@duodec Ha. I came here to say Gemstone, half figuring no one else would have. Then you go and are the first comment. I never played 2 but played 3 starting in the AoL days and then on to 4 on the Web. Long live River’s Rest!
@Bingo GS2 ran on the GEnie information service; pretty sure GS3 was when it became available on AOL. I ran up a few $$$ monthly bills on GS2… In the town of Squire Bluff, in the world first called Elanith, later Elanthia.
Were you there for the great de-ICEing, when they rewrote the game to remove the Iron Crown Enterprises rulesets?
We gave a torkaan (sp?) to a friend of ours who played; found a stuffed toy sheep and some Halloween vampire fangs and stitched them in.
My wife (GM’d with them for a while in GS3 and later Dragonrealms) and I actually went to a Simucon, and to Vegascon (player-run) also (the latter was easy since my parents still lived in Las Vegas then so two birds with one trip). And I still have a few game logs and Town Crier player newspaper editions from GS2 back in the late 1980s. Wish I had saved more but my seemingly vast 60MB hard drive got kind of full…
@duodec I came in literally right after the move to AOL, so was never a Genie, GS2 or Ice player but was around for the latter part of the aftermath. I actually was given Berr’s old Shaalk Mechtar for a long time which I suspect you might know of. I also went to a Vegas Con though it was the very last one, circa 2001 or so maybe? Love the stuffed torkaan. I also went to one player one in LA… I forget his name… legendary player merchant… Agh that’s going to bother me to remember the name. I knew quite a few of the Genie players and heard all those stories about the bills. Was glad I missed out on that as I suspect I would have been one of them. Many of the names I’ve forgotten but Celtar is one that I became friends with in game that I know was around back then. I still have a few fun logs somewhere. Good times indeed. I’ve gone back for a look once or twice when they’ve run free promos, but I barely know 4 or 5 people now compared to the hundreds back in the day and, of course, the feeling is mostly gone since it was the people that drew me more than gaming or leveling.
@Bingo I kind of knew someone in GS2 named Celtar, might have been the same one. Not familiar with Berr or a Shaalk Mechtar, but again, I wasn’t a fan of GS3 and really didn’t play very much. When GS2 closed down I was on hiaitus until Dragonrealms started. Ran into a few GS2 players there (I was using a secondary GS2 character and they recognized the name; I never resurrected my main GS2 fighter name though).
Elonka, who (used to?) work for Simu said she had created an empty GS2 world on their servers years later so she and a few others could wander around in it. I wish I’d been able to go in again.
@QuietDelusions The Simutronics games I mentioned above are text MUDs as much as MORPGs. I haven’t played in years (the games are still active); they used to have some fancier front ends that provided light graphics but otherwise it was imagination Mk 1 and hopefully quality role-playing.
Like duodec, I played Gemstone, a Simutronics game. I also played and briefly GMd one called Unwritten Legends that was a lot of fun. Loved text-based MUDs back in the day. Infinitely variable and in depth, largely due to as hchavers says, the use of imagination. Loads of fun.
@QuietDelusions I played around with a few before I found some I liked. I played StrangeMud for a while, but I really got into AvP. That was my jam. I lost interest when they decided to wipe all the players to change the classes to even things up. I was already the highest level you could get with my synthetic and was working my way up with a predator. After the wipe, a lot of people disappeared. I tried to continue on, but this was probably around 1998 or 1999. Games with actual graphics were much more of a draw already. Last I had checked, AvP still existed.
@QuietDelusions I played a MUD back in 1996 or so. When I saw that I had over 24 hours in-game I panicked, stopped immediately, and never went back. It was a lot of fun, though.
Nethack with ghost drops enabled (1987). It’s classed as single player but it had chat and you could commit suicide and try an leave your equipment for another player (with caveats).
The Kingdom of Loathing (2004 and still going).
@hchavers These games were such an integral part of my childhood and young teens that I still get nostalgic at the very mention of their names. Roberta and Ken Williams were my heroes. I was (am) such a nerd…
@hchavers@shahnm My first graphic adventure was the NES port of Maniac Mansion.
