First, really good thread. Have a hard laughing here... :-)))
Some of my funniest moments were in AgeofConan where we were sitting on our horses in Cimmeria, at a bridge in the noobyworld, looking at the rocks. Our horses were able to knockback with their back so we waited there on primetime for the starters passing us. We knocked them of the cliff and they died from this. Had so good fights after they were bringing their mains or help from their guilds. Epic... the one or other guild war happened because of this. Funny times...
The best experience i got was from GW, with our guild SoH. We played the GvG ladder (guild vs guild) and battled some of to the top teams (korean) which were showing "ingame TV". I played backline/Monk, mostly healer. That was the harshest teamspeak conversation we got in this times. So many commands and informations you have to react with. Just awesome, never saw a heal concept like this again in a mmo its unique i guess. I felt it was so importent what im doin and if i fucked it up i was in charge for this. So we trained a lot and tried to get that ladder up. Imo my absoulte best experience in mmos since 2005.
My most vivid memory was my very first MMO experience. My first MMO was DAoC and a friend convinced me to try it out with him, and we happen to pick it up the day it released and was in stores. All the initial character creation and play was pretty forgettable and ordinary, getting oriented, moving around, learning the basics.
So off I go on the level grind in a starter town. I’m killing mobs pretty fast and earning experience so I’m pretty pleased with myself, I’ve got this I’m thinking. More killing and things are still going well but something isn’t right. My character isn’t moving as fast as he used to. Oh well, maybe it’s just my imagination. I ignore my senses and keep on killing and getting slower and slower.
Suddenly after killing another mob, bam, I cannot move period. Nothing, no movement at all, I’m 100% stuck. I cannot understand what the heck is going on. I can turn, I can sit, I can stand, and I can cast spells but I cannot move forward or backward. Finally I ask my friend what he thought might be going on, he had played EQ prior to giving DAoC a try. He tells me I might be encumbered.
Encumbered? Say what? Yeah, he says to look at my encumbrance. I didn’t even know there was a stat or where it was. He explained it all and sure enough I was over my encumbrance limit. So I had to use sprint just to be able to move at all so I could move back to town to sell the loot in my inventory so that I could move again.
It’s a dang goofy thing to be such a vivid memory but back then with no MMO experience that is what sticks out most because it was like walking through a door and finding a completely different universe. That first day seeing so many people running around it was a crazy experience, the starter towns were insane in terms of player populations, people were everywhere.
Most of my good MMO memories are from EQ. I've covered many on these forums somewhere.
There are a few more moments that stand out.
- My first real group. Well, the first major one I recall. I started at Orc Hill, moved on to Crushbone (pretty sure I got my first Crush kill that night?) and then on to Steamfont. It would have been my first time through Lesser Fay. I remember that 4 of us were in that group together for something like 8 hours at least.
- I remember the day I met my first real guild, and a good friend in that guild. I was adventuring with a friend from the group above in Everfrost when I died. I can't recall exactly why I couldn't get my corpse but I needed help to do so. That is when I met Heart of Bristlebane. I miss that group of friends. Many don't really MMO now and I lost contact with many. I certainly miss the adventures we had.
- The first time I ran from Kelethin to Qeynos. That was a right of passage in EQ. I remember my first glimpses of Freeport and Qeynos. Freeport felt so huge back then.
- Mustn't forget my first ever sight of the city of Felwithe. That city shone like marble. It was nothing I had ever seen in a video game before.
- I well remember a visit to Lake Rathe with two of the friends from the Crushbone group. Lake Rathe is still my favourite zone of all time. I didn't know that a friend wasn't too keen on sharks and when I shouted "shark" I felt a bit bad. It was a fun time though, pulling the birds on the islands. Parrot-men, iirc.
- Moving on, I well remember my early days in EQ2. Myself and a friend from EQ ventured in to a new zone and, as we stood and took in the vista, he turned me and said "now this is EQ, mate". I don't think I will ever forget that moment.
