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Iterate fast' and other design lessons learned from Hearthstone
'Iterate fast' and other design lessons learned from
The Last of Us dev had to specifically request female focus-testers
"The research group wasn't planning on focus-testing female players - it's something we had to specifically request." - Naughty Dog creative director Neil Druckmann explains how his company had to step in during focus-testing for The Last of Us .
As part of the focus-testing for the upcoming title, Druckmann discovered that the research firm the company had brought in to handle the focus groups wasn't planning to poll a single female player.
"Players are rounded up and are asked to view materials and answer some quantitative and qualitative questions about it," he noted.
However, it came as a "big surprise" to find that he had to specifically request that the firm polled women as well as men.
"I hope this is a relic of the past that will soon go away," he added. This same marketing firm also told Naughty Dog that it would be best to put The Last of Us ' female protagonist Ellie on the back of the box rather than the front, although Naughty Dog refused this advice.
This latter point echoes the words of Jean-Max Morris, creative director on upcoming Capcom adventure game Remember Me , who recently said thatpublishers were against having a female character as the main protagonist in video games.
Another recent focus testing case centred around Uncharted 's female protagonist Chase, who focus-testers saidwas too much of a wimp. Sony Bend subsequentally made Chase a stronger character who could carry herself in situations.
The inner workings of the CS:GO marketplace, according to Valve
When Valve was planning the content for the Counter-Strike: Global Offensive marketplace, the team had various ideas about what players would like to spend money on.
As it turns out, many of those ideas were completely wrong, and it wasn't until the marketplace launched that Valve saw what its players wanted from custom-content.
Bronwen Grimes, technical artist on CS:GO , talked at length today at GDC about the road to discovering exactly what sorts of items and skins players wanted, and how they differed from Valve's original thoughts on the matter.
"We decided CS:GO would be the first game where you could buy every item on the marketplace," she noted. "Figuring out the value of items was important, as we didn't know what customers wanted to consume."
The general goals the team set out were to make it easy to create lots of content in a short space of time, create a wide variety of content, and make it easy for the community to get involved as well.
"We needed to keep these goals in mind while deciding which angles to focus on," Grimes noted. That's why the team realized early on that character skins wouldn't work, since it was a lot of work for customization that a player would rarely see -- it's a first-person game, after all.
Introducing tons of new weapons was off the table too, since this could unbalance the game and ward players away. Plus, players tend to stick to a small handful of weapons that they like, so new weapons wouldn't be all that popular.
Weapon skins, however, seemed like a great idea -- players could see their weapons, other players could see them, and skins were easy enough to make in bulk. That's when the team began looking at real-world guns, and how people customized those.
But here was the thing -- Valve though that cool camouflage and military skins would be the way forward, but after launching these on the marketplace, they weren't gaining as much traffic as more bright and colorful weapons.
"People make hideous guns," noted Grimes. "So what do people actually want? We're the only service provider, and our taste might not match with our customers."
"People make hideous guns. So what do people actually want? We're the only service provider, and our taste might not match with our customers." She added, "It turns out that our community values finishes that look like paint guns over military camouflages. People are aspiring to a sport, rather than war."
There were plenty of other really interesting lessons to be found from the marketplace too, such as how the history of a Counter Strike weapon can play a big part in the price it sells at.
The P250 pistol, for example, is used way more than the deagle in CS:GO -- yet, because it was such an important weapon in previous Counter-Strike games, deagles on average sell for far higher than P250s on the marketplace.
Also, skins don't matter as much as the weapon itself when it comes to price. AKs, M4s and AWPs sell for for higher than any other weapon, no matter the skin, simply because those are the go-to weapons for most players (although I'm personally a P90 sorta guy myself.)
Another interesting point to consider: Weapons cases usually contain more common weapons than rare weapons, but when you receive a weapon via a straight-up weapon drop, there's a higher chance it'll be up the top of the rarity scale.
This means that it's actually possible that a weapon which is supposed to be rare might become more common than weapons below it on the rarity scale, causing its price to drop, and meaning "more common" weapons actually become more valuable in the long run.
Gamasutra investigated the underbelly of the Counter-Strike: Global Offensive marketplaceearlier this year, finding the gunrunners of the CS scene.
Video: Making games about rich experiences, not addiction
"This trend [of Skinner Box design] is actually not only morally reprehensible, but actually bad for business if you just design down the hole leading to addiction."
At the GDC 2014 'Rant Apocalypse" session, academic and author Heather Chaplin delivered an argument against game developers modelling the games they make to take advantage of addictive behavior.
Her premise was simple: As a game maker, do you want to play to addiction in order to make money, or create a game that people want to keep playing?
It was a frank talk that's well worth watching, and if you missed it you can now watch it for free over on the GDC Vault's new YouTube channel .
About the GDC Vault
In addition to this presentation, the GDC Vaultand its new YouTube channeloffers numerous other free videos, audio recordings, and slides from many of the recent Game Developers Conference events, and the service offers even more members-only content for GDC Vault subscribers.
Those who purchased All Access passes to recent events like GDC, GDC Europe, and GDC Next already have full access to GDC Vault, and interested parties can apply for the individual subscription via a GDC Vault subscription page. Group subscriptions are also available: game-related schools and development studios who sign up for GDC Vault Studio Subscriptions can receive access for their entire office or company by contacting staff via the GDC Vault group subscription page. Finally, current subscribers with access issues can contact GDC Vault technical support.
Gamasutra and GDC are sibling organizations under parent UBM Tech
Project Awakened Kickstarter needs a hero
The sky is the limit for Project Awakened , but its Kickstarter campaign is still a bit too earthbound. The open-world build-your-own-hero game is at $212,000 out of its $500,000 goal, with just four days to go. Phosphor Games, best known for iOS action-adventure Horn, has been working on the game off-and-on for years. The effort shows in the fairly polished prototype videos which pepper its Kickstarter
Video: Why aren't there more sequels to indie games?
Sequels to popular games are a hallmark of bid-budget game development, so why don't we see more sequels to successful indie games?
As part of the Indie Soapbox at GDC 2015, independent designer Sarah Northway gave her own answer to that question by talking about the launch of her most recent game, Rebuild 3 , and the effect working on multiple games in a single franchise has had on her psyche -- and her wallet.
Northway's talk was brief, thoughtful, and offered valuable perspective on the challenges of striking a balance between working on new games and developing sequels to your proven successes.
If you missed it in person, you can now watch it for free over on the official GDC YouTube channel.
About the GDC Vault
In addition to this presentation, the GDC Vaultand its new YouTube channeloffers numerous other free videos, audio recordings, and slides from many of the recent Game Developers Conference events, and the service offers even more members-only content for GDC Vault subscribers.
Those who purchased All Access passes to recent events like GDC, GDC Europe, and GDC Next already have full access to GDC Vault, and interested parties can apply for the individual subscription via a GDC Vault subscription page. Group subscriptions are also available: game-related schools and development studios who sign up for GDC Vault Studio Subscriptions can receive access for their entire office or company by contacting staff via the GDC Vault group subscription page. Finally, current subscribers with access issues can contact GDC Vault technical support.
Gamasutra and GDC are sibling organizations under parent UBM Tech
ESL severs links with YouPorn-sponsored team
After the initial shock publicity storm, we haven't heard a great deal out of Team YP, the pro gamers sponsored by YouPorn.
After the initial shock publicity storm, we haven't heard a great deal out of Team YP, the pro gamers sponsored by YouPorn. That seems set to continue, because ESLhas severed all ties on grounds of its stringent, er, no porn rule.
"Advertising pornography is not legal in the markets we operate in," ESL told Polygon, "and the vast majority of partners we're working with have strict 'no drugs, no alcohol, no pornography' rules that we've contractually taken on board. These aren't new rules, but ones that have been in our rulebooks for a long time. We spoke to the manager of Team YP earlier this year and in that conversation we explained the situation and rules in detail, and offered to look for potential alternatives in a bigger group. At the same time, we are consulting with our legal teams about this. We will inform the team and the management as soon as we have any updates."
That does seem a watertight argument. Team YP offered to rebrand entirely, but the presence of YouPorn as their major backer is an unavoidable issue. ESL isn't the be-all and end-all of esports, but with many of the largest and most lucrative tournamentsunder its management, Team YP's ambitions have surely been scaled back. Their Twitter accountshows admirable fighting spirit, however.
Team invites announced for the first Dota 2 Major
Last night, ESL and Valve announced the eight teams being invited to The Frankfurt Major —the first of Valve's new series of 'mini-Internationals' spanning the year-long gap between Dota 2's world championships.
—the first of Valve's new series of 'mini-Internationals' spanning the year-long gap between Dota 2's world championships. The European Major will be held in Frankfurt (if that wasn't obvious) from the 16th-21st of November. This is a world championship-level event, by anyone's standards, and if you're in the area then you can attend for free. Only the Saturday, when the finals take place, will require a ticket.
