Hi all,
It’s been a while since I last visited but I wanted to drop by to wish IC a happy 20th birthday! I’m so happy to see it still standing as it was such a huge part of my life for 8 years and I made some great friends during that time.
To remember the last 20 years, I wanted to share some memories before I’m too senile to remember them and whilst I still have the chat logs as proof!
And also please add your own - old or new, good or bad!
arsy
IC Playground
The ICPG was one of the events I had most fun organising during my years as mod. 150 players, 10 leaders, exciting new changes (Fleet Admiral tag, Research for Resources). The draft itself in the #ICPG chan was only supposed to take 45 mins but ended up over 2.5 hours, with Nolio being fashionably late and jets losing his power midway through. It was such a pleasure to help inject some life and enthusiasm back into the game by doing something a bit different.
IC Mafia
Back in 2007 I wanted to start a forum game that was more interesting than a three word story. I came across this little gem called Mafia and I immediately loved it. It was perfect for combining forum chat with IRC. Writing the stories was time consuming but the games were so much fun, especially the first few years. The chats in #Mafia were the best - it was perfect for spreading paranoia and players like Nolio, Primo, Torqez, Genesis, ZoZ (and loads more!) were great at creating the drama needed for an epic mafia game. I could spend hours reading the mafia chat logs!
Wed 3rd Oct 2007 in the #mafia chan for IC Mafia #2
[22:36] * The_Unknown accues zoz of being mafia
[22:36] Nolio> In that case, zoz is mafia! It all makes sense now
[22:36] ZichtOpZee> ok, when do we get to vote on who dies?
[22:36] ZichtOpZee> cause Nolio is mob!
[22:37] Nolio> in the day time, MOBSTER!
[22:38] The_Unknown> We already agreed to lynch Eltara
[22:38] Nolio> No we gotta take out zoz
[22:38] ZichtOpZee> He’s mob and serial killer and a cop turned bad!
[23:20] * The_Unknown is now known as TU|beer
[23:20] ZichtOpZee> yeah right - TU|mafia, more like
[23:21] The_Unknown> X(
[23:21] ZichtOpZee> going our to MEET YOU MAFIA GANG TU??
Voting yes in the “KT for Moderator” vote
One of the best decisions I made as mod was voting for KT to join the team. She started off being unsure and nervous and ended up being the best mod ever!!
Sat 24th Jun 2006 in the secret mod chan
[01:15] arsbury> Oh hi KT! Didn’t see you there!
[01:15] arsbury> I figured you said yes then…
[01:16] KT> hi arsy… well it was a scary decision 
[01:17] KT> i’ve always wanted a mod in my timezone, but didn’t think it would be me!
[01:18] Vale> I preferred just tricking you into joining the channel, then explaining how your joining here makes it a legally binding agreement to mod.
Pirate Day Thursdays
Ummm WTF? This was when Squirrel told us one day that he had decided to implement random “ARRRRRRs” and “SHIVER ME TIMBERS” in forum posts every Thursday. Must have been KT’s idea! 
Stefan/Squirrel
Don’t get me wrong, I love Stefan. He created this game. But wow, as a mod it was so hard to get anything done or fixed!
Fri Sep 22nd 2006 in the secret mod channel
[15:31] arsbury> We’re getting more and more people with the joining problem. So many issues with drafting.
[15:31] arsbury> I’ve poked Stef loads of times and all I’ve gotten is this:
[15:31] arsbury> [Stefan (01:23pm)] moo
[15:31] arsbury> …
The KillaBeeze Scandal
KB was a new member of the mod team and also a popular Andromeda player. His family were in the middle of a battle with Mizzle’s TDC family - another top family that round. One day, out of nowhere a number of accounts from both KB and Mizzle’s families were deleted. KillaBeeze came online and played the ignorance card, he knew nothing about it. We did some investigations and put it down to hackers. We had recently had other hacking issues. Then… a few weeks later during another war, this time with PlayboyPenguin’s family, PP’s account was deleted and then KB deleted. All hell broke loose. Accussations of the mod team being corrupt, calls to cancel the round. It was not a fun time to be a mod!
Wed May 24th 2006 in the secret mod channel
[00:02] Lexuzis> Wendy, did KB really delete pp?
[00:02] Wendy> He deleted his andro account
[00:02] Wendy> & placed all funding from his SD and Draco accounts into the defense fund and disbanded his fleet
[00:03] Lexuzis> Damn it, not even I would do that and I hate pp 
[00:03] Lexuzis> I mean that is something I would expect arsy to do… but not KB
Galactic Congress was pretty neat for the time
Arsbury!!!
Hey, I remember some of that stuff… like al of it… I was there! Well, except for being in the secret mod chat… but I was there for the IC drama bit…
I was even one of the leaders for the ICPG #1…
Nice to see you Arsebury
Anybody from Brantford
Hey you_fool! 
Yeah, we had some good times even including all the drama! It’s good to see that some of the old names are still around. Kudos to Pie for keeping the game alive all this time. Does the old forum archive still exist?
I couldn’t remember that we did 2 rounds of ICPG - only have the logs for 1 of them. Between ICPG and IC Challenge, my memory gets hazy!
Joe!
My god, you were a pain in the arse!
Sat 4th Jul 2009 - PM
[19:06] OrBit> arsybear
[19:06] OrBit> make me solar legend
[19:06] OrBit> and get me VIP
[19:06] OrBit> and make me mod
[19:07] arsy> bloody hell, this list gets longer every time you PM me
[19:07] OrBit> yeah, how about you try make it shorter 
Aside from the hounding me to mod you every time you came online, we had some good chats and I have to say you always kept me on my toes - challenging every decision, reporting suspicious behaviour (mostly by your enemies), picking up on the slack mod team. When they finally modded you, I was told you did a pretty good job of it.
Hope Lee is alright!
In fact, OrBit wasn’t the only person begging me to mod them. Most people did!
** looks at You_Fool **
Wed 31st May 2006 - PM
[11:18] you_fool> make me mod and I shall rule with an iron fist!
[11:19] arsbury> scary thought 
[11:19] you_fool> oh go on, you know you wanna try some evil… mmm evil
These are awesome to read. 
The old forums are temporarily offline, but we still got em. 
Great to see ya arseh!
Fool for mod, why choose the lesser of the evils?
My first action as mod will be to delete everyone!
I remember a meet-up with some dutch/german/danish players at Trance Energy in (i believe) 2003. Met some people IRL with this game, had great fun with em. And then it all shizzled out…