In case you haven't already, read this thread... http://www.hcrealms.com/forum/showthread.php?t=381728

Go ahead, I'll wait.

Back? Good. I haven't always agreed with Howard in these leagues. In fact, I openly criticized how the rules of the first one. But the decision Icarus has made this time around is flat out wrong. Icarus isn't going to change anything unless we, as a community, force their hand.

So I'm asking...urging, really... everyone to boycott this upcoming league in protest. Howard and everyone else with multiple family members that play need our support. Are the virtual figures and T-shirts worth your integrity?

Anybody willing to stand with me?

I believe that the url Hair is referring to is here. If I'm wrong, please let me know.

I no longer play HCO, initially due to an unreliable internet connection, and later work issues. I participated throughout most of the the first league, and did enjoy the experience, having many interesting, bizarre and fun games. It's far from perfect, but Icarus has increased their technical support and the community is growing.

If the protest is indeed based on the ruling/issue(s) addressed by HowardBrock in thread I linked to, then I fully support hair10 (and Howard) in spirit. I have no issue with WK or Icarus regarding HCO or Heroclix, in general-- I am simply referring to the ruling discussed in the other thread.

Unfortunately, I think this may turn out to be Howard cutting off his nose to spite his face (not that he really has a choice). He loves HCO and spends so much time supporting it, but killing this tourney would really put a damper on overall involvement. The league was really the only thing keeping me interested considering the lack of sets on the horizon. I understand Howard's position and it's unfortunate he's been forced out, (WK has failed us in so many ways with HCO), but everyone dropping out of the tourney can not be good for the overall health of the game.

First, I want to say that Iam very humbled by all the support. I had no intention of killing the League but it seems that people are as irked by it as much or more than I was.

It also appears that Realms and Icarus have went there seperate ways and they are going to try and run it themselves. You have to decide if you want to support them or not. Typhon and I will sit down at Gencon and decide whether we want to go forward with a independent Realms league or not. I for one will not participate in any leagues that Icarus creates or runs.

Thanks to all for the support with special thanks to Hair and Snik.

Looking forward to seeing many of you at Gencon.

so how did the split occur? this will decide for me whether I participate or not

Even though i did not agree with them preventing Howard from playing, since this was a community league organized by players i was going to participate.

However, if Icarus were the ones who enforced the split and the idea of running the tournament themselves merely because ppl were speaking out against them, i will sit this one out. Kicking their biggest supporters and league managers in the balls is not cool.

Few things there I think. A lot of misleading by Icarus. In the beginning Icarus approached Typhon because HCO was not doing good at all. They wanted to snatch the realms players and increase their player base. At the same time I had been pondering a league because I love HCO and I wanted it to thrive...so I approached Typhon as well. I went all in and all the ideas and design of the league came mostly from me. Typhon then set down with Icarus. What he asked for was some advertisement from them down the road and to take over their forums to make it one big happy community. He got nothing. Icarus or Wizkids have given him nothing, so he hasn't exactly been happy about things anyway. I though have been up beat and kept things going and did almost all the work load so although he was aggravated with things he really didn't have to do much.

The next thing that happened is the kick out a son/father combo late into the league which we objected to but again we were led to believe that it was something that would be fixed later on. So league 3 begins with me again doing all the work and setting it all up and then turning it over to Crimmy. Having been led to believe there would be no issue with same household and that decisions would be able to on a case by case basis..we preceded on. Just prior to the league beginning they threw a hammer at us and said there will be no case by case basis. That caused my withdrawal from the league which they knew would occur. Then Tony got involved and asked them nicely why had the receded from what they had originally told us. No reply until today when they snatched everything up and moved it over to their forums...in sense trying to move the realms community to their site.

One of the things that is great about Realms is free speech. You can speak your mind and even if it is negative you can say what you feel. You may not do that on HCO's site as they will remove anything with too much criticism of their game. I have on numerous times found negative posts here in realms and sent links to them asking them to resolve the issues as those negative posts were hurting the game...instead of trying to resolve things they instead asked me or Typhon to have those posts removed from realms site. Something Typhon will not do.

