Hello. Any of you guys remember me? (long story)

[King James]

Hey guys,

I just found this forum today, and joined as soon as I found it.

I played Motor City online for about two years (missed the first year or so of it I think, but played it through till the last day it was online).

As those of you who played the game might remember, it only allowed you to have a player account on 3 out of the 4 MCO servers at a time. You couldn't be on all 4.

I can't even remember the names of the servers anymore, but I think crossroads might have been the one I never was on.

I also only remember two of my 3 account names for the 3 servers I was on (my name was different on each of them lol)

By far my most well known name on there was "King James" which was my name on the "midtown" server if I remember correctly (I'm dead sure about the name, not dead sure about the server though, since it has been like 5 years since I played that game)

My second best known name, and the only other name I can remember of my 3 names was "Poisonous"

Motor City Online was by far my favorite video game of any kind ever that I have ever played in my entire life. Still is, even to this day, even though I've played many other games before and after MCO. But that game was really amazing. It was just sooooooo deep. The miniature economy in the game, with all the buying and selling of rare cars and parts. The community, with all the people who knew each other on there as regulars, and chatted with each other (I was one of these people), and of course, most importantly, the racing.

Oooohhhh the racing... man was that amazing. I don't care what anyone says. I have played SOOO many different racing games over the years, and I still always liked MCO's racing physics and setup better than any other racing game I've ever played. And yes, this includes the Gran Turismo 4 games and such.

I just LOVED how, although yes, it's true, the graphics were not mind-boggling or anything, the PHYSICS (how the cars handled (and more interestingly, how they responded to your fine-tuning adjustments that you did to your car setup when you took them onto the track after messing with the car's setup)) were just incredible.

It was just so satisfying to make some subtle tire change or change to the suspension, and go to the track, and say to yourself "Ahhhh... this feels even better than before" as you executed a flawless turn on the race track, that you couldn't quite pull off the same way before you tweaked your car in the garage.

Anyway, as you have all probably noticed by now, I am rather longwinded, so I will tell you guys the basics of my Motor City Online "career" as I best remember it (keep in mind when I played the game I was 15-16 years old (I am now a senior in college currently, lol) so I can't remember everything perfectly, but I'll give it my best shot.

This is my personal Motor City Online story. I hope you guys enjoy the read, and maybe one or two of you will even remember me, and can say hello to me for the first time in over 5 years.

Here goes...


Okay, so back in, I think it was sophomore year of high school, I was 15 years old, and had recently (for about the past year before this) become interested in muscle cars. Neither of my parents were into cars AT ALL, and especially not American muscle, or classic cars or anything like that. They both drove Hondas, and neither of them knew what an exhaust manifold was, let alone a piston ring.

So one day I am walking around Best Buy, checking out the new games and whatnot, and I see this little box down on the bottom shelf. I almost missed it, but it caught my eye just as I was about to walk right past it, probably to never see it again, had I not noticed it on that fateful moment.

So I stopped, bent down, picked it off the shelf, and looked it over.

"Well this looks like it might be interesting..." I thought to myself.

So I bought the game, and signed up as soon as I could.

I'm not going to lie. For the first few days, I was COMPLETELY in over my head, and totally overwhelmed. When I tried to ask people for advice, or figure out wtf I was doing, or how to make my car faster, or make money, or win races etc etc, all my responses (in the main chat lobby) would be things like

"Chop top w/fenders for ___$$$ anyone want!!?!?"
"Chop top w/fenders for ___$$$ anyone want!!?!?"

So of course, this didn't make things easier, but I didn't give up, and as the days passed, and the days turned to weeks, I eventually figured out more exactly how the game worked. What all the different game modes were. How to make money, how to level up my character, what clubs were, how to buy car parts, how to use the auctions, how to fine tune my car setup, etc.

After I had figured out all of this, I determined pretty much right off the bat that by FAR my favorite thing in the game, more than anything, were the weekly time trials. I didn't care much for the clubs and turf wars, nor the pinkslip races, nor the player vs player(s) races. What I REALLY liked was the time trials racing.

I was just so addicted to the idea of all the different tracks having time-leaderboards that listed only the elite top 10 fastest times for that week on the big top-10-times board in the race lobby of whichever track you were at, and of course, the extremely prestigious "Last week's winner: ______" in big red font, for whichever player had run the fastest time on the track for the previous week before the week refreshed (it refreshed on monday morning at 7am pacific time if I remember correctly?)

