No I haven't been playing for the whole time, it will be a little over a year and half. How has the game changed and how have I changed as a player?
I can still recall some of my stupid rookie mistakes.
It threw me that there was a pilot skill and my Warhorse had my name on it. For the longest time, I kept that Warhorse in the line, long after it was past it's use by date because there was the fear that my pilot skill applied only to that mech and If I removed it, the bonus would be lost. And of course despite endless net searches, I couldn't definitively find out if I was right or wrong. With hindsight, how easy would it be for a line of text saying that the pilot bonus applied to every mech you own...
Because they had such good and vocal spokespeople, I thought that the Bunnies and Smurfs must be like the top of the most totally Elite players...
How many niodes or prizes did I miss out on because I thought that the missions were a progressive story-line, not realizing that you could go back and redo them time and again? I know I had got up to Rizpah, because i got the joke story about pilots trying to give up on Snavuurm as written by John T. Mainer. How could they go back for more Snavuurm? DOH!
Speaking of the missions, the first time I did Cogwerk port, I completely panicked after misreading the timer and thought I had 24 minutes instead of 24 hours... and burned through a lot of niodes trying to repair and get my energy back... and I recall that first failure because I couldn't keep up the needed kill rate and even after a short nights sleep to try and get back in game, the timer ran out.
I remember my disappointment when I realized that because of time zones, I would never be that competitive in most of the KotM events.
I remember the time I first attacked a true pay player and ran into a wall of Axebots. Since I had been looking for a free play game (being unemployed at the time), I got massively disheartened at the disparity and almost left the game. I certainly didn't log in for a good week and missed my first clan war. If I hadn't shown up and been allowed to participate in the raid where I won a shiny Cindron, I'm not sure I would have stayed.
I remember drooling over the big mechs (before we had BFMs) that were so far in the future for me... this was back at a time when I was in my first actual clan war and the leader told us not to attack a certain player... unless we could withstand the firepower of his massed ranks of Fides...
I remember winning my first Antithesis and wondering why it kept blowing itself up... here's a hint, lack of pilot skill points does that...
I remember being so nervous about making a mistake, I didn't enter circuit fights. Come to think of it, I still haven't entered a wave challenge....
I remember my first Faction War, and the Exiles introducing us to Facebook Chat as a means of communicating.
And I certainly remember the friends I've made since then...
I can't remember the first time I became aware of Nick and the dev team, but I know I was impressed to find that unlike a lot of other game "owners", he actually interacts with his player base and is on to issues far faster than any software user (who has reasonable knowledge of the industry) has the right to expect.
And i certainly remember being a part of the drunken exchange (at least from Nick's perspective) where he and the community came up with the Raw Alcohol Combustion Engine (R. A. C. E.) and Midori's boots...
Some things haven't changed. Deborah was still the top of the kill board back then... except the one time when I knocked her off the perch... I think I still have that screen shot somewhere. Of course now I'm high enough level to give her some reasonable xp, I have the dubious honour of being on her daily stroll where she kicks over all our toys...
I remember reading pilot interviews where the elite gushed over their Ogguns, Ammonites and Dilophus. And its a testament to those mechs that mid level players still do....
I remember the first time my clan family featured in a story that I didn't write, but I don't remember at what stage we started appearing on peoples lists of 'clans we don't want to face this war'... and I remember being shocked when I realized we were.
I remember it being a heck of a ride, here's to much more of it and many more memories.
Submitted by David McCallum #701548