Interview With PsyStarcraft

3:25 am - Fri, Oct 22, 2010: 3 notes

Here it is! For our first interview we bring you PsY.

We would like to thank Psy Starcraft first of all and his subscribers for putting him on the map. Also his team Visionary Gaming. As well as Blizzard for creating such a great game!

Dialogue of PsY interview below. The Questions have been bolded so you can find the ones you are most interested in.

Please excuse the grammar issues, I am doing this at 1am after a long day.

Gary: If you just want to introduce yourself.

PsY: Okay. I am PsY Starcraft online. My username on battle.net is PsY and my real name is Derrick Anderson.

Gary: Well thank you for coming. What is your 1v1 league rank?

PsY: Right now I am in DIamond around 1730 point. Not as High as I would like it to be. I think I have a bonus pool of around 200 points or higher than that. Right now, the reason its low, and I feel like I need to justify this because a lot of people ask me about it, is because I am a commentator first and a player second. Once things stabilize for me, and I know where I am going as a Youtuber, I want to reverse that and be a Starcraft player first, and a commentator second.

Gary: What is your main race that you play?

PsY: I play zerg, I primarily release zerg commentaries on my channel and I don’t plan on switching anytime soon.

Gary: Have you always been Zerg?

PsY: Yeah. When Beta first came out I dabbled in Random, just because I feel like you need to get a feel for every race to figure out which one fits your play style. Zerg are so mechanic intensive that I felt like they would be a good race for me and I felt that they had the highest skill ceiling, so I chose them. And because human races and humanoid races like Protoss and Terran, like, why would you play yourself in a videogame?

Gary: I prefer Zerg as well. What is your favorite map for playing on, or is that dependent on the matchup?

PsY: It depends on the matchup. (I have too much racial loyalty to change races). For Zerg vrs Zerg I would say any really long map which discourages any sort of Baneling play which usually creates a short game, and that’s not very fun at all. On ladder people go builds that will get them points the fastest. They want a good time to point ratio, so if they can win a game in five minutes 40% of the time, they’re gonna do that, rather than win a game in 20 minutes 50% of the time because with a bonus pool your points are going to go up a little faster. So Zerg vrs Zerg any long map to discourage Baneling play. Zerg vrs Terran, anything other than Steppes of War I have had a lot of success on. Steppes of War is just ridiculous short, and of course six pools don’t work against any good Terran player so that strategy is out of the picture. And in Zerg vrs Protoss, any map really. Obviously as a Zerg you want a secure natural with a small choke, but generally speaking any map is fine against Protoss.

Gary: What is your preferred Matchup?

PsY: Its going to be Zerg vrs Terran. With all the debate around balance and Terran being overpowered and Zerg being underpowered I have just beat that matchup to death, always practicing it against Terran players on my team. Anything they throw at me now I will be able to handle.

Gary: I definitely think you have created a good response to Mech. I use it now.

PsY: Nice. Which one?

Gary: Your Infestor build, I am working on getting the Neural Parasite used without my Infestors dying.

PsY: (Laughs) Neural Parasite is still a good spell, people underrate that a lot.

Gary: You mentioned you’re on a team. What team is that?

PsY: I am on Visionary Gaming, I joined about a month ago. It is a pretty solid team, we actually have a clan match this weekend against Mobility Gaming which has players such as: Azz, Rise, Butteryllama, (laughs), can’t say that name without laughing, and a lot of other solid players. On Visionary we have myself, Response (who is a streamer), Suppe, AllAboutYou (who is the number one player on Starcraft Ladder right now, or he was last time I checked. He might be two), iEchoic, and Striker, and Geon [I cannot confirm the spelling on any of these]. I have been having fun with them, getting a lot of practice in with them.

Gary: Have you played in any tournaments?

PsY: I have played in a few tournaments. As for signing up for huge tournaments that aren’t just weekly tournaments like Gosu Coaching or Craft Cup not so much. I have played in Pegasus cup recently, got knocked out by Slush 2-1. I sign up for a lot of the Craft Cup and Gosu Coaching which are held pretty much every week, but a lot of times I don’t show up because I don’t wake up on time, or I forget about them, or I am doing something else, but I haven’t played in a lot of tournaments. I should play, I claim to be a good Zerg player, but I don’t play in many tournaments, how does that work? I don’t know.

Gary: Well you prove it with your channel. Do you find it hard to balance Starcraft 2 Training with the rest of your life?

