eBash Summer News

If you haven’t seen the eBash website in awhile, now is a great time to check it out! It features a cleaner look with the content and features spread out and easier to find. The home page also cycles through some of the important features of eBash, such as birthday specials and Lock-Ins, news stories, and other updates. If someone misses the news story about a tournament or other event, those are listed separately on the right side of the home page.

The best thing to do is to sign up for regular notifications! eBash has a LOT of events planned for the rest of the summer:

Weekly CS:GO (Tuesday) League nights, sponsored by BAWLS energy drinks, starting June 24th and leading up to a big Tournament on July 12th; a giant Call of Duty Ghosts and Black Ops 2 Tournament WEEKEND event at the Indianapolis location; weekly League of Legends (Wednesday) League nights, starting July 2nd and leading up to a huge multi-store Tournament on August 2nd; and a special DOTA 2 Pubstomp Lock-In on July 19th! (What is a Pubstomp? Click on the link and find out!)

The next best thing to do is get active in the eBash Forums on their website. Get involved with the eBash community! Find other gamers with similar interests, make teams for tournaments, and make new friends!

MMOs Making a Comeback

Could this be the year for MMOs to make a comeback? It seems like several are released each year, with tons of hype and impressive launch numbers. This year, MMOs are crossing over onto consoles, with both Final Fantasy XIV and Elder Scrolls Online getting console versions. The sci-fi-fantasy mash-up WildStar is also getting lots of hype.

In video game centers like eBash, it seems like the MMO genre has been almost forgotten, replaced by competitive “e-Sports” games like League of Legends or Call of Duty. But, I don’t think it’s because one game or type of game is necessarily more popular than another. My theory is that these e-Sports games have a built in social nature that MMOs USED to possess, but have been forgotten about or not supported as much in recent years.

It’s one thing to be playing on a team in a competitive game or playing with your guild-mates, attempting another shot at a difficult dungeon raid, from home, communicating through a headset. But the really good teams appreciate the extra benefit of playing with each other in person, at a video game center. Modern MMOs have somehow removed that benefit: it’s too easy to join a random group, finish a dungeon, and then leave the group, all without barely saying anything to each other.

Early MMOs were less about finishing dungeons and more about “emergent” game play and being social. I remember spontaneous adventures like summoning all the level ten and below players to attack a difficult NPC, or marching an entire server’s population of one faction into the capital city of the opposing faction. These weren’t quests or necessary things to accomplish, they were just fun things to do. Taking this attitude into video game centers, groups of friends would challenge each other to duels or make up random challenges, like trying to reach a certain level first, or playing without armor, or all creating characters that looked exactly the same. Sure, communicating these types of adventures through a headset is still possible, but it’s so much more fun in person.

Will pushing the MMO genre into the console market help the social aspects reemerge? Or will the modern trend of simplifying games continue to rob players of creative and fun ways of playing these games how ever they want? I’m hopeful because I’m hearing more and more eBash customers talking about these new MMOs and getting excited about them. Maybe this will be the year that MMOs make a comeback!

 

April League of Legends Tournament at eBash

eBash is very excited to host their first triple-location League of Legends Tournament, this April 5th!

eBash Indy

This is an online tournament, but you have to participate in one of the three eBash locations: Terre Haute, Indianapolis, or Evansville. The event will be capped at eighteen teams, the cost will be $150 per five-person team, and the prize pool is $2,000!

Starting February 19th and running through March 26th, LoL players have a chance of competing at any eBash location in the weekly “LoL Wednesdays” game night. This isn’t a team event; players just have to pay to play at eBash, compete in Season 4 Ranked matches, and earn points. These points accumulate each week, and the top two players at each eBash will win a free team pass for the April 5th Tournament!

The entire event will be broadcast online from the Indianapolis location on twitch.tv.

More information and registration for the Tournament can be found here. This Wednesday (the 26th) is the last chance to earn points and win a free team pass!

Registration is filling up fast, so don’t wait until the last minute!