The first MMORPG is certainly associated with memories for everyone. MeinMMO author Linda also has some beautiful and formative moments connected to her first MMORPG, which she shares in this article.
What is Guild Wars?
- Guild Wars is an MMORPG released in 2005, which still has active players and guilds around the world today
- Since 2012, there is a successor Guild Wars 2
- It takes place in a shattered fantasy world, where you face conflicts with your character in the hope of being the hero who fulfills an ancient prophecy
- In Guild Wars, you could choose between 10 different character classes, including primary and secondary classes
- The areas are instanced outdoor zones, which can be entered alone or in groups through cities and outposts
I got to know this beautiful fantasy world through my father
How I came to Guild Wars is one of my fondest memories from my youth, and I fondly look back on that time. Back then, I must have been around 12 years old, and video games had already accompanied me intensely through my life.
At that time, my mother worked night shifts, and on the evenings when she left for work, my father always started the family computer and logged into Guild Wars.
I was incredibly fascinated and thrilled by this fantasy world. Everything looked so realistic and beautiful in my opinion at that time that I just wanted to see more.
Fantasy worlds had always excited me in movies and books, and being able to truly immerse myself in one with the computer was the pinnacle of possibilities for me.
And so it almost became a little ritual that my father played Guild Wars on our evenings together, I pushed the living room chair next to his office chair, and I snuggled in to watch him play. Already in my pajamas, of course, because I had to go to bed at some point for school.
I spent many lovely evenings this way. I kept saying how much I would love to have a character too, which class I would choose, and so on. I don’t know if I eventually got on his nerves enough, or if he thought I was old enough to play myself.
But I still remember quite clearly the day my father came into my bedroom and told me that I could create my own character with his account. I was so happy about it that I couldn’t wait for our next time on the computer.
On the same day, my journey in Guild Wars began and my entry into the world of online gaming.
Back then, I had to start such games multiple times
My first character was a ranger. The fact that this character class fights with a bow and arrow and can have an animal companion convinced me back then.
Because that’s exactly how the heroes I had imagined in my childhood role-playing games looked. And now I had these heroes visually in front of me. So the decision for the first character was relatively easy.
What was not so easy was the character creation. And this has actually not changed until today. I spent a small eternity working on the perfect character, even though the character customization was much simpler back then than it is today.
Nevertheless, I took my time and restarted the game at least five times because something in-game didn’t fit. To this day, this is a peculiarity of mine, except that in today’s games, it is a much longer process. But when you dive into a new world, you want to find yourself in it somehow.
For a while, I also explored the world of Guild Wars as a ranger, was satisfied with my black panther as a companion, and spent several hours daily facing the challenges the game presented to me.
Problems arose when I discovered what a necromancer is. Because the image in the character selection was so beautiful and appealing that I wanted to learn more about this class. Everything that has anything to do with darker magic and is mysterious fascinates me since that time.
Thus began a battle in my mind between the two coolest character classes.
A few times I restarted the game and switched back and forth between the two classes. Because I just couldn’t decide what I preferred. The bow and my panther or the ability to wield magic to control the dead.
To this day, I find myself at a crossroads when faced with these two options in a game.
Ultimately, however, the urge to progress in the story and explore the world further forced me to make a decision. And so I returned to my roots and ended up playing as a ranger for a long time.
Guild Wars took away my fear of online contacts
The reason for my character choice was relatively simple. I had long refused to play with other players, and as a ranger, I at least had an animal companion.
At that time, the adults around me often warned me not to talk to strangers on the internet, as you can never know who is behind it. The internet in every household was still relatively new at that time, and many adults saw it as a rather strange and dangerous place.
How to protect oneself and especially one’s children was not well known to most at that time.
Since I have always been rather anxious, I imagined that everyone I interacted with online could somehow find me in real life, and that thought scared me.
Eventually, however, the game brought me to a snowy area, where I simply couldn’t do anything against the enemies alone. I needed several attempts to realize that this would not work.
Because, to be honest, I wasn’t a great fighter back then. The concept of “leveling up” was barely known to me back then, and consequently, I was certainly not in any way capable of mastering that area.
In a city, I then saw another player who wrote about the same area and the same problems, and so I dared to write to him and offer to team up.
This experience influenced me so much that I later found myself in other online games. Besides Guild Wars, I eventually also played WoW or S4 League for hours and thoroughly enjoyed connecting with other players.
It was probably because I encountered a really nice player and we worked incredibly well as a team together. I was so fascinated by how different it is when you play with someone who also thinks and reacts to my actions that I started regularly teaming up with other players afterward.
Together, we cleared the area after two or three attempts and completed the matching mission.
For me, a completely different world simply opened up. Because still being below the required level (to my shame, I really didn’t understand the concept of levels for a long time) many areas were a big challenge for me. Seeking help in the cities made things much easier for me, and I could finally enjoy the game even more.
I don’t actually remember many gameplay moments anymore. Here and there, I have some glimpses of various areas and enemies in my head, but I can’t really piece them together anymore.
The memory of my first joint battle, however, has stayed with me very vividly.
Above all, I associate with the memories of my first MMORPG the realization that video games can bring people together in many different ways and create shared moments.
Do you still have memories of your first MMORPG and your first contact with other players? Feel free to share your experiences in the comments.
MeinMMO demon Cortyn was also shaped by the first MMORPG:
My first MMORPG Silkroad Online turned me into a cringe thief and led me to hentai
