Special Edition

Vettie’s Views SPECIAL EDITION

Hello Mech Fans. Summer has fallen. Its been awhile since I have been able to post and I will get into that in just a bit. For now I just want to say hello everyone and Vettie is back.

I have a lot of research to do to get caught up. I still want to work on a MekTek interview, but I have not had “real” internet access in over a month (again, more on that later). One of my sources tells me that the “Free Release” for Mercs is almost ready and that they are working out the legal details.

Bringing Mercs back from the “dead game zone” will certainly breathe some life into this game. Hopefully, this freebie will bring in some new players. MekTek has done a lot of work and tho I haven’t sent it myself, I am told that the Free Edition will be a smooth go from the time you click the button to install until you click the “join” button in multiplayer. I really hope that is the case because I think a lot of the folks that may “give it a try” will be easily shunned away if they encounter problems with the install or getting online. Most of “today’s” gamers want to click and go and if it doesn’t work, well, there are other games…

I am one that thinks that Mercs is one of the best multiplayer games ever done. I even wrote a Vettie’s Views about that. Mercs offers everything, multitudes of maps (thanx to the community), plenty of mechs (thanx to MekTek), customizable weapons loads (crap, I don’t know who to thank, but thanx), tons (pardon the pun) of weapons (again thanx to MekTek) and hours of fun thanx to all the folks that still play the game.

Veterans of the game may be an issue for incoming new players (n00bs). Many of us have been playing this game since MechWarrior 2. The game really hasn’t changed that much, you still drive mechs and shoot each other into oblivion before someone else does it to you. New players might have a hard time with learning the features of the game while only lasting a few seconds against guys that have been playing for 10 years (maybe more). It can be a real turn off to get into a game and die quickly and then have to wait for one side to win the round before you can get back into it.

Hopefully, many of the veteran players like most of the Sunder Junkies will take the time to help the n00bs learn the game so maybe, just maybe, we retain a few of the “Ill try this game to see if its any fun” players. My hats off to you guys for taking the time to help these guys.

Look at it like this, a true n00b coming into Mercs would be like, oh, say any one of you going to bat against Randy Johnson. Yeah, you might get a hit, but remember this, a professional baseball player makes millions of $$$ and becomes and all-star if he manages to bat .300. That’s just 3 hits in 10 times at bat. 70% of the time Randy is gonna send you back to the dug out. So the chances are that a n00b will be sitting on the side waiting fro respawn are very high. Folks want to play and many don’t have the patience to watch and learn. We can hope there are a few that do.

On a personal side, I will try to give you a brief update on Vettie and the Vettie household. Many of you know we had to sell or home and move to an apartment. Well, it was costing us plenty and we were forking out money faster than we were taking it in. We came to the decision that we needed to do something before we were flat broke.

My son is in his final year of college and working, my oldest step-daughter has started college and is working and living with us. The youngest step-daughter is gone away to college.
UAH (University of Alabama at Huntsville) is a fine but (VERY) expensive engineering school. Calhoun College is a great 2 year Junior College and not too expensive. Jacksonville State University is a fine (medium expense) school for future teachers. All together, it puts a hurt on the old savings account and any other accounts.

The youngest is a Flagger in the Band at JSU. On the second day of band camp, she broke her foot! DOH! We (Ms. Vettie and I) took a short trip down to get her medicine scripts filled and take her some crutches and on the way home the oldest called all in a panic. She had slipped in the bathtub at the apartment and busted the tub cutting her knee up pretty badly. Ms. Vettie and I were 3 hours away so we contacted a friend and had them take her to the emergency room for XRays and stitches while we tried to get home as quickly as possible. They are both fine and all is well with them, but it was a rough little stretch.

We went shopping for a place to live before we burned through what was left of our money. We found an old (little) house with some land that needed some loving. The house belonged to a lady that died 2 years ago. She left it to her sons (4 of them). The house had been sold about a year ago, but the buyer could get the financing, so it set empty. We made a ridiculously low offer (hoping to pay cash and not borrow any money) and they turned us down. About 2 weeks later, they came back and said if we were interested they would sell for our offer. We did and closed within a week.

This old house (not Bob Vila’s, but we could have used him) needed lots of work. The exterior was in good shape with a roof that had been installed within the last 4 years. The interior is another story. It was just terrible. We have installed a dishwasher, new counter tops, new cabinets will come later, a central heat and a/c system, new flooring, some replacement windows, a new bathroom (all new stuff in there), re-wiring the electrical works and some plumbing work. DOH!!!!

We have moved in but the place is nowhere near done, so now the garage is full of our stuff and there are boxes everywhere. My computer is just up in an ad-hoc fashion as my office area is not complete yet.

We have had a pretty rough stretch and I hope it is over. Things got tight, too tight and we burned money like crazy just to keep afloat. Maybe we bought us a break. And things will turn around. We keep our heads up, keep our faith strong and hang on to each other. My thanx goes out to all of you that kept us in your thoughts and prayers. Vettie will be coming back soon.

Oh yeah, w00t!!