99 replies to this topic

[Hit man]

Hey guys, it's the original Hitman from chicago. Haven't had time to look at this game much yet, but ***** has been keeping me updated on it. For old players i wonder what happened with Archer and our crazy visiting Austrian Alien

[T A R D I S]

Whoa... these are Nicks, I thought I never see again!
Played many times at BTC-Chicago, almost a second home...
Tim "Thumper" Mulcahey I hollared that Nick plenty of times..."THUMMMMPER!!!!"
Banshee, MountianManBob... Wow, what memories!
Here's a great story....
About 2000, I was working at a local store, and I saw a gentleman with a VWE jacket, and I ask about it...
He was one of the former owners, for the life of me, I can't remember his name...
But, he told me about how the "Evil Empire" bought out VWE, and how he had to move.
I said, "Disney bought you out?"
He said, Microsoft...
I laughed!
Wow, how fate comes full circle!
Hope to see you all ingame.
T.A.R.D.I.S.

[MADEVIL]

Dug this up the other day and figured it would be funny to post.

[T A R D I S]

BTC also had a MechWarrior paper...
I was on the pages, a few times...
The best...

One bright Morning, in the middle of the Night...
Two Dead Thors, got up to fight...
Back to Back, they faced each other...
Powered thier Weapons, and stabbed each other...
a Deaf Vulture, heard the noise..
Came and shot those Two Dead Thors..
Now, if don't believe this Lie is true...
Ask the Blind Tech, he saw it too...

[Hellspwan]

I got hooked at Navy Pier when stationed at Great Mistakes, also played at one center in Japan and San Diego. But never got to use the "new" pods.

[HandofBane]

Used to play at North Pier back in the day, usually my brother, several friends and I would hop on the Metra from Wood Dale/Bensenville and head on down once a month as we could. We did that up until moving out of state, then got back to find out the pods have been relocated to D&B and never managed to free up the time to head on over there.

I did get to play them again at GenCon a few years back, though, and had a blast, converting several newer friends into addicts within just one session.

[Talon73]

Holy Crap!! Virtual Worlds!! I played at our local Mech spot here in Concord CA!. Callsign Talon! I loved the giant alien skull in the lobby. I think i still have my AAR's too!. I loved the pre-mission decontamination procedures with the blacklights and fog machines. Ahh the good old days. If someone knows where to get pins or t shirts I want one!!! Cheers guys. You made me get all nostalgic and stuff.

[VanillaIce]

syngyne, on 21 June 2012 - 04:50 PM, said:

Old Dallas employee. We only ever had the system 3.0 pods.

I played at the Dallas Virtual World Center. It was a weekly ritual to save up my money from waiting tables, then drive into Dallas from Arlington, and blow my spare cash on pod time and chinese food afterword.

I still remember the days of intense 10$ per game combat and 5$ cappuccino's. This was around 1994.

Callsign was something like EarthWindSky. Commonly given advice: "Aim for the Breadbasket."

Edited by VanillaIce, 29 September 2012 - 07:03 AM.

[machinech]

Hah you guys are kill'n me! Been ages, but yea I used to work along with some folks at the VirtualWorld Center in Pasadena Ca. Back before Tesla was out, sadly the center was taken down with many others when they decided to stop running them. I miss the old wooden pods, as the work to keep them running was as close to keeping a real mech up as I'd like to get. People were NOT nice to the stick and throttles.

Here's a fun one...how many of you stuck around to play their alt. game Red Planet? Hah...after hours drunken Martian Football was AWESOME!

[MADEVIL]

I remember playing some Red Planet and flying around at high speed.

[Dirus Nigh]

A friend and I went to the virtual world in chicago on a vacation once in the 90s. We played to games and and ripped people apart.

The Mall of America has a similar set up for flight simulators. Sadly no X-Wing.

Nigel Findley wrote a virtual worlds novel. In the book the pods had the ability to travel to other realities. The characters landed on Solaris 7.