PsY: It would have been, if I hadn’t quit my job. I was working at a hospital in Portland back in July, and I quit maybe around 15000 subscribers, and I was like, “I really want to do Starcraft. I hate my job. I have always loved videogames.” So I quit, took a big risk, had some cash saved up incase it didn’t work out. So it has been going pretty well. Starcraft is my life, so balancing it with other stuff isn’t a problem really.

Gary: Did you use to play any other games on a competitive level?

PsY: The only game I would consider on a competitive level was Counterstrike 1.6. I played that game to death. I would have nightly aim map practice matches with my team mates and just head shots, head shots, head shots, it was all about the head shots. I was in Cal Premier, if you know what Cal is. It was a league for a lot of different games, mainly Counterstrike. There were different divisions, what were they called? Cal Open, Cal Intermediate, Cal Main, Cal Premier, and Cal Invite. I was in premier, but I never really went anywhere with that. I think it was a competitive game, and I really liked it.

Gary: I use to play a little bit of Counterstrike, not very much at all.

PsY: And dont play Counterstrike Source! Whatever you do.

Gary: (laughs) I will not go buy that. Did you use to play Starcraft 1 or Brood War?

PsY: Yeah. I played both of them.

Gary: Who first introduced you to Blizzards world of gaming, or more specifically Starcraft?

PsY: Let me back up to the competitive question. I did play some ICCup, I didn’t go to any big tournaments. I am not like a Day[9] guy, who has a huge history in Starcraft, winning a bunch of WCGs or anything like that. I don’t know how many he actually won. But I really got into Starcraft 1 after the announcement of Starcraft 2. I started watching tons of commentaries about Starcraft 1. (Lists of Commentaries he watched). I would watch like 20 commentaries, and play two games, and then watch 20 more commentaries, and play three games. I was surprised because (I would only watch Zerg commentaries because I decided I want to be a good Zerg Starcraft One player. So I would watch people like Jadong) when I played I actually didn’t do too bad. Watching commentaries I knew the builds, and I actually got up to a C+ level, which I think is okay for a white guy like me. And that was only in a month, but then Starcraft 2 was coming out so I said, “ah, screw it, I am just gonna be good at Starcraft 2.”

Gary: Yeah, I think thats good, if you don’t have 500apm like some of them do.

PsY: (sarcastic) Yeah, multiple building select, what is that?

Gary: You got into ICCup, that is pretty interesting. We did not go over who got you into Blizzard games.

PsY: Back when it was very rare to have a computer in your house, my family had a computer. We got it ‘95 or something like that, I guess computers weren’t too common in households back then. We would receive this disk every month. It was called Shareware of the Month. It would have tons of demo programs, demo software, demo word process stuff, all that good stuff. And in one of them came a demo for Orcs and Humans. One of the first blizzard games, I think they made Rock and Roll, the Lost Vikings, and some Legend game, a fighting game or something like that. Orcs and Humans: I would play the first two missions of that over and over again. In the first mission all you can get is the swordsman, and the second mission all you can get is the archers. It was extremely linear and I played that so much, but then you know Warcraft 2 came out and I was sort of hooked after that.

Gary: That’s funny, I remember playing Orcs and Humans. All you had to do was get 8 archers and you were invincible.

PsY: Yeah, yeah. Just move them up one tile at a time and watch the enemies run towards you and die.

Gary: That game was the game of my childhood. So, I am assuming you realized you were of a good enough skill caliber to play Starcraft 2 when you played Starcraft 1 and got to ICCup?

PsY: I had an idea that once the game was dumbed down a little bit, so anyone could play it, that even if you don’t have insanely high Korean APM, you could be successful in the game. I knew I had the talent, and the growth potential for it, the only thing I am kind of lacking right now, as far as skill goes, is the dedication and motivation to play a lot of games. Because what, 10000 hours is what you have to spend to become master at something, or some number like that?

Gary: So what made you decide to begin commentating your games?

PsY: It goes back to what I mentioned earlier, where I was watching the Starcraft 1 commentaries and I realized these are actually helping me. These are extremely entertaining first of all, I could watch quake commentaries all day even though I have never played the game. So I realized you can teach people a game very very well by commentating. When I am watching other commentators, I feel like they’re really entertaining, fun to watch, but a lot of times they don’t really know what they are talking about. I felt like that was something I could really improve upon. So I took that on as a challenge to see how well I could do compared to them. A little bit of competitive edge there I suppose.

Gary: Well you have been doing a really good job. I have improved by watching your videos.

PsY: Thank you.

