Descent Geneology

[Lady Silver]

[roncli]

While you were offline last night, Entropy was asking how well D3 runs on WinXP.

[Djcjr]

I can only ever remember being tutored by one person in my Descent career. Planet_Ed, during my early zone.com days, taught me the fundamentals of dodging. I can't recall how many times we practiced, but I know it was always in Ambage (D2 level). He'd pick up all the secondaries and smart mines, then we'd meet up at the "main" room. He'd conjure up a random death-is-certain smart mine configuration, sometimes with missiles thrown in, and he'd tell me to dodge as much as I could. It definitely helped seed the defensive, dodge-focused style I've relied on ever since.

Sparring partners? That'd have to be MD-1224. Again, I have no idea how many times he and I practiced... 50+? 100+? And they weren't just 20 kill games. These were sometimes 2-3+ hours of nothing but dogfighting. He wanted to pierce my brain as much as he could, but even though I've always considered myself to have an analytically driven mind, I had a LOT of trouble trying to answer his questions concerning ship movement, weapon usage, etc.. It's just too damn difficult, for me at least, to elaborate on what came instinctually. I really do hope he learned something, though. Actually, he BETTER had learned something! I could recreate Dynaduel with my eyes closed, MD! And, I've never even used... *checks google*... SDLDevil. I'VE NEVER USED SDLDEVIL BEFORE, MD! I HAD TO FREAKIN' GOOGLE SEARCH IT! All kidding aside, I trully did have fun having you as a sparring partner, bud. I'm sure there will be a day when you and I get a chance to have some more. Maybe others will be there to watch and listen. They'll get the opportunity to hear you ask a meaningful question, and they'll get to hear my response be something equivalent to, "uh... I like potatoes".

"What rivalries brought out the best in you, and pushed you to your limit to grow and evolve?" Both Mark and Jedi. Why? Reasons. /end

[Morfod]

[Drakona]

[Drakona]

Enjoyed your story, DJ. MD is such a scientist and a teacher. I know many pilots owe much to that guy.

I try not to ask too many questions of masters like yourself with question questions . . . I mostly ask with lasers. Get different answers, too.

Drak: Hey Jeds, what do you do when I do this to you? *pew* *pew*
Jeds: I knew you were going to take that shot. I was waiting for you. Here's a smart for your face.

Drak: Hey Mark, what do you do when I do this to you? *pew* *pew*
Mark: I dodge it in bullet time!!!!

Drak: Hey DJ, what do you do when I do this to you? *pew* *pew*
DJ: . . . oh, are you shooting at me? Didn't notice. *totally unscathed*

Drak: Hey, Baha, what do you . . .
Baha: *dip* *cut* *roll* *six places at once* *like a ninja*
Drak: Hold still so I can . . .
Baha: *shimmy* *slide* *slither*
Drak: . . . never mind.

Drak: Hey, Rethink, what do you-
Rethink: *braaat*
Drak: -- do when I --
Rethink: *pew* *pew*
Drak: do thi-*doink*

Drak: Hey, DK, what do you do when I . . .
Drak: . . . DK?
Drak: . . . Where'd he go?
Drak: *doink*

You guys are all awesome in your own totally unique ways.

[Jediluke]

I was introduced to the game by Bradpokey (not some famous player I guess). He's actually a lifelong friend of mine. He gave me the config I've used since day 1. I don't recollect anyone ever teaching me a damn thing about this game (other than him showing me how to use the config and other basics).

I remember learning from everyone that I played. I watched intensely and thought about what they were doing and why it worked or didn't and stole their ideas and tactics. People didn't take demos really or share them which would have aided in learning.

The following quote from my favorite book by Orson Scott Card called Ender's Game...sums up how I looked at each opponent I played.

"I am your enemy, the first one you've ever had who was smarter than you. There is no teacher but the enemy. No one but the enemy will ever tell you what the enemy is going to do. No one but the enemy will ever teach you how to destroy and conquer. Only the enemy shows you where you are weak. Only the enemy tells you when he is strong. And the rules of the game are what you can do to him and what you can stop him from doing to you. I am your enemy from now on. From now on, I am your teacher."

Each opponent was my enemy and thus each opponent was my teacher.

[deimos]

Pretty sure Bradpokey was one of the first guys I ever played, too. Then there was a PPG guy whose name I can't remember who taught me some stuff and let me join PPG. There was a guy named Hellfire who didn't have fingers but made awesome D2 levels. I hung out with him a lot. I played a lot of really long co-op sessions with Ladywing and Mjolnir. I can't remember who taught me trichording, but there was a guy named Anger! whose nutty style I imitated. I never got very good back then but I do remember thinking I was close to getting good.

