First online against other people was Trade Wars on a Tandy 8086, 300 baud modem. Early to mid 1980's.
First PvP with graphics was Air Warrior in the late 1980's. That was $6/hr to play. I don't even remember the first person I killed, but I still remember a lot of the dogfights. I went to the much cheaper Red Baron on The Sierra Network starting in 1990. TSN was $30/mo for 30 hours of play, $60/mo for 60 hours of play, or $100/mo for unlimited.
If you dont count playing multiplayer locally, then Starcraft was my first PvP experience.
But if you are talking MMO-wise, its DAoC. Back in the good ol days when I was like 14 or something and learned that I in fact could not solo the other armies. I just remember being dumb and not being very good, but thought I was.
I was level 70 I believe in Asheron's Call. I played on a white server, so I remember a friend taking me to the Accursed Halls to go to the altar to become a PK. He was pretty good at it, as I'd watched him before, and he didn't lose often at all. He would fight against some pretty unfair odds and come out the winner MANY times. (PvP was still huge on non-PvP servers. There was a smaller community of PvPers but you all sort of knew each other and had enemies, etc.. if you did it long enough)
So anyways, my friend takes me to the altar, and I turn PK. I'd never done it before, so the first thing we did was practice against each other, as he showed me how to slide cast and how to break the animation. (This was just how PvP was done. It was accepted and used by all) So, I got it down decent enough for my first time. I had some borrowed shadow armor (no-drop armor) from my friend, and some cheap storebought pieces I wasn't afraid to lose.
It all went downhill from there. (in a good way) I stayed PK for a week before changing back, just hanging around with friends, or getting daring enough to make component runs and do some XPing on my own. Hadn't really been in a good fight, but I'd been learning and dueling with friends.
My first REAL PVP story was when I was about lvl 80, and I had turned perma-PK for the most part at this point, when the majority of players were lvl 126+ already. Perma-PK is what it sounds. You practically never turned NPK. You stayed red 24/7. You were red on quests, while XPing, etc.. you'd come across a fight in the most random places sometimes, and you'd just have to deal with it. I had some shadow armor of my own by then, and a focusing stone. I could hold my own in a PvP fight by then, but I really hadn't gotten my feet wet against an ENEMY. Someone who is out to kill me and take my stuff. But I knew who the guy was, and he was about level 160 according to treestats (an XP tracking program a lot of people used). Being level 80, and able to buff myself with lvl 7 spells, as well as cast lvl 7 war spells, I could at least hold my own. But he was specialized in magic resistance.
He jumped me as I was going to buy components one day. I was running through town, and suddenly a vulnerability spell was on me. I turned and slid around, hitting my targeting hotkey as I did. I saw his name and thought "..Oh shit". It was one of those moments when someone's cold-blooded reputation in-game actually makes the heart skip a beat. I thought I was dead from the start, but I decided not to run. It took me at least 4 casts to land a vulnerability spell on him, as he resisted the first few. Damn magic resistance. But we started at it, casting and dodging spells. I got hit a few times, managing to get out of it long enough to juggle my health/stam/mana back to full before going back in. At this point, I only had about 190 health, to his 310 or more. Talk about an unfair match-up. But it took two of his shots to kill me, and 3 of mine to kill him.
We fought like this for 10 minutes or so, before I decided this wasn't going to work out in the open like this. So I jumped in the nearest portal, which happened to take us into a dungeon. Narrow tunnels, with crosspaths and some small rooms. He followed, of course. As his character was loading, I started spamming magic yield 7 on him, getting resisted.. resisted.. resisted.. Then, to much enjoyment, it STUCK! He was yielded, so surely now I'd be able to get him. He loaded right about then, and he already had his spells ready... Then came debuff after debuff. First my war magic, then my creature magic, then my life magic.. Suddenly, I was screwed. I knew it. I hit him dead on with a war spell. Resisted. I turned and ran, and we traded spells down the hall for a minute or so. I knew it was hopeless though, and turned again, literally running for my life at this point, clicking through my inventory to see if I had anything to get me out of this mess.
