theworldofdreams.com

Other than, goodbye...

Also, I hope that you'll continue to check the boards, for a while, at least...

Damn. Now it seems... so... final.

I find my heart is quite saddened with this time and the events that have passed. I have spent quite a bit of time here online with my friends, and even found tears in my eyes as we waved farewell to Queen Lissar, Drocket, Laephis, Siobhan, and Daeric. The World of Dreams has been part of my life for more than three years, and I find myself bereft without it, though it has only been a few minutes it has been gone. I think I will miss most those whom I have spent time with hunting, chatting, and just plain having fun. Please keep in touch.

Caramon
Franklin
Seer Sareth
ICQ 662632

Please feel free to add me to your contact lists so we can stay in touch

Heh.....I waited a couple minutes andcamedirectlt to the WoD website just to see if anyone posted anything.It truly hurts not having a WoD to go to now. I am truly saddened at this event.
I do plan on moving onto another shard, not sure which one I will call home yet though.
It will be the further adventures in the life of Herakles.

Herakles

I'm really saddened I could not be there for the last few minutes of WoD's existence but I think I had truly said my goodbyes to WoD long ago. I'm sure last night was as memorable a night as the first time the Queen gathered the people of Britannia to introduce herself.

In any event, thanks a lot for all the fun times and the ability to keep my dreams and fantasies alive for so long. I think I'm truly going to miss being 'Lord Joram Lionheart' More importantly, I'm just going to miss everyone who kept me coming back for more, everyone who I looked forward to seeing in the bank when I logged in. I'm going to miss you, guys. I don't think I fully realized this until now.

Drocket, thanks for being such a great developer. Back when Dundee stepped down I honestly didn't think you'd stick around with us for so long. Despite any previous feelings or comments made, I think you did as much if not more than Dundee did. It's not easy to appreciate all of someone's hard work when you take them for granted as I sometimes did to you. Thank you for your work and dedication. Above all, thank you for being a friend. **tips hat to the D-man*

Laephis, thank you as well for being our host. I don't feel like I got to know you well enough but the little I knew of you I either completely loved or completely hated. Hahah. Well, no I think we may have butt heads on a rare occassion of two but I've always appreciated your opinions. Well heck, I'm just thankful you didn't go all 'dirk' on us and starting hating all WoD players indiscriminately. I hope you never felt like your job as a host was not appreciated. After all, we couldn't have been here as long as we did without you, that's for sure.

Daeric & Siobhan, you guys know how I feel about both of you. You're not just great Admins. You are my friends. So good friends in fact it brings me to tears to write this now. I don't think there's much for me to say here (I'll thank my friends in a different post). Just know it felt good to know WoD was in safe hands with you. Siobhan was by far the most dedicated GM I ever met. She really loved this shard. WoD was her home more than it was mine. Few people have done as much as she has for WoD. Of Daeric I'd just like to say I'm glad he didn't give up on us sooner, hehe. Well, I know he loved WoD too but I realize you were a little anxious to either change things or move on. Thank you for sticking through with us till the very end.

I could stay here all day long writing about the great GMs these shard had. Don't worry, I won't. But, I do feel there's more to be said. Much much more. To all the seers, thank you so much for your work. Many of the seers were my personal friends. Nevertheless, all Seers will always have a special place in my heart. They kept my dreams alive. To all the GMs I did not mention (and there were MANY), know that it was a pleasure to be your player. Sorry for all the times I paged unnecessarily, and thank you for all the times you helped when you did not need to. All of you were always willing to go that extra mile.

Ok, I can't type anymore. I never thought I'd get this emotional over a 'silly' game I guess I'm just silly. I like it. Thank you Admins for making WoD what it was, what it has been, and what it will continue to be in the hearts of her players for many years to come. Thank you a million times.

- J

Well said Joram......as you usually do.


Herakles

I'm sorry to see WoD go. Thank you for giving me and my sons the chance to call this our home for a while.

Alex (Thornbrand) is heartbroken, but he'll be okay. I was really happy to see how everyone took him under their wings and made friends with him.

Take care and good luck everyone! I had a lot of fun here and enjoyed meeting you

