Poll: Finding Twenty Sided

By Shamus Posted Tuesday Oct 25, 2016

Filed under: Notices 116 comments

Let’s do another one of these poll things. As before: This isn’t so much “market research so I can focus the Twenty Sided brand and build audience retention through focused engagement with key demographics” as it is “I’m curious about some random crap and maybe you are too”.

The poll will stay open for about a day, and I’ll post the results later in the week with my own comments on what we have [not?] learned.

Ugh. I’m not crazy about Google forms. These things waste RIDICULOUS amounts of space. Like, NONE of that purple border is needed.

 


From The Archives:
 

116 thoughts on “Poll: Finding Twenty Sided

  1. Danny says:

    I couldn’t find the right response in the first question, but I am possibly the only person to still be reading the site who came here through a google search on deconstructing the plot to Fable 2. Finding this site was the best thing that came out of playing that game.

    1. gresman says:

      I am quite certain I first came to this page via a google search as well but I have no clue what I was looking for.

      I just remember that there was no DMotR but there was a somewhat weekly column about GM stuff (by Shamus).

      1. lowlymarine says:

        I’m sort of in the opposite situation: I don’t remember if it was a Google search or a link from another blog, but I remember distinctly that the first page I landed on here was this one. It was already a year old or so at the time, notching my time here just under a decade. (Is it really almost 2017 already? Ugh.)

    2. Daemian Lucifer says:

      It fits either with the “textplays” or the “other” option.Though the wording is a bit wonky,but googling a thing and getting a result is kind of being given a link.

    3. Will says:

      I read DMotR a long time ago (though after it was finished), but what actually got me to stick was being linked to Shamus’s early writings on ME2. I was looking for someone who agreed with me that rather than being a grand masterpiece, it was a pile of garbage on the highest level, and ended up here.

    4. Merlin says:

      Ah shoot, that was just enough to jog my memory – I was initially linked to the examination of the Skyrim Thieves’ Guild.

    5. KK Bear says:

      I think it was a link to your article talking about how many ways Neverwinter Nights 2 doesn’t let you get through a locked gate.

      It perfectly articulated a frustration I felt with the game, and with the genre at its weakest, but had never sat down to actually think through. That’s still one of my favorite kind of pieces that you write.

    6. Rayen020 says:

      I am almost certain I read DM of the Rings before i found The Escapist. However i’m pretty sure I just read what had been posted up to that point and then stopped until i started reading expeirence points.

    7. evileeyore says:

      another with some “First Question blues”.

      I found the site aeons* ago during the early days of DMotR, but wandered off because it was slow to post. I came back (and stayed back) during Chainmail Bikini.

      * No spellchecker, aeons is the correct plural!

    8. Zekiel says:

      That Fable 2 series was an *excellent* read, and I haven’t even played the game. I went and re-read is a few months ago when I wanted to cheer myself up :-)

    9. PAK says:

      I stumbled upon the site years ago after following up on results to a Google search for “emergent gameplay.”

  2. Synkron says:

    I was only kidding!

    You’ve cast Recollection of Mortality upon me! Though my comments are exceedingly rare, thanks for providing regular must-read content for the last eight years or so, Shamus.

  3. Sleepyfoo says:

    I picked the before the DM of the Rings option because I’ve been here since before it was done, but not before it was started. Naturally, I was linked to DM of the Rings. I’ve been enjoying your content and the comments ever since.

    Absolute Earliest evidence I have on hand of my visiting this site is March 1, 2007

    Peace : )

    1. Dev Null says:

      I’m in the same boat; after the beginning, but before the end. I voted pre-Escapist, because I don’t actually remember _before_ DMotR, so between us we’ll average out.

    2. Taellosse says:

      This was me as well, though I honestly cannot remember where I got the DMotR link originally. It may have been linked by another comic I was reading at the time, but I couldn’t say which one. Or I could have gotten sent a link from an actual real-life friend.

      I remember that DMotR was far enough along that it took me a while to catch up to what was then-current, but it kept going for some time after that. I’m guessing it was somewhere in The Two Towers, but I can’t be sure. And I remember that I did not immediately start reading the other content on the site, but was doing so well before the comic finished. I read and followed Chainmail Bikini, and was sad that it ended so abruptly.

