Way Back When

[Silky Gooseness]

Share your favourite memories of Original Plaza from the Wayback Machine, or just from your own actual brain! Embrace the nostalgia. Embrace it

[Silky Gooseness]

Some of my favourite memories:

halfir roleplaying as being kidnapped by a pirate and getting a baguette stuck up his nose;

Six Degrees of SeparENTation (did I spell that correctly?)

Amalric’s Quest to marry Rohanna and all the weird, weird stuff he had to complete in order to do so

And https://web.archive.org/web/20090309072 ... TID=228709

[Landy]

Geesh I can't pick out a few memories from the so many. I guess the time when I met my first love (love usually comes and goes though) and my best friend who is pretty much like a sister to me (those stay forever!).

I loved the time back when folks like Manny, Windy, Loke etc ruled Mordor, back when I was a little new minion by the name of Varda Belacqua (what a terrible name that was really!) and they all seemed very intimidating!

[Nerwen Nuke-queen]

My favourites were coming up with new icons and themes :D and when everyone changed their names. The von Lipwigs are still strong in my heart. Halloween was great!

[Winddancer]

I loved the time back when folks like Manny, Windy, Loke etc ruled Mordor, back when I was a little new minion by the name of Varda Belacqua (what a terrible name that was really!) and they all seemed very intimidating!

<3 Uruloki used to scare the c*** out of me :P

And favourite memories, torturing my prisoners of course :P

[Rowena Ellenweorc]

Oh my gosh!!! Uruloki!!! I swear there was a point I was married to him.

[DEATH]

I loved the time back when folks like Manny, Windy, Loke etc ruled Mordor, back when I was a little new minion by the name of Varda Belacqua (what a terrible name that was really!) and they all seemed very intimidating!

Me? Intimidating? YES I WAS.

[DEATH]

And favourite memories, torturing my prisoners of course :P

You were one of Mordor's best.

[Reikon Suchi-ru]

I loved the time back when folks like Manny, Windy, Loke etc ruled Mordor, back when I was a little new minion by the name of Varda Belacqua (what a terrible name that was really!) and they all seemed very intimidating!

<3 Uruloki used to scare the c*** out of me :P

And favourite memories, torturing my prisoners of course :P

I seem to remember being a favored victim of said torturing! :D

[Silky Gooseness]

Me? Intimidating? YES I WAS.

I think my favourite memory of you was when you changed your last name to Kcirbatihs.

[Winddancer]

And favourite memories, torturing my prisoners of course :P

You were one of Mordor's best.

I seem to remember being a favored victim of said torturing! :D

Warms my cold dead evil heart <3

[DEATH]

I think my favourite memory of you was when you changed your last name to Kcirbatihs.

Geez, I don't remember that one. Looks like something I would have done though. The wayback machine seems to have preserved half a dozen or so of the names I had but there were so many I've forgotten at least half of them. I used to drive Halfir to despair.

[Flame Fried Ent]

Favourite for me was when I was ruling Fangorn and burned it down....on purpose,

[Rowena Ellenweorc]

I think my favourite memory of you was when you changed your last name to Kcirbatihs.

Geez, I don't remember that one. Looks like something I would have done though. The wayback machine seems to have preserved half a dozen or so of the names I had but there were so many I've forgotten at least half of them. I used to drive Halfir to despair.

I'm pretty sure all the minions drove halfir crazy with the constant name changes.

[Dimcairien Luiniel]

I remember some of the ridiculous lore conversations, such as why Gandalf cannot shut doors or discussing the various bathroom situations across Middle Earth.

Also, when Aig was ruler, making fun of his eyebrows.

[Shivased]

I think there are way too many good memories to pick one.

But one does kinda stand out. There was a period where me, Fyrefly(Allacan) and a couple others (Eile may have been in there somewhere) decided to RP our horses walking backwards into the throne room of Edoras. We gave Eowyn and Eomer half-crunched up apples and dribbled apple juice everywhere. Suffice to say the rulers were not happy!

[Elvheimdros]

Lots of good memories, but mostly just the vibe.

Probably the thing I'm most proud (?) of was time...

...Okay, well the admins (Valinor) all changed names one April Fools. And a couple other users picked up on it and some grabbed admin's names. I decided (even changed kingdoms briefly for this iirc) to impersonate Arlo Cuthalion, and I forget whether that should have an accent and mine didn't (more likely) or Arlo didn't have the accent and I added it, BUT ANYWAY Arlo was able when it was all over to change back to his name without mine getting changed first, so there were briefly two Arlos.

I'm not really the prank type, so unfortunately I didn't do anything really memorable with it and eventually somebody realized what happened and told me to change back to my real Plaza name. But it amused me at the time and I think it's still funny now.

