How did you find this place?

Okay, just curious here.. How did everyone here find out about SD and start playing it? Also.. what got you hooked?

Me? A friend of mine that lives up the road introduced me to SD. Hell, to the entire CP genre. I read SnowCrash as my first experience. Loved it. Then about a week later he sends me the SD URL in an IM telling me to check it out. I ended up getting hooked and loving it. He, unfortunately, didn't have much time for online games in general, so he no longer plays.

How'd I get hooked?.. Well it was mostly because of the likes of Damus and John, when they were around. They were pretty much the only two people I started off RPing with. I can't really give any IC details out, but.. Well them were some good times. :P Anyway, I've stuck with it, and now here Ike is, outliving both of those fellas, and all of my OOC friends characters.

One more thing: Did I do it by being a bitch and trying to stay neutral all the time? Nooo.. I did it by A) using common sense. And B) knowing how a CP environment works.

So please, people.. Don't get frustrated and give up just because you lost a few characters (one reason my friend gave up). Just learn from your mistakes. I'm not telling you to go outside your character's IC personality. I'm not telling you to go out-of-character. But if your character doesn't survive? Maybe its time you thought of a new one that might fit in and be able to survive in the dome. Just an idea.

Anyway, that was rather off-topic so.. How about you guys? How's you find this place? And what'd you most like about it that got you hooked?

By Aikao at Jun 12, 2003, 7:54 PM | 0

I've been roleplaying for about 17 years, and have enjoyed many variety's of game, as I grew older the knights and wizzards and dragons just didn't do it for me any more and I really got into vampire: the masquerade not the live action but the standard book game. modren day, or even future set rpg's became much more real to life and interesting for me.

I came across sindome in a link. I was bored working in the mall and was playing some silly game called stickville detective or something like that. I saw links for other free games and came on in. ever since then I've been hooked.

what really hooked me though? NOT a majority of the charcters, thats for sure. I was intrigued by the dome in general. the textbased system not only reminds me of the ancient dos based cpu's, and bb's I grew up on (thats bulletin boards for everyone lucky enough to grow up with the REAL internet) it is alot like playing my book based games too, it inspires good rp (something I needed as after playing for a while I found my rp a little stagnent) and for the most part it's well made and maintained with many (but not all) helpful admins. (hey its free for god's sake).

and though I have no great success to speak of I'm going to stick with it if for no other reason than there's one or two of you out there are gonna get it!!!!!

thanks everyone because sindome is the only rpg
(including the expensive ones at your local best buy) that gets my precious time.

By Jotun at Jun 13, 2003, 8:38 AM | 0

Oh boy.

Well, almost two years back, I had just dug up my Cyberpunk 2020 books and was flipping through them, and desperately wanting to play - play as opposed to GM, which my friends at the time always thought I should do, which, I must say, irritated me - the only games they'd GM was Rifts (meh) and AD&D (which I refused to play).

So, I get on Yahoo and type 'cyberpunk game', and I find a couple of links - including one for CS and one for SD. These two were the ones that caught my eye, mind you. I thus clicked SD first, flipped through the boards, suspiciously eyed the Poll at the time ('Which gun is more badass?' was the question).

So, I think to myself, "Why not?" and logged in via the java client. I putzed around for a guest for all of three minutes before @requesting (I couldn't STAND being called Sam_Guest)…....

So I enter the game with the stuff in my e-mail, and go through chargen - I'd been listening to lot of Pogues back then thanks to my then-gf, so I make an irish dude named after a brand of stout. And so does my character exit chargen with a bunch of skills, and no dodge (I knew nothing at the system at the time) - thus Murphy is born in November of 2086. So I putz around and write a history - via the Java client mind you, which doesn't let you backspace, so I end up sending the most illiterate-looking piece of illegible garbage ever to grace a MU*, no doubt, which is promptly refused by Rastus. So I try again, and again, till I wise up and use a real client - Pueblo. At which point Stonemonk approves it. Whee!

In the mean time, my character's hooked up with another newbie, and we'd been going around doing nasty things to sleepers using materials. Are those bundles of photos still around? :biggrin:

What kept me here....well, my character met Des, Luc and Little Luc *snickers*, made a assload of money in his first month and a half or so, and joined the WJF (the LAST thing I intended to do with him, but, hey). Then a string of adventures and great fun followed, including one particularly amusing episode involving a ninja :ninja: and a polly parrot.

