I loved the thrill of PE. I made friends within and visited quite some of them. It used to be my favourite hobby for ~6 years and the way I saw it then, many more years to come.
Half a year after VU10 I stopped depositing. That is not for nothing...
I am still in there, only every now and then. Shooting some small iron mission critters with my last remaining gear. I used to own shadow/angel armor, an adj Fap, an MK-V ME and an iFF8k. None of those items are in my possesion anymore.
I have full Gremlin with 3 sets of plates, an adj M2722 and a Fap-90. 1 small apartment, even though I once was the proud owner of a mansion and quite some nice appartments.
Only my Black Boots and my Jade Coat remember me of the Kemp I once was. A Kemp who will probably never come back because the creators of my beloved world just simply messed up to many things, leaving their original path of a Sci-Fi multiverse more then once to many.
Eventually PE failed to become the world it could be. And the creators have finally uncovered their real face. A company without any other vision then trying to extract as much money as possible from their customers.
The feel is gone, the vision is gone, the belief is gone, the trust is gone.
All that remains is a mediocre game and lots of good memories of a terrific concept.
Thanks for bumping this thread, I love seeing the videos and pictures here, so many old names and experiences to remember
I try to let it go, but they are my memories, so I just try to manage them. Its both a nice warm fuzzy place to go in my memory of a time and place that held so much fascination, wonder and possibilities, and its a dark place full of feelings of disappointment and loss.
I can't explain how powerful the feeling and experience was, nor can I transfer it to others who were not there, no matter how many stories I tell to try and explain it. IRL, I get blank stares and incredulity back from most people when I talk about it. I get an empty smile and a nod and I know they don't get it. After all, its just a video game, right? It often feels like even people who were there sometimes didn't have as powerful experience out of it as others. I don't really discuss it with people anymore. I do miss some of the friends I made back then a lot, especially one very special person I met in game, she and I used to spend so very much of our time together, so many great hours, days, nights, weekends together online in this world. But people move on for one reason or another and take their presence with them, and your left with the memories of the good times spent together.
For me, things started taking a turn for the worse as increasingly greed from MA and the players became more and more a part of the experience. The prices of everything was escalating so fast and going so high, prices were jumping on everything, you could sense the euphoria as the "traders" flooded in buying at one price today, marking up and selling for a higher price right away. Exploiters and scammers abound like sharks circling that smell blood in the water. MA was constantly nerfing, driving up the cost to play. I specifically remember the feelings I had that things were changing for the worse when they nerfed the 1x0 axe.
There were problems with progression, the way to end game experience with uber status was either you had been here since pre-gold and had skilled up and looted a lot of nice gear or bought it while it was really inexpensive to play, or you brought in a ton of cash and bought your way there. I remember how "natural skillers" talked about "chippers" and "the rich people" with disdain. Regular players were basically sidelined, only able watch it all happen with fascination and disgust, trying to make the most of what they could with what they had and just listen to stories of people "profiting" and seeing people on the ATH board hitting higher and higher All Time Highs, while others struggled to manage their small ped card balances for as much of the experience as they could get as long as they could get it. It was at this point in 2006 that I sold everything and chipped out. It was many years before I would come back and play again. It has never been the same. I do get a little nostalgic every now and then and pop back in to experience a little of what is left of what used to be. I'm happy its still around.