Your first encounter with FA? Recruiting story?

[Anonymous]

so he never did it?  hmm.  well pirus was my angel in my challenge...how does this thing work?

[Fuse]

By the way, who was everyones angel to start it?


I didn't need one, came in before...

[Pirus]

aww baby im still your angel lol and eroz was mine

[Da6onet]

The first angel I saw in game was MasterYoda, kicking the crap out of 3 mervs single handidly at the hardline next to jacob's ladder. The first one I talked to was Orien, at Mara Central.

For my challenge, I used Ket as my angel, but only because my roommate at the time also used him :-p
Ket was very friendly on aim and gave me enough hints to get through the riddles I had trouble with.

I thought I had pissed off Eroz when I bugged him about one of the riddles, he was like "You know I didn't have to give you any help at all" (so be grateful :-p)

I felt very intimidated for a while even after joining. Eh, I still am kinda, I just try to be brazen to cover it up (working on that).

[Subb]

I can't remember >.< Broin or Orien I think.... :S

[Adad]

My angel was Orien, not for any particular reason other than he was the first to post with TBone in the Mxo FA thread... During my quest, I only got help from Da6 with the in-game challenge since I knew him from the priory.

I cannot remember any real encounters with them before joining... I recall hearing about them ALL THE TIME on RFZ during beta especially.  It just seemed like the geatest team to join in any game, and I sll believe that.  When I first saw Broin and TBone in game, it was when I already earned an interview, and to be nerdy but honest, I was too excited and nervous just to see them in game...haha... good times FA, good times.

Thinking about it I just want to thank TBone and all the guys (and girls) who made and still make this faction so amazing and memorable.

[Subb]

Destyn and Daggeh helped me along, I actually had 2 interviews... (kinda) since I had a power cut when Broin was talking to me (well that's what I say, the truth is that Broin was scary ) lol

[Anonymous]

Mine was Beleev.  I don't believe (hah) I ever actually met the guy

[Anamodiel]

I probably have the craziest story of all of you.

My contact was AcidicPlague. I had never met anyone in-game. I had heard about the challenge through some news site and went to do the Challenge. I think I saw Acidic's name on the forum for some reason, and it went through.

I had actually started the path way back before Launch, but quit until October when I couldn't figure out one of the puzzles. The one I was stuck on was the Jabberwocky poem. The password was Jabberwocky, and the username was AcidicPlague. It took me a long time to get that for some reason. I never even realized that I was supposed to enter in Acidic's username until Ket pretty much plainly told me. It then took me about a month and a quarter to finish the entire path, the main hard one being the Oracle and Reading one. I'll admit I probably asked too many questions of people in-game about the Challenge, assuming they had the answers to all the questions.

So, I waited for my interview. Two weeks. Nothing. Four weeks. It's getting around Christmas time, so I don't blame them and think nothing of it. Eight weeks. Ok, guys, this is taking a while. January 22 I mailed Destyn asking what was up, and said he'd check. A few hours later, I got a mail saying that I was rejected. I, at first, thought Tbone was mad at me for asking when my interview would be as he might have wanted me to be patient. So I mailed Destyn a second time to see what was up. I was becoming sadder and sadder by the moment.

I then got an in-game e-mail from Tbone sometime in early February. I guess I had pestered him enough to make him write me reasons why I was rejected. It had turned out that my IP was the same as a G7G member and that I was trying to infiltrate their ranks. I was also under scrutiny because I had just stood around Mara C as a low level, only doing Critical Missions and waiting to get contacted instead of leveling. He reasoned that I had spent most of my time at Mara "gathering intelligence".

It had turned out he was so skeptical of me because Trucidos or whatever had hacked into.. Orien's (I think) account and saw the Captain boards and was posting LESIG stuff on the MXO boards (which actually backfired on him, eventually, I think). So, Tbone assumed that I was Trucidos (or someone working for him) and was trying to get into FA as a spy. They eventually found out that it was Trucidos and cleared my name, much to my luck.

I finally got my interview on March 20. It was like, 9:45, and Broin contacted me asking to get an interview. I was like, crap, I can't; I have to go to bed at 10 because I have to get up early tomorrow. I was really sad, and pleaded with my dad, and he let me stay up to do the interview. I was so nervous about the interview because I had been waiting SO long. Haha, Manic asked me which movie was my least favorite of the trilogy. I thought that he had said most favorite, and I immediately went on a 3-minute talking spree saying how much I loved Reloaded. After I was done talking, he was like, umm, I asked you for your least favorite movie. I was like, oh fudgerific. That'll look great. I blundered my way through the rest of my interview, heart pounding, and went to bed. I woke up the next morning 15 minutes early and found an acceptance letter in my inbox.

