Hmm, I see @mlnevese and @bengoshi are promoting a lot of people here. I seriously thought about doing that, but I was worried people would just make comments to get promotes... I was liking all the stories, but I may have to switch them to promotes now...
*Anduin removes his death mask to reveal his true face. His true face appears to be mostly covered in bandages...*
@Tresset knows I may not be able to come up with the goods straight away... Because I'll be busy... But give me enough time and I'll conquer the world (Curse you Alexander and your youthful over-confidence and over-achieving ambition where is your mighty empire now eh! EH! Mwhahahaha! *cough*)
@Tresset have I ever told you, you are my favourite lobster? Mwhahhahahah! *cough-hack-hack-gollum gollum* Oh... That one never gets old...
So, why did I join the forum and what did you do when you first joined?
Well, I was posting on Spellhold studios and I realised I was the only one there. Seriously. Where had everyone gone? Went to Gibberlings 3. Nope. Baldur's Gate had finally died... Did a quick search for a mod I was looking for and BOOOM! This forum popped up. I signed up nearly straight away... Then went to bed as it was just too much for my brain to take. Then woke up and posted this... Starting a new discussion. I'm sort a proud of it, even now....
I even laughed differently... Bwhahahaha! What's that all about?
I joined because I wanted to make sure that they re-made this game as brilliant as they possibly could. @O_Bruce and @Coriander (The faceless goddess on the Beamdog team who has special shrine created for her next to my disembodied heart. Rumours that she allegedly looks the most like Boo out of the Beamdog staff are surely false and heinous hurtful lies!) was giving me helpful direction even way back then...
My second discussion was My wish list. I wanted more containers. Little did I know at the time that these ideas were being implemented. I suppose I will never know if any of my ideas trickled up to the top, but I think some influence, from the forum as a whole, was there...
All of a sudden I was creating imaginary material. Not sure how that thread stacked 50.4K views and My favourite pub on the sword coast is poll only got 2.2K... But there you go. @Moomintroll was giving likes for no apparent reason... Not seen him for a while, but he was my first forum friend along with @Bjjorick who seemed to enjoy the madness. @elminster was also commenting and enjoying himself immensely on my polls. He stuck a little more into character back then I felt. I was also mixing it up with @BelgarathMTH , @Quartz , (who for some reason I thought was a disgruntled old man, and I almost started a poll along the lines of "Who thinks we should rename Dorn, Quartz?") and @Brude. I was aware of @Shandyr at the time (@Kamuizin was most insightful and I was sort of more friendly with him back then, along with the likes of @sandmanCCL , @Miloch , @Oxford_Guy and @bigdogchris but we did not mix. I abandoned certain threads as what another poster wrote as "the gay wars" or as I would put it "putrid bullying bile of the worst kind", did exist.
The lovely forum we have now was hard fought. @Aosaw was everywhere. What a great guy. Shame he left. This @Dee fellow is not a patch on that other guy. (Mwhahahaha! Bwhahaha? Really... Come on...) Although, I will be honest, I thought a guy called @Tanthalas was the head chief forum moderating honcho back then before the setbacks... And the delays... AND THE RELEASE!
What, if any, were the turning points of your forum story?
I have many turning points. This was the biggie for super stardom. Some forumites wanted a counting clock towards the release of BG:EE. This did not appear, so I started the 25-days-till-bgee-what-will-you-do-on-the-day-of-release-apart-from-stare-at-a-download-bar discussion. I updated it half daily, then hourly approaching the final days. All of a sudden I was getting mail from people saying how excited they were. It boosted my overall notoriety I feel. And I realised people wanted more of my creativity. Let me explain. I felt being creative here was not wasteful. Sooo... I got creative.
But at the same time disaster. Whilst the whole forum changed from one of wondering what BGEE would be like and what they would like it to be, to one about the games itself and its challenges and quests. BGEE just did not work. The intel chipset I owned was not supported, or should I say, The intel chipset I owned, should have been able to play the game... But it could not.
Plus @Shandyr had started to recognise my existence... And so had others. Namely my crew...
But first, you need to understand that I always played a Rogue Gnome. How did I become a Gnome Mummy? Why? What caused such a momentous change? You want to know about my TRUE origins. THE TURNING POINTS OF TURNING POINTS? Well here it is... This post here...
By now... My Gnome Mummiehood was confirmed, written in stone and there was no going back...
What is your favourite thing about being a member of the forum?
My favourite thing? I get to be me.
We all act. I act at playing a good teacher, though I am far from perfect. I strive to make a difference for the better, although I fear at times it is still not enough. But you have to believe in it, in yourself. It is easier to believe I am mummified Gnome. I can fail no one. I am eternal, I have forever to correct my mistakes. And the war between the vegetables will rage on without you... Believe what you like.
