17 replies to this topic

[KillyKyll]

What was your first experience as a gamer? What brought you into it? How did it come to be one of your primary hobbies? We've all come from different backgrounds, started playing at different ages and gotten into varying genres yet we have all come together in a community of gamers.

For me, well, it started when I was young. Five years old, at most, in fact. My brother played a lot of video games, and I loved to watch him play, and eventually play myself. The first came I can vividly remember playing is Wing Commander III and Command & Conquer. I'm not sure which one I played first, all I remember is it being the most challenging experience of my young life.

The challenge didn't matter though, it was a story that I was a part of, a story I could unfold. Even at that young age I didn't skip the massive dialog of Wing Commander (and I still get frustrated when I see people who do). I was able to talk to my brother about video games all the time, and after a few years, I started to surpass him in most genres.

I could go on and on about my first gaming experiences, but I want to hear more from the community! So let me ask you again: How did you become a gamer?

[Amoner]

I feel a beginning to an epic thread
I started at age 4-5 when my parents brought back Sega Master from germany with 2 games,Sonic and another platformer that had boss fights, where you had to play rock, paper, scissor game. That combined with NES that my cousin had I have spent my beginning years of gaming up until 6. At 6 we got a computer at home and I started playing some puzzle DOS games and MK2? I believe... That slowly grew into getting windows 97 with warcraft 2 and starcraft. I think I was 7 when I was beating wc2 campaigns and having conversations with my dad about the game, it was sort of a bond between him and me. Starcraft was marked as too violent for me at the time and I had to enjoy other games. At 8 I went to a summer camp at a local sport school where they had PC-room in which I discovered Counter-Strike... which I played and still play. I am personally 100% opposite of Killy and I have skipped 99% of dialogues and story lines in games, even ones that I liked. Lore and everything else I would usually discover only for games that I would really get into. Both otherwise the only reason I would play games was for the competitive edge where I can put X amount of time into working and my skill and collect Y amount of success later on. Aka practicing in CS, PVP/PVE WOW, SC2 and HoN

[KuroN3ko]

Well basically it was cause I hated interacting with people in real life. Then I got some meds for that and since I already played games, I started playing with other people and not just computers. Thus I found the joy in crushing nerds when they are trying their hardest to beat me. It was a total drug for my low self esteem.

Games were also a great way to imagine you were special and different from everyone else, unlike the real world where you are just a number among billions. It lets you live vicariously through the characters in these video games, and just for once loses you in the illusion that your life could be exciting and meaningful.

Ps. ITS DEPRESSION WEEK GUYS!

[Deft]

I think I got my first pc game at around 6. It was an f-22 flight sim. I played that constantly for a few years until we got a newer pc and I was able to buy some better games. Mostly sim games as well as strategy. Got call of duty 1 as my first fps (by the way it was the best cod game). Runescape was my first mmo. Once I started playing mmos there was no turning back, and here I am.

[Lonniehaskel]

Third birthday, NES.

[Orz]

Dad bought us an Atari 2600 in 1980, rest is history. He still owns that 2600 and it still plays like a dream. Who knew that standing around for 20 minutes in Pitfall would be so epic.

I was also a competitive Street Fighter and Street Fighter II player at my local arcade during middle and highschool when people stood for an hour to play an arcade game and lined quarters up and nobody would steal them (man I miss those good old days). Not this console or game hooked up by the internet crap, when a score actually meant something and uber dorks ruled arcades.

[kid-kun]

Games really have been around me since my birth.
I've a brother 16 years older than me and at the time of my birth he already was a passionate gamer.
The story goes similarly to Killykyll's,
I've grown up watching him play, then playing with him and against him.

I believe I've first set my eyes upon NES console but I don't really remember those times.
When I was 4, my brother bought an Amiga1200, he really loved it. I've then watched him play Mortal Kombat, Colonization, Civilization, Street Fighter, Prince of Persia - haha I remember how everyone was amazed by the "fluid animation" in that game, any many other "classics".
I've still got that amiga running, it's my little treasure.

