Need Help from a Historian: "Redside: Best Side"

[TemporalVileTerror]

I've been using that phrase for years.  So, naturally, I totally forgot where it originated from.  Does anyone have any ideas about the earliest source of the phrase?

Thanks in advance.

[Darmian]

Oh lordy.  There's a headscratcher.

[merrypessimist]

That was a forum quote?

[Clave Dark 5]

That's just an obvious truth, like "don't stick your hand in the fire." 

[Gulbasaur]

I am both a historian (well, doing a history MA) and a linguist (from a background in historical linguistics with some training in corpus searches) so this should be something I should be able to find.

 

Now, as a historian I know that what we can access is on a fraction of what was archived and what was archived is only a fraction of what was recorded and what was recorded is only a fraction of what actually took place... Some things are just lost to time. For example, we do not have any access to any of the ingame chat logs, the roleplay sagas that took place at the feet of the statue of Galaxy Girl on Union or the bizarre nonsense that took place on coalition chat.

For things to be found, they usually have to be archived and maintained in a readable format - something the online world is genuinely quite bad at. It's likely that chat logs etc just do not exist at all but if there is some drive somewhere in NCSoft Towers (or someone's attic) then it's certainly not accessible to us. 

 

The old forums are on the Internet Archive, albeit in a sort of piecemeal way - links often don't work and the Search function certainly doesn't (even when I can find a Search page that opens, it asks for a six-digit code from an image that fails to load, probably linked to a server that hasn't been switched on in nine years so I doubt the functionality is there).

 

The earliest dated reference I can find online referring to redside at all is this Reddit thread, which is early but early enough and not contextually specific enough.

 

Using Google, Bing and DuckDuckGo. "Redside: Best side" was a unique entry until you posted this. It now has two results. Some playing with spacing and terms shows a few variants on it included occasional references to League of Legends (a game, as far as I can tell, people play because they hate it) and AMD (presumably Intel is not-redside in this analogy). There was one reference that was clearly related to City of Heroes/Villains, dating from some time after 2010 (based on other games named in the thread).

 

Twitter was useless, and a search of more period-appropriate social media led me to the late, great Robotech_Master's Livejournal, written shortly before his untimely death.

 

The GameFAQs forum was interesting (and nostalgic) but didn't turn up much of use. It tried to find early gamplay footage, but that led to a dead end. DeviantArt was fun, but not helpful.

 

I'm stumped. League of Legends came out in 2009, so it's conceivable that it appeared in that community and was adopted as a saying by our villainous community members, but that's not conclusive. I can't find any textual evidence of it being used before 2010 in reference to CoX.

If someone has a timestamped copy of the chat logs (which I'm sure they shouldn't have), I could do a corpus search of it and try to get something earlier.

Edited April 12, 2021 by Gulbasaur

[TemporalVileTerror]

Memory being the unreliable narrator that it is, I am almost certain that some variation of "redside is best side" existed on the Pinnacle Shard prior to 2009, when I largely stopped playing City of Heroes (well, City of Villains, honestly.  I rarely ever went on a Blueside character, and this was before Going Rogue).  Mainly it was used as a response when members of a roleplaying Global Channel would ask why some other players and myself "refused" to attend their Galaxy City roleplay gatherings.

 

But, again, memory.  I could have made this up or dreamed it, and not even realize that.  It's why I was hoping for something more concrete.

I -should- still have my Legecy/Retail chatlogs on one of my old hard drives somewhere, but at least three of those are now click-of-death'ing . . . so . . . poor odds of ever finding them.

[Gulbasaur]

Just now, TemporalVileTerror said:

I -should- still have my Legecy/Retail chatlogs on one of my old hard drives somewhere, but at least three of those are now click-of-death'ing . . . so . . . poor odds of ever finding them.

The future of this incredibly niche bit of information depends on you provided your memory of events is correct!

[Snarky]

On October 31, 2005 City of Villains was introduced.  Two new villains logged into the game, fought their way from the Zig and ended up at Fort Darwin.  A team formed and off the duo went to beat down Longbow and search for clues about the infected.  

