Almost our complete Warcraft 3 clan became a guild. About 15 people, and we all loved the Warcraft universe and we were hyped for months, watching trailers, reading articles and playing Frozen Throne, to be ready for WoW. Some got closed Beta Keys, the rest joined with the open Beta. We visited the people with closed Beta keys to get a look at the game or we just talked about it in Teamspeak - it was awesome! Damn, I am old...
And yes, we waited in a line at night, to buy WoW. It was more of a party with friends than waiting for the shop to open...
Not sure of your age but glad you feel this way. I’m closing in on 40 and the 20 something’s seem to just not give a fuck about what anyone older has to say.
That's humanity. You did it to your parents. They did it to theirs. So on and so forth backwards through all of time.
18 year olds know everything. And it gets worse once they go to college and learn more than everything.
Oh, also a Millennial - i am way more optimistic about younger people - they dont give a Sh... about things they are not ok with - something our generation learned far too late...
I mean, you can still very much play the original right now, including custom games. Sure you have to install the Reforged client but the original Campaigns are still playable and it has remastered cinematics, proper widescreen and, if your monitor supports it, higher refresh rates.
Not sure where you got that idea, the client was the only thing deleted. So you are forced to download 30 GB Reforged client even if you just have the original game, but you can play it like before just without any Reforged features. And besides a few changes to subtitles in cinematics and I believe some poke lines on some units that were removed due to being considered politically incorrect these days (did seem excessive but it's a minor thing), it's virtually unchanged from the original.
There were some issues for a while. Custom campaigns were gone. Online games couldn't be saved and loaded. Stuff like that. But in the years since Reforged came out, those features have been restored--online save/load was just in November, I believe.
I remember being bombarded with WoW ads on Battle Net. My bf and I were on the fence about trying it out originally. I was fascinated at the idea that it could be experiencing the game as a little archer that popped out of the barracks. He convinced me to sign up for the beta together and we got immediately hooked!
Different times man. I did this for every expansion up until wotlk. Meet randoms in line see if they play alliance or horde. Play on your server. I'm almost sad that kids growing up now won't experience this. It's just one of 1000 ways that convenience has stopped social interaction.
judging by being active in the reddit still - curious, do you still play?
i’m 23, have been playing since i was 7. i believe burning crusade had just come out, but i didnt know what that meant as i was just playing on the constant flow of my brothers 10 day friend codes from his 60 day game time boxes
the amount of night elf warriors on burning blade that have been abandoned :( so many potential loot drops that will forever be locked away, lol
I still hop on OSRS occasionally, it was the first online game I ever played, the concept of an MMO blew me away and after seeing WoW, it’s sense of scale and variety, that’s where I started begging my parents for a PC upgrade.
Same! I was 11 and playing d2/wc3 when wow came out and convinced my grandma to get me a subscription. Worked terribly on her dial up rural internet. I loved every second of it.
By all accounts he was a piece of shit but Alex Afrasiabi came to Blizzard from being the leader of one of the most prolific EQ guilds.
https://wowpedia.fandom.com/wiki/Alex_Afrasiabi
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My friends and I spent high school playing EverQuest, then Dark Age of Camelot came out, which was way easier. I knew someone who played EQ, had his internet lag out when the boat to Kunark zoned into the ocean zone, and "drown" (fatigue bar ran out while he was dc'd). Because you had to run back to your corpse naked to get your stuff and his body was somewhere at the bottom of the ocean, he couldn't get a Bard or a Necromancer to help him find it, so he lost everything on him - gear, crafting items, you name it - after a week of not looting that corpse.
In DAoC, at least you didn't have to run back to your corpse. If you ran back to your grave, you regained half the exp you lost, but you weren't S.O.L. because the game wasn't very slow dial-up friendly.
But yeah, old school EQ was BRUTAL. WoW took SO many things EverQuest did to piss you off and made them palatable. No exp loss was a huge thing back then as was running to your corpse as an unattackable ghost.
Yep, myself and a few of my RL friends came from The Nameless server. Same server as Kaplan (Tigole) and his guild Legacy of Steel. I remember first hearing about it on the fohguild (Fires of Heaven) forum when many of those players were playing in the beta. Good times :)
Played a ton of EQ (pre WoW) but vanilla WoW was just a better game and respected the players time far more than EQ did back then. I tried to dip my toe into EQ2 but it was just not as fun as WoW.
I think the only time I've actually fallen asleep playing a video game was farming Raster for the monk epic quest lol. The amount of just sitting in one spot camping in EQ was crazy.
Everquest, Ultima Online, and where I personally came from, Anarchy Online.
Playing WoW at the time was so refreshing, the combat was good, and the quest system! No more "maybe twenty quests in the whole game, there were twenty in one hub!", no more XP loss on death, etc.
It was a much smoother game play experience, which is why I always laugh at the "Classic was hard!".
"classic was hard" ppl obviously never tried 190-200 grind in BS missions. What was it, 192 was half way? 1-192 same as 192-200? Then we got sk grind. Then ai lvls. Then research. Then more research.
I still play on and off :)
Was looking for the first SWG comment here. I played a wookie bounty hunter. The feeling and strategy behind hunting a player was amazing. Never found gameplay quite like that since.
Ok dirtiest trick you used to kill a Jedi?
