nads
11-22-2004, 03:47 PM
Am I being a bit presumptious to proclaim History week has begun? I can think of others I would honor as being senior to me, and therefore have this honor, but since I already necro'd a couple classics, I guess I forced myself into this. If I stepped on any toes, forgive me please. Anyways, I just went through and pulled up 2 gems from the dusty old posts section and posted what I felt their relvence to be in terms of the TAO Community. I hope to see more of these as the week goes on. Please don't just write something dumb like, "necro", but give us your reasons as to why the thread was classic, and it's effects on the community.
It's pretty amazing to see the changes that TAO has gone through. I can't remember my first day here, but I registered in the forums December 3rd, and went gold on December 7th. I had 100+ wins at the time I went gold, so I am guesstimating my arrival here as in the last few days of November last year.
At that time, seeing golds was a bit of a rarity. We all talked of drops, and most of us didn't believe they existed because they were much more rare. Eventually you'd bump into someone with 2 witches, or 3 pyros or something and just be awestruck. When I heard it was possible to get a second cleric, I was afraid it would be unbeatable. I remeber playing my first gold. He had a mud and frost golem only as extra units. The dragon, beast rider, stone golem, DSM and ambusher hadn't been created yet. I was too amazed to play my best against him, and lost, but after that I split games with the golds I did play. Being a gold held status, everyone treated the golds the way they do when someone with green writing enters the lobby nowadays. Well, I figured out how to become gold, and went for it. I had played another game for 4 years with a friend from another country, and I brought him to TAO with me. I was sad because I knew when I went gold, he and I wouldn't be on equal footing, so I also paid for him for several months until he dropped off the face of the earth. His name was Orthodox.
(From here, my comments are mostly relevant to the Banff server only)
When I first logged in with my gold, I remember a few others had been golded by that time as well. I remember Meletus, Rescorlian, BigMikeASDF, DoesThisLookInfected, and a couple others that escape me at the moment. These 4 players, orthodox, and myself formed a team before there were clans. We called ourselves the Strategic Insomniacs. We were nothing more than a group of friends who became friends because we could always expect a good fair close well played game from any of them. When clans were introduced in early January? we were all exstatic. While everyone else was forming cores of players to be a clan, we already knew who we were, and the clan chat was sweet. I remember hours and hours of clan chatting late at night when we all played (thus the insomniac part of the name). 3 or 4 AM was not uncommon to be wrapping up a clan game, and that was on work nights. We pulled several all nighters on weekends, especially Fridays.
Around about February, I remeber starting to see 2 things that changed TAO for me. The first was the mage bomb. The way they originally worked is some random grey scouts your formation, then a gold jumps you with a DSM in place to nuke your cleric first move. Over time, the scouting went away, and people began using bombs as their strategy. This brings me to the second thing I remember. It was during this time I first noticed any Netjak.com players, and the reason I noticed them at all was because it was a safe bet they were mage bombers. This began the SI Netjak rivalry. Without exception, all SI members I knew of detested the bomb. In our minds it took out the element of skill from the game. The other's arguements were, if you find a strategy that wins, use it. Over time, the mage bomb was neutralized, but it's effect on TAO was it got people to think of formations besides the Turtle. This was when Turtling began to evolve. This is also when I began to see Netjak.com members as being skilled players.
Since that time, we've been in recent history, that needs not be rehashed now, as it could bring up needless flaming, and we're all here to have fun and remember the beginnings. All this week, there's food, beer, a carnival for the kids, a parade, all followed up by the necropost rodeo. Bring your best post back up to the top of the heap and tell us what it means. Until then, if you drink don't drive, and have fun.
It's pretty amazing to see the changes that TAO has gone through. I can't remember my first day here, but I registered in the forums December 3rd, and went gold on December 7th. I had 100+ wins at the time I went gold, so I am guesstimating my arrival here as in the last few days of November last year.
At that time, seeing golds was a bit of a rarity. We all talked of drops, and most of us didn't believe they existed because they were much more rare. Eventually you'd bump into someone with 2 witches, or 3 pyros or something and just be awestruck. When I heard it was possible to get a second cleric, I was afraid it would be unbeatable. I remeber playing my first gold. He had a mud and frost golem only as extra units. The dragon, beast rider, stone golem, DSM and ambusher hadn't been created yet. I was too amazed to play my best against him, and lost, but after that I split games with the golds I did play. Being a gold held status, everyone treated the golds the way they do when someone with green writing enters the lobby nowadays. Well, I figured out how to become gold, and went for it. I had played another game for 4 years with a friend from another country, and I brought him to TAO with me. I was sad because I knew when I went gold, he and I wouldn't be on equal footing, so I also paid for him for several months until he dropped off the face of the earth. His name was Orthodox.
(From here, my comments are mostly relevant to the Banff server only)
When I first logged in with my gold, I remember a few others had been golded by that time as well. I remember Meletus, Rescorlian, BigMikeASDF, DoesThisLookInfected, and a couple others that escape me at the moment. These 4 players, orthodox, and myself formed a team before there were clans. We called ourselves the Strategic Insomniacs. We were nothing more than a group of friends who became friends because we could always expect a good fair close well played game from any of them. When clans were introduced in early January? we were all exstatic. While everyone else was forming cores of players to be a clan, we already knew who we were, and the clan chat was sweet. I remember hours and hours of clan chatting late at night when we all played (thus the insomniac part of the name). 3 or 4 AM was not uncommon to be wrapping up a clan game, and that was on work nights. We pulled several all nighters on weekends, especially Fridays.
Around about February, I remeber starting to see 2 things that changed TAO for me. The first was the mage bomb. The way they originally worked is some random grey scouts your formation, then a gold jumps you with a DSM in place to nuke your cleric first move. Over time, the scouting went away, and people began using bombs as their strategy. This brings me to the second thing I remember. It was during this time I first noticed any Netjak.com players, and the reason I noticed them at all was because it was a safe bet they were mage bombers. This began the SI Netjak rivalry. Without exception, all SI members I knew of detested the bomb. In our minds it took out the element of skill from the game. The other's arguements were, if you find a strategy that wins, use it. Over time, the mage bomb was neutralized, but it's effect on TAO was it got people to think of formations besides the Turtle. This was when Turtling began to evolve. This is also when I began to see Netjak.com members as being skilled players.
Since that time, we've been in recent history, that needs not be rehashed now, as it could bring up needless flaming, and we're all here to have fun and remember the beginnings. All this week, there's food, beer, a carnival for the kids, a parade, all followed up by the necropost rodeo. Bring your best post back up to the top of the heap and tell us what it means. Until then, if you drink don't drive, and have fun.