History Of A Dromer

When ya see a topic in LGD about the LEGO Drome Racing game, and don't see your name mentioned anywhere on the first page... it's a good sign you're waaaay out of it, lol. Many of you newer members probably don't even realize who I am when it comes to the drome. So today I thought I'd take a little zoom down memory highway...

When the drome first came out, I logged on, because I love racing games, almost as much as battle games, so I thought, eh, why not? Might be fun. I was a little surprised at first that it wasn't a steering game--you don't actually get to drive the car down a track, you set up the race strategy beforehand and let the computer simulate the race. The music was what hooked me, I think. I loved that music. I had to pick a team of course, and H.O.T.--High Octane Team--stood out the most to me. So an H.O.T.er I became, and I was glad of it. My experience showed that it was indeed the best team, for the longest running time.

Keep in mind that at this time, all that we had was a Jungle Track and a perpetual "Coming Soon" list of other tracks. And level D--nothing higher. But that fitted me too--I liked the Jungle track, and the car I had--a Scorcher--did what I needed it to do. I needed a name, of course, and couldn't think of one, so I looked at the avatars available. The Skeleton stood out most to me. So I became "bones." But that was taken--and I refuse to string some random "54721495" number at the end of a name. So I decided to go with Roman Numerals for 3... but even that would not quite do. It needed to be distinctive, and I knew immediately how it would be. It would always be lowercase. bonesiii. Not Bones The Third, but "bones triple 'i'".

So I raced a few races, figured out some winning strategies, and found I was quite adept at it. Those strategies, which are still classified (), turned out to even more winning than I thought. I went in to check the high scores one time... and lo and behold. I was first place. Of everybody. What shocked me most was that I was the only one who seemed to have thought of my strategies.

Now to be fair, it -was- a new game. I'd always wondered how people get to the top of such high-scores lists, and short of just plain insanity, I think most get there because they got a big head start.  That was true in my case--but now how could I hold the lead?

Well, that's classified. But hold it I did, for a long time. The game grew up, and many competent racers tried to pass me but failed. Somehow I managed to become the Drome's very first major, long-term champion. I held the lead for at least half a year, maybe more, though now my memory of it grows dim. Eventually a maverick passed me, but even after I was reduced to second place, H.O.T. still dominated the Jungle Track, and overall was ahead of every other team. With most, they were ahead by a lot.

I don't know what it was, and I'd like to hope that my big forefront lead helped H.O.T. stay ahead so long. But I strongly suspect the main driving force was the everyday team member, working hard behind the scenes to push those numbers up like one of Lord Survurlode's floods. That Maverick soon passed me by thousands. So far ahead I could never catch up and also have a life--it was just a fun game after all, and by that time I was beginning to get involved here. And yet... Maverick did not pass H.O.T.

That I could not have done alone. Not possible.

Now of course, the drome is different. My old account didn't work (I actually had had to get a second one before due to a glitch, becoming "bonesiii_v2"--that one now is abandoned as well). I have a new screenname for the new Drome, and I did race some races for sheer nostalgia, but to be honest since then I've forgotten the password. It was fun for a time but now I've moved on "to bigger and better things" as it were (BZP! ).

I have now officially retired.



So there it is in a nutshell. Y'all might know me now as the storyline geek for Bionicle, but my original claim to fame was as a Drome Champion. To this day I keep the basic idea of a skull insignia as my avatar here, and obviously the name has stuck, although nowadays I give in a little and capitalize it sometimes. But the Drome wasn't special to me just because I was a champion. Frankly, I don't even care about that. What impressed me was the teamwork that I saw evidence of, even though nobody really knew each other and there was no method of communication (other than BZP and other such outside places, and I did have the honor of meeting many fellow dromers). When you think about, all online communities and indeed just about everything else works for the same reason. It isn't the "champions" that make something great. It's the whole team.

And my tactics are still classified.