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Arena tourneys need more Blizzard support?
Here's an interesting post on GotGame that sounds different from almost everything we've heard about professional Arena tourneys and Blizzard so far. Whenever we've talked to anyone involved with Arena tournaments, they've always told us Blizzard is very supportive of the events. But this post alleges otherwise -- they say that Blizzard is falling short of professional Arena support.There are two main complaints: first, that Blizzard doesn't supply any onsite Arena servers. We know this is true -- Blizzard has event servers that they use for events like this, kept offsite so they don't have to set them up all the time. But GotGame claims that this causes problems -- as much as 300+ ping, which in the quick world of Arena matches, is practically unplayable. We're not sure why Blizzard doesn't allow setups on site, but that seems like a reasonable step to take if they're serious about making professional Arena big.The second is a little tougher: this post claims that Blizzard has brought the pro Arena servers up to the Season 4 patch, but locked the gear down at Season 2. Our own Zach Yonzon says he's not sure where the Arenas are -- he doesn't believe that official Arena matches are underway after Wrath yet, and if that's true, then Blizzard may already be updating this (bringing the gear on the realms up to level 80 levels to match the talents). But either way, it's strange to hear someone say that Blizzard isn't supporting professional Arena matches correctly. You'd think that if they were as into supporting WoW as an e-sport as they say, that they'd address some of these concerns.
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.
E308: PvP in The Agency
One of the many things people have been looking for in an MMOFPS environment is the ability to engage in some hardcore PvP. Shooter fans seem to absolutely love the thrill of fragging others straight off the map. While we weren't able to nail down all of the specifics from our talk with Matt Wilson, Executive Director of Development from SOE Seattle, we did manage to wrangle a few juicy tidbits from him. Some of the answers we got regarding the things they are considering for The Agency may prove to be welcome news to FPS PvP devotees.Massively: Is The Agency going to be open to a PvP type of environment?In the example we see in the video, the only thing you can do is actually blow up the bombs and kill yourself, that kind of thing. In PvP we'll have to flag friendly fire on or off -- if you want to shoot your team, you can. If you don't, you won't. In PvE, we're really focused on friendly fire being off most of the time because of players joining ad-hoc groups. We don't want to make the game a griefer's paradise.
CGS opens registration to the public
The Championship Gaming Series, which is having its second-annual WoW competition this year, has just announced that they are opening registration to the public! Previously, the tournament was invitation-only from the top-rated 1000 Arena teams.The tournament will be 3v3, played on special tournament realms, just like Blizzard's own tourney. The qualifier rounds start on this coming Monday, June 9th, and run through the 22nd, and the top two teams in the qualifiers from each region, North America and Europe, will be flown out to Los Angeles for the final competition, live on July 19th. The cash money totals to $50,000, with the winning team taking home $25,000, the second-place team $12,500, and the third- and fourth-place teams $6,250 each.If you are interested in registering, which is free, do it by June 8th, since that's when registration closes. You have to be 18 or over and a resident of the United States, Canada, France, Germany, Spain, Sweden, Belgium or United Kingdom to compete. Here are the registration links for the different regions: Europe, North America. For more on the CGS tournament see their rules and FAQ.
Cyanide Studios unveils Dungeon Party
All the way from beautiful Paris, France comes word of a brand-new MMO. Called Dungeon Party, it's a head-to-head team battle title that will pit teams of five players against each other in a race to the bottom of a dank and dirty dungeon. Six character classes will be offered when the game launches, with equipment further customizing character looks and abilities. At the end of the race is the labyrinth's treasure horde, which players have to not only obtain - but survive to carry out of the maze. The opposing team as well as traps and monsters will block their path.The title has apparently been in-development for some time, and the developers at Cyanide Studios plan to open the game up to Beta testers this summer. Future plans include regular tournaments with 'higher intensity' dungeons and a real-time ranking system. We'll follow this game as it heads towards public playtesting later this year.
Nintendo releases first Mario Kart Wii tournament
Nintendo has announced the launch of worldwide Mario Kart Wii Tournaments, which will be coming every few weeks. The first one, available now, is a competition for fastest time on Mario Circuit. "Look closely though," said the press release, "something may be different." (For whatever reason, we haven't been able to get online to see what difference there might be.)Best times will be recorded and viewed on worldwide rankings. Future tournaments might also include collecting coins and Wii Wheel-specific challenges.
