Your first and any other great/bad online gaming experiences

[hudson]

I was just thinking back to a great time in gaming. I'd been spending so much time on consoles (as I nearly always had), when I met an old friend on the bus. Who told me him and all my other old friends were gaming online most nights playing Battlefield 1942. Amazing times.

I lie, it wasn't the first time my mind had been blown by online gaming. I did discover it on my own in Medal of Honour Allied Assault. TDM. Again, wow. On 56k too. Ping was usually 300-500.

Other experiences that stick out in my mind were Socom Confrontation with friends, Phantasy Star Online with randoms. I must also admit, WoW. Whilst I got disgusted with myself after a year of festering on it, the time I did spend on there still stick out in my mind as a great escape with friends.

[Kit]

I also started playing online via Allied Assault, hudson ha

Some of those maps were bloody amazing.



Memories.

My best multiplayer experience though is still launch week playing Left 4 Dead. NOTHING will beat that. The music, the scares, the laughs. Made a lot of friends playing L4D who I still know today.

[Tobal]

earliest was probably Quake 2 and the MS gaming Zone over dialup... and some other gaming service i can't remember but was uk'centric and probably run by BT back in the late 90's early 00's, hopefully not confusing myself with quakeworld.

And while i have fond memories of Unreal Tournament 1, is was Half-Life mod scene, specially Team Fortress and Counterstrike what got me hooked, then came my biggest gaming downfall, mmorpg's... i dabbling with the free basic pack(off a demo mag) for Ultima and Everquest but it was FFXI that stole years from me.. loved the early years of adventuring into the unknown, struggling just to exp and fighting over notorious monsters.. luckily most of it archive in the 2 ffxi threads on this forum. I always remember just few days in as lvl7 monk getting way over my head in a starter dungeon called King Ranperre's Tomb, surrounded by goblins, bats and worms, and nearing night fall(when skeles pop) this lvl75 War (with a greatsword) came out of nowhere and clear the way back to the exit! fantastic.

[briareos_kerensky]

First online game was Starcraft, on the Italian servers with a 56kbps modem. Distinclty remember the first games playing as Protoss only to be rushed by Zerlings. Things got better when I started rushing with Zerg myself :P
Then I think it was MechWarrior 3, but too much lag made the game unenjoyable.

[fishbowlhead]

First propper online experience was phantasy star online on the dreamcast, a magical game.

My favourite has to be either Gotham 3 on xbox 360 launch or Destiny recently. I know destiny has its doubters but for me it's just brilliant with other people.

[Golgo]

I was very late to online gaming, just never saw the appeal, so I only popped my cherry with the MP mode in Zelda Phantom Hourglass on DS, which was great. Completing Portal 2 online coop mode over the course of a few weekday evenings (gesture-comms only) with Agent47 from hereabouts was among the most enjoyable gaming experiences I've ever had. Coop Borderlands 2 and Binary Domain with Mr. Bubbles and others were also recent highlights. BF Bad Co 2 remains the best competitive MP in my limited experience.

[kryss]

PSO on the GC. Pretty late to the party.

[Dogg Thang]

I dabbled a couple of times but the first online game I really got into was Phantasy Star Online on the Dreamcast. The experience blew me away. The co-op experience of actually being with people was just fantastic. I would go on night after night and hook up with buddies I knew in the game but didn't know anywhere else. I played it a lot.

I remember thinking that I was getting a glimpse into the future. It was a social world with all of us existing virtually. There were bad areas with dupers and hackers that could corrupt your character, if the rumours were to be believed. And other good areas where you know people are pretty cool. Like a society all of its own. Amazing stuff.

I played it then again on the GC for quite some time but oddly didn't really stay with online gaming after that. I played the Star Wars Galaxies MMORPG for a couple of months and found the grinding nature of it criminally dull. Enjoyed the social aspect which is why I tried to give it a good chance but it didn't click for me. And I (quite unfairly) judged the entire MMORPG on that experience. Enjoyed Halo 3 multiplayer for a short time but ultimately was left unsatisfied. I think my problem with many online games stems from there being no real ending, no sense of closure. Eventually you just drift away from the game you're playing. I prefer the single player sense of completion.

[darkangel]

My first ever online gaming experience was the great Quake 3: Arena, forget Battlefield 4, I saw some really amazing skills. (Rail Gun kills in mid air anyone?!)

After that though the first time I ever really put the hours in was Planet Ring on the DC, followed by PSO. I imported that baby from the U.S and it was very special before the hackers ruined it. I've kept my online name from that game to this day = Darkangel. Good times!

[Brad]

Seeing my mate fall off a ledge above lava in quake and then use a rocket launcher to propel himself back up to safety was an epic sight in quake.

[darkangel]

Oh yes the Rocket Launcher jumps were great!

[ETC]

Chu Chu Rocket on the Dreamcast, but I do seem to remember using a 14.4K modem back when I worked in a computer store in 1996

[BaronSqwelch]

PSO on the GC. Pretty late to the party.

Me too..... since then nothing has compared to Burnout Paradise.
Almost everyone I encountered was cool, plus it was the days before party chat so public chat wasn't 99% idiots.
Brilliant fun beating all the challenges. My odd shifts had me playing mostly with Australians, maybe the lack of Americans helped

[speedlolita]

Got broadband around 10 years ago this year.

First online gaming experience was Multi Theft Auto, a mod for GTA Vice City that enabled you to play online with other people.

From that I played many hundreds of hours of Counter Strike Source.

More recently I play TERA, of which has consumed a ton of my free time. It's like having a second life at this point.

[charlesr]

I was lucky enough to have a friend with Dual ISDN lines that could be tied together for ping or we could both play as separate entities from the same house via Wireplay (or "Wirepay" as we fondly called it). So Quakeworld was epic. Especially the noob servers.

However, I think my first online game was Geoff Crammond's Grand Prix via normal modem.

I did dabble online before that via an external modem where you had to physically place the phone on to the receiver for it to listen to the sounds...... Wasn't gaming though.