Shame he only made one post!
I just realised I’ve never introduced myself in this thread, so here goes:
I’m a 38 year old & happily married guy. Right now I’m not doing anything for a living. I got offered an engineering’ish (materials science analyst sort of thing) job a couple of months ago, so I quit the job I had December 1st and start the new one mid February. Hopefully I’ll earn a bit more, work a bit less, and do stuff I’m actually educated to do… And I may even have some advancement prospects. A very nice turn of events for me, considering I had pretty much given up even dreaming about having something career-like again.
My significantly better half is/was also an avid gamer, though very much the MMO- & Reflex-games sort (which I’m not). She’s also the stable, sane, income-generating & career-pursuing half of our household. Which, sadly, means she has next to no time for gaming.
We don’t have children. I can’t have any, and my wife don’t want any. We do have a rotty that I spoil rotten, though.
As for my gaming history, I guess it started when I was about 6 years old or so, with a Sinclair Spectrum ZX81. That was back in the days when a computer game was a pile of code you typed in yourself. I don’t actually remember any games from that machine, but I do remember there was no data storage device and I do believe the very first spanking I ever received was a consequence of me cutting the power to the ZX81 before an older family member (I forget which) could beat the game they’d spend all night typing in. Oh and I remember its god-awful keyboard. In fact, it is quite likely the reason I evolved a keyboard fetish, happily paying obscene prices for new ones every year or two, and guarding them ferociously from consumables and unwashed hands, like Smaug did the Arkenstone (yes, if my wife needs to use my PC for more than a minute, she can damn well plug in her own filthy keyboard).
A few years later I ended up on the Commodore side of the Commodore vs. Amiga war. Because at most I had a paper-route level of income (paper routes: back in the days when newspapers were printed on actual paper, kids earned pocket money delivering them to your house at death-o-clock in the morning. Actually, I never met a kid who did it for the money. We all did it because some parental unit or other insisted we should, to “build character” and “teach us the value of money”), so obviously I couldn’t buy my own computer. And my father needed a portable one for work, and the closest thing to a portable computer back then was a 23lbs beast called the SX64. It was a portable version of a C64 with a built in CRT colour monitor and 5½’’ floppy drive, all integrated in something very much like a suitcase.
Pretty much as soon as the 8086 IBM compatible PC hit the market, the SX64 was replaced with one of those. And I’ve been a PC gamer ever since. I did briefly have a Playstation One, and the first WipeOut game will forever live in my memory as one of the greatest gaming experiences in my life. But really, I’ve been pretty exclusively-PC gaming ever since PCs became a thing.
I was also a filthy software pirate right up to my brief brush with the Playstation One. In fact, the first and only game I “paid” for prior to buying that console, was a “shareware” (back then shareware also meant freeware, which this was) game, which may have been the first ever Danish computer game and, at least, was my first encounter with Danish. In fact, In do believe the game’s title “Kaper” (privateer) was the first Danish word I ever learned. And if you’re wondering why in the hell I’d sit down and try to make sense of some random Danish video game back then, it was because I was gonna go to Denmark for two weeks to visit relatives and just happened to find the game in a huge pile of pirated PC games I’d borrowed from the owner of the local tech store (this was the only way to obtain PC games, unless you had a car and were willing to spend half a day driving to a major city).
On the PC front, I landed on the Civilization (weird British English spellotypechecker accepts the Us spelling?) side of the Civ vs. Doom thing. And I have never strayed far from that side. Only FPS games (and yes, in my mind “shooter” means shmup/STG/bullethell game - I really am that old & decrepit) I ever really put time into were Unreal Tournament and Starsiege Tribes. Sadly my private connections back then were never really up for online gaming, but I was #1 & #2 respectively in our LAN games (of which we had many back then). Can’t recall what my online rankings were like, or even if the games had such a thing.
As for multiplayer games, the only one I ever got really into (but man was I into it) was the first Neverwinter Nights game. Specifically, the persistent RP servers. I also got scarred for life when I dipped my toes into the social servers for that game. My very first go at one of those had me spend half an hour or so having a pretty good time roleplaying with some other guy, which quickly turned kind of romantic, which then very very quickly turned kind of explicit… So I OOC’ed (Out Of Character) the guy that it was making me uncomfortable, and 5 seconds later I’d got a -1 level penalty by a GM who was apparently watching and a whisper from the GM informing me that this was an official warning and that I should either play out the situation in character or leave the server. Being both a wimp and a prude, and also not really feeling it given the circumstances, I chose the latter. In my innocence, I hadn’t even imagined that sort of thing was… Well… A thing. My assumption had been that social servers were more RP-centric and less combat-centric than the hardcore RP servers. Now I know better, I guess. And that reminds me, when I briefly got dragged into WoW by a couple of friends, I noticed it had/has “social servers” too. Are they really cyber-sex avenues too? I mean… It’s the internet & stuff, so I guess nothing can really surprise me anymore. But it’s also Blizzard. Would they really allow such a thing?
My favourite genre in gaming has changed back and forth over the years, as has my top 5 favourite games list. But I think AI War may be my pick for favourite game of all time, and squad tactics games my favourite genre.
Presently I don’t have a whole lot of time for gaming. In 2015 I’ve clocked about 100 hours in a Rogue-like called Sword of The Stars: The Pit, something similar in AI War: Fleet Command, and half that playing vodka-drunk Killing Floor 2 matches with a couple of mates from other countries that… Well… We keep our friendships alive by sitting down in front of the PC, getting shitfaced, and playing Killing Floor 2. Anyway, that’s pretty much it.