GuildCafe calls out for DIY event planners [UPDATED]
The true strength of any successful MMO is its player community -- they're the folks who create mods, organize events, cheer/protest loudly whenever something changes that they like/dislike. In that vein, GuildCafe has sent out a call for players who already are, or would like to create and run Guild Wars events events for any and all MMOs, like tournaments, contests, or even (most ambitiously) an ARG.GuildCafe promises to support this endeavor by providing experienced staffers to help plan and effect events, as well as to publicize and sponsor said events. This is a great way to both maintain and strengthen the GW community, and at the same time promote GuildCafe's brand recognition. Everybody wins![UPDATED: changed 'Guild Wars events' to reflect that this offer is open to any and all MMOs -- Thanks, Sam!]
Blood Sport: Tournament Time
V'Ming - who thinks that gnome warlocks are travesties of nature and need to be KOSed has been bound with copious amounts of duct tape and is currently suspended by his toenails in the basement of the WoW Insider headquarters where he is currently serving as a practice piñata for the rest of the crew. Amanda Dean has temporarily hijacked his column to bring you this important announcement. The servers are live and Blizzard's $120,000 arena tournament has begun. This is your chance to prove that your team is the best in the world, or at least among eligible participants. The first two qualifying rounds are divided into Asian, European and North American Regions.* You have to place among the top four teams in one of these rounds to qualify for the big bucks. Before you sign up, be sure to check out the official tournament rules. Players must have their accounts upgraded to tournament status in order to view the tournament realms. Entrance into each of the qualifying rounds will run individual participants $20 USD. Qualifiers run from March 31-May 20, 2008 to June 3-July 15, 2008. Players may use user interface modifications in the qualifying rounds, but will be limited to the default UI and custom macros in the live stages of the tournament.
Nintendo announces North American Smash Bros. Brawl tournaments
Impatient to get your Brawl on? Some of you North American gamers could get a chance to play Nintendo's all-star fighter as early as this Saturday, when Nintendo kicks off the first of four regional Smash Bros. Brawl tournaments across the United States.The regional tournaments will take place in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Boston, and New York City, with a maximum of 256 participants at each location. The winners from each tournament will meet in New York for the finals, with the grand prize winner walking away with a crystal-coated Wii, home theatre system, and (of course) a copy of Super Smash Bros. Brawl.The three finalists will win non-crystal-coated Wii consoles, extra Wii remotes, copies of Brawl, and Best Buy gift certificates ranging from $250 to $1,000. Regional tournaments register players on a first-come, first-serve basis, so we'd recommend getting there nice and early to compete. The first tourney is this Saturday, February 16 in Los Angeles. Full regional tournament details after the break.
Exclusive first look at Legends of Norrath's new expansion: Inquisitor
var digg_url = 'http://www.digg.com/pc_games/First_look_at_Legends_of_Norrath_s_Inquisitor_expansion'; This morning, SOE will announce the release date for the 3rd set of their online strategy card game, Legends of Norrath. Inquisitor is scheduled to be released on Friday, March 7, 2008 with over 250 cards introducing new game play elements, new loot redeemable in EverQuest and EverQuest II and a new lore-based campaign free to all registered users.Massively has the exclusive first look of the new features, new cards and a new video after the jump.%Gallery-15798%
Blizzard working with ESL on offline tourneys
Lots of people (including MMO Champion) reported over the weekend that according to this interview with David "Shawn" K of the Electronic Sports League, Blizzard is lending their support to get offline tournaments up and running. Blizzard apparently gave ESL a special event realm to run their tournaments in (Upper Deck has also used an event realm to run online tournaments and instances at their TCG events), accounts on those servers with tons of gold and PvP gear per player, and has also implemented special UI modifications for observers.Interesting. So it seems that the ESL might be stepping up to fill in the space that the WSVG abandoned when they fell apart. In our interview with then-WSVG president Matt Ringel, he also mentioned that they were getting support from Blizzard in the form of special realms and UI mods. So it looks like ESL is now benefiting from the work Blizzard did there.Of course, the other question we have about these types of updates is when, if ever, they'll be placed in player hands as well. Players have wanted an observation system for PvP, especially in the Arenas, for a long time, and it's not a stretch to think that if Blizzard is developing tools for professional tournaments, they might also have a plan to get those tools into player hands in some form. But even if we don't see them in the game for a long time, it's good to know that tournament development on Blizzard's end didn't die off completely with the WSVG.