Gary: I am assuming your going to continue your youtube channel, you seem to really enjoy it.

PsY: No, it is going to stop at the end of the year.

(both laughing)

PsY: Just kidding, yeah I enjoy it, and I plan on continuing it indefinitely. Maybe if I get bored with Starcraft I will move onto another game, but I don’t really see that happening any time soon.

Gary: Does the addition of a brutal campaign guide being done by you brother Zai indicate there are plans for a change of scope on your youtube channel?

PsY: Alright, let me first clarify. A lot of people hear Zai and they think he is saying PsY, so Zai is not me. His full name is Zaigatocha (Spelling?!). It comes from his World of Warcraft Troll name. Not like he was talking smack to people, he was actually a troll. And train of though, oh, yeah. I have had a lot of extra content on my channel. I did release a challenge walkthrough videos for all nine challenges. I have had a couple tricks and tips videos. I have shown you my macro hotkeys. I have shown you how to do Baneling drops and stuff like that. The focus is 1-on-1 games with Zerg, getting better with Zerg. But if I feel like it, I will release additional content. Zai came to me and said, “There are no good brutal walkthroughs on Youtube. I want to make brutal walkthroughs.” At this time I had already done the first three, but I said, “yeah, you can do it.” He had been hammering those out pretty well, and having a lot of good feedback.

Gary: Yeah, I have enjoyed it. I almost through the brutal campaign, so I am waiting for him to make it to the final missions.

PsY: Yeah, I suggested to him, a lot of people want all in, maybe you should just skip to that, but I think we are just going to go through them all.

Gary: I think he is doing pretty well. He is talking about what to buy throughout the game, so it keeps a pretty good pace. Earlier you talked about how you want to switch to where gaming comes first and then casting, does that mean you plan on involving yourself in the progaming scene more?

PsY: I don’t follow GSL and MLG and all that stuff as well as I should. I mean, I watched the latest DC MLG. I have watched GSL, they have what, 9 matches a day? That is so insane, you have to commit nine hours just to watching all these matchups. GSL: no, it is in Korea, I just don’t have the desire to fly to Korea and play that right now. As far as MLG goes, maybe if I know I have a chance. Like if I somehow came into contact with many of the players who go to the MLG and are very successful, and I beat them and I have the money to fly there, then maybe. I think for now my goal is just to be number one on ladder or something like that. Stay here and work on my commentaries.

Gary: Sounds reasonable. This is random questions, have you ever attempted map making?

PsY: (Laughs) In Starcraft 1 I did. In Starcraft 2 the only maps I do is to setup patch notes videos and tips and tricks videos. Do you mean custom maps or balanced melee maps?

Gary: I guess both count. When I was thinking of the question I thought custom, but balanced, that would be interesting.

PsY: In Starcraft 2 I don’t even bother with that. But in Starcraft 1 I made a map called “Cube.” (Both Laugh) It was actually a decent map. I was like 12 years old when I made this map. And it was a decent map. It was a lot like Lost Tempe, but there weren’t any cheesy ledges and your main base had like 15 mineral patches.

Gary: Wow. You could just stay in there, its like Big Game Hunters.

PsY: Yeah. After that I made a custom map called “Fusion Madness.” It was a kind of, you stick your unit on a beacon and it makes that unit, fight other units, get kills and get hero units. Typical that kind of map. But I balanced in such a way that every unit was countered by one other unit based by their armor types. Ghosts wouldn’t do good against Ultralisks. Stuff like that. Unfortunately it never really took off.

Gary: You seem like a dedicated child map maker. I use to try and make tower defenses when I was playing it.

PsY: I would even make games saying “If you want to make a map with me join this game.” And no one would join it.

Gary: What is your favorite custom settings map on Starcraft 2?

PsY: Blizzard actually pulled it. They recently pulled the game Nexus Word Wars.

Gary: They pulled it?!

PsY: Yeah, have you played it?

Gary: Yeah, I played it a whole bunch, and then I got busy.

PsY: It is so awesome. I will just explain it to anyone listening. (which is going to be like 10 people, I don’t know). Basically you have two team, and you have a nexus you have to protect from an oncoming swarm of units. Each unit coming at you has a word next to them that you have to type out to kill that unit. Huge Brutalisk will have these words like Antidisestablishmentarianism, stuff that long, and then tiny little Zerglings will have the word Soda. And you type the word to kill that unit. But Blizzard actually pulled it from the custom map scene because it would take over 30000 words from the dictionary and I guess (pausing to laugh) some of the words were offensive to people. So they took it off.

