Aelyria

Infobox Website
name = Aelyria

url = http://www.aelyria.com/
type = Role Playing Game
registration = Free, Required
owner = Play by Post LLC
author = Juan Gonzalez
language = English
launch date = May 1996
current status = Active

Aelyria (formerly Alleria) is a website that bills itself as "the world's oldest and largest play-by-post role-playing game" and is a community hub for writers, artists, musicians, enthusiasts and gamers engaged in a single massively multiplayer collaborative storytelling game. Founded on June 2, 1989 over the United States online service, Prodigy, Aelyria's current online database (according to its site) features 1.3 million posts since 2002 and counts 70,000 registered users, of which 30,000 are routinely active as of May 2008. [Traffic statistics from http://www.aelyria.com/forums]

Aelyria is generally accepted in the online play-by-post role-playing community as being "the original", or first, site of its kind, and it claims to have "spawn [ed] countless imitator sites" because it "pioneered the play by post platform." [ [http://www.aelyria.com/forums/faq/overview.html#faq_difference Aelyria - FAQ: Overview ] ] . According to the global niche directory, RPG Gateway, there are nearly 1,000 "Play by Post" games listed on its index [ [http://www.rpggateway.com/Internet_Play/ Internet_Play at Effie's Great Wyrm ] ] and Aelyria is routinely voted as its top site in the Top 100 Rankings. [ [http://www.rpggateway.com/Ratings/ Effie's Great Wyrm: Top 100 Rated ] ]

Role Playing Game

In Aelyria, players assume the roles of heroes and villains by posting stories about their characters over online message forums and bulletin boards. Each forum represents a geographical location in a fantasy world and each player posts action in the third-person past perspective, while a volunteer moderator posts a response to help narrate the story. According to its users, both the original game world and ongoing epic storyline have been continuously developed since Aelyria's inception in the Summer of 1989. [ [http://www.aelyria.com/forums/faq/overview.html#faq_aelyriaplay Aelyria - FAQ: Overview ] ] The Aelyria medieval fantasy world is influenced by fairy tales, folklore, mythology, and ancient history, but can be considered as belonging to the high fantasy genre of fiction given its Dungeons & Dragons-like mixture of magic, adventure, and intrigue. However in recent years, some slight elements of steampunk have occurred as part of an organic historical progression.

Cultural Background

Play-by-post role-playing games are a cult phenomenon with a niche following. Though people have always engaged in games of make believe, Aelyria claims it was the first to do so on an electronic message board on a massive scale. Tracing its origins to various bulletin boards on Prodigy in 1989, Aelyria experimented with a Usenet newsgroup in 1993 and eventually put up an informational website in 1995. In 1996, the web site was redesigned and launched using its previous name, Alleria, at Alleria.org and later Alleria.com. ["About Aelyria", http://www.aelyria.com/forums/players/74846-about-aelyria.html. Last Accessed May 18, 2008.]

Publicity

In 1997, Aelyria received global publicity with two major developments:

* In Summer 1997, Aelyria was featured among other "cool sites" on MSNBC's then-popular cable television Internet culture show, The Site.
* In the October 1997 issue of Electronic Gaming Monthly magazine, Aelyria was mentioned in an off-topic segment entitled "Editor's Web Picks". ["Editor's Web Picks", Electronic Gaming Monthly. October 1997 Issue.]

Legal Status

Aelyria is a commercial web site owned and operated by Play by Post LLC, a Delaware Limited Liability Company. It files annual reports with the State of Delaware. Play by Post LLC currently has a design studio in South Boston, Massachusetts, a corporate office in Boston, Massachusetts, and operating headquarters in Delaware. It presently employs less than ten people. [Play by Post LLC 2006 Annual Report, filed September 2007.]

Trademark

The name Aelyria is a Registered Trademark of Play by Post LLC, and is trademarked with the United States Patent and Trademark Office. [USPTO Serial No. 77258735.]

External links

* [http://www.aelyria.com/ Aelyria.com]
* [http://www.playbypost.com/ Play by Post LLC]
* [http://www.aelyria.com/forums/players/74846-about-aelyria.html History of Aelyria]

References