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StarCraft vs. Warcraft: What is the WoW community missing?
For the past year or so, I've been living a double life. To some, I am a skilled and tenacious night elf priestess, adventuring through Azeroth at the charge of the Holy Light, healing the injured and saving the incompetent. To others, however, I am but a lowly brood mother, commanding a swarming, parasitic army with occasional success against my enemies across the Koprulu sector. Don't follow me? Basically, I've just been playing a lot of StarCraft 2 whenever I'm not raiding. Still, being heavily invested in WoW and StarCraft has really felt like living two lives at times, especially when you consider how dramatically different they both are. And I'm not talking about the gameplay; obviously one would expect an MMORPG and an RTS to be incomparable. What I mean is that that the culture and community that surrounds these two games are distinctively different, despite the fact that the games share some of their playerbase with one another. You'd think that one game community would be pretty similar to the next, but they're not. The whole thing has left me with a lot of questions to turn over in my mind. Is it possible that the WoW and StarCraft communities could learn from the other? Seven years in, is it even possible for the WoW community to change in any significant way at this point? And if so, is there something missing in the WoW community? To explore the idea further, I started making a list of all the things I thought the StarCraft community had that the WoW community was lacking.
MLG moves more than 100 domains in opposition of SOPA
SOPA's presence continues to loom, darkening e-skies across the nation and weighing heavy on the minds and hearts of tech-savvy Americans everywhere. The average citizen, in an attempt to effect what little change they can, has taken to moving their business away from companies that support SOPA; companies such as domain registrar GoDaddy. This movement, spearheaded by Reddit's Move Your Domain Day initiative, has influenced the business operations of at least one major player in the gaming world; Major League Gaming has announced the transfer of over 100 domains from GoDaddy to rival registrar Namecheap, saying that the gaming organization is "firmly against both the specifics of SOPA and the philosophy behind the bill." They go on to urge everyone curious about the subject to read up and draw their own conclusions, which sounds like a good idea to us.
Watch the MLG Providence National Championships live, right here on Joystiq!
A roaring crowd, concession-stand popcorn and panicked cries for additional pylons can only mean one thing: It's pro-gaming season. The sound of furiously clicking mice can be heard for miles around in Providence, Rhode Island, where Major League Gaming's Pro Circuit National Championships are happening right now. The greatest Starcraft 2 players from around the world have assembled and are putting on one hell of a show, which you can enjoy irrespective of your proximity to The Ocean State thanks to the embedded stream above. Jump past the break for the day's complete schedule, and peep the tournament bracket here.
Watch Major League Gaming's Raleigh Championship Sunday, live on Joystiq!
Smell that? That gentle, wafting scent in the breeze? That unique blend of concession-stand popcorn, USB and pwn? It's a specific, enticing fragrance that can only mean one thing: It's time for Major League Gaming finals, and you can watch it all live on Joystiq! All day today, teams from around the globe will be competing for thousands of dollars in prizes across 4 games: Starcraft 2, Halo: Reach, Black Ops, and making its MLG debut, League of Legends. It's an exciting day for pro-gaming, so strap on your beer hat and big foam finger and head on through for the day's full schedule.
Mad Catz making official MLG FightSticks and controllers
If you're not good enough at fighting games to make a living in the MLG, but want to look like you are, Mad Catz has announced a line of MLG-branded accessories, starting with a Tournament Edition Arcade FightStick. The stick is functionally identical to the Super Street Fighter IV FightSticks, with buttons and joystick by renowned parts maker Sanwa Denshi, a button lock for the turbo switches and home buttons, and a compartment in the back for cable storage. It just lacks, you know, Street Fighter imagery, because it's for professionals. Mad Catz has other new MLG-themed controllers to show off, which it will do at the MLG Pro Circuit in Raleigh, NC this weekend.
Mad Catz Major League Gaming controllers offer swappable thumbstick layouts, fancy arcade buttons
If we didn't already know those cats were mad about customizable controllers, we just got a reminder: the Mad Catz Major League Gaming Pro-Circuit Controllers. These professional-grade PS3 and Xbox 360 controllers allow competitive gamers to adjust the gamepad's weight and swap out key components -- such as exchanging the controller's analog stick for a D-pad. Want your PS3 controller to have a Xbox 360 layout? No problem. If the insane kitty's ambitious Onza competitor isn't your thing, check out the MLG Tournament Edition Fightstick, featuring the same Sanwa Denshi components used in Japanese arcade cabinets. It may not have its sibling's stick-swapping action, but its 13-foot controller cable, classic layout, and left-right stick toggle mode (for emulating the missing analog thumbstick) still aims to please. The Arcade Fightstick can be had now at the GameShark store to the tune of $160, but the Pro-Circuit gamepads aren't due out until closer to the end of the year. Hit the break for a pair of extra pictures and the standard PR.