[Eldrith]

oh my, the plaza olympics! The roleplay in Gondor (when I was still Gondorian) about the ranger cook and the storyline with Mathen Norse, then the Aeldsel Inn and all the six thousand adventures there. Meeting friends that became 'outside of the plaze' friends. My bridesmaid was someone I met on the plaza!! My fellow pubmistress was at my wedding.
So.. many.. wonderful.. memories.

[Winddancer]

Mathen! Omg his insane RPG that you had no chance of keeping up with unless you stayed awake 24/7! :D

[Mojo]

Shout-out to everyone who did Debate back in the day. We got into some disagreements, but I mostly remember that rush of adrenaline from hitting "Submit" on a debate post that you had worked on for days and felt really really good about.

Happy to see someone has fond memories of the Plaza Olympics as well! There was a lot of sweat and tears that we put into planning the Fangorn ones, which is arguably one of my proudest moments - getting the original Eru to come back and post to open the Games.

Also, there was a time when I was ruler of Fangorn and was away on vacation (back in the days before smartphones and prevalent WiFi access) and someone burned down my forest. In all honesty, that was pretty fun and the admins gave us all special icons for a few weeks - one set with trees on fire and the other set with burned-out ashen stumps.

[DEATH]

Shout-out to everyone who did Debate back in the day. We got into some disagreements, but I mostly remember that rush of adrenaline from hitting "Submit" on a debate post that you had worked on for days and felt really really good about.

Happy to see someone has fond memories of the Plaza Olympics as well! There was a lot of sweat and tears that we put into planning the Fangorn ones, which is arguably one of my proudest moments - getting the original Eru to come back and post to open the Games.

Also, there was a time when I was ruler of Fangorn and was away on vacation (back in the days before smartphones and prevalent WiFi access) and someone burned down my forest. In all honesty, that was pretty fun and the admins gave us all special icons for a few weeks - one set with trees on fire and the other set with burned-out ashen stumps.

Mojo, I think we only crossed paths briefly during my dalliance with Debate. Honestly it was super hard work getting minions to form complete sentences, let alone a full debate post. But it was a heck of a lot of fun and 100 percent worth the work for the pleasure of helping an argument grow up and make its way out into the Debate world.

Also, was that me with the forest? I feel like that's something I might have done. Although it might also have been Lothlorien that I tried to burn down. Or Imladris. I definitely think I might have possibly perhaps tried to burn someone else's kingdom. On acccident. Definitely not maybe on purpose. Probably.

[Eldrith]

Mojo, Loke, I remember reading actual boy scout cart manuals, then trying to translate that into middle earth materials, giving daily team updates in emails with recommendations, analyzing judges posts and seeing what they rewarded, directions for the team members... Oh my goodness, I was ridiculously focused on that first one. (And we won gold with the Gondor Cart racing team). In the second Olympics I only featured as a cheerleader. But I loved it. Debate was never my strong point, mostly because I am week on Lore, but I was a debate team cheerleader as well.

[Mojo]

Loke - I think it was mostly Meg (now Flame Fried Ent) who was behind the burning of the forest, but she definitely had help from the Admins. It was definitely something to come home from vacation and see the banner changed to a forest fire and everyone having flaming-tree icons! There were probably others involved behind the scenes as well but it made for some fun RPs about bringing the Forest back to life.

Eldrith - Glad you have fond memories of debates...looking back I can't believe how much time and effort we put into it all, but that feeling of hitting "send" on a debate post was the ultimate "micdrop" kind of rush and it was incredible.

[Dimcairien Luiniel]

I have some recollection of doing debate, mainly with Nia. It was great fun, but then RL and university caught up with me.

[Silky Gooseness]

Pelennor Pigskin anyone

[DEATH]

Mojo - yeah I think, as I ruminate further, that it was definitely one of the Elven forests I tried to cook. I don't know that I ever managed to spend much time in Fangorn. It was a little too ... sentient for my liking.

[Winddancer]

Oooomg Pelenor Pigskin! Damn and we did that on dial up! Would open the x amount of posts needed, get them all written and then have a nervous breakdown posting them and hoping no one posted inbetween yours! Haha!

[Mojo]

What did we call the scrabble game? That was a lot of fun too

[Reikon Suchi-ru]

What did we call the scrabble game? That was a lot of fun too

Word Sleuth!!!

[Mojo]

YES!! We should do that again, it was great fun!

[Reikon Suchi-ru]

As long as I don't have to pore over the Etymologies again for 2-letter Elvish words.

[Mojo]

I might be a conspiracy theorist, but I swear there were certain people that had some kind of file with every word that appeared in the books and were able to pull quotes out of thin air.

(Not trying to call anyone out, and I don't remember who specifically it was, just seemed like there were always totally random quotes people were able to find).

[Reikon Suchi-ru]

I might be a conspiracy theorist, but I swear there were certain people that had some kind of file with every word that appeared in the books and were able to pull quotes out of thin air.

(Not trying to call anyone out, and I don't remember who specifically it was, just seemed like there were always totally random quotes people were able to find).

