Blaugust Day 6: My first day in an MMO

During my reading of Blaugust posts, I came across Jaedia’s writing prompt on her Day 2 post from Dragons & Whimsy; Tell us about your first day in an MMO. How did you feel? What did you do? Who did you meet? What sticks in your memory, in particular?

This sounds like an excellent blog post, one I’ll use. Thanks, Jaedia.

Going back, my first MMO was Everquest. The King of MMOs (at the time). I remember my brother telling me about it since he had a bit of a head start on it. After a little while, I watched him play some, and not long after that, I wanted to play too. He only had his account and let me create a character on it. That character? A wood elf bard starting in Kelethin; The easiest city to fall down and go splat in. And that’s exactly what happened.

I remember when I first started, I logged in and was looking around on the first platform, reading my guild paper and then trying to look around. I don’t know how, or why, but I was on the side ledge of one of the buildings outside, looking through the window. Eventually I lost my foot and got my first free teleport out of town.

Kelethin
Click me to listen to the theme song

Now, the respawn wasn’t very far, but it was on the ground, below the city. I didn’t notice I was even below it. Five minutes into the game and I was lost, cold, broken, scared and alone in a dark and cruel zone where wondering orks would come by and kill us newbies. But I was saved, as a very kind cleric decided to take pity on me and asked if I was new. That was my first interaction with another person in a game. I was blown away when my brother told me it was another person. I obliged and told them I was lost and looking for a way back to the city. Ten feet later and they showed me the lift that would take me back up.

My first experience didn’t end there - they asked if I had any questions… and boy did I. I think I sat with them for about half an hour (could have been a full one), and afterwards they invited me to their guild. It was ran by herself and her husband at the time. As a final gesture of awesomeness, she gave me 5 gold. That was a crapton for me on a new character where everything was costing me copper.

That was very important to me as it set the tone for who I wanted to be in games. I passed on the awesomeness to others who some then passed it on as well. I offered to make food for free to just about anyone, and sold leftovers on the bazaar. I offered to transfer items between characters before the shared bank was made. I also tried to help my guild any way I could. They were a bunch of great people.

This first experience had a profound effect on me and my understanding of games and had since made MMOs my most favorite genre of all.

Hail, kind adventurer. Need a lift?

You can find more about Blaugust at the 2015 Blaugust Initiative Page.