Mac
Marauder
- Joined
- Feb 28, 2005
- Posts
- 5,708
- Location
- USA
- Avatar Name
- Mannanan Mac y Lir
I was still in the military at the time, a friend of mine and I were taking a class on Land Navigation. During lunch, we were discussing the class material and looking at our grid maps when he pulled this piece of paper out of his pocket, unfolded it, laid it on the table and said, "Speaking of maps, take a look at this one."
I remember looking at it and thinking, "This is strange." and asked in typical gruff military style, "What the fuck is this?" He smiled and started explaining, "It's a map of a territory called Eudoria in a video game called Project Entropia, you play it on the internet." I remember thinking this was odd, and now I was questioning his mental state after just admitting to me that he played video games on the internet, because in my mind that was questionable activity for him, a father of two, and I said, "I don't have time for video games." and tossed the map back at him. He slid it back across the table to me and said, "Its ok, you can keep it, I'll email you the link, if your interested, you just download it onto your computer, install it, create an account, log in, and check it out, its free." So, with that I folded it up and stuck it in my BDU's cargo pocket and that was the end of the discussion about it. When I got back home, I cleared out my pockets, opened the map up, took a glance at it, and tossed it on a stack of books and papers thinking I'd check it out later. It eventually got buried under stacks of more papers and I forgot about it.
A few months later, in January 2005, I found myself in a position that my personal life had unexpectedly completely changed. My Ex had moved out to chase a dream that didn't include me, so I found myself with extra time on my hands. I was clearing stuff out of the office in order to move out into a smaller place to be by myself and found the map again. I looked at the map more closely this time and got interested in the detail, and then I suddenly became interested in seeing what this online video game thing was all about. When I got settled in my new place, I found the link in the email I had saved from my friend, downloaded and installed the game, created my account and logged on January 30th, 2005.
I don't recall a lot of details, I think I remember going through and reading all the intro screens that described what had happened to the colonist with the robots and the resulting robot wars, and then I clicked through all the dialogs and somehow spawned into the game in my OJs. After messing around with the controls for a while, I figured out how to walk my toon out of the crashed ship into the trade center known as Port Atlantis. I remember I was looking at all this activity of avatars of all shapes and sizes and colors coming and going and all this activity in chat that was going on and I was kind of taken aback a bit and a little shocked and amazed that this whole new world existed online that I didn't know about, and I wondered how come I had never heard of this kind of thing before, and I was hooked! I couldn't get enough of it. Every spare moment of every evening from then on I spent logged in trying to figure out what it was all about, and how I could do it too!
I remember someone telling me that the first thing I had to do was go get all the Teleports so I could get around. So I posted the map of Eudoria on the wall above my PC, plotted a course and started running. I died A LOT! Every creature on the planet wanted to eat me and I didn't have anything but the ability to out run them, it didn't take me long to figure out what the Auto Cannons were good for! I remember taking a screen shot of my ghost that I had turned into, I seem to recall that I roamed around as a ghost to find a revival terminal. I wish I still had those screen shots from those days, but they are long gone now.
I remember running the trail up through Atlas Haven to Fort Argus, and that is where I ran into Exxor. He became my first mentor. He's gone now. I think he left PE to go make a fortune playing poker online. I remember him saying that was how he made his living. But I remember at the time I thought he was pretty impressive. He was Swedish, had been in game for a while, but didn't talk a lot, so he wasn't all that helpful as a mentor, but he was a nice guy. I remember he kind of passed me off to a friend of his and who at the time I thought was his apprentice. I think he was only interested in me as an opportunity to get a mentor gift. I don't recall what he got, but he said it was some crappy pistol he put in the TT. But for all I know it could have been something nice, I just didn't know enough to know at that time. He introduced me to Revolution whom I'm still friends with and talk with occasionally to this day.
Rev gave me my first set of Pixie and a 1x0 Axe and we went out and killed some mobs and were friends from then on, I couldn't beleive that we had just met and this person gave me a whole set of armor and an axe! I was so impressed with his generosity! I had no idea it was TT food at the time, nor did I even know what TT food meant!
