ADDIT'S PROFILE

The Lowdown:
Uh, oh. It looks like Corona-Chan here has taken over the globe and has destroyed almost everything that we used to hold, cherish and take for granted: Movies, video games, restaurants, public outings, grocery shopping…heck, even sports, like the National Hockey League, has fallen victim to this merciless succubus. (Damn her!)

But luckily, thanks to social distancing measures, face masks - and a lot more time spent staying indoors - the world that we once knew is slowly making a comeback, much to Corona-Chan’s dissatisfaction. Heck, even the wildlife is happy to see us again, roaming around outside, dumping our sweet delicious garbage for them to eat once more. And what was once thought impossible several months ago has now become a near-sighted reality today: The return of the National Hockey League and the Stanley Cup Playoffs…

…in the summertime…

…yeaaahhh…

But an unusual situation happens to call for an unusual playoffs! As this year, instead of the usual 16 teams battling it out for Lord Stanley’s giant mug, there will be 24 teams instead with 16 teams facing off against one another in a best-of-5 play-in round to see who happens to qualify for the actual Stanley Cup tournament, where it will then be the usual best-of-7 all throughout. In the meantime, the top four teams in each conference (St. Louis, Colorado, Vegas, Dallas, Boston, Tampa Bay, Washington and Philadelphia) will play against one another in a round robin type of setting to determine the seedings.

Annnddd…unfortunately, if you’re Ottawa, Detroit, New Jersey, Buffalo (poor Buffalo…), Anaheim, Los Angeles and San Jose (what the hell happened to you guys this year???), you get the luxury of watching the whole crazy thing unfold in front of hardly anybody in the stands on T.V.! Isn’t that great!?!?!?

This year - who knows what will happen...!? Everybody’s fully rested, rusty as hell, and hasn’t played a meaningful game in months. This year’s Stanley Cup Champion could be almost anybody!

But before that can possibly happen, Corona-Chan could ruin all of the fun and use her deadly Coronas Wave on as many players, coaches, and team personal as humanly possible to put a stop to this. Will she happen to succeed? Or will we have to put an asterisk besides somebody’s name and crown ourselves a champion this October.

Once again, like in other years past, we’ll be running ourselves a little playoff pool where you - yes, you - can potentially win yourselves some sweet, sweet achievos if you can happen to successfully predict who’s moving on and what not. Heck, you can even get an achievement just for showing up and picking nothing but duds! So it’s an event for everybody to have fun and participate in, even if you don't know much about the NHL.

- It’s the ultimate battle of millionaires verses virus. Who shall prevail…???

The Hub Cities:

The Bracket:

The Rules:
Beginning with the best-of-5 qualifying round first, and then the remaining best-of-7 rounds after that, you must pick the winner of each playoff series (listed above) and how many games that each series will ultimately go to. You will also have to pick who you think is going to win the Stanley Cup at the end of the playoffs as well.

You only need (for now) to pick the qualifying round series' first to start things off. After all of the qualifying round series' has been fully completed, you will then provide your picks for the 1st Round, and then the 2nd Round, Conference Finals, and then, finally, the Stanley Cup Finals at a much later date. This way, it provides participants a chance to make a comeback if they happen to bust their brackets out early.

Oh, and there's no need to make any picks for the Round Robin teams. Those teams are already guaranteed a spot into the 1st round by default, so who cares about them (...for now).

- Whomever has the most points at the end of this year’s playoffs will be announced the winner!

• You are only allowed to enter one bracket per user. You cannot submit multiple brackets under the same username.

• Once you’ve made your picks for each round and the allotted time limit has passed, you cannot change or alter your picks unless you either contact me in advance via PM or it’s been less than 24 hours from the last post that you made your picks in. If it’s past the deadline, then I'm afraid you’re simply out of luck. (Sorry.)

• Your Stanley Cup Champion Pick will be locked into place and cannot be changed or altered throughout the playoffs once the initial qualifying round deadline has passed, which is on August. 3rd @ 6 A.M. PST, 9 A.M., EST). Once your Stanley Cup Champion Pick has been officially eliminated, then it’s officially eliminated for good, there's no turning back.

