I forgot about the Microsoft one the other day, so let’s start off my E3 coverage by giving you some details about what Nintendo had to say at this year’s Nintendo Press Conference!

The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword was officially announced and shown first things first. It. Was. Awesome. The graphics look good, the music is epic as always, and the new toys (that Miyamoto showed off personally might I add) look great. Some of the new gadgets include the Beetle, which is a flying robot insect that can pick up items for you and things like that, and the whip, which is pretty self explanatory. Development will run through the end of this year, so be patient and wait until next year for this one.

Next up was the newly announced Mario Sports Mix, which was shown in a trailer. This game includes everything from volleyball and hockey, to dodgeball. I’m looking forward to this one.

“The next bridge title from Nintendo” is Wii Party: a game that is catering to social and family play. It features a whole bunch of games from Board Game Island to Balance Boat. This actually looks like something I would be interested in playing with my pals at a party or get together. Get grandma ready folks!

Just Dance 2 was announced, but I personally don’t care about it. However, I’m sure the millions of fans who bought it last year do! It has lots of new hit tracks and looks pretty much the same. Expect it later this year.

Then they finally talked about the announced but very hush hush Golden Sun for the DS. This game looks pretty good. Golden Sun has always been a fan favorite, and I am looking forward to trying it out.

This is one of the bigger announcements for me, Golden Eye 007! Wii Exclusive to be released this holiday season. I CAN’T WAIT for this. It’s graphics looked decent (I’m sure they will get polished as more development goes into it) but seriously, Golden Eye, for those of us old enough to have played it back in the day, is one of those games that changed everything for us. We played for HOURS and DAYS in the multiplayer, and we always hoped a new one would come out. Well here it is! Wait no longer than the end of this year!

Warren Spector came out to demo the new Disney title, Epic Mickey. It actually looks really good, and the cut scenes are quite cute as well. There are 3 different types of stages, one being a quest hub, and another being a side scrolling more transitional area. The coolest thing I noticed about the game was the player’s ability to paint or remove paint using paint thinner, in the environment. You literally have full control to create or destroy entire pieces of the environment and characters will react differently to you depending on how they view what you are doing. It looks quite good.

And after years of waiting, we are finally getting a new Kirby for consoles! Yes folks, Kirby’s Epic Yarn has been announced for the Wii and is being released this Fall. Kirby has always been one of those cute and cuddly characters that everyone loves, and this game seems to be following suit. Not too many details were given, but it looks a lot like Yoshi’s Story in graphic type. I’m looking forward to it though!

Dragon Quest has always been a huge hit in Japan, and doesn’t do too bad over here in the US either. Dragon Quest 9 will be coming out in 26 days from now here in the US. Get your Japanese RPG hats on folks, because we’re gonna be sucked in for hours! Wear comfy clothes!

Metroid Other M was shown here too. To be released on the last day of August, this action game looks sexy and sleek. A small portion of real gameplay was shown, so I can’t say too much, but it looks like a lot of fun.

Remember Retro? The great company that brought us Donkey Kong Country? Well they are back for more Donkey Kong! That’s right, a new Donkey Kong Country was announced today and will be making its way into our hearts and hands to be released this fall. It is a side scroller, as any good DK has been, so I am pleased with that. It looks good and I cannot wait to play this one either.

Here is the biggest part of the conference. Right here folks. Nintendo officially announces the Nintendo 3DS. This piece of technology looks sexy. Absolutely NO classes will be required to see 3D on this device. That alone is extremely amazing and impressive. It has a touch screen on the bottom, and a 3.5 inch widescreen on the top. It has the standard control pad with a new analog pad at the top. Nintendo has also said it has improved graphics capabilities. Compatible with the DSi, the 3DS has 2 cameras on the outside of it, so you can take pictures of things and then view them in 3D. That is super cool. The 3D effects are also slider controlled, meaning you can have full 100% 3D, but then if you didn’t want them, you can just scroll it down and have it look completely normal. 3D full motion pictures were also announced for the 3DS, including movies from Disney, Dreamworks, and Warner Bros. The last thing discussed about the 3DS is the WiFi connectivity. You can connect to any WiFi access point for web use or other 3DS’s regardless of what software is currently being used.