The invites are, for the most part, fairly predictable. International champions EG are a given, as are CDEC, LGD, Vici Gaming, EHOME and Virtus.Pro—in that order, these teams make up the top 6 places at TI5. Team Secret's new roster gets the next spot, followed by Vega Squadron—the surprise winners of last weekend's ESL One New York 2015 tournament.
Instinctively, it feels like the plan was always to invite the TI5 top six and then settle on the last two places based on ESL One New York: given how early Vega were eliminated from the International, it'd be an amazing act of foresight to invite them prior to this most recent result. Similarly, Secret's 2nd-place finish in New York proved the potential of their new lineup, something that wasn't guaranteed before.
The remaining eight places will be determined by four regional qualifiers—Americas, Southeast Asia, China, and Europe. There are open spots in each of these qualifiers, with anybody able to enter a massive bracket this week to compete for a space. The odds of a Cool Runnings-type result where a group of unknowns enters the open qualifier and goes on to sweep the entire thing are incredibly low, but if you're entering your team—good luck!
The prize pool is $3m and not, as the image above might suggest, some kind of giant golden bust of a peacock. That peacock is, in fact, supposed to be an eagle, and the thing that it's attached to is an item from Dota 2 called an Eaglesong. You may think that it looks like the top of a recurve bow, but it is, in fact, a horn—a horn that grants bonus agility, for some reason. This is confusing because, in DotA 1, Eaglesong was called Eaglehorn—a reference to, of all things, a bow from the Diablo series. That's right! The bow named after a horn became a horn that looks like a bow, and nobody in this process figured out what an eagle's neck looks like.
This is arguably the least confusing thing about Dota.
Five highlights from Dota 2 at ESL One New York
The long road to next year's International begins in earnest with the Frankfurt Major , but ESL One New York was the first chance to see the world's best Dota 2 teams play the latest patch with serious money on the line.
, but ESL One New York was the first chance to see the world's best Dota 2 teams play the latest patch with serious money on the line. Given how much was going on this last weekendin League of Legends, Heroes of the Storm and Hearthstone, you'd be forgiven for missing the best bits.
An unlikely escape: Team Secret vs. Fnatic
Team Secret shook things up on the tournament's first day by picking Bane, Necrophos, and Io. The unconventional trio paid off quickly, drawing first and second blood in just over a minute. Unfortunately, this left the latter two heroes stranded between a forest and enemy territory. Their opponents, Fnatic, sent the heavy-hitting Spirit Breaker bounding across the map to capitalize on their vulnerability.
Necrophos and Io didn't stick around to let him. Rather than trek around hostile towers and heroes they went through the forest. Necrophos consumed the first tree with his last restorative Tango. Io, meanwhile, knocked down the rest of the offending foliage using his ability to pull himself towards his ally. It was a move that had to be executed just right. It was, keeping Fnatic from what should have been easy revenge.
Luna drops the moon on Slardar: Virtus Pro vs. Invictus Gaming
Luna's ultimate ability, Eclipse, is a tricky thing. Its destructive beams of moonlight are devastating, but the way it selects its targets at random can be frustrating. Of course, that's not an issue when there's only one target in range.
Invictus Gaming had just lost the latest in a string of bad fights with Virtus.Pro when they chased Luna into their own jungle. Luna, played by VP's Illidan, was in no condition to fight. She had just a sliver of health after the successful battle. Slardar, played by IG's Rabbit, was just the opposite. He was freshly respawned and looking to get absolutely anything in return for his fallen comrades.
Maybe that's why he made such a severe mistake. By chasing Illidan up into the jungle's high ground Rabbit lost sight of his opponent. This gave Illidan plenty of time to line up the perfect ult. With just the one target, Eclipse chewed through the desperate fish-man like he was slathered in tartar sauce.
Elder Titan says no: CDEC Gaming vs. Team Secret
At ESL One New York, Team Secret picked the lesser-spotted Elder Titan. More than that, they actually won. Convincingly. The match wasn't exactly borne on the shoulders of team captain Puppey's actions through the hero, but he had his moments. Moments like the one depicted above.
Using his stomp, Puppey put his opponent Shiki to sleep an instant before he would have destroyed a middle tower. Puppey denied him the satisfaction (as well as gold and experience) by demolishing the structure himself. That's when Team Secret's w33 appeared. Taking advantage of Puppey's lengthy setup, he shackled Shiki to a nearby tree and together the two annihilated the CDEC Gaming player.
The whole exchange was over before the tower's rubble cleared, but Elder Titan proponents will likely point to it for weeks to come.
Windranger gets tossed into jail: Vega Squadron vs. Team Secret
Io and Tiny is a combination with enduring popularity. The former is the wheelman, the latter is the muscle: the two complement each other perfectly. Case in point: the first game of the ESL One New York grand finals.
It was a sight audiences have seen a hundred times, but with a twist. Vega Squadron's Io teleported his partner nearly on top of Team Secret's Windranger. The classic one-two punch followed. Tiny first stunned, then tossed his prey to a nearby ally. As always, the damage was enormous, but there was a chance, however small, that Windranger could have escaped. That is if the third party hadn't been Clockwerk, who snapped her up in a whirling prison of cogs almost as soon as she landed.
Anti-Mage can't catch a break: Vega Squadron vs. Team Secret
Anti-Mage can be hard to catch, thanks to his ability to blink at will. That's doubly true in the case of a player as experienced with the heroas Team Secret's EternalEnvy. Trapping him takes determination. Vega Squadron's Mag seems to have that, at least.
After he caught EternalEnvy farming Vega's side of the map Mag blindly harpooned himself to the already fleeing burglar. This canceled EternalEnvy's attempt to teleport home, and gave Mag's teammate Solo time to enter the fray. Together they dropped Anti-Mage to just sliver of health, but it didn't end there.
EternalEnvy blinked away again—this time to higher ground. Not about to lose him, Mag fired himself upwards using Force Staff. Unfortunately, he overshot and went right past his quarry. Still not giving up, he summoned a row of cogs to push Anti-Mage back towards Solo. Just one push away from toppling over, EternalEnvy used the last of Anti-Mage's energy to hop away a final time—into the waiting arms of an ally with a healing item.
is dedicated to esports and competitive gaming. Check back every day for exciting, fun and informative articles about League of Legends, Dota 2, Hearthstone, CS:GO and more. GL HF!
ESL One New York 2015 competition: the results!
Image credit: ESL/Helena Kristiansson.
Last week, we asked youto come up with your best variation on recurring Dota phrase "too easy for Arteezy" for a short at two premium tickets to ESL One New Yorkand a bunch of additional goodies. Total value, $400.
It's been a tough judging process. We received over a hundred entries, many including loads of attempts, and only a handful of them actually rhymed. Our winner is somebody whose entry will probably break this page, and who managed to convince me for a couple of moments that something had gone terribly wrong with our email server. It hadn't—they just know their numbers, and are probably a huge show-off.
The winner!
"Too 3.14159265358979323846264338327950288419716939937510582097494459230781640628620899862803482534211706798214808651328230664709384460955058223172535940812848111745028410270193852110555964462294895493038196442881097566593344612847564823378678316527120190914564856692346034861045432664821339360726024914127372458700660631558817488152092096282925409171536436789259036001133053054882046652138414695194151160943305727036575959195309218611738193261179310511854807446237996274956735188575272489122793818301194912983367336244065664308602139494639 for ALWAYSWANNAFLY."
Jordan Ensing
...who also wins the Everybody Clap For The Giant Smartass Award , for what it's worth. Congrats, Jordan. We'll be in touch about your prize.
There's no space here to list off every entry, but I do have a number of no-prizes to give out. They are as follows.
The Thanks For That Mental Image Award goes to...
"One bikini for Merlini"
Jason Small
The On-Point Sociopolitical Commentary Award goes to...
"Two tin foil hats for Twitch chat"
Cam Pratt
The Thanks Man, My Day Job Is Literally Knowing Words Award goes to...
"Too tricksy for Trixi (tricksy is a word)"
The North
The Thanks For The Helpful Picture Award goes to...
John Hunt
The Thanks For Making Me Spit Coffee At Work Award goes to...
"Two cups for Mynuts"
Christian Slot
Thanks to everybody that entered—I'm sorry that we've only got one prize to give out. We'll be running many more giveaways like this one in the future, and check back soon for more ESL One New York coverage.
is dedicated to esports and competitive gaming. Check back every day for exciting, fun and informative articles about League of Legends, Dota 2, Hearthstone, CS:GO and more. GL HF!
