So. I've been drinking and partaking in other stuff, which along with my lack of sleep over the last week makes me prone to being a little goofy. That disclaimer out of the way...

Ayonae Ro the server hasn't been around for a while. Most of us have not played Everquest in years. There has been a steady decline in the posting population on this message board. Do you think we will eventually fizzle out?

Intuitively, I would say yes, that is obviously going to happen. Many of us are young enough to not have family committments and such that might distract us from participating on these forums. We grow up, etc etc. Then I started thinking that there are quite a few people who post here who are very successful adults, with families and the whole nine.

Our community was established early on in the age of new media. We are the pioneers! Who knows how people are going to hold these online attachments?

Again, I know this sounds like silly drunk rambling. And it partly is, but I find it humorous that I have 10 odd facebook friends who are people who I've only met in a digital medium, where we killed dragons together. I've shared beers with some of these people, and I'm sure I'll meet even more.

We've lost some people along the way, but a lot of the core people have remained from the beginning, with old-timers dropping in all the time. I know it doesn't seem like that much time has passed, but in two years we are talking a DECADE. I was not old enough to drive when I started here, and now I'm 23. It's ridiculous, but cool at the same time.

/cheers

I've posted a few threads on this sort of discussion.
Without sounding too cheesy...my hypothesis was that we have obviously made it work thus far - simply through friendship and the connection we share with politics and current events - and the whole "EQ Aro" factor has little effect on us anymore, dead or alive.

The thing is, Everquest was and probably forever will be unlike any other game. When I was living in Prague, I would wake up somewhere short of 2 am to raid Ssra. During my freshman year I literally spent more than half of my awake time staring at the computer monitor while being parked in Nagafen's Lair looking for Ragefire for a whole week. There were groups in (enter dungeon name here: SolB, Guk, Sebilis, Velks Lab, etc) that you'd log out at night and be able to log back in right away in the morning and rejoin, they went 24-7. You spend THAT much time with a bunch of other nerds all across the planet, you can't help but talk about life on the other side of the piece of glass.
Communities built around WoW and EQ2 and other games without the "grind" we all bitched about hardly nurture those kind of relationships, and I doubt we'll ever see something like it again.

There is really no reason for this board to die out. That would be suggesting that we all have run out of things to say.

For some of us, that would be impossible.

One thing I have noticed, is that with all people, we eventually get married, have families, get wrapped up in careers. Life gets routine and segregated in the fact that your sphere is confined to family and keeping them supported. Its part of growing up. There are quite a few friends I don't talk to much anymore. We are still friends and enjoy saying hello, but I am single, living out of a suitcase off travelling the world for shitty pay, bachelor's degree unfinished and they are homeowners, married with at least one child. It seem like most are going on two. They feel I have not grown up because I have not settled down and as a result, there is just less to talk about that is in common. I don't want to hear about what color their newborn's shit is. They don't want to hear about my adventures in 3rd world countries. Well, at least their wives don't want to =P

Dear Lummus:

For some of us, that would be impossible.

Just what are you trying to say here? ;)

Re the board dying out, I don't think it's so much that it will die out, but that its character will continue to change - as long as it continues to exist and act as a touchstone for those who played EQ on our server many of them will continue to drive by every now and then and touch base. Certainly, there are people who make sharp divisions in their lives (when they move on, their previous connections more or less don't exist, or they see no point in devoting energy to maintaining a connection to something that no longer serves a utilitarian purpose) but some of the more philosophical, meandering (physically or otherwise :) ), and/or humanist among us, extroverts or no, still enjoy exchanging ideas/bullshit with and otherwise enjoying the company of people we met while grinding out experience or in the time since and so I don't see us dying off quite yet (assuming we don't inadvertently *drive* folks off). I think the board will continue to move more towards the 'real life' and general social sections though, as EQ fades into the distant past...

