My Experiences at the Latest MVC3 Tournament
Today started out promising, I was in the Play N Trade-sponsored MVC3 Tournament. I passed the local rounds last Saturday and entered into the International Rounds.
I pepped myself up and walked to the Lansdale Pavilion where the store was. I arrived at 11:56 AM, four minutes to spare. First sign that things are going bad, the doors were locked. I decided to come back in a few minutes and got myself a six-pack of Dr Pepper bottles at the grocery store a few stores down to quench my thirst. I pass the store to see that the staff had returned, getting their lunch from the Subway only across the parking lot (No Note?).
I walked up and told them about the MVC3 Tournament, which I was replied, "Is that Today?". I wouldn't have pointed this fact out if not for me calling them yesterday to ask what time I had to be there and the posters for the event had been up for the last two months. To their credit after a several seconds of wandering around, they try to rectify the situation including calling the employee responsible for managing the tournament(was his day off).
After a ten minute phone call with a lots of "Yes" and "Um...", we're finally situated. By this time, it was about 12:30. They said to wait another thirty minutes before they invite me. So, I play the arcade mode, wondering why it was like a freezer in the store. Everything is working perfectly, I'm light attacking, medium, high, special, hypers, it's all good. At 1:02, I'm in the tournament and...nothing works. My opponent playing Magneto, Storm, and Sentinel (*coughs Cheaper*) creams me as none of my buttons are doing what I want them to. After losing one round and getting disconnected from the other, I send a message to the Tournament Moderator, "Controller Malfunction ty for tournament".
I play on arcade and yeah, nothing's working as it should. I bring this up with the staff clerk who see nothing wrong with the controls until I suggest, "Play". After he gets creamed, he hands me back the controller and walks back to the counter, thinking they are going to contact these people and find some solution. I find out that my controller schema was...changed? I don't know how because I should be in control of the schema, not the tournament or anyone else. I change it back and everything works again. I play arcade and then after another half-hour, the staff is working on other things. So I said, "Good day." and left.
The sad truth about this is all happened less than three hours ago. I'm never going to do another tournament in that place again. The fact that they didn't know it was the date of the tournament befuddled me as the aforementioned posters were displayed on the outer window and in the store itself. The poor communication between employees is mind-boggling (No one could just jut down the dates?), which is sad because they are nice guys, don't get me wrong.
A family friend, Amy, once said, "What do you expect at seven dollars an hour?" My reply will always be, "Basic Cognitive Reasoning. At nine dollars an hour, hints of Advanced Cognitive Reasoning. Anything above thirteen dollars, Advanced Cognitive Reasoning in all aspects."
But regardless of my experiences with the International Rounds, the Local Rounds were actually fun. I enjoyed playing against the other players there and the controllers nor XBOX Live didn't give me any grief. Thank you everyone who I played against in the Local Rounds, those were all good games.
