Post by Shonengetsu Chronos on Nov 8, 2014 20:34:42 GMT
Egypt (4000BC): Haman requests that Shamoon the Magician uses his necromancy to invent a board game that would entertain King Rameses so that he might forget about Haman's misdeeds. Shamoon invents Alquerque a type of ancient Egyptian checkers. Inscriptions at the ancient temple of Thebes portrays King Rameses playing the game of Alquerque with a member of his household. It is the first game in which the players take turns. Around the same time the ancient racing game of frogs called Ashtapada/Spider was played in India with dice involving a checkered board with 8x8 squares. Many roleplayers consider Alquerque & Ashtapada to be forerunners of turn-based roleplaying wargames.
Egypt (3500BC): Senet is a board game from predynastic and ancient Egypt and is the oldest board game whose ancient existence has been confirmed. Senet may be the oldest board game in the world. The oldest remnants of any ancient board game ever unearthed are those of senet found in predynastic and First Dynasty burials of Egypt circa 3500 BC and 3100 BC respectively. Senet may even predate the existence of Alquerque but evidence is limited. By the time of the New Kingdom in Egypt (1567–1085 BC) it had become a kind of talisman for the journey of the dead. Because of the element of luck in the game and the Egyptian belief in determinism it was believed that a successful player was under the protection of the major gods of the national pantheon: Ra Thoth and sometimes Osiris. Consequently Senet boards were often placed in the grave alongside other useful objects for the dangerous journey through the afterlife and the game is referred to in Chapter XVII of the Book of the Dead. The game was also adopted in the Levant and as far as Cyprus and Crete but with apparently less religious significance. Senet was apparently a race game for two players involving five pawns each with moves determined by tosses of throwstick or knucklebone.
India (400BC): King Balhait summoned Sissa the Brahmin and requested of the wise man to create a game which would require pure mental skill and oppose the teaching of games in which fate/luck decides the outcome by the throw of dice. Sissa invented Chaturanga a type of ancient Indian chess using the already popular Ashtapada checkered board. The pieces include the rajah/king the senapati/general the gaja/elephant the ashwa/horse the ratha/chariot and the sainik/infantry.
Europe (1824CE): Kriegsspiel from the German word for "wargame" was a system used for training officers in the Prussian army. The first set of rules was Instructions for the Representation of Tactical Maneuvers under the Guise of a Wargame produced by von Reisswitz a lieutenant in the Prussian army based on earlier work by his father. Today it is considered the grandfather of modern wargames. This rules set established several conventions for wargaming which hold true to the present day such as the use of maps color coding the opposing armies as red and blue using umpires and uniform complex rules for movement and combat. Map scale was 6 to 8 inches to a mile and the time scale was 2 minutes per one turn. Blocks were used to represent units. The stunning Prussian victory over the Second French Empire in the Franco-Prussian War 1870-1871 is sometimes partly credited to the training of Prussian officers with the game Kriegspiel which was invented around 1811 and gained popularity with many officers in the Prussian army. These first wargames were played with dice which represented "friction" or the intrusion of less than ideal circumstances during a real war (including morale weather the fog of war etc.) though this was usually replaced by an umpire who used his own combat experience to determine the results.
Europe (1899CE): Kriegspiel is a Chess variant invented by Henry Michael Temple based upon the original Kriegspiel developed by Georg von Rassewitz in 1812. In this game each player can see their own pieces but not those of their opponent. For this reason it is necessary to have a third person (or computer) act as a referee with full information about the progress of the game. When it is a player's turn he will attempt a move which the referee will declare to be 'legal' or 'illegal'. If the move is illegal the player tries again; if it's legal that move stands. Kriegsspiel is usually considered the German military version of the Kriegspiel chess game and is thus mentioned here as a forerunner of modern roleplaying combat.
United Kingdom (1913CE): Little Wars was written by the famous author H. G. Wells as a set of rules for playing with toy soldiers. The full title is "Little Wars: a game for boys from twelve years of age to one hundred and fifty and for that more intelligent sort of girl who likes boys games and books". Little Wars is considered by some to be the first modern table top war game. It included fairly simple rules for infantry cavalry and artillery in the form of a toy 4.7-inch naval gun that launched projectiles usually small wooden dowels to knock down enemy soldiers. In addition to it being a war game the book hints at several philosophical aspects of war. According to Wells the idea of the game developed from a visit by his friend Jerome K. Jerome. After dinner Jerome began shooting down toy soldiers with a toy cannon that Wells joined in to compete. The two decided that with an addition of written rules a good Kriegsspiel type game could be developed. The game revolved around the use of lead hollow cast soldiers made by W. Britain and battlefields made from whatever materials were on hand usually blocks or other toys. Simple rules of movement firing and close combat were developed with a set amount of time for each player to move and fire. Little Wars is included here as a progenitor of textual combat.
Medicine (1921CE): Jacob Levy Moreno coins the term "roleplaying" and opens the Theatre of Spontaneity acting company. Levy is a psychodrama director who believes in Drama Therapy originally created as a methodology for studying role theories by the social sciences. To roleplay one enacts various motives attitudes and postures. The protagonists are the participants who improvise their actions within a situation normally simulated about them. It is their life or abilities their roles that are being examined or tested. The auxiliary egos are anyone else who performs to place the protagonists within the situation. The audience is any onlooker who may provide feedback. The stage is wherever the practice is performed or perhaps fictionally set. The director is the expert who guides the exercise.
United States (1940CE): Sega is founded in Hawaii originally as Standard Games later to be moved to Tokyo in Japan and renamed to Service Games (SEGA) in 1954.
United States (1961CE): Spacewar! is the very first digital space shooter game developed by Steve Russell who wrote the first two implementations of Lisp for the IBM 704. Spacewar! is the progenitor of space shooter video games such as the ones that inspired the 1977 movie Star Wars.
United States (1966CE): The Society for Creative Anachronism (SCA) becomes a historical re-creation and living history group which endeavors to promote the study and recreation of mainly pre-17th century Western European cultures and their histories. The organization began with a "Grand Tournament" in which the participants wore motorcycle helmets fencing masks and usually some semblance of a costume and whacked away at each other with weapons including plywood swords padded maces and even a fencing foil during a backyard graduation party for Diana Paxson styled as a "protest against the 20th Century". In many ways the SCA is viewed as a progenitor of many medieval roleplaying communities. William A. Gamson creates the Simulated Society (SIMSOC) a game used by universities and other groups to teach various aspects of sociology political science and communications skills. In addition to its well established academic uses some have suggested that SIMSOC is a precursor to modern roleplaying games such as D&D and more particularly to live action roleplay.
United States (1967CE): Henry Bodenstedt develops the wargame Seige of Bodenburg one of the earliest sets of rules for conducting battles with medieval miniatures. The rules were first published in the Strategy & Tactics magazine. This wargame would later inspire Gary Gygax the author of Chainmail and D&D.