And on the 'different interests/life experiences' thing, try being 45, unmarried, and childless by choice (although more or less partnered to a dependent ;) ). Not only do I not have the slightest interest in, or ability to relate to, baby poop, but if you think people's brains turn to mush when they squeeze out kids (a study published last week btw, which is sure to generate hate and ill will, showed that women's brains really *do* shrink when they nourish a child through pregnancy), just when you think they are about to recover, the grandkids start showing up and they wallpaper their offices with pictures of them ;). Although the sense of 'difference' once I entered my 30s was palpable for me (I tried marriage and discovered I had an allergy ;) ), it seems to be particularly acute for my young male friends in their late 20s/early 30s who see their friends acquiring the ball, chain, and 2.5, and see that as some sort of 'progress' yardstick that they should be measuring themselves by. Let's face it - people have different temperaments and were it not for my own disability I'd have finished my stint in the military and probably have engaged in a lot more travel myself - and not all confirmed bachelors are homosexual, either! That is something that we seem to have recognized, or at least had a place for, in our society in the past, which we seem oddly to be *less* understanding about now...

Speaking of studies again, a recent one looking at the 'genetics of commitment' (I can just imagine who funded *that* ;) ) found that about 40% of men are homozygous for a gene which makes them *much* less likely to be able to comfortably commit to traditional arguably monogamous marriage - and when they did, both they and their mates reported much lower satisfaction than those where the men were heterozygous or lacked the gene altogether. Some people, especially men, are just meant to be rolling stones, and how much of history has rolled along with them (and their wandering Y chromosomes), I wonder? :).

Anyway, shock and surprise, this has run on a lot longer than I expected and ended up in... biology ;). Certainly, I don't post as often as I used to as it takes a long time to wind up for me ;). and also as one gets older one doesn't get motivated to do so as often in that sense of 'having something to prove', or I find that someone has stated it already and better. I do keep tabs on the board on an almost daily basis though and still find that it's one of the better procrastination engines out there ;)... and I'll always be grateful for the odd serendipitous miracle that is a given eddy of the intertubes for introducing me to some fascinating and wonderful people I would never have had occasion to get to know otherwise.

Regards,
Nydia

I'm thinking "issues", Nydia :P

What can I say, I hadn't had my morning coffee yet - but what I was trying to get out via that rambling morning 'constitutional' ;) reply to Lummus is simply 'different strokes for different folks', and he shouldn't sweat that he *isn't* married with his 2.5 (and he sounds like he's enjoying his life as it is :) ) - and that said marriage, 2.5, and homeownership isn't 'inevitable' nor an absolute measure of 'success' either.

Regards,
Nydia

Is it sad that I see "2.5" and immediately think "epic 2.5" instead of "2.5 children"? :P

Extremely.

Is it sad that I see "2.5" and immediately think "epic 2.5" instead of "2.5 children"? :P

It would be even more sad if there was an "epic 2.5"

It would be even more sad if there was an "epic 2.5"

With the aug, there was one.

Yeah, I'm glad I don't play anymore. Getting my epic was a grind enough and pointless waste of time in the long run, I'll end there :)

This board needs an antagonist so I am not going anywhere.

This board needs an antagonist so I am not going anywhere.


Good to hear! I would miss ya'.

Nydia, I really don't have too many regrets. I am doing and seeing alot that people never get to. I do want to stay in one place eventually and find that "one". Hopefully not so late in life that my children's friends think they live with their grandpa. /shrug. People are going to think whatever they think. There is probably a fair number of people that think I am a frutcake because I am not married yet. Well that means I have not been divorced yet either! Its hard to make a relationship stick when you don't stay in one place longer than a few months. And that is the first time I have every heard of wanderlust being a geneticly based impluse.

I always see the Ayonae Ro forums as a form of Facebook. As long as people continue to use the site, Sanchek and I will continue to keep the site up. Even though the server no longer exists and most have moved on with their lives, Ayonae Ro serves as a platonic home.

So, who was from Cazic-Thule? Solusek Ro? I moved from Cazic-Thule from a guild called Silent Asylum, and joined a guild called Bunnies of Chaos, which schismed, leaving in its legacy a (smaller) Bunnies of Chaos as well as a guild called the Looking Glass.