LucasArts did so many things right in the late eighties and early nineties that it made it kind of hard to play through a lot of the early Sierra games.
Not that I didn’t do it anyway…
I played Space Quest IV on a Pentium 100. It was way too fast to play that game, but I still managed to figure out an alternate way to avoid the sequel police in the galaxy galleria.
1994 or so. Arranging three PCs on a Novell IPX network do you could play Doom with 270° display. Technically not multi-player, but screw it. Those guys didn’t need their PCs anyway. https://streamable.com/rxgko
I was really into StarCraft and Unreal Tournament.
I made up my username during a LAN party playing Quake.
Halo 2 with multiple XBOXs connected at someone’s house was super fun. Cables everywhere!
A long time after I quit playing, I found my disc and uploaded it to whatever PC I had at the time. I was surprised that people were still playing, but they were all using that teleport disc gun and bouncing all over the map. I was so confused.
@webender I’m aware. It’s an older game, I agree. And it’s not really something I’ll fight over. “Early” is a fuzzy term.
But the history of online multiplayer games goes back around forty years. I don’t personally consider a game that showed up twenty years ago to be “early.”
To its credit, it an Quake III were, as far as I know, the first major FPS games to really focus primarily on online multiplayer.
The person who wrote the poll seems to think anything over ten years old is “early.”
@cattylaq I played DAoC for a while. First game where i ever joined a guild. Had fun playing with glitches in Camelot that allowed us to go up through the ceiling in 1 or 2 spots and run all over town on the rooftops.
LORD (Legend of the Red Dragon) that I ran on my multi user BBS in the 90’s. Although you played alone, you could chat with other players in real time and get strategy tips.
First big MMO I played was EverQuest I voted that as best since it was the first and helped establish the genre. That’s where I cut my MMO teeth for the most part as well. Though, my first all-in MMO was World of Warcraft, which I still play occasionally.
@DJ I know so many people who met their current spouses in the (few) MMOs that were around at that time. I know of three couples from Asheron’s Call alone (including my husband and I). So…Morningthaw, represent!
Ok, I was told Unreal Tournament isn’t old enough, so let’s reach Waaaay back. I was cleaning out some files last week, and I found my Kali license, How many people remember Kali?
Well, I played one of the earliest, Legends of Future Past (Wikipedia link), and it was fantastic. Text based MUD w/ a pretty small community of great folks. Role playing was never something I was entirely comfortable with, but the players, GMs and devs who played the game were fully committed. It was incredibly imaginative and immersive.
However, my favorite multiplayer of all time was the original Star Wars Battlefront - both I & II (DICE rebooted the game and made a mess of it, like everything they touch). I continued playing SWBFII on my PS2 until they took the servers off line, after 10 years, in 2015. Best shooter(s) ever.
I’ve been gaming since pong, and was questing over ARPAnet in college with guys who were writing their own code. I still play, and on Fallout 4 and Borderlands (1,2,Pre) have every Steam achievement that doesn’t require playing with anyone else. Tried Doom, but all the cheating drove me away. I just can’t stand playing with anyone else. Except golf. Golf and cart games. My wife and I golf and play driving games, but that’s it for any multi-player hoo-ha. (take that for old!) (and stay off my lawn)
Also, Serious Sam online deathmatch was the first online shooter I ever got into. Had all kinds of fun with that. Even ran a Serious Sam focused website, Gamemecca for a while back in the day.
Gemstone 2 by Simutronics. Followed by Dragonrealms by the same company. Wasn’t a fan of Gemstone 3 or 4 though.
@duodec Ha. I came here to say Gemstone, half figuring no one else would have. Then you go and are the first comment. I never played 2 but played 3 starting in the AoL days and then on to 4 on the Web. Long live River’s Rest!
@Bingo GS2 ran on the GEnie information service; pretty sure GS3 was when it became available on AOL. I ran up a few $$$ monthly bills on GS2… In the town of Squire Bluff, in the world first called Elanith, later Elanthia.
Were you there for the great de-ICEing, when they rewrote the game to remove the Iron Crown Enterprises rulesets?
We gave a torkaan (sp?) to a friend of ours who played; found a stuffed toy sheep and some Halloween vampire fangs and stitched them in.