I've also had friends who had the first Playstation and I'd spend hours there playing Crash Bandicoot, Darkstone, Tomb Raider and stuff :)At the age of 8 I believe, I've been given GameBoyColor and spent hours playing "Pokemon Blue" and "The Road to Eldorado".
At the age of 9, we've got ourselves a PC.
That was the time of playing Commando, Diablo, Dungeon Keeper and... The Sims
At that time, my brothers friend gave him a game that he had found somewhere, the game was "Call of Duty" and it was the changing point in my gamer history.
I've been actively playing this game for like 6-7 years, during that time I've been both a clan member and clan leader and had a ton of fun,
I've also learn a lot. The thing with Call of Duty is that each version of the game (ie. 1.1;1.4) was like a different game of it's own. The playstyles were really different, so I had 6 copies of CoD on my PC each different version.
I've fell in love with 1.4 version and kept playing there regardless of the small number of players (roughly 400 at that time I guess), it had it's own atmosphere because you literally known half the playerbase.

[Odynol]

I guess you could say it started when I got my Gamecube in 2nd grade. I decided the that I loved video games. My love for MMOs started when I was 11 when my brother saw an ad online for the Lord of the Rings Online beta. We signed up cause we liked Lord of the Rings, and when we started playing we were just like WOAH this MMO stuff is amazing! We both liked the social aspect along with the leveling up and questing and especially the PvP. We preordered it and since then have branched into other MMOs like GW and WoW. I also play a lot of pther games on Xbox360.

[Bíalba]

I started when my mother bought me a nintendo 64 when I was 5-6 years old. In 2002 my my family get me a new console the gamecube I was so adicted with it until my aunt bougth me a psp in 2005-2006. I first get into mmos when some riends and I starded playing some less known or less good mmos like runescape, tibia, dofus, I alone also played dungeons and dragons online but I didn't play it long. But the reason why I am here and why I not only want to play, but to be good and buy things like a gaming mouse, a new pc; why at the endo of the month I will order a gaming keyboard and on my birthday a headset is SWTOR. Why SWTOR? Well is because I was first into it and thanks to it I found GW2 in the forums and I end liking it more so I loked for a guild and a found you, and you make me in some wy get into pc gaming more and thats the reason why I am buying everything (games, equipment)

[Aethlin]

Uhm well, my dad is a gamer, and it kinda rubbed off, I guess XD
Since before I can remember I was sitting on his lap while he was playing some submarine game (on a reaaally old apple). And from the moment I could I started playing mother goose myself.
My dad would also often bring home new games for us, as would my uncle (duck tales, populous 3, Black and White, Creatures 2, Drakan, lego racers, Starlancer, etc...though not in that order per se, and there were many more XD). We really got a lot (and not all of them entirely legal *cough* ...)
So yeah, basically I grew up with games and in the end it even led to me doing a game development study. Which in turn has me looking at even more games

[Zirith]

in 97 on my 6th birthday I got an n64 with super mario... YAHOO

[nameless]

Legends of Might and Magic
a terrible attempt at a fantasy style counter-strike game. Played this shit when I was like, 11 or 12 or so. On a LoMM ranks site I was statistically the #1 player in 3 different game types (Sword, Princess, Dragon) for about 3 months. There was a very small community of people generally aged 12-18, and it was rare that the global server numbers would top 20, or that there would be more than 100 people online at a time.. in the game's prime maybe 200 people would be online in prime times, generally in a voice chat on smurfs trolling other people trying to troll them. It was the game that introduced me to the concept on an internet community and competitiveness in games

[actellim]

Clearly I had no choice in the matter. This is what I'm best at, so this is what I do.