Exxor told me I needed to get into a Society so he introduced me to Treatz near the TP in Fort Argus, Treatz was then the soc leader of Jurai Blood. I remember being somewhat nervous that was actually being interviewed in order to submit an application to join an actual Society, a group of people who actually worked together in this online world! I was so proud that Treatz accepted me into JB and did everything I could to please Exxor, Rev and Treatz for giving me the opportunity! It was funny to me how serious I was taking it all, I didn't want to screw anything up for myself or anyone else, I was so amazed at this whole new amazing thing that was going on ever night I logged in. I eventually found out about Entropia Pioneers web site forum, and started voraciously reading every single thread to learn as much as I could, I remember being so amazed at all the knowledge that people were sharing and what I was learning.
One of my favorite early memories was setting off by myself on my trip to get the Fort Zeus TP. That is where I ran into my first Trooper robot. I hadn't seen any huge robots like that before. He came out of knowwhere making all these robot sounds and I raised my 1x0 axe to defend myself and he one shot me dead! I remember being kind of shocked how powerful he was. I revived at some outpost and kept getting killed trying to get out of there. This was going to be a tough run. It didn't occur to me to try and call anyone to help. I thought I had to figure it out for myself. So, I eventually found a way around the red dots and was on my way.
I remember seeing the big houses out at Raven Valley and being amazed by them and exploring the ones I could get into and reading all the owner names on the terminals outside and marking the names down in my notebook and thinking this guy Marcus Callendar must be rich, I'll have to remember his name and look him up, he's got to be someone important to remember! I remember being so happy that I was getting close to Fort Zeus, when I got attacked by something called a Neconu that one shot me again! These things were tough! This time I revived in Fort Zeus. I remember walking out near the TP and some guy was standing there talking to someone else in a fancy colorful long coat and baseball cap. His name was Manic. I remember I said hi, and they said hi back, and he asked me what I was doing up there because I was obviously a noob and I told him I had just been killed by this nasty Neconu trying to find this TP. He hit me with a heal that filled me up in one shot! I was like, "Whoa!, WTF was that?" He told me it was a Mod Fap! I didn't even know what a Mod Fap was. He said, "Show me where it is and I'll help you with it." So, we ran down to where this Necu was, and he pulls out this big gun, a RockJacker, and kills it dead. I was so amazed, here is this guy with no armor on, and this huge gun and he just pwnd this Necu so easily that had slaughtered me, this guy was my new hero in the game, and he still is! I'm still a little annoyed with him for not telling me to buy a mod fap and a mod merc and an imk2 back then when they were relatively cheap, when I asked him about it he said, "Well, I thought you were a noob!" and he was right, I was, and I still am!
It wasn't too long after I got all my TPs that I learned about "skilling" and the best place for that was on "corn" on Argus Beach. I was out there with my 1x0 Axes for hours and days on end. I remember the corn dropped a lot of 1x0 axes, A101 amps, and Pixie shins. I had seven buttons with a 1x0 axe on them, I'd chop through them all before going back to town to repair. I was getting to a point where I was ready to get a dps upgrade and I had read a post on Entropia Pioneers by this avatar called Blondie that she had looted the Determination BP and she was starting to craft them. I was so excited I found her at Cape Corinth where here and her Blondie Inc. soc mates hung out in the shop can around the auctioneers and crafting machines. We went on a short hunt to test it out, I liked it and bought it. During that hunt we talked about a couple of hangers she had for sale. I had no idea what a hanger was, so we ran south of Cape Corinth through the big mean nasty Atrox that she dispatched with ease, and she took me on a ride to the space station. That was the best ride ever! I just had to have one, so we made a deal for the hanger south of Corinth and I bought it from her.
