Resident Pro Gamer’s Team is interviewed by the Battlefield Community

Blogged under Industry News by Carlos Lopez on Monday 16 January 2006 at 11:46 am

As the team spokesperson I was the individual interviewed, forgive the grammatical errors EA didn’t find it important to correct:

If you have been keeping up on the Battlefield 2: Modern Combat tournament, you would know that it is down to two clans: Team Legends and Team Professional Skills. We recently had the chance to ask both teams some questions. The following interview is with the Professional Skills team which is in the Play Station 2 tournament.

1. What is the number one special tactic that you used during this competition so far?

Pro $kills: REAL TIME strategy change. When it appears that the strategy being used is not working we, have made all attempts to have back up strategies ready to deploy with smooth tranistions. That in itself is a strategy.

2. What motivates you and your team the most when it comes to winning?

Pro $kills: For most of us it’s achievement, for all of us more generally it would be the large payout. This tournament is unique in the fact that the large payout is for a tournament played remotely. Winning this tournament could be considered a benchmark in the gaming industry.

3. What is the first thing you will do if you and your team wins this competition?

Pro $kills: The team has thought about meeting in person and throwing a party.

4. What was the most challenging team yet, and what are you most intimidated about the team you are to face in the final challenge?

Pro $kills: Darkest Hour was definitely the most challenging we have played. We have always had close battles.

Intimidating might be too strong of a word… We are concerned about the unknown, playing against a team for such large stakes when you’ve never had so much as a scrimmage is something to ponder.

5. How do you feel about being in the final round? Was your team expecting to make it this far?

Pro $kills: It’s a great feeling, our clan name is Professional Skills, with a name like that, confidence in the final round is essential. Actually, we did think we would make it to the finals. We took a lot of preparatory measures to get here.

6. How much has your team been practicing for this final match? Are you prepared?

Pro $kills: We all practice a healthy amount individually but when you’re considered the top clan on your console, finding substantial practice matches is a hard thing. We believe that we are prepared as we possibly can be given that we don’t know who has home turf yet.

7. What is the best experience you got out of this competition?

Pro $kills: TEAMWORK

8. What, in your opinion, is the most important thing about having a clan and being in one?

Pro $kills: Learning each other’s strengths and weaknesses and adjusting the strategies to compensate for them.

9. Who’s gotten the most kills in the competition so far? Who has died the most?

Pro $kills: We don’t really pay much attention to that aspect of the competition. We all play a role and those roles provide for some to kill more and some to die more. That’s a hard question. Some of the outstanding players are Disclaimer, Dontmiss, Noodleman and Ikizzle for certain. One player who contributed a lot to our strategies but couldn’t play was Pyro.

10. What motivated you the most to start playing Battlefield 2: Modern Combat. What about joining the competition?

Pro $kills: Our whole team is competitive by nature and really needed a fresh game to play from the previous game we were playing. The competition came to be a way to prove that we were who we thought we were, the best Play Station 2 clan on the game.

11. What is(are) your favorite map(s)?

Pro $kills: Without being specific, the maps that provide the evenly matched scenarios.

12. What is(are) your favorite game(s) of all time? Your favorite platform(s)?

Pro $kills: That’s another hard question, we all have our own tastes but what comes to mind for games is:

The Battlefield series, the Timespiltters series, America’s Army, the Romance of the Three Kingdoms series, Black Hawk Down, 007 Goldeneye(N64) and Area 51.

As for platforms, Playstation 2 of course and the Nintendo 64.

13. How did you and your clan members meet?

Pro $kills: Quite a few of us were in opposing clans on previous games. Our different teams didn’t have enough member presence to be competitive on BF2 so Pro Skills’ leader, Historikl, grouped together the best communicators. We all knew of each other from previous competitions and games.

14. How did you learn to play the game so well?

Pro $kills: Most of the team has been playing games since childhood. We all have a love for the F.P.S. genre in more specifically.

15. How long did you train for this competition?

Pro $kills: We were serious about competing on the in game clan ladder from the release date of the game. When the competition was announced we started training immediately.

16. Is there anything else you would like to say to the large community of Battlefield Files?

Pro $kills: Yes, some of you have been fans and some of you have been critics. We would like to thank the both of you. Without both we would have never been able to elevate our skill level to go this far. Lastly, to the clans that remained together after being dq’ed, or beaten, we salute your efforts and look forward to playing against you in future competitions.

