What to Watch: The Week in eSports (March 1-8, 2013) g21

This week in eSports: the death knell sounds for IPL6, but an announcement from QuakeCon gives us something different to look forward to. Things have come right down to the wire in The Defense 3 and the GSL, and the next MLG is right around the corner. There may be no better time this year to 6 pool or gank your friends into giving eSports a look. gl hf! IPL 6 officially canceled Last week, we reported on how the restructuring at IGN had led to the parent company searching for a buyer for the IGN ProLeague. No further announcements have been made in terms of where it might end up, but we can now confirm that this month's IPL6 event has been canceled. Teams from StarCraft II and ShootMania Storm are having to cancel their plans, and GameSpot reports that the League of Legends Korean Qualifiers have been axed. We haven't heard from Riot or the teams themselves when the Koreans will get another shot, but we'll keep you posted. QuakeCon 2013 announced In significantly better news, we have dates for this year's QuakeCon in Dallas: August 1-4. This will be the 18th iteration of one of the world's biggest LAN parties, and an epicenter of competitive gaming since before "eSports" was even a word. The announcement page teases more details to come. We'll update you with the eSports-specific announcements as soon as we get them. StarCraft II Symbol. RorO. They may not be the most well-known names in Wings of Liberty outside of Korea, but that doesn't matter anymore. They are the only two players left standing in the GSL Code S. Playing for Azubu and Samsung Khan, respectively, the Zerg Ultra-Grandmasters will throw down in a best of seven a week from tomorrow, for possibly the most prestigious crown a single player can earn in eSports. Watch it: GomTV As if next week needed even more StarCraft (What am I saying? You can never have too much StarCraft), the Intel Extreme Masters Season VII World Championships go live on Tuesday in Hanover, Germany. 24 of the best players from South Korean and Europe will compete over four days for $100,000 in prizes, leaving off just in time for you to make a run to the store for a case of energy drinks and catch the GSL finals. Watch it: Intel Extreme Masters Make sure you're rested up for the week after, though. We've got the Heart of the Swarm Midnight Launch and the MLG 2013 Winter Championship coming up on the 14th and 15th, respectively. New qualifiers for the Winter Championship through the Winter Showdowns series since last week include Mvp, Seed, MarineKing, MC, TaeJa, Polt, Sen, Feast, and, in an upset over DongRaeGu, the relatively unknown jjakji. IdrA vs Minigun is set for this Sunday, one of the more anticpated matches of the series. Suppy, ViBE, Illusion, and HuK also still have their spots on the line. Watch it online: Major League Gaming Watch it in person: Passes are still available for the Winter Championships, but it probably won't stay that way for long. You can grab one for $35. Other Stuff   The Heart of the Swarm midnight launch events are going to feature some high-profile show matches, and a who's who of the pro caster community. Blizzard has officially-sanctioned events going on in nine countries, and outlets like Team Liquid are organizing even more. If you're going to be in the Irvine, CA area on the 14th, you can join Day[9], Husky, Polt, MC… and myself, as well as several of the senior devs, for the U.S. event. League of Legends Dignitas has overtaken Curse in the North American LCS, with a 9-2 record over Curse's 8-2. Dignitas has an opportunity to tie that up tonight at 5 PST if they can topple TSM Snapdragon. A loss would tie them up with TSM (Currently 7-3) for the second place spot. CLG is hanging on in fourth with 6-4. compLexity and GGU still can't seem to catch a break, each with only one win so far. Watch it: League Championship Series North America Over on the European side of things, Fnatic holds the lead at 7-1, with Gambit BenQ close behind at 6-2. They face off tomorrow at 19:00 CET (Noon PST), in a match that could close the gap to almost nothing if Gambit pulls out a win. Watch it: League Championship Series Europe Other Stuff   The League of Legends Mac client has gone into open beta, heralding the potential for even more explosive growth for Riot's rising star. You can download the beta and give it a shot for yourself right now. Patch 3.03 is bringing some changes for Amumu (which is almost as hard to spell as banana), Taric, and Kale. You can check out all the details in the video above. Dota 2 From the brutal fray, four teams are left standing in The Defense 3. In the upper bracket, North America's Dignitas and Russia's Virtus.Pro are set to reignite the Cold War in the upper bracket. Both dominated their Round 3 opponents 2-0, and have lost only one game each in the playoffs so far. In the lower bracket, the winner of Evil Geniuses vs Team Liquid (both of North America) will have a chance to face the loser of the upper bracket final for a spot in the championship match. Dignitas vs VP is scheduled for 11 a.m. PST tomorrow, with EG vs Liquid to immediately follow. Watch it: The Defense Other Stuff   The Dota 2 client has been updated to include the first part of the new player experience, unlocking a set of single-player tutorials with a loose story that are reminiscent of the old WarCraft 3 scenarios. According to the official blog post, "Dota's a deep game, and there's a lot of things to learn, but we felt it was important that the learning was entertaining in itself, so we've tried to avoid building a dry tutorial." A lot of things can be said about Dota, but few would dispute the reality of its reputation for being punishing on newbies. If you're relatively fresh to the game and have had a minute to try the new tutorials out, we're curious to hear your thoughts. That's it for this week, eSports faithful. Let us know in the comments what you think of this week's stories, if there's anything we missed, and what eSports events you're most looking forward to in the coming weeks. gg!