      It was Shamus’ addition to The Escapist that prompted me to start visiting their site, and he is therefore the reason that I started watching Zero Punctuation, Loading Ready Run, Jim Sterling, and MovieBob (and still follow all but MovieBob regularly now that most of them have moved on). I’m pretty sure he’s also the reason I still read Irregular Webcomic, too – when Darths & Droids started up, crediting DMotR for inspiring them, Shamus linked back to them. One of the people that does that had been doing IW for quite a while before that, and while I’d seen individual comics there before, I’d never added it to my regular roster until then. Or, at least, I added it once I’d gotten through the absolutely huge archive up to that point. And now Shamus gets credit for my following Mumbles’ YouTube channel, too. I’ve been enjoying her Let’s Play of DA2 while I work.

      1. Kizer says:

        I’m in very much the same boat. I’m pretty sure that it was a link from Irregular Webcomic that got me started reading Twenty Sided. I can’t recall if I started reading DMotR during its run, or not too long after.

      2. Mortuorum says:

        A Google search led me to one of Shamus’ columns on The Escapist. It’s been so long, though, I don’t remember what it was. (Something in Experienced Points, I’m sure. Maybe this article on Champions Online?)

        In any case, that was my entree into The Escapist and it didn’t rake long for me to discover this site.

  4. methermeneus says:

    My answers to the two questions are kinda contradictory. I do remember the days of DM of the Rings, but I didn’t actually become a regular reader until I wound up looking up this Shamus Young guy when Fear the Boot led me to Chainmail Bikini, and, hey, cool, it’s the same guy who did DMotR!

    1. King Marth says:

      Yeah, I first reached the site due to DM of the Rings, but I don’t think I looked at anything else here at the time. I’m not sure when I looked at the rest of the site, probably for the out-of-article comments after each Escapist article. Skimmed the archive then, I liked the old posts about anime and I was amused at the initial response to YouTube and Steam.

      1. tzeneth says:

        Strangely this is the path I took. I can’t remember how I got linked/found DM of the Rings but that was the first thing I read and then I went on to chainmail bikini when that happened. Afterward, I can’t place when I started to regularly read his blog. I want to say I truly started reading and looking at the other content on the blog around the start of Spoiler Warning.

        Also, to make Shamus feel old, I found DM of the Rings in high school. :P

      2. Theminimanx says:

        Add one more voice to the pile. I found DMotR through Darths & Droids, but I don’t think I explored the rest of site after binge-reading it. That only happened after finding the site again through Experienced Points (which is the answer I gave in the poll).

        1. Leocruta says:

          That’s how I found this site as well. I stayed after reading the thieves guild breakdown.

    2. Hal says:

      Before Chain mail Bikini, Shamus did an interview with FtB. That’s what brought me to his website.

  5. Haddron says:

    I first found the site via the Pixel City articles. Someone on a site I can’t recall posted the demo video and a link to the articles.

    1. Bryan says:

      Similar, but for me it was something related to the Terrain project. The first programming series on the site, I believe — or if not, I haven’t seen any of the earlier ones.

      That and the D&D campaign were the two things that I read first. But this was around the middle of DMotR, so I shortly moved to reading that.

      And now, a couple of different email addresses later, I’m still here. Huh. :-)

    2. Background_nose says:

      Me to. Escapist got me here but pixel city and programming projects kept me.

      I’d go further in fact. Pixel city got me learning to program, now it’s my job. So thanks for posting that Shamus.

  6. Wide And Nerdy® says:

    My answer was a bit complicated too. I originally came here for DM of the Rings late in its run and left as soon as I finished it. I came back years during Spoiler Warning, discovered that one of the guys on the show I liked also wrote this comic I really liked and stuck around to take in your other content.

    1. IFS says:

      This is pretty much how things went for me as well. I know tvtropes was responsible for me finding DMoTR, I’m less sure how I found Spoiler Warning but that may have also been tvtropes.

    2. Cerapa says:

      Same here.

