(Click to enlarge)
A long time ago, I used to be very stingy when it came to gaming, and I would only play games that had no cost to me, apart from my time (and with that being said, microtransactions were completely out of the picture). After getting more involved in the gaming and online entertainment industry, I’m more inclined to support developers who make games and products that are really good … and this was an example of a really good product.
As you can see, I’ve gone ahead and organized my stash by moving all my currency into the new respective tab, then sorting the rest of my newly-named and color-coded tabs.
My personality type really likes seeing things neat and organized, and even the process of turning something from a mess into an organized masterpiece makes me excited. To me, sorting all my in-game belongings was probably more fun than actually playing the game. Path of Exile’s Currency Stash Tabs are the best thing ever
This post is over 10 years old and may contain information that is incorrect, outdated, or no longer relevant.
My views and opinions can change, and those that are expressed in this post may not necessarily reflect the ones I hold today.
Path of Exile is a great game. It doesn’t really seem like a game that would pull me in, because the setting feels a little old (and I tend not to like games where I feel like I’m traveling back in time). But, for some reason, after giving Path of Exile another try a few years ago, it pulled me in.
I’m not sure if it’s the somewhat intriguing storyline, the straightforward gameplay, or the relatively higher level of “casual” difficulty that caught my attention, but since actually starting to really play it, I’ve always gone back to continue playing it after every large gameplay update.
Although this isn’t exactly a “large gameplay update,” Grinding Gear Games released a new update that was big enough for me to want to come back to the game and play even more, even though I had already recently played quite a bit as a result of the Ascendancy expansion and the release of Labyrinths.
Path of Exile now has a new microtransaction for Currency Stash Tabs.
One of the more annoying things about the game, in my opinion, is how there is no universal currency, and instead, you have currency-like items that only stack to 40 in your inventory and stash. I very much enjoy hoarding, but it’s difficult to do that if you can only have 40 of one item for each slot (and eventually, you’re going to run out of space pretty quickly).
However, I never really got into trading and merchanting, and I very rarely buy items from NPC stores, so it wasn’t really that big of a deal for me. I accepted that it was a bartering economy, and I just played as if nothing was different than games with other types of economies.
With the release of Currency Stash Tabs, Grinding Gear Games provided the players with a very convenient way to improve their quality of life when playing the game, and made a very compelling feature from which they should probably be making a ton of money to fund their development.
This is so compelling that even I proceeded to get an Aspirant Supporter pack from their shop, then use the 450 points that come with the package to get myself a Currency Stash Tab. While I was at it, I also used some more of my points to upgrade my current stash tabs to premium stash tabs.
(Click to enlarge)
A long time ago, I used to be very stingy when it came to gaming, and I would only play games that had no cost to me, apart from my time (and with that being said, microtransactions were completely out of the picture). After getting more involved in the gaming and online entertainment industry, I’m more inclined to support developers who make games and products that are really good … and this was an example of a really good product.
As you can see, I’ve gone ahead and organized my stash by moving all my currency into the new respective tab, then sorting the rest of my newly-named and color-coded tabs.
My personality type really likes seeing things neat and organized, and even the process of turning something from a mess into an organized masterpiece makes me excited. To me, sorting all my in-game belongings was probably more fun than actually playing the game.
(Click to enlarge)
A long time ago, I used to be very stingy when it came to gaming, and I would only play games that had no cost to me, apart from my time (and with that being said, microtransactions were completely out of the picture). After getting more involved in the gaming and online entertainment industry, I’m more inclined to support developers who make games and products that are really good … and this was an example of a really good product.
As you can see, I’ve gone ahead and organized my stash by moving all my currency into the new respective tab, then sorting the rest of my newly-named and color-coded tabs.
My personality type really likes seeing things neat and organized, and even the process of turning something from a mess into an organized masterpiece makes me excited. To me, sorting all my in-game belongings was probably more fun than actually playing the game. 
If you’ve visited my website’s splash page recently, it probably looks familiar, because I have my Twitch stream embedded.
Since then, a ton has changed in regards to my gaming. I became absurdly frustrated with the direction in which the gameplay of League of Legends was headed, and stopped taking the game seriously part-way through season 3. I completely left the Tetris competitive scene. StarCraft II became a game I opened once every few years, only to play arcade games with friends.
I’ve wanted to change the banner for a long time, if not for the misrepresentation of games, then to at least increase the quality of the image. The problem was, I uploaded the graphic to Twitch as a .jpg file, which created a lot of artifacts in the embedded video player and made it look blurry.
Literally almost four years later, I finally got around to designing a new Twitch graphic.
Not only have I obviously gotten a lot better at graphic design since then, but I also made it so this offline graphic is a lot more specific and broad at the same time. It provides more information about who I am, but also doesn’t include any restricting information.
I’m happy with how it turned out, but hopefully it’ll be shorter than another four years until I redesign it to make it look even better. 
Most of my fame came from doing general comedy a long time ago, and I’m not really too heavily involved in the Heroes of the Storm esports scene, so a lot of people didn’t recognize me when I appeared on the ESL broadcast.
Of course, the immediate reaction to that was to call me TrumpSC, a well-known HearthStone streamer who is also Asian, and has a similar hairstyle as I do.
