«They were all building for a merge. So was I, if they asked at least..»
Note: I do understand this article won't fit everybody's opinion and point of view. The goal of this thread is pure informative. Feel free to discuss your opinion in a civil way. Good luck to board moderators in moderating the comment section.
P.S. It reflects what happened back in October 2019, from the inside. For more info check Top 10 Xanthus
To be completely honest, when I received a positive answer at the request of my upcoming interview – I wasn’t expecting to be travelling so far. But– here I was on my way to Xanthus. I made myself comfortable in my seat anticipating the feeling after the jump. You see, my target universe is six times faster than the on I call my home, so as soon as we’ll enter it – the G force will, most probably, be overwhelming.
It’s already been a while since we had those huge inexplicable anomalies registered in most of the universes. Those battles surely made an impact and some chain reactions, which echoed across the multiverse. Some scientists still use that as an explanation on how the universe (Leda) was created, exactly 1 month after the initial impacts. There’s been also quite a change in what you could find in the vast unexplored space beyond 15th position in the solar system. Was it all somehow connected? I couldn’t say...
The jump was successful – and the feeling I was looking forward to – didn’t disappoint at all. Now the ride to Quantum didn’t look so bad after all.
It was an amazing sight. Such a beautiful universe, with such speed and so much space – and yet it is almost empty and appeared to be still.
As I entered the solar system we were heading to – I had the strangest picture I could ever imagine. The planet wasn’t just orbiting the start. Its orbit was also altered by its moon. The moon did not appear to be bigger than any other usual moon, but it had to be about its mass. It looked like both, the moon and the planet, were orbiting each other.
It all made sense when we arrived. The amounts of metal, crystal and deuterium on that moon were beyond any acceptable limit. It was ridiculous, yet beautiful. The gravity on that moon was near a planet norm.
On the docking port, a general met us, greeted and asked us to follow him.
“- The commander is on his deck, as usual. He never leaves the ship, even when docked.”
“- But why?” I asked.
“- He is still trying to get in contact with his allies, the other commanders, former ENL, most of which were, supposedly, destroyed in the big war.” You could read on his face that he also lost a lot of men in this war.
“- ENL? Big War?”
“- I will leave this to my commander…”
The deck was a classic battleship one. Nowadays, you rarely find a commander, especially of this importance, on a battleship. Most of them choose a battle cruiser, a destroyer or even a death star.
His eyes were all on the monitors and his crew was broadcasting some sort of a recall message. As the general said – he is still trying to get in contact with his allies… He greeted me as I entered and after a quick chit-chat, we started the interview.
Alex Stukov: When did it all start for you? I mean the whole ogame experience?
Mostaris: Oh, it started a long time ago, on ogame.dk can’t exactly remember my username back then, but I joined with some rl friends we played for a while, most of them either got bored and quit or got smashed and quit. After I basically did what I wanted to do, I semi-retired to mining for a long time. And then I quit for a few years coming back to the beginning of Yildun. So, I’m fresh out of retirement!
Alex Stukov: How much did you play before retirement?
Mostaris: Oh well I was out of oGame between late 2015 and early 2018. But a good 9-10 years.
Alex Stukov: Do you keep in touch with any of the players you played before going for a 3 y vacation?
Mostaris: Nope
Alex Stukov: All those years you played .dk or you joined .org before 2018?
Mostaris: For most of my time, it was dk. But I was playing some late org unis and just chilling, being what most would call a nice farm. 😂 I didn’t have the drive for oGame I had back in the Day, still don’t tbh
Alex Stukov: How come you decided to join Yildun? What/who took you out of the rocking chair?
Mostaris: Let me think…
I saw an ad om Facebook I think 😂, had that moment of nostalgia and joined Wezn to be absolutely truthful, applied to ENL, they told me a new uni had opened so I went and created an account there.
And that was how I knew ENL all of 30 minutes before joining Yildun. So, I went from seeing a Facebook ad after almost 3 years, to joining a 6x7x 80% uni (I didn’t know at the time)
Alex Stukov: Who are ENL? Did you know any of them before Wezn?
Mostaris: I had absolutely no connection to them before Wezn. But, they became something like a family to me, still keep in touch with a few of them. The rest have quit and moved on with their lives. Only 2 People from ENL Yildun left on Xanthus.
Alex Stukov: Who else was in ENL - give us some names.
Mostaris: Well even if I tell you the names, you won’t remember any of them. But like happytimez, drpsyko, slayer, Cassandra vandales joined the Tarazed division, which is how I got introduced to the whole "being a teamler" thing. Wraith02, vizz and many, many more people I think the total roster of ENL peaked at 100+ People. ENL was an alliance designed to basically teach player how to play and try to keep server populations up, with or without the players we taught.
Alex Stukov: What left a mark on your game experience from the beginning of Yildun until the merge? Anything worth mentioning?
Mostaris: I’ve always been about the People in oGame, so the People of ENL left by far the biggest mark on me.
Alex Stukov: Any major events you’ve been a part of? Hits? Ninjas?
Mostaris: Not in recent memory, no. Other than xanthus ofc
Alex Stukov: We can say that Yildun game has been quiet smooth?
