Online gaming gets intellectual makeover

Sometimes it seems as if the Harvard-Princeton-Yale triumvirate is taking over the Ivy League.

And now it might actually happen - in a huge online war strategy game where teams of Ivy League students attempt to conquer the entire geographic region of the Ancient Eight on behalf of their schools.

The so-called "Ivy League Championship Tournament" began yesterday with a three-day period for schools to recruit students - which represent armies - for the game.

In order to win, students must create coherent strategies for their schools to take over what resemble eight campus territories. Students can use online chats within their school and the rest of the Ivies to discuss tactics.

The game is a collaboration between Ivy Council, the Ivy-wide student governance body, and GoCrossCampus, an online gaming company started by five students who create online multi-player games.

Students from all eight Ivy League schools are playing.

As of last night, Penn had 20 team members in the game, but these virtual Quakers have some catching up to do with schools like Yale, which boasted 374 student members as of Sunday.

Although the game's creators caution against likening it to the board game Risk, that seems to be the biggest draw for most students.

"Anyone who has played the actual board game [is] going to love it even more because it's all live," said College sophomore Claire Choi , who serves as Penn's head delegate to IvyCouncil.

Wharton junior Anindya Mishra, who is signed up for the game, said the chance to play a gigantic game of Risk against other Ivy League students is "too great an opportunity to pass up." He is trying to recruit more players via listservs.

Wharton freshman Nicholas Greif also signed up because of his love of Risk. Still, he worries that Penn's low numbers will hurt his team because it will have fewer armies than other schools.

"I don't think [the game] is picking up as quickly at Penn," Greif said.

He said schools like Harvard and Yale have played within their own campuses and have a "legacy of the game," which leads to higher registration.

Although the game's creators cite increasing collaboration among Ivy League schools as a major goal, some Penn students say the game will actually increase school rivalry.

But beware to all those who call this online gaming - Yale junior and GoCrossCampus member Brad Hargreaves prefers to call it a "locally social online sport," and he doesn't expect to see a lot of hardcore, reclusive online gamers.

"Gaming is nerdy," Hargreaves said. "Gaming is something you do in your parents' basement at 2 a.m. when you're not being social. . This is a very social game."

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