Right now I think we feel raped...they didn't listen to things we felt were important, took our ideas, our league, our formats, and then copied and moved it all over to their forums. Basically they are trying to move the realms community to their site now.

That being said how do you feel about it?

Alright, I was on the fence about it but now I'm not. I will not play in their league, the shady dealings going on from them is absurd. It is an obvious power grab and should be handled as such from our stand point as players. I had made the decision about not buying anything else from them a little bit ago with the way I was handled in both chat and on their forums and howard is right they will not let even the slightest criticism against them stay on their forums. The worst thing of all is the fact that none of the people you can talk to even has the slightest idea how to play, if you have a rules questions the other players will answer you but if you rely on a Gm their answer will be to submit a ticket and you may receive a response detailing the rules but most likely not as I was informed tonight by a GM that it is not their job to know the rules and it's not the rules guys job to talk to us.

They say that the reason they are moving the stuff in house is so that the rules are being followed for everyone, when asked what rules were being bent they either wouldn't or couldn't answer. My guess is it's Howard and his son both playing in the league but honestly this seems to be a very thinly veiled attempt at being able to control everything about the game. Bad thing is they are not in touch with their customer base and the game will suffer for this, at least in the past we were able to come here and get in touch with others like ourselves about the game but now if you have any issues they think will cause them losses your thread will be locked, deleted and you'll receive a violation point against your account.

This is pure speculation but my guess for the reason this happened was that someone at Icarus thought this would be a great way to make people buy more product from them, keep the rules that each league requires you to have X amount of figures from the newest sets and you will keep people who just want to play in the leagues buying product so they can stay competitive in the leagues. Decent idea for them sure but seriously just rubs me the wrong way. Now if they had a modern type of theme, say only figs from the last 3 releases were legal in league play, fine. Like I said pure speculation but seems to fit the company we are talking about.

With the above explanation, I will definitely not participate in HCOL3. It is disgusting that Icarus would be so bold to steal everything that you and the realms have contributed to the game and cut off ties. I am looking forward to a realms organized league in the future!

I'm out also. I stand behind Howard and the Realms. No league for me.

Thanks... sorry about that. My phone sometimes stips URLs for some reason.

But it's really not Howard. Icarus has completely taken over. The entire thing has been moved to their forums. This will be the death knell for HCOL.



Just posted my removal request (respectfully, so it hopefully doesn't get removed) to the sign-up thread on Icarus' forums.

Isn't it the same ruling they had in both the other leagues?

I'm definitely out of league 3 as well. Not to fond of what is going on.

Howard & Typhon have earned my support and respect. Something HCO needs to work on for it's players.

It's total garbage, I'm baffled that a, seemingly legitimate, company would stoop down as low at blatant copying of a league that was set up, for free, by members of a community that wanted to support their game. There was never anything in it for HCRealms, but Howard's passion is contagious, and he was the driving factor for my involvement. I think this "Beta" of theirs, just turned into a "Failure to Launch"; all because some people don't understand the dynamics of an online community, and the damage that this is about to cause. Oh well; not my company, not my loss.

well i quit playing when HCO tried to charge me for being a beta tester. i only returned when i received FREE digital clix. i had fun on HCO but now that we have 2 local venues i am happy to say "#### HCO" once again! im out. either cater to us or shove your game up your ###! u will learn who the boss is.

I'm not swearing off HCO totally, just "their" online league. The leagues have been a huge driver of traffic for them. I think the moves their making now will end up hurting them in the end and lowering overall traffic to the game. I'm just willing to start that now. Maybe Icarus feeling a pinch now will knock them to their senses before they run the entire thing out of business.


Casual matches are still a good way to get some HC games in and I still intend to utilize that option periodically.