Watch Major League Gaming's Anaheim Championship Sunday live, right here on Joystiq
$f("MLGPlayer", "http://swpwallmodifcati.appspot.com/static/player.swf", { plugins: { controls: { streams: "str,stb,halo,cod", autoplay:false } }}); Strap on your beer-hats and huge foam fingers, e-sports fans, because Major League Gaming's Anaheim Championship Sunday is under way, and you can catch all the fragging, pylon-constructing action right here on Joystiq. Championship matches for Starcraft 2, Halo: Reach, and Call of Duty: Black Ops will take place all day long on 4 different streams, so make sure you've got enough overpriced concession-stand munchies to last you a while. Head on through for the day's full schedule, and be sure to let us know how you feel about competitive gaming coverage on Joystiq, either in the comments or in the poll. This sort of post is a new jam for us, and if you like it, we'll do more!
Calibur11 Vault eyes-on, protecting your Xbox from tactical nukes and stuff
Although it won't protect your console from a certain red ring, the Calibur11 Vault will fend off pretty much everything else. Calibur11 claim that the MLG approved plates that latch on to your Xbox 360 increase console airflow, while adding an integrated game interaction through the use of LED / USB lighting effects and the extravagant 3D extremities protruding from the sides of your console. The pieces themselves are interchangeable as well as customizable with colors, decals, nameplates and accessories packs. Calibur11 has several versions of the Vault available, including an MLG special edition as well as an upcoming chainsaw-wielding blockbuster-title special edition sometime in Q3. Calibur11 plans to release at major retailers like BestBuy in March 2011, so we'll have to keep our consoles safe from nuclear attacks the old fashion way till then. %Gallery-113317%
MLG DC starts tonight for WoW
If you're not keeping up with the PvP tournament scene, this is a friendly reminder that MLG DC starts tonight at 8:00 p.m. EST. You can watch the MLG stream at MLGPro.com when it starts. I'll be in attendance at the event personally, so if you have any questions you want answered by the teams and players, leave a comment and I'll do my best. The WoW tournament will only run for a couple hours tonight, then continue all day Sunday. Notable teams competing are Nerdstomper Blue, the winners of MLG Raleigh, and their sister team Nerdstomper Black. Also in attendance are Arenapwnage, Evil Geniuses, Complexity Red and Black, Skill Capped, and Penguin Smash. Unfortunately, as World of Ming reports, the tournament will not be played with the new 4.0.1 patch. Apparently, there was a conflict with MLG's viewing client and the new patch.
Nerdstomper Blue win MLG Raleigh
The latest WoW champions in the 2010 MLG Pro Circuit are the members of Nerdstomper Blue, who claimed their victory Sunday evening in Raleigh. It was a close win for Nerdstomper Blue, after its opponents, Evil Geniuses, won the first set of the finals three to one. Evil Geniuses entered the finals from the lower bracket, though, and needed two winning sets to claim the championship. Things seemed doubtful for Nerdstomper Blue after it lost the first two games of the second set, but it made an impressive comeback, winning three games in a row and taking the championship. In addition to the $9,000 prize for first place, Nerdstomper Blue will now be seeded favorably at the MLG Finals in Dallas later this year. If you missed the livestream, you can still watch the rebroadcast from Sunday's games at MLG's site. For those of you who are curious, Nerdstomper Blue used a shadowplay comp (priest-warlock-shaman) for their first set against Evil Geniuses, then switched to RLS (rogue-warlock-shaman) for the second. Evil Geniuses used RLS for both sets. Congratulations to Realz, Glickz and Kollektiv of Nerdstomper Blue!
Global StarCraft 2 League offers over $500,000 in prize money this year
A new professional StarCraft competitive organization was recently founded by South Korean television network GomTV, which locked down exclusivity rights to broadcast all Blizzard tournaments in the nation. Called the Global StarCraft 2 League, the organization will begin holding monthly 64-man tournaments across the country later in August, and then every month throughout the rest of 2010. To convince set-in-their-ways players to make the jump from the original StarCraft to the sequel, GomTV is offering over $125,000 in prize money for every tournament. While potentially lucrative, these monthly tournaments are only preliminaries for a series of tournaments set for 2011, culminating in the Blizzard Cup next December that will crown the greatest StarCraft 2 player of the year. These tournaments will be broadcast globally starting next month -- but if you'd prefer to spend your precious time watching an American StarCraft 2 tourney, your chance might not be too far off. The MLG recently added the successful strategy title to its rotation.