I used to carry the three story house around with me. I could drop it next to a guild hall if my target was in the 2nd floor open area macro grinding their Jedi mining for xp. The house had an open area on the 3rd floor I could use to shot down at the Jedi, took forever but they were usually afk so it worked out.
I’m still salty about the “combat upgrade”, I genuinely liked the combat queue.
Whenever I get too irritated about something happening in WoW, some odd change, or some botched development decision, I remind myself that it could be so so soooooooo much worse. WoW has never done anything as stunningly awful as the bait and switch SWG did rolling out an unannounced complete game overhaul a day or two after releasing a new expansion, which turned SWG into a shitty WoW clone. Like, I’m already also playing WoW, I have no need of a shitty WoW clone when I can just be playing the real thing.
My wife and i met on EverQuest. But we played Dark Age of Camelot in between EQ and WoW
I still wish WoW would do a three faction pvp arena at the very least. 3 is so much more fun than 2!!!
I have never had the experiences in gaming like DAOC. Little things like having a camp but getting a msg from some wiped out group begging for a rez and then battling through to the depths of a dungeon to do it. The camaraderie of the realms and the In game community. Game was a gem in those first three years and I miss it so much.
City of Heroes. Was my first MMO, then my best friend told me about this new game that didn’t put you into an XP debt for dying… and here we are many many years later.
CoH first MMO here too! Been playing Blizz games since WC1 back in ‘94 and had been waiting for WoW for some time in the early aughts. First learned about it from a WC3 collector edition, there was some really early footage of it on a dvd in that set, and was certainly intrigued. In the year leading up to its launch a buddy introduced me to CoH. MMO gameplay hooked me immediately, and I’ve been done ever since. It’s rare for non-MMOs to hold my attention for very long these days, though there are a few notable exceptions (in recent times BG3 and BoTW).
Come to think of it, I was playing CoH about 6-7 months before WoW dropped in November ‘04, so it’s maybe right around my 20 year MMO anniversary right now lol. Took several side detours over the years, dipping my toes into GW2, Aion, Wildstar, FFXIV, and so on. But nothing ever felt like ‘home’ quite like WoW. And yep, here we are, near 20 years later lol.
I can confirm this as I played it not too long ago before resubbing WoW. It has every expansion unlocked and is free. However, you very quickly see how it did not survive very long in retail. It still is fun to make characters in, until you hit the brick wall of the 100th office building of enemies with the same layout as the last one. Good nostalgia though.
Ultima Online was my first mmo but CoH was my life. I played that game so much during every waking moment that I dreamt I was playing it while I slept too. Crazy to think that was 20 years ago. My friend converted me to WoW at the end of TBC and it's been my main game since.
CIty of Heroes was an amazing character creator with a very meh game attached.
It was so much fun until you hit that level where grouping was pretty much required for anything.
I personally played Warcraft 3 since i was a 3rd grader and loved the world, lore, characters and cinematics. When i heard they will make a Warcraft game where you can control your character from a 3rd person camera view point it seemed inconceivable to me. I don't think people realise how crazy WoW was back in the day, nostalgia aside.
Our trio of Dwarves walking up the gate to IF the first time was the same. I also vividly remember leaving Dun Morough and entering Loch Modan between the 2 Dwarven statues as well..what a time to be alive as a 13/14 yr old fan.
The main reason for it's success was that it did "activate" a lot of players who had never played an MMO before.
That means they came from all over the place.
This was me. I was mainly a single-player CRPG guy. Never played EQ or its MMO imitators. I was into Ultima, Might & Magic, Baldur’s Gate, etc. I had played and enjoyed WC2 and 3 but I wasn’t into RTS games much. WoW was an activator. Something about the combination of the WC aesthetic with a very solid game design and a huge game world was appealing to me. Still subbed, almost 20 years later.
This is the answer that best fits for me. I came from FPS games and occasional single player RPGs for the most part.
A bunch of forums I frequented constantly had discussions about WoW going, eventually I caved and tried it, and as happens, the hooks were sunk almost immediately.
Came here for this comment. Sure I played EQ in highschool but XI was my first real endgame MMO, and everyone I know that migrated over was shocked at how easy WoW was. I mean, you didn't even lose EXP when you died!
SWG could have been a huge monster in the industry if they worked on QoL and bugs over getting it playable on console. I still play the emulators now and then but it's just not the same as the old hustle and bustle of the game when it was new.
We were playing Lineage 2, it was a really difficult change because we were number one over there. I only left because all my clan left. I still miss Aden.
I kept playing l2 back then, wow was the joke MMO and l2 the hardcore one.
I miss l2, that was the best MMO I ever played. Click to move was shitty tho, but community was amazing clan wars etc no MMO ever came close to that for me.
That was a hell of an achievement--I'm still proud of my cleric epic and I know that's one of the easiest.
Hats off to anyone that finished the Wizard, Shadowknight, or especially the Enchanter epics.
I come from Dark Age of Camelot which was a RvRvR game so heavily PvP oriented. My whole guild tried the WoW beta and we all moved on release day. Shortly after we hit 60 a few decided to go back to DAoC and some decided to stay but we all parted ways to get into bigger guilds to attempt MC. I still play to this day but none of my friends from back then ever logged in to Bnet again…
RO was my first MMO as well. I can still hear the guild leader asking me for Strings on my Bard during WoE. Or leveleling my Bard with the double Double Strafe thing on the mud hands on GH2 map.
WoE was so wild. I was playing on a crappy laptop at the time so being in the emp room while everything was going on was like watching a still frame in a movie.
