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Kestin's Ten Days of Nostalgia: Archive |
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Originally posted in Sisky's contest thread in a perfunctory bid to win an ancient letter or two.
Kestin's Ten Days of Nostalgia: Day One
This one may well be my earliest Gaia memory, so what better way to start off? When my first account was a little over a month old, the May 2004 items came out: monkey and bear pajamas. What was so special about them, you may ask? They were Gaia's very first multi-pose items. I vaguely remember the chaos as everybody who had them struggled to figure out how they worked. Now we have items with dozens of poses that would have all been completely different items back in the day, and single-pose items are considered outdated and passé...this is one of those things where I truly wish we could return to a simpler time (as opposed to the occasional claims of "omg I wish there were still food-based errors every five pages and events lagged so bad I couldn't even post!" -- the nostalgia filter is a powerful thing, folks).
Kestin's Ten Days of Nostalgia: Day Two
Before the GCD existed, I spent much of my time in the Lotto forum, eventually making a nest in one particular thread called Free Fairy Wings. This was a hangout thread more than anything else; the first poster on every two-thousandth page would win a pair of fairy wings, which were by far the most expensive and coveted item in the shops. Naturally, it took a lot of random chatter to get there (and thanks to a bizarre page-number glitch that went unfixed for months if not years, it eventually became impossible to tell when a winner had emerged). The thread leader was an oldbie, even by 2004 standards, and possessed immeasurable wealth. More importantly, though, she was always nice to me, despite my...abundant social failings. Along with the guild I joined early on (which I plan to feature in tomorrow's post), FFW was my primary haunt throughout my earliest days on Gaia.
Kestin's Ten Days of Nostalgia: Day Three
Does anyone remember when guilds were no more than threads in a "Guilds" subforum? Believe it or not, the individual mini-forums we get now haven't always been around. The first guild I remember joining was called the Lanzer Defense Guild, formed on the tenets of "the staff are people too, so don't be a d**k" -- a shocking and dangerous opinion to express. (I kid, I kid.) The leader's username was "Lanzers Clone", and he had the avatar to match. I remember one time, way back when they used to do those survey threads, he managed to get first post, right after the big guy himself. Amusement ensued. The LDG was active for long enough that it did, eventually, become a formal guild when the system was introduced; it still exists somewhere, but the name was changed years ago in an attempt to repurpose it after it died out.
Kestin's Ten Days of Nostalgia: Day Four
Let me discuss the Second Anniversary Ball, one of the most memorable events in my Gaia lifetime. My plot involvement up until then is hazy; I don't recall what I thought, or what it meant to me. How much did I understand? When did I start caring? Try as I might, 2004 was just too long ago. But the moment I saw these new Von Helson characters claiming to be "the most powerful women in Gaia" in their first public address...well, my instincts just went "oh hell no." With one line, they had cemented themselves as the enemy. I took up the flag of Gambino, and the fight was on.
The fight hasn't stopped.
Kestin's Ten Days of Nostalgia: Day Five
The days of map updates were something to behold. People really got the sense of "something is happening, right at this very moment" when the map was required for navigation and events were heralded by dynamic sprites. They noticed the missile slowly chugging across the map during the H2k4 event, leading to mass panic and speculation: what was happening? Was that thing...getting closer? Were we about to be blown up?! The 2004 Gaia Olympics, of course, relied entirely on this system; the event consisted of NPC sprites running across the maps for us all to watch. It sounds boring when I put it that way, but there was a lot of suspense involved -- people gained and lost the lead, became distracted, took shortcuts...it was anyone's game. And we watched for weeks as the Tower of Gambino became higher and higher from our donations, and then came crashing down across the diagonal. While the current method of storytelling is simpler, easier to follow, and probably better for the servers, I will always miss the changes in the maps that took our curiosity and pulled us in.
