|
Hey TL'ers
On behalf of sc2btc I'd like to announce the start of the site's EU beta.
Had a few double checks to make sure this is the right forum area and that this post is more useful to the TL community than just some good ol' fashioned advertisement.
Sc2btc.com - what is it?
Sc2btc.com is a new tournament hosting website that embraces esports and tries to encourage sponsorship for new and veteran players alike. sc2btc.com utilizes “The Gauntlet” to automate tournaments and track player ‘levels’ as they play through various satellite tournaments.
sc2btc.com is also a strong supporter of bitcoin and will be using it to manage prize pools and player winnings.
Poisoned Hearts will provide casting for some of the games as well, which games and when will be announced for each stream night.
Why Bitcoin?
Due to bitcoin not having to be cleared through a bank and being sent directly from person to person, the transaction fees are minimal and more of the winnings are kept for the tournaments and winners.
Signing up
You can sign up to the sc2btc website with any google account and tie your sc2 profile to your sc2btc account.
- Currently you are only able to sign up to the sc2btc website with a google account.
The gauntlet
The gauntlet is the system that sc2btc will employ in automating the tournament system.
“The gauntlet is an experimental, multiple-entry, sponsor-to-play, semi-professional Starcraft 2 hybrid tournament service with RPG-style progression bound to the economic and skilled advancement of players which aims to bridge the many gaps in online tournaments. It harnesses automated, micro-sponsored and quick-to-complete satellite tournaments, pays out immediately and does so without the need for personal player information or credit cards”
Essentially, The Gauntlet is an automated system; you sign up to the website and throw your name into the gauntlet, you are then put into level-relevant tournaments automatically.
The Gauntlet uses a level system, placing players into groups of 4 in their respective levels, winners of those 4-person groups then advance to the next level.
(Check the Prize pools: area(http://www.sc2btc.com/thegauntlet)
Eligibility and costs
Sign-up and entry into The Gauntlet is free, so you can sign up and check out the sc2btc open beta right now.
The open beta is focusing on the EU time zones for the time being, but once the EU trial is over; Sc2btc will be expanding the service to include American-friendly timezones.
However, you can still sign up with the global play feature if you want to check the site out and try out the matches in EU time-zones.
However, you will require a Heart of the Swarm upgraded account, as the tournaments are HoTS based; there are no plans to run WoL tournaments.
Links and further reading
Sc2btc.com (http://www.sc2btc.com)
bitcoin.com (http://bitcoin.org/en/)
PoisonedHearts.de (http://www.poisonedhearts.de/)
Don't forget to check out the site itself and check both the "watch" tab and "the gauntlet" for some more info if you're interested.
Hopefully some of you check us out and like what we're hoping to achieve.
Any questions feedback - post away!
|
The rate at which Bitcoin is gaining and losing value right now (from 200$+ last week to $60 this week) would not really convince me it's the best currency to work with. I would certainly not want my savings to be in Bitcoin just to find out it's only worth half of what it was overnight ;(
Is a tournament prize in BTC or in USD/EUR? Cause if you announce a 1.0 BTC prize it does not really mean anything seeing how it can be anything between $10 and $200 -- slightly exaggerated but this thing seems highly unstable right now it's not funny.
|
On April 16 2013 21:46 dani` wrote:
The rate at which Bitcoin is gaining and losing value right now (from 200$+ last week to $60 this week) would not really convince me it's the best currency to work with. I would certainly not want my savings to be in Bitcoin just to find out it's only worth half of what it was overnight ;(
Is a tournament prize in BTC or in USD/EUR? Cause if you announce a 1.0 BTC prize it does not really mean anything seeing how it can be anything between $10 and $200 -- slightly exaggerated but this thing seems highly unstable right now it's not funny.
Yeah, whilst bitcoin holds a lot of potential, it isn't stable quite yet.
prizes and so on whilst going through tournaments are managed through tickets and the ticket value fluctuates with the bitcoin value so you never lose anything.
You can of course decide to cash out your bitcoins and trade them into your local currency - only to find out the bitcoin value jumped/dropped a few weeks later.
One of the biggest gains for us though, is the extremely low costs. So however the currency moves, players will always have their proper share - without chunks of it going towards admin costs, transaction fee's and so on.
|
Is a tournament prize in BTC or in USD/EUR? Cause if you announce a 1.0 BTC prize it does not really mean anything seeing how it can be anything between $10 and $200 -- slightly exaggerated but this thing seems highly unstable right now it's not funny.
