Where are our roots?

[Xanupox]

This topic emerged while researching and examining the state of gaming we are currently suffocating from.

Over the past 10 years, which is quite a long time, for some of you this could be your entire gaming history, while for others maybe about half. ... those 10 years have brought us an onslaught of gaming, based around playing "online" with others.

Ultima Online started things up, maybe you played it, maybe you didnt... but then came EverQuest and I am sure since you are reading this on the Vault you know all about EQ. Then what happened? Greed and Speed, DAoC, AO, AC2, WoW, EQ2, DDO... and many others I have forgot about or just left out for no particular reason... you got my point. Many MMO type games have came out over the past 10 years.

So, where does that leave YOU!?

Did you play games before Ultima/EQ? If so, what were they, what were your gaming roots?

.... or is the MMO scene all you know? Did you grow up on terms like LFG, Incoming Train and Auction House.? If so, do you consider MMOs to be your roots? yes, no? If No then what else do you enjoy?

The reason for these questions, is to try and find what remains at the heart of us long term gamers... as well, as to maybe find something a little off-base on what we play now, that we may yet enjoy again down the road.

I for one, am getting bored with the trend of developers and feel they should be working more toward innovations, rather than repeating a run into the ground framework for success. Feeling alienated by your hobby and passtime, is well... a shitty situation.

What is your roots in gaming?

[Xyun]

I have a long history with games going back to commodore 64. There are very few games I continue to play consistently. I no longer have the time or the desire to play hardcore MMOs, and since it takes a lot of time to be successful at these games, I no longer wish to play them.

The games I play now are poker and Ogame (which i recently started). I like Ogame because you only have to log on once in a while and do a few things and you can go back to what you were doing. That's the style of game i'm going to play in the future.

Nowadays, I spend my free time reading about politics and finance. I play the stock market which I consider "a game" of sorts. I have a lot of fun with it.

[Xanupox]

I'll be the first to answer my own question.

My gaming started out on the Atari 2600, nothing really worthy was put out on that system to say it was my "favorite", I just played all games as well as I could. Most were ports from arcade titles but weaker.

Next came Colleco Vision, and Donkey Cong. Again, it was a time killer, at that time I was still a kid, playing outside, gaming was not my main hobby.

Next was the Nintendo Entertainment System. Things started to change with this, I was big in "Fake Wrestling" so when I got my hands onto "Nintendo Wresting" things were reallly golden! Mario started to make his presence known in households. Up Up Down Down Left Right Left Right B A Start.... 'nuff said.

Then came computers for me, a piece of shit Radio Shack TRS-80 Color Computer 2 with a 13 inch TV for a screen. How fun!

Next I went online, with my Commodore 64 and an external 300 baud modem. 300 BAUD baby, I couldnt afford the 1200 baud at the time, I think I was 12. The first online game I got into was with a service company calling itself, Quantum Link, or Q-Link. It was the company that would later turn into AOL. Q-Link was a pay-per-minute service, I think .07 cents a minute... imagine if the internet cost that, I am sure none of these types of sites would exist!

Needless to say after the first months bill, my parents cut that off, 1200.00$ US, hmm nice. I avoided having to pay that as I signed up as a 14 year old.

On the commodore, I tried hacking BBS', random dialers hoping to get a computer that would let me play Global Thermal Nuclear War or gimme money from a bank account.

AD&D Gold Box series by SSI.... that is my C64 memories.

Release the IBM compatibles! I got a Tandy 1000SL. Only a 10mb internal readonly harddisk, with DOS 3.0 pre-loaded. DUAL 5 1/4" floppy drives though, so I could read 2 disks at once bitches! Games got really interesting here. Kings Quests, Space Quests, Camelot, F117 Stealth Fighter, Falcon 2.0, Madden Football! Ultima 7!

Sega Genesis! Madden 1991-92! That was hardcore madden days, when people came over, put real money in a hat to enter a single elem tourny. I saw how to make $$$ playing games then... I funded all my gaming from that point on schooling noobs in Madden.

No more limited funds! I started my career in the Air Force, and my income has no exceeded all needs for gaming. I saved my first 4 months pay and bought the super computer. Dropped 4k on it. Here are the specs.