The next Call of Duty will probably be a Black Ops instalment
No need to act surprised, but there's almost certainly gonna be a new Call of Duty game this year.
game this year. That's not news per se because for all I know, the apocalypse will arrive tomorrow (hopefully after breakfast!), but there's little doubt that the world's most reliable franchise will arrive again this November. The big question is: what sub-brand will it be? Modern Warfare? Advanced Warfare? Ghosts? A return to World War 2?
It looks like we'll see a return to the Black Ops series, if new viral marketing evidence is anything to go by. Activision has sprinkled Snapchat links throughout Black Ops 2 during a recent update, according to the above video by YouTuber Drift0r. The Snapchat link – which works like a QR code – links to the official Call of Duty Snapchat account which suggests that maybe, just maybe, we'll get an announcement via that social media platform at some point in the future. Could it be true?
It makes sense: Black Ops studio Treyarch is developing Call of Duty in 2015. The big question, after ten years of annual Call of Duty games, is whether it will feature an actual dog. That'd be cool. Perhaps a German Shepherd, with realistic fur. Wouldn't that be something.
ESL details anti-doping policies for ESL One Cologne
ESL has revealed the details of its anti-doping policy for the upcoming ESL One Cologne tournament, which for the first time ever will see players subjected to randomized testing for a wide variety of substances proscribed by the World Anti-Doping Agency.
"Our main goal is and always will be to maintain the fair play spirit and the integrity of our competitions, and we’re confident that the anti-doping policy is an important improvement that will help us advance as a sport," ESL Head of Communications Anna Rozwandowicz wrote on the Counter-Strike: Global Offensive subreddit. "It is a small, but in our eyes essential and meaningful step forward for professional gamers across all games, ESL as an event organizer, and the esports industry as a whole."
ESL originally announced that skin tests would be used to detect banned substances, but it has determined that saliva tests, conducted at random throughout the duration of the tournament, are a "better fit." The list of prohibited drugs is based on WADA's own 2015 List of Prohibited Substances and Methods, but players with a legitimate prescription for medication, including Adderall—which is what started this whole business—may avoid penalties if they provide proof that the medication in question is actually required prior to the start of the first scheduled match.
Interestingly (and I won't say tellingly but we're all thinking it), the restriction on marijuana use is centered out to be somewhat more specific. "Marijuana is on the list of prohibited substances for [use] during the competition. This means that recreational use of it outside (before) the event days will not be punished," Rozwandowicz wrote. "Using it during the tournament—from the start of the first day until the end of the last day of competition—is strictly prohibited."
Players caught juicing will face sanctions ranging from deductions from their prize money or tournament points, to outright disqualification and a ban from ESL events for up to two years, depending on the circumstances of each individual case. In all cases, ESL said it will take steps to ensure the full privacy of all players involved.
IGM Let’s Try- ‘Wyv and Keep: The Temple Of The Lost Idol’
Wyv and Keep is a 2D platform-puzzler starring two rookie treasure hunters, Wyv and Keep .
. It’s contains team-based puzzles where you must use both characters to unlock and reach a door to the next level. You can play solo, switching between the two, or cooperatively, locally on one computer or online. It’s full of adventure, action, and comedy.
Be sure to subscribe to our channel to be notified of our latest content. Please let us know what you think of the game. Leave your comments below!
About the Video:
Created by Wouter Swusten
Activision confirms Call of Duty: Black Ops 3 reveal later this month
The suggestion that the next Call of Duty will be Black Ops 3 first came to light earlier this week , thanks to a viral marketing effort on the part of Activision.
It's starting to look very much like the next Call of Dutywill be Black Ops 3.
, thanks to a viral marketing effort on the part of Activision. Now we've got this trailer, leaked[ : posted by, that is, though Activision hasn't confirmed its source] YouTube user TmarTn, and it seems pretty clear: Blops is back!
As Shaun mentioned on Monday, it's not entirely surprising: Treyarch is the Call of Duty studio for 2015, and Treyarch, as we know, does Black Ops. The teaser looks awfully legit, too, and fits with our expectations. It's not official confirmation of Blops 3, but I think it's fair to say we're getting there.
Update 2: Treyarch has all but confirmed that Black Ops 3 is coming, and that the April 26 reveal date is legit. "It feels good to be back," the studio tweeteda few minutes ago, accompanied by an image of the "III" that appeared in the trailer. "It feels even better to be #BackInBlack. Let's do this."
Update 3: And now Activision has nailed it down with a tweetof its own. "It's official—@CallofDuty Black Ops III is coming this year from @Treyarch," it wrote. The tweet also contained a link to an Activision blog postconfirming the April 26 reveal date, and hinted that, while the cat is now out of the bag, "new intel" may continue to turn up between now and then.
Here's what you need to know ahead of ESL One Frankfurt 2015
Photo credit: ESL/Helena Kristiansson
ESL Frankfurt 2015 begins tomorrow and runs until Sunday night.
ESL Frankfurt 2015 begins tomorrow and runs until Sunday night. This is the biggest Dota 2 event of the year in Europe and the last major tournament before the International. If you're looking to get up to speed before the world's best teams compete for that staggering $14m+ prize pool, this is your best chance to do so. Besides, it'll be fun. You can either watch the games for free via Twitchor, if you're in the Frankfurt area, ticketsare still available for the live show.
Here's what you need to know.
What's the prize?
A base prize pool of $250,000 has been increased north of $290,000 by the sale of tickets and cosmetic items. Of this, the winner will get 40% (about $117,000) with a sharp drop off from there. While every participant is guaranteed to come away with something, the bottom four finishers only get 5% each.
What's the format?
Yesterday, all eight teams played a best-of-one double elimination bracket to establish their starting positions in the tournament proper. This seeding bracket was done because the tournament itself is going to be single elimination. Last year, ESL One Frankfurt hit scheduling problems when games ran long. To fix that, they've removed the lower bracket.
The downside to this is that if a fan-favourite team loses a single match, that's it: they're out. On the plus side, it means plenty of time to get those best-of-three series played and guarantees a proper best-of-five grand final on Sunday.
What's the schedule?
The first match, Alliance vs. VP, will be played tomorrow (Saturday 20th of June) at 10.00am CEST (9.00am BST/1.00am PST). After that, matches are scheduled at roughly three hour intervals.
Who are the teams?
Competing this weekend are Virtus.pro, Alliance, Team Secret, Fnatic, Evil Geniuses, Cloud 9, Vici Gaming and Invictus Gaming. Let's run through them one by one.
Virtus.pro
Despite their victory at DreamLeague, Virtus.pro would not have made many top three lists until very recently. Their aggression and consistency made them the surprise winners of the ESL One seeding bracket, toppling Secret to enter the main event as favourites. A win here would confirm them as serious International contenders. Their first round match-up against Alliance certainly looks favourable for them at the moment, and they're guaranteed not to meet IG or Secret until the grand final.
Alliance
Once the Kings in the North, Alliance have never quite regained the form they demonstrated at the 2013 International. Having failed to qualify for the International this year, ESL One Frankfurt represents their last shot at glory, at least for the next few months. Their situation is a strange one: they qualified for this tournament in April with a different roster. Having since swapped out Niqua for AdmiralBulldog, they've struggled to find the traction they need to beat better-established teams. Alliance have a lot of experience and they can be brilliant, but ESL One's single-elimination format is punishing to inconsistent teams and that could be their downfall.
Team Secret
A supergroup of sorts, Secret represent the best of the last two years of western Dota. Arteezy and Zai, formerly of EG. Puppey and KuroKy, formerly of Na'Vi. S4, formerly of Alliance. They have a vast amount of collective experience, a lot of former captains, and a lot of former drafters. They can be beaten (Virtus.pro proved that) but they nonetheless remain the team to beat. Of note to newcomers is the fact that they have no sponsor, and belong to no esports organisation. What they win, they keep: and they have a good track record when it comes to winning.
Fnatic
Formerly Team Malaysia, Fnatic represent some of the best of South East Asian Dota. This is a region that has always produced phenomenal players and that has always done well on the world stage, but not well enough to bring home many titles. They stand to do similarly here: their performance in the seeding bracket was better than some, having beaten C9, but they lost to both of the Chinese teams and their prospects against Secret, who they face first, look shaky. Fnatic have a lot of versatile players and something to prove, however: if there's a fairytale result this weekend, Fnatic could be at the centre of it.
Evil Geniuses
While not quite the unstoppable force they once were, EG haven't fallen that far either. They're certainly considered to be at the very top of international Dota. Their run through the seeding bracket was a little rough, however, losing out to IG after claiming wins against Alliance and Vici in the lower bracket. Poor day one performances are an EG tradition, mind, and they may well have found their feet by the weekend. They need to: this single-elimination format provides little room for heroic turnarounds.
