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Be nice to Blizzard employees or they'll spawn Ragnaros in your arena
NSFW Warning: There's some cursing. On the EU Tournament Realm a few Blizzard Community Managers got together and went up against Wargame in an arena match. The result? Vashj and Ragnaros made their presence known, amongst others. It's a good video to watch and fun to see these NPCs totally out of context. It reminds me of the good ol' days at the end of betas when entire cities would be destroyed by spawning Azeroth's worst nightmares. Lord Kazzak stomping around Stormwind and Orgrimmar killing everything he sees? Yes please. The moral of the story is that you should always be nice to the blues. You'll never know when they'll come in and purge you with fire.
Arena Pass 2013 how-to video
As our own Olivia Grace wrote about not too long ago, registration for the 2013 Arena Pass is currently open for those interested PvP players. Quickly put, the $20.00 Arena Pass grants players access to a separate server in which you can create up to eleven level 90 characters and purchase high-quality PvP gear in order to compete in 3v3 arena matches. Participants can earn the Armored Murloc pet for completing 50 matches on the same character, and those in the top 1000 teams at the end of the rated phase can also earn the "Vanquisher" title for their characters on live realms. For those who might still be feeling a bit confused by how all this works, Blizzard has released a video tutorial that walks you through the process of signing up for the Arena Pass. If you're thinking about the 2013 pass, but still unsure, you might want to check it out embedded above. And for those of you who will be competing this year, good luck!
Registration for the 2013 Arena Pass now open
At long last, registration for the 2013 Arena Pass has opened. This pass, which you have to purchase for the princely sum of $20. Once you're in, you can create brand new level 90 characters with full sets of PvP, and usually some PvE gear, and join arena teams to duke it out with your friends and enemies. There are various rewards to be gleaned from getting good ladder positions, such as titles, but there's also a Murkimus pet that players can earn just for participation in 50 rated games. The tournament is done in phases, starting off with a practice phase, then moving into the ranked phases. After the practice phase ends, after about 5 weeks, there is a rating penalty of 150 for team roster changes, so be sure to have your teams set by that point. Once the rated phase is over, Blizzard will leave the realms open for players to practice and try comps for the rest of the year. It's a great place to go to just have a play around with characters, classes and comps, and do some PvP!
DreamHack to feature its own WoW realm
DreamHack, the world's biggest LAN party (according to Guinness), takes place in Sweden twice a year. They've just made an announcement of interest to us WoW players: at this year's summer event (June 13-16, assuming "Juni" means what I think it means), they'll have their own WoW realm. This is something that not many events have been able to do in the past. They'll be hosting an Arena tournament at the event, with prizes to be announced in the future. We can expect the realm to feature premades and gear and enchant vendors, like previous tournament realms. They also mention "live showing of raids;" I'm not sure we've seen realms with premade PvE play before, so that should be interesting. More information on registration is going to be released "within the next few days;" we'll keep you posted. Is anyone thinking of competing at DreamHack? Has anyone gone before? [thanks, Raful]
Arena Tournament Phase 3 ends tonight
We hope you got those 200 games, because the Arena Tournament is ending this phase of the tournament by 9pm PDT tonight. This means that only the Top 1,000 teams will qualify for the next round, and the rest of the entrants can take the season off. The Top 1,000 teams will move on to Phase 4, or the invitational ladder, for a shot at winning up to $75,000 in a prize pool worth over $200,000. In order to qualify, players must have played a minimum of 200 games with the same character on the same team.Players on the Top 1,000 teams will receive the title of "Vanquisher" for all their characters Level 71 or higher. As an awesome consolation prize, any player who managed to get 200 games regardless of how well (or how badly) they performed will receive Murkimus the Gladiator on one of their characters. When Phase 3 ends tonight, the Tournament Realms will be shut down for one week, after which Phase 4 will begin anew on April 14. Good luck! We know it might be a little late for that, so... uh, congrats?
Arena Tournament moves to second phase
It's time to get Murkimus the Gladiator! The Arena Tournament has officially moved on to the second phase of the tournament, where all matches played will count towards the season rankings. The bloodshed began last February, kicking off a two-week testing phase where players could create fully geared Level 80 characters, test out comps and strategies, and generally get warmed up for the real deal. Players interested in participating simply have to pony up $20 or €15 for a shot at winning prizes totalling $200,000. All ranked matches now count towards the qualifiers, and the players belonging to the Top 1000 teams will receive the title of 'Vanquisher' on all their characters Level 71 and above on the live realms. Players who don't crack the upper echelons of Arena rankings can still get the lovable armored murloc pet by playing 200 matches. The matches must be played on the same character and with the same team charter.Blizzard has also opened up Arena Tournament forums for US realms and EU realms, which players can use to recruit for teams, discuss strategies or ask for advice, and generally keep up-to-date on the latest goings-on in the Tournament Realms. Of course, if you want a good shot at winning, it might help to take some pointers from Korea's H O N, who played RMP to a completely different level, taking home $30,000 at the recently concluded ESL Arena Tournament.