US Army hosts first ever Halo 3 Xbox Live tournament
The United States Army is working with Microsoft to sponsor the first Halo 3 tournament to be held over Xbox Live. The tournament -- which is sadly limited to U.S. gamers only -- begins in April, and will feature prizes for top players.Leading up to the tournament, the US Army will sponsor a series of "Basic Combat Training" mini-contests through Xbox Live, where players register and play Halo 3 on certain days in order to win. Registration has already begun for the first contest, entitled "Sniper School," and gameplay will begin on January 19. Registration for the main tournament will begin in March.
Upper Deck's WoW TCG World Championships coverage begins
Upper Deck has begun their live coverage of the biggest event the TCG has ever seen: the World Championships. They are live from San Diego, as a few hundred players are battling it out in the card game for a $100,000 prize. There are other tournaments going on there as well this weekend-- the Darkmoon Faire is in town and giving away tons of great loot. And Blizzard is there as well-- they're even giving away a Dinner with the Devs, where winners of a certain tournament can sit down and talk shop with the devs: Chris Metzen, Shawn Carnes, J. Allen Brack, Lee Sparks, Scott Mercer, Cory Stockton, Travis Day, and Tom Chilton. Artists are in the house, too: Samwise, Glenn Rane, Alex Horley-Orlandelli, Jonboy Meyers, and Dan Scott will be signing cards and doing sketches for attendees throughout the weekend. Pretty rad if you happen to be as big a fanboy/girl as we here at WoW Insider are.Ben Drago, the manager for Organized Play (who we interviewed a while back) is also blogging live from the event, and been posting updates, both small and big, from his hotel room and the tournament floor. Expect to see lots more coverage, including photos and results, from Upper Deck on the tournament over the weekend.And we'll have more here at WoW Insider, too-- our coverage started yesterday with an interview with one of the top TCG players, and we'll be keeping an eye on the results all weekend. And even if you're not in the tournament at all, you still have a chance to win something-- watch WoW Insider all next week for results of the tournament and our very own consolation prizes.
Upper Deck giving $100,000 to winner of WoW TCG World Championship
Upper Deck has announced that their final WoW TCG tournament this year, the World Championship, will offer a whopping $100,000 prize. Yes, you read that right-- the top winner will take home a hundred grand. There's already a long list of people invited to the tournament, mostly from previous Nationals and qualifying tournaments, but there is still one chance left to get into the tournament, which starts on November 29th at the San Diego Convention Center. If you can come up with an Honor Ranking of 4 by then, you could enter the Honor Grind tournament on November 29th, and the top four winners of that will be invited to compete in the World Championships. So if you really want that $100,000 prize, and have never played the TCG in your life, better get playing.But even if you don't plan on winning, the World Championship sounds like a lot of fun-- TCG artists (including Blizzard's Samwise Didier) will be there to sign cards and meet players, and there will be lots of other events and tournaments. The Crafting Redemption metagame will also be happening for the first time-- players will be able to turn in "extra" material cards to "make" special exclusive item cards for the game. And this "Thunderfury" card is an exclusive participation card for the tournament, too. Very nice.And Upper Deck also reminds us that November is release month for the upcoming March of the Legion expansion, and they're going to hold a sneak preview of all the new cards on November 17th at a store near you. Supposedly there's a list of stores hosting the events over on their site, but I don't see it yet, so hopefully it'll be up soon. And keep your eyes open-- we've already been told the new set will have three brand new loot cards, and we've got our ears to the tracks on just what they might be.
Win the PG Dev Kit tournie, make your own video game at PAX
We told you it'd be fabulous. Pink Godzilla has exclusively revealed to Joystiq the grand prize for their Pink Godzilla Dev Kit tournament at PAX 2007, and boy is it a doozy. Not only will the winner receive $200 spending money for the Pink Godzilla booth, but the winner also gets to design his or her own video game, to be developed with the help of the Pink Godzilla team, and featured on the Pink Godzilla web site.In addition to receiving credit as game designer for the project, the winner will also have their game featured as a title card in an upcoming expansion set for the Pink Godzilla Dev Kit card game. Registration for the tournament will be limited, so Pink Godzilla urges players to sign up as soon as PAX begins on August 24th. More details about both the tournament and the prizes after the break.
