About a year from now i decided that it was time for me to start a project of my own and sort of prove myself. So Argentum was born as a recreation really, something to spend a few hours on and see how far i could get. Without really thinking about the complexity of an RTS game, i just basically jumped and started coding for fun. A week from then i had a primitive game engine where you could move the units around in a straight line and pan the map.
From that moment on the most unbelievable things happened, first having Fredrik believing in me and wanted to team up, then John Lomax and Jaybot, everyone helping out without asking really anything in return. A few months later Fredrik, Shervin and i make up a company called Ionside with the hopes of selling the game. We did pretty well, we had some very interesting business propositions and were about to sign a contract when the most unbelievable turn of events were about to happen.
One day i was chatting with Mike Wagstaff (pocketgamer.org as you know) over ICQ about the legendary John Romero coming into the PPC market. I was really exited about that because i always believed that PocketPCs were the portable gaming device of the future and him coming into the scene was living proof that i was right. So basically for some reason the thought of mailing John crossed my mind and i asked Mike to give me his e-mail address and i wrote him something that goes like this:
"Hi John, i just wanted to welcome you into the pocketPC scene"
All i really wanted from him was like him to press the reply button, write a line and then the send button. Sort of like an autograph thing really because i had been hearing from him ever since i was a kid.
Ohh but well, as unbelievable as it sounds about two months from then i was travelling to Texas to meet John Romero, Tom Hall, Brian Moon (Age of empires CFO), Stevie Case (CPL founder AND playboy model!) and his team in person!, and actually living with them in John Romero's house!.
It was surreal, it was like i didn't really believe what was happening until i got to John Romero's house and saw him in person, it was like shock after shock. Then i met Tom hall too, with about one kilogram of less hair in his head hehe. And then not long after Stevie woke up and another shock again because i was a total CounterStrike freak at the time and CPL was everything we talked about with my friends.
It would be too long to go into details, but that week i lived one of the best moments of my life. Developing videogames had always been my dream ever since i was about 6 years old. And there i was, with several gaming legends all in the same room being super nice to me. I even got a ride in his Ferrari testarrosa at 250 km/h!!. Dude that machine has more acceleration that an airplane!.
So that's the reason why i always kept getting super pissed off at some of you when you flamed john romero, because i knew the guy and he and his team are the nicest guys i've ever met. I am this big nobody and they received me in their home with open arms and treated me like one of their own, I'll remember that week for the rest of my life.
Well i basically wanted to thank everyone for believing is us and to say that we will not let you down with this game.
Thanks everyone!
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