My realization

[Computerboy319]

     I've been away from these forums for a while. I've been playing around on other games, notably Wiremod for GMod for Half-Life 2, and a few others. I've been busy with real life, and a blossoming love. I've dealt with various rites of passage, and am entering my senior year in high school. Yet, no matter how little I've played Warzone in recent times, I still feel a strong connection here. Sure, most of the people I once knew are gone, and some day, so may I, whether many or few mourn my passing (knowing no programming, I have unforunately contributed nothing.)
     I have reflected on the strong connection I have here for a while. I realize why it is. I realize why I am reluctant to install new upgrades, why I still always keep a copy installed with Vanilla 1.10, using my original CDs. I remember the day they arrived in the mail for me, in 1999, as my father's birthday present to me. I remember my life at that time, with few others in my life for me.
     I remember my brief experience with NEWST, before it went under. I never learned of Pumpkin-2, that came after, until many years later, when I thought I was the only one who played it. I remember my joy at finding it.
     It was my first group of people I considered friends...or rather, people I looked up to, and who respected me, maybe, to a small extent...I remember, not with too good a memory (being very young at the time) people I, and this seems a little silly now, idolize, for their skill, their intelligence, and their kindness and open ears. I remember I almost idolized flameboy, stratadrake, black_sabbath, papa lazarou, rbl-4nik8r, everyone (I still vividly remember 4nik8r's first angry PM to me for acting...well, like a little kid.) It brings tears to my eyes (quite literally at this moment) to remember those days, with Pumpkin-2, and Directgames, and Realtimestrategies as my only happy memories of those dark days of my life, the only anchor to cling to, the only hope that there was some good in my life, those days of violence, of rifts, of constants torn from me, of estrangement, of loss, one of the worst epochs during the admittedly short time I have lived my life. It is extremely painful to remember that period of my life, and truth be told, even though it was only a mere 5 years ago, I remember almost nothing from that period except Pumpkin-2 and my place of retreat and the people who, whether they knew it or not, were almost all that kept me going. Almost all of my other memories are repressed or I have tried desperately to forget them...I cannot remember what school or I went to, what teachers I had, who my friends were...even where I lived. But I remember WZ, and I remember my community. The single ray of hope in my dark life.
     Well, my life is not so dark anymore. In fact, I am quite happy. It is the first time I have been happy in many years. I have stability. I have a loving girlfriend. I have loyal friends. And even though I have not been active here for quite a long time, even though I rarely read the posts, much less make one of my own, I often find myself late at night, for no particular reason, coming to the front page here. Or going to realtimestrategies. Or directgames. Sometimes, I even go the pumpkin2 site and stare at the blank page in front of me. And I did not realize why until now.
     Even though I am happy now, this is only a very small slice of my life. Most of my life has been dark and dreadful. And yet here, this community, as radically altered now as it is from its form many years back, when I thought it was on the verge of collapse, when I used to sit on my bed and almost sob at the thought of what whould happen to my life if this place of refuge decayed, is the link I have to almost the only happy part of my childhood. It defined my life, in a way that few could understand. I grew here. I learned interaction, speech, grammar. I am a writer now solely thanks to Pumpkin-2 and my poor attempts at fan-fiction that I was allowed to experiment at. It sparked my interest in programming, and now I am the president of my school's first Robotics club, along with another member, cegrocks. And this game itself has defined my life. It might seem neurotic (and it probably is) but the WZ2100 discs I have, my original ones from 1999, are some of my most treasured posessions. Simply looking upon them, holding them in my hand, looking at the debug screenshots on the inside cover, are enough to bring a smile to my face when nothing else will. There is much more than pie files contained in those disks. A big section of my life, my only good memories from that time, are contained in those little pieces of plastic.
     This is something that I have finally realized, only 8 years after the fact. I realize this may seem a strange thing to write on a game forum, and this forum may not be as intimate as it was during my childhood, when every person on it knew each other and a new member was as rare as a solar eclipse, but I still wanted to leave this confession here, if I leave nothing else here. I realize that I have been writing this for half an hour, and that I have my road test tomorrow, so, I have little else to say, as I have written here something I have not written anywhere else. I must go to bed now.
     Good-night. I am sorry to bare so much here, but if I don't get this written down...well, I don't know what will happen.
     -CB319
     

[lav_coyote25]

not too worry - you will do fine. just remember to shoulder check before lane changes.


