The original X-Wing is an award winning space flight simulator released in 1993 where you assume the role of a Rebel pilot fighting against the Empire. This was followed up by the (generally regarded as better) TIE Fighter in 1994, which was largely the same but this time, you fight for the Empire. A few years later, in 1997, came the multiplayer-oriented X-Wing vs TIE fighter. Then in 1999 came X-Wing: Alliance.
X-Wing: Alliance featured a number of graphical improvements over its predecessor, and a full single player campaign, where you take on the role of Ace Azzameen. He's a hotshot young pilot who recently took on a greater role in his family's trading business. The family is neutral in the Galactic Civil War at the start, but a feud with a rival family, the Viraxo, ultimately puts them at odds with the Empire, forcing them to look to the Alliance. Ace becomes a fighter pilot, and the game culminates with (as you probably guessed from the box art) the Battle of Endor, as you (SPOILER) pilot the Millennium Falcon to bring down the second Death Star.
Now, this wasn't technically my first foray into online gaming. I had played AOL's Battletech: Solaris (albeit only once) a few years before, and had played DOOM and Duke Nukem 3D with a friend over a modem connection (you see, kids, back in the days before broadband internet, we used devices called "modems" that used an existing phone line to either connect to an ISP or directly to another computer. This was slow and tied up said phone line, so it sucked. The end.) But this was when I started playing online routinely.
I didn't get online right away. At the time, the computer I was using (I lived with my then-girlfriend at her dad's house) was cluttered with a lot of crap. I finally talked them into letting me just wipe the hard disk and reinstall Windows (98!) fresh. This freed up enough space that I could do the full install, which included the files necessary for multiplayer (you see, kids, back in the day, hard drives were small, and multiplayer was often a large extra installation that wouldn't always fit, because everyone usually shared one computer. {you see, kids, back in the day, computers were expensive enough that families who could afford them typically only had one so we all had to share. The end.} The end.)
So once I finally got all that straightened out, I logged into the old Microsoft Gaming Zone (you see, kids, these were the days before Steam and Xbox Live. And Xbox. And consoles with online capabilites. Except Dreamcast, which had a built in modem, but it was another $35/mo. to use it, so it died. The end). This was long before I was MythicalDakka. I don't even honestly remember what my original name was, because that very night, I was recruited to join The Rebel Alliance (part of the Dark Jedi Organization) by a guy named Blindfire, a flight leader in Green Squadron, and took the name TRA_DashRendar01. I was assigned under his command (Flight 3) by our squadron leader Raziel. I had good times those days. I played for some fine officers, such as Myn_Donos and GearheadCFA (though he was a rookie himself at the time). Green Squadron (nicknamed the Rancors, until Myn changed it to the less awesome but much funnier Green Beans) was one of 2 XWA (shorthand for X-Wing Alliance) squadrons, the other being Silver Squadron. We would occasionally have a Silver vs Green war, much as the other squadrons would do (most other squadrons supported XvT, with Black Squadron supporting Allegiance, Red vs Blue was a frequent matchup). Also, at times we would have a war with our sister club TIE Fighter Alliance. I remember photoshopping their home page image (a Super Star Destroyer) with a picture of the Outrider flying by and spraypainting "DashRendar01 Was Here" on the hull (triggering a happy little comlink war).
Eventually I became Flight 1 leader and then Squad XO. Due to waning interest in XWA, Silver and Green Squadrons were merged into White Squadron (TIGERS), with BlackHawk04 (Silver Squad leader) staying on as CO and me staying on as XO. I wrote the official White Squadron story during that time (about acquiring the squadron flagship), and I had also changed my name to Solid_Snake. There were a lot of Dash Rendars playing Star Wars games, you see, to the point that we gathered together in a Dash Rendar-only room on the Zone one night.
Eventually, BlackHawk got promoted to XO of Wing 2, and I selected Liberty1776 as my new XO as I was elevated to Squadron CO. This is probably my proudest accomplishment in DJO. Unfortunately my time in command was short lived. My broadband provider messed something up and I was offline for a month. I came back to find that I had been removed from command with Liberty elevated to CO. He had offered me the XO position (having felt terrible given the circumstances of my removal, and that had I come back a day or so earlier, I'd still be squad leader), but that pretty much took the wind out of my sails and I went back to the pilot ranks.
Eventually I retired, though I came back a brief time later to find White Squadron no more. I was reassigned to Blue Squadron. I changed my comlink signature to reflect this ("Part Green Bean, Part White Tiger, All Blue Angel"). I even briefly served as a flight leader but my interests had moved on to other games, and was short lived. I returned briefly for XvT WoW 100 (you see kids, back in those days WoW stood for Week Of War, a large competition between clubs using Battlestats). I was invited back for XWA WoW 100 but I couldn't find my discs (and didn't know how to get it to work on Windows 7) so unfortunately that didn't happen.
I had a lot of fun back in the good old days (I remember some improvisational roleplaying of an entire episode of Pinky & The Brain with RedStar_5 on the Zone one night, for example). Met a lot of good people, played a lot of games. Even joined a lot of the other clubs (I was an officer in a few as well, such as platoon leader in United Freedom Fighters, an America's Army club), and created United Marine Brigades, a Battlefield 2 club that lasted a little over a year. WoW (yes, that WoW) was the death of that club, though I did get my wife to not only join but she served as the club's XO for a time.
So be sure to check it out :)
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