Now for some of the announced games for 3DS, the biggest one was Kid Icarus: Uprising. It really looks great, and better than most Wii games out there. It looks like it will be a huge hit, especially for us older folks who played the older ones. Nintendogs + Cats is another title that was announced. 3rd party development also had a presence, including Capcom (Resident Evil), Konami (Metal Gear Solid), EA (EA sports titles), Activision (DJ Hero), and NamcoBandai (Ridge Racer).

This was all announced during the conference, however afterwards, more games are still being announced, and they include: Star Fox 64 3D, Pilotwings Resort, Paper Mario 3DS, Animal Crossing 3DS, and Mario Kart 3DS. This list is bound to get bigger as the day goes on as well.

Well there you have it folks. Nintendo’s Press Conference actually appealed to me this year. I am looking forward to the 3DS as my newest piece of gaming hardware and I cannot wait for it to arrive on store shelves.

Stay tuned for more E3 coverage as soon as I can post it!

What’s your team motto?

NHALING2XHALE – Our team motto is F your K/D. We always go really negative.

So you’re kind of like the new CAG?

NHALING2XHALE – Naw, we’re better. We perfected it.

What is the best game you’ve played this season?

NHALING2XHALE – The game against Dat Orange Kush. We didn’t think we’d come close to putting up a good showing and the we almost won. It was impressive. We all played together really well. They got a quick launch on us and won, but it was a really good game.

x milk me x – I really don’t know guys. I don’t even know who Nhaling said. They’re all the same to me. I play every game like it’s the Championship.

himynameiz jbar – I agree with Nhaling, DoK. I made T-Rich go negative.

Who would you have liked to play most for the title, regardless of bracket?

NHALING2XHALE – We would’ve liked a rematch against DoK to prove we can beat them.

Halfbreed105 – Herty.

himynameiz jbar – I’d rather play Galloping Seagulls again

Since you never played Orange Iguanas in the regular season, how did you been prepare for that match?

himynameiz jbar – They played Orange Iguanas last season but the didn’t have Jbar last season. That’s all they need.

NHALING2XHALE – We have a team joke about moves that we pull of are so flashy that if we ever get to play them we’ll be so flashy we’ll make Scet seize out. But seriously, we’ve been practicing as much as we can. We didn’t have a set way to prepare, we just do what we do.

Before your game against Orange Iguanas, who did you think would win the Pro championship?

Halfbreed105– Us.

x milk me x – Us.

himynameiz jbar– Us.

NHALGIN2XHALE – Proably DoK or Broadband Only Please.

x milk me x – In your heart it had better have beeen us.

himynameiz jbar – I think Told Ya So because of redbaron, or glasgow knight whatever he goes by now.

If you could create a Grifball Dream Team, who would be the 4 starters?

NHALING2XHALE – Us. This is my dream team.

halfbreed105 – Me. Anyone but jbar.

himynameiz jbar – On my jbar jbar jbar jbar team, can I have halfbreed on my bench to massage my feet after the games?

Zero Logic is really a rags-to-riches kind of story. You started as Ammy nobodies and this season you were ranked as the #3 team in the Pro league. How did you do it and what advice can you give to amateur teams looking to compete in Pro?

hlafbreed105 – Add halfbreed to your team.

NHALING2XHALE – Make sure you know who to pay attention to and learn from them because a lot of people don’t know what’s going on. If someone tries to help you, listen to them. When I became captain, we started to be legit and win pro league games.

himynameiz jbar – I haven’t been on Zero Logic long, but I was in ammy 5 seasons. So to the ammy kids, just keep playing. If you want to win in the pro league, have a good captain. I’m not the brightest person so I have to ask Nhaling what to do. He tells me what to do and we score.

x milk me x – I don’t even know how I got in the pro league. It’s crazy.

What team is or has been your greatest rival?

halfbreed105 – Ahooo because I’ve played them in every season ever, at least Str8 Metal.

NHALING2XHALE – Back when we were playing Irish Mafia all the time.

himynameiz jbar – HiS without a doubt. I hate TheOneHawk. He must die and go negative.

x milk me x – Zero Logic – they seem like a tough team to beat because they have that milk me guy.

himynameiz jbar– The Milk Me Sword.

x milk me x – Yeah, I ain’t got no hammer. I’ve got a big sword.

