Hey everyone! How are you? Grab a cup of coffee, tea or filthy plain water (if you're into that sort of thing) and sit down.
Today marks my third year of playing this game, and man it's been fun along the way. I thought I’d sit down and share
some of my experiences with the game, so if reading my rants ticks you off, you’re probably an asshat. Also this might
not be for you then. Let’s kick this off.
So as I said, three years ago I came into this game. I bought the 4-pak on sale, and asked my friends to join on in.
It was me, Quincy Scoundrel, Wonderbread and Leymil. Quincy had played before, so he quickly taught us the basics and
set us off on our journey. I had bought a flask of Oakheart that I mixed up with Cola and set forth.
We called the ship Lasoraids, because I was 17 and immature. I still am. Immature, not 17. That then later changed to Lasorades.
During the evening I got more and more drunk, and at some point I started flying with Kittan(?), who at that point braved the Spire.
I was running around mauling people with a Goldfish, and having a blast as I really didn’t know how to pilot properly, nor cared to avoid rocks.
I remember my co-captain becoming increasingly annoyed for every time I accidentally rammed them, back then it actually damaged your allies.
I got increasingly drunk, and I remember ending the night off having had a blast, deciding to come back later.
Over the weeks, my friends fell from the game, as they didn’t enjoy it as much as I did. By the end, I was playing alone.
Here I went to the forums, became part of a small group called AE, the Aetheri Empire. It was two or four people that actually played, ZingyZou, Loli and Zenith.
I got to play with Loli a bit, and ZingyZou later joined the Gents, but that was about it. The day after I met Captain Roy and BORNWALD,
the latter would come to disappear shortly after the holiday. Roy ordered me to be a Gunner, and then babbled on about some Ammunition.
I didn’t actually know up to this point what ammunition mattered, I had only flown before now. So he gave me a quick rundown of the three ammos for the flak:
Lesmok was for Longie Powie, Charged was for Hurtiy Squirty and Heavy was for Closey-HOLY-OH-GOD-THEY’RE-RAMMING-US.
We fell into good talk, and even though he berated me for being bad, I started to feel like I was learning, that there was more to this game than I thought.
I played with him some more, and met the rest of the Gentlemen. Back then, he counted every single defeat he had on his Galleon,
a coordinated team was nigh impossible to defeat. I flew with and against the clan, every time learning more and more about how
I should fight back, how the Flakfish should maneuver better against the galleon and use the dexterity, but it was never possible
for me to defeat the full-flak galleon. I joined their clan, and played with the old Gents: Ataris, Arcturus, Captain Roy, Masx, Morbie,
Mark Abrams, all those people. It was great. I was an angsty teen, stuck somewhere between a depression and betterment,
this was what I needed. Not more than two weeks passed before I was somewhat informed about the game and could start
to help other people who were struggling with the understanding of ammo and tools as I had. I remember one day, where the
CA’s in Gents said that I should sign up to become a CA, that I would make a good addition. I entertained the idea, and signed up.
Their recommendations got me in before the 2-month mark, and I tried my best to help more people.
This was strange. I know what you’re thinking: “CA doesn’t really mean anything.” And you’re right. Nevertheless, it gave me a sense of purpose.
Something I had been lacking for a long time. I never had a group of people, a community that I could call my own like that before.
Now I helped making it a better place, and had a title to show for it. This was the greatest confidence booster in a long time. I loved it.
Soon the Northern Fjords tournament rolled around, and I was asked to jump on the team as a substitute-gunner on Roy’s ship.
Roy flew, Arcturus held the ship together (Back then we called him the heart of the Gentlemen’s Teabag, because he kept the whole thing alive),
while Mark and I shelled the flak-cannons. On the other ship, we had Morbie, Ataris, MasX and one more. I can’t remember
his name, sue me. We went up against most other teams, and it was both fun and tense. This was in the old meta, and the patch
that introduced the arm-timer on the Heavy Flak had just gone through. So we sat, on each our side of Fjords, shelling flaks
and Mercuries at eachother. It took maybe like half an hour per game in that snore-fest, but I tell you. When you’re on a ship,
waiting in anticipation for a spot or a trace of the enemy, holding your shot and hoping you’re the first team to break hull?
It’s exhilarating. In that: “I’m a snail and crossing the road is the tensest week of my life” kind of feel. We won the tournament,
after a hard game to the Ducks and Zill’s team, who back then remained nameless. Zill was never one for clans. This battle meant
literally nothing, but it was great. I was the worst gunner on the team, but I felt I had won by just being part of this. Friends who fought together and won a tournament.
Well. That’s how I started out. If I was going to recap 3 years, I’d better write a novel. So I’ll cut it short: I wanted to talk about the people I’ve played with.