486DX - 50 Mhz. (The Rare TRUE 50Mhz, Internal/External, none of that DX2 shit!!!)
8 megs RAM!
Diamond Speedstar 24X! 1 Meg VRAM!
Western Digitial 40 Megabyte Harddisk Drive! 40 MB!
FULL TOWER CASE, I still have it too, its like steel and weighs 80 pounds. At least 3 foot tall.
Oh, yeah a 15" fucking 15 baby, Mag Innovision .28 dot pitch CRT!
Thrustmaster Joy/Throttle too!
Sound Blaster PRO, long card that you could put old "RAM" on to increase the MIDI buffer!

I played every fucking thing on that beast, the day I got it I declared it to be the most powerful computer on the Air Force base. How we tested was going into the /windows directly and typing. DIR. Depending on how fast the shit would scroll, well that was how fast your shit was. Most military computers at the time would scroll things so slow you could read filenames after the DIR command. However on my beast, the shit blazed by in a blurry fucking frenzy!

Wing Commander, Leisure Suit Larry, Police Quest... so many more. AOL came to life about this time too. People were getting online with those 14.4 modems. Chatrooms galore!

I kept this computer and took it with me overseas. My time during the early/mid 90s was now limited to playing pirated wares in foriegn countries and never seeing the light of day for online activities.... until... 1996, Turkey got INTERNET! A few guys that worked in the Communications Squadron on base, actually convinced a wealthy Turk to setup an ISP. They helped him from the ground up, of course they setup thier backdoor passes/logins.. which we abused to hell and back.

I think the guy had 20 lines to dial into. We kept 4 of them private for ourselves. Diablo and a new computer had arrived. I think the company was Quantex. They wouldnt ship it to APO, so I had to have them send it to my dad in West Virginia, then have him ship it over to me. Of course the 17" monitor was too fucking big to mail at the time. I had to have him, shave the box down a bit by reducing the size of the styrofoam packaging inside.... fucking mail. It all got to me ok, no problems.

This new PC was a repeat of the first, a dominator compared to what else was around me. I'll spare the specs.

The games, Warcraft and Warcraft 2. Diablo. Quake. X-Com: UFO Defense, these were the days of "Direct Connect" gaming. What was the name of that cable??/ oh yeah, Null Modem Cablees. The wire that you used to plug into your serial ports. You would demand your best friend bring his/her PC over to your house so you could plug them together and run all this shit to get the 2 PCs to see eachother. What was the name of that shit.... KALI, that was it.

I left Turkey in 1997, came back to the states, got a new computer... again from Quantex. This time I got the 21" Hitachi CRT that I am still using right now. Then I found Ultima Online... and that ends this story.

How about you?

[Kwonryu DragonFist]

Many americans do have roots from Sweden, some folks in Minnesota for example.

What roots you have depends on how far back you want to look.

[kyoukan]

I'll be the first to answer my own question.

A Xanupox first? Be sure to post that on your websi- Oh.. can't even do that.

[Arborealus]

Hrmmmmm Pencil & Paper D&D/Runequest etc from 1976...
Serious Board Games '79 on...
Consoles Pretty much from the first Atari's
Computer Games starting with PET computers in the late 70's...
DOOM 1 on my 486 DX
EQ was really my first MMOG and will probably be my last...I really loved EQ and was there from the early days...But I don't see myself investing that much time in a game again.
Currently mostly playing console games...I prefer to be able to play for an hour save and walk away when I feel like it...

[Hesten]

C64 of course, then amiga, 386, pentium, and then onwards

[Niffoni]

2600 ftw. Moved on to Nintendo/Snes. First RPG was either Dragon Warrior or Final Fantasy I. First PC game was Quake, though i went back and played much older stuff. Skipped about 2 generations of consoles, PC > *. Of course this meant when I caved and bought a PS2 I had a whole backwards-compatable generation of PS1 RPGs to enjoy. Only console that had more great content than PS2 (if you count the PS1 games it plays) was SNES.

Still think that by and large PC owns all, but I go where the games are.. and right now, the games are on PS2 and GameBoy.

[Aslanna]

Many americans do have roots from Sweden, some folks in Minnesota for example.

What roots you have depends on how far back you want to look.

Roots on my fathers side are Russia (gransfather) and Netherlands (Grandmother). So.. Not Sweden but in the area! Of course they ended up in Wisconsin not Minnesota so it balances out.

[MooZilla]

SNES back in '93 when i was a young lad. My mom set me up in front of the TV with the fabled duck hunt/super mario cartridge, and i've never been the same. I think around 10 or 11 i started to get into some actual PC games like flight simulator. At 12 i started playing Tribes 2 and Mech Warrior 3/4. Those years are some of the most memorable gaming years of my life. In 2002 i started my EQ binge, and it lasted until my freshman year in highschool. Between then and now it's mostly been EQ2, BF2, CS, Halo 1/2, and a motley of other games.