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Cliff Blezsinski defends EA microtransactions, tells gamers: “vote with your dollars” g21

The ongoing debate over the ethicality of microtransactions is hot enough to make the sun look like an ice cube, but it's difficult to overlook the financial benefits of prolonging a game beyond its launch content—just ask EA, which recently stated it's seeking to add purchaseable items in all of its games. Consumer concern is natural, but former Epic designer Cliff Bleszinski thinks wallets are a stronger measure of approval than complaints. In a lengthy blog article, he specifically brings up the business practices of EA and Valve, stating he's "tired" of the former taking the brunt of ire surrounding the subject. "I'm going to come right out and say it: I'm tired of EA being seen as 'the bad guy,'" he writes. "I think it's b******* that EA has the 'scumbag EA' memes on Reddit and that Good Guy Valve can do no wrong. "It blows my mind that somehow gamers don't seem to get that Valve is a business, just like any other, and when Valve charges $100 for an engagement ring in Team Fortress 2, it's somehow 'cool,'" he continues. "Yet when EA wants to sell something similar, it's seen as 'evil.' "Yes, guys, I hate to break it to you, but as awesome as Valve is, they're also a company that seeks to make as much money as possible. They're just way better at their image control." Are we all just hungry for hats? Bleszinski goes on to claim "making money and running a business is not inherently evil" and compares Origin's currently unfavored reputation with Steam's reception during its shaky first years. "People love to beat up on Origin, but they forget that, for a good amount of time, Steam sucked," he writes. "No one took it seriously for the first while. When Gabe pitched it at GDC to my former co-workers years ago, they came back with eye-rolls. Who's laughing now? All of Valve. "It took Valve years to bang their service into the stellar shape that it is in these days. Yet somehow, everyone online forgets this, and they give EA crap about trying to create their own online services. Heaven forbid they see our digital roadmap for the future and try to get on board the 'games as services' movement." He finishes with a simple piece of advice: "If you don't like EA, don't buy their games. If you don't like their microtransactions, don't spend money on them. EA has many smart people working for them, and they wouldn't attempt these things if they didn't work. Turns out, they do. I assure you there are teams of analysts studying the numbers behind consumer behavior over there that are studying how you, the gamer, spends his hard earned cash." Response was swift. A NeoGAF thread ballooned with various comments ranging between hostile, sympathetic, and fearful. "It's one thing to say you'll start putting microtransactions in every $60 game you'll make and another thing to have microtransactions on a-free to-play game, where a big percentage of that microtransaction money actually goes to the players, who themselves make items to sell," writes one poster. "Overall, if I see DLC that I don't like, I just ignore it," writes another. "If a game has too much DLC to the point in which the main game is really lacking in content then I just won't buy the game. Simple. Don't get why some are acting like they are being forced into doing something."

