I was originally going to wait by writing this until I came home from the Fragbite Masters later this month, but due to a change of schedule I have a few extra days in Sweden so now feels like a good time.



Somewhere back in October I was putting together my schedule for the coming months and at the time it looked like EMS, Fragbite, MSI and Dreamhack was going to be right next to each other, but the EMS finals were moved forward a few weeks, which made my life a whole lot easier. But after that still came the question, assuming I would eventually get invited for Dreamhack, was it really reasonable to embark on a 3 week long journey from Denmark to Stockholm, to China and back to Stockholm, then to Jonkoping and then back to Stockholm again, before going home to Denmark? I spent a lot of time talking this over in my own mind. Would I be able to deliver a product that was of equal quality to all my employers? Would I end up just burning out? Would it be too much for me to be on for basically every big tournament, would people end up getting sick of listening to me? What about the NiPTV channel which would have zero activity on it for all that time… And then after that came taking up the matter with my girlfriend. Having already put my university on hold indefinitely, how did she feel about me going on some crazy adventure? Choosing to leave her to take care of our two dogs while also maintaining a full time job, being out of reach for a long stretch during MSI in Beijing, family birthdays and many other things that might be happening while I was away?



In the end, the project was undertaken scheduled to last from the 17th until the 6th of December and then back to Stockholm again for the 10th and 11th December. I had figured that in order to get the best possible start to the whole trip I would take care to have everything packed a few days early. I was getting ready to spend time with my girlfriend, take some long walks and really get my mind right and also prepare and properly learn the tournament schedules and formats and suchlike. Instead, here is what happened.



Somewhere around 2 A.M. between Thursday the 14th and Friday the 15th I woke up freezing. My hands were so cold and I was shaking uncontrollably. Eventually I got downstairs to the bathroom and started feeling dizzy as I went. I will spare you the details, but let us just say some truly unholy stuff went down in that bathroom, after which I went upstairs again. I fell asleep and woke up 30 minutes later and repeated this pattern a few times. Like anyone else I´ve been sick with a fever or just generally felt bad, but in my 27 years I have never felt anything near as awful as I felt around 5 A.M. that morning. I actually had to call my girlfriend to come watch over me because I was passing out while still throwing up. I ended up Sleeping all of Friday and all of Saturday away, packing whatever I could find and remember and rushing out the door on Sunday to get to the airport. So let us just say not everything went as planned. Fragbite however was off to a good start.



The production crew and the Fragbite staff are some very cool people whom I feel very lucky to have met, and I hope to work with in the future too. Having just got over my initial sickness, I ran into a really terrible cold that affected me in a bad way for a caster. As long as I didn’t talk, I felt very much normal, no stuffy nose or sore throat or anything. But as soon as I started talking, it felt like my lungs had no air in them at all, and I sounded more or less like I had been smoking for 50 some years. This was very upsetting because there wasn’t much to do about the situation except just cracking on. I went home on the first few nights from Fragbite feeling like I wasn’t able to deliver the product they were paying for, and I hated that. Without feeling much better I then left for China where I tried to fill myself with tea in between every game. But the venue was very cold and progress was very slow. On top of that I ended up solo casting a lot of the games, which meant I ended up thinking a lot about to conserve my voice and less about how to make the show exciting. Again this was very disappointing and frustrating because of an underlying feeling of complete helplessness. You know that irrational feeling you get when you feel the universe is out to get you? Well, in the first week of my grand adventure let us just say I had that haunt me a fair few times, but enough self-pity. In China I got a lot of very valuable information about the E-sports industry, running events out of your comfort zone and about my own limits to entertain an audience when you have, well, few resources at your disposal. I also got to meet cArn for the second time since EMS, and it was a pleasure. cArn is one of the many very hard working people in this industry who in Beijing has to fill out the role as Co-caster, Event organizer and team coach, all at the same time. I saw him fight hard to up the quality of the stream, but it was almost impossible for a lot of different reasons. When I eventually came home I was starting to slowly feel better, and I actually enjoyed casting the next two days of Fragbite before we finally managed to settle everything with Dreamhack.



Dreamhack is a beast all on its own. And this being the biggest CS tournament to date, being involved was obviously a real honor. I was still feeling the after effects of my cold, but while casting I didn’t think much of it, the games were simply too good, the atmosphere was radiant. I wish we had got a change to try more casting pairs, more mixing, but actually most of all I just felt absorbed by the whole tournament. I am not sure I´ve fully digested the whole event yet, but I went to sleep on the final day with a good feeling inside. My girlfriend also drove up from Denmark to Jonkoping to visit me at Dreamhack for two days, which made the whole thing much better.



So what the hell have I learned? I actually still don’t know, too much really… This industry is very much based off of personal connections. Who you know, who knows you and suchlike, and I got to meet some great people in China and in Stockholm and Jonkoping. I also got to cast in front of 145.000 people from which the feedback has been largely, but not exclusively, positive. I also got some pads on the back from some fairly established casters and industry people who thought I was doing a good job in general and some good pointer on what could be changed for the better. I guess more than anything I am now left with a feeling that my initial somewhat questionable choice of quitting one job and putting my English degree on hold for god knows how long, is somehow turning out alright.



https://twitter.com/NiPAnders on twitter if you´re interested. Also no spellchecker on this damn laptop, so sorry if the errors are too much =)