Well, that about raps it up for this interview! Stay tuned for the Team Legends interview! Thanks for everyone’s support!

Woolf
Battlefield Files Site Admin

Article Link: http://battlefield2.filefront.com/info/F_Interviews_BF2MC_1

Forbes: A supercomputer in your living room

Blogged under Cell, 3gui, Consoles, games, Industry News by David Berger on Friday 13 January 2006 at 1:21 pm

The new Forbes cover story explores the power of the Cell processor. Here’s how it begins:

IBM’s radical Cell processor, to debut in Sony’s PlayStation 3, could reshape entertainment and spark the next high-tech boom.

Later this year millions of homes will get a new supercomputer for the living room. Or maybe the playroom. Sony’s long-awaited PlayStation 3 game console, a slender yet muscular machine the size of a DVD player, performs a mind-boggling 2 trillion calculations per second. This kind of power, once reserved for seismic exploration and nuclear-weapons design, will let programmers create videogames that look as realistic as film.

Some techies say PlayStation 3, which may debut by midyear and could end up in 100 million homes in five years, will usher in the next microchip revolution. The Sony system owes its prowess to a microprocessor called Cell, which was cooked up by chip wizards at IBM (with help from Sony and Toshiba) at a cost of $400 million over five years. The Cell chip, based on a design inspired by supercomputers, runs at least ten times as fast as Intel’s most powerful Pentium. More important, Cell boasts a staggering fiftyfold advantage in handling graphics-intensive applications that will define the next generation of visual entertainment–blindingly fast and seductively immersive games, virtual-reality romps, wireless downloads, real-time video chat, interactive TV shows with multiple endings and a panoply of new services yet to be dreamed up.

The whole article is a must-read.

IBM, Sony, Toshiba extend and broaden alliance

Blogged under Industry News, Companies by Catherine Helzerman on Thursday 12 January 2006 at 9:44 am

Today IBM, Sony, and Toshiba announced that they will broaden and extend their successful semiconductor technology alliance with a new five year agreement that will include deeper collaboration on research.

Over the last five years the companies have collaborated on the Cell processor which will be used in the upcoming PS3 game console and which has great potential for graphic, multi-media, and gaming applications as well as other areas such as life sciences. To clear up and approach head-on one issue that’s been cropping up in the blogosphere -this is not a desktop chip. You can not buy it in COMPUSA. You can learn more about this very unique high performance architecture here: http://www-128.ibm.com/developerworks/power/cell/

The new agreement among Sony, Toshiba, and IBM will extend beyond Cell. The three companies will work together on fundamental research related to advanced process technologies at 32 nanometers and beyond. The agreement will help enable the three companies to more rapidly investigate, identify and commercialize new technologies for consumer and other applications.

Executives from the partnering companies had the following to say:

“This is a winning combination,” said Masashi Muromachi, president & chief executive officer of the Semiconductor Company at Toshiba Corporation. “With Toshiba’s cutting-edge process technology and manufacturing capabilities, Sony’s various semiconductor technologies and deep knowledge of consumer markets and IBM’s state-of-the-art material technology, we can anticipate breakthrough process technologies for the 32-nanometer generation and beyond. Toshiba will apply these advances to assuring continued leadership in cutting-edge process technology and the accelerated development of essential devices for the age of ubiquitous connectivity.”

“The extension of the IBM, Sony and Toshiba relationship to fundamental research is extremely promising,” said Kenshi Manabe, president of semiconductor business unit, EVP and Corporate Executive of Sony Corporation. “This joint development project will help accelerate the cycle from fundamental research to commercialization based on detailed feasibility studies of potential technologies, device structures, innovative materials, and unique processing tools.”

“By extending this relationship to the next-generation of process technologies and deepening our partnership at the research level, we expect to increase the pace of development for major technology advances,” said Lisa Su, vice president, Semiconductor Research and Development Center, IBM Systems & Technology Group.

Research and development will take place at IBM’s Thomas J. Watson Research Center in Yorktown Heights, N.Y., the Center for Semiconductor Research at Albany NanoTech, and at IBM’s 300 millimeter manufacturing facility in East Fishkill.

The big takeaway here is that not only is the relationship between these three companies stronger than ever; they are making a firm commitment to work together through the next generations of microprocessor technology.

