February 16, 2002:  A Historic End to Bungie.net
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This has got to be one of the most historical dates in Myth (what you'll read about below, that is--not today).

I was hosting games under my A Frumious Game title on the Last Night of Bungie (and for all I really knew, it was the last time we'd EVER play myth online). I had been hosting games all night. Players came and went, but there were a few stalwart characters who stayed longer than all the rest. We were on what we thought was The Final Mission on Myth, as B.net was closing at midnight Pacific Standard, and we couldn't bear to let it end. It turned out that as long as my host remained open, we were able to play beyond midnight, but anyone who left after the Fatal Hour never returned.

It all ended at about 2:30 AM Pacific Standard Time February 16, 2002. I think bnet actually died sometime a little after midnight Pacific Standard Time, for after that people who left to check on the outside lobby never returned. It was by this that we knew it was indeed the final voyage for us on B.net, and we felt our doom.  Bungie.net had closed its doors and to leave this game was to enter the Void.  We were in a plane flying over cruel, jagged mountain peaks, at night, in a storm, almost out of fuel (somewhere over the Andes, we thought). This flight could not last.  

One by one as people went mad, they’d leap from the plane, their anguished screams stolen by the howling wind.  And so our numbers diminished.   On we played until the temptation to jump overcame the Fifth to the Last: but Cid forgot his parachute! And it was down to the Final Four: slipshot, mad, Maxx 5of5, and myself--their (nearly) unshakable host and captain of the plane, Frumius Mob.  In honor of Cid's passing we made a pact.  We all were brave--and any one of us would have jumped first—but it was finally decided that I should terminate our flight so that we might all go out at once. A moment of touching solidarity among honorable, fearless warriors. We laughed, we cried, we gyred and gimbled. Then I hit the button and all went dark.

That was quite possibly the final game B.net ever saw, for we played long after the server itself died.

The film, Last-game-2-16-02_2-11AM-PST.





If you'd like to comment, I posted this article in the MWC06 forum post titled "B.net's Final Game?", and in the OoH Forum, also titled, curiously enough, "B.net's Final Game?".