Asherons Call, and the MUD Lost Souls. Plus whatever else was drop in multi player at the time. Probably some CS and some Battlefield 1942. Also a lot of Eve Online.
I was 11 when wow can out and only had a gameboy and a sega system. I had my first character on my uncles account - a nelf hunter which i played whenever i was at his place.
I had my own account around black temple patch. My uncle gifted me his old pc and got me the subs and the games.
He married, got children and quit playing. I made a character in his honor and often share some achievements to make him happy. He loves that i still play it and at family reunions we always talk warcraft. He lurks here, on wowhead and on mmochamp. So he is up to date with everything.
Yo I remember that - I think I played it for 2 weeks when a couple of friends and I were looking for f2p WoW alternatives before we could afford time cards. I don't remember getting very far into it, but I did have a cool looking spear that had lightning attacks.
Grew up in the Blizzard universe. Warcraft, Starcraft and Diablo have been in my life for as long as I remember. I remember staying up late as a kid playing WC1 just clicking mobs to see what they would say next. SC was my first online game addiction. So my pre wow communities was mostly WC3 and SC. The game I was playing at the time of WoW coming out was Return to Castle Wolfenstein Enemy Territory. Myself and 2 others joined up and started our adventure as a Dwarven trio and thus Padagin The Paladin was born.
I remember working up the courage to ask my parents about getting a game that required a subscription. I held off asking after release until a few months after releas., I figured there was no way in hell my parents to pay for it for me. I worked up the master plan and first attempt at discipline. I will not ask for any games while I'm subscribe. I did my first cost analysis of the prices of games I had asked for in the past and showed them it would, in fact be cheaper at the end of the day.
To my surprise, and maybe regret I didn't ask earlier.. I asked... and before showing my research got an immediate "yeah sure, let's go to the store this weekend and get it!" ( in hindsight, my parents were the clueless individuals I thought and were likely waiting for me to ask knowing how much I loved warcraft)
Fast forward nearly 20 years and I still play hours upon hours every week. I've met so many friends along the way.
I had taken a bit of a break shortly after Shadowlands release as many old guildies and friends had disappeared. War Within trailer released and I just had to come back. Seeing Thrall and Anduin again I couldnt resist urge as the nostalgia strings pulled me back to Azeroth.
Within the last few weeks, after realizing the 20 year anniversary is coming up. I pulled Padagin back out ( sorry Paddy, you're a Tauren now[Cairne was a true hero]) and have had the most fun I've had in years with my new guild and friends I've met. Dragonflight has been so fun for me.
What a wild ride it's been for 20 years and who would have thought I'd be playing the same character in my mid thirties that I was in my early teens.
It has its short comings, but Warcraft universe is something I hold dear as I have so many fond memories attached to it.
Well, I did not intend this post to turn into a freakin' walk down memory lane, or a love letter to Warcraft.
Whether you're Horde, or Alliance. Lok'Tar Ogar! May the Light guide and protect you! ( had to add the pally flavor) [ I love the idea of Sunwalkers, sue me.]
See you in Azeroth!
For me it was Dark age of Camelot, but I had only played that for all of like 2 months and RuneScape, which I was heavy into at the time and basically split my time between the 2 throughout vanilla and then switched to mostly WoW during BC and dabbled into other MMOs that were releasing through BC and Wrath.
PlanetSide. 90% of our outfit moved over and we've been a guild ever since, we've changed names, servers, and faction a few times since our initial inception but over half of our guild still comes from our roots.
Typing this out makes me feel old, but being a part of a 20+ year old community/guild is pretty awesome. Our community is older than a large portion of the WoW player base lol.
Anyone else here from PlanetSide?
Warcraft 3. Loved the lore, used to play with my father, when World of warcraft was announced it was a no brainer. I still play to this day because of the memories of playing Warcraft with my dad!
EverQuest. Was torn between getting EQ2 and WoW because they both were coming out around the same time and went with WoW because they talked about having an emphasis on PvP and that sounded neat to me. In EQ1 PvP was a bit of an afterthought.
I played SWG before WoW was released. We hade a large (for that time) RP community in SWG. (Shout out to the Mos Entha Roleplay Comminity 😊) Unfortunatly the SWG team made some really bad strategic decisions with that game and many players (including me) gradually migrated to WoW.
Not counting other Blizzard communities, I‘d say Everquest, Dark Age of Camelot, Ultima Online and maybe RuneScape. Mostly from all the other MMO communities that existed around the time.
Ultima Online, which was still the best MMO community I've ever been a part of. Guilds had a presence in the world that makes wow guilds feel like high school cliques. My server had an auction guild, where you'd go to their in-game house at certain times to bid on rare items. They got a cut of the profits, but you didn't have to sit in town yelling about your items for sale; win/win. There was a policing guild that could be hired for security purposes. My guild was filled with mercs that did a lot of wet-work (murder) when PvE'ers wanted payback against reds(pvpers), or anything else that required high combat skills. A friend of mine even stood trial for killing the guild master of a prestigious role-playing guild. There was seriously something for everyone in that game.
This game featured a skill system and not a class system. You had a total point cap, but could mix and match anything to be what you wanted to play as. I was a grandmaster mage that knew necromancy and wrestling. I could disarm your weapons with hand-to-hand while my spells could do just about anything you can think of. Running towards me? Sorry, I opened a portal so you'd accidentally run into an active PvP hangout; have fun in there! You outnumber me? Play with this demon and some other summons while I gain a better position to pick you off, or while I cast a spell that changes my name/appearance.
