has it been so long?

[Trevelyan]

I was reminiscing about when I first found Squaregamer last night. I remember watching that FF music video "Staring at the Sun" with the CGs from FFAnthology and following the link in that video to what has, and I'm sad to say, a website that has altered the course of my life.

It's quite shocking to me that this happened over 5 years ago. I'm still having a hard time believing that I've been a part of this community for half a decade. Though some of us have moved on and barely make a faint echo when it comes to discussion nowadays, a great deal of us are still going at it.

Looking back, I'm impressed such a small, square-based fansite has survived this long. Not many people realize the shit Shaun has had to go through just to keep this up, as he said "it's a thankless job."

So much has happened in this community that formed. Friendships have been forge, relationships have come and gone, and drama has ensued. I'm still a little amazed at how many connections between everyone has been made because of this. What is even more amazing is just how many people have been here just as long if not longer.

Not really sure what the point in this thread is really. Mainly wondering in what ways this community has affected you. I know that my life would've been very different or not at if not for this community. Funny to think about how many friends I now have because of it all

Curious as to how this has affected you in any ways, when did you find this? how?

[TheStrife]

I think I found a link to it off of RPGamer's forums back in '98. I'm not sure though as it's been so long.

Funny thing though, my rank right now (Drone) is what my original name on SG was going to be before I changed it to TheStrife on account of Rayne using STRifE at the time.

[Arashi]

Eh mine isn't very significant. I just found SG on google when I was searching for some good ff8 sites. I just really liked the chocobo ratings in Fan submission and decided to give it a go. Let's see, my first handle on the forums is Misao016.

[no name]

Its definitely weird when you realize that you've been here so long. I think its something like 4 years that I've been with this community. (though its only this past year, really, that I've been posting much).

The first contact I had with SG was in grade 10. Killey, obviously a regular on this forum, wanted to show me a few pics of the characters of Suikoden II since I had just bought Suikoden I. To accomplish this, we went on the school computers during our lunch hour at school and he showed me the Suikoden II avatar gallery .

I took to looking at all the avatars... and then I saw this Trowa avatar. At that time, I was obsessed with the Gundam Wing anime, so I thought it'd be fun to register as my favourite character, trowa/no name.

I posted in a few threads and I figured I had the hang of things... even though this was my first forum. So, I decided to make a couple of threads! Yes, I was a big nub. I think one of my frist threads was a poll and it was quickly closed by Loki .

Since then, I really only lurked and posted every now and then (this time, intelligently!). That is, until the sektor seven anime FTP forum came around. That lead me to IRC where I got to know quite a few of you wonderful people a lot better.

This forum has affected my views on certain games, anime, politics... pretty much everything, really . It has also provided me with plenty of laughs, since I swear some of you are the funniest people on the planet.

Anyways, this forum rocks, and I hope I'm still with it for years to come!

[ruroken]

My cousin introduced me to this website probably 5-6 years back and I haven't stopped frequenting ever since. I even have my own emoticon! -proud-



And yes, that Staring At The Sun video sure brings back lotsa memories. FF8, FF7, and SG. :D:D:D:D:D

[TheDarkOne]

been trolling since 2k... didnt really get incredibly active till 2k2, and just last year really got to know some of the forum members, but the 4 years i've been watching, and the 2 years i've been posting have been amazing, fondest memory was the Hellsing thread when the show first started airing, and how insane everyone was about the show... and how now everyone is talking trash on it :>

[Cybernetic Empire]

Ah the first memory thread! It was in like April or March of 1998 (whichever was 2 weeks before FFVIII was announced) and I was hungry for FFVIII details. I've been around ever since.

The most suprising thing about it all is that I went to Vancouver to meet these people I had been talking to for years a couple years back. That was definately something I will never forget. Too bad I could not get back to see you guys last summer due to some legal issues regarding my compatriot on the trip. :<

So yes SG has been a big part of my life and I'm FUCKING OVERJOYED that it is finally back.

[zsquared]

I think it was 2000 that I first found out about this site. Maybe 99?

My buddy that goes by the screen name Mujiaro pointed this place out to me, and was living with Shaun at the time. Or was that before? Hell if I can remember.

I just remember lurking for awhile before actually starting to post.

