AceCalcs is the home to various calculators, tools and resources to help all players of the Air Rivals and Ace Online communities. The site has been run by argodaemon ever since its inception. While it has been revamped many times since it was first created, much of the basic structure and feel remains the same.
My name is Andrew but go by Argodaemon. I am in my mid-20s and work fulltime as an office bitch for a trucking company. I am currently enrolled at DeVry University working towards a Computer Information Sciences (CIS) Bachelor's Degree hoping to get work in Web Development later in life. Currently, I reside in the suburbs of Minnesota.
I received my Associates in Arts (not literal art) degree in 2006. Was enrolled in a 4-year program for Computer Science thereafter, but was never completed (for reasons I won't discuss here). Anyways, while I love computers, it didn't really strike me as something I wanted to do the rest of my life. It wasn't until after I was gone that I started finding the web-side to be more intrigueing.
The name, Argodaemon, has been around for many years, first created as a combination of elements from Elder Scrolls IV; the Argonians and Daemons. It was something unique that I knew would be available anywhere I went. Its first use was for my XBox Gamertag and still is, although I don't think I have even turned the box on for over 6 months.
I am a gamer at heart. While I own an Xbox 360, it is mainly just used for watching DVDs and collecting dust. I changed from a console to computer gamer a few years ago. Currently, I am running a AMD 3.75Ghz OC Quad, ATI Radeon 4850 1gb x2 Crossfired, 8gb DDR2 RAM, Dual 22" Asus Monitors, blah blah blah. My main source for gaming is Steam, being a big fan of Team Fortress 2, Mass Effect, Borderlands, and many others. On the MMO front, after my SCO/AR days (described after this paragraph), I played Perfect World MY for well over a year (lvl 98 WB) and Aion after release for 3-4 months (36 Ranger) and later for a few months more (55 Chanter). I also have random accounts on Shayia, Rappelz, Aika, Exteel, RF Online, Hellgame: London, CABAL, and probably others.
SpaceCowboyOnline was actually my first experience at MMOs. Hell, it was probably my first attempt at computer gaming, being a heavy console user prior. I started playing with some friends in my college dorm who themselves found it on the SomethingAwful sometime in May of 2007. I was instantly addicted. Originally having a B-gear, I settled on an I-gear on ANI Joymus. While those friends quit not long after they started, I continued through the summer. One of those friend's friend, Z3usOne (now known as gn0sis), continued to play and we started a brigade, Cruxis, along with two other friends met in-game; Ragnell and DoomsDayTank. We were all nubs but enjoyed it nonetheless.
Many other friends were made along the way (too many to mention) until the collapse of SCO at the end of that year. The group stayed strong and branched out into a few other games to buy our time. Shayia, Rappelz and PhiDoi were a few of those. Once the Flysis beta started, most the group migrated over and stared a new (Z3us was too busy with school to join us). Most of us only went to level 40-50 in beta before stopping to wait for full release. Kira was known to be on my gear for over a month towards the end, which made for some interesting conversations once I got my gear back. o.o
When AirRivals (now renamed from Flysis) came out of beta, it was probably the best weeks I have ever had in the game. While the game I found fun, it was the brig and the friends that came out of it that made it a truly great experience. Eventually, I made a push for level 80 and eventually got there with help from the brig, making me the 3rd one on the nation (at the time). That combined with M-X made for some fun wars. Sadly, it wasn't too long afterward that I basically quit the game. Between burning out on the grind, stress with school and other crap, I eventually got pulled away. Other then a few random times here and there, I haven't gone back.
I have been laughed at for running a website for a game that I don't even play. Hell, I played the game for less time then this site has even been up. While it does seem strange, I still love working on it. It is my outlet for electronic creativity and lets me continue to build on skills that I can maybe, someday, put to use elsewhere.
AceCalcs had its beginnings close to a year prior to its actual creation. Using some of the Javascript experience I had in the creation of a website for a Gears of War clan I was in, I started to put together the Weapon Calculator in my free time. It was originally meant as just a tool I could personally use to play around with weapons and such. Considering my understanding of Javascript and HTML at the time, it was a real mess. Also, I didn't use any server files in its creation. Only screen caps and databases found at the host sites were used.
Once it was completed, I felt that others would probably enjoy it as well. The only method I had to host it was my old clan's site, so it was hosted at gbusters.org/wpncalc.htm (site no longer exists). While this did work for a little bit, it was no permanent solution. As SCO came to a close, I had an offer to have it hosted at ace-fans (site also no longer exists). This worked for a while, but updating was difficult, as I had to send it to the webmaster to upload. During this time, around spring of 2008, I had finished putting together the Stat Calc. I put more time into its struction, but it still had alot of bugs to work out. Considering the lack of easy updates, it kinda sucked. It didn't much matter as the site lost its support and laid dead not 2-3 months after first being hosted. At this time, the calcs were being more and more widely used, and I hated to tell people "sorry they gone". This put me in a mad rush to put something new together.
For obvious reason, hosting it myself seemed like the best choice. Especially with future updates and additions I had planned. This put me in a mad rush over the next 2 days to throw something together. After finding a host and spending 4 hours designing a basic site stucture, AceCalcs.net went live on March 25, 2008. The next day, after double checking everything was working fine, it was posted for the public to find.
After the site went live, the focus became on updating and adding content, seeing both of those over a dozen times over the next month. As it went into fall, life started to go to shit and I was pulled away from the site (not by choice mind you). Updates went few and far between and, while I knew people wanted updates, there was too much happening to give me even 5 minutes to do anything. It wasn't until late spring of 2009 that I finally got away from most of the stresses and was able to work on the site again.
It was around this time that I started work on the Weapon Creator as a way to get crap off my mind. Took a few months to finish, but has been one of the most used pages on the site since.
Early September of 2009 brought a fairly large overhaul of the site. This restructuring I dub as AceCalcs 2.0, as almost the entire site was modified. The overall visual appeal didn't change much, but the loss of frames along with a more eye-applealing look gave it a diffirent enough feel. This was not the only update to the site structure over next months. There were many changes made, but most were just to fix up problems or make it easier to work with.
AceCalcs is right now in a segway phase from version 2 to 3. Originally, I had planned to completely overhaul the site and update it in one big clump. That didn't happen after spending over a month solid trying to just lay out the beginning of what I had planned. Therefore, many of the features were extracted and added to the current site structure. Soon, I hope to get it all done.