So I kept trying out different tracks, trying to find ones that I liked, and was good at, but I was horrible, and usually considered it a major success if I was in the top 600 or so by the end of the week on a popular track.

So eventually I started to recognize people's names, and chat with them in race track lobbies, and ask them how they were so much better than me.

This led to me learning about the fundamentals of how to tune and test and tune and test and tune and test my car until I got the car setup to my liking so that it handled just the way i wanted it to, for whichever track I was racing on.

It also led to me buying a wheel and pedal kit. This obviously helped me immensely, as I simply couldnt not compete with the top players with merely a keyboard.

So there I was, with my wheel and pedal kit, ready to take on the big boys on the top 10 list.

But of course it was not an instant meteoric rise to the top of all the tracks as I had envisioned in my naive 15 year old mind.

Instead, I slowly got faster and faster, and eventually broke into the top 100 on a couple of the more popular tracks, but as much as I tried, I just couldn't even come close to being anywhere near the top 10 by the end of the week.

So I kept moving on, from track to track, trying to find a track that I could be good at, but I kept having similar results. Slowly I would enter the top 100 in the times trials by the end of the week, after much practicing, but would hit my ceiling long before reaching the top 10.

And so I wasted a long looooong time, trying out different tracks... wasting my time with race clubs... wasting my time becoming rich by buying and selling in the auctions.... wastimg my time trying to buy myself new rare paint toys to stare and giggle at like a moron... but finally after I think I was 16 years old and beginning junior year of high school, I found a track called Hazard Hollow.

I had seen the track before, but never had really given it a try. To be honest, the fact that it was a dirt track turned me off, and I never even bothered with it, figuring it was probably not as cool as the pavement tracks.

But EA had recently (at this time in my MCO career) turned it into the second biggest "cash cow" in all of Motor City Online in terms of how much money it paid out for times trials racers, if you ran a respectable time. This ended up making it the second most popular track in all of Motor City Online, since, well, the general crowd wanted to make money as fast as they could, and this track offered a good option for them I suppose.

So as Hazard Hollow became one of the most popular tracks in the game, I noticed that one of the people that I had been talking with a lot, was a fairly good racer on that track. he wasn't top 10 by the end of the week in the time trials, but I could see during the first day of the week, after the time trials week refreshed, that he was capable of much much faster times than me, by a good minute or so.

So I chatted with him, and asked how on earth he was so much faster than me, let alone how the guys in the top 10 were putting up the times they were putting up.

So, being the nice guy he was, he said "come watch."

And I did.

I entered a race "against him" and basically just sat there idling my car, and used the keyboard options to set my camera on his car, and watch the line he took on the Hazard Hollow course (including the infamous crash-through-the-wall path that you had to execute, as well as the weave through the trees in the orchard, that you also had to execute, in order to be competitive, timewise on that track.

So I was like "So thaaaaaaaaats how they do it...." lol

So off I went to practice-mode and began fine-tuning my car for the track, and I raced again and again and again and again, dozens upon dozens of times per day in practice mode on that track.

[King James]

At this point I was already quite "rich" (in motor city online money that is) due to being a successful businessman in the car auctions, so I did not need to worry about actually racing on the time trials track to earn money or anything, or worry about affording the parts I wanted for my car etc, as i had millions of MCO dollars at this point, most of which I had made not from racing, but from the auctions and buying and selling intelligently and so forth.

So then after I felt fairly confident with the track, I began entering the times trials on Hazard Hollow.

At the time I think the best racaer on Hazard Hollow on the midtown server was usually some guy named, I think it was either "Low Key" or "Lowkey" or "lo key" or "lokey" or something like that. I remember at the time i thought he must be some sort of non-human, to put up the times he was putting up, and win the week on multiple different weeks, and so forth.

Little did I realize at the time, I would eventually not just become far far faster than he ever was on that track, but become the fastest racer in the history of Hazard Hollow by a very wide margin.

My rise to the top of Hazard Hollow was NOT instantaneous by any means.

It took me a good month or so to get from being in the top few hundred to being in the top 100 come final-day of the race week for time trials.

Then another month to get from top 100 to top 30 or 40.

Then another month to get into the top 20.

