I started designing literally the day Age of Empires came out. Back then, I was amazed at it’s gameplay and specs. I played 2 to 3 single player games a day every day. I loved the game so much I even had my own little theme song that I made up while playing. One day, I explored the game instead of playing it and I found the editor. The kindling of ES and their opportunities. I made well over 30 maps a month, but since I didn’t even know about the internet at the time, my designing history was lost.
Age of Kings came out for what seemed 10 years after AOE. I was struck at how much the editor had changed, I temporarily gave up designing. Then, after playing ES scenarios, I realized just how much you could do with the new editor. I worked hard, teaching myself by trial and error, not depending on people to teach me. I soon spread AOK to my friends, but they were not as inspired as me to design for these games. Again, I designed so much for AOK, made a very cool 17 scenario campaign I still remember today, and was lost in computer problems, and my lack of knowledge of sites like HeavenGames.
The day AOM came out, I was revolutionized as a designer, taking my knowledge of AOK’s editor, and transfering it to the completely customizable editor AOM had to offer. I designed over 20 maps, all that would probably rate over 3.4s. But still, I had no knowledge of HeavenGames. Upon my first visit to AOM Heaven at least 2 years ago, I see CheeZy’s name all over, and keened to learn more of the CheeZy_Monkey. I explored the site, saw guides and tables and charts. I never did explore the forums until one day. I might have even clicked by accident. I had no knowledge of what forums were, or what they did, but when I saw a list of topics and usernames, I just wanted to join in.
I first submitted Guegurmoth’s Post, which I made in a week, to AOMH just to see how it all worked and it did, surprisingly, it was rated a 4.0. I would’ve expected no more than a 2.0 for that scenario. Deciding that this puny thing needed meat and potatoes, I made 3 sequel scenarios in 4 or so months time that were again, surprisingly high in rating.
When I posted some screenshots from the Life of Saul Farrak, I got an email from AndrewOfSparta asking me to join a design team. Of course I had no idea what a design team was, so I emailed him back and asked what they were. I never got a reply. A little while after, Pepsidude_123 and I got into talking about his Acts of Bloodshed Scenarios. He told me he was founding a design team called Lucky Studios and when he asked me if I wanted to lead it with him, I couldn’t refuse. We started by him showing me the first freewebs home site. Eventually, we released Lucky Studios on September 9th, 2005, and a few members wanted to join. We had about 10 members when the great Zion Studios fell, and we were awarded by Zion merging with us to form Lucky-Zion Studios.
Lucky-Zion Studios, or LZS, continued for almost a year. LZS was a very active design team and I was fortunate to lead it from beginning to end. It ended on August 19th, 2006. Through that time we went through about 6 site changes. On August 19th, LZS merged with the ArchDesigner Syndicate, another famous RTS design team, this formed Phoenix Studios. I led Phoenix with Unome, Omega and Silver Fox. For me, the old LZS never died, neither did AS. I looked forward to leading Phoenix and I hoped that Phoenix would be as great or greater than AS and LZS.
Phoenix Studios ended, however, in the summer of 2007. It was sad that I had to endure another great team ending. It ended when a hacker got into our forums, and deleted everything. All that history was gone. Some of the Phoenix members believed it wasn't working, but I think we could have pulled through, once the members who didn't believe in it quit and the core members were intact. Unfortunatly, that decision was taken out of our hands. Once Phoenix was hacked there were few that wanted to remake it. Without a team to be a leader of, I slowly slipped away from the AoM community. I looked at other interests, such as web designing. Throughout the fall and winter of 2007 I tried various other games and communities like Battlefront 2, Call of Duty 4, Spore, etc: but none of these stuck like the Age of Mythology community did.
In early 2008, I helped make websites such as SporeTopia, and some other websites. Struggling with recent computer problems, and hoping to get a new high-end computer, I hope on coming back to this community to finish the Tournament of Galador with Sandro the Wicke, and be active in AoM communities such as the Vandhaal forums. I was happy to see Pepsidude was still an active forumer at these forums, as was Glitch, and some other names I recognized. I noticed new names that I did not recognize, yet hope to know when I make a full return. The sad fact is, many of my old friends have left and not returned. We're also reaching the age of 20, playing a six or seven year old game. With the community that does exist, I hope on presenting the Tournament of Galador as well as other scenarios that I made a promise for about 3 years ago. Later this year, I'll be attending college and having a computer to myself whenever I get done with my studies for the day. Looking forward to returning and finishing off stuff I promised :)