More retrospectives on the way...

Fierysabre (#1301)
I was first introduced to the game by my younger brother known as ironthomas. I needed a game to play while on the internet at work and bored. At first it was just a game and interesting to play. Shortly thereafter I became a KoL addict and life has never been the same.

When I started there were no cheat sheets, and not many people were that interested in helping a newbie.

I found the forums shortly after I started playing and I remember the flame storm about thebub and his ass, lol.

Morehen and Spikey were the main posters in the forums. You couldn't go very long without having 50 new posts from those two. This was all before we had mods. Once we got them, screams of anguish and repression echoed through my speakers. Days were spent on the debate were the mods fair! Ah those were the days.

Blaze123 (#6911)
I remember signing up on KoL late last year, after my friend told me of this completely random game where you could equip items like asshats, and that the currency was meat. I decided to give it a try, and have been completely addicted ever since.

Firstly, the shore was different. You could choose to go on one vacation, and that vacation would only give you one type of stat. (I'm not completely sure on this, as I can't remember too well. But I am sure there was a different type of shore.)

Another thing that was different was the leveling system.Your level would just be your primary base stat. This system changed when I was level 70, turning me into a level 12 Seal Clubber! The top players were in the 400-600 area when it got changed There was a bit of confusion for a few days after the change, but after a while everyone got used to it.

I remember being a complete newb in chat, and having no idea what to do. Some vets were quite nice to me, and I would even talk to Jick sometimes because there was only one chat channel. With only 7000 accounts created, and not even that many active, KoL chat was very different to how it is now. One vet who I remember as a very kind and giving person was Lady Vamp, she would always give you help if you asked. I was able to talk to the KoL *legends* who now I cannot speak to, because even when there was different chat channels, lounge was not created then.

There was only 20 or so clans around when I joined. I had no idea which one to pick, so I just picked some random one - Moxie Skulls. Other clans I remember around that time was Tricky Tricky, and The Elite Ones.

Although I love KoL the way it is now, I will always miss Ye Oldern Days.

Skipperic (#8190)
I remember that when I was still a newbie there was a [MMORPG link] on the sign-on page. The link to the game is no longer on that site but it brings back memories. Also, marketing for the game at that time was not a good idea. The server wasn't able to handle a large number of players at that time. I remember a long time ago that if you contributed $20 or more you would get a piece of KoL artwork, signed by Jick (that never happened). I remember when I was a newbie that to speak in the chat was something hard to do. The vets were very harsh to new players and it was hard to earn their respect. Also, I would get amazed when there was 30 or so players in the chat (at that time there was only one chat channel). Then I was even more amazed when there was 100. Now there's over 1k players in all the chat channels. It's amazing on how the game has grown. I remember that Lady Vamp was one of the first players to help out the new players. She would make suggestions on questions and give items to the needy. Skully was very fun to talk to in chat. With his daily trivia and awesome prizes. The pre-radio days. Auctioning was a big thing when I was a new player. Everyone would auction their items at prices lower than what the mall would offer. That was great.

Thiefy McPolkatanzer (#18949)
[Back in my day we had to adventure for weeks, uphill both ways, just to cover the cost of skills!]

I was introduced to the ever-sardonic Kingdom of Loathing in late February of 2004 by a close friend. Soon after it had spread to my housemates, and later my friends at university. As is the case with young games, the player density was rather low at the time. Jick used his personal email account to accept bug reports, and even had the time to reply personally to many of the reports. Reset always seemed to be just around the corner. Chat channels were cosy, but familiar. The mall was not subject to microeconomics quite as complicated as those evident today, there were fewer bull-marketeers, and mall bots [or any bots for that matter] were unheard of. For the most part, the chat and economy felt as if they had a much less drastic effect on overall gameplay than they do currently.

For the purposes of testing a few things, I created a new character in late summer of 2004, and noticed that the mechanics of the low level game had been completely warped by the introduction of the Gourd Tower [post potion-allotment capping] coupled with the ridiculous amount of meat that had entered the game via the 2^64 - 1 meat and item duplication bugs of July 2004. When I first started the game, meat was scarce, and affording any of the n thousand meat items in the Market took a fair amount [usually a day's worth, at least] of work. Between the gourd potion craze, and the inflated cost of items as a result of the economy, it was extremely easy as a low level character to turn the gourd items one did not need into enough meat to allow one to adventure comfortably for quite some time. This new characer was able to taste Hell Ramen and umbrella drinks before even being able to join a clan, where as my first time playing through, I'd not even encountered food regularly until being able to adventure in the Knob Goblin Kitchens, and drank only Mad train wine until stumbling across the imp ale and white lightning available from the mid-level woods area.

