Do you want to make me cry?
Looking back after so many years is... somehow both comforting and painful.
I joined Torn a very long time ago. I was studying computer science at the time and spent countless hours in front of my computer. Back then, the dream was to own a Palace with its 1,000 happiness... which was absolutely insane. Even getting a Trailer was hard work. Companies didn't exist yet, so salaries were ridiculously low, and making money was difficult.
I did cheat a little in my early days... though it was really against my phone carrier rather than the game. You could earn points through SMS messages (yes, those things nobody ever looks at anymore). Since I had a prepaid phone, I could usually send around 10–15 messages before the system blocked me. I ended up earning a lot of points. Back then there was a leaderboard for points, and you could donate them to other players. My faction received a huge number of attacks from people trying to force us to donate them... but we held our ground.
Then companies were introduced, and I bought a Cruise Line, which was the best company you could own at the time.
Later I started banking money for other players in exchange for a commission (those 2b bank limits are still exactly the same). I didn't have enough money myself, so I filled the rest with deposits from other people. Around that time, a friend of mine joined the game (and she's still a friend today), and we started banking together. Apparently, that wasn't allowed under the game's rules back then, and we were both sent to Federal Jail for one year for "money ring." To this day, I still don't know exactly what happened. We quit the game.
Years later, someone found me and said, "Hey, are you Irix? From Torn? I'll buy your account."
I logged back in... and never sold it.
I came back to a negative balance. All the money that had been banked was gone, and so were the company and the items. The only things I really had left were slightly better stats and my achievements.
This time I grew much faster. Since I still had points, I had already unlocked a lot of things (points were expensive back then), including the Stock Ticker. I started buying and selling WLT shares whenever I could, and it worked out pretty well. That's how I started making money again.
I joined NaSo (Cuinhel contacted me—that much I definitely remember). If I remember correctly, it was actually a bit earlier than the game shows, because back then your faction timer would reset whenever you left one... though I honestly have no idea why I had left the faction in the first place!
During all this time, I've met some truly incredible people. Some have always been there on the front line, some stepped back, and some are no longer with us.
There are too many to name, and I don't want to leave anyone out (some are still in the faction, others aren't), but they know they're close to my heart, and they know I'm here.
As for A1ry's 200 million... you must have caught me on a generous day.
But yes, there's not much point in making money if you don't share it. In that respect, there are others who "suffer" the consequences... through giveaways, gifts, loans, or simply because I get carried away and randomly send people equipment.
As for my active streak... together with a handful of other members, I'm trying to stay among the top players. There's a thread on the General Discussion forum about it. I think there are around 1,900 of us who haven't missed a single day since streak tracking began.
Here's to many more billions of stats, many more dollars... but above all, many more laughs and great conversations!