Internet (1968CE): The Internet was formed when the Department of Defense created the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA). At the time it was called the Arpanet.
Arcade (1971CE): Nolan Bushnell and Ted Dabney founded Syzygy Engineering which designed the first arcade video game. Atari was incorporated the following year in 1972 and Nolan Busnell hired Al-Alcom to create Pong the tennis sports game.
Internet (1972CE): Electronic Mail (E-Mail) was adapted for Arpanet by Ray Tomlinson. Around the same time Atari is founded by Nolan Bushnell.
Arcade (1973CE): Maze Wars is the first actual first-person shooter video game. Steve Colley subsequently worked on very early versions of rover technology for NASA and found that his 3D perspective work on Maze Wars was useful for the Mars project. Maze Wars features characters who wander around a maze and shoot each other gaining or losing points.
United States (1974CE): Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) is a fantasy roleplaying game originally designed by Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson. Ernest Gary Gygax was an American writer and game designer who not only co-created D&D but he also co-founded Tactical Studies Rules (TSR) and founded the Gen Con gaming convention in 1967 a decade before. Talkomatic is the first example of a text-only chat room developed on the PLATO system.
Internet (1975CE): Dungeon was written by Don Daglow then a student at Claremont Graduate University. The game was an unlicensed implementation of the new role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) and described the movements of a multi-player party through a monster-inhabited dungeon. Players chose what actions to take in combat and where to move each character in the party which made the game very slow to play by today's standards. Characters earned experience points and gained skills as their Level grew as in D&D and most of the basic tenets of D&D were reflected. Although the game was nominally played entirely in text it was also the first game to employ line of sight graphics displays. Its use of computer graphics consisted of top-down dungeon maps that showed the portions of the playfield the party had seen allowing for light or darkness the different "infravision" abilities of elves dwarves etc.
Arcade (1976CE): Heavyweight Champ is a boxing arcade video game released by Sega with black and white graphics. Most gamers believe this to be the very first video fighting game which makes it a precursor to organized textual combat. Apple Computers is established by Steve Jobs and the very first personal computer Apple-1 is hand built by Steve Wozniak.
United States (1977CE): The very first Star Wars movie appears in theatres focussing on a galactic struggle in the Force between the Jedi and the Sith. The film is written and directed by George Lucas but is later re-named Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope involving a mature Luke Skywalker Darth Vader and Obi-Wan Kenobi as some of the main characters. Many on-line fighters believe this movie to have inspired the way elitists practice their fighting styles when roleplaying. Many elitists belong to clans with their own unique styles and engage in a sort of master & apprentice training cirricullum very much like Star Wars.
United Kingdom (1978CE): Roy Trubshaw and Richard Bartle invent the first MUD or "multi-user dungeon" on a DEC PDP-10 system. At first it was just a series of locations in which you could move and chat but soon Richard Bartle would take an interest in the project and create a battle system called hack-n-slash. One year later at Essex University Roy Trubshaw and Richard Bartle were able to connect to Arpanet in the USA and conduct an international multiplayer game.
Arcade (1980CE): Namco Limited in Japan releases Pakkuman the video arcade game later distributed in the United States by Midway Games as Pac-Man the popular ghost chasing game featuring four ghosts named Clyde Inky Pinky and blinky.
Arcade (1983CE): Dragon's Lair is a laserdisc video game published by Cinematronics featuring animation created by former Disney animator Don Bluth. Dragon's Lair is about the hero Dirk the Daring attempting to rescue Princess Daphne from the evil dragon Singe locked in a wizard's castle. It is the very first FMV-based arcade game which doesn't use sprites.
Arcade (1984CE): Capcom releases its very first arcade game Vulgus named after a fictional alien planet. The player controls a spaceship and tries to destroy incoming enemies with unlimited lazers and only a few bombs. Capcom is short for Capsule Computer according to their associates in North America who say it originated in Japan. The popular Dragon Ball universe is created by Akira Toriyama in his Japanese manga stories. Inspired by the Chinese folk novel Journey to the West it follows the adventures of Son Goku from his childhood through middle age as he trains in martial arts and explores the world in search of the seven mystical objects known as the Dragon Balls which are known to grant any wish. Son Goku is based on the Monkey King of ancient India known to the Chinese as Sun Wukong. Jessica Mulligan was a Beta tester for Apple II and Macintosh games like Spectrum Holobyte at this time.
United States (1985CE): Randall Farmer co-founded Electronic Communities and assisted in the making of Yahoo! 360. Randy Farmer and Chip Morningstar organized an on-line multiplayer adventure game for Quantum link called Lucasfilm's Habitat a client run on a Commodore 64 but the game doesn't make it past Beta version in the USA because it is too demanding for the server technology of the time.
United States (1986CE): NSFNet was created with an Internet backbone speed of 56KBits using a TCP/IP-based protocol. That same year Jessica Mulligan started the Rim Worlds War as the first play-by-email RPG on a commercial online server. The earliest forms of turn-based textual combat developed at this time but would not take shape for another 10 years. Right now the nameless combative aspect of roleplaying has no distinction from roleplaying itself.
Internet (1987CE): AberMUD was the first popular open source MUD named after the town in which it was written Aberystwyth. The first version was written in the B-system programming language by Alan Cox Richard Acott Jim Finnis and Leon Thrane at the University of Wales Aberystwyth. Capcom develops the very first Street Fighter game featuring Ryu Ken Geki Joe Mike Lee Gen and Sagat.
Internet (1988CE): Internet Relay Chat (IRC) is a form of real-time internet text messaging or synchronous conferencing. It is mainly designed for group communication in discussion forums called channels but also allows one-to-one communication via private message as well as chat. IRC was created by Jarkko Oikarinen (WiZ).
Internet (1989CE): Quantum Space was the first play-by-email game offered as part of a major commercial online service. It ran on AOL from 1989 to 1992. The game was developed by Stormfront Studios designed and programmed by Don Daglow and produced by Kathi McHugh. James Aspnes writes TinyMUD as a simplified multiplayer adventure game and invites his fellow Carnegie Mellon University graduate students to play on it. Adaptations of TinyMUD remain in use on the internet even today. Also in 1989 the Nintendo company opened in Japan.
United Kingdom (1990CE): Another popular MUD called Avalon will run as a dial-up game at this time.
Internet (1991CE): Timothy Berners-Lee invented the World Wide Web in which words pictures sounds and hyperlinks can be formatted across different platforms to create digital pages quite similar to word processor documents. He posted the first HTML code in a newsgroup called "alt.hypertext." in Switzerland. That same year the Sierra Network launched a variety of online parlor games such as chess checkers and bridge. Bill Gates is said to have played bridge on the service. Stormfront Studios releases the D&D-based MMORPG Neverwinter Nights which launches on AOL and runs until 1997. Capcom releases the second Street Fighter (SF2) featuring new characters like Vega Blanka Dhalsim Guile Balrog Zangief Chun-Li M. Bison and E. Honda.
