You and your past lives.

[MrColossal]

Hey dudes!

So I was watching a mythbusters marathon over the holidays and I was remembering an interview I heard with Adam Savage where he said they shoot like 20 hours of footage for each show. That's almost a day of shooting, probably two 10 hour days [just guessing]. 10 hours is a good chunk of the day and then the editors distill it down to an hour show. So I thought, "I wonder if the mythbusters can recall days better if they watch an episode?"

The idea being that because 2 days were filmed and then edited that they could be triggered to remember more about their lives than someone who didn't have a recorded history of it [albeit edited].

So then I thought that I took 400 pictures at Mittens France, do I remember more about Mittens France than I do Mittens Canada and even less about Mittens America and even less about the entirety of college?

So then I think, all these digital cameras hanging around, it's easier to take pictures than it has ever been for everyone. And then I thought all this internet hanging around... There are tons of journals and blogs and myspaces and twitters just documenting people's days. Can they go back and remember their life better? Do people have more hindsight?!

And then I remembered this forum, if you go back to the last page of Gen Gen it goes back to 2004, that was a long time ago! The majority of us still around have probably changed quite a bit from then!

There is all this past us hanging around on the internet, a breadcrumb trail of the path we took to get from one version of us to the current version. I mean in the past 4 years I have changed quite a bit. I moved in with my girlfriend, I did some freelance, I now have a salary job making games, I've made one AGS game [....shut up...], I've changed my hair style three times, changed apartments twice, I've changed drawing styles twice and I've changed my underwear... Gosh, at LEAST 4 times...

But there I am, still hanging out on the internet. This forum to be exact. I used to have an online diary but I deleted it after remembering it and then reading it years later. There was more of me spread out on the SCRAMM forums but that is all gone now, AGS ezBoard is also gone for the most part, a good chunk of Gen Gen threads on this forum are gone also... I have a livejournal now but that's for posting art.

So this forum holds the majority of breadcrumbs on the path that I happened to take to arrive at 'me' now. It's very interesting [to me at least].

Has anyone else gone back and summarized their years here? It's a little scary sometimes and a little weird. Seeing posts you've completely forgotten about and reading them as if someone else wrote them [which basically they did!] and it's a little embarrassing, I would sometimes say to myself while time traveling into the archives "Why do I care so much about this?" or "No Eric, that is not what she said, you read it incorrectly and are also wrong!" or "Holy shit I don't remember having this much fun with [random AGSer who is now gone]!"

Or does anyone use Twitter, or make video logs [Vlogs, as they call them] or use these other social networking sites to document days? I feel that this new way of recording your life is specific to this age. We have the technology to do it and I wonder what consequences it will bring, if any.

So in conclusion: Hi, my name is Eric Feurstein. I am probably not who you remember me to be.

[TheJBurger]

Yeah, I agree, but I've only existed solidly on the internet for [only!] 3 years, and I don't think I have changed that much--but then again it all depends on the period in my life. Back in the early days I used to post with an air of apprehension and worrying of acceptance, but that changed a bit as time went by.

In my experience, this kind of character change is more evident in personal writings, like blogs. At least for me, because in that kind of writing I don't feel restricted or think that I'm going to be judged for what I have to say. As such, I get to spout out lots of random nonsense which I will come to regret 3 years later.

So yes, it is interesting.

[monkey0506]

I've often enjoyed perusing the 146 (and counting!) pages of posts from myself.

As a matter of fact, given my primary driver for sticking around these forums for the last 5 years (in another month and a half of course), I do find the very first post I made after registration quite comical:

I'm going through the tutorial, and playing around with AGS itself, but unless I can find a scripting tutorial, I don't think I'm going to get anywhere anytime soon...

Of course I'm not the same I was back then. At that point I was just full of ideas about stuff that would be cool to do. Now I'm full of ideas and how to pull them off and paired with a total lack of ample ambition to actually accomplish them! AGS, you make me proud.

