Melee Equipment: Highschool Melee Club

[Ryobeat]

Does anyone know where I can get the following items? Im starting a club in my school (Melee club) and we need a few things, i want to know the cheapest website/thrift store around something cheap! I need:

-Alot of gamecube controllers! (like 20, buying in bulk for a good price)
- About 6 gamecubes
-10 memory cards
-6-10 TVS
-7/8 copies of Melee

and if you can think of things that i would need for a melee club PLEASE HELP.

 

[KrIsP!]

All I can say is good luck. Do you really need 6 tvs? Will there really be 12+ people there? For every tv, 2-4 people can play and others will still watch/talk. I feel like 2-4 set ups would be fine and I'd think your school could supply the tvs with a deposit to cover possible damage. (most schools have CRTs anyways, maybe even a projector which would be cool.)

Enforcing BYOC would be best, your not going to find GCN controllers in bulk in any store. You'd be lucky to find a local classic games store that still has some in the box, you could order them from Nintendo, your better off your own and a few extra to share.

I'd say the best way to handle this is 3 full set ups. One for King of the TV where loser gets cycled for the next challenger, winner staying. One for 4 player FFA or teams and one for 1v1 sets, if people are waiting you switch after a set. More set ups is always great but if your buying the set ups rather than bringing your own it could get expensive and again, people will watch/talk and you should see how many people come before you go out and try to wrangle up 10 cubes.

Your best bet, bring your own set up, make people pay 5$ to join and use the money to buy yourself another one to bring which you can keep for tournies and finally, ask people to bring their own set ups. I've thought about doing this but I feel like it would always be the same 4 people coming to it plus some randoms and no one would care about improving so just a few set ups would be nice to attract people into the scene when they play you.

 

[Ryobeat]

Thats true. IT IS hard to do. I definitely overexaggerated the stuff. But i dont know where to get TVS, mainly >_> and cheap melee copies.

 

[Codi]

For me i usually get tv's at either yard sales or ebay
same with controllers you can find not new ones but used ones in bulk on ebay
gamestop usually sells gamecubes for $30.00 and i think they include a controller and memory card with them (used of course) if you are looking for websites to buy new controllers send me a pm

 

[DerfMidWest]

woah you don't need that much stuff.
At local smashfests, we'll have 2 or 3 TVs for like... 20-30 people.
It works great, and everybody interacts more.

the only time you need that many setups is at a tourney, because there, you are looking more to get lots of matches done quickly, and its not as social (although it is still social)

point:
you only need like 3 or 4 setups.
Also, people who care should get their own controllers.
just buy ****ty ones for scrubs who don't have their own.

 

[Ryobeat]

Again i was DEFINITELY wrong about those measurements XD i was thinking no one was left standing, but that takes the fun out P

 

[Bing]

Ryobeat's just worried HE'LL be the one left standing

No but seriously you shouldnt really be buying anything tbh... (Unless you have nothing)

 

[Massive]

Go to thrift stores, they still sell TVs for super cheap.

My policy when running meetups is usually BYOC, but I still try to have at least 2 house controllers per setup. I have about 6 TVs in my basement, but we usually only use about 3 at a time. For reference I usually have 9-12 people smashing at once.

2 TVs, 2 gamecubes, and 4 controllers is a very good starting point.

The fewer TVs you have, the bigger the hype, since people have to rotate through trying to beat the best player, and they usually end up watching the other matches too!

 

[Bones0]

You really don't need more than 1 memory card (though a backup wouldn't be a bad idea). You just load up each game with the memory card until you get to the character select screen, then you can pull it out. When you press start it will say "Continue without saving?" and you just hit yes. Repeat for all of the others. As for controllers, you can get new ones on the official Nintendo website, but you might want to stop by local video game stores and see if you can pick up some used ones as long as they aren't FUBAR. Good control sticks are the major thing; sticks that drift can be troublesome, and you'll have people *****ing about having to use the "bad controller." lol

If you are trying to get new people interested, you may want to do some sort of organized event to make things easy. Maybe use Melee's automatic Tournament mode to hold a bunch of mini tourneys, or you could let super new players know about Wak's "Advanced: How To Play" videos.

 

[Yung Mei]

be sure to check out flea markets/swapmeets, i got 2 practically brand new controllers for 12$ :O

 

[Bing]

Check out random game shops(Local stores) Generally you can find stuff in there.

Also Pawn shops can work too

 

[standardtoaster]

Over the last year or so I've acquired 4 tvs for probably less than $70, 3 cubes for probably less than $50, and a copy of melee for about $10. If you look in the right places you can find just about anything you need for a good price.

 

[Ocho(*8*)]

i went to the "free" section of craigslist and searched "tv" and it gave 182 results. it seems about 5 - 10 tv's get posted there per day for my area.

maybe 20% are decent crts that i'd use for smash

 

[a nub]

Unless interest ends up being huge, you probably wont need more than 3 setups and like ppl said, encourage byoc cuz plenty of ppl surprisingly still have their old gcn controllers

 

[Bing]

Where the **** did you find melee for 10$?

I paid 30$ for my latest copy XD

 

[Ryobeat]

Besides a highschool club, how else would i be able to start a club? ._.

 

[KrIsP!]

@Bing Garage sale? I got a bunch of awesome games for 5$ each.

@Ryobeat What do you mean besides a highschool club? If you just want people to smash with check your regional zone, many go to/host a smashfest. As people above have said, they run them on 2-3 tvs without complaint, I imagine casual highschoolers just want to play the most random dumb **** and never get off a tv due to greed and not being able to enjoy watching a good match.