Arcade (1992CE): Mortal Kombat was developed by Midway Games as a response to the popular Capcom fighting game Street Fighter II and soon both games become extremely popular. SF-games are rated teen while MK-games are rated mature being a bit more bloody and violent. The very first Mortal Kombat game features Liu Kang Shang Tsung Johnny Cage Sonya Blade Kano Goro Sub-Zero Scorpion Raiden and Reptile.
Internet (1993CE): Mosaic the first web browser is created. Freestyle RP spreads across IRC seperating itself from the primitive realm of MUDs. Arcade Games become even more popular as fighter games allow players to compete against other humans or computers with artificial intelligence. Sega Saturn develops Virtua Fighter with characters like Akira Yuki Pai Chan Lau Chan Wolf Hawkfield Jeffry McWild Kage-Maru Sarah Bryant and Jacky Bryant with Dural as a secret character. The second Mortal Kombat (MK2) is released with new characters like Jax Briggs Kitana Mileena Kintaro Jade Smoke Shao Kahn and Noob Saibot who plays a major role in textual combat. Some roleplayers believe the RPG slang-term "noob" originates from Noob Saibot who was one of the newer characters at the time. Noob was popular amongst MK2 beginners since he was easier to play than some of the more advanced characters relying heavily on cheap shots. Another theory is that the word "noob" originated during WW2 as a term for new Army recruits. Yet another theory is that the word "n00b" was originally coined by the "1337" or Elite fighters to denote unskilled persons in the game who don't always follow the rules.
Internet (1994CE): After running for four years as a dial-up MUD game in the United Kingdom Avalon starts offering a pay-to-play service over the internet. Netscape is founded by Jim Clark and his team. Akuma/Gouki is introduced into the Street Fighter games as a new hidden character along with Gouken and Goutetsu as masters of the Shotokan fighting style. Yahoo! Geocities is fouded by David Bohnett and John Rezner as Beverly Hills Internet (BHI) late in the year. Namco develops the Tekken series featuring Anna Williams King Devil Ganryu Heihachi Mishima Jack Kazuya Mishima Kuma Kunimitsu Lee Law Michelle Chang Nina Williams Paul Wang Jinrei and Yoshimitsu.
Internet (1995CE): AOL brings about chat. Microsoft Network (MSN) also becomes a service provider to coincide with the release of the Windows 95 operating system. The earliest forms of speed-based textual combat developed at this time. Street Fighter Alpha introduces Evil Ryu as a hidden character. Andy Oedo is notorious on Yahoo! for his abilities in speed-based chat fighting as his intricate and alluring style attracts on-line fighters from all over who wish to challenge him. Andy adopts the name Dai Kiaou Shin and calls his new speed fighting style "freeform". Andy becomes the very first speed-based textual fighting champion on the internet. Another champion was Ken Kyo from Homestead and Kyo's method was called "freestyle". It is now believed that both styles came from the same root or origin and most people view freeform/freestyle as being the same speed-based chat fighting style with two different names. Sony releases Play Station in the USA while Nintendo 64 is launched in Japan under near riot conditions. Sun launches Java and Windows 95 sells more than a million copies in four days.
Internet (1996CE): AOL hosts the first chat-based textual roleplaying game Black Bayou a horror RPG from Hecklers Online that would last until 2004. Chathouse develops Advanced RP a primordial version of turn-based textual combat. EverQuest the MMORPG is being worked on at this time by Brad McQuaid Steve Clover and Bill Trost. There is some debate as to who coined the term Type One (T1) for turn-based textual combat. Some believe it was a member of Jacmus Prime who created the rudimentary form of Type One (T1) parastyle at this time. Namco releases Soul Edge the first game of the Soul series named after a demonic sword. Play Station releases Soul Blade another name for the same game. The original cast of characters includes Mitsurugi Taki Long Rock Sophitia Seong Voldo Hwang Siegfried and Cervantes among others. White Wolf Studios publishes Vampire: The Dark Ages roleplaying game with many spin-offs that alter the way medieval fantasy RPG games are played. MSN releases Hotmail a free email service founded by Jack Smith and Sabeer Bhatia.
Internet (1997CE): Yahoo! Chat is released to the public. John/Kellindil created a website on Angelfire which is when some people believe he developed Type One (T1) and attempted to create a structured style of speed-based textual combat. Early versions of Type Two (T2) are being written by Blake Hardman and some of the members at Kellindil's site. Aglaranna a member of Kellindil's site coins the term "Ayenee" refering to the Arts & Entertainment channel on Yahoo! chat. AOL's instant messenger service AIM would be created at this time with YIM following in 1998.
Internet (1998CE): Third Godheval invents TRBS on Geocities which quickly spreads to metawerx and other areas. Chathouse learns TRBS from Geocities and refers to it as "Third's Rule-based System" because it is their first system with actual written rules. Chathouse also drops Advanced RP and adopts Type One (T1) from Geocities as well. Homestead Technologies launched its free service this year. Comicity develops a chat and their main fighting style becomes Freeform. Tekken 3 is released by Play Station with new characters like the infamous Jin Kazama Eddy Gordo Hwoarang Bryan Fury Julia Chang Panda and Forest Law.
Internet (1999CE): Paraform RP and turn-based textual combat rises in MSN and YIM spreading the popularity of Type One (T1) even more. Shinji releases metawerx to the public. Third Godheval leaves metawerx erasing the TRBS tutorial from his webpage. By now Type Two (T2) has become a universal speed-based fighting style on almost every chat server including Multicity. Brian Morgan invents Advanced Auto (AA). The first Comicity chat fighting rules are written down. David Alex Sanchez and Eric Clow become the first two people to teach Comicity Freeform in a written tutorial. The legendary Gundam Wing Chatroom (GWC) is formed at this time. Text Wars occur between all different chat servers hosts and channels. AOL MSN YIM WIM IRC GWC U&M COD BOD LOFM Multicity Comicity Textcity Bravenet Homestead Geocities Proboards Charmanders Poke Chat Tuxedo Mask Kad's Battle Chat Hells Chat and many other hosts form gangs which get involved in the clan wars. Soul Calibur is set in the time period of 1587 and includes new characters like Ivy Nightmare Maxi Kilik Astaroth Xianghua Arthur Inferno and Yoshimitsu.