That's when I saw it.. a Gem of Stillness, a magic gem that would strip all the debuffs from me. I pulled a slick circle-slide, turning to face where I knew he'd be coming and sliding behind a wall so he couldn't see me. I clicked the gem, and the spell effects bubbled around me. Aha... there went his debuffs, and there went the vulnerability spell. He came around the corner with almost perfect timing, and I started my cast at the same time as his. We both got the fast-cast off, and I tanked his first spell for a minor 50-some damage. His fast-cast was better than mine. I tanked a second spell for 60 as my first hit him... CRITICAL. He only had a third of his health left. My heart skipped a beat, as we were both already into the next cast. He must have realized his mistake instantly, as he stuttered on the screen and turned away just as my second spell hit him. Bam... his dead body lay there in front of me. I stood there stunned for a moment, before opening his corpse and finding a small fortune in death items.
Believe me when I say I enjoyed taking every single one.
Awesome post. This put a smile on my face. The feeling of taking down a much higher level player by playing smart is awesome. It's a shame turbine added things like meats which restore 120 health and be eaten contiguously and only take about 0.4 seconds each and added timers to dispell gems.
My first MMORPG PvP was also in Asheron's Call. I played on a white world for a about 1 month screwing around with some friends I had made there, running from holtburg to cragstone and getting stomped by banderlings. I'm not sure how I heard about Darktide, but I ended up playing that instead. My first time logging in I had made a character with one of the prebuilt templates, which was an absolute gimp. He had like thrown weapons, mace, sword, missile defense, melee defense, cooking, and some other stuff. For a day or so I did the newb wars stuff at shoushi west outpost before eventually moving on with some guy I met in Red Devil to Hebian-To, this guy buffed me with level 5's which were pretty amazing at the time and I went on a newbie killing spree. I guess he wanted me to level with those, because he broke allegiance after I died and asked for new buffs.
I think I spent about 4 years playing that game...
I still remember the epic fights at the temple.. crap, what was that place? It's been years since I've played, but we had some epic fights that would go through several portals and end up on the opposite side of the continent when we were done.
I remember going out XPing in Valley of Death and getting jumped by 2 reds. A mage and a UA guy. The UA guy was a pest, but I managed to take him out with a perfectly timed circle cast, following it up with a bolt that went straight where he was running away to. Took another 10 minutes to kill the mage, all while dodging mob spawns. I miss the intense moments that game had. I've never gotten that feeling in any MMO yet. WoW just never gave you that racing heart, because you knew it didn't matter if you died. There was no loss, no penalty. No reward for winning even.
Darkfall Online is far more intense than AC, you drop everything on death. I remember back at launch I was in Shoal, the alfar capital, with a mix of mob drop full plate and plate along with some other valuable stuff. Some guy in a clan at war with mine (Scary Bad Guys) starts shooting me with a bow, and I pull out my bow and start shooting back. Soon enough 4 other guys pop up out of nowhere and I'm on the run, I had a ridiculous adrenaline rush at that point, fumbled to spawn my mount and jump on it, running out of this huge linear ramp in shoal with nowhere to hide while these guys chase me, fortunately missing every arrow they shoot. I tried to call for help on vent, but I'm not sure I said anything at all. They told me after I made it away that "You sounded like you jumped into ice cold water". It was such an intense adrenaline rush for a game, moreso than I've gotten from any outdoor activity such as making the brilliant decision to turn a waverunner at 50 MPH (and go flying off).
Only problem is that you only take on odds and survive in Darkfall if they're extremely bad and/or have very underdeveloped characters compared to yours.
As for the temple, are you referring to Sanctuary/Ithaenc Cathedral (picture here - http://asheron.wikia.com/wiki/File:Ithaenc_Cathedral_Live.jpg)? That's the only temple-like place I can think of where people fought at, although that may have only been on Darktide.
Yep, Sanctuary. Used to be a breeding ground for some very hostile PvP. I remember jumping off the waterfall to get away from some people once. LOL I also remember CHASING people across that island.