The caged mind is a dull, grey lifeless place. But wonder, curiosity and creativity will nurture the most expansive, filled, detailed, complex universes, vaster and greater than all the times or spaces in existence.
@Anduin despite being an evil mummy-gnome this guy is hilarious. Probably the cleverest poster here and I give him immense credit for managing to keep playing one character on the forum while still keeping it fresh and amusing
He called me fresh! Do you know what that word means to 3000 year old dessicated corpse? I love you too @booinyoureyes !
What other members were important to your forum story?
Are you kidding me? I have written a reply at least once to everyone. Anyone mention @Ajwz or @Cerevant ? How about @mlnevese . @bengoshi ? The new guys, @CrevsDaak (my apprentice still) @CaloNord , @wubble@kcwise@Nimran ? How about the artists @lolien and @Isandir ? I'm going to stop now. These people know I'm a Gnome. We fought Gnomophobia together... And we won. Now if we could just stop the resentment against the walking dead...
Unusually, I have nemesies (did I just invent a word) I mean @Shandyr ... We have history... All though @Deltago appears to be rising up the chain of would be assassins... Alythough the true source of all evil on this forum stems from @atcDave (have you read some of his posts?)
Davemeggdon will happen, and when all the Daves on the planet merge into the Allthedaves in the time they will call the end of Daves... @atcdave will be at the centre of the storm... Just saying...
What was your best experience on the forums?
Having @Tresset put my name forward to become a beta tester. I so enjoyed the experience. I hope I helped. But I did spam every problem I found. It was a learning curve. (Getting my name on the credits was awesome though!)
What do you think now, looking back on your forum history?
It was a mess. An enjoyable mess. I regret nothing.
@wubble is new to me, but apparently was here before my time as well. Regardless, I am very pleased that he has returned, since he is utterly ridiculous in the best way possible. I look forward to acquainting myself with him more.
@booinyoureyes Actually I only started posting last October, haven't left since.
@wubble is new to me, but apparently was here before my time as well. Regardless, I am very pleased that he has returned, since he is utterly ridiculous in the best way possible. I look forward to acquainting myself with him more.
@booinyoureyes Actually I only started posting last October, haven't left since.
You're kidding right? ... more fodder for the conspiracy thread
@Anduin "Unusually, I have nemesies (did I just invent a word) I mean @Shandyr ... We have history" Apparently. I could have sworn nemesies was correct but I just googled it and apparently it's nemeses. I'm a little disaapointed. Nemesies was one of my favorite words.
For myself, I started here shortly after I first saw the announcement for BGEE over at Game Banshee. This is the first gaming forum I've ever been very active in and it's been a ton of fun. Two really great things
--- it's enhanced my enjoyment of the game. Talking through so many things about the game only makes me more eager to play around with it more.
---I've really enjoyed a lot of the discussions and relationships that have developed here. I'll take the easy way out and not make any long lists; but I've enjoyed helping newbs learn the game, I've enjoyed finding other "old timers" to reminisce and discuss with, and I've enjoyed the whole range of discussions and debates in between.
I look forward to more discussions (and more from Beamdog) in the years to come!
Although I'm not quite sure why I'm the source of all evil...
I came to this forum because Baldur's Gate is my childhood. Finding a community of people who share my love for it is amazing. A better question though, is why have I stayed?
It pretty much boils down to two things. (1) Posters like @lolien and @bengoshi who are helpful, polite and inviting to newcomers. And (2) @blackraven whose playthrough really sparked my imagination. It was his playthroughs which made me learn how to take screenshots on my iphone, start my first solo no-reload run, and start to write it up.
This is a wonderful community full of great people, bound together by one of the best games ever made. I'm glad to have found it.
Why did you join the forum? What did you do when you first joined?
I think I mentioned this before in another thread but the reason I initially joined was because I had pre-ordered the game and part of that was receiving a "forum badge." Now, I of course knew what a forum was, but I was initially hopeful that I would score a cool looking bit of plastic I could pin to my shirt and wear around in public, taunting those lessers without such awesome accessories. Sadly, my first act as a forum member was to discover the badge was of a more digital nature. Alas!
What, if any, were the turning points of your forum story?
For quite a while I mostly lurked, with only an occasional post. Then I began commenting on @Lemernis "Let the Fates Decide" storied playthrough. That lead to hanging around more and posting more. At first I tried to be a bit more helpful and informative, but there are quite a few very knowledgeable people around these parts so there's usually not much need for my input. As time has marched on I've mostly offered odd comments and attempts at humor. Thankfully, people here are very forgiving. Well, I haven't been banned yet, so that's a good sign, right?
What is your favorite thing about being a member of the forum?