  7. Zak McKracken says:

    ohmygod… so long? this can’t be! I started some time during the DM of the Rings run, but that was , like, two or three years ago, wasn’t it?

  8. kunedog says:

    I discovered the Freelance Astronauts (and the concept of Let’s Plays) around the time they became defunct, and archive binged their stuff. After watching their Mass Effect playthrough and loving it, I searched for an ME2 playthrough, found&watched yours, and then archived binged your stuff.

    This was during the Alan Wake season. It was probably a year or so until I started visiting/reading the website (instead of just the youtube channel) and then I archive binged the Diecast too.

  9. Daemian Lucifer says:

    I was linked to dm of the rings waaay back by someone on the irregular webcomic forum.It really was interesting to follow the connection between the two,and how you inspired David and his friends to make darths and droids.

    Kind of related to that,they will be doing the sequel trilogy of starwars.You know,a comic about the new content that did not exist when the original thing started.Winkwinknudgenudgeyoushouldtotallymakedmofthehobbitcoughcough.

  10. Vextra says:

    God, has it been a decade nearly already? I’m pretty sure I was linked to this site to read about your DND campaign back in like 2007, or maybe it was DM of the Rings, I’m not sure.
    Come to think of it checking this website for new content every day is pretty much the only thing I still do since I stopped being a University student.

  11. Droid says:

    I have found you twice through DMotR. Both times through a picture on TVTropes, and I have no idea how long ago the first time was. But because I did not stay on this site afterwards (for whatever reason; stupid, stupid Past Me!), I don’t know how long ago it was.

    Firefox also has no idea when I first clicked through to your website, just that it was “more than 6 months ago”, so …

    1. Joe Informatico says:

      I am pretty sure I also came here for DM of the Rings via a reference on TVTropes. I was pointed to Yahtzee’s early videos on The Escapist around the same time, started reading Experienced Points there, and at some point clued in that the same guy was responsible for both.

  12. Zanfib says:

    Where’s the option for Free Radical Shamus? Came here for that and then checked out the blog out of curiosity.

    When I first looked at the blog DM of the Rings was already running and in the most recent comic Legolas had just shot Gollum.

    1. skulgun says:

      Got linked from TTLG when somebody posted Free Radical and Shamus showed up. Dug it. DMOTR was nary a twinkle in Shamu’s eye. Steven den Beste still commented here. That really is ancient history, eh?

  13. Cybron says:

    Came for the DM of the Rings some 8 years ago (I actually found the Escapist through you instead of the other way around), stayed for tabletop, kept staying after that because you have the ability to write about basically anything and make it interesting. I could probably read your grocery lists and come away feeling richer for it.

  14. Lee says:

    I’m honestly not sure when I first showed up. I first came here through either a link, or more likely a google search on procedural terrain generation. I put the rss feed into my reader (Feedly currently, though I was a google Reader user for a while, and something else before that), and pretty much only showed up for programming posts for a few years.

    Incidentally, I also discovered DMotR separately, but I never followed from there to here.

    I’ve been paying attention to most of the articles for 4-5 years maybe. I did check out about half way through the big Mass Effect thing, but since I never played the game, it wasn’t really relevant to me.

    1. Echo Tango says:

      The programming posts were the first thing I came to this website for, although I didn’t make it a place to come back to every week until I discovered Spoiler Warning, and then the Diecast. Keep up the good stuff, Shamus! :)

  15. Simplex says:

    I wish the first question had “Other” option. As far as I remember, I arrived here from an article about horror themed level s in games, and the author was kind enough to mention your writeup about Shalebridge Cradle, and link to it.

  16. Grey Rook says:

    Hi Shamus! Long time lurker, first time poster.

    You know, I can’t actually remember how I found this site, but I think it was through Stolen Pixels and Experienced Points, which I found in turn through Zero Punctuation. Some interesting stuff, really, pity that you quit making them.

    Anyway, I’ve been lurking here on and off for the past several years and I have found that you tend to have some very good points when you talk about a game I know. So… thank you, I suppose.

    1. psychic programmer says:

      Same here, looking back at the posts made when I first came here it has been 2 years and 5 months for me.

