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Startupcraft: a Starcraft tournament for startups in SF
- pascalchristian 16y agoThe costume competition pic is sooo deceiving.
- justin 16y agoHaha. Well we thought it would be fun... we'll see what happens! I promise I won't dress up as Ghost Kerrigan
- w1ntermute 16y agoYeah, I'd say it's rather cruel to get the hopes of a bunch of nerds up like that...
- asdf333 16y agoYou should ping HDStarcraft to see if he wants to cast. He lives in the bay area. So does Trump, if you want to do a showmatch vs a progamer. He is ranked 159 or so in the world right now....and lives near Cupertino I think What is novice? Silver league and below?
- gort 16y agoTrump is awesome. His stream is live right now at http://www.trumpsclive.com/ http://www.trumpsclive.com/ if you want to get a sense of him... (when it ceases being live it will no longer have a big red rectangle saying "live")
- Mongoose 16y agoDefinitely a good idea. We've gotten him to agree to cast the finals of an internal Google SC2 tourney that's going on right now. (I'm an intern)
- xenophanes 16y agoRealistically, novice is more like platinum and below. Blizzard went to a lot of trouble to name everyone's ranks in a way to make them feel good even if they're bad. Unlike iCCup which ranked tons of people with grades like "D-"
- JeremyChase 16y agoBlizzard did try to make everyone feel good about their ranking. However, the flaw in your argument is that hardly anyone ranked D- in ICCup was actually a novice at Broodwar.
- gort 16y agoAgreed. I'm a Platinum 1v1 player, and completely terrible.
- Charuru 16y agoWell iCCup bills itself as a gosu server, so it's understandable. D on iCCup must be about the top 4% of the SC population or something. C would be 1%.
- asdf333 16y agoI would recommend getting 'novice' defined for this tourney... reading through this thread it is apparent that people have wildly differing views on what novice is. Would hate to enter as real novice (beat cpu on normal) and be up against gold players.
- dsiroker 16y agoThis is great! Thanks for hosting, Justin. Let me know if you are looking for other sponsors. We'd be interested.
- justin 16y agoWe are! You can contact kevin 'at' justin.tv to find out how to help.
- zeeg 16y agoStay away from the beginners cup, unless you want to face the wrath that is DISQUS :)
- koichi 16y agoyour name is ALMOST zerg... I have a feeling you're a Starcraft Shark.
- ataranto 16y agoHot tip for investors: invest in the companies that lose in the first round, as their employees are probably too busy building great products to play games.
- metellus 16y agoI hope you realize how insulting that is to any developer (or anyone, really) that enjoys playing games (or doing anything aside from work).
- ataranto 16y agoIs there a button you can click in Starcraft II that will upgrade your sense of humor?
- deleted 16y ago[deleted]
- xal 16y agoI build and run a very successful startup and I'm at the top of diamond :-)
- staunch 16y agoA functioning craftaholic.
- cvg 16y agoHopefully people aren't too good at Starcraft 2. The worst Starcraft team should get a round of funding.
- leif 16y agoYeah, because they're probably spending some of their time working on their product.
- pclark 16y agoi'm sure you meant it in jest, but it still really bugs me: this idea that startups shouldn't do anything but work. who does that, seriously.
- cvg 16y agoDefinitely meant in jest. I was a fan of the original Starcraft way back in the day. Even now new games come out that still provide me with a little distraction. "Sad is the developer who knows not fun."
- koichi 16y agoI dunno. I wouldn't fund any startup that can't pull off a good zergling rush.
- sprout 16y agoIt's interesting that they chose to use a region-locked game. Alone it's all well and good to have an event like this in SF, but at least use a more open medium. (I mean, even a weakly open medium like Age of Empires III or something.) I feel like there's a clear line where 'closed' is bad for everyone, and though I'm not sure if the SF startup community has crossed it, StarCraft II clearly has. It sends a bad message, as I see it.
- zeeg 16y agoAre you saying someone should play an RTS other than SC2?
- johngalt 16y agoAoE3 is the best RTS I've ever played. The problems were; a fairly small online community, and some balance issues. But the "home city/shipment" dynamic broke new ground.
- pclark 16y agoStarcraft 2 has a huge community and no balance issues.
- metamemetics 16y agoRise of Nations was the "real" Age of Empires sequel, and much better than AoE3.