Feeling safe to comment without fear of being flamed, trolled, and otherwise warred upon. This is a very tolerant forum, with lots of friendly people. For the most part people leave each other alone to enjoy their own style of posting. I really appreciate that as I've never been one of those introverts who felt free when going online. I get as nervous commenting here as I do in real life. Which, I'm told, is a little bit odd. I have no idea how many posts I've written on various topics only to delete them entirely because I either felt they were too negative, or that they would inspire too much flaming, or just because I didn't feel comfortable with them for some other reason. Oddly, it's sometimes quite cathartic to write up a lengthy post and then delete it. Oh well, too much information there, but my favorite parts of the forums are all the nifty people here.
What other members were important to your forum story?
There are too many to list and I'd probably forget someone, so just assume I think you're nifty if you're reading this! Honestly, most everyone who posts here has been important to my story, otherwise I wouldn't spend so much time reading what you all write.
What was your best experience on the forums?
Having people respond to something I posted. When you're new you don't always get a response right away. It's a great feeling the first time someone acknowledges something you've said. Also, I've quite enjoyed reading all the fine creative fiction and impressive strategy of the stories and playthroughs. Oh, and getting one of @lolien 's forum badges was great fun, as was recently joining Ferret Force Five. So, yeah, more than one good experience.
What do you think now, looking back on your forum history?
That this is some of the most fun I've had online in a while! Years ago I was a part of a long cooperative story thread on another forum. It was a crazy mix of adventure, sci-fi, conspiracy theory, and just general zaniness. I made some friends and wrote more than enough to fill several novels. When that ended as people moved on to other things I didn't have the same online outlet. I don't participate as much here as I did back then, but I do greatly enjoy these forums.
So, there you have it. And this time I won't just delete the whole thing.
@Anduin You rang? I mean thank you for the tag. I don't read everything nowadays and I think I would've missed this awesome thread.
Why did you join the forum?
In May of 2012 I had been working at Beamdog for 5 months. I think there were five other people working on BGEE at that time. More came on around that time or soon after. I joined the forum because it was new and shiny and I really like forums. I really like forums because I joined a forum when I was a teenager and had a really positive experience in that community.
What did you do when you first joined?
Drowned under a flood of new members and bug reports. Quite a few of the early members were recruited from the subreddit to give us feedback and they gave a lot of feedback. We had set up a system to extract bmps/pngs from the BAMs in the game so I picked out a bunch that might relate to the forum badges, like Hold Person for the Name Dropper badge. I set my profile pic to represent my inner and outer self.
[offtopic] I should probably do something about those cakes. Oh, I've got it. Tears of Bhaal because there's no way people are going to stick around long enough to get more than 5, right? Right?![/offtopic]
The earliest things were trying to set up different categories for discussion and trying to find people to help us keep it organized, civil, and inclusive.
What, if any, were the turning points of your forum story?
We started using Hipchat in the office for communication when the team was too big and too spread out to just shout at for information. In addition to that, I'm not working on anything that the public is able to give feedback on so I've had less reason to spend time here.
What is your favorite thing about being a member of the forum?
All the awesome people It's great to see people that have a lot of experience with the game or modding the game share their experience with new people and each other. It's great to see anyone create something new because the game or the community inspired them to. It's great to see how diverse the audience for these games is. People have come here and made friends and stuck around. The mods aren't particularly power mad.
What other members were important to your forum story?
I don't feel that I can mention anyone specific in my answers because I've been here forever and I can't just post the entire list of forum users.
What was your best experience on the forums?
Nothing specific stands out. I get particularly happy when people get excited and overload our servers. Or ask questions about Krancor's note. Or the Hyper Chicken.
What do you think now, looking back on your forum history?
I feel proud of the place we built. I think I avoided too many catastrophic mistakes. I hope no tells me about any mistakes I made that were secretly fixed while I was not looking. Now I feel slightly worried. And hungry. I'm going to eat lunch and then get back to work.
Nothing specific stands out. I get particularly happy when people get excited and overload our servers. Or ask questions about Krancor's note. Or the Hyper Chicken.
First rule of Hyper Chicken Club: Do not talk about Hyper Chicken!
(I have been waiting for an opportunity to use that one for a while now.)
Cool! Just yesterday I was hoping to get a dev over here! That is awesome! I am really curious about @SethDavis's story since I am his #1 fan!
Mostly because I work here at Beamdog... wait that's not it... Idea Spark Labs? Nope... was it still Hermitworks? Ah, Overhaul, that's the one. We were just evolving out of our early organization of Cam saying "This feels weird. Seth, mess with it." quickly followed by Scott thinking "Oh god, not again." and moving into an actual list of threads dedicated to discussion on what was wrong and how it should be fixed. I believe I was notified about the forum in conversation that went a bit like: "Mornin Seth, have you looked over the issues on the forum?" "We have a forum?" "Noone told you about the forum?" "Nope, what's the address?" "I dunno... google it." And the rest is history. Though now that I think about it, the part that isn't the rest is also history... what an odd saying.
What did you do when you first joined?