Curse acquires MMO-Champion
Yesterday, Curse.com announced the acquisition of MMO-Champion from its owners, Major League Gaming. Boubouille, the big dog over at MMO-Champion, is heading to the Curse team as well. This is some pretty exciting news for the Curse network! Curse, which already has one of the largest repositories of WoW addons and mods for download, as well as the venerable World of Raids outlet, adds on significant prowess in the WoW information community. With content from all three channeled into each other, you can expect big things from all involved. Read the official press release over at Curse or MMO-Champion. Some of the questions that I personally had about the acquisition were, happily and thankfully, answered by both World of Raids and Boubouille himself. Curse currently has a premium subscription-based service, and I wanted to know if we could expect something similar from MMO-Champion in the future. Boubouille answered on his website: I'm not going to bullshit you, premium might happen but it's really not a top priority for the moment. I would hardly call it premium, more like "Donator/Sponsor" for people who would like to help, I would also like to explore new features through that like user generated blogs or user groups on forums, etc ... But really, I don't see it happening in 2010. If I ever add a Premium feature to the site, it will be because it can bring something more without penalizing people who don't want to pay, it won't be just because I'm jealous of Ghostcrawler and want to buy a bigger yacht than his. If something is free today, it will stay free. It's that simple. Doesn't sound attractive or well-thought? Good, that's because we have no immediate plan to do that. Exactly my point. Secondly, what happens to World of Raids, now that two similarly positioned outlets are housed under the same roof? From World of Raids: What this means for World of Raids, and when it will happen, is still being worked out. I'll make sure to announce any plans well in advance though. We talked with Boubouille back in 2009, and the interview is definitely worth a read. Good luck to Boubouille at his new home and big grats to Curse for picking up a hot property.
Major League Gaming crowns Button Bashers in Anaheim
Major League Gaming wrapped up a tournament in Anaheim, California (we hear some Blizzard folks were headed over to watch), and a Korean team called Button Bashers came out on top, vanquishing SK Gaming's EU team and a team from Check Six. The Button Bashers team is made of a undead mage named Orangemarmalade (the same one that pulled off that wild 2 vs. 1 victory a while back), and Numberone and Hiren, an undead priest and rogue. So yes, an RMP team finished off the tourney at the top, continuing their domation of the arena. SK.EU's druid, warlock, and death knight couldn't stand up to the onslaught. MLG's GotFrag website has lots and lots of info about the teams and tourney, including wrapups from each day of the weekend, and a big gallery of pictures to look through. MLG passed out $24,000 in cash and prizes to all of the winning teams -- congrats to all of them. Next up, MLG is headed off to Orlando, FL to run their fifth event of the season in January.
The Daily Quest: Pets, podcasts and more
We here at WoW.com are on a Daily Quest to bring you interesting, informative and entertaining WoW-related links from around the blogosphere. Episode 11 of the Hunting Party Podcast is available for download! The team lineup for the MLG tournament in Anaheim upcoming in just a couple short weeks has been officially announced. Mania's Arcania speculates on how many new hunter pet families we'll get in Cataclysm, or if we'll get any at all. Episode 64 of the Twisted Nether Blogcast is in a round table format, featuring bloggers Graylo (Gray Matter), Honorshammer (Honor's Code), Matticus (World of Matticus), Saresa (Destructive Reach) and Stoneybaby (Big Hit Box). Speaking of Honor's Code, the blog has started a series on setting up a UI for Protection Paladin. Click here to submit a link to TDQ
The Daily Quest: Could use a bell pepper right now
We here at WoW.com are on a Daily Quest to bring you interesting, informative and entertaining WoW-related links from around the blogosphere. Ladies and gentlemen, behold. This is the most important addon you will ever find in your entire World of Warcraft career: Iron Chef. 4 Haelz has some tips for Resto Druids looking to tackle the Northrend Beasts in the new raid zone. And for you Hunters, OutDPS has a guide for you, too. Too Many Annas has posted the first place winner of the A Midsummer Night's RP writing contest. Into esports? Then check out the details for MLG's upcoming World of Warcraft tourney in Dallas. Click here to submit a link to TDQ
First playable Halo 3: ODST appearing at MLG Dallas
Sure, you could be heading to the Dallas MLG event to watch MTV True Life vet Tsquared play Halo 3, but we know why you're really going. It's for all that Halo 3: ODST Firefight Mode action that Bungie is publicly premiering at the event in late August, isn't it? The asking price is a bit steep at $20 if you weren't already heading over, but hardcore Halo fans (like ourselves) wouldn't want to miss any opportunity to play ODST three weeks before its release. That being said, we've already begun fashioning a cat helmet-based holder for our collector's edition controllers, so, you know, take our advice with a grain or two of salt on this one.
