A history of RP

So, as I'm pretty sure I've made clear by now to all that know me, I'm a roleplayer.
a largepart of why I'm in SL, immersive RP I could never find in other MMOs.

I started out with Shadowrun, instead of most RP geeks that start with DnD, then played RIFTS for awhile, then DnD (around 3rd and 3.5 edition). I've played DnD 4th edition, but to be frank, in their attempt to streamline it, they've dumbed it down, alot, all classes feel the same, more of a focus on encounters (I like combat, but really prefer a balance), spells are bland and don't stand out, any non-combat skill is virtually useless, and there's less feel of being a party of adventurers in a fantastic world, and more of a feel that you're doing a raid in WoW, but in tabletop form.  I will admit the boardgames are fun, and the rules work well for them, but a boardgame, i'm not expecting much immersion.  I haven't yet played Pathfinder, but I'v been eying it, it looks like what I enjoyed about 3rd edition DnD.  Currently in RL, I'm in a Rogue Trader/Dark Heresy campaign, I always liked the setting of Warhammer 40k, and an RPG in that setting was something I couldn't pass up.

I got into MMO around Everquest, shortly after high school.  where I plaed a dark elf necromancer, and was in a pretty decent RP guild for a time, dark elf themed (they took alot from the forgotten realms dark elves). I played it about up to the point where it suddenly was updated, to be impossible to run on my old HP.
Then I moved on to WoW, after playing a friend's beta.  I got my hunter as high as 50, before I got irritated by the fact every expansion required me to be 20+ levels higher, just to see most the new stuff, plus, as I have a life, I couldn't play 2/7, and as a sub based MMO, every time I wasn't playing, it felt like I was wasting money, plus there really was no RP, even on the RP servers, I was in a RP guild of a friend's for a short time, but the RP was sparse.  I looked into SL about this time, but when all I could find was bad looking buildings, malls, dance clubs, casinos, and sex sims, I got bored with it fast.
I then got into EvE Online, (wich I still go back to on occasion), it's spaceships, I don't really expect much RP, but it's still fun.
I returned to SL around 2008 or 2009, first joining CoLA, where the original Grendel Footman, was a crazed phsycic with white eyes.  It was interesting, combat was fast with the meter (when the whole sim wasn't impossibly laggy), some of the stories were interesting, others were just dumb, and there were too many vampires wanting to 'turn' me, eventually I left. I joined Ravenscraig roughly about the time I first found babbage.  I don't really play there that often now, but I would point to it as one of the better run RP sims (despite being mistaken for a GM once by the sim owner, we had the same first name), it usd meter, but managed to balance out combat with RP, had their rules (some of them stupid, but not totally irritating) but were flexible, and had an interesting story, good builds, and great people. I was a necromancer named Abraxxus who worked for one of the noblewomen, secretly a succubus, I raided ghosts for her (I had left before we worked out a way for corpses to be raised).
 Then I found Babbage, and steampunk always having been something I was into in RL, (plus I was in a DnD campaing at the time and getting tired of pseudo-european fantasy), joined. despite the wierd bi-polar attitude towards RP, I knew from the beginning it was optional, but had no idea how vehemently they try to shove it down throats at times.   I rented a place in the row houses, and had some small RP mostly in my own newly formed RP group.
THen moved to an airship in Palisades, where I organized things with another avi I knew, and started my first open to anyone, city wide RP, the loose velociraptor, wich got a good amount involved, Arwen said she had some interesting RP from it herself, and ended in a fight between the dinosaur, myself, a female jaeger, and another person, again, small numbers, but not bad.
Then I moved to the first Footman Industries site in Babbage Square admisdt th Dr. O takeover, that caused so much angst for the anti-RP crowd, and was about when I first realized how bi-polar the town can be over it.  Ideas about meters, shouted down, OOC tags if you're not interested in RP, shouted down, lots of gnashing of teeth and cries of "THey don't get how we do things here!" when there was no real clear 'how we do things here', and comments from one of the merchants how RP chases away business, despite the fact most her business was probably from roleplayers.  It eventually cooled down after "RP is 100% optional!!" being regurgitated from half the avis, those of us who enjoy RP were mostly quiet and just kept our RP under cover for a time.  But this was about when I set up the first FI, the power plant.  with damage on, no flight, and RP in mind. the damage was because of Babbage's anti-meter stance, (I don't think they all fully understand meters much), to allow fights, without the argument I ran into during the Dr. O takeover with a pirate rabbit, who apparantly could Neo away bullets when we just text-RP a gunfight.  I had plenty of space for people to move and RP, and tred to make it an interesting area, with what prims I could (the graveyard was what really seemed to attract people).  THere had been an attempt before at a total RP area in Babbage, Sparowwood, but it failed and went away (noone really would go there, and I suspect I was the only one donating to it)   the plant was the same idea as SW but on a smaller scale (one building rather than a city block), and there's been some good RP, implemented by myself and others, the zombie plauge started there, brain surgery a few times, experimenting on my secretary, the fire, haunting, ghost machine, possessed pengi, urchins stealing eels, slenderman. the dissappearance was a flop, the interest was there, but noone really bothered with the clues.  I had let it go after the holidays when I found i had 1 day left on it, and no money I could spend fr a week.  So, since I still wanted to support RP in Babbage (wich I will always do until I am banned), and didn't want to see the graveyard replaced by a mall (I hate how a landmark that had been there for awhile, can just mysteriously dissappear, it kills immersion, so, I blew up the plant), I offered to give it to whoever will keep it RP friendly, and keep some form of cemetary there.  After one woman came to see it, then proceeded to lecture me about how other people would want to see their visions, I found just the right person, he didn't just keep the graveyard, he improved it, alot.

