The most recent State of the game article on the Guild Wars official site introduces the 2008 RAWR Cup Title Series, a new tournament series sponsored by a third party,
Up until now, the major international PvP competitions in Guild Wars were all sponsored by ArenaNet, while smaller, mostly regional competitions were for the most part player-run and sponsored. ArenaNet began with the Guild Wars World Championship and the Guild Wars Factions Championship, and eventually switched over to the automated Guild Wars $100,000 Tournament Series to make competing in tournaments more accessible and distribute prizes to more players.
While the monthly automated tournaments (ATs) in this latter series do allow more guilds to compete, the actual number that regularly participate remains relatively small, due in part to the guild membership requirements and the qualifying process for monthly ATs.
This month though, things have changed, possibly ushering in a new era for Guild Wars tournament play. On December 1, Rebel Rising [rawr], in conjunction with GuildCafe, kicked off the 2008 RAWR Cup Title Series. The inaugural tournament of the RAWR Cup ran much like the monthly ATs, with ArenaNet essentially adapting the AT system to accommodate and automate the RAWR Cup.
Similar to the monthly ATs, the RAWR Cup offered significant real world prizes to the winners. These included Acer 22" widescreen LCD monitors, Logitech G9 Laser Gaming Mice, and special edition Rawr Cup t-shirts. RAWR Cup matches were made available on Observer Mode, and tournament reward points were awarded.
Read more here.