Findley was one of the main authors for FASA. He wrote many of the source books for shadowun, along with several novels. He also wrote a few for WEG star wars.

Edited by Dirus Nigh, 10 October 2012 - 03:58 PM.

[MADEVIL]

Found one of my old cards today.

[Zanzan42]

Played more than I can count (or want to, at, what, $10 a pop back then?) in San Diego. Honestly, I don't even remember what handle I used; maybe I have some old mission stats lying around somewhere. Anyway, when San Diego closed, they auctioned off practically everything in the place, and I scored a bunch of the nose art that was hanging from the ceiling. It now adorns the walls in my pool room: Martian Belle, Puck, Icarus, Flying Blind, [unreadable due to fire damage] Flyer, and Age of Discovery.

Whenever people come over, they always ask "What the hell are these burned pieces of metal with bullet holes in them?" :-)

Oh, yeah, remember playing Magic between missions? I probably played more Magic than I did missions, given how busy San Diego was back then.

Edited by Zanzan42, 04 November 2012 - 10:20 PM.

[Escobar]

"My babies are now up in Minnesota"

jackpot! - just saw the 4 month old Sauron post - I just last month relocated to Miineapolis - and now I know why. I will check in on your babies one day soon

[Ter Ushaka]

Was a regular at the Las Vegas location, but played more Red Planet than BTech. I was ready to take the master challenge when VWE pulled the plug.

[CaptWombat]

For Sure
I first played in Houston but then I played Dallas, Tornto, Chicago(Navy pier), Walnut Creek (where they served Martian Ale, San Francisco, Santa Ana, Pasedena (above a Micro Brewery), and tons of Dave and Busters. I feel the Pasdena center was awesome with the scorched, bullet riddled cockpit canopies and Mech parts mounted on the walls and ceiling. The leather pilots jackets were fantastic and the shirts and hoodies. Perhaps someone will get the great idea of opening simular centers with the current Mechwarrior Online software in Tesla Pods.
Great to remember the great social interaction. I met a pilot in Houston Privateer that took a job with Tesla in Chicago to assist with the game design. He and a pilot that worked at the Navy Pier in Chicago made the US pilot team and got to go to Tokyo to compete against the Japanese players.
Oh the memories......

[SteelyDan]

This will bring back memories!!
And yes, that is...


Interesting side story...
The girl, that's in the video, was asked to change into the uniform she wearing...
She did, drop trou, in front of all of the Crew!!!

[Ortalus]

Wow, this brings back memories. I can't remember my callsign but I played a ton from 90-92. If Thumper had red hair, that's the guy I remember. I was the tall white guy, long brown hair in a ponytail, that managed a record store up at Diversey and Sheffield.

I do remember playing leagues and my team was the Caroling Morticians. Pretty much the same group of regulars all the time when I was there. We even did a BTC trip once to do paintball in Indiana somewhere.

Somewhere I still have a VHS of a match I played. Ah the memories, the pod, the green screen. The best memory though was playing the night we Operation Desert Storm. We came out of the pods to find the TV monitors showing real war. The missles launching from the ships, all of it. We all just stood there watching the news unfold, then hopped back in for more fun.

[x RAHL x]

I used to play at the Navy Pier Center in 97, pilot name "WeaselTail" Piloted a MadCat, and loved the whole cockpit feel, all the buttons used to control the never ending stream of coolant leaks. I miss those days. I lost whole paychecks there on Fridays and Saturdays.

Never knew much about the lore, and I was googling to find out where my MadCat fit in on the timeline, and see if there is any chance of seeing it in MWO. Stumbled on this thread, brought back some memories, so I thought I'd say hi.

[Nakamura Takeshi]

Present, I trekked down from Milwaukee to play at Navy Pier many times. I went to Navy Pier last year and missed the old Center (even the arcade next door). I moved to New York and played in Manhattan in Lazer Park, but always missed the trips down to Chicago to play.

My game name down there was Nakamura which I carried with me all these years.