• In order to compete for the Draft Lottery Winner Award, which goes to the participant(s) that finished the pool in dead last, you basically have to fully participate and make your picks, regardless of what you do, from the qualifying round all the way until the end of the playoffs in order to qualify for this award. You cannot join in later on in the playoffs and score a zero and hope to covet this award; you must participate from start until the end of the playoffs in order to receive this achievement. There are some exceptions, though, like if it’s the final round and you have a massive lead (or, in this case, a massive hole) over the next participant(s) above you and you don’t bother with your final picks, or if there’s an emergency, or you just don’t have the time to do it, then it’s okay.

The Scoring System:
4 Points : If you happen to predict both the winning team and the correct number of the games that the series ultimately went to.

2 Points : If you happen to predict the winning team in a series.

1 Point : If the team that you predict happens to lose the series but you successfully managed to predict how many games that the series ultimately went.

0 Points : You failed to predict either the winner of a series or the correct number of games. (Bupkis!)


2x Multiplier : If your Stanley Cup Champion Pick is involved in a series, you can potentially receive double the points if they happen to get you anything out of it. You can earn up to a maximum of 8 Points if you can successfully predict your Stanley Cup Champion Pick winning the series and the correct number of games that they won by. That’s why is so vitally important to pick a team that you believe is going to go far in the playoffs.

• However, if you happen to go against your Stanley Cup Champion Pick and pick the other team in a series, you’ll just receive the regular amount of points normally and receive no bonus multiplier based on the result. It might be a good idea to sometimes go against your Stanley Cup Champion Pick for strategic purposes if you think that they're not going to make it out of a series.

The Past Champions:

The Prizes:

For this year’s winner, the participant(s) who manages to score the most amount of points in this year’s pool will be rewarded with the David Ayres Award that’s worth 10

and the title of champion. You even get a little championship banner hanging above the virtual rafters of RMN Place, alongside previous champions, for all of eternity! (...Or at least until Kentona and Liberty stop paying for the lease.)


But for all of those unfortunate enough to be at rock bottom towards the end of this year’s playoffs, don’t you worry - there’s always next year - with the Draft Lottery Winner Award. You not only get a chance at the number one overall pick, but you also get a single point of

too! That will help restock the cupboards in 10 years time!


For those who have the power to see into the far future and predict this year’s Stanley Cup Champion from the start, you sir (or madam or etc.) will earn the Crystal Clairvoyant, an award that’s worth 5

and would even make Shulk from Xenoblade jealous. (And you managed to even pull it off without using the Monado - so screw him.)


It may seem rather impossible (but then again - who thought we’d ever be having this thing in the first place?), but for the incredibly divine who happen to predict a winner in EVERY single series without a single fault on their record, they will be bestowed the Brackcellent award that’s worth 25 and Mr. Trump’s personal seal of approval of you doing good.


And for the final award, if our dear heroes on skates, wielding sticks cannot lift up the holy grail in time before the final battle finishes because they couldn’t stop Corona-Chan and her third, most powerful form and they are defeated and the playoffs are cancelled, then every single participant here will earn a Corona-Chan Strikes Back award worth a single

point, as she delivers all of us the sweet, breath of death before laughing maniacally from afar.

The Leaderboard:

1st	Addit	47 Pts
2nd	UPRC	37 Pts
3rd	Kory_Toombs	34 Pts
4th	Kentona	25 Pts
5th	JDogg1717	8 Pts

The Players:
Addit's Picks:


JDogg1717's Picks:


Kentona's Picks:


Kory_Toombs' Picks:


UPRC's Picks:

So as game companies continue to maximize profits and try to find new ways of generating more income for their respective games and studio branches, we’ve seen the rise and continuous use of such practices such as downloadable content (DLC), microtransactions, special edition perks – and the works. But one unexplored option that got me thinking (with a shred of distain) is the use of running commercial advertisements in games and during gameplay to generate even more revenue for these said companies. With such an obvious idea to obtain even more cash flow here…why haven’t some companies decided to explore this option?

