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Starcraft 2 is Official

Nine years after the launch of Starcraft, nine years of a loyal and dedicated cult following, and nine years of a South Korean nation watching televised networks of the game, Starcraft has finally announced it’s sequal: Starcraft II.

In a stadium in Korea on May 19th, Blizzard announced Starcraft II with a fanfare of teaser trailers and gameplay videos. When I heard the news, I couldn’t believe it, and was shocked. Sure, I knew SC2 would have to come out someday, but after waiting 9 years, I had not invested any hope into it.

You see, I’m a major Starcraft fan. While I don’t really play anymore, I do from time-to-time reinstall the game and play for a few days before uninstalling it again. It’s my favourite game of all time, and believe it or not but I’ve spent more time playing Starcraft than I have doing “website stuff”.

Part of why I learned Korean and a small part of why I moved to Korea was for this game.

Anyhow, enough dramatics. But it will help set up why I’m so gung-ho about this.

First off, for those interested, here are some quick links:

Starcraft II Official Site:
Starcraft2.com

YouTube Videos of Gameplay Presentation with Commentary:
Sc2 Unit Description Video Part 1
Sc2 Unit Description Video Part 2
Sc2 Unit Description Video Part 3
I think somebody found a leak that insinuated the release would be slated for 11/20/2007, and while that would make sense for the Christmas season, I really doubt it will be that soon. If I had to guess, it’d be more likely released either late Winter or Spring 2008. If it is indeed out in November, that’s all the more awesome though.

Anyhow, as many people know, I prefer (and encourage) to build/work with websites on subjects/topics that I enjoy, which is why I have sites pertaining to movies, poker, web development, mma, etc. Since you guys now know how much I love Starcraft, you can logically assume what’s coming next.

That’s right. Opportunity time! While this particular situation doesn’t best exemplify striking while the iron is hot because Starcraft (the original) has been out for 9 years and thus a ton of domains are already taken, it still shows the value of it.

I went out and purchased the following domains:

• StarcraftForums.info 
• StarcraftForums.net 
• StarcraftForum.net 
• StarcraftForum.org 
• StarcraftForum.info 
• StarcraftTips.com
• StarcraftHelp.com 
• StarcraftCheats.net 
• Starcraft-Forums.com

Most of those I plan to resell in the future so they were simple investments, but I definitely plan on developing a Starcraft 2 site. I have to.. it’d be wrong for me not to.

I’m currently in negotiation with a few more domains as well. I’m doing this more for competition reasons than anything else though; I plan on making at least a Starcraft Forum, possibly an entire site, and so I want to make it as hard as possible for other SC “start-ups” to compete with me.

Thus, I also made a few phone calls 🙂

I contacted the South African Honorary Consulate. Why? Well back in ’97 I had a run in with… just kidding. He actually owned the domain SC2.net and so I bought it off him. It will take about a week before it’s in my hands though due to the escrow process. Ugh, I paid a lot for the domain. Exactly how much, I won’t say, at least not yet. Help calm me down by saying it’s a good domain please 🙂

Lastly, I almost got Starcraft2.net believe it or not. I had made several high offers on the domain to the guy, but he was adamant of developing it. I mean no disrespect to him but I think he should have accepted my offer. He sounded like he could just throw up a quick-n-basic site and rake in the dough… maybe he can prove me wrong.

Domain isn’t everything though, especially since SC is 9 years old. Which makes this potentially a lot more difficult for me. However, since I know a lot about the game, that will help me as well.

So yeah, I’ll probably be developing StarcraftForums.net/SC2.net. I’ve already hired a great vBulletin designer.