That was the start of my wonderful relationship with Blondie in this world. We became best friends, hunting partners, soc mates, pvp partners, and more. We had such fun staying up all night joking around, listening to music, doing random pvp, hunting in the domes of CP, burning boatloads of cash, watching the swirlies, trying to get that ever elusive ALL TIME HIGH! Those were the best of times. I'll never forget how much fun we had in this virtual world together, I'm still amazing at how powerful the connection was between us even though we were so far apart irl. Meeting together every night in this virtual world and having such a fine time was one of the absolute best virtual experienced I have ever had with someone else in my life, and it is very hard to try and explain that experience to anyone else in real life who has not experienced it for themselves.
After figuring out how to deposit, I soon became very "invested." I would go on to own some nice hunting gear including the Shadow armor that I loved, the Hanger we used a lot, a few Land Areas ( Atrax Park and Longu Land), and some other goodies. Blondie and I joined the Shaolin society and had a lot of fun during Land Grab where we successfully defended our LAs against some of the top Societies of the day and collected a few peds from taxes.
Unfortunately, at some point, my aggravations built up and got the best of me. I got mad at MA and where the game was going and could not accept it anymore and decided to just sell everything and chip out. I was happy I was able to pull out a lot more than I had invested and I felt like I had won the game at that point, but it was bittersweet. I was angry at the one thing that I had become such a big part of my life. I had so many dreams of growing my investments in the game, and then all at once it was all gone. It would be 4 years before I would play again.
I can't hardly believe I'm still playing this "game" after 8 years. It seems those early days for me where a life time ago and so exciting. I was trying to explain it all the other day to someone and was thinking to myself that I was amazed that I was still here logging into this game. I was also kind of sad that my avatar Mac wasn't where I thought he should be by now. But hey, that's life, you make your decisions and deal with it.
After being gone for years, only popping in to say hi to friends and keep Mac alive, I've lately had some fun re-exploring some new stuff, some of it not so much because it reminds me of the same old crap that pissed me off ages ago, but Mac is slowly getting his skills back and he's feeling like he is getting back in shape again. His skills are actually higher now than when I left before in 2006. It won't be long before I reach my old goal of unlocking Commando, then its on to Kill Strike! I'm doing some missions and its been entertaining. I don't know how long it will hold my interest this time, but I'm happy that this is still around, if not for anything else than the just the memories of the feelings of wonder and excitement I had meeting people from all over the real world while exploring this online virtual world.
I remember looking at it and thinking, "This is strange." and asked in typical gruff military style, "What the fuck is this?" He smiled and started explaining, "It's a map of a territory called Eudoria in a video game called Project Entropia, you play it on the internet." I remember thinking this was odd, and now I was questioning his mental state after just admitting to me that he played video games on the internet, because in my mind that was questionable activity for him, a father of two, and I said, "I don't have time for video games." and tossed the map back at him. He slid it back across the table to me and said, "Its ok, you can keep it, I'll email you the link, if your interested, you just download it onto your computer, install it, create an account, log in, and check it out, its free." So, with that I folded it up and stuck it in my BDU's cargo pocket and that was the end of the discussion about it. When I got back home, I cleared out my pockets, opened the map up, took a glance at it, and tossed it on a stack of books and papers thinking I'd check it out later. It eventually got buried under stacks of more papers and I forgot about it.
A few months later, in January 2005, I found myself in a position that my personal life had unexpectedly completely changed. My Ex had moved out to chase a dream that didn't include me, so I found myself with extra time on my hands. I was clearing stuff out of the office in order to move out into a smaller place to be by myself and found the map again. I looked at the map more closely this time and got interested in the detail, and then I suddenly became interested in seeing what this online video game thing was all about. When I got settled in my new place, I found the link in the email I had saved from my friend, downloaded and installed the game, created my account and logged on January 30th, 2005.
I don't recall a lot of details, I think I remember going through and reading all the intro screens that described what had happened to the colonist with the robots and the resulting robot wars, and then I clicked through all the dialogs and somehow spawned into the game in my OJs. After messing around with the controls for a while, I figured out how to walk my toon out of the crashed ship into the trade center known as Port Atlantis. I remember I was looking at all this activity of avatars of all shapes and sizes and colors coming and going and all this activity in chat that was going on and I was kind of taken aback a bit and a little shocked and amazed that this whole new world existed online that I didn't know about, and I wondered how come I had never heard of this kind of thing before, and I was hooked! I couldn't get enough of it. Every spare moment of every evening from then on I spent logged in trying to figure out what it was all about, and how I could do it too!