With some games now having DRM restrictions that have to have the user online and connected in order to run certain games nowadays, this is definitely a possibly that game companies can now do because of online streaming and such. The ability to run advertisements during said intervals can definitely be achieved with current technology today, and it makes me wonder if this going to be the next implementation placed in order to generate more income space. Would the consumer base even be OKAY with this idea?

So imagine playing some classic Super Mario Bros. 3 that you downloaded for the Switch on the Virtual Console and after every single stage or two that you beat a commercial happens to pop up. Would you be okay with that? What about if a commercial pops up every fifteen minutes or so of playing the game…maybe in the middle of an epic boss battle - would THAT be okay!? Maybe you’re finally sick of all these commercials now and would rather pay an additional ten bucks in order to disable them for at least just the month. Would you be willing to pay that???

Personally, if this ever were to happen (god, I hope not), I wouldn’t even bother with gaming today; I would be SO done...! I already have to deal with tons of commercials running during a Canucks game that drives me to the brink of insanity every few days or so, I don’t really need gaming to do the same thing too…even if I do happen to pay some sort of fee to disable it for a while.

I guess my biggest concern in all of this is will there be a lot of people still playing games with this annoying implementation on? We already got people who don’t mind paying for microtransactions and DLC today – what’s to stop them for paying for disabling commercials or just dealing with them too? It’s a very, very slippery slope.

Anyways, lol – would you still play games with commercials running in them, even if there was a monthly fee to turn them off? Or would that now be the ultimate, last straw that turns gamers away for good.

So I was at my local Save-On-Foods earlier today and saw out of the corner of my eye one of greatest traditions around this time known to man: Girl Guide Cookies...where you get to give some small pocket change to some smiling, young pretty faces in the crowd in exchange for some delicious, delicious treats. Mmm…

But then it got me thinking – what’s your favorite favor of cookie? Is it vanilla and nothing but vanilla? Are you a chocoholic or a minty person? Do you even buy Girl Guide cookies at all, or when was the last time you bought some for yourself or for someone else?

As for me, I personally like the vanilla ones the best. The chocolate ones are still pretty tasty, but vanilla is the king of kings for me here. And as for mint? Meh.

Actually, it’s funny, ‘cause when my brother and I were really young and our parents would buy us both a couple of boxes the odd time, my brother would eat nothing but the vanilla ones and then just give me all of his chocolate ones whenever he was finished with the vanillas. The catch was that if I did get the rest of one of his boxes, he would then try to steal my vanilla cookies from one of my boxes when I wasn’t looking. (B*stard!)

- But, yeah, what's your favorite?

One of the most fantastic and most exciting things about RMN compared to other sites around here is definitely the high abundance of different types of events that we host that rewards its participants in it with achievement badges, makerscore, and sometimes even possible prizes for winning such events. These events can range from making a quick game with a particular theme in mind in under a certain time limit on a team or just by yourself, review and article writing events that test your writing prowess skills - or something on the realm of weird that has you do something that you would least expect doing. This is one of the most wonderful things about RMN that allows its users to challenge themselves but to also have some fun along the way thanks to these wide array of different but creative events.

So I’m sure that the couple of you guys around here have entered a few already in the past, or maybe missed out on entering one that you really regret now that you should have joined before, or an event that you entered but you really feel like you could have done a lot better in. Well - that’s what this thread is here for, as we discuss everything that is RMN Events.

