Gamer Chronicles: Black Ops the Beginning

Frank & Son Collectible Show

So what do you do when you hate your job and you’d rather be home playing Xbox?  You quit.  Then you go and fill up your Chevy Silverado with as many flat screen TVs and Playstation 3 consoles that it’ll hold and call it being self-employed.  Or at least that’s what I did.  Fortunately for me in the whole process I had the opportunity to meet Frank of the “Frank & Son Collectible Show” who was interested in the idea of hosting a video game tournament at his venue.   If you’ve never been to the Frank & Son Collectible Show in City of Industry, CA you need to put it on your list of things to do before you die.  I’ve been going there since I was a kid and it still blows my mind.  It’s like a mini Comic-Con every Saturday.  So Frank gave me a date of Feb. 12^th and it was on.  With this new opportunity opened up to me I knew the tournament had to be epic.  The first game that came to mind was Call of Duty: Black Ops.  Hate it or love it, it holds record launch sales and the five day sales crown at $650 million.  That’s $100 million more than its predecessor Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2.  I’m just saying it’s popular.  I have to say personally I really enjoy this game.  I absolutely loved MW2 and played it for hundreds of hours but I certainly don’t miss those one-man-army noob-toobers.

COD: MW2 Tournament

     Now let’s talk tournament.  I originally intended to compete in wager match mode.  The great thing about wager matches (besides being crazy fun) is that they’re unique to the game and they really even the playing field by eliminating perks, killstreaks and other variables like attachments and equipment.  They even trim the maps to make the games more action packed.  Unfortunately this mode is not available in private match and the venue does not have internet.  Even if it did I doubt it would have the capability to efficiently run 6 consoles online with no lag.  Sadly this ruled out the wager match as an option for the tournament.  A note to Activision and Treyarch; make wager matches available in private match and lan!  They don’t have to be for CoD points so no one can boost.  I’ve found a lot of people requesting the same thing on forums so I think it would make the community happy.  So, a local lan connection was the only other option.   With this setup the important thing was to strip the game down enough to make winning all about pure skill but retain enough to still make it unique to Black Ops.  After weeks of gathering other gamers’ opinions, trying out different modes and using my past experience holding tournaments we finally came up with a solid rule set.  I’m confident that kills and wins will come by skill and everyone will walk away knowing that they either outplayed or got outplayed by their opponents. 
     I’m excited and honored for the opportunity to hold this tournament at the Frank & Son Collectible Show.  I hope we show up in masses and represent the strength and amiability of the gamer community.  2011 is the year of the gamer!    

Links:
Epic Gamer Productions Website
Epic Gamer Productions Forum
Epic Gamer Productions Facebook
Frank & Son Collectible Show