Good times.

By Murphy at Jun 13, 2003, 12:13 PM | 0

Johnny first connected on Mon Sep 29 15:40:44 1997 PDT
He is 5 years, 8 months and 10 days old.

Back then, I was a reporter on Cybersphere. I had friends who lived in the public housing building and heck, I might of lived there too, I forget. One night, I'm wrapped up in some storyline and it involves visiting my friend Samantha and her endless apartment full of newbies. She was one of the few on CS at the time that opened her arms to the new people in the city and let them crash at her place. I'm bothered by an apparent lack of caring by the staff of the time for what I feel is important for the game. I say so to Sam OOCly. She tells me that her RL husband and some of his friends are starting their own thing for similar reasons. Being a lightweight programmer, who's applied for a bit on CS before, I'm interested in using 'their MOO' to learn and help out and see where things go. She's unsure about me. They've recently had a falling out at the uppermost levels, and the place is a mess thanks to someone deleting some really important shit. I convince her that she can trust me, and she makes an account for me.

But what to call me she asks. I look down at my desk, see my copy of Burning Chrome sitting there, unread at all yet. I crack it open to the table of contents, and see 'Johnny Mnemonic' as the first story. I say 'Johnny', and rest is a story for some other time I think.

:mirrorshades:

By Johnny at Jun 13, 2003, 1:13 PM | 0

I had been playing Muddy Waters (mw.muddywaters.org 3000) for going on 6 years.

The first 2 years I had spent as a mortal. Then one day I impressed one of the elder admin, and still one of the best people I ever met there, by knowing that he had fingered me. I was made a Madwand (a wizard who came on to the admin staff before completing the wizquest (each domain is allowed one Madwand, 10 coders, and one Liege). I learned a bunch, but after 2 years got tired and took an unannounced 9 month break. When I returned I convinced another wizard to make me a Madwand, and I ended up writing some really ground breaking code in the form of frameworks which now are in heavy use throughout the game.

Unfortunately, MW was plauged with the problem of having admins who had been admining it for way to long and had lost interest. They only cared to preserve the balence, in the form of nerfing shit left and right as people found new ways to exploit the code.

Somewhere in this mess I decided that I was through, and had basically told everyone, "If you don't care, I'm not going to either." and threw in the towel.

Now, for the past year or so I had been working for XDrive Technologies as a Senior Technologist. I managed to survive the amazing layoff nastyness that you can all read about on FuckedCompany.com till the bitter end. When I had come on, it was as a leader of a new 'Research and Development' team, which was to be set apart from the rest of the Engineering group. This, of course, set a really bad taste in the mouths of the existing Engineering group, of which Johnny was a long-standing member.

And so for the better part of a year, Johnny ignored me. Or at least he did his very best to avoid me wherever possible. I don't remember the exact circumstances in which we ended up going to lunch one day, almost a year later when practically the entire company had been laid off, but I do remember the air was one of guardedness and, while not quite competition, was definately one of not wanting to give the other an advantage over the other.

Perhaps it was that we had a lot in common… perhaps it was that we were thrust together and forced to survive in a environment where other employees were dropping like flies. The end result was that we soon became friends. He brought up, as he had in the year past a few times, the game he adminstered, (after I had explained how I had recently left my position as a wizard), and invited me to make a charcater and give it a whirl.

So I did.

What hooked me was when a Reporter for the Globe and his girlfriend at the time helped me to get a SIC, and introduced me to another person, who gave me the money to get a clone, then drove me down to Red where he proceeded to sneak behind me into his arch-enemies room where I had been summonsed. The ensuing RP, and the responsiveness in which my requests for help were met by the staff showed me there was a place where the fun and code-completeness of Muddy Waters, the RP of the Shadorun Mush (dnaco), and the attention of a live Shadowrun game can meet together to form the perfect environment for the most exciting RP one could ever hope to find in this day and age.

-Kevlar

(Edited by Kevlar at 5:50 pm on June 13, 2003)

By Kevlar at Jun 13, 2003, 5:47 PM | 0

Wow, what a fantastic topic, and one to which most of us have a long, interesting story. It fascinates me how events in our lives seem to lead us to places we never thought we could end up, and make us who we are.