Then another month to get near the top 10.

Then another month to finally FINALLY for the first time ever, end up with my name in the top 10 list by the final ending of the time trials week.

I was so thrilled when I finally did it. I put up a time, and it was in the top 10, and it stayed there all the way through to the end-of-week time trials reset. It had been a good 5 months or so of practice, playing several hours a day, several days a week to get to this point.

It was no easy task.

But still... there was that name... looming... glaring at me in giant red font...

"Last week's winner: lokey"

This was the toughest part of my entire climb. The climb through the top 10. It was easy getting there, but clibming from 8th/9thish to the top of the list was very very tough.

It took at least a month, maybe a little longer for me to get to being consistently in the top 3 by week's end in the time trials.

And then it finally happened.

I won. I put up the fastest time for the week on Hazard Hollow.

I had just become "Last week's winner" on Hazard Hollow.

I couldn't believe my eyes. I was ecstatic!!! Oh man!!!!! A whole week!!!! A whole week of my name in big red font!!!!! Up at the top of the race lobby forr everyone to see!!!!! It was worth every minute... every second of hard work and practice. And I loved it. I was not exactly the humblest of winners, and that's an understatement (hey... I was only 16 at the time though lol... try not to be too hard on me). I sometimes would just sit there for 20 or 30 minutes at a time in the race lobby, and watch as people entered the race lobby to fire off a times trial. And I would sit there and watch as they said "HEY!!! WAIT!!!! THATS YOU!!!! You're LAST WEEKS WINNER!!!!! WOW!!!! HOW DID YOU DO IT!!?!?!??" etc

And I would gloat and say "Well.. you gotta have the talent I guess..." or some similar boastful talk, hahaha. Sure, i was a bit of a dork, but I just couldn't help it. I was so thrilled with finally having won the times tirals on Hazard Hollow, at pretty much the peak of it's popularity, and have everyone scrambling to talk to me and ask me for advice.

But still...

This is not how I became the best racer ever in the history of Hazard Hollow by a wide margin. No.

The story had not yet ended.

If I remember correctly, I did not win the next week. I don't even think I came in 2nd place. Maybe 3rd or 4th or something.

I realized that, sure, I had gotten lucky, and won fastest time for the week, which, although it was a huge accomplishment, given how many players were racing on this track per week (it was the second most popular track in the entire game at the time) I had won on a week where although my time had been #1 for that week, the previous week, it was not the fastest time ever on the track (Oh, and I suppose I should have mentioned this earlier, but, I never cared mucch for or raced in the no-limitations version of the times trials, I raced the version where you had to use a car of a specified time-era and power-to-weight-ratio. The limitations-style times trials (which was the MUCH much much much much more popular form of the times trials, and much more prestigious to be the top racer in (though I easily could have dominated the unltimited trials as well (and I think I even did a few times, easily, just for fun) as the competition in that form of the trials was much softer, given that much fewer people raced the track in the unlimited form).

So STILL I was not satisfied.

I realized at this point, that I was VERY close to being the best, but I was not the best yet. Maybe somewhere in the top 10 best on average at that track, all-time.

So of course I wanted more MORE MORE!!!!! I wanted to be number one, and the UNDISPUTED number one!!!! By a big margin!!!!! I wanted to be THE best racer EVER on Hazard Hollow, and I wanted everyone to know it.

So here begins the point where I separated myself from the pack:

Let me give you guys a basic idea of what the top ten list at the end of the week usually looked like for Hazard Hollow:

KEEP IN MIND, THIS IS JUST FOR EXPLANATION'S SAKE, THE TIMES I LIST ARE PURELY MADE UP, I CAN'T REMEMBER WHAT THE ACTUAL RACE TIMES WERE, OR WHAT TIME-ERA OR POWER-RATIO LIMITATION CATEGORY THE TRACK REQUIREMENTS WERE AT THE TIME, I AM JUST TRYING TO GIVE YOU GUYS A FEEL FOR HOW CLOSE TOGETHER THE TOP 10 TIMES AT THE END OF THE WEEK WERE ON HAZARD HOLLOW ON THE TOP 10 LIST

Something like:

1. 1:45.07
2. 1:45.13
3. 1:45.26
4. 1:45.35
5. 1:45.64
6. 1:45.97
7. 1:46.38
8. 1:46.82
9. 1:47.33
10. 1:47.65

Basically the times squished together pretty tight at the top of the list.