[teraldent]

I can't exactly remember how old I was, but I must have been 4 or 5 when my brother and I got the NES. It was so awesome, we would play almost every day taking turns after 3 deaths (obviously). However since it was in Bulgaria, the disk cartridges didn't have one game, but somehow they would have at least 10 games. The best way I can explain this is one one of them, it had Super Mario Brothers, Bomberman, Dr Mario, Track and Field, and Parts of Super Contra. When I say parts, I mean you could choose to play any of the levels, or you can choose the first level and play onto the last. It was very strange now that I know it wasn't supposed to be like that, but back then I knew nothing. We also had some legit disk cartridges with only one game per cartridge, and I remember out favorite game was Rockin' Kats. If you haven't played that game, do yourself a favor and play it, its epic!

Anyways, since computers were very expensive at that time in Bulgaria, we never got one. A month after I came to America, my parents got my brother a PS2 for his birthday and the original spider man game (another EPIC) game. I wont get into the console branch of my gaming history anymore, but after we moved from our original studio apartment, we finally got a PC. We were so fucking happy you cant imagine. Basically once that happened, I played Age of Empires 2 nonstop until we got Age of Mythology, and a friend showed me Brood War. And then about a year afterwards came the game that took so much of my time... Diablo 2.
The End

[AetherLemmie]

My story is a bit more recent. I started with a Nintendo Gameboy (the brick), a Nintendo 64 and a PS1. From there I got 2 gameboy colours to play with my brother, then found out about Super Smash Brothers. The PS2 rage came and went (my favourite game definitely being Devil May Cry 3: Dante's Awakening), then came the PSPs. I now have a Wii and a PS3 (media box).

In terms of computers, I played low compter requirement games up until 2008, when I bought my first graphics card, a 9400GT. I would talk more about my computer now but this thread is about the software (Maybe I will start up a thread about rating the pc specs of the person above and suggesting a next upgrade >=D). I played Diablo 2, Starcraft: Brood War, and a host of f2p mmos of just about every genre, from fps to rpg to rts.

[Damarus]

I started playing a bit back on super mario brothers 1,2 and 3. I would just mess around with those though, never anything too intense. It was when my brother got a Nintendo 64 and Goldeneye, and his friends would play it 4 player coop. I started getting involved, and It all went addict from there! I think this is where i also learned to love competitive gaming. The first PC gamie genre I jumped into was RTS, and again i quickly jumped online so i could play with / against people.

[Caesor]

I've always loved gaming but I was never super into it as my parents were always really anal about letting me and my bro play video games too much.

However, when GW came out, I started to spend a lot more time gaming 'cause a lot of my closest friends played it as well. But I was butt-poor and had to share an accnt (shhhh) with a friend of mine. Needless to say, that didn't help me play games that much lol.

It wasn't until senior year of high school and first year of college where I really got into gaming. I picked up SC:BW 'cause amongst my friends it's a bit of an epeen thing so I wanted to get better than all my friends at it. I looked up "pro protoss SC:BW" on youtube, found a VOD of Bisu v. Savior MSL and I was hooked to pro BW ever since. Started playing much more religiously, never got above D+ in BW though. When SC2 and LoL came out I started playing those a lot more. Been a gamer ever since x]

[September]

It all started with the Sega Saturn that I received one Christmas morning. Popped in that Virtua Fighter and went to town on it. Then I guess it was a year or two later on my birthday, my parents got me a NIntendo 64 with Mario Kart and some Star Wars game. Went to town on those two games and eventually it led to me playing Ocarina of Time and Majora's Mask when I was eight or nine. I faked a stomachache so I can stay home while my parents went to work so I can finish the Spirit Temple. I did; great success! Video games is what brought together a lot of my friends and gave us something to do after we played outside. My competitive edge was forged when I got Xbox live and Halo 2 when I was twelve. I was so nervous that I muted my mic all the time. I eventually become this hardcore Halo nerd, skipping school to play it and such. After I moved, I stopped my Halo trend after rage quitting on a game that could have got me rank 49 second day of release. Every game I picked up since then, I give it a lot of attention and strive to be above average in it.