[Layabout]

Well I first registered on the AGS ezboards March 2000, right around my birthday. I had been perusing the forums for a month before deciding to join. I intended on making a grand game starring a character of mine called the Fatman, I made about 2 or so rooms and a walkcycle and all that. I decided to use dpaint for the art. But anyway, somehow I made Dickboy instead and released that. Hmmf, great legacy.

The AGS homepage was relativly non-existant, just a page of CJ's dosuser website, the forums were ezboard, great at the time. I even remember some people donating money to get rid of the ads.

I sometimes look through my posts and it scares me quite a lot. I am definatly a different person now.

Ambition got the better of me so many times. So many planned games, so little finished I'm sad to say.

I hope I've changed. My art has gone through this weird progression thingy where I was ok at pixelart, didn't draw or do any pixels for about 2 years, so I was a bit sucky, and I'm at a stage where I'm content, but I want to improve a lot. I just don't draw as much as I would like to. My background art is probably the area most improved.

But I agree with you Eric, that the more documented our lives become, the more we can remember. All these triggers for our memory. I remember far more about the past 8 years than I do the preceding 18 years of my life, and I think that is thanks to the internets.

[Oliwerko]

Interesting idea indeed.
Because I'm pretty young, I have joined only 2 years ago, so not much of a change for me here, but I know what you're talking about. Definitely, if you have documented days of your life, you recall them more easily. I still has a bunch of backgrounds and walkcycles I made in summer 2007. Every time I look at them a mass of thoughts pours out about what I did that summer.

And what is scary is reading some old game reviews, wheter in magazines or on the internet. Take a game from a year 2000 and read what was written about it back then. That makes a weird feeling. I guess this whole thing is like that 'cause PC technology, internet and all this stuff is rapidly going up. That means only 10 years ago, you would play Thief (which looks like some kind of advanced tetris for someone who did not do that back then) on 15" shitty CRT taking up half of your table space while your overheating computer was slower than calculators today. Reading old reviews simply scares me a bit.

And another thing is that I feel this also about music. From time to time I discover a new band or such, so I listen to their music all the time until I'm totally full of it and can't stand it anymore. For example last winter I discovered how great music Bathory has, so the bigger part of last winter I listened to them. This way I kind of developed "music habits" for different seasons. When in winter I listen to a band I used to listen in summer, it just feels weird and usually, I return to my winter music. The same thing another way around. When I listen to it, it makes me recall of summer, of things I did, of the atmosphere, and there's winter out here! Sometimes impossible for me to listen to it because of this weird feeling.

[veryweirdguy]

Interesting you should mention this! Recently I dug through all my old posts for no real reason, I just went back to my early AGS "career" (these forums started around the time I joined up) and found nuggets of a younger me.

Man, younger me was a douche.

That's not even necessarily a strong commentary on the type of person I was then, or how I have evolved since, but how I don't like reading over what I've said. Even recent posts seemed difficult to read, in that I don't really like the way I come across. But that's more a self-image issue than a reflection of my online "persona" I guess?

What I do find interesting is finding artworks from then until now - be it animations, sketches, ideas for games, whatever. It's nice to see how I've progressed in that regard. I recently found sketchbooks from when I was 16, comics I made when I was 10 and - even better - drawings I did when I was like 6/7 of a superhero I created who basically seemed like a Batman ripoff. It was awesome.

[Babar]

The threads involving my earliest posts here seem to have disappeared. Which is probably a good thing.
I have a couple of envelopes and boxes with all my 'stuff'- letters, photographs, drawings (some of even before the age of 5, of weirdly styled battleships, probably influenced by my father's obsession with the Bismarck), notes and (for some weird reason) pages from my school notebooks. I've definitely gone through a couple of major changes, which I personally wouldn't really classify as a past life, but other people probably would consider a major change.
....like my beard (which no one appreciates , and every single person I meet who I knew before I grew the beard asks: why? is it for religious reasons, for style, etc.)
....like my penchant for writing funny poems- they may not have been masterpieces, but they were enjoyable to write and read. If I try now, it comes out all mechanical and pretentious, so I let it be.
....my art has definitely improved, but I'd consider that more to be growth and learning.


