Sega announces Quake III "War"
The first online console tournament ever, apparently, although we don't remember it that way...
Sega yesterday announced a first for them, a console-based first person shooter tournament. The event, "Un-Civil War" (clever!) is to be the first in a series of online console tournaments, and is being touted as the first ever of its kind, rather like the ChuChu Rocket tournament they ran last year. Short memories at Sega? The Quake III event will actually take place over a number of days, from yesterday, the 22nd of February, through till the 2nd of April. Players can register using their Dreamcast (and judging by our luck not their PCs) at http://www.sega.net/tournaments. The main catch being you have to be in the United States. The tournament apparently consists of two competitions; what's described as a time flexible Open Ladder, and a fixed-schedule knock-out phase. During the four weeks of the Open Ladder stage, players will be ranked on the basis of points (hopefully not just kills) to determine the top weekly finalists who will be allowed to advance to the main tournament. SegaNet servers will host the Open Ladder, with all SegaNet subscribers, trial members and, er, Sega.com Society members proving eligible. The structure from there is pretty rigid. Players will be sorted into several regional 32-man knock-out tournaments, with one week of preliminaries, national finals and three eventual winners. Unlike the ChuChu Rocket tournament Sega held over here last year, the competitors can take part in the events from the comfort of their own home, as all the action will be hosted on SegaNet servers. Winners will take home a customized blue and orange Sega Dreamcast engraved with their name and championship title, which is pretty swish. Usual goodies like T-shirts are on offer to runners-up, or as the yanks would have it, just plain losers. The rules and whatnot can be pulled up on your Dreamcast at http://www.sega.net/tournaments.