[Lavos Spawn]

I actually came here from SquareSource in early 2000 when SG was subletting them a forum. Hard to beleive it's been almost 5 years. I never really got to know anyone all that well here, and now I rarely visit anymore, let alone post, so it hasn't changed me much, except for giving me a healthy dose of fear about popple on the internet. You guys are a bunch of sick, demented freaks... and you made me one too. I'm gonna sue your asses

[Fei Ayanami]

in 2000 I gave my future pal frector a birthday present by signing up on jan 6, his... 17th birthday. I'd been playing square games since like 1995 or 96 and was good and excited about ff8 and also was into eva at the time, so the combination of the ff8 stuff on the site and the article on the main page at the time about eva got me all riled up to register. some months later I met those sg guys cause I lived around them and I also ended up going to high school with a bunch of them the following september. wow!!
also I once played chess with lavos spawn, in neil's my girlfriend sucks thread. I think it was lavos spawn anyway??? we never quite finished it, I'm afraid.

[Cybernetic Empire]

Remember when we had that hot sex Fei? I do.

[Fei Ayanami]

no, but I'm not surprised, I have no standards

[Cybernetic Empire]

But I'm a sexy bitch with an orange nub. :<

[Fei Ayanami]

I didn't mean to hurt your feelings

[Chronotic]

COOL

http://www.ringsurf.com/netring?action= ... ng=SGDiary

Edit: I like Brave Fencer Murasaki's diary.

[WaWard]

Some guy that was one of my friend's friends showed me SG for its videos early in the 1999 summer (mainly for Chrono Cross videos). So I got back home, and checked the site out, and like, also checked the forum (populaced by nubs like Heritic, Raven and Chris Ramsey), so I just had to register. It was my first forum evar.

[Ikari]

I think I looked up "shitty forums" on Google and found this. No really I forgot how I came up here. I do remember I was in E-Commerce class and was bored as hell. I signed up during the Halloween theme. You know that orange ugly as theme you guys had up? Man that shit was ugly.

[Damien]

I met Ragnarok, Merc and Zenjin and for that I'm eternally greatful to SG

[Damien]

I think I looked up "shitty forums" on Google and found this. No really I forgot how I came up here. I do remember I was in E-Commerce class and was bored as hell. I signed up during the Halloween theme. You know that orange ugly as theme you guys had up? Man that shit was ugly.

Wait... didn't that not look terribly different from the current asthetics of the forum?

[Garbo]

It was Ultima and Efront's fault.

Ultima for introducing me to SG, Efront for making me go to the forums.

[Lord Golbez]

I know I found this site looking for news on FF8. It took me a few months to get off the main page though and get to the forums. Once I got to the forums I never looked back at stupid news again! My first action was to get in trouble with the forum mafia.

[Gray]

Sometime early august '98 through ff8 links, so been active member a little over 6 years
Most fun was january 2001 when i first got cable and could finally load the forums at decent speeds and spammed suggestion forum together with kage and kefka.com. I think i had about 50 sgers on ICQ by the end of march that year followed by sgw1

[Redlimit]

Yeah around the time of the FF8 hype era was when I first started using the internet.

At the time, "final fantasy viii" typed into a search engine had FFExtreme pop up as the first link.

The rest as they say, is history...

[j0hn Ayanami]

Google search for Evapilot's Eva article.

Registered 6 days after Fei. Kinda strange, don't you think?

[Kage]

I forgot when I join and I even forgot how many times I have to reregister.

[Abe]

I was an IRC guy way back. I don't think I ever really got into SG forums though.

It was like, 1999, I guess, and somehow I found the #ffonline channel on... wtf, were we on DALnet then? Anyway, Mog was in there, and we got to be IRC friends (I'm a geek ;_;), and he was like HAY, SQUAREGAMER IS BETTER COME HANG THERE ! So I did, and that's all.

[Insomnia]

wow, when did this place return?

[Lord Golbez]

I forgot when I join and I even forgot how many times I have to reregister.

I don't know how many times I had to reregister, but probably about 6 in my first few months.

[Insomnia]

If I'm not mistaken I joined SG Feb 2, 2000 when Dudeman (you all remember dudeman, right? he died ) introduced me to the very concept of an internet forum with SG after I got a computer for the first time.

[Kage]

Yeah, Dudeman is my friend. I like that guy alot. I wonder where he has gone to now. Use to have his icq.