Now i'm fucking hooked on vanguard.

[Winnow]

I am a European mutt. Throw in five or six euro countries and you end up with me. (two from the British Isles and several countries that used to be known collectively as Prussia) Zero parts French.

I'm going to do this a little overboard but it was fun tracking down the images for this!

70's

My gaming started in an arcade. When I lived in California in the mid/late 70's on George Air Force Base in the Mojave Desert, we'd drive down to the LA area once in awhile to visit relatives. My Uncle would always take me to an arcade as I loved Pinball. It was during that time that Pong first popped up in Arcades. I was hella young back then but I'd get on a stool and play Pong and Pinball. There were still pinball machines that cost 10 cents to play back then...no digital readouts etc!

This was the local pinball machine in a youth center on base:





Yep, 10 cents to play and you got 10 balls. We'd play that game from the time school let out until it was time to go home for supper all on a single dime. The biggest challenge was racing the other kids to the youth center to be the first to the machine otherwise you were out of luck.

My first gaming console was the Telstar "Alpha":



As you can see, it had a few selections (all pong type games). Hockey was the best!

After that came the Atari 2600:



This was the first mainstream game that lots of friends had and we collected a bunch of games for. Warlords was my favorite game and was also a four player game:



Used the paddles for this one!

80's

I got a late start on D&D but in 1980, I picked upthe D&D basic Rule Set which was released in 1979:



I ended up playing with a small group of friends but later, in 1982, was able to secure the entire hardcover group of books from one of my older brother's friends that thought he had outgrown them at age 16. heh.

I didn't really play serious board games until college when I started playing DragonQuest with a group of friends in the dorms:



BTW, SolarQuest is my all time favorite "quickie" board game. It's sort of an advanced Monopoly type game played by owning satellites and planets in our Solar System:





Basically, you can monopolize the satellites surrounding particular planets and charge more and more for rent...the larger the planet, the harder it is to escape the gravity well...so players get stuck orbiting Jupiter and you rape them for rent as they keep landing on your moons! ..can also monoplize space stations, fuel stations, etc. Great great game.

Back to computer gaming, for Christmas 1982, my dad got my brother and I a C-64, monitor and tape drive.



Soon after, I got the 1541 Floppy Drive so my system looked much like this: (floppy stacked on top, not bottom)



Best...computer...evah!

This is where my first involved gaming experience started. Ultima III: Exodus will always be my real computer gaming RPG starting point:





The other very memorable RPG on the C-64 for me was Wasteland:





I suppose its appeal to me was due to my fascination with Gamma World which was a post apocalyptic spin off world based on D&D type rules.

Many many c-64 games are memorable but those were the RPG ones (Along with A Bard's Tale) that were significant to me.

Oh shit, how can I forget M.U.L.E.





End Elite!



Speaking of online RPG. My friend in 1982 ran an email D&D game We had 300 baud modems (that's 93 times slower than a 28K modem) and your mail box could only hold 3 messages so I suppose before MUDs and MOOs, I was playing D&D on a Bulletin Board!

90's

I was an early adopter of the Internet. NEVER was an AOLer. I started with Netcom in the very early 90's. I ran by own BBS (Bulletin board Service) using four 1541 Floppy Drives and Wildcat software in the 80's but that wasn't the internet, just phreaking using Metro and Sprint codes etc.

I discovered the usenet very early on. I still have the first high res picture I downloaded from a newgroup of a closeup of a lady giving some guy a blowjob. It took forever and a day to download just a few images back then.

I was hitting the bars every night and partying it up around this time so I missed the very first wave of MMORPGs and started with Ultima Online. Seriously flawed and buggy, it still rocked. I lived on a boat so people couldn't break in and steal my shit and had port stones that got me directly to the treasure rooms so I could clean house without fighting down through the dungeons. I remember my character was mostly bright green and purple with a pimp large wizard's hat.



I followed Everquest's development from early in the beta stages and was able to beta test it during the third and forth stages. The rest is pretty much known.

The early days of gaming were nothing like today. I feel fortunate that I was able to experience the first wave.

[Siji]

I suppose its appeal to me was due to my fascination with Gamma World which was a post apocalyptic spin off world based on D&D type rules.

Gamma World > D&D!

