How did you get started in Aces High?
I’ve been thinking about this today, remembering back to my first few days. Maybe it’s from seeing all these new faces around, who knows.
Here’s how it went:
I worked for Xerox, and had a coworker named Steve. We got along great from the start in my rather unusual position of not having a “normal” place to work each day. In my first few months with Xerox, I worked at Steve’s account quite often. He had done the job I was doing in the past, and was a great trainer. In those long boring days of running a high volume printer, we had tons of time to talk. He would try to tell the grand tales of war in the skies in his B17 gunship in this game called Air Warrior.
Steve (JB42) is a nice guy, but sorry bro; he did a poor job really explaining the game to me. I had never played any online games before, and had only recently even gotten a PC of my own. I had all these questions like: you fly after work, it is night; so is it night in the game? How do you “talk” to each other? What if there isn’t a guy in the other gun on the plane, or he has to go? Does the “war” get lost by the Germans? What happens when the war is over? Total n00b questions.
After a few years of knowing Steve, and golfing with him; I would always “tease” him about being a Nazi (he had explained he flew mostly German planes), and how was his little “flight” career. He’d try and explain how the “war” was going and just keep trying to get me into the game. My biggest reason for not joining was money, since I was still living at home because of an illness. I had huge debt, and no reserves. So I ask Steve one day, how much was it to play online? He said it was a per hour thing, and dodged the subject.
You get billed every month, how; to a credit card? How much were you billed last month?
He told me. $200 or something nuts like that.
I almost fell over laughing, knowing he didn’t have much more money than me. I laughed some more at him, and said someday when I win the lottery I’ll think about it.
Some time went by with us not even bringing it up. Then 9/11 happened. The very weekend after 9/11 I went on a trip to visit some friends in Minnesota. While there, we spent pretty much the whole 3 day weekend talking about what happened, how it happened, and watching the news reports about it. The people I was visiting had some flight simulator (supposedly the best at the time and it was NOT MS).
This part is odd, but given the unusual situation at the time, I don’t think totally psycho. While having some beers in the afternoon we fired up his game, and flew into NYC. The only “flight” game I had ever flown was some microprose game for my apple IIC. I knew if you pull back you go up, and rolling or whatever. Well we had heard the reports about the terrorists learning on flight sims, and wanted to get an idea how hard it possibly could be. On my very first pass I hit the tower dead on with a 727.
I was immediately intrigued with flight simulators, and how hard it was to learn to fly a plane. I went out looking for a flight sim the next few months, but all I found was Microsoft for $30 or more. I knew that I’d need a joystick too, and that would push the whole cost up to over $70, something I did not have.
After Christmas I had some extra money, and asked my work buddy Steve about joysticks. Since I hadn’t talked about flight sims to him in probably a year, he was curious what my interest was. I told him the whole story, and he told me about this new game he was playing that was only $14.95/month; with a real flight model, and combat. I figured what the heck, it’s cheaper than buying a sim, and I’d give it a try. I went over to his house to see the game in action, and learn how to play. He showed me how to set up the stick, what they basic keys were, and how to read the help files.
The next night I kept the PC online downloading the game (dialup @ 34.4k). The next night I set up my new joystick, installed the game, and went offline. I flew for about an hour, then spent the rest of the night reading the help files. This was in February in Wisconsin, so there wasn’t much else to do.
The next night was a Friday and I spent all night practicing doing loops, split-s, immelman’s (the few things Steve described with the “hand puppet” model LOL), and whatever else I could figure out. I must have called him 10 times that weekend asking about what this and what that was. By Tuesday the next week I was totally hooked, and asked Steve to help me set up an account. Online I was frightened into the ground so many times I couldn’t count. I lawn darted while dive bombing a jug or a hog probably 100 times (first few months I could NEVER get those 2 right, always calling them the wrong name LOL).
This all was back before native VOX, and kills were broadcast as they happened. WOW was it dizzying trying to keep up with all that information. I slowly got a handle with what was going on, and got totally wrapped up with the era. One day JB66 told me that before he logged in every night he read the bulletin board to see what new “bugs” or whatever was found. That’s when I started reading this board April 2002. The help forum I read daily, along with the planes and vehicles forum.
Here we are 2 and a half years later, and I still call a hog a jug every now and then LOL. I still love the plane I learned to fly in, the C.205. I still love the game, and still fly hours at a time.
I guess the reason I’m here is the terrorists, in some round about obscure way. I will say this, if it wasn’t for the dedication of the HTC team, and the incredible product they put out I wouldn’t be here. <<>> and WTG HTC!
On a last note, I think what REALLY drew me into the game were the relationships made, and the camaraderie. If it wasn’t for the online aspect, meeting all these people (many of whom I have spoken to on the phone, and meet in person), I’d be just flying a dull boxed sim or whatever.
With the tension lately in the game and here on the board, I think some people are missing that. We are all here I believe because of the personal relationships, and the fun. If not, why are we playing an online game? Maybe we can all think about why we are here, and what has kept us here so long before we go out and “flame” someone, or something.
So how did you get started in Aces High?
<> and TY for reading.