If I was only slightly more obsessive than I am now, I'd set up a mini-database in Access or something where I'd enter everything everyone ever told me or said, grouped by topic and opinion. Then when they'd say something new, I'd 'Ahaaah!' them and point out that they are contradicting themselves, and be able to make graphs and weird charts detailing weird changes. The scary thing is that it is very possible .

[Stupot]

I always tell myself to keep a blog, or a diary or just take more photos, because it is scary how much goes to the back of your mind.  It's not necessarily forgotten, but it takes a photo or a diary entry to bring the memory back.

Like if you go on holiday.  After a while you might only store a handful of highlights in the front of your mind.  These will be the well-worn anecdotes you tell all your friends until they are bored of hearing about it.  But many of the little things go unrecalled until you whack out the photos.  I so regret not updating my Japan blog more regularly and I wish I'd taken more picture.

In terms of AGS and internet persona.  I'm relatively new here, 2 years in Jan.  But I remember fondly a chatroom for Dreamcast users called Egodreams... I had a lot of fun in those days and made many friends, a couple of whom I'm still in contact with today.  The site is long dead and I really wish I could go back and read some of the chat logs because I'm sad to say that I can barely actually remember a single conversation.

[Goldmund]

"Life is like a dream, especially for people who don't keep diaries" - Joseph Conrad

[Layabout]

In my past life I was a children's entertainer by day, and a private investigator by night. Now I'm just a supervillain with the rather useless ability to transform into an invisible urinal made out of cardboard. My Arch-Nemesis is Yahtzee, a bespectacled gentleman with a neat hat who think's he is famous for making some silly videos and apparantly created something called Reality on the Norm. All lies if you ask me. He get's his manservant to make those videos and gravity, that invisible force of nature, created Reality on the Norm.

Just ask Eric, He's 20 foot tall and has the ability to travel through time.

[Akatosh]

A person who maybe was me (depends on which philosopher you ask) used to be a total Magic: The Gathering fanboy. Spent his Internet time on the barely known German fanpage magic-diezusammenkunft.de... which, as I just found out, sort of died in March 2006 and was later sold to some sort of domain harvester.  To add insult to injury, the wayback machine didn't actually archive the forum itself. All it has is the index page, which even mentions my nickname of yore twice. All that remains of some four years of my E-Life is a fiercly shitty "tournament report" I wrote, back when I could still be bothered to get up at 4 A.M. and travel four hours just to get to the only "real" tournament I could get.

... and now I feel like digging out my ancient collection again. I hope you're happy, Mr. Time Traveller! 

[SSH]

So in conclusion: Hi, my name is Eric Feurstein. I am probably not who you remember me to be.

Why are people always claiming to be someone famous in their past lives?

[m0ds]

I often think about my AGS past but I don't go looking for it I seem to get quoted here or there anyway, and I don't see much difference to the way I am now to the way I was when I first joined :p But it is fun to wade back into old posts and see who was posting at the time, remember who you knew and who has since dissapeared

Eric, back when I'd post a photo and then a new one two days later, someone like Helm would still claim I looked different, so checking back on old stuff doesnt seem so distant afterall In most recent months there's been a heck of nostalgia going on. Well for me anyway. Yahtzee made some compelling games. Mike and Mills are working on sequels...Phil Reed is too, and we even got talking about a Larry Vales movie. You and Jess have started to attend Mittens again! Ben Jordan has a movie courtesy of 2008 and everyone at Mittens and so...it feels like time has never really progressed for me...just continued along the same point & just got better. This is one of the only places that ever happens, so I'm greatful

Overall, you seem more friendly now Less "just commenty" and more intrigued in the depths of what induviduals have to say. And that's a good thing! Because you were always good to me but seemed evil in real life!

