You've Got to Be Kidding Me

So, I have... just now... signed on for the first time since Saturday night..

The reason for this is a simple one... Hurricane Irene... she came uninvited to my home and knocked out power from 2:30 PM Sunday to 11:30 AM Wednesday.... wait... is it Wednesday? Yeah... pretty sure it is... lost track of time what with no electricity... clocks... television... computer.... spreadsheets...

::shudders::

Anyway... as soon as that 69th hour passed and the power came back on... I rushed straightaway to my computer to access the barely-remembered internet and see what wonderful news the CoH website held regarding Freedom! I floated as if upon wings of purest joy... my fingers tapping on the keyboard was the sound of cherubs singing praises... and then I read...

We interupt this story to go to on a brief flashback... some of you might experience some vertigo or motion sickness as the hazy wavy image distortions appear at the edge of your vision... the flashback incorporates my last iteration of my tournament in which I adopted one of the game's features as my core concept for the new tournament.

The core concept in question was... of course... level pacting.

Fast forward to the present where I sit staring at my computer, willing my frozen and stuttering brain to comprehend the fact that level pacting will not function for new characters once Freedom goes live.

I think I'm going to put this all down to my mind snapping. It is my sincere belief that none of this is real and that nearly three days without access to spreadsheets or computer has driven me temporarily over the edge into full-blown insanity. This is all one big hallucination because the alternative is too horrible to consider.

The alternative being: The devs have finally had enough of me poking fun at them and their game and this is how they're going to punish me directly.

Ooh.. That's right I guess this does break your entire tournament doesn't it.

You'll have however long the headstart is to make new level pacts in issue 21.

Steelclaw, do note that level pacts will continue to work; the caveat is you cannot make new ones.

Take a breath. Surely you can add in a clause to your tournament stating that characters are not rendered invalid if the game mechanics are cut off. It's not for long, and already-pacted characters will be fine.

Gather your strength, summon your reserves and make a new spreadsheet.

Redesign the tournament so that it does not use level pacts.

I do not think they will be coming back anytime in the near to distant future.

We.. the ones who enjoy your lists and your presense on the forums would be disappointed if this causes you to stop posting and all that.

Soo buck up young Steelclaw..

Put together some new spreadsheets to both amaze us and cause us to really consider how close to insanity you are!

Steelclaw complains about these things, but deep down inside he's actually happy about them. Reroll and enjoy Steelclaw!

WARNING: I bold names.

I'm picturing Dexter just standing there, shaking the broken light bulb. A light bulb with City of Heroes tournament written on it. That same look.

Like Robinson Crusoe! It's primitive as can be!

That's thread "Little Buddy".

Clicking on the linked image above will take you off the City of Heroes site. However, the guides will be linked back here.

If temporary changes to this game due to coding issues have this kind of impact on you I think it'd be best if you took a break and just chilled out. It's a game, y'know, so if it stresses you out it's worthless.

Just sit right back and you'll hear a tale
A tale of a big ol' twit
Who lost power for three whole days
And came back in a snit

For fate had dealt him a telling blow
A one-hit sure defeat
His tourney he must now re-name:
Start, Delete and Repeat
Delete and Repeat

The sign-on screen it told the news
That one big awful fact
Though Freedom it would soon go live
They'd killed the level pact
They'd killed the level pact

The Tournament it now must face a nigh uncertain fate...
Cry **********!
And ******** too!
Take your level pact and go *****!
I feel regret...
My tourney gets a new reset!
This may take a while!



But I'm not bitter.

The way I see it... I can stay with the level pact system and simply create a HUGE number of pacted characters to hold in reserve and hope that I am not all the way through them before the Devs finally figure out how to fix the problem...

Or... I can just scrap the level pacting altogether and re-write all the rules of the tournament... the advantage to this being I won't have to restart the tournament if the Devs CAN'T fix the level pact bug and I'll also be able to use new power sets soon after they are available instead of having all my characters written in stone.

Decisions... decisions...

Ohnoes!

What ruins it for me is I had just talked a friend who has virtually no time for gaming (especially a subscription based MMO) into joining CoH post-Freedom with the fact that it has the two things he'd need.

1) No subscription
2) Level Pacts

Bummer for me

Oh man...


If you restructure things to NOT include Level Pacts... Would the (hypothetical) reintroduction of Level Pacts force a restart as well?

And this is indeed all hallucinatory illusions, Steelclaw...
Please send all of your money to Electric-Knight in order to reenter reality (where the CoH developers work within the rules of your existing tournament!).

Reality pffft what's that.