Biography - From a Gaming Perspective
Here is a short biography of my life from a gaming perspective.
My Early Years
My life began in the suburbs of New Hampshire in the year 1986, the youngest in
a family of six. I entered school in 1993 where I excelled in the sciences. During
this period as my teachers would attest: I was known to be a creative and imaginative
child, with an intense interest with the military. I still remember a game I made
up called shipwreck I use to play in first grade. The game consisted of running
back and forth on the playground dodging vicious whales, escaping the grip of a
volcano on the verge of eruption, and fleeing a sinking vessel. Yes, it was a great
childhood.
During my early years, I spent a large amount of time outside. My time indoors was
taken up playing with Legos, where my brothers and I would set up massive legions
to fight one another. The "civilization" I used as we played with Legos was the
"Foresters," from which came my original online nickname, "Kingforester." My time
outside was spent roaming the woods of New Hampshire, constructing fortresses, and
engaging in play combat with my brothers. During the winter, we would construct
multi-story snow forts. My first exposure to computer games was with a Windows 95
system. On this, I played an Oregon Trail game along with an American Civil War
turn based strategy game. I also learned to program simple Q-Basic programs on this
system. I made some text based adventure games and to this day I remember the nightmares
of using GOTOs in my programming.
The Beginning of the End
As I grew older, we received a new Windows 98 system. The fateful moment was when
I went over my friend's house where he introduced me to the original Command and
Conquer. Soon I bought that game and after that, I bought Command and Conquer: Red
Alert. I loved these games; however,
it felt like they were missing something. I then played the demo to Age of Kings
and well, I was hooked. In fact, that very first night my brothers and I got in
trouble for staying up until ten, way past our bedtime. I loved this game so much
because it took me back to the medieval ages that I had played in as the foresters.
It took those inanimate soldiers and gave them life. Now I was the supreme commanders
of massive armies. Another reason I loved Age of Kings was due to an interest in
history that I had. I remember one school bus driver we had who was in fact going
for his doctorate in history. He wanted to encourage the kids to pursue history
and so he use to have little quizzes where he would give candy to those who could
answer the trivia. To this day I must say he deepened my interest in history.
On
November 10th 2000 my interest in Age of Kings led me to a fan site called Heaven
Games. I began to play online where I did an 18-minute imperial age on the Yucatan
map with Byzantium after which I pumped out Cataphracts and Trebuchets. Yes, I wasn't
very skilled of a player back then.
This
may come to your surprise but originally I was a scenario person. Back then, I spent
most of my time in forums related to scenario design. I think that is one reason
I am one of the few competitive oriented gamers that enjoys doing so much community
related work. After a while, I moved on to Starcraft. My friends in the "Candia
Geek Squad" loved it and I mainly played it with them off line. To this day, the
balance of Starcraft amazes me. I think I would have to say Age of Kings is my favorite
game of all time while Starcraft is the best game of all time. My first experience
with Starcraft was one time when I went over to my friend’s house and played Starcraft
on the Nintendo 64. Yes, that’s right, I played Starcraft on a console before the
PC. I remember it was the map, Twilight Struggle, and we were complaining at how
hard that map was to win.
From there I moved to Empire Earth where I focused mainly on scenario design. After
Empire Earth, I moved on to Age of Mythology where once again I began in the scenario
design crowd. I decided that my old username, "Kingforester" was a little childish
and so on October 21st 2002 I created my "Mokon" account. I started with this account
by maintaining the Official Eye Candy Thread.
Nevertheless, the world was a changing place. I remember being in gym class during
September of 2001 doing leg presses with the radio mumbling in the background. I
remember faintly hearing something about a plane crashing but I thought nothing
of it. Suddenly my gym teacher came running in towards the radio. And well, as they
say, the rest is history.
The Allure of Competitive Gaming
Back in Age of Mythology, I slowly began to drift more toward the competitive gaming
side. Over the freshmen-sophomore summer, I remember playing AOM constantly. I began
to improve slowly, finally reaching around 1700. On April 2nd 2003 I released, "A
guide to Poseidon" on Heaven Games. This was an instant success and people loved
it. While I was not that great of a player, it covered the basics in an easy to
understand way. My involvement in the community led me to get to know some of the
best players. I reached 1800 at the peak of my Age of Mythology career. For some
personal reasons I left Age of Mythology.
After
a while, I found Empires: Dawn of the Modern World. Here I broke into the competitive
scene once again ranked 30th in the world with Germany. A civilization, who, those
that played Empires know, had no chance against a good French or Russian player.
This proves everyone needs to stop blaming balance for his or her losses. In Empires:DMW,
I continued to write guides. I wrote one on hotkey usage and one of my personal
favorites, a guide on the tactical use of a gas mortar infantry that was in the
game. It is also worth mentioning that during this time I briefly was a member of
Tsunami Studios.
Empires slowly began to die due to balance and gameplay problems so I moved on to
a FPS, America's Army, along with playing SC a bit more. I reached 40 honor in this
game, however, after a while it felt that something was missing in this game. First
Person Shooters are nice, requiring plenty of skill but playing them made me feel
as if I was missing the deeper strategically level of play that real time strategies
provide.
