friday night fights
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ESPN 3D kicks off summer slate of Friday Night Fights tonight
Unlike Joe Tessitore and Teddy Atlas up there you probably don't have ringside accommodations at the Pechanga Resort Casino tonight, but if you believe coordinating producer Phil Orlins, having ESPN 3D is practically the same thing. After a dry run earlier this year that also served as a test for producing the 2D and 3D feed together, there have been several more nights added to the ESPN 3D schedule this summer and the Front Row blog has an interview with Orlins about some of the challenges and advantages caused by 3D. We'll tune in at 9 p.m., but 3D or not, we're thinking it'd all be more exciting if Haye beats Klitshcko or Mayweather stops ducking Pacquiao.
Friday Night Fights on ESPN 3D will be the first to simplify co-production for 2D
ESPN 3D has had more live 3D sports broadcasts than we can think of but up until now ESPN has insisted that 3D events required a completely independent production process than that of 2D. This means that any event produced in 3D needs twice as many cameras, twice as much bandwidth to transmit it, twice as much everything. Well, it appears that this might not be the case for all sports because on February 18th ESPN will produce Friday Night Fights in 3D and just feed the HD fans a 2D version of the same feed. The results of this could have dramatic results on 3D broadcasts as we know it because the economical feasibility of 3D becomes much more realistic if a single production crew can feed both viewers; this might even mean cable providers can carry a single feed (like center cutting HD for SD but the 3D version). The other impact this might have on the market is it could influence the choice of a full HD 3D broadcast codec. You see while H.264 MVC used for 3D Blu-ray movies is backwards compatible with 2D, other broadcast methods like Sensio's and Dolby's are not. Oh, and one last thing, check out the gallery from ESPN Gameday Live that was at Sony's CES booth today. %Gallery-113349%
Tabula Rasa Night of Champions event
In this week's Weekend Wrapup for Tabula Rasa, we get word of the most recent Friday Night Fights results, but we also get a bit of an announcement for a new finale event regarding the long-running in-game boxing tournament.FNF: Night of Champions will be a special event that will play host to the largest gathering of former FNF champions ever in one spot. The only problem is locating all of these former champions for the event! You can check out the current list of champions over at the PlanetTR forums, and keep an eye out for more info on what may be the largest Friday Night Fights ever.
Tabula Rasa's weekend activites still going strong
As a testament to the fact that Tabula Rasa players aren't throwing down their rifles and giving up that easily, the community events are carrying on stronger than ever. Thanks to fansites such as PlanetTR and Gangrel's Forums, this weekend is chocked full of contests and special events to keep away those end-of-the-game-in-two-months blues.First, there's the EU Centaurus AFS Boxing Tournament, which is basically the EU server's answer to Friday Night Fights. Speaking of which, this week's FNF will be held on the Orion server at 10pm EST. Finally, we have this month's installment of the Server vs. Server War on the PTS for all to enjoy. You can find out more information on this SvS War through our previous coverage or at PlanetTR's forums. Hope to see you there!
Richard Garriott and special guest join TR's Friday Night Fights
In the past, we've reported on some excited bouts in Tabula Rasa's Friday Night Fights, but nothing compares to what they have in store for you now. Next Friday, July 25th, Richard Garriott will be facing up against two time featherweight boxing champ Jesus Chavez in the C.E.L.L.A.R. Arena. This will be held on the TR Test Server starting at 6pm Central time. They will be in C.E.L.L.A.R. 3, which can be accessed via teleporter from the barracks in Alia Das.If you're new to Friday Night Fights and aren't sure how it all works, TR's Community Coordinator Amy "Critters" Crider has assembled a handy Q&A which you can see right after the cut, as well as a hilarious promotional video created especially for this event. We hope to see you there!
Tabula Rasa's Friday Night Fights gets an upgrade
In this week's Weekend Wrapup for Tabula Rasa, we get a few tidbits from within the community at large. Friday Nights Fights is still going strong, with this weekend's winner being Glass on his fifth FnF championship! Plus, the FnF ringleaders have announced some changes to the regular matches to help liven things up a bit. A new match type called the Gut Check pits the final winner against 6 of the previously-defeated competitors, who form a squad to take down the final contestant one at a time. This week, Glass made it through two fighters before finally being taken down by the third.Also, be sure to check out a new video compiled by Kaczmanchoy which showcases all of the weapons in Tabula Rasa. However, the video goodness doesn't stop there as Chae compiled some footage of his lottery event from last Friday.
Tabula Rasa weekend roundup
The Tabula Rasa Friday Night Fights were, according to the Weekend Wrapup, more sparsely attended than usual because of the holiday, but the competition was still tight. Slamscape and Embers rose through the ranks in their respective brackets before they met each other in battle. After a fierce battle, Slamscape claimed the title of Friday Night Fight champion. Slamscape and his partner, Bethel, then faced Embers and Grier in the Final Challenge, but lost. Next week, the competitors will once again face Glass, Tabula Rasa's only four time championship winner, and soon to be, perhaps, it's first five time winner.Community manager April "CuppaJo" Burba is leaving the Tabula Rasa team for another position at NCsoft, and to give her a memorable farewell, they threw her a dance party. The images from the dance party are so disturbing, they will be branded into your brain forever. Look at them at your own peril.
Ask not what your MMO can do for you...