I got addicted to internet games from the time I was in 7th grade, one after the other. I liked the fact that it was live interaction, etc. First it was some stupid thing called Horseland. (I was 14, gimme a break)

One day I got sick of that. (it was devoid of purpose, and was full of bitchy, prissy little girls) I searched for a new drug by typing "free role playing games" and got to www.furcadia.com, a place populated with little colored animals that walk around on two feet. I played that for over a year, having several characters. In a largely twinkish, OOC world, one of my characters fell in with a group of people who were into more "serious" roleplay. After awhile, the more OOC areas of the game lost their point for me. Progressing still further and coming out with long, descriptive poses that were rivaled by few people, I realized that even the level of RP there wasn't enough for me! So I went to my senior year of high school after saying a sad farewell to my character's husband, played by a guy I'd made friends with in real life. We didn't talk for a few months, I had an involved social life, and a successful year at school.

Then a close friend died. My best friend and my boyfriend both decided they liked each other better than me and stabbed me in the back, and there was lots of high school drama that I'd always hated and tried to avoid. I confronted death and isolation head on for the first time, and I started to find darkness had a certain appeal that the sheltered life I'd always led did not have. About this time, my former Furc character's husband played Mael on SD. One day we started talking again, I asked what he was doing, and he said, playing this game… I knew nothing about Cyberpunk but he sent me the link. I logged on just to see what it was like, and was immediately fascinated with the descriptions in the world around me. I played as a guest for a few minutes and just knew that this game was hone. Tylissa was my first character, and I made her innocent and wide-eyed, with no place in the Dome.

I stayed because of characters like John, Lucien, Moss, and Desolate, who were so real to me that I KNEW how Tylissa would react to them. She took on a life of her own and I could not put this place down. I lived for it... I retreated into it and it changed me, and I changed it. This was finally a world where humanity was exposed at its rawest, and my poor little character didn't know it, though I thought myself oh so much wiser than she.

I wonder how many of us would say that Sindome has had a major role in shaping who we are? I know I would... and I'd never take back my time here, not for anything. You have all been invaluable for me as I've tried to make sense of a world that is infinitely nonsensical. I have never *truly* understood CP in the sense that most of you do, but I have used it to see so much irony and truth about people and the world we made. Thanks to you all, for loving, or at least tolerating this non-cyberpunk girl. You guys are the real deal and some of you (you know who you are) are the truest friends I've ever known in a very real sense.

By Tylissa at Jun 20, 2003, 12:41 AM | 0

Ok…here goes mine.

I was told about Sindome by a friend of mine, an associate really, who goes by the name of Jared. Many of you old players and admins know him as Lucifer. Some of you newer may know him as Wren. Well, anyways, he told my brother about it sometime in December of 2002, and my brother started playing it. I always just looked at it as a stupid game, just being all text and no graphics. One day, he told me to make a character of my own. So I sat down, and I did just that. I made my first attempt at a successful character, Resolute. Though short-lived, I learned alot of stuff half the newbs these days don't learn in weeks (no offense to any new players). What -really- got me hooked though, was just making a character, sculpting words from nothing to make this new thing, this being. Somehow, this just intrigued me to the point that no matter how much shit I have to put up with, which is the CP way, I just can't leave (even when I'm banned :P).

This is really the first role-playing I've ever done, let alone the first MOO I've ever played. Just looking at my brother play a game where you watched words scroll across the screen didn't look to appealing to me. Then I tried it out for myself, and I was pulled into the world that was Sindome. I made my character, changed the world, however little it was, died, made another character and so on, so on. Just the thought of sculpting a character and acting with him kept me coming back. The emotions that my character would feel, the turmoil that my characters would feel. It all seems so real to me. Anyways, it's 4:46 in the morning. I should probly stop babbling. Peace.

P.S. I gotta follow allandra here and give myself props cuz this is also probly the longest post I've ever made...that wasn't deleted anyways.