Mostaris: Yildun was something odd to me, having traditionally been a low speed player. So, I was relearning the game, and adapting to the new settings at the same time. It wasn’t very smooth sailing. But yeah, it actually ended up with me retiring from actual game play and just chilling in the ENL chat, until another guy was quitting and asked me to take his account
Alex Stukov: Who was that?
Mostaris: Mr_darkness
Alex Stukov: Were you up to that point more of a miner? And mr_darkness account came up with a fleet?
Mostaris: Well… I haven’t fleeted for a long ass time, and no it didn’t, it was a miner and stayed a miner (it’s not the account I’m currently on)
Alex Stukov: How come you ended up in Xanthus? What was the other option? Or there was no other option?
Mostaris: Yildun only had one target uni - that was Xanthus.
Alex Stukov: What happened when you all were merged into Xanthus? How were the first days/weeks?
Mostaris: Quite peaceful. I was chilling, actually sold deut to FLEET at one point and even became quite good friends with one guy in there.
Alex Stukov: And then...?
Mostaris: Well … I was told by my friend in the FLEET alliance that Da didn’t fs anything, so one day I basically decided to raid one of Da's deut fleets while he was sleeping, idk think it was Like 60kk profit. As a result of which he declared a war.
Alex Stukov: To your whole alliance?
Mostaris: Yes. MD's were plentiful against my moons in that time period. And my sats didn’t live long.
Alex Stukov: But it didn’t stop you...? How about the other players in the alliance?
Mostaris: Players either dropped out of the alliance or straight up quit. Some soldiered on, but we were drastically reduced in numbers and as a time went on, that didn’t really change much. We slowly dropped off, one by one. In This time, of course, artist came back out of vmode and stirred some shit up
Alex Stukov: Artist was with or against you all?
Mostaris: Well at this point not much of enl remained and considering I got him back out of vmode, he was a friendly
Alex Stukov: What kind of shit did he stir?
Mostaris: Well he actually made Da fleetsave. He hit some support accounts. Just basically took their peace away. Artist basically did that. But he needed more recs to actually hit the big fleets. And by the time he had close to enough, they would have gotten too big. So, in the end he gave up, and well that account ended in my possession, but I was still leaning the damn game, so I reached out to a friend to actually play it. While I focused on my own shit.
I never played artist's account. I got it handed to me by the man himself... I contacted Kaldor and asked if he was up for a Challenge. So, Kaldor had the artist account and I had the Mr darkness account. Me and Kaldor tried to actually make stuff work for a few months… Realized that it’s not going to work, we were 2 people against an Ally of bigger and more ruthless players. At the same time, I had noticed another account ingame growing quite rapidly.
Alex Stukov: Was it possible to stay alive against them in an x6 uni without being force-popped?
Mostaris: They don’t know what a force-pop is, so yes.
Alex Stukov: How big were your fleets at that time in comparison to theirs?
Mostaris: I had 4k rips, kal had 100 billion fleet and they had probably around 300 billion between them. Issue was also the timezones etc
Alex Stukov: Meaning Kaldor had the biggest 1 piece of fleet in a non acs uni?
Mostaris: No, Kal’s fleet was rank 4
Alex Stukov: What about the timezones?
Mostaris: They are mostly americans. And me and kal are nighthawks, go to bed late wake up late… well not anymore, but we were. So, when we went to bed, it was only Like 8pm for them, so it screwed our sleep schedules, the fleets had to be in fs all the time and it had to be recall before we could sleep etc.
Basically, it was unwinnable and unsustainable fight. I then contacted an old friend, who I figured out had actually come back and asked him what he thought of the situation. We sat down, figured things out, and how to execute it. So, at this point Kaldor has given up. I’ve basically given up. Until one day I’m talking to my friend and I come up with the idea… So, things get shuffled around, I end up on my current account, the darkness account and artist accounts are place in vmode for holding. My friend asks to join FLEET, gets in.
Alex Stukov: Who is your friend you are talking about? This is when all the plan was created?
Mostaris: I won’t mention him by name, for his sake. And yeah. I joined FLEET on that account, he did the communications with them.
Alex Stukov: Hmm…
Mostaris: He had an account ingame. That he was building. I got that account.
Alex Stukov: But you said he got in!?
Mostaris: I joined FLEET on that account. He joined FLEET Skype chat. That account I joined on is Red Sparrow.
Alex Stukov: As I understand you were motivated, to do what you did, by the fact that FLEET made most of ENL leave the game by constantly harassing them and left you almost alone, after you raided some of Da’s planets?
Mostaris: I raided a single moon.
Alex Stukov: Was your plan to infiltrate into their alliance and be able to gather as much resources as needed to then insta-build the insane fleet and crash them when they are off guard?
Mostaris: Because they trusted me - I didn’t have to insta anything, but yeah…
Alex Stukov: Did any of the FLEET members know at any point before the shit hit the fan that it is you on the account, as I understand it was your friend who “joined” the alliance?
Mostaris: No, they were caught off guard. Some of them had expressed concern about the size of the account in separate chats, but I think that’s it.