And Darkfall isn't for me. After playing for about an hour, the lack of polish and the terribly inaccurate hit detection made me uninstall. Couldn't see myself enjoying the combat even later in the game. AC's was far more skill-based IMO. You didn't aim, but you could dodge, and the fact that people created their own styles of casting is what did it for me. Fast-cast, circle cast, delay casting.. some people just had a ridiculous slide cast. Saw a couple on our server who would slide back and forth in a straight line instead of arcing like most people, and he would do it faster than a normal slide. Another, would just be all over the place, and he'd rock people.
Dunno.. Darkfall just isn't the same to me. FPS isn't the type of gameplay I want. It's too based on server latency and hit detection that isn't worth a damn. I want a game that feels like an MMO still, but has a skill aspect to it, while still being based on how you build your character. Darkfall's skill system is sub-par. It's basically the equivalent of 4 levels of skills, as nothing really improves until you reach a certain point with each. Each point you gain in something doesn't matter until it reaches the 'trigger point' and ACTUALLY increases it. Ugh.
AC had such a good PvE side of the game, that doing PvE while PvP enabled 24/7 was a blast. Also, gear in Darkfall is kinda.. meh.. gear in AC wasn't the be-all end-all like it is in a game like WoW, but it meant something to you and losing it could hurt very bad sometimes. It was also incredibly unique, and possible to really make yourself stand out from other players. Just don't see that in Darkfall, IMO. Darkfall has the FFA PvP/loot down, but they don't have the rest of their game down yet. =
I'll stick to my EVE for now. Still the closest to 'feeling truly afraid' in an MMO that I've come across. Never know what will be waiting for you out in the middle of -literally- nowhere. I can deal with dropping everything in EVE. But in a fantasy game, I don't WANT to lose everything on my person. I want some of the things I collect to be status items, or to be worth something. I don't want to worry about keeping backups for everything I own. That's just not fun to me. I would much prefer a loot system similar to AC's, where you lost a number of items based on your level, and that item's worth. I'd rather a CHANCE of losing something important, than just being guaranteed to lose all my crap every time I die. I think that's Darkfall's problem PvE-wise, is that there isnt enough emphasis put on the NEED or WANT to go out and find cool stuff, because you're just going to lose it anyways. There's nothing to set you truly apart from anyone else. No epic quests to spend a month figuring out, finally to collect that last piece and create some awesome item that only a few others have gotten.
This thread has got me all nostalgic. Why won't another game with a WORLD like AC's come around again?
I know exactly what you mean about Darkfall, I was just saying that the fights were really intense. I don't even play it anymore, I also dislike it, pretty much for the same reasons as you. Nothing was unique in Darkfall, the PvE was awful, it was annoying to have to keep spares for every item you used, and yeah I would agree, it did take less skill to play Darkfall compared to AC. I feel like dodging is much more difficult than aiming, and in Darkfall you move too slow to dodge.
I think the greatest part about AC that made the PvP fights so fun was that you had the capacity as a player to keep yourself alive by managing your health/stamina/mana and being able to keep them up without having to deal with any sort of cooldown, which allowed fights to last a long time. When you died, it was because you screwed up, not because the game mechanics kept you from staying alive.
Well, I had two thrilling first time encounters with PvP. Back when runescape was still a baby, at the time when players flocked over to the wildys just to gank players they thought they could take down, which even back then was hard to tell wether you were stronger or weaker then one another (so ganking technically didn't exist yet).
My first time was walking into the wildys blinded by the very definition of PvP. Of course, I walked myself into my own tombstone, but it was thrilling, I was playing at the time where they had the level limits, (It was that the farther you would go into the wild, the bigger the lvl difference for the people fighting could be) so once I was just around the 3 lvl gap, Obviously a guy 3 lvls higher then me comes and casts a spell on me bringing me to ashes in seconds.
