Harbinger
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Contents |
[edit] The Story
[edit] Origins
Harbinger is a self-taught Zerg player and mapper who has been playing Starcraft casually since the release of the Brood War expansion. His combat skill is unremarkable, but he can hold his own online. Oblivious to the rest of the mapping community for the first several years, his mapping style gravitated towards fun and intuitive landscape designs with high doodad density.
He designed many maps specifically for private/LAN games between friends, and the close-knit group adapted a moral code of sorts where no map was ever played twice in order to keep players on their toes and ensure no one player had an advantageous knowledge of the terrain beforehand. This allowed Harbinger to experiment with a wide range of map mechanics and develop some unique and distinctive landscaping techniques. Alas, most of that drivel was lost to a catastrophic hard drive failure in late 2003. He stumbled upon Starcraft.org one fateful day in 2004 while searching for StarCraft map databases and decided to submit what was left of his map hoard.
At the time, the Starcraft.org map database was a cesspool, all the high quality material being buried under layers of unimaginative rubbish submitted just for the sake of submitting something. Harbinger's unique melee designs and stong terrain detailing quickly gained attention in the newly rebuilt community, and he even submitted a well-received fiction.
Soon the inefficiency and sheer density of crap on the site prompted the moderators to assemble a crack team of reliable and experienced content submitters who would be given special access to the administrator boards on Warboards, where they would proceed to weed out the filth by voting on each file. Harbinger was appointed to the maps division and created a Warboards alias in order to participate.
[edit] Agent of Chaos
The name "Harbinger" was already taken by a squatter when the new member joined, so he opted for "Thoz" instead. The name would be rectified at a later date by AJ. With a Warboards account set up, Harbinger got to work with his colleagues cleansing the unworthy files from the database, one map at a time.
For the better part of a year the team labored on the seemingly unending task of slimming down the list of approximately seven thousand maps. Inevitably there were delays and departures, and near the end of the effort the remaining team members were rewarded with blue-colored text for their user titles to set them apart for their work. Harbinger insisted that he was doing it "just for fun."
At this point Harbinger had started a hiatus from StarCraft and was relatively inactive on Warboards outside of the staff section and Maps Depot, though he gained a reputation for level-headedness and short, to-the-point posts. Some have asked him to play a game or two with them, but his Battle.net alias is still a closely guarded secret.
Eventually AJ realized that the job was getting nowhere fast, and long-anticipated plans for an upgraded Ixius approval system were finally realized. He needed a new, official list of fresh staff to man the site as it prepared to leave the dark ages. Eager to get some real work done and see Starcraft.org return to its previous height of activity that he never got to see, Harbinger applied for a position on the Maps Database staff and was accepted.
[edit] Staff
With a more powerful Ixius came a more efficient staff. It was at this point that AJ transferred the Warboards alias "Harbinger" to the actual user. Despite the abundant distractions of school and work, Harbinger has kept a relatively consistent record of activity on Ixius, although his creative juices have stopped flowing for actual submissions for the time being. He vowed to one day study up on the newer map designs and start mapping again.
As of 2009 he waits patiently for the day Ixius and Starcraft.org return, eager to be of assistance again.
[edit] Trivia
- The only successful attempt to get Harbinger involved in anything not strictly related to SC.org or WB.org was made by TitanWing, who brought him into the burgeoning Exiles forum. A correspondent sent to TitanWing's residence to confirm this was reportedly distracted by a pretty butterfly and was never heard from again.
- Certain individuals were confused over the Harbinger name change on Warboards upon his promotion and sent him worried emails about an impostor.
- He has never changed his user title.
- Harbinger's pre-SC.org posse was known informally as "CV" and is alluded to in multiple map descriptions on the site. He admits to having forgotten what the acronym originally stood for.
- Supposedly, anyone able to actually cause Harbinger to lose his temper will receive a free George Forman Grill and cutlery set.
- He is one of three people in the world who know the exact location of Carmen Sandiego.
- The above statement is false.
- This is one of the few staff pages not written entirely by the person it features. I see what you did there, Truck...
[edit] Userpages
Starcraft.org: http://starcraft.org/user/Harbinger
Warboards.org: http://nexus.orgnetwork.com/member.php?u=32326