There have also been many positive changes. Much content has been added during my time with the game, to name a few: several dungeons, more town areas, the arena as it is today, and the the pickle factory as well as richer combat and adventure text. One of my happiest KOL memories was the introduction of the Dungeons of Doom. As both a huge NetHack fan, and some one who was in the position to suggest bits of the content, it was extremely exciting to see the area come to fruition, and even more so to be able to play it. While I of course appreciate the pop-cultural in-jokes ubiquitous within the Kingdom, this area definitely hit home for me. Other than that, some of the earlier bug reports I made that warranted responses from Jick along the lines of "I wish there were more players like you" also resulted in some warm fuzzy feelings.

My negative perspectives of the game have always resulted from the fact that many [at this point the vast majority of] players tend to view it as a completed product that should be seamless and infalible. As fun and entertaining as the game is, it is still in its beta stages. There are going to be downfalls like bugs [and exploters], changes to items and areas for the sake of balance and continuity, and waiting on other areas, but at the same time there are the rewards of new content and being able to work with Jick and Skullhead to make the final product an even greater game. As much as I understand that only a few people playing this game share the this perspective, it still saddens me to see older players leave the game because they feel there is nothing going on for them, or to see newer players complain about the lack of aspects of the game that are being worked on currently and have yet to be added. While the game may not have the same overwhelming newness it did when I began playing, I still believe it to be one of the more original and entertaining games available online, or anywhere for that matter, and continue to look forward to its completion and future.

Cybermg (#69751)
I was brought here from a topic on GameFAQs, and joined the GF clan Storm Shadow. We all leveled up a moderate amount and had our pitfalls along the way, but eventually everyone but a few got bored and left, promising to return "after reset". Corbon was also a member of this clan...you might remember him on the forums before Bugmeat Sunday caused him to quit.

Anyway, I myself quit for about a month, but eventually got back into the game, determined to hunt my way on the Icy peak to a Mr. A. Thus began my quest to get enough meat for a Mr. A before reset. Unfortunately, no matter how much I manipulated the market or slayed yetis, my funded stayed right behind the current cost of a Mr. A. Then the pickle factory appeared, and I made my first big fortune buying all the vinegar up from about 2k, and watching an inflation craze bring it to 80k. I had 15 mil...in ingredients, but found I couldn't sell them without being undercut and driving down prices. At this point, Mr. A's were about 8-10 mil, but I couldn't make the deal (mostly due to the lack of a trade system), and I had numerous close encounters with scammers. Then one day, all my vinegar was bought..but it was too late...Mr. As had risen to 18 mil. With my capital, I managed to climb to about 22 mil, though at that time Mr. A's were 25+. This was around the early duping era, when people were making fortunes buying out the 100k RITH that would appear out of nowhere at 100 meat each, and loads of meat was entering the economy.

Then came bugmeat sunday, where I made 6 BILLION off of spare vinegar, and in the days afterward my 30k+ meat paste were bought at 99999 meat each (the store capped the meat I got to 2.147 bil though), and I was randomly given billions of meat. Many were rich, but meat began to sink. Mine got lost in an unfortunate closet meat capping error, my clan, the cannon, a villa doc, a Mr. E, and a frantic purchase of a Mr. A for 1.4 bil a few days later, because I wanted it so badly, but I still kept some. It was this event that finally made me a big shot, as villa came to be known as an exclusive channel. I stagnated for a while, thinking levels were useless, but decided I'd spend the few minutes each day leveling when the basement appeared. My meat has slowly been draining ever since, in the economy's deflation and my own spending. I was once banned from chat for 100 days, giving me a bit of infamy, but it was shortly reduced.

One day, I decided Storm Shadow sucked, because there was almost no one playing, and I was a higher level than everyone else. I decided I'd like to get into a more exclusive clan. I applied to Philantropists, and not surprisingly, didn't get a reply. I applied to AFH and I was accepted. Unfortunately, internal discension has left the clan somewhat crippled, and I'm considering leaving, ESPECIALLY if I were motivated by an invitation (HINT HINT).