Durp said:First MMO I played was Tanarus by Verant in 1997. It got me hooked on MMO's. The social aspect was amazing and there obviously was the competition, the frustration and everything.
I played and loved that game, sadly I was playing more towards the end of it's life till there were very few people left and it closed.
It was thoroughly enjoyable. With an old 56k modem..
The reason I got into games big is because of my Grand Mother. I used to ride the bus home from school to her house and wait until my mother picked me up. I was around 10 or so. I bought an SNES and took it to her house so I could play it while I waited. In short order my Grand Mother started playing the games with me. She eventually started playing them while I was at school too. We would end up playing together and talking about new games all the time. It was a great deal of fun for me back then and it became something we shared for many years after.
My Grand Mother died several years back of brain cancer. Picking up a controller and playing these games brings back that feeling from when I was young and had no more cares in the world other than trying to best my Grand Mother at whatever game we were playing that day.
The kind of games I play depend on my own personal taste, but it's always like she is there with me still. Sounds sappy maybe, but its a really fond memory from my childhood.
Her favorite was The Legend of Zelda for SNES. Still can't play that game without tearing up.
Such moving stories.The way games move us amazes me.
That games could help us to keep the memories of someone we lost close to our heart <3 nice way to honor her Kellindil.And who knows she might even be there in the warm comfort of the love you still have for her.
Maybe you'll find the special lady that enjoys quality time with you for who you are and how you like leisure times .Or just quality time with friends in Pantheon.
As some ladies bring balance to life,other ladies might bring a negative balance to the credit card
It is most interesting to hear how games can affect life,as they rarely speak about this normally
And to think they were gaming on a 56k modem back in the days
kellindil said:The reason I got into games big is because of my Grand Mother. I used to ride the bus home from school to her house and wait until my mother picked me up. I was around 10 or so. I bought an SNES and took it to her house so I could play it while I waited. In short order my Grand Mother started playing the games with me. She eventually started playing them while I was at school too. We would end up playing together and talking about new games all the time. It was a great deal of fun for me back then and it became something we shared for many years after.
My Grand Mother died several years back of brain cancer. Picking up a controller and playing these games brings back that feeling from when I was young and had no more cares in the world other than trying to best my Grand Mother at whatever game we were playing that day.
The kind of games I play depend on my own personal taste, but it's always like she is there with me still. Sounds sappy maybe, but its a really fond memory from my childhood.
Her favorite was The Legend of Zelda for SNES. Still can't play that game without tearing up.
Have a very similar story ... Zelda on SNES was my mom's favorite game as well! She was a beast but she always wanted me to help her with that one caterpillar boss (you had to beat it twice) -- to be honest I think she could have handled the boss fine but she just wanted to make me feel special. She passed away in 2001 from breast cancer at the young age of 37 ... I have a 7 year old daughter now who is playing the new Zelda game and she loves it. I never got to play an MMO with my mom but I definitely used them (EQOA/FFXI) to help me escape the adversity of real life after she passed. I used to drown my sorrows by adventuring in a fantasy world ... it really helped with battling depression. I have been grooming my daughter for Pantheon for quite awhile now and really hope she enjoys getting lost in Terminus like I did Norrath/Vanadiel.
To me, gaming is my main form of leisure time. I've been playing games for 40 years, spanning from early Space Invaders/Asteroids/PacMan type games to modern MMO's. I basically lived at the arcade during the summers, even to the point where I was let in 3 hours before they opened (having the entire place to myself) and was given a double handful of tokens to play the games with every day. I'd say, gaming has had an incredible impact on my life; I couldn't imagine how things might be without games.
I met my first girlfriend playing video games! :)
I really started being a gamer in late '91, early '92. I found out about MUDs from a friend at college, and started playing them, quickly settling on Darker Realms. A simple text based multiplayer game. The ability to talk to other people, real people while playing was a mind-opening experience. By early summer, I'd made a fairly large group of friends on the game. One of them had an extra ticket to see The Cure, The Cranes, and Curve play in Dallas, so I drove down from Indiana to meet her, and see the show. Some other friends from the game, just outside New Orleans, were having a party that weekend. So, after the concert, we drove all night to get over then and spent the weekend. By the end of that weekend, I'd met perhaps 15 of the people playing Darker Realms.
My life was never the same.
I "finished" the game, which allowed me to become a "wizard": I could now write my own add on area to the game, which others could play. This meant I had to learn the language the game was written in, called "LPC", a pseudo-language similar to C. From that, I got more and more into programming, and computers. I ended up moving to the New Orleans area, meeting more and more DR people all the time (it was based in College Station, TX, and lots of people would come over to hang out). I used what I'd learned from LPC to get a job doing tech support for an ISP, and convinced them to let me do some the HTML work they had. That got parlayed into a job in Seattle, and I'd met many people there that I'd first met online, in a MUD or MUSH, or by that point, early mailing lists and IRC.
