First, a little history for you. For a few years, I played an online MMORPG called TDZK, that’s since gone into retirement. Nice game, poisoned community. Someone online said (I think it was ProBlogger) “The art of the Internet is the insult.” Those people were virtuosos. You had to learn to write well just to hold your own ground. My boyfriend reads this blog, who incidentally I met through that game and community. He recently commented that my writing had gotten alot better in the last few years. I guess it had to, given how involved I was with the game forums as well as the game itself.
Fast-forward to the present. I was tripping across the internet when I encountered this post by David G who linked us all to a site that will check the reading level of your blog. Well, of course I had to go check it out for myself for Musings of a Housewife, especially after the comments by my better half. Having browsed some of the results David got for a variety of blogs, I expected a reading level of high school perhaps. Imagine my surprise…
I guess it really is a dark cloud that has no silver lining, as this is a result I really like!
March 23, 2008 at 8:59 pm
Well, I did mean it you know.
March 24, 2008 at 2:34 pm
Viri–you’re his better half, but I’m not sure I’d call him *you* better half.
Just ribbing you, Phil.
Glad to know you got such a high readability rating, all in all, Viri.
That said, it’s also possible that general reading levels are dropping, and that David G’s evaluations are keeping up. 
All the same–this is still a pretty respectable rating; Phil’s right about the improvement of your writing skills.
As for TDZK…*sighs* The community had its ups and downs. It just had too many downs, in my opinion, near the end.
March 24, 2008 at 3:23 pm
I met Phil there. ’nuff said
March 28, 2008 at 10:25 am
I hereby ping you, Phil and Viri! Why I am surprised to find you guys on the web is beyond me…
June 22, 2008 at 1:51 am
wow, this is what happens when i decide to take a trip back in the past
/wave to viri & heavy metal queen :p
June 24, 2008 at 7:53 am
I…find myself sitting here, staring hard at what you have written, remembering the good times and the bad that I experienced during my brief stay within the realms of TDZK. I don’t know if anyone remembers me, as I was a relatively new player when the game was in it’s death throws, but it stole my heart and left a gaping hole in my soul when it finally died. It took me months to recover, and find a game to match my driving need to play. while it may have fancier graphics and may be just as addictive, WoW can never live up to TDZK in my eyes.
Recently I found myself dreaming of TDZK once again, and I decided to dig out IRC and locate the server details to once again visit #tdzk, where I spent many hours reading the opinions of others, and enjoying the daily prattle…those times are long over from what I can see now. I am looking forward to Fleets though I don’t think it will ever have the same feel. Perhaps I will see you both there when it goes live, perhaps not as it may just be a thing of the past.
I remember a post TDZK forum going up after the game went down, I don’t know if it is still up or not, but if either of you, or anyone reading this does know of it, if it is still running, I would really appreciate the address being posted somewhere.
Anyway, sorry for rambling on, I am feeling rather nostalgic tonight. I hope you are both well,
DE
August 22, 2008 at 11:48 pm
Been a while Viri…
December 23, 2008 at 5:03 pm
Poisoned community = me
Neeo msned me the other week reminising the good old days when we terrorised you all. I think his exact words were “Neil why have they removed tdzk, fleets is gonna be turd, i wanna script and screw over all them noobs again, too many fun times, when fleets is up we are gonna cheat again!!!
see you in a few years nooblets.
January 13, 2009 at 10:26 pm
i miss tdzk, now the fleets website doesn’t even work to check out their progress
i gave up a long time ago and joined eve, its more fun anyway
January 23, 2009 at 6:52 pm
I havent seen anyone from TDZK for a long time. I have been watching the TDZK site waiting for Fleets to open up. Im actually interested in it.
April 27, 2009 at 8:47 pm
I check http://www.tdzk.com every other week practically now. I agree with what you are saying about writing. The forums there were a great deal of why I miss it.
Alliances… Trading… CHAOS round… HoF… Cheating Rens, KAOS, Huma and the upstart annoying UF, and even the evil Silver Horde.
ES
AD/AN
IGF
Fury
WAR (haha)
The best game I have ever played… the best community I’ve ever played with. The end wasn’t pretty… but the ending’s of empires never are.
/salutes Viriatha, Darius009.
June 9, 2009 at 5:39 am
I really, really hope that admins will get back to tdzk project.
It would be gr8 to meet you (and pod you) again
Greetings from SH :>>
July 17, 2009 at 4:38 pm
hello
I was searching the web for info about this game and i found you. I don’t think many of you remember me or know me because I was just another player.
I started as a noob in the alliance where Viriatha was and I remember all the help I got
thank you for it.
It is nice to know that people still remember the game and that there are others that feel that it should been online (the game) or at least the forums so we can keep in touch … but that was the admins decision and that is it …
if you want to contact me SkyTech@rocketmail.com …
btw if you did not figured out by now I was SkyTech/OsiriS
/me waves at all the players that will read this and that posted before.
August 7, 2009 at 6:24 pm
Knock knock,
Just a fellow former TDZKer and former SMR/SM before that saying hi
Grey Death
Leader of TLS
Warleader KAOS
September 24, 2009 at 12:35 pm
Wow. Still around? Still hoping it’ll be back online some day soon?
Yeah, me too.
Anyhow: Hi, people – from the ‘nobody’ formerly in charge of GTG, Fig Leaf Brigade, N2O, and intermittent member of a few others….
September 29, 2009 at 5:46 pm
Well good to see some ppl still interested. It seems like Squee and Jerle in any case are back to coding, and their blog can be found at : http://tdzk.wordpress.com/ so you can check it out yourself. It’s more information than I believe we heard from them in all of 2008, so be sure to start checking it out again.
You know I’ll want you both back on my team when it starts up again(especially on the forums) who says battles are only ingame, hehe.
Regards,
Ghost{} (yeah you know the original one that was played since 1.x)