It has begun. Can you feel it? The focused anxiety in your gut. The ardent rage and thirst for dominance? That vehement bloodlust boiling inside? Do you know that sinister craving that ignores any rational concern or caution you might have had about your probable annihalation...that sadistic desire that possesses eight warriors and compels them to neglect any and all thought of bodily harm and simply stampede with reckless abandon towards a tiny ball in the middle of the room at first chance?

This is Grifball. We do not concern ourselves with perfectly calibrated guns or tactical packages...we focus on the fight. This is Grifball. We do not burden ourselves with grenades, sidearms, and special upgrades...we have no use for these frivolous trinkets. This is Grifball. We do not operate indestructible vehicles or activate abilities of deception...we have no desire to hide. This is Grifball. The only thing we have to offer the fragile is a brutal bomb blow upside the head. The only thing we have to offer the frail is a seering energy sword through the chest. The only thing we have to offer the delicate is a furious and savage gravity hammer smash in the face. This is Grifball.

The time has come. Now we unite with our friends, align with our allies, and position against our rivals. Our remarkable community will divide, scramble, mix, and meld. Posed against one another in a homicidal brawl, we all strive for the same goal. We see many familiar faces as well as new ones...but we swing at all of them. Anyone that stands in the way is treated the same as we seek glory in the game we all love...

April 15th, 2013 changed the lives of the people of Boston and its surrounding communities. Since the National Grifball Association (a Nonprofit Corporation) is headquartered out of Boston, we felt action should be taken on our behalf to help our fellow citizens in this time of need.  Over the next two weeks, we will be holding multiple "marathon-themed" Grifball events, and we have an open charitable donation campaign on HopeMob.org. Donations are now being accepted, and will continue to be open throughout the events. Please give generously, as every donation will completely go to The One Fund Boston, Inc.

We are pleased to announce that so far, we will be giving away download keys to two great games from Fire Hose Games (@FireHoseGames), which is run out of Cambridge, MA: 10 codes each for Go Home Dinosaurs and Slam Bolt Scrappers. We have also received 26 Boston-themed prize packs from Yawkey Way Report (@YawkeyWayReport), a publication about the Boston Red Sox, and Beantown Collectibles (@BTCHeadquarters), a sports-and-geek memorabilia retailer. Both of these companies are run out of Boston. In addition, the fine folks at Halo Waypoint (@HaloWaypoint) have agreed to donate a Halo-themed XBox Live download to each donor in our drive. This includes themes, Avatar armor, props, and picture packs.  If you are reading this, and would like to help us in the way of sponsorship, please send an email to SquirrelBurrito. Our most sincere thanks to our generous donors so far!

EVENTS

May 4th 6:00PM Eastern - May 5th 8:20PM Eastern - live 26.2 hour Grifball stream. We are asking interested community leaders and Halo personalities to join us on the stream on the NGA Grifball Twitch.tv channel for half-hour blocks of Grifball. We are maintaining a Google document with all available time slots. Please contact us in any of the ways listed on the document if you are interested in participating.

May 6th - May 12th: We will be encouraging the community to commit to playing 26 games of Grifball during this week. Players who report their games through a form on our site will be eligible to win prizes when the week is over. We will also give a prize to the player who gets the most sponsorships for this event. More details, including how to donate or sponsor your favorite Grifballer, can be found here, and will continue to be updated as the event nears.

In addition, we are strongly considering holding a pay-to-play Grifball tournament, to be held on or around May 18th, depending on the amount of interest from the community at large. 80% of the fees for the tournament will be donated to charity, and 20% will go to the winning team.  If this is something you and your Grifball team would be interested in, please drop us a line. There will be a cap of 16 teams (with four players) for this event.

To stay up-to-date with this charity drive and our events, be sure to watch the Grifball.net forums, as well as following @Grifballnet, @squirrelburrito, and @MasterSundown on Twitter. Thank you for your time and support!

#BostonStrong
#GrifballStrong
#SpartanStrong

How to Donate

How to donate to our cause on HopeMob: (Please read all of this before donating!)

(note: You can skip step 1 if you wish to donate anonymously, however you cannot comment on the donation page- which will become important for later).

1) Head over to HopeMob.org, and create an account on the site. Give yourself a username and maybe a picture and a small bio (not required)

2) Visit our donation page on HopeMob.org. Here is a direct link to our special page: https://hopemob.org/s/1ht-help-the-gaming-community-help-the-boston-marathon-victims

Donate Now!

3) There is a button on the right side of our story (feel free to read that). Click it.

4) You will be taken to a page asking how much you would like to donate. Please note, HopeMob has an optional 15% site operations donation on by default. Feel free to contribute to that, but if you only wish to fund our project, you must disable that now, by clicking the link circled in this image.

You will then be able to choose any amount you would like to give to HopeMob to continue running fee-free, but it will lessen the amount of your donation to our cause. Just choose the amount (it is fine to choose zero) from this dropdown box.

5) Enter your payment information, then confirm all details are correct. It's that easy!

6) If you are donating for a prize entry in our sponsorship event, you will need to make a comment on the article with your gamertag, or the gamertag you are sponsoring (feel free to add any personal notes here as well). To do that, you will need to make a free account on HopeMob, as outlined in step 1.

