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This is silver's obituary and memorial. Goodbye, old friends.

silver

In the first live telling of A Tale in the Desert, in the first 2 hours, a new player (who missed the beta tests) logged in... silver was born at the Western Grounds spawn point, far away from civilization.

silver quickly wandered off and slowly built a meager solo camp. He was just kinda playing around, but then he started to get dreams. Soon he was spending far too many hours in the game and drawing in his friend, apathy to help in his mad near-solo projects.

silver and apathy worked well as a team - apathy liked to wander around finding new things and fishing spots and prospecting for marble. silver liked to do everything else and had inhuman endurance for the games tedious wealth building tasks.

His camp expanded in its original location, taking over a huge area and known to many locals for the lag it caused. He was known sometimes as a medium-sized guild of one person.

About 4 months into the Tale, silver married Qetesh (in game only, they have not met in real life). She was equally if not more influential to the game and just as accomplished if not more so in every other way. Neither of them had an inkling at the time they met or married that they would be such monoliths. Perhaps it was because they had similar focus that they liked each other. Or perhaps their competition with each other led them to excel. They never camped together and shared very few resources. Who knows how much more they could have accomplished if they had worked together?

South Egypt

The Western Grounds and Eastern Grounds were a crucible in the already hard land of Egypt - many a player went there to be away from the crowds but burnt out and quit. silver hung on. He tried everything in his power to make the lands livable to others - he begged from, borrowed from, inspired, cajoled, guilted everyone around him to help him do several tasks:

For much of the first telling silver was regarded as the de-facto governor of South Egypt.

mad projects

end of the tale

In the end, though, a new job, attempts to make a real life, frustration that he couldn't contribute anything new and wasn't recognized by newer players for what he had already done, boredom with new technology which was too random to really decode, frustration that no one liked his flight show or raeli mosaic, and a deep abiding hatred of the design of the Riddle of the Sphinx caused him to all but fade from Egypt. He came back just enough to support the monuments he could and left his account paid so the public facilities he had contributed could not be salvaged, but was otherwise absent for the last three months of the telling.

silver can sometimes now be found in www.puzzlepirates.com as Captain Silverkitty of "Eldorado Bound". He will likely not make more than a token appearance in the second or further Tales in the Desert.

tests passed

After about the midpoint of the tale, silver was known the land over for having passed the most tests (though at times he was surpassed by his wife, Qetesh, and towards the end probably surpassed by her and others). silver passed these tests before fading from Egyptian life:

architecture: All but Phoenix

art and music: only Opticon

conflict: only Rake and RoC (but with points enough in the others to rank as a scribe in the end)

human body: All but Cicada and Takeskot

leadership: All but Hegemon

thought: All but Sphinx

worship: All but Vigil

silver specialized in the discipline of thought and was the first person to be ranked journeyman, scribe, master, and sage of the discipline (and not just first by a little, he spent weeks sitting 2 ranks ahead of everyone else). His EHT was loopy enough to baffle make many programs spend hours on false leads, but was still reasonable for a human to solve. His Bijou gem confused many into searching for a flaw that wasn't needed as it could be cut from a solid. His ladder was the first to properly employ the medium of giving hints without either saying nothing or saying too much about the odds. His tomb was described by Pharaoh as the hardest he had tried except Bigboy's (and the one he was referring to was later discovered to have been copied from another game (Bigboy later passed with a different design, though)). His venery was uniquely challenging in a way which was language independent in a very language-dependent test. His pulse was, well, it was adequate, anyway.

note

None of this is intended to say anyone else was inferior, nor to belittle their contributions to the causes silver claims to have led - silver hopes he already personally expressed his gratitude to them for their help, anyway.

in memoriam

From silver: "Any final thoughts or memories or comments about me, feel free to add them here. Some day I will come back and see them."


From Rehpic: I was very much looking forward to supporting silver as the leader of the Thought Monument. Sadly it did not come to pass. I always found silver's thought puzzles the most entertaining in egypt, and well worth the long trek south. Several of my successful thought puzzles were in some way inspired by silver's work. And no, rehpicsilver is not named after you :-).

From Bigboy: Just clearing up that tomb comment. I changed my tomb to my own design, still passed in the first week (sorry Susan about the bug) and then changed it back for a example of a outside, fun game. Still...,silver is still a thought oracle in my eyes and would have backed you to the end.

From silver: er, yah, I should have clarified that the comment Pharaoh made was time-dependent - at the time he said it, that was true, but wasn't how you passed ultimately. (Er, should have and then did - text edited).

From losiris: My camp was right next to 'silverland' and as such i always saw him on the horizon (making 10k flax or 20k bricks :P) - i was however always scared to talk to him for some reason - turns out i had no need as silver is a genuinely nice guy :) So thanks silver, without your advice and trades my camp would of been a pitiful affair. Take care.

From MissBarbara: You were one of my neighbours in game and one of my best friends in there. I will miss talking to you a lot. Add me on msn please missb@chicks.dk. Thanks for being a great friend for so long.

From Qetesh: I wish you happiness and health and lots of kitty love on the other side of the computer. I'm really glad that you're not playing ATITD 24/7 and slowly faded from the game in order to focus on bigger, better, and more productive things. I only wish that the grief that ATITD has caused you is overshadowed by the fun you had here and the people you met. I guess I need to go redownload Puzzle Pirates now... ;)


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Last edited September 2, 2004 10:07 pm by Qetesh (diff)
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