When Juspera Was a Lass
"Someone let the air out of Juspera's head; she gonna 'splode!" - Howlinbear
I first entered the lands in the Fall of '95. There was some button on the AOL welcome screen for GemStone III... free download! (That was back when it mattered, before AOL went unlimited.) And remember that somewhat cheesy graphic with the four adventurers by the signpost? I still miss that.
No quick-gen for me; I had to get my hands in everything. In rolling my first character I decided I wanted a strong fighting type. Strength was placed first and constitution second (when the weigh verb came out, I was extremely distressed at how portly I appeared to have become). Dexterity and reflexes probably came right after; I know important stuff like aura and discipline was dead last. I was still in the D&D mindset where you placed your stats according to how you were going to play the character. What can I say?
I had to be a rogue--I had never had any affinity for magic, but a straight warrior was too plain for me. I also had to be human; never in my tabletop roleplaying experiences have I been anything else (with the odd exception of the time I played a male centaur) because I have never been able to identify with any race but my own. I also wanted an appearance that was unusual but far from beautiful. No blond hair and blue eyes; I chose long, braided red hair, brown eyes, and pale skin. Juspera Spintari the name, an on-the-spot creation I thought sounded good. In fact I recall scribbling it on a pad beside the computer.
I think I rerolled that Juspera within minutes of stepping into the lands and getting a look at things. (I remember wandering around the inn crying because for the life of me I could not find the front desk. Someone took my hand--tenderly, which alarmed me a little--and whisked me off to my destination.) The second version of Juspera was rerolled when I died in the catacombs (there was a gremlin invasion, and of course lag struck at the same time; I awoke dead) and decided that any character who got killed by something just wasn't set up right.
The next version of Juspera was the one I stuck with for my time on AOL. Those were enjoyable days. For the majority of them AOL was primarily a by-the-hour affair, and as I was sharing an account I wasn't always able to be around more than five hours per month... but I loved the lands. I was so impressed with the size of the world, with all the people I could meet, all the items I could get my hands on (a rusty earring!). I liked the funny messages you got when you did stuff--remember "You are a silly person"? I liked killing things.
In the beginning
As much as I loved the lands, my time there was very limited and I was consequently extremely clueless about how quite a number of things worked. Juspera never had any shield training and never used a shield. I just didn't know it was important, and the front end hadn't come out for the Mac; you had to type everything, and working my fingers to the bone to pick up rat pelts was not appealing to me. Folks kept telling me I'd die from lack of a shield, too, but I never did.
I never used the amunet because the first time I tried I couldn't do it (I must have been in the bank or something) and I assumed my intelligence was simply not high enough to let me use it. I was deathly afraid of being killed while exploring and thus had never been anywhere outside of town besides kobs and hobs. A friend of mine had taken the free month of AOL just so he could try GS3 with me, and his character Kyrazan the purple ranger had been killed by a wolverine outside of town. I was terrified of them (wolverines, not purple rangers).
Kyrazan Ys'Badadden was a dual-weapon user who dressed all in purple and swung two purple steel daggers. He made level 2 before Juspera did, and I was incredibly envious of his ability to get dyed custom-made goods. Making levels took soooo loooong. But before I even made it to level 2, I believe my friend Kyrazan had to go, leaving me with naught but a purple oilcloth backpack filled with his momentos. If I had managed to keep tabs on the daggers they'd be in my locker to this day; but his belongings were, in the end, scattered from one end of Elanthia to the other.
When I think back, what I remember most is how every little thing seemed so special. A purple steel dagger... be still my beating heart.
The nature of innocence
It took me a year to make it to level 5. By this time I was still clueless about the more technical aspects of the game--I was, in fact, still hunting hobgoblins. However, the spirit of the lands was in me and that was all I needed. As hazy as my confused hours spent back then were, I remember a few things. I remember trying to pick my first box, sitting in the hovel in kobland, and the trap chopping off my hand. I was first distraught that I couldn't pick the severed hand up and take it to an empath, and second amazed that the empath gave me a brand new one ("And they're just... stuck with a missing hand?"). I remember the day I jumped from the treehouse twice in a row by accident. The first time I felt bad asking for healing--despite the fact that I'd heard empaths were supposed to gather in TSC--so I stumbled to the healer's tent and died just outside. The second time I died upon impact and was again raised by the same person who'd raised me only minutes before. She did it with nary an unkind word and even accepted my tip of a doughnut.
I remember hunting kobs in the shanty... I'd be in there with a bunch of people and someone would drop coins and tap them again and again to make the kobolds come. I'd hide to "ambush" the kobolds (I didn't know what the heck I was doing) and people would always accuse me of stealing. That was when I learned to turn my profession flag off. I remember flirting with a fellow named Llew-something in the shanty, and sitting and talking with a Snorri outside the constable's, and later being arrested for accidentally kicking a wandering townsperson or something and IMing Sekima to come "bail me out." The only other names I remember from that time were a Dmitri and "da Farmer" from the boards, Stump Stumblebum too (Elanthia's toughest kobold!), and a Blades and an Aurien that slipped into my consciousness somehow.
All good things...
I do remember that the lands changed a bit from the time I first appeared and the time AOL started making folks pay by the hour for premium games, which was when I left. At first I'd only see one or two titles a day... so hard to imagine now. Always curtsied to these folks. By the end of my stay (AOL went unlimited somewhere in between) titles were no longer a rarity--and I had been treated with extreme disrespect or abuse by a number of them. And things have changed so much by now that my past shock at being ill-treated by titled folks currently gives me a bit of a laugh.
But mostly I remember the good or neutral changes. I remember when the amunet was given two other channels, when the weigh, bundle and exchange verbs were implemented, when the east tower became the spot to go to get a box picked. (It used to be the well, but clouds would drift into TSC.) I remember having to wait in line for deeds... though I can't say I remember when that changed. I do remember back when you'd only have to wait for the one person in there to come out, though, as opposed to waiting in a room with twenty people all asking "Who am I after?" That was--I kid you not--something else. I would faint dead away if I saw that kind of player-controlled chaos again today.
Sadly, I do not remember item "droppage" upon death, though for all the attention I paid to what was going on then it may yet have been around--all the guides and help files talked about it, at least.
And I do not remember the best part of the older days--talking to the living legends, which I never did. I wouldn't even have known who they were. I don't have any actual stories from that time, I can only provide vague accounts of how things were different. And a funny anecdote about jumping from the treehouse. But I was there, and I'm glad I was.
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