By Kain at Jun 20, 2003, 2:47 AM | 0

i lost a friend to SD obsession for a bit, one dreary winter day. he was ranting something about a cyberpunk game, dead judges, dropped guns, sewers and a tailor named Nic while pointing madly to his computer screen as i patiently waited for him to get his damned shoes on so we could leave.

i was far away from the computer, doing the 'lure the geek away with the promise of free food bit', and all i saw on the screen was text, so i decided his acid was kicking in and thought nothing of it.

anyhoo, after he kept poking and prodding me, i said that i�d check it out, he told me how to log on as a guest, so i did and wandered around a bit as guests like to do and was fascinated by what i saw. just text! and imagination! had no idea of what RP really meant or what a MOO was. but i was interested enough that my friend told me how to create a char and a history.

the char was a very random creation without �too- much thought (something that i will do differently when i get around to making a new char), but it needed a name, i hate naming things, if i ever get my mice they will be Mouse #1, Mouse #2 and Bob� but uh, right, a name, i was reading a book on media bias at the time� and thought, i �like- that word so why not. and then there was Bias!
took a bit of time to create a rather boring but coherent history, which got approved once i put in a birthday for the char that i -still- can�t remember unless i read the damn thing over. :P

most of my initial time was spent in a �what the hell is going on?� mind frame. bah, why lie, most of my time in the dome is �still- spent like that. but i met up with a few newbies and oldbies, had no damned clue as to what either of those where and i was busy trying to figure out how to emote and open doors.
the pack of oldbies that basically dragged Bias through the sewers to get her her sic implant and a clone is still something i remember!

i think, though, the thing that made me stay on was during a �very- early moment, when Bias was wounded (before my char had a clone or knew they existed) and i was struggling to try and remember where a) the clinic was b) the right commands and c) what to do once i figured a and b out. an admin popped in and helped out and told me Bias was lucky because she was a minute or two away from bleeding to death. it was cool because even then, i knew enough to know that the admin didn�t �have- to help me out like that.

and as frustrating as things get sometimes, it�s still sindome� still can have those fascinating moments….

oh, and that friend? got me addicted and quit playing a week after i started. rat bastard.

i�m working on him. :P

By Bias at Jun 22, 2003, 12:41 AM | 0

Bring that fucker back! Whoever he was.

By Aikao at Jun 22, 2003, 12:51 AM | 0

Hehe, funny, I'd forgotten all about that incident until I read Bias' post and it came back to me clear as day. She was within 10 seconds of the bleeding cycle that would have killed her running when she finally staggered into Fuller Med…

Course, I'm pretty sure it was my fault she was bleeding in the first place... well, ok, it was my hand stuck up the ass of the sniper who popped a cap in her ass anyhow. Heh.

(Edited by TAFKAR at 10:29 pm on June 21, 2003)

By TAFKAR at Jun 22, 2003, 6:24 AM | 0

Nice Ras…that's all I gots to say. Nice.

Ok...maybe not all. But we have sniper rifles in SD?

*goes to check the markets for a ZX-09 Tactical Sniper Rifle*

By Kain at Jun 22, 2003, 7:23 AM | 0

HA!

Only shot by Rastus? You're the lucky ones…

He tried to burn my character alive!

-BASTARD-! :burn:

By Murphy at Jun 22, 2003, 10:18 AM | 0

WHAT?!?

You can -burn- people too? I mean…other than with cigaraettes? How the hell? How come I never know about the good stuff?

*sighs and goes off to watch the Bladerunner Directors Cut Unicorn thingy DVD*

By Kain at Jun 22, 2003, 10:47 AM | 0

You can't.

Rastus can(could).

By Murphy at Jun 22, 2003, 10:58 AM | 0

Quote: from Murphy on 2:58 am on June 22, 2003[br]Rastus can(could).

Rastus can-cans. WOOHOO! FRILLY DRESS! WHEE!

(Edited by TAFKAR at 3:03 am on June 22, 2003)

By TAFKAR at Jun 22, 2003, 11:01 AM | 0

Aww…that's too bad.

*switches to the Ideas Forum*

You should be able to burn people...

(idea flips on in his head)

Flamethrower...oh yeah. Or you know...just like matches. Or you should be able to burn people with an emergency flare or somethin. Maybe a lighter...but that would be a less serious burn..depending on the quality of the lighter, like a Bic would burn less than a Zippo, cuz a Zippo is better.

There could be a whole system of burns, flamethrowers probly being the worst, or bombs. Of course...none of this will ever be coded cuz its just a spontaneous idea of mine...and it's probly worthless.

