"Who is Billy Mays really?" Definitive Edition Pol

Billy Mays · Post by **Billy Mays** » Sat Sep 17, 2016 12:58 pm

I created this poll to hopefully clear up any confusion regarding my identity. Confusion that should not exist since I have already answered this question.

Billy Mays · Post by **Billy Mays** » Sat Sep 17, 2016 12:59 pm

*Jolt Country Forum

Billy Mays · Post by **Billy Mays** » Sat Sep 17, 2016 1:15 pm

*Poll

I swear this forum deletes letters and words after you click submit...

AArdvark · Post by **AArdvark** » Sat Sep 17, 2016 4:53 pm

And then there's no edit feature!

THE
THANKS, COMMANDER
AARDVARK

Billy Mays · Post by **Billy Mays** » Sat Sep 17, 2016 6:06 pm

AArdvark wrote:And then there's no edit feature!

I kind of enjoy the no edit feature, it really ramps up the stakes on posting. One careless move is all it takes to be eternally shamed for the whole world to see.

pinback · Post by **pinback** » Sat Sep 17, 2016 6:56 pm

Gerrit.

It's obvious once you think about it.

Welcome back, my man.

Billy Mays · Post by **Billy Mays** » Sat Sep 17, 2016 7:18 pm

pinback wrote:Gerrit.

Nope

pinback wrote: It's obvious once you think about it.

It should be.

pinback wrote: Welcome back, my man.

I never left.

pinback · Post by **pinback** » Sat Sep 17, 2016 7:19 pm

Hmm. Never left. Should be obvious.

Okay, I still think it's me.

RetroRomper · Post by **RetroRomper** » Sat Sep 17, 2016 8:51 pm

For the record (and as I noted to Pinback,) I'm way too depressed and anxious nowadays to routinely post as myself, much less as a novelty account.

Plus he is far too coherent for either Tdarcos or I.

So its a new member!

pinback · Post by **pinback** » Sun Sep 18, 2016 8:48 am

No, it's not. It's never a new member. Plus, he's giving me shit straight away, which is definitely a sign that he's been here a while.

ChainGangGuy · Post by **ChainGangGuy** » Sun Sep 18, 2016 1:36 pm

Hmm. The last several posts have been real eye-openers, I see now that it must be Lysander.

Billy Mays · Post by **Billy Mays** » Sun Sep 18, 2016 3:53 pm

pinback wrote:No, it's not. It's never a new member. Plus, he's giving me shit straight away, which is definitely a sign that he's been here a while.

I am hoping this clears up a few of things:

1. I am new member.

2. I gave you shit straight away because many of your posts are total shit, they should bring you much shame, and are only deserving of total derision. I do think you are a good person, and you do bring up the occasional good point though.

3. My journey to Jolt Country: Back in the early to mid 90's I started playing a small MUD that I can not remember the name of, it really wasn't that good anyways. I got turned onto MUDs through some friends that brought them to my attention, and because my impaired social skills made me an outcast in many AD&D circles. I was fortunate enough to receive the rarest weapon in the game from a monster drop, 1 in a million, the weapon was game breaking. So I did the natural thing that most shit bags would do in this scenario, and enter the barracks every night and slaughter everyone.

Needless to say this made me very unpopular, and I was losing interest in the grinding nature of having to slaughter all of the playing characters every night for no good reason. This is when I discovered that there was such a thing as "MUDs" that you can play offline, or text adventures. I know there is a huge difference between a MUD and a text adventure, but that is how I saw them originally. My first game was Zork 1, there was some place online that I downloaded the original trilogy from, I read the first line in the game, and was hooked. I also accredit Brendon Wyber's "Theatre" to my addiction, as I played it around that same time. I next needed to get the rest of the Infocom games.

I was unable to find the Masterpieces of Infocom cd in any of my stores, Amazon was around, but it was still in its early stages, and I didn't really use it for anything at the time, so I decided to go on Ebay (which was pretty new, and I had never used it before). I am pretty sure most sights that allowed you to download games was pretty much guaranteed to give you a virus at the time, so that is why I went on Ebay.