Similar sad story for my better half. We’ve both been too busy working our asses off. But hey, means we could afford to buy an actual house (rather than the crummy flat we’re living in at the moment) and thoroughly renovate it. I doubt my poor wife will have much time for gaming in the foreseeable future, but I might have a bit more free time (at no income loss even) when I start my new job. Might… I live in the hope, at least.
Apart from that I have been a wargamer, a tabletop roleplayer, and to a much lesser extent, a boardgamer, since I was… 12-14 years old or so. Unfortunately when you’re my age getting the friends together for a couple of gaming evenings a year is like herding cats. Cats with jetpacks. Organising regular gaming evenings is basically impossible. So… I’ll probably hang onto my pretty vast stores of toy soldiers, RPG manuals and boardgame boxes forever. But I’m not sure how much of a chance I’ll ever have to immerse myself in those hobbies again. Unless I live long enough to retire, in which case we’ll have some truly demented battles for Armageddon in the retirement home/hospice. Really, I have the genetic predictors for both Parkinson’s and early onset Alzheimer’s, so demented is the word here. May need to hire a private nurse to move the little spacemarines around for us, though. Hmm… I should adjust my savings to account for that :D
Right… This was one long-ass post. Now I’ll go stuff my face in Dal Palak, extinguish my senses with cheap champagne, and see if I can’t blow up some unfortunate sod’s mailbox with a firecracker!
Have an awesome new year all of you! And a much better year of gaming than the last one! Much love to you all <3
Arise, oh thread, from the ashes of history.
Still at Google, still doing Android Security, still in the Cascade Foothills, but now running multiple security and engineering teams.
Also, the rest of you should keep us updated.
Well that was quite the read - so many names! I wondered if I had posted way back when, but then remembered how much you guys scared me.
So here I am now that I have gotten over that: Hi, I’m Linn, I was 40ish when this thread started. I am an administrator for a mental health non-profit in Ontario and have been playing video games since the original pong console (mid 70’s, would that be right?)
Hi Linn! Yeah, Home Pong is about mid or late 70’s. I remember playing a pong-like console on the turn of that decade to the 80’s. Took it a while to make it to Brazil, where I live.
Funny to realize how far technology has taken us, compared to those early times. I’m glad I got to see that happening, and I’m certain curious about what’s to come. ;)
Crazy to think when this thread was started people then are now almost 20 years older.
Jeezus - I’d forgotten this existed. For some reason, I posted in this thread 10 years ago, and lied through my teeth! SORRY! I don’t know why.
You’re not alone. I should come clean now: I am not, in fact, the real Boss Hogg. I’m so sorry for anyone I may have mislead!
Was this it?
Perhaps I should’ve done some due diligence and posted something here when I joined. Instead I guess my grand entrance was the internet equivalent of some rando walking up to Tom in the street, putting ten bucks in the top of his shirt and following him home. All the while just banging on about Doom Eternal or X4 or whatever. Urgh.
God, I was 29 when I posted. That seems like several lifetimes ago (it was several states ago), yet I still feel more like 29 than 48 except when I encounter a mirror.
That’s aging. In our skulls we don’t feel that different, but our bodies are creeping towards decay. At some point our mental development mostly stops, other than the accumulation of knowledge and how that affects our perspective. We get a broader view, but we lose some sharpness of imagination, insight, whatever.
Well self, times certainly change. At least I’m still simming. What a fun bump to see again. Thanks for that @Indyls! And welcome to QT3. Same to you @fox.ferro!
Turned 55 in July, 18 years after posting that…
Still haven’t changed much since that was posted in July, 2002. Hairline is gone. Some new hobbies, started doing some acting and comedy, but still easygoing and pretty chill about life.
Umm, very amicably divorced since 2018. Dating non-psychotic woman.
He arrived on September 25. And he’s graduating from high school in June – that’s how long I’ve been hanging around on this forum.
Warcraft III. I wish. He’s a shooter kid. Really good – I only let him win the first couple of weeks of playing Halo 1-on-1. After that it turned into competition and then a dad bloodbath.
Now 48, and only focused on the Linux kernel since 2012 working remotely now for Red Hat. Still in Phoenix.
Now there is a 2nd daughter, and they are both deeply into Roblox. Gaming still mostly occurs when they have gone to bed.
Denny’s post made me realize I joined Qt3 before either of my kids were born, and my daughter is now 17yo.
Yep, I joined up like a lifetime ago as well. I’m about 95% sure I signed up in '99.
Man. It’s been a while – and several career changes – since I initially posted.
DreamCatcher is no more. I bounced around a couple places (Hasbro, Ganz) and tried doing my own thing, but have now settled in at Acer, managing a couple national and regional accounts.
Still married, and happily so (more or less). My kids are now 21 and 18.
Still gaming, though not as fanatically as in the past. I’m working through Witcher 3 now, having just finished the main campaign and starting on the expansions. I’ve pretty much moved off consoles entirely, with my gaming exclusively coming on PC and mobile these days.
It really doesn’t feel like almost 20 years.
Wow. Reading my “joining” post from 2002 is like a crazy time capsule. Different job, now married, two kids, etc. Back on Qt3 after a discourse-hatred inspired multiyear hiatus mostly because I missed y’all and was worried due to the damn pandemic.
I did eventually graduate!
As far as posts from 18 years ago go, I’m not particularly embarrassed by this one the way I am of some other old posts I stumbled on recently.