*shrugs and walks over mumbling something about Bias and her Zippo*

By Kain at Jun 22, 2003, 11:30 AM | 0

heh.

*looks around*

damned snipers…

*coughs*

well, cool! i wasn't sure of who the admin was because my long term and short term memory banks are in short supply and leaking heavily.

but we players -do- remember the nice things admins in NPC suits (or frilly dresses *eyes*) do ;)
it gives us warm and fuzzy feelings (not to be confused with warm and fluffy bunny feelings) and makes us want to be helpfull in return.

... maybe that's the booze.

*eyes kain* don'choo be touchin' no zippo.

and if you -really- want to burn someone, just hand them a shocker cred chip... or poke them in the eye with a cigarette. or uh, stand close to a discharging enforcer.

damn sunburns!

(Edited by Bias at 3:28 pm on June 22, 2003)

By Bias at Jun 22, 2003, 3:26 PM | 0

You don't like my burn idea?

Figures…I knew it was too spontaneous to be good...

*goes off to ponder about other ideas that won't be accepted*

By Kain at Jun 22, 2003, 3:29 PM | 0

Rastus in a dress.

We must repeat.

By Murphy at Jun 22, 2003, 4:00 PM | 0

Quote: from Murphy on 8:00 am on June 22, 2003[br]Rastus in a dress.

We must repeat.

You're just jealous coz I can pull it off… err... the look that is, not the dress... hrm...

By TAFKAR at Jun 23, 2003, 10:01 AM | 0

Umm… yeah.

Jealous. I'm sure that's what he is.

Too bad you won't be comming to MOOBash or you could demonstrate.

-Kevlar

By Kevlar at Jun 23, 2003, 10:38 AM | 0

Speaking of MOObash.
If there's a post elseboard about it just gimmie a shove in the right direction, but when exactically is it?

By allandra at Jun 23, 2003, 3:08 PM | 0

It's gonna start July 25th. Details are coming to your inbox shortly!

By Athena at Jun 24, 2003, 10:05 PM | 0

Allow me to return the topic back to the…well, topic.

I can't remeber what I was looking for three years ago or so. I think I'd seen some TADS game online or something, and was interested in interactive text based environments that had more dynamic natures than a TADS or Inform game. So I did a search on 'text based role playing online games' and I got a pile of shit that I couldn't access at the time. So I tossed on the word 'MAC' and it shortened the list a hellah lot. I ended up on this links page of some guy, and clicked on both CS and SD at the same time.

SD had faster registration.

And I've been here since then. Though lately, I've been occupied with things like education and haven't been about as much as I used to be. Though I have decided to permanently pencil some MOO time in during the week.

But yeah, Random chance and fate more than anything.

-Iga the TWONK!

By Iga at Jun 25, 2003, 12:17 PM | 0

I was playing this game called Furcadia! http://www.furcadia.com And the roleplaying was something called free form, which I don't really want to explain. But it was basically just posing without code, using the little graphics to make your atmosphere. This was great for creativity but bad for twinks, because the only rules were ones most people assumed. Combat was basically an ego game.

So I looked for a roleplaying game in google and went through some MUDs, got bored, and then logged onto Sindome. My first character got the fuck beat out of him by a Judge for trying to steal something (without thievery skill of course ;)

Then Kevlar hated me so I had to stop playing for a bit.
:(

By Mael at Jun 25, 2003, 1:59 PM | 0

Mael, if your going to tell the story, why don't you tell the -whole story-?

-Kevlar

By Kevlar at Jun 25, 2003, 2:02 PM | 0

-	PsycoticCone	3m
-	MrRedgrave	12s
-	Vanashis	7m
-	Hivemind	3m
-	Sivartas	27m
-	Mindhunter	56s
-	JMo	11m	All death is certain.
-	Fay	4m
-	BlackSoul	13s
-	Raven	1h	I lost myself, in the dark charade.
-	Rillem	7m	Make it personal.
-	zxq	2m	Tools: https://ansicolortool.neocities.org
-	SmokePotion	43s	Right or wrong, I'm getting high.
-	Yizhi	1m
-	hex	7m
-	xXShadowSlayerXx	9m
And 27 more hiding and/or disguised

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