 

[Ryobeat]

Cause i want a club, but ive heard (im an 8th grader), that the highschool wouldnt do it. .__.

 

[Bing]

Just stick flyers up and host it in your house lolol

That could turn bad...

Talk to local game shops?

No the best option is post in the regional thread and talk to your local smashers about smashfests

 

[Morin0]

woah you don't need that much stuff.
At local smashfests, we'll have 2 or 3 TVs for like... 20-30 people.
It works great, and everybody interacts more

O__O

I'd HATE to be at one of those local smashfests.

 

[RaphaelRobo]

Get a laptop and an adapter (for controllers) and emulate it at school. It's not quite as nice as having an actual setup, but you'll get to play every day, and it's easy to transport. I have a group of people I play with daily using my laptop. None of these guys really care about getting better, though, and they're happy competing with each other. So, unless your high school's really different, while people will want to come and compete, they'll mostly play the people who are at their level, instead of trying to get better.

 

[Morin0]

I'm pretty sure only high-end laptops can emulate Melee perfect (4 player smash) so unless he already has one, that's going to be one costly Gamecube -- figuratively speaking of course.

 

[RaphaelRobo]

I have a laptop that cost about $400. With enough graphics disabled in Dolphin, it can run the game at full speed on the majority of stages. All the important stages are good, aside from FoD.

 

[Morin0]

4 player smash too?

 

[S l o X]

Goodwill for TVs. Maybe neighbors are throwing them out or something.

Most high school kids have old GC controllers lying around. (I run the videogameclub at my HS and most people have their own but are fine with playing with the ones I bring in)

You honestly only need like four TVs and eight controllers for a HUGE club. Even that is pushing it. I usually have like twenty kids in the club and we use one tv, four controllers. (free for all) and everyone but winner gives it up. It works well and as people start to leave as time goes on, we start running 1v1's.

tl;dr - goodwill. dont need that many supplies. too expensive for high schooler. run rotations.

 

[RaphaelRobo]

Yeah, 4p works. It's just those stages, like FoD, that can't even run full speed in 1v1.

 

[DerfMidWest]

O__O

I'd HATE to be at one of those local smashfests.

they are actually awesome.
There is a LOT of hype.
And we do big crew battles :3

but yea, I should clarify:
there are 2 or 3 melee setups, there are usually a few scrubs who play other games on like 2 other setups.

 

[Svetsunov]

With patience and a little luck you could probably get what you're looking for in like a month for under $200.

Make people bring their own controllers. Saves money, and people usually play better with their controllers from home.

 

[CableCho57]

ryo just play with the community around you with the dedicated smashers.

I began playing in high school, but the club (wasnt an official club really) we had sucked so bad. Lunch was only 30 minutes, hella people came with no controllers, only like 1-2 setups, noone wanted to play it seriously, and oh yeah lunch was only 30 minutes lol

so being the only high school kid legitimately interested in the game, I started to play with the college peeps in my town ever since I was a sophmore in high school. everyone's hella chill

 

[Bones0]

Where the **** did you find melee for 10$?

I paid 30$ for my latest copy XD

Bought one off of Ebay with free shipping for $5. >.>

 

[standardtoaster]

Yeah, I got mine off of ebay. Nobody ever really puts melee on ebay for less than $15 anymore though.

 

[Bill_the_Duck]

My school runs a club like this. We have 3 set-ups, a projector for a tournament we run every week, and two other T.Vs (one for scrubs to do 4 player FFA on Hyrule and stupid **** like that, one for random 1v1s). We usually attract at least 15 people, during winter it can get up to 30. People love watching the games, and just hanging out and having fun since a lot of the people who founded the club were 2 groups of friends, that then merged and added all the other Smashers. Eventually people started doing other stuff in the back of the room (Magic the Gathering, Warcraft III, etc.) and it became the Friday Nerd Club
Awesome fun, if you can get something like that going it would be great. You'll find that you really don't need that many controllers/tvs/copies of the game. We use the school's projector and a TV that the teacher who runs the club (a decent Smasher himself) lets us use, and we received a donation from all the members a few months ago for the third tv. The gamecubes came from people who never used them at home, and all the serious players bring their own controllers, while less serious players use crappy controllers that others have brought from home. The memory cards and copies of melee came with the GCs.

 

[cmac]

My school has (or had) a melee club where we meet almost every week (every day Last year and up until december). Anyway we only had 2 tvs and we had like 20 or so people playing and coming every day. One tv was for 1v1s where all the real players were and then there was the second tv for free for alls. So you don't need that many tvs to have a successful melee club. If you end up with only 1 tv, then play 1v1s and winner stays on. You might have to wait a bit before you play again but you can hang out with friends and figure out a new way to win. Good luck anyway, it should be a fun club either way.

 

[MikeHaggarTHAKJB]

I think getting lots of controllers is great if you want to get in new players. not everyone has a gc controller =P

 

[Rockenos]

I actually have a Melee club at my high school... we have people bring in TVs and cubes and stuff, but obviously this isn't super practical as 2 TVs is usually all we can get.
People ITT would be surprised by how much interest there is at a typical high school in this game... our first meeting had over 50 people come. Obviously, numbers shrunk when they realized that a lot of people were actually decent at the game, but we still have like 20 members. We usually just switch off. We have a list on a dry-erase board of who's going next, people sign themselves in to it. I wish we had more TVs, but I don't really know where we'd keep them all. My teacher only has so much closet space, lol

 

[ZaXXoR]

Well, I got a gamecube 2 controlelrs and smash for $20 on Kijiji, and just bought 3 good controllers for $35 at my local pawn shop today, they would have come to 40 but I talked him down, I'd try pawn shops and Kijiji/Craigslist