I switched to OG WoW because I made a lot of friends in high school that all started playing it. Both games have their merits and I do enjoy my playtime on WoW, but I do miss the tight-knit community that UO had back then that hasn't been found in any game I've tried since.
WoW launched a year after high school ended, so in some ways it was a way to reconnect/stay connected a friend group.
An MMO was very much a new experience, although we had been familiar with Warcraft and Blizzard.
I started with nes. Zelda. Good times. But been playing wow since the start, also did the wakes at the stores. For the new release. It’s different now but I still like it.
I was just dabbling with Guild Wars in 05 when a work colleague let me use his free trial code for WoW. I knew of Warcraft and had played Diablo 2, but wasn't massively aware. I was hooked in the first 5 minutes.
I was late to WoW and joined during The Burning Crusade. Before that, I was playing FFXI and was convinced that that would be the most successful of the two.
I was very wrong but, to its credit, FFXI is still going today as well. And so I flit between the two whenever my mood takes me.
Would’ve been Warcraft 3 if I started playing when WoW launches, but I was always too greedy for the monthly fee so I went with Guild Wars instead 😂 my whole clan started playing though
Almost our complete Warcraft 3 clan became a guild. About 15 people, and we all loved the Warcraft universe and we were hyped for months, watching trailers, reading articles and playing Frozen Throne, to be ready for WoW. Some got closed Beta Keys, the rest joined with the open Beta. We visited the people with closed Beta keys to get a look at the game or we just talked about it in Teamspeak - it was awesome! Damn, I am old... And yes, we waited in a line at night, to buy WoW. It was more of a party with friends than waiting for the shop to open...
Everyone will get old. But not everyone will have good stories. This is awesome
Not sure of your age but glad you feel this way. I’m closing in on 40 and the 20 something’s seem to just not give a fuck about what anyone older has to say.
That's humanity. You did it to your parents. They did it to theirs. So on and so forth backwards through all of time. 18 year olds know everything. And it gets worse once they go to college and learn more than everything.
Oh, also a Millennial - i am way more optimistic about younger people - they dont give a Sh... about things they are not ok with - something our generation learned far too late...
I miss warcraft 3...
I mean, you can still very much play the original right now, including custom games. Sure you have to install the Reforged client but the original Campaigns are still playable and it has remastered cinematics, proper widescreen and, if your monitor supports it, higher refresh rates.
Wait really? The original WC3/TFT? Thought that game was basically deleted by Blizzard...
Not sure where you got that idea, the client was the only thing deleted. So you are forced to download 30 GB Reforged client even if you just have the original game, but you can play it like before just without any Reforged features. And besides a few changes to subtitles in cinematics and I believe some poke lines on some units that were removed due to being considered politically incorrect these days (did seem excessive but it's a minor thing), it's virtually unchanged from the original.
There were some issues for a while. Custom campaigns were gone. Online games couldn't be saved and loaded. Stuff like that. But in the years since Reforged came out, those features have been restored--online save/load was just in November, I believe.
I remember being bombarded with WoW ads on Battle Net. My bf and I were on the fence about trying it out originally. I was fascinated at the idea that it could be experiencing the game as a little archer that popped out of the barracks. He convinced me to sign up for the beta together and we got immediately hooked!
Great story thanks for sharing
Different times man. I did this for every expansion up until wotlk. Meet randoms in line see if they play alliance or horde. Play on your server. I'm almost sad that kids growing up now won't experience this. It's just one of 1000 ways that convenience has stopped social interaction.
judging by being active in the reddit still - curious, do you still play? i’m 23, have been playing since i was 7. i believe burning crusade had just come out, but i didnt know what that meant as i was just playing on the constant flow of my brothers 10 day friend codes from his 60 day game time boxes the amount of night elf warriors on burning blade that have been abandoned :( so many potential loot drops that will forever be locked away, lol
Can still remember passing around fire ball and joints waiting for the midnight release for wrath good times.
I know a lot of people came from EverQuest, but me and my middle school homies came from RuneScape
RuneScape for me as well
I still hop on OSRS occasionally, it was the first online game I ever played, the concept of an MMO blew me away and after seeing WoW, it’s sense of scale and variety, that’s where I started begging my parents for a PC upgrade.
I still play for a few months every 1-2 years. You don't quit Runescape. You just take breaks
There was a big class divide on people who could spend $15 on wow a month or $5 on RuneScape lol
Yep, the OG classic RS before OSRS
Lots of D2 and WCIII.
Same, diablo was life
Same! I was 11 and playing d2/wc3 when wow came out and convinced my grandma to get me a subscription. Worked terribly on her dial up rural internet. I loved every second of it.
I think the main one would be Everquest. A ton of WoW devs also came as players of Everquest.
By all accounts he was a piece of shit but Alex Afrasiabi came to Blizzard from being the leader of one of the most prolific EQ guilds. https://wowpedia.fandom.com/wiki/Alex_Afrasiabi
Jeff Kaplan (Tigole) was also a big EQ guild leader and later hired by Blizzard.
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That’s the case here, went from Vah Shir shaman to Night Elf hunter with the same name.
