Aeon's Architecht Challenge Not open to Residents of Quebec. That blows.

This is just me griping.

I love the city in which I live but sometimes it makes for bowell-evacuating frustration. I explain.

I love everything about this game and in the face of so many hardcore gamers have staunchly defended it.

In what other game can anyone adopt a superhero (or in my case, supervillain) persona and explore exotic cities from a birds eye view...

Oh yeah I forgot. Well that other game sucks. Pretty, but empty.

That being said, in what other game can you do the above within a really cool game mythology (gotcha there! Sic Semper Foxbat) all from the comfort of my MAC?
AND on top of mountains of content, have the power to contribute your own?

With the most imaginitive devs in the MMO world and an unrivaled player community, any player feels welcomed into Paragon City and the Rogue Isles, and moreover, welcomed back. I myself have taken extended leaves of abscence, only to return months later to find that people remembered me (or at least the Wisecracker, heh heh).

I've never felt excluded from CoH. Until now.

If you read the rules and regulations of Aeon's First Architect Challenge it states that elligibility is restricted to players in quote, "the State of Rhode Island, and excluding Guam, Puerto Rico, U.S. territories, military installations and commonwealths" and naturally, the part that effects me, Quebec. My heart goes out to all of you other excludees as well though...

Now many people don't understand WHY Quebec tends to get the short end of the stick when it comes to things like this, though I suspect it has to do with our cockammamy language laws (I think any contest has to by law be publicized in French - I know right?).

The way I see it though is like this, and you may agree or disagree with me as you like. Were it an free online game I wouldn't be miffed, after all content and perks aren't expected from an open game.

But the big difference here is I pay for CoH.

Now right now, many of you might be saying, "Who does this guy think he is? 'Oh he PAYS for CoH?' So do I. Whatta whiner!"

You have a point. Who the hell am I? I'm just a lone Quebec gamer who, boo-hoo, can't join the architect contest. I should do Lord Recluse's Task Force and STFU. But then again, my perspective is that if two people pay X for two sundaes and one gets whipped cream, why shouldn't the second person ALSO get the whipped cream?

Now I'm certain that it's more complicated than that, and legaleese not being my forté, won't begin to defend my position from any non-emotional standpoint. Like I said at the beginning, this is a gripe. Sometimes it sucks to live in the province that is essentially the drummer of the band.

I actually feel better now that I wrote this. Ultimately, I'm in it for the vanity, not the prizes and will be entering the contest anyways, waiving at the header, any claim to any prizes that are being awarded.

And STILL I will defend CoH/V as the best bang for anyone's MMORPG gaming buck, despite the fact that in this case, I'm outside looking in.

- Mike "The Wisecracker", Virtue Server.

I find it just as interesting that Rhode Island and people on Military Installations are not allowed to compete in the contest also.

Here's a link to a fairly quick reason why it's not eleigble in Quebec. NO business would want to deal with many of those restrictions, and if they thought up the contest only a week ago, well, that's enough to stop it right there.

http://contests.about.com/od/sweepst...idinQuebec.htm

Move to a better province? It's the Quebec sweepstakes laws you have to blame, not NCSoft.

As a life-long Montrealer, I cuncur with the furstration expressed in general by the OP of this thread...but choose to blame the province and its general back-asswardness rather than NCSoft/PAragon.

It blows, but c'est la vie.

At least we get poutine at will, so there's the tradeoff.

Thanks for clarifying Xen10k. Though the prizes advertised in the announcement have no monetary value I'm sure the winged monkeys at Paragon have good (and sound) reasons to keep us out. Just sucks is all.

You'll be happy to know that, though being arguably Virtue's most annoying villain, I still fully intend to write a damn good architect mission, one that I hope will stand toe-to-talon with anything else submitted. It WILL feature a (your) hero doing a particularly heinous act, Statesman, Captain Mako (aka, Gideon Ray - hint hint), and of course the Wisecracker masterminding the hero turning to the dark side, or Going Rogue as it were.
So though it won't be elligible I encourage everyone to give it a shot.

Thanks also to Shecky, always awesome, and I DO occaisionally listen to death metal Black_Marrow - contact me and I'll let you in on something pretty cool.

Ciao for now!

Like I said, was a gripe. Not blaming anyone.

On a lighter note, you could always move to Colorado and change your name, like the Nordiques did.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
I miss the Nordiques, or more to the point I miss the beatings the Canadiens used to dish out on them in halcyon days when they weren't struggling...
Since the thread has lost it's gravitas (I'm better now, thanks everyone), let's put a moritoriam on it.

Paragon rules!
NcSoft rules!
Quebec has it's moments (like DJ Castor/Pollux said, poutine*).



* For those of you unfamiliar with the nuances of traditional French-Canadian cuisine, a poutine is a combination of french fries, thick gravy, and curded cheese. It looks as gross as it sounds, but don't knock it 'til you try it.

99.9% of the time, when a contest or sweepstakes is void in your area, the reason is that your area has absolutely asinine laws governing contests and sweepstakes, such that only a crazy person would try to hold a contest or sweepstakes there.

I'm curious why Rhode Island isn't allowed...

Because Rhode Island hates contests, that's why. I'm not kidding. Before you can hold a promotional contest you have to file with the State Secretary's Office. And you have to pay a filing fee which I think is currently $150. Failure is a criminal misdemeanor. There's a cut off; if your prize is below a certain value (I can't remember the exact $$ amount) then you do not need to file. But I'm guessing there's some other hassle then. Like probably filing that you don't have to file or something like that. It's just not worth the red tape for most contests, especially spur of the moment type ones that were pushed out relatively quickly.

Being from Rhode Island, I too have been unhappy about our legal inability to participate in CoH contests; the Architect Challenge, strangely enough, should have been authorized for Rhode Island residents in lieu of the fact that this contest's combined prized value of $0.00 should be enough to exclude them from said provisio (vice the $500 minimum value required to file under Rhode Island's Section 11-50-1 and pay fees and play with paperwork with the RI Secretary of State).

I sent PMs to Avantea, TheOcho and Dr.Aeon; Dr.Aeon has informed me that, unfortunately, they can't change the requirements for this particular AE Challenge contest, however he was going to get this information to the right people to vie for Rhode Island legal authorization to participate in any successive AE Challenge contests. This isn't a 'for sure' resolution yet, but I'm sure once the legal eagles get done deciphiring Section 11-50-1, I'm sure the Rhodies of RI will get a fighting chance to participate in future "CoH $0.00 valued AE Challenge contests" for a game that is based in theme in Rhode Island. *crosses fingers*

To all my fellow 'excludees'; I'm with you and understand your pain. If resolution isn't found by the game's legal eagles for RI's exclusion, I'll be sure (which I've already started a ball rolling with my state reps) to get this issue addressed with the state government. Maybe this is an opportunity to get a little experience with how 'the system' can be fought/changed? Time will tell.

I am glad I live in California, but I have been wondering why no one mentioned

Quote:

(Canadian residents will be required to answer an additional mathematical question in order to claim their prizes)

and why would they have to?

but I would find it funny if the question was:

Quote:

A balloon is rising at the rate of 5ft/s. A boy is cycling along a straight road at a speed of 15ft/s.when he passes under the balloon it is 45 ft above him. How fast is the distance between the balloon and the boy increasing 3 seconds later