What are your gaming experiences in your life so far?

[Zarcata]

Meaning, which games had triggered some experiential or positive/negative events or were generally some kind of memorable experience?

Especially with our developers, I would be very interested to know which games they played and which of them they found good/bad and why.
 

So, I'll start.
 

I got my start "back then" with Baldur's Gate. It wasn't the first game (that was Tetris) but it had more to it than just being a game. I found it very atmospheric to walk around in a cozy tavern, explore the world and collect things. However, I noticed that over time the game no longer appealed to me, as it was pre-set and you only had one choice, but it didn't always match what I had in mind.

After that, I quickly moved on to world of Warcraft (again, there were many games in between, but WoW is the only one worth mentioning here).
 

It fascinated me that the world had been so big, it had taken a really long time to travel from a to B, to look at the world, to distribute skill points, equipment, to be able to improve constantly, to be able to defeat gradually also stronger and stronger opponents. For lack of alternatives, I even remained a loyal player there for more than 10 years, although I partly did not agree with many decisions at all, I built up a kind of bond with friends that you then also met in real life.
 

In between I tried to find other games, from Aion, Gw1+2, BlackDessert, Neverwinter, StarTrek Online, Rift, Wildstar, mincecraft, Sims, SimCity, ...., but I was not really satisfied.

At some point I came across ArcheAge, where I really liked the trade, economy and class system. I found the free housing system most exhilarating and of course the PvP possibilities there in raids and with your own ships on the sea to fight against others. The variety of your own group, tanks, healers, ranged fighters, spellcasters and many supporters in harmony with the ship, the ship's equipment and the tasks on board, whether the lookout, to set the sails correctly, the operation of the cannons and the steering of the ship required teamwork to the smallest detail and was extremely fun. Many great evenings passed on the high seas, whether you had lost or won a battle, the enemy factions were after the battle in Teamspeak/Discord one exchanged his experiences and helped each other in repairing the ships.
 

The game itself had extremely great potential, but was destroyed by many bad decisions to the point that there are hardly any players left in the game. After that there was a break from games, I stumbled in here and there, browsed an alpha beta or other projects and then the last games that interested me were StarCitizen (will it ever be finished?), Starbase (I don't like the Lego technology style at all) and now DualUniverse. Otherwise, there seems to be more of a gaming lull, although I would like to tie myself to a game for decades again, because it offers just what I hope for, whereby the demands have been set higher and higher over the years and you would like to see a lot of game content from many games united in one game. 

Oh what I wouldn't give for that feeling from archeage with the ships to be transferable to DualUniverse with spaceships. It would be an incredibly vivid PvP experience. At the same time I would have taken the sheer mass of housing elements from archeage or the arenas and dungeons and raids from WoW. i think something like that should be created under Metaverse then.
 

[CptLoRes]

I am at the age where I followed the 3D shooter game revolution starting with Wolfenstein then Doom, Heretic and so on culminated in the story and puzzle driven game Half-Life 1 which except from improved graphics, pretty much still represents the state of all modern FPS games. Had a run with the more competitive Counter-Strike but quickly tired of the genre.

 

Before that I did the obligatory runs of strategy games like Populus, Simcity etc. And of course the point and click genre like Monkey island, Simon the Sourcerer, Day on the tentacle, Beneath a steel sky and so on.

 

Other big games for me where Home World, Black and White and of course Second Life.

 

The last couple of years I have enjoyed the VR revolution with sim racing and lots of great VR games and experiences, including Half Life Alex to complete the circle.

[blundertwink]

This probably belongs in off-topic, but the game with the biggest impact for me was probably Neverwinter Nights -- it helped set me on a career path of software engineering and is still arguably the best toolset I've seen in a game. In a lot of ways, it was ahead of its time: player-crafted content will only become more intricate and common in the years to come (for better and worse). 

[GraXXoR]

Off topic?

 

Elite started it off for me. 
As for builders, Repton was the first taste of builder game I ever played. 
 

Freelancer, Frontier, Federation of Free Traders (FOFT) All tickled the space itch but were all buggy as hell, IIRC. 
 

In the 90s I moved away from space games (were there any good ones?) and was into turn based games and real time strategy games like Dune 2. 
 

in the 2000s it was sim city 4 mostly. 
never really got into Eve though I remember seeing it constantly advertised and played a few free trials. 
 

I got back into space games only because of getting addicted to Galaxy on Fire around 2012 and wanting more. 
 

There I discovered the kickstarters for Elite Dangerous and Star Citizen and a few years later the arrival of NMS. 
 

All three which I still play. 
 

I suspect this is a fairly typical pattern for people who like space games, pushing half a century in the age department. 

