
Startupcraft: a Starcraft tournament for startups in SF - justin
http://www.startupcraftsf.com
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pclark
You 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>

/tenuous.

~~~
carnevalem
I 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.

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cvg
Hopefully people aren't too good at Starcraft 2. The worst Starcraft team
should get a round of funding.

~~~
koichi
I dunno. I wouldn't fund any startup that can't pull off a good zergling rush.

~~~
ovi256
Hey pops, zerglings are so 1998.

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MarkSweep
You can still do a 4-pool rush: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9rTCRg9_7Hw>

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hammmatt
Silly Noob, it's a six pool now.

Also, really a seven pool because it makes sense to make a drone instead of
saving for the spawning.

The ideal rush is an eight pool, unless you wish to do some sort of timing
attack.

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asdf333
You 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?

~~~
xenophanes
Realistically, 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-"

~~~
asdf333
I 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.

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zeeg
Stay away from the beginners cup, unless you want to face the wrath that is
DISQUS :)

~~~
koichi
your name is ALMOST zerg... I have a feeling you're a Starcraft Shark.

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koichi
Is 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>

~~~
justin
Nice post!

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arram
Makes me wish I'd jumped on the wagon sooner and gotten my skills up to par.

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dsiroker
This is great! Thanks for hosting, Justin. Let me know if you are looking for
other sponsors. We'd be interested.

~~~
justin
We are! You can contact kevin 'at' justin.tv to find out how to help.

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jacoblyles
Solo 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.

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coryl
This 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
We 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
Working on locking down space right now. Should know in the next couple of
days.

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koichi
DAMNIT. 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.

~~~
justin
You can always come back to play!

~~~
koichi
Hmm... don't tempt me, haha! I think my girlfriend would kill me.

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sprout
It'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.

~~~
abraham
Then organize a competing tournament with a more "open" game.

~~~
sprout
I 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.

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fatbat
Wow, too bad I am not around. :( Any plans to make this a recurring event?
Also, post the replays!

~~~
justin
Yes, if this is successful we will do it again!

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Sindrome
This is on the front page... guess I will be seeing a few of you guys @
Blizzcon this year.

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kobs
Hah, definitely not a surprise that Justin.tv is sponsoring it.

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LeBlanc
Any other solo founders interested in this? I am diamond 2v2.

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ztay
Yes! I'm in the gold, but will keep practicing. Email me, Taylor at
printfriendly.com

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ataranto
Hot 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
I hope you realize how insulting that is to any developer (or anyone, really)
that enjoys playing games (or doing anything aside from work).

~~~
ataranto
Is there a button you can click in Starcraft II that will upgrade your sense
of humor?

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rradu
I've never played Starcraft, maybe just because I didn't grow up in America.
Can anyone explain why it's so popular among entrepreneurs?

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pascalchristian
The costume competition pic is sooo deceiving.

~~~
justin
Haha. Well we thought it would be fun... we'll see what happens!

I promise I won't dress up as Ghost Kerrigan

~~~
koichi
You should come in full SCV costume.

~~~
justin
I'm investigating how I can get a probe costume.

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diziet
Why no 1v1?

~~~
justin
Startups are about putting together the right teams, and we think Starcraft is
more interesting in team games.

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yosho
Justin, 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
You can probably pick up someone at the event for a 4v4.. already had teams
sign up so can't change now!

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DrewHintz
If anyone wants to play SC2, feel free to add me: pushespretn@gmail.com

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tvon
Because clearly startups are overloaded with free time... ;)

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jeff18
This is what I've been training for! Count Wolfire Games in.

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ohashi
Damnit. I wish I lived in the area now.

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radley
OMG - it's on!

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giannii
I'm down!

