The video game "Street Fighter 2" came out during my first year at University. Already a lifelong player of video games (ever since I was six) this game caught my imagination and turned me into a die-hard fighting game fan. I followed nearly all the games in the same genre that came out afterward; after discovering the Internet, and the newsgroup rec.games.video.arcade, I was charmed by all the fluffy fun threads being tossed about and decided to start my own; a fictional tournament between the characters of Street Fighter 2, Mortal Kombat, and World Heroes. This first "Dream Tournament" was done poll-style, and garnered reasonable response; the final match was Chun Li vs. Janne, with Chun Li winning 7 votes to 5.
When the next year rolled around, I had a thought of doing it again - a second annual version - but this time I wanted to enhance the DT, by adding an actual storyline to the fighting instead of just sending out poll questions with little witticisms tagged on.
However, living in New Brunswick meant being behind the times when it came to the most recent fighting games. I posted to r.g.v.a., asking for some background information on the characters and stories of games I wasn't personally familiar with. I received a reply from a person named Mark Maestas - who, by the way, had also been the mailer of the very first vote I received regarding the first tournament. I told him about my plans to improve the DT, and he asked if I needed a co-writer. I accepted, and we set to work, taking turns writing out introductory and round-by-round postings, compiling votes received and weaving their results into the match endings.
DT2 proved very popular in the newsgroup, and even inspired clone tournaments. Ironically, some of the tournaments were written by readers of rec.sport.pro-wrestling and .pro-wrestling.fantasy, and included elements of wrestling, or actual WWF wrestlers; this was ironic because the DT itself had been inspired by the cross-federational dream tournaments that sometimes appeared in the r.s.p-w newsgroup.
DT3 followed, this time with more games - so many games were on the market by this time we had to have an elimination voting to determine which of the fringe games would or would not be represented. I also had several co-workers this time; Mark Maestas (my faithful organizer, who unfortunately had to leave the Internet partially though), Sergei Shimkevich (rec.arts.anime poster and anime fanhood worker who - well, never really did that much), Adam Wood (another co-writer, who contributed faithfully), and Chris Wolvie (enthusiastic writer who handled all sorts of odd jobs like post-round interviews, statistics; as well as a huge piece of work in the Million Dollar Melee of Round 3.5.)
DT3, however, took forever, as procrastination and general weariness on my part drew out the tournament over a period of - two years? - I'm not sure, and I'm unwilling to take the time to check the post headers to find out. I retired myself from DT3 near the end so that I wouldn't be a burden to Chris Wolvie (who remained to the end, and wrote out the last few rounds).
In DT3 I tried for better and more dramatic writing, with more background on the lore of the Video Multiverse, and a more epic tone with the inclusion of a threat to the Dream Tournament in the form of a conspiracy between the video game bosses. I regret that I had to leave work near the end; I had a nice ending planned for the Tournament, but instead I left it to Chris Wolvie. He ended it well enough, but I wanted something more sweeping.. Perhaps I'll write the 'what if' ending for this homepage sometime in the future.
DT4 is currently being organized by 'Deuce', another Netfanner, with the help of some of his friends. I granted him use of the title, and I suspect I'll know more about it as time goes by.
Back to the DT page.