I bookmarked the issues section and got to work mostly. Took me a while to figure out that not everyone in there had decision making authority, but I guess that wasn't such a bad sign as a fair few of those people actually do have that kind of power now. Then again, some of these people stopped me from doing fun things, like removing player traps on rest to prevent hundred trap ambushes.... I don't care if that's the only way you could solo an optional boss on the highest difficulty, it's silly! *Shakes a fist at the unruly mob*
What, if any, were the turning points of your forum story?
It took a while, but I guess the point where I discovered that there were actual non bug related discussions would count as a turning point. I pretty much stuck to the bgee section as that's where a lot of the suggestions and bugs got posted, though the side discussions were fun as well. Probably for the best I didn't find off topic, I never would have got anything done.
Then we... it wasn't really an evolution, more side shifted into redmine, where bug details were more stark/explicit, but there was less discussion. This led to a lull in my trips to the forum since I didn't really need to stop by on a daily basis.
I found the meme thread O_O
The meme thread died D':
Found a new meme thread
Found off topic, and the rest is... current events? I'm in your threads, lurking you posts, waiting for the perfect time to deliver a horrible pun.
What is your favorite thing about being a member of the forum?
This nifty blue gradient that everyone is super jealous of. I think most everything else I get out of the forum is available to people who aren't members.
What is the thing that most confuses you about being a member of the forum?
Things like "I am really curious about SethDavis's story since I am his #1 fan!" mostly. :P Super not used to experiencing name recognition, especially when I'm the greenest guy on the payroll. Guess the occasional pun pays off.
What is your most hated thing about being a member of the forum?
THE RED TEXT OF GOD! I'm pretty antisocial and have all the needed skillz to ignore drama and foolishness, until this abomination shoves it in my face. The whole PG13 system is super subjective, even in it's native format, so I'm always being caught off guard by interventions.
What other members were important to your forum story?
*Dodges the "Aww, he didn't list me" bullet by saying* Oh ya know, the usual list of subjects. Anyone who added to the discussions in the bug threads, sent me a wall of text about a revolutionary feature, asked me what dumbass was responsible for ruining their favourite childhood mechanic before the ink I used to sign the change had dried, those guys/gals.
What was your best experience on the forums?
One day CMorgan got me talking about games and I mentioned how I was too cheap to order a copy of Baten Kaitos: Origins, and was waiting for it to go on sale and the sneaky guy mailed me a copy. O_O Super cool of him, but also one of those "Huh, guess I should be careful of the power contained within the nifty blue gradient" moments.
Side note: you guys should all go out and play the Baten Kaitos games. Right now. The first one has the best twist in gaming history, one of the best endings I've ever played, one of the weirdest epilogues to ever be written down and the absolute wonkiest second ending possible. It's like the writers had a meeting to discuss the ending, got it down solid then got drunk and started throwing out crazy ideas only to come in the next day to find that the greenhorn programmer hadn't got that they were joking and had put it all in the game.
What do you think now, looking back on your forum history?
Maybe I shoulda been a bit more active. This place gets a pretty big surge out of every now release, but there can only be so many games before we either need to rename the board or splinter off. Ah well, I'll keep lurking I s'pose.
What is the thing that most confuses you about being a member of the forum?
Things like "I am really curious about SethDavis's story since I am his #1 fan!" mostly. :P Super not used to experiencing name recognition, especially when I'm the greenest guy on the payroll. Guess the occasional pun pays off.
Heh. You may be a bit green (only in comparison to other devs though), and you may goof up your fixes from time to time, but you have to be one of the hardest working devs on the payroll as well. I remember when I started out as a beta tester and had my first few looks at redmine. Your name, along with your catch phrase: "Should be good.", was absolutely everywhere. Sure it wasn't always good, but it usually was. I remember that at a certain point you were practically the only one who was fixing bugs, and you were fixing them en masse. Then there was the fact that you always had that great sense of humor on the forums, and even on redmine occasionally. Because of all this I like to call myself your number 1 fan!
What is your favorite thing about being a member of the forum?
This nifty blue gradient that everyone is super jealous of. I think most everything else I get out of the forum is available to people who aren't members.
You have no idea how jealous I am of that (especially in the case of @Troodon80 and @Gate70 since we were a great team before they were chosen and I was left behind). I am really hoping that one day there will be a vacancy somewhere in the QA field and I will be chosen to fill it. I really think that you guys have no idea on what you are missing out on by not having me on the team, if I may say so myself. Enough about me though.
*Tresset re-reads @Coriander's post...* Oh, oh, OH!!! I, uh, TOTALLY read that wrong!
You joined A forum when you were a teenager! You didn't join THIS forum when you were a teenager! Lemme just take this foot out of my mouth here and jump out of this hole I dug...
Glad I wasn't the one who had to clear that up and say she was super old. *jumps in the recently vacated hole and covers his head*
wait... wait...
you mean to tell me... that not only was @wubble 's existence prior to last October all a hoax but that this entire time @Coriander has been a woman?????????