I was an early adopter of the Internet. NEVER was an AOLer. I started with Netcom in the very early 90's. I ran by own BBS (Bulletin board Service) using four 1541 Floppy Drives and Wildcat software in the 80's but that wasn't the internet, just phreaking using Metro and Sprint codes etc.

Wildcat was for pansies. Heavily modded PCBoard was where it was at! Still have the disks too! Actually paid for that. Ah, the days of $200 phone bills while downloading at 300/1200 baud.. then the blazing speed of 2400!

For the longest time I kept the AOL beta disks they sent me from way back when. So can't say I was never an AOLer, but never paid for it anyway.

[Xatrei]

Traveller (original version) > all other p&p rpgs. The lame Traveller computer RPGs in the late 80s or early 90s completely sucked, though

I started computer games with my vic 20, moved on to c64, amiga, apple ][ and PC games as I got new systems. I played a lot of p&p rpgs and table top wargaming when younger, and was heavily involved in BBSs from the early 80's until the Internet killed 'em. Played MUDs and other multi player games (Tradewars, Estarian Conquest, etc.), and PC-based RPGs. I played a lot of Starcraft, Diablo and countless FPSs, and dabbled with UO. EQ was the first MMO that I got into, though, and I haven't ever really developed a strong interest in other online games, despite trying virtually all of them out. Having said all of that, I'm amazed that I actually had a semi-normal social life in high school and college.

Ethnically, I'm mainly a mix of German, Dutch and Swedish ancestry.

[Traz-KOE]

In some semblance of order

My dad had a 2600 when I was barely old enough to comprehend games.
After that, we got an Atari 1200XL Home Computer (programming in Basic and PILOT!).

The Nintendo Entertainment System came along in 1985, and I wasted a good many hours with game after game.

My family's first Intel-based PC was a Packard Bell 486SX-25 with FOUR MEGABYTES of RAM. Wolfenstein 3D ran fluidly in amazing 8-bit color.

At some point I started playing D&D, then the White Wolf P&P games.

In high school I got a Sega Genesis, and later a Playstation.

I joined my first Vampire LARP in early 1995, and a fantasy LARP in early 1996.

I built my first gaming computer in the late 90's, based around the brilliantly robust Intel Celeron 300A processor (overclocked to 450, of course).

I started playing EQ in June 1999.

I quit playing EQ sometime in 2004, and started playing WoW on release day.

I worked a brief stint with Monolith Productions as a GM on the god-awful Matrix Online MMORPG. Sony can have it, even if they *are* the devil. In fact, those two deserve each other.

I quit WoW mid-December 2006.

I still roleplay when I have time, don't often get into console stuff, and doubt I'll be playing another MMORPG unless something really stellar and mostly time insensitive comes along.

[Xatrei]

btw, those of you referring to the Atari VCS as the 2600 came to the game late Forgot to mention the slew of consoles that I had early on: VCS, Intellivision, ColecoVision, 5200 and NES, SNES, Playstation. The Playstation was the last console that I bought. Modern consoles just don't fiddle my bits.

[redeemed]

started on atari but didn't own one.
got the NES for christmas when it came out and played the shit out of it.. of course I knew from zelda that I was a natural born RPG'r ;p
from there it was on to the king's quest games on the PC along with the SNES and then playstation.. and PS2.. I pwnd every zelda and final fantasy game I could get my hands on (up to those machines anyway, think FF8 was my last) but that's as far as I went with console games because EQ came out in '99 and I played that bitch for about six years.. when I couldn't play EQ anymore I quit online gaming.. tried WoW for a minute but it never felt the same and I didn't play long~
that's my nutshell, I don't consider myself a gamer anymore but I sure had some fun being one

[Kwonryu DragonFist]

Gaming Roots

My gaming experience started with a lil toy called "Einstein" which had four pads in the colors red, yellow, green and blue.

It had different sounds and you had to push the pads in correct order to win.

Sort of a Memory-game.

After that it was Game n Watch



Also got one o these babies



My best game was Adventure, where you fight three different dragons looking like a square!

One o the best Atari-games ever!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atari_Adventure

-

Started playing on the ZX 81 and a bit later the Spectrum 16k at a friends house, we played Jetpack and similar games.

Had to get a comp of my own!

Got a C64 of course, where you had to wait 15 mins or more to load a game and sometimes ending up with "Load error", oh the joy!

