How did you discover text-based gaming?

[Arkandel]

@Lithium said:

found RP muds (Wheel of Time)

Keep talking.

[Thenomain]

The alt.something.something.rpgs newsgroup.

[Lithium]

@Arkandel About?

[Arkandel]

@Lithium WoT MUDs! Which did you play? Who were you? Maybe I know you.

[Coin]

@lordbelh said:

We didn't have a computer in the house until I was 16, and I was a sports/outdoors kid who didn't really see the point anyway.Then when I was 17 I got sick, and chained to my room for a good year, unable to get much out of bed at all, and my mum got me a laptop. Anyway, I was checking my hotmail when I saw the chat section link on the MSN homepage.I was bored and craved some sort of interaction with people after the initial onslaught of friends visiting turned into a trickle and then just about nobody, so I clicked. It didn't take me long to discover roleplay there, first in the teen section, then interests/entertainment sections. I met @coin there. They were fun times. Then MSN shut down its Chat service, and I migrated to IRC rp, before a friend of mine suggested a mush about.. oh, 4 or 5 years ago now. I've been doing that since.

ETA: I still miss one thing about MSNchat, and that's the constant influx of new people. By being direct linked to one of the biggest online portals at the time, there were never any shortage of recruits to join our crazy ranks.

Bro, bro, bro.

Two words:

Speed fighting.

AAAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAH.

[Lithium]

@Arkandel I stopped playing in 1993. So if you were back then... I was big into hiding my gender back then, cuz no girls on the internet, so I played a guy named Mephisto, male channeler on... crap I don't even remember the name of it now. Mirrors of the Wheel? I think? This is like 23 years ago and I don't remember it all.

[Arkandel]

@Lithium Oh, okay. No, maybe we didn't meet then.

[lordbelh]

@Coin said:

Speed fighting.

Was the BEST.

[Jaded]

I had a roommate introduce me to a mostly W:tA game on MIRC back in 99. I played there for a few years when another player invited me over to an open server mush that was free form and with no character sheets. Then someone there introduced me to my first WoD Mu. And here I am 17 years later.

[Templari]

Let me just settle my cane here to shake at the kids on the lawn. Got a cooler of alcohol for the other old timers though...

The good old days of 1994 and the RPG chatrooms in Prodigy.net, then over to AOL. and RDI.

Was introduced to RPG's on mIRC, notably InterCity which gave me a system to play with finally. Some other IRC games.

Then someone pointed me at a SW "RP" MUD -Shattered Equinox.

From there to Masquerade Mush... thank god. (post-caine BS), and then on and on to MU*dom, with a few brief forays back into IRC RPG's, and a revisit to Shattered Equinox when it actually WAS about the RP.

[Coin]

@lordbelh said:

@Coin said:

Speed fighting.

Was the BEST.

I got so fast, so quickly, man. So fast.

[RnMissionRun]

A RL friend discovered TNG TrekMUSE years ago ('95, maybe? I don't remember anymore) and talked about it so much that I started playing just to see what the fuss was about. 20 years later, I'm still at it.

[TNP]

Started with BBS games (anyone remember 300 baud modems?). I don't remember where I saw an ad for it but I started to play Gemstone III on GEnie back in the early 90s. There was the Sierra Network too.

Edited to add: Trade Wars. That was the name of the BBS game.

[thebird]

When I was a kid, I was sick a lot, and got it in my head that I was going to make a Sailor Moon themed website via Yahoo/Geocities. Couldn't figure something out, so I went to the help chatrooms, and actually met my very first and longest online friend there. They introduced me to RP in the Yahoo! chatrooms, when I told them what I was trying to do with the website. We both told each other we were 16. Years later, when we were actually 16 (I know, I know...I was one of those unintentionally creepy too young kids in the 90s...I didn't get it then, but totally do now) we confessed our real ages (same age), have been good friends ever since, and floated around various text games in chatrooms until high school, when I discovered MU*s, and they developed a hobby of rock climbing.

And here I am o.o

[Lithium]

@TNP said:

Started with BBS games (anyone remember 300 baud modems?). I don't remember where I saw an ad for it but I started to play Gemstone III on GEnie back in the early 90s. There was the Sierra Network too.

Edited to add: Trade Wars. That was the name of the BBS game.

Trade Wars wasn't jut the BBS game, it was the BEST BBS game ever. Seriously.

I loved that game. Inn of the Red Dragon was another favorite.

[ThatGuyThere]

When I was a freshman in college i joined on on campus gaming club and a few of the members MUSHed on DarkMetal, they talked about it a lot and I thought it was interesting. then earlier in Spring semester there was a big snow storm and since classes were cancelled and I had nothing really to do I made a character.

[Sunny]

My best friend at the time showed me. He walked me through getting everything set up and how to get onto the library and how to get a shell account and...yeah. We'd been doing play by post on local BBS's up to that point.

[Wizz]

My dad worked from home for a while and kept a computer in my bedroom, back in like...'96? I was about 8 and very curious. I started with MUDs and found MUSH/MUX/etc not long after, but I honestly have no idea how. The first one I remember playing was a MUD based on the old Disney movie TRON, which I was obsessed with at the time. I've been playing off and on ever since, which kind of weirds me out sometimes when I stop to think about it.

[hedgehog]

I started playing on NannyMUD because of a friend I met on a Cocteau Twins channel on IRC (and I only found that because I stumbled upon it after interviewing and taking Robin Guthrie out for coffee when they played Milwaukee, and I had to boast about the experience to like-minded individuals). I got kind of bored with Nanny after a couple of years and a move across the country, and then discovered The Dreaming after doing a search for other online roleplaying games.

[Olsson]

I wanted to play nWoD but all my friends were hard-on oWoD wankers.

I googled nWoD Online and found Haunted Memories.