  17. I’m pretty sure I came for DM of the Rings. I definitely came BACK for it, as it was still only partway through and I have stuck around ever since.

  18. Bubble181 says:

    “DND blog posts before DMOTR started”.

    Look, I’m not *that* old. I got linked here early in my university career and that’s only been, like, what, a year? maybe two? Maybe 10? Sh*t. I’m old now :-(

  19. Content Consumer says:

    Tell the truth, now. You only created this poll in order to see how many people would pick both of these options:

    I found this site through content Shamus made on The Escapist. (Experienced Points, Stolen Pixels, Shamus Plays.)

    I was visiting the site before Shamus began making content at The Escapist. (Over seven years.)

    1. Primogenitor says:

      Aaargh, my secret time travelling has been revealed!

  20. Philadelphus says:

    I think I first came here to DM of the Rings after being linked from Darths & Droids about 6 or 7 years ago when I first started reading D&D, but couldn’t actually get into it at the time and didn’t stick around.

    Fast forward to when you were doing the Spoiler Warning season on Marlow Briggs, which I followed a random link to, and watched…then watched everything else on the channel…then came to Twenty Sided and started reading (including DMotR), and, well, now it’s in my RSS reader.

  21. Parkhorse says:

    I’m 99% sure it was DM of the Rings that brought me here, linked via Darths and Droids. That said, I know exactly which piece of content got me reading the non-comic posts regularly: the Procedural City project. I actually had the end product as my screen saver for quite some time.

  22. Ninety-Three says:

    Hey Shamus, your Google Form appears to be completely vulnerable to multiple submissions: one need only refresh the page to stuff the ballot. I guess this of all surveys is not one people would be especially inclined to stuff, but I figured I’d warn you in case you weren’t already aware.

  23. Primogenitor says:

    I think I came here for the anti-DRM posts? Maybe?

    I started going through the archives to see how far back I might recognize, but at page 350 I stopped as after that point I don’t think either of us really want to know the answer any more….

  24. Gypsy says:

    I first found this site about six years ago while searching for programming help. I stumbled across project frontier and read through all the programming posts in short order. I would then check the blog every few months and catch up on the technical articles, but didn’t bother with most of the other posts. Once the good robot series was running I started checking back more regularly, and I’ve checked the site frequently and read most of the content since this spring.

  25. TheAngryMonoogse says:

    I discovered through Stolen Pixels but, strangely, didn’t particularly like the comic. Same thing with LoadingReadyRun, became a fan after finding them through Unskippable, but never much cared for it.

  26. somebodys_kid says:

    I don’t remember how I got here. I suspect it was through a random google search, then started reading archived posts, then became a regular.
    Now I can’t imagine an Internet without this blog.

  27. MichaelGC says:

    I first visited because some hero linked me to this:

    Mass Effect 3 Ending Deconstruction

    which I’m assuming would count as:

    a link to a specific series or blog post not mentioned above,

    rather than being effective part of the more-recent massive Mass Effect series. (Or Final Fantasy X.)

  28. Blackbird71 says:

    I came to this site through a link to DMotR from another webcomic (now defunct), before DMotR was complete (I believe it was somewhere in the third book/movie at the time). It was between nine and ten years ago; I remember that distinctly because it was right around the time I started my current job, and this site has been a part of my regular lunch-hour reading ever since.

  29. Ivellius says:

    I know I found you through DM of the Rings, off either the Giant in the Playground forum or Wizards’ own D&D one. I’m pretty sure it was not finished, though I don’t remember exactly where I entered the storyline, and I don’t think I became a regular lurker until around 2009. I didn’t make a comment until The Walking Dead was featured on Spoiler Warning. That was also the first season I really watched, though I’ve seen most of them since then (high expectations for Until Dawn).

    Still, thanks for the years of content (roughly a decade, by my reckoning) and pre-emptive appreciation for more to come.

