PowerPlay Журнал

On December 12, 2009, the Soul Darts Club in the capital of Hungary hosted a meeting of PPM fans. The PPM staff attended the meeting as well and I am glad to report that we had a great time and we had received a warm welcome from our southern neighbors.

Me, tuttle and maTTko attended the meeting as the representatives of PPM staff. I believe there is no need to introduce tuttle a.k.a Ivan, the founder and leader of the whole project. With him came myself, the translators' supervisor, editor-in-chief of the English version of the PP Magazine and co-developer of the project. Last but not least, there was maTTko who provides photography for PPM. Most of the graphical elements in the game are pictures taken by him. He was also doing the photography on this meeting.

We arrived at the Soul Darts Club at about 1pm with the kind escort of Kityusz a.k.a. Krisztián, the captain of the Hungarian support team. Without him, we would have had major difficulty making it to the place of the meeting. He is also the General Manager of the Hungarian national team and a great character of our game. He has been our top man in Hungary for a very long time now and must be one of our longest serving and most reliable captains.

The meeting was organized by hokitamogato572 alias János. János put in a great effort into the organization and he even managed to change the original date of the meeting to enable tuttle to attend. So big thanks to János, we really appreciate the work he has put in.

When we arrived there were already about 15 people present. We found a surprising face in the crowd which we didn't expect. One of the best managers in the game radowan made it all the way from the Slovak city of Košice. You may know him as the manager of team Enterprise.

When we finally all gathered (reportedly 29 showed up) round the tables and the discussions got going there was an official welcome from Kityusz. We received gifts which was a really nice surprise and there was a toast. Then tuttle replied with a big thanks to all in attendance and to Kityusz for all the work he had done to make the Hungarian community as big and active as it is. He also expressed a wish that the good Slovak-Hungarian relations at PPM should be an example for the two nations to follow.

After the toast there was a press conference where everybody had a chance to ask anything they wanted to know about PPM. To eliminate the language barrier, Stonehenge (Karcsi), the Hungarian support team member, acted as an interpreter. Being fluent in both Slovak and Hungarian he was a great help in the Q&A round. Providing additional help with interpreting were also Pitbull1982 (Pista) and emzet (Zoli).

Some questions, of course, could not be answered due to the fact that they are a part of the secret of the game engine, but the managers who were present still learned a wealth of new information that they had no idea about. There were many questions related to proper distribution of attributes, tactics and counter-tactics, national teams, etc.

After the Q&A the conversations loosened up again and it seemed like everyone was having a good time. Managers then bought credits for special meeting discount prices which has become a tradition on every PPM meeting.

Then it was time for fun and games. Some played pool, while others tried playing darts. I say tried because nobody seemed to be anywhere near the required standard. In the 501 game between me, tuttle, maTTko, radowan, emzet and Pitbull1982 we found out that darts, when played by amateurs, is very much a game of luck. However, the winner proved very worthy in the end. Pitbull1982 closed out with a great score of 100 with his last three darts. With 100 to go he hit a 20, triple 20 and another 20 to kill the game completely. Then we were just competing for lesser positions in awe of the final three throws of the winner.

When hunger began to overcome us we were served hot sandwiches. It was getting late and our reservation was slowly but surely coming to an end. At around 6pm it was time for us to take our leave. We said good bye to our great hosts and received some more parting gifts and an invitation to come again. We were all well pleased with the atmosphere of the meeting and left it in very good mood.

The next meeting is already being planned in Prague for January 16. Tuttle and maxo are among the 50+ people who have already promised to come. It is likely that more of the PPM staff will show up.

We would very much like if the tradition of PPM meetings which started in Slovakia and then spread to Czech Republic and Hungary would become a common thing in other countries too. PPM is willing to sell credits for special discount prices on all official PPM meetings where we can entrust a reliable person with the collecting of the money. If anyone is willing to set up an official PPM meeting in his/her country please contact me or tuttle, or send us an e-mail to support@powerplaymanager.com.