What are your plans for next season?

NHALING2XHALE – Get teammates that don’t rage quit for no reason. If anything ever happens in your game, blame halfbreed. If you lose the ball, it’s always halfbreed fault.

himynameiz jbar – I’ll be on this team next season, it’ll be my first time with a team in 2 consecutive seasons. That’s how good Zero Logic is.

NHALING2XHALE – We’ll definitely be around next season.

What is the greatest obstacle you’ve had to overcome?

NAHLING2XHALE – Getting over the fact that I have no leg.

halfbreed1-5 – Being black on an all racist team.

himynameiz jbar– I don’t know an answer.

halfreed105 – Getting rid of Judasfeke.

x milk me x – Getting betrayed by halfbreed. I guess just using the sword and getting recognized. Hard to get recognized if you don’t have a hammer, but I’ve learned to deal with that.

Anything else?

halfbreed – I love you momma.

NHALING2XHALE – Do you want to say anything about Gucci? Do they make muzzles in size anorexic? I ask this question to the Grifball community.

himynameiz jbar – I love halfbreed’s momma. Shout-out to Green Team Tex I love him long time.

NHALING2XHALE – I love Tex. I wouldn’t be playing Grifball without meeting people like Tex.

Out of the twenty responses I received, eleven of them indicated that time constraints were the problem. When I asked them about playing during the make-up week, five did not know there was a make-up week. Five of the responses related that there was a loss of interest from teammates and the last four responses were pertaining to the difference in skill level.

I plan to ask more questions of these teams that responded and find out how we might improve the league. From my observation, the lack of knowledge of the make-up week seems to be a communication issue. If we had more communication to amateur players who are new to the game, they might be aware of these things and possibly stick around more.

On a side note, I have randomly asked many veteran amateur players if they were aware of who their Admin was. Very, very few knew who it was. I believe this is not conducive to league expansion. Sure, Pro League can pretty much run itself, but these newer players who have no idea on the rules or procedures need a hand to guide them. So I ask that more players take an interest in newer teams and help them out.

In the end, we all, once again, must step up to the plate if we want Grifball to live on strongly. If you see a team not playing their games, try to get them involved more. A simple XBL message might make all the difference.

According to the pre-season predictions, you guys were ranked very low by the community. Why do you think people underestimated your team?

zDRAGONSBLOODz– If you look at our team, the teams I’ve been captain of since we change names a lot, every year no matter how much success we’ve had, people have always underrated and underestimated us.

Glasgow knight – I’m not sure if we’ve been underestimated, they’ve called it on the dot.

zDRAGONSBLOODz– Some don’t even expect us to make final 4 in most seasons.

Glasgow knight – That seems to be our legacy.

zDRAGONSBLOODz– Both times we’ve been beat by the champs. Most of those final 4 years we were missing some of our starters. 2 out of the 3 seasons we were missing our starters.

Invite Spammer – Final 4 is what we’re made for.

Glasgow knight – We do have some of the least popular people in the league. Some of it is definitely earned though.

zDRAGONSBLOODz– We were given that before we were ever good in the league.

Glasgow knight – I think I might have earned what I got.

zDRAGONSBLOODz- Some of the ranking is well deserved because of lack of chemistry with starting players. People always pick Scet Shin’s team to win every year and we beat them but still they’re more favored than us the majority of the time.

Glasgow knight – In this league there is definitely an upper class of people that scratch each others’ backs. It’s unavoidable. There’s nothing that can be done about that.

Priest XYZ – I don’t know. I haven’t even been here, I’ve been here a month. Actually, it’s because we were in the division with Orange Kush. We were in the division with part of last season’s champs.

Dat Orange Kush was projected to dominate Division 4, but your team handed them one of their only 2 losses. What was different in that game compared to the first time you played?

zDRAGONSBLOODz– They played Super Status and we played Redbaron.

Invite Spammer – What are you talking about? They played Crowing.

zDRAGONSBLOODz– 2 different players playing in that game.

Glasgow knight – What the *bleep bloop* is an orange kush?

zDRAGONSBLOODz– We played Orange Kush in the first week of our team being together. We didn’t have good chemistry and we had time to play better as the season progressed. That was also a factor.