Apparently, ESL thought it was hilarious that Twitch chat was spamming “TRUMP? TRUMP?? TRUMP???” so they kept on zooming in on my face and showing me in the broadcast at random times when I was on stage, for no particular reason. So, the VODs have a lot of me just standing there, doing nothing, and listening to the team talk while we were in picks-and-bans.
Yesterday was my flight back to Chicago. I snapped a photo when I was at the airport:
On the flight from ORD to LAX, I stayed awake for most of it and was on social media on my phone for literally about two-thirds of the time. On the flight back from LAX to ORD, I pretty much got knocked-out tired right away, and slept for a majority of the flight.
When I got back to Chicago, my buddy Josh, who dropped me off at the airport, was ready to pick me up.
After I got off the plane and left the airport, I somehow magically made it to the drop-off area instead of the pick-up area. If you’re not familiar, the drop-off area is usually a lot more peaceful than the pick-up area. Realistically, there are about 10 cars at the drop-off area at any given time, while in the pick-up area, it’s pretty much a constant flow of clogged traffic.
I thought I was doing Josh a favor by going to the drop-off area, so he wouldn’t have to struggle through the river of vehicles. Apparently, that didn’t matter, because Josh had already taken the road to the pick-up area, and he couldn’t figure out how to get to the second level of the airport, in the drop-off area.
So, after a nice struggle, I finally managed to make it down to the pick-up area, and watched about a thousand cars go by before finally finding Josh and getting in.
The strangest thing is that I got on the airplane in 80°F weather, but when I got off, I was in nice and freezing cold Chicago, where it was hailing and sleeting at the same time.
…
I’ll have all the highlight reels of Tempo Storm’s games cut, rendered, and uploaded to Tempo Storm’s YouTube channel soon, so keep an eye out for those if you’re interested in seeing how Tempo Storm did, but wasn’t able to watch the full games live. 
Tempo Storm was the first team to get their photos taken for media.
Usually, they take a ton of photos and videos for promotional content, but for some reason, they didn’t spend that much time with every team for this tournament. So, it was a lot faster and easier than we had anticipated.
Back at the studio, we claimed our computers and set up in the practice room. We managed to get the back corner to lessen the possibility of other people walking by and seeing our screens and scouting our strategies and team compositions that we were practicing.
Unfortunately, because everyone was just thrown into the same room together, the privacy thing didn’t really work out too well. Eventually, everyone just walked around wherever they wanted, and chatted with other players in random places.
All that was yesterday. Today, we had stage rehearsal.
The Asian guy you see in the red hoodie is Will Cho, better known as Chobra. He’s a pretty big figure in the esports industry, and he’s the director for this tournament.
Apart from that, all the other time we had was spent either practicing in the computer room, or chatting privately in a hotel room about drafting strategy. I was with the team all day during the morning and afternoon, but after the evening rolled around and the studio closed, I went my separate way for the rest of the night so I could get some work done in peace.
The tournament starts tomorrow, so be sure to tune in to the ESL Twitch stream and watch Tempo Storm play! 
The drive to the airport didn’t take as long as I had anticipated, and I had calculated way too much time to accommodate for the rain, and I ended up getting to the airport about two and a half hours early.
After about an hour of waiting, I heard the fantastic news that my flight was delayed.
While I was waiting, I walked over to a nearby McDonald’s to get some breakfast (which was technically lunch because it was in the afternoon, but it was the first time I had eaten, so it was breakfast for me).
After buying the food, I realized how much more expensive McDonald’s is at the airport than anywhere else, with prices around 30% higher. I immediately regretted my decision, not only because of the cost, but because I proceeded to smell partially-digested hamburger every time I burped, and it kept on coaxing me to vomit on the plane.
While eating my Quarter Pounder, I overheard some great conversations, such as “Oooh just thinking about flying out of here makes me want to eat some carrots.”
After a second delay, the plane finally arrived.
Of course, humans are slow, so we had to wait another 20 minutes after the plane arrived for all the previous passengers to get off the plane.
At the time I was originally supposed to land in Los Angeles, I was finally on the plane with three hours left to go.
Here’s a photo of some ice crystals that formed on the window not long before landing. It was something around -30°C outside at that altitude.
After hours upon hours of traveling, I had to wait and travel even more to get to my hotel. Apparently, there were no flights today that went from O’Hare to Bob Hope Airport in Burbank, so I had to go to LAX and take a shuttle to Marriott Hotel in Burbank, CA (near the ESL studios).
This is the photo I took while waiting at the airport for my shuttle. It felt a little strange going from rainy, cold weather in Chicago, to a pretty cool airplane, to burning hot and humid outside in sunny Los Angeles. I kept my jacket on though, because my mind was too busy being confused that it didn’t really send a signal to my arms to take off my jacket.
After riding on the shuttle for over an hour in the dreaded Los Angeles traffic, I finally made it to my hotel. I was the last member of Tempo Storm to make it to California, so I went around chatting with the players and getting to know them a bit better, seeing as this was the first time I would be working with them in person.
As the day came to an end, Kaeyoh, So1dier, Mel, and I went to Target to do some shopping. Mel bought a 24-pack of water for her team, then proceeded to pick up this bottle and say “… and this one’s for me.”
I’m pretty exhausted from the traveling, but hopefully I’ll be able to sleep it off, because we’ve got an early day ahead of us tomorrow.