BlizzCon tournament brackets announced
We knew that there Blizzard was going to be holding tournaments for StarCraft, Warcraft III, and World of Warcraft Arenas at BlizzCon, but until today we didn't know who would be participating. The BlizzCon site has been updated with a list of participating players along with brief player profiles. The Arena tournament will includes the top two teams from Korea's regional finals, the top two teams from the European regional finals, the top three teams from the American regional finals, and the winner of the 2005 BlizzCon Invitational. (Don't ask me how that works, since I'm quite sure we didn't have arenas in 2005.) And for those of you curious about worlds beyond Warcraft, check out the StarCraft and Warcraft III brackets.
Senior CM interviewed about eSports
This story comes from the somewhat unusual source of Amped eSports. They have an interview up from Blizzard's Paul Della Bitta, whose title is Senior Community Manager. He says he "oversee[s] our community teams for all franchises as well as the eSports team," so that's who he is in case, like me, you hadn't heard of him before.The interview mostly talks about "how did WoW become an eSport" (with the introduction of the Arena system in BC) and "how do you feel about the tournaments this year" (very excited). If you're interested in WoW as a sporting event, you should definitely give the article a read. However, there is at least one juicy item of interest in there for all WoW players:We know that pro players need to practice for hours a day; they can't practice and grind out levels and farm for items It is something we're aware of and we're going to hope to address in the future.Is this a sign that there will in the future be a meaningful way to participate in PvP without leveling a character to 70? How would you feel about that? Personally, I think I'd welcome it, as it would give further distance between the PvE game and the PvP game, which BC already does pretty well and which I think is very needed. I see the argument for rewarding players who put in the effort to level (as does Paul Della Bitta: "we wanted to reward the players who had taken their characters from 1 to 70"), but on the other hand I don't see why it should take hundreds of hours spent in PvE in order to compete in PvP. Your thoughts?
Pay-for-play tournament site exclusively for PSP owners
We were more than a little iffy about presenting this information to you. Our tip line received word from a new pay-for-play tournament website. It's not uncommon that we're spammed by some entrepeneurs--and it's a rare occasion when we believe a commercial enterprise might be of note to PSP owners. The website, PSP Tournaments, wants to do exactly as its name suggests. Players can sign up for tournaments, pay an entry fee, and try to win a cash prize. Honestly, we're skeptical on the security (and legality) of such a website, but considering its first tournament (Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops) will be free, we thought it would do no harm in passing along the information.If you know your Snake Eating beats the rest, you may want to consider participating in the site. If the site proves legitimate, there may be a new home for competitive PSP players to meet and challenge each other.
Another arena team goes pro: The Fighting Mongooses of Mug'thol
This is getting to be a habit-- maybe WoW will thrive in the professional gaming arena yet. Curse is reporting that Enervate Gaming has picked up The Fighting Mongooses, an Arena team on Mug'thol (they've got a 2536 rating, which I guess is kind of good and stuff). They're currently first in their battlegroup Vengeance (and Overrated is running second place, so they may get picked up soon as well). AmpedeSports has a short piece up about both TFM and Power Trip, who we reported a little while ago were one of two other teams who've been picked up by progaming agents.There's a few interesting things to be learned in the sound bites of the Enervate guy as well. As for actual tournaments, he says plans are still up in the air, but he confirms that Blizzard will supposedly be "paying for some of the top teams to attend Blizzard sponsored events." (Enervate says they'll be paying to send the sixth man along.) And when asked how he chose The Fighting Mongooses, he says Power Trip and ZERG IT DOWN just weren't available that he spoke with players and "community leaders" to find out which were the teams to watch, and then listened in on some of TFM's matches. The team is a group of close friends-- two of them have known each other since elementary school, and there's a pair of brothers as well.So grats to The Fighting Mongooses for picking up a sponsor. With all this support flying around, we're going to have to get these guys together in an arena pretty soon and see what they can do. How about it, Blizzard?
