You know, there was a similar question a few days ago about gaming background, and I did my usual semi-essay length ramble.

But this specific question reminds me of something I didn’t add into that because of that terminology, gamer.

See, I played games. I even played arcade games as a fairly dedicated hobby, but I can’t say I was a gamer. Same with the early Nintendo or even later console games. I played a lot, but I wasn’t a gamer because it was something I really only did occasionally.

It was mmorpgs that turned me into someone that would buy a dedicated gaming PC, spend entire days playing, and run guilds and shit.

But the one that started that wasn’t even one I played.

I had a friend/patient back in the early 2ks. Patient first, became a friend. He was dying, so we kinda did whatever the fuck he wanted. Dude was in his twenties, and fucking dying, so I ran him a d&d campaign, made sure that if he wanted to party, he could. I even got him laid a couple of times.

Anyway, he played this game called “Kingdom of Istaria” (iirc, it may have been spelled different). He’d play while music was blasting, and I’d keep his pills in order so he could just play as long as his stamina would let him.

Anyway, I hadn’t done much in the way of gaming in years at that point other than the occasional mariocart insanity with my sister. Seeing what could be done with graphics, the crafting and the mmo aspect drew me in. But, by the time I got around to setting up a PC, checking things out, the game was dead. So I tried other things and did so for long enough to meet the woman that became my wife while gaming.

But if it hadn’t been for that game, I might not have gone looking at all.