[Sabretooth]

80"s-90's

-I had an atari 800xl and after that a Atari Mega ST2. Played random games.

-Then on a Commodore Amiga 500 with 1 mb memory my favourite game was Sensible World of Soccer.

-PSX with Fifa 98 road to world cup which had almost every team on the globe cuz of no player licence's

 

1999-now

First into the rts genre

-Total Annihilation

-C&C red alert 2

 

Then into city building

-Sim City 4

-Cities XL

-Cities Skylines

 

Voxelbuilding

-Galactic Junk League (robocraft with spaceships, this got me into voxelbuilding ships and I still got the same designs)

-Avorion (To prepare myself for DU. i build the biggest playable mothership with an 'interior')

-Space Engineers (to prepare myself for DU with more complex systems)

-DU

 

So I pretty much love building bases, cities and ships (and yes, im building a football stadium in this game)

DU had it all until 0.23 then it all went downwards imo with this game.

Edited January 14, 2022 by Sabretooth
Added pre-pc games

[aliensalmon]

I probably had a different route to Dual Universe than most of you. I rarely played space games (or even building ones) before playing DU. I started with cutesy platformers like Mario and Kirby. The one space game I loved when I was younger was StarFox 64. Over time, I discovered RPGs and began playing those. Then after that, with the help of the Internet I became exposed to MMORPGs. My first MMO was MapleStory and I mainly clung to eastern RPGs like Aura Kingdom, Blade and Soul, and Phantasy Star Online 2. I also started to be interested in virtual worlds like Second Life and IMVU.

 

Why would I then be interested in DU then, you may ask? I remember growing up and even now, I loved science fiction movies, TV shows, and books. I wanted to replicate the experience, that "sense of wonder" I had when experiencing those stories. Now, I could have just settled with another sci-fi game but I guess they could not give me this feeling I've been searching for. At the same token I love virtual worlds like Second Life, as I mentioned before. I loved the openness and freedom of it all. While browsing through a Second Life forum I found out about a game called Dual Universe which promised things like an open-world, space exploration, and building. I decided to give it a try when I got a good computer, and here I am now!

[GraXXoR]

mistaken post. sorry,

[sHuRuLuNi]

Started in the 80s on the ZX Spectrum, Atari 800XL, C-64 ... later of course 286, 386 and so on (PCMR of course), all the games of the 80s, 90s and beginning of 00s. Didn't actually partake in the MMO craze of the 00s. I only tried a few MMOs but wasn't into them. DU was the first MMO that I backed from the beginning and of course not because it is an MMO, but because it is a space game - and as I have explained many times I love Space and Exploration.

And of course I am STILL WAITING for the "perfect" Space Exploration game and no, NMS etc. are not these ... they all use proc. generation to create repeating patterns of terrain etc - and proc. generation sadly is a killer for engaging and interesting exploration ...

 

Proc.Generation is, using an analogy I used in one of my NMS videos, like you creating a bunch of QR Codes. They all are different, but when you put them all next to each other you get a blob of noise which is boring and repetitive --- no large, unique terrain features, interesting vistas to explore, things to discover. Just repetitive, uninteresting, featureless dead wasteland.

 

 

[Physics]

I'll only mention the MMO's I invested time in otherwise the list is too long ?

 

Star Wars galaxies. No game can get you so involved with every aspect it can offer like that game did. From working towards building your own shop that sells all the top quality items in your profession to the mind stomping grind and sense of achievement in unlocking your Jedi character only to grind again in secret to keep the bounty hunters off your back. ?Many fond memories from start to game end.

 

Planetside. Fights like no other and was a true MMO war. This game had its own problem in the end with the introduction of BFR's but will always be a game that made history.

 

WoW. Was always fun and had untold amount of hours sunk in. From raids and preparing for raids to the painful grind to Grand Marshal in the pvp battlegrounds (Played Alliance) and duping gankers in to getting a gadgetzan bruiser beating.

 

SWTOR. Like WoW but had that Star Wars fix to it.

 

Planetside 2. Similar to PS1 and had its better parts but just had somthing missing what PS1 had, could never fully put my finger on it.

 

From there i remembered SWG and needed that Sci Fi sandbox fix but did not want the uncertainty of private EMU servers. Google searched Sci Fi / space MMO and ended up here ?

 

 

[Warlander]

I would say that first it really comes down to different types of sub, ftp, p2w MMOs or hosting companies vs actual non-asian studios in which any sort of updates or the ability to change mechanics vs having a different culture of gameplay in updates that may or may not have matched with the different markets of US, EU, SEA.

 

All the game I have played have had upsides along with downsides in terms of expected game play time requirements or the fun during the downtime waiting for CDs, mana bars, etc or raids vs solo play and how much each game let your character break the game in general that led to many of the fun experiences.