My wife (GM’d with them for a while in GS3 and later Dragonrealms) and I actually went to a Simucon, and to Vegascon (player-run) also (the latter was easy since my parents still lived in Las Vegas then so two birds with one trip). And I still have a few game logs and Town Crier player newspaper editions from GS2 back in the late 1980s. Wish I had saved more but my seemingly vast 60MB hard drive got kind of full…
Good times.
@duodec I came in literally right after the move to AOL, so was never a Genie, GS2 or Ice player but was around for the latter part of the aftermath. I actually was given Berr’s old Shaalk Mechtar for a long time which I suspect you might know of. I also went to a Vegas Con though it was the very last one, circa 2001 or so maybe? Love the stuffed torkaan. I also went to one player one in LA… I forget his name… legendary player merchant… Agh that’s going to bother me to remember the name. I knew quite a few of the Genie players and heard all those stories about the bills. Was glad I missed out on that as I suspect I would have been one of them. Many of the names I’ve forgotten but Celtar is one that I became friends with in game that I know was around back then. I still have a few fun logs somewhere. Good times indeed. I’ve gone back for a look once or twice when they’ve run free promos, but I barely know 4 or 5 people now compared to the hundreds back in the day and, of course, the feeling is mostly gone since it was the people that drew me more than gaming or leveling.
@Bingo I kind of knew someone in GS2 named Celtar, might have been the same one. Not familiar with Berr or a Shaalk Mechtar, but again, I wasn’t a fan of GS3 and really didn’t play very much. When GS2 closed down I was on hiaitus until Dragonrealms started. Ran into a few GS2 players there (I was using a secondary GS2 character and they recognized the name; I never resurrected my main GS2 fighter name though).
Elonka, who (used to?) work for Simu said she had created an empty GS2 world on their servers years later so she and a few others could wander around in it. I wish I’d been able to go in again.
Long time gone. I still miss it
RuneScape in the early dark ages as well as Diablo imo. Oh also StarCraft.
avara
FFXI4life
Any fans of the old, text-based "MUD"s?
Materia Magica (aka Moongate) was one I played for a long, long time. That was over 20 years ago. …And now I feel old.
Still poke my nose in occasionally, though, as it’s still running.
@QuietDelusions MUDs require imagination, something really lacking today. Well, it was special back then too, and had to be used more often.
@QuietDelusions The Simutronics games I mentioned above are text MUDs as much as MORPGs. I haven’t played in years (the games are still active); they used to have some fancier front ends that provided light graphics but otherwise it was imagination Mk 1 and hopefully quality role-playing.
Like duodec, I played Gemstone, a Simutronics game. I also played and briefly GMd one called Unwritten Legends that was a lot of fun. Loved text-based MUDs back in the day. Infinitely variable and in depth, largely due to as hchavers says, the use of imagination. Loads of fun.
@QuietDelusions I played around with a few before I found some I liked. I played StrangeMud for a while, but I really got into AvP. That was my jam. I lost interest when they decided to wipe all the players to change the classes to even things up. I was already the highest level you could get with my synthetic and was working my way up with a predator. After the wipe, a lot of people disappeared. I tried to continue on, but this was probably around 1998 or 1999. Games with actual graphics were much more of a draw already. Last I had checked, AvP still existed.
@QuietDelusions I played a MUD back in 1996 or so. When I saw that I had over 24 hours in-game I panicked, stopped immediately, and never went back. It was a lot of fun, though.
@QuietDelusions
Played a MUD called A.V.A.T.A.R. eventually became a high level immortal.
It still exists, believe it or not
want a memory.
http://www.outland.org
Overwatch.
@krobb1290 Came here to CTRL+F this an upvote.
@krobb1290 @Rakaim Hello fellow Overwatchers. Zen main here. Also @HiDefStatic and @Leftoverburrito also play as well.
@krobb1290 Note the word “early” in the poll question
@krobb1290 @zinimusprime The function that picks thumbnail images for threads did not seem to get the memo either.
Diablo, with its ground breaking graphics, boss A.I. and one-off weapons.
