Sunday, April 10, 2011

History of Online Gaming

The video game motif seems to really be popular, so I think I'll stick with it for a little while longer. I'm going to talk about my personal history with online gaming as I think it could have been a common one for many. I played my first MMO after meeting a kid in an AOL chat room (Who else remembers when those were the shit?) He told me about "Runescape" which I read as "Run escape" and I was like, what is this bizarre game? I was interested at first, as I had never experienced this type of game before so everything was interesting. I got my mining up to like level 15 and I could never ever find the furnace. Good times.

I had a group of friends who would always play the same games so we could play with each other, and we were finally getting sick of the Runescape craze. We stumbled upon this other game, Ragnarok Online. It was completely different from Runescape, there was literally zero focus on useless skills like Herblore and Woodcutting and a lot more focus on action and graphics. This game was a lot of fun, you got to pick a class like Swordsman or Thief, and then as you leveled up you could further progress into other classes that you could choose. Some chose Crusader while others chose Knight, etc. There was a lot of flexibility, and overall it was very enjoyable.

I won't write a lot about WOW since everything that's been said about it has already been said. but we played this game afterwards. We played on the regular servers for a while, but we ended up playing on private servers for the majority of times. This game was a lot more fun without all the grinding elements.

While all this was happening, XBOX Live was still becoming a new thing. I remember going to the midnight release of Halo 2 and being so excited for the new online elements and multiplayer. This was really ground breaking at the time, and I'm pretty sure it was Halo 2 that set the matchmaking and custom game system to it's standard that games would follow even to today. I remember setting up XBOX Live as being a bitch too, it wasn't as easy as it is now with our wireless internet. Our router of course had to be 2 floors down from where the XBOX was, so it was always an adventure trying to hook it up.

How were your first experiences with online games? I know everyone has at least played one.

34 comments:

  1. I don't like games like WoW. Playing only Call of Duty 2 and Warcraft 3 The Frozen Throne online. Follow

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  2. i started playing online with Command and Conquer. I was horribly under the curve. Played Starcraft then Halo 2 then WoW then Aion and then a bunch of free games then I raged on League of Legends for about 3 years.

    That was the last game I played really hardcore. Now it's just minecraft =D

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  3. played Metin2 for a time, it was surprisingly funny

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  4. runescape, but it got old pretty quick for me.

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  5. My first experience in gaming was Neopets.

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  6. Oh man John! I completely left Neopets out, I didn't really associate it. God, nostalgia hahaha, I did that in like elementary school

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  7. Woah when I think about it, it makes me feel pretty old, my first experience with online gaming was when Counter-Strike 1.5 came out - I was dragged into it by a bunch of friends; now those were the days! We were all like 15 years old, playing whole night, having fun, nothing else mattered back then only the score on the scoreboard :)

    But I never played the MMO's, I dont know why but I was never attracted to the MMO's gameplay.

    p.s. there's a big hype over Guild Wars 2, and it sounds pretty interesting.

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  8. my first experience, sadly, was runescape. I was addicted to that back in the day

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  9. runescape seems like a billion years ago. i remember planing what we would do with my friends at school... good times

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  10. The very first online game that played was Online Game. I remember walking through town, playing the game as if it were a single-player game, then it hit me... these other characters are other people!

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  11. The first game I played online was Total Annihilation, it was direct dial... 36.6k...

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  12. My first experience was just with a web based load of RPGs, by the BattleOn company. Nothing happened for a long time, then I moved on to WoW, and got seriously addicted until a year ago, when I gave up... Now everything seems to be getting sexier, and I miss online gaming.

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  13. Dude, I stopped playing Ragnarok pretty much, I got to 70, though.

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  14. Starcraft, was playing it through direct dial with my friend, and our families were always mad at us for occupying phone lines

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  15. My favorite online game, and I still play it to this day....Counter Strike 1.6. :) Ahhh fun fun.
    www.neverboringnews.blogspot.com

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  16. and of course the Play Station Network, that is if you can find any games...

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  18. My first online game was halo 3, just got into online gaming recently

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  19. OMG Ragnarok, SO OLD. Ahhh, the good old days

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  20. I'm more to online RPG games. I've never played Ragnarock or WoW or anything similar :\
    Nice blog btw, will follow ;)

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  21. Runescape was the greatest thing ever when I was 12!

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  22. I just play MTA online :P

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  23. i remember runescape back in the day :/

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  24. I used to play Runescape also! My real online experience came with Maplestory and Xbox Live.

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  25. I started playing counter strike 1.5 online as my first "real game" :P

    Really awesome times trying to get my dial up connection working haha

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  26. Never played online... well, twice.

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  27. Ah Runescape! This post made me boot up and log into my old user. I usually log in and play for a few days every year or so... The new market thing they brought in a few years back really balanced up the game since first playing.

    My first online experience was Battlefield 2. At the time, my PC wasn't hooked upto the net, so I used to play against the computer... Wasn't the greatest, so I just flew the heli's around. By the time I got online, it didn't matter that I was this worst shot: I was the badass helicopter pilot flying under bridges :D

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