Just POnDering

[Freddy]

POD has been around for about 7 years......

No other PC game has kept players united and interested for this long like POD....

Things have to inspire lots of passions for them to last....

I guess the question is:

For how long can this passion be alive for this game? 8, 10, 15 more years, forever? Or is it until a new age of computers will not allow POD to be played?

Does anyone have the same passion?.....It could be very interesting to know



POD Forever...

[Skubidou]

Hehe,

No ther PC game, but there are other computer games that have still lots of fans for more than 7 years: Pac-man, Space Invaders

Pod will stay alive as long as we will be able to play it, or till we found a new game that would allow us to forget Pod (is it possible? ).

Skubidou:~

[Freddy]

Pod will stay alive as long as we will be able to play it, or till we found a new game that would allow us to forget Pod (is it possible? ).

Skubidou:~

Just keep an old computer handy at home with W98 or in a "time capsule to be opened 20 years from now

Finding another game to replace POD...... Highly unlikely.
There are other racing games that are in some ways more interesting to play because of its sofistication, which I am almost sure every poddie have tried.

The question is: Can you find another game that can really make you forget POD? Will that game make you throw away that POD CD and never launch it again?.

Just think of all the things that POD means for all Poddies in many ways (friendships, comradery, podstock trips, nostalgia of races and all the good memories etc, etc..). The real true Poddies always comeback to the forums even if is just for curiosity or just wanting to know if they can still find that place they can identify with and call it their own.

I wonder what other game could have possibly achieved that....

As I sit here in front of the monitor, browsing this site;....

I am still POnDering.....

[grokon]

I think that noone who really enjoyed POD can ever forget it.

Anyway, I guess that if it really got this tremendous addiction, it is because it was very simple. I mean that you just had to find the right car, and some simple settings, then put in 6th gear, and then just the way you take the curves could make the difference ...

Thus any bad driver like me could have a chance just by practicing. This is, I think what made it soooo popular

DERF

[Rob]

But I think that it's most likely the fact that Pod has been the very first true massive online experience for us all who's giving to the game such a particular value...

I tried several games to replace Pod but there's no way...
Simulations are just too boring and too hard to master. Plus they're not really funny...well not in the same way than Pod.

Most of the Arcade racer really sucks. Well either there's no multiplayer support, either the driving sucks...

The only game where I met the same type of feelings than with Pod is Eracer.
The game itself wasn't so great bit they were some good ingredients :

- LOADS of players
- Excellent online support (website with laptimes, online races recorded, individual and team tournament, new tracks realeased and so on)
- LOADS of teams with their own website and a spirit of competition. Ok this is only fun if you're looking for performances.
- A GS-like multiplayer mode with the possibility of chatting between the races and so on.

So it was really fun to play it for a while ! Plus a lot of old Podheads played it for a while.
For me, playing in a racing team with Leadbest, Bart, Dogtired, Ricochet, and the other guys was really great...

Well....in any case I gave up looking for a true successor for Pod...

[Invité]

POD.
Power Of Dynamism.
If one really tries to make a good and original game.One succeeds.
One just has to make the game one would like to play.
Everybody can do that...
Perhaps not the current video games developpers it seems.

[noirdemars]

[Freddy]

So it was really fun to play it for a while ! Plus a lot of old Podheads played it for a while.
For me, playing in a racing team with Leadbest, Bart, Dogtired, Ricochet, and the other guys was really great...

Well....in any case I gave up looking for a true successor for Pod...

This is exactly what I mean, It was fun only for a while but it could never match POD. As Rob said it best at one time, it is like a "love story".

People always go back to their true love.

A while ago someone said to me that UBISOFT claimed to have sold 3 million copies of POD. What happened to all those people? Did they ever survived the destruction of IO?.

Hmm, I am still POnDering about that....

[Vortex]

3 million copies:

- at that time MMX was first introduced to the PC and since Pod was one of 3 games that supported the new technology, it was bundled with most new MMX systems. I guess they counted that as a SALE. And don't forget that just because they had the game, doens't mean that they liked it or maybe they weren't even gamers at all.

- another possibility could be Pod Gold. Pod Gold was only available in Europe, but I remember (about 3 or 4 years ago) seeing it in the "cheap old games"-section of electronics stores for a few bucks. I also remember that a French magazine (I think it was Joystick) printed an issue that had Pod Gold bundled with it for free.

So the number of "SALES" may be quite subjective ;-)

[Skubidou]

Even before PodGold, Ubisoft had sold 2.5 millions copy, and that number contain the more than 1.5 million given with MMX computers...And most of them was sold to company, so CD have never been opened...

Skubidou:~

[Swift]

Pod was more then a game. It was a community. We united as a group for the fun, friendship, and competition. The very nature of the GS lent itself to this one of a kind experiance. No other game has as succesfully combined a multiplayer client that combined the chat, staging, and competions so effectively. It created an atmosphere that sucked you in and kept you coming back. It built friendships that will last a lifetime, and memories that will only die with the last POD player. It was an escape from the real world, a place of acceptance, a place of comfort and freindship. The game took on a life of it's own and even now does not want to die. We all hold dearly to the few friendships that have lasted, and fondly recall the adrenaline racked competitions. The game lives on as a part of everyone who became a part of it. No other game has ever had the quality of people and loyalty that POD still has and enjoys, even if the game can no longer be played.

