REMEMBRANCES FROM THOSE PAST [Author: Lum the Mad]

It’s crazy. It’s sad. Somewhere, in somebody’s head, it’s a sound business decision, and I can understand that. Really. I understand business. But that was my family, dammit.

I suppose I’ve been a bit bitter. Certainly a bit reclusive, although it was unfair to disappear for so long after so many people were so supportive — both before and after I got laid off. But a year of personal crises can take a lot out of you. That’s not the point. I still loved Origin. I grew up with that place. People that lost their jobs last week were my friends. And trust me — I know how it feels.

I think I took the news harder than anyone else I knew — aside from those actually hit by the big axe, of course. This company has sweated and strained and grown together on one of the stormiest seas that this industry has ever seen. Aside from the pure financial and corporate realities, there’s a certain personal side that most people will never see. Origin was a place that I considered my own even long after they pushed me out of the nest. Now that place will never again exist as it did for most of my lifetime. The company will be missed. The people will be missed. Most importantly, the spirit that was the epitome of the game industry — the icon for every young kid out there who dreamed of making it in a land where worlds were

truly created — and the place that I realized that it truly was possible to love what you do — has now gone to an early grave.

It is a loss that everyone — employee and player, and even OSI’s competitors in the field — will feel. Origin will be missed. Across this industry, they have a vast family of those who entered their hallowed halls and then moved on to other places. I think that many of us still have a special place in our hearts reserved for OSI. I know that I do.

Anyhow, so much for the maudlin crap. The point: Lum, if you would be so kind as to post my e-mail addy (thefiredog@earthlink.net) on your page somewhere, or at least point me in the direction of the right place for me to shamelessly use your connections to our crumbling universe to get back in touch with all of the brotherhood, I’d love to get a chance to catch up with all of the people I’ve lost track of in the last year — on both sides of the game.

And I’m not gone for good.

Heck no.

You just wait.