I should probably do something about those cakes. Oh, I've got it. Tears of Bhaal because there's no way people are going to stick around long enough to get more than 5, right? Right?!
Well, what if someone manages to get more?
@Vulpesius seems to have gone through the Hell trials several times already
His 10th anniversary and the ancient membership... It seems we should expect VulpesiusBhaalspawns soon
Whoa Whoa, I'm late to the party it seems! I joined a loooooooooooooooong time ago when I first heard of BGEE. I wasn't able to comment much as free time was severely limited, but when i became more active on this forum i found friends such as @metalloman@calonord@booinyoureyes@bengoshi@kaguana@nonnahswriter@crevsdaak@quartz@lolien@elrandir and so many others! you guys are the best! Let your days forever be METAL! \w/ -.- \w/ (metal stance activated)
Comments
* Serious Face *
I really couldn't tag everyone I consider an awesome friend, there simply isn't a post big enough to do it.
-Edit-
Even as I sit here now there a dozens of names rolling through my head that I'm like 'I HAVE TO ADD THEM!'
We need another Forumite Appreciation Thread. . . :P
Time to remove my death mask.
*Anduin removes his death mask to reveal his true face. His true face appears to be mostly covered in bandages...*
@Tresset knows I may not be able to come up with the goods straight away... Because I'll be busy... But give me enough time and I'll conquer the world (Curse you Alexander and your youthful over-confidence and over-achieving ambition where is your mighty empire now eh! EH! Mwhahahaha! *cough*)
@Tresset have I ever told you, you are my favourite lobster? Mwhahhahahah! *cough-hack-hack-gollum gollum* Oh... That one never gets old...
So, why did I join the forum and what did you do when you first joined?
Well, I was posting on Spellhold studios and I realised I was the only one there. Seriously. Where had everyone gone? Went to Gibberlings 3. Nope. Baldur's Gate had finally died... Did a quick search for a mod I was looking for and BOOOM! This forum popped up. I signed up nearly straight away... Then went to bed as it was just too much for my brain to take. Then woke up and posted this... Starting a new discussion. I'm sort a proud of it, even now....
http://forum.baldursgate.com/discussion/3888/horses-camels-and-dragons-what-you-should-ride-into-battle-or-an-excuse-quest-why-they-cant
I even laughed differently... Bwhahahaha! What's that all about?
I joined because I wanted to make sure that they re-made this game as brilliant as they possibly could. @O_Bruce and @Coriander (The faceless goddess on the Beamdog team who has special shrine created for her next to my disembodied heart. Rumours that she allegedly looks the most like Boo out of the Beamdog staff are surely false and heinous hurtful lies!) was giving me helpful direction even way back then...
My second discussion was My wish list. I wanted more containers. Little did I know at the time that these ideas were being implemented. I suppose I will never know if any of my ideas trickled up to the top, but I think some influence, from the forum as a whole, was there...
Then I wrote http://forum.baldursgate.com/discussion/4060/lets-talk-weapons-as-this-is-an-enhanced-edition-we-need-enhanced-weapons
All of a sudden I was creating imaginary material. Not sure how that thread stacked 50.4K views and My favourite pub on the sword coast is poll only got 2.2K... But there you go. @Moomintroll was giving likes for no apparent reason... Not seen him for a while, but he was my first forum friend along with @Bjjorick who seemed to enjoy the madness. @elminster was also commenting and enjoying himself immensely on my polls. He stuck a little more into character back then I felt. I was also mixing it up with @BelgarathMTH , @Quartz , (who for some reason I thought was a disgruntled old man, and I almost started a poll along the lines of "Who thinks we should rename Dorn, Quartz?") and @Brude. I was aware of @Shandyr at the time (@Kamuizin was most insightful and I was sort of more friendly with him back then, along with the likes of @sandmanCCL , @Miloch , @Oxford_Guy and @bigdogchris but we did not mix. I abandoned certain threads as what another poster wrote as "the gay wars" or as I would put it "putrid bullying bile of the worst kind", did exist.
The lovely forum we have now was hard fought. @Aosaw was everywhere. What a great guy. Shame he left. This @Dee fellow is not a patch on that other guy. (Mwhahahaha! Bwhahaha? Really... Come on...) Although, I will be honest, I thought a guy called @Tanthalas was the head chief forum moderating honcho back then before the setbacks... And the delays... AND THE RELEASE!
What, if any, were the turning points of your forum story?
I have many turning points. This was the biggie for super stardom. Some forumites wanted a counting clock towards the release of BG:EE. This did not appear, so I started the 25-days-till-bgee-what-will-you-do-on-the-day-of-release-apart-from-stare-at-a-download-bar discussion. I updated it half daily, then hourly approaching the final days. All of a sudden I was getting mail from people saying how excited they were. It boosted my overall notoriety I feel. And I realised people wanted more of my creativity. Let me explain. I felt being creative here was not wasteful. Sooo... I got creative.