I remember someone telling me that the first thing I had to do was go get all the Teleports so I could get around. So I posted the map of Eudoria on the wall above my PC, plotted a course and started running. I died A LOT! Every creature on the planet wanted to eat me and I didn't have anything but the ability to out run them, it didn't take me long to figure out what the Auto Cannons were good for! I remember taking a screen shot of my ghost that I had turned into, I seem to recall that I roamed around as a ghost to find a revival terminal. I wish I still had those screen shots from those days, but they are long gone now.
I remember running the trail up through Atlas Haven to Fort Argus, and that is where I ran into Exxor. He became my first mentor. He's gone now. I think he left PE to go make a fortune playing poker online. I remember him saying that was how he made his living. But I remember at the time I thought he was pretty impressive. He was Swedish, had been in game for a while, but didn't talk a lot, so he wasn't all that helpful as a mentor, but he was a nice guy. I remember he kind of passed me off to a friend of his and who at the time I thought was his apprentice. I think he was only interested in me as an opportunity to get a mentor gift. I don't recall what he got, but he said it was some crappy pistol he put in the TT. But for all I know it could have been something nice, I just didn't know enough to know at that time. He introduced me to Revolution whom I'm still friends with and talk with occasionally to this day.
Rev gave me my first set of Pixie and a 1x0 Axe and we went out and killed some mobs and were friends from then on, I couldn't beleive that we had just met and this person gave me a whole set of armor and an axe! I was so impressed with his generosity! I had no idea it was TT food at the time, nor did I even know what TT food meant!
Exxor told me I needed to get into a Society so he introduced me to Treatz near the TP in Fort Argus, Treatz was then the soc leader of Jurai Blood. I remember being somewhat nervous that was actually being interviewed in order to submit an application to join an actual Society, a group of people who actually worked together in this online world! I was so proud that Treatz accepted me into JB and did everything I could to please Exxor, Rev and Treatz for giving me the opportunity! It was funny to me how serious I was taking it all, I didn't want to screw anything up for myself or anyone else, I was so amazed at this whole new amazing thing that was going on ever night I logged in. I eventually found out about Entropia Pioneers web site forum, and started voraciously reading every single thread to learn as much as I could, I remember being so amazed at all the knowledge that people were sharing and what I was learning. One of my favorite early memories was setting off by myself on my trip to get the Fort Zeus TP. That is where I ran into my first Trooper robot. I hadn't seen any huge robots like that before. He came out of knowwhere making all these robot sounds and I raised my 1x0 axe to defend myself and he one shot me dead! I remember being kind of shocked how powerful he was. I revived at some outpost and kept getting killed trying to get out of there. This was going to be a tough run. It didn't occur to me to try and call anyone to help. I thought I had to figure it out for myself. So, I eventually found a way around the red dots and was on my way.
I remember seeing the big houses out at Raven Valley and being amazed by them and exploring the ones I could get into and reading all the owner names on the terminals outside and marking the names down in my notebook and thinking this guy Marcus Callendar must be rich, I'll have to remember his name and look him up, he's got to be someone important to remember! I remember being so happy that I was getting close to Fort Zeus, when I got attacked by something called a Neconu that one shot me again! These things were tough! This time I revived in Fort Zeus. I remember walking out near the TP and some guy was standing there talking to someone else in a fancy colorful long coat and baseball cap. His name was Manic. I remember I said hi, and they said hi back, and he asked me what I was doing up there because I was obviously a noob and I told him I had just been killed by this nasty Neconu trying to find this TP. He hit me with a heal that filled me up in one shot! I was like, "Whoa!, WTF was that?" He told me it was a Mod Fap! I didn't even know what a Mod Fap was. He said, "Show me where it is and I'll help you with it." So, we ran down to where this Necu was, and he pulls out this big gun, a RockJacker, and kills it dead. I was so amazed, here is this guy with no armor on, and this huge gun and he just pwnd this Necu so easily that had slaughtered me, this guy was my new hero in the game, and he still is! I'm still a little annoyed with him for not telling me to buy a mod fap and a mod merc and an imk2 back then when they were relatively cheap, when I asked him about it he said, "Well, I thought you were a noob!" and he was right, I was, and I still am!