Kestin's Ten Days of Nostalgia: Day Six
Now I believe it's time for me to cover the darkest dark days of darkness in my Gaian history: the rise of the GCD. In March 2005, a bunch of new forums and subforums were added, including one that attracted me instantly: Gaia Community Discussion, for talking about Gaia itself and its plot and events. I remember thinking "oh, this is perfect! Exactly what I needed!" and running over to check it out. But as any of you who were there back then might recall, it wasn't exactly a plot-discussing paradise. From the start, it quickly became a lawless land of prommies and wannabes. I spent my years as a regular desperately wanting to be one of the elite, the ones everyone knew and loved, recognized and worshipped. Eventually I gave up; I honestly don't remember what I did between 2007 and 2008, but I think it involved a lot of Gaia Jigsaw and very little forum interaction. When I got back in town, the place was different; all the old regulars had gone, and the popularity contest vibe had faded, leaving only the foundations of what would eventually become the GCD as we know it today.
Kestin's Ten Days of Nostalgia: Day Seven
If you peeked at my join date or account number, you might have noticed that this account is most certainly not from 2004. You'd be correct. I utterly despise the idea of leaving behind history on one account and switching to another, for any purpose, and it drives me crazy to this day. But when I came back from my year or so of whatever I did, I took interest in a GCP thread recruiting for roleplay characters to be used in fan-made plotlines; originally each member's name would be preceded by NPSC (non-playable story character), but this was eventually changed to UPC (user-played character), leaving us as the UPC Organization. I invented a character, created an account for her (as was the requirement for participation -- it was conceptualized as an interactive project, where we would post around in character), and joined the guild. The project itself...pretty much went nowhere. We mostly used the guild for goofing off, roleplay shenanigans, and periodic attempts by the leaders to actually start doing something. It was a lot of fun, and I had some great years with great people.
The tale of the UPCO is only the first half of the story about my account. Part two is a different matter altogether, and will be picked up tomorrow.
Kestin's Ten Days of Nostalgia: Day Eight
The other reason I changed accounts, albeit unintentionally, was zOMG. At the time it came out, I was spending almost all of my time in the UPC guild, and rarely if ever switched over to my main. So I ended up playing the game on this account. This in itself wouldn't have meant much, as I could easily play through it all over again, but then I started posting in the zOMG forum, interacting with the community. At first I made a vague effort to be in-character when I did, but I dropped that pretty quickly and became a bona-fide member of the z!F on the account that was meant to be for roleplay purposes. I posted so much that people actually started to recognize me in-game. When I realized what had happened, I decided I couldn't possibly give up all the new history I'd made. Of course, when I changed my username to reflect the fact that this was now my main (transferring my character's name and appearance onto another mule), I stopped being noticed by random strangers, and never quite regained that fame, but that was okay. After all this time, I still can't bring myself to abandon recent history and reclaim my roots.
Even just modifying my account to reflect my real join date would satisfy me. I don't need my 4000+ posts from 2005. I don't need a six-digit userid. Just my frickin' join date! Admins, I'm looking at you...
Kestin's Ten Days of Nostalgia: Day Nine
I'm going to rewind time a little bit here and share a potentially controversial memory. So far, these posts have been mainly about things that were positive or neutral. But way back in 2004, just a few months after I joined, a user died. Now, I'm sure this happens much more than we like to think about, but this particular person had good friends who used Gaia, and the story became widespread. When I found out, I had a realization that haunts me to this day: something like that could happen to anyone, and we might never know. I've taken steps to try and ensure my online friends will find out if anything happens to me, but my "failsafe" is years out of date, and every day I don't update it is a day I go to bed terrified...
Kestin's Ten Days of Nostalgia: Day Ten
I can't think of anything else to share, and time is running short, so I'm just going to cop it out and say thank you, Gaia, for being with me for almost nine years, for always trying your best (except with regards to zOMG), for giving me friends and entertainment, for making me care about your plot and characters, for keeping me striving for that latest achievement or event prize, for teaching me social skills, for being something to do during classes, and for being the quirky little explosion you are. Here's to ten more years and an eternity of memories.
 LabTech Kestin · Fri Feb 15, 2013 @ 02:34am · 0 Comments |
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