OK, any one that knows me knows that I have been a gamer from WAY back in the day. That being said, just playing a game gets boring. I like to explore all the different things that you can do in a game. I'm the idiot that will actually map an entire section of a game just to see what it looks like. So, is it any surprise that as a hyper personality, I have a whimsical side when it comes to Player vs. Player (PVP) style gaming? That doesn't surprise anyone, does it?
I used to play Freelancer a lot and we wrote a mod for it, including a total music re-write. So I got to spend a lot of time sailing around in a spaceship and being Victor's little Bullet Magnet. We never did figure out why if there were 3 of us flying together, the ship that usually took the full barrage of the first volley was mine. I still to this day think that Vic somehow had some custom code for my player name… I am convinced that there is some bit of Victor code that reads:
If Playername = "Fidgaf" Then BulletMagnet = True
So, anyway, before that mod, there was one previous that Vic had written and it ran on the Ioncross server. The mod was a hit across the Freelancer community and I was lucky enough to have found the server for which it originated. The only problem was that the mod unlocked a whole bunch of things that were good AND a bunch of things that weren't so good.
There was the "Uber" ship that everyone wanted to fly called the Anubis (AKA an-N00B-us), worm holes that weren't available in the regular game, all kinds of cool weapons and the Nomads for which it was to die for their guns because they used zero energy.
The basic premise of the game was to either take a bunch of missions or a bunch of cargo and work for various "Houses" to gain reputation, money, unlock new stuff, etc. You'd get attacked by various things, kill them or run, blah blah blah. The Pirates had the best missions so you had to temper working for them vs. working for an established house. Meaning you had to go work for the police and do their chump change stuff to offset the Pirate missions which always paid WAY more, otherwise you couldn't set foot (thruster, wing, whatever) in certain areas of the game.
The map itself was pretty large and it could take an hour or so to get across the vast universe. The solar systems duplicated our earth's structure where the "Liberty" forces represented the USA, Britonia = Britain, The Kussari = Orientals, Rheinland (spelling intentional) was Germany, etc…
Since it took so long to get from point A to point Z, you'd usually hang out in a system or 3 and look for ways to make money that didn't take all night. Unless if you had money, you couldn't make money. The first week on this server was spent driving water all over New York at a profit of about $4 a unit. Since the ship could only hold 20 units, you can see what a slooooow start it was. You could have 5 characters on the server, and with the help of a friend you trusted, transfer cash among them, but that first one was a bitch.
After acquiring the Anubis, going out to the wastelands to get Nomad weapons, the best tail gun & shield in the game and finding just the right setup of thrusters, I decided that I was going to hang out close enough to the Pirates so I could work for them AND still be able to work for a house to keep my "Good" rep up. Somewhere along that time period, we learned the art of jousting in a space ship.
There was this nifty little thing you could do called "Free Flight" that was their attempt at duplicating space flight, frictionless, what ever you did to turn was all thrusters and would drift and bounce off of things. This caused hull damage and if enough occurred, you had to fix it with some onboard Nanobots, Shield Batteries recharged your shield.
We'd get together and "Duel" practicing various tricks, getting the timing right to shoot someone coming at you at 800 meters per second while you were doing the same. Ever try to hit something moving at 1600 meters per second? We got pretty good at leading a ship so the person would literally fly into your hailstorm of fire. I won a LOT.
Why did we work so hard to get this good? Well, there was a small group of punks that learned how to use certain things to cheat. We called them the "Torpers" because they would sneak up on ships and use torpedoes on them without provocation or fair warning. They would attack a helpless Cargo Vessel, threaten to blow it up and extort them rather than earning their own credits in the game. Why did the Cargo ships pay? Because they were usually carrying something "Illegal" in their hold and didn't want to loose their investment.
Contraband, the only way to make a decent buck in the game. Smuggling was the fastest way to make money and boy, was it hairy. I decided that since I had already made a decent amount of $$$ I'd invest in a cargo ship. Now, somewhere along all that, I met Ricman. I didn't have the VoIP (Voice over IP) servers setup yet, so we're talking around 1999-2000. We had been doing the hardest missions together and raking in the $$$ so I trusted him.
This is when I started to discover the psychological aspects of online gaming. Most gamers are male and they are a SUCKER for a female gamer. I have YET to see an exception in ANY game I've played PVP. The older the male, the more this is evident, the more susceptible they are to female charm.