  30. Gardarak says:

    So I chose the second-to-last at the first question…
    I found a link in some P&P-Forum to the D&D-Campaign, I guess it was the link to the book the players had to translate? I don’t remember exactly, but the campaign brought me here, sometime around its end. DM of the Rings made me a frequent visitor, and somehow I’m still regularly checking the site.
    Weird that its already a decade, there are very few other sites I’m still visiting after so much time…

  31. Dragmire says:

    I was linked to the site through a comment on some content Shamus provided on the Escapist but it’s been so long that I can’t remember exactly which content.

    … I need to select 3 answers when limited to one…

  32. Sean says:

    I came to the site because of the programming posts way back when. I discovered the DM of the Rings stuff soon after that, and I’ve been semi-lurking ever since.

  33. Steve C says:

    I came here because DM of the Rings was mentioned on Attack of the Show. Apparently that was Jan 2nd 2007. I stayed around for the other content and the quality of the posted comments. This blog was the first I’d ever read that consistently had interesting insightful comments by users. It was such a breath of fresh air compared to the wretched hive of scum and villainy that I was used to on the internet.

    I picked “over a decade” I figure a decade less 10weeks is close enough to “over a decade”. Plus I read the back posts.

  34. stondmaskin says:

    I voted that I found it through the Mass Effect series, but now that I think about it it might actually have been the thing about the Skyrim Thieves Guild. Someone linked that to me on another forum and we talked about it for a bit, I appreciated the long-form gamerthoughts style so I subscribed to the RSS right around the time you started doing the Mass Effect articles, and after that I was stuck.

  35. The Rocketeer says:

    It kinda fudges up nailing an explicit timeframe, but I wish the first question allowed multiple options. There was a long period of time where I was aware of the site but not visiting regularly, and a very fuzzy transition between those two states where I’d visit occasionally but didn’t have much site awareness.

    I know for a fact I was a regular reader before Spoiler Warning kicked off, but the most honest answer would be, “During DMotR,” “When Experienced Points kicked off,” and “Don’t remember anymore,” all rolled together. So, somewhere between six and eight years, I guess.

    I do know I was a regular reader long before I started leaving comments”” or, as historians will know it, before the rot set in.

  36. lethal_guitar says:

    I came here because a friend linked me to one of the posts in the Project Frontier series. After binge-reading that entire series, and a whole bunch of other programming stuff, I found that there was also video-game stuff, and kept following from then on.

  37. Galad says:

    Weirdly specific, I remember I witnessed the start of Spoiler Warning, but I definitely found your site through the Escapist, so apparently I’ve been here for 6 to 7 years.

    I also vividly remember one winter vacation, when I was still a student, I had to stay with my parents for an extended amount of time and I felt *Miserable* due to having to study crap I did not enjoy, and well, parents – and what made my stay somewhat better was discovering DMotR for the first time. Even what you must have thought were your worst strips would’ve made me howl with laughter were there not pesky parental bodies around. :)

  38. Steffan says:

    Someone I followed on Tumblr linked to you complaining about Fallout 3. I read it, enjoyed it, and decided to stay and read some more. And as it happens, I still have that Tumblr post so I know I came here on October 24th, last year. So I was able to just squeak into the “Over a year” option.

  39. Warclam says:

    I kinda have two answers. Most recently was at the beginning of the Dishonoured season. But at some point I decided to read Free Radical… and realized I already had. I have no idea when. I think I also watched part of the first season of Spoiler Warning, but stopped partway through because… well, season one was pretty rough.

  40. Dreadjaws says:

    I found this website through Experienced Points. I found Experienced Points thanks to Stolen Pixels. And I’m pretty sure I found Stolen Pixels through TV Tropes.

  41. Joe says:

    I came here for DMOTR, and binged it. By the time I caught up, it was complete. I couldn’t say any better than that. So maybe around five years?

  42. Matthew Melange says:

    I found this website because a critical youtuber (smudboy) liked the first spoiler warning episode of Mass Effect 3

  43. Aaron says:

    wow, so ive been coming to this site pretty much everyday for over 4 years…i guess that explains how/why ive read/seen/listened to about everything in the archives

  44. Adalore says:

    I remember ending up here because DM of the rings was linked on TVtropes.

