The Beginning Of An Irish Starcraft Scene

conormurphy

I posted this same post on the competitive gaming subforum yesterday but there seems to be no sort of movement over there whatsoever so I reposted it here. I know it's a long post but I believe that it may be a worthwhile read to any of you who are interested in real time strategy games.

I came up with an idea during my Geography exam in the Junior Cert yesterday. Basically, Starcraft 2 is being released in mid September and from what I have seen it looks class. It basically looks like Starcraft with Warcraft 3 graphics, only better!

So anyway, I thought, people are always talking on the board, asking if there is a future for gaming in Ireland. Of course it's disappointing to see that the only players being sent to WCG are 1 Fifa Player, 1 PGR Player and a Counter Strike team but I think Starcraft 2 could start a trend in Ireland if promoted right.

I mean, how many people in Dublin work with computers today, e.g. working in computer science and electronical engineering and the such. It's a shame to see that they don't play games but then you have to think, do they? I had a talk with a friend the other day about Warcraft 3 and he had completed it 3 times but had never played online! I couldn't believe it. It seems that people here in Ireland don't actually know enough about professional gaming or know anything about it at all.

So I hit my mam with a question the other day. I asked her what she would think if I became a Pro Gamer after I finished college. At first she thought I was joking but then she realised that there was a market there. I'm quite an academical, ambitious teenager and my list of potential jobs range from TEFL Teacher-Aid Worker-Pilot. My mam wants me to do well too and she doesn't really like me slacking or getting lazy but she doesn't put an overly large amount of pressure on me. Anyway, she said she wouldn't mind me doing it if it could keep me happy and pay me, and she said that at least when I was done, there would probably be other jobs in the computer gaming field.

So back to my plan. The fact that Starcraft 2 is coming out in September could start a new era for Irish gaming. Become the new Korea. Look at how many people over here play Command and Conquer, Age Of Empires etc. And look at all the Trekkies and Star Wars fans, most of these people probably haven't even heard of Starcraft! So I was thinking we should try and promote through boards and also other forums or even word of mouth. Imagine how shocked the workers at Game would be to see Starcraft 2 flying off the shelf! We could wait around 2 weeks after the game comes out and then try and get a tournament going online. I'll organise it fully and if anyone wants to help thats cool.

We can attract people to playing by offering sponsored prizes from big gaming companies such as Razer, Sennheiser, Intel etc. Now that might sound a bit farfetched and thats what I would have though too. But last month I played in a Warcraft 3 tournament online. It was organised by a Venezuelan company called Deportes Electronicos, don't know exactly what that means, anyone speak Spanish? The prizes were $100 and a Razer Diamondback Mouse for first place and a Razer Krait mouse for second place. Pretty amazing considering it was a Venezuelan company that organised it.

So anyway, the tournament format could be:

A preliminary round, just to make sure the tournament is fair and that nobody gets a complete dud that will disconnect as soon as the game starts. The preliminary round can be free to enter and anybody can play in it. Best of 1 game.

A knockout format, attempt to pick out the 16 best players from the preliminary (which will most likely be almost everyone ), to participate, you must pay €10 (maybe this should be done in the preliminary round but would that not garner complaints?), Best of 3 games.

A final, the last 2 remaining face off here, playing for the grand prize of €100. The winner gets the money by cash or credit transfer because not everyone will have Paypal. This will be best of 5 games.

Following this, there would be €60 left over if 16 people pay €10 each. This €60 could either be used to buy a second prize or else for website maintenance costs, have a professional website done hence increasing interest in the game and the competitions even more.

To determine who wins a match, both players must save the replay of each round and then the winner must upload the replays of his wins. We can then use replays to create replay packs for people to watch and help them improve their game.

We can make a list of rules nearer the time if there is enough interest in the competition. If eventually it did get competitive enough, we could probably have clan wars or even a clan branch of this tournament. It would be interesting to setup a Starcraft 2 corner at Gamecon or the such as well to see how people respond, there'd probably be people interested in watching the matches. Plus if we can get enough support, the sponsorship can sponsor cash prizes (or even just normal prizes) and so entry will be free.