Internet (2000CE): Max Cook and Luke Herrington develop T3 textual combat. T4 and T5 are also created by YIM at this time although many people consider them invalid. Kenshiro Maruyama writes the first official Freestyle tutorial explaining the history of Freeform textual combat as it was taught to him by Dai Kiaou Shin. Kenshiro uses the name Shin Gouki Z and becomes famous in Comicity as the leader of an Elite clan called the Z-senshi. Anime Metro Forum replaces GWC and TRBS is introduced into their community by Akido Miyato. Eden's Era also opens a chatroom at this time adopting Type Two (T2) based on Kellindil's former fighting system. It is a known fact that Juntai (Matt) wrote the first Type One (T1) tutorial for Eden-Era some time before 2000 as his name is mentioned at the bottom of the original tutorial. Charmanders31 launches a major series of Text Wars which hundreds of clans join. The Char Wars also known collectively as the Great War of 2000 is the largest speed-based war in on-line roleplaying chat history. It is at this time that many clans rise and fall such as the Crystal Knights High Land Army Legendary Knights Imperial Army Mystic Army Mavericks Yakuza Triads The Vikings Thirteen Dragoon Knights Elven Horde Saiyan Elite and the Vampire Knights.
Internet (2001CE): Mark Tjan Alan Majere Bryon/Circ and Troy/Kizler work together to reform TRBS in what they later called RCM or the Roleplaying Combat Method. This same year the Fighter's Guild was created and run by a council. Akido Miyato (Destin) claims that both styles known today as T1 & T2 actually originated in Yahoo! Chat and were popularized in Parachat by a roleplayer named Blue Lightning Flik where the styles then took modern form.
Internet (2002CE): Eric Kane follows in Kenshiro Maruyama's footsteps by adopting the name Shin Gouki Z and writing his own words on Freeform in his new Shin Freestyle tutorial giving a more in-depth look at an already ancient RPG style. The newly upgraded Shin Gouki Z (Eric) defeats many champions on AOL MSN YIM IRC Geocities metawerx and abroad. However he is more cruel and arrogant than Kenshiro which causes many fighters to hate him. Nevertheless Eric Kane becomes the cocky leader of a small group of dark Z-senshi masters. At the same time Seiryou Shinjou and his brother Heiryou Shinjou become famous for their own Shinjou Temple style hopping from chat to chat and defeating everyone in their sight. The infamous Shinjou Brothers gain wide popularity but refuse to reveal their identities to the rest of the RPG world. Soon after the Fighters Guild Council (FGC) collapses and is taken over by one person alone. Jacmus Prime opens its realm for experienced Yahoo! roleplayers who came from other realms such as Eden-Era Ayenee Mordor Babylon and Tenaria. The popularlity of Jacmus Prime was greatly assisted by a small handful of online personalities such as Juntai (Matt) Somber (Seth) Dalmuros (Alex) Ross (Ethan) who were able to inspire other roleplayers to join and to be involved in the greater story lines. The realm of Mordor eventually merges into Jacmus Prime after its first few weeks of robust roleplaying.
Internet (2003CE): Heiryou Shinjou writes the Free-based Textual Combat tutorial introducing a philosophy in RPG which tries to preserve the heritage of on-line fighting as well as eliminate some of the arguments and misconceptions. He calls this idea FBC based on Bruce Lee's martial arts philosophy. FBC becomes the basis for further growth and development as RPers are taught to honor and respect all methods of textual combat while being bound by none of them at the same time. The infamous Z-senshi Elite briefly gains a wider following before almost completely diminishing. Shinjou claims that there was a disturbance in the Z-senshi Council at this time and the elite warrior clan was plunged into a civil war within itself. This conflict would result in the Z-senshi losing most of its culture and history. GAIA opens a forum and develops a gold-coin system where roleplayers can create avatars who get paid in gold for every post or action. These coins can then be used to buy items and customize your characters.
Internet (2006CE): The Wing City War occurs. Chat-based textual combat suffers as technology increases bringing rise to new types of computers and video games. The old way of roleplaying seems to diminish as the Textual Combat Museum (TCM) is destroyed. Heiryou Shinjou recovers the Codex from the TCM archives and builds a Secret Temple looking to re-establish that which has been destroyed. The very first Grand Tournament (GT-1) is hosted by the GWing community involving 128 on-line fighters from over fifty different sites and chats. Quickhand becomes the national speed-based fighting champion according to the GWing community although many other communities disagree. Many people drop out of GT-1 and retire from the scene of textual combat insisting that the tournament is rigged. It is estimated that the number of on-line fighters across the entire internet will decrease by 78% leaving only a handful of elite diehard fighters to carry on their history and legacy. At the same time the GT-League starts its own history and legacy which gets confused and mingled with other RPG sources.
Internet (2007CE): Circ Aloriath (Bryon) from metawerx is declared the national turn-based fighting champion of the first Grand Tournament (GT-1) hosted by the GT-League in association with the GWing community. Unlike the challenge with Quickhand's title Circ's victory is undisputed and he is respected by the entire on-line fighting community for his modesty honor and writing skills. Nonpareil beats Circ to take that title and begins his reign over the GT League as the number one ranked fighter. GWing merges to become RPGateway and again the legacy of textual combat is re-written over time.
Internet (2008CE): Fuma Kotaro (Wesley) from metawerx openly announces in RPGateway that he is Heiryou Shinjou formerly known as Goutetsu Z the last active member of an elitist warrior clan sworn to protect its heritage. Wes now goes by the name Dionysus and claims to have learned Freestyle in a unique Musha-Shugyo tradition passed down to him at Comicity by Kenshiro many years ago. Wesley also claims that Eric Kane was once his brother Seiryou Shinjou founder of the Shinjou Temple which became famous several years earlier. Wesley mentions other members of the Z-senshi who came before him and refers to all of them as his brothers or clansmen. Among the names mentioned are Dai Kaiou Shin (Andy) Shin Gouki Z (Ken) Roujin Z (Nick) Tien Z (Tri) Hwang Z (Leo) Dragon Lee (Dwayne) Raidou Z (Rob) and Gouken Z (Les). Wesley claims to have been a speed-based fighter from Multicity back in 1998 and says that the history of textual combat has been twisted and confused over the years by elitists who turned on-line fighting into a game of gambling cheaters and cocky politicians. He warns roleplayers not to believe in everything they read on the internet but does not point fingers at anyone in particular. Wesley smiles and speaks highly of Dai Kaiou Shin Shin Gouki Z Dark Saiya-jin Vegetto Hidoshi Nobunaga Thrall Ryne Circ Aloriath Kouketsu and other on-line fighters making it known to everyone that these are truly great roleplayers. He makes no mention of his brother Seiryou Shinjou but hints his respects.
Internet (2009CE): Another elitist named Liberazi (Dex) from Nexxus Chat opens the Textcity Forums on Proboards which includes a Fighting Academy dedicated to preserving the history and legacy of textual combat. Dexter interviews Wesley for his site and posts a complete time-line to his forum. Wesley's time-line is the most comprehensive one on the internet listing an entire detailed chronology of the Z-senshi and other elite warrior clans chats and sites who left their names in the sand. Dexter becomes the new sworn curator and guardian of the former TCM archives. Nathan Dexter later opens the Fighting Academy as Dionysus (Wes) posts this time chart that you're reading right now. Dion's wish is for on-line fighters to take his Time-Line and make it better by adding new frames as time go78ces on and by eliminating any misconceptions that roleplayers have about textual combat. Dexter then makes plans to spread the popularity of on-line fighting again and restore its forgotten legacy. Nonpareil (Eric) still ranked 1st in the GT League with an undefeated record forms a group called "Legacy" that has dominated the competition. RPEntertainment is open to the public once again and the legacy of textual combat still continues to this day.