[UPDATED] Arena Tournament has begun!
The 2009 Arena Tournament officially begun yesterday, kicking of a six-week qualifying period to find the best Arena players who will earn the chance to win prizes totaling over $200,000. Registration was opened a little over a week ago, with Blizzard enticing aspiring Gladiators with the Vanquisher title and a Murloc vanity pet that will translate over to the live realms. The tournament will consist of one round of regional qualifiers, followed by the regional finals, and winners of those finals will compete against each other for the top prize.Registering for the tournament, which costs $20 or €15, will grant players access to the tournament realms where they can create Level 80 characters of any race and class. These characters will be outfitted with the best Arena gear available -- Deadly Gladiator items from Season 5 -- and will have access to other epic items as well as enchants, gems, and glyphs allowing them to customize their character as they see fit.Players whose teams finish in the Top 1000 at the end of the qualifiers will receive the Vanquisher title for all their characters over Level 70. Casual players who don't play Arenas seriously still have some incentive as the only requirement to obtain the Murloc pet -- Murkimus the Gladiator, according to the Patch 3.1 files -- is to play 200 games over the six-week qualifying period with one team regardless of record. [UPDATE: According to this post, the first two weeks are considered a practice period and thus do not count towards the 200 ranked games required to qualify for the pet.] Players must have an active subscription in order to register.
Highlights from the 2008 Arena Tournament and TTR
Last year's arena tournament was a lot of fun. Prior to the 2008 tournament Blizzard has a Tournament Test Realm open for everyone to log on and play with. The test realm let them get the mechanics for the real tournament realm ready before hand, allowing Blizzard to work all the kinks out.We had a lot of coverage of the event, and some of it is pretty interesting to go back and read.There were two main tests, called stress tests. These were where as many people as possible logged on and attempted to play. You can check out our coverage of Stress Test I and Stress Test II.And of course, the highlights of the stress test were the GMs that came and spawned all sorts of terrible creations. %Gallery-18020%
15 Minutes of Fame: e-sportscaster tracks WoW tournies Part 2
WoW as an e-sport currently is actually pretty awful. Two, for example, are the Electronic Sports League (ESL) who have a world wide tournament, the finals being in March 2009, and Major League Gaming, a console-centric league who expanded to PC earlier this year with WoW. There are not a lot of amateur tournaments out there for WoW.
15 Minutes of Fame: e-sportscaster tracks WoW tournies
15 Minutes of Fame is our look at World of Warcraft players of all shapes and sizes – from the renowned to the relatively anonymous, the remarkable to the player next door. Tip us off to players you'd like to hear more about. First off, let's establish this for the record: yes, there are people out there who play World of Warcraft professionally. There are pro teams, well known player personalities and an entire tournament scene. And behind it all, there are podcasters – "e-casters" – reporting on every twist and turn.Meet JP McDaniel, a 22-year-old college journalism major and podcaster for ArenaCast. JP has combined the game he loves with school and work in what he hopes will be a springboard to a print journalism career in gaming. He's managed to roll his main up to 80 in the midst of podcasting, news updates, tournament travel and his studies. We talked with JP about his road into e-casting and his perspectives on where e-sports -- and competitive WoW, in particular -- are heading.
WoW: The hunt is on as Arena Tournament Phase 2 opens
So it begins, phase 2 in the 2008 World of Warcraft Arena qualifier rounds is officially underway! Practice time is over for Arena competitors who have been honing their reflexes and waiting to prove their mettle since phase 1 ended. This is the last qualifying round to battle it out for a spot in the live regional with a chance to compete for over $200,000 in cash and prizes. Vhairi, WoW Armory statistician, tracked the performance of classes in phase 1, and it will be interesting to see whether or not the same team comps come out on top with Warlocks, Druids, and Rogues dominating team makeup's in the last round. The registration fee is $20 per account; play will last six weeks with matches played out on the Tournament realms. This is a 3v3 only event, but the 2v2 and 5v5 brackets see quite a bit of action as well, proving that there is a demand for this type of competitive player versus player gameplay. Raiding Sunwell is the last thing a die-hard arena junkie has on their mind. Participants can create up to three new level 70s with full sets of PvP gear per realm. Hit the official tournament forum to meet up with others to discuss the best strategies and team compositions.
Blizzard names first round of qualifying teams for the North American 3v3 arena tournament regionals
According to Nihilum, Blizzard has now sent out the first round of emails to the qualifying teams for the North American regional finals for the 3v3 arena tournament. They'll be barred for competing in ranked matches for the second qualifying rounds, but will be allowed to fight skirmish matches to pratice their skills. The following teams, according to Nihilum and the official ladder page, made it to the next round:
