Real-world History

Thunderbolt Black - Real World History
Thunderbolt Black has now been running since 2003, and will have been in existence for almost eight years at the end of 2010.

The game has gone from strength to strength, and has had a number of interesting events over it's time, and has an interesting history and development, some of which is detailed in this article about the game, and it's progress so far in the real world.

Origins
Before Thunderbolt Black started, Silverwind (Steve) set up a game along with Graafen Blackpaw (then known as Thalyi), which was loosely based on the setting and concepts of the Ace Combat series of games.

The game never came to anything, never having a storyline post made. The only members were Silverwind, Ultrafox, Thalyi and Zee, and only Silverwind posted a single story post.

After the lack of activity altogether on the group, Silverwind shut it down.

Later, Ultrafox enquired about the status of the game, resulting in the generation of a new game - and this time, with an original full storyline, setting, and start. The first posts threw the players - again, Silverwind, Ultrafox, and Zee - right into the story from the get-go, and also resulted in more players joining quickly.

The Core Group
Zee soon departed for parts unknown, resulting in his characters being written out of the plot. Fortunately, there was an influx of new playrs, resulting in the group that soon became the mainstay of the game - Huskyteer and Wardy joined in quick sucession, one invited by the other. ANTIcarrot also made his first joining, staying for a considerable amount of time before leaving, and Klepsydra also joined for her first stint, before departing much later in the game.

Some time after these few, the games' least popular player, Swat Kat Argo joined, and while enthusiastic and energetic, was not especially... compatible with the other members of the group, and frequently lead to the other players amusement, or anger, until he was banned from the group for his frequent ignoring of editing rules, spelling errors, ignoring the rules, and generally being a massive cause of annoyance and hair-pulling-out for the GM's of the game.

Sometime into the third storyline of the game, Russet also joined, and has been a stalwart and steady member since, contributing a good amount of character and background info for the game and it's setting.

Recently, Frosty has also joined with his character of Brian, and has been a welcome addition to the group, adding a much younger character with a very different background to the core group of characters.

The game itself also appears to be undergoing a second renaissance, and enjoying a spurt of activity - which will hopefully continue for a long time. Especially since Silverwind and Ultrafox have a lot of things planned - but that's hardly unusual...

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The Meets
Not too long after the game first started, Silverwind proposed the first Thunderbolt Black meet - which was met with a resounding positive reception.

Since then, the group has met at least two to three times a year, often coinciding with airshows or other similarly-themed events to discuss the game, and to meet up for chat, company, and generally to have a good time. The meets have been excellent in accelerating the game and making things much more community-based and enjoyable overall.

One slight mishap...
One minor diversion from the established pattern of using the mailing list occurred when Silverwind tried using a forum-based format for the game - and it didn't work very well. The transition didn't work out well, and instead of being better, the game instead fell behind, and was less accessible to everyone.

Needless to say, the game soon changed back to the mailing list format - much to everyones' relief.

The Future
The future of the game is bright - the wiki is the latest project, along with assembling models of all the player aircraft - and some of the villains too. There's also a soundtrack in the works, along with more artwork, and the ongoing storyline. Who knows what might be next...