Level Up Live was to have four major tournaments running side-by-side, one for Ragnarok, one for ROSE, one for Freestyle, and one for RF.

Now, all the other games were pretty straightforward. Coming up with mechanics for those wasn’t that difficult. Ragnarok already had its mechanics for RPC. ROSE was very similar in nature to RO and was centered on clans. Freestyle was a no-brainer. It was virtual basketball and the mechanics for that was pretty easy.

For RF Online, the real challenge was to start from scratch and come up with tournament mechanics for a game where 3 races all vied for complete domination of the persistent RF virtual world (or planet) of Novus.

STARTING FROM SCRATCH

Not only did me my team have to work with almost nothing (no tournament was ever done for RF before – well, no rules in English as far as I know). We also have to make it fair to everyone while at the same time, allowing a vast number of people to participate and have a fair chance of winning. Oh, did I mention that the rules had to be easy to understand? Also, I have to work with a timeline of development patches by CCR (the Korean developers) so that all is meshed into one harmonious system. (no more sleep for this author!)

At first, I considered the possibility of tying everything to Contribution Points (or CP). In the game, you get CP by defeating enemy characters or accomplishing quests. The first draft of the RF tournament rules meant adding up all CP of individual players and tallying them to their guilds. This would be reflected real-time into the website. We’d get the top scorers at the end of the “counting season” and into the semis. But alas! Coming up with a software application for this wasn’t reasonable given the time we had.

And so the CP-tournament idea came crashing down with a thud! It was cool while it lasted. Sigh.

With just a couple of days before the deadline, I was back to the drawing boards staring blankly at my equally-blank-and-dull MS Word document. White wasn’t really my color, sheesh. Back to square one… and my mind wasn’t cooperating. I decided to put it aside and work on it first thing the next day.

Back home, I thought I’d check on my unanswered e-mail while watching TV. In what was almost like a surreal moment: as I was reading a report from GM Lilith about the ROSE Lion’s Den season, my TV was on a sports channel and blaring about qualified teams. I kinda’ overheard something about “the start of the first season”. Seasons? Qualified teams? The words seem to float around me, conjuring up ideas for the RF tournament.

Eureka! What if we just have teams that could apply? With a strict eligibility rule, 4 seasons, and we’ll have a 3-way battle called “flights”? It’s possible. What a cool idea! I got my notebook and started to write notes and then scribble tournament trees. With a wide grin, I slept and was anxious to tell everyone about the new format the next morning.

COMING UP WITH A NAME

When I finally got everyone to agree, the RF tournament format was officially born. Now all we had to do was come up with a cool name. RFPC 2006 wasn’t even considered. Looking back at my notes, we had “Novus Rising”, “Masters of Novus”, “Tyrants of Novus” and “Lords of Novus”. In the end, it was “Novus Elite Squad Tournament” (or N.E.S.T.) that got the thumbs up.

So there you have it, behind-the-scenes of NEST. I’d like to take this opportunity to thank all those that helped and contributed to making the idea a reality: Marc Reyes, Meng Morales, Pao Pena, Sheila Paul, our “game gurus”: Jed, Adrian, Marc, Chris, Errol, Rain, Allen, and to all the playtesters, mods, Archons, Council, RF players and LU co-workers and CCR guys who critiqued and contributed. Due to space considerations, I can’t name you all – but you know who you are. THANK YOU!

Official site: http://www.risingforce.ph/novuselitesquad