Cloud 9
Talented but with inconsistent results, it's hard to get a precise read on C9's prospects for the main event. They lost both of their seeding bracket matches, but were playing with a standin, paS, while regular offlaner b0ne7 recovered from an operation. With their full lineup restored, they could cause a real upset. That said, their first match pitches them against IG: right in the deep end against one of the best Chinese teams in the world.
Vici Gaming
Having won second place at last year's International, Vici didn't do quite as well in the seeding bracket as some might have expected. They certainly seem to do less well in international tournaments than their counterparts, IG. They face EG in their first game, who already beat them in the seeding bracket. Keep an eye out for fy and Fenrir, who have proved themselves over and over as one of the best support pairs in professional Dota.
Invictus Gaming
Last year's ESL One Frankfurt winners return with a new lineup and a third-place finish in the seeding bracket to their name. If they can maintain their momentum, they should do very well: this is a roster of players who are not only world-class, but have been world-class for many years. An unmissable IG-Secret match in the second round seems likely: almost a shame, really, given how many fans would like to see these two face off in the grand final. Their close best-of-five series at Red Bull Battlegrounds remains one of the best pro Dota matches in recent memory.
Check back tomorrow for highlights from the first day of play.
This year's Call of Duty installment is developed by Treyarch
In thoroughly unsurprising news, Activision has confirmed that Treyarch will develop this year's installment in the Call of Duty series.
In thoroughly unsurprising news, Activision has confirmed that Treyarch will develop this year's installment in the Call of Duty series. Best known for their Black Ops installments, 2013's Black Ops 2was their last effort before the series transitioned to a three-year development cycle with the addition of Sledgehammer into the mix.
Activision confirmed the news during an investor's call today (via IGN). It follows studio boss Mark Lamia's appearance at the DICE Summitearlier this week, where he delivered a presentation about the team's first effort in the series, Call of Duty: World at War.
While investors are privy to information like this, it's unlikely us lowly consumers will hear anything solid about the next COD until May, if previous announcements are anything to go by. Will it be Black Ops 3? Will it have zombies? Will it be set in outback Australia? Only time will tell.
After drug scandal, ESL says "esports needs to mature"
North American CS:GO team Cloud9 at ESL Katowice, in March.
When a member of North American CS:GO team Cloud9 unapologetically admittedthat he and his teammates used adderall during a tournament in March, esports league ESL reacted swiftly, announcing that it would enforce randomized drug testingat its next event before it pursues a larger policy in partnership with two organizations dedicated to anti-doping practices.
An incident with performance-enhancing drugs was inevitable for esports, which are growing more than everalongside the popularity of competitive games and livestreaming. ESL’s stopgap measure of implementing random tests for ESL Cologne in August is welcome, but how will drug testing be handled going forward? How will a league like ESL react during a tournament weekend when one of its players tests positive for a banned substance?
To get further clarity on the ESL’s perspective on this issue I spoke with Michal Blicharz, Managing Director Pro Gaming at ESL.
PCG: Why is the implementation of player drug testing necessary to the ESL?
Michal Blicharz: We are a company with the word sports in the name. The integrity of our competitions is paramount to what we do. We have already invested enormous amounts of resources to combat online cheating with our ESL Wire Anti Cheat software and the time has come for us to do something about performance enhancing drugs. In the past 18 months the salaries of the best esports players have risen about ten fold and the prize money aggregates per game have gone into high millions. The temptation is there for players more so than ever and it’s on us to educate gamers, preserve the integrity of our competitions and, if necessary, punish those who break the rules.
"The reaction from the video games and esports industry has been overwhelmingly positive."
Do you believe that other leagues will follow your example?
Blicharz: What other leagues do is really up to them. We are of course willing to share our experiences and best practices if they reach out for help.
Is there currently, or are you planning, any retroactive investigation into teams' activities?
Blicharz: We have considered it, but we do not think that it is realistic for us to gather enough conclusive proof retrospectively. We are currently focusing our efforts on establishing good procedures for future events.
Has the ESL spoken directly with Cloud9 about the admission that its players used adderall during ESL Katowice?
Blicharz: When we first heard about this issue, we focused our energy on what we can do moving forward. This is not to say that we are indifferent to what may or may not have happened in that specific case, but it was clear that a more urgent need was to find real ways to prevent those situations from happening in the future.
As for the player himself, or his team, we are unable to retrospectively test the team for PEDs, therefore any investigation would likely prove to be inconclusive.
How has the new policy been received by teams?
Blicharz: The reaction from the video games and esports industry has been overwhelmingly positive. At the core of it, teams are interested in being provided a fair playing field.
It's also on the teams to make sure gaming is clean and I hope they will actively play their role as well.
If a player is prescribed adderall, or another drug, by a doctor, would they be permitted to use it during an ESL competition?
Blicharz: We are currently consulting with NADA on how to handle it and to learn what the best practices are that we can apply to what we do. We certainly do not want to disqualify players who have legitimate medical conditions.
Section 2.13.3 of the current ESL rulebookreads, "If a participant gets disqualified from the ESL One during an ongoing stage, all it's members get banned until the end of main event." If a player tests positive for a banned substance at an ESL event, what will happen?
Blicharz: Our league operations and legal teams are working on updating the rules, and the exact terms of all sanctions are yet to be determined. We want to treat doping like any other form of cheating. This is something our Director of League Operations should speak to, but we will very likely punish illegal doping the same way we would punish cheating in a match. In essence, those things are not different from each other as far as the integrity of the competition is concerned.
Along with incidents like the betting scandalin Counter-Strike earlier this year, do you believe there's a need for the CS scene, or esports in general, to become more mature?
Blicharz: Of course esports has to mature. It's not even 20 years old! At the same time, in many ways it's outgrown some sports that have been around almost a century. It takes time but we will get there.
Thanks for speaking with us, Michal.
MLG suspends Call of Duty star Patrick 'Aches' Price due to 'repeated harassment'
As pro gaming becomes more mainstream, game studios and e-Sports organisations are making more concerted efforts to clean up the sport's image.
As pro gaming becomes more mainstream, game studios and e-Sports organisations are making more concerted efforts to clean up the sport's image. Case in point is the suspension of Patrick 'Aches' Price from four MLG CoD Pro League Matches, as well as the NA 2K Tournament. Aches is part of the renown Evil Geniuses team, and is known for his combative and outspoken personality. Evil Geniuses boasts endorsements and sponsorships from the likes of Razer, BenQ and Monster Energy drinks, among others.
Aches has been suspended "due to "repeated harassment of MLG employees and conduct detrimental to the league in violation of Technical Foul Rules #1 and Additional Rules #2 of the Pro Circuit Conduct Rules," according to a statementfrom MLG. The suspension will commence August 6 to allow Evil Geniuses enough time to replace Aches.
While the statement does not specify why Aches has been suspended, it's likely related to his objection with the MLG rule which states that MLG coordinated matches and tournaments must broadcast exclusively on MLG.tv. In a fiery Twitter missivelast May, Aches had this to say on the topic: "It's simply just MLG being vindictive, power-hungry, spineless, manipulative, and probably a tad upset we told them to fuck off."
Indeed, MLG's statement does make reference to the organisation's stance on streaming: "we fully support Patrick's right to stream on another platform, however, our rules will continue to prohibit streaming the MLG CoD Pro League and Pro Points Tournaments outside of MLG.tv."
It follows the banning last month of two League of Legends Challenger Series players due to " extreme toxicity".
ESL to begin randomized drug testing at ESL One Cologne
ESL has announced a partnership with NADA , the Nationale Anti Doping Agentur, to develop an anti-doping policy that is "fair, feasible, and respects the privacy of the players," while still providing effective measures against the use of performance-enhancing drugs at pro gaming tournaments.
, the Nationale Anti Doping Agentur, to develop an anti-doping policy that is "fair, feasible, and respects the privacy of the players," while still providing effective measures against the use of performance-enhancing drugs at pro gaming tournaments. It will also begin testing players for the use of PEDs at the ESL One Cologne event in August.
The need for an anti-doping policy in the sphere of professional videogaming may not be immediately apparent, but the ESL was prompted to make the move following a confession by former Cloud9 player Kory "Semphis" Friesen that he and his teammates had taken Adderallwhile competing at ESL One Katowice in March. Adderall is typically used to treat ADHD and narcolepsy, according to its Wikipedia description, but because its side effects include increased concentration, alertness, and wakefulness, it's also commonly taken as a "performance and cognitive enhancer."
Friesen's implication that the use of Adderall is common at ESL events drove the partnership with NADA, as well as WADA, the World Anti Doping Agency, which will also be involved in "making, enforcing, and further internationalizing" ESL's new policies.