And that's it! If you have any questions, feel free to ask us on twitter (@squirrelburrito, @grifballnet, @mastersundown) or by e-mail (squirrelburrito@gmail.com, or mastersundown@gmail.com)

Donate Now!

Contest Submission Deadline: March 17th, 2013

The NGA is looking for brand new grifball courts for the next season of the grifball league! This contest will focus primarily on aesthetics, as forging a grifball map doesn't require much knowledge or utilization of level design theory, though some basic principles will be required to be demonstrated.

What we're looking for:

We're looking for new and innovative designs that support a fair game of grifball. Submissions must be functional (including spawns, flat surfaces, etc.) and look professional. Maps can be forged on any of the forge locations in Halo 4 (Ravine, Impact, or Erosion). We'll be looking for creativity, as well as great designs!

Disqualification Criteria:

Map is turned in after the deadline
Map is not functional (Spawns not setup, Grifball gametype not setup)
Offensive map title or description
Stolen Map (Submissions must be from the author only)
Manipulated Map (Modded maps are not welcome for this contest)
Non-Unique Map (Maps must be new, and created for this contest. Finished designs submitted for other purposes are not acceptable)

Map Sizes:

Courts can be measured by placing a scalable object in the middle of the court (such as a safe zone or respawn zone) and changing the length and width of the object to meet the edges of the map. Submissions will be classified in the following manner:

Tiny - 26 x 24
Small - 32 x 28
Normal - 34 x 30
Large - 38 x 34
Abnormal - Unique Design

If you have a new design idea (think Blargball from Halo: Reach) that will change the court design completely, those submissions are welcome as well, and will be classified as "Abnormal".

Judging Criteria:

Each submission will be judged by a panel of 8 people. These selected persons may consist of NGA admins, Forgers, and/or grifball players. This panel will not be revealed before the submission deadline. Each judge will offer a score/rating for every map 1, 2, or 3 (Where '1' is 'Needs Work', and '3' is 'Excellent'.) We will tally all scores together, and add it to an Overall Score. At the end of the contest, the maps with the top three scores will be our winners. To see all of the judging requirements and a scorecard, click here: http://bit.ly/11uXrte. Spawns must be setup to rival the current NGA spawn style (identical to Halo: Reach style), unless your map is 'abnormal', in which spawns must work appropriately. For a resource defining how an official NGA court should be setup (Spawns, safe-zones, etc), click here: http://bit.ly/VLsAWQ. Note: Following those general requirements will aid greatly in the creation of a perfect grifball map, in case you may not be familiar with them.

Prizes:

[1st Place]
A copy of Halo 4: Forward unto Dawn on DVD.
A code worth 800 Microsoft points
Map consideration for NGA league play and tournament use
A grifball-themed avatar prop for xbox 360

[2nd Place]
A code worth 800 Microsoft points
Map consideration for NGA league play and tournament use
A grifball-themed avatar prop for xbox 360

[3rd Place]
Map consideration for NGA league play and tournament use
A grifball-themed avatar prop for xbox 360

How to Submit:

Submission link will be made available on the homepage and forums right here at Grifball.net. You will need a free account to submit your map.

Disclaimer:

The NGA reserves the right to reuse and/or rename any submissions for the use in the NGA Grifball Leagues as determined by the judges. We may request you to edit any map to comply with NGA requirements, and can edit any submissions to accommodate these requirements ourselves.

We will accept multiple submissions from a single contestant; however, we prefer quality over quantity, and each participant may only win one of the three prizes. That being said, if you've got Grifball courts in your heart and time on your hands, we'd love to see what you come up with.

All winning maps will be submitted to the matchmaking community cartographers responsible for Grifball Matchmaking, for possible inclusion into the playlist.
(Matchmaking is not controlled by the NGA, and winning is not a guarantee of inclusion.)

"Good luck, have fun, and happy forging!" - The NGA Staff

Major thanks go to Master Sundown for all his help in putting this together!

Discuss in our Forums

We will be holding a community night on Saturday at 8PM Eastern where members of the NGA will be available to share maps, tips, and the wish list of the community at large. Leave a reply with your gamertag for an invite; if you're not too familiar with grifball, it could be a great way to meet the community and get a leg up on the competition! :) Hope to see you there.

Hello everyone. I'm AwareMosquito and I'm here to tell you something that me and the rest of the IGL staff are very excited about. NEW SEASON OMG I'M SO EXCITED!!! That's right, a new IGL season coming very soon and as you can see, very excited. Signups will be starting on March 1st and running until 15th March, so there is plenty of time for you to get a team together and sign up for what will surely be a great season.

The season will begin a week later on the 22nd of March. You can get the IGL's map and game type from the file share of Recon117zwa. All the signups, discussions, results and all that will be taking place on the new IGL website. So please sign up for the site as well, it will make communication throughout the season much easier. Also, make sure to keep an eye on the front page of the IGL site as that's where most of the news will be posted, and new articles from me and the rest of the staff.

We're very excited about this and hope that you can join us for our first ever season in Halo 4 and the IGL's first season in over a year. Any questions please don't hesitate to ask me, Matt on the IGL site, AwareMosquito on Xbox live and Matt419 right here, or any of the other IGL staff. I look forward to seeing what teams sign up and we hope to make this a great experience for everyone.