I flew as "shamrock," under various PID's (only one I remember for sure is #1017) starting way back in 1993.
Before discovering Air Warrior (1.13 DOS I think), I thought I was the baddest stick around because I had mastered Aces over The Pacific and Falcon3.0 offline (complete dweeb). Boy was I in for a rude awakening...
First played AW in University against locals on modem, then figured out how to use IHHD with my shell account (thank you, Redbeard - that piece of software is totally forgotten, but let me tell you, it's one of the most wonderful hacks in gaming history, and for any of you out there that don't know what it was, hang your heads in shame :-))
Using IHHD, I joined the Air Warrior Internet Dueling Ladder and got to go against many legends from the old days (Gary Church, Moggy, Redbeard, Rocketman etc. etc.) and got my bellybutton royally handed to me - but I persevered and eventually got the #5 spot.
Eventually, I joined the legendary AW OZhost - flew there for "free" (minus the long distance charge from Canada to Australia), then finally earned enough cash to have a Concentric/Genie/AOL account (can't remember the order, but I remember paying between $2 and $6/hour).
In those days, I remember sitting down for 12 hours at a time to play - it was total addiction.
Always flew A Land - had sympathy for C land (despite their Sheep Shagging Ways) and always hated B Land with a passion (they were the best sticks, so I wanted to fight them to learn)
Flew with the 613 aka 417 squadron of old, then when 1995 rolled around, I quit it all to beta test a new exciting game called Confirmed Kill - which became the pay-for-play game known as Warbirds (father of Aces High). Flew Warbirds as "sham, -sham-, --is--, --is and even is--" (so far as I remember). Flew purple for the most part - gold, for a few months.
Quit around 1999 and played AH1 for a little bit - then quit that and came back to AH2 about 3 years ago - been flying ever since as "sham", RTshamrk, BGshamrk, punchy, mafiosi and finally shamroc.
The old DOS Airwarrior was an incredible experience - today, a full 14 years later, I can say with confidence that I'm an ok stick - and that just about everything I learned, I learned in Air Warrior - from getting my butt handed to me regularly by guys like Rocketman (master, and possible originator of the Rope-A-Dope technique that he did so well in his "barge" (aka P-38)).
Yeah I got better and smoother as time went on - but I think I learned "all the moves" I know today playing Air Warrior and reading Shaw.
Amazing how every single AW player knew about the Shaw book (bible of air combat), and today, very few AH players know what it is...
All Airwarrior pilots were good sticks. Why ? Well, the graphics SUCKED - so the actual combat largely took place in your imagination (only someone who flew in that era can understand that statement).
See:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rdKJUJXAtUM (made this video for you newbs out there)
If you were not a deep thinker (with deep pockets!), Air Warrior was not the game for you.
The camaraderie of Air Warrior was incredible... I guess it had to do with the fact that the Internet was so new... and everyone was innocent - it was a small world - nobody feared putting out personal info or anything... I remember when I was in the 417 squadron, we had a meet and greet, and people flew in from all over Canada (coast to coast) to attend - you'd NEVER see that today - back then, it was like we were all hackers or something - messing around with something that the average person didn't understand.
So to all the oldtime Airwarrior Vets - a BIG BIG BIG
to you all !!!!!!
We made history, brothers !
Shamroc
