I'm not going to lie here, I actually didn't know what roleplaying was when I first joined, but then I got involved with groups and other members guided me through the roleplaying process and I eventually got the hang of it and really enjoyed it. However, ever since I got involved with the forums and other areas of FeralHeart, I lost a lot of interest in roleplaying. I do tend to join a few roleplays here and there, but I do tend to get bored of the same old plot xD
Very interesting topic here~
I knew about roleplaying long before I ever joined Feral Heart. This is going to sound silly, but I originally learned to roleplay on Neopets. I watched other people on the forums when I was around 13 or so. I asked some questions, but picked up how it worked fairly quickly. My first actual posts were in small paragraphs, I never used action marks in serious roleplay. From Neopets I joined a few roleplay forums and a game called Furcadia where my knowledge and skill for roleplaying grew. I was able to do multiple paragraphs by now and quite enjoyed it.
Originally I joined FH because it looked like a cool game, and I hoped roleplayers would be on it. Imagine my surprise when I was launched into Bonfire, thought it was the only area and was very saddened to find very little paragraph roleplaying going on there. I was kind of bummed out a little honestly, even after I found out about the other maps I still had trouble finding nice, paragraph roleplayers and felt fairly discouraged. When I did find paragraph roleplayers I was hooked. And here I am.
How much have my skills changed since joining FH? Er- honestly aside from figuring out how odd some wolf-speak words were and letting me be more creative; not too much. I've become more creative I suppose, but yeah I was a fairly advanced roleplayer before I joined so. If anything it's made me realize how much fun roleplaying is though.
I roleplay daily now if I can help it.