As for me, my favorite event that I really enjoyed the most has to be the Game Name Game event that we had back in 2014 where users would have to take a random, silly title name provided by one of the users and turn that said name into a mockup of an actual game. Now, usually when it comes to anything game making related, especially when it comes to events, I usually tend not to enter any of them, considering that I’m pretty slow and feel quite uncomfortable when it comes to making something under a time limit, but I decided to join this one anyways because I suggested a name of an idea that I had that was eligible for me to take - and I couldn’t say no. The results of that was the emergence of one, Brian Okam’s Free Throw Challenge and me learning how to work on something under pressure and within a certain time frame, which I got a lot more done than anything that I’ve ever completed before in the same amount of time. It gave me more of an appreciation to those who can create some of these kind of events games under a certain time limit, and it made me more aware that I can get a lot more stuff done faster if I just cut to the chase and not worry about all the small details. The result of the event landed me an extra achievement for people’s choice and a new game, that’s currently still being worked on, to the family catalogue.

And for one’s that I wished I could have entered back then, I’ll definitely say the Game Page Workshop, Aim For The Stars, Craze And LockeZ’s Boss Battle Event and probably the Super Smash Bros. Tournaments that we had that I skipped out on. The Game Page Workshop would have a been great way to bring back an old game that I’ve been working on for the past few years and finally upload a game page for it and do some pretty CSS stuff along the way, but this was around the time I started to have some personal problems and stuff at home, and I hadn’t touched my game in the past couple of months by then and I still felt a little bit uncomfortable showcasing the thing at its present state, so I skipped out on the event. Aim For The Stars I could have done, since it was pretty similar to the RMN Plays Event but with musical entries this time around. I’m not the greatest person in the world when it comes to describing about music in detail, but I think I could have probably done it and least given it a try. I guess I skipped out on this because of that notion. The Craze and LockeZ Boss Battle thing didn’t really require that much effort on our parts other than picking a side and earning a free achievement for it – and who doesn’t like a free achievement. (I would have voted for Craze, BTW.) And the Super Smash Bros. Tournaments I would have entered if I had more time to play on my Wii U during the time and my time zone wasn’t all f**ked up, but, *sigh*, oh well...plus I'm pretty bad with Ganondorf.

As for the events that I think I could have done better in, it’s has to be the RMN Plays Event and Summer Review Jam events. I only played and commented on three games during the entire RMN Plays Event, and I could have done a lot more during that time but I think I was just too burnt out and needed a break and didn’t bother much. Still, if I did at least eight or ten of those things, I would be like in the top 5 in overall achievements now. Same with the Summer Review Jam event; I could have gotten the other four previous jams but I didn’t enter the event until midway through and only picked up around half of the achievements for it, which blows.

Anyways – what events did you enjoy the most entering in? Were there any events that you wished that you could have participated in? And what events could you have done better in?

If there’s one thing that I can at least nit-pick about when it comes to being a sports fan lately compared to being a gaming fan is seeing some retarded article headings, like the one above, being plastered right on the front page of a site that is beyond a certain level of stupid and outlandishness that it seems like its only real purpose in life is to attract a wide array of traffic and views to not only keep the site afloat but to also keep the team and that said columnist in business, and they do just simply that sometimes...

Luckily, though, for RMN, we don’t have this type of problem, as a majority of our articles posted here are not only quite informative but they also have some real integrity behind them, like an actual human being actually thought out all of it out on its own. They’re not just simply there to just garner traffic and views but to also serve their purpose of helping and informing said users about a particular topic or discussion, and that’s the way it should be.

- But imagine if RMN had such retarded articles headings like this for the site? Think of the calamity and hilariousness that would ensue.

And here, I’m going to come up with a couple of stupid ones myself. You guys are also welcome to come up with some of your own.

• Is Archeia_Nessiah Completely Overrated As An Artist?

• The Breakdown Of Liberty: Has She Finally Been Pushed Too Far?

• fearful: Crazy Or Just A Misunderstood Genius?

• How Craze Can Get His Groove Back

• Kloe’s First Month Of Posting May Be The Greatest Yet

• Kenton Anderson: Is It Finally Time To Retire?

• Team #shump And The Everlasting Legacy That They Leave Behind

• nhubi’s Disappearance Gives Kylaila A Big Edge

• unity Calls Out Lazy Developer, “You’re Just Too Lazy”

• The Most Important Piece That Makes RMN Tick: Clyve