What got you into gaming?

Rehan · #1 » Post by **Rehan** » 26 Jan 2014 14:25

I was talking with some of my friends about stuff we used to do when we were kids which made me remember how I got into gaming. This made me curious about how other players got where they are today, so I thought why not make a thread about it?

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As a kid I used to live near my cousin who was 6 years older than me and got into PC gaming in it's very early stages.
I used to go to his house and watch him play video games almost everyday because I found it fascinating, however he wouldn't let me play the games myself because at that age I was still learning how to read, obviously I couldn't grasp how to play video games.
A couple years passed and PC gaming was growing, games were getting a lot more complex and my cousin bought a new PC.
Since he knew how interesting I found computers to be he gifted me his old computer that had quite a lot of games on it, but the only one I remember playing was the first video game I ever saw him playing which turned out to be the first game I have ever played.
The old Prince of Persia was the first game I have ever played, and I sucked at it. I would always walk into the room to the right where the first enemy was waiting and tried to jump over him because I had no idea how to get past him, obviously this didn't work and I would just get slaughtered horribly every single time, but I kept trying, maybe I had some sort of masochistic pleasure into dying to that one enemy over and over again.

Another year passed, getting slaughtered over and over in Prince of Persia was getting boring, I was learning English from cartoons, because back then they weren't dubbed in Romanian yet, and I was watching movies with Romanian subtitles with my parents, and slowly I started to understand English quite well for my age.
My parents knew how much I loved playing video games so they got me a new PC for my birthday and it was the happiest day of my life. I told my cousin about it and he was nice enough to come over and install TONS of games on it such as FIFA 98 which I really liked playing, but that wasn't the game that got me where I am today.
The one game that got me hooked to the warcraft universe was an RTS, but not Warcraft 1 or 2.
This game was and still is one of my favorite RTS games that I have ever played.
This game is called "Vlad Tepes: Dracula" (gameplay video below)
[hide][youtube]hVuCiSpbK9o[/youtube][/hide]
I was very young and wasn't able to fully grasp the concept of this game, all I knew was that those tiny men were fighting and that somehow I was winning, and I freaking loved it. I conquered my own castle and I thought to myself "I am the best", until the after-battle screen comes up, also know as the Council.
A bunch of colorful buttons popped up and I had no idea what either of them did, so after a little messing around I started to understand the basics of how things work, you click buttons and stuff happens.
Once I found out how to train more units that was pretty much everything I was doing on that screen, click train units and click the pass-one-week button, pretty easy right? Wrong. I noticed with every passing week this weird graph was changing, and I had no idea what it meant, so I just kept mindlessly spamming the pass-one-week button thinking it was the only way to win the game.
After a while I was getting this warning "Your men are deserting". The only meaning of desert that I knew at the time was the one that was written with a double 's', so naturally I thought my men were having feasts over and over, so I kept spamming that button, not knowing that in fact the opposite was happening.
I would never conquer more than two territories in that game, and the second one was conquered with pure luck.
Despite all this I was having the time of my life with that game, starting new games over and over.

Much later, cousin noticed that I was playing this RTS all the time and so one day he introduced me to the Warcraft universe. He gifted me Warcraft 2: The Tides of Darkness, and at this point in time I was understanding English quite well, which is what got me hooked to this game like no other ever has. I had a very boring life as a kid, and I guess you could say I still do, so when a story like the Warcraft one shows up I can't help but get sucked into it completely. I was actually pretty good at this game, almost managed to beat it as a kid and later on I played the expansion "Beyond the Dark Portal" as well. By the time I was getting bored of playing Warcraft over and over, alongside other games like Atomic Bomberman and C&C: Red Alert 2, Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos came out which sealed my fate.
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So TrueWoW-ers, how did you get into gaming?

#2 » Post by **DEVILforever** » 26 Jan 2014 14:26

" Couldnt Find Weed

" the story how i became gamer

#3 » Post by **marko1984** » 26 Jan 2014 15:36

I'll just answer ur question in the topic since text is too long to read :s

Racamon got me into gaming (gaming means wow to me since i dont play anything else) so... CURSE upon him xD
He showed me WOW i liked it and here i am

Rehan · #4 » Post by **Rehan** » 26 Jan 2014 15:50

The long text is just the story of how I got into gaming, so no need to read it if you aren't interested :p
I just thought since I am interested in your stories I have to share mine.

#5 » Post by **Anselmo** » 26 Jan 2014 17:00

Oh boy do I avoid and such at writing long texts, but I'll give it my best and try not to make it sound lifeless. I'll make it my gaming history because I feel like typing. Sorry if I hurt anyone with it.

When I was three years old my cousin had an NES with very few games on it. Super Mario Brothers, Super Mario Brothers 2 (not the lost levels, the european/US version) and Tiny Toon Adventures. Every day before his school (my dad was not in the country most of my childhood and my mum worked, so I stayed with my cousin where granpa and gramma were most of the days) he'd play one of those games and I'd just sit quietly observing what he did then tried to replicate what he did for the rest of the day. Quickly this became a daily routine, and my mum told my dad about it, so they decided to get me NES when he came home and 3 cartriges from which I could choose 2 games. Those games were Castlevania, Legend of Zelda and Wizard Warrior. I quickly became obsessed with Zelda because I liked puzzles so it was an easy favorite, but between Castlevania and WIzard Warrior I picked the later (past me slap yourself hard), and my cousin got pissed at me because he loved Castlevania. I played Zelda for about a month before I collected all of the triforce and items but I couldn't find the damn Gannon's tower. I knew it existed (I could read english at a decent level at that age (thanks cartoon network and comicbooks) so I knew he was there thanks to the instruction manual, and two items I missed (Upgraded bow and upgraded armor) I found because they're listed at the end credits) but I couldn't for the life of me figure out where it was.