Gary: Ah, thats crazy. That game was the best. Those games though, the longest I ever played was about an hour and a half because the other person refused to give up.

PsY: Oh, your hands must have been so tired after that.

Gary: Yeah, my fingers hurt and I couldn’t play another game for another few hours. I typed something like 900 words. It was ridiculous. Are there any non-Blizzard maps you enjoy playing melee on?

PsY: I have played a couple ICCup matches. I don’t know how well ICCup is balanced for Starcraft 2. I have played like Fighting Spirits, and something like Violet Valiant. I don’t know, the thing about the ICCup maps though is that they are either bad for Zerg because they have ten mineral patches in your main and ten in your expansion; the reason that is bad for Zerg is that it requires more Drones for saturation. Other races can do just fine, but Zerg will need that larvae for units. Anything higher than 8 mineral patched becomes worse for Zerg, but they can be good for Zerg at the same time because most of them are so freaking huge and most of them have a very very secure natural. They’re a lot of, but as far as balance goes, I don’t know.

Gary: Was it you who released a video on Heartbreak Ridge?

PsY: Yeah, I wen’t mass Mutalisk and my opponent went mass Vikings.

Gary: The final question is, what is your viewpoint on the current state of eSports in North America and its future to come?

PsY: As far as the business side of things go, like sponsors and that mumbo jumbo, I don’t know. Diggity is a great person to ask about that, I think he has an interview kind of regarding that. I do know that MLG is planning on expanding its Starcraft 2 scene because they are starting to realize PC gaming is way better than console gaming. Once people take PC gamers seriously and you don’t have all the Halo guys trashtalking, I think it will be a lot better. That is my professional answer!

Gary: I think its going to get bigger, a lot of people are putting effort into it.

PsY: I hope so. Hearing people talk about eSports and the GSL and the state of the GSL, they are saying things I cannot even fathom, they just have so much an understanding of eSports that I don’t know how they came to that understand, it just blows me out of the water.

Gary: I don’t understand it quite as much as some people do, so I am probably in the same state as you are. I am still blown away by how much money people make at GSL if they win.

PsY: I know man. What is the equivalent in American Dollars, you know?

Gary: It is 80000 or something crazy like that I think. I would go just to try.

PsY: Did you see Artosis new video?

Gary: No I did not.

PsY: There is a lot of random Americans or foreigners in Korea who are studying or something like that, and are saying, “Hey, I play Starcraft 2, its free to qualify, I think I will just play and get my ass kicked because the prize pool is so high you might as well try.”

Gary: I think that concludes the formal Interview.

PsY: I want to touch upon the first question. I feel like people don’t know me, I haven’t even shown my face. I am not really doing that on purpose. It just kind of happened, no one has really seen me. As my subscribers grew I just didn’t have a picture of myself, but it will come. I am going to Blizzcon, so maybe I will get some pictures with Artosis or Day[9] and something like that and you will see me that way. As far as what I look like, I am not obese or anything like that. A lot of people have been saying I am morbidly obese.

Gary: I was reading something on Starcraft Arena I think. Someone tried to find your Facebook based on your name in your videos when you’re looking at your profile page. I didn’t look at it, but they supposedly said they had found you!

PsY: They probably found my Facebook page, but if they did find it. They’re going to find a picture of a fish with hands.

Gary: (Laughing) Well they didn’t find you.

PsY: (Laughing) They found a hand fish that represents PsY Starcraft.

Gary: Is there anything else you would like to talk about?

PsY: I do want to give a shout out to Starcraft Reddit. (starcraft.reddit.com). And to all of my subscribers. And to you. Thank you for interviewing me, Bobby Gary.

Gary: Thank you for letting me. Bobby is my nickname, Gary is my real name. There is a story about how I got that.

PsY: Interview you, about how you got your name.

Gary: (laughing) I was a Freshman in a Senior AP Statistics class. My name is Gary, but the people didn’t respect me, so they would just call me Bobby because it was a generic name. They used it to begin with as a way to tease me, but somehow it took off and just flew. When they all graduated and I applied for college as a Junior, I ended up going to college with them. And they kept calling me Bobby. It was wierd, it just became my regular name.

PsY: Well I respect you Bobby Gary.

Gary: Thank you. I really appreciate the interview, we are hoping to use this as our launch, so hopefully people will enjoy listening to the interview with PsY Starcraft.

PsY: Okay, sounds good. Thanks for having me.

Gary: Yup.

PsY: Bye.

Gary: Bye.