SEOUL, KOREA; NEW YORK, NY April 5, 2007 – The World Cyber Games (WCG), the recognized blue chip leader for international video game competitions, today announced the official rules and player regulations for the 2007 tournament, which will be applied in all local preliminaries and national finals in WCG participating countries. Registration for the first rounds of competition began this month, with players vying for the opportunity to represent their country at the Grand Final in Seattle, United States, from October 3 – 7.

The rules reflect feedback solicited from gamers around the world, as well as related testing and verification by e-Sport professionals, including previous WCG finalists. Official maps for individual games, tournament processes and basic settings were improved so that gamers, as well as spectators, can enjoy the setting and pace of the worldwide WCG tournaments.

“The new rules and regulations for WCG 2007 were created based on the opinions of gamers and e-Sport experts from all over the world -- they embody the best standards of fairness in the history of e-Sport competitions,” said Hyoung-Seok Kim, CEO of International Cyber Marketing, the global organizer of the World Cyber Games. “The rules and regulations also reflect the WCG’s continued efforts to satisfy both participating gamers and spectators.”

Changes in Matches and New WCG Official Maps Using the previous WCG rules as a starting point, the newly adopted WCG 2007 tournament rules were upgraded to reflect gamers’ preferences, as well as with the goal of creating more exciting games. For example: In FIFA Soccer 07, players can change their strategy three times during the course of a game, and game speed has been changed to ‘fastest’ from last year’s ‘normal’ setting. The game type for Gears of War® will be ‘execution,’ which is the most popular game type among GOW players.

Additionally, the scope of character selection in Dead or Alive® 4 will be broader than previous WCG matches, so that gamers will have the ability to better show off their skills using more of the characters available in the game.

The official maps for several WCG titles have also been changed to reflect the feedback of gamers. In StarCraft®: Brood War™, “Neo Beakdu Daegan,” a well-recognized map among gaming communities and the Korean StarCraft leagues, will be adopted as the new official WCG map. In WarCraft® III: Frozen Throne™, the “Gnoll Wood” map has been added to adjust the balance among races. In addition, in PGR3, “New York - Park Row” will be the official course of Seattle’s Grand Final.

Strengthened Penalty for Unfair Play Rules to restrict unfair play have been strengthened as well. First, for Half-Life®: Counter-Strike™ 1.6, in 2006 if a problem occurred with “flash bang bug,” the referee decided whether there was a winner or a rematch by his or her own judgment. This year the referee will review the demo file and the offending team will lose the round.

In the case of racing games, if there is any intentional hardware reset problems, the referee may decide to end the match with the offending player losing by forfeit. Use of cheating programs, bugs, and unnecessary chatting will also be strictly prohibited.

For all Xbox 360 games, personal equipment, such as arcade sticks and steering wheels will be allowed, but any controller supporting macros or auto repeat will be banned.

Player Regulations for WCG 2007

Very similar to previous years, player regulations for WCG 2007 consist of participant qualification, age restriction, auto-berth, and more. They are designed to provide clear guidelines for players competing in the WCG 2007 tournaments.

Much like the Olympics’ standards for participation, for WCG tournaments, all players competing in the WCG 2007 Grand Final must have citizenship to their country. In addition, multiple citizenships are not allowed.

In the case of age restriction, any national representative born after Oct 4th, 1989 should submit a signed parental consent form before they are allowed to participate in the Grand Final.

In addition, the maximum number of players in each national team is 39. Under the auto-berth rule, which is the same as last year’s, medalists in the WCG 2006 Grand Final are allowed to participate in National Finals, without competing in local preliminaries.

Lastly, if national team players cannot attend the WCG 2007 Grand Final due to sickness or any other unforeseen event, he or she may be replaced by the next highest finisher in the national finals. As for Half Life®: Counter-Strike™ 1.6 and Gears of War®, the team whose substitution exceeds 2 players will be disqualified and replaced by the next highest finishing team.

For more information about the World Cyber Gamers or to review the complete list of specific game-by-game WCG 2007 rules and player regulations, visit the official WCG website at: www.worldcybergames.com .

News Source: http://news.teamxbox.com/