I had classics such as Panic, MULE etc

I was also an arcadefreak that often played Karate Champ (with two sticks) and Yie Ar Kung Fu. Loved kickin' ass

Fastforward a bit.

My first MMORPG was Ultima Online a friend introduced me to, but he also told me that a new MMORPG was coming up soon called Everquest.

Thanks to EQ i met all these fine people that now reside here on Veeshanvault.

Thank you all for the good times!

[Winnow]

Also, don't forget the origins of portables! Anyone remember Football?

[vn_Tanc]

Other than TV games I played some text games on Commodore PETs ~1980. I learned BASIC on the same machines. Then ZX81->BBC->C64->ST->take break cos I'm a teenager->Sega->PS1 etc etc.

[Sylvus]

Similar route to Winnow, though I think he's older than me!


Atari 2600
Intellivision/Calecovision
Atari 5200 (or was it a 7x00? something along those lines)
C-64
NES
Sega Master System
Sega Genesis
IBM PC
Sony Playstation
N64
PS2
Xbox
Xbox 360
Nintendo Wii

C64 I used to love M.U.L.E., Summer/Winter games, I think I had a game called Strip Poker that was immensely entertaining to my 11 year-old self. On the PC, started with all the Quest games (Police/Space/King's) and moved on to the Ultima series and Wolfenstein 3-D and Doom. One of my all-time favorite games was Quest For Glory 3: So You Want To Be a Hero. (at least I think it was 3)

In '91 or '92 I got into BBSing, ran my own for a couple years in there before college. Got to college in '95 and started using the Internet. Never used AOL, U of M had free dial-up. Went to cable modem in '99. Got rid of my land phone line then too, haven't had one since.

UO was my first MMO in '97 or so. I had a love/hate relationship with that game. I had as much fun, and as much pain, with the non-consentual PVP in that game as I did with any other game I've ever played. I can remember my heart pounding when people would try to gank me and my peeps and we'd turn it around on the hunters. Corp Por. Being a tankmage was immensely overpowered and a lot of fun. I think I ultimately quit when the hacking got too bad and my house got cleaned out.

Started EQ a month or so after release, and most of the games I've played since then have forums dedicated to them here.

[Gonzoie - Luclin]

NES
SNES
Genesis
PC ( Dos PC, only games i played on it were Doom and Wolfenstein )
Saturn
64
Newer PC and entrance of online gaming to me. ( Quake 3, Starcraft, then EQ )
PS2
Xbox
360

Thats where i sit now.

I still have all those systems except for the saturn and my old PC.
I also have an emulator with nearly every SNES and Genesis game made.

[Marbus]

My first gaming experiences was playing cards, namely "Battle" with my Grandmother in the afternoon after preschool.

We also played a lot of board games and other card games.

Then in around 1976 or 77 PONG came out... was very fun... I guess. Heh it was pretty much the same game turned 4 different ways but it was so "futurisitic!"

I got an Atari (the Sears version actually) the Christmas they came out, that along with Star Wars kept most of my dreams towards the stars.

In 80 I took a programming course and had access to a TRS-80 a few nights a week and all day on Saturday. After we would get done with assignments, we would game. Usually Lunar Lander and then Zork! At the same time I also got an Intellivision, which I ended up playing a lot more than the Atari.

Then in about 1982 / 83 I got an Apple ][e. My parents ordered a ][+ but when it got here they had changed the lines and it was one of the first production ][e's I played Wizardry and pretty much every Infocom (Zork, Planetfall etc...) game and D&D for the next few years until High School when I started playing in a Heavy METAL band and didn't have time to game.

After college I got a SNES and a Sega and my friends and I played all the time when not working... or spending time with my then girlfriend (now wife).

Once we got married I did't play as much but played a lor of Tie Fighter and was in squad based out of Dallas.

I played UO a little... it was fun but not all that as I didn't have time to deal with the PK ers. Played a lot of Diablo in the beginning but then it got ridiculas as well... However I did play a lot of StarCraft as I like it much more than the old WC stuff. I had played Quake 1 a lot with my Engineers at work and eventually joing a TF Team, was a lot of fun...

I saw the adds for EQ but didn't really think it would be that fun... I had dual Voodoo 2s so graphically I was ready but... I didn't get it on release. About a month or so after release I was at home sick and was looking for something to do so I picked it up on the way home from the Dr's office... hahah that was it I guess.

Since then I have played and / or betaed, AO, DAoC, WoW, Vanguard and EQ2... enjoying all of them to some degree and still playing EQ2 right now.

Marb