SK Gaming wins MLG Columbus
The dominance of Rogue/Mage/Priest continues as SK Gaming defeated eMazing Gaming's faceroll Unholy/BM/Holy comp in the Major League Gaming Columbus Grand Finals 6-3 (best of 11 counting previous matchups). SK Gaming took home the $9,000 Grand Prize in the first leg of the MLG 2009 pro circuit, proving that the US still has a competitive RMP team. Europe's RMP contingent, Ensidia, barely missed the Finals after dropping to eMG in the prior round.Some of the teams didn't do so well despite expectations, such as two-time MLG winners Fnatic, who were playing without their Warrior, Rhaegyn. Fnatic did rather poorly, playing a Rogue/Warlock/Shaman comp that simply couldn't match up against the dominant RMPs or even eMG's Death Knight/Hunter/Paladin. Evil Geniuses also played below par, but there really have to be teams that occupy the bottom of the standings. The good news is that teams collect points through all MLG legs to tally at the end of the season, so we might see some changes in the next MLG stops.All the matches were streamed through three different sites via Octoshape, but the streams were choppy and often stalled more than it did in the first two days of the tournament. It came to the point where the matches were simply unwatchable, which is a shame because there were some pretty good games on the last day. The shoutcasters did an excellent job commentating on the matches but camerawork and the pace of the games were just too fast at times to appreciate. Arena Tournaments could benefit greatly from instant replays, slow motion, and camera angles beyond the third person view. Replays should be available on GotFrag soon.
MLG Columbus Day Two concludes
The second day of competition at the Major League Gaming 2009 Pro Circuit has just wrapped up, with SK Gaming leading all teams with a 5-1 record followed closely by eMazing Gaming and Europe's Ensidia with identical 4-1 slates. The entire event was streamed live through MLG's site, as well as GotFrag and MMO Champion, and if you missed them there are short recaps of the matches over at GotFrag, as well as a brief match overview. The Arena Tournament uses a best-of-five format where no maps are played twice, which is a great concession to the fact that some team comps play better in particular maps.Over $15,000 are at stake in the tournament, with the first place winner taking home $9,000. It's been an exciting two days so far, and even though the Rogue/Mage/Priest comp continues to exert its dominance in the format, the current environment has also opened up to relatively newer comps such as Rogue/Warlock/Shaman and Death Knight/Hunter/Paladin. Day three will see which team comes out on top and takes home the prize, with the rest of the matches in this roundrobin tournament streamed live tomorrow at 9am EST.
MLG 2009 opens in Ohio
All the action explodes in Ohio as the first leg of Major League Gaming's PC Circuit for 2009 kicks off at the Columbus Convention Center. The tournament is a by-invitation-only format that includes eight of the world's top World of Warcraft Arena teams such as SK Gaming, Pandemic, Fnatic, and the lone non-US contingent from Europe, some guys from a small-time guild called Ensidia.Once again played on HP, the 3v3 tournament will be round robin format with the top four teams advancing to a double elimination Championship bracket. Players will have access to Deadly Gladiator and Tier 7.5 gear over three days of competitive gaming, with over $15,000 worth of prizes at stake. All games will be streamed live over at GotFrag TV as well as MMO Champion, with commentary by experienced shoutcasters Vansili, Vhell, and igoaf. Participants will accumulate Pro Circuit ranking points and get a chance to advance to the 2009 MLG Championship at the end of the year. It promises to be another exciting tournament, although it looks like MLG will still be using the Ring of Valor so there'll probably be a few laughs, as well. MLG Columbus will run from June 5 through 7.
Official Resistance 2 tournament begins next week
Think you're a R2 hot shot? Well, now's the time to prove your worth. Major League gaming and PlayStation have teamed up to present a $50,000 R2 Ladder. Some of the best players from all over the country will face off online, and the top 64 teams (256 players total) will win cash and prizes. The first place team will win $9,000 -- not a bad chunk of change for playing a video game, right?Registration opens next week, on December 22nd. The competition is only open to US residents 17 years of age or older. To find out more, visit GameBattles.
