Post
by Boss Llama » Sat Nov 07, 2009 12:44 am
I've been gaming online since about 1990, using pre-WWW services to access shared content and such. I've had numerous handles over the years, though I tend to be fanatical about keeping them within any given game. Changing my name in a game, even just to add a tag, is something I don't take lightly. Since putting on my <eVa> tag, I have changed my name only once, for about an hour, for a special event.
Alizée Fan is related to the fact that I am a big fan of the French songstress Alizée. At the time I started playing TF2, I was at the peak of my fandom. I have (or at least had) what the fan club thinks is North America's largest collection of Alizée related merchandise, over 300 items ranging from limited edition LPs and internal industry samplers to original PAL K7's of her music videos that were distributed to TV stations, and in-store publicity items. I flew to Paris and met and talked with her at an album release event, and have several personalized autographs. My car packs ALIZEE1 on the plates, and there is nothing on my iPod that isn't by her. Ironically, while I remain a huge fan, my interest in collecting stuff and hanging out on the fan club site is almost nill since meeting her. Getting to talk with her in person blew all other possible experiences out of the water, and I find minimal fulfillment in simply talking about her or collecting any more :-P
A name that pops up frequently in my gaming is Keplar, or its long form, Keplar the Storyteller. This was the name I picked for myself as a guide in EverQuest. I volunteered with them as a guide/senior guide for 5 years under that name, running quests of all sizes, and coordinating major public events on one of the top servers. I've coordinated up to around 300 people at a time for single events, and have been in charge of combat tournaments peaking at around 150 participants. Keplar was not a particular reference to Johannes Kepler, though many people thought it was. It was simply a sound I liked. The addition of "the Storyteller" to the end was a result of my love of history and plot lines. I knew and could tell the story of every historical quest, every plot twist, and every persistent character the game had ever had. This was especially valuable later in my service there, when new players were around who had no concept of what things meant, why certain symbols existed, or the importance that certain areas held.
I played CS:S competitively with the Wooden Nickel (Wdn^5) clan, using the handle Wdn^5|ECooney. ECooney is simply based on my name in real life. I felt I had outgrown the attempts at being scary or hardcore of my youth, but hadn't yet pinned down my identity, so I went with the simple identity that was myself.
Kridgerkanthar Exubitorsylvae, later changed to Kridgerkanthar Edrilus, was my primary playing handle in EverQuest. Kridgerkanthar was the name of the super villain in the Palladium Fantasy RPG game I ran in 8th grade. It sounded evil and intimidating (so I thought), and satisfied my need for bizareness. I played a ranger in the game, and RP'd that aspect intensely. I never once in 6 years of playing killed a wolf or a bear. Exubitorsylvae is rough latin for Guardian of the Woods, which is what I fancied myself as. The later shift to Edrilus stemmed from my push, as a player, to make my fellow players aware of the game's plot history. Edril was a major character, and I portrayed myself as the son of Edril in order to garner attention for my cause.
RigorMortis is the name I used in FPS's back in the day, at least as far back as original Quake. I thought it was cool and sinister. Rigor Mortis, of course, is the stiffening that occurs in a body after death.
Jeremiah Lionheart, frequently abbreviated J. Lionheart or JL, is the name I use in association with pen and paper RPGs. It is the name of a character I made in 6th grade for a Palladium Fantasy game, and is the name I still use to this day with Palladium. I don't feel like it's very creative, but I later explained it as simply being the "humanization" of his real name, which is unpronouncable to most (the character is a Wolfen - a bipedal wolf-man with Roman Empire affiliations)
Iluvcheese goes waaaaay back, representing the name assigned to me on AOL 1.0 by my father in 1993, at the age of 11. He wouldn't let me have any of the handles I wanted, and proposed Ilovecheese to me, as I do have a passion for the stuff. Since I wanted to get online and was fed up with his refusals, I agreed. Names had a 10 character limit at the time, as we soon discovered, and it became Iluvcheese.
Prior to that, I was online using Prodigy, from the time we got our 486SX/25 in 1989. I played an early RPG and some puzzle games and such, though I believe I just used my own name anywhere it asked for a handle. The concept of using an alias didn't really strike me at the age of 7.
-Boss Llama