Tournament News #2: Prepare Thyself!
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Greetings, Tournament Warlords!
On a glorious breezy summer afternoon you are out falconing with
some of your favorite nobility. Your armies are training well, and
since they don't really need you today, the weather seemed just too
nice to pass up. The hunting has been good, and you know the cook
will be pleased to serve you roast game fowl this evening!
With all your attention focused on the sky, it's no surprise that
you soon notice a strange eagle flying high, far in the distance.
What *is* surprising is that the eagle seems to be flying straight
towards you! As it approaches it goes into a glide, and then
dips its wings in turn, in your kingdom's time-honored protocol
for friendly avian messengers.
You nod as you realize what it is. It must be a tournament messenger!
Indeed, as the bird gets close you see a small tube clasped in one
of its mighty talons. So as the noble raptor flies overhead you hold
out your hands, and find the tube neatly dropped into your left hand,
with the cap between the fingers and thumb of your right hand.
You grin. It is a pleasure to open any message after such a delivery!
As the bird flies off, you open the tube to find the following message:
-=-=-=- Important Announcements from Tournament Headquarters! -=-=-=-
WARLORD, PREPARE THYSELF!!!
We now know which players will be involved in the Tournament.
Out of the 214 registrations, 182 players have responded to their
email buddies, including you! Although a small few of you have not
yet completed the play-by-email certification, we are confident that
you will be certified soon - if you aren't among the 162 who have been
certified already. Don't give up now!
This message provides a variety of useful information and makes
some minor requests. Read it carefully and you'll know everything you
need to know between now and the beginning of the Practice Round!
(1) If your email system allows message filtering, you may wish to configure
two filters for tournament email. The first filter should be based
on subject lines which start with "W2WT", such as this one. All future
tournament announcements will start with W2WT (for Warlords II
World Tournament, of course!), so this filter will let you catch all
tournament announcements. The second filter should be based on
messages whose From: line includes "Remailer". This will catch all
game and moderator messages sent via the Warlords Remailer. With these
two filters you will probably catch all the essential tournament email.
(2) Please make sure that you have the latest version of your flavor
of Warlords. These are:
PC-Deluxe: version 2.2.4
Mac-CD: version 2.0 (no need to upgrade)
PC-Classic: version 1.11
Mac-Classic: version 1.0.7
If you do not have the latest version, visit the "Prepare Thyself"
section of the tournament rules:
http://www.heeter.net/w2home/tournament/Rules.html#Prepare
There you will see a list of links to the various upgrade patches.
If you do not see an appropriate patch there, write back and we'll
figure the situation out.
(3) We are in the process of creating the initial WarBOT software
packages. As soon as these are available for distribution we will
send out an announcement explaining how to get them. This should
happen by Thursday this week if all goes well.
(4) We are in the last stages of bug-checking the Practice Round
scenario. As soon as this is completed we will distribute the scenario.
(5) Once WarBOT and the Scenario have been distributed, we will
begin the process of teaching you how to play Tournament Warlords
using the Remailer! And then the Practice Round will officially start!
(6) Some of you may find that once the Practice Round starts, you
would like to play in some additional practice games, in order
to get extra experience before the official rounds start. Once we get
the main "Practice Round" games going, we will survey all players and
find out who would like to play in one or more "Quick Round" games.
The Quick Round games are optional; they will start a little later and
not be as heavily moderated as the Practice Round games. If you are
already sure that you would like to play in at least one additional
game, reply now and we will put you on our list of "emergency subs" for
the main Practice Round, too. We will need at least a few such players
so that we can make sure we have a good multiple of four in each division
(Mac-Classic, PC-Classic, Mac-CD, PC-Deluxe), anyway.
(7) If you will be taking any vacations in the next few months, please
write back so we can take that into consideration and make any special
arrangements that might be needed. If you disappear without notifying
us, and miss a turn, we will assume you have dropped out of the tournament
and replace you! You wouldn't want that... :)
Other than that, just be patient a little longer;
the tournament *is* marching onwards!
-- The Warlords II World Tournament Organizers