Jamie Antonisse

So far, we had a nice little IMD community going, a group of graduate students and curious thesis-show visitors playing in the beta. But I saw no reason to keep it that way. I knew I wanted to remain anonymous in the IMD community, stay publicly "dead"... so, operating as Baghead, I put out an all-hands bulletin to my past. I reached back to my old high school, Montgomery Blair, and told a bunch of people about the game. Interesting, when you put out that sort of announcement, the folks who respond.

Two days in, I ran into a guy from my high school, a guy well-known for his ability to find ANYONE on facebook, myspace, AIM, etc. Let's call him "David." I figured this guy's passion for obsessive online behavior would make him formidable at Kingpin. Man, was I right.

At this point I learned something potentially unfortunate about Herb's persistent MMO: despite the apparent "casual" gameplay, advocating small play sessions, the only real strategy for success is continual monitoring. When I told "David" about my plan for revenge, it became his plan as well. And he started playing ALL the time. Checking in every two-three hours, steadily expanding and even discovering and exploiting bugs in the PHP. My plan was working... Montgomery Blair High School was sweeping the game. "David's" Genco Importers and my Butterfaces were ruthless, steamrolling lesser gangs without diplomacy or concern. But I started to wonder what I had done to the larger game in the process.