It started on Mars. To be specific, the Mars server in Active Worlds. At ground zero, to the soundtrack of a midi-file by some Danish dude who was inspired by Arthur C. Clarke's "Rama", I encountered a fellow tourist by the name of SSE. We instantly felt a certain kinship... being less privileged users, stuck using the drab tourist avatar, and unable to build permanent structures. He was looking for someone to help him build an elevator. It happened that I knew how to do just that, so I traveled to the location where he was attempting to build an elevator in order to travel between the two floors of an enormous, wide building he had constructed, consisting of nothing but two enormous empty floors. As I recall, it never developed beyond that.


It soon became apparent that we were both fans of the game Jedi Knight, and began having games of that together. He directed me to Massassi in order to acquire levels and mods. Time passed, and we fell out of touch.
Some time later, I curiously checked out the forums on Massassi for whatever reason, and recognised his nickname (at this point it was Correction), seeing that he was still a regular poster. I lurked the forums for some time, acquainting myself with the populace and plotting how to gain Dormouse's favour.


After a few strategic posts, I arranged in secret to happen upon Dormouse just outside Shallam's gate in order to introduce myself. Side by side, we took pleasure in slaughter at Minia, then enjoyed the spoils of our plunder within a hollowed-out tree in the forests of Aalen. We talked of many things, philosophical and cultural, and eventually came to understand the great works we were destined to bring forth.


We formed the Teapot. At first a little more than a secretive fraternity consisting of Dormouse, me, and Ford, it grew in membership and in influence. Members of Massassi's administration counted among the Teapot society, and we began to take on the role of a shadow government. We were less a secret order than a secret chaos, however--our influence was not in enforcing our whims, but allowing them to flourish under turned cheeks. We sought ways to spread our gay liberal feminist agenda, such as by employing the rhetoric skills of Mort-Hog, whom we brought over from the neighbouring Monkey Island community.


At its peak, the Teapot was more active and populous even than #massassi. People were attracted to its bohemian lifestyle and lack of strict moderation. It was a place where people could speak their mind freely. The spirit of the Teapot had gained an inexorable momentum and was destined to change Massassi forever.


Then, Dormouse retired from the Teapot, never to return, in an act of zenlike wisdom: The Teapot was no longer necessary. On the surface, it seemed to disperse and fade into obscurity. But the truth is much less banal, and more Borgesian. Massassi has become the Teapot.

Long live Teapot! Long live gay liberal feminist Massassi!

Dude, don't question! It looks like pretty secret stuff, read it while you still can.

Personally, I couldn't stop reading it. Kind of reminiscent of this.

That's right, Flirb. And with you voicing like 20% of DXN, we can be certain that all your efforts will amount to..

.... nothing.

Seriously. I thought I stumbled into the never-ending story thread for a second.

And every fantastical word of it is absolute truth. I'll swear to it. And much of it has never before been uttered outside of masonic gatherings.

*I* read it.

Of course, I've also read the entire Neverending Story Thread

I came for the mods, registered for editing help, stayed for the stories, continue staying for nostalgia.

long live #teapot.

And #tacc.

Also, I'm not going to leave this place until the Messiah, Jesus, Lost Imam or GNU/HURD of Massassi - moneyobie - will return.

Unless he already has. /me eyes some members who seem to be reluctant in revealing their past identities

I thought you were moneyobie?

Hush, baby mantis. I'm quite certain the key difference between moneyobie and I was that his non-sensical acts were highly cerebral, elaborate and well-thought schemes whereas I can only be genuinely dumb. Zoom! ZOOM! Zoom!

Mine's pretty simple:

JK Editing -> JK Editing -> Attention Whoring -> Sugarless/Milady/Maevie (hey-oh! :P) -> Loyalty

Oh, how I love nostalgia. Apologies in advance for the rambling. As with so much of my life at massassi, it's way past my bedtime and I'm sleepy and incoherent. But it's kind of difficult to express how much effect this place has had on me over the years (and also pretty embarrassing, so... yeah)


Firstly, wow, Mentat - I can't believe that a debate in the Religious Discussion forum actually had such an impact on someone! I just remember it as endless polarised arguments that seemed to go nowhere. I remember one particular one about whether taking the morning-after pill could be considered abortion, and feeling very defensive and outnumbered as (I think) the only female person in the debate. Rather like the state of the US legal system in relation to reproductive rights at the moment.


^THIS so much. Learning how to communicate online is a HUGE lesson I've taken from here. I remember when the rest of my friends started regularly using the internet (around the time facebook and msn were gaining popularity), after years of them asking how on earth I could spend so much time online. And watching these enormous arguments break out on discussion groups and email chains because people couldn't grasp the fact that you really can't trust that your intended tone can actually be read via text. I feel like I learnt a whole way of communicating about 5 years before everyone else.

So... I first came here (I've said this in so many threads!) because JamesBond was posting in a thread of riddles, in one of our computer labs at uni. I asked what he was up to, got sucked into the riddles and he suggested that I join. As he suspected, I had a rather... enthusiastic welcome!

This despite the fact that I knew nothing of JK and wasn't exactly a massive SW fan. I can remember a live thread in the discussion forum when I joined being "when did you last watch ANH?" and having to look up the acronym...

But there was lots of other random chat and interesting discussion going on at the time, and I got sucked into it all. I notched up a ridiculous posts per day count and at some point someone said I might beat GBK to 1,000 posts. This then became a bit of a personal mission (guess I didn't have too much going on in my life at the time!) and I spent hours spamming various secret forums and generally making a nusiance of myself.

Not sure when I joined IRC but I definitely used that waaaaaaaaay too much when I should have been focusing on my undergrad degree. I remember whole periods where my bodyclock was pretty much nocturnal, since most people were around at night. It's fair to say I had a pretty bad few years at uni, and I have no idea whether having an online community to turn to acted as an enabling force as I withdrew from my friends and student life, or whether it stopped me from falling into a worse pit of depression, but either way there was a long period where I felt far closer to certain people here than I did to almost anyone I knew in real life.

Of course, I also got to meet Morpheus and visit Finland, which was amazing, and my first trip overseas on my own.

And then of course there was Starcraft. I'm going to blame my original addiction on Flexor, and my subsequent tower defense addition on happydud (bloons TD5 being my current methadone). I had to give my Starcraft discs to my mum during my final year exams to make sure I actually revised. Dear oh dear. And to this day I've not actually played a whole game of SC2.

Of course, I visit much more rarely these days, but somehow can't tear myself completely away. Much like Kirby pointed out, massassi was so monumental during key parts of my life, it's hard to imagine a time I'll ever not want to check in.

As a final note, I just had a look through some old PMs, and have come to the conclusion that at least 5 massassians have had my home address over the years...

LESS THAN THREE

The ISB is not a secret forum!

I am actually deeply indebted to Emon and Sine for my deconversion.

I just remembered something else amusing. Massassi was the first forum I discovered...I literally had no idea what 'forums' link on many websites meant and never bothered to click it and find out. I was super into Star Wars gaming at the time so instead of posting I engaged with the websites by reading literally every review/game guide/news post/tutorial on pages like Massassi, X-Wing Legacy, Datamaster's XvT page, etc.

Amazing. Change has happened here!

I cannot provide the answer to any of these. Or I can answer them all with "I don't know."



Wow that's OG. Same for me but it was EdgeEmu's irc. I one day realized that the 'chat' on the main page was just an irc applet and then added it to my autoconnect.