ESB is Empty

ESB’s tent is broken: the last echos of *NM*
Clutch and sink off the top page. The sound of uki
Crosses the blackness, unread. The readers are departed.
JFO, run softly, till I end my post.
ESB bears no new messages, announcements of carnage fests,
Discussions of Eternal, comparisons of weapons, trolls, spammers,
Or other testimony of activity. The readers are departed.
And the CLIQUE, the loitering heirs of the old Bungie crew;
Loched, have left no addresses.
By the ruins of TGI I sat down and wept…
JFO, run softly, till I end my post,
JFO, run softly, for I speak not loud nor boast.

But at my back from an unlocked maintenance closet I hear
The slam of a door, and chuckle spread from ear to ear.

Now that MARARTHON has officially taken its own life, there are a few things I’d like to get off my chest. I mean, they’ve bothered me for something like a year. That’s a long time if you think about it. (Also, I have the gift of Bourbon, so truth is coming more naturally to me at the moment.)

(Try to read between the lines a little bit more)

Finally, ESB has useful news: Wikipedia joins the 4GET campaign.

K’ter l’oracne’ktr ESB’crkn rhl l’oac’rkthahrl tr’lac.
L’on t’hrl’ory, l’on l’oa’rhl’ktr tr’tract l’on t’rac r’ar r’arhl’rac.

(Try to read between the lines a little bit more)

Day 1

Dear Diary,

Today I checked Pfhorums as usual. There wasn’t much to see there. As usual lately. I mean, Moppypuppy got all huffy about his stupid topic (the one about the video, good God). There’s also a new scenario announcement: “lolnova.” It’s a joke scenario; whether the creators realize this or not is the only question in my mind.

ESB is getting some new adrenaline shot through its shriveled balls: some guy named “Godot” showed up. I swear something like this happened on Pfhorums two years ago… However, this Godot claims to be Hamish. I wouldn’t be surprised if it was just ukimalefu posting more of his redundant crap so ESB never dies. We were so close, too…

Three posts from glory.

Day 2

Dear Diary,

I thought about things a little yesterday, and I just realized I haven’t played at all in a month or two. The nights just after my router replacement were joyous, full of netgames. I think I hosted a hundred within a couple of weeks. It was a new leaf for me, after the many months of non-gaming. Things were looking up.

Then what? I got drawn back into the CLIQUE meta-game. And I like it. I’ve got some comments from outsiders on JFO now, which might be because of the recent Pfhorums outage. I think I like the people here better than I like the game itself, if you can believe that. Why play at all?

Day 3

Dear Diary,

#alephone lately has been mainly join/part messages and discussion about Smithy. Don’t get me wrong; Smithy is a great program that will add new life to Marathon. It’s just a few years too late for me. I talk a lot about this program and others, but I need to face the reality that I’m not planning on mapping ever again. Sure, I might make a level occasionally, but I think everyone agrees that my heyday was over by the time I started Pelikan. It’s another case of learned behavior: making a fuss out of Marathon when I have almost nothing to do with it any more. Why bother?

Day 4

Dear Diary,

I launched the 4GET MARARTHON campaign. Some might ask why, and I will answer them in the privacy of this journal: for me and for Wolfy. Both of us have things we want to accomplish that became twisted and unrecognizable at some point in the last four years. I want to write, and my prose lately has taken me to new and frightening places, causing me to draw unforeseen conclusions about myself. Treellama went to school for his music, a noble goal. We both need to forget Marathon. There’s a word other have used in the past for the act of forgetting the game, but I don’t dare utter it just yet.

Day 5

Dear Diary,

4GET has already produced fruit. I wrote more in Earth Mother. Wolfy finished a song he began months ago. There’s not much of a choice now.

Now

loch

~~~~~~~~~~

(Try to read between the lines a little bit more)

♫ Did you ever know that you’re my hero ♪

We think someone has been writing books about us and disguising the main characters as girls. We do not take kindly to this. Here is the evidence of the intentional similarities to actual persons, living or dead.

Us, obviously.

This is about the feud between hux and me.

Slave.

This is about the cliquestories site, who stole what should have been the domain for our own CLIQUE stories.

ESB takes Pfhorums offline roughly once a month.

Dialing L!

Maybe the story here contains Patrick, who seems to understand the bad man behind blue eyes.

One word: Stomped.

I’m thinking “meatserver” here.

yes one polygon maps dont work and i dont know how to make doors and things the manuel dosnt tell you how :(