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Age of Empires 2 might be coming to Steam g21

The dataminers at steamdb.info have made a potentially exciting discovery for classic RTS fans: the unreleased entity currently known only as "ValveTestApp221380″ is probably Age of Empires II. This came to light when the app was updated just yesterday with a boatload of new achievements, which refer to many of the factions from AoE2 and its expansion. You can read the full list on Reddit. There is no indication of a release date, but the influx of achievements suggests that it might not be too far off. It's been 14 years since AoE2, but it's still considered the pinnacle of the series by many fans (I'm partial to Age of Mythology, myself, but it's a very close second). You can still see the complete edition on the bargain shelves at quite a few retailers here in the U.S., so it isn't like it's been unavailable for a significant period of time. As with all older games, however, there are inevitable compatibility issues on operating systems a decade or more removed from the original release. A Steam version could address some of these issues.

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Why UT’s Facing Worlds is one of the best multiplayer maps ever g21

Sure, Evan's adoration of Counter-Strike's cs_office is an excellent examination, but I noticed a distinct lack of giant Earth backdrops and soothing ambient techno. No longer: in this week's video, I'm here to explain why Unreal Tournament's beloved Facing Worlds map is one of the best multiplayer maps.

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Assassin’s Creed 4 release date revealed through trailer countdown site g21

After revealing the sequel's gun-strapped hero on the box art of Assassin's Creed 4: Black Flag, Ubisoft wasted no time in preparing a debut trailer to leap from its towering marketing mast. A countdown ticks away the trailer's launch in three days, but DarkZero switched on its Eagle Vision and found a now-deleted hidden URL displaying a banner proclaiming an October 29 release date for the radically piratical fourth-quel. Simply adding a "v" to the end of the trailer announcement's web address sent you to the banner, a crazily minute addition that makes me wonder if DarkZero's spot borders on sorcery. Both banner and address no longer exist, of course, having been stabbed in the face by Ubisoft's swift assassin response team. The October release window lines up with previous autumn launches of an Assassin's Creed game, though PC versions tended to trail behind by a few months because of lingering bugs and…well, just because. Perhaps we'll enjoy this Creed sans delays this time around. In the meantime, check back right here on Monday for our full preview.

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PC Gamer US Podcast #346 – Some Kinda Pirate g21

Who is this new, rather unsubtle assassin in the reveal images for Assassin's Creed 4: Black Flag? Evan, T.J., and Omri discuss. SimCity and the Arma 3 alpha are both out next Tuesday, and we're actually allowed to talk about at least one of them. Plus, some of the best listener questions we've had in a long time. Keep 'em coming! All hands on deck for PC Gamer Podcast 346: Some Kinda Pirate Have a question, comment, complaint, or observation? Send an MP3 to pcgamerpodcast@gmail.com. Subscribe to the podcast RSS feed. Follow us on Twitter: @ELahti (Evan Lahti) @AsaTJ (T.J. Hafer) @omripettite (Omri Petitte) @belsaas (Erik Belsaas, podcast producer)

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SimCity city sizes will “eventually” expand, says Maxis g21

We've already examined the effects of SimCity's city size limitation after Maxis stressed the necessity of the restriction for a gain in performance. City sizes will remain fixed when the game launches next Tuesday, but in the words of Gandalf (who'd make a pretty great mayor), "Hope remains." Speaking to IncGamers, Creative Director Ocean Quigley says SimCity's team "could certainly make the city sizes larger" as a reaction to more powerful hardware setups. "We need to keep in mind that SimCity is a mainstream game," Quigley clarifies. "It's not a game that's only going to run on high-end gaming PCs. It has to run in your dad's PC as well. We'll eventually get around to expanding the city size, but I can't make any promises as to when." Yeah, well, my dad just installed his second Titan, so there. In any case, the prospect of seeing my populace spread across the map in a wave of prosperity and garbage trucks feels exciting indeed. That is, of course, if Maxis' plans involves a substantial grid increase and not a fractional bump—I'd like to see the amazing GlassBox Engine roar with its newfound freedom, not mumble.

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