This is a very sensitive topic
where do I start...do I start ranting about the GameFAQs mods, do I start raging about Kiffe on LUElinks...where DO I START AFTER BEING WRONGED BY BOTH AFTER OVER 20 YEARS OF ACTIVE SERVICE! I am a traumatized person and you need to be patient with me.
seriously tho :)
My first real forum was indeed GameFAQs where I'd still be active if the mods weren't purposely suspending me for months on end because they hold a political over from LUElinks, where I got banned from after LlamaGuy stepped down and the Kiffe took over, a former friend turned literal tyrant.
I started being active on GameFAQs in 2000, moved to LUElinks but kept being active on GameFAQs until 2023 when I the mods kept suspending me over nothing for months on end.
This eventually culminated with them banning my friend who is also Macedonian because they magically assumed we're the same person despite having completely different posting styles.
Honestly both LL and GFAQs meant the world to me, there weren't many people in real life who udnerstood gaming the way I did back then. My entire elementary and high school friend groups were literal boomers even as kids, they were good people but boomers.
They couldn't differentiate between anime and video games.
IT was all "the stuff Ollie likes"
BUT, even before GameFAQs, tho you can't really call it a forum
I'd visit a what I'd call a MODERN Variant of a BBS, in the late 90's I was a big fan of Virtual Pets, they actually tried to build AI with these things back then so I'd actively post on the P.F. Magic BBS a lot.