But at the same time disaster. Whilst the whole forum changed from one of wondering what BGEE would be like and what they would like it to be, to one about the games itself and its challenges and quests. BGEE just did not work. The intel chipset I owned was not supported, or should I say, The intel chipset I owned, should have been able to play the game... But it could not.
I jumped, literally, through windows to get the game running. If Windows 7 wasn't gonna let me do, what I wanted it to do, then Windows 7 was out and Linux was in. My proudest moment as a forumite was this discussion http://forum.baldursgate.com/discussion/12905/a-workable-solution-to-intel-graphic-chipset-problems I like to think I helped thousands get their BGEE games running
Plus @Shandyr had started to recognise my existence... And so had others. Namely my crew...
But first, you need to understand that I always played a Rogue Gnome. How did I become a Gnome Mummy? Why? What caused such a momentous change? You want to know about my TRUE origins. THE TURNING POINTS OF TURNING POINTS? Well here it is... This post here...
http://forum.baldursgate.com/discussion/comment/304117/#Comment_304117
And @KidCarnival just encouraged me to further and further insanities...
(I would also recommend you read my story plan of my version of the BG novel, maybe I should get round to fleshing it out more...)
And so high adventure waited as part of the Black Pits FAQ
I'm the tall one with the dark eyes if yer wonderin'
@Eudaemonium , @KidCarnival , @Samus a.k.a @Bhaaldog , @Southpaw , @FinneousPJ had a blast role-playing along and playing the Blackpits. We also did a BGEE playthrough with @Kamigoroshi playing a slime... This is what @booinyoureyes , another firm friend, thought of the thread http://forum.baldursgate.com/discussion/comment/414222/#Comment_414222
By now... My Gnome Mummiehood was confirmed, written in stone and there was no going back...
What is your favourite thing about being a member of the forum?
My favourite thing? I get to be me.
We all act. I act at playing a good teacher, though I am far from perfect. I strive to make a difference for the better, although I fear at times it is still not enough. But you have to believe in it, in yourself. It is easier to believe I am mummified Gnome. I can fail no one. I am eternal, I have forever to correct my mistakes. And the war between the vegetables will rage on without you... Believe what you like.
The caged mind is a dull, grey lifeless place. But wonder, curiosity and creativity will nurture the most expansive, filled, detailed, complex universes, vaster and greater than all the times or spaces in existence.
I am a Mummified Gnome. Believe it.
@booinyoureyes knows this... He called me fresh! Do you know what that word means to 3000 year old dessicated corpse? I love you too @booinyoureyes !
What other members were important to your forum story?
Are you kidding me? I have written a reply at least once to everyone. Anyone mention @Ajwz or @Cerevant ? How about @mlnevese . @bengoshi ? The new guys, @CrevsDaak (my apprentice still) @CaloNord , @wubble @kcwise @Nimran ? How about the artists @lolien and @Isandir ? I'm going to stop now. These people know I'm a Gnome. We fought Gnomophobia together... And we won. Now if we could just stop the resentment against the walking dead...
If I missed you I am truly sorry. @Ladyrhian @ravenslight , @meagloth ... just too many people...
Unusually, I have nemesies (did I just invent a word) I mean @Shandyr ... We have history... All though @Deltago appears to be rising up the chain of would be assassins... Alythough the true source of all evil on this forum stems from @atcDave (have you read some of his posts?)
Davemeggdon will happen, and when all the Daves on the planet merge into the Allthedaves in the time they will call the end of Daves... @atcdave will be at the centre of the storm... Just saying...
What was your best experience on the forums?
Having @Tresset put my name forward to become a beta tester. I so enjoyed the experience. I hope I helped. But I did spam every problem I found. It was a learning curve. (Getting my name on the credits was awesome though!)
What do you think now, looking back on your forum history?
It was a mess. An enjoyable mess. I regret nothing.
Anduin, king of ellipses signing off
...
Apparently. I could have sworn nemesies was correct but I just googled it and apparently it's nemeses. I'm a little disaapointed. Nemesies was one of my favorite words.
For myself, I started here shortly after I first saw the announcement for BGEE over at Game Banshee. This is the first gaming forum I've ever been very active in and it's been a ton of fun. Two really great things
--- it's enhanced my enjoyment of the game. Talking through so many things about the game only makes me more eager to play around with it more.
---I've really enjoyed a lot of the discussions and relationships that have developed here. I'll take the easy way out and not make any long lists; but I've enjoyed helping newbs learn the game, I've enjoyed finding other "old timers" to reminisce and discuss with, and I've enjoyed the whole range of discussions and debates in between.
I look forward to more discussions (and more from Beamdog) in the years to come!
Although I'm not quite sure why I'm the source of all evil...
