Its been a year

Entry posted by Joseph Black April 2, 2011

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So it’s been a year today, one year since Rural Route 3 was founded. I know one year isn’t very long for this community and with our over extensive April fool’s Day, instead of posting this and losing it, I decided to post it here. I want to thank all of you, new friends, old friends, and those I’ve had the privilege to clash with. I find it’s important to reflect on where we have come from because it helps us understand where we are now. Most of this will be an OCC reflection over the past year, I will include some IC.

A year ago today I was kicked out of my Political Party in a world called !@#$%*, it was today that I decided to look for another world. One where I could learn without being taunted, one that I could make friends that extended beyond the game itself. When I first started I had absolutely no idea what I was doing. My first purchase was for technology so that I could have tanks and planes. Well back then it was easy to spend that money, I then decided I wanted to fight someone. For better or worse, I wasn’t able to, as it takes 3 days before you can go to war. So a week went by and I kept getting messages from everyone under the sun, nobody replied to me when I had questions, it was very frustrating. At update that night my nation came under attack, I don’t actually remember what alliance they were with, but I remember thinking this was just like the other world. I didn’t even know how to fight properly; I think I figured it out on the 3rd day. It wasn’t long before my small nation was in bill lock, as I had been buying troops and not paying bills, I was ready to pull the plug and walk away.

The next morning for no odd reason I decided to log back in. I had another message; this one was titled simply Krynn. The sender, Lord Boris offered the normal recruitment message, but told me he could help me out of the war. I replied with a number of questions and for the first time I got a reply. It wasn’t long after that I was accepted to Krynn and began learning the ways of this world. Basic economics, war, and all the other things that experienced nations don’t think twice about. It took me a while to learn it, but the King and Queen of Krynn were always patient and always took time to make sure I understood. It wasn’t long before my curious mind started to want to know more, I wanted to see more. After only a month in Krynn, I left. Using CN:Wiki I searched black team alliances.

The one that caught my attention was one known as The Order of the Black Rose. I decided that would be my next stop. The application was a long process, and the academy was even longer. Lady Kirke guided me through the academy and into membership. Under her wing I learned to love trade circle creation, all be it I’m not very good. I spent a month in Rosular Kingdom, working with Lady Kirke to learn all I could about everything she would teach me. It was after a month that I decided it was time to enlist in Blackwater, I waited a month because that is what is required.

Still working with Lady Kirke, I gained a new mentor Page Slim. As a young nation I strived to learn all that he could teach me about the war system and how to fight a proper war, enlisting in TE I got my first hand experience at a war that I was actually able to fight in. It was a grueling three weeks of training before I finally graduated. This is a point in my existence that I wonder if I made the right choice, I decided to leave the Rosular Kingdom, I had learned so much from them, and yet the world was still so big, I wanted to know more.

I decided that I wanted to completely change where I was, since 2 of my good friends Omni and Gibs where both part of GATO I decided that was where I should be too. After a day or two, I decided I wanted to help out with their Trade Department, to my pleasure I was given full control of the Trade department, so I set out putting what Lady Kirke had taught me to the test. I wasn’t very effective at putting trades together for GATO, I partly blame myself, and partly brown is just bad color for trades.

My great grandfather passed away at this time, so I took a week or so off of cybernations to focus on family. It was at this time that three of my RL friends approached me about gaming together. Knowing all I knew about Cybernations it was my first suggestion, and while they didn’t like the format of game play, they agreed.

I quickly found out that I didn’t really know anything about founding an alliance. I decided to investigate, and I came across the “how to build a forum” and got right to work. It didn’t take long to complete, we then began with the other details of building the alliance. It was finally time to decide on a name, probably the most difficult part of the whole process. Leora’s suggestion was Organization XIII, Ezil’s suggestion was RavenBlack, and I’ve always been a fan of the Metal Gear Solid games, so I suggested the Cobra’s. Being the deciding vote Empress voted with Leora, and thus the name was made. It was a few weeks later and we needed a leadership. There was some argument about who would lead our alliance, but having the most experience it was decided that I would lead and Empress being the most stable minded and perfectly willing to drive down and beat me if I did anything stupid.

Everything was in place, except a protectorate. Nasty buggers those things are, most wanted us to start grow a little, and then they would protect us. However one night, I decided to look my old teacher Lord Boris. We discussed many things, he suggested things I had or would never have thought of. It was then he suggested that I apply to FEAR, his old alliance for protection and that he would vouch for me. At first I was very nervous about having Boris vouch for me, if our alliance fell through or I was a bad leader, it would look bad on him. Well as history shows, we did get the protectorate with FEAR.

It wasn’t a few weeks after, that I had my first real test as a leader. Ezil and I had been talking on facebook. She and I had broken up the three years ago, sadly for our friendship sometimes she would get upset and it would cause problems. Things got nasty when she decided to verbally attack Leora, my current girlfriend. I was stunned that she would go so far over a game. (The argument was over the name) I decided I’d had enough and so I told her to take a hike. It was at this time that she threatened to attack Leora’s nation, at this point this had been going on for four days now, and had caused to much drama, so I banned her from our forum, cut all ties with her IRL.

Leora felt I was wrong to act within the game; however Empress assured me that it needed to be done. A few weeks went by and things settled back to normal. It was then that I recruited Naeren, a man I still greatly respect for his zeel and his dedication to the alliance. In a matter of days he had recruited the core of our alliance. We jumped to 10 members, and things looked to be going up. Sadly we never went above 10 while Naeren was with us, but he did recruit what I would now call the core of our alliance, and without him we wouldn’t be here today.

So it’s getting late and well most of you who will read this know the story from there. I’ll admit that one year ago today when I created my nation, I never thought I’d have found a community anything like this. I never imagined I would make RL connections with people over a game, I never imagined meeting and hanging out with people via CN. There are many people that right now I will forget, but I want to thank these individuals not mentioned for the past year.

Peggy Sue, no matter what you do, where you go, I will always leave a light on for you and you will always be my friend.

Thedon, I and the Organization are lucky to have you as a friend; you are like my crazy uncle.

Gimlimonkey- When FEAR agreed to protect us, I decided to meet their friends, it took forever for anyone to post in our embassy, so I PM'ed you. I'm so glad I did, we have gotten to talk a while now, and I hope that one day i will be able to call Wolfpack our allies as well.

R3nowned, when we first meet you seemed odd, now that I’ve gotten to know you, I know you’re odd. I would change anything about you though, you make this game fun. BTW we will still beat you to 20 members.

AsianLeader, my asian friend. No matter how down I get , you always seem to get me to laugh.

Andover, it has been a while, but this year wouldn’t be the same without you.

Britishdude, you prove that there can be friendship outside the game, we are other sides of the web, but I consider you guys among our closest friends, and would gladly fight to ZI for you.

CBray, thank you for taking a chance on us, I hope we can make FEAR proud.

Midis, it is really hard to come up with the right words, first we were brothers in Blackwater, and now we are treaties away, and I probably would fight for your alliance, but I would die for you bro.

Lady Kirke, I know I said I was just doing those I hadn’t addressed, but I really wanted to thank you for all you have taught me both RL and IC. I really do hope I get the chance to meet you this summer.

Lord Boris, my oldest friend. I can’t thank you enough for sending that message, if I had read this message a year ago, I would have laughed, but today it’s hard to imagine what it would have been like not playing this game for the past year.

I don’t mean for anyone forgotten to feel left out, these are just the ones who came to mind tonight.