Invite Spammer: Just put down that I went +19 that game.

Glasgow knight : Dude, I went +30, you can’t brag about +19.

You guys face Broadband Only Please in the wildcard round of playoffs. Since you lost to them in the regular season, what do you plan on doing differently this time around?

zDRAGONSBLOODz– Hopefully block launches.

Glasgow knight – We had no Air Force at all. We were destroyed by that. We couldn’t stop a launch.

zDRAGONSBLOODz– We had no launch defense. We got outplayed and we didn’t play a good defense. We usually have good launch defense and we didn’t have it at all.

Glasgow knight – I rubbed ointment on my ass to recover from what their launches did to me.

zDRAGONSBLOODz- Honestly –

Invite Spammer – I’ve prepared myself by talking to their team so they like me. “Oh it’s invite spammer, we don’t want to play to hard against him”.

zDRAGONSBLOODz– Our defense has improved and certain players will step up. It’ll be a good wildcard match up and we’ll give them some good competition and it’ll be a good game.

Where did the team name come from?

Glasgow knight – I dunno where they came up with the name, I wasn’t here, but I believe it’s retarded. But it follows suit with the other names we’ve had.

zDRAGONSBLOODz- You’ve backed up those other teams name.

Glasgow knight – No I didn’t!

zDRAGONSBLOODz– I get the consensus of the entire team to agree to the name.

Glasgow knight – Can we get something that’s not a phrase or have the word ‘noob’ in it?

zDRAGONSBLOODz– The team name was random. Spammer was the biggest advocate because he thought it’d be funny if we lost in the final four and our team name was “told ya so”.

How did this roster of players come together?

Invite Spammer – I’m nasty, that’s how we got together.

Glasgow knight – I left in the middle of last season and came back in the middle of this season becasuse I needed a break. “I don’t need Grifball, I don’t need Grifball… Oh wait, I need Grifball”.

Invite Spammer: Yeah, I was texting you that I had this new rookie…

Glasgow knight – And I said, “oh no, spammer is training a rookie – the rookie will become a total failure. “

zDRAGONSBLOODz– Spammer used to be the worst player on the team. He used to play with our team just to get better, he practiced and has gotten to be a good starter. In the off season we picked up A Silver Hippo to get a fifth. Last season we had 2 starters quit and we didn’t want to go through that. Laggerz wanted a guarantee start over Hippo and I said I’d play the best players and so he left the team. Priest was in ammy and wanted to get good so he practices with us. I think he’s really become a good player now. We had the opportunity to play him because Digital phased out, and we played Priest and then we picked up RedBaron back in the middle of the season because we wanted a veteran.

If you could face off against any Grifball team that has ever played, who would it be?

Invite Spammer: Red Ray.

Glasgow knight: Don’t even let him talk.

zDRAGONSBLOODz– Knight and I are thinking the same thing.

Glasgow knight – SI.

zDRAGONSBLOODz– It would definitely be SI back when it was CITI or Zeg’s host, back when NH wasn’t implemented. We would have loved to verse them when Zeg pulled host.

Glasgow knight – That was the most amazing tanking game ever.

zDRAGONSBLOODz– They would ride that host and wreck everyone they played and lose in the championship because of neutral host. But that was by far by one of the most dominating teams.

Priest XYZ– 9th wonders.

What was the best game you feel you’ve played this season?

Glasgow knight – That’s real hard. We haven’t played a lot of good games this season.

zDRAGONSBLOODz– Our game against Orange Iguanas. We won 6 -3. That was our best game against a competitive team.

Invite Spammer: That’s your opinion, I’d say Ahooo.

Priest XYZ – I only played 2 games and that’s when I was starting out. We played Zero Logic, we lost that because of me.

zDRAGONSBLOODz– We’ve been through this, it wasn’t because of you.

Who do you think will win GBSL10 Pro Championship?

Glasgow Knight: Us.

Invite Spammer: Yeah, Told Ya So.

zDRAGONSBLOODz: Obviously I believe my team can compete and go the championship, but another team that would make it, depending on bracket, I would say Dat Orange Kush or Broadband Only Please. If not us, it’ll be Broadband Only Please in the championship.

Priest XYZ – Us.

Glasgow knight – If we get our chops busted in the first round we’re gonna look like real ass-holes.

