Channeling Our Resources

We looked forward to it every night. The specifics didn't matter, but when the sun began to set on the real world, we were logging into Star Wars Galaxies to play under the twin suns of Tatooine, or maybe the swirled clouds of Corellia.

Nikki was now a frequent joiner, making us a group of four. Grouped up and gathered around the mission terminal, we'd select a direction, pick two missions each and off we'd go.

With little effort, we started to fall into a common strategy. Cyra would tap the lair - we called it "knock on the door", shortened to simply "knock" long before we heard the more commonly used phrase. Nikki would typically close the distance and beat things up, while Shakkara and Vincer would hold back and attack with ranged attacks.

After the fight, we'd tend to our wounds, and return to town only when our battle fatigue started to tally up.

On the particular night meant for this trip down Memory Lane, Nikki had figured out how to create a custom chat channel for us to use. She named it "vsquad" and we all figured out how to join and chat amongst ourselves so no one else could hear our top secret plans (or rather, our persistent chatter, bad puns, movie quotes and poor jokes. I believe the nooges were very much public, however.)

We didn't make much use of the channel after that night. But I include this memory because it was another brick in the wall of our group's foundation. We didn't realize it at the time, but we were well on our way to becoming a guild, complete with a name.

There was still a few things that had to happen before the guild became official. Not least of which was discovering a ghost from my beta past, and permanently losing one of our members only to gain another just moments later.

The Case of the Missing House, Part II

Remember the forgettable Mon Cal that joined us in our trek to find the secret hidden base? (Remember the time I used two oxymorons in one sentence?)

At any rate, this Mon Cal - let's call him "Who Dat" for lack of any further information - was trying to edgewise himself into our friends list. Aside from entertaining us while he was hitting on Nikki (who was a dude at the wheel, as I'm sure you'll remember, but Who Dat didn't know), he wasn't a very redeeming fellow as we were about to find out.

We decided to pool our resources and spring for a small-sized Corellian house. We figured out the upkeep costs and took the plunge to become first-time homeowners in the galaxy. There weren't any tax breaks to be had, but we certainly wanted to break something by the time it was all said and done.

So there I was, with our new deed and everyone in tow. We wanted to pick out the perfect spot, still unaware of the limitations. We were north of Coronet and moving along the river. I'd try to drop it down, but with no luck. A short dash along the water, and another try. No dice.

Who Dat says that he knows how to do it. I give him the deed and he does manage to find us a spot. Back a little further then we had hoped, but there it was... our new base of operations! All two rooms of it! We had a lot of fun running between the rooms, hanging out in front, and just goofing off.

That was the first and last time we enjoyed the house. And it was the last time we ever saw Who Dat.

I never quite understood the motivation or the end result. After his Grand Theft Housing caper, he never logged in again, or at least he never showed up from my Friends List scan for him. Quite curious.

It looked like I'd have to wait a little longer to get that house. Just who was Who Dat? Who knows. In the end... who cared?

Whatever You Are, Be a Good One

Once Starsider had stabilized, it became our nightly haunt. After a days work and dinner, it was time to check in our second lives in a galaxy far, far away. Bedtime would come and go, and we'd push forward toward whatever goals we had set for ourselves, bleary-eyed but determined. Tomorrow could wait. This was Star Wars, for crying out loud!

Though we'd all frequently group together, we sometimes would scatter about the worlds to find that perfect DL-44, an iconic location, or... as I was still looking... a pair of fingerless gloves! Surely they existed, right? The hunt was on!

So off I went on my own, with enough credits in my pocket to get there and back again, hopefully with the prize I desperately sought.

There wasn't any direct way to find player-run vendors at this point. The hunt was very much: "Shuttle and Seek". If you came across a really well-stocked store, you'd set a waypoint and visit often. I hadn't yet found my favorite yet.

Let's skip to the ending now to tie up this plot thread: I didn't find my tipless gloves. But I did find an idea and an inspiration that I think I had forgotten, or maybe dared not entertain.

While coming empty-handed out of a vendor's shop on Corellia, I ran into Nikki. Sure, you remember her - our newest companion and frequent hunt buddy.

Nikki was teaming up with Random Toon, running quests and raising havoc.

A few introductions, an emote or two because they were free, and it was "Good luck, and Good Hunting (for tipless gloves)". Nikki and Vincer would team up again and soon, but tonight we each had our own plans.

Just as we were about to head our separate ways, Nikki said to Random, "That's my commanding officer." Huh. Really?

Ever since the "Mos Espa to Bestine Epic Adventure" in beta, I had designs on becoming a Squad Leader. But as serious as I was about achieving my goal, I hadn't considered that others would look to a Squad Leader to... you know... lead them. I mean, I wouldn't introduce Shakkara as "Hey, that's my bounty hunter!" or "Cyra's my smuggler!"

It was then that I realized that being a Squad Leader - of which I was still working towards - was more then just having a few cool buffs and titles, but it meant stepping forward and making decisions, organizing adventures, and being a stable island in a sea of occasional chaos.

Anyone could play a smuggler, or pretend to hunt bounties, or craft droid parts. But of all the professions in the game, the Squad Leader demanded as much out of the player as the player did the toon.

It was time to be serious. It was time to lead.

Even if I didn't have tipless gloves.

Downtime

Several days back, I wrote about how it came to be that Starsider was our new home away from real life. Our adventures started out well enough, and we even added a new friend along the way.

But things took a terrible turn for the worse on this, the Unofficial Roleplay Rarely Playable Server. For some unexplained reason, Starsider would crash and/or be down for extended periods.

