I was already in my mid 20s when it came out in 1999 but I loved the idea of it. A 3D first person online multiplayer game like that? Sounded totally epic. I was playing MUDs in the 90s and now it's 3D, wow.
Went out and bought the game and a strategy guide. Read the guide front to back at work.
Decided I wanted to play a high elf enchanter. Sounded different and interesting. Dialed my modem connection on MCI Worldcom with my phone, set aside like an hour to play that night because back then you had to pay extra if you were online for more than a few hours per week, and proceeded to get lost in Gfay and Kelethin with my newbie enchanter.
But man was it immersive.
Eventually heard about this stein of mogguk quest enchanters could do and decided maybe it was time to explore the rest of the world. My play experience was basically Crushbone at this point with a few excursions into some parts of Butcherblock. I made to I think level 12, ran through Butcherblock, took the boat that I finally saw to a strange foreign land full of players I'd never seen before, and then had probably the most epic experience I've ever had in a game making my way to Erudin. Each area had their own community. Gfay was one group of people, Freeport and the Commonlands another, Qeynos had entirely different players talking in chat about things I'd never heard of like Blackburrow, and Erudin was basically empty lol. The trek was dangerous, and even more dangerous in my mind as I wasn't conning everything and just assumed everything was hostile like the giant spiders in the Commonlands, so the journey took forever as I dodged and avoided everything.
Will never be able to recapture those feelings.
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