So after reading the LAN thread I got curious about something:

What was your first experience in an online game like?

Mine was about as good as one can expect. I was at a friend's house in elementary school and I knew he had this crazy thing called an "X-Box" and that he could play with people all across the world with it. So I asked him if I could try, he booted up Halo 2 and handed the mic and controller.

"Hey, I'm from America!" my very innocent mind at the time figuring that I might be talking to someone from China and that everyone around the world was a sweet as could be.

"[censored] America and [censored] you kid." Was the response I got. It's even funnier considering that he had a Southern accent so he was probably somewhere in the Deep South of the US.

The first time I ever got X-Box live was also a treat, I got it when I got a 360 in late middle-school. I was playing Gears of War and noticed that the chat going on was fairly pleasant so I plugged in my mic and joined in:
"hey, guys, I think I have an idea on how we can beat the other team."

"HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHHAA, listen to this dork! Let's listen to this chump tell us how to play.". I actually kind of like this one since the kid on the other end was more creative than "[censored] you", Dork is an insult I don't think I was called since the 2nd grade.

So what're some of your first experiences online?

Not a big online gamer, so few and far between. I think the first online game was some character-based MUD back in 1987 when I was at college, but I remember next to nothing about it. First one I actually remember was Doom in about '96 when even my totally inept playing style was enough to pwn other players thanks to our then extremely expensive low-latency Megastream link when everyone else was using a modem.

Since then, I've avoided multiplayer games. Nasty creatures, etc.

Outlaws (the Western Shooter by Lucas Arts) back in 1997

I had beaten the Campaign Numerous times, however at the time my Parents didn't like us using the internet at the time because we couldn't use the Phoneline at the same time

Parents went out of Town, my Brother went over to one of his friends place to play some pool, and there was nothing on TV.. So I went, connected to the Dial-up, and played a couple rounds...




ahh that was a Simpler time..

I think my first Internet game experience was playing Mechwarrior 2 over a modem with my friend in middle school. This would have been around '95 or '96. If we're talking MMORPGs, then that would have been Ultima Online in 1997 or, maybe, FurryMUCK in 1996-1997. None of those games dreamed of voice-chat capability, of course.

Halo 2, in late 2004/early 2005. I lived in Europe at the time, and I remember waking up early in the morning so I could play people from the US before I went to school. Getting online was the challenging part, wireless was so bad, and had to go through so many cinder block walls. So I ended up running a 100ft Ethernet cable outside, down a balcony and into a window to get to the router. Not to mention the latency playing internationally.

To this day, I still say Halo 2 had some of the best online multiplayer memories I've ever had.

Probably the Counter Strike Beta, or maybe Planetarion. Don't know which came first. When did Runescape first come out? Hmm, it was probably the beta for Counter Strike.

Playing Gemstones III sometime around the mid-90s, then playing Aardwolf in early '97 (and still playing).

Star Wars Galaxies, summer 2005. I was strictly a single-player gamer. I absolutely freaked out when I saw other people all around me. It was too bizarre. I couldn't take it.

But I'd paid good money for the game and I was determined to get my money's worth. So I kept going back. I eventually found a way to play it. I treated it as an enormous single-player game, one with a lot of "NPCs" who behaved in very unpredictable ways.

Anarchy Online. Got a year's subscription to the game around '05

That was my first and only mmo.

Warcraft 2 back in 1996, I think.

There's this game, Meridian 59. I started playing it in 1996. It's generally considered to be one of, if not the, first "modern" MMORPG (though the term didnt exist at the time.) By which I mean, it has 3D graphics and the like, rather than the text-based MUDs. Is an odd little game, heavily focused on PvP in a structured way. And it has an interesting design in that even new players arent helpless. And every weekend the sky turns red and everything becomes a blood bath, to be reset on monday.

You'll notice I used present-tense there. Its because its still online, and has been for 18 years. Free to download and play now, though I think it cost money way back when it came out. cant recall though. Little tricky to get into since it... its a product of its time, lets say. They eventually updated the game engine so you don't *have to* use typed commands to do anything, though its often more convenient to do so.

In games in general: GunBound. Console was CoD Modern Warfare. I was imitating a british accent and managed to fool almost everyone. A englishman sent me a PM saying thatI almost got him

Aside from a few games I glanced at and quickly left, it was probably Jaruga, a browser text-based MMORPG set in the Witcher universe. I was a thief, but not a very good one and I spent an ungodly amound of time in jail. I befriended some people who roleplayed a family and they adopted my character. It was fun.

