I'd like to leave a message here, and ask that the mods please move it to the appropriate section, one that I can actually access this time, to the old staff, in case they still visit. I'm using voice to text, as I can't exactly type, let alone select options to get to where I need to. Otherwise, you would see my normal spelling and grammar errors, that as an old reporter, never bothered to correct, as you can see if your reading one of my old articles. Yeah, maybe I should have taken the time to better my writing, but then again, 16 years ago I got to basically rub it in my old English Teachers face, who was a Wonderful man, yet was of the high opinion so long ago, that no one would ever hire a repiort, that errored so much in his articles. Imagine the look on his face, when I put Stratics Chat in front of his face, for him to discover that the very student he told this to, was running the developer chats and writing articles for it as well? UO was his favorite game. I was shocked as well to find out who he was on IRC. Funny, finding out that I actually kick and temporary banned my English teacher, thinking he was a kid. Guess I was lucky to find that out after I graduated
If your old school you know me. If your of new generation, unless you read one of my articles, especially my April Fools joke, then your most likely wondering who I am?
I was one of the few, back in the days that moderated the #Ultima-Online IRC channel, ran and hosted the UOHOC and Earth and Beyond developer chats, and on small occasions, wrote articles for our website. I was most likely, the only reporter in the world, to get away with my typos, and grammar errors, which made me who I am.
I left long ago, because I had not 1, but 2 children on the way and just couldn't put the time in, that I always dedicated to Stratics and Electronic Arts. Had to make a career change, that took me away from something I very much enjoyed doing.
I loved being able to work with Richard Garriott, Hanse, Anterion and Stonegate on the event team, not to mention Gilthas, Sepprenia, Den Dragon, and so many others. There are many many more id name, but sadly I can't. I'll explain why shortly.
I stayed away from the gaming industry for years, until my kids started growing up, and found backups of my old work. They play UO now too. *Coughs* even loaded up an emulator to show them how the MMORPG plays. Bit of advice from a father who introduced their kids to this game via an emulator. Don't give them GM or admin access like I made the mistake doing. It took me almost two years to really learn Ultima Online and all it's PVP tricks. My kids in under 8 minutes of being introduced to the game, started their own type of PVP, which involved identifying as an admin to the server, and /kill me. Eight years old, and in 8 minutes there was 30 of my corpse all over the ground, because my son discovered the resurrection command, while my daughter found the /kill. They took turns tag teaming me and were starting an unsaid points system for how many times I could be killed in a minute. Almost as entertaining as the creative death threat emails I got, when I wrote the April Fool's joke about being limited to one dragon, and vendor item limits. That notice was an April fool's joke. I never expected Hanse to take it seriously, and actually patch the game weeks later, to make it real!!!
As you can see, I type walls of text. Which was what my April fool's joke looked like. How was I to know that most wouldn't read to the end, and just get so angry, they instead went in game, and paged a GM to voice their outrage. All anyone had to do, was read my entire article, click the banner, and see APRIL FOOLS! In my defense, Hanse refused to let me delete the article. That one article got more GM pages, then when people couldn't add a home in game when the server storm, kicked everyone.
Anyways, I noticed a lot of UOHOCs, and Earth & Beyond developer chats are missing from our archives here. If you want the missing ones, an Admin will have to contact me while they still can. Due to contract with Stratics and Electronic Arts, I just can't hand these over to anyone, as the data contains words from both staff and developers, and only an administrator from Stratics is allowed to view them, let alone decide what to put back into the missing archive's.
I came back a few years ago to the gaming industry, started promoting multiplayer games and MMORPG'S. Was just amazed at what was now out there, all because of the foundation blocks Ultima Online placed, so many years ago. My kids told me about YouTube, and said good luck, that I had to compete with people like SamGladiator, Eyeshine, and quite a few others. Most of what I did, I did on Steam, and helped some pretty small titles, make it big. Also got burned by two .
I'd have come back here first, but sadly had no idea Stratics still was around, as my old links, were IRC links, which are dead since sadly, the IRC side was gone.
I eventually found the good links, came back and made not one, but two posts saying hello. That's where part of my small request comes in. You see, I got a lot of notifications, of people asking me questions. I couldn't read or respond to any of them, because they got moved to an area I don't have access to lol. I'm no longer staff, so sort of hard to reply, when it got moved there. At least I think that's what it was.
Anyways, I just wanted to say hi to my old friends, should they still frequent here.
I have a problem recalling everyone's names, and today dropped all existing projects I was in charge of on Steam. I'm stuck using voice to text so sorry you won't be seeing any spelling errors like I used to do but I'm sure the grammatical errors will more than make up for it. I'm not going to be around much longer. Health issues doctors can't identify, and I myself not letting anything get in my way. I have done all I wanted in life, and spending what little I have left of it, with my family. Making it to my kids graduations this year and next, is my top priority above all else, hence why I dropped everything. I just got to remember to put a notice up on Steam. Couldn't find a proper place for this, hence my request. Kehleyr, if your reading this, I did warn my kids about you and Yellow Ribbons
Made the mistake of telling my daughter, and woke up the very next morning with an assortment of pink, purple, and lavender ones, stuck in my hair. She also hid the tool, that locks them in place. Or lost it. Quite painful to remove without it. Ang31, hope you got out of that job in Greece. Man, I thought it was bad pulling a 70 hour work week, but no days off In a 356 day work year? (Shudders) The messages, not personal. It's every day stuff we joked about in the main that all had seen.
For the people running Stratics now, thanks for keeping this place alive! I mention this place to my friends and co workers all the time. Even more so, to the ones who have no clue, that the multiplayer titles they are playing, wouldn't exist today, had UO and Stratics not existed yesterday. My away message on Discord use to read "Sorry, I cannot help thee!" Speaking of Discord....With IRC gone, I highly recommend putting a Stratics Chat Discord server up, if you haven't done so already!
To all my old friends, fairwells, and thanks for all the fish
