I realized today that many people do not know or have never heard of MLG (short for Major League Gaming), or what even what competitive gaming leagues are. In short, these leagues are comparable to sports leagues: high competition, “confidence is key,” clutch plays, and even the use of drugs for that extra edge.

MLG Dr. Pepper bottles feature Tom Taylor of the Dr. Pepper sponsored team "Str8 Rippin"

Last year during the 2008 season MLG reached its peak when the league grew an outstanding 1337% (I’m not kidding; leet percent) through a recession. This success is most visible in that year’s Doctor Pepper Sponsorship of the team Str8 Rippin and the MLG Dr. Pepper bottles which featured Tom Taylor, one of the leagues most treasured pros and captain of the team Str8 Rippin, on over 1 million bottles sold throughout the United States. The CGS, short for Championship Gaming Series and also MLG’s top competitor, also had to retire in 2008 facing huge financial problems.

The league mainly focuses on console games (with the exception of WoW). Currently, however, MLG’s lineup only consists of Halo 3, their flagship game, and Gears of War.

From what I’ve seen in gaming leagues, MLG has hosted by far possibly the best competitive scene within the United States and the console gaming realm. Much of this success has to do with the Halo series, most notably Halo: CE and Halo 2 during the original Xbox days when the competitive scene in console gaming was virtually non-existant. Now with the Xbox 360, and gaming becoming more and more accepted as a sport and not just a hobby “nerds” flock to, the league has grown to amazing new heights and has shown no signs of losing popularity.

And what would be MLG without its players? Because MLG is built around competition, the top pros in the league don’t view gaming as “just gaming;” for many of them, it’s their job and they take every ounce of play time they get to reformulate strategies, tighten up their game, and push for that little extra something-something that will drive their team to an event win. This includes upwards of 8-12 hrs of practice per day leading up to the event, studying the ins and outs of game-plays from rival teams, and yes, even trash talking during the tournament. This is no joke; these pros are completely driven, focused, and determined individuals who will not and cannot settle for anything less than a first place finish. Teams go as far as LANing (“Local Area Network” – where two teams will play each other face to face in the same building over a switch board to get rid of Xbox Live and internet lag) one to two times before events. That means they have to travel to each other’s houses across the country before traveling to an event which is scheduled every other month.

You can also find an immense amount of similarities between MLG and other sports leagues. Other than the pro’s win-win-win-mentalities, many actually take the drug Adderall to help their focus in-game. This more or less amounts to what steroids are for professional sports players, and, yes, it is a hotly debated topic amongst the competitive scene and one MLG does not like to discuss. But no league is perfect, and with such fierce competition it’s understandable that people resort to game performance enhancing drugs.

In closing, I wrote this little write-up on MLG to share my love for competitive gaming, and perhaps as a future reference to posts I write dealing with the league. The 3 and 1/2 years I’ve traveled alongside the MLG community has been a blast, and without it, I don’t think I would be as interested in gaming as I am today. If you’re interested in more information about the league or competitive gaming, head over to MLGpro.com.

You can also watch many of the rebroadcasts from past events:

• (Halo 3) Columbus 2009 Finals – Str8 Rippin vs. Triggers Down
• (Halo 3) Vegas National Championship 2008 Finals – Str8 Rippin vs. Instinct

What Project Natal may look like

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer has announced the planned release of a new and extended version of the Xbox 360 for 2010. The new 360 will feature a more “natural interface” and a built in camera that can recognize voice and movement. (SOURCE – TG Daily)

There is no doubt in my mind that Project Natal, a huge project where one can play games and interact with the Xbox 360 without a controller and by use of a camera that can detect movement and voice, is the device that will be featured on this new Xbox 360.

It's now been over 10 years since the release of the original Everquest.

There have been countless MMO’s since WoW’s debut that have hoped, but haven’t gotten nearly as far, in achieving what WoW has. Granted, games like Everquest and DAoC were extremely popular predecessors to WoW, but to date no game has reached the amount of subscribers Blizzard has. WoW is quite simply the most popular MMO (and probably game) in history.