To this day, Cyra and I are able to evoke those exact feelings of frustration and disappointment when we hear the character select screen music looping on end while we waited for something - anything - to kick the Starsider hamsters into high gear. The music! That gosh-darned music!

I guess we could have turned it off, but it was like we were unable to function without Starsider. There is more truth in that statement then we should like to admit all these years later.

The other servers did not suffer this same problem; whatever said problem was. Shakkara began to have serious misgivings and was ready to dump everything and start anew elsewhere, but Cyra and I held fast; we had gotten our proper names afterall!

For absolutely no reason, here's a picture of some NPCs lined up. Maybe they, too, were here because they were waiting for Starsider to come back online.

At any rate, we did want to play this new game that consumed our every waking moment. We made a pact to pop on over to Flurry and play alts when Starsider was down. We didn't need to do this very often, and within a week or so Starsider's rock road became paved and stable.

Despite Starsider's dubious launch during the middle of 2003, it turned into one of the most populated servers, for better or worse. No matter what, it was our home and we made the most of it as you'll see as we continue down this Memory Lane.

Maybe we loved it all the more because we lived through all these troubled times, listening to that loading music. That gosh-darned loading music!

Getting There Was Half the Fun

It's C3-PO and R2-D2! They have missions you can take!

Look in the back! It's Wedge Antilles! He's at his desk, and he's doing stuff! (Nikki offered to bring him coffee).

Wow, look at that box by the wall. I mean, everything was made up of 100% awesome as we ran around the newly discovered Rebel Base on Corellia. We were yelling to each other from different rooms, announcing our discoveries. We were no longer playing characters in a Star Wars universe, but were fans of the genre dropped into the middle of our favorite story as key players.

Then, it got even better.

Leia! Someone shouted it out. Maybe it was the forgettable Mon Cal, or even the recently blue-dyed Shakkara. It didn't matter: someone found Leia on the second level, overseeing Rebel strategies and intel.

She was a bit shorter then expected, but was quite pleasant - and tolerant, despite Nikki's lack of respect. But there she was: Leia Organa, a beacon of hope and light for freedom in the galaxy. For lack of any proper words to describe the experience: it was just the coolest.

We set out - maybe hours ago - with the intention of finding the secret Rebel Base. What we found was a lasting memory of a quest of our own design, achieved at a pace of our own choosing. Star Wars Galaxies provided the reward: the intangible gift of fun in a time before MMOs were boiled down into getting the next big buff to win the next big raid. This was immersion at it's finest, offered via an open-ended gaming framework.

We would walk away with the inventory and skills of our characters no greater then when we left, but we would walk away far better for having come in the first place.

That's It, The Rebels Are There!

When we last left our heroes - the fun-loving foursome, heavy one Mon Cal - they were winding their way through the snowy mountains of North-Western Corellia, battling through deadly predators and vicious Flails, while avoiding Imperial Patrols at the same time. This was no leisurely evening stroll, but a mission to the unknown; designed upon the tell of a passing rumor.

Travel on foot was the only option. We shared good chatter along the way, tasking only one at a time for the navigation, while the others formed a chain, following the one ahead of them. We would march single-file to destination or doom, as destiny would dictate.

And if all of this sounds overly-dramatic, it's only because my memory of it has colored it so. If one might guess that this journey did not end in disaster, one would be correct; else why would I have been taking a stab at so much melodrama?

So let's just get to it, shall we?

Fittingly, the waypoint was fixed just over a peak, forcing us to wait until the last possible moment to see if this had all been for naught. Filing to the edge, we looked down with wonder: we had arrived at the secret Rebel Base.

The idea of an orderly march was thrown out the window. We raced down the cliff and charged around like kids in a candy store, weekly allowances gripped in our fists.

Our journey was complete. But we were about to learn that the base itself was not the only reward.

Corelia. They're On Corellia

The thought of looking up waypoints or walkthroughs on the internet for an MMO was not yet a knee-jerk reaction for any of us. Now, couple that with the fact that these were the days before our characters datapads came pre-installed with "Points of Interest" and the galaxy was perceived to be huge and mysterious.

So when Nikki said she heard rumor of a Rebel Base on Corellia, we were all quite interested. She - and for the rest of this blog's existence I'll be toggling back and forth calling Nikki a "he" or a "she". Just get used to it now! Anyway NIKKI shared with us the coordinates for a Rebel Base on Corelia.

We made plans to go.

The four of us - Shakkara now a deep blue color - grouped up with another; a Mon Cal as I recall, but whose name escapes me. I'd probably use it as a curse now if I knew it. That's an entirely different tale.

We shuttled as close as we could - Kor Vella, was it? - and then set out on foot. The distance yet to travel seemed astronomical. We travelled single-file, on "follow" with the one ahead of us. Vincer took the point.

The land rose up into green mountains, which then turned into snow capped peaks that crunched under our feet. These mountains were filled with dangers, both wild and wilder still. A group of brigands called the Flails called these mountains their home, and small units of Imperials would patrol about but leave us alone.

The Flails weren't so stand-offish.
We knew that one wrong step, one bad choice - could lead to a fast trip to square one, all aboard on the Cloner Express! We didn't come all this way just to fail, and if anyone died, we would obey the "never leave a soldier behind" rule.

It boiled down to: we either get there as an entire unit, or we would be forced to bail out and try again some other time.

And all of this was predicated on the belief that the Rebel Base was exactly where Nikki believed it to be based on her second-hand telling.

TO BE CONTINUED...