"ESL will use the expertise of NADA and WADA to create a PEDs prevention program, which will be distributed to all players participating in esports competitions organized, hosted or produced by ESL. The goal of this program is to ensure players are provided with information and structural support to help them manage the physical and emotional pressure that the highest level of competitive gaming puts on many of them," ESL said in a statement. "In the meantime, we also wish to take immediate action to ensure the company values of exemplary sportsmanship and integrity are guarded. With that in mind, we are going to administer first randomized PEDs skin tests at the ESL One Cologneevent this August. Our aim is to perform those tests at every event in the Intel Extreme Masters, ESL One and ESL ESEA Pro League competitions."
We'll be speaking with ESL about its new anti-doping policies and how they'll be administered soon.
Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare shows off high-tech combat in new E3 2014 footage
Microsoft opened its first press briefing of this year's E3 with a flagship game: Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare .
. We already saw a few flashes of near-future conflicts with a whole lot of Kevin Spacey on top in last month's reveal trailer, but this is the first time we've seen some gameplay footage featuring high-tech gadgets, modular weapons, and exoskeleton power suits.
The trailer opens with a drop pod full of heavily armored soldiers. After their pod bounces around a bit, it comes to rest in a war-torn South Korean city, presumably Seoul. The destroyed city looks beautiful, of course, but I'm more excited by the gadgets and tech on display and their implications for the ways gameplay will be changing. The soldiers are all packing long guns with recharging, refilling ammo counts, indicating an ammo source beyond lead and gunpowder.
Even more interesting, the player appears to change modes on the gun and shoot out blasts of shot, as if from a shotgun. Using different modes to fire different types of ammo from the same gun is a staple of the sci-fi genre, but we've never seen it in a game of this scope before.
Call of Duty is an annual franchise with an ever-unchanging release date, so this hardly seems necessary, but: Advanced Warfare will be launching on November 4 of this year.
ESL preparing new anti-doping rules following Katowice Adderall controversy
The ESL says it will update its policies to more directly address the use of performance-enhancing drugs by professional gamers at its tournaments.
says it will update its policies to more directly address the use of performance-enhancing drugs by professional gamers at its tournaments. The move comes in the wake of comments by former Cloud9 player Kory "Semphis" Friesen, who said in an interviewearlier this month that he and his teammates had taken Adderall, a psychostimulant which is used to treat ADHD and narcolepsy, while competing at ESL One Katowice.
"I don't even care. We were all on Adderall," Friesen said in a surprisingly frank admission. "It was pretty obvious, like, if you listen to the comms. Like, people can hate it or whatever." Even more surprising, the interviewer then interjects with, "Everyone does Adderall at ESL One, right?" to which Friesen replies in the affirmative. A bit of sheepish laughter follows.
Whether or not that's true, it runs contrary to section 2.6.4 of the ESL One Rulebook, which states, "To play a match, be it online or offline, under the influence of any drugs, alcohol, or other performance enhancers is strictly prohibited, and may be punished with exclusion from the ESL One." But that's the extent of its policies regarding PEDs (performance-enhancing drugs) and so in response to Friesen's comments, the ESL said changes are coming.
"The integrity of our sport is and always will be our biggest concern," ESL Head of Communications Anna Rozwandowicz told Wired. "When we first saw [Friesen's comments], we focused immediately on kickstarting a policy-making process and adjusting the rules. We have worked on changes in our rules, reached out to authorities for support, and will be ready to announce our next steps in a couple of days."
As for Friesen's case specifically, it's unclear what, if anything, will happen to him. The rules don't currently set out specific punishments for infractions, and there's no precedent because, according to Rozwandowicz, no one's ever been caught (or admitted to) doping before now. She also pointed out that there's no proof Friesen isn't just trying to cause grief for Cloud9, which cut him loose "due to his and [the] team's poor performance." And there's no way to get that proof, since ESL One Katowice took place four months ago.
"We're taking the steps to level with traditional sports, and it's going to take a while before any esports organization will administer regular drugs tests. We hope to speed this process up by proactively seeking advice from authorities and starting small," Rozwandowicz said. "Full blown drug tests at esports events are far away, but that doesn't mean we can't and shouldn't try to tackle the issue."
Activision: pre-orders declining across industry, Call of Duty "not immune"
Pre-orders are a great way for publishers and developers to ask for your money before you know whether a game is any good or not.
Pre-orders are a great way for publishers and developers to ask for your money before you know whether a game is any good or not. In some cases, it's proved a successful method of funding (particularly indie) development, but when we look at the world of big-budget games in particular, it's a practice that has made increasingly little sense as a consumer, despite the adoption of pre-order exclusives to try and make us reconsider. Well, it appears these efforts have been in vain: according to Activision's CEO and president Eric Hirshberg, there's been an industry-wide decline in pre-orders, and Call of Duty is "not immune".
As reported by GamesIndustry.biz, in a post-earning conference call Hirshberg told investors that "you guys can see the same thing we see industry-wide, which is that there's been sort of a secular downturn as it relates to preorders. We think that's happening due to a number of factors: Things like increased digital consumption, particularly on the next-gen consoles; titles being widely available on day one; and the decline overall for demand of software on the previous gen consoles". He went on to say that Call of Duty is "not immune" to this downturn, but that he's expecting it to lead the curve anyway.
Pre-order figures tend to be used by publishers to gauge how successful they think a game's going to be, and you can probably imagine how useful hard figures are when deciding how many copies to order in to your game shop. As a result of this apparent pre-order slump, Activision are now looking at alternative ways of gauging player interest pre-release, including "awareness and purchase intent", data I can only imagine they gather with the aid of Professor Xavier's Cerebro machine. That or surveys/focus groups.
ESL's James Lampkin on ESL One Frankfurt and the future of Dota
ESL's James Lampkin on ESL One Frankfurt and the future of Dota
Photo: Kelly Kline/ESL
James Lampkin is the senior manager of pro gaming at ESL.
James Lampkin is the senior manager of pro gaming at ESL. I spoke to him about ESL One Frankfurt 2015 , the implications of Valve's recently-announced Majors series, and why esports doesn't need to court a mainstream audience. Images courtesy of ESL's official Flickr account.
PCG: What were your main learnings from ESL One Frankfurt last year?
JL: When you're dealing with that many people there are security concerns. We had a snowball effect last year where there was a delay in how many people we could get through the door at the start of the day, so the show got delayed. This year we've changed our entire entry system, we're starting the show a little bit earlier, and we think that's going to keep us on schedule for a best-of-five final.
We also wanted to get more people engaged in activities outside of just sitting and watching and maybe having a beer. We've got a lot of side activities like bull riding and archery, and all these cool little things. Sort of Dota related, so that people can watch a game and maybe take a break after a couple of hours and go do something else.
PCG: Esports events are half sporting events, half fan conventions. Is there a split there for you? Do you consider this a sporting event with that other stuff along as a bonus? Or do you embrace the dual nature of the thing?
JL: It's a dual nature for sure. Our goal through the entire planning of Frankfurt has been to make it a 'festival experience'. We want to bring people there to really celebrate the game. Not just through the games themselves on stage, but everything else that is going on in the venue.
Something we've learned over the years is that when everybody tries to copy the sports model they forget that for a football match you might only be in the stadium for three, maybe four hours total. For an esports event you might be there for twelve to fourteen hours depending on how the day goes. When you're sitting there for that long people get bored, they want to do something else.
Some percentage of the audience is happy to sit there all day, but we think that when you start getting into these really large events you've got to think about everybody else that wants some variety in the day. They want to get some food, they want to try something cool, maybe they want to try a game that's coming out in the future. That's why you start to see these festival experiences cropping up as a collaboration between the sports side of esports and the celebration of the game itself.
PCG: What are your considerations when you decide which teams get an invite?
JL: The invite system is usually based on how teams are performing in other events. If you're watching a lot of Dota most people have their finger on the pulse of the top three or four teams right now. That makes it very easy for us as organisers to look at the landscape and say that these are the teams that deserve a spot on one of the biggest stages in Dota.
The most important part after that for us is the qualification process. At ESL, one of the core principles we have is that we want to give everybody a chance at all levels. We have open qualifiers that seed into deeper qualifiers and allow anybody to have a chance with their team to make it to an event like this. That's really important to us—having the best teams in the world at these events to create the best games possible.
Photo: Helena Kristiansson/ESL
PCG: With that in mind, the interesting case for ESL One this year is Alliance, who have gone through a roster change and a change of fortune since they qualified. What challenges does that present to you, as a showrunner?
JL: We have some rules about how much a team can change, and usually that rule is that up to two of your players can either be a stand-in or have changed since you qualified. Usually we have a discussion with the team through that process.
PCG: But in terms of the changing fortunes of a given team—is it the case that the qualifiers happened when they happened, things have changed, so you move on with the tournament as it is?