Tournament developer here. Just thought I'd mention that we chose bitcoin for several reasons. Other sites use value-tokens (e.g. Playhem points or MLG credits), we decided to go with bitcoin as our value tokens because it has some advantages over these:
1. Players don't need credit cards/paypal information to earn while practicing.
2. Paypal & credit cards are not available in many countries or to many gamers, some don't even have bank accounts. We feel that open-ness and being shackle-free is an important part of eSports growth and excluding players based on location or financial situation goes against this. The only limits we place on our system are as required by our Blizzard tournament license.
3. Paypal and credit cards are not very micro-transaction friendly (an example compared to cc fees). We aim to scale the system down to cater for lower leagues (and more players) and this simply isn't possible with most (any?) existing payment systems.
4. Payouts are automated, and immediate (you'll see the money appear in you account about 3 seconds after you click withdraw).
5. Privacy concerns: (see: our privacy policy). We don't want or need your address or name to pay you.
6. We can spend bitcoin in a few more places than the above-mentioned value transfer/token systems.
All that said, we understand the volatility concern of this extremely new value transfer protocol/technology. If that is a problem for you, please set your withdrawal address to the deposit address of your favourite exchange and sell the bitcoin immediately for the currency of your choice when it arrives there (~30 mins to an hour). Once set up, the process takes about 4-5 seconds to complete. The prize pools are well-documented so please check to make sure it's worth your time before you join.
As much as we love talking about and discussing bitcoin, this is perhaps not the best place for it. For now, please try the tournament automation system and see how the zero-downtime of sit-n-go works for you. As with all new things, keep an open mind. We absolutely won't force you to participate if you don't like it. We appreciate any and all feedback and constructive criticism.
|
Thank you for the replies. I am not interested in participation myself but I was wondering about it hence my question. It's a nice initiative regardless, so good luck with it!
|
I played in this yesterday, It worked very good and was alot of fun!
|
Very nice initiative.
I think Bitcoin has a bright future in the gaming world. No fees and available to everyone regardless of age or location. Not only for tournaments but also to support your favourite streamer, player or website. I've recently got more interested in bitcoin and think It's really well suited for online gaming communities. I would love to see Teamliquid accept btc donations and accept it has a payment in the store.
Once again, nice job mrdombie.
|
That's a very cool initiative, i'll enter some tournaments when i have more free time.
Is there any activity on the KR server ?
|
Very nice initiative, although i am in general sceptic on the "whole bitcoin thing" but why not combine playing with a modern currency? Will share this within "my" community.
|
On April 19 2013 01:06 Marou wrote:
That's a very cool initiative, i'll enter some tournaments when i have more free time.
Is there any activity on the KR server ?
We're currently running on the EU servers only while we work out the kinks. You're welcome to join us there using Global Play. We'll be expanding to other regions in the near future with friendlier time-slots for those regions. The next step is NA.
|
On April 19 2013 08:28 RayBeans wrote:
Very nice initiative, although i am in general sceptic on the "whole bitcoin thing" Will share this within "my" community.
Scepticism is a sign of rational intelligence 
but why not combine playing with a modern currency?
Exactly what we thought
Will share this within "my" community.
<3
Please note that you can exchange bitcoin for your local currency at most major exchanges. We provide up-to-date currency conversion numbers (USD,EUR,GBP) for your convenience @ http://www.sc2btc.com/thegauntlet (prize pools). Will add more relevant buttons when we expand to other timezones & regions.
|
On April 18 2013 22:59 scDeluX wrote:
Very nice initiative.
I think Bitcoin has a bright future in the gaming world. No fees and available to everyone regardless of age or location. Not only for tournaments but also to support your favourite streamer, player or website. I've recently got more interested in bitcoin and think It's really well suited for online gaming communities. I would love to see Teamliquid accept btc donations and accept it has a payment in the store.
Once again, nice job mrdombie.
We love streamers/casters! We're working closely with the PoisonTV casters to get some decent feedback on the technical tools they need to make their lives easier when casting these tournaments. This is an ongoing process, but it's surprising how a basic caster information dashboard brought downtime inbetween games down to almost nothing.
|
There is another GAUNTLET starting up again tonight, 7pm CEST! Check out http://www.sc2btc.com/ and sign up! As last time, THE GAUNTLET will be broadcasted by PoisonTVde!
|
|
|
|
|
|
EPT