Despite the fact that no game to date has been able to topple the giant, that doesn’t mean Blizzard isn’t listening. Looking back at the release of The Burning Crusade, there were several MMO’s released that year (2007) that had built a lot of hype. Many WoW users themselves were looking forward to these games, but obviously ended up disappointed. These games included Vanguard: Saga of Heroes, which is infamous for it’s pre-mature release (due to budget problems); Age of Conan, which is still an incomplete game to this day; The Chronicles of Spellborn, which had a release that almost went completely under the radar (no one even knew about the game!);  and Lord of the Rings Online, which turned out to be a well-polished game, but in the end could not compete with WoW as intended.

And then as we all know Wrath of the Lich King came up in 2008 and games such as Mythic’s Warhammer Online (though in my opinion a good game in it’s own right) has suffered since with severe population problems.

Ryan Barker, Everquest lead designer, seems to think that, despite the past four years of complete WoW domination along with countless attempts made by other well-to-do gaming companies, an MMO on Facebook will overturn the MMO community away from WoW:

The main problem, Barker thinks, is simply getting people into the game and not intimidating them with long-time veterans and powerful player characters. “At some point someone will dwarf those numbers with a game. If we can get passed some of the barriers that are keeping people from playing with their friends, just because their friends happened to start the game before they did, and maybe started on a different server or whatever, if we can start to get rid of some of those social blocks, I think it can get even better.”

So, he suggests, why not something like Facebook? “Facebook doesn’t care how long you’ve been on Facebook … Things like that show us that there are a lot of people out there that are interested in being involved in an internet community, especially with all the apps on Facebook, in playing casual games. At some point someone’s going to do an MMO that really caters to that group, and is going to have a billion subscribers or whatever. There’s another ceiling somewhere that we haven’t hit yet.”

SOURCE (The Escapist).

The majority of the community is more or less laughing at the assertion that some social networking website will just walk in and take over the MMO player-base. That, and not only is “a billion subscribers” reaching maybe just a little too far, it is very unlikely any MMO will completely overcome WoW at all. In my opinion, when WoW’s graphics and gameplay becomes dated, it will still take several MMO’s to destroy their player-base. But, to Barker’s credit, I will say that if any game were to take out WoW, an MMO on a site such as Facebook which already has a user-base of millions might just be the best way to go granted that the game is well-polished and fun.

Whether you're exploring the underwater depths or the open world environment, you're going to have fun.

Everyone mark their desktop calendars, because it will truely be a Christmas in July. Today game publisher 2k Games (makers of Bioshock) announced a Bioshock-Oblivion bundle pack which will start hitting stores July 7th. The PC version will sell for $29.99 and the Xbox 360 version for $39.99.

If you have a computer that can run both games, I highly reccomend you get the PC version not only because it’s $10.00 cheaper, but because there are endless amounts of mods to enhance your gaming. There is even an actual mod that will allow you to play Oblivion online.

Bethesda will also be releasing a few of their titles on Steam:

Bethesda Softworks is releasing more titles today on Steam.

The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion® Game of the Year Edition includes Knights of the Nine and the Shivering Isles expansions, adding new and unique quests and content to the already massive world of Oblivion. Or opt for the English-only Deluxe version of the game that includes nine DLC (downloadable content) items.

The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind® Game of the Year Edition includes the original content of Morrowind plus all of the content from the Bloodmoon and Tribunal expansions. Save even more on both and get one of The Elder Scrolls ® Game of the Year Packages.

Finally, scare yourself silly with the horror-adventure game Call of Cthulhu®: Dark Corners of the Earth.

Save 20% if you buy within this first week

SOURCE.

With the 20% discount, that’s only $16.79 for Oblivion and $11.19 for Morrowind.

Down all of June 16th

About a week ago Microsoft made the announcement that Live would be offline for a full day. Apparently, the scheduled maintenance won’t actually implement anything new into Live, rather just get the service ready for future updates. Here are a few suggestions in case you’re completely lost and bored.

Suggestion #1) Play offline.

Yeah, I know, it’s a frightening thought. Even those single-player games require Live so you can unlock achievements. You can always try starting new profiles in Fable 2 or try out a new class in Oblivion, though, and see how fast you can climb your way through the game over the course of the day.

Suggestion #2) Invite your friends over.