JL: Yeah. We have to be respectful of the Dota landscape itself. It's a pretty unique one, when it comes to team stability and where rosters are going. The nature of being an event organiser in Dota is that you need to be pretty agile. It's difficult to have very firm, concrete policies that will stand the test of time when the landscape is constantly changing.
PCG: With that in mind, then, what do you think of Valve's plan to introduce a fixed transfer system for players?
JL: The Valve approach to this is good overall. It's actually going to incentivise teams to stay together. If you just don't get along with your team, most of the time they break up because there's no cost to break ups. What Valve is introducing here is a set of incentives to say "hey, if you keep your team together and you can work through your problems then there's rewards for that". There are rewards for being stable, for investing your time and your energy into keeping that team alive.
That really helps all organisers overall in terms of storytelling. It helps with the fan experience and what we're trying to do with creating a larger sport out of this game.
PCG: What is your view on the Majors and the impact they'll have on the landscape of competitive Dota 2 over the next year?
JL: It's really hard to say because we don't have the details. There's just very minimal details right now. I think that plan overall will probably evolve. I know a lot of tournament organisers and teams will probably give Valve feedback, so it's really hard to say if it's good or bad without knowing what that plan looks like.
I think overall that Valve's intention with the Major system is a good one. I think the job of tournament organisers is to communicate what the possible effects of that system are.
PCG: We go through this cycle of esports chasing after more mainstream acceptance—being shown on ESPN and stuff. Is that a dead end?
JL: Whenever we have the discussion about whether we need to convert people, the very easy answer to that is no. We don't need to convert people because the audience growth in esports is just massive. Consistently breaking records event to event. I have friends back home who I never knew were even involved in gaming telling me about how they're watching our events, how they're following teams now. It's less interesting for me to try to convince my mum and dad to watch esports than it is to convince some of my younger cousins.
That's what we're really interested in right now. It's definitely a generational question, and one that over the next few years will start to solve itself as those stories of 'hey, this is what esports is' start to become old. Rather than the New York Times writing an article about 'what is esports', maybe they're directly reporting on a player transfer, a huge team deal, or an event final.
PCG: What is the goal for ESL over the next few years?
JL: We want to do more stadium events, simple as that. The question of whether you can fill a stadium with esports fans is one that we've answered, and that other people have answered too. Now the question is how many of those events can you do per year. No-one is shocked that a football stadium puts 40,000 people in it. What's more interesting is that a football stadium can put 40,000 people into it every weekend.
The long-term thinking is: if we can put 15,000 people into an arena in Frankfurt, can we do that five or six times a year in the long run? Can we take it around the world in a couple of different venues per month? These are the questions we're asking ourselves. It's a question of 'how many can you do and what does that structure look like overall', rather than 'do you offer the same product every year'.
Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare dev almost made a third-person Vietnam spinoff
Sledgehammer Games' upcoming Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare is pretty ambitious.
is pretty ambitious. It imagines what the realistic future of military combat will be—exoskeletons, private military, and even bigger explosions all seem likely. We also know that the future of military warfare will involve Kevin Spacey, which is nice. It's a logical leap for Sledgehammer, since a lot of its team previously worked on the Dead Spacesci-fi horror series. But according to Game Informer, the team's first CoD game was quite different than what's been revealed: it was almost a third-person shooter in Vietnam.
The new info on Sledgehammer's first attempt comes from Game Informer'sJune 2014 cover story, out digitally today. According to the story, Sledgehammer founders Glen Schofield and Michael Condrey initially built a team to work on a Call of Duty spin-off for Activision. The developer spent a significant amount of time on the project, with roughly 15 minutes of playable game as a result. "We had spent six or eight monhts on it," says Schofield, "and were really getting into the story."
The third-person shooter would have also been set during the Vietnam War. "Everyone thought that war was in Vietnam, right?" Shofield tells Game Informer. "It was in Cambodia and Laos, too. We did a lot of research on that war, a hidden war, and there were thousands of miles of underground tunnels." The team planned on using those tunnels as part of the setting, adding a bit of Dead Space-like claustrophobia to the Call of Duty formula.
Ultimately, Activision asked Sledgehammer to step in and help on Modern Warfare 3, and the project was abandoned in favor of giving Sledgehammer the reins on Advanced Warfare.
Game Informer's story includes even more details on Advanced Warfare, and is available to digital subscribersnow. Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare is set for release on November 4.
Win Premium tickets to ESL One Frankfurt 2015!
ESL One Frankfurt is one of the last major Dota 2 LAN events before The International 2015.
is one of the last major Dota 2 LAN events before The International 2015. It's running from Saturday the 20th of June to Sunday the 21st, and will feature a roster of the best Dota 2 teams in the world competing for a prize pool in excess of $250,000.
It takes place in the Commerzbank Arena in Frankfurt - a massive Olympic football stadium with space to house a bunch of activities in addition to the main event. I attended in 2014 and had a really good time: it makes for a great primer for The International, there's lots to do and the standard of the production is high.
Wanna go? You're in luck! We have two pairs of Premium tickets to give away, worth 200€ each. These give you access to VIP seating plus free drinks and food for the entire weekend, a goodie bag, signing sessions, your very own Secret Shop and a to-be-revealed in-game item. Premium seats are currently sold out for the event - if you didn't get them before, this might be your last chance.
We're going to be giving these tickets away via a raffle. To enter, stick your e-mail address in the field below. We'll open it up for 24 hours, from 5pm GMT on the 2nd of June to 5pm GMT on the 3rd. At that point, two lucky winners will receive their tickets via e-mail.
This giveaway is available to everybody, but winners will need to arrange their own transport and accommodation for the event.
If you miss out on a ticket this time around, keep an eye out for PC Gamer's daily match coverage. Until then, the ESL Dota 2 Twitter accountis posting updates in the run-up to the event.
Good luck, and have fun!
Unreal Tournament 3 update removes Gamespy, adds Epic's own server bank
Gamespy is dead.
Gamespy is dead. Sort of. A quick check will reveal that, at present, some of the games yet to hack-off the necrotic multiplayer matchmaker are still functional, albeit likely on borrowed time. Luckily, that list is ever-decreasing. Epic have released a new patchfor Unreal Tournament 3, removing the lesser-loved sequel's Gamespy dependency in favour of the developer's own server bank.
"Thanks to community member Shambler, we have a patch that will allow you to continue playing," announces the Epic Games community page. The patch, which takes the form of a replacement executable, will work with both the regular and Steam versions of the game. Those transitioning to the new servers will need create new login credentials, after which they're free to Impact Hammer some power-armoured beefcake.
"This will apply to servers as well," explain Epic, "they will need to have the new .exe and all Gamespy usernames will need to be recreated or replaced in the command line as well. The larger server providers should be able to handle this for you but please contact your provider if you are unsure. In the event that you run your own server on your own box, you will need to patch this as well."
If manually overwriting executables feels too old-school, you can instead wait for the Steam patch to be cleared. "We have sent the file to Steam and hope they have it live soon," explains Epic's 'IFlak'.
For more on the death of Gamespy, check out Ian's investigation into the people keeping the service's forgotten games alive.
ESL and ESEA team up to form a new Counter-Strike: Global Offensive league
ESL and ESEA have teamed up to form the ESL ESEA Pro League, the biggest Counter-Strike: Global Offensive tournament in the history of the game.
tournament in the history of the game. The league will consist of two divisions, one in North America and one in Europe, with 12 invited teams per division battling for their share of a $1 million prize pool.
“ESL started out with Counter-Strike more than fifteen years ago," ESL Managing Director Ralf Reichert said. "Now, many years later, we are extremely excited to be in a position where we can take the industry to the next level with the first regular US$500,000 Counter-Strike league together with ESEA."
Pro league seasons will be scheduled around Valve-supported majors, with weekly online matches that "aim to consolidate the Counter-Strike market by providing consistent high quality content to the global esports audience." Full travel support will also be extended to teams taking part in the four-day offline finals that will be held in Burbank, California, and Cologne, Germany
The North American lineup has not yet been announced, but the European division will consist of the following teams:
Team Dignitas
Team EnVyUs
FlipSid3 Tactics
fnatic
HellRaisers
mousesports
Natus Vincere
Ninjas In Pyjamas
PENTA Sports
Team SoloMid
Titan
Virtus.Pro
It's not known how this jibes with reports from earlier this monththat the ESL was negotiating with Twitch to create a new CS:GO league independent of Valve. No mention of Twitch was made in the announcement, and while it's a reasonable bet that this is somehow related to those talks—especially given the intent to "schedule around" Valve-sponsored events—it may also be a sort of "Plan B" instead. Whatever the case, Ulrich Schulze, ESL's managing director of pro gaming, made it clear that the new league is not exclusive.
"There is no exclusivity attached to ESL ESEA Pro League," he wrote on Twitter. "Teams can play whatever tournaments they want on the side."