Egypt (3500BC): Senet is a board game from predynastic and ancient Egypt and is the oldest board game whose ancient existence has been confirmed. Senet may be the oldest board game in the world. The oldest remnants of any ancient board game ever unearthed are those of senet found in predynastic and First Dynasty burials of Egypt circa 3500 BC and 3100 BC respectively. Senet may even predate the existence of Alquerque but evidence is limited. By the time of the New Kingdom in Egypt (1567–1085 BC) it had become a kind of talisman for the journey of the dead. Because of the element of luck in the game and the Egyptian belief in determinism it was believed that a successful player was under the protection of the major gods of the national pantheon: Ra Thoth and sometimes Osiris. Consequently Senet boards were often placed in the grave alongside other useful objects for the dangerous journey through the afterlife and the game is referred to in Chapter XVII of the Book of the Dead. The game was also adopted in the Levant and as far as Cyprus and Crete but with apparently less religious significance. Senet was apparently a race game for two players involving five pawns each with moves determined by tosses of throwstick or knucklebone.
India (400BC): King Balhait summoned Sissa the Brahmin and requested of the wise man to create a game which would require pure mental skill and oppose the teaching of games in which fate/luck decides the outcome by the throw of dice. Sissa invented Chaturanga a type of ancient Indian chess using the already popular Ashtapada checkered board. The pieces include the rajah/king the senapati/general the gaja/elephant the ashwa/horse the ratha/chariot and the sainik/infantry.
Europe (1824CE): Kriegsspiel from the German word for "wargame" was a system used for training officers in the Prussian army. The first set of rules was Instructions for the Representation of Tactical Maneuvers under the Guise of a Wargame produced by von Reisswitz a lieutenant in the Prussian army based on earlier work by his father. Today it is considered the grandfather of modern wargames. This rules set established several conventions for wargaming which hold true to the present day such as the use of maps color coding the opposing armies as red and blue using umpires and uniform complex rules for movement and combat. Map scale was 6 to 8 inches to a mile and the time scale was 2 minutes per one turn. Blocks were used to represent units. The stunning Prussian victory over the Second French Empire in the Franco-Prussian War 1870-1871 is sometimes partly credited to the training of Prussian officers with the game Kriegspiel which was invented around 1811 and gained popularity with many officers in the Prussian army. These first wargames were played with dice which represented "friction" or the intrusion of less than ideal circumstances during a real war (including morale weather the fog of war etc.) though this was usually replaced by an umpire who used his own combat experience to determine the results.
Europe (1899CE): Kriegspiel is a Chess variant invented by Henry Michael Temple based upon the original Kriegspiel developed by Georg von Rassewitz in 1812. In this game each player can see their own pieces but not those of their opponent. For this reason it is necessary to have a third person (or computer) act as a referee with full information about the progress of the game. When it is a player's turn he will attempt a move which the referee will declare to be 'legal' or 'illegal'. If the move is illegal the player tries again; if it's legal that move stands. Kriegsspiel is usually considered the German military version of the Kriegspiel chess game and is thus mentioned here as a forerunner of modern roleplaying combat.
United Kingdom (1913CE): Little Wars was written by the famous author H. G. Wells as a set of rules for playing with toy soldiers. The full title is "Little Wars: a game for boys from twelve years of age to one hundred and fifty and for that more intelligent sort of girl who likes boys games and books". Little Wars is considered by some to be the first modern table top war game. It included fairly simple rules for infantry cavalry and artillery in the form of a toy 4.7-inch naval gun that launched projectiles usually small wooden dowels to knock down enemy soldiers. In addition to it being a war game the book hints at several philosophical aspects of war. According to Wells the idea of the game developed from a visit by his friend Jerome K. Jerome. After dinner Jerome began shooting down toy soldiers with a toy cannon that Wells joined in to compete. The two decided that with an addition of written rules a good Kriegsspiel type game could be developed. The game revolved around the use of lead hollow cast soldiers made by W. Britain and battlefields made from whatever materials were on hand usually blocks or other toys. Simple rules of movement firing and close combat were developed with a set amount of time for each player to move and fire. Little Wars is included here as a progenitor of textual combat.
Medicine (1921CE): Jacob Levy Moreno coins the term "roleplaying" and opens the Theatre of Spontaneity acting company. Levy is a psychodrama director who believes in Drama Therapy originally created as a methodology for studying role theories by the social sciences. To roleplay one enacts various motives attitudes and postures. The protagonists are the participants who improvise their actions within a situation normally simulated about them. It is their life or abilities their roles that are being examined or tested. The auxiliary egos are anyone else who performs to place the protagonists within the situation. The audience is any onlooker who may provide feedback. The stage is wherever the practice is performed or perhaps fictionally set. The director is the expert who guides the exercise.
United States (1940CE): Sega is founded in Hawaii originally as Standard Games later to be moved to Tokyo in Japan and renamed to Service Games (SEGA) in 1954.
United States (1961CE): Spacewar! is the very first digital space shooter game developed by Steve Russell who wrote the first two implementations of Lisp for the IBM 704. Spacewar! is the progenitor of space shooter video games such as the ones that inspired the 1977 movie Star Wars.
United States (1966CE): The Society for Creative Anachronism (SCA) becomes a historical re-creation and living history group which endeavors to promote the study and recreation of mainly pre-17th century Western European cultures and their histories. The organization began with a "Grand Tournament" in which the participants wore motorcycle helmets fencing masks and usually some semblance of a costume and whacked away at each other with weapons including plywood swords padded maces and even a fencing foil during a backyard graduation party for Diana Paxson styled as a "protest against the 20th Century". In many ways the SCA is viewed as a progenitor of many medieval roleplaying communities. William A. Gamson creates the Simulated Society (SIMSOC) a game used by universities and other groups to teach various aspects of sociology political science and communications skills. In addition to its well established academic uses some have suggested that SIMSOC is a precursor to modern roleplaying games such as D&D and more particularly to live action roleplay.
United States (1967CE): Henry Bodenstedt develops the wargame Seige of Bodenburg one of the earliest sets of rules for conducting battles with medieval miniatures. The rules were first published in the Strategy & Tactics magazine. This wargame would later inspire Gary Gygax the author of Chainmail and D&D.
Internet (1968CE): The Internet was formed when the Department of Defense created the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA). At the time it was called the Arpanet.
Arcade (1971CE): Nolan Bushnell and Ted Dabney founded Syzygy Engineering which designed the first arcade video game. Atari was incorporated the following year in 1972 and Nolan Busnell hired Al-Alcom to create Pong the tennis sports game.
