night. They would eat in in front of their computers during breakfast, lunch and dinner, missing on the joy of eating together with family. Raya? Balik kampung? Beach please, they packed their laptops and play at the kampung without giving a finger to anyone around.

YES
THEY ARE FREAKING ADDICTS.

You think my parents (and I) were okay with that? Well, at first it was kinda worrying. I did gave them advice to tone down on the playing a little. I mean, I do play LoL too (Ehem Silver 1 Division ehem) as a casual player, balancing my hectic of a lifestyle with LoL. I highlight the value of balance and not give their all into 'just a game'.

But do they care?

They just kept on playing.

And they never turn back.

Hours turn to days
Days turn to weeks
Weeks turn to months
And they climb the social hierarchy on the LoL community. They had established their name as the 'pro AD carry' and the 'OP top laner' of LoL SEA. In the game ranking system, they climbed day by day until they are both at the top 10% of the community.

Not before long, they made their own team and thus began their formal training session as a team. They started to fight other teams, most of them far more established than them, gaining experience and insights on how to be better. They started to immerse themselves into the game, the very core of the game itself. Meta-games, character builds, niche strategies, playing techniques, all of it my brothers read and read and read from the internet. Most normal teenagers would talk about football players and teams. But them? They talk about professional LoL players and teams. The way they discussed LoL over the dinner table was exactly like how normal teens talk about football over teh tarik.

Such dedication sometimes took me aback. They were fighting for something. They have a reason to fight. A reason to keep on playing. I was an outsider and I don't know the reason of their fighting spirit.

Yesterday, I finally knew.

THEY WANT TO WIN

Now, isn't that simple? They just want to win. But win what? To win tournaments and hopefully find themselves in the Season Three finals where all the pro players compete for the grand prize of millions of dollars.

Did they managed to do it?

YES

Yesterday, they went for a tournament. They win flawlessly for every single game they play, pwning their opponents into pieces with scores of 28-3 alikes. They managed to get into the final where they met the strongest team in Malaysia: the team Malaysia itself, KL Hunters. In an intense 30 minutes games, they lost although they had a pretty good start. (One of my brothers actually beat a KL Hunter guy in lane!) Although they lost, they still ended up second and went home with RM1000 in their bank accounts. But that is not the best reward. The best reward is:

Qualification to the Spring Finals

Spring Finals is the tournament where all the winners of the past tournaments will face off to see who will represent Malaysia in the Season 3 Finals aka the World Cup.

Their dream came true, partially but it made such an impact to the rest of us. They prove to us that you can achieve great success in anything, even games, it is just a matter of passion, determination and hard work.

It made me think...
Isn't this an enough proof to show that you need to find something you truly love to achieve success?
Good enough I guess.

So, meanwhile, let's hope they will do great in the Spring Finals.
For us, let's search deep into ourselves and reflect!

4MoD. My brothers are the one with grey sweater (Izzan,17) and the one with the One Piece shirt (Amirin, 13)

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