CPL's Million Dollar greed fest

Recently the CPL announced a $1,000,000 Halo 3 tournament. Let me explain how my emotions ran while reading the latest press release, and then I'll explain why this is one of the biggest mistakes ever made by a tournament. Bigger even than choosing to use a game that isn't even finished yet.

The Cyberathlete Professional League (CPL) released more details today on the $1,000,000 “Halo® 3 Xbox 360 competition, to be hosted at the Extreme Winter Championships taking place Tuesday, December 18 to Saturday, December 22, 2007 at the Hyatt Regency in downtown Dallas, Texas.

Awesome, a million dollars is friggin beautiful. Seriously, I love it, and paying out to 64 places means that a lot of people will get a lot of money!.

The “Halo 3 Xbox 360 competition, which is a production of X Factor Tournament, will use a four-player Free For All FFA format and will be open to gamers of all ages.

Uh...what? FFA? Are they serious? Let us begin.

A. There are currently no good maps for FFA in Halo 3. Halo 1 had Derelict and Hang'em High. They were actually quite well made, and they were both small and symmetrical. They also gave no one person any advantage where ever they were on the map, and no matter what weapons they had. Halo 2 had Midship, a symmetrical, small map. Originally, Beaver Creek was used quite a bit as well, but the sniper and rocket launcher both gave a bit too much power to whoever was using them, so the choice was made to essentially use Midship only, a map that provided a very fair environment for anyone. Currently, in Halo 3, the only maps that could possibly be considered for FFA would be Guardian or Epitaph, neither of which are small or symmetrical. Notice the trend here? Smaller, symmetrical maps make for good FFA. That way, no one person will get any advantage based on where they spawn.

B. If you do decide to do FFA, why 4 man? Where did that number come from? Even if you went back to Halo 1, where the maps were small enough, 4 man FFA would still be nothing more than a campfest. In Halo 3, the maps are so huge, that one person could spawn and stand still, and survive for a couple minutes easy, if not longer.

C. Team games provide for much better entertainment value. You get more of those HOLY CRAP DID THAT JUST HAPPEN moments in a team game, than you ever will in FFA.

“Halo 3 has been rated “Mature” by the ESRB, and therefore competition participants under the age of 17 need signed parental consents. The CPL provides consent forms at http://www.thecpl.com/forms/parental_release.pdf

Cool, finally making it to the current state of gaming where anyone can participate as long as their parents say it's ok.

The cash prize distribution for the $1,000,000 “Halo 3? Xbox 360 competition is:

$250,000.00 - 1
$170,000.00 - 2
$100,000.00 - 3
$75,000.00 - 4
$50,000.00 - 5
$40,000.00 - 6
$30,000.00 - 7
$25,000.00 - 8
$15,000.00 - 9 thru 12
$10,000.00 - 13 thru 16
$5,000.00 - 17 thru 32
$2,500.00 - 33 thru 64

I love this, top 64 get money. Makes it almost worthwhile to get out to the tournament.

The online registration for the “Halo 3? competition opens tomorrow Tuesday, October 30 at noon Central. The initial admission price is $475 per person, but X Factor Tournament has agreed to provide a special “early-bird” discounted admission price for three days (until noon November 2nd) of $275. No pre-qualification or tournament experience is necessary to participate in this competition.

The recommended event arrival date is Monday, Dec 17, 2007 and the recommended departure date is Sunday, Dec 23, 2007.

Discounts are available for air travel on American Airlines, and for car rental with AVIS. More information on how to apply for these discounts is located at http://www.thecpl.com/winter/index.php?p=travel

The Hyatt Regency is offering competitors a $75 discounted rate for rooms. For more information on how to obtain this discount visit http://www.thecpl.com/winter/index.php?p=venue

Say what? For that amount of money I could have gone to any FIVE US based CPL events in the last 3 years. Let's see, $475 + recommended stay of 6 days at $75/night + "discounted" airfare of at least $250 = $1175. You're telling me, that I should spend enough money to support myself for TWO months, just to go to a tournament that I might get money on, decided by luck? Not going to happen. Now, that $1175 divided among a 4 man TEAM would be much more manageable.

Complete rules and schedule will be released Tuesday, November 6, 2007.

Post questions, comments and suggestions on the CPL’s Halo 3 Forum located at http://forums.thecpl.com/forumdisplay.php?f=74

If CPL allows XFactor Tournaments to keep this tournament the way they started it, they will never get any kind of respect from the console community. There was a line in another release that CPL put out stating that if not all tournament slots were filled, XFactor reserves the right to adjust the prize accordingly. Now I don't know about you, but when I hear that money was put into an account, that tells me it's guaranteed, not dependent on how many people register. This tells me that XFactor is doing this for nothing more than money and publicity, and have no real feeling or thoughts about the competitive Halo scene. I firmly believe it is a mistake for the CPL to allow XFT to run this tournament as a 4 man FFA, or FFA at all, and feel it will only hurt the competitive Halo scene in the long run.