When’s the last time you and your friends put up a good LAN (if ever)? Playing games like Halo 3 over LAN is a world apart from Live, and can provide for a much better, less hostile experience.

Suggestion #3) Take a trip down memory lane.

..and find your old playstation or N64 and get to playing what you loved growing up.  Reliving these games personally have given me better appreciation to the devs who made a lot out of the limited tools of their day.

Suggestion #4) Put down the controller.

Maybe it’s time to just set the controller down and catch up on other aspects of life. Afterall, it is summer, and there’s a lot to do outside your house.

When a game comes out that is just so damn good it seems to just completely change your standards, you tend to stop playing games mediocre in comparison. Basically, when standards rise, game companies work harder and harder to deliver better and better games. That’s pretty obvious.

One game market has, however, seemed to have completely failed in this regard. A few giants have risen out of the ashes, but hundreds if not thousands of games seem to have just fit in that “mediocre” category.

Dana Massey at MMORPG.com wrote about what is wrong in the MMO market today:

This week, I open with a simple test. I want you to honestly ask yourself or a gamer friend the following two questions:

Where are you in [insert any single player RPG here]?

And where are you in [insert any MMO name here]?

The answer to the first question is almost definitely a description of where you are and what you’re doing. The answer to the second is much simpler: “Level X of Class Y.”

I tried this quiz at E3 and not a single person answered any differently. Predictable and instantly, they’d describe where they were in Fable 2, for example, and then immediately name class and level for the MMO.

It’s simplistic, but this is the core problem that I tried to identify in my last column, but never quite arrived at.

When people measure their progress through the mechanics and math behind a game instead of what they’re doing in it, it changes how they approach it.

That is why people complain about the grind. That is why people demean the genre as paying someone to work.

….

It’s taken me two columns to get my head around it, but I honestly believe this test uncovers the simple problem of MMOs. As long as progress is mentally measured through an experience bar and not some other means, be it story, unlockable items or territory, then MMOs are destined to remain a niche genre (and yes, I am aware of how many people play WoW and I still think MMOs are a niche genre).

And that got me thinking: how could a game company fix this? Massey seems to think that eliminating the experience bar and replacing it with unlockable items & territory, etc. to show for progress will fix MMO’s. I completely disagree; substituting virtually anything for a progress bar to show for progress will no matter what keep the grind, because in the end those obtainables are an achievement gotten through work or just playing the game. No matter how you look at it, game devs will make these achievements a challenge, because otherwise no one will play.

The main problem game companies have with MMO’s is the ability to make the grind, or rather the “journey” (because grind implies boring and repetitive), to end game fun. Recently, I’ve been playing more single-player RPG’s on the PC, and it seems as though that games like Oblivion and Fable 2 are leaps and bounds ahead of any MMO in achieving that “fun” in the journey. This is probably in part due to the fact that these single-player games rely almost completely on their storyline, questing system, and gameplay to keep players playing, whereas MMO’s rely on competition or a desire for certain achievements (items, territory, etc.) to keep  players playing.

Think about it: when is the last time you thought you were grinding your way through a single-player campaign? Probably never, because repetitive RPG’s tend to just get negative reviews, and thus aren’t popular. These RPG’s aren’t classified as games with a lot of grind, but rather repetitive and bad. MMO devs simply create this “repetitive and bad” formula (grind) in their games and further slap some hard to obtain achievements to keep players playing.’

MMO companies need to look across the field into such games as Fallout 3, Fable 2, GTA4, and Oblivion and learn to create that fun factor in questing that these games have already mastered. Until then, we’ll just be stuck with mediocricy.

That’s right, from the makers of the Chia Pet, you too can now own a lovely Chia Obama that you can place virtually anywhere. It’s like his hair is growing as fast as the government!

Just eye candy

Lately, I’ve been looking  into hackintosh-ing my system. Sad to say I failed miserably trying to find any sort of driver that would work for my Atheros LAN card (and oh well, because I just might as well buy a cheap Inspiron, install, and save, like, $800). Staying true to my non-defeatist attitude, before going to bed last night I found one hell of an OSX clone for Vista.

Now I can at least trick myself into thinking I’m an Apple user!