It’s been a long 15+ years since I was last active in the Descent community. I lost access to my ICQ account when my PlanetDescent email went away, and I no longer go by DCrazy online, in part to distance my adult self from the preteen I was then. But Descent (especially D3) is heavily responsible for me getting into software engineering, and I will always be grateful for those memories.
There's still an active online community around Descent and Overload (Mike/Matt's spiritual successor.) If you look up Overload on Discord you'll find that server, and the #descent channel will have links to the various other Descent servers.
I backed Overload and left a note about how important Descent had been to my career. I think my backer rewards were a free license and an Overload keychain. :)
Writing D3 mods was a big reason I got a copy of Visual C++ as a birthday present. And I laid down an absolutely awful drum track for an album UNIX was recording with Stephan Jenkins (I think) from 3rd Eye Blind. An interview about those demos was the first thing I did after joining my college radio station, where I then became responsible for converting the PC workstations to Mac… which exposed me to Xcode and sent me across the country to work on software for Apple devices for the next decade and counting.
It's fun to hear from you! I'm glad you said hello!
Koolbear, whose real first name is Mike, founded and was instrumental in the life of the forum where the two of us met and has been a hero and inspiration to both of us.
Jediluke, whose real first name is David, is the most vigorous and prolific competitor the game has ever seen, recognized by pilots of practically every era and environment as elite and dominant. He is also a close personal friend and the three of us ran the definitive ladder for the modern community together. And we are both big fans of him as a competitor.
Mark392 (whose real name doesn't matter for this purpose) is widely recognized by the modern community as the GOAT and is also a close personal friend for both of us.
90s gaming and hacking things together (or apart) was absolutely what got me into programming, too.