Do you have plans for next season?

Invite Spammer: I dunno, you wanna make plans?

Glasgow knight – I’ve been around, I’ve only been on one other team when I captained back in SML08. So I’ll probably still be around.

zDRAGONSBLOODz– I don’t focus on the next season in the middle of the current season, but I’d like to keep the same players and maybe fill out our other roster slot.

Invite Spammer: I don’t know. There’s a lot of stuff running through my mind.

Glasgow knight: Good to have options.

Invite Spammer: No it’s not.

Priest XYZ – I plan on staying, so yeah.

Anything else?

Invite Spammer: Shout out to all neutral host pullers that pull for me during games that help me to the best of my ability, thank you.

Glasgow knight: What do I want to talk about?

Invite Spammer: Yourself.

Glasgow knight: Talk about my +1,300 K/D.

Invite Spammer: Actually 1,222.

zDRAGONSBLOODz– I’m surprised that this season with only 12 teams that we didn’t set it up that every team didn’t play every other team in the league and have an 11 game season. I think that would have been more interesting.

Glasgow knight – But that would have been different. It’s always been 10 game season. Oh, I do like how the pro league is set up now, less teams is good. There’s nothing pro about a 30 team pro league. There’s just not that much talent floating around to have 30 good teams.

Priest XYZ – Tell Super Status to leave Hurty alone.

Glasgow knight – Well done.

Invite Spammer – I’m with Priest. Leave Hurty alone.

Is there anything you’d like to say about stats or disputes?

MenZ: Disputes are being worked on, slowly but surely

How many disputes have there been?

MenZ: I’m doing the UK ones myself once I can, and so far 3 have been decided, one we’re waiting on film for, 2 I’m doing myself, 2 are pending.

Do they tend to be valid complaints or just people disputing common lag?

MenZ: Most are just common lag, but a couple have valid complaints, and the UK ones will probably require a special touch, which is why I’m doing them personally.

Based on stats, are the majority of teams playing their games?

MenZ: Only 8 teams have yet to play a game which is MUCH better than average.

Will forfeits effect playoff seeding?

MenZ: I saw that Tex had asked if his team was going to be penalized for only having 5 teams in their division and can assure him (and other teams in that situation) that they’ll receive 2 wins that won’t negatively affect their win percentages.

How is your stats committee fairing? Mid season can be brutal.

MenZ: They’re doing great. I get updates from them every day, possible problems highlighted. A few teams used 7 players, but I’ve been able to talk to them about it and get it resolved quickly. Thankfully before they played another game and had it happen again.

Are the playoffs set up or should I save that for next week?

Adam Pisani: That’s been set for a while. 6 teams, 4 div winners, 2 wildcards for Pro. I’m not sure if Melvin’s got Ammy set up yet, but it’s his call.

Will there be a make up week?

Adam Pisani: Yes. May 10-May 16th.

Anything else you’d like to mention?

Adam Pisani: Just a reminder – people should send in their DXP highlights to highlights@grifball.com

This Week: The Grunge Look

I’m sure all of you are just as excited for the release of the Reach Beta as I am. I’ve been super psyched for the game-play and the new jumble of customizable junk you get to throw on your armor. In preparation for Monday, I will be going into detail about the ‘Grunge Look’.

Now this isn’t the same grunge look you see on Zoolander. I’m not talking about trashy armor permutations. In fact, the focus should be less on permutations and more on your color choice. The ‘grunge look’ is basically how to stay fashionable while wearing dark and gritty colors like Steel and Brown. Since Reach is supposed to have a darker/grittier feel, we should prepare for the inevitable change.

From what I’ve seen, the new helmets are pretty edgy. They look like the standard Mark V and VI and ODST all mashed up. So that means we have only a few helmets to work with. Shoulders in Reach are a bit boxy and look kinda like mini bullet deflectors, which is cool but not very good for your looks. The Scout, EVA, and EOD are good matches, and a double dose of EOD shoulders makes it look like your already sporting a jetpack. Beware! It also looks incredibly stupid. I’d suggest staying away from the EOD and sticking with a combo of EVA and Scout, or even just sticking with Mark VI. Chest pieces are a bit more lax, as none of the ones we have now to play with really look anything like what is in reach. I’d recommend the Mark VI, or even the Scout.