ESL ESEA Pro League action will begin on May 4. Details are up at pro.eslgaming.com.
Reinstall: Unreal - we go native in Epic Games' forgotten masterpiece
This article was originally published in issue 218 of PC Gamer, but in light of Cliff Bleszinski's entirely speculative talk of an open-world Unreal reboot , we thought we'd dig it out.
Epic Games, now purveyors of grunting masculinity, offal and chainsaws, once had a line of family-friendly shareware platformers and pinball titles. The reason we no longer think of them as the guys who made Jazz Jackrabbit is solely due to Unreal.
It's an overlooked great. A journey through an alien landscape with a sense of wonder, grandeur and mystery that almost no shooter has since achieved. BioShock, surprisingly, is its most comparable successor. Both games maroon the player in a lurid and unfamiliar world – which, through pursuing their own selfish aims, they unwittingly save. In Unreal's case it's the planet of Na Pali. It's here that the Vortex Rikers prison ship crashes, spilling its convict cargo out into a dangerous and primitive land, where the Nali tribespeople toil under the jackboot of their technologically superior alien oppressors – the Skaarj.
Few enemies are as much of a delight to battle. Towering, dreadlocked xeno-bastards cut from the same cloth as Predator, each Skaarj is a formidable foe. Part of their brilliance comes from their relationship to Unreal's armoury: almost none of the powerful weapons will hit their target instantly. Even the Stinger, Unreal's answer to the chaingun, fires crystal projectiles that move at a finite – and thus dodgeable – speed. Several of the weapons are at their most lethal when charged up: the GES Bio Rifle produces a glob of corrosive goo that can kill in a hit, while the Eightball rocket launcher loads up to eight rounds into its chambers for a simultaneous release. But the Skaarj are extremely nimble – they effortlessly roll away from your charged blasts, pouncing to gut you with wristblades if you try and whittle them down with the AutoMag, and retreating when you unleash volleys of slow moving missiles. Rather than the stop-and-pop gunplay that is almost ubiquitous in shooters of late, firefights here are elaborate dances conducted below a constellation of arcing flak shells.
This isn't Rapture. Na Pali is not riddled with sophisticated political parables, nor does it make a postmodern critique of the limits of your freedom within the game, but its vast mountainous terrain does create a powerful sense of drama. Its volcanic enclaves conceal a geographical panoply of tropical oases, temples of pseudo-Mayan and Himalayan derivation, medieval castles, mines and monstrous alien overlords.
Inevitably, that terrain does seem crude now. A polygon went along way back then – perhaps even across an entire mountain range in Unreal's case. What's remarkable is that, though far from the cutting edge of graphical fidelity, the blocky world of Na Pali is still beautiful in composition and colour. Particularly colour in fact – Unreal's happy use of neon lighting gives the game a refreshing saturation that is only now coming back into fashion after years and years of glum brown and gunmetal-grey shooters. It's a natty use of lighting too, that gives Unreal's skies their voluminous quality as they pass overhead, the clouds receding behind pixely mountains tinted with the sallow rays of a lowering sun. Although boxed into canyons, the skies always manage to evoke the sense of a much larger world spanning beyond the sheer planes of rock texture that surround you.
Then there's the way the world sounds: the creak of timber in an ancient stairwell, or the whistle of the wind through a deserted mountain temple. Alien birds caw and wind chimes, well, chime. For all the limitations of its technology, few environments are crafted with such care for the feelings they evoke.
Most striking of all is the scale. Unreal may be short on geometrical complexity, but it's not lacking in grandeur. The trench carved by a fallen starship it is no less staggering in its size now than it was in 1998. The Spire, a stack of rock that rises from the centre of a volcano, is similarly massive, and (as with Half-Life 2's Citadel) your lengthy approach to it across many levels gives you plenty of time to contemplate this. Jump off its highest point, and it takes over ten seconds to hit the lava at its base – making it larger than the Empire State Building.
It hasn't got any smaller over the years, either. Unreal is still a game of size in every respect. Its journey feels genuinely epic. Its battles are an elegant chaos that stands out from the pop-up shooting galleries that swamp the genre, even today.
This was the game that propelled Epic Games' reputation to new heights as creators of bloody, hardcore shooters, and galvanised the 3D industry with its technology. Odd then that what should be considered a landmark of singleplayer entertainment by dint of its historical importance alone has faded in popular gaming memory. Its successes have been overwritten by the popularity of Epic's subsequent Unreal Tournament series, multiplayer games whose fiction is only tangentially related to Unreal's. Nor did it help that Legend Entertainment's attempt a sequel was, frankly, toss. But the killing blow had already been delivered: six months after Unreal's release, Half-Life hit the shelves.
And yes, Half-Life is still the better game, but not, actually, by any considerable factor. When I first played Unreal, I was awestruck. I invited friends round, standing eagerly behind them as they emerged from the Vortex Rikers into the open skies of Na Pali. “See?” I'd say – smug and delighted to have initiated them into the same sense of wonder I had felt. The years have passed and technological progress has inflamed the tyranny of our expectations, but the planet of Na Pali is still a thing to point at proudly and say, “See?”
ESL bringing esports to cinemas from July
ESL has announced details around its esports in Cinemas series, along with a few snippets around the documentary All Work All Play: The Pursuit of esports Glory, directed by Patrick Creadon.
The documentary will cover behind the scenes events leading up to the Intel Extreme Masterschampionship, this year held in Katowice, Poland. Tying in with the documentary will also be a selection of five live esports events, produced by... umm... BY Experience.
Creadon's directorial experience is firmly in the documentary camp, with the man being behind the camera of the likes of If You Build It and Square Roots: The Story of SpongeBob SquarePants - so he's got the chops.
Ralf Reichert, managing director of ESL, said these words:
"I think this documentary and the broader partnership is symbolic of how far we’ve come. When we started out, I dreamt about us filling stadiums, but I never entertained the idea of filling cinemas.
"Everyone who works with Intel Extreme Masters here at ESL is passionate about esports and I think this documentary and the development of esports series programming in cinemas is a testament to that growth. I’m very excited to see esports in cinemas for years to come and can guarantee I’ll be the first to buy a ticket."
The first events are kicking off in July - the first one in the US on July 25, and the first in Europe on July 28 - and you can find out about ticketing on this site.
As for the live sporting events, they'll begin in August with coverage from ESL One Cologne 2015, featuring Dota 2 and Counter-Strike.
Reinstall: Unreal - we go native in Epic Games' forgotten masterpiece
This article was originally published in issue 218 of PC Gamer, but in light of Cliff Bleszinski's entirely speculative talk of an open-world Unreal reboot , we thought we'd dig it out.
Epic Games, now purveyors of grunting masculinity, offal and chainsaws, once had a line of family-friendly shareware platformers and pinball titles. The reason we no longer think of them as the guys who made Jazz Jackrabbit is solely due to Unreal.
It's an overlooked great. A journey through an alien landscape with a sense of wonder, grandeur and mystery that almost no shooter has since achieved. BioShock, surprisingly, is its most comparable successor. Both games maroon the player in a lurid and unfamiliar world – which, through pursuing their own selfish aims, they unwittingly save. In Unreal's case it's the planet of Na Pali. It's here that the Vortex Rikers prison ship crashes, spilling its convict cargo out into a dangerous and primitive land, where the Nali tribespeople toil under the jackboot of their technologically superior alien oppressors – the Skaarj.
Few enemies are as much of a delight to battle. Towering, dreadlocked xeno-bastards cut from the same cloth as Predator, each Skaarj is a formidable foe. Part of their brilliance comes from their relationship to Unreal's armoury: almost none of the powerful weapons will hit their target instantly. Even the Stinger, Unreal's answer to the chaingun, fires crystal projectiles that move at a finite – and thus dodgeable – speed. Several of the weapons are at their most lethal when charged up: the GES Bio Rifle produces a glob of corrosive goo that can kill in a hit, while the Eightball rocket launcher loads up to eight rounds into its chambers for a simultaneous release. But the Skaarj are extremely nimble – they effortlessly roll away from your charged blasts, pouncing to gut you with wristblades if you try and whittle them down with the AutoMag, and retreating when you unleash volleys of slow moving missiles. Rather than the stop-and-pop gunplay that is almost ubiquitous in shooters of late, firefights here are elaborate dances conducted below a constellation of arcing flak shells.
This isn't Rapture. Na Pali is not riddled with sophisticated political parables, nor does it make a postmodern critique of the limits of your freedom within the game, but its vast mountainous terrain does create a powerful sense of drama. Its volcanic enclaves conceal a geographical panoply of tropical oases, temples of pseudo-Mayan and Himalayan derivation, medieval castles, mines and monstrous alien overlords.