Another point is that if interest gets strong enough and people start watching replays or visiting a competition website, we can branch off into other games which can be played online or via lan.

The competition would be exclusively Irish, especially when it has just begun because the whole point is to promote gaming in Ireland.

Okay so that's the end of this post for now, I will probably edit it quite a bit during the summer to add in new stuff and I might just even make a big PDF file with rules put in and the such.

If anyone has any suggestions please make them and please do tell me if this is a worthwhile idea. I think it seems pretty good, and after all, there will be prizes. Anyone can be good at it they might never know. I swear if you can complete games like Age Of Empires or Command and Conquer on high difficulty levels, you will be good enough to help a scene to get going in Ireland, and even if your not good at them games, you might try this anyway!

Thats all for now!

Conor

Here are some useful gaming websites

http://www.mymym.com/ - Danish based professional gaming clan
http://youtube.com/user/klazartsc - Provides commentary on korean starcraft league matches, he is from Cork and is critically acclaimed in the Starcraft world.
http://www.worldcybergames.com/ - The official website of World Cyber Games.
http://www.geocities.com/starcraftstrats/ - A great Starcraft strategy guide, it is likely that Starcraft 2 strategies will be similar to the strategies currently used in the original Starcraft
http://www.angelfire.com/games3/scstrategy/ - Another Starcraft strategy but for more advanced players!

Sephiroth_dude

Im interested in hearing where you got the september release date for starcraft 2 from?on gamefaqs its still as tbc,good idea though all the same .

Sabre0001

Hey, sorry - had seen the thread over on CG but it mentioned tournament straight away - unfortunately not for me

Warcraft seems to be the more popular in Western Society - used in ESWC, WCG, CGS, etc whereas Starcraft has a stranglehold in Korean and Asian market...The only thing is that the move to SC2 needs to be managed carefully - sequels generally cause community divides and competition within the same game (CS 1.6 v Source, Quake - all 4 against each other but most recently 3 v 4 and even the out-of-box version against a mod).

You have 3 years to practice (and save some money because I would recommend heading Eastwards) - get online, watch videos and demos of the pros (and learn and analyse). Try to get to know players in the community (esp. players at the top - may be able to scrim against them or pick up tips and tricks). Not sure if it applies to SC but try to watch vids of your own games and see where you went wrong or where you can improve (or what worked really well that you can use in the future).

Also add your €0.02 to the "pro gaming future in Ireland" thread. I certainly agree with you about the lack of knowledge and information (joe public knows nothing of the scene - this is a worldwide thing but awareness is growing)

conormurphy

Yeah basically I thought that it would be too late to publicise Warcraft 3 although maybe DOTA would be well played?!

Sabre0001

conormurphy wrote: »

Yeah basically I thought that it would be too late to publicise Warcraft 3 although maybe DOTA would be well played?!

Talk to a guy called Poddy about that (think it's Pong.Poddy or Poddy.Pong on here) - he seems to be in the know so to speak...

*Edit - There has been one response in the CG thread so maybe keep an eye on it.

Also in your original post:

she said she wouldn't mind me doing it if it could keep me happy and pay me, and she said that at least when I was done, there would probably be other jobs in the computer gaming field

-You NEED to enjoy it, if you are going pro it WILL be a full time job...Some (top) players play for more than 8 hours a day in order to be the best so you have to be prepared for sacrificing certain things at certain times (especially coming up to a tournament). There is also a difference between "practice" and "perfect practice" - practice could be just playing but may not benefit you. Perfect practice is utilising your time and gaining from it. For example an old Quake 3 vetern (CZM) is entering a tournament shortly but says he will only be able to put in 30 hours (compared to other players doing a couple of hardcore weeks) - but if he uses this time well, he could place very well.

The other half of the quote - the pay - in pro gaming it is tricky. You need to manage to get onto a team that has a full time paying contract or get good sponsorship. The CGS is currently the only league with a certain salary (but it's not the greatest to live off). This is where the idea of pro gaming has fallen down (USA / Europe area). This is why I said earlier that the Asian market (particularly Korea) may be your best bet - average players can do well living wise. I'm not the most knowledgeable of the strategy side of gaming though so Poddy or some of the other lads on the CG sub-forum would be better to talk to...