I have no doubt that if the orginal GS could be ressurected then POD would ocne again revive to some extent. It might never recover the glory it once had when 50-60 people or more crowded the servers, but people would come. They would chat, they would laugh, and they would race with the same fiercness they once did.

Swift

[Leadbest]

I used to play POD almost every waking hour of the day. I remember many times getting up at 9 a.m., sitting at the PC, and then playing until the sun come up at 5a.m.. The whole damn day and night would just zip by.

I also remember when I logged onto the GS, I would only race about 10% of the time. Many hours went by just talking with ppl, and getting pestered by kids who wanted us to shut up and drive.

I remember being first at Qballs for 1 week, LOL. I was fast enough to make a few ghost still in the top 5, after 5 years. Jeeze Im glad there is only one Rob, one Bart, and one Algor. One Blackwolf, one Rince, one Vince Fisher. One Redline, one Ricochet, and only one of whoever you are wondering if I will use your name... We are all sole survivors, who survived IO and still race to this day. Im glad for that.

There can be only one? Hah.

[Rob]

Yeah I Like this description of the community Swift ! That's really well said !

I came really late on the game....a little bit too late even...

When I arrived online, almost everyone had already quit playing online.
I will always remember one of the first time I came online....I was so excited about playin a game over the internet !!!

And I fell on Vienna and Algor38 in the rusty rooms of the GS1!! What a freaking feeling !! I loved it immediatly ! I saw the incredible laptimes that those guys were doing and I told myself "I MUST do that" lol !!!

Then one day I saw Qball's gallery and the amazing work of all the top guys over there !
I downloaded Bart's canyon ghost and discover by this way what's "hardcore racing" !!!

And mum I loved it ! It took me two weeks to get a 58" with Keyboard and I was still sooo far from him...
From this moment I did everything to catch himl and the other strong ones for two years...

As Leadbest, I was getting up thinking to Pod and to my ghosts and online races...
When I was coming back home the first thing I was doing was to run in my room to turn the old P133 and the 56k modem on !!!

I can easily remember my famous 500 bucks phone bill in July 2000 lol !

Yeah it was really a way to escape my life for a while...
With new friends, funny games and competitions, and a lot of fun ! Damn freaking game

[Swift]

I used to play POD almost every waking hour of the day. I remember many times getting up at 9 a.m., sitting at the PC, and then playing until the sun come up at 5a.m.. The whole damn day and night would just zip by.

I also remember when I logged onto the GS, I would only race about 10% of the time. Many hours went by just talking with ppl, and getting pestered by kids who wanted us to shut up and drive.

I remember being first at Qballs for 1 week, LOL. I was fast enough to make a few ghost still in the top 5, after 5 years. Jeeze Im glad there is only one Rob, one Bart, and one Algor. One Blackwolf, one Rince, one Vince Fisher. One Redline, one Ricochet, and only one of whoever you are wondering if I will use your name... We are all sole survivors, who survived IO and still race to this day. Im glad for that.

There can be only one? Hah.

Of course there was only one winner of the "great race", right LB!


Good to see your name again RiffRaff, and countless other aliases you were known by. I remember fondly my first race on the GS, it was Cocoon, and there were names like Leadbest, Vince, Ricochet, Bart, Murray, and Spartacus listed in the staging area. I also remember getting lapped about a dozen times, but I was having a blast none the less! From that point on I worked to make myself one of the best. Maybe not the fastest, but steady and consistent, because in competitions the fastest did not always win. The guys who could make consistent error free laps would almost always come out on top.

I almost never ghosted, I almost never practiced against ghost. I pretty much found my own way around the tracks and did my practicing online against the best.

I look back now and know that if I had ghosted seriously I could have been a much faster racer. The few times I did actually practice against a ghost I made huge improvements in my times. But I enjoyed the actual racing much more and found the time spent racing against a ghost very boring. I miss the racing.

And I miss chatting with you also LB. If we set a time to get a bunch of us into redlines irc channel would you be interested in chatting for a bit?

Swift

[grokon]

Still it is possible to play POD through IP if I am right ...

Never know ... there is no real chat room, rather a one line comment you can use, but maybe the time to try to play through IP has come

DERF

[Freddy]

I could not have said it better than Swift. That is what the "POD Spirit" is all about.

A true Poddie have spoken

Just imagine 2.5 million Poddies trying to use Ubisoft's game service at the same time.

It just leads me to believe that those were grossly exagerations of the number of copies sold.

Hmm, wondering here at what else I could POnDer about....

[Leadbest]

Hell yeah Swift!

I just have to install Mirc or something, and I be right there.

Sorry my post is short, arms hurt, changed engine in car today.

[Swift]

Sorry I missed you on the channel LB.

I've replaced a few engines myself and it is alot of work.

[Rob]

That's a nice idea...

If we guys meet someday on that IRC stuff (that I just got installed) and if we feel motivated for a race, we can do it by IP...

If we're less than 4-5 players it'll work very fine. More than 4 or 5 players and it's a nightmare lol...

Well...it been a long time since I didn't played...I hope I'm still a match...ok ok

[Swift]

It has been years since I last played.