Porn…
I have no opinion on this subject
@Darrell2 thanks for sharing your opinion of having no opinion.
@Darrell2 I can provide you with one if you’d like.
@Darrell2
Nethack with ghost drops enabled (1987). It’s classed as single player but it had chat and you could commit suicide and try an leave your equipment for another player (with caveats).
The Kingdom of Loathing (2004 and still going).
@Evansdoor Oh, I forgot all about KoL! My poor disco bandit must have turned into a stick-figure skeleton!
Did anyone play Sierra Online, with it lands based on some of the games?
@hchavers These games were such an integral part of my childhood and young teens that I still get nostalgic at the very mention of their names. Roberta and Ken Williams were my heroes. I was (am) such a nerd…
@hchavers @shahnm My first graphic adventure was the NES port of Maniac Mansion.
LucasArts did so many things right in the late eighties and early nineties that it made it kind of hard to play through a lot of the early Sierra games.
Not that I didn’t do it anyway…
I played Space Quest IV on a Pentium 100. It was way too fast to play that game, but I still managed to figure out an alternate way to avoid the sequel police in the galaxy galleria.
@hchavers I remember playing King’s Quest a bunch.
@hchavers
Kingdom of Loathing.
Pong.
@shahnm Pong Battle Royale next. Now that they made Tetris Battle Royale
Tribes 1000%, so many people voted for the wrong one.
Also Red Faction was awesome.
HIKING! VIKINGS! STRIKE KING [BRAND FISHING LURES]! AWESOME!
Checkers
@ebatch oohh. Now that’s classic.
1994 or so. Arranging three PCs on a Novell IPX network do you could play Doom with 270° display. Technically not multi-player, but screw it. Those guys didn’t need their PCs anyway.
https://streamable.com/rxgko
@2many2no and the link impaired:
/giphy Return to Castle Wolfenstein
I was really into StarCraft and Unreal Tournament.
I made up my username during a LAN party playing Quake.
Halo 2 with multiple XBOXs connected at someone’s house was super fun. Cables everywhere!
I am pretty sure this song has meridian 59 references…
Anarchy Online at home or Jedi Academy for LAN parties.
@toddnet
RuneScape! And by best, I mean it was the best at wasting away my adolescence.
City of Heroes
Quake
None, Nada, Nessuna. I feel old after this question. Don’t think I missed anything just old…
Asheron’s Call, where I met my RL husband nearly 20 years ago.
Nobody for Unreal tournament?
Headshot!
Double kill!
Multi Kill!
Ultra Kill!
M-M-M-M-Monster Kill!
@webender I mentioned that. Played it often.
A long time after I quit playing, I found my disc and uploaded it to whatever PC I had at the time. I was surprised that people were still playing, but they were all using that teleport disc gun and bouncing all over the map. I was so confused.
@webender Sure, but I don’t consider it to be “early.”
@Limewater @webender its earlier than the games on this list by a decade in most cases.
@kermur @webender Not so sure about a decade, but whoever wrote the poll today gets an A+ in trolling.
@webender I played a bit when it was Unreal Tournament 3 on PS3.
@webender I still pull out UT2K4 every so rarely for some old school fun. Loved that game.
@Limewater Unreal Tournament: release date -November 30, 1999
Almost 20 years old now.
@webender I’m aware. It’s an older game, I agree. And it’s not really something I’ll fight over. “Early” is a fuzzy term.
But the history of online multiplayer games goes back around forty years. I don’t personally consider a game that showed up twenty years ago to be “early.”
To its credit, it an Quake III were, as far as I know, the first major FPS games to really focus primarily on online multiplayer.
The person who wrote the poll seems to think anything over ten years old is “early.”
DAOC= Dark Age of Camelot
@cattylaq I played DAoC for a while. First game where i ever joined a guild. Had fun playing with glitches in Camelot that allowed us to go up through the ceiling in 1 or 2 spots and run all over town on the rooftops.
Sorry, never played one. Wolfenstein, anyone? Or the IBM cave thriller?
Ultima Online. Too many hours spent on there. Precursor to Everquest and Asherons Call for me, followed later by Guild Wars.
@ecanada Early UO was so good. They don’t make em like that anymore.