- abraham 16y agoThen organize a competing tournament with a more "open" game.
- sprout 16y agoI don't live in SF. The tournament has a regional bias on multiple levels. Not that I take this event incredibly seriously, but I do consider Activision's region locking deeply offensive, as someone with dear friends on far-flung continents, some of whom I have fond memories of weekend college LAN parties, and I occasionally like to revisit those memories with them. Fortunately, all of those (RTS) memories are of Age of Kings and Age of Mythology, so I can't say StarCraft's locking affects me too much lately. But I'm not going to stay silent while people try to wall off the Internet out of greed. Games should be an opportunity to come together without barriers of language or nation.
- giannii 16y agoI'm down!
- coryl 16y agoThis is so cool. My partner and I play at least an hour a day of 2v2 at the end of our work sessions. It'd be a lot of fun, AND cool to meet other startups. AND its hosted at Justin.tv! Damn you San Francisco, damn you. *We're not in SF :(
- justin 16y agoWe might do a simultaneous East coast satellite section of the tournament if you are in NYC to open up the event to New York startups. Talking to some friends about hosting in their office. Stay tuned.
- kschrader 16y agoWorking on locking down space right now. Should know in the next couple of days.
- diziet 16y agoWhy no 1v1?
- justin 16y agoStartups are about putting together the right teams, and we think Starcraft is more interesting in team games.
- yosho 16y agoJustin, 3v3 is like THE traditional Starcraft team battle. You need to have a 3v3 in the tourney, 4v4 makes the map too crowded and 2v2 means one of our co-founders can't play. C'mon man!!!! make it happen please
- justin 16y agoYou can probably pick up someone at the event for a 4v4.. already had teams sign up so can't change now!
- fatbat 16y agoWow, too bad I am not around. :( Any plans to make this a recurring event? Also, post the replays!
- justin 16y agoYes, if this is successful we will do it again!
- koichi 16y agoDAMNIT. Apparently I just HAD to move out of SF before this happened. The poor location, cost of living, and everything else don't matter when Starcraft 2 is on the line.
- LeBlanc 16y agoAny other solo founders interested in this? I am diamond 2v2.
- ztay 16y agoYes! I'm in the gold, but will keep practicing. Email me, Taylor at printfriendly.com
- Sindrome 16y agoThis is on the front page... guess I will be seeing a few of you guys @ Blizzcon this year.
- radley 16y agoOMG - it's on!
- koichi 16y agoIs it faux pas to do this? If so, please let me know and I'll delete it, though. I wrote a response to some of the comments on this page about the StarCraft tournament in the form of a post. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1661616 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1661616
- justin 16y agoNice post!
- arram 16y agoMakes me wish I'd jumped on the wagon sooner and gotten my skills up to par.
- deleted 16y ago[deleted]
- pclark 16y agoYou should fly Day[9] out to SF to commentate. He's done a few noteworthy things other than be awesome at Starcraft that are valuable to startups: * Never give up (eg: play SC for 10 years) * Build a huge following around his daily series * And my god he is so evangelical about what he loves, he exudes love for the game - http://blip.tv/file/3486428 http://blip.tv/file/3486428 /tenuous.
- carnevalem 16y agoI will second this recommendation. I watch that video every time I need a motivation to keep working hard. I've never been much of a Starcraft player, but the way he explains his passion for the game and the dedication he has put into developing his skills is amazingly inspiring to me. Most of the points he makes about training for Starcraft can be applied to any other field.
- jeff18 16y agoThis is what I've been training for! Count Wolfire Games in.
- jacoblyles 16y agoSolo founder beginner-league looking for a second. Send me an email. I may be unranked, but I pwn n00bz in the practice league. This will be after the Terran nerf patch comes out, so there are no guarantees on how good I will be.
- kobs 16y agoHah, definitely not a surprise that Justin.tv is sponsoring it.
- DrewHintz 16y agoIf anyone wants to play SC2, feel free to add me: pushespretn@gmail.com
- ohashi 16y agoDamnit. I wish I lived in the area now.
- tvon 16y agoBecause clearly startups are overloaded with free time... ;)
- rradu 16y agoI've never played Starcraft, maybe just because I didn't grow up in America. Can anyone explain why it's so popular among entrepreneurs?