I searched around until I found some guy from the UK who was selling a brand new copy for what converted to $30 (one of the cheaper prices). I bought the game from him, and the cunt (used in the acceptable British pejorative variant) sent me a burned DVD of the game. Well it had all of the games on it, plus the documentation, plus no viruses, plus everything worked, so whatever, I kept it because I wanted the games, not any collectors value associated with it, plus it was pretty cheap. I played them, downloaded other text adventures from I can not remember where now, mainly it was a lot of bundles of games of a particular format packaged together with whatever you needed to play it.

Fast forward a bit, I stopped playing them in college, then I started playing them again, then I stopped playing them for awhile as life became a blur of work and other past times. Then I decided to get back into playing them (I never really stopped enjoying IF, I just stopped making time to play it). So I join all of the pertinent forums a couple of months ago (I never really joined forums before because talking to people for the most part is what I imagine drinking a lukewarm glass of aids must be like). I just started getting into forums not long before getting back into IF, and I do not use social media of any sort (facebook, twitter, myspace) none of that filth. So I am on the forums and I saw that Plotkin mentioned something about the IFTF (or maybe I noticed it when I was reading one of his websites?), which just got approved by Amazonsmile, I noticed this new option was not listed anywhere, and decided to do something productive by listing it everywhere I go online.

It was around this time that I first noticed something called Cyberganked, I didn't know who was making it, but I saw the game and thought to myself "good luck moving copies". So one of the sites I went to spread the message of the IFTF was to some google groups forum on IF. I scrolled down to see if any of the topics interested me, and I came across "Hangar-22" a game I had never heard about from an author (Rob O'Hara, Flack?) who I also never heard about. I thought to myself this game must be pretty terrible if it is not even mentioned on the IFDB (it turns out is has been getting above average reviews since getting listed, and I am definitely looking forward to playing it pretty soon, maybe tomorrow).

Anyway, I was about to disregard it as either a shit game and/or potential malware until I saw that Robb Sherwin was one of the beta testers, and I immediately thought to myself "Wow, Robb Sherwin puts out really good games, if he is willing to beta test it, then I will give this game a try". I also contacted the author and asked him if he would mind if I posted it on the IFDB (I thought to myself that if Robb Sherwin was willing to beta test the game, then that alone makes it worthy for an IFDB listing). Rob O'Hara (Flack?) responded with a "go for it". So now I am making a listing on the IFDB for a game I never played (even though I am looking forward to it), and the game's future could rest on the game's description (of which I know nothing about).

So I cobbled together a sentence that I thought was catchy based on the description on Rob O'Hara's website along with an ifwiki description, ran it past Olly from the ifMUD for spelling and overall appeal, and listed the game. Next I started listening to Rob O'Hara's podcasts that he has listed on his site (more like falling asleep to, don't take this the wrong way, the podcasts are interesting, I just use podcasts as a sleeping aid, the sound of a stranger's voice helps drown out everything else that is going on).

So I next read Rob O'Hara's interesting keyboard auction story that he had on his website, and then went on to read other articles of his. Looking through the articles, I found a write up he did for Cyberganked, a game that I had immediately dismissed prior, but now had learned that it was being created by his good friend Robb Sherwin! Well hell, that is a total game changer in my opinion, no longer was it some hack project by some no name upstart, now it elevated the game to one of the most prestigious projects in contemporary IF (sure, not Hadean Lands prestigious, but still pretty epic).

I watched the video on steam greenlight, and was instantly excited, I knew this game was going to be epic. I then looked up the official Cyberganked sight, and signed up for updates on the game.

This was after I had switched from yahoo to gmail. Yahoo was trolling me with their shit service, so I cancelled and went to gmail, and I used the new account to sign up for updates (this will become important later). Well a week or two went by, and I didn't get a response to my email. That is ok, I thought to myself, the man is probably busy, or maybe he is just a brilliant recluse like Hunter S. Thompson, then I signed up for the forum, a week went by, and no responses from that either. Well I thought, there are not very many members on the forum, maybe it is a quasi-private forum, it would be preposterous if Robb Sherwin was openly hostile towards his fans, and then I noticed that the response emails got sent to my spam folder against my wishes(which is not clearly indicated in gmail).

