#anyway please give me prompting to talk more abt blackrock and flux buddies

[earthspeaking]

oh boy as someone who was into og mcyt - I completely agree that dsmp has had a wider impact, and that should be recognized! I think it's awesome. but how quickly history is forgotten....

one of the very first minecraft series to catch on was actually initially just a survival server that turned into a roleplay.

Shadow of Israphel was a little different, of course – I'm pretty sure it was styled like more of an rpg, worked on by a whole team behind the scenes past the first few dozen episodes, like Aphmau's "minecraft" series. It didn't involve particularly serious rp for the most part, Lewis and Simon were in it for the comedy. But it was an emerging story told through minecraft videos, and it was popular. The first episode, released in 2010, has millions of views.

However, what its creators did afterwards DID have more serious rp. The Yogscast, expanding beyond Lewis and Simon, had dozens and dozens of (mostly, modded) minecraft series around 2012-2015. enter yoglabs, the tekkit series, and the Blackrock Chronicle.

on the yogscast tekkit server, there were several different series - playthroughs that doubled as mod showcases, for a large part. Creators did their own content, occasionally interacting to play pranks etc. there were generally hermitcraft levels of "lore" and rp, if a little more present. Except for Rythian and Zoey's series, Blackrock.

which did have casual gameplay. it had comedy, and showed off several mods. but people watched it for the story, and the roleplay. it was a story, with a script and everything! and it wove itself into the minecraft universe – Rythian and Zoey's characters had history with the End, and wove mc mechanics into the story. I wouldn't give them an oscar, or anything, but they were good actors who played out heavy scenarios (notably their relationship was a romance, and the ccs are not at all together).

at the same time, other yogs series were exploring roleplay – their dedicated mod showcase series, yoglabs, became a more subtle story, and a bit later flux buddies became a looong series about evil clones and slow magical corruption.

also not something I watched, but Mianite (captain sparklez and others) was modded minecraft content dedicated to roleplay as well - more of the rpg style, run behind the scenes sort again, with less of a focus on acting and individual storylines, but still I think the main draw was the story.

I'm SURE there's other stuff I didn't know about or don't remember that had rp - iirc dantdm also gave his mod showcase series a story, for example

tldr:

the dsmp is the first popular vanilla minecraft server roleplay, but it's not the first in general by a long shot - shadow of israphel was out there almost as soon as it was possible to play multiplayer minecraft, and other creators were making roleplay series on smps too. minecraft's not new to being a storytelling medium

mmmm. might have a non-dsmp-side-of-mcyt hot take.