Friday Night Tournament: Off The Record

As I mentioned in my last post, the server bugs in Havok4 compel us not to keep official records of our matches until said bugs are fixed. But that didn't mean that we couldn't still get together and punch each other in the head in front of an audience.

In a way, the presence of the bugs may, in the end, be all to the good. I saw a lot of new faces in the lightweight ranks this past Friday, and I think that may be due at least in part to the fact that, since the fights were not going "on the record", people might have been more encouraged to get their virtual feet wet.

I could be wrong, of course.

But the bugs did manifest themselves in pretty much the way we'd feared, with every lightweight match - every single one - ending with a KO. You'll recall that the bug that dealt with inworld physics made it nearly impossible to land back into the ring, thus saving oneself from a ring-out, three of which make a KO. So yeah, a lot of that going on.

I was filling in as announcer that night, but I had the opening match of the middleweight side of the card. As it turned out, it was against snake Boa, who was the other half of the announcing team. Fortunately another experienced announcer was on hand in the form of the evening's judge, Chak Zapedzki. God love him, he had to pull both duties while still fighting the time difference between SL and his native England. If I recall my time zones correctly, Chak is five hours ahead of me. By the time the event is over, the dude is seriously ready for some shut-eye.

But back to the ring. Snake and I had what I thought was our best match to date. We really went at it hammer and tongs. I think it speaks to the experience level of the middleweights that the match went the distance, unlike the unbroken string of lightweight KO wins. Snake gave as good as he got, and in the end I only edged him out by one point.

Well, you can guess that it was a pretty intense match. By the time it was over I was ready to grab a glass of water and resume announcing duties for Jihan's match, the final one of the night.

This was the point where I realized that Jihan's slated opponent was nowhere to be found.

I ran down the options. The last match Jihan had fought had been with snake, so it was a bit soon for a rematch between them, and there was still the outstanding issue of Jihan's crash during her last matchup against me, which smacked of unfinished business for both of us, I think. So, back to the ring for Abel. Sorry, Chak.

It was another wild match. I've always been a fan of Jihan's and well know what an able competitor she is. She knocked me out of the ring in the second round, and I popped her up a few times in the third. Once again it went the distance and came down to points scored. This time the person who got edged out was me, with Jihan claiming a well-deserved victory. Does this officially make it a rivalry?

Unfortunately, further pursuit of it will have to wait, as this will be the last time I appear in the Averlast ring until I can manage a memory upgrade for my computer. The last update of the viewer slowed things down considerably for me, and no way in hell would I be even marginally competitive in a match until the upgrade happens. Timing your movements is critical in an Averlast match, and it's nearly impossible to do so when you see your opponent hold the same pose for a good two seconds while he or she is moving.

Well, what can you do? At least now I can focus exclusively on making more items for the store.