    And I have been here pre-escapist, so stuff…

  45. MarsLineman says:

    Your brilliant Mass Effect series drew me in (via google searches for Mass Effect retrospectives) last November-ish.

  46. baud001 says:

    I arrived from darths and droids, which talk about DM of the rings (and I discovered darths and droids by looking over the shoulder of another student at school). I disliked DM of the rings, but I found the rest of the blog GREAT!

  47. Sunshine says:

    “These things waste RIDICULOUS amounts of space. Like, NONE of that purple border is needed.”

    Worse, when you finish the poll it rolls up into “Okay thanks”, but still takes up the same amount of empty, purple space.

  48. Micamo says:

    My story’s a bit of a roundabout one: I actually got linked to DM of the Rings and binged that in one sitting, but I didn’t pay attention to anything else that was on the site and left as soon as I was finished with DMotR. (I imagine a lot of readers of that comic did the same thing.)

    Years and years later, I ragequit Assassin’s Creed 2 because of that stupid capture the flag minigame but I still wanted to see how the story ended, so I looked up a Let’s Play of it and by pure random chance happened to pick the Spoiler Warning season. I decided I really liked you guys so I binge-watched your whole youtube channel, which eventually lead me to Shamus’s site, and I started consuming all of the written content and (when they started coming out) the diecasts.

    Funny story, it actually wasn’t until I had been regularly following your content for a year before I realized “Hey, Shamus Young is the DM of the Rings guy!”

  49. Genericide says:

    The Fallout 3 season was airing when I got here. Six years ago doesn’t seem like too big a number, but I remember still being in high school when I first popped in through the Escapist. Now I’ve been out of college over a year and that feels like a lifetime away. And yet I only started commenting a couple months ago. What can I say, I’m a lurker at heart. Would bet many others are the same, even in such a nice community.

    At any rate, thanks for all those years of content.

  50. James says:

    So i came here because you were called or called into the Desert Bus special some 5? years ago during or just after the Mass Effect lets play i think. ive been here since then. saw the death of Viddler, still miss the in video comments, and later read and re read a few times DMOTR

  51. Nick Pitino says:

    I found my way here when you did an interview with Fear the Boot.

    Either that, or I followed a link from Stephen DenBeste, back when he was still writing.

    One or the other, about the same time, don’t remember which came first.

    And apparently he just freakin’ DIED, holy crap…

    http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/441416/steven-den-beste-rip

    1. Will says:

      I got here through SDB as well. If you go back far enough, you can find fairly regular comments from him. But as soon as DMotR started bringing in a big crowd, he switched to lurking.

  52. mewse says:

    I’m pretty sure I first visited the blog by being linked to the Procedural City project, here: http://www.shamusyoung.com/twentysidedtale/?p=2940

  53. Raglan says:

    I clicked ive been here so long i dont remember, but went delving the archives, and im pretty sure i started coming here during season 4 -mass effect 2. Ironically, i dont really watch them, i like the long fable mass effect or ffx type posts. But thats when i started i think.

    Absolutely nuts how long ago that is…

    Also, on another note. Id never heard of the escapist until you started posting the links to your articles there. Liked it sort of, but quickly realised they do way to many ‘watch some person talking’ videos and then only ever read things shamus posted

  54. Aitch says:

    Found this site on Google by typing random variations on “Fallout 3 is dumb”. You can’t imagine how absurdly difficult it was to find one single other voice that thought F3 was a virtual garbage fire back then, apart from a few dissenters on the Nexus boards. It was before the Diecast, but I know Spoiler Warning was up and running. Those real time pop up comments on the Bioshock playthrough were great. Pretty sure it was in the middle of that, or thereabouts.

  55. CrypticSmoke says:

    I found this place in the late 2000’s… No clue what the specific thing was, but it was a long text article about some game or another.
    I remember being drawn to how well you articulated your points, and how you could talk in depth about something without feeling like you were rambling aimlessly.
    (that and the fact that you’d accomplished some alchemy wherein I could read every comment on the page and not remember my encroaching mortality even a little bit. So thanks for that.)

