everyone has to start somewhere [Archive] - ForumsHQ

[syntax53]

thought i'd take a moment to show everyone what one person's motivation and ambition can amount to if you really put your heart and soul into it. i think i've grown probably one of the best reputation's on this board since ppl are thanking me left and right (thanks!) all the time for my help. but in the end, it was all just an ambition i had.



back in april 2002 when i was getting into mud again, a bunch of friends of mine had a private board set up that we all played on. we were a group of old school mudders looking for some nostalgia in a game that we spent so much time on and had so many memories of from the past. yes this is 'just a game!', but way back when, and even now on this message board, you always got the feeling of a community (for me anyway). since this was the dial-up days everyone for the most part lived close and we'd have get-togethers to meat everyone and such --fun times. back to the editing ... we wanted to edit our realm to make it a little more fun (this is before i knew of popular edited boards and MMB). after researching awhile i found MMB, but then also found that there wasn't any nifty editor to do nifty things to mud with for mod9. luckily, i had hex editing skills from hexing mud in the past (mainly hacking items onto users and such which yes is dumb, but was fun at the time).



we manually hex edited the monster file and the update file using a hex-editor that had macro functions in order to 2x the exp. a friend of mine (apathy on here) and i got together, mapped out the monster file, figured out how many bytes were in between every monster's exp field, and then created macros to jump some bytes, multply bytes and then repeat. we also had to watch out for different breaks and gaps in the file since it was a btrieve database and there is database-only information stored in the file at certain points. making a long story short, it was a PIA (pain in the ass) but we got the job done.



few months later of course we wanted more. i came to mmb, tried to find someone that was creating/updating nightmare to work with mod9, but didn't have any luck. my programming skills extended to a few exercises that i did in C++ from tech school, and some low level QBasic knowledge that i thought myself. for the longest time i didn't like programming and said i would never get into it. i had an ambtion tho. an ambition that i could write some software that hundreds of people would use to customize their game and look up to me for doing so. i could help ppl who were trying to set up their realm and become part of a larger scale community where we could all share ideas and information. i think i've accomplished that far and beyond.



i tought myself how to program and learned btrieve database routines along with a lot of the inner-workings of mud/wg using notes on the net like mrblack's mudhex site, and mmb's great forum archive (which i REALLY hope there are good backup's of :)). in about 2 months i popped out the first release of nightmare and franticly worked on it for months later. i've taken that knowledge and am now applying it to greater and better things that have come by. i'm in the middle of writing a database front-end for hundreds of users at work and getting paid off of the knowledge i learned from creating a mud editor. so when people say playing games is a waste of time, tell em to think again.



not only that though, i've made some great /virtual/ friendships along the way. warhawk, xetox, kix, platinum, mrblack, and speed are probably the ppl i've had the best relationships with. but then there's also dxpac, panterra x, invisigod, and ray in which i've had good conversations and learned some things from. warhawk and i co-host a website and talk to each other all the time about crap. i've helped him at his job with things and he's helped me. yet we live on two different ends of the US. the internet amazes me when it comes to this stuff. kix (admiralacid) and xetox have become great friends, even giving me access to remote control his (xetox's) PC. xetox has never met me, never even seen me, but yet because of this community allows and trusts me enough to give me access to his internal network.



to sum it all up all i'm trying to say is if you have something that you really think you can do ... all you need to do is find the time and get the motivation to do so. don't give up, be patient, do your research, good things will happen.



-syn



we all start somewhere, here is me starting out:

1. http://mmb.forumshq.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=646

2. http://mmb.forumshq.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=716

3. http://mmb.forumshq.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=761

4. http://mmb.forumshq.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=1274

5. http://mmb.forumshq.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=1054

6. http://mmb.forumshq.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=603

[Xetox]

great post!!! and I can tell ya from the mmb team, we are glad you found us!

[The Ghost]

awww, syntax, that inspired me to do great things.. I think im gonna cry now..

[syntax53]

can we not turn this into another thread were ppl just insult each other with snide one line remarks that mean nothing, go nowhere, aren't funny, and help no one?

[Reckless]

Very insightful and touching story Syn! I think I can safely say that you are looked up to by almost everyone around here.

[MrBlack]

Good call...great man: SYNTAX!! :)

[Xetox]

I deleted a few posts that did not need to be here....no reason to turn this thread into a flame thread....there are plenty of those already!

[Raybdbomb]

sigh, u guys are no fun

[iNViSiGOD]

GJ syntax! Thanks for letting me beta test it on lunar dynamics back in the old BETA days! :D

[Platinum]

Hell yeah..Syntax, you rock. You basically sat down with me and tought me how to use nightmare, tought me everything I know ALMOST (I'm not forgetting those others who have helped me ;)) about editing and such. I wouldn't know half what I do, nor would I have accomplished a fraction of what I have without your help.



You inspired me to edit..and now, I consider myself damn good at it. I respect everything you say on here, because your whole attitude about everything is positive. I wish I could be like that, heh.



It's been great workin with you, and it's still great that we work with each other almost every day trying to figure things out. Thats really cool of you. I look foreward to doing more;)