I came to this forum because Baldur's Gate is my childhood. Finding a community of people who share my love for it is amazing. A better question though, is why have I stayed?
It pretty much boils down to two things. (1) Posters like @lolien and @bengoshi who are helpful, polite and inviting to newcomers. And (2) @blackraven whose playthrough really sparked my imagination. It was his playthroughs which made me learn how to take screenshots on my iphone, start my first solo no-reload run, and start to write it up.
This is a wonderful community full of great people, bound together by one of the best games ever made. I'm glad to have found it.
Yes. The perfect hiding place for the source of all evil... The guy is a master.
I think I mentioned this before in another thread but the reason I initially joined was because I had pre-ordered the game and part of that was receiving a "forum badge." Now, I of course knew what a forum was, but I was initially hopeful that I would score a cool looking bit of plastic I could pin to my shirt and wear around in public, taunting those lessers without such awesome accessories. Sadly, my first act as a forum member was to discover the badge was of a more digital nature. Alas!
What, if any, were the turning points of your forum story?
For quite a while I mostly lurked, with only an occasional post. Then I began commenting on @Lemernis "Let the Fates Decide" storied playthrough. That lead to hanging around more and posting more. At first I tried to be a bit more helpful and informative, but there are quite a few very knowledgeable people around these parts so there's usually not much need for my input. As time has marched on I've mostly offered odd comments and attempts at humor. Thankfully, people here are very forgiving. Well, I haven't been banned yet, so that's a good sign, right?
What is your favorite thing about being a member of the forum?
Feeling safe to comment without fear of being flamed, trolled, and otherwise warred upon. This is a very tolerant forum, with lots of friendly people. For the most part people leave each other alone to enjoy their own style of posting. I really appreciate that as I've never been one of those introverts who felt free when going online. I get as nervous commenting here as I do in real life. Which, I'm told, is a little bit odd. I have no idea how many posts I've written on various topics only to delete them entirely because I either felt they were too negative, or that they would inspire too much flaming, or just because I didn't feel comfortable with them for some other reason. Oddly, it's sometimes quite cathartic to write up a lengthy post and then delete it. Oh well, too much information there, but my favorite parts of the forums are all the nifty people here.
What other members were important to your forum story?
There are too many to list and I'd probably forget someone, so just assume I think you're nifty if you're reading this! Honestly, most everyone who posts here has been important to my story, otherwise I wouldn't spend so much time reading what you all write.
What was your best experience on the forums?
Having people respond to something I posted. When you're new you don't always get a response right away. It's a great feeling the first time someone acknowledges something you've said. Also, I've quite enjoyed reading all the fine creative fiction and impressive strategy of the stories and playthroughs. Oh, and getting one of @lolien 's forum badges was great fun, as was recently joining Ferret Force Five. So, yeah, more than one good experience.
What do you think now, looking back on your forum history?
That this is some of the most fun I've had online in a while! Years ago I was a part of a long cooperative story thread on another forum. It was a crazy mix of adventure, sci-fi, conspiracy theory, and just general zaniness. I made some friends and wrote more than enough to fill several novels. When that ended as people moved on to other things I didn't have the same online outlet. I don't participate as much here as I did back then, but I do greatly enjoy these forums.
So, there you have it. And this time I won't just delete the whole thing.
Why did you join the forum?
In May of 2012 I had been working at Beamdog for 5 months. I think there were five other people working on BGEE at that time. More came on around that time or soon after. I joined the forum because it was new and shiny and I really like forums. I really like forums because I joined a forum when I was a teenager and had a really positive experience in that community.
What did you do when you first joined?
Drowned under a flood of new members and bug reports. Quite a few of the early members were recruited from the subreddit to give us feedback and they gave a lot of feedback. We had set up a system to extract bmps/pngs from the BAMs in the game so I picked out a bunch that might relate to the forum badges, like Hold Person for the Name Dropper badge. I set my profile pic to represent my inner and outer self.
[offtopic] I should probably do something about those cakes. Oh, I've got it. Tears of Bhaal because there's no way people are going to stick around long enough to get more than 5, right? Right?![/offtopic]
The earliest things were trying to set up different categories for discussion and trying to find people to help us keep it organized, civil, and inclusive.
What, if any, were the turning points of your forum story?
We started using Hipchat in the office for communication when the team was too big and too spread out to just shout at for information. In addition to that, I'm not working on anything that the public is able to give feedback on so I've had less reason to spend time here.
What is your favorite thing about being a member of the forum?
All the awesome people
What other members were important to your forum story?
I don't feel that I can mention anyone specific in my answers because I've been here forever and I can't just post the entire list of forum users.
What was your best experience on the forums?
Nothing specific stands out. I get particularly happy when people get excited and overload our servers. Or ask questions about Krancor's note. Or the Hyper Chicken.
What do you think now, looking back on your forum history?