It sort of appeared like, as a human being, there was more or less a ceiling to how fast people could go on the track, given the era, and power-to-weight-ratio limitations for the track, in the times trials rules, because you could see the top racer's times reach sort of a ceiling that they converged towards.

[King James]

It is at THIS point that I went from being "just one of the great racers of Hazard Hollow, to being THE best racer on Hazard Hollow WITHOUT A DOUBT whatsoever.

Here is why, and what happened, and how it happened:

After my win in the weekly times trials, followed by a top-10 but non-win the following week, I decided to go back to the practice-track and give it my everything. I wanted to win. I wanted to win time after time after time. And I wanted to win by a LOOOOOTTT. I didn't want to just eek out the 2nd place racer by 3 one hundredths of a second each week.

No.

I wanted to DESTROY the competition.

I wanted people to look at the top 10 list of Hazard Hollow, and see the race times converge towards some seemingly existant time barrier that nobody, no matter how good, could pass, and just BLOW RIGHT THROUGH IT, and separate from the pack.

So off I went to practice mode.

Here is what I did.

Well, clearly, I was already pretty outstanding at Hazard Hollow at this point, being consistently in the top 5 for several weeks at this point, with a week-win under my belt, so it isn't like I needed to drastically change my race line through the course, or do anything major, or anything, but I still felt like I could pull away from the pack somehow.....

And i did. Here's how:

I practiced

EVERY

SINGLE

TURN

ON

THE

ENTIRE

TRACK

of Hazard Hollow.

ONE

AT

A

TIME

That's right. I practiced every single turn (and yeeesh were there a loooot of them.....) one by one, until I had come as close as I felt I possibly could to perfecting each and every turn.

Then, after practicing each individual turn, over and over and over again until I was satisfied with being consistently as optimal as possible through every single turn, isolating each turn and practicing it and only it until I had it "locked down" in my mind, I put it all together, and raced the whole track.

And did I get any faster, doing this?

Oh God yes I did. I didn't just get faster. I got absurdly faster.

So back I went to the Hazard Hollow track, which was almost BURSTING with popularity at this point, with thousands upon thousands of other racers all trying to be the next to make their way onto the elite top-10 board.

And I CRUSHED them all.

I didn't "just" win the week.

I DESTROYED it.

When I came back, after breaking down the track, one turn at a time in practice mode, and put my time up in times trials, it now looked more like this

(again, remember these times might be like a minute off from what the real times were, I can't remember at all what the actual race times were, as this wasa over 5 years ago, I am simply trying to show you the DISTRIBUTION of race times in the top-10 list of the race track)

This is what it looked like when I made my big return to Hazard Hollow, having become by far the best racer in the history of Motor City Online from that point on on the track. Something like:

1. 1:43.68 <-----me
2. 1:45.02
3. 1:45.09
4. 1:45.25
5. 1:45.57
6. 1:45.83
7. 1:46.00
8. 1:46.39
9. 1:46.78
10. 1:46.92

[King James]

People didn't even know what to make of it. They were pretty much in shock. It just didn't look right. There were all the other racers, their times trials times, exposed on the big elit top 10 list, for all to see, the top few times all converging to within a few hundredths of a second of each other. And then, way, waaaaay way way up above the rest of the pack in the #1 spot. Me. A good second or second and a half above the rest of the pack.

It was at this point. Finally. I had really done it. I was the best, and there was no question about it. Everyone knew it. I had blown everyone away, and they could not catch up. They tried it all. They asked if maybe I had discovered some secret way to set up my car's suspension just right where I had some mysterious edge on all of them. Nope. I traded cars with #2 and #2 and # 4 on the list... (some of them even offered to pay me REAL money lol through ebay or paypal just so view my car setup, since they seemed sure that this MUST have been my secret to how I had destroyed the competition so absurdly thoroughly) but I didn't even bother, I just said "Here, give her a ride" and traded cars with the other top racers.

And one by one they returned my car usually saying something along the lines of "Hmph... well your car doesn't even seem quite a good as mine to be honest."

The funniest of all I think was when I set my all-time track record on the track, in times trials (the other top times ever on the track also ALL set by me of course, so it was my own track record I broke, since I at the time had like the top 100 or 200 or I dunno fastest times ever run on the track by this point) with someone ELSE'S car.

