What got you into MMOs?

[fatelinka]

With the hustle and bustle of PSO2 I got thinking about how I even got into MMOs. The answer was not Phantasy Star Online, heck I didnt even know about Phantasy Star until PSU. What got me into MMOs wasnt even a MMO, it was a simulated one called Dot Hack infection. After loggin hours into it I dreamed of a game just like this. Disapointed just like many Dot Hack fans are, theres no real The "World" coming out. But I found Phantasy Star and now love it.

So tell me forum, what got you into MMOs?

[Reksanden]

Growing up near my bro, who played Everquest VERY often.

[HeartBreak301]

A bunch of my friends and I started playing Runescape back in fifth grade, looking back that must have been around 2001 now.

[CelestialBlade]

Ragnarok Online, back in its alpha days (before 2nd jobs were even a thought). A bunch of my friends on a forum I used to frequent (when I was...geez, 15 I guess) got to playing it and the idea of raising my own avatar that could interact with practically the entire world was absolutely fascinating to me, and I was hooked. Aside from my birthday and getting my driver's license, RO is about all I did that summer :lol:

My brother bought PSO for GC not long after, so it kinda helped me get into MMOs as a whole I guess :wacko:

[ashley50]

simply...PSU.

[Randomness]

PSO pretty much.

[Chik'Tikka]

PSU Xbox live demo, ran for years for free before closing in 2009, played PSU 360 off and on ever sice as well as several F2P MMOs+^_^+

[Palle]

I, too, wish I could play The World, but UO was what got me into network games.

[Outrider]

Mother-flippin' Graal.

Or Dragon Court, not sure which one I started first.

[BIG OLAF]

Diablo/II/LoD back when I was a kid. Though I really wouldn't call those "MMOs", that's the best thing I can figure.

[DayDreamer]

The first mmo i ever played was called secret of the solstice from outspark which is basicly their version of Ragnarok Online. I left eventually and found nexon, the rest is history.

How exactly I came across outspark I cant remember..

Random side note, I was told the people behind .hack used Phantasy Star Online as reference material.

[fatelinka]

They did actually.

"The developers looked to a number of MMORPGs such as Phantasy Star Online, Ultima Online, and Final Fantasy XI for inspiration."

[VANNO]

When I was moving away my friends and I wanted a way to stay connected. One of my friend suggested we join a online game so we could talk to each other. Though we didn't join an MMO we did join a forum. A few years latter we all became MMO junkies lol.

[Mike]

Guy at my part time job was talking about Everquest and it sounded interesting so I picked it up. Everquest is also the first time I ever installed new hardware in a computer ever. I needed to get a new video card to get it to run. I had played around with MUDs and MOs before that but Everquest was my first MMO.

[Ketchup345]

Diablo/II/LoD back when I was a kid. Though I really wouldn't call those "MMOs", that's the best thing I can figure.That's what started me into Online RPGs.

Guild Wars, though not a true MMO, ruled my life for longer than I care to admit.

I think WoW was the first real MMO I ever played. Then I played a few levels into LotRO and EQ2, but those didn't seem to last.

[Polly]

I've had various stints with EverQuest, Shadowbane, Dark Age of Camelot, and WoW over the years, but honestly they never stuck with me the way PSO did. It's largely due to the fact that I really find fantasy settings to be relatively samey and uninspired, despite the lore associated with them. PSO/PSO2 scratches the itch for my sci-fi leanings.

[Peejay]

I have a question....

Would Neopets ever count? Consider it's web based, but has a lot of RPG features and extends to... well, a lot of people.

If not that, my first had to be a homemade Kirby MMO before anything else.

[HeartBreak301]

Would Neopets ever count?

I don't think it counts, but man I remember that site, and (I think) my login info, lets see if I can pull up a time badge on my account.

Dayuuuum that was a long time ago, 4,045 days in fact going off of my first pet's age.

"Started Playing: April 13, 2001"

http://images.neopets.com/images/shields/11_0_years.gif

[NoiseHERO]

Mother-flippin' Graal.

Or Dragon Court, not sure which one I started first.

Oh my fucking god, I also started with graal...

[Jezika]

Yeah, I'm going to have to agree with OP here.. It was .//Hack for me as well.
I don't think I even thought of MMOs before I watched it. Then I discovered FlyFF. It made me feel like I was in The World.

