At what age did you first start playing EverQuest, and what draws you in?

[Fenrisulfr]

Originally Posted by Humwawa

My buddy Mike was a nut for computers in 1999, a CS major at Purdue University. I was an English/Philosophy major who had never owned a PC better than an IBM-PC that could barely run "Where In The World is Carmen Sandiego?".

After a night of drinking I stopped by his apartment to visit. His girlfriend had gone to bed (it was 2am) and he was up, as usual, fidgeting with his PC. Except this time he was playing EverQuest. I watched him for awhile, staring stupidly at his dark elf necromancer as he murdered snakes and bugs and such for no reason I could determine. When he logged out and decided I was probably too drunk to walk home, asked me if I'd like to play this game a bit. I agreed; he went to bed.

I understood none of it. I put points into dexterity because the number was green. I spent what felt like an hour, trying to pick a name (it was probably only 15 minutes), and settled on my favorite character in Gilgamesh's Epic - Humwawa. After loading in, I died at least 7 times.

Frustrated, I snuck out to the porch and smoked a jay. And suddenly the game made sense. The colors seemed to be some kind of mysterious, occult code of operation. I slew snakes with reckless abandon to the seductive caress of 16 bit green orbs of malign magic.

I was playing when the sun came up, and playing still that night when he got home after leaving to visit his girlfriend's parents.

I bought a PC soon after, and he gave me the account. And so I descended into Gamer Nerdery.

Inspiring hahaha. Awesome!