The Quizbowl Resource Center

Once I'm done with my fall writing commitments I'll start writing WORLDSTAR (WORLD Some conTrived AcRonym), an 8-packet open-level tossups-only tournament with the following distribution:
4 World History (1 Asia, 1 Islamic world/Near East, 1 Africa, 1 LatAm)
2 Ancient History (1 Ancient Eurasia, 1 other)
4 World Lit (1 Africa, 1 Asia, 1 LatAm, 1 Islamic World/Near East)
1 Ancient Lit
2 1/2 World Art
1/2 Ancient Art
2 World Music
3 Geo
2 CE
1 World Religion
1 Mythology
1 World Philosophy
Of this, 1 question per packet will be Pacific Island content
"World" is here defined as "not Europe or Anglosphere", though tossups on the ancient Anglosphere and Mediterranean world (since it makes little sense to divide, for example, the integrated Eastern Mediterranean of the Late Bronze Age, the Northern reaches of ancient Mesoamerica, or the Carthaginian empire of the 3rd century BCE) will definitely be a thing.
"Ancient" is here defined as "before the founding of the Sui Dynasty in 564" in the old world and pre-Conquest in the Americas.
I'll be co-writing this with Jason Golfinos, Alex Damisch, Elysia Warner, Morsal Sarajzada, Evan Suttell, Theo Howe, and Daoud Jackson.

Mirrors:
Carleton University 8/25-26
Boston 8/4-5
Stanford 8/4-5
(tentative) Minnesota 8/18-19
Illinois 8/11-12
(tentative) VCU 7/28-29
(tentative) Online

This sounds like the most amazing tournament ever.

Sit Room Guy wrote: 1 World Philosophy

Yes Please.

I'd be thrilled to go 2/10/8 on this.

Me gusta! Lookin' forward to this :)

Sit Room Guy wrote:3 Geo
2 CE
1 World Religion

Playing this.

Is the Geo limited to just "World" or can it include US/European content as well?

Wynaut wrote:Is the Geo limited to just "World" or can it include US/European content as well?

The Geo will be exclusively world as well.

Guess I need to get good and show up, because this sounds rad.

Saw the name and was hoping it was going to be a tournament about fights.

After protracted negotiations with Will Alston to avoid scheduling conflicts with Historature, we've confirmed that WORLDSTAR is in fact happening at HSNCT. In a further announcement, this set's difficulty is being raised to uniformly Open.

EDIT: Obligatory "Not a prank" since this is, after all, April Fools' Day.

What time slot are you expecting to have this at HSNCT?

Adelaide Glaciarium wrote:What time slot are you expecting to have this at HSNCT?

It will most likely be run Saturday either before or after Joel Gluskin's side event, depending on when that's planned for.

Once again, this tournament will be open in difficulty; I realize the OP did not reflect this until now although later posts in this thread did.

As the title change in the OP would suggest, what with the majority of writers having other pressing commitments, this set will not be complete in time for HSNCT. However, we expect that it will serve very well as an event for Side Event weekends. We apologize to anyone inconvenienced by the cancellation of the mirror and encourage those who signed up to play this set at said side event weekends, or, if none are convenient, online. A discord mirror will likely happen in August or thereabouts.

With that in mind, are you still expecting this to be 8 packets?

UlyssesInvictus wrote:With that in mind, are you still expecting this to be 8 packets?

Yes. The length of the tournament won't change.

Just for clarification, this set should have a completion date of roughly August 1, with a reduced (likely 7-packet) version of the set available earlier. If you need a side event for your quiz bowl function, please consider mirroring this if you haven't already!
EDIT: the OP has been updated with a list of mirrors

Further note: I regrettably have no weekends free from now until September and the time difference between the US and most of the remainder of this tournament's writing staff makes their running an online mirror inadvisable. However, I would like to have an online mirror done at some point before the school year starts. If anyone's playing an earlier mirror and would be interested in running this, please contact me!

What's the pricing on this?

Cheynem wrote:What's the pricing on this?

Oops, sorry that wasn't included. We're charging a uniform mirror fee of $10 per person, but hosts are free to charge more if they wish.

So, the HSNCT sign up sheet for this still applies for the online version?

Antrobus63 wrote:So, the HSNCT sign up sheet for this still applies for the online version?

Given that no one has volunteered to run an online mirror and I won't be available for any weekend until September, the online mirror will likely happen then. Including a signup sheet when a date hasn't been set yet seems premature.

A discussion forum for this set has been created; if you've played, you can request access by going to User Control Panel > Usergroups.

This tournament was a lot of fun. I'm impressed how much improvement there's been in Jakob's answer and clue selection over the past year.

Thanks all for writing this set! It was great fun to play.

This might get mirrored later this month in Britain and will subsequently be clear.

Thanks to everyone for playing this set! With the British mirror complete, it'll be posted to the archive ASAP.