  56. Lachlan the Mad says:

    I definitely first came here for the D&D campaign, but I’m pretty sure that it was when the D&D campaign was already fairly deep in the blogostrata. I was looking to run my own D&D campaign and was looking at other people’s campaign blogs for advice. Not sure where I got the link to this one in particular — I’m pretty sure I found a list of campaign blogs somewhere, and this was the one that stuck. That would have been late in my high school years, which puts it about maybe seven or eight years ago?

  57. Neko says:

    I remember reading DM of the Rings when it wasn’t yet complete, but I don’t remember exactly how I came across it.

  58. Cinebeast says:

    I genuinely can’t remember how I got here, and that’s kind of frustrating. I’ve been visiting this place twice a day for almost five years and I don’t even know why I started.

    If I had to guess, I might have gotten here through DM of the Rings, but that doesn’t feel right.

  59. krellen says:

    I don’t remember the days before DM of the RIngs, but I was here before it finished. I remember the finale getting posted. I think?

  60. Guile says:

    No poll choice for ‘I came here for Free Radical and stayed for the video game stuff’? Bummer.

  61. MrGuy says:

    I joined from the Escapist, mainly through Stolen Pixels. BioShock was my first SW season, and between that an DMoTR I got hooked.

    Beeeeeeees!!!

  62. Syal says:

    This is pretty much the first website I ever visited that wasn’t chess or Youtube. Came here on a generic search for Webcomics, which brought up the complete DM of the Rings. Got to read Chainmail Bikini in real time but I don’t remember if I was here for the start of it.

    …”Hi, I’m new here”.

  63. Warbright says:

    Randomly found with a Google search, when searching for people’s RPG experiences as I was missing my own RPG days. Rediscovered with a link to DM of the rings. Took me a while to realize it was the same place. Been lurking ever since.

  64. Marty says:

    I’ve probably been here regularly for 3 or so years but started actively paying attention to Shamus when he wrote about Pixel City. He was the primary reason that I visited The Escapist after ZP started to feel like a MadLib segment.

  65. SPCTRE says:

    I don’t remember exactly how I came here, even though it hasn’t been *that* long I don’t think.

    All I know is that I had read the Escapist column several times but I didn’t make that connection when I first came here, which was either from Youtube or because I found a link to the Mass Effect series.

  66. Anorak says:

    I found this place while looking for terrain generation projects.

  67. KidneyChris says:

    I think I first started poking at your site when you were doing the Terrain project. At least, that’s the earliest series I can remember waiting for the next part to go up. I lost the bookmark to your site for a while, and rediscovered you via the Escapist.

    I was also very surprised to discover that you were the creator of the Roller Coaster Tycoon Bowling video, so I was definitely aware of that a long time ago but didn’t make the connection back to here.

    TLDR: I have been “new” to Twenty Sided and Shamus’ musings about 3 times now.

  68. Grudgeal says:

    …I have no idea how long I’ve been here. I know it was either late during DM of the Rings or shortly after it was finished, before Spoiler Warning, Chainmail Bikini and The Escapist gig.

    I have no idea exactly what brought me here either, beyond that it was probably DM of the Rings-related.

    Probably.

  69. Blame PS238Principal (aka the awesome Aaron Williams, writer of Nodwick and PS238 and Full Frontal Nerdity). His blog was on my LJ feed and he linked DM of the Rings and I liked it so much I stuck around.

  70. BenD says:

    The last Google forms poll worked great on my phone. This one was not as great. It jumps the page up and down my screen – I guess it’s jumping the scroll bar? Anyway, if I responded twice (successfully), sorry about that.

  71. Pax says:

    I think I ended up coming here originally from multiple unconnected sources, but the fog of time conceals certainty. Best guess is that I came and read DMotR via a link from Darths and Droids, while at the same time discovering it via your articles on Escapist after coming to watch Zero Punctuation and exploring thereafter, and also coming to read your Fallout 3 rants (probably linked from some forum discussion somewhere with the tagline “What do they eat?”). This was a time period where I was aware of the site as a location where neat stuff was, but wasn’t a regular visitor. At some point, possibly when Mass Effect became a dominant topic of discussion, I started coming every day and have ever since.

