Ray of Light wrote:

Games get really good only once you're really good at them. I like being really good at things.

It takes 500 hours to learn a map. Jhoh has 175 hours, or about long enough to find a good key layout. The last time I played with him, he couldn't even execute uber heavy (his "main" class) vs tanked sentry from max range.* He gave up before completing the tutorial (though not as soon as he claims: he played in December OR more recently than that!).

Monty Cantsin once asked, rhetorically, why couldn't you just play one video game your whole life, like people do with golf or tennis? Well, maybe I can and I'm willing to try.

I don't talk about work much, but in a nutshell, me and three other geniuses make a bunch of money for our employer. A couple years ago there was a multi-day crisis of the sort that could have lost a customer and maybe gotten a few inches in the newspaper. The four of us were on the phone at 3am, talking it through, and it occurred to me that our boss (one of the four), despite being very technical and a great leader, did not have any background in this kind of scenario. I do. So I started calling shots like it was a 2fort match: throw out a thought and see if anyone acts on it.

A day and a half later, with solid progress made, I saw guy #3 was flagging, called the boss and told him guy #3 was not the sort to quit on his own, and we couldn't afford to have him work until he was dead, and I wanted boss' permission to send him to sleep, even though it might delay progress. This is classic leadership and I really surprised myself by displaying it.

In the end, the customer was so impressed with us that the disaster turned into a slam-dunk. It was exceptional work from everyone that made it happen, a true team effort. Our customer is now a much bigger customer, and on the strength of that episode I was given a lieutenant's role in the new action.

None of that would have happened without 2fort. More specifically, wouldn't have happened if I hadn't played enough 2fort to think deeply about what makes a win, and observe that often it was the one guy encouraging everyone and saying what needed to be done and calling out dangers in advance. I try to emulate those guys; they're still better at it than I am but my imitation was good enough to get the job done, that one time.



* the medic runs ahead to take fire, the heavy moves to point-blank at full speed before opening fire.