As far as colors go, you want to stick with the dark colors. Steel, Brown, Sage, all are good choices for a gritty look. Accent with equally dark colors like Silver, Gold, or Crimson. A good friend of mine got me hooked on the Steel Primary and Gold Secondary. I always really liked his dark and gritty look. Very Fabulous.

Yes, that’s right. The Fashion Police is back and this week, but back by popular demand, I’m going to shake things up. Instead of just complaining about bad armor, I’m going to take action. This is Extreme Makeover: Halo Edition!

This week, I had to revamp my friend EgoisticShugo’s armor. He had some strange combination of double Security shoulders, Security helmet, and the Katana. You’d think mostly Security armor wouldn’t be quite so bad together, but the application is terrible! He chose the right permutations for his play style, which is grab the heavy weapons and get shot while trying to use them. He is a HUGE target with this armor. Huge shoulders are easy to stick, huge headpiece is easy to snipe, and the katana pokes out more than I like so sneaking around is impossible. Not only that, but a Crimson Primary and a Sage Secondary didn’t help him exactly blend in.

After taking into consideration the fact that he is in fact a very heavy player, (his favorite weapon is the chain-gun) I suggested keeping the heavy look, but maybe change the helmet up a lil bit to reduce embarrassing sniper head shots. The Mark V was a nice solid choice for the heavy spartan look, and instead of Security I chose EVA for the shoulders. EVA gives a powerful look to hold up that chain-gun, without the huge over-bearing arms. The Katana was one piece of armor he would not part with, but you have to admit, it doesn’t look that bad. As for the colors, the Crimson is nice, but the Sage had to go. I suggested Steel to dull the crimson slightly so that hiding on darker maps wasn’t completely impossible. Overall, I think the makeover was a success. Pretty fabulous, don’t you think?

That’s all I got this week folks. Make sure to say hi if you catch me on Grifball this weekend, and see you all on Monday in the Beta! Stay Fabulous! XD

Make your Amateur League predictions here.

Picks are due by Sunday, April 25th.

Pro League
Told Ya So (2 – 0)
vs
Ahooooo (2 – 0)

This should be an interesting match considering Told Ya So is one of the best ground-game, tanking-heavy teams while Ahooooo is a team that excels at aerial attack and defense.

The Friend Zone (0 – 0)
vs
Zero Logic (1 – 2)

Zero Logic has had two very close, very difficult losses early in the season and are looking to turn their luck around. Since The Friend Zone doesn’t appear to even have played a game yet, they may find it difficult coming in cold against a team that is as motivated as Zero Logic.

Amateur League
Grif Reapers (3 – 0)
vs
Game Over (1 – 2)

The last time these two teams met, the Grif Reapers were barely able to pull out a win. This game will determine which team has the greater skill, who was able to learn and adapt from the previous meeting, and most importantly, who will be earning that number two divisional slot.

Cheap Ass Gamer (1 – 0)
vs
Collateral Damage (1 – 1)

This match up is very much the Old Guard vs the New Guard. Although CAG was launching themselves to victory while the guys on Collateral Damage were wearing their proverbial Grifball diapers, Collateral Damage has demonstrated itself to be a solid, skilled team.

Pro Laggers (2 – 0)
vs
Trololo (0 – 0)

Last season, Pro Laggers made the post season and advanced all the way to the final four while Trololo had a somewhat lackluster performance in the Pro league. This match-up will be a comparison of one of Ammy league’s best facing off against a lower caliber Pro team and to the winner will most likely go the divisional title.

** Not all games from last week’s Game of the Week predictions have been played. As soon as all of the featured games are reported, results from that week’s picks will be posted.

However, the game with nine rounds just might have nine lives. Grifball will be given a second lease on life this fall when Halo: Reach is released. By all accounts, Reach will either include a pre-set Grifball variant or will include all the tools necessary to construct one.

Halo: Reach will sell millions of copies. It won’t be unusual to see one million people in Matchmaking this fall. Once a Grifball playlist is put up, we will see populations in the six figures.

Reach will give the Grifball.com league a shot in the arm. How can we best capitalize on that? How can we recruit these people into the league? How can we get them to play their games? And, perhaps more importantly, how can we get them to stick around for more than one season?

