My history as a gamer, part 2

Computer free....
But not for long-When I married Rob gaming came back into my life in a big way. Rob worked for a game company for a time , and spent time betatesting pen and paper games. He also had a PS1 and a computer. When FF7 I quickly learned what game addiction looked like, as Rob spent every waking moment on the game system. That was ok, because he sold his Amiga to pick up a little money, upgraded his computer system and gave me the old one. I didn’t pick up gaming right away. Eventually I picked up FF7 and became engaged. The majority of my time was spent exploring a new site called “Ancient Sites” a site created in support of SPQR an online game.
Ancient Sites was more then just a forum in support of a game. It was a series of different world with individual groups themed around a particular ancient (or colonial ) site. Within these worlds you found a variety of activies including web design, research, and roleplay.

Immersion begins: It was the proposal that did it. I was dinkering around on a group in Ancient Athens called “The Royal Court of Crete” The court was a gathering of different personalities with some inspiration taken from Zelazny’s Amber novels. The court engaged in quests , parties, and just general wackiness. There was an amount of duplicity in the characters because at least 3 male and 3 females were run by the same two people. One character decided to “marry” my character (Callias Chabrias was her name). The ensuing celebration and involvement with the court left me addicted. I also created my second character at this point, picking a different world to “originate” from. This character (Tangwystl MacRoth) allowed for more exploration while the initial character stayed rooted in the court. I would have conversations with myself in chatrooms furthering my story along. Yes indeed I spent time in chat rooms talking to myself.

Character building. Neither of these characters were particularly strong. Mind you they did have some differences but looking at them now, I would say they were just slight variations of each other. The request from New York changed things again, drawing me in deeper to this world. Tangwystl was known as a free spirit. Somehow she caught the eye of a player who had a character in New York, the only non ancient city on the site. Quinn suggested that political favor could be gained by teaming up together in the city. Unwilling to move my Celtic character to the colonial city, I fired up character creation again. This created Catherine Jones. In her tenure Catherine was the Assistant Governor, a pirate and an icon for her city. One particular storyline we ran consisted of people rescuing me , over and over and over. The pirate phase also caught New York, and we had a great time playing pirates long before Pirates of the Caribbean came out.

Beyond the virtual world: This is the era of my internet addiction. I also grew connected to some of the players behind the characters. One of my oldest net friends comes from this era. I developed an intimate relationship with one of the player characters that resulted in him moving in with me. Another character’s player went to Vegas with me for the weekend. Other character relationships stayed little more then character deep. Callias’ husband disappeared early in the game. Quinn and I maintained a professional relationship. At the height of my addiction the company behind the worlds contacted me through a different site (The ReadersVine) and asked me to work for them on a freelance basis. This gave me a $400 incentive each month to indulge in my addiction.

Welcome to Seattle: We moved to Seattle in 2000. This was part of the trigger that ended my addiction. The worlds were changing pretty quickly with cybersites trying to find a model that made them money, and I was spending more time at my new job. My gaming quickly shifted back to the console or Sims. Up to this point I had a moratorium in the house on MMORPGS. I knew that they were addictive. I wasn’t willing to run the risk of either Rob or I falling into an online game addiction. Then I decided I was interested in Ultima Online. We bought it, I installed it. I tried to play it. I played for 15 minutes? Then paid for the subscription for 6 months before I cancelled it. MMORPGS have not appealed to me since. Rob on the other hand started in on MMORPGS with a passion.

Beta testing- In 2001/2002 I was part of a wave of beta testers for Sims Online, and then shortly after that I beta tested There.com. Neither really stuck with me. Sims Online was not worth paying for. I spent too much of my time working tools to make money and not enough time in interaction with other players. Even though I played with friends it still didn’t hold my interest. There.com wasn’t much better. It wasn’t that it was bad, it just didn’t appeal to me.

From There to the present: I still play a variety of console games. When we had the Wii it was Mercury Madness, Mario Kart and Wii Sports. On the PS2 its been Sponge Bob, Gex, Spyro. On the PC I like time management games, simulation games and casual games.. Chocolatier, Diner Dash, Bejeweled, Zuma, Neopets, and the Sims have all been in the rotation.
I’m also playing Second Life, though I find it boring half the time. It’s not really a game, more of a virtual chat room on crack, and those things are always hit or miss.
The future:

With this gaming class I’m trying to expand more. I’m going to be expected to play World of Warcraft. I’m looking at Eve online, and am trying a handful of free games . Who knows where I will go from here, but what a fun journey it has been.