The crunch of leaves can be heard underfoot, as I step into the autumnal clearing.

There she is, sitting on a tree stump, with a tired look obvious upon her face. As I enter the clearing, she looks up at me, and says softly…

So, you’re here at last, huh? I was wondering when you would get here.

I go to open my mouth, but she continues regardless.

Are you surprised to see me here? Are you that daft?

“I- well,”

You should know that I have a life of my own when you’re not looking through my eyes. You’re smarter than that.

I sigh, and step towards her, into the clearing. “Sure, but here, why here?“ A small clearing in the middle of Eversong Woods, of all the places in Azeroth, why right here?

Really? This is my home, you idiot.

She kicked up a bunch of orange leaves, which floated slowly to the ground in between us.

We stared at each other, assessing each other, for minutes.

“Anyway, how’s magic working out for you?” I asked clumsily. ‘Oh god, this is even worse than unresolved sexual tension.’ I thought.

F-fine.

She looked at me like I had asked her to stab her mother in the face, mixed with the slightest hint of concern.

And what about you, how’s whatever you’re doing going?

I smiled. “Nice to know for all of your powers of precognition aren’t all powerful.” She glared slightly, before she gave me a strange look and smiled a little, realizing it was a joke. “I’m fine, by the way.“

Good, good. Anyway… I’ve got to go. Uhh, take care of yourself, eh?

“You too.” We smiled nervously at each other, before we both walked away.

Well, I’m not sure what to think of that. Both me and Sel are amazingly shy? Perhaps it is just the whole privacy thing. We would of been better off conducting this chat somewhere more public, like in Dalaran. Perhaps next time, eh? (Perhaps)

Via Triv of Raid Naked.

How about a shared topic on RPG Nostalgia? Something along of the lines of your first love in the rpg universe, possibly even mmorpg universe.
For me it harkens back to the days when I first discovered MUD’s. I could actually play a game and interact with other people outside of my own home. It was amazing to me and so varied. MUD’s were the dreamchildren of individuals, and since they are individuals each MUD had it’s own flavor.
I would also add my initial rpg experiences such as Nethack or even console based games like Phantasy Star 3.. (awesome game). I would love to hear how other people fell in love with the genre. I think it would be a great topic to share because it expresses our individuality as well as our community in gaming. (we are all different but the same)
What do you think?

Okay, as a LONG time gamer, I’ve gotta go back a suitably long-ish time to find the first love of my RPG affair. It was probably one of the SNES Final Fantasy games.  Let’s say FF6. I know for a fact that I LOVED that game. No joke. I played it (in an emulator, how daring and pirate like) non stop for two to three weeks over the summer (christmas) holidays one year. Now, chances are that I’m looking back at it with rather rose tinted glasses, but it was a good example of an amazing JRPG.

Not too long after that, (years, that is) there was a game, that while I’d be hard pressed to call a proper RPG as we understand WoW, or FF, or DnD, was a masterpiece. It was The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. OH MY GOD. It was beautiful. Music, graphics, gameplay, it was magical. This sparked a love affair with the Zelda series, and to date, I’ve 100% ed most of the games in the series. (The main ones, so, 1, 2, GB/GBC, SNES, Oracle games, OoT, Wind Waker, Majora’s Mask (I know it’s not a main one, but /shrug), OoT: Master Quest, Minish Cap, and one of the other ones, who’s name escapes my recollection.) In fact, I’m playing the SNES one (on GBA) and Link’s Awaking again at the moment. (Mainly because Link’s Awaking is hard as nails. Like soloing any content from 62+ on a squishy, not well geared mage hard, plus some more)

Then, the next game that really stands out for me was NEVERWINTER NIGHTS. This game was so, so, so awesome. It was my first Bioware game that made me go “WOW!” (because I never had a chance to play any of their older games) and despite the relative badness of the story campaign, the infinite number of AWESOME modules that had been created by members of the community made this one of my favorite games for a very, very long time. Then there were the two x-pacs, which had GREAT main adventures, and expanded the ruleset, adding in prestige classes and epic levels, making the game EPIC FUN. (Ho ho!) I must of spent about 4 years with that as my primary game on the PC.

Other games, that I can’t place on a timeline so much include, the time I played EQ1 at my aunt/uncle’s place, and was entranced by the vastness of it all (then I got killed by some crazy hard mob half a zone over), the first time I played Diablo (once again at their place), which (although mainly these are D2′s hardcore mode’s fault) has been the downfall of several mice.

Anyway, when it comes to the best RPGs of the various generations, we’ll have to go with the following.

SNES: Chrono Trigger – A masterpiece. If you haven’t played it, or gotten all the endings (and there’s tons of them, some radically different, too.) get the DS version. NOW.

GB/GBC: Pokemon Silver. Loved this game, too.

N64: Ooh, tough one. I’ll say Zelda, but I’m forgetting something else.

Gamecube: TALES OF MUTHAFUCKING SYPMHONIA. SO GOOD. One of the best RPGs, with a great story (there’s a great twist near the ‘end’ although, it doesn’t take much thought to see that it’s not the end for real) good length (40+ hrs, that’s focusing on the main quest), and fancy graphics. Loved it so much.

DS: Chrono Trigger. LOL JK. Actually, there are quite a few decent DS RPGs, but it’s hard to give a solid winner, when the best are all remakes of old SquareEnix games. I mean, really, look at the number of FF, DQ, and Crono Trigger remakes on there (like 6?).

PC: This is a hard one. Nethack, is awesome, and crazy crazy crazy tough. NWN is crazy good. More recently, other games have done allright. But the best is Diablo 2. Still racked up more hours on one character in that than I have with all my WoW toons combined. (Well, that’s a lie, D2 toon is at ~20 days though, so /shrug, WoW main is at well over 31, at last check (July-ish?))

Allright, I can’t be bothered writing any more. It’s still a good 500+ words for my portion, probably around 700+, in fact. Also, TWO POSTS IN ONE DAY?!!?!?! WOAH!!!