 

The two teammates (the history is old, but I was told their names were Flamesy and Thiswillwork) got discussing how Back Alley Brawler was so pissed about The Rogue Isles he got drunk and killed (...err...arrested?) someone in Pocket D that night. Upon being told this Flamesy looked at Thiswillwork and said "Redside: Best Side." 

 

The two laughed and started shouting this in local, broadcast and zone.  It just took off from there.

 

I learned this from a janitor at the University in Cap au Diable.

[TemporalVileTerror]

Sounds like something The Janitor would say, honestly.

Can't DISprove it either.  Yet.

[Cobalt Arachne]

I have access to totally legit and not at all biased secret knowledge that reveals the long hidden origin of this phrase: 👀

In the beginning (2004) Cryptic created the City of Heroes.
And the game was blue and heroic, and NPCs were upon the face of the zones. And the devs moved upon the maps. (slowly, using OG hover speeds)
And the devs said, Let there be red side: and there was the City of Villains.
And the devs saw the red side, and that it was the best side: and the devs divided the red from the blue.

<cough>

[TemporalVileTerror]

ehhhh, sorry @Cobalt Arachne.  I don't buy it.

We all know the Devs hate villains.

[BjorJlen]

1 hour ago, Cobalt Arachne said:

I have access to totally legit and not at all biased secret knowledge that reveals the long hidden origin of this phrase: 👀

In the beginning (2004) Cryptic created the City of Heroes.
And the game was blue and heroic, and NPCs were upon the face of the zones. And the devs moved upon the maps. (slowly, using OG hover speeds)
And the devs said, Let there be red side: and there was the City of Villains.
And the devs saw the red side, and that it was the best side: and the devs divided the red from the blue.

<cough>

 

   So totally awsome, you must eat awsome cookies for breakfast. 😁 Great (adjusted) quote @Cobalt Arachne...

 

   And @TemporalVileTerror, I am sorry to disagree with you, but I know for a fact that Dev's like Villians as much as Heroes. How do I know? Because I (on T'rel) beat the snot out of one during a big PvP event in Recluse's Victory way back during live (one on one btw). If it wasn't for a Stone Brute in Granite armor TPing in between us (interupting the fight) and saving the Dev (who ran away btw), I would have brought her down within seconds. On the other hand... maybe after such a beatdown the Dev hated villians after all. Nahhh... 😛

 

   But I know they like cookies, cause everyone likes cookies! Like this guy... 😁

 

 

[Clave Dark 5]

18 hours ago, Gulbasaur said:

DeviantArt was fun, but not helpful.

Truer words have not been spoken.

[Darmian]

An LO!  From the other side of Portal Corps a glorious GOLD side was detected, and it was most excellent. Oh yes. though low in population, its sheer awesomeness balanced that most righteously.

 

ROFL.

 

 

Edited April 12, 2021 by Darmian

[RikOz]

I wonder if it started as a play on "Kings Row is the best row."

[TemporalVileTerror]

I can't speak to that, @RikOz.  As true as that is, I never heard that particular phrase until Homecoming.

Any ideas when that Kings Row saying started showing up?

[Gulbasaur]

Okay, so the earliest I can find directly calling the Rogue Isles "red side" is on the March 2008 City of Heroes Podcast.

 

I've had a rummage through the old forums, but the Wayback Machine doesn't really like forum software and a lot of the topics haven't actually been archived, or not in a way that doesn't involve being on exactly the right version of the archive that it needs. 

 

There isn't much for "Kings row best row" or variants that I can find, either. 

[Xenosone]

Its self evident.  Redside created itself because it was the best side. 

[Andreah]

I remember the phrase from live, but it went like this: "Red side best side".

 

And it was because the zone design and story writing on red side were considered superior, since the devs had the experience of blue side development to build on.

 

Yet the saying didn't drop when Gold side was introduced, probably due to a lack of good rhyming words, and the few that people could come up with rhymed with "Truck", not "Gold".