Moved from Erud's Elite (not to the old school folks, Beo, etc) on Solusek Ro to Forgotten Spirits on Ayonae, then into Jokers, and then retirement :P

Ah Bunnies of Chaos, I always remember running into a guild meeting of theirs in the middle of North Karana (I think it was called) and thinking "Woah.." Same with LG, I remember them raiding Kith Forest for the rogue epic and thinking they were, without doubt, the toughest thing around for all their level 55 members.

Good times.

So. I've been drinking and partaking in other stuff, which along with my lack of sleep over the last week makes me prone to being a little goofy. That disclaimer out of the way...

Ayonae Ro the server hasn't been around for a while. Most of us have not played Everquest in years. There has been a steady decline in the posting population on this message board. Do you think we will eventually fizzle out?

Intuitively, I would say yes, that is obviously going to happen. Many of us are young enough to not have family committments and such that might distract us from participating on these forums. We grow up, etc etc. Then I started thinking that there are quite a few people who post here who are very successful adults, with families and the whole nine.

Our community was established early on in the age of new media. We are the pioneers! Who knows how people are going to hold these online attachments?

Again, I know this sounds like silly drunk rambling. And it partly is, but I find it humorous that I have 10 odd facebook friends who are people who I've only met in a digital medium, where we killed dragons together. I've shared beers with some of these people, and I'm sure I'll meet even more.

We've lost some people along the way, but a lot of the core people have remained from the beginning, with old-timers dropping in all the time. I know it doesn't seem like that much time has passed, but in two years we are talking a DECADE. I was not old enough to drive when I started here, and now I'm 23. It's ridiculous, but cool at the same time.

/cheers

06/11/02 3:00 am EST - Ancient Jarsath. WE WILL NEVER FORGET

Hop hop!

I think I came from Karana, and I was too "young" a character to remember why. I just remember Reznor AKA Gingeko told us we were moving - so we did :) My little band of real life friends and acquaintances found parts of ourselves in almost every guild on the server at some point. God, Calamina even joined *gag* Casus Belli!

Cazic Thule here, as a lifetime member of Valiant Crusaders. I've been following the boards from CTC to our previous EZBoard, and now this place.

I'm from Solusek Ro. I moved to Aro with RIP.

From Karana => Ayro => to Tribunal now.

first character was on Seventh Hammer, then I restarted on Ayonae Ro and was there past the server merger until about...a year or so ago or so now? Good times.

I was a relative latecomer to EQ, starting on ARo after Velious came out. A couple of my friends were already playing on the server, so I was told to choose that one for my first toon. I'm glad that's how it worked out.

I started on karana and moved to A Ro cause EW moved there. I cant remember if I joined them right after or just before the split. (getting old and senile I guess)

I started out on Ay Ro, with Sors Aeternus. Moved to the Tribunal, and now my signature says what guild is my current home....

Oh, dear lord...

Started in Solusek Ro with Red Branch, where our guild leader and Jihan got in a fight so she went off to found Bunnies of Chaos...and I'll just not finish that story... :)
Red Branch died with the move to Ayonae Ro, with most of the core who knew each other personally going to Via Victus, but I ended up joining Vallis Scortor, which merged with Vision to become Vallis Aspectus, ...I quit right around Omens of War finishing up...then started up again on the progression server when it started....then quit once again around the same time in progression :)

06/11/02 3:00 am EST - Ancient Jarsath. WE WILL NEVER FORGET

Haha, this is what I'm talking about.

I can barely remember some really important shit that I need to for every day life. But when it comes to me and Oip killing a mob named Ancient Jarsath in Fironia Vie for the VP Key 5 years ago? Never!

Heh, we seem to do this every few years.

Anyway, I watched my son with Vallis Scorter on Sol Ro having fun, until he got banned. Then, when Ayonae Ro started up and he decided to start a fresh char there, he talked me into playing too since I needed something to do while recuperating from a trip to the Cardiac ICU. He ended up playing and quitting and playing and quitting, but I played steadily up until last holiday season, when I was simply tired of them making things more complex with each expansion.