- And on to SWG and my first day after a friend from Heart of Bristlebane invited me over to the game. I started in the main city of Naboo and I don't think I ahd ever seen so many people in one place in a game. Getting on my first speeder bike, taking my first shuttle ride and seeing my new guild's home city among the rolling hills of Dantooine. I can still see in my head the layout of my home in that city. The lay of the land at my doorway.
- And one last memory that comes to mind from MMOs is from Warhammer Online. I was in a PvP area and met an enemy healer. I was a goblin shaman and the fight we had was 10 minutes of is both healing ourselves. At that point we exchanged emotes for a minute and ran off, surely both laughing at the event.
Yes, all those moments were social. I think that is why I am so excited by Ashes. This game has the potential to create new memories like the ones above. I don't go in blind this time, and I have a guild behind me already, but I can't wait for the memories I hope I get from Ashes. The groups, the places I will visit and the fun times I'll have.
Some great stories here, great read. Funny how most are about naivety and hardship. 😁
My fondest was; taking my Barbarian Shaman, EQ, back to Black Burrow, for some revenge.
BB was a low level, gnoll zone, that had a deep cavern system. There were staging areas, throughout, so there were many groups. There were many trains and alot of competition. I spent months in that damned place.
Finally hitting 50, I decided to get some payback.
I would stand at the top, of the hole, target the deepest mob, fire, and /yell Train to top!
All of a sudden, about 20 gnolls would come screaming up top, to get a piece of a level 50.
I then would /shout Someone get these off me, and you can have da loots! I would just stand there, with agro, and let my fellow noob barbies slaughter these heinous beasts.
At first, peeps were pissed, that I was intentionaly training the zone. But, they caught on. And it became a huge slaughter house. Revenge! I had hours of fun and ended up making a new guild, and adopted family. 😁
My next fondest; was pining on this gal. We would have picnics in Kithigor, and watch the noob woodelfs fall from their treehouse. Splat! Splat! KerPlunk! 😋
Lastly, I had an Iksar. (They were the most hated race.) I ground my Faction up with Freeport and Qeynos (that took months to do). And would stand at the gates, with the guards, taunt players to attack me, and watch the guards pond them. They had no clue, how I did this. I would just tease I paid the guards off and we were drinking buddies, and such. Fun times. 😈
My husband would always /follow me around, quickly jumping or moving when he saw that I noticed it, acting all innocent.
So this one time he had it set to follow again, which I at that point hadn't even noticed, when I stopped to say: "Hey, wasn't there a crevice around here?". He saw I stopped, immediately took over his character and ran forward to show he was all doing it himself, only for the tail of his horse to be the last thing I saw, while him shouting: "Ooooh nooooo!".
Because of all the snow he hadn't seen the gap and even though neither did I, I somehow stopped just in time. It was all coincidence coming together in the most awesome way. I laughed so hard I that even though I was on my druid I couldn't fly down to ress him.
My best memories playing an MMO were from Guild Wars where I could play a specific role on a team, or in PVE, as there was a necessity for the roles to come together and an inability to do everything on your own. As a monk, there was a need to form groups to move through harder content, which I loved. This was also the most disappointing in Guild Wars 2 as every character class could solo most content and there was less importance on team diversity even though the combat mechanics felt much better, there was a strong story, and the OST was good, it just felt like something was missing. I felt this again as I played WOW Classic where group dynamics played extreme importance in raids and dungeons. That interaction with people is really enjoyable, especially as you level parallel to other players and can team up again and again. Another MMO that I thoroughly enjoyed was Fiesta where I remember setting up shops after grinding for drops and interacting with people in my mushroom storefront, plus the atmosphere and OST were amazing. Though grinding for levels in Runescape with my friends will always hold a special place in my heart.
My first and best memories were in Lineage 2.