The other time was when I decided to trek around the main wild entrance ignoring all the campers, and making my way further into the wild. As the glowing noob I was back then, I planned a journey to the far north where the dragon's layer was (If anyone knows what i'm talking about, back then, I didn't know it was member only area) after dodging tons of OP monsters and almost dying of a heartattack, I finnaly acquired my objective. But since I was a noob and didn't know what I was doing. I was rejected in a split second when upon trying to open the gates, it told me it was a member's only area. But I was still proud of myself for making the journey, when all of a sudden, a group of lvl 100+ characters come and zap me to oblivion. But it was fun though.
Having to buff mid-fight in AC was always intense. In a situation where you'd been in a stand-off with an actual enemy for a while, buffs would sometimes run out. If that happened, you were either screwed, or you'd better be damn good at dodging long enough to get the important buffs off. And a good PvPer would always rush you if they saw your buffs dropping, so it could get intense.
Growing up in a large family, I have always PVP'd. So I can;t actually remember the first time, though I am sure my older brother beat the snot out of me quite a bit when I was young. LOL
I actually used to pvp for money at the local pizzaria in my youth, so by the time MMORPGs came about and I played my first it really was no biggie to me to pvp. Back then it was all pvp no safe zones. I am pretty chilled. I crank up my metal and just relax for the most part. It comes natural, react, relax and go into a " killin' zone". I always found it odd when you hear people yelling and screaming and gettin all hyper when it is just reflex for me, not really any celebration by killing someone, ( unless i won actual real cash) In game items mean nothing to me, in game death means nothing to me. it is pretty average for me, it is more like ,"okay, wheres the next one?" Though usually I have already marked my next kill before the one I am dealing with is dead. many times I sing songs while fighting. I don;t even get upset when flamed, killed, jumped.. that is all just a part of the game to me. Get killed - reload. When I play a game I start killing from the start. I would rather train soley on other players from the beginning without ever killing an npc- but that is just me. I pretty much work like 10 steps ahead the majority of the time.
I remember my first PvP "experience" quite well although one can hardly call it PvP. WoW almost 5 years back. My level 23 Night Elf hunter was questing in Astranaar when 2 lvl 60 undead rogues came and started to kill everything in their path, npc's, quest givers and me. The situation turned into an ugly corpse camp with one of them stalking me at the graveyard. It was an intimidating experience. Several months later with my hunter equiped with the best gear available at the time i met one of the bastards at Lights Hope and ganked the hell out of him followed with a dozen of /spit emotes.
My first true PvP experience was in the Stonetalon mountains if i recall correct. A same level tauren shamy jumped me and i managed to kill him. I still remember the rush and the excitement, it felt so good.
My first pvp experience was on my low level hunter in astranaar. I just arrived to that town and when I was getting quests from a NPC, the town go raided by horde. They had the town on lock down for 30 mins or so.
Comments
First online against other people was Trade Wars on a Tandy 8086, 300 baud modem. Early to mid 1980's.
First PvP with graphics was Air Warrior in the late 1980's. That was $6/hr to play. I don't even remember the first person I killed, but I still remember a lot of the dogfights. I went to the much cheaper Red Baron on The Sierra Network starting in 1990. TSN was $30/mo for 30 hours of play, $60/mo for 60 hours of play, or $100/mo for unlimited.
But if you are talking MMO-wise, its DAoC. Back in the good ol days when I was like 14 or something and learned that I in fact could not solo the other armies. I just remember being dumb and not being very good, but thought I was.
I know exactly what you mean about Darkfall, I was just saying that the fights were really intense. I don't even play it anymore, I also dislike it, pretty much for the same reasons as you. Nothing was unique in Darkfall, the PvE was awful, it was annoying to have to keep spares for every item you used, and yeah I would agree, it did take less skill to play Darkfall compared to AC. I feel like dodging is much more difficult than aiming, and in Darkfall you move too slow to dodge.
I think the greatest part about AC that made the PvP fights so fun was that you had the capacity as a player to keep yourself alive by managing your health/stamina/mana and being able to keep them up without having to deal with any sort of cooldown, which allowed fights to last a long time. When you died, it was because you screwed up, not because the game mechanics kept you from staying alive.
