THE EARLY DAYS
Rain City was not always the thriving metropolis with which many of you are now familiar. In fact, for much of it's first two months or so, Rain City had a regular permanent population of exactly eight people: Okgal, Charlene Richards, Sacred Rose, Rose (no relation), Beachgal, Rainbowmom, Jetta Malone, and Bacardi Jim. It didn't take long for these people to polarize into two opposing camps. On the one hand were Sacred Rose and Charlene Richards. The two quickly became close friends, and SR immediately assumed the role of Rain City's "greeter" of newbies, explaining how things worked in Rain City. On the other side the remaining players (except for Jetta Malone) formed the Harem. Originally a group who worked together from different occupations to try to solve Rain City's mysteries, they quickly adopted the role of an actual Harem, with different functions in the polygamous family. Jetta, while aligned with the Harem, declined to marry into the family. She became the town kook, her mind and fingers working so quickly that she was known to sing songs to herself or work out riddles/puzzles while waiting for someone to reply to her chat postings, usually to the puzzlement of the listener.
A word should be said about how chat worked back then. Originally, there was no refresh on the Live Chat. You could not see what someone had said to you until you posted again. This may have been responsible for so many people leaving Rain City after just a few minutes in the early days. They would say hello, and then not know that anyone had replied to them, get frustrated, and leave. It was this, along with the scarce populaton of Rain City, which led Bacardi Jim to first term Live Chat as "Dead Chat," and the acronym DC for the chat room quickly caught on, even with Baby C (who, in case you hadn't figured it out yet, is also Brent Lessa, which isn't his real name either, hehehe).
The conflict between the two groups was exacerbated by the fact that due to my work schedule at the time (me the player, not BJ), I was able to spend a great deal of time in Rain City, and BJ began "midwifing" many more newbies into Rain City than SR, taking over the role she had assumed, not realizing that he was stepping on her toes. The animosity became so great that Sacred Rose phoned BJ's room and left a hate-filled suicide message, then apparently killed herself. Bacardi Jim, Rainbowmom, and Jetta Malone held a funeral service for her, out of repect for one of Rain City's founding members, which Charlene Richards crashed, insulting the assembled mourners and blaming them for SR's death. Later, SR reappeared, completely healthy and having taken a vacation in the Bahamas. To this day, nobody knows whose body was buried that day. Charlene herself disappeared less than a month later.
Gameplay was also completely different back then. There were no special functions for each occupation. In fact, it wasn't until the third assignment that different occupations were given different assignments. Characters could call themselves whatever occupations they wanted, but we were all doing exactly the same things. The wise folks at EPG had planned this on purpose, wanting to build a core group of players who understood what was going on before they introduced the changes in how occupations worked. What they DIDN'T plan on was the eventual huge success of the game, and how it forced them to change the very nature of Rain City. Originally, S.P.I.T.E. was to be a puzzle game, episodic in nature, with updates in clues, newspaper articles, and assignments coming bi-weekly, and a limited run of about a year. In this respect, it was similar to EPG's successful Cypher game. The chat function was included merely as a way for players to exchange information and theories about the mystery of Bert Rudall's appearance. But then something happened. The work schedule of the designers on other EPG projects (S.P.I.T.E. is a labor of love done for no money in their spare time) meant that updates were coming only monthly, then bi-monthly. Given the long time between new clues, the aptitude of some of the players for role-playing, my own writing skills and willingness to contribute (no false modesty here, teehee), and the fact that Bacardi Jim solved most of the Big Mystery only three months into the game, the role-playing aspect of the game began to take precedence over the puzzle part of the game. DC was no longer an afterthought, but was the main stage where we acted out the events transpiring in Rain City. This trend was further multiplied when Llewellyn came to town, as his creator was also a veteran RPG player. Llew and BJ hooked up and truly turned the game into something it wasn't quite intended to be, although Brent Lessa seemed to like, accept, and even appreciate what Rain City had become, despite the never-ending personal conflicts which ensued as a result of DC becoming the focus of Rain City. The up side of this is that there is now no plan to end S.P.I.T.E. after a year, as was originally planned. The down side has been that with the changed focus of the game, and with no planned schedule of running time, we no longer get clue updates. The clues which you see now, along with the lead story in the paper, have been sitting there since last July. There has been no progress in development of the Big Plot since then, other than those contributions by yours truly.
Citywide celebrations are common sights in Rain City. Here we see the traditional Memorial Day Parade, which officially marks the beginning of the "Not-Quite-As-Rainy Season."
Rain City's demographics have also changed considerably since it's founding. Originally, the average age of players was around 40, and there were virtually no males in town. The typical player was a bright, witty housewife who liked puzzles and/or mysteries. The themes of Rain City were obviously adult ones: murder, treason, bizarre sex, gambling, and political corruption. And then summer vacation 1999 hit, and with it a sudden influx of teens and even pre-teens. At first, some of the city founders resisted and resented this flood of juveniles, since as a group they seemed to lack the class, maturity, and plot focus to which they had become accustomed in each other. However, a few of the new kiddies managed to assimilate quite well, and ingratiated themselves with the old cronies, paving the way for acceptance of the others. Accolades are especially due Picasso, Lessa, Katie, and, to a degree, Kaylie for this. Without their influence, would we have been so ready to accept Lady Adara or The Violator? We also (thankfully) now have several male players in Rain City, though amongst regular players, women still outnumber men by about 5-1.
Anyway, Rain City has seen considerable growth and change since its inception in March, 1999. The growth has not always been easy or painless, but I, for one, think that the end result has been worth enduring the growing pains. We have managed to achieve something truly amazing in Rain City, and if we can just get an occasional clue update from the Powers That Be, we will, IMHO, have the perfect game.