| First Name : | Rick |
| When did you start Playing Tradewars : | |
| How Long have you Played Tradewars : | Retired in 1998-1999 10 years experience |
| Alias Used in the Game : | Gypsy |
| How I Choose my Alias : | High School nickname but back in the day of BBS’s before the internet really took over it was rare for players to play TW through telnet because of the disadvantage of speed compared to dial-up players, I actually preferred it. So I moved around a lot looking for new games to play in and new people to kill, so the name kind of fit and after a few years the name became as much apart of my play and style as my skill and knowledge |
| Are You a Member of any Group in TW ( If Yes , can you play with other teams ) : | Founding member of the now defunct MURDER INC. former members include: Hosem,Prophet, Black Slayer, Maverick, Kal Durak, The Riddler, AstroCreep and LadyHawke. Played with BadHouse for a few games on MPB have played with a host of other corps over the years. |
| Tournaments ( Major / Minor ) |
Didn’t really have them
during my career, I hosted the first BOTE was retired by the second. If prizes count then I was apart of the
winning team that got like 6 months free access on MPB, won a modem in a solo game on BITNOVA.COM, won
100 bucks (which I never received hehe) on PAC-RIM, won a couple of different time on Rippers for various software games and what not. |
| Name 3-5 players you like to corp with in a game ? | Of
current players the only ones that I can really think of are Maverick and Cruncher, only because I don’t really know many of the current players very well. I would have liked to play with Premier in my prime (that was eleq’s name before he made himself a god of TW. I don’t think he likes when I call him that, so of course that’s what I call him hehe). The guys I played best with from my days were Black Slayer, Hosem, Monday and Kal Durak. |
| What Playing style do you prefer ( blue/red .. aggressive/passive ) ? | I don’t really have a preference, early in my career I played both, when I started playing with Black Slayer, Hosem and Monday Slayer and I were always red and Monday and Hose were always Blue. The last 2 years of my career I almost exclusively played blue. When we (Hosem, Monday and myself) ventured out from under Slayer’s leadership we all basically became CEO’s. I am from the school of thought that you have 3 types of players, red, blue and CEO’s. CEO’s need to be equally skilled in blue and red play but also have to have additional skills and knowledge of things like strategy, tactics and politics. As far as aggressive or passive I suppose that depends on which measuring stick you use to gauge it. If you compare me to someone like Hosem I would be on the passive side of the board. Walter and I had many, many a go around about Hosem’s extreme aggressiveness. He was the type of player that was so aggressive that it was close to being reckless. Hosem’s great skill in invasions and killing usually made it work out for him and his team. I have to tell you there was more then a few mornings were I would log on to a game and find Hosem at the end of an invasion that he had preformed by himself and used millions of fighters and creds. If you compare me to a player like Monday I guess I would be on the aggressive side of the board. Monday was a builder at heart, he believed that a unbeatable defense was the best offence, and while the tactic has merit building an empire of millions of defensive fighters on a bunch of level 6 H’s and L’s gets kind of boring hehe. |
| What players influenced your style of playing (mentors/Opponents) | Black Slayer more then any other
player molded my game. In later years after he had retired and I was still playing I tried to model my
leadership after him, tried to make decisions that I thought he would have made in the same situation. I
always wanted to be the hard-ass that Hosem was and his play influenced mine a lot, I hope that some of the things I did sunk into that cast iron skull of his too hehe. Monday also had a big impact on my play; he was a natural leader and 1 of the best CEO’s I ever knew. As far as opponents go BadHouse on their turf (MPB) were some legit bad-asses (not so in away games hehe). DE! shook up the stardock scene. I always had a great time playing against Zoobar; he was a worthy adversary. Galactic Overlord was maybe the single most disruptive player I ever played against a very dangerous guy. Epicenter was always a hoot to listen to on fedcom. And any game that Cruncher was involved in was a plus. |
| Helpers / Programs Used : | Twhelper and Telix for Windows (SALT ii scripts) |
| Awards / Recognition Received | I never really received
an abundance of awards during my playing days, the game wasn’t as “connected” as it is now with the WWW
and all the servers, egroups and what not. I was voted to the last All Stardock team in like 95 or 96. My website won some awards way back when and I think I remember getting an email from someone a while back about being inducted into someone’s TW Hall of Fame. I never really put much stock in awards, even though its nice to get recognition for things you work hard at, like websites or servers. I always figured the people who you play against know who the players are that are dangerous and who are blowholes, and in the end that’s what counts. |
| Rankings of Gypsy | Guardian's
Rankings : Not Ranked Epicenter's Rankings : 5 Stars |
| Anything else you might want to add : | I am just glad to see the game evolve going into its second decade, and transcend the BBS. I feel really good that the current players are carrying the torch of TW and I am confident that in the years to come the game will remain popular as long as there are players who take pride in promoting the game and its appeal. |