The WoW family

Blogged under MMOG, online gaming by Catherine Helzerman on Friday 6 January 2006 at 11:33 pm

We’ve done some talking on this blog about virtual communities and people coming together in mmog environments. Here’s an interesting twist that speaks to that point, but is also shows that online communities can be venues for communication with our friends and family IRL (in real life).

Recently, a whole family joined a WoW guild, The Clockwork Crew (server, Hyjal)
Here’s the post (quoted with their permission) that was made on the Clockwork Crew forum.

ME: I’m a 31 (almost 32!) year old gal in Ontario. I’ve been playing WoW for about a year now. I have characters on 4 or 5 realms, but I seem to like this one best…all my buds are here! Before WoW, I played Diablo 2, which was cool for its day, but has NOTHING on WoW. I have 2 children whose interest has been piqued by my game play (see below).

SON: My son is 9, and has 3 characters on WoW. Only one is on Hyjal, but he has recently become a member of our fine guild…Lightcharger. If you see him about, please remember the following:
1. He’s 9, so his typing/convo skills are lacking
2. He doesn’t play too often, so he doesn’t have mad skills like his mommy
3. He’s mine, so if you have a chance to lend him a hand with his playing, please feel free to do so. Don’t worry about sending him money & items…I make sure he has enough to get by.

DAUGHTER: My daughter is 11 (almost 12). She has 2 characters on WoW, but none on Hyjal. She doesn’t play very often anymore. Her current interests include boys, friends, boys, shopping, boys, reading, boys, hanging at the mall, and don’t forget…boys.

EX-HUBBY: Sacralidge. Need I say more?

STEP-DAUGHTER: She plays a couple of characters, but none on Hyjal.

Kallie/Phoeb/Shadowlilly/Annarchy/Pandamonium (GOOD LORD!)

Consumer Electronics Show, Las Vegas

Blogged under Industry News, XBox by Catherine Helzerman on Friday 6 January 2006 at 9:24 pm

This week Las Vegas welcomed over 130,000 people, most of whom won’t spend any money in the casinos.

For gamers, there was a lot to see at CES as everything from operating systems to televisions were positioned around how they could enhance the gaming experience. (Personally, I want the 103-inch (!) plasma TV Panasonic unveiled on Wednesday)

Microsoft had an impressive booth highlighting the 360 with rows of games and some interesting Xbox 360 displays (see below).

IBM showed off the range of technology its design services group has developed in everything from gaming systems to karaoke machines (I kid you not).

Microsoft’s Xbox 360 booth

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Site update part 2

Blogged under Site news by Catherine Helzerman on Tuesday 3 January 2006 at 5:58 pm

I’m happy to say the upgrade is complete. I’ve also relaunched the forum with a new look and I encourage everyone to signup. Topics are the same as discussed here with some additional categories and the posts are not moderated so you can see your comments right away.

Site update

Blogged under Site news by Catherine Helzerman on Tuesday 3 January 2006 at 4:46 pm

Today I will be upgrading to a later version of WordPress, the software used for this blog. I say later instead of latest because I’m still too chicken to go to 2.0 (because that would involve upgrading mysql, which might cause compatibility problems with other things running on the server). More information than you wanted to know perhaps. ;-)

In any event, hopefully the upgrade will be seamless and you won’t even know it happened, but just in case you see a glitch in the next few hours, you know why. I’ll post again when finished.

Here’s what I plan to do:

  • upgrade to WP 1.5.2
  • add a Google sitemap, that will allow GT to show more prominently on searches
  • add a technorati link that will allow people to see other sites that link here
  • provide “chicklets” that will enable viewers to easily subscribe to GT using your favorite news reader be it myYahoo, Bloglines, or something else
  • provide a “post to delicious” link, as many people are using it for their online bookmarking system

On another matter… As you know, our tagline is “IBM leaders discuss the future of gaming.” For sometime we have been pondering the idea of extending membership to key experts from elsewhere in the gaming community. Agreement with IBM’s positions is not a requirement, however a high level of expertise in your field is. If you are interested, the first step is to post on existing entries here. After you have made at least five posts, please send mail to admin@gametomorrow.com with a little background and what you would be covering as a regular contributor.

The postings on this site solely reflect the personal views of the authors and do not necessarily represent the views, positions, strategies or opinions of IBM or IBM management.

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