First, let’s take a look back at how the number of teams participating in the Grifball.com league has fluctuated over time:

Beginning in SML08, Grifball.com featured two concurrent US leagues: A less-skilled league (Rookie/Amateur) and a more-skilled league (Legacy/Pro). Both leagues were designed to be competitive, but teams were divided so that, as Commissioner Jack put it, new players could “learn the sport before a punk vet team whomps away on their fresh hides.”

In SL08, the league had 16 divisions of 6 teams each. Participation spiked in SML08, when the Rookie League, restricted only to newbies, had an astonishing 32 divisions of 6 teams each, while the Legacy League had the equivalent of 13 divisions of 6 teams each.

SML08 was the high-water mark for Grifball.com for a variety of reasons:

• Halo 3 was only 9 months old. No real killer app was released in that period, resulting in the height of Halo 3′s popularity. When more people are playing Halo, more people are playing Grifball.
• SML08 took place, ironically enough, during the summer. During the summer months we can always expect to see a bump in registration simply because schools are off for the summer and more children are able to field teams.
• Finally, Grifball DXP was brand new. It debuted in the spring, and it was the first time Grifball was easily accessible for those outside of the Rooster Teeth community. While WL07 and SL08 were played largely by those who were already Red versus Blue fans, SML08 saw an increase in the number of new people visiting Grifball.com and registering RT profiles.

We can see spikes in the summer months when children are home from school and have more time for video games. We can also see undeniable declines for every other season. 47% fewer teams signed up for the WL08 season than signed up for SML08. That number halved again in SL09 when we only had 53% as many teams sign up. While we had a 50% increase for SML09, we’ve been losing over 20% of the league each of the subsequent seasons.

Much has been written regarding the causes of this decline, and I think there is a consensus that the decline was mostly inevitable but partly self-inflicted.

There will always be a core of Grifball fanatics who will field a team. With hardcore players with flexible schedules, leagues can succeed even with only six teams. However, if it is a goal of Grifball.com to have multiple competitive leagues segregated by skill level, the simple fact is that the league needs more teams.

To capitalize on the spike in popularity that will result from the release of Reach, the Grifball.com management and community should focus on two goals: Recruitment and Retainment.

Unless the Grifball.com league devolving into a mixed-skill, non-competitive league (like the GGL) is an option, the league will always need new blood. New players become more skilled and eventually provide competition for the Pro League. If there are enough new teams, they can play together along with the lesser-skilled veterans to ensure that Pro-caliber teams only play against teams of equal skill. Retainment is equally important because if a team plays one season then leaves, the league will have to find a brand new team to replace them. If too many teams leave, Grifball.com will no longer be able to support two leagues.

In Part II, I will discuss reforms that can be put into place to increase Grifball.com recruitment before Reach is released to ensure that the league can best capitalize on the inevitable influx of new players. In Part III, I will discuss reforms that can be done to increase the likelihood that new teams will stick around for one or more seasons.

In the end, every fan of the game is on the same team: Team Grifball. By working together, and having better administrative leadership, we can make the Grifball.com league the best it possibly can be.

- Kalbelgarion

Microsoft stated that “this chang is required to ‘evolve the service’. Microsoft requires changes that are ‘incompatible’ with the previous console’s games. – Soucrce: Joystiq

However, this could be a very good thing. Microsoft has said they are looking into extending the 100 person limit on your friends list which was actually a limitation because of Halo 2. The original XBL service could not support more than 100 friends. With such a strong following of Halo 2, Microsoft never could change the limit but now with them severing the ties, they will be free to raise the limit. Possibly even more features such as the coveted Clan List from Halo 2. I would like to see a change to be able to give people nicknames instead of seeing their gamertag that way I would always know who they are.
I will keep you posted as I learn more as to what is going on with this, but make sure you get enough of your old-school game time in. You only have a few more months before it is gone.

“After finalizing Zombies DLC, the team and I began reading the DLC feedback around the forums on the wants and desires. Guess what, level cap increase anyone? Got it and it’s awesome,” the designer wrote.

The DLC will also fix several bugs, and is promised to be the “biggest DLC” the studio has made for the game to date.

A full announcement is expected soon, so keep an eye on the site!