It was 2001, I finally got a cable modem installed, so I felt i was prepared for online gaming. (refused to do it using a modem)

So I went to a retail store (Egghead, and they actually carried a lot of PC games back then) and asked what did they have.

Clerk sold me EQ1 for some bargin price, and on the way out, tossed in a free trial disk for Lineage 1.

Well, my video card wasn't capable of running EQ 1 (didn't realize that at the time, thought it was the game's fault or something) so I uninstalled it and loaded up Lineage 1.

Well, L1 had very low graphic req's so it ran great on my Hercules graphic card (anyone remember them?) and I got started on my first MMO.

I only lasted about 6 months there, so I bought DAOC, ran into the video issue, but...this time their support told me what the issue was so I upgraded to one of their approved cards and I was on my way for a 2.5+ year ride.

I grew up playing a lot of single player games and never got really involved in any MMO's because I didnt even know about them...

Until one fateful day when I bought Dungeon Siege out of curiosity then found out that it was playable online..that's how I found out about MMO and all about it...

Since then, I've been playing/testing/trying out all kinds of MMOS out there...espcially mmorpgs cuz those are the kinds that I tend to enjoy the most!

Played:  like at least 3/4 of the games that are on the game list right now =p

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I co-ran an AD&D group that met and played together weekly for many years. One day I showed up at my friend's house (he and I shared DM'ing duties and rotated on-and-off every 3 or 4 weeks) and he had his computer fired up beta-testing the original EQ (actually, I think it may have been Alpha at this point).

Well, to say the least he and I were both extremely anal about "attention to detail" type stuff. After a few weeks he had gained a reputation with the devs as someone who provided excellent feedback and was a valuable tester. When they thanked him, he suggested they invite me to test as well, which they did. Bingo... I was hooked. Tested EQ until release and played it for 6 years thereafter.

I was friends with the editor of a gaming magazine back in the 90s. He said, "Hey, you know the Ultima series? There's a beta online version right now, we're having fun."

I said, "Uh, I don't know, I don't much like the Ultima series... I'm more of a Bioware / Black Isle kinda gamer."

So he went on to say, "Doesn't matter, man, give it a go! Didn't you like MUDs, way back when you were running a 286 or some such? Think of this as a next-gen graphical version of them, with more freedom and a load of stuff going on."

Yeah, I guess that sums it up :)

It was in the fall of 1996 and I was doing the MUDs back then when someone said check out  this new type of graphical MUD called Ultimate Online that was due to be released in the fall of 1997.     I was a college student and what little time I had between work, my job and partying was spent gaming - a few stolen  hours a week back then.     Before UO though I did play games like Gemstone III, back when everything was text based and we had no graphics.  We had the words on the screen and our imagination to create the worlds we played in.   One thing about a text based game.  You learned to type really super fast!  LOL!

Originally posted by Teala

One thing about a text based game.  You learned to type really super fast!  LOL!

So true! Haha... Go left, jump over log, look at trash....look trash...look at trash can.... Dammit what is that thing!

Heard about my first mmo in magazine years before launch. my first mmo was star wars galaxies in july 2004. i'm glad to have played pre-cu days. sad though years of reading and then enjoyed swg for 5 years and now i see it dying. it's like watching your kids be born and die you ask your self why did it have to end this way.

My first MMO was runescape. I had previously been a pretty big console gamer and never really played any games on PC until some friends of mine introduced me to RS, and this was way back when it was still 2d. I acctually played RS for quite a few years, even becomming a member and all, and then i realized that there were better MMO's out there. My search then began for a high quality MMO with minimal monthly fees if possible. At the time, WoW had been calling my name for a while, but i just couldn't justify the $15 monthly fee back then. I also looked a bit at Dungeons & Dragons, but monthly fees kept me from purchasing it. I soon found Guild Wars and have been a steady player and big fan of GW for over 4 years now and still play it some to this day. My experience with GW led me to try out other MMO's, even the ones with monthly fees. So i have now played WoW, WAR, AoC, and am now trying out DDO (not to mention other countless--and horrible--f2p mmos). Enjoying DDO as of now, but its really just a way for me to waste time until Guild Wars 2 comes along. Still hop on gw now and then for some of that PvP fun though.

There was a tiny two inch by 4 inch article in pc gamer on uo way back in the day about the alpha test. I signed up for beta and never looked back.

Leg3nd4ry1: Many people couldn't justify paying a monthly fee of $15 to play online, but now its more of an industry standard. Kind of like how people are hesitant about F2P games, when we finally start getting more high quality F2P games we can start seeing a trend of people becoming less and less against the payment system.

There was a demo of EQ on a magazine CD, so I fired up my dial-up modem and gave it a whirl.

I'm in the "Friend/Relative" category.

I was a tried and true Wizardry, Bard's Tale, Civilization, and etc player. I had tried briefly UO and Meridian, but they really didn't appeal to me. I played a MUD from work at the time, but it was just something to do. Go north, go east, fight bear, get loot, go east...

Then, a friend of mine told me to check out Everquest on the internet. I checked out their website and thought it looked really cool. It had 3d graphics and was going to open in the next year or so. So, opening day, myself and a few thousand people tried over and over to log in... lol, those were the days. I think we got in maybe 2 hours playtime that month. After a couple months, things ironed out and I played, and played, and had a hissy fit when they raised the monthly to $15, omg highway robbery. Even though I don't play Everquest anymore, except for a 1 year hiatus after quitting Everquest, I've played MMO's ever since.

Meridian59 and UO I just stumbled on, being a gamer and a curious one at that I just found out about those games myself.

Now Star Wars Galaxies is what I consider my first MMORPG experiance in the way I hoped MMORPG would evolve, but it was a online friend that really introduced me to the game, at that time I was heavy into Medal of Honor Allied Assault multiplayer, we had a clan and mixed with US&EU players, we became very close in terms of online friendship and we where hard to beat, but it also was a time when internet became more mainstream and people who couldn't really play a game like MoH/AA started to us cheats, at that time even though we really where good gamers/players started to acuse anyone who was actualy good at being cheats, a few of hte clan really hated those new breed of players and started looking for other games, so my online friends Skyshark often came into Moh/AA or on teamspeak/msn at the time to speak about his alpha exp. with SWG. He kept saying how awesome it was and that we really needed to try the game as soon we could enter. I he that gave me acces to his account and I fel in love the minute I walked into SWG as the game gave me so much freedom, it was something that both visually and in terms of playstyle was something I was looking for for a long time aswell it being a game that reminds me of my childhood where I was and still am a Star Wars fan. It wasn't untill CB I could enter the game with my own account and since sticked with the game till the NGE.