  72. Joaquin says:

    I got here through StumbleUpon of all things, linking to a post about Bioshock’s DRM. Stuck around ever since.

  73. Florian says:

    I originally found the site through a link to DM of the Rings from tvtropes a couple of years after it was finished. Probably around 2010. I’m not sure I even realized there was a rest of the site at that point, though – I read through the archives and left.

    I must have reread the comic in 2012, because I remember seeing about five minutes of a Spoiler Warning episode in the salarian base. Didn’t stick around then, either, though.

    I did stay the third time. That was during the Metro 2033 season, in 2013. I think the Diecast had a lot to do with that, I remember listening to it while playing desktop dungeons. I’ve read pretty much everything since then and watched the old Spoiler Warning seasons.

    (I answered the poll under the assumption that what interests Shamus is when I stuck around.)

  74. ThreePositive says:

    Came for the programming, stayed for the humor.

    I originally found Shamus’ work through Project Frontier on YouTube whilst searching for procedurally generated terrain, stayed for a bit while I read through all of his programming posts, and then left until I found DMotR separately (in a Google image search, I believe?). The programming posts caught me mid-high-school when I was trying to learn a new programming language, and they actually inspired me to start my own C++/OpenGL devblog.

    So, thanks for that. :)

  75. Jokerman says:

    I for here after reading on of your articles, i put before diecast… but i was here long before that, but not quite before spoiler warning though, Mass Effect 1 was just about wrapping up when i got here.

  76. Disc says:

    I first came here sometime around 2009 when I saw a link to DMoTR. At some point I got curious and decided to check out what else is on the blog. I think it was around the time the Fallout 3 season of Spoiler Warning was about to start when I started to read the blog regularly.

  77. Adrian Burt says:

    I was linked here to “Blistering Stupidity of Fallout 3” series. Technically I discovered DM of the Ring and Darth’s and Droids years earlier but somehow never learned of this site through them.

  78. Reed says:

    First came for DMotR, when there were only a dozen or so entries.

    Spent a brief period HIGHLY annoyed that there was other content BESIDES DMotR. Then started READING the other content… and here I still am. :)

  79. Andy_Panthro says:

    The poll has closed… now I’m very curious what the questions were. A shame I missed it!

    If the only question was how I ended up here… I think I followed a link from The Escapist? I’m not really sure. I don’t visit the Escapist any more, but I’ve stayed on here instead.

  80. Steve Online says:

    The poll is closed already, but for the sake of posterity.

    Chris Livingston’s CONCERNED linked to DMotR, far, far too many years ago.

  81. Lisa says:

    Darn. Days of lots of doctor visits means less website visiting. Which is a pity; I like polls!

  82. bookwurm290 says:

    That poll was over pretty quick, I didn’t get a chance to respond before it was done. I’m bad with dates, but the way I came to the site was: I saw Yahtzee on YouTube when his first video came out and then when he moved to the escapist I followed him there. From there I saw Shamus, I don’t remember exactly what article it was, but I’ve been quietly lurking ever since.

  83. Duoae says:

    Haha, I keep missing these things due to the time zone difference.

  84. Andrew Blank says:

    I skipped checking the site for 2 days and both days there was a poll. Dangit!

    I think I originally found the site through DMotR although I can’t be sure and I have no idea how I found that. After that it was pretty easy to become a regular since I love all of Shamus’s work. I believe the hexworld project is what made me decide to officially stick around.

  85. Falcon02 says:

    I missed the poll (I saw it when it was up, but didn’t have time to respond at the time).

    But as many others I found this site through DM of the Rings. Binged the series and caught up a few months to a year before the end. Not sure how I found out about DM of the Rings.

    Stuck around for the random commentary and follow on Comics, and been here ever since (most of the time just lurking).

  86. Phantos says:

    I first found out about this blog when I was google-searching for image references of Pyramid Head, and found your writeup about Silent Hill 2.

    Then I read the Final Fantasy X stuff, then Do It Again, Stupid, and then everything else and then started watching Spoiler Warning and I don’t think I ever left

    oh god i’m trapped

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