Tales of yesteryear
And now to share a tale or two of gaming glory (or not so glory in this case, which is often times much more fun).
In 1992 the only on-line multiplayer games were Doom and Muds. I played the both, usually with a couple of friends name Jason, TR, or Rusty. In the mud we played, TR and I had a pretty big head start on Jason, as we started playing earlier, and we were also much more willing to neglect our studies. This meant TR and I had higher level characters that got to pass down useful items to Jason's character (named Pompey).
One day, Pompey was out kicking butts and taking names at a camp of ogres (remind me to discuss how TR would pronounce the word 'ogre'). Pompey had recently been gifted with a charred long sword (something TR and I picked up at a high level area), one of the best off-hand weapons in the game, and was gleefully killing ogres two at a time that would normally have almost killed him in a 1 on 1 fight. He was a level 14 character using a level 28 weapon, and life was good. Monsters were falling and the xp was coming in fast.
Thing were going so-well, that Pompey got a little ballsy. He decided to go see how he would match up with the ogre chieftain. He figured he had about a 50-50 chance of winning, and even if he was losing, he could flee away since he had already cleared out all of the other ogres. So he walks into the chieftain's hut, and starts a wailing.
Unbeknownst to Pompey, the mud overlords had recently added an 'upgrade' to the mud server that enabled the mobs (mobile objects, creatures such as the ogre chieftain) to take advantage of certain skills that up to that point only players would use intelligently. One such skill was disarm, a skill that when used successfully, would slap one of your opponents weapons out of their hand, and have it fall to the ground where they would have to pick it up and re-arm themselves. Keep in mind, this is 1993, and this kinda stuff was revolutionary, and Pompey's surprise was complete when he noticed that he was only swinging one weapon, and his brand spanking new, kick-butt charred longsword was NOT wailing on his opponent, but sitting on the ground at his feet.
So he tried to pick it up, but learned of another little addition the mud 'gods' had granted the mobs. Creatures in the game would now pick up items that they found on the ground, and this particular ogre thought the charred long sword was very shiny, and happily grabbed it before Pompey could. Not only that, but the mud gods (who really had it in for Pompey today), also coded that if the creature could actually use the item, they would equip it for it's intended purpose. If they found a piece of armor, they would wear it, and if they found a shiny, new, level 28 off-hand kick-butt weapon with which they could REALLY show this stupid ranger who was boss, they would equip it in the off hand, and go to town.
Pompey was not a stupid character. If I remember correctly, he was a ranger, and rangers are known to be familiar with the concept of fight or flight, and it was high past time to get the heck out of here. Unfortunately for Pompey (this was really not his day), the ogre chieftain was ALSO a ranger, and this meant that he could now make use of this useful skill called track. Pompey's surprise was complete as he was resting on the ground, 2 rooms away (yes, it was outdoors, but you had to go south twice, so we called each space a room), when this really ticked off, injured, and well equipped ogre chieftain charged in on him. Poor Pompey was already injured, and is now in a sitting position, and didn't have much life left to run much further anyway, so he bravely met his fate with a really stupid look on his face, wondering why the gods hated him so much.
Pompey was soon avenged by a level 30 cleric (my character) who flew in shortly there after with rage in heart and murder written all over his face (Jason was really angry at this point, and I had tears of laughter streaming down my face when he described this to me), who cast the equivalent of 'vaporize ogre and blow the dust out to sea' spell on the chieftain (ok, it was just a dispel evil, but it was from a max level cleric on a level 15 mob). Thus, victorious, was able to reclaim the cursed charred long sword (which Jason decided was what caused all of this ruckus in the first place), and forever banish it in the city dump, where it could cause no more mischief.