So I’ll talk about how I first truly came to learn Zill. RearAdmiralZill was old, like way old. Beta-old, together with Spaceman and Roy.
And he was, maybe still is, a very skilled theory-crafter. I drank with him one day, we were playing on a Gat-flak pyra, yes, that was a thing,
and yes, it was great. No arm-timers on light flak, please bring that shit back. Despite me being near the passing-point, we kept playing, and having lots of fun.
At some point I remember needing to hurl, so I turned around, found a bucket and put it at my feet, excusing the crew whenever I needed to vomit.
Gross, right? But it was too much fun to stop playing at that point. And don’t worry, I had stopped drinking more by then. Through him I met
the other players that would later become MM, Skyraider, Yiski, Shinkurex, yadda yadda. You get my point. Despite being in different timezones,
I could still enjoy their company in weekends, and it was marvelous to play with other talented people, fighting the random teams training in servers, like the Ducks or Corvus, it was fun.
It was through this that I ran into NAF, Northern Air Fleet. They were a small team that wanted to start out in the Cogs season 2, and I signed on as a Captain.
Getting to know even more Americanianites was a given at this point, Lehran, Letus, Metal Man, Norwegian wolf (later), became, and still hopefully are, good friends of mine.
We banded together as a Team of eight and joined the Cogs 2. We were beaten down quick, but heck, it was fun! We then continued into
other games like worms revolution and Terrarawr (Terraria for the lectured). It felt like a strange family, where I could only really play with them
during the weekends, being the time-delayed Ameri-Can’t-s that they were.
Oh, and before I forget. Way before all of this? I met Skrimskraw. Actually come to think of it, he also made a history rant, you can find it way back in the General threads.
Back then he was co-leader of Kings Gambit, and I would continually meet him in the same servers, and despite how many they were on the KG side,
I kept flying, kept fighting them. I’d lose, most the the time I was flying with complete strangers, that was hard to coordinate and communicate with.
I got frustrated a lot, but not in a hateful way. I was actually enticed by the defeat, it became a possession to go up against them and keep trying to win.
Just one person? Trying to rally a team of rag tags against a constructed regiment? Perhaps not -your- kind of fun, but shut up. Your face is stupid and you smell.
Later on we started to talk more, and over the years we’ve become good friends, meeting him and Aayra was fun. We drank and played Smallworld.
Back to the chronology, after I resigned from NAF, I moved on to Black-Flight Squadron. True to their name, they had bullied me super-duper-mega-ultra-hard,
so I got really, truly fooly ravioli sad and called them “Bullsh*t” squadron. Then I joined them. If you can’t bully, them join them, someone said once. It was me, I just said it.
Just after I joined, I signed up to become a Moderator. Technically, I had been eligible for moderation status since April 2013,
but I never really felt I had neither the time nor willpower to do any real work. As a CA, I could stop fights and problems in chat.
That was all I needed. But by that fateful December, I said heck. Why not? Turns out it was a huge mistake, me Goldenglade and
Mark Abrams got stuck in chat for 3 days moderating chat and being the only ones to deal with the PewDiePie fans. super fun i really enjoyed it
That just about recaps my first year. I’ll spare you the next, because I don’t think you’ll care to read more. I wanted to write more, about the people I met,
and how I’ve grown as an person through this. So I’ll do that instead.
Now, this game truly does matter to me. I love the community, and even though people say that it’s becoming toxic and non-friendly, I don’t agree.
This is a safe haven, there are a few outliers, sure, but there’ll always be. Here people can play and have fun around a game, that essentially promotes
just that, teamwork, cooperation, competition. With the recent news about how the production of Adventure Mode being delayed, I figured I don’t really care.
Sure, it would be nice with more content, but it’s the people here that matter. We can play the same matches over and over, same loadouts, same people.
But the conversations, the chatter and laughter? That’ll always be fresh. Reading this, I realize that this is the corniest shit ever. Like I’m reciting a
Christmas-movie Moral. It’s like liquid campiness. Except it’s not, it’s text, text can’t be liquid.
I also want to extend an apology. Remember the part where I’m still immature? Some people felt that harder than others, and in a bad way.
Mezhu and I for example. There was a game where we were recking the other team really hard, and I felt like trolling Mezhu.
I rammed into his ship in Raid of the Refinery, crushing him against the ground, and immediately after I felt the backlash.
He got understandably pissed, and I felt the remorse hitting him. I hope we can play together, in a game where I act like a
responsible Moderator, not like a two-year old, dude. Happy Holidays.
Anyways. What I mean to say is thank you for creating a game where I could become a good person,
and thank you for playing with me through the years. I hope to meet more of you in game. RethBurn out.