[Sinue_v2]

Uh, well I'm not really "into" MMOs, but I do play them on occasion. The first one I tried was Shadow of Yserbius way back on the INN in 1992, that is, if you don't count Legend of the Red Dragon back on the old local renegade BBS. Neither one was really "MMO", and LORD was more like a single-player RPG in which your progress was ranked against other players - but you could also leave messages/IM, trade items, rob other players, form alliances/PVP... etc. The number of players online simultaneously was limited by how many nodes, or separate individual phone lines the sysop payed to have installed in their house and running into their computer. Shadow of Yserbius was quite a bit bigger in scope and number of players, and had graphics, but was still basically an instanced dungeon crawler.

So I guess PSO was the first online RPG which "got me into MMOs" since it's the first one to really fit the criteria of "massive" and which I've played consistently for any serious length of time. Played a bit with FFXI, WoW, EQoA, Perfect World, and a few others... but never really stuck with them longer than a month or two.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x1a9wJO9oao


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=asv4wavilnM

[Keilyn]

With the hustle and bustle of PSO2 I got thinking about how I even got into MMOs. The answer was not Phantasy Star Online, heck I didnt even know about Phantasy Star until PSU. What got me into MMOs wasnt even a MMO, it was a simulated one called Dot Hack infection. After loggin hours into it I dreamed of a game just like this. Disapointed just like many Dot Hack fans are, theres no real The "World" coming out. But I found Phantasy Star and now love it.

So tell me forum, what got you into MMOs?

You mean "Action Oriented" RPGs. That is what PSO, PSO-2, PSU actually are. SEGA defines them as MMORPGs, but the majority of MMORPG gamers have their definitions as listed below:

"MMORPGs are titles in which persistent worlds are created where all players exist except in instances. Characters are created which serve functional roles in parties. The major roles are Tank, Healer, Damage Dealer and Nuker. They form the basic class system with the following scheme to battles:

Tanks attack a target first, absorbing damage. At 80% Enemy HP, All Debuff using characters fire their debuff skill while Tank uses Aggro skill to keep enemy attacking him. Then all Damage Dealers attack, then at 60% HP, Nukers attack and destroy the enemy. All this time, the healer only heals the tank.

Most MMORPGs have FPS controls to move and actions are done with keyboards or mice. They are notorious to the inexperience for believing they are just point and click games. They are games where player action is not directly controlled, like in action games where attacks are direct and automatically hotkeyed.

MMO-Style deals with leveling, grinding through quests or instances, eventually guilds are needed to beat the toughest of toughest enemies and even involving in PvP to gain the best equips. Players learn skills like Pet Raising and Crafting. As they level they gain a lot more freedom in exploring the world.

MMORPGs may either be F2P or P2P, or they can be in Sandboxed form or in Carnival form. In MMORPGs multiple parties tend to work together and eventually build up to a larger size.

Aside from average parties, there are RAID parties too.

I liked PSO/PSU because it did not have a lot of the elements that MMORPGs had and it drew me towards the games, but I also realized that in making the game in the way it did, that over time it became saturated. Not only did SEGA sacrifice the appealing things to MMORPGs that make them good (and bad) but the saturation actually made it so that its more beneficial to the gamer to raise and fully grind a character in an MMORPG in the long run if they so chose to dedicate full days to playing PSO.

PSO and PSU were neat in the sense you did not have to play for long periods of time to level, find items or obtain satisfaction. MMORPGs start decently, they suck in the mid-levels, but they start to shine at high levels and end game to the point that it becomes worthwhile.

The downfall to PSU (as an example) is that once all characters are maxed out with max equipment, no challenge exists since the game is set up that allows any class to succeed in a map as long as they have max equipment and stuff + grinds.

In MMORPGs, maxing out a class still gets you killed faster than Falz hitting the party with Grants. No Joke, you can be maxed out and enter a high level RAID map and in ONE or TWO hits, get killed as a spellcaster. :)

On another note, MMORPGs have become more serious in attempting to create lovers systems, couple systems and even marriage systems between players.

Calling PSO/PSU an MMORPG is like a COP saying "I'm a firefighter" and the recipient to the conversation saying "yeah, even though I see a badge, a gun and a hat, you're a fighfighter because you said so and I am incapable of ascertaining the truth from my own eyes and afraid to be critical"

^_^

[darkante]

I haven´t gotten into any MMOs.

I´ve played some Diablo I/II with a friend when he introduced it to me.
The closest would be a trial run on Lineage 2.

