The tournament will crown a U.S. champion and serve to select a U.S. team that will travel to Seoul, Korea this summer to take part in the first Ragnarok Online World Championship. Here is the press release from Gravity:

MARINA DEL REY, Calif. - May 24, 2004 - U.S. Ragnarok players are invited to enter the United States Ragnarok Championships (USRC) and compete for a place on the U.S. team that will travel to Seoul, Korea this summer to take part in the first Ragnarok Online World Championship July 17 - July 18, 2004.   Eighteen countries, including the United States, Brazil, China, Germany, Japan, and host, South Korea, will participate in the World Championship, sponsored by Gravity Corp.  Each country will be represented by two nine-player guilds. A qualifying competition will be held online from June 10 to June 16 to select the two guilds that will represent the U.S. team.  Each guild will compete in tournament-style elimination events lasting 10 minutes each. In the case of a draw, an additional 10-minute match will take place until two winning guilds remain. The two winning guilds in the online qualifying tournament will win an all-expense paid trip to the Anime Expo in Anaheim, Calif., where they will compete face-to-face to decide who will be crowned United States Ragnarok Champions.  Regardless of the result, both the winning and runner-up teams from the U.S. tournament will qualify for another all-expense paid trip, this time to Seoul, Korea, where they will represent the United States in the Ragnarok World Championships. Ragnarok Online, inspired by Korean author Myung-Jin Lee's anime style fantasy novel, is one of the first massively multi-player online role-playing games (MMORPG) to become active in the eSports community.  The Gravity title has 25-million subscribers, worldwide. "Our goal for the Ragnarok World Championships is to strengthen friendships and build a global community for fans of the world's largest anime-style MMORPG," Peter Kang, senior director, Gravity Interactive, said.  "The first world championship will be held in Korea; future events will be held annually, in a new country each time."   In addition to an all-expense paid trip to Korea, the winning team in the USRC finals will receive a team prize of $3,000 and a six-month free subscription extension for each of their nine members.  The runner-up team will receive a team prize of $2,000 and a three-month free subscription extension. The third place team members will each win a one-month free subscription extension. In addition to the U.S. prize money, an additional $34,000 will be given away at the finals in Korea.  The guild crowned World Champions will receive a team prize of $10,000, with the runner-up team receiving $7,000.  The third place team will win $5,000, the fourth place $3,000 and the next six teams $1,500 each. In addition to hosting the USRC finals at the Anime Expo, Gravity Interactive will be offering autograph sessions with Ragnarok creator Myung-Jin Lee. The company will screen the U.S. debut of the Ragnarok animated series now airing in Japan.  Visitors to the conference should also come by the booth to receive free Ragnarok merchandise, see demos of Ragnarok Online and register for prizes. To register a guild for the U.S. competition, guildmasters must visit iro.ragnarokonline.com. They will also find game rules and more information about the U.S. and international tournaments.