Aradune

[Tal]

We all know he [Brad McQuaid] passed. Significant in the creation of EverQuest. I thought I'd share a quick memory of him as you are fans of role-playing mmos.

I was in EQ once and he ran by. Aradune. Green armor and all.

Thanks for playing.

Jokes aside, it was a moment for me. I distinctly remember shouting to my wife it happened. She nodded and continued waiting for the boat at the dock (yep, playing EQ as well).

To me, it was like seeing a rock star.

Anyway. With Aradune's passing it made me wonder, does anyone feel wonder in mmos anymore? Are there memories that move you and you'd like to share?

I'll start. My first MMO was Ultima Online. My first day I wandered out of town and was happily bumping into things when a fella walked up to me and asked, "Have you seen any PKs?" Perplexed I replied, "What's a PK?" He then killed me. (true story)

[Gith]

My first MMO was Asheron's Call. The map was like 100 in game square miles. It was huge, with a big ass mountain range down the middle dividing up the lower and higher level areas. I was amazed at how bit it was. You could just wander around and find a completely random underground temple to explore. There wouldn't even be any loot in it, it would just go on forever and be cool to explore. I thought that game was really good because you could just explore and have fun.

[PinkRose]

I started with MUDs.
Ultima Online was my first Proper MMO, as it was THE first proper MMO.
The idea of playing "D&D" with 100s of other people was awesome. And seeing it graphically represented. There was nothing better.
And then EQ came along. I started on the Alignment server. Good v. Neutral v. Evil. It was awful.
I found Starspun through Geocities and interacted In-character on the forums for a month before the server was actually live.
Finally, speaking no common language, I was recruited into Starspun, which eventually became Saga.

[Alirrin]

I started with EQ2.  My cousin had been a big EQ fan, so when EQ2 came out I bought it to play with her. 

On our first foray outside of Qeynos, I was playing Henderson Flutterfoot (a predecessor to Quince).  I hadn't really gotten a good handle on aggro radius yet, and wandered too close to a large group of gnolls.  As they all came toward me, my cousin typed into the local channel, "RUN, HENDY, RUN!"

I'm pretty sure I got about 10 steps before I was face down in the dirt. 

[Kalese]

My first MMO was EQ1.  I wound up on FV.  I hadn't been on the server long and I ran into the Ilharn of House Sel`Quar in Nektulos Forest.  They were a small family, but they were all great people.  I went to EQ2 afterwards and met Tuppen there.  When SWtoR went live I joined Saga.  And here I am back to my roots in EQ1 and having a blast.

[Corsair]

The Fririona Vie Server made EQ probably the best shared or MMO game I have ever played.

That server and it's unique original rules set never exist without Brad/Aradune.

I had skipped Ultima Online, due to what I heard of the PK environment.

When EQ first was released, I was not really into first person tactical gaming. (Your Doom, and what have you.) But I was intrigued by the idea of a persistent online shared D&D game world. That sounded very very cool.

I got sucked in a few months later. And was enjoying the game a lot when Kunark was released not too long after I got rolling. It was a good run back then, on the Tribunal server when it was new. I did also try the "RP/PVP server...where I foolishly chose the "light" side....while most of the hard core PVP world focused on the dark side. That was almost still really fun, but in actuality too brutal to endure.

Then came FV. And it was grand. Built Lux Aeternam with a few friends, and added more...met some cool folks in a guild called Starspun. Also League of Honor, Circles of Brothers/Sisters, and many more. So thank you Aradune, they were the best of times. (And still are even now!)