* * *

And here I am, a new member, this is my first account, and I am also the owner of the newer Bob Ross' Joy of Painting account because it was late, and I thought it was funny at the time, and while Bob Ross the man transcends space and time, the idea of the account named after him is borderline shit, but at least it is not as shit as half of pinback's posts.

This typing has gone on long enough, I am tired of typing, this hit the high notes for how I found Jolt Country, I am not going to proof read any of this as nobody will probably read it. I hope this clears up any questions regarding my identity, I doubt it though, sorry I am not that one well loved guy from a long time ago who you haven't heard from in awhile, life is unforgiving, and that man is probably dead.

Take care.

AArdvark · Post by **AArdvark** » Sun Sep 18, 2016 4:32 pm

Dude, that's awesome! I love these origin stories. Don't be a-feared of social awkwardness here. This is like the Island Of Misfits, only better.

For a real treat, start listening to the Don Rogers shows!

THE
WE'RE ALL NORMAL
AREN'T WE?
AARDVARK

pinback · Post by **pinback** » Sun Sep 18, 2016 4:52 pm

Tdarcos thinks that wall of goddamn text was a little excessive. I didn't read it, so if there's anything I need to know, someone PM me.

Flack · Post by **Flack** » Sun Sep 18, 2016 4:53 pm

Billy Mays wrote:because my impaired social skills made me an outcast

Welp you're home welcome aboard.

Billy Mays · Post by **Billy Mays** » Sun Sep 18, 2016 6:39 pm

AArdvark wrote:For a real treat, start listening to the Don Rogers shows!

Thank you! I just added it to my favorites menu. Why are there only 12 episodes or so, that ended in 2014?

Tdarcos · Post by **Tdarcos** » Sun Sep 18, 2016 6:48 pm

Billy Mays wrote:
pinback wrote:No, it's not. It's never a new member. Plus, he's giving me shit straight away, which is definitely a sign that he's been here a while.
I am hoping this clears up a few of things:

1. I am new member.

"I am a new member." Onry Japanese membels are arrow to speak in Engrish.

Billy Mays wrote:2. I gave you shit straight away because many of your posts are total shit, they should bring you much shame, and are only deserving of total derision.

"It took you this long to figure that out? You're not as bright as I thought you were." - Supervisor 246 in my book Instrument of God.

Billy Mays wrote:I do think you are a good person, and you do bring up the occasional good point though.

I believe you have misread Pinback's entire corpus of work. He has publicly stated his entire purpose in posting here is to drive everyone away.

Ice Cream Jonsey · Post by **Ice Cream Jonsey** » Sun Sep 18, 2016 7:48 pm

By the way, Billy, thanks for signing up for that mailing list. I'm very much in the "trying things out" phase of whatever all of this is. 5 people signed up for that list in the few years it's been there. In that time I've failed to mention the Steam Greenlight Campaign and the Steam Greenlight Acceptance. Those were newsworthy. But also, I felt everyone who cared might find out in different ways.

It was just an avenue to explore. Marketing and business is very, very much one of the big disciplines that my ideal "company" for game dev would have. I'm not good at it, but I recognize that it's important.

As you've no doubt surmised, this place is just a crickety BBS with old software that a group of sometimes-friends use to remain in contact with each other. Of course it's awesome to see you here and I really appreciate the shot in the arm you've given the place. The natural question is to ask, "Who is this REALLY" because people dropping by and joining us has been so rare, even though it is totally OK and hopefully fun for everyone!

Billy Mays · Post by **Billy Mays** » Mon Sep 19, 2016 7:37 am

Tdarcos wrote:
I am hoping this clears up a few of things:

Billy Mays wrote:1. I am new member.

Tdarcos wrote:"I am a new member." Onry Japanese membels are arrow to speak in Engrish...2...3...

I am hoping this clears up a few things:

1. Cover the full length of your arm in mayonnaise.

2. Think about everything you have ever posted on this forum.

3. Proceed to violently ram your arm where the sun doesn't shine until your shoulder makes contact with your buttocks.

pinback · Post by **pinback** » Mon Sep 19, 2016 7:56 am

Ice Cream Jonsey wrote:this place is just a crickety BBS with old software that a group of sometimes-friends use to remain in contact with each other.

Also, murder/suicide-free since 2011!