Mean while in my life I was advancing through school with A's and B's. In my junior
year of high school, I took on the most enjoyable and educational courses ever,
that being one in which we played Civilization II. In this class, you developed
a civilization, wrote about it, and then played it out in the game. I wrote hundreds
of pages during this class, and I would recommend it to any school system. It was
enjoyable and yet a challenge. Kids who would have failed any other course that
made them write so much, passed with quality papers simply because the way the subject
captured them. This class was interesting. Using the simple laws of warfare, I was
able to defeat the other students. I had barely even played the game in the past,
but by the end of the year, it was my tanks against catapults.
Working with the Industry
Back
into the gaming world, I eagerly awaited Empire Earth II. I was able to gain an
interview with the president of Mad Doc, and later, because of my involvement in
the RTS community I was selected along with 16 other people to attend EEII University
This was a symposium on the game held in Los Angeles. At this event, I met Soccy
and TGE, and afterwards they asked me once again to work at Heaven Games. I had
been asked back in the AOM period but I declined at the time. This time I said yes
and so I became staff at EE2H. Empire Earth II did not do that well in the multiplayer
realm, however, due to engine performance problems and balance issues. I did however
go down to the Mad Doc offices in Lawrence, MA and I interviewed various members
of the team along with ODA for Heaven Games. Soon after this with the launch of
Rise and Fall Heaven, I was summoned to go down to Cambridge, MA to interview SSSI.
So the day before my graduation from high school I went down and interview them
along with Zen and Chonaman.
After this SSSI invited me down to become a "Saturday Playtester". Of course, I
accepted and I was able to preview Rise and Fall. If you look in the credits of
Rise and Fall you will see my name as a Saturday Playtester. Pretty cool if you
ask me. I then took a short stunt in Empires once again but then Age of Empires
III was released. At the beginning of this game, I made a deal with myself that
I would rank in the top 100. This, even to my own surprise, I was able to do. My
best rank was 7th in the world but normally I ranked 25-50th. I even attained the
number one rank in the United States. As I was playing during this period, I wrote
a 256-page guide on how an expert plays. I decided to write this guide more on the
conceptual level then the specific strategy level, and from the people who have
commented on the guide, it seems it has been a success. The sales have born its
success out as well. Along with this, I began to publish a newsletter, which came
out around once a month. One of my favorite memories of AoE3 was being the head
administrator for the Ensemble Studios hosted New World Tournament at Heaven Games.
In 2005 I also previewed Shattered Unions.
In my real life I started to pursue a degree in Computer Science. A major I absolutely
adore. You know you
are
in the right major when you love doing your homework. I would like to extend a very
warm thank you to all the various organizations that have helped me as I am pursing
this degree by giving me scholarships. I could not do it without them. In May 2006,
I was also hired at the UNH Interoperability Laboratory. Here I test networking
equipment for various vendors. It has been a wonderful job.
Back to the world of gaming, the LA Times interviewed me about my love off history
and video games. Nevertheless, as all games do, Age of Empires III slowly started
to fade though. With Empire Earth III announced, I was once again flown out to Los
Angeles for another media preview event. I was then selected for the WIC and EE3
Alphas. I then resigned my position at Heaven Games to take up a new position heading
up GameReplays.Org's Starcraft II Portal. Starcraft 2 is a game that has me tremendously
excited. Its competitive gaming potential is just so astoundingly high. After working
at GameReplays for around five months I was promoted to Global Administrator, where
I was once again tasking with managing the Starcraft 2 portal.
Through GameReplays I have had several great opportunities. First, in October of
2007 I flew out to Seattle Washington to referee Age of Empires 3 in the World Cyber
Games Grand Final. This was great since I had not been active in the AOE3 scene
for over a year then and it allowed me meet up with some of the people I knew from
my time playing competitively. In 2008 through my work at GameReplays I was given
a chance to visit Blizzard Entertainment and Electronic Arts. Later in June of that
year I went to Blizzard Entertainment's World Wide Invitational in Paris France
to cover the event as press. I had a great time there and had a few days to tour
the city as well. In October 2008 I flew out to Los Angeles again to work with E-Sport
Services at the USA World Cyber Games National Final, part of the E4All convention.
Finally, I traveled to Cologne, Germany in November to help out in the 2008 World
Cyber Games Grand Final.
The Future
What
does the future hold? I am looking forward to Starcraft 2 and am still working at
GameReplays. I am now going for my PhD in Computer Science After that I will seek
employment in industry. This is just the beginning and I can't wait to see what
lies down the river we call life.
The Most Important Topic
Before
I go there is one other area that is very important to me. I love competitive gaming,
programming, and many other areas but my personal relationship with the Lord Jesus
Christ comes before everything. I have been a born again Christian since I was five.
I am not one that holds to a denomination, but rather I firmly believe that the
bible has the final say. For those of you who are not born again I ask you to consider
nature. Take a look at the world around us. Do you really believe it came about
by random chance? God created the world, man sinned, and God sent his Son by his
grace. It is by his grace alone we can be saved if we place our faith in him. Even
the best among us are nothing compared to the infinite and even the worst among
us are equivalent to the best when compared to the infinite. Our lives are but the
dash in between two dates on stone. Think about the time after that last date while
you can, or spend an eternity in regret.
Let me end with my favorite quote from a fellow INTJ, Sir. Isaac Newton. This is
the true spirit of any RTS Expert!
"I do not know what I may appear to the world, but to myself I seem to have been
only like a boy playing on the sea-shore, and diverting myself in now and then finding
a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth
lay all undiscovered before me."
Do not look at the dash between the two dates, but look at the vast eternity before
and after.