The first mob kills and noob pvp with my 6 or so inrl friends in the starting area, the first good looking armor crafts 2 months later at lv 40, the class specialization and open world exploration and PvP.
Then being a part of guilds, some friends stayed together others joined different guilds.
Sieges, open world raid bosses, epic quests and world bosses, all carrying proudly my characters name and my guilds.
My first and only hero achievement was a great one. Private server x3 xp rate.
Jumping online in AA and just spending a morning helping guildies run packs, sail across the ocean, etc - the whole social experience.
Also, using a shrink ray to shrink down massive raid bosses like Ragnaros and C'Thun in WoW.
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VarkunMember, Braver of Worlds, Kickstarter, Alpha One
There are so many over the past couple of decades but killing ragnaros that first time in vanilla wow with my guild Land Down Under tends to stick with me. Though wow was not my first MMO.
Close your eyes spread your arms and always trust your cape.
One of my worst memories was logging into World of Warcraft: Mists of Pandaria after not playing since WotLK.
One of my best memories was canceling my subscription the same day.
One of my worst memories was logging into World of Warcraft: Mists of Pandaria after not playing since WotLK.
One of my best memories was canceling my subscription the same day.
I think, that Mists would have been totally acceptable if they didnt implement the Pandaren race and instead just brought in the Monk class as a hero class.
The zones are beautifull and the music relaxing, what more could you want form an expansion?
An epic battle for a keep in DAoC that lasted about 5 or 6 hrs. Started small and slowly grew up to all 3 realms fighting with about 500 ppl there - walls and gate destroyed/repaired several times. It ended bc of too many hibernian animists spamming mushrooms (damage turrets, they had no cap at that time), which crashed the server. Was glorious!
While I don't think I was there personally, I can relate. I have a SS somewhere of a field of Animist shrooms outside a gate wall. Just crazy. It's at home and if I find it I will edit the post and add it.
I DID however participate in a similar battle between Albs and Mids......We Albs were in enemy territory and had captured one of the towers just outside a fortress and got mobbed by a huge pack of Mids. We were pushed into that tower and 20 of us held out for a good 2-3 hours before they finally got all of our rezzers.
Hard to forget the Restuss event in SWG. Not sure over what course of time the event took place but who essentially controlled the city for the longest period of time gained that city as a territory permanently whether it was Imperial or Rebel. The very first day there were so many people there calling it a lagfest would be an understatement. Somehow people stayed connected, but long story short it was nuts. Crazy amount of PvP that day and the days to come. Imperials won the city on our server, sadly I was on the Rebels side. It was super fun throughout the entire event!
When I first completed my Emperor achievement in ESO. During this push my main competition was somebody who was likely cheating. Nobody ever found proof that he did but there were a lot of things that indicated that he had been AP trading. It took 3 whole days of 18 hrs a day grinding to achieve this. It was glorious.
My second would have to have been the first time I ever completed the vMA in ESO. Which is a single person arena. For those of you not aware this arena is a stepping stone for DPS in ESO. It is the type of content that is either very difficult to complete without a good understanding of your build and the mechanics. It is one of the first steps people take before they start to take on Veteran Trials.
My third was when I first got into group pvp. Getting sucked into that rabbit hole. Really trying to push the limits to see what you can do. It's a lot of fun to see what a group of dedicated and experience players can do. My raid leader is also a streamer and it's always fun going back and watching highlights. This is a recent one that stands out in my mind. https://clips.twitch.tv/EagerBrightKittenNinjaGrumpy
If I was to say what made these moments stand out to me was the fact that through hard work and dedication I was rewarded with ingame achievements and successes. What I want form Ashes is a similar sense of reward. From what I have heard I will likely be getting that with this game. I like being able to fully immerse myself in a game. I hope there is a lot of depth to the skill level that a player can play at and I hope combat is dynamic. As long as that is the case I am sure I will find my place.
That is not dead which can eternal lie. And with strange aeons even death may die.