[HKK]

I know what you mean trev...time sure does fly. I can't believe I've been here for almost 5 years. I wonder how many total hours of my life I've wasted on this forum and many of the forums that spawned from it (source, wf)...crazy.

But yeah, going to this site for the first was indeed life changing.

I came here from square source as well and I managed to post at both after source left and got it's own forum.

I remember when everyone was so hyped up for FFVIII. That was major excitement there, the anticipation for FFVIII was insane..

I joined December...24 I think. But it was of 1999. Don't remember. But I do remember when everyone had 2d sprites as avatars. Those were the days...

[Plaztik]

I found the site while browsing for FF8 news back in '99...i remember watching the Staring At The Sun music video and accidentally clicked the link to the forums.
You guys must have scared me to death because i didn't register until the end of 2000...shortly after that SG got wiped (or stolen )

I saw many nubs come and go over the years as well as getting some nice friends out of numerous of humurous events

thank you for everything, guys...i love you

more...

[Insomnia]

But I do remember when everyone had 2d sprites as avatars. Those were the days...

[mz]

I found the site when it was still FF8.org, way back when I was still in highschool. I had a computer class where I had a teacher I had known ever since I was 5 years old from my swim team (i.e. swam with her son). So while everyone else hated her, she was awesome to me. Anyways, she pretty much just let me screw around on the internet all class period. At some point I ended up finding FF8.org when looking for news on some game, but I didn't like using forums at that point so I never ended up registering. Then I lost the site, as I think the site went threw one of its numerous crashes, which made me stop coming to it, then when I tried to find it again, I couldn't because I guess it was under the SG domain.

So then my senior year of high school came around and once again I had a computer class where I could bullshit all day (anyone remember the file sharing program Scour? Cause that's pretty much all I did that semester). This time I was looking for the Chrono Cross opening video, and I found it on SG. I may have regged at that point, but I never posted. Kept coming back to the site and I watched the SGTVs. Then I saw a video Shaun made for his friend who passed away. This made me realize there we actual people here and I finally checked out the forums. That's about it I think.

[HKK]

But I do remember when everyone had 2d sprites as avatars. Those were the days...

gj for keeping yours!

I remember that video mz..that was touching.

[Joei]

Just think Fei, without SG you would never have visited Goole.

[HKK]

And you would have never met Fei. D:

[j0hn Ayanami]

A lot of things wouldn't have happened if Squaregamer wasn't here. I doubt we have time to list them all, but I would have never gone to Vancouver or Ireland

[Doom]

I know way too much about way too many of you.

[HKK]

A lot of things wouldn't have happened if Squaregamer wasn't here. I doubt we have time to list them all, but I would have never gone to Vancouver or Ireland

It helped me get out of my DBZ anime phase. Without sg I would be nothing more than a Dragonball anime fan.

[Joei]

And you would have never met Fei. D:

If only.

[Doom]

I don't attribute my latching onto anime to SG, but I do believe I am to blame for many of you regarding a number of shows...

[HKK]

Stop taking responsibility!

[j0hn Ayanami]

I don't attribute my latching onto anime to SG, but I do believe I am to blame for many of you regarding a number of shows...

So very true. I try my best to force you all to watch good anime, but instead you love Elfien Lied and Read or Die and Noir~

[Joei]

Read or Die and Noir are good.

Sorry we don't watch anime's like Marmalade Boy to help us score with Japanese chicks!

[Doom]

You wanna take it outside (aka to the proper forum)?

[Joei]

Does it matter where I point out he is a retard!?

[Grey Fox]

Pretty much every major thing that has happened to me since high school, and every single friend I have, all stems from SG. When I started it way way back as an FF8 rumor site, I never had any idea it would turn into something so huge or important. So I hope this community never dies, it has forged too many good friendships and good times. I often end up thinking to myself "Man, I'm glad I never quit doing SG last year or X wouldn't have happened." I wouldn't be in Japan right now, I wouldn't know any of the people I hang out with often in Vancouver, and I never would have kissed Joei... It's a strange beast this place.

btw, that Staring At The Sun FF tribute video is up for download in the SGTV folder. Just click the link on the portal that says SGTV. I'm pretty sure almost everything is there.

[Joei]

You would never have got to hold the True Bob.

[j0hn Ayanami]

Bob