Monday, 3 September 2007

How I found C:SI

In response to Robby's post, I'm going to tell the story of how I found C:SI, which is actually linked to how I found Second Life, even though I was on SL for a month before coming to C:SI.

The person who showed me SL was my (at the time) girlfriend. I had read a book called Snow Crash, which is a sci-fi book from the early '90s that describes the future of the internet as basically Second Life with virtual reality (in the book it's called the Metaverse, which happens to be the name of a newspaper distributed in SL). Anyway, I had lent it to my girlfriend who liked it a lot, and her Dad had mentioned SL to her (he doesn't play it, but he had read articles about it). She logged in to try it out, told me about it, and then the next day, January 25, 2007, I got my account. She logged in with me and we spent about an hour wandering around as newbies. After that, she never logged in again. She was disappointed that it wasn't exactly like the Metaverse from Snow Crash, and that she couldn't be exactly like the main character, who is the self-proclaimed greatest sword fighter in the world. Also, she recognized it was something she could get obsessed with to the point that it would consume her life. Unlike me and everyone else I know in SL, for which it HAS consumed their lives, she was able to get out while she still could.

I kept coming back, though. Until C:SI a month later, I spent all my time at a place called the Shelter, which is a dance club for newbies. I think what interested me about SL was the social aspect of it. I started graduate school a year ago in a place I had never lived before. All my friends from high school and college were hours away, so I didn't have any friends close by. SL was a place where I could make friends, which is hard when you aren't living in a dorm anymore and just going to campus for classes. One day at the Shelter, a girl showed up with a katana on her back. "Maybe this is more like Snow Crash than I thought," I thought. I asked her where she got it and she gave me a landmark to Samurai Island. I went there, was confused (I don't think I'd bought anything before in SL), and left.

I went back to the Shelter for a while, but I kept thinking I wanted to try the sword fighting. I don't remember exactly what prompted me to actually go out and try again, I think I was just bored one day. I ended up at Bare Rose (I don't remember how, maybe I searched for "katana"?), and asked one of the people working there where to buy a sword. She showed me where they sell them, and I ended up buying a Cursed Spirit. She also gave me a landmark to Shrouded.

I unpacked the sword, read the instructions, and tried swinging it around for a while. Then I went to Shrouded and watched some people fighting. I later realized one of them was Shidji (you can't forget a scary robotic death woman), but I don't remember who the others were. It didn't take long to realize there were clans, and that one should join a clan. I came back the next day and asked someone about joining a clan. That person happened to be Xiang Hifeng (or Kasumi as she is more recently known) who had just started Oda. I joined Oda and the rest, if you'll pardon the cliche, is history.

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