Yeah, I know, it's been a few years since I've posted, but I need somewhere to get this off my chest.

Alright. I have a character dating back to GEnie days. He carries a couple unshifted items. People sometimes comment, and I sometimes answer, because the character continues to believe he remembers what he remembered, and that there was an era where people hunted with shaalk and worshipped Eissa in a place called Kelfour's Landing. So stipulated.

Could I get a pass though, please, on posers who see or hear all this and blather about how they, too, were there? Sure, they usually drop a few names of prominent Ice Agers (even if they often misspell the surnames) and make claims like "I hunted with Thalior when he was an empath." (Well, no, that would have been when he was a HEALER.)

Three times it happened last night, and three times characters who do not appear on my copies of the final GEnie-era fame lists claimed to be Ice Agers, and three times I replied "Mm, perhaps my memories grow dim, but I do not remember you being there."

And three times I got backing and filling about how their "ancestors" or "clan" were really the ones there, or whispers about "Well, my old character was never archived, so ..." Somehow, they can never remember the names of the characters they actually claim were there.

But you know something? Even if you're not a liar, and you actually DID have a character back in GEnie days? THE ONE WHO'S TALKING TO ME ISN'T IT. It's not as if I make Ice Age blatherings with any other character, even the one who WAS legitimately genned back then, because I had a second account on GEnie. (The guy was a locker character, and eventually retconned to be the son of an AOL-era character, when I finally decided to play him for real.)

I know people like to put themselves over, in the piquant pro wrestling idiom, and they're not going to stop on my account, but EEEESH! Just had to blow off some steam.

~ r.

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It's not that I don't understand what you're saying. It's that I don't AGREE with what you're saying.

Once, I asked Thalior what was inside his bloody sack.

I wished I hadn't.

Sorry. I didn't intend to come across so harsh.

It's just something that's bugged me for a long time with the culture among players of this game. It seems like you can't go a day without at least one "I remember when..." gets thrown out there and pretty soon everybody is trying to outdo one another with their stories not about people and memorable times, but when spells had prep times and titles actually meant something, etc. As if having put up with this game for as long as you have is some sort of badge of honor.

I like that players from the past are returning. It's good for the game. I just wish we could focus on what they've done rather than who has developed the deepest layer of dust!

~Taverkin

Why does it even matter?

It really shouldn't.

-farmer

>Doing so in a way that is so obviously OOC does not.

Been seeing a lot of this from a small group of individuals in the past week. Not blatantly OOC, but very on the cusp, sort of that "I'm still pretending this is real life, but I'm not afraid to call my health loss "50 blood", or ask if someone is capped outloud" kind of OOC.

The one thing that REALLY irked me though was when a "in the old days" conversation sprung up in public and someone said "I remember when the Elven Nations didn't even exist yet". I passed it off as best I could from an IC perspective, something along the lines of "I don't, because the Elven Nations have been here for a very many thousands of years", but it was a pretty lost cause.

Sorry, not your fault alone. Just found the complaint odd. The way I see it, only a tiny fraction of players were around back when. Most came later, after rates went unlimited. And as I was one who came in somewhere in between, I do recall more than a little resentment and difficulty adjusting on the part of established players at that time. As I was still fairly new to the game myself, I just took it in stride. But I'm not surprised in the least that this culture developed.

It bugs you that other players drop names as if they were a part of that? I get that. But it seems to me that it wouldn't have been that way if long-time players had done a better job of adjusting to a changing world. New players give what they get. They eventually conform (more or less) to the culture. They're name dropping because you're (general "You", not you personally) name dropping.

Today I suspect most of the name dropping is exactly what you think it is: posers, trying to make themselves feel important. But they had to have gotten that idea from somewhere, right? Nobody would care about Thalior if people didn't continually drop his name. But test my theory some time. Ask a name dropper who Thalior was, something memorable he did, etc. I'll bet you're right and most of them won't be able to answer the question. I know I couldn't! Because for all the time I've spent here (and I've even interacted with the guy in game in the past), I really don't know the guy or what he did to make his name so lasting.

That's sad, isn't it? I mean he's probably the most famous name out there from the past. But while everyone knows his name, a lot of players who do have no idea WHY! Shouldn't they? If it's more than name-dropping that's important?

~Taverkin

This is how legends are born. :)

And a great new idea for a contest. . . legends to life! Pick a name from the past, and have a panel of bards judge how well you recall the tales of yore that built to the splendor that is Thalior, or Tedra, or Krakii (heh), or Strom or . . . well, I'm sure you get the picture. :)

Doug

What bout that guy Greganth, he is pretty legendary too! How can you possibly have a conversations about legends and forget him? He has been around forever! At -least- two years. Jeesh.
~
From behind the cell door, a giantman's gruff voice shouts, "You should have killed me when you could have!"

As far as resentment goes on the part of the GEnie-era players, the wonder wasn't that there was resentment. The wonder is that there wasn't a great deal more of it. We had our world torn apart, we were compelled to go through changes we did not as the paying customers of the game want, in a poorly-explained, poorly-implemented, hastily-produced upheaval ... and then we had the player base increase TWENTY fold, many of whom were powerhunters totally disinterested in RP. All within a span of a couple months.

(And, by the the bye, those newbies were playing for free, and we were still being charged $3/hour. And we were asked, at OUR expense, to show them the ropes.)

The capping incident was a town meeting held for the GEnie players, to attempt to address our concerns and anger. About 100 players attended, a large percentage of the GEnie player base. One charming newcomer decided it'd be fun to red crystal the gathering, taking out about 80 in a fell swoop, after which the oldbies who didn't want all the newbies damned to perdition were in a minority.

That being said ...

Tales about Thalior's deeds? They were no more spectacular than any 50th-60th level character today, because characters then didn't do a great deal that characters today don't ... other than, of course, RP a good bit more on the average. The principal attribute of a high level character in the GEnie era was a player willing to devote a few hundred dollars a month to playing, because that's what it took.

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It's not that I don't understand what you're saying. It's that I don't AGREE with what you're saying.

Fair enough. I didn't know about that particular meeting. All I knew was that there was a great deal of animosity between established players and the influx of new players as internet rates went unlimited. The result of that conflict was a poisonous culture that bred the pretenders you see today (among other issues).

Fortunately, I think all of this is less relevant as years go by. Most players today weren't here for any of that. It's a fresh start, of sorts. Players are judged less by whether or not they pal'd around with Thalior and more by their actions. And I think that ultimately, this is what we all want - a game where players can make a name for themselves regardless of when they started and who they knew. And they do that through RP, not through power-leveling (which is quite irrelevant in a game with a cap, where many players are capped). Everybody wins.

~Taverkin