Ravenna

I'm still dealing with the initial shock of this event, as I knew nothing about this until after midnight Thurday night / Friday morning. I will compile more coherent overall thoughts in the days ahead. However, I shall offer a few recollections of my last few hours in the World of Dreams.
I do wish a bit more notice had been given, as my real life does not allow me to check in more often than every few days and I can only go online into the game on weekends.
Fortunately I happened to check the forums just before I went to bed after working late in my hotel room. As a result, I hurried home from the airport friday PM to spend a last few hours in WOD friday night. I had plans as to how I would wrap up my last visit, but they went out the window as soon as I logged on. My plan was to join the story-telling at the Yew Wedding clearing and visit it as each of my characters for one last roleplay. Maybe let Homer whack a last few trolls. However, I found I was even rustier at gameplay than I thought and all of my macro codes were hard to remember and everything I did took three times as long as it should. In addition, from the moment I arrived, I was overwhelmed by contacts and visits from dear friends and strangers who noted my on-line presence. I had to continuously carry on at least two conversations at once, one in person and one (or more) by message, in both cases while not remembering how to make the whole ".msg" system thingy work.
I tried to juggle all of the priorities, but before I ever got out to the clearing, I was summoned the castle by the Queen for the "shrine stone" quest. Well, even getting there was a chore, since to get to the castle I had to use my runebook link to the "wrong" old Britain bank and run from there. Once there, I found the Queen had her own plans for my last times in WOD, but that was typical enough, and there is no reason Homer should suddenly, at this late date, be able to resist a quest.
My equipment and skills had not been repaired recently and my supplies were not up to stock, but there was nothing unusual about that, either. I opened the first gate to a shrine myself and jumped through blindly. I was dead before I could remember how to attack stuff. The next several minutes were total confusion of dying, reviving and dying again without a clue about what was going on. Just like old times and every WOD quest I ever went on. God, I love that. So, finally, I figure out how to do that "yoink" thing and get my stuff back from my body. After I did that a couple of times, I managed to get my clothes back on and figure out how you whack at things with your sword. Now, I noticed when I logged on that there were a bunch of "unused" labels around on objects in the land, indicating that my UO version was not fully up to date, even though I have tried to keep it up to snuff. I mention this because I had conversations with people later that suggested I did not see the enemies the same way they did. These "C'Dodo" (or whatever) interdimensional Borg guys we were fighting were visible to me as black ratmen. Not really very scary looking, though lethal enough to kill me, of course. Anyway, by the time I figured out how to fight them, they were already all dead.
Okay, time to move on to the next shrine. But wait, I saw I had only one Greater Healing potion left. Now that I remembered how to use them, it would be nice to have some for the next battle. So I went back to Fellowship Hall to get a refill to my prescription. I spent the next several minutes digging through my trunk trying to remember where I left my &*?%$ greater healing potions. My trunk was a sad place, full of wonderful things I had great plans for but never got to use and that will now never leave the chest. I noticed people were dying again so I frantically dug through my stuff so I could go and die too. I never did find them, but what the heck, you don't need a potion to die, right? I was getting offers from Cloudchaser to gate me in, and I finally accepted. Nothing left when I arrived but dead rats. Rats! Someone opened a gate and I jumped through, anxious to finally get into a fight prepared and able to participate. Huh? It was just the bank. What were we doing at the bank? Were they giving away free toasters to celebrate End of the World Day?
Then suddenly everyone disappeared again. I started messaging folks to find out where they were and finally a gate opened up to another shrine. Nothing but dead rats, again. I was beginning to get embarrassed by my total lack of contribution to the War to Save the World for Destruction. I tried to cover up by running around kicking dead rats and hollaring insults at them, daring them to stand up and fight like whatever they look like to folks with the right software.
Then a gate opened again and I charged through with a blood-curdling battle cry designed to scare the whiskers off the enemy rodents. The bank guards regarded me with suspicion and pity. Grrr. Back in Britain again. By the time I made contact with the spearhead of the army, I was still behind but gaining ground. This time, I arrived after the shrine had been cleared and the stone recharged, but I was still in time for the "pointless slaughter just for the sake of killing stuff" phase of the battle. It was swell.
From then on, I was able to keep up and, by standing close enough to the "real" warriors, I was able to stay alive. At times, I would wonder why it was taking so long to kill the rats and I would look at my paperdoll to discover I had forgotten to draw my sword. I switched to using mostly my bow, because it was easier to tell if I was actually doing anything.
Finally, we were at Humility, the shrine for which I carried the stone. Now, how do I work this thing? I jumped up and down on the shrine-stone while the rats were chewing at my cape. Nothing happened. How do I tell if the stone is charged? I tried backing up and running at the ankh, bouncing off it at high speed. Ouch. It didn't work, so naturally I tried it again. Then, just to prove on this last day of WOD that I am, and forever shall be, an Idjit, I did it again. I guess these stones are just not highly demonstrative.
We hesitated. How many shrines was that? Six? Nine? We did Justice and Valor and... er... Cleanliness? Uh.. is there a shrine of Virility? If not, there should be. Oh well, we should be close enough. So we went back to the Queen and gave her the stones, although some folks seemed to be inclined to hold onto them, since a souvenir of the End of the World is bound to be worth a lot of money on E-Bay, right?
Then the Queen told us that, due to our valient efforts, the world was saved for another hour and a half instead of well... coming to an end in just 90 minutes. But this way, the interdimensional C'Rats could not conquer our dead world after everyone was gone and that was good because... Er, but with the stones her wizards could contruct a gate that could be used by Wodians to commit suicide so they were not trapped inside a quiet peaceful world they could not really visit, anyway. Hmmm. Okay, it didn't make much sense, but the shiny rocks seemed to make the Queen happy, and we got to kill stuff.
Well, most of my time was shot and I had not yet done anything on my list. Homer had hogged all of the online time and Penn-Hedley, Smudge, Ajax Mayflower and Pinkwater all wanted to visit one last time. I went back to Fellowship Hall and changed into Penn-Hedley. He wanted to take along his first and most favorite henchmen, so he was sorting through his army when some special visitors arrived. Now, you know how much I love you guys, but I can now tell you that the limits of my literary skills are reached by spelling Roderick and Ciara. This whole Daeric and Siobhan name thing was just unnecessary meanness. But whatever plans I had for the evening paled beside chatting with my dear old friends, so we ended up talking until past banquet time, then Rod and C (which is how I shall always think of you two, no matter what disguise you wear) had to leave. Since I was online as Penn-Hedley III, I naturally got completely lost on the way to the banquet. I arrived late and was amazed at the turnout, even given the circumstances. Some folks made moving speeches about the history of the shard, but I just didn't feel up to it, so I settled for listening and watching and making the occasional "witty" remark. Time was running out, so I switched to Smudge and let him do the same for a while. I had forgotten how hard it is to get around as Ajax Mayflower (he uses no magic, you may recall) so I switched to him far too late in the evening. He had to go from Fellowship Hall on foot (well, via the transporter to East Britain) and he was slowed down by some of the Bizzaro-Rats who had the temerity to advance as far as FH. I looked at my clock and saw that Ajax did not have time to pick up a bunny at the stable, which made him very sad. Still, he DID get to the banquet. By the time I could make another log-off, log-on cycle, though, the x-hour would be on us. I wanted to go out in WOD as Homer, so I was forced to skip Pinkwater's visit. As some of you know, he is the weakest of my characters and the only one I don't love as if they were real folks, but I still regret not giving him one last *mumble* and giggle. Actually, I would have had plenty of time, since the shard survived several minutes past its deadline, but I had no way of knowing that in advance. Eventually, we were all ordered back to the castle and I went as Homer.
Now, I think I understand thinking behind the whole "Gate to Other Worlds of Adventure" thing and the intention was wonderful, but it just didn't work for me (or, I think, for a few others). With all respect to the intentions, I think it was a bad idea. As a player, I have sought out other adventures and challenges and will do so in the future. Homer Oldham, however, is a creature of the World of Dreams and nowhere else. The same is true of Smudge, Penn-Hedley and Ajax. Wherever Chuck may go, Homer Oldham will still reside in Fellowship Hall in the World of Dreams. Yet, in his final moments of existence, Homer felt guilty and cowardly and disloyal for not following the Queen's challenge to enter the gate. That is kind of a shame. But, hey, we need to remember that as hard as this ending was for us players, it was much, much harder for our dedicated administrators. I have nothing but appreciation and affection for them.
Still, the quest and the banquet were wonderful events and more than made up for my being unable to complete my "to-do" list for my last day in World of Dreams.

