Basically, my memory of it went like this:


Dust 514 explained in rudimentary detail, show the first ever cross game-play of Dust 514 / Eve Online with a successful cross platform orbital strike on the infamous Crater Lake map.


Dust 514 closed beta opens up to a select few Playstation Plus subscribers despite CCP stating that Eve Online players would get first dibs. Controversy ensues from bitter Eve players wanting to try it first and Playstation Plus subscribers who got in early break the closed beta NDA and start uploading youtube videos comparing the game to Halo.

Eve players finally get into closed beta through BS 'access codes' that were given out randomly and play on the Crater Lake map. Swarm Launchers are stupid OP due to lack of friendly fire (they were dumb-fired back then) and hit detection issues abound. Framerate was terrible (yes, worse than it is now) but the game had it's own unique charm to it. There were only a handful of servers available to play on, divided between North America and Europe, but the game was beautiful for the first playable bit of New Eden FPS experience.


Following a character wipe, Codex is released with a new weapon: Mass Driver. Scouts and Breach Assault Rifles are stupid OP because of hit detection issues. We get the Line Harvest map in place of Crater Lake, which would never be seen again. CRUs and Supply Depot models are changed and with them the hacking mechanics are changed as well. A few game reviewers start to hint at the building interest of the game, showing clips.

CCP opens(?) closed beta to anyone that'll drop $20 on a starter pack that contains an access code to get in.

Somewhere along the line we got female models despite crazy lore contradictions (infantry clones have no personality or gender, let alone specified appearances, as they're basically just faceless bases made of biomass giblets). The decision to change the power level structure (Standard/Advanced/Prototype) results in a HUGE benefit for new players as back then the higher power levels had higher HP values built into the suit as well as high PG/CPU and fitting slots.

Type-II suits are introduced to make up for the lack of variety in the suits as we only had The Original Four: The Amarr Heavy, The Caldari Assault, The Minmatar Logistics, and the Gallente Scout.

Skill Point accrual was tripled during this time period to allow players to experiment with things much faster than they would through normal gameplay. Doesn't really matter as there is a character wipe soon after as the server is moved over to Buckingham.

Communications Outpost had an issue where the game would freeze whenever you tried to run up the stairs between what is now Alpha and the supply depot outside the building. This was one of many crippling bugs.


The 'golden age' according to many vets. This is when the game had a lot of optimizations made to increase the frame-rate, Manus Peak was still a freaggin peak and not a plataeu, Light Weapon Sharpshooter was the most over-powered thing in the world (it gave a passive increase to weapon range resulting in 100m Assault Rifles), and Shield Tanking was where it was at. Nova Knives became an actual weapon as before they were used in the default melee, which then became a rifle butt.

Ashland and Skim Junction maps are introduced by Skim Junction is later removed due to -crippling hard freezes. Bugs abound but the gameplay itself was pretty solid and much beloved by the community for what it was.

Jenza Aranda and Betamax - one of the bigger corps at the time - find a bug that allows for potentially infinite Warbarge Strikes and abuse the ever living **** out of it until it gets fixed (seriously, they hit us with 13 in one go at one point). ICECREAMKING and his band of misfits find out you can make infinite WP (and subsequently warbarge strikes) by crashing a vehicle into a wall over and over again and repairing it with a rep tool and forever doom us to no longer get WP from repairing vehicles.

Suryas and Sagaris (Marauder HAVs) are stupid OP and nigh invincible and are fielded en masse by another bigger corporation (STB - a clan that came over from MAG).

Universal Voice Transmitters (the dumbest thing in the world) were a thing that you had to buy with real money in order to use voice communications. hated by the community and would later be removed.

Seraphim something or another is another big corporation and these head honchos frequently duke it out in Corporation Battles (which were a battle system in which both parties put up a 1,000,000 ISK collateral and then fought for the prize pot).


Kain Spero and the Imperfects host tournament on Intaki Prime, make mark on the lore (lost my **** over it back then because I was younger and stupider). Imperfects become infamous with a notoriety for forum trolling and generally being good at the game.
Nova Knife starts up the IRC which the developers frequently used to troll the community with hopes and dreams.
Iron Wolf Saber makes forum posts about stuff (mostly screenshots and concept art).

Good times abound, much fun was had.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ajwUACU7nY4

I don't think there's been mention of my favorite moment in PFBHz history. I remembered imperfects as 3C from MAG and knew that they had a good amount of top tier players and got fairly familiarized with them from running into them in pubs. I remember being asked to get online for a match vs the imperfects and when I saw our team composition I was delighted. Then it was a question of who we were up against so when I got in waiting to deploy and saw their team I immediately knew it was going to be a good fight!

I've always been excited to play against protoman, back in MAG as well. When I first started playing Dust in the closed beta (joined way late though lol) he wrecked me pretty good and gave him some GG messages or w/e, hard to remember. I hadn't played against Reg but knew people talked about him being really good. Zitro and Noc were known for being tankers, and I knew HowDidThatTaste was an experienced heavy. Unfortunately Cyn and Sleepy Zan I didn't know much of but I knew Zan was a sniper and generally snipers don't worry me because you can usually avoid being sniped while holding objectives just fine.

I don't game as much as I used to because it seems harder for me to get excited over it, and there's been so few games that feel like they're worth spending the time into getting good at. This match was so exciting to me because the best feeling when playing FPS is when you KNOW your squad is good and you all have good chemistry together, working together as a cohesive unit. That's a great feeling that I have nostalgia for. But even then you need a good opposing team so it isn't a steam roll, so when I saw their team composition I knew it was going to be fun.

As for the details from the match as I recall.. Holding B was very difficult for the majority of the match, they seemed to have a tank on both sides of it and it's fairly open, so the splash damage was real. We ran into a lot of protoman, reg, howdidthattaste and omni zitro. Inhuman had found a great spot from up above to protect C I believe it was with a lazor which turned out to be pretty key to the victory. Once our anti-tank guys cleared out the tanks that were wrecking havoc at B it felt MUCH easier and that pretty much wrapped up the end of the battle with it being pretty close.

Usually when there's battles involving pretty big egos, there's trash talking afterwards. I was surprised to see a thread between us was made on the forums where everyone chimed in their GGs and talked about it, showing some sportsmanship. It would be a deep dig to find that thread though.