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Since most of the older members here like myself met years ago on I believe keyword VGA in the Final Fantasy III forum what do you miss most about the old AOL?

I was still in my preteens back then so my memories were of chat room games like Final Fantasy Extreme, and the good old times we had at Gamewiz and the many clubs forming around this time.

After I left AOL I ended up on Yahoo Clubs till they finally shut down and various Final Fantasy sites which spawned horrible incarnations after 2003. It seems time is flying. I get on and see my old "full" contact lists from MSN Messenger and Yahoo and no one is online it seems everyone moved on.

I know I am all over the place in this topic but man does time fly.

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His Divine Shadow

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I remember it being a lot more conservative in world view. I don't necessarily think that's a good or bad thing. It had its pros and cons, just as this site has its pros and cons.

I posted under a couple different handles there but I think I eventually kicked out because I wanted to talk about more than just Final Fantasy III. And I was getting tired of hearing how much people thought Playstation sucked because they were Nintendo whores even though Playstation is what got all the RPGs. It's interesting seeing how the console wars are nearly non-existent now and people have realized they all have something to offer.

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Chewbekah ^_^

Currently Playing: Final Fantasy XIV: ARR, Attack of the Firday Monsters, Animal Crossing: A New Leaf, Lego City Undercover, Kingdom Hearts 1.5 Remix

Recently Finished: Fire Emblem: Awakening

Favorite Game: Suikoden III

Quote (His Shadow @ 15th October 2012 01:20)

Since most of the older members here like myself met years ago on I believe keyword VGA in the Final Fantasy III forum what do you miss most about the old AOL?

I think I've said this before, but there may be a total of about four people who have participated in the forums or chat in the last year who came to CoN directly from the AOL Final Fantasy III message board. Just to clear that up, you can't really romanticize the origins of CoN as a spiritual successor to those message boards, because I myself came to them after I'd already started working on CoN a bit.

To answer your question, though, I don't really miss any of it. I never really participated in much beyond boards for Final Fantasy III and Final Fantasy Tactics, not really in the chat rooms you mention or anything else. It is a shame that AOL didn't archive anything from those days, but it's been over ten years since it all died and probably closer to twelve or thirteen since I'd actually participated in anything there. I don't really hold it with that much nostalgia.

I do miss chatting with all my friends over AIM half the night, though, in those days where mobile phones were still insanely expensive and Facebook wasn't at all a thing (and AIM wasn't even available to everyone). It's not the same now.

This post has been edited by Rangers51 on 16th October 2012 15:58

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"To create something great, you need the means to make a lot of really bad crap." - Kevin Kelly

Why aren't you shopping AmaCoN?

My parents got AOL internet service way back when, when we first got internet service at all. I remember the first website I tried going to was voltronforce.com (they've since moved to voltron.com, and the site's totally different a decade and half later) and pokemon.com. Then I was annoyed that the up-to-age-12 filter filtered out voltronforce.com, and spent time trying to figure out my parents' password.

But they soon switched to a different ISP, which we had through my high school years, so we just got regular (so to speak) internet service. So I never really used much in the way of AOL's own message boards or communities.

But I remember AOL's search engine being quite useful. I got lots of great stuff on Mega Man and Voltron on it. (Wasn't yet a FF fan back then.) Found it better than Yahoo, Altavista, or Google, even. My, how the world has changed.

AIM...oh, AOL Instant Messenger. This thing was particularly interesting, especially due to the pervasiveness of AOL as an ISP. If you knew someone's AOL e-mail address, you could just pop it into AIM and you'd immediately be able to know whenever they were online. I remember using this feature to find and talk to meatspace friends with whom I'd exchanged e-mail addresses (possibly bothering some of them).

This post has been edited by Glenn Magus Harvey on 1st November 2012 00:18

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Check the "What games are you playing at the moment?" thread for updates on what I've been playing.

You can find me on the Fediverse! I use Mastodon, where I am @[email protected] ( https://sakurajima.moe/@glennmagusharvey )

Quote (Chewbekah @ 15th October 2012 18:37)

I remember it being a lot more conservative in world view. I don't necessarily think that's a good or bad thing. It had its pros and cons, just as this site has its pros and cons.

I posted under a couple different handles there but I think I eventually kicked out because I wanted to talk about more than just Final Fantasy III. And I was getting tired of hearing how much people thought Playstation sucked because they were Nintendo whores even though Playstation is what got all the RPGs. It's interesting seeing how the console wars are nearly non-existent now and people have realized they all have something to offer.

Not true the console wars are still here. Most Final Fantasy fans or part time gamers but not realize it but its there but not as intense as we remember it.

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His Divine Shadow

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Quote (Glenn Magus Harvey @ 31st October 2012 19:09)

My parents got AOL internet service way back when, when we first got internet service at all.  I remember the first website I tried going to was voltronforce.com (they've since moved to voltron.com, and the site's totally different a decade and half later) and pokemon.com.  Then I was annoyed that the up-to-age-12 filter filtered out voltronforce.com, and spent time trying to figure out my parents' password.

But they soon switched to a different ISP, which we had through my high school years, so we just got regular (so to speak) internet service.  So I never really used much in the way of AOL's own message boards or communities.

But I remember AOL's search engine being quite useful.  I got lots of great stuff on Mega Man and Voltron on it.  (Wasn't yet a FF fan back then.)  Found it better than Yahoo, Altavista, or Google, even.  My, how the world has changed.

AIM...oh, AOL Instant Messenger.  This thing was particularly interesting, especially due to the pervasiveness of AOL as an ISP.  If you knew someone's AOL e-mail address, you could just pop it into AIM and you'd immediately be able to know whenever they were online.  I remember using this feature to find and talk to meatspace friends with whom I'd exchanged e-mail addresses (possibly bothering some of them).

I remember when they first released AIM to the public who did not pay AOL's monthly sub I think it was back in 1998? I remember getting my friends on board but found myself drifting away due to AIM's ad service and the massive bot invasion.

I remember switching to Yahoo for awhile since at that time they had superior service (So much as changed) and then to MSN.

I find myself sticking to Google now but back in the days when Final Fantasy sites were the place to be I remember having hit my friends list limit.

Man would I wouldn't give to be back in the scene but all Final Fantasy sites have died down because of unpopular moves by the new teams.

Moderator Edit

Meh, double-posting. Not really necessary, but I can't bother merging them these days. -R51

This post has been edited by Rangers51 on 8th January 2013 15:26

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His Divine Shadow

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