I hope you all had a nice weekend. Here is a new spotlight to start the week with. This week we have another veteran of the game hailing primarily from the K'thir Forest: RedDain. I´ll post his answers to the questions as a direct copy/paste since he decided to answer in this manner. Name is Dan (part of the inspiration/basis for RedDain)... RedDain comes from a bunch of different places: 1) I have red hairs in my beard, when I grow a beard. 2) I am a commie. 3) I like to (virtually) eviscerate things, hence lots of blood. 4) My name is Dan. 5) My first D&D character (1981!!) was a dwarf named Dain, after the character in Tolkein's Lore. I am originally from the Northeastern US, have lived in Japan, Denmark, and elsewhere, and now live in the Northeastern US again. I am a lecturer, researcher, instructor at a large university. I am 43 years old. I came across Pox via AdventureQuest - was playing it to pass the time and entertain my then quite young child. Saw the advertisement for Pox (back when they were advertising the 10 thousand dollar prize for tournament play. Thought "hey! I play lots of chess, and I've played lots of D&D and other such games, and AQ, while kinda fun, is actually pretty boring. I'll try this Pox thingy, and maybe get good enough to win some cash!!" And then... Sigh. I have played on a reasonably regular basis since 2007, March. Favorite faction is K'thir Forest, for a number of reasons: 1) It was the first faction for which I received a decent number of powerful runes in a pack, so blind luck. 2) I absolutely loved the way that Polymorph worked when it was runnable in its original form. Now, don't get me wrong, here - when I started, it was all about Circus, so really, there was no "full faction"... however, the combination of enhanced speed (AP is the most important feature of the game), long range (hitting from afar is the second most important thing in the game), and Polymorph (using your opponent's strength against him is the best way to win ANY game)... meant that when full faction play came to be the baseline of play, KF was what I stuck with. New players: 1) Watch lots of games - choose games that involve a variety of top players, and spend a good bit of time absorbing, noting, and copying what they do. 2) Make friends and allies that will help you with play, go to training grounds or unranked games to show you more complicated moves and explain them, and trade with you to get more powerful runes. 3) Learn combinations and tricks!! 4) Steel yourself, and prepare to spend a LOT of time losing horribly. This game is incredibly complex, and has multiple interacting layers of complexity. The learning curve is not "steep" it is vertical, overhanging, coated with ice, and lined with razorwire. You WILL lose a lot of games, you WILL get frustrated, you WILL rage and rage and rage... I know this, because I did all of the above, and I STILL lose lots of games and rage. Don't take the rage too seriously though, and never let it get to the point of making you hate, or be hated. I've got kind of a reputation for spectacular rage, but it was and is mostly for fun and to amuse people -- I am (I think) older than most of the folks that play the game, I've been a lot of places (like traveled to 35 countries on 5 continents), done a lot of things (Alvin submarine dive to the bottom of the ocean, twice; helicopter camping/research in Greenland; spent 3 summers on deep sea fishing boats; spent 3 years of my life on research boats on the deep sea for 2 or 3 months at a time)... so my rages are spicy and authentic!! For fun and giggles, other than Pox (duh!), I play chess, play the mandolin, garden, build furniture, do carpentry, cut trees and make lumber, fix cars/machines, read science fiction, fantasy, non-fiction, science, history... I do math, I daydream, I hang out with my awesome kid and crazy wife and insane family and friends, rant and rave at the television news-idiots, fantasize about alternate universe, wish that I had the power and money to be a politician and change the world for the better... SO... I lead a full life, I educate people in real life, I do science in real life, and I play lots and lots of online fantasy games... you can too!! Archive of older Spotlights and requestlist: http://forums.poxnora.desertowlgame...-nora-spotlight-archive-and-requestlist.2387/ Feel free to send requests for people you would like to see in the Spotlight If you think you would be interesting in a Spotlight, feel free to contact me via pm as well.
Most interesting spotlight so far. Scientific commmie that has a thing for boats and prefers KF FF... kinda surprising. Spicy and authentic raging is tough to accomplish. +1 sir.
Something to remember in case Red ever makes you mad. He is now beginning to receive mail from the AARP encouraging him to start thinking like an old person. (Just buy a dog to bite the mailman; that's what I did.) When I joined, it was RedDain, scrampy and Kinjo playing KF and no one else (and Covell played "treefrogs" KF/FS). The faction forum was basically professional therapists urging anyone who played the hippie faction to seek help for their delusions. He'd make it to the top 20 for about half a day until someone figured out how to destroy his BGs (KF was too weak then to really compete) and then he'd sit down and plot again. He actually was the only player to beat my scripted, unleveled moga BG which I created to demonstrate that KF literally couldn't beat moga at the time. The third time he played it and it was around the 60th ranked game so I proved my point but Red proved he's willing to bang his head against the wall to find a way. If you ever find yourself lost in the Yukon, you want RedDain leading the search team.
Wow, I log in once in a month and see a player spotlight on RedDain and a post by Egami! The planets must be doing some crazy things. To hop on the bus, I always enjoy watching Red's games. He continues to find interesting ways to come out from behind. I sometimes wonder if it's a ploy....let the other guy think he's winning....then POW, BIFF, WHAM! (I wonder how many cuaght the reference. Age will be a factor)
