Hello!
Ten years ago today I was 18 years old. I was sat at home between Christmas and New Year, slipping in and out of a food coma and bored and looking for something to do that didn't involve eating. A friend of mine had messaged me earlier that morning, and I remembered that in secondary school he was always playing some dumb browser game in the library during IT lessons. So I signed up to TORN.
I'm a pretty drippy nostalgic person as it is, and thinking back over the decade that followed, just so many things have happened both in and out of the game.
- Federal Jailed almost immediately for multiple accounts (I just thought this was how the game was played... !!)
- ... Learned my friend was full of shit when it came to Torn :D
- Met a bunch of amazing folk in JUX that I am still in contact with, shaping me as a player
- ... Met bogie and a bunch of others from JUX irl in Dublin, while bogie was trainee!
- Learned Poker from scratch, and turned it into a viable way of earning a Torn living, earning > $1T
- ... Used said poker skills to pay my extortionate rent during Uni
- Joined Chain Reaction and made friends for life.
- Set the at-time record for Fastest Level 100, became the 89th to get there
- Finished a Masters degree in Astrophysics
- Started the Battle Stats Top #100 thread, resulting in the sustained period of intense stat growth competition we still see now
- Learned JavaScript to program a discord bot for my faction, turned it into a full Fight Simulator
- Suggested and helped design overhauls to the Accuracy, Damage and Mugging systems
- Became a Committee member
- Became the Torn Poker representative to Developers
- Became the Wiki Editor
- Finished a PhD in Nuclear Physics
- Learned Python and C++ for Torn related reasons and accidentally got a career
- Fell in love
- Only player to max out all available weapons, only player so far to do the Book and Nail Bomb
- Broke an NPC fight with a Prototype weapon
- Had my heart broken
- Only player (x.x) to gain 100,000 karma and become Luminary member status (still no fking merch tho)
- Fell in love
- First player to Summon Cthulhu and max out an Apocalyptic Halloween basket
- Had a Keepsake Item made for me
Not sure I've got another decade in me, but there's still some stuff I'd like to achieve in Torn so who knows :)
Thanks for sharing over a third of my life with me!
<3
Mentions: $1 Trillion in Poker Winnings · 150 / 152 Weapons Maxed - 100% XP · A Halloween Post-mortem · All Weapons Maxed at 100% XP · Battle Stats: The Top #100 · Do you want to be a Wiki Contributor? · Fernando fight everyone dropped out · Give me my mug, Chedburn! (100k karma) · Hollow Point Ammo feat. Fixing Dex? · Mugging rates 2019 - Poll #3 · Refresh the player committee? · The future of Torn Poker · The Torn Fight Simulator · Weapon & damage modifier rework 2021 · Youngest to Level 100