Well, I had two thrilling first time encounters with PvP. Back when runescape was still a baby, at the time when players flocked over to the wildys just to gank players they thought they could take down, which even back then was hard to tell wether you were stronger or weaker then one another (so ganking technically didn't exist yet).
My first time was walking into the wildys blinded by the very definition of PvP. Of course, I walked myself into my own tombstone, but it was thrilling, I was playing at the time where they had the level limits, (It was that the farther you would go into the wild, the bigger the lvl difference for the people fighting could be) so once I was just around the 3 lvl gap, Obviously a guy 3 lvls higher then me comes and casts a spell on me bringing me to ashes in seconds.
The other time was when I decided to trek around the main wild entrance ignoring all the campers, and making my way further into the wild. As the glowing noob I was back then, I planned a journey to the far north where the dragon's layer was (If anyone knows what i'm talking about, back then, I didn't know it was member only area) after dodging tons of OP monsters and almost dying of a heartattack, I finnaly acquired my objective. But since I was a noob and didn't know what I was doing. I was rejected in a split second when upon trying to open the gates, it told me it was a member's only area. But I was still proud of myself for making the journey, when all of a sudden, a group of lvl 100+ characters come and zap me to oblivion. But it was fun though.
Hope I wasn't too confusing, thanks.
Having to buff mid-fight in AC was always intense. In a situation where you'd been in a stand-off with an actual enemy for a while, buffs would sometimes run out. If that happened, you were either screwed, or you'd better be damn good at dodging long enough to get the important buffs off. And a good PvPer would always rush you if they saw your buffs dropping, so it could get intense.
Had a couple duels last 30+ minutes too.
Growing up in a large family, I have always PVP'd. So I can;t actually remember the first time, though I am sure my older brother beat the snot out of me quite a bit when I was young. LOL
I actually used to pvp for money at the local pizzaria in my youth, so by the time MMORPGs came about and I played my first it really was no biggie to me to pvp. Back then it was all pvp no safe zones. I am pretty chilled. I crank up my metal and just relax for the most part. It comes natural, react, relax and go into a " killin' zone". I always found it odd when you hear people yelling and screaming and gettin all hyper when it is just reflex for me, not really any celebration by killing someone, ( unless i won actual real cash) In game items mean nothing to me, in game death means nothing to me. it is pretty average for me, it is more like ,"okay, wheres the next one?" Though usually I have already marked my next kill before the one I am dealing with is dead. many times I sing songs while fighting. I don;t even get upset when flamed, killed, jumped.. that is all just a part of the game to me. Get killed - reload. When I play a game I start killing from the start. I would rather train soley on other players from the beginning without ever killing an npc- but that is just me. I pretty much work like 10 steps ahead the majority of the time.
I remember my first PvP "experience" quite well although one can hardly call it PvP. WoW almost 5 years back. My level 23 Night Elf hunter was questing in Astranaar when 2 lvl 60 undead rogues came and started to kill everything in their path, npc's, quest givers and me. The situation turned into an ugly corpse camp with one of them stalking me at the graveyard. It was an intimidating experience. Several months later with my hunter equiped with the best gear available at the time i met one of the bastards at Lights Hope and ganked the hell out of him followed with a dozen of /spit emotes.
My first true PvP experience was in the Stonetalon mountains if i recall correct. A same level tauren shamy jumped me and i managed to kill him. I still remember the rush and the excitement, it felt so good.
My first pvp experience was on my low level hunter in astranaar. I just arrived to that town and when I was getting quests from a NPC, the town go raided by horde. They had the town on lock down for 30 mins or so.
Moonglow graveyard, Ultima Online, 1997. A Red jumped me. I think I swung back twice but I was loaded with deer hides and I didn't have a chance.
"Many nights, my friend... Many nights I've put a blade to your throat while you were sleeping. Glad I never killed you, Steve. You're alright..."
Chavez y Chavez