The Good Stuff

I know it's been a few weeks since the last update. Had a lot of stuff going on outside of efedding now that the summer is here, plus I just got a promotion at work and a new job. No excuses, just an idea why it's taken me a little while to get back to this blog.

Now, as I'm sure everyone familiar with A1E knows, there were quite a few different people weighing in recently (including myself) talking about what's wrong with A1E and how we can fix it. There has been a lot of good discussion, and I appreciate everyone's opinion.

But, what I wanted to spend a little bit of time talking about in this entry was things that are absolutely right in A1E right now. I want to talk about the positive side of things for a minute so people don't feel like it's all a cloud of doom and gloom hanging over things.

The People

By far, the best thing about A1E is the group of handlers we have. Certainly, there are a lot of supremely talented people all over this little hobby of ours, but I feel very privileged to have been able to work with a lot of the guys handling characters in A1E for a long time now.

Guys like Roger and Jarret have given their lives over the past five plus years to this fed. Those outside of the BC probably have no idea what it really takes to keep this thing moving week to week. I know that it's a lot of work for me to write my single match each week, and Roger (as well as Shane and Andy on this most recent team) routinely writes 2 or 3. Jarret was the same way when he was on the BC. The time and effort these guys put in week in and week out doesn't always show up to the public, but a few of us do get to see it.

Others like Tom, James, Bill, and Dan take ownership of their characters and send a lot of ideas in to the BC as to how to help tell their stories. They also work very hard to help others integrate into a story and not just feel left out.

Really, this is easily the biggest reason I've stayed in efedding as long as I have. I've made so many good friends along the way.

The Stories

The reason I got hooked on A1E in the first place was the stories, and it's still the biggest joy I get out of doing this. When a story is told well and appreciated by those who read it and follow along, that's a tremendous feeling of satisfaction.

Right now, there are quite a few good storylines in the mix: the Alliance vs. the Highland Park Social Club, the Andy and Slambo side storylines with the HPSC, the James and Irishred partnership, Mr. Amazing's "March to Glory", Spoiler vs. Housefly in a battle of legends, Cross's return. Just a lot of good stuff that is turning Warfare into "must see TV" again.

Also, I'm really digging the underlying stories in this "Best of A1E" tournament as well. Very glad to see that not everyone is using it just to point back to a World Title shot at Golden Dreams. Spoiler wants his match with Fly. Richard Farnswirth already has the title, so who knows what match he might choose. BigDog and Dan Ryan are tag team partners facing off in the semi-finals. Lots of interesting potential there.

The Voting System

Yes, we've beaten this thing to death. There are definitely downsides to it. But the strongest upside is that anybody can really win any given match. You show up and put in the effort, you can beat a top name player. It's really what's been the best part of both the tournament and the Pier 6 Brawl so far. Every time it seems that somebody comes out of the pack to separate themselves and take a step up to that next level.

At the first ever Pier 6, BigDog was going nowhere, and he took that opportunity to propel himself to the World Title. Snake used a sizzling hot streak through the #1 contender tourney to unseat Housefly for the World Title. Last year, the tourney actually catapulted both JA and Richard Farnswirth into the main event scene.

These are things that can happen with a voting system when somebody gets hot. The BC doesn't plan these things. They just set the stage and get out of the way to see who wants it the most. Give everybody an equal chance to show that they deserve an opportunity.

Conclusion

This isn't even everything I could possibly list, but it's nice to remind people that not everything is broken. There is so much good going on, and I think that's why people talk a decent amount about fixing the few things that could use a little work.

At the end of the day, A1E is still a great place to play.