I was going to post this in zenga's "I wonder how you guys did it in the past..." thread, but it got pretty long and I didn't want to derail the thread, so I decided to make a separate post. Hope some of you enjoy the read.
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Early WoW was a very fun time. Not knowing everything about the game made it more mysterious and fun to explore.
In fact, this is true of everything...it's more fun when you first experience it. Ever notice how the first few months with a new girlfriend/boyfriend are always the most exciting? To go one step further, I submit that people will always look back to the "glory days" and wish to return, but you cannot. It's just not possible. You could set everything up exactly the same way, but the experience will be different just because *you* are different and the experience isn't new anymore.
Anyway, as I said, early wow was great, but even better from my perspective was early Everquest for me (my first MMO). Read on if you want to hear one of my favorite MMO experience which I think exemplifies this phenomenon.
It's 1999 (let's party) and I, like many others, am hooked on EQ. I quickly level up to 50 and am excited to see some of the "end game", even though that term didn't exist yet.
Specifically, I'd been hearing all about this badass dragon named Lord Nagafen whose lair was contained deep inside a dungeon, guarded by kobalds, bats, spiders, and Fire Giants! Even the idea of experiencing a Fire Giant was thrilling to me.
As luck would have it, I was roaming through Lavastorm Mountains (zone that this dungeons was located in) one day, when I see somebody "OOC"ing that they were looking for more to kill Nagafen. Of course, we now know this type of assemblage well (THE PUG), but at the time, the idea of venturing into the Lord of Fire's lair with 40 strangers was completely new. I immediately could see some of the problems (namely, the moron factor), but I didn't care. I just wanted to even SEE this dragon, so I was in.
The next 2 hours were pure PUG hell. You think it's bad now, at least most current MMO players have a semi-clue how to play the game against a boss encounter. 2/3 of these people were so clueless that they couldn't even understand the concept of focusing fire. Anyway, difficulties aside, we manage to get deeper into the dungeon than I had ever been before, passing named mobs that I'd only heard of. The thrill of the hunt was definitely in force, as each new corner revealed a heretofore unexplored vista for me.
Eventually, we head over this bridge and encounter our first Fire Giant. I can't say how "wow!" I was at that moment. I'd seen other giants in the game, and they were all among the game's elite denizens, but somehow these were just that much cooler. Probably because they were ostensibly just hanging out in this dungeon to guard their lord and master. Well, they also just looked cool too.
Infused with energy we all proceed to wipe about 16 times on this bridge trying to pull the first two giants and kill them. I suppose this should have been harbinger enough for us all, but we didn't care. We were going to see A DRAGON!
After who knows how many more hours, we finally manage to get to the room with King Tranix, a named giant with a decidedly eastern look (turban on head was my first giveaway) who is the last defense before the lord himself. He warned us to return whence we came, but as I already explained, we were not to be deflected. We dispatched him with grace and style (repeatedly throwing ourselves at him until he probably just expired from boredom) and set up the final encounter of our adventure.
To this point, this raid was pure PUG hell. Every negative thing you can imagine about a PUG all at once. A cracked stick would drop and people would be flipping out about wanting it. People ninja looting things (there was no loot system in EQ). You name it. This was my first PUG and I was already sick to death of these shitheels, but none of that mattered when I came around the corner and got my first glimpse of the mack-daddy himself...
His lair proper was huge by the standards of its surroundings. There was bubbling lava all around the perimeter, and the entire room had a haze of consumed flammables. Back and center in the room was a being of such magnitude to dwarf anything I'd ever seen in a video game before. A classic dragon form, but no less the impressive for it. Sitting there starring us down, as if daring us to proceed, this was the pinnacle of the game, and really video games at the time. Words, of course, can never really convey the majesty of this first experience, but I'm sure you all remember a similar moment.
The next 2 hours consisted of us wiping over and over without ever really making any progress. I died so many times this night that I actually de-leveled! And I was 1/2 through 50 when we started. (dying in EQ takes experience, and the really good res spells [which returned experience] didn't come until later in the game)
Finally, we wiped in such a way that we could not retrieve our bodies without engaging Nagafen, and please remember, in EQ when you died EVERYTHING stayed on your body. And much like wow, gear is everything. At this point we are all freaking out because if you lost your body, it was gone - permanently. There was no corpse-summoning spells in the game yet. GMs wouldn't retrieve them for you unless you encountered a game bug. Sucking ass was not on their list of bugs, IIRC. You had 7 days to rescue your corpse or you could kiss your valuables goodbye. Try to imagine the juvenile mentality of most PUG members and now imagine them being told they may lose everything they'd worked so hard for to this point and you can maybe piece together a glimpse of what the zone chat was like.
After many more failed attempts (and lost experience points) trying to get our bodies back, somebody finally brought in a friend from one of the "big guilds" who knew how to actually exploit the pathing of Nagafen such that he would sit in an endless loop trying (unsuccessfully) to path to his target and never attack anything. I still remember my heart pounding as I raced up the ramp into his room (with his gigantic form glitching right above me!), retrieved my 9 fallen bodies and all my gear, and got the hell out of dodge. If discretion is truly the better part of valor, we were all very discreet, I must say.
We weren't successful that night, and I incubated enough PUG hatred to last me until this day, but this will still always be my grandest MMO memory. I know I can never experience a feeling quite like it again in this genre of game, so I will just always enjoy reliving it in my mind and wait for the other "new" experiences to come from elsewhere.