It was some guy who was CONVINCED that he could go as fast as me, if only he could use my car.

I still remember it. As usual I said "Okay, you're wrong, watch, let's switch cars, you can try mine and see how special it is...."

But just for kicks, I think it was a monday, so the times trials had just refreshed that day, and the top 10 list was very weak, with the whole week ahead for people to plow their top times in for the week, I decided, while he was busy off trying to put up some spectacular time, in what I guess he figured was my "supercar" (my car wasn't anything special of course, but he didn't know this) I decided to take his car out for a spin in the time trials, right at the same time he ws taking my car out for a spin.

Well, I went fast in his car. I went REAALLYY REAAAALLLLLY REAAAALLLLLYYYYY fast in his car. I blew away even my OWN personal bests ever by a good 0.2 or 0.3 seconds (which was pretty ridiculous, considering I was already blowing away the 2nd-5th place people by well over a full second, so the time i ran in this guy's random car was really just... well..... F***ING FAST!!!!!!! to put it simply.

So I finish the race. Leap out of my chair and do a double-take on the race-time to make sure I was reading it right. And do a fist pump or two, and then calm down enough to sit back down and go back out to the race lobby and wait for the other guy to finish racing my car.

So a few seconds later this guy pops back into the race lobby, having run a fairly fast (I think since it was a monday he ran a top-10 time with my car on his drive with it).

So first he starts typing the usual "Hmph... well, your car is alright, but nothing specia-"

and then he stops and I can tell he saw the time I had just run, cuz it was up on the top 10 list in the #1 spot. And it was the fastest time ever run on the track, faster than any of my other all-time bests (and he knew it).

and he was like

"Good lord."

"So that was..-"

"Yes" I responded, finishing his thought for him, lol

"Yes, that was in YOUR CAR."

"Oh..." he said.

"So ummm... you wanna trade cars back with me now?"

HAHAHAHAHAHA

Oh I will never forget that moment.

It doesn't get much better than that, as far as online car racing goes.

And for those who are curious, that really was THE FASTEST I had ever gone on that track in that era/weightratio restriction class on Hazard Hollow EVER (I never beat that time again after that, it was the best run I had ever run on that track EVER... permanently...)

Anyway, a while later EA pulled the plug and that was the end of Motor City Online.

But the memories will stay with me forever.

As you can probably tell, I have a fairly "competitive" personality, and I have been competitive in many different things throughout my life, both on computers, as well as physical real life things, but Hazard Hollow on Motor City Online...

THAT

I am 100% sure, is the one thing so far in life that I was BY FAR the best at. I was the best at it. Number one. And I suppose, since it doesn't appear that Motor City Online will ever be back up online again (geee... thanks alot EA...) it will stay that way forever.


And that my friends is the my personal story. My story of my experience with the game Motor City Online.

Man I miss that game.

Oh, and one last thing.

Before anyone freaks out or anything...

While I definitely was by far the best racer on the track Hazard Hollow in the history of Motor City Online, I was NOT anywhere NEAR the best racer overall in the game. That was the ONLY track in the whole game that I was ever any good at. There were others who were top-10 on MANY different tracks, consistently, week after week.

So no, I am not by any means claiming to be the best Motor City Online racer ever, as it was just ONE track that I was #1 at, and not more than 1 track, there certainly were a handful of others who had more raw talent than I did at the game overall in general.

Personally I think brian570938 or whatever the hell his name was (I know it was brian followed by some random numbers, I just don't remember what the numbers were any more) was probably the best racer in terms of raw talent in Motor City Online. But there were several others who I know definitely had more raw talent than me, and were MUCH faster at becoming great at NUMEROUS different tracks in much shorter periods of time than I could ever fathom.

The only reason i ended up becoming the all-time greatest at the Hazard Hollow track was that I simply, in addition to being very good in terms of natural talent (though not GREAT in terms of natural talent, probably just in the top 1 or 2 percent talent-wise (I'd say there were at least a THOUSAND players with more "raw talent" than me in terms of racing ability), PRACTICE much much more than anyone else on that specific track. And furthermore, I practiced in a different way (as was explained earlier in my post) than the others, which lead to my ultimate domination of that track.