MMO players are a devoted lot. When we're not actually in our game of choice, we're often on forums arguing about the latest patches, researching new talent builds to make better use of our given class' abilities, or blogging about recent experiences. A tremendous amount of energy goes into making an MMO community what it is, both in and out of the game. But as wonderful as player enthusiasm can be in its many forms, it is frequently ignored or utterly under-utilized by game developers. And as blogger Aspendawn reflects in a recent post, when they do throw their weight behind community events, their support tends can be quite hollow -- as was the case with the EQ2 "Guild Recruitment Fair" pictured above. Her call for more developer-sanctioned mentoring systems is also spot-on, particularly for games that have been around for a while. Even if a community is friendly and welcoming, it can be intimidating jumping into a PUG when you don't quite have a grasp on your class' role just yet. We'd also love to see more events like Tabula Rasa's Friday Night Fights--events blossoming from the minds of creative gamers and taking official form with the addition of actual in-game assets to support them. It's not all fancy graphics and epic lootz, we want community too!
Healthy dose of Tabula Rasa community in this Weekend Wrapup
In this week's installment of Weekend Wrapup for Tabula Rasa, the hardcore community shines through yet again. First off, there's mention of the PlanetTR Tavern Roleplayers group who usually gets together to crash the tavern in Foreas Base, but this time they've moved on to the C.E.L.L.A.R. arena. Included in this community update are some screenshots of their good times. We also get word of the very latest episode of TabulaCast, where the hosts John and Matt discuss all the latest TR news on and off the Public Test Server. Their discussion continues as they report on their experiences with Project Immersion and read some listener email.Finally, there's the results of this weekend's Friday Night Fights, where the largest purse in TR history was awarded: One million credits! Congratulations goes out to Glass for winning it all!
TR's Weekend Wrapup proves the community is stronger than ever
One look at the most recent Weekend Wrapup for Tabula Rasa and you'll see that the TR community is flourishing as strong as ever. Amid concerns from many early-adopters of the game, these community-run events seem to be popping up everywhere. PlanetTR's Hottest Armor Contest - The top seven winners of this glorified beauty contest are showcased and praised in the PlanetTR forums. Friday Night Fights - The FnF for May 16th will be the first time it will be done in the C.E.L.L.A.R., which is the brand new boxing ring still on the Public Test Server. So yes, this means the FnF itself will be on the test server as well. It's still not too late to sign up for this, but even if you don't participate in the fighting this week, it will certainly be worth watching! It's Raining Bane - This dev-supported event is basically a giant collection of players running around the Torden Mires killing stuff. Sounds great to us! PvP Singles Tournament - Sponsored by the Warlords of Exodus clan, this PvP tournament seems to be a well-organized event with some rare purple items as prizes, courtesy of the GMs.
Taking a deeper look at TR's fighting arena
A few weeks ago we reported on a fighting arena that is rumored to be releasing with Tabula Rasa's Patch 1.8. Since then, there has been some speculation about what this area will be used for. We already know it will not be strictly for the Friday Night Fights events, but we ask ourselves if it will be open to anyone at anytime.Over at Tabula Blogger, the question is presented once again after the more recent news of our six-month veteran rewards; namely the Knuckle Dusters. Will these be a part of this arena? We can only hope, but we think the bigger question is what type of impact will this area serve (in both PvE and PvP) for players who may be finding themselves bored with the game as it stands today?
Tabula Rasa goes green, unofficially
Another Monday, and another Weekend Wrapup from the Tabula Rasa community team. This week, in addition to highlighting the usual slew of events, like this weekend's Friday Night Fights winners and the new Tabulacast, they also featured two new pieces of fan fiction which actually prove to be of surprisingly good quality. As always, they (and we!) encourage you to send in some of your own original material. The Tabula Rasa universe is still not nearly as fleshed out as it could be, so every bit of writing can have the affect of changing people's view of the game world.And of course, there's always St. Patrick's Day. While the AFS does not formally celebrate this day of Irish pride (who cares who is Irish when a race of alien jerkoffs are trying to commit xenocide?), the GMs will be making appearances at random across all four servers today to deliver green dye as a sort of unofficial holiday goodie. Granted, green isn't quite as rare a color as white or black these days, but who are we to look a gift horse in the mouth? And remember, if you're looking to truly maximize your green for the day - think Forean.
Destination Games talking 1.5 already, glee!
What's the best cure for the "post-patch blues?" Why, an early preview of features from the next patch, of course! The Destination Games crew knows what was ailing me, and delivered in the Weekend Wrapup posted earlier today. Featured is a new concept new to Tabula Rasa known as "PvP Safe Regions" -- areas where beleaguered soldiers can seek respite after death from their belligerent clan war foes. This should put an end to the practice of camping hospitals for good, or at least we hope so.Also mentioned was the Blind Race event we told you about over the weekend and a recap of a new squad-based fighting tournament called "Mid-week Massacre" (sharing the Friday Night Fight guys' affinity for well-placed alliteration), which you can found out about on the omni-present Planet TR forums. All in all, not a bad week for Tabula Rasa players. Oh, and did anybody else notice the... interesting new 3-month veteran award depicted above? Classy.
Tabula Rasa devs foster Friday Night Fights
Destination Games posted another Tabula Rasa Weekend Wrap-up this morning, revealing the results of the latest Friday Night Fight. As part of their burgeoning community-centric approach to their game, they've been heavily involved in supporting the event that, not unlike the group in a particular movie starring Brad Pitt, seems to have started organically and has gradually grown with the support and interest of the player base. In Friday Night Fights, players roll new characters, strip them of all their high-tech weaponry and armor, and duke it out in hand-to-hand in a tiered series of battles.What separates FNF from a nude gnome raid on Iron Forge is that the developers have actually helped facilitate transforming it into a legitimate community event, building a boxing ring for the event to take place in, and making sure that Tabula Rasa dignitaries like Sarah Morrison and General British are on-hand to cheer the fighters to victory. They're so involved, in fact, that after this past weekend's tournament, the winner was granted one of General British's berets, the only one like it in the game. When is the last time Thrall paid players the same mind?