Alex Stukov: What was their motivation to keep you in? Who was talking to them at that time, you or your friend?
Mostaris: My co-conspirator was the person talking to them. And the motivation was simply that they were getting along with him. They knew him from last uni's etc. They were all building for a merge. So was I, if they asked at least..
Alex Stukov: When did you decide what day will everything be executed on?
Mostaris: I set a goal for the fleet. When I reached that goal - I had to wait a bit. Just laying low
Alex Stukov: Why?
Mostaris: Proving that I weren’t a threat, even though I had a massive fleet that could recycle them all without flinching, I didn’t do anything. Made them relax. And just watch. Wait for a window. The windows were spotted. And so, we just sort of started mapping them out. Seeing what we could do etc.
Alex Stukov: Give us some technical details for noobs on how to follow someone.
Mostaris: I knew where they kept their fleets. So, I just started watching the accounts for timers. I didn’t have on/off. So, I just made an Excel sheet and started noting stuff down.
Alex Stukov: I assume they had pretty much the same schedule?
Mostaris: Actually not, Da is West coast us, Phoenyx is East coast, Predator is Uk, Coke is Vietnamese. And Smith I haven’t been able to place. So, it was about finding a window where they were all off. Which was made quite easy by the fact that most of them were borderline inactive. In the end that is.
Alex Stukov: Tell me about The Day all happened.
Mostaris: It was odd. The night before I had been waiting for and expecting the usual timers. Which did appear. But shorter than usual. (we were a few guys with accounts watching them). So, the decision was made to not risk 10 months of work, on a random short timer that night. The next morning at 8am I was woken up by someone calling me. Apparently, they hadn’t been on for the entire night. And the person thought now was the time to go. So, that’s what happened. I started with Phoenyx. Leaving the Ally very shortly before impact so as to not stir confusion by the other players in the alliance who were on, even though it turned none were. I hit Phoenyx, then a bit of Coke, then Smith, then Warlord, then Maturin, and then I tried dmented, but the tactics employed by that player made us unable to hit it. A bit later that afternoon even though the gig was up, and I wasn't expecting anymore, I saw Predators fleet with no deut. So, I launched. If he didn’t intervene by jumping it away - it was dead. He didn’t jump it away. And after that, the wreck fields started to be done. So, they started vmoding. Dmented had already vmoded
Alex Stukov: Did you colonize closer to them or you were close by before?
Mostaris: As a result of being in their alliance. I simply asked if I could move into the safe systems. They didn’t have a reason not to trust me. So, it was allowed that I do so. By the point I moved planets into their systems I had been in the Ally for 6-ish months
Alex Stukov: How did you feel when you saw each CR popping in your messages?
Mostaris: Oh, god. A feeling of relief and gratification I haven’t felt in many years of playing oGame. This impossible plot we came up with had actually worked!
Alex Stukov: Did you pm anything in-game individually after the hits?
Mostaris: No, I stuck to taunting them in their Skype chat. In retrospect I should have asked if they were Willing to sell deut. After taunting them for a bit in their Skype chat I went ahead and got them removed from there. And did this:
Alex Stukov: What does that mean?
Mostaris: It means that the entire chat history of their Ally chat was now visible to me. And they had no way of stopping me. As they weren’t in the chat anymore
Alex Stukov: What did the access to the history grant you?
Mostaris: Every little dirty thing they’ve discussed in there.
Alex Stukov: How do you feel about it now? I mean, you won at oGame now? Or everything came back to usual? Building and building?
Mostaris: Tbh, there are things I would have done differently. My approach wasn’t very nice or morally correct, not that it bothers me, but I think it became too much of a "the end justifies the means" kind of thing. I sacrificed some things of my playstyle that I won’t ever get back. And my personality in the community.
Good luck to me at making new friends that actually trust me 😂
And some friends I have sacrificed, good guys that didn’t deserve it, but were targeted by association or because of size.
The goal was to win Xanthus and I succeeded, and here I am after all, I’m still not sure how to feel about it. Other than happy I made the plan work
Alex Stukov: What’s next for you?
Mostaris: I’m not sure right now. Trying to spend my res right now. Then figuring out my future. No concrete plans right now, other than building more fleet😂
“It is never ending” I said to myself. After such a blast you’d expect to see credits somewhere in the universe and the curtain closing in. But, it didn’t, and it won’t. Even when it looks like everything was achieved – that you did all you had, and you could do – you could go to rest. But no. You can’t stop.
As we were departing – we saw the shipyards on the planet, glowing red from the high temperature, as they have been working non-stop for the last couple of weeks. A constant flow of transports delivering resources from the moon to the planet in order to queue more ships. It was amazing to see how six broken fleets were becoming One another.
All of this because of some 60 mln resources. Some 20 raids on abandoned, inactive planets worth - was the price of a war, which brought down so many admirals.
We left the admiral on his deck, preoccupied by only one thing: to rebuild a fallen empire, ENL. I had no idea if he’d be able to succeed in finding any on his lost comrades. But I wished he would.
Huge amounts of ships were flying towards the unexplored sectors beyond the last planet of the solar system. Could they be there, amongst pirates?
Mostaris did grant me permission to post our conversation.