Roleplaying the First Person Shooter.

I was once told I'm the stereotypical nerd. I argue otherwise of course, but I'm pretty darn close. I'm attached to a computer 80% of my waking hours, I've got glasses so thick you could club someone over the head with them, I'm heavy into anime, and I love to roleplay.

Back in the day, my poor old 56k modem limited my online presence. I mainly stuck to chats and message boards because that was about the limit of my terrible bandwidth. I never even seriously considered gaming, because the latency was generally terrible. The exception was when Neverwinter Nights hit store shelves, and subsequently into my grasp. I experimented online with it, and I did alright with a 56k. Why am I talking of NWN and 56k modems? Hold on, it becomes relevent up ahead.

Also back in the day, I exposed a group of friends to Dungeons & Dragons. A good friend of mine had the old first edition books collecting dust in his basement among his parents other artifacts. Completely peaked in interest, I borrowed them to read through and unravel exactly how to play. A year later, we were gathering together for sessions with myself in the seat of the almightey dungeon master. Those were great times, and the foundation of my roleplaying experiences. When I later wanted to try it as a player character, we rotated the DM position around the group. The group I mention was completely and 100% male, so to fill in the missing void, I would tend to create a female character.

Ok, now spring forward ahead a bit to college. One afternoon, for the heck of it, I decide to try out a first person shooter online - I signed up for cable internet in the place I was staying there. I chose No One Lives Forever 2, one of my all-time favourites still. The character model selection is a bit limited, and the only one I could settle on was the female ninja. The nerd in me kicks in from my RP days in D&D and NWN, and before you know it, I'd already sussed out my "character" before naming her. Thus, "Koyuki" was born, the name borrowed from my favorite anime, but fitting the character I'd thought up to a T.

I played not only the shooter when I was in game, but Koyuki as well. Sounds strange, don't it? Well, it wasn't supposed to stick. I figured I'd play a little, get myself owned, and move back to NWN. But, I got really into the game. A few months passed, and I was still around, as Koyuki. In fact, I went so far as to join a clan.

Again, I shopped around the clanboards not exactly as me, but more as the character of Koyuki. I tried out for, and was accepted to a smaller clan by the name of Lone Wolf (Now everyone who was confused by what was my MSN handle for the longest time can now become all demystified - [LW] Koyuki was my NOLF2 handle). My NOLF2 "career" continued to thrive to the point where Koyuki became division leader in the clan about mid-year 2004.

The charade would not last. Some of the smarter (or perhaps nosier) members of the community picked up the trails I hadn't completely eliminated around myself, leading them here and to the person behind Koyuki. The jig was up, and I came clean, like I should have long before that. In any case, for better or worse, I got it out of my system. At the end of that month, an inner-clan dispute ultimately killed off LW (in case you're wondering, I had nearly nothing to do with what happened). Being the terrible leader I was, coupled with the fact I was under the work vise that month, I was unable to keep things together.

I still NOLF, but not so much as I once did. When I do, you can still catch me as Koyuki. And then, sometimes even still in character. Yeah, I'm a nerd alright, but certainly not a stereotype.