*hugs Homer* Thank you wonderful storyteller! Your characters will live forever in my mind.

Joram Lionheart wrote:Well heck, I'm just thankful you didn't go all 'dirk' on us and starting hating all WoD players indiscriminately.

I was never indiscriminate in my either my likes or dislikes.

You're just jealous of my leet message board flaming skills.

My best was when I engaged in a flame war on one of the old boards. The flame war was between Mego Stone and Stagger Lee. This was before everybody knew that both of them were my characters. My buddy Rykus even got involved, jumping to Mego's defence against that 'asshole Stagger Lee'.

hehe. Good stuff.

Longshadow wrote:You're just jealous of my leet message board flaming skills.

I would be lying if I said I didn't learn anything . . .

My best was when I engaged in a flame war on one of the old boards. The flame war was between Mego Stone and Stagger Lee.

Boy, do I feel old. I actually remember that (and the day when you told everyone you played them both, a.k.a. the first death of WoD).

Dirk, before I leave these discussion forums for good, I need to ask you something. Just what IS your political alignment (democrat, republican, conservative, liberal, populist, libertarian, etc). Do you even have one?

Joram Lionheart wrote:Dirk, before I leave these discussion forums for good, I need to ask you something. Just what IS your political alignment (democrat, republican, conservative, liberal, populist, libertarian, etc). Do you even have one?

Hmm. I suppose 'liberal' would be the easiest thing to respond with, but that doesn't really cover everything.

As with many. I feel saddened by this event. Thos I had bot been able to play for sometime now. Dang r/l stuuf keeps me busy.
I spent a lot of time on WOD before then and met lots of wonderful people. I'll miss all of you. Some more than others.
Goodbye WOD. You had been a wonderful plce to escape too on occasion. Allowing me to put troubles and stress behind me for a little while. I shall miss you dearly. (No not the machine but you the players. For it was the players that made WOD what it was.)

*The ghost of Armodeus peers down and is saddened by the passing of such a special place then fades back into the hereafter*