I think I may have been around in the 20's :p Maybe even earlier, possibly a century ago. Past lives is an interesting concept, I always thought people were crazy when they mentioned them. But lately, it just seems like certain traits are definitely bred into you through time rather than parenting...I dunno...I'm not going to speculate..I'm happhy with this life!!!

[Snake]

I remember pissing off Helm where he told me I was pretty much an ignorant jackass. This was when I first joined (back in 00-01 I believe). There was a conversation going on about records and people's favorite groups. I remember Las Naranjas being included. Heh. There were no bands that were familiar to me so I remarked, "Who are these bands you are talking about? What about (etc, etc, etc...)? What planet are you guys from, anyway?"
Helm then opened my eyes a little.

Heh, the world does infact stretch beyond the United States, Tom. You IDIOT.

It's funny, for some reason I'll always remember, it was either Las Naranjas or Layabout who said, "All Americans are nothing but bubble gum chewing couch potatoes."
It's a foggy memory, so I'm going to go with it being only sarcasm.

Me as a character has changed a little I suppose. My AGS progress has stayed pretty static, though. By 2004, the concept of Leitor's Edge was a year old, and four years later is still non-existant within the realm of completed games. I have managed to choke up a finished game, which of course, was a flop - not to my suprise.

One thing that is big for me around here is that this year, I've managed to show my face after 8 years. But I  have yet to change my avatar.

[LimpingFish]

Oh, I don't like going back and reading how much rubbish I've typed...or continue to type. ¬¬

I don't know how much I've changed, though my almost five years active here have thought me a lot about how a personality represented entirely by snippets of text can appear to other people.

I think most of us develop an online personality just as complex, but separate, from our actuality. In fact, I think even multiple online personalities develop. The IRC me is different to the forum me; neither of which are a totally accurate representation of the fleshy me. I'm not sure if this says more about me or the internet.

The online me, as well as the real me, I suppose, continues to evolve.

[Pumaman]

My memory is just as foggy as ever ... all that digital photos do is allow you to go back and look at them, and think to yourself: "did that really happen? I don't remember doing that".

As for these forums, I did consider digging out the old posts from 2002-2004 from an old backup and stealthily adding them back into the forum DB, but perhaps some things are better off long forgotten...

[Domino]

I would love to see my first post (Thread). It was from August 2003. It was horrible.  I have come a long way since then.

[MillsJROSS]

I remember when I first got here, back on ezboards, I used to end every post with some sort of "funny" tag line. This was actually fairly easy at first, because I wasn't absorbed into the community as much until after I completed Ace Quest, so I didn't post a lot. After a while I dropped that habit, because I was spending more time thinking of a funny things to put at the end of the post, rather than what to put in the middle of post. I'm afraid to look that far back and read some of the tag-lines, though, for fear that I was probably not as funny as I thought I was.

I'd like to say, though, looking back, yeah, there are obviously differences between now and seven and a half years ago. However, I think the core of my personality is much the same. In some ways I think this forum has grounded me in a way the real world isn't able to. I've gone through many of life's milestones during my tenure here at AGS. From graduating high school, to going to college, to graduating college, to getting a job, and all things in between. The whole time AGS was in the background of my life, always present.

There are things in old posts that I might cringe at, and things I'd respond to in a completely different manner. However, I think the best way to be introspective, is to examine how I feel about  how other people in the forum have changed. For the most part I haven't detected a significant change from most of us. That's not to say we're not more mature, we're not (maybe I'm not), but if I liked you before, and you're still around, I still like you, and probably for the same reasons (the sex is still good after all this time).

So in conclusion: Hi, I'm Justin, and I'm still a retard.

-MillsJROSS

[Esseb]

Things that have changed since I joined: I started college. I finished college. I got a job.
Things that haven't changed: My avatar.

[Nacho]

I am embarrased to say that I read some of my posts again and I don' t understand them...