I have been involved in online gaming for a very long time.

I first was introduced to it by AOL, they had a free online text game called Gemstone 3. That game was a lot of fun, but, you had better be able to read very fast. I became involved with a guild called Willow Hall. We were a guild of mostly Rangers. We had a guild house made that looked like a giant willow tree. We had a secret way of entering the tree that only members could enter thru, it was pretty neat. I left AOL after a couple of years, when they raised their prices.

I then got into a graphical online game called Asheron's Call (by Turbine) and I got into a small guild. We had a lot of fun. That was a pretty unique game in it's concept, the bad guys were giant slaver bugs. However, the guild got restless and we heard about a new game called Dark Age of Camelot and decided to move there.

At DAoC, we formed a new guild and we were amazed at the flexiblity of the guild structuring system, we loved it. Our guild grew over time, we even started a few splinter guilds that we would help out each other in time of war. The whole premise of the game was that there were 3 realms all at war with each other. You could have these huge battles out in the common outside areas. It was a constant struggle to stay connected though, when you get that many people together (literally hundreds) all fighting in the same battle, the servers just couldn't keep up. Plus the ninja squads became a real problem. Groups of stealthing sneak attackers would jump anyone coming into the outdoor areas, you couldn't even go to your own castle, by the way, groups could take castles and repair it and hold the fort against the enemy, it was pretty cool. Guild housing was awesome also. But, like I said the ninja groups just ruined everything. I got fed up one day and just left everything behind, my own house, my guild house, my guild (after telling everyone sorry) all my toons and all their equipment.. I still get email from DAoC telling me to come and claim my stuff or lose it... they just keep trying to get me to come back. I spent a lot of time on that game and I hated to leave, but, I couldn't see the game actually going anywhere. It was at a dead end. They also started releasing $30 updates, that did it for me.

I got into the original Everquest for a time, but, I really didn't like the "cartoony" looking characters, but it was something to do until something better came along.

WoW came along, but, I didn't even want to go there with all the obvious farming that was there from day one.

At about the same time The Martix was very popular and started an online game. It was very original, I had a lot of fun with that because of the roleplaying potential. The emotes available were great. A group of us started a guild called the Winter Brood, which they had been active in several other games as well (and may still be). But, they had a real knack for constructing roleplaying events. We would conduct public mystery games with the actors that played the Matrix characters, like Lawrence Fishburn (Morpheus) and Jada Pinkett Smith (Wil Smith's wife) and Ghost. It was pretty cool. But, then Sony bought it out and all that ended. It just died away I think.

At about that time, Turbine announced DDO, yee hah!! I had played D&D for years.. I even owned a game store at one point in my life and ran weekly PnP events.

I got in with the Winter Brood. You can still see the founders names in the public fountain in the harbor, if you look under Winter Brood, you will see Zynges name there. But, interest waned with this group because they liked to roleplay and it just wasn't as easy to do on this game as The Matrix. I was in the process of trying to rebuild the guild, when I got a tell from Mearamar asking me to join the Fellowship. I thought about it a few days and then got back with him and got in.. I brought my son over as well.

Mearamar and I accomplished a lot for the guild and he made me Successor. Then not long after that, he got kind of burnt out on the leader position and decided to step down. I logged in one day and found I was the guild leader.

It has been a struggle at times, but, we are one of the best guilds I have ever seen. I won't be going anywhere anytime soon.

Since then, I have stepped down as leader as well. We have also disbanded the council and my friend Kalaar has assumed leadership of the guild. Since then things are actually quite fun again. But, I now have a full time job as a Tech Support Agent for HP. That takes a lot out of me during the week and that's why you don't see that much of me until the weekend. During the week however, I am usually on one of my toons for a little bit during the evening.