| Vanth (aka libzombie) |
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| General Statistics about Vanth |
| DOB | March 23, 1974 (Too damned old to be playing games? Naaah!) |
| Home | Canada-land |
| Marital Status | Happily hitched since 2001 |
| Kids/Pets | Two cats (boy & girl) |
| Occupation | Full time library assistant, working on starting my own web design business (hopefully this fall/winter) |
| What Makes Me Happy | Working collaboratively with others to just create. Enjoyable, flowing, creative RP and storylines. Character development. Inclusion. |
| What Doesn't Make me Happy | Power-posers. Rules lawyers. Trolls (and not the Warcraft kind). My fun or the fun of others being stomped on. Exclusion. Being rushed or stressed over RP. OOC drama and bullying. 'Net stalkers. |
| Games I'm On | X-Men: Retribution MUSH, Dark Facade MUX, MutantMUSH and Nexus MUX |
| Other Games | World of Warcraft (main server: Shu'halo; secondary: Black Hand; also on a few others) |
| Favourite Musical Group (currently) | Apocalyptica |
| Currently Reading | Some Forgotten Realms tripe that I'm enjoying |
| Currently Building on Nexus | The Lost Boys game, Zombies! games |
News
December 9/09: I know I haven't been around much as of late, but I'm attempting to come back. If folks are interested in getting together for RP as I make my gradual return, just drop me a note in email or in-game @mail! Also, I've passed the invitation on to someone I used to RP with a few years back, so you may or may not see another new face. And welcome to Arian, btw, who was invited in the last week or so.
Articles & Other Writings, ETC.
- TinyTalk Interview - Dec 2007
- Learning 2.0 @ Mac: Week 10: Gaming and Virtual Environments - Apr 2007
- A Lifetime of Gaming - Mar 2007
Current Nexus Characters
A Brief History in MU*ing Time…
My first gaming console was an Atari 2600 with Pong and Missile Command, while my first computer was an Atari 800 which was hooked up to our small tv, had a cartridge reader (for those Atari 2600 games!), a true 'floppy' disk drive and a tape drive. I still remember how to type up a program in the Atari's basic language which would repeatedly print my name millions of times on the screen over and over again until you stopped it.
I also recall my father connecting to bulletin board systems (BBSes) at 400 baud (if memory serves me) with a modem where you dialed the number, picked up your phone receiver and sat it down on top of the modem's 'cradle'. I know what 'machine language' sounds like. ;) I remember Commodore 64 machines and ColecoVision game systems, though punch cards were before me. The family's first laptop had a monochrome monitor that was black with orange text. Speaking of text, text-based adventure games such as Zork and Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy eventually dragged my attention more and more away from games like Frogger and Pac-Man.
I remember the phrase: "It is dark in here. You will likely be eaten by a grue." (Though I still don't really know what a grue is…hell, I don't think the game developers did!)
And then into my teen years, I got into BBSes via dial-up — much to my mother's frustration when she'd pick up the phone and hear noise and then my yells of protest as NO CARRIER flashed on my screen. I became MessageOp for a dozen or so local BBSes and even Co-SysOp for one that my cousin ran (Oasys BBS). It was on the BBSes that I was introduced to something called a MUD. You'd create a character and go out into a text-based world and kill orcs and rocs for gold and loot and see where you stood in the roster.
Finally, in 1993, I started university and was handed a free internet account. E-mail was checked on Pine. Web surfing was done in Lynx and was all text-based. And finally, you accessed all of this by dialing into the university's server…where you got a prompt and could use Telnet. A friend gave me a telnet address once and said, "It's a vampire game. Go check it out. You like those MUD things on the BBSes. It's kind of like that." And so, I logged in and saw the words DARK METAL scroll up my screen. Eight hours later, a MUSH addict was born.
I played primarily on World of Darkness MU*s from 1993 to 2001. During that time, I staffed on Twilight's Edge from 1997 to 2001 (Building Wizard, Vampire Wizard — includes applications, Mortals/Mortals+ Wizard — also includes applications, and for a short time Werewolf Wizard, though I knew very little about that sphere, but they were stuck) and Eternal Night MUX, around 2000-2001 (Mortals/Mortals+ Staff, IC News Staff). I was also a part of MyriadMUSH from 1998 to 2001, which was loosely based on WoD and run by some of the most talented RPers/writers I've had the pleasure to know. Their stories are… epic.
On December 18, 1998, I opened Online Gaming Resource MUX with Ellyssa and Daystrom, under the guise of Siobhan. I maintained the 'hat' of Head Wizard / Co-ordinator ever since and will be stepping aside and handing over OGR to a new crew on December 19, 2007 (it will be renamed to Gateway, the MU* Community MUX at that time and the old name will be recycled by me for a new project). There, I have had much experience as Embassy Wizard, PR Wizard, Gaming Wizard and WebMistress, all within my HeadWiz experience.
From WoD, I moved into Games of Intrigue for a couple of years — a faux-Medieval/fantasy game that had a small but loyal playerbase. Once it closed, I remained on MyriadMUSH for a time but otherwise pulled myself out of RP for a time. It's only been in the last four years or so that I got involved with X-Men: Retribution MUSH and have been playing there since the previous incarnation to the current one. There, I have played the characters of Brianna (OC), Marrow (FC) and Theresa (FC).
Now that I'm giving up the huge project known as OGR, I've decided to branch out and give running an RP game a bit of a whirl. I'm glad you could join us at Nexus MUX!