;D  welcome back!!

[Hatsjoe]

I think i kinda know what you feel like. Although nothing has gone wrong for me in my entire life, I also feel the same connection to the community and the game. I must ve read the entire manual of the game at least 50 times late at night in my bed. I think it's not just the great game, but more importantly the struggle for its existence that made us all so close. Indeed, now the fight seems to have lost its dramatic touch and is steadily heading for victory. But i will never forget how i experienced all of this when i was just a kid Cheers mate !

[fryBASS]

Dude, I totally understand what you mean.  I never really had a dark period of my life, and I think that everything has been really great for me so far (knock on wood), but I totally understand your connection to the game and the community.  I was never really a part of the WZ community, as I never even had the computer version until about a year or so ago. 

I remember, I had some game that had Warzone 2100 as a demo on it.  I think it was Gex 3, but I believe I had another game that had the demo on it too, maybe it was a Spyro game or a Crash Bandicoot game.  Anyways, I'd play that one level (or on one of the demo's, it even had a transport mission)and absolutley love it.  I remember hoping so much that I'd get Warzone for my birthday that year.  I remember finally playing the real game and not really liking it because it looked different from the demo.  I stopped, but then played again.  I remember I totally sucked at the real thing, and even getting to level 5 was an accomplishment.  I never even beat the game for real with no cheats until this year (and on hard).

Just having fun and playing the game when I was a kid just gave me this connection to it.  It was one of the few games I had where I actually had to TRY to do good.  It was probably the first video game I ever played that challenged me.  It was my first RTS game. 

I also have this connection to Age of Empires 2, as this was my first online game.  Playing that game, being part of the community, contributing, being in a clan, learning more and more about the game, getting better and better, meeting people online, getting to know each other, having this meaningfull relationships, having better players to look up to, just like you said. 

Sometimes I just see my WZ game and think, "hey, look, there's Warzone2100, I wanna play it."  I play for about a minute and get bored.  I think its just like the connection to the relationships and good times you had because of the game that makes you so connected to it.  The actual playing of the game isn't what made you connected to it.  It was the people that you have connected to it. 

[Rman Virgil]

* CB319 & fryBASS:

* You both have a rare courage to share a really intimate side of the online gameing community experience. Why it is rarely spoken to these days I can only speculate on. In some ways it reminds me of the fable "The Emperor's New Clothes".

* Having been involved in the WZ online journey since day one what you two gents speak of is as much at the heart of the game's enduring over 8 years as the very game itself.

* Recently, in another context, I put it this way:

* (3.) "Transformation" has always been a part of the community surrounding the common interest in the game that is WZ. "Transformation" as in gamers changing, evolving, growing, learning, and so forth (keeping it positive) as individuals in ways that have little or no bearing on their specific game playing skills. In this case the medium of interaction being mostly BBs (lately IRC has taken a more expansive role, and all along, IMs & emails have also had a place) the result, personal transformation.

(If interested in the full context you can find it in the "Trinty" thread @ the "Showcase" forum.)

* I was deliberately being cooly objective (to match the current temper) when in reality what I was translating were purely emotional experiences I didn't think there were any left who could relate. I was wrong.

* Frankly, none of the present would exist had there not been that strong current of emotion over the years that not only kept the game alive thru community, but kept hope alive for its liberation - indeed its liberation itself, in many ways, was hugely (if not mostly)  emotion-based and driven. Perhaps it could have happened in a more dispassionate  way but, the fact is, it happened this way

* You two, IMO, have expressed something important and done so with a noble eloquence. It is so much a part of the history of the game that I think it should have a place in Wikipedia's article on WZ2100.

* Again, thank you both for sharing your very personal stories.

Cheers, /V\I/R\G/I\L/