Internet (1972CE): Electronic Mail (E-Mail) was adapted for Arpanet by Ray Tomlinson. Around the same time Atari is founded by Nolan Bushnell.
Arcade (1973CE): Maze Wars is the first actual first-person shooter video game. Steve Colley subsequently worked on very early versions of rover technology for NASA and found that his 3D perspective work on Maze Wars was useful for the Mars project. Maze Wars features characters who wander around a maze and shoot each other gaining or losing points.
United States (1974CE): Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) is a fantasy roleplaying game originally designed by Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson. Ernest Gary Gygax was an American writer and game designer who not only co-created D&D but he also co-founded Tactical Studies Rules (TSR) and founded the Gen Con gaming convention in 1967 a decade before. Talkomatic is the first example of a text-only chat room developed on the PLATO system.
Internet (1975CE): Dungeon was written by Don Daglow then a student at Claremont Graduate University. The game was an unlicensed implementation of the new role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) and described the movements of a multi-player party through a monster-inhabited dungeon. Players chose what actions to take in combat and where to move each character in the party which made the game very slow to play by today's standards. Characters earned experience points and gained skills as their Level grew as in D&D and most of the basic tenets of D&D were reflected. Although the game was nominally played entirely in text it was also the first game to employ line of sight graphics displays. Its use of computer graphics consisted of top-down dungeon maps that showed the portions of the playfield the party had seen allowing for light or darkness the different "infravision" abilities of elves dwarves etc.
Arcade (1976CE): Heavyweight Champ is a boxing arcade video game released by Sega with black and white graphics. Most gamers believe this to be the very first video fighting game which makes it a precursor to organized textual combat. Apple Computers is established by Steve Jobs and the very first personal computer Apple-1 is hand built by Steve Wozniak.
United States (1977CE): The very first Star Wars movie appears in theatres focussing on a galactic struggle in the Force between the Jedi and the Sith. The film is written and directed by George Lucas but is later re-named Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope involving a mature Luke Skywalker Darth Vader and Obi-Wan Kenobi as some of the main characters. Many on-line fighters believe this movie to have inspired the way elitists practice their fighting styles when roleplaying. Many elitists belong to clans with their own unique styles and engage in a sort of master & apprentice training cirricullum very much like Star Wars.
United Kingdom (1978CE): Roy Trubshaw and Richard Bartle invent the first MUD or "multi-user dungeon" on a DEC PDP-10 system. At first it was just a series of locations in which you could move and chat but soon Richard Bartle would take an interest in the project and create a battle system called hack-n-slash. One year later at Essex University Roy Trubshaw and Richard Bartle were able to connect to Arpanet in the USA and conduct an international multiplayer game.
Arcade (1980CE): Namco Limited in Japan releases Pakkuman the video arcade game later distributed in the United States by Midway Games as Pac-Man the popular ghost chasing game featuring four ghosts named Clyde Inky Pinky and blinky.
Arcade (1983CE): Dragon's Lair is a laserdisc video game published by Cinematronics featuring animation created by former Disney animator Don Bluth. Dragon's Lair is about the hero Dirk the Daring attempting to rescue Princess Daphne from the evil dragon Singe locked in a wizard's castle. It is the very first FMV-based arcade game which doesn't use sprites.
Arcade (1984CE): Capcom releases its very first arcade game Vulgus named after a fictional alien planet. The player controls a spaceship and tries to destroy incoming enemies with unlimited lazers and only a few bombs. Capcom is short for Capsule Computer according to their associates in North America who say it originated in Japan. The popular Dragon Ball universe is created by Akira Toriyama in his Japanese manga stories. Inspired by the Chinese folk novel Journey to the West it follows the adventures of Son Goku from his childhood through middle age as he trains in martial arts and explores the world in search of the seven mystical objects known as the Dragon Balls which are known to grant any wish. Son Goku is based on the Monkey King of ancient India known to the Chinese as Sun Wukong. Jessica Mulligan was a Beta tester for Apple II and Macintosh games like Spectrum Holobyte at this time.
United States (1985CE): Randall Farmer co-founded Electronic Communities and assisted in the making of Yahoo! 360. Randy Farmer and Chip Morningstar organized an on-line multiplayer adventure game for Quantum link called Lucasfilm's Habitat a client run on a Commodore 64 but the game doesn't make it past Beta version in the USA because it is too demanding for the server technology of the time.
United States (1986CE): NSFNet was created with an Internet backbone speed of 56KBits using a TCP/IP-based protocol. That same year Jessica Mulligan started the Rim Worlds War as the first play-by-email RPG on a commercial online server. The earliest forms of turn-based textual combat developed at this time but would not take shape for another 10 years. Right now the nameless combative aspect of roleplaying has no distinction from roleplaying itself.
Internet (1987CE): AberMUD was the first popular open source MUD named after the town in which it was written Aberystwyth. The first version was written in the B-system programming language by Alan Cox Richard Acott Jim Finnis and Leon Thrane at the University of Wales Aberystwyth. Capcom develops the very first Street Fighter game featuring Ryu Ken Geki Joe Mike Lee Gen and Sagat.
Internet (1988CE): Internet Relay Chat (IRC) is a form of real-time internet text messaging or synchronous conferencing. It is mainly designed for group communication in discussion forums called channels but also allows one-to-one communication via private message as well as chat. IRC was created by Jarkko Oikarinen (WiZ).
Internet (1989CE): Quantum Space was the first play-by-email game offered as part of a major commercial online service. It ran on AOL from 1989 to 1992. The game was developed by Stormfront Studios designed and programmed by Don Daglow and produced by Kathi McHugh. James Aspnes writes TinyMUD as a simplified multiplayer adventure game and invites his fellow Carnegie Mellon University graduate students to play on it. Adaptations of TinyMUD remain in use on the internet even today. Also in 1989 the Nintendo company opened in Japan.
United Kingdom (1990CE): Another popular MUD called Avalon will run as a dial-up game at this time.
Internet (1991CE): Timothy Berners-Lee invented the World Wide Web in which words pictures sounds and hyperlinks can be formatted across different platforms to create digital pages quite similar to word processor documents. He posted the first HTML code in a newsgroup called "alt.hypertext." in Switzerland. That same year the Sierra Network launched a variety of online parlor games such as chess checkers and bridge. Bill Gates is said to have played bridge on the service. Stormfront Studios releases the D&D-based MMORPG Neverwinter Nights which launches on AOL and runs until 1997. Capcom releases the second Street Fighter (SF2) featuring new characters like Vega Blanka Dhalsim Guile Balrog Zangief Chun-Li M. Bison and E. Honda.
Arcade (1992CE): Mortal Kombat was developed by Midway Games as a response to the popular Capcom fighting game Street Fighter II and soon both games become extremely popular. SF-games are rated teen while MK-games are rated mature being a bit more bloody and violent. The very first Mortal Kombat game features Liu Kang Shang Tsung Johnny Cage Sonya Blade Kano Goro Sub-Zero Scorpion Raiden and Reptile.