Favorite MMO moment(s)?
Easily my first major/favorite moment. Early Lineage 2. Sieghardt server. Cant remember exact expansion/chronicle. C1? Maybe Pre-chronicles?
Dominant alliance on the server was the CBA, a mega-alliance of 3-5 super huge zerg clans. InnerCircle, DefendersOfOrder, KnightsofShadow....and 1-2 others. Really straining my memory here. My alliance (Darkstorm) after months of build up, in an epic upset took Giran castle (at the time, the largest "Main/Top" castle in the game, all the prestige, etc). Was literally months of planning and contributions by hundereds of people fighting many more hundreds than that. Was kind of the "Crowning" moment from some of my early MMO gaming. Got nostalgic a few years ago after a looooong break from L2. Went back, did the same thing (though not even 1/50th as many people, game was dead/dying) Joined a guild, allied with some other guilds, over threw the dominant guild on the server, took the big castle (Kind of the barometer of whos the top dog on the server at the time). Still felt great.
The countless large fighting-over-nothing battles that would just occur sporadically, some of the more epic ones lasting for literal hours and hours (ToI and Antharas Lair fights were the besssttttt) . Finding a very tight core group of people that I game(d) with to this day.
Playing wow classic as my first wow experience and getting to basically "binge watch" the game was a lot of fun too, having never played previously.
- And one last memory that comes to mind from MMOs is from Warhammer Online. I was in a PvP area and met an enemy healer. I was a goblin shaman and the fight we had was 10 minutes of is both healing ourselves. At that point we exchanged emotes for a minute and ran off, surely both laughing at the event.
I'm not certain, but I possibly might have been that enemy healer. The memory is vague, but your handle is familiar and I fondly recall a similar scenario running around RvR solo on my High Elf Archmage "Slython" against a solo Goblin Shaman in one of the Elf PvP zones (I want to say Caledor, as I recall my duel raging up and down brown cliff borders).
Hmm. Many good memories of MMOs, mostly small things. Somehow the "epic" stuff feels rather forgettable soon after, at least in my case.
I remember searching for a npc in the Karanas in EQ for hours. Quests were sometime vague, the zones huge and no in-game map, and without Allakhazam things could be difficult. I decided to give it up for the moment and just moved to another zone. And then the npc poped on my tracking list
Still in EQ. I remember being stranded on the top of a mountain, at night, in heavy rain, on a character with no night vision. Every mobs that passed in tagging distance /con red.
From vanilla WoW. I remember the end of a long Alterac Valley battle. We Horde had pushed the Alliance to their last cemetery but we were not able to take it from them and beat the general because of their respawn. After 30-40 minutes of this I had enough and announced I was casting Inferno (the Infernal summon spell of warlocks, on a 1 hour timer). Targeted a priest in the back and call the infernal. What makes it memorable was that not long after my huge pet had landed, the other warlocks did the same and then 3-5 Infernal were wrecking chaos in the cemetery. The cemetery was ours a few minutes later
Hmmmm, an interesting question. Why is it an interesting question? Because on the surface I would say the first time I came out of the crypt in Deathknell (WoW) up until that point, I had only played top-down sprite mmos (Ragnarok Online)
Or perhaps the first time I killed Ragnaros with that character. These are all incredibly memories.
But, as bosses come and go, with ever increasing complexity of mechanics. I think otherwise.
My answer now would be all the little details that enrich the world. A painting of a zone in a house. Tents made from human faces which is never mentioned, except there's a dispute between humans and gnolls. Spells and abilities with no use, other then class fantasy. Being a starter character, or a character with almost the best gear in-game. Zones still being dangerous. All those times I had to drink, or eat for mana/health. Especially in groups. At the time I found it annoying. But it's little things like that. That cemented my love for the genre. Those little moments of respite, as if you're all sitting near a fire, getting that well earned rest.
I really started appreciating these things which were mostly invisible, until such details are gone and missing.