(Was about to tell you about a guy that posted recently saying he was offered a contract from mous.sports - just as well I checked for the name for you...It's you! - that could have been embarrassing!!)

conormurphy

Sabre0001 wrote: »

Talk to a guy called Poddy about that (think it's Pong.Poddy or Poddy.Pong on here) - he seems to be in the know so to speak...

*Edit - There has been one response in the CG thread so maybe keep an eye on it.

Also in your original post:

-You NEED to enjoy it, if you are going pro it WILL be a full time job...Some (top) players play for more than 8 hours a day in order to be the best so you have to be prepared for sacrificing certain things at certain times (especially coming up to a tournament). There is also a difference between "practice" and "perfect practice" - practice could be just playing but may not benefit you. Perfect practice is utilising your time and gaining from it. For example an old Quake 3 vetern (CZM) is entering a tournament shortly but says he will only be able to put in 30 hours (compared to other players doing a couple of hardcore weeks) - but if he uses this time well, he could place very well.

The other half of the quote - the pay - in pro gaming it is tricky. You need to manage to get onto a team that has a full time paying contract or get good sponsorship. The CGS is currently the only league with a certain salary (but it's not the greatest to live off). This is where the idea of pro gaming has fallen down (USA / Europe area). This is why I said earlier that the Asian market (particularly Korea) may be your best bet - average players can do well living wise. I'm not the most knowledgeable of the strategy side of gaming though so Poddy or some of the other lads on the CG sub-forum would be better to talk to...

(Was about to tell you about a guy that posted recently saying he was offered a contract from mous.sports - just as well I checked for the name for you...It's you! - that could have been embarrassing!!)

Haha, but the bit about the pay isnt entirely through. The highest paid player in Korea last year was MYM]Spirit.Moon...

Meet Your Makers pay their Warcraft 3 and Counter Strike players $300,000 p/ann from what I hear

conormurphy

On the topic of the release date, I read somewhere that its September 19th but I think its back to tbc?

Silverfish

I have to say I'm really impressed by your enthusiasm

A knockout format, attempt to pick out the 16 best players from the preliminary (which will most likely be almost everyone ), to participate, you must pay €10 (maybe this should be done in the preliminary round but would that not garner complaints?), Best of 3 games.

A final, the last 2 remaining face off here, playing for the grand prize of €100. The winner gets the money by cash or credit transfer because not everyone will have Paypal. This will be best of 5 games.

If you can get 16 people to take part in a knockout, I'll put up a 100 quid prize money.*




*Some terms and conditions.

Sabre0001

conormurphy wrote: »

Meet Your Makers pay their Warcraft 3 and Counter Strike players $300,000 p/ann from what I hear

That's TOP-top though...But yes, many players do make a comfortable return (certainly better than other competitive games such as Quake) - and with Starcraft, players and spectators have stability - they know that this is the game that will be played today, next week, prob next year.

So a SC2 career wouldn't be out of the question...


>> By the way, not a snipe or anything but a career in gaming can last a while or you can move into other elements of the pro gaming circut (rather than jobs being there when you're done with it ) - keep the enthusiasm - it is a necessity!

conormurphy

Silverfish wrote: »

I have to say I'm really impressed by your enthusiasm



If you can get 16 people to take part in a knockout, I'll put up a 100 quid prize money.*




*Some terms and conditions.

Ok that would be cool, my first contact in the Irish Starcraft scene haha

You can private message me the terms and conditions if you want and we can talk, I like the way you added in the small writing too...

thelordofcheese

Silverfish wrote: »

I have to say I'm really impressed by your enthusiasm



If you can get 16 people to take part in a knockout, I'll put up a 100 quid prize money.*




*Some terms and conditions.

Count me in

Silverfish

T&C are that this is an actual tournament, and not you and three other people with several names each

conormurphy

Oh haha, dont worry about that it will be proper. My aim is not just to create a tournament, but a tournament which will hopefully promote the game and in turn increase interest among others hopefully increasing the tournament showing to numbers which are eventually large enough to hold a good lan party.