Internet (1993CE): Mosaic the first web browser is created. Freestyle RP spreads across IRC seperating itself from the primitive realm of MUDs. Arcade Games become even more popular as fighter games allow players to compete against other humans or computers with artificial intelligence. Sega Saturn develops Virtua Fighter with characters like Akira Yuki Pai Chan Lau Chan Wolf Hawkfield Jeffry McWild Kage-Maru Sarah Bryant and Jacky Bryant with Dural as a secret character. The second Mortal Kombat (MK2) is released with new characters like Jax Briggs Kitana Mileena Kintaro Jade Smoke Shao Kahn and Noob Saibot who plays a major role in textual combat. Some roleplayers believe the RPG slang-term "noob" originates from Noob Saibot who was one of the newer characters at the time. Noob was popular amongst MK2 beginners since he was easier to play than some of the more advanced characters relying heavily on cheap shots. Another theory is that the word "noob" originated during WW2 as a term for new Army recruits. Yet another theory is that the word "n00b" was originally coined by the "1337" or Elite fighters to denote unskilled persons in the game who don't always follow the rules.
Internet (1994CE): After running for four years as a dial-up MUD game in the United Kingdom Avalon starts offering a pay-to-play service over the internet. Netscape is founded by Jim Clark and his team. Akuma/Gouki is introduced into the Street Fighter games as a new hidden character along with Gouken and Goutetsu as masters of the Shotokan fighting style. Yahoo! Geocities is fouded by David Bohnett and John Rezner as Beverly Hills Internet (BHI) late in the year. Namco develops the Tekken series featuring Anna Williams King Devil Ganryu Heihachi Mishima Jack Kazuya Mishima Kuma Kunimitsu Lee Law Michelle Chang Nina Williams Paul Wang Jinrei and Yoshimitsu.
Internet (1995CE): AOL brings about chat. Microsoft Network (MSN) also becomes a service provider to coincide with the release of the Windows 95 operating system. The earliest forms of speed-based textual combat developed at this time. Street Fighter Alpha introduces Evil Ryu as a hidden character. Andy Oedo is notorious on Yahoo! for his abilities in speed-based chat fighting as his intricate and alluring style attracts on-line fighters from all over who wish to challenge him. Andy adopts the name Dai Kiaou Shin and calls his new speed fighting style "freeform". Andy becomes the very first speed-based textual fighting champion on the internet. Another champion was Ken Kyo from Homestead and Kyo's method was called "freestyle". It is now believed that both styles came from the same root or origin and most people view freeform/freestyle as being the same speed-based chat fighting style with two different names. Sony releases Play Station in the USA while Nintendo 64 is launched in Japan under near riot conditions. Sun launches Java and Windows 95 sells more than a million copies in four days.
Internet (1996CE): AOL hosts the first chat-based textual roleplaying game Black Bayou a horror RPG from Hecklers Online that would last until 2004. Chathouse develops Advanced RP a primordial version of turn-based textual combat. EverQuest the MMORPG is being worked on at this time by Brad McQuaid Steve Clover and Bill Trost. There is some debate as to who coined the term Type One (T1) for turn-based textual combat. Some believe it was a member of Jacmus Prime who created the rudimentary form of Type One (T1) parastyle at this time. Namco releases Soul Edge the first game of the Soul series named after a demonic sword. Play Station releases Soul Blade another name for the same game. The original cast of characters includes Mitsurugi Taki Long Rock Sophitia Seong Voldo Hwang Siegfried and Cervantes among others. White Wolf Studios publishes Vampire: The Dark Ages roleplaying game with many spin-offs that alter the way medieval fantasy RPG games are played. MSN releases Hotmail a free email service founded by Jack Smith and Sabeer Bhatia.
Internet (1997CE): Yahoo! Chat is released to the public. John/Kellindil created a website on Angelfire which is when some people believe he developed Type One (T1) and attempted to create a structured style of speed-based textual combat. Early versions of Type Two (T2) are being written by Blake Hardman and some of the members at Kellindil's site. Aglaranna a member of Kellindil's site coins the term "Ayenee" refering to the Arts & Entertainment channel on Yahoo! chat. AOL's instant messenger service AIM would be created at this time with YIM following in 1998.
Internet (1998CE): Third Godheval invents TRBS on Geocities which quickly spreads to metawerx and other areas. Chathouse learns TRBS from Geocities and refers to it as "Third's Rule-based System" because it is their first system with actual written rules. Chathouse also drops Advanced RP and adopts Type One (T1) from Geocities as well. Homestead Technologies launched its free service this year. Comicity develops a chat and their main fighting style becomes Freeform. Tekken 3 is released by Play Station with new characters like the infamous Jin Kazama Eddy Gordo Hwoarang Bryan Fury Julia Chang Panda and Forest Law.
Internet (1999CE): Paraform RP and turn-based textual combat rises in MSN and YIM spreading the popularity of Type One (T1) even more. Shinji releases metawerx to the public. Third Godheval leaves metawerx erasing the TRBS tutorial from his webpage. By now Type Two (T2) has become a universal speed-based fighting style on almost every chat server including Multicity. Brian Morgan invents Advanced Auto (AA). The first Comicity chat fighting rules are written down. David Alex Sanchez and Eric Clow become the first two people to teach Comicity Freeform in a written tutorial. The legendary Gundam Wing Chatroom (GWC) is formed at this time. Text Wars occur between all different chat servers hosts and channels. AOL MSN YIM WIM IRC GWC U&M COD BOD LOFM Multicity Comicity Textcity Bravenet Homestead Geocities Proboards Charmanders Poke Chat Tuxedo Mask Kad's Battle Chat Hells Chat and many other hosts form gangs which get involved in the clan wars. Soul Calibur is set in the time period of 1587 and includes new characters like Ivy Nightmare Maxi Kilik Astaroth Xianghua Arthur Inferno and Yoshimitsu.
Internet (2000CE): Max Cook and Luke Herrington develop T3 textual combat. T4 and T5 are also created by YIM at this time although many people consider them invalid. Kenshiro Maruyama writes the first official Freestyle tutorial explaining the history of Freeform textual combat as it was taught to him by Dai Kiaou Shin. Kenshiro uses the name Shin Gouki Z and becomes famous in Comicity as the leader of an Elite clan called the Z-senshi. Anime Metro Forum replaces GWC and TRBS is introduced into their community by Akido Miyato. Eden's Era also opens a chatroom at this time adopting Type Two (T2) based on Kellindil's former fighting system. It is a known fact that Juntai (Matt) wrote the first Type One (T1) tutorial for Eden-Era some time before 2000 as his name is mentioned at the bottom of the original tutorial. Charmanders31 launches a major series of Text Wars which hundreds of clans join. The Char Wars also known collectively as the Great War of 2000 is the largest speed-based war in on-line roleplaying chat history. It is at this time that many clans rise and fall such as the Crystal Knights High Land Army Legendary Knights Imperial Army Mystic Army Mavericks Yakuza Triads The Vikings Thirteen Dragoon Knights Elven Horde Saiyan Elite and the Vampire Knights.
