I was searching for something else and stumbled across these old web pages I used to have posted. My first thought was to just put them back up without comment, but then, why not at least give some context?

According to the time stamps on the files, the pages were put up on or about Nov 1998. The Wayback Machine supports this but won’t let me look at the files. They underwent two re-writes, one right after being published (but I can’t find a reference to the date) and again on Oct 2002. I deliberately took them down sometime later but The Wayback Machine is not helping on this account.

The game the pages were based upon was first released on Mar 26 1994, though I don’t know when I first played it.

Notables:

• The time from first posting the pages to when fans of the game found them was much shorter than I expected.

  I did nothing to advertise or draw attention to them. Only a single obscure link appeared on a personal web page of little value or interest. Apart from a few in-game references the name of the game was never mentioned.

  Yes we had search engines back then, I just thought it would take quite a bit longer than it did.

• There are a lot of “haters” out there.

  I did receive quite a number of positive comments, notes of appreciation, and outright thanks for the pages. There were also a few complaints about gore and violence or that I had posted spoilers to the game…

  Well yes, I suppose I did post spoilers. The game was four years old by the time I’d posted them and I still think you’d have to work rather diligently to make the “spoilers” spoil your game. Especially if you had never played it before. (Warning: There be spoilers here.)

  Well yes, I did post gore and violence. I can’t be sure and I haven’t checked to see if the concepts of simulated blood, gore and violence existed back then or if they’re relative recent inventions. (Warning: There be simulations of everything but language and sex here. However, there is a bit of flirting from the crafty little minx…)

Unfortunately the “haters” outnumbered both the positive comments and complaints by a wide margin. It’s probably well known but the first clue as to the type of message was given by how incomprehensible it was. In general I tried to ignore all the crap but I guess it was wearing me down. The comments were coming in via my personal email address and they were never published. It seems unlikely that it was the work of trolls given the lack of a public show. No other page or set of pages I had posted generated any hate mail at all. It was just these pages.

The email message that pushed me over the edge was from “Basil”. Basil, I have to admit was a bit more literate than most but it was still quite difficult to be sure what he was actually trying to say. Sometimes I could read his message as just pompous, or just insulting. Sometimes it could appear to be a threat. Whatever it was, I had had enough and down the pages came.

I’m older now, I hate that I pulled them down.

Warning: In addition to all the previous warnings, the pages display a “vintage” design and they never really turned out to be what I was aiming for but here they are:

Citadel Station offers some interesting vacation possibilities…

Helpful hints for the original Basil:

1. The above link does not offer any real vacations that are available. Additionally “Citadel Station” is not a real place. You can’t go there for a vacation or any other reason,

2. The broad concept displayed in the above link is called “humour”. Some will say “attempted” humour. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humour for further details,

3. If you think you need to clarify the points made in your earlier email, please don’t trouble yourself. There are many more productive ways for you to be spending your time. It is not worth your effort.