It would be impossible to do what you said anyway unless 4 people had 4 computers and 4 copies of the game each which is probably unlikely.

If there is any other terms you would like to add please feel free.

When I have enough people to compete, I will get the website ready so that people are ready when the competition comes.

Xyo

I'd play in a sc2 tournie

conormurphy

Would you be prepared to practice for it before hand so that you aren't learning the buttons while you play in a competition with a €100 prize?

B00MSTICK

I reckon SC has more of a following here then people think, I don't/haven't played it at any of the LANs I've been to but was quite good at it back in the day. With SC2 being released I can see the re-emergence of many players who may have moved on since, aswell as new players.

So put me down, I know of at least 2 others that would be up for it too.

To get wider publicity you could always go to your local Smyths/Game/whatever on launch day (morning or midnight if it gets a 00:00 launch) and give them the website address.

You might feel like a bit of a tool, but you can be sure that if someone is queing outside a shop at that hour, that they would at least consider playing LANs/tournaments. You could even get cards or something printed up and just hand them out.

B00MSTICK

conormurphy wrote:

Would you be prepared to practice for it before hand so that you aren't learning the buttons while you play in a competition with a €100 prize?

I don't think the focus should be on competitive play to begin with, well don't exclude people at least, if they're bad they'll lose in the preliminaries, remember the main objective is to get a scene going, so that means drawing in as many people as you can whatever the skill level.

In order to get money you'll need spectators not just participants, I mean how many people go pro at CSS? But how many watch matches on SourceTV? Like any community you'll have stronger/weaker players but you have to try to get everyone to participate. On some CS servers there are regular players who are muck but log on everyday and play for hours. If the team is playing in a match they'll wish them well and may even watch the game live if its important. They support the community, which is what we need.

Rope people into playing together online and they're more likely to meet said people in person and play at a LAN. More people = greater prize money etc = Bigger incentive for people to go to aforementioned LAN = Tighter knit community.

God I hope that makes sense, I should go to bed.

conormurphy

Yes but I dont want to be watchin a match where someone says how did you upgrade your base etc. They could have won their preliminary against some nut by massing raiders or something. The competition will need a few referees. So I think I have like 6 people who say they'd be up for it now.

On the idea, I'd say it would be a better idea to bring it into game, I'm just presuming that most people who buy their games in Smyths are either very casual gamers or else they are kiddies...

conormurphy

Also, I did suggest that replays will be uploaded to the website and if people want their friends to spectate on a match, I dont see why not?

thelordofcheese

B00MSTICK wrote: »

I don't think the focus should be on competitive play to begin with, well don't exclude people at least, if they're bad they'll lose in the preliminaries, remember the main objective is to get a scene going, so that means drawing in as many people as you can whatever the skill level.

In order to get money you'll need spectators not just participants, I mean how many people go pro at CSS? But how many watch matches on SourceTV? Like any community you'll have stronger/weaker players but you have to try to get everyone to participate. On some CS servers there are regular players who are muck but log on everyday and play for hours. If the team is playing in a match they'll wish them well and may even watch the game live if its important. They support the community, which is what we need.

Rope people into playing together online and they're more likely to meet said people in person and play at a LAN. More people = greater prize money etc = Bigger incentive for people to go to aforementioned LAN = Tighter knit community.

God I hope that makes sense, I should go to bed.

Listen to this man, he speaks sense.

mayordenis

There used be alot of competition standard players of WCIII in this country I think Starcraft 1 is still considered the competition RTS of choice and I think on it's own the game is going to bring irish RTS fans out of the wardrobes,
I for one will easily beat anyone :P - but I wouldn't hold your breadth on the realease that until it's official.

conormurphy

Haha I did listen I think... or did I? What?

conormurphy

mayordenis wrote: »

There used be alot of competition standard players of WCIII in this country I think Starcraft 1 is still considered the competition RTS of choice and I think on it's own the game is going to bring irish RTS fans out of the wardrobes,
I for one will easily beat anyway :P - but I wouldn't hold your breadth on the realease that until it's official.

So if you are another player, we have 7 or 8 now, I'll have to take a list...