By the way, since we're reminiscing: I've been trying to recover Killgood's fourth macro. Maybe someone can help. So far I've got "Killgood. You just can't beat him!", "Thanks for making me number 1!", and "Another quality Killgood kill."

[organic io (formerly goldie)]

What! Morfod So I sorta question whether you would have mentioned me if I hadn't tried to contact you on Steam the other day

But yeah... Seeing this thread is awesome. I'm not sure I ever really had a mentor, but I will recount some of my more memorable opponents/memories...

Late 1994 -- D1 Shareware. My first competitive Descent experiences are modem to modem games against a couple of local guys, most notably my friend "Patriot". I used Gravis Gamepad (lol I know) and he used keyboard. We were evenly matched and we spent a lot of time in those mines of level 1-6

Early 1995 - I played a local modem to modem game against a guy who went by the name of "Pixar" (Bizarrely before Toy Story came out). I got my ass HANDED to me, by a ratio of like 10:1... It turns out he used something called a joystick. I didn't think I needed to get one yet for a while though.

I took a break from Descent for a while, but in late 1996 heard about this thing called "Kali" and all these people were playing Descent.
Back in those days, there was no Descent server... Just several big servers where you had people playing Warcraft 2 and Descent and several other games all on the same server. Anybody else remember that?

I decided to try the joystick thing, and tried to get better at the game.

So from my 1996-1997 days, the people I remember playing are:
"opiate" who was a really nice fellow.
"jediluke"... Who we all know is a legend. I played him on Case's ladder once and I died really bad in Nysa. I just remember hardly ever being able to find him, and dying without seeing him. And being frustrated that he wouldn't dogfight me
... Also some dude from PSF clan, but I don't remember his name.... He taught me a lot it seems like

After 97 I took another hiatus.

Returned in late 2001 and played through mid 2002
During this time I was a lot more competitive. I joined the |W| (Wolfpack) clan with "Tyranny" and "Esp". Tyranny specialized in plasma, and Esp specialized in vulcan... So I decided I would specialize in spreadfire for a while. But I do recall getting fond of the vulcan near the end of my playing.

My most memorable matches were with "Morfod" from the CM (Chicken men)... if my memory serves right, our skill levels were evenly matched at the time and so we had some really intense matches. It seems like we played Athena a LOT, and also quite a bit of Vamped NYPD. My favorite level was Thanatos SS (anybody remember that?)
I also remember "Mongoose", also from CM. We had some good matches as well.

I remember getting my ass handed to me by "Bishop" in a ladder match. Man he was good, although I think people accused him of cheating. Unsure whether it was true.

I remember a memorable match against "ahimsa" who was #1 on the ladder at the time (Did we still use Cases then or was it something else) and I lost to him by 1 point. He accused me of cheating because he didn't think I was good enough to do that well against him. Of course I didn't cheat. I played my heart out, and also got a bit lucky. I think it was also a fluke that he was #1 on the ladder at the time because there were others better than him. So me almost getting #1 on the ladder was a bit of a stretch!!! (I was only ever a "silver level" player at best!)

I have some fond memories of playing with "Jinx". We had music production in common as well, so he's the only person I've kept in contact with semi-regularly since then, although he doesn't respond to my emails anymore ???

Finally I would like to mention "Master" who was probably the closest thing to a mentor I ever had. I remember some very intense matches against him , and even though he usually beat me about 15-5, HE LIKED TO DOGFIGHT and therefore was really fun to play against.

Some of my last memories of competitive play were getting fusioned to death by Master in a small level called Ugh and also another fairly small fusion level. I think he was trying to train me on fusion, my weakest weapon.

Well... That is awesome guys, this thread brings up great memories. Of course I have many other memories of Descent over the years...

I don't think anything else could ever come along and replace it as my #1 game of all time.

Long live Descent!

P.S.. I doubt I'll come out of retirement, but hey maybe at some point?

[Sirius]

I don't know if I played against all that many people reliably enough to learn much. I used to play against a guy called Kanage quite a bit and typically ran 15-6 (this was in the Wildcards), me on the losing end. Then there were quite a few games with MD, which leaned in his favor at first, in mine much later on (once the Rangers got back in full swing again).

In recent times, though, I've always felt the ass-kickings (whether delivered by Djcjr, Jediluke or Mark392 - it has generally been one of those three) were the most helpful games. I think I could be learning more from them than I am though

In response to some comments from io/goldie (that name is familiar!) above -
I believe Bishop was a former name of he who is currently called SoulJah. Couldn't speak to the cheating things, some people did it, but I can say he doesn't really need to, he's just good
Ahimsa was an alias of skunk. Great guy, he doesn't really play anymore but I believe he's coming to the LAN in July - first time I'll have seen him in a few years, looking forward to it.
JinX sadly passed away last year Sorry word never got to you... we miss him quite a lot still.