8-6-2000
This is a picture of a dead barbarian named Nixx, which I came across outside of Qeynos soon after the Item Wipe on Test. This is a very sad picture for me, since the shaman Nixx Darkpaw was one of the many wonderful people on Test Server that were driven away forever by that evil bastard Jeff Butler. I have no idea if this was the real Nixx, with his last name removed by some asinine GM, or whether his was a new Nixx that appeared and died after the real Nixx deleted his account. In either case, it was a clear sign that Nixx Darkpaw (the barbarian shaman) will never bonk me on the head again or hit me with a drive-by SoW.
I still play on Test, as I don't really fear another I-wipe or P-wipe and generally despise production servers. But I'll always harbor a deep hatred for Jeff Butler and Verant for their destruction of our community and my guild. Perhaps an item wipe or player wipe was inevitable, and certainly everyone on Test knew it was a remote possibility, but there were a thousand better ways to handle it. Giving people a week's notice, letting them go out in a blaze of glory, letting them say their goodbyes -- would any of this have hurt Verant in the least? No, but the people in charge there are short-sighted morons who have zero empathy for the players they make their money off of.
Anyway, my time on Test from November 1999 to June 2000 was the best time I had playing this stupid game. Hop hop!
Addendum June 2001: One year later, Nixx returned to Test after a few months (quite a few people did) and he eventually got to 60 and did a lot of amazing stuff. Nixx is one of the legends among shamans now. Anyway, he bonked me and buffed me a few times since then. Test was never completely the same after the wipe, but a lot of us still had a lot of fun there.
Front Page