Sadly, I do not know if I'll ever get that back. I am cautiously optimistic, still. I hope once nda lifts for Alphas for Ashes. I can ascertain these things for myself.
Comments
Some of my funniest moments were in AgeofConan where we were sitting on our horses in Cimmeria, at a bridge in the noobyworld, looking at the rocks. Our horses were able to knockback with their back so we waited there on primetime for the starters passing us. We knocked them of the cliff and they died from this. Had so good fights after they were bringing their mains or help from their guilds. Epic... the one or other guild war happened because of this. Funny times...
The best experience i got was from GW, with our guild SoH. We played the GvG ladder (guild vs guild) and battled some of to the top teams (korean) which were showing "ingame TV". I played backline/Monk, mostly healer. That was the harshest teamspeak conversation we got in this times. So many commands and informations you have to react with. Just awesome, never saw a heal concept like this again in a mmo its unique i guess. I felt it was so importent what im doin and if i fucked it up i was in charge for this. So we trained a lot and tried to get that ladder up. Imo my absoulte best experience in mmos since 2005.
So off I go on the level grind in a starter town. I’m killing mobs pretty fast and earning experience so I’m pretty pleased with myself, I’ve got this I’m thinking. More killing and things are still going well but something isn’t right. My character isn’t moving as fast as he used to. Oh well, maybe it’s just my imagination. I ignore my senses and keep on killing and getting slower and slower.
Suddenly after killing another mob, bam, I cannot move period. Nothing, no movement at all, I’m 100% stuck. I cannot understand what the heck is going on. I can turn, I can sit, I can stand, and I can cast spells but I cannot move forward or backward. Finally I ask my friend what he thought might be going on, he had played EQ prior to giving DAoC a try. He tells me I might be encumbered.
Encumbered? Say what? Yeah, he says to look at my encumbrance. I didn’t even know there was a stat or where it was. He explained it all and sure enough I was over my encumbrance limit. So I had to use sprint just to be able to move at all so I could move back to town to sell the loot in my inventory so that I could move again.
It’s a dang goofy thing to be such a vivid memory but back then with no MMO experience that is what sticks out most because it was like walking through a door and finding a completely different universe. That first day seeing so many people running around it was a crazy experience, the starter towns were insane in terms of player populations, people were everywhere.
There are a few more moments that stand out.
- My first real group. Well, the first major one I recall. I started at Orc Hill, moved on to Crushbone (pretty sure I got my first Crush kill that night?) and then on to Steamfont. It would have been my first time through Lesser Fay. I remember that 4 of us were in that group together for something like 8 hours at least.
- I remember the day I met my first real guild, and a good friend in that guild. I was adventuring with a friend from the group above in Everfrost when I died. I can't recall exactly why I couldn't get my corpse but I needed help to do so. That is when I met Heart of Bristlebane. I miss that group of friends. Many don't really MMO now and I lost contact with many. I certainly miss the adventures we had.
- The first time I ran from Kelethin to Qeynos. That was a right of passage in EQ. I remember my first glimpses of Freeport and Qeynos. Freeport felt so huge back then.
- Mustn't forget my first ever sight of the city of Felwithe. That city shone like marble. It was nothing I had ever seen in a video game before.
- I well remember a visit to Lake Rathe with two of the friends from the Crushbone group. Lake Rathe is still my favourite zone of all time. I didn't know that a friend wasn't too keen on sharks and when I shouted "shark" I felt a bit bad. It was a fun time though, pulling the birds on the islands. Parrot-men, iirc.
- Moving on, I well remember my early days in EQ2. Myself and a friend from EQ ventured in to a new zone and, as we stood and took in the vista, he turned me and said "now this is EQ, mate". I don't think I will ever forget that moment.
