About Utopia stories

Utopia is one of the oldest browser-based multiplayer games, coming online in January 1999. In its heyday it could claim to be “massively” multiplayer, drawing over 100,000 players (more or less, depending on who you ask). It won the Webby Gaming Site of the Year Award twice, in 2002 and 2003. Being a text-based game, with an interface that hasn’t changed much since its first days, Utopia may not appeal to the gaming masses who are more graphically-inclined and for whom World of Warcraft and its ilk are true representations of massively multiplayer online games. Nevertheless, Utopia has its following.

I was introduced to the game by my cousin, and was first attracted by the traditional fantasy RPG background. So much so that I wrote a story as an introduction to my in-game avatar. Of course, my naiveté was met with complete silence on the Forums for my Kingdom. Good thing I took an interest in the strategy of the game, otherwise I would probably have abandoned the game.

The story-writing was actually inspired by a collaborative-writing-cum-role-playing experience I had back in 1995, at The Dragon’s Inn. The Dragon’s Inn was a newsgroup on Usenet (alt.dragons-inn or alt.pub.dragons-inn) for role-players who would maneuver their own characters through collaborative adventures. I mostly just read the various entries posted to that listserv, but I did de-lurk to introduce my own character. The Dragon’s Inn was the birthplace of Lothaq, which became my alter-ego on the net, and also used as my nom de plume.

I’ve only written three Utopia-related stories, and they were all beginning of Age stories. The first two were shared with my kingdom-mates, while the last was written just for my own amusement, although it was also published at my GeoCities site. None had titles previously, and I even recorded them with just the Age number. I’ve given them titles for posting here, and will reveal the timeline in my backstories.