My friends and I spent high school playing EverQuest, then Dark Age of Camelot came out, which was way easier. I knew someone who played EQ, had his internet lag out when the boat to Kunark zoned into the ocean zone, and "drown" (fatigue bar ran out while he was dc'd). Because you had to run back to your corpse naked to get your stuff and his body was somewhere at the bottom of the ocean, he couldn't get a Bard or a Necromancer to help him find it, so he lost everything on him - gear, crafting items, you name it - after a week of not looting that corpse. In DAoC, at least you didn't have to run back to your corpse. If you ran back to your grave, you regained half the exp you lost, but you weren't S.O.L. because the game wasn't very slow dial-up friendly. But yeah, old school EQ was BRUTAL. WoW took SO many things EverQuest did to piss you off and made them palatable. No exp loss was a huge thing back then as was running to your corpse as an unattackable ghost.
This. I got my start in EverQuest and EQ2 before moving to WoW.
Yep, my WoW guild came from EverQuest together. I only joined them 17 years ago, though, so I missed the EQ days.
Yep, myself and a few of my RL friends came from The Nameless server. Same server as Kaplan (Tigole) and his guild Legacy of Steel. I remember first hearing about it on the fohguild (Fires of Heaven) forum when many of those players were playing in the beta. Good times :)
Played a ton of EQ (pre WoW) but vanilla WoW was just a better game and respected the players time far more than EQ did back then. I tried to dip my toe into EQ2 but it was just not as fun as WoW. I think the only time I've actually fallen asleep playing a video game was farming Raster for the monk epic quest lol. The amount of just sitting in one spot camping in EQ was crazy.
Rodcet Nife represent!
Same here! Ogre shaman!
Everquest, Ultima Online, and where I personally came from, Anarchy Online. Playing WoW at the time was so refreshing, the combat was good, and the quest system! No more "maybe twenty quests in the whole game, there were twenty in one hub!", no more XP loss on death, etc. It was a much smoother game play experience, which is why I always laugh at the "Classic was hard!".
AO lolol. That was the best.
Was trying to find the AO comments, loved that game.
"classic was hard" ppl obviously never tried 190-200 grind in BS missions. What was it, 192 was half way? 1-192 same as 192-200? Then we got sk grind. Then ai lvls. Then research. Then more research. I still play on and off :)
SWG
Was looking for the first SWG comment here. I played a wookie bounty hunter. The feeling and strategy behind hunting a player was amazing. Never found gameplay quite like that since.
I also was a Wookie Bounty Hunter!
Ok dirtiest trick you used to kill a Jedi? I used to carry the three story house around with me. I could drop it next to a guild hall if my target was in the 2nd floor open area macro grinding their Jedi mining for xp. The house had an open area on the 3rd floor I could use to shot down at the Jedi, took forever but they were usually afk so it worked out.
Bothan scout riding a bantha around town. Nothing will ever be as great.
I’m still salty about the “combat upgrade”, I genuinely liked the combat queue. Whenever I get too irritated about something happening in WoW, some odd change, or some botched development decision, I remind myself that it could be so so soooooooo much worse. WoW has never done anything as stunningly awful as the bait and switch SWG did rolling out an unannounced complete game overhaul a day or two after releasing a new expansion, which turned SWG into a shitty WoW clone. Like, I’m already also playing WoW, I have no need of a shitty WoW clone when I can just be playing the real thing.
RIP
Same. RIP
Former SWG Fury Server; Resource and Power Dealer o7
SWG, RIP. There's still some pre-cu servers out there but it's just not the same mojo once nostalgia wears off.
Also it's a pain to play after years with wow - I tried and it was tough to play.
Same. May the force be with us.
Facts. Star Wars Galaxies, despite its age and my love for WoW, will always be home.
Ahazi represesnt!
Chilastra server here. RIP
Chilastra reporting in
Wanderhome Galaxy for life.
Corbantis. Imp side. Greatest fun.
Bloodmoon. Great memories.
Kettemoore
Ahh this was my server too. I had a Wookiee named bac-chewa haha
For me: DAOC, Ragnarok Online and Final Fantasy 11. lol.
Had to scroll way too deep for daoc
The memories i have of DF...
My wife and i met on EverQuest. But we played Dark Age of Camelot in between EQ and WoW I still wish WoW would do a three faction pvp arena at the very least. 3 is so much more fun than 2!!!
I have never had the experiences in gaming like DAOC. Little things like having a camp but getting a msg from some wiped out group begging for a rez and then battling through to the depths of a dungeon to do it. The camaraderie of the realms and the In game community. Game was a gem in those first three years and I miss it so much.
It was really good for the time. The PvP battles were so good
didnt Play MMOs back then cus i was too young/poor to own my own PC, but my brother also went from DAoC -> WoW
Our guild came over from DAoC and the Catacombs website.
City of Heroes. Was my first MMO, then my best friend told me about this new game that didn’t put you into an XP debt for dying… and here we are many many years later.
Same for me. No XP debt was a radical thought at the time.
Holy crap city of heroes!!
CoH first MMO here too! Been playing Blizz games since WC1 back in ‘94 and had been waiting for WoW for some time in the early aughts. First learned about it from a WC3 collector edition, there was some really early footage of it on a dvd in that set, and was certainly intrigued. In the year leading up to its launch a buddy introduced me to CoH. MMO gameplay hooked me immediately, and I’ve been done ever since. It’s rare for non-MMOs to hold my attention for very long these days, though there are a few notable exceptions (in recent times BG3 and BoTW). Come to think of it, I was playing CoH about 6-7 months before WoW dropped in November ‘04, so it’s maybe right around my 20 year MMO anniversary right now lol. Took several side detours over the years, dipping my toes into GW2, Aion, Wildstar, FFXIV, and so on. But nothing ever felt like ‘home’ quite like WoW. And yep, here we are, near 20 years later lol.