It's certainly possible! I know I had a list of two-letter words I wrote down and had various sticky flags on pages in the Etymologies. It was serious business! haha

[Shivased]

What did we call the scrabble game? That was a lot of fun too

Word Sleuth!!!

I still have the WM board and (I think) a lot of the letter tiles for that! I'm not sure why, but I kept them just in case LOL

[Reikon Suchi-ru]

What did we call the scrabble game? That was a lot of fun too

Word Sleuth!!!

I still have the WM board and (I think) a lot of the letter tiles for that! I'm not sure why, but I kept them just in case LOL

That's great! I haven't saved anything from those days, sadly. So many computers ago, haha.

[Mojo]

YESSSSS You folks are the best!

[Nessila]

favorite memories was all the hate thrown my way in Mordor. The pure anger and frustration of helpless rulers who could not control the foooooo . The torturing by Rings[/] and Morgoth and the Junior Drill and Junior Debate competitions!

[Eldy Dunami]

I wasn't involved in any of the more structured competitions on the Plaza, but I have fond memories of a lot of silly forum games. There's PAM, of course, but character elimination games were a lot of fun, too. I recall the "Lord of the Vale" thread in Imladris which racked up about 8000 posts in three weeks in early 2011. I believe the rule was you had to have at least two intervening posts before you could post again, so when possible I'd synch up with two or three other people via MSN Messenger and we'd just continuously post in a circle for an hour until we achieved our goal. That was probably less fun for everyone else, but, hey, planning!

[Mojo]

Found this old Fangorn Word Sleuth board!



Also this IK Debate Header Image!

[Allacan ob Burzum]

I think there are way too many good memories to pick one.

But one does kinda stand out. There was a period where me, Fyrefly(Allacan) and a couple others (Eile may have been in there somewhere) decided to RP our horses walking backwards into the throne room of Edoras. We gave Eowyn and Eomer half-crunched up apples and dribbled apple juice everywhere. Suffice to say the rulers were not happy!

They reversed in because then hopefully the people in the building would think they were actually leaving. One of the best plaza moments ever! Even role-playing our own harassed riders coming to collect their respective steeds was fun!

[Shivased]

@Allacan Beorhtlig OMG, I forgot why they went in backwards! RPing our characters coming to get them was hilarious too. Poor Shiva was mortified, but Storm didn't care one bit. It's my favourite RP event I've ever done.

[Elarith]

I remember an RP race thing across Rohan to Gondor maybe? Rohanna ran it. It was great but intense - all the team had to post in 24 hours. I think our team won because someone on the leading team fell asleep and missed the deadline! Sleep deprivation has never been as fun.

@Winddancer Rapidly refreshing the page, heart in mouth, checking for posts! I think I stressed more over that than some of my uni essays.

[Winddancer]

I remember an RP race thing across Rohan to Gondor maybe? Rohanna ran it. It was great but intense - all the team had to post in 24 hours. I think our team won because someone on the leading team fell asleep and missed the deadline! Sleep deprivation has never been as fun.

@Winddancer Rapidly refreshing the page, heart in mouth, checking for posts! I think I stressed more over that than some of my uni essays.

Was it Pelanor Pigskin? Cause we used to line up the posts and get them ready lol, was a nighmare on modem!

[Elarith]

Yes, sorry it wasn’t obvious, that’s what I was referring to in my last bit! Utterly bonkers.

[Taethowen]

I think what are probably my fondest Plaza memories (besides just the friendships made) are the summer festival tournaments in the Riddermark, and the one time I ran a Miss Meduseld contest at the fall festival, and also a completely for-fun "Middle-Earth's Next Top Model" thing another Plaza-ite ran in OOME one summer. I still have pictures somewhere of my improvised outfits for that, including a shieldmaiden one that had a duct-tape breastplate and a giant tension rod for a quarterstaff. I will try to dig that out later.

[Winddancer]

Yes, sorry it wasn’t obvious, that’s what I was referring to in my last bit! Utterly bonkers.

Ya that was a crazy time, used to give me heart attacks!

[Shivased]

Also, the Rohirric Bathtub Race! @Aodh Hammerhelm didn't you run this a couple times?

They were hilarious, and I distinctly remember flying down a river in my wardrobe-cum-boat along with others. Anything and everything became a boat, whether it floated or not!

[Aodh Hammerhelm]

@Shivased
I spent happy hours reading through Tub Race 1 and 2 during a quiet shift on Saturday night. Thankfully my crew is a deep sleeper - I was laughing till my nose ran.

[Lirimaer]

And https://web.archive.org/web/20090309072 ... TID=228709

Wow, so this sent me me on a voyage of discovery ... found my house after a long search in the Void, but sadly it was not archived on wayback when all the rooms were open, so Narv's poetry (whatever it was) will remain uncelebrated forever in one of the locked rooms.

[Elenhir]

The best part about houses was breaking into them by abusing the URLs.