Moving away from the land of muds, I'll share a story of Doom. The end of freshman year Jason, Rusty, and I had completed our finals early (that's our story and we're sticking to it), and thoroughly enjoyed an all-night romp at the computer center playing Doom. Keep in mind that we 3 were playing a first person shooter, sometimes a little too loudly (Jason has been known to raise his voice on occasion, unlike Rusty and I who are like quiet little wallflowers at the school dance), in the middle of a computer lab half-full of people trying to write their final papers of the term. We would play all through the night, leave in time to get the to the cafeteria for breakfast, then go to sleep to do the same thing the next night. I honestly can't remember when I've had more sheer, unadulterated fun.
Anyways, we finally got to the end of the game, where the final boss was this thing called a cyberdemon. This is a huge thing that's half terminator and half minotaur with a rocket launcher where its hands used to be. It killed the 3 of immediately. So we spent the next 30 mins or so in these little suicide runs getting some ammunition (usually a rocket launcher for ourselves) that we would go try to pump into this thing before it painted the walls with our toons. We weren't very good yet, and it thrashed us soundly every time, but we knew that it would go down eventually.
Well, Jason is not a man known for his patience, and he apparently grew a little bored with this. I noticed his toon on my radar had moved into the room with the rocket launcher weapon, and was sitting still by a pillar. So I asked him as I headed for the launcher myself, "Jason, what are you doing?"
He replied, "Sniping"
I asked (like a fool), "What are you sniping?" Because the cyberdemon was way to big to come out of his cavern.
He replies (just as I enter his line-of-fire), "YOU!!!" And I promptly eat a rocket full in the face fired by my good friend Jason. Rusty was naturally right behind me and took a rocket as well.
Now keep in mind, this is 1992, there was no deathmatch mode yet, it was all co-operative. That is, unless one of your operatives was named Jason, in which case we spent the next 3 hours (literally, 3 hours straight, we missed breakfast) fragging each other for all we were worth. The cyberdemon never saw us again that day, and now that I think of it, I don't recall us ever even bothering to fight our way back down to him again. We would always get a little crazy, pop a round in our buddy, and start it all over again.
Ahh, good times. To be young again. Next time I'll share the tale of of Pompey, St.Phil, and Kell vs. Dargaard Keep, and the ghosts who totally kicked our asses.
In 1992 the only on-line multiplayer games were Doom and Muds. I played the both, usually with a couple of friends name Jason, TR, or Rusty. In the mud we played, TR and I had a pretty big head start on Jason, as we started playing earlier, and we were also much more willing to neglect our studies. This meant TR and I had higher level characters that got to pass down useful items to Jason's character (named Pompey).
One day, Pompey was out kicking butts and taking names at a camp of ogres (remind me to discuss how TR would pronounce the word 'ogre'). Pompey had recently been gifted with a charred long sword (something TR and I picked up at a high level area), one of the best off-hand weapons in the game, and was gleefully killing ogres two at a time that would normally have almost killed him in a 1 on 1 fight. He was a level 14 character using a level 28 weapon, and life was good. Monsters were falling and the xp was coming in fast.
Thing were going so-well, that Pompey got a little ballsy. He decided to go see how he would match up with the ogre chieftain. He figured he had about a 50-50 chance of winning, and even if he was losing, he could flee away since he had already cleared out all of the other ogres. So he walks into the chieftain's hut, and starts a wailing.
Unbeknownst to Pompey, the mud overlords had recently added an 'upgrade' to the mud server that enabled the mobs (mobile objects, creatures such as the ogre chieftain) to take advantage of certain skills that up to that point only players would use intelligently. One such skill was disarm, a skill that when used successfully, would slap one of your opponents weapons out of their hand, and have it fall to the ground where they would have to pick it up and re-arm themselves. Keep in mind, this is 1993, and this kinda stuff was revolutionary, and Pompey's surprise was complete when he noticed that he was only swinging one weapon, and his brand spanking new, kick-butt charred longsword was NOT wailing on his opponent, but sitting on the ground at his feet.