I agree that nothing will ever compare to it. I have traveled to Michigan for a weekend get together with Lost Fires, as I know many others have traveled to meet with guildees in the same fashion. That is one of the things about EQ that really stood out and set it apart from later attempts at copying it, the way communities developed within and around it. Like us, for example.

There are days I miss running the Ayonae Open Raids on PoP targets. Such good times...so many people willing to be exploited.

Elanif put it best...

I started on Sol Ro and also had toons on Karana so when they offered the transfers to start Ayro i was thrilled.

Joined LF in Jan. 02 and was there until the guilds first Quarm kill end of 05 after wich i logged off for good.

The VP key was such a chore but it really was some of the most fun i had in the game. think we all had one mob that just didnt wanna spawn for that goofy key. mine was the Pained soul outside of Seb. wich as a cleric was the only camp i could really solo well. I began refering to that as the Pained in the assoul.

Hello everyone. Long time no chats.

In general I keep my presence to a minimum here. Oh I do read the boards as much as I have time to spare for but you guys produce an amazing amount of text in an impressive short span of time. I just can't keep up :) I've chosen to, as has been expressed previously in the thread, let other things get in the way of my online time in general, and Ayonae Ro in particular. It is a choice you make on a case by case scenario. Some choices more conscious than others. I cut myself off socially from ayonae.ro a long time ago when I finally found someone willing to shoulder the project with a more stable, capable, hand than that I could ever offer.

EverQuest was a special place for a lot of us. I know I will never forget it. In fact, I find myself offended by my lack of rememberance when I browse my old screenshots. Why can't I remember who that guy was? We were obviously friends. I don't have contact with many people from my EQ days. I have however made a lot of international contacts via primarilly World of Warcraft, including securing a girlfriend in Holland the last two years. The only person I really tried to keep in touch with was Kaerila until the time of her passing.

Funny thing that, staying in touch. Aracelt and I had a pretty long discussion back when I was about to quit (mid-PoP) about it. I was almost in tears, confused and bewildered. I had to quit the "crack" 'but what about all the people I leave behind', I asked him in my teen-angst; 'but what about us, Ara? Aren't we friends?' He calmly explained that we were but that without the common interest, the "glue", it's difficult to keep relationships running. Especially across continents, age brackets and vastly different lifestyles and attitudes.

I wasn't assuaged. In fact I was outraged. Was I just another EQ player to him? I had to grow a lot older before I understood what he meant.

The relationships and communities you build on the internet are real. Circumstance and happenstance might decide when and how they surface and how they coalesce but once they're there its always up to the individuals to keep them. Some collapse. I'd say most do. But in the end most groups you've belonged to "in RL" don't exist anymore either. People come and go, its a fact of life. So do societies, cliques, political figures, nations and empires.

I've experimented a lot with online communites. You guys were my first "life size scale" attempt. I'd say we made it. Credit isn't really mine, Edeina suckered me into it. He was in his lower 20s, I was 15. Allow me to rephrase: The credit isn't anyone's. You guys built yourselves. All that was required was someone to ban Trilkin a few hundred million times, keep Yuegou in some semblance of check and the suppliance of a basic framework (software).

Ten years later I still read Ayonae Ro. And you guys made it to my Curriculum Vitae. Funny that. There's literally a bulletpoint on it that says "Ayonae.Ro".
I still credit most of my understanding of group psychology et all to Ayonae.ro. Ironically I am now enrolled in Human Resources Management at the University level, hoping to recruit/manage real life communities in the future.

Anyway, what I'm trying to say is, if you guys want to keep on trucking, there are no limitations. And if you die out, so what? Apparently the forums have lived their cycle. The relations you build upon here you choose whether to maintain or not and not talking to the people you enjoy talking to "because the forums arent there" is just a bad excuse. You can always set up a new forum, for those interested. Or ask people to migrate to another setting.

Hell, there are still EZBoards if you want them.