Past that point I started hanging with friends on a street so I took a little break from gaming (I also think my 50'th adapter broke because AC adapters in Serbia were horrible knockoffs sold by romanians (no hate for romanians <3)). Then around age of 9 there was a gaming place where I started going that had PS1, and let me tell you, when you play NES whole life and see PS1 at work, you drool like no one ever did. Immediately got hooked on Crash Bandicoot, Dino Crysis, Resident Evil, Parasite Eve, Alone in the Dark, etc. That lasted for years, the place even got a dreamcast where I played Code:Veronica, Legends and Soul Calibur a lot. I think by the time I was done I drained their whole Playstation library of all the games. =)

Fast forward few years, and I got a computer for my birthday unexpectedly which had Abe, Hercules and Age of motherfucking empires 1. I was immediately hooked on AoE, making maps, finishing campaigns and just screwing around with custom maps. I would make insanely cluttered maps with buttload of units and just face them all (reminded myself of a kid crashing his action figures into one another). After that my friend brought me Seven Kingdoms, which was RTS with many different options than AoE I was used to, so that kept my attention for a while (Sorry 7K, I love you, but you're dated as fuck). In 2001 I upgraded my computer to one that could support better games, and got Warcraft III from a friend. Oh boy, the hours. Campaign for this game is so good that even to this day I play it. The cutscenes, characters and FMV's made my jaw drop. I would explore every bit of every map to the fullest and click on every unit to hear what they say when they're annoyed. I'd explode every sheep by clicking it repeatedly too. When the expansion came out I proudly crapped my pants and rocketed through the roof. It delivered on every aspect imaginable. And then...

I installed Morrowind. Sorry all the great games, but this is my favorite game of all time. My first open world game with thousands of quests and things to explore. I went on and on about this game so many times that there is so much I can say, but this post is already insanely huge for my standards and I'm maybe halfway so I'm gonna stop. Just play it. Yes, it's dated, but if you mind overhaul makes it look better than Skyrim. I still stick to original with expansions, thank you very much.

After that lanhouses with internet started opening, so I went to check it out. Bam, counter strike fever. First time playing competitively against other players, screaming in the lanhouse, eating burgers and drinking pepsi twist with friends. Good stuff. Same thing happened when we started Diablo 2, so I won't go much into it. After that we went to play first versions of warcraft III oldest moba D-day judgement. That was fun and lasted long too.

Past that point wireless internets were installed instead of 56k modems, so Battle net was playable, and I started playing Warcraft III again, but this time competitively. The scene was good for my small town, there was always someone to play with, and we got really good at it. At one point I was in top100 in europe, having played matches vs players like madfrog, grubby, sweet saint, moon and all the other famous people (of course I never beat any of them

). I even almost qualified for WCG one year, but my race was human and Vladoica was by far better player. Past that point we chilled with same games, played first versions of dota, warcraft mod for counter-strike, etc.

In late 2005 I started playing wow on retail and was instantly hooked, but couldn't afford to pay my own account (anad buy the expansion) after a while so after tbc came out I went to private server that still had wowemu and no expansion GK wow. I believe it was north american. After that I gave up on wow because latency was always 1200+, and just played LAN games with my friends until home internet arrived. Then I installed wow again and joined Xaoswow. Rest is history here I guess. 7-8 years with this server and going. Thanks a lot for that. =)

A lot of games I didn't mention but deserve like Unreal Tournament, Heroes of might and magic, Dungeon Siege, etc.

Sorry for the big ass post again, I just started going and it felt good remembering.

#6 » Post by **Myaoming** » 26 Jan 2014 17:05

My dad oO

Rehan · #7 » Post by **Rehan** » 26 Jan 2014 17:10

Anselmo wrote:After that lanhouses with internet started opening, so I went to check it out. Bam, counter strike fever.

That's my brother in a nutshell because I wouldn't let him play on my PC xd

#8 » Post by **Anselmo** » 26 Jan 2014 17:13

I think all the money I gave to lanhouses connected would buy me a small castle.

BootyLoch · #9 » Post by **BootyLoch** » 26 Jan 2014 17:19

My mom was always a gamer back in the days of the arcades (what a brave woman) and she decided when she raised me to share her passion for games. She bought me mostly educational games for the family PC as a kid but I never lost interest in games and kept getting more as I got older and now I have so many Steam games it's almost embarassing!

#10 » Post by **marko1984** » 26 Jan 2014 17:56

OMFG Romeo and Juliet decided to kill themselves in a shorter story then someone elsses gaming history :s

#11 » Post by **silverseven** » 28 Jan 2014 07:28

#12 » Post by **emsy** » 28 Jan 2014 08:26

silverseven wrote:

Yeee! i had this! spent many days playing cowboys and tennis against dad... then sister came and tripped on cable

#13 » Post by **Gr00vest** » 28 Jan 2014 09:49

I got myself into gaming and then I dragged everyone I could possibly can with me.

First game I ever played was on that beast - Terminator 2 console with joysticks - Super Mario, then I moved on to Super Contra, Double Dragon, Ninja Turtles and a ton of other games... I had over 50 diskettes. That was 12-13 years ago.

#14 » Post by **silverseven** » 28 Jan 2014 10:44

emsy wrote:
silverseven wrote:
Yeee! i had this! spent many days playing cowboys and tennis against dad... then sister came and tripped on cable

Yeah know that feelings. I had too much broken joystick @my behind. Old glory days.

#15 » Post by **emsy** » 28 Jan 2014 12:13

silverseven wrote: Yeah know that feelings. I had too much broken joystick @my behind. Old glory days.

yea those joysticks were breaking all the time.. dad was fixing that by reinforcing the base with the rings from curtains

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