Ah-hah. The stories in this thread are really entertaining. It's always interesting for me to see where other people started. Brings a smile to my face.
When it comes to myself, if I had to pinpoint a moment where I discovered RP... Hmm.
It was when AOL discs, the freebie ones were still a huge thing. I mean most people used them as frisbees and coasters, but I was collecting them and making new accounts wherever and whenever I could. I remember discovering general chatrooms and really fascinated with the idea of being able to communicate with people very far away outside of letters and just phone calls. Something we take for granted today sometimes.
I was pretty young at the time, and at the mercy of whatever hardware I had access to. I can't tell you the excitement I had when I was able to move on from dial-up and to use cable for my isp, hahah.
I used to see strange titled rooms, not always sexual mind you. Themed, and often using weird combos of letters and numbers to spell out things. Remember when leetspeak was a thing? Sometimes if the room wasn't locked, you could get a glimpse of this world, where people claimed to be wizards and werewolves, women could be men, men could be inanimate objects capable of sentience. Huge distant lands that we could only dream of, until now that is!
I quickly became obsessed! I had to know more, to understand what it all was. So I first started RPing in the official AOL chat room called The Red Dragon Inn. As the years went by, I ended up joining various MUDs and spent an awful lot of time in The Keep. Which, I'm fairly sure still exists today.
I used to RP really goody goody knights. Really typical shit. I mostly started as a good guy. Always had a sword, too good to ever use a gun. (I know, right?) 0It is something that I can't bring myself to do these days. Everytime I try to play a nice guy now, it usually turns out boring for myself.
So yeah, I started in AOL chatrooms, then moved to bbs/forums, The Keep and then mostly every MMO I've played since Everquest. There's too many to list here, but most notably EQ, WoW and more recently TERA, GW2, and Wildstar ones that I enjoyed while I still played them. Maybe not so much GW2 outside of very close friends. I had mostly awful experiences.
One thing I will say, I think having RPed in so many forms and in as many games as I have and for as long as I have, it has only made me appreciate it more. I started very young, was able to convince people I was much older than I actually was. Which I attribute to reading so much, which I still do. I spend most of my time reading or writing when I'm not working. Or daydreaming, hahah.
I refuse to play an MMO unless I can find some form of RP, it's just not as fun for me as the communities aren't to my liking. It's rare that I play games that don't cover it in some way, even if it's for myself. Even my Monster Hunter character has a loose story behind it that my fellow hunters often crack jokes about it.
When it comes to myself, if I had to pinpoint a moment where I discovered RP... Hmm.
It was when AOL discs, the freebie ones were still a huge thing. I mean most people used them as frisbees and coasters, but I was collecting them and making new accounts wherever and whenever I could. I remember discovering general chatrooms and really fascinated with the idea of being able to communicate with people very far away outside of letters and just phone calls. Something we take for granted today sometimes.
I was pretty young at the time, and at the mercy of whatever hardware I had access to. I can't tell you the excitement I had when I was able to move on from dial-up and to use cable for my isp, hahah.
I used to see strange titled rooms, not always sexual mind you. Themed, and often using weird combos of letters and numbers to spell out things. Remember when leetspeak was a thing? Sometimes if the room wasn't locked, you could get a glimpse of this world, where people claimed to be wizards and werewolves, women could be men, men could be inanimate objects capable of sentience. Huge distant lands that we could only dream of, until now that is!
I quickly became obsessed! I had to know more, to understand what it all was. So I first started RPing in the official AOL chat room called The Red Dragon Inn. As the years went by, I ended up joining various MUDs and spent an awful lot of time in The Keep. Which, I'm fairly sure still exists today.
I used to RP really goody goody knights. Really typical shit. I mostly started as a good guy. Always had a sword, too good to ever use a gun. (I know, right?) 0It is something that I can't bring myself to do these days. Everytime I try to play a nice guy now, it usually turns out boring for myself.
So yeah, I started in AOL chatrooms, then moved to bbs/forums, The Keep and then mostly every MMO I've played since Everquest. There's too many to list here, but most notably EQ, WoW and more recently TERA, GW2, and Wildstar ones that I enjoyed while I still played them. Maybe not so much GW2 outside of very close friends. I had mostly awful experiences.
One thing I will say, I think having RPed in so many forms and in as many games as I have and for as long as I have, it has only made me appreciate it more. I started very young, was able to convince people I was much older than I actually was. Which I attribute to reading so much, which I still do. I spend most of my time reading or writing when I'm not working. Or daydreaming, hahah.
I refuse to play an MMO unless I can find some form of RP, it's just not as fun for me as the communities aren't to my liking. It's rare that I play games that don't cover it in some way, even if it's for myself. Even my Monster Hunter character has a loose story behind it that my fellow hunters often crack jokes about it.
