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[Gorath Alpha]

A new member's choice of handle struck a chord from long, LONG ago.  It wasn't my first computer game, and it wasn't hosted on my first desktop computer, but it was the first time I would come back again and again, over and over.  It was the first time I felt that I *HAD* to cheat some to get anywhere, but I didn't mind.  I was just having so much fun. 

It wasn't "3D", not at all.  The animation wasn't full screen at all, it was only repeated spot animations within a part of the gaming screen.  Windows didn't exist yet, so there was no "switching".  The public had no access to DARPAnet, so you could only discuss a game on a local basis, between local gamers, on a local "Bulletin Board" (and the best of those for RPG gamers, in my opinion, was the one that I hosted at my home).  

It was the original "Bard's Tale", and it was 1983 or 1984.  Everything all happened in just one small town, and it was a half-ruined wreck of a town at that, with all kinds of maddened critters roaming everywhere.  I remember opening a door inside Harkyn's Castle and meeting 600 insane, raving berserker Vikings all anxious to tear my party to pieces. 

Getting started, you could get killed, all six of the party, almost anywhere, and you did.  The only place you could save without losing things was in the Adventurer's Guild, and one of the first cheats was the "Gold Scam", which involved creating hundreds of new characters just to take their few pieces of starting gold and give it to a character you would save, else you could hardly amass the cost to equip the party properly. 

The town was Skara Brae, and if I ever knew there was a real place in the Orkney Islands off the Scottish coast, I'd totally forgotten that.  I had also forgotten that Origins, the company, not the downloader at EA, added Skara Brae to Brittania, where the Ultima games took place. 

My thanks to the new member.  Those were fun, fond memories.