The original Quake mod, Team Fortress!
@norb They’ve still got the QuakeCon here in Dallas every year.
LORD (Legend of the Red Dragon) that I ran on my multi user BBS in the 90’s. Although you played alone, you could chat with other players in real time and get strategy tips.
I’m too old…
@fultonmartin Nope. I was around 40 when I played my first online game!
Guild Wars
Descent, Starcraft, and Halo LAN parties were the best times in the 90’s and 2000’s
These games aren’t early at all. Tradewars, SRE, BRE, Doom2, etc…
First big MMO I played was EverQuest I voted that as best since it was the first and helped establish the genre. That’s where I cut my MMO teeth for the most part as well. Though, my first all-in MMO was World of Warcraft, which I still play occasionally.
@Targaryen It wasn’t the first by any means. It did help establish the genre, though.
@Limewater Ah, that makes sense I didn’t play any of the other before that then. I was a console gamer to start, EQ got me to move over to PC.
Played DOOM over a 14.4 modem with zero lag, before that were MUDs…Archipelago and then Tempora Heroica
Damn I’m old…
/giphy DOOM
TC’s RB6 Siege
@wareagleaJ1 Early???
@zinimusprime Dang. Didn’t even see early. For me then Gears of War.
@wareagleaJ1 No problemo, just having fun. I could never get into Gears, but I always liked the visuals.
I met my wife on EverQuest nearly 20 years ago. Obviously it has my vote. Fennin Ro represent!
@DJ I know so many people who met their current spouses in the (few) MMOs that were around at that time. I know of three couples from Asheron’s Call alone (including my husband and I). So…Morningthaw, represent!
Ok, I was told Unreal Tournament isn’t old enough, so let’s reach Waaaay back. I was cleaning out some files last week, and I found my Kali license, How many people remember Kali?
/giphy Neopets
@tnhillbillygal Not even close to what I wanted but too magnificent to change.
Let’s try an image.
/image Neopets
Does Sid Meyer’s Alpha Centauri count? It had online multiplayer, technically.
Star Wars Galaxies, before that weird revamp
Halo / Halo 2 - cuz it’s early for console gaming and I’m not a PC gamer…
@zinimusprime ooohhh…xbox. Such wonderful memories of a simpler multiplayer time.
Well, I played one of the earliest, Legends of Future Past (Wikipedia link), and it was fantastic. Text based MUD w/ a pretty small community of great folks. Role playing was never something I was entirely comfortable with, but the players, GMs and devs who played the game were fully committed. It was incredibly imaginative and immersive.
However, my favorite multiplayer of all time was the original Star Wars Battlefront - both I & II (DICE rebooted the game and made a mess of it, like everything they touch). I continued playing SWBFII on my PS2 until they took the servers off line, after 10 years, in 2015. Best shooter(s) ever.
I’ve never played one.
I’ve been gaming since pong, and was questing over ARPAnet in college with guys who were writing their own code. I still play, and on Fallout 4 and Borderlands (1,2,Pre) have every Steam achievement that doesn’t require playing with anyone else. Tried Doom, but all the cheating drove me away. I just can’t stand playing with anyone else. Except golf. Golf and cart games. My wife and I golf and play driving games, but that’s it for any multi-player hoo-ha. (take that for old!) (and stay off my lawn)
I played java based habbo hotel back early 2000s
Silent Death Online
Warcraft 3 custom game lobbies
@ThomasF Does DotA count as “early”?
I had pong does that count. You could play by yourself or have a friend over to play against. There was no internet
None of those are early online games, ROFL, they had graphics!
Back in the days of dial-up and bbs’ - MUDs were where it was at!
@Cerridwyn There’s a couple of comments near the start about MUDs. They were the best!
Also, Serious Sam online deathmatch was the first online shooter I ever got into. Had all kinds of fun with that. Even ran a Serious Sam focused website, Gamemecca for a while back in the day.
C&C, a.k.a. COMMAND AND CONQUER. Unless you were one of the Unreal Tournament pansies.
@mythereal Age of empires, unless you were one of those C&C pansies
I just discovered Gang Beasts is finally available on Xbox One!