There was a group of us that hung out all the time, and I decided it was time to start smuggling in the cash. We had a ranking system, and although my kill rate was rather high, I could never be number 1 on the server until I got my cash maxed out. I created a new character and very quietly enlisted Ric to help me move over 20 Million Credits to it. This is the birth of "Little Red Flying Hood". Now, you can see where this is going, right?
There was a wormhole in the same system that we used to hang out in. It popped over to a Pirate base that sold "Cardimine", an illegal substance in the game. Using the largest (and slowest) Transport, filling your hold and running it to the mother planet in this system made killer profit. It also attracted every free loading brat that was on the server.
The transports have guns, but trying to kill anything in this view is difficult at best. The run could be done as long as the little dick didn't have cruise disrupters that would knock you out of high-speed flight. If you got hit, it was far better to negotiate a deal ASAP before a patrol caught you sitting there with a hold of stuff that they were going to confiscate. Having an escort is a far cheaper option though.
Ric escorted me for a while, but it does get boring for him. I created another character and set that one up Identical to my main character. One cool thing about this game is that you could "Park" in space and leave a ship pretty much anywhere, no need to land. Hence the birth of "Little Red Fighting Hood". Seeing a pattern here? I used to park this ship aiming at any place where I saw someone hijacking or attacking transports. A quick F1, switch characters, aim, hit thrusters to accelerate the speed of the shot and BOOM! Goodbye asshole! F1, switch back to my transport and get the hell out of there!
Now, on this server, we had a rep and everyone that thought they were a bad-ass came out to see how good we were. That being said, the last thing I wanted anyone to know was that I was smuggling. I'd be the target of everyone in the game, hence the Gender switch. Yup, Little Red was a 21-22 year old Red Haired woman that happened to also be Fid's younger sister. She was in collage and that's why she didn't get to play too often. Since we used the same computer that would explain my absence when she played.
Why do this you ask? NOBODY knew except Ric so my friends and even past enemies FLOCKED to her and helped her out. I had an ARMY of escorts that didn't want to get paid. I was getting even for all the times they blew up my Ric's or my original transport costing us millions of credits!
Since Little Red FIGHTING hood's rep was getting pretty well known and I'd made a fortune with everyone's help, I decided to give smuggling a rest, let things cool down and have some fun with the character. Considering I even changed the WAY I typed in the chat window, nobody caught on. Fid typed "Where U B Dude?" and Little Red typed "Where are you?". This mental separation became second nature to me and I credit it for giving Little Red Life.
We went back to jousting, me acting like the tough little n00bie Red Haired chick that I was supposed to be and they "Taught" me how to Duel. It never occured to them that I was a REAL fast learner and kept winning a LOT, perhaps something wasn't on the level? Na, Fid's Little Sister, must have the same reflexes... YA THINK? ;)
One guy really took a shinning to me and was my "Free" escort there for a while (coulda been all that dirty chat I sent him… ;) ). He was totally convinced that Little Red was a real breathing woman, that she thought older guys were "Hot", talked dirty to him and he was hooked.
Someone would threaten me? He'd jump in and defend me. I'd want to go somewhere, he'd want to go with me. This was a pain when I was trying to meet Ric to do a cash transfer, but hey, we got around it. Little Red had him wrapped and boy, did I get us in a peck of trouble… Guys cannot resist a Damsel in Distress, it's got to be something in us, but a woman in trouble needs to be rescued. Meet "Cherry Picker"… Gee, I wonder where he got that name from…? I totally had him wrapped and he was eating it up like it was going out of style.
Several years later, sitting on my Voice Server and chatting with a rather large group of people, we were reminiscing about the old days. We had the whole original crew hanging out and we were talking about what was fun about the game.
I made a comment to Ric along the lines of: "How about that Little Red? She was a Wild One, eh" and we both started laughing. Everyone was like "What are you two laughing about?" So, with much giggling, I simply said: "I don't have a little sister". Everyone cracked up because they understood that I was posing as a Chick back in the day and they all fell for it. Much "Good Job" and kudos at fooling everyone, all's fair in Love and Gaming, good play.
Then I realized… I had NEVER told Cherry the truth about that, totally forgot to fess up… And he was in the same channel… His shocked reaction was "You don't have a little sister? Who's Little Red then?" More laughter, and then dead silence as it finally filtered through his head… "Uh, I knew that… I just didn't want to blow your cover!" My response? "Sure you did… Still want that date Big Boy?" More laughter, kidding, Cherry Jokes ensued. Good times!
Got Cherry? I sure did!
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