It wasn't too long after I got all my TPs that I learned about "skilling" and the best place for that was on "corn" on Argus Beach. I was out there with my 1x0 Axes for hours and days on end. I remember the corn dropped a lot of 1x0 axes, A101 amps, and Pixie shins. I had seven buttons with a 1x0 axe on them, I'd chop through them all before going back to town to repair. I was getting to a point where I was ready to get a dps upgrade and I had read a post on Entropia Pioneers by this avatar called Blondie that she had looted the Determination BP and she was starting to craft them. I was so excited I found her at Cape Corinth where here and her Blondie Inc. soc mates hung out in the shop can around the auctioneers and crafting machines. We went on a short hunt to test it out, I liked it and bought it. During that hunt we talked about a couple of hangers she had for sale. I had no idea what a hanger was, so we ran south of Cape Corinth through the big mean nasty Atrox that she dispatched with ease, and she took me on a ride to the space station. That was the best ride ever! I just had to have one, so we made a deal for the hanger south of Corinth and I bought it from her.
That was the start of my wonderful relationship with Blondie in this world. We became best friends, hunting partners, soc mates, pvp partners, and more. We had such fun staying up all night joking around, listening to music, doing random pvp, hunting in the domes of CP, burning boatloads of cash, watching the swirlies, trying to get that ever elusive ALL TIME HIGH! Those were the best of times. I'll never forget how much fun we had in this virtual world together, I'm still amazing at how powerful the connection was between us even though we were so far apart irl. Meeting together every night in this virtual world and having such a fine time was one of the absolute best virtual experienced I have ever had with someone else in my life, and it is very hard to try and explain that experience to anyone else in real life who has not experienced it for themselves.
After figuring out how to deposit, I soon became very "invested." I would go on to own some nice hunting gear including the Shadow armor that I loved, the Hanger we used a lot, a few Land Areas ( Atrax Park and Longu Land), and some other goodies. Blondie and I joined the Shaolin society and had a lot of fun during Land Grab where we successfully defended our LAs against some of the top Societies of the day and collected a few peds from taxes.
Unfortunately, at some point, my aggravations built up and got the best of me. I got mad at MA and where the game was going and could not accept it anymore and decided to just sell everything and chip out. I was happy I was able to pull out a lot more than I had invested and I felt like I had won the game at that point, but it was bittersweet. I was angry at the one thing that I had become such a big part of my life. I had so many dreams of growing my investments in the game, and then all at once it was all gone. It would be 4 years before I would play again.
I can't hardly believe I'm still playing this "game" after 8 years. It seems those early days for me where a life time ago and so exciting. I was trying to explain it all the other day to someone and was thinking to myself that I was amazed that I was still here logging into this game. I was also kind of sad that my avatar Mac wasn't where I thought he should be by now. But hey, that's life, you make your decisions and deal with it.
After being gone for years, only popping in to say hi to friends and keep Mac alive, I've lately had some fun re-exploring some new stuff, some of it not so much because it reminds me of the same old crap that pissed me off ages ago, but Mac is slowly getting his skills back and he's feeling like he is getting back in shape again. His skills are actually higher now than when I left before in 2006. It won't be long before I reach my old goal of unlocking Commando, then its on to Kill Strike! I'm doing some missions and its been entertaining. I don't know how long it will hold my interest this time, but I'm happy that this is still around, if not for anything else than the just the memories of the feelings of wonder and excitement I had meeting people from all over the real world while exploring this online virtual world.
