Week 9

 
 

A rare overshoot by Nevares with the flag in OT

A member of Where's Nevares bringing the flag into base for the tournament winning cap.

The finals are here this week. The match of the century was between Tough Turtles and Where’s Nevares. Tough Turtles came into this one as a huge underdog seeing as how they came not to practice much during the week and just kind of show up to matches (and win). In a landslide victory, Tough Turtles take the first map which was very close quarters and highly paced. The second game ends in a similar manner only with Where’s Nevares on top as Nevares got to show off his awesome skiing skills that were stunning to watch (artful?). This brought the game to a third, and supposed final, map which ended in a tie of 1 to 1 (of course). The action peaked in the sudden death overtime round when Nevares leapt into a pile of enemy fire and came out with a flag that he masterfully took all the way back to his base for the win proving once and for all, that practice does make perfection. 

At the end of this incredible matchup, we are left wondering what will happen next for these teams and players. The casters discuss an upcoming one-day tournament set for late November in which the drafting and tournament play will all happen in a single day that will surely be action packed. It was also announced that drafting for the next tournament will begin in January of 2012 and 12 team captains have already been chosen. This news leaves us interested and excited and may even motivate us to participate or at least pay attention to what happens at these events.

This week’s casting was great with fantastic quality casters watching great players do what they do best. One of the casters was an employee of Hi-Rez Studios and was answering questions about Tribes: Ascend during the match as well as discussing the game in general and trying to generate support for the game which was a great idea for Hi-Rez. Getting support from biggest fans of an older game will be crucial for Tribes: Ascend to be successful.

This week’s casting also brings about the end of the tournament and our ethnography so we reflect upon the experience now. We found that we have become very entertained by watching Tribes 2 especially knowing what goes into it. We learned a lot about the people that play these games both professionally and recreationally including the irreverent love that all of them have for the game they play. Designing a product for them will not be an easy task but knowing more about the people that we are helping will, no doubt, make the process easier. We look forward to following this community after this project and may even take it a step farther and begin participating but the things we learned here could not have been found by any other means.