» Tue Jan 18, 2011 10:31 pm 10 Years on the Forums, A retrospective
What the forums were like 10 years ago:
It was a decade and 3 days ago that I got my Internet back, so I decided to check back on the Elderscrolls Site (the main one I knew about back then was called m0use.net) and was curious to know what Elderscrolls 3 ‘Mournhold’ (which back then as far as I understood was going to be the title) and was surprised to see that there was now an official site. I was a latecomer, the site started in June 2000 or so and there were already a good 3000 people crowding the site. The only thing I really knew about prior to Elderscrolls .com was UESP and TIL, the earliest of the fan sites both on a host called m0use.net.
I quickly learned that ES3 was going to be called Morrowind rather than Mournhold, and that it was going to be very different from Arena and Daggerfall. The community had mixed opinions about this, a lot of the hardcoe Daggerfall fans didn’t like the changes and there was a split up in the community of purists and those that wanted to see what the new Elderscrolls was going to be like. A lot of people left the forums; I decided to keep an open mind and be supportive and keep an open mind about what the new ES would be like.
The community was small, and silly, and there were few rules and most people got along very well. There were guilds representing what fans would like to see in ES3: the Warriors Guild, The Ranger’s Guild, etch and also guilds of people who would like to show off hobbies and talents like the Artists guild and groups like that. People would mark their affiliations in their sigs. One of the interns (Dalinn and Kathode at the time) made a “Morrowind Codex” which was a code that were answers to a questionnaire on what people wanted in the game, ranging from weather effects to jumping puzzles.
The developers were very friendly and Maverique and I, with our common interest in horses and art, became friends. She encouraged me to learn to model and I dove headfirst into it. Unfortunately the fall was rocky and I hit a few along the way, in other words, I svcked at it.
Morrowind was announced on gaming sites and there was a huge influx of people into the forums. Unfortunately around this time the forums lost their friendly appeal and it started to get trolled by a number of kids. This was right around Morrowind’s release (I forget if it was just before or just after) and the first non-staff moderators were hired. There were 5 of us (4 taken from the chatroom); the only one left still moderating is Hungry Donner and the trolling kids really put up a big fight.
I miss the comradery of the old days. The trolls fought back the moderating so hard that General Discussion had to be taken down. That is why we had to make the rule of topics staying on topic, because in various threads people would try and bend the rules by drifting the topic. All sorts of tactics were tried. Finally after just over a year the Admins decided on a trial basis that we would bring back a community discussion. It was needed because people needed a place for birth and death announcements, important things about the community that had an effect in someone’s life.
bliviongate: Oblivion was announced and it was the same thing again, people who had missed the fact that there were horses depicted on the guards armor and mentioned in books got furious about the traditional horse and knight style of Oblivion and the arguments started afresh. I was very lucky to have my horse Cinnibar featured as an Easter Egg as the bay horse! We managed to weather that out and Oblivion was a huge hit. In 2006 I stooped moderating due to health complications and they brought in Gstaff and the forums had a proper community leader.
I could go on about the waves of communities the forums have been though, but I will cut it short and I’m glad to see that the anticipation for Skyrim is positive and I’m happy to see the forums going strong.
I will answer questions if anyone is interested! Other people who have been around can too!
Bethesda announces a new ES game, fans argue about it, the game gets release and the community is quite peaceful until the next game is announced. Repeat.