I played Tibia around that time too. In hindsight, it's unfortunate that my schoolmate got me into this particular game when there were so many awesome MMOs around. Oh well. While I have only fond memories of Jaruga, this game was troubling because I was on an open PvP world. I never understood what was so enjoyable about killing newbie paladins grinding trolls in peace... I once grouped with some guy to reach a dangerous location in the dwarf city and he locked me in a room with trolls, watched me die and then stole my items. That's why I have trust issues. (no, not really)

The only one I can really remember as my first was Wizard 101 its a fantastic game that my pc could actually play. I would be more into video cardgames if they had card animation like in wizard 101. Lay down a rock golem card and a giant golem pops out and attacks the enemies of your choice. Its really cool.

I was playing Myth (1997). I remember going head to head with a guy named Monkey Priest. He slaughtered me.

The first online game I played was Mario Kart DS, and that was very pleasant minus one guy who somehow managed to move at the speed of sound.

The first online game I played with chat was Minecraft back in the beta days. I got kicked from the server for digging into someone's mine and taking "their ore". Oh well, they should've mined it themselves then.

I honestly can't remember, I want to say Age of Mythology but I'm not sure. The online game that stands out in memory is CoD World at War...so much fun with friends and [censored] talking on the mic was had in that game.

Age of Empires. A friend of mine in middle school and I both enjoyed the game, and his dad was a network admin in IT. My dad is in IT as well but is a programmer so he couldn't really help, but my friends dad talked us through setting up a network via direct modem connection (rather than through the internet). I played from time to time with my friend and his dad, and eventually when my family got a second PC my dad hopped in as well. We had a lot of fun with it.

As a side note, my old man plays games, but few and far between. It seems his taste is pretty random. He loved Age of Empires, MechWarrior 3 and 4 (though I was in charge of loading out his Mechs for each mission, he didn't like that part of it), Rouge Squadron (he wouldn't go to the next mission until he gold medaled the one he was on) and Halo CE. He actually got me into gaming with Wolfenstien 3D, and occasionally a phone call between us will include a new record time for Episode Two, followed by the other trying to beat it and reporting back eventually with a better one.

Original Halo, it wasnt a positive introduction the people knew the maps and i just kept getting killed because it was my first time, till i worked out to get a flyer at a spawn point wait and kill them as they spawned, because they treated me like crap, so i wracked a massive kill rate they couldnt get back onto the map to find their little sniper position, so they gave up once they realised id worked out how to kill them and make the experience svck for them, never played and online again till WOW and sorry i made that choice.

My first was playing RuneScape.

~Edit~

Nothing special really happened.

I am pretty sure it was TF2 4 years ago, when I was 38 years old.

Hmmm, I'm trying to think if my first online experience was something other then my first online MMO experience, and I don't think it was, so for me it would be Asherons Call. Sadly I only got to play a bit of it, I had no CC of my own and used my parents and my mom ended up deciding she didn't want it on her CC for fear of it being stolen(this was back when online MMO's with subscription based models were first starting out), so I only got to play it for like a week. It was...fun, but kind of annoying, they allowed anyone to PK anyone as long as it was outside of towns, which kind of svcked, I can remember being randomly ganked by super high level players for absolutely zero reason. The spell system from what I remember was awesome, you had to discover the spells yourself by randomly combining ingredients, which was damn novel at the time. Honestly, if I had the data cap, I'd d/l it right now and try starting over, it still has a dedicated server with about 10k players for it.

After I had watched friends play FPS's online (computer) for a while I decided to play some Command and Conquer online in 1999. Couple of buddies had been playing it for a while mainly to keep in touch with others out of state. I loved it I was hooked the second I realized I could type to them and talk trash while destroying their base.

Later I got heavy into Tiberian Sun where I played others online who wernt my friends since I wanted to play much more then they could get on.

Wasnt until 2002 when Xbox went Live where I first used a headset to communicate with people. What a trip that was and so much easier.

Hmm. So hard to remember that far back. If we're defining "online" as anything similar to the Internet/Usenet/etc & multiplayer, it was likely some form of X-Conquer or X-Trek on the campus UNIX network in the late 80's. If we go with anything across a wire, it was the original text Adventure, in the late 70's/early 80's.... running on a terminal connected via phone (anolog modem, the handset-in-rubber-cups type ) to a Bell Laboratories mainframe.

I've still never done anything with audio chat/mic.

Probably RuneScape if that counts, which I played for like a month or something as a kid. Or maybe Warcraft 3 (got my ass handed to me, that's for damn sure). Those are the ones I can think of.