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Online Multiplayer Nostalgia Trip
9 years ago
I have got, all of a sudden, all nostalgic this morning so I thought I might write this down and maybe get your own experiences too. I love my video games and I can say I am obsessed for sure, so much so as to have gone as far as to get a university degree in it. I still remember fondly looking back at key moments, playing on the Atari when we went to my family's friends house and sneaking into my uncle's computer room to play DOS games on the PC. I remember truly falling in love with the idea of gaming with Age of Empires (1997) and when I play the original even today I still keep my rose tinted glasses.
I was slow with the uptake on the multiplayer front as my family wasn't the fastest to buy into the 56k dial up modems with the 1 penny per minute cost. I recalled dabbling with Age of Empires 2 (1999) multiplayers but I struggled to get around the MSN Gaming Zone. It wasn't until Age of Mythology (2002) where I remember the real magic of online play.
I remember sitting in the family computer room and seeing the multiplayer button on the main menu. I recalled my doubt that the dial up modem and my lack of online knowledge would prevent it all from working but I tried it. Two buttons appears, "online" and "LAN/IP" and my 15 year old mind was already confused at this point. I hesitantly clicked "online" (wise choice) and then it started to automatically patch the game. My heart raced seeing the update bar creep across the bottom before it sent me to the lobby. The simple interface of the lobby made me felt accomplished and I played my first game online with other real people. I became aware the thrill of playing with people who can do moves the AI cannot do and I leapt for joy knowing the simple dial up modem could handle it all right ... until the phone rang.
I remember the joy of playing other real people. I became aware that my Greeks getting crushed by a Norse Rush from someone in the wide world. I recall calling out to my mother proclaiming with glee "Look mum, I am playing against real people."
So, what about you guys, do you have memories where you realized for the first time you were playing with other real people, what were they?
I was slow with the uptake on the multiplayer front as my family wasn't the fastest to buy into the 56k dial up modems with the 1 penny per minute cost. I recalled dabbling with Age of Empires 2 (1999) multiplayers but I struggled to get around the MSN Gaming Zone. It wasn't until Age of Mythology (2002) where I remember the real magic of online play.
I remember sitting in the family computer room and seeing the multiplayer button on the main menu. I recalled my doubt that the dial up modem and my lack of online knowledge would prevent it all from working but I tried it. Two buttons appears, "online" and "LAN/IP" and my 15 year old mind was already confused at this point. I hesitantly clicked "online" (wise choice) and then it started to automatically patch the game. My heart raced seeing the update bar creep across the bottom before it sent me to the lobby. The simple interface of the lobby made me felt accomplished and I played my first game online with other real people. I became aware the thrill of playing with people who can do moves the AI cannot do and I leapt for joy knowing the simple dial up modem could handle it all right ... until the phone rang.
I remember the joy of playing other real people. I became aware that my Greeks getting crushed by a Norse Rush from someone in the wide world. I recall calling out to my mother proclaiming with glee "Look mum, I am playing against real people."
So, what about you guys, do you have memories where you realized for the first time you were playing with other real people, what were they?
We had no clue what it was or how to use it, but Dad said it was a top of the line console and a special from Target. So we, my two sisters, my brother, and my silly 10 year old self, sat down and ventured into the world of creating our own Miis. Of course mine looked like a party balloon strapped to a pissant body, but I didn't care. I wanted to play!
We began on Wii Sports, four player tennis, because that was all inclusive and it required zero skill on our part. All it took was a little fly swatting and we were good to go. As we played, the competition increased exponentially, boiling down to Ad-in, or a point away from my team winning. I swung my remote back, launched the pixelated ball in the air AND....
...smacked the ever loving fuck out of my brother's nose because I'd failed to follow the safety regulations of being an arm's length away from my partner. My remote slipped, he went down, controller bounced off my sister's head and I won the game with two injuries sustained by a flick of the wrist. I was a Wii God.
Of course, I am talking about Halo: Combat Evolved. We spent hours together playing through the co-op campaign. I loved the story and enjoyed the game play. I wanted to know so much more about this universe; a trend that continued until the 343 split and the lore retcon.
I still have fond memories of multiplayer as well, though my most enjoyable moments in Blood Gulch weren't of combat, but what we called "Warthog Wars". We would smash into each other at high speeds and because the warthogs were indestructible and had some wonky physics someone would normally end up launched incredibly high into the air, cartwheeling in a hilarious fashion. Maybe that doesn't sound too exciting, but it became something of a tradition to play WHW every time we started up that game.
Online multiplayer is more murky and not as memorable. My first multiplayer game was probably Halo 2 and I never really grew attached to it even though I played it a lot. Something I couldn't well articulate at the time bothered me. Though I have better idea's of why I dislike Halo 2's multiplayer (and campaign overall), I'm not here to rant. So, I will spare you the wall of text you never asked for. If I was to pick the first online multiplayer game that meant a lot to me, it would be 2007's Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare. I still feel to this day that it is the most fairly balanced of the CoD MPs and I will still play it every once in a while.
I was a dumbass in middle school trying to play games like starcraft broodwar and such, and I generally failed a whole bunch trying to play RTS online. Not until Warcraft III did I become competent vs other humans. My online multiplayer experience really improved with World of Warcraft, where in vanilla I made some buddies and had a good time.
Played DotA, mods, etc. The rest is unimportant history.