Inevitably, that terrain does seem crude now. A polygon went along way back then – perhaps even across an entire mountain range in Unreal's case. What's remarkable is that, though far from the cutting edge of graphical fidelity, the blocky world of Na Pali is still beautiful in composition and colour. Particularly colour in fact – Unreal's happy use of neon lighting gives the game a refreshing saturation that is only now coming back into fashion after years and years of glum brown and gunmetal-grey shooters. It's a natty use of lighting too, that gives Unreal's skies their voluminous quality as they pass overhead, the clouds receding behind pixely mountains tinted with the sallow rays of a lowering sun. Although boxed into canyons, the skies always manage to evoke the sense of a much larger world spanning beyond the sheer planes of rock texture that surround you.
Then there's the way the world sounds: the creak of timber in an ancient stairwell, or the whistle of the wind through a deserted mountain temple. Alien birds caw and wind chimes, well, chime. For all the limitations of its technology, few environments are crafted with such care for the feelings they evoke.
Most striking of all is the scale. Unreal may be short on geometrical complexity, but it's not lacking in grandeur. The trench carved by a fallen starship it is no less staggering in its size now than it was in 1998. The Spire, a stack of rock that rises from the centre of a volcano, is similarly massive, and (as with Half-Life 2's Citadel) your lengthy approach to it across many levels gives you plenty of time to contemplate this. Jump off its highest point, and it takes over ten seconds to hit the lava at its base – making it larger than the Empire State Building.
It hasn't got any smaller over the years, either. Unreal is still a game of size in every respect. Its journey feels genuinely epic. Its battles are an elegant chaos that stands out from the pop-up shooting galleries that swamp the genre, even today.
This was the game that propelled Epic Games' reputation to new heights as creators of bloody, hardcore shooters, and galvanised the 3D industry with its technology. Odd then that what should be considered a landmark of singleplayer entertainment by dint of its historical importance alone has faded in popular gaming memory. Its successes have been overwritten by the popularity of Epic's subsequent Unreal Tournament series, multiplayer games whose fiction is only tangentially related to Unreal's. Nor did it help that Legend Entertainment's attempt a sequel was, frankly, toss. But the killing blow had already been delivered: six months after Unreal's release, Half-Life hit the shelves.
And yes, Half-Life is still the better game, but not, actually, by any considerable factor. When I first played Unreal, I was awestruck. I invited friends round, standing eagerly behind them as they emerged from the Vortex Rikers into the open skies of Na Pali. “See?” I'd say – smug and delighted to have initiated them into the same sense of wonder I had felt. The years have passed and technological progress has inflamed the tyranny of our expectations, but the planet of Na Pali is still a thing to point at proudly and say, “See?”
ESL announces $1 million prize pool for 2015 Dota 2 series
"We’re starting with ESL One Frankfurt 2015 in June this year, where the prize money has been raised from US$150,000 to US$250,000 - and this is just the beginning," Ulrich Schulze, ESL's managing director of pro gaming, said in a statement.
The ESL has announced a $1 million prize poolfor the 2015 ESL One Dota 2tournament series, which it says represents a quadrupling of its investment in the series last year.
"We’re starting with ESL One Frankfurt 2015 in June this year, where the prize money has been raised from US$150,000 to US$250,000 - and this is just the beginning," Ulrich Schulze, ESL's managing director of pro gaming, said in a statement. "ESL One is here to set a new standard for professional Dota 2 events at this level. We’re dedicated to pushing the boundaries, and giving players from around the world more chances to make their careers as professional gamers is a key aspect of that."
As MCV UKpointed out, last year's Dota 2 series consisted of two events, in Frankfurt and New York. Assuming my math is correct, 2015 will see that number at least double, with tournaments set to take place "in some of the world's most iconic stadiums and arenas."
The news follows closely behind last week's announcement that the ESL will hold the world's largest Counter-Strike: Global Offensive tournamentin Cologne, Germany, with its own $250,000 prize pool funded entirely by the ESL. I'd say it sounds like things are going pretty well over there.
The Ball trailer bowls us over
A shiny new trailer has been released for the indie first person bowl-em-up, The Ball.
A shiny new trailer has been released for the indie first person bowl-em-up, The Ball. Read on for a round up of what the game has to offer, as well as the trailer, which is literally full of ball-to-the-wall action.
The Ballstarted out as a mod for Unreal Tournament 3, and was the runner up in Epic's Make Something Unreal mod competition. The mod's creators formed Teotl Studios and started developing a followup using the freely released Unreal Development Toolkit. Now the standalone retail release is just around the corner, and the team have released a brilliant new trailer showing off the weird aztec vibe, and the dinosaurs, and the giant monkeys, and also the ball itself.
But this is no ordinary ball! Oh, wait, it is, actually, but it just happens respond unusually to your hand held ball manipulation device known only as 'The Ancient Weapon'. You can use the weapon to control the ball and crush your enemies. If the full game is anything like the original mod then mix of puzzles and horribly violent squashing should prove thoroughly abs-orb-ing.
The game's out on October 26th and is available to preorder on Steam right here. The game's being published by former Make Something Unreal competition winners, Tripwire Interactive which is why if you preorder on Steam, you also unlock The Ball's protagonist as a playable character in Tripwire's excellent shooter, Killing Floor.
Finally, if you fancy checking out The Ball's original incarnation as an Unreal Tournament 3 mod, then that's still available for download over at ModDB.
[via RPS]
Valve suspends 19 more CS:GO players for match fixing
[ Valve and ESL have lifted the ban on the former ESC Gaming team, and reinstated its invitation to the Katowice 2015 offline qualifier.
Valve and ESL have lifted the ban on the former ESC Gaming team, and reinstated its invitation to the Katowice 2015 offline qualifier. "The ex-ESC players were restricted from participating in Valve-sponsored events because their historical account activity matched allegations of misconduct," Valve said in a statement. "However, further investigation has clarified their role in the matter, and the restriction has been lifted."]
Valve's ongoing investigation into pro-level Counter-Strike: Global Offensivematch fixing has resulted in the suspension of another 19 players from its sponsored events. The ban means that three teams—Epsilon eSports, the former ESC Gaming, and WinneR—will not be eligible to compete in the offline qualifier for the upcoming ESL One Katowice 2015.
ESL One has scheduled a "last-chance tournament" for February 8 to determine the teams that will replace Epsilon eSports and ESC Gaming, while LGB eSports and 3DMAX will take WinneR's position. The league noted that those two teams had been slated to play a third-place match in the second European qualifier, but that will no longer be necessary as both teams will now advance.
14 of the players determined to be involved in match fixing have been given indefinite suspensions that won't be reviewed prior to 2016:
Kevin “Uzzziii” Vernel Joey “fxy0” Schlosser Robin “GMX” Stahmer Morgan “B1GGY” Madour Damian “DiAMon” Zarski Michal “bCK” Lis Jakub “kub” Pamula Mateusz “matty” Kolodziejczyk Michal “michi” Majkowski Karol “rallen” Rodowicz Mikolaj “mouz” Karolewski Grzegorz “SZPERO” Dziamalek Pawel “innocent” Mocek Jacek “minise” JeziakAnother five have been declared ineligible for ESL One Katowice while the investigation continues:
Robin “r0bs3n” Stephan Tahsin “tahsiN” Sarikaya Koray “xall” Yaman Ammar “am0” Cakmak Antonin “TONI” BernhardtValve again said that professional CS:GO players and teams "should under no circumstances gamble on CS:GO matches" or associate with those who do, a position echoed by the ESL. "At ESL, we want to underline the fact that unsportsmanlike behavior, such as match fixing, will not be tolerated, and therefore the banned players will not be allowed to take part in any ESL CS:GO tournaments until these cases are reviewed by Valve," it said in a statement.
The Counter-Strike: Global Offensive tournament at ESL One Katowice 2015 runs from March 12-15, and features a $250,000 prize pool.
Cliff Bleszinski leaves Epic Games
In a news update on Epic Games' official site, design director Cliff Bleszinski announced his split from the studio after 20 years shaping venerable franchises such as Unreal, Jazz Jackrabbit, and Gears of War.
"I've been doing this since I was a teenager, and outside of my sabbatical last year, I have been going non-stop," Bleszinski wrote in a farewell note. "I literally grew up in this business. And now that I'm grown up, it's time for a much needed break. I will miss the projects, the playtests, the debates, and most importantly, the people. Epic only hires the best of the best, and it has been a joy working with each and every one of you on a daily basis, whether you were hired weeks ago or decades ago."
Bleszinski had recently been promoting the PC as a beacon of gaming and development prowess, encouraging indie designers to embrace the PC's open-ended appealand confirming the PC-exclusive Fortnite as the first game using the Unreal Engine 4.
Bleszinski's future plans beyond the aforementioned break aren't known, but I'm conducting a Shock Rifle salute to send him off into his future endeavors.