Sabre0001

If SC2 was to get a midnight release, those people are unlikely to be the casuals or the kiddies (if it doesn't then you could target the store opening hour - just check with the shop that you are allowed to do this, could cause complications!)

Jazzy

conormurphy wrote: »

Yeah basically I thought that it would be too late to publicise Warcraft 3 although maybe DOTA would be well played?!

there is about 10 of us or so playing dota almost every night. we are going to start up a clan soon enough i reckon. a good few of us are decent at the game and have done well against good players

B00MSTICK

conormurphy wrote:

Yes but I dont want to be watchin a match where someone says how did you upgrade your base etc. They could have won their preliminary against some nut by massing raiders or something.

How long would this guy last against a good player? 10 mins max? If you want to build a victory fleet of Motherships that is...

conormurphy wrote:

On the idea, I'd say it would be a better idea to bring it into game, I'm just presuming that most people who buy their games in Smyths are either very casual gamers or else they are kiddies...

The idea is these people will have queued outside, probably in the rain, at midnight. I wouldnt consider these people casual gamers. They've probably been checking the sc2 website daily waiting for a release date. Im pretty sure that most of the "kiddie" population of Korea could beat me down at SC.

conormurphy wrote:

Also, I did suggest that replays will be uploaded to the website and if people want their friends to spectate on a match, I dont see why not?

I think you mis interpreted my point, I was trying to say that the chances of someone within the community, no matter how crap they, watching a live streaming game between two other players in the community is much better than an "outsider" watching it, hence why we should get as many people to be "insiders" as possible. We get people to be "insiders" by letting them participate.


I know whenever I played CSS at LANs the people that would be watching me play over my shoulder would more than likely be the team we just beat, or one that has already been eliminated, it certainly wasn't the FIFA crowd anyway.

So to summarize all that, we need crap players to play/spectate/support us or else the community will be a small handful of people with feck all prize money and little or no mass appeal.

Jazzy wrote:

there is about 10 of us or so playing dota almost every night. we are going to start up a clan soon enough i reckon. a good few of us are decent at the game and have done well against good players

I didn't see you playing SC at Gamecon (or GHMLan) once upon a time, did I? Well anyway like you say there is a good RTS base here, even on this board, I reckon you'd fill 16 places by just posting in the Strategy section.

The other advantage is that this game will be brand new to everyone so its not as if your going to know how to do everything straight away, we'll all have things to learn.

And finally if you do get the 16 places filled I think you should open it to more people, I'll throw in €20 to make it more worthwhile, hopefully we can get a few Euro added here and there.

thelordofcheese

B00MSTICK wrote: »

So to summarize all that, we need crap players to play/spectate/support us or else the community will be a small handful of people with feck all prize money and little or no mass appeal.

We're not crap, we're casual!

But first things first, lose the elitist attitude (not you personally, but anyone thinking of getting involved in this)

Nothing is more disgusting when your new to a gaming scene to have gurning jerks classifying people as "crap" because they don't play as much as other people. It's part of the reason i've just quit playing games in the past.

I'd love to play Sc2 with an irish community, but i don't want to be there as simply a punchbag for the top players and as a way to generate revenue to keep them there.

conormurphy

True true I accept your point anyone should be able to participate I guess but there will be preliminaries

thelordofcheese

Yeah, i guess i'm just saying if you build a SC2 community first we'll see the best players come to the fore while keeping everyone else on board and encouraging new players (people who don't buy the game until later for example) and then potentially new talent as opposed to trying to get the best players first and hoping some others will be attracted just by the momentum of these players being good.

You can always do optional ladders (not everyone will want to compete that badly) and stuff to help figure out who's the best, but the less obsessed the community is about it the better

(all the above is opinion based on some observations and my own wants more than anything else.)

B00MSTICK

Sorry I meant to edit that. Im no good either (atm ) haven't played an RTS in ages!

I prefer to be able to have both a competitive and non competitive action, I mean lets face it, Its a game, its meant to be about having fun foremost. Like I'd rather be able to have a few 2v2/4v4's for the craic regularly as well as the odd tournament/LAN for some competitive aspect.

Having experienced guys teaming up with newer folk and pitting them against the same is always a good laugh!