In early 2001 I came across Ironworks after buying the first Baldur'e Gate Game just a few months before tales of the Swordcoast was released. Back then Blackisle was still alive and growing. On Blackisle's home site there was a link to the 100 best Baldur's Gate sites which actually had only 47 listed and the number one site was a site called The Ironworks.
I clicked on a few links then tried the Ironworks. At that time you didn't need to be a member to ask guestions and Ziroc had alot of imfo on walkthrews and what to do when attacked on the road to the gate.
When I first got to the Ironworks there were two spinning Hammers on the page. one in the upper left corner of the page and one on the upper right corner. At that time I was still on dial up and remember watching and waiting as the hammers loaded first and then the rest of the page would follow very slowly.
As the main page would finally finish loading the hammers would then start to spin and when that happened I would know the page had finished loading and I could find out the imformation I needed.
For those of you that have been around a few years what do remember about your first days as a member and what or who led you here?
For those of you that are new this past 12 months Welcome and what took you so long to join? :D

[ 09-06-2004, 08:54 PM: Message edited by: TheCrimsomBlade ]

Ahh, Ironworks. Even when though I don't post much, I still read nearly every damn post that comes up. First time came from reading the walkthroughs for BG2 (wow, what a long time ago...) and clicking on the forum buttons, and the rest is history...

I remember those hammers and I came to find this site in almost the same way you did looking for info on baldurs gate.

I really only joined and became active when I got NWN because I wanted to play online.

I remember when I stumbled onto the Works, I was dying for some help when I got Bg2. The GameFaq boards were just dead, hardly anyone used them because there were too many of them. I came over from there and stayed on the SoA/ToB forums for a couple of months until I realized there were other forums on this site :D

That's when my post count really kicked in :D

I came around looking for help with Wizards and Warriors... and read page after page of posts, way back in the blue board days. I found everything both helpful and friendly, so I kept up with it... eventually joining when the brown board came into being.

Willow joined around the time I did, and for the longest time, our post counts were comparable. Then she discovered GD and left me in the dust... until I discovered GD, and started chasing her. :D

She then discovered CE, and I haven't had the interest to play there. [img]graemlins/nono.gif[/img]

I accidentally bump into the Wizards and Warriors board while it was still in blue board some years ago. Read a bit of the posts there and left. Didn't come again until some years later. I was looking for a Wizardry 8 board to ask question and the search function let me into this Ironworksforum.

I first found Ironworks in February 2001. I needed help on a Baldur's Gate I issue, so I did a Yahoo search and this forum came up first. I found the answer to my question right on the first page, so I didn't need to join in order to get help. A little later on though, I had another problem, and had to post in order to get the answer. This was July 2001. The rest, as they say, is history.

I met a lot of cool people on here and talked to dozens of members on various messengers. The forum was really close-knit at the time, and I was friends with pretty much everyone. This became less and less over the months, due to arguments, back-talk, pm- and e-mail wars etc, combined with the simple fact that people leave your life over time. Now I hardly know anyone on the boards. I do miss the days of closeness, but I realize you can't go back. It's a shame though - nowadays nobody even knows who the hell I am. [img]tongue.gif[/img]

I know ya, still around buddy [img]smile.gif[/img] Hope all is well in college!

Funny, I joined before you Alex and I didnt really know everyone or anyone at all, except people who had come over from other boards. In fact that's how I heard about this place, it was the main alternative to my regular board...back then it wasn't much bigger. I only started coming here regularly when all the other good boards either died or became crap.

Alex, dear...*some* of us remember who you are. ;)

Let's see...I was playing Darkstone on the PS2 and was having some trouble.

I was looking for a walkthrough and some advice and stumbled upon IW in my google search.

I joined in August or September of 2001 so I could ask my questions in the Darkstone forum where Mouse, as helpful a friendly Scottish rodent can be ;) , did his best though he only knew of the PC version of the game.

After being so well received there, he pointed me over to GD where I became infamous. [img]tongue.gif[/img]

The rest is history. heh