HALLELUJAH. I literally jumped out of my chair and immediately logged into the site and changed my password and did all the bloop stuff before I had to go to school.

And that, my friends, is my story. Sorry it was so long. haha.

By the way, I only know exact dates because I still have those e-mails in my folders for some reason. I'm not that obsessed. I also do not know the full story of the "spy" issue, so some information is subject to inadequate knowledge on my part, and I apologize right now for not knowing the full story.

[Tbone]

To clarify, there had been a series of Zion faction websites that had been hacked. I think SOTI's site was hacked, and they sent along the IP address of who they thought was the hacker to me so I could run it and see if anyone was trying to do the same to us. When I ran the IP, Anamodiel's name popped up. We immediately flagged his account, assuming he was Primordia (the G7G hacker who ended up hacking us via Orien's account anyway) and left it at that. I still can't figure out how the IP mix-up happened, unless he hacked Anamodiel at some point or they simply gave me the wrong IP.

Also to clarifiy, there is no LESIG information posted on the Staff forums. Whoever it was did post a screenshot, I believe, that was only in the Staff forum. When LESIG was first formed, I offered to create a private forum for those who had made it if they needed to talk about stuff without worrying about leaking anything to anyone else. Turns out there was already a forum set up on the MxO site, so the one I was going to set up was never used and information was never passed around on this website. The thread I created that hinted that I would set up the board, though, was twisted around to look like we had been leaking LESIG intel.

Primordia later admitted to hacking Orien's account (after he changed his password) and gave us this story about being blackmailed by Trucidos for information. Primordia now plays under the name Bayamos, and Trucidos claims the "blackmail story" was fabricated by Primordia to stay on good terms with FA and use Truc as a scapegoat. Fun, eh?

[NoCry]

i love this history

[Jeyk]

When I first heard of FA, it was back in the old days of Mid-Beta on the Beta Forums, and I remember how much I thought that these guys made the Matrix atmosphere of MxO feel authentic.

I didn't initially know many people in beta, and I only played with a small group of friends.  It wasn't until they did a character wipe, and I created Jeyk again that I finally saw a large group of FA at an RFZ party in Polyvynil during the last few days of Beta.  

There I met Lelyel, and asked her how I could join the ranks.  She roleplayed a bit with me and directed me to Tbone.  Tbone was very polite, answered all my tells and questions, etc.  At that point he directed me to Eroz to pursue setting up an interview.  At the time I had a tight schedule, and I actually missed my first scheduled interview.  

Tbone and Eroz were incredibly patient with me, a week or so went by, and I finally had my interview.  I was SO fucking nervous.  I never used TS, I never was exposed to a community this active, and I was never exposed to a community this thorough and intelligent.  They had a hard time hearing me due to my mic, and I was stumbling over my own words.  

The interview alone was an entirely new experience in gaming that only grew over time with the faction.  As soon as I found that I was accepted, I logged into TS and met up with Tivod, Grimkitten, Lelyel, Eroz, and xGabrielx at Tabor Park East (this used to be a popular hangout for FA back in the my early faction days) and got my Whites.

I remember being so impressed with how cohesive, helpful, and well-behaved everyone was.  It was crazy just how much this faction changed my expectations and interactions with people in online gaming in general.  The first big thing I did with this faction upon joining was participating in the Coder Event.  With the exception of the End of Beta, that was the first Live Event I experienced.  Broin, Tivod, and MasterYoda used to run Level 50 missions with me all the time, as well as code out all kinds of clothing.

Damn, I could go on all day.  I fucking love it here.

[Jeyk]

On an FA mission team, I got ganked at Level 16, and we caught the guy in time:


In Beta, at Debir Court, when Seraph was supposed to show up.  If you look closely, you can see a ton of FA in the background:

[Eroz]

Note to the top one: The good old days of the Green Gi.

[Styan]

Let's see, I read about FA in the Fanzine, that quickly ceased to exist, and used to hear a lot about FA on RFZ, when it was still RFZ, After attempting to make it in to beta, which I was too late for, I ended up getting the game about a week before it was released. I started playing during the end beta preview. At that point the sheer numbers of FA made me think this is really cool!

On top of that it was a Zion faction, and I instinctively wanted to follow Zion. So on to the challenge I went.  After maybe about 3 weeks or so of work on the challenge I was given my interview code, and I waited about 3 weeks or so before entering it. Then came the day when Eroz was still able to get in game, and he PM'med me, asking if I was available for my interview.

Sure enough I joined into a Teamspeak server full of players, and sat in the empty prep room. The interview was conducted, and I heard from Tbone approximately 3 days later. At the time of my recruitment, StormRunner, Nik0, Rorin were the others that donned their wings on May 10th 2005. None of the above are still with us.