Internet (2001CE): Mark Tjan Alan Majere Bryon/Circ and Troy/Kizler work together to reform TRBS in what they later called RCM or the Roleplaying Combat Method. This same year the Fighter's Guild was created and run by a council. Akido Miyato (Destin) claims that both styles known today as T1 & T2 actually originated in Yahoo! Chat and were popularized in Parachat by a roleplayer named Blue Lightning Flik where the styles then took modern form.
Internet (2002CE): Eric Kane follows in Kenshiro Maruyama's footsteps by adopting the name Shin Gouki Z and writing his own words on Freeform in his new Shin Freestyle tutorial giving a more in-depth look at an already ancient RPG style. The newly upgraded Shin Gouki Z (Eric) defeats many champions on AOL MSN YIM IRC Geocities metawerx and abroad. However he is more cruel and arrogant than Kenshiro which causes many fighters to hate him. Nevertheless Eric Kane becomes the cocky leader of a small group of dark Z-senshi masters. At the same time Seiryou Shinjou and his brother Heiryou Shinjou become famous for their own Shinjou Temple style hopping from chat to chat and defeating everyone in their sight. The infamous Shinjou Brothers gain wide popularity but refuse to reveal their identities to the rest of the RPG world. Soon after the Fighters Guild Council (FGC) collapses and is taken over by one person alone. Jacmus Prime opens its realm for experienced Yahoo! roleplayers who came from other realms such as Eden-Era Ayenee Mordor Babylon and Tenaria. The popularlity of Jacmus Prime was greatly assisted by a small handful of online personalities such as Juntai (Matt) Somber (Seth) Dalmuros (Alex) Ross (Ethan) who were able to inspire other roleplayers to join and to be involved in the greater story lines. The realm of Mordor eventually merges into Jacmus Prime after its first few weeks of robust roleplaying.
Internet (2003CE): Heiryou Shinjou writes the Free-based Textual Combat tutorial introducing a philosophy in RPG which tries to preserve the heritage of on-line fighting as well as eliminate some of the arguments and misconceptions. He calls this idea FBC based on Bruce Lee's martial arts philosophy. FBC becomes the basis for further growth and development as RPers are taught to honor and respect all methods of textual combat while being bound by none of them at the same time. The infamous Z-senshi Elite briefly gains a wider following before almost completely diminishing. Shinjou claims that there was a disturbance in the Z-senshi Council at this time and the elite warrior clan was plunged into a civil war within itself. This conflict would result in the Z-senshi losing most of its culture and history. GAIA opens a forum and develops a gold-coin system where roleplayers can create avatars who get paid in gold for every post or action. These coins can then be used to buy items and customize your characters.
Internet (2006CE): The Wing City War occurs. Chat-based textual combat suffers as technology increases bringing rise to new types of computers and video games. The old way of roleplaying seems to diminish as the Textual Combat Museum (TCM) is destroyed. Heiryou Shinjou recovers the Codex from the TCM archives and builds a Secret Temple looking to re-establish that which has been destroyed. The very first Grand Tournament (GT-1) is hosted by the GWing community involving 128 on-line fighters from over fifty different sites and chats. Quickhand becomes the national speed-based fighting champion according to the GWing community although many other communities disagree. Many people drop out of GT-1 and retire from the scene of textual combat insisting that the tournament is rigged. It is estimated that the number of on-line fighters across the entire internet will decrease by 78% leaving only a handful of elite diehard fighters to carry on their history and legacy. At the same time the GT-League starts its own history and legacy which gets confused and mingled with other RPG sources.
Internet (2007CE): Circ Aloriath (Bryon) from metawerx is declared the national turn-based fighting champion of the first Grand Tournament (GT-1) hosted by the GT-League in association with the GWing community. Unlike the challenge with Quickhand's title Circ's victory is undisputed and he is respected by the entire on-line fighting community for his modesty honor and writing skills. Nonpareil beats Circ to take that title and begins his reign over the GT League as the number one ranked fighter. GWing merges to become RPGateway and again the legacy of textual combat is re-written over time.
Internet (2008CE): Fuma Kotaro (Wesley) from metawerx openly announces in RPGateway that he is Heiryou Shinjou formerly known as Goutetsu Z the last active member of an elitist warrior clan sworn to protect its heritage. Wes now goes by the name Dionysus and claims to have learned Freestyle in a unique Musha-Shugyo tradition passed down to him at Comicity by Kenshiro many years ago. Wesley also claims that Eric Kane was once his brother Seiryou Shinjou founder of the Shinjou Temple which became famous several years earlier. Wesley mentions other members of the Z-senshi who came before him and refers to all of them as his brothers or clansmen. Among the names mentioned are Dai Kaiou Shin (Andy) Shin Gouki Z (Ken) Roujin Z (Nick) Tien Z (Tri) Hwang Z (Leo) Dragon Lee (Dwayne) Raidou Z (Rob) and Gouken Z (Les). Wesley claims to have been a speed-based fighter from Multicity back in 1998 and says that the history of textual combat has been twisted and confused over the years by elitists who turned on-line fighting into a game of gambling cheaters and cocky politicians. He warns roleplayers not to believe in everything they read on the internet but does not point fingers at anyone in particular. Wesley smiles and speaks highly of Dai Kaiou Shin Shin Gouki Z Dark Saiya-jin Vegetto Hidoshi Nobunaga Thrall Ryne Circ Aloriath Kouketsu and other on-line fighters making it known to everyone that these are truly great roleplayers. He makes no mention of his brother Seiryou Shinjou but hints his respects.
Internet (2009CE): Another elitist named Liberazi (Dex) from Nexxus Chat opens the Textcity Forums on Proboards which includes a Fighting Academy dedicated to preserving the history and legacy of textual combat. Dexter interviews Wesley for his site and posts a complete time-line to his forum. Wesley's time-line is the most comprehensive one on the internet listing an entire detailed chronology of the Z-senshi and other elite warrior clans chats and sites who left their names in the sand. Dexter becomes the new sworn curator and guardian of the former TCM archives. Nathan Dexter later opens the Fighting Academy as Dionysus (Wes) posts this time chart that you're reading right now. Dion's wish is for on-line fighters to take his Time-Line and make it better by adding new frames as time go78ces on and by eliminating any misconceptions that roleplayers have about textual combat. Dexter then makes plans to spread the popularity of on-line fighting again and restore its forgotten legacy. Nonpareil (Eric) still ranked 1st in the GT League with an undefeated record forms a group called "Legacy" that has dominated the competition. RPEntertainment is open to the public once again and the legacy of textual combat still continues to this day.