I Was a Teenage Adventure Gamer
Majestic
I
don’t have much time to write. They know that I know that Majestic 12 exists;
I’ve uncovered all of the lies that the government has set forth. George Bush
is in charge of the New World Order, the Omega Agency, and the Illuminati. It’s
a large conspiracy aimed at taking over the world, and I’ve uncovered it all.
I’m in over my head. I’m in over my head so far that I was visited by the Men
in Black yesterday. They threatened to end my life if I talked, but I must talk.
Okay,
if that sounded like I had just a little bit of paranoia in my writing style,
just wait until Majestic comes out. Majestic is Electronic Arts’
entry into the pay-to-play game series. Nobody knows what will take place, when
it will come out, or how much it will even cost per month. But one thing is for
certain, you might want to stock up on underwear. Why? Well, according to what
is known so far, Majestic will take present-day conspiracy theories and
put them into the game. You’ll get phone calls from people at 3 a.m., threatening
you and your family; like that scares me. I pity the poor soul who has to call
my house at 3 a.m.; my dad can be in a very grumpy mood if someone calls for me
after 10 p.m. Even if a person calls at 10:01 and I’m up watching television,
he’ll usually give the “he’s in bed sleeping right now and who the hell are
you to be calling after 10” speech. Yeah, I think I’ll feel sorry for that
person. But if the person ignores my dad’s speech and go right into the threatening
part, I’ll really feel sorry for that person.
You’ll trade faxes,
e-mails, and instant messages with the characters in the game. EA also has made
up several dummy corporations for use in the game. One of these dummy corporations
is the Contrails and Chemtrails company. There is even a company
website. [Ed. note: This was taken from the story that was ran in the December
2000 issue of PC Gamer; see the Scoop! section for further details.] Say,
for example, you call a company in upstate New York, you’ll be charged for a long-distance
call. You might want to stock up on phone cards for use in this game, that is
for sure. And if you write to that same company, you might a get a brochure on
the company a week later or some other piece of information. The game will also
take real-world events and try to work them into the game as much as possible.
The violence in the Middle East? That could very well be a subject in the game.
Who knows?
So what might an average week in Majestic be like? Well,
that’s a good question. Nobody really knows, but there is a lot of speculation
on what it could be like. On Sunday morning, you wake up, shower, eat breakfast,
then log onto the Internet and check your e-mail. In your e-mail, you get a message
from an informant. The informant tells you to call a certain number at a certain
time that day. So you sit there and wait for 3 p.m. to roll around. At 3:00, you
dig out your trusty phone card (don’t play Majestic without it unless you want
to receive a very large phone bill) and dial the number. The informant tells you
to mail a letter to Big Jeff’s Computer Corporation located in Nebraska and ask
for information on the Super T5 Computer Chip.
As soon as you get off the
phone, you write out your letter, put it in an envelope, and put a stamp on it.
You intend to mail it out in the morning. At 10:00, you go to bed; the last thing
on your mind is Big Jeff’s Computer Corporation. At 3 a.m., your phone rings.
Your first thought is, “Did someone in my family get into a car accident?
Is this the Highway Patrol calling me?” When you pick up the phone and say,
“Hello?” a deep voice tells you that you are treading in dangerous waters
and it would be in your best interest not to mail the letter to Big Jeff’s Computer
Corporation. When you ask how he knew that you were going to a send a letter to
Big Jeff’s, the man threatens you and then hangs up the phone. An uneasy feeling
washes over you as you desperately try to forget the phone call and go back to
sleep.
On Monday, the only thing that happens after you mail your letter
is you have a conversation on AOL Instant Messenger with one of your informants
for about half an hour, and he tells you that he has to skip town until Friday.
On Tuesday, nothing happens. Wednesday, you get a video message from a character
in the game. He tells you to send a fax to him. After you fax over the information,
you get a fax from him and then you don’t hear anything on Thursday. On Friday,
you get a brochure from Big Jeff’s Computer Corporation, and as promised, your
informant talks to you on AOL Instant Messenger. You also get a few more e-mail
messages, and on Saturday, you get three phone calls. Two of them are threats,
and one of them is from your informant inside Big Jeff’s. You hang up the phone
during the middle of the first threat. Then the person calls you back and says,
“Don’t ever do that again,” and the informant tells you that
he was glad you got the brochure and hoped you could put the information to good
use.
But, unfortunately, for now, this is all speculation on my part. Nobody
really knows when it will be released or how much it will even cost to
play. So until that time comes, all we’ll have to go on is our wild imaginations.