I made my alt, Dr. Dinosaur, during this time, and with a couple linden got airspace for him, the idea was a villian, mad scientist yes, but kind of an idiot as well, he doesn't think things through basically.
So trying to establish him as a new villian in Babbage, I created the doom clock RP, getting permission from people to rezz doomsday devices on their land, had set it all up, had clues as to how to stop them, and was anticipating something like a confrontation on top the airship.  Instead I had one returned by an individual who didn't even own the land it was on, and despite my having said to IM me if there's an issue, everyone instead ran to whine t the sim owner about the ticking, and I had him tell me to quiet them or he'd return them all.  So chalked it up to another failed RP, but as I wasn't just going to let it fade away, had worked something out with another, where his horse character had been going around smashing them all (they were unsmashable, but since he's a type of demon horse, was eas to fudge).  After that I pretty much figured it was much easier to get an RP going, if I have my own land and can tell naysayers to suck it.

So after a few months of mostly solo adventures, exploring new areas or sims and coming up with an IC story to it (similar to a friend of mine rom Caledon), I got a plot in wheatstone and built my new factory.  So far not much RP there yet, (but it's pretty damn LOUD at times, as it should be).  Aside from some solo blog rumblings about Footman's experiments.  But I haven't had many visitors either, this one's more enclosed than my old plant, so it is possible people may not realize they can enter and look around, and RP.  I may open a wall, maybe have an out of control automoton smash through a wall.
Eitherway, I did my second attempt at Dr. D being a villian, the Clockhaven Plant takeover, wich was semi more successful, (again, I was half expecting someone to come into the plant and confront Dr. D, but the person I thought might possibly try to stop him inworld, ran into technical issues, otherwise at least people reacted, and the fires at the end weren't ignored ).

And now I've found a Warhammer 40k themed RP sim that I may be dividing my time between that and the steamlands.  I had looked when I first came back to SL for a good warhammer themed sim, but all the ones I found tossed RP out the window in favor of running around what looked like a lazer tag arena shooting each other and yelling LOLZ (wich I can get from any number of MMO), were all cartoon foxes in space marine armor (I'm fine with furries, just not when they're shohorned into a setting they're not from, or trying to be a species they aren't) or space marines with giant smiley faces and coyboyhats (or afros), this sim so far though seems to be more into the RP aspect, (based moreso on Dark Heresy) aside from some issues with the cannon (female marines, female orks) and the fact they go with Angron's magic gun theory (ork tech only work because orks beleive it does, wich is not the case at all and makes no sense!)

The one other RP sim I always sort of hoped to find, but never did was a Transformers RP sim, maybe based on Cybertron, there's a ton of TF avi's, some even transform, but no real tf RP