I feel proud of the place we built. I think I avoided too many catastrophic mistakes. I hope no tells me about any mistakes I made that were secretly fixed while I was not looking. Now I feel slightly worried. And hungry. I'm going to eat lunch and then get back to work.
(I have been waiting for an opportunity to use that one for a while now.)
Cool! Just yesterday I was hoping to get a dev over here! That is awesome! I am really curious about @SethDavis's story since I am his #1 fan!
Mostly because I work here at Beamdog... wait that's not it... Idea Spark Labs? Nope... was it still Hermitworks? Ah, Overhaul, that's the one. We were just evolving out of our early organization of Cam saying "This feels weird. Seth, mess with it." quickly followed by Scott thinking "Oh god, not again." and moving into an actual list of threads dedicated to discussion on what was wrong and how it should be fixed. I believe I was notified about the forum in conversation that went a bit like:
"Mornin Seth, have you looked over the issues on the forum?"
"We have a forum?"
"Noone told you about the forum?"
"Nope, what's the address?"
"I dunno... google it."
And the rest is history. Though now that I think about it, the part that isn't the rest is also history... what an odd saying.
What did you do when you first joined?
I bookmarked the issues section and got to work mostly. Took me a while to figure out that not everyone in there had decision making authority, but I guess that wasn't such a bad sign as a fair few of those people actually do have that kind of power now. Then again, some of these people stopped me from doing fun things, like removing player traps on rest to prevent hundred trap ambushes.... I don't care if that's the only way you could solo an optional boss on the highest difficulty, it's silly! *Shakes a fist at the unruly mob*
What, if any, were the turning points of your forum story?
It took a while, but I guess the point where I discovered that there were actual non bug related discussions would count as a turning point. I pretty much stuck to the bgee section as that's where a lot of the suggestions and bugs got posted, though the side discussions were fun as well. Probably for the best I didn't find off topic, I never would have got anything done.
Then we... it wasn't really an evolution, more side shifted into redmine, where bug details were more stark/explicit, but there was less discussion. This led to a lull in my trips to the forum since I didn't really need to stop by on a daily basis.
I found the meme thread O_O
The meme thread died D':
Found a new meme thread
Found off topic, and the rest is... current events? I'm in your threads, lurking you posts, waiting for the perfect time to deliver a horrible pun.
What is your favorite thing about being a member of the forum?
This nifty blue gradient that everyone is super jealous of. I think most everything else I get out of the forum is available to people who aren't members.
What is the thing that most confuses you about being a member of the forum?
Things like "I am really curious about SethDavis's story since I am his #1 fan!" mostly. :P Super not used to experiencing name recognition, especially when I'm the greenest guy on the payroll. Guess the occasional pun pays off.
What is your most hated thing about being a member of the forum?
THE RED TEXT OF GOD! I'm pretty antisocial and have all the needed skillz to ignore drama and foolishness, until this abomination shoves it in my face. The whole PG13 system is super subjective, even in it's native format, so I'm always being caught off guard by interventions.
What other members were important to your forum story?
*Dodges the "Aww, he didn't list me" bullet by saying* Oh ya know, the usual list of subjects. Anyone who added to the discussions in the bug threads, sent me a wall of text about a revolutionary feature, asked me what dumbass was responsible for ruining their favourite childhood mechanic before the ink I used to sign the change had dried, those guys/gals.
What was your best experience on the forums?
One day CMorgan got me talking about games and I mentioned how I was too cheap to order a copy of Baten Kaitos: Origins, and was waiting for it to go on sale and the sneaky guy mailed me a copy. O_O Super cool of him, but also one of those "Huh, guess I should be careful of the power contained within the nifty blue gradient" moments.
Side note: you guys should all go out and play the Baten Kaitos games. Right now. The first one has the best twist in gaming history, one of the best endings I've ever played, one of the weirdest epilogues to ever be written down and the absolute wonkiest second ending possible. It's like the writers had a meeting to discuss the ending, got it down solid then got drunk and started throwing out crazy ideas only to come in the next day to find that the greenhorn programmer hadn't got that they were joking and had put it all in the game.
What do you think now, looking back on your forum history?
Maybe I shoulda been a bit more active. This place gets a pretty big surge out of every now release, but there can only be so many games before we either need to rename the board or splinter off. Ah well, I'll keep lurking I s'pose.
Oh, oh, OH!!!
You joined A forum when you were a teenager! You didn't join THIS forum when you were a teenager! Lemme just take this foot out of my mouth here and jump out of this hole I dug...
you mean to tell me... that not only was @wubble 's existence prior to last October all a hoax but that this entire time @Coriander has been a woman?????????
Yep, definitely a conspiracy
where did I leave the tinfoil?
@Vulpesius seems to have gone through the Hell trials several times already
His 10th anniversary and the ancient membership... It seems we should expect VulpesiusBhaalspawns soon