Otherwise, only PSO got me really interested into Online rpgs.

[blace]

And as usual, you go off on a tangent explaining things further than it really needs. At least post something in those walls of text that adheres to the topic.

For me, it was RuneScape back in the day. Played that for a few years and moved to Flyff, which due to updates up to version 9, was a fun experience. From then on, I've been aquainting myself with other MMO's that were loosely based on Keilyn's description and found those easier to get myself engaged in, instead of choosing a predetermined class with specific strengths and weaknesses. Ultimately that lead me to Dragon Nest, which did follow the traditional route of MMO's, but the lack of costumer support on Nexon's part, made me put the game down indefinately. What had kept me going for in between my time with Flyff and Dragon Nest was a mass racing game that has been taken down due to internal dispute between the publisher and developer. Since then, I haven't played much of anything, except for the occasional Minecraft and S4 League.

[Mike]

Legend of the Red Dragon back on the old local renegade BBS. Neither one was really "MMO", and LORD was more like a single-player RPG in which your progress was ranked against other players - but you could also leave messages/IM, trade items, rob other players, form alliances/PVP... etc. The number of players online simultaneously was limited by how many nodes, or separate individual phone lines the sysop payed to have installed in their house and running into their computer.

Epic Fight LORD Legend of the Red Dragon -
YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x1a9wJO9oao)

Legend of the Red Dragon! I loved that game. I used to be one of those dicks that paid the inn keeper to kill sleeping players.

[Katrina]

Watching my sister play EQOA. She used to make me type chat messages with the kb hooked up to the PS2 while she controlled the character with the controller. Eventually I bought my own copy of the game, and PS2.

[Crazyleo]

For me, I started my online gaming with Diablo 2. Once I did everything possible in the game, I saw other people playing a game called Dark Age of Camelot. I decided to give it a shot and instantly became addicted to MMOs in general.

From DAoC, I moved to City of Heroes and back to DAoC then back to CoH. I've also experimented with EQ and WoW, but couldn't really get into them because of the social aspects of those games.

[Milla]

Final Fantasy XI was the first and last MMO I'll play. Ugh waiting hours for a party invite as a summoner was not fun. >.>

[Emp]

PSU on the PS2. Hours of gameplay after school, no homework done!

[Tetsaru]

I was already starting to get into RPG's, mostly the Final Fantasy series, and then some of my friends showed me PSO, FF11, Well of Souls, Runescape, and other stuff. It took me and my folks a while to get an internet connection (ohboyee dial-up), and then much later, I actually got a computer that could decently handle games, and then I started playing PSU. From there, I briefly played FF11, and later got into FF14, which I continue to play now. *points to signature*


Final Fantasy XI was the first and last MMO I'll play. Ugh waiting hours for a party invite as a summoner was not fun. >.>

I feel your pain. One of the main reasons why I didn't stick with FF11 was because it took forever to do anything... along with the inability to solo most of the game, monsters chasing you until you zoned or died, having to pay mages for teleports, jobs being unbalanced, etc. :rolleyes:

I like FF14 a lot better, personally. Compared to other games, it still has a lot of problems, but it has gotten much better in recent patches, plus it got rid of most of the things I hated about FF11. That, and one of my irl friends is an officer in the linkshell I'm in. :razz:

[Randomness]

I was never able to find a decent linkshell when I played FFXIV, so I just stopped playing eventually. There was barely anything to aim for besides just more levels/better gear while solo. (As opposed to them having a bunch of things you could do in groups)

[Outrider]

Guy at my part time job was talking about Everquest and it sounded interesting so I picked it up. Everquest is also the first time I ever installed new hardware in a computer ever. I needed to get a new video card to get it to run. I had played around with MUDs and MOs before that but Everquest was my first MMO.

Oh damn, now that I think of it I was probably fooling around in MUSHs before either of the other games I mentioned.

Then again, I can only remember one MUSH in which I never actually had my character accepted, so I just hung out in the guest areas. So would that even count? Hmm...


If not that, my first had to be a homemade Kirby MMO before anything else.

Whobudawha?

[Gothrobot]

My first video game ever was Diablo 1 (watched my mom play it) after playing it and starcraft as a child, just grew to love the internet and came across PSO at a friend's house. Played that, WoW, and just stayed on the internet ever since.

[Palle]

...so I just hung out in the guest areas. So would that even count? Hmm...
Ryu20.

Never forget.