Lots of love,

the Ranger formerly known as Kivorn.
Oh. I mean.

//Kiv

PS: I was originally from Solusek Ro and migrated to Ayonae.ro with Edeina, Cinnamoon and Starsong because no one wanted a god damn ranger in their raiding guild. This is what led to the creation of Ayonae.Ro. I eventually joined Eternal Wrath on a membership level and later Landslide on an officer level. I played EverQuest (with one six-month break) for four years.

OMG a socialist!

I'm too lazy to do it now but on this computer I have some pretty good Ayro screen shots from the PoP era (Lots of Ayonae Open raid stuff and other junk). I'll post some tomorrow. When I get home for Thanksgiving I'm going to dig up my circa 2001 stuff. Kinuvan ftw! haha

'Ten years later I still read Ayonae Ro. And you guys made it to my Curriculum Vitae. Funny that. There's literally a bulletpoint on it that says "Ayonae.Ro".'

- Is that why you're unemployed still??

Hello mate, good to see you, and don't forget all the Buffy nights while we were supposed to be raiding ;P

Hardly unemployed Halo, hardly :)

http://www.gbg.bonet.se/krigstomten/images/halo.jpg
http://www.gbg.bonet.se/krigstomten/images/halo2.jpg
http://www.gbg.bonet.se/krigstomten/images/groum.jpg

Good times, good times. Didn't we mega-convert Varulv as well? I'm sure we had him singing a Buffy song by the time PoP came out!

Edit: I was right: http://fjutt.adm.gu.se/~fjutt/eq/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=5529

Howdy Kivorn , long time no see ;)

Hey Fan. I was about to ask how the kid was, but he isnt one anymore is he?

He's almost 17 now Kiv and living with me ( methinks to drive me insane).

He's playing Warhammer exclusively, when his grades allow, but he recalls alot of the former EW folks by name.

Bah, Europeans. I'm still bitter about the Open Door Policy and the Opium War and such, thanks to the European powers and the US. And Macau. And Hong Kong. And the fact that we were forced out from the Mainland, forced to locate on a teeny island called Taiwan.

I always like to give crap to Halo about the English being the original drug lords, fighting a war with drugs, not on drugs.

By the way, people keep saying the sky is falling, and we've seen so many of these threads. After five years on these vB forums, we're still here...

After five years on these vB forums, we're still here...

But no longer on the mainland...

Oh, and I'm not shy to say I have user id number 1! Woot :P

Technically you should love this brand of European (Swedish flavorz). We pillaged and raped the rest of Europe and haven't really done much constructive since.

The joys of parenthood, Fan. Look on the bright side, soon you can legally evict him.
Nah I'm just kidding.
Or am I?

Technically you should love this brand of European (Swedish flavorz). We pillaged and raped the rest of Europe and haven't really done much constructive since.

The joys of parenthood, Fan. Look on the bright side, soon you can legally evict him.
Nah I'm just kidding.
Or am I?

I'm not kidding ;P

Already told him if he acts with this level of disrespect towards me when he graduates from High School that he better have somewhere he can sleep....

I'm not kidding ;P

Already told him if he acts with this level of disrespect towards me when he graduates from High School that he better have somewhere he can sleep....


When my oldest son turned 18 he decided that he should be able to not work or continue his education and live at home under his own set of rules. To say the least he ended up learning some life lessons.

After one particular stupid attack of his I physically removed him from my house, he soon found out that it was in fact my house and not his. To make a long story short I booted him, he ended up literally living in a car and he eventually realized that his best helping hands were at the ends of his arms.

He now, 2 years later, has a good job at Deka (East Penn Manufacturing) in production making around 40k a year, great benefits and is doing great. Our relationship drastically improved and it looks like he might be looking to further his education.

I'm not saying this works in all cases and it is EXTREMELY hard to watch your child struggle but he has turned around 200+ percent and hopefully he continues.

'I always like to give crap to Halo about the English being the original drug lords, fighting a war with drugs, not on drugs.'

- Opium head!!!
Bloody chinese...