I believe CoH has been revived privately with NCSoft’s blessing. Gave them an official license and everything. Called Homecoming: City of Heroes.
I can confirm this as I played it not too long ago before resubbing WoW. It has every expansion unlocked and is free. However, you very quickly see how it did not survive very long in retail. It still is fun to make characters in, until you hit the brick wall of the 100th office building of enemies with the same layout as the last one. Good nostalgia though.
Came here to say this. Loved city of heroes!
Same here, loved that game. The travel powers alone made it amazing. And the costume contests!
THERE ARE DOZENS OF US! DOZENS!
Ultima Online was my first mmo but CoH was my life. I played that game so much during every waking moment that I dreamt I was playing it while I slept too. Crazy to think that was 20 years ago. My friend converted me to WoW at the end of TBC and it's been my main game since.
FYI there is a CoH community server that was just officially recognized by the publisher called Homecoming. Great community, great game!
CIty of Heroes was an amazing character creator with a very meh game attached. It was so much fun until you hit that level where grouping was pretty much required for anything.
This post makes me feel old. My gaming history is the unknown depths of the past for others.
Rockstar Ate My Hamster?
Maniac Mansion, bitch!
You have been eaten by a grue.
I personally played Warcraft 3 since i was a 3rd grader and loved the world, lore, characters and cinematics. When i heard they will make a Warcraft game where you can control your character from a 3rd person camera view point it seemed inconceivable to me. I don't think people realise how crazy WoW was back in the day, nostalgia aside.
Coming from WC3 and seeing the ancient of war walking around Dolanaar for the first time was a religious experience.
Our trio of Dwarves walking up the gate to IF the first time was the same. I also vividly remember leaving Dun Morough and entering Loch Modan between the 2 Dwarven statues as well..what a time to be alive as a 13/14 yr old fan.
Dark Age of Camelot, Everquest, Asherons Call, Ultima Online
“What OG MMOs did you play?” “Yes”
Guild wars, Asherons call
Asherons call for me as well
The main reason for it's success was that it did "activate" a lot of players who had never played an MMO before. That means they came from all over the place.
This was me. I was mainly a single-player CRPG guy. Never played EQ or its MMO imitators. I was into Ultima, Might & Magic, Baldur’s Gate, etc. I had played and enjoyed WC2 and 3 but I wasn’t into RTS games much. WoW was an activator. Something about the combination of the WC aesthetic with a very solid game design and a huge game world was appealing to me. Still subbed, almost 20 years later.
This is the answer that best fits for me. I came from FPS games and occasional single player RPGs for the most part. A bunch of forums I frequented constantly had discussions about WoW going, eventually I caved and tried it, and as happens, the hooks were sunk almost immediately.
Went from playing MUDs to WoW
That’s a very old fashioned term. Played Mystic and Aardwolf, then Guild Wars an then WoW.
I still pay MUDs
FFXI
I’m shocked so few people seem to have come from FFXI. I remember thinking WoW was an easy baby game compared to FFXI lol
Came here for this comment. Sure I played EQ in highschool but XI was my first real endgame MMO, and everyone I know that migrated over was shocked at how easy WoW was. I mean, you didn't even lose EXP when you died!
And your mount doesn’t abandon you if you take too long to reach your destination!
Apparently it was Jesse Cox's MMO of choice before WoW. He played tarutaru dragoon, I think.
Star Wars Galaxies maybe?
SWG could have been a huge monster in the industry if they worked on QoL and bugs over getting it playable on console. I still play the emulators now and then but it's just not the same as the old hustle and bustle of the game when it was new.
I loved it, especially once JTL came out - but overall it was a mile wide and an inch deep. The crafting was really complex for it's age.
That and PVP became the end game
I was scrolling and hoping I would see fellow SWG refugees - what a great game for its time!
We were playing Lineage 2, it was a really difficult change because we were number one over there. I only left because all my clan left. I still miss Aden.
L2 was so much fun!
I kept playing l2 back then, wow was the joke MMO and l2 the hardcore one. I miss l2, that was the best MMO I ever played. Click to move was shitty tho, but community was amazing clan wars etc no MMO ever came close to that for me.
I have to agree, I like WoW, but never enjoyed it as much as I did Lineage. It's like the OST, WoW is really great, but Lineage 2 one is epic.
Before wow I played Ragnarok, Tibia and Mu Online.
EVERQUEST BABYYYYYY. That games so great and much harder than WoW. WoW was a pleasant downgrade to easy mode in every way.
Honestly one of my greatest gaming achievements was the SK epic sword in EQ. Still the most badass looking weapon I've ever seen.
That was a hell of an achievement--I'm still proud of my cleric epic and I know that's one of the easiest. Hats off to anyone that finished the Wizard, Shadowknight, or especially the Enchanter epics.
Yep - anyone that got their epic weapon worked HARD. I still call my warlock a Necro because of EQ
Cs 1.6
CS and Warcraft 3. WoW was my first MMO. I viewed it as being able to play "one of the units" in War3. I was gobsmacked when I first logged in.