So he tried to pick it up, but learned of another little addition the mud 'gods' had granted the mobs. Creatures in the game would now pick up items that they found on the ground, and this particular ogre thought the charred long sword was very shiny, and happily grabbed it before Pompey could. Not only that, but the mud gods (who really had it in for Pompey today), also coded that if the creature could actually use the item, they would equip it for it's intended purpose. If they found a piece of armor, they would wear it, and if they found a shiny, new, level 28 off-hand kick-butt weapon with which they could REALLY show this stupid ranger who was boss, they would equip it in the off hand, and go to town.
Pompey was not a stupid character. If I remember correctly, he was a ranger, and rangers are known to be familiar with the concept of fight or flight, and it was high past time to get the heck out of here. Unfortunately for Pompey (this was really not his day), the ogre chieftain was ALSO a ranger, and this meant that he could now make use of this useful skill called track. Pompey's surprise was complete as he was resting on the ground, 2 rooms away (yes, it was outdoors, but you had to go south twice, so we called each space a room), when this really ticked off, injured, and well equipped ogre chieftain charged in on him. Poor Pompey was already injured, and is now in a sitting position, and didn't have much life left to run much further anyway, so he bravely met his fate with a really stupid look on his face, wondering why the gods hated him so much.
Pompey was soon avenged by a level 30 cleric (my character) who flew in shortly there after with rage in heart and murder written all over his face (Jason was really angry at this point, and I had tears of laughter streaming down my face when he described this to me), who cast the equivalent of 'vaporize ogre and blow the dust out to sea' spell on the chieftain (ok, it was just a dispel evil, but it was from a max level cleric on a level 15 mob). Thus, victorious, was able to reclaim the cursed charred long sword (which Jason decided was what caused all of this ruckus in the first place), and forever banish it in the city dump, where it could cause no more mischief.
Moving away from the land of muds, I'll share a story of Doom. The end of freshman year Jason, Rusty, and I had completed our finals early (that's our story and we're sticking to it), and thoroughly enjoyed an all-night romp at the computer center playing Doom. Keep in mind that we 3 were playing a first person shooter, sometimes a little too loudly (Jason has been known to raise his voice on occasion, unlike Rusty and I who are like quiet little wallflowers at the school dance), in the middle of a computer lab half-full of people trying to write their final papers of the term. We would play all through the night, leave in time to get the to the cafeteria for breakfast, then go to sleep to do the same thing the next night. I honestly can't remember when I've had more sheer, unadulterated fun.
Anyways, we finally got to the end of the game, where the final boss was this thing called a cyberdemon. This is a huge thing that's half terminator and half minotaur with a rocket launcher where its hands used to be. It killed the 3 of immediately. So we spent the next 30 mins or so in these little suicide runs getting some ammunition (usually a rocket launcher for ourselves) that we would go try to pump into this thing before it painted the walls with our toons. We weren't very good yet, and it thrashed us soundly every time, but we knew that it would go down eventually.
Well, Jason is not a man known for his patience, and he apparently grew a little bored with this. I noticed his toon on my radar had moved into the room with the rocket launcher weapon, and was sitting still by a pillar. So I asked him as I headed for the launcher myself, "Jason, what are you doing?"
He replied, "Sniping"
I asked (like a fool), "What are you sniping?" Because the cyberdemon was way to big to come out of his cavern.
He replies (just as I enter his line-of-fire), "YOU!!!" And I promptly eat a rocket full in the face fired by my good friend Jason. Rusty was naturally right behind me and took a rocket as well.
Now keep in mind, this is 1992, there was no deathmatch mode yet, it was all co-operative. That is, unless one of your operatives was named Jason, in which case we spent the next 3 hours (literally, 3 hours straight, we missed breakfast) fragging each other for all we were worth. The cyberdemon never saw us again that day, and now that I think of it, I don't recall us ever even bothering to fight our way back down to him again. We would always get a little crazy, pop a round in our buddy, and start it all over again.
Ahh, good times. To be young again. Next time I'll share the tale of of Pompey, St.Phil, and Kell vs. Dargaard Keep, and the ghosts who totally kicked our asses.
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