One of them had heard that EQ2 was going to be coming out in a year or so. He played EQ1. So he got me playing Dark Age of Camelot and Anarchy Online, in order, to quote hime "that you won't be a complete noob when we all start playing EQ2". So, first day servers came up, I was there, and dove in. Played that for years and years, only really quitting a couple years ago. Again, met a ton of people, formed freindships, formed a few dating-relationships, found more games to play, continued learning more and more tech on my own.
Quite literally, had I not randomly checked out a MUD in 1991, to avoid being bored while other friends finished homework, I'd not be where I am today, would not be the person I am today.
--Gray
To me, gaming = fun.
Gaming is adventure, exploration, social interaction(sometimes good and sometimes not so good-I take the good with the bad), relaxation until I spend umpteen hours working on a quest, crafting item, etc... and have an epic fail(then it becomes a tense pain in the arrrrse), but most of all gaming is simply my fun time.
I work hard and like to play hard too. Sometimes I go out and hike a mountain trail. Sometimes I relax and game.
When I started playing Video games as a kid was purely for the enjoyment. Take a adventure , complete a quest or misson so on and so on. As I have grown I still have that same want but it has turned into story. I love a story or history to be told and me play thur it. Online gaming has made it easy for the most part to meet people and find others that has your same gaming style.
In a world of increasing "connectivity" between people but deceasing sociability and communication, gaming is a great outlet for talking to and (virtually) hanging out with people whom I instantly have at least one thing in common with. Gaming is my stress release and hobby, something that lets me momentarily ignore the darkness and chaos in our modern world; how lucky I am to have something I can enjoy almost every day. It's a brain game that keeps me thinking and problem solving.
These are great stories! I started reading science fiction when my parents introduced me to Cliff Simek. My Dad and Mr. Simek had worked together. I loved his stuff and moved on to Isaac Asimov and other great writers. In 1966 when Star Trek came on tv I was hooked for life, and a nerd was born. In 1972 my math teacher introduced me to computers. He gave me a tape ( a piece of paper about three feet long an inch and a half wide with holes punched into it. When you fed it into the remote terminal in math class you would connect to a computer about twelve miles away at the University of Minnesota and Captain Questaar was born. It was text based but you could change direction, fire phasers and destroy a Klingon ship. I was hooked for life. I played the Bards Tale on my Commodore 128, incredible! Ultima came next, what a set of upgrades that was. Ultima 7 was fantastic and I played it for months. When UO came out in 1997 I was in a guild called The Companions. I owned a tavern, had a whole back story and RPed all through it and played through all the bugs. UO was incredible. Everything was interactive. Every cup, every animal, every loaf of bread. Some of the most intense pvp game play ever. When EQ came out in 99 I went there with some UO friends. The graphics were the best I had ever seen to that time, and 3D! The world was not as interactive as UO, but the game was great! By then I was married and had two daughters, so I didn't play as much. My friends quickly out leveled me. Some of them went to POHate at level 36 lost their level and their bodies. Soon after those planes were restructured for level 46 and above. When I first made it to Hate and got thrown up against the ceiling I was in awe. As other games came out we played them all. But when WOW came out my friends moved on and I didn't. I didn't like the art. The unrealism (is that a word) of the weapons, etc. was not for me. So I bounced around joining other games, and guilds. I'm retired now and my new computer is ordered and soon to be ready for pre-alpha. I'll probably play more hours on Pantheon than I have on other recent games. I'm looking forward to making some new guildies and friends!
Loved Space Invaders, Tetris, Zelda, Donkey Kong...and THEN!! I discovered the Internet. hehehe Tried a couple text based muds, didn't turn me on much, discovered World's Chat and some other chat apps. Tested Meridian 59 and died a lot as a newbie, if you died in pvp there, you were robbed of every copper. Then Sierra Online Games...The Realm, spent several months there, moderated their roleplay board..roleplay friend sent me a beta disc for Everquest that new 3D game! Tested last phase of EQ and sent for my retail box that in those days had to be shipped to Canada, wasn't in our retail stores. Never looked back. Went on to play DAOC, City of Heroes, Anarchy Online, Lineage II, SWG (these aren't in order..just as memory serves me) did a little Neverwinter Nights II, EQII ..and Vanguard and Lotro, Warhammer beta, Rift..and now I'm back full circle to Pantheon. :) (still not a complete list..tried the free to play korean games too) Oh and Wow for about 3 months.
Cana