Okay, I hope you guys enjoyed the read, despite all the bragging. Maybe it stirs up some nice memories that some of you have of your own personal favorite tracks, and your own personal successes in the game that you have fond memories of. Well. That's all I've got for now.

Goodnight everyone.

-King James

[Z THANG]

Didn't have time to read your whole post since I'm heading out the door, but the name sounds familiar. Seems like someone with that name use to be good at Hazard Hollow, but I may be thinking of someone else. Anyways, welcome aboard man!

[Cheats]

I remember seeing your name on HH.

[roadweasel]

I don't remember ya but welcome anyway and thanks for the great story! That was fun to read.

[Ayce]

Just goes to show you, you don't have to cheat to blow everyone away, just practice, prac....well you know the rest. :D
Now that's tenacity. ;)

[Allegedman]

I slowly got faster and faster

ROFL!!!!!!!!!!!

[DevilMan]

I dont remember the name either, but then again I cant remember the names of my "best buddies" in MCO. All I can remember is one of their names was Dave and he was from Canada. Other then that, its nice to see people come in because every once in a while I do recognize a name,... and its usually because of the leader boards.

[Shadow]

Why is the word "obsession" coarsing through my mind right now? :D

It was a helluva good read, though I don't remember your name - prolly because I played on Uptown. I was often in the top 10 on HH also, but was never #1.

[[WC]streetrod]

I dont recal your name but welcome abord.

Have fun and keep racin,
streetrid

[KRB]

I played CCA, and would consider myself one of the best that raced HH. It isnt because of open trials, but because I raced pinks there in a B class car that would beat anything that I raced. The car was all catalog parts and cost nothing to build, and the only losses I suffered in 25k races or in pinks were to driver error. I had easily 30-40 million and raced a max of 100 single player races. All my earnings were in street races which were usually high stakes cash or pinks, and a bit from drags when I first started out.

I unlike yourself could never enjoy racing on my own....there never seemed to be a sense of accomplishment for me. You however, are obviously a very dedicated driver/tuner and my hat is off to you for the efforts you put forth in the past.

When the game goes live I will be the guy running for pinks or high stakes. I always lived by this quote in game when asked why I only run high stakes races..... "Risk big to win big"

Welcome aboard, and thanks for the recap was an excellent read and a trip into the past :P

[HSW]KRB

[Ayce]

The only sense of achievement there, KRB, comes from knowing the track so well, you can beat anybody, anytime. The only downfall is being called a cheater, by those that didn't spend the same amount of time practicing, and think they can drive fast. I learned that lesson very quickly in PU, when I thought I could beat anybody, 'cause I beat the AI so easily, after many practice runs by myself in MP mode. WRONG!!! :eek:
Same idea in MBWR, which I still mess with on ocassion, I practiced those tracks so many times with so many cars it was crazy. When I finally got online with it, I found out how much practice counts, as there were guys who practiced more than I did, and working alone, I had forgotten how unpredictible humans are. :laugh:

VTA was a whole 'nother thing. ;)

[madman]

I dont remember the name either, but then again I cant remember the names of my "best buddies" in MCO. All I can remember is one of their names was Dave and he was from Canada. Other then that, its nice to see people come in because every once in a while I do recognize a name,... and its usually because of the leader boards.

That would have been Dave Lee. He and i started DSR drag racing club.....

[wade454]

I spent a lot of time HH and i do remeber you i think i remeber racing u a couple of times or in open trials chat one of the 2 lol. I was wade454 on midtown.

[Brian9720]

After 15 minutes of reading your story, King James... I'd like to say you were definitely the best at Hazzard Hallow, I could never get that damn track down. I'd also like to thank you for the compliment!

It's on like donkey kong once this game hits the shelves. :evil:

[CHSRacing]

I was sittin here searchin my archives trying to remember your name.. I was on Midtown the whole time I was on MCO... But,, then again,, I'm old.. :)

Anyway,,, happy to see you found us .. Very nice bunch of people..

CHSRacing

[SgtDoxey75]

Hi all I was also in MCO and it was a blast and was a little ticked when they took it off line so I was very excited when I heard aout this game here and cant wait till its up and running.

[SilverBullet]

I do remember King James the Kid is fast and I also remember CHSracing who was also fast as hell .hope to race with you all again soon


SilverBullet