First and foremost, this is not in affiliation with TaKeTV. I'm just drawing inspiration from their HomeStory Cup format.
HSC is a staple for SC2. It's a unique event and it gives a lot of personality to the scene. I don't want to make a carbon copy of TaKe's event. I'd like to take the base idea - a casual, 3 day event with intimate player and personality interactions - and put some sort of twist to make it unique in its own right, aside from likely having heavily North American attendance. What will that twist be? Still working that angle.
I have spoken with some folks who would be interested in supporting a North American event that was similar to HSC, and before I draft and submit the partnership deck, I wanted to take time to gather the community's thoughts and feedback.
Korean and European Invites:
Who are the "must have" players and casters that you would like to see come to the United States?
NA Talent
What NA players/personalities do you want to see at this event?
Location and Venue
I'm thinking the Baltimore, MD's Inner-Harbor, Washington D.C., or Ocean City, MD (only if it's run in the summer). The venue would be a rented out penthouse or condo.
Dates
I do not want this conflicting with any major events or qualifiers, which likely means this won't happen until next year for the sake of proper planning. I will also do what I can to avoid running the event anywhere close to TaKe's HSC, as I don't want to give the vibe of competition. I'd like your thoughts on Spring, Summer and Winter for this event.
Funding
I have zero desire to Kickstart this event. The main people I'm pitching this to would be able to manage the majority of the logistics and staffing and other sponsors should be more than capable if covering the additional costs (travel, lodging, etc.).
Final Thoughts
I'm open to input on the above topics and anything I haven't listed. This is for all members of the community, so please let me know what you'd like to see to make this a special event rather than a rehash of what TaKe already does so well.
The problem I have with something like this is what advantage it has over HSC. Is it focusing on American Players? If so, why are Koreans and Europeans getting invited then?
I'd like to see anything that involved a grudge match or rivalry. Something a bit more fun to look forward to rather than leave it to the randomness of the brackets. (Obviously the tournament format may not allow for these matchups)
(Naniwa vs Polt, Gungfubanda [anyone really lol]) Miniraser vs MarineLord, DesRow Jaedong vs Flash Scarlett vs Bomber Petraeus vs TheMightyKiwi CombatEx vs Destiny / CatZ / iNcontroL
(I'm sure I'm missing a ton)
Anything with some juicy drama attached would be fun to watch squashed for the time being. Put those tweets to rest and let's see some games! :D
I would absolutely love to do what I can to make this happen as well.
I think one big thing about running this kind of event is travel costs for people. I like the idea of doing this out in the north part of the midwest rather than east or west coast. This means West Coast and East Coast don't have insane travel times/costs, it's close to Canada for the whole Toronto scene, the midwest will probably have cheaper costs to make all of this kind of stuff happen. This is mostly speculation on my part so I don't have numbers to back these thoughts up though.
Other thing is, a lot of the NA scene is semi-pro. Would you plan to do open bracket for the whole event, or have qualifiers for a paid flight + hotel? I know you don't have funding for anything yet so it's hard to talk numbers but what's your ideal player count? I think a lot of these things will really affect the kind of event this will end up being.
On July 29 2015 02:38 SC2CTL wrote: The problem I have with something like this is what advantage it has over HSC. Is it focusing on American Players? If so, why are Koreans and Europeans getting invited then?
I think the best model for this event might be Red Bull Atlanta from last year. The event didn't have the best players (not even the best NA players showed up), but they had entertaining games, highlighted the personalities, and overall put on a great, distinctly "NA" show (DirtyGG, anyone?). Certainly Lycan won't have the funds for something at that level, but it might be a good source to draw inspiration.
On July 29 2015 02:23 Lycangrope wrote: I'm thinking the Baltimore, MD's Inner-Harbor, Washington D.C., or Ocean City, MD (only if it's run in the summer). The venue would be a rented out penthouse or condo.
YES please please please somewhere on the east coast, it's been so long since we've had a major Starcraft event!
Also I will be glad to help out in any way if you're looking for volunteers! (SC2Towelie on twitter)
I think that for me, Destiny and Incontrol are really important. I find that when watching HSC, shy, quiet pro-gamers open up a lot more when Incontrol's there with them.
Venue and area important, put your fangs into that so you can figure out ways of travel and costs, and ways you can play around with the space you have, equipment you'll need, etcetera.
You'll never get the perfect date, just pick one that's available now and hope for the best.
I'll just put the feedback here so other people can yay or nay -
Not using crowdfunding is obviously the more 'professional' way to go, shall we say. You won't get any trolls saying 'well if they can't afford it don't do it' etc etc, but crowdfunding is really exciting. The ability to feel like you were 'a part of it all' and to get some really cool rewards is a really fun addition, imo. And I'm trying not to say this as someone who had a kickstarted event, but rather as a fan who supported something like Lone Star Clash.
Obviously if everything can be paid for by sponsors, great, but finding some way to include the audience as more than just a viewer is neat-o too.
I think Solar and at least one Axiom player would be important Koreans to snag, partly because of their excellent english. Jaedong would be good, as would Flash or Stork, due to their ingrained popularity from their BW past selves. Parting is a straight-up must. San is a good choice, as his Hero. The other herO is a decent choice as well.
On the European side, the Liquid boys are pretty reliably popular. Avoid players who are only popular due to reddit, such as Naniwa or Morrow. You don't want that kind of dependence on controversy. It would be neat if you could get some up-and-comers, such as Showtime or Uthermal.
From NA, you'll want the personalities InControl and Scarlett (the latter partly for her analysis skills), the analyst QXC, the players Xenocider, Puck, Kane, and Neeb. You should ideally bring in some SA players such as Kelazhur, and some Mexicans, such as JimRising.
Think about the different ways the tournament can be done. For example you could do groups of 6 or 8 where they play round-robin BO1 and you can then go to a playoff bracket with seeds based on those results.
You can also have the ones not in the playoffs for randomized teams in a 2v2 and/or archon tournament to get added view on the trip. Or you can even let everyone in that and do broadcasts from replay to fill downtime with the players doing commentary on their own matches.
I'd also suggest for a first event keeping expenses as low as possible including seeing what could be done without covering full travel and the room costs. It's real easy to get high expenses quick and there are bound to be problems the first time. Remember what the first HSC was. Don't try to be what HSC is now.