 

I also think games that were full PVP vs PvE vs PvPvE also had different memorable experiences as well as bad experiences in terms of FFA loot, corpse runs, and siege mechanics that made things fun.

 

As well as the actual events most games held that were most memorable or exclusive loot that was obtained during events.

 

I played Runescape, Ultima, EQ1, Priston Tale, Ragnarok, Shadowbane, Ashrons CAll, Age of Conan, GW1, Lineage 1, Lineage 2, Guildwars 2, SWG, EvE, EQ2, Aion, Blade & Soul, Archage, Perfectworld, City of Heroes, Crowfall, Mortals Online 1&2, Neverwinter Nights Online, Bless Online, Black Desert Online, Dynasty Warriors Online, Landmark, Elder Scrolls Online, Path of Exile, Skyforge, Warframe, Fantasy Star Online, Rift, Age of Empires Online, RF Online, vindictus, Maple Story, New World, Bubble Ninja, Planetside 1&2, Ryzom,  and like 10+ other MMOs I can no longer remember.

 

It really depends on what kind of genre you want to choose. For the most part older games had more community based gameplay incusivity that required groups or raids to accomplish and keep buffs up and running in terms of PvE games that demanded long camp cycles and to me the gameplay itself wasnt that great as much as being trained by other people trying to steal your camp or a puller that just so happened to aggro a bunch of mobs. But mostly it was more about actually having the time between medding mana in which made the game since you had typically 20-30 mins between repops depending on how good your groups were or the makeup of those groups. I think the other half was basically how broken classes were and how much more you could do with skill vs whole groups of people or doing self raids or the items that later got nerfed and the clickies you had that made for fun experiences pulling and soloing whole zones.

 

I would say the downside to older PvE games was how long it took to level, how much the death penalties hurt, how much exp it took in AA points, how rare drops were or the spawns of rare mobs themselves, the corpse runs, losing bodies, the kill stealing, rivalries, raid timers, and just general monotony over the last 20+ years of endless clones that all touted "next gen" whatever that really had like 1-2 really unique features vs all the rest of the clones out there. It wasnt all bad tbh depending on how theme park or grind core it was.

 

As far as PvP games it was siging other peoples cities in which with a disciplined spec group 10 people could easily kill 100 or more people in games like shadowbane where you could just streamroll huge groups of people with stealth classes and track people down or bait more people with specced out hp/def heavy characters with damage shields and all sorts of fun things you could do. I didnt mind Full Loot, Corpse loot, durability, etc as most of those game made it such as minimal grind got you a couple days worth of battles though some games were more forgiving than others. In large though massive battles were most memorable and even being jumped was hilarious in most cases like in RF online where you could overlevel your pet and reverse jump people 10 levels higher than you or again broken classes where different classes attempting to jump you had no chance.

 

The only real downside to PvP games was always the constant breakup and shattering of guild/clans in which they constantly formed, broke up, and reformed again creating different factions of factions. Or that suddenly guild leaders would loot banks and nefarious shady things people naturally do. Losing cities or ships, or space ships was always a constant thing but typically I always had enough to keep going and never hit rock bottom. 

 

For the most part I always loved games that had goot marketplaces with low taxes or games which allwed people to buy in-game currencies and then trade that for diamonds or whatever cash shop currency via an exchange system that could be hella exploited that was by far the most fun since you could bypass much of the grind by wheeling and dealing.

 

On the reverse of that I disliked games like Aion whichi had fluxes which had content gates as it made things too each to control top tier gear simply due to some arbitrary content gate in the markets even though it was really profitable it ended up causing a lot of friction between faction members or even core group members.

 

And most of all the bane of my existance being RNG jesus cursing me with factors beyond skill or control which always made it so that if it was possible to fail it was like 99% sure it would blow up weapons, armor, epic quests, or whatever.

 

I think another main factor was growing up with MMos and gaining maturity as the years went along and seeing the same systems recycled over and over again or the same broken systems again and again with each clone that came out or games that got rushed to market via investors wanting returns in the case of conan.

 

I dont really think the the games really made it as fun as the people I played with making all the games more then they were even if they were simple or complex or the rivals or nemesis's you came across in many of the PvP games. You can say that the first MMO you played was always the most memorable but for me I would say that its the top 10 unique games where the developers actually had real vision and took chances or that back in the day each game there was nothing like each subsiquent game like UO, EQ, SB, EvE, SWG, RF, and a couple others that were cutting edge that were unlike anything that came before or since for that matter that really made the experiences fun and memorable by what each allowed you to do in game or the scale of combat that was allowed and the lag, rubberbanding, glitches, etc.

 

I can keep going but I think that pretty much sums up my experience.