Your first online gaming moment?

[CMcK]

My first online game was one of the Quake games but I’m struggling to remember which one. Unreal Tournament came along and that was when I really started to get interested. I did dabble with a few others but haven’t done a much online gaming since the 360 launched.

[Hirst]

First on dial-up: AOL Chatroom Quiz things, basically it was just a big chatroom where they'd ask trivia questions and first correct answer would get a point. Most of the time it came down to who could type fastest, so effectively it trained me to type as fast as possible.
First on broadband: Battlefield 1942 on PC, great fun until it started becoming really unbalanced and whole matches would just be everyone being killed by whoever got a plane and owned a joystick.
First on console: I used the online functions of the Dreamcast but never got round to playing a game on it, so I think my first one was Project Gotham Racing 2 on the Xbox. Might have been Midtown Madness 3 though.

[Cassius_Smoke]

I played linkup Doom at school with a few kids. The teacher was pretty cool with it.
Then I have a vague memory of playing Unreal Tournament maybe at a friend's house?

But my first proper online game came quite late with Lost Planet on the 360. Main reason was online play was really a PC thing, and I only owned Consoles.

[speedlolita]

I should imagine my experience will be much later than most people here.

I want to say it was either No One Lives Forever multiplayer or Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory around the time I got broadband which would have been 2005ish. Otherwise it may have been an early experience with GTA III & VC online on PC with Multi Theft Auto. That one was proper rubbish.

[hudson]

The later one are more interesting. I was hoping for less Doom and Quake but it was always gonna be the case. Nice to see a load of PSO shouts. That was my first console online experience (or was it Socom?).

[charlesr]

Big shout out to Rallisport Challenge 2 on the xbox.

https://bordersdown.net/content/420-Rallisport-Challenge-2-Review-Microsoft-Xbox

[charlesr]

I stayed up playing that till they shut the og Live down permanently. Good times

[Cepp]

Full on gaming was either PSO V1 or the Cossacks European Wars demo that came with a PC Zone demo disc, which seemed to be solely populated with Germans for whatever reason.

Exciting times back then

[Lebowski]

First experience was Chu Chu rocket, we where in a student house with a BT line and i was massively unimpressed with this game online, we had been playing it offline and quite enjoyed it but the online mode and how it was set up was absolutely terrible i didn't go back after one match.

My next and first positive online experience was Socom on the PS2, I don't know how i came across it but someone posted about the Sony website selling a Network starter kit including a Headset, game, and network adapter for £40 (it was probably the old EDGE forums)

I wasn't expecting any more from this set but it just kept giving and giving, as in buying the kit you also had the chance to enroll in the network beta and get access to even more online games, over the years we got game after game to test and this went right on into the ps4 era of Sony.

I still have a box of now defunct beta discs as they where sent out in the post, we got to play things like Killzone, wipeout and little big planet and often you'd get free copies of the full game when it launched. They also ran loads of comps and i even won one once which got me a load of psp games and merch including some sony dev staff t-shirts and caps.

It was golden era of online gaming for me, loads of spare time to play online and I'm still friends with a lot of the people i was in the ps2 days, i don't play online as much these days, (job kids bills ect) was a sad day when the betas wrapped and they shut the forums but it was fun while it lasted, it had also long passed its peak when they called it a day.

[Atticus]

I was very late to the party with online gaming. Way too tight to invest in broadband until I had good reason: some guys at work convinced me to join them on Lord of the Rings Online. I wasn't expecting much but it blew me away. Mooching around in that first sesh I wandered into a town and players were going about all sorts and chatting and stuff ... there were 4 players gathered together by a sigh post playing music on instruments. It was totally alive. Alive!! Then they moved onto World of Warcraft and I got sucked in deep. I was sitting down to play at 7pm and I've never known it get to 1am so fast. Wasn't great for me really so I never renewed once my 3 months was up.

[wakka]

First experience was Chu Chu rocket, we where in a student house with a BT line and i was massively unimpressed with this game online, we had been playing it offline and quite enjoyed it but the online mode and how it was set up was absolutely terrible i didn't go back after one match.

My next and first positive online experience was Socom on the PS2, I don't know how i came across it but someone posted about the Sony website selling a Network starter kit including a Headset, game, and network adapter for £40 (it was probably the old EDGE forums)

I wasn't expecting any more from this set but it just kept giving and giving, as in buying the kit you also had the chance to enroll in the network beta and get access to even more online games, over the years we got game after game to test and this went right on into the ps4 era of Sony.

I still have a box of now defunct beta discs as they where sent out in the post, we got to play things like Killzone, wipeout and little big planet and often you'd get free copies of the full game when it launched. They also ran loads of comps and i even won one once which got me a load of psp games and merch including some sony dev staff t-shirts and caps.

It was golden era of online gaming for me, loads of spare time to play online and I'm still friends with a lot of the people i was in the ps2 days, i don't play online as much these days, (job kids bills ect) was a sad day when the betas wrapped and they shut the forums but it was fun while it lasted, it had also long passed its peak when they called it a day.

That is so cool! I never heard about that.

[Asura]

My next and first positive online experience was Socom on the PS2, I don't know how i came across it

SOCOM is a bit of a footnote in the history of online gaming, but it deserves better. It really was a fantastic game.

The team that made it went on to make MAG, which is one of my favourite games of all time. I ran into the lead designer in a pub a few years ago. I felt bad at first and asked if I was keeping him from something, but he was in town on a work trip and was really just trying to stay out of the hotel; ended up talking for what must've been over an hour, and he had all sorts of anecdotes and random bits of behind the scenes info.

[kryss]

PSO 1&2 on the GameCube while in the UK still (2002?)
Then I barely touched online until Monster Hunter Tri in 2009 and again for the English release in 2010.

[ZipZap]

It was either Unreal Tournement or Re-Volt on the PC. I got them both around the same time, but can't remember which was first.

I never really got into online gaming though, what I think was much more of a game changer for me was online leaderboards.

I much prefer playing a game solo and comparing how good I am to other players.

The first time I really go into leaderboards was Ikaruga on the 360. I was never even especially good at that game and it's not really one of my favourite shmups, but gradually working my way up the leaderboard really motivated me to get better at scoring (not that I was ever anywhere close to the best players!).

[MiG]

My earliest online game was Quake in 1997 I think, then Command and Conquer and Ultima, but this was just dabbling really with the odd game.. my brother fell hard for EverQuest around the same time and racked up hundreds of pounds in dial up charges before my parents banned him!
The first online game I really got into was PSO on Dreamcast, played it for maybe half a year, but I was pretty late to the party as it was already 2001 so some of the hype had died down..

I didn’t really do online on consoles during the PS2/XBOX/Gamecube era, tried a few games on and off but it still seemed a bit of a faff at the time so stuck with playing PC online, things like Counter Strike and Team Fortress 2..

The online game that had the biggest impact on me didn’t come along until 2014, I just started a new job and treated myself to a PS4 and Destiny, was blown away at the time, loved the co-op nature of the raids and joined a clan, even enjoyed the pvp, still playing with some of the same people I met online back then but now in Destiny 2