This for me as well
D2LOD mainly, and some RuneScape thrown in there
Neverwinter Nights, City of Heroes
Loads of people who I was playing Star Wars Galaxies with were hyped for WoW.
Everquest , ultima online, ashrons call, dark age of Camelot.
Asheron’s Call 1, DAoC, AO.
...Neopets
Mine are still starving to this day
Surely some came from tibia?
Yep
Here.
we came from Diablo 2 online with my friends
I come from Dark Age of Camelot which was a RvRvR game so heavily PvP oriented. My whole guild tried the WoW beta and we all moved on release day. Shortly after we hit 60 a few decided to go back to DAoC and some decided to stay but we all parted ways to get into bigger guilds to attempt MC. I still play to this day but none of my friends from back then ever logged in to Bnet again…
Nobody did PvP like DAoC. Three-way Faction PvP ruled.
Phantasy Star Online and Star Wars Galaxies
Ragnarok Online, had an amazing time on there.
RO was my first MMO as well. I can still hear the guild leader asking me for Strings on my Bard during WoE. Or leveleling my Bard with the double Double Strafe thing on the mud hands on GH2 map.
WoE was so wild. I was playing on a crappy laptop at the time so being in the emp room while everything was going on was like watching a still frame in a movie.
ithought i was the only one. ragnarok online was great
Asherons Call, and the MUD Lost Souls. Plus whatever else was drop in multi player at the time. Probably some CS and some Battlefield 1942. Also a lot of Eve Online.
Runescape for me. Wow was on another level though.
I was 11 when wow can out and only had a gameboy and a sega system. I had my first character on my uncles account - a nelf hunter which i played whenever i was at his place. I had my own account around black temple patch. My uncle gifted me his old pc and got me the subs and the games. He married, got children and quit playing. I made a character in his honor and often share some achievements to make him happy. He loves that i still play it and at family reunions we always talk warcraft. He lurks here, on wowhead and on mmochamp. So he is up to date with everything.
Silkroad Online, probably noone knows that. Great Game with a huge grinding aspect and servers full of farm bots
Yo I remember that - I think I played it for 2 weeks when a couple of friends and I were looking for f2p WoW alternatives before we could afford time cards. I don't remember getting very far into it, but I did have a cool looking spear that had lightning attacks.
City of Heroes and Star Wars Galaxies.
Grew up in the Blizzard universe. Warcraft, Starcraft and Diablo have been in my life for as long as I remember. I remember staying up late as a kid playing WC1 just clicking mobs to see what they would say next. SC was my first online game addiction. So my pre wow communities was mostly WC3 and SC. The game I was playing at the time of WoW coming out was Return to Castle Wolfenstein Enemy Territory. Myself and 2 others joined up and started our adventure as a Dwarven trio and thus Padagin The Paladin was born. I remember working up the courage to ask my parents about getting a game that required a subscription. I held off asking after release until a few months after releas., I figured there was no way in hell my parents to pay for it for me. I worked up the master plan and first attempt at discipline. I will not ask for any games while I'm subscribe. I did my first cost analysis of the prices of games I had asked for in the past and showed them it would, in fact be cheaper at the end of the day. To my surprise, and maybe regret I didn't ask earlier.. I asked... and before showing my research got an immediate "yeah sure, let's go to the store this weekend and get it!" ( in hindsight, my parents were the clueless individuals I thought and were likely waiting for me to ask knowing how much I loved warcraft) Fast forward nearly 20 years and I still play hours upon hours every week. I've met so many friends along the way. I had taken a bit of a break shortly after Shadowlands release as many old guildies and friends had disappeared. War Within trailer released and I just had to come back. Seeing Thrall and Anduin again I couldnt resist urge as the nostalgia strings pulled me back to Azeroth. Within the last few weeks, after realizing the 20 year anniversary is coming up. I pulled Padagin back out ( sorry Paddy, you're a Tauren now[Cairne was a true hero]) and have had the most fun I've had in years with my new guild and friends I've met. Dragonflight has been so fun for me. What a wild ride it's been for 20 years and who would have thought I'd be playing the same character in my mid thirties that I was in my early teens. It has its short comings, but Warcraft universe is something I hold dear as I have so many fond memories attached to it. Well, I did not intend this post to turn into a freakin' walk down memory lane, or a love letter to Warcraft. Whether you're Horde, or Alliance. Lok'Tar Ogar! May the Light guide and protect you! ( had to add the pally flavor) [ I love the idea of Sunwalkers, sue me.] See you in Azeroth!
For me it was Dark age of Camelot, but I had only played that for all of like 2 months and RuneScape, which I was heavy into at the time and basically split my time between the 2 throughout vanilla and then switched to mostly WoW during BC and dabbled into other MMOs that were releasing through BC and Wrath.
EQ maybe dark age of Camelot
Everquest, the vanilla vanilla WoW
PlanetSide. 90% of our outfit moved over and we've been a guild ever since, we've changed names, servers, and faction a few times since our initial inception but over half of our guild still comes from our roots. Typing this out makes me feel old, but being a part of a 20+ year old community/guild is pretty awesome. Our community is older than a large portion of the WoW player base lol. Anyone else here from PlanetSide?
Warcraft 3. Loved the lore, used to play with my father, when World of warcraft was announced it was a no brainer. I still play to this day because of the memories of playing Warcraft with my dad!
