(01-12-2020, 01:40 AM)Narcotic Wrote: Yay story time.
How I discovered Discovery:
I wanted to play the vanilla Freelancer story for the x-th time in 2010 and was looking for visual enhancement mods on moddb to make it a more pleasing experience for my eyes.
That's where I stumbled on this multiplayer mod unintentionally. Most multiplayer experience I had to this point was mostly Diablo 2, AoE 2, Quake 3, CS 1.6 etc. but never any sort of hardcore roleplay. Maybe Guild Wars, which was more casual RP though. However, Disco 4.84 (with .85 being soon out) looked like an ambitious vanilla extension, continuing the events after the FL story, and that alone had my interest. Not the RP aspect.
Few hours later I found myself in Pennsylvania on a sunday evening on a fully packed server. I can remember a nice talk with [Admin]Bear who I asked my first newbie questions and who directed me to the forums. However, my fondest memory was my first time in NY. There were so many players, and I couldn't even distinguish NPCs from players with everything being so atmospheric. I felt pretty lost, being overwhelmed by how organic everything was. (I couldn't get my mind around the fact that players are pretending to be NPCs --> roleplaying. And them being so good at it, that I couldn't tell if it's scripted messages from bots or real-time from players. I had no idea what to do and how to fit in. So I gave myself a name and purpose; "Lee", unemployed, looking for work.
One system chat message got my interest, it was W.F.Cody advertising his Weapon Codes and Equipment Shop at Norfolk Shipyard. And that's where my roleplay career started. (It also helped that Mirko happened to be a German fellow, so I could waterfall him with noob questions.) Anyways, my first days on the server was me waiting in my Pelican for the daily resets and picking up as many code name weapons as possible. (Hunting codes was one of the most adrenalin-filled activity I did in my first months. Having a cargo full of multi-million worth equipment, while having zero experience about factions, wars and lore, every encounter I had was so exciting.) Anyways, I learnt the ropes fast and Cody's pay was excellent and it didn't took long until I joined my first factions and from then on I was hooked (for half a decade... or longer!?).
I'd fill in some old screenshots now, but I'm afraid of the nostalgic feelings I'll get when I open up my Discovery screenshot folder now and spend the next 3 hours going through thousands of screenshots.
HEY! Narcotic!
THE SYNDIC LEAGUES
(A co-operative of Rheinland's Shipping Unions, retired from a life of piracy.)