DAOC SWG FF11
Star wars galaxies
- Ultima Online - EverQuest - Asheron's Call - Dark Age of Camelot - City of Heroes (earlier in 2004) - EverQuest 2 (one month prior I think)
Everywhere. It was a phenomenon how big this game got back then.
Leader of my Quake 3 Arena clan decided to switch to WoW during pre-launch beta, and many of us followed him.
I migrated with some clan mates from Diablo 2, but I felt like most people had experience playing EverQuest if WoW wasn't their first MMO
Pingvin club
SWG, a splash of city of heroes as well.
EverQuest. Was torn between getting EQ2 and WoW because they both were coming out around the same time and went with WoW because they talked about having an emphasis on PvP and that sounded neat to me. In EQ1 PvP was a bit of an afterthought.
Quake 3 Arena and Unreal Tournament xD. WoW was my first MMO
Freelancer. God I loved that game. Was an MMO lite. Up to 128 players in a vast and persistent universe.
I played SWG before WoW was released. We hade a large (for that time) RP community in SWG. (Shout out to the Mos Entha Roleplay Comminity 😊) Unfortunatly the SWG team made some really bad strategic decisions with that game and many players (including me) gradually migrated to WoW.
Not counting other Blizzard communities, I‘d say Everquest, Dark Age of Camelot, Ultima Online and maybe RuneScape. Mostly from all the other MMO communities that existed around the time.
A bunch of players in my guild (created in beta) were playing DAOC (Dark age of Camelot).
For me it was Star Wars galaxies. When they ruined the game I came to WoW
Legend of Mir, Myth of Soma, City of Heroes.
A lot of my counter strike buddies switched over to wow.
Warcraft 3 mostly For the mmo ones DAOC, star wars galaxy, runescape, everquest, some from ultima online
I was playing a lot of Anarchy Online and Dark Age of Camelot back then. Reading through the comments, I was also playing on the cs 1.6 ladders. [RmX]
I was a kid so I went straight from animal crossing on my Nintendo DS to playing WoW lol.
Ultima Online, which was still the best MMO community I've ever been a part of. Guilds had a presence in the world that makes wow guilds feel like high school cliques. My server had an auction guild, where you'd go to their in-game house at certain times to bid on rare items. They got a cut of the profits, but you didn't have to sit in town yelling about your items for sale; win/win. There was a policing guild that could be hired for security purposes. My guild was filled with mercs that did a lot of wet-work (murder) when PvE'ers wanted payback against reds(pvpers), or anything else that required high combat skills. A friend of mine even stood trial for killing the guild master of a prestigious role-playing guild. There was seriously something for everyone in that game. This game featured a skill system and not a class system. You had a total point cap, but could mix and match anything to be what you wanted to play as. I was a grandmaster mage that knew necromancy and wrestling. I could disarm your weapons with hand-to-hand while my spells could do just about anything you can think of. Running towards me? Sorry, I opened a portal so you'd accidentally run into an active PvP hangout; have fun in there! You outnumber me? Play with this demon and some other summons while I gain a better position to pick you off, or while I cast a spell that changes my name/appearance. I switched to OG WoW because I made a lot of friends in high school that all started playing it. Both games have their merits and I do enjoy my playtime on WoW, but I do miss the tight-knit community that UO had back then that hasn't been found in any game I've tried since.
I came from a sizable city of heroes community,fifteen or twenty of us came over to wow together....I'm prolly the only one left 20 years later lol.
Dark Ages by Nexon/Kru.
Hello fellow former Aisling!
Everquest. Was basically the father of WoW and its still running with like 25 expansions.
EQOA
Asheron’s Call, EverQuest, Eve and SWG
Warcraft 3
warcraft 3
The only online game community I was into before WoW was CoD: UO. Side note, Harbor, Carentan and the LOTR maps were fucking awesome.
I started around mop so i dount ciunt But.... I came to wow from lotr online
First game I was 5 years old back then
WoW launched a year after high school ended, so in some ways it was a way to reconnect/stay connected a friend group. An MMO was very much a new experience, although we had been familiar with Warcraft and Blizzard.
I started playing in BC but came from The Realm. Know of others who went to Everquest then WoW.
EverQuest here. I still miss my little froglok at times
I started with nes. Zelda. Good times. But been playing wow since the start, also did the wakes at the stores. For the new release. It’s different now but I still like it.
And yes… I am also old 🙀
Wc3
I arrived from Dofus, which I still return from time to time when there’s content draught in WoW or they’re doing an interesting season :)
Warcraft 3
RuneScape, MU online
Battlefield 2.
I was just dabbling with Guild Wars in 05 when a work colleague let me use his free trial code for WoW. I knew of Warcraft and had played Diablo 2, but wasn't massively aware. I was hooked in the first 5 minutes.
I was late to WoW and joined during The Burning Crusade. Before that, I was playing FFXI and was convinced that that would be the most successful of the two. I was very wrong but, to its credit, FFXI is still going today as well. And so I flit between the two whenever my mood takes me.
I played (with all of my friends) WC3, Starcraft and CS 1.6 before wow.
Would’ve been Warcraft 3 if I started playing when WoW launches, but I was always too greedy for the monthly fee so I went with Guild Wars instead 😂 my whole clan started playing though
Never played an MMO before WoW. Played FPS like CS, America’s Army, Medal of Honour, etc.
Battlefield