- And on to SWG and my first day after a friend from Heart of Bristlebane invited me over to the game. I started in the main city of Naboo and I don't think I ahd ever seen so many people in one place in a game. Getting on my first speeder bike, taking my first shuttle ride and seeing my new guild's home city among the rolling hills of Dantooine. I can still see in my head the layout of my home in that city. The lay of the land at my doorway.
- And one last memory that comes to mind from MMOs is from Warhammer Online. I was in a PvP area and met an enemy healer. I was a goblin shaman and the fight we had was 10 minutes of is both healing ourselves. At that point we exchanged emotes for a minute and ran off, surely both laughing at the event.
Yes, all those moments were social. I think that is why I am so excited by Ashes. This game has the potential to create new memories like the ones above. I don't go in blind this time, and I have a guild behind me already, but I can't wait for the memories I hope I get from Ashes. The groups, the places I will visit and the fun times I'll have.
The social needs to return to MMOs.
My fondest was; taking my Barbarian Shaman, EQ, back to Black Burrow, for some revenge.
BB was a low level, gnoll zone, that had a deep cavern system. There were staging areas, throughout, so there were many groups. There were many trains and alot of competition. I spent months in that damned place.
Finally hitting 50, I decided to get some payback.
I would stand at the top, of the hole, target the deepest mob, fire, and /yell Train to top!
All of a sudden, about 20 gnolls would come screaming up top, to get a piece of a level 50.
I then would /shout Someone get these off me, and you can have da loots! I would just stand there, with agro, and let my fellow noob barbies slaughter these heinous beasts.
At first, peeps were pissed, that I was intentionaly training the zone. But, they caught on. And it became a huge slaughter house. Revenge! I had hours of fun and ended up making a new guild, and adopted family. 😁
My next fondest; was pining on this gal. We would have picnics in Kithigor, and watch the noob woodelfs fall from their treehouse. Splat! Splat! KerPlunk! 😋
Lastly, I had an Iksar. (They were the most hated race.) I ground my Faction up with Freeport and Qeynos (that took months to do). And would stand at the gates, with the guards, taunt players to attack me, and watch the guards pond them. They had no clue, how I did this. I would just tease I paid the guards off and we were drinking buddies, and such. Fun times. 😈
So this one time he had it set to follow again, which I at that point hadn't even noticed, when I stopped to say: "Hey, wasn't there a crevice around here?". He saw I stopped, immediately took over his character and ran forward to show he was all doing it himself, only for the tail of his horse to be the last thing I saw, while him shouting: "Ooooh nooooo!".
Because of all the snow he hadn't seen the gap and even though neither did I, I somehow stopped just in time. It was all coincidence coming together in the most awesome way. I laughed so hard I that even though I was on my druid I couldn't fly down to ress him.
He never did /follow again.
The first mob kills and noob pvp with my 6 or so inrl friends in the starting area, the first good looking armor crafts 2 months later at lv 40, the class specialization and open world exploration and PvP.
Then being a part of guilds, some friends stayed together others joined different guilds.
Sieges, open world raid bosses, epic quests and world bosses, all carrying proudly my characters name and my guilds.
My first and only hero achievement was a great one. Private server x3 xp rate.
Also, using a shrink ray to shrink down massive raid bosses like Ragnaros and C'Thun in WoW.
One of my best memories was canceling my subscription the same day.
I think, that Mists would have been totally acceptable if they didnt implement the Pandaren race and instead just brought in the Monk class as a hero class.
The zones are beautifull and the music relaxing, what more could you want form an expansion?
While I don't think I was there personally, I can relate. I have a SS somewhere of a field of Animist shrooms outside a gate wall. Just crazy. It's at home and if I find it I will edit the post and add it.
I DID however participate in a similar battle between Albs and Mids......We Albs were in enemy territory and had captured one of the towers just outside a fortress and got mobbed by a huge pack of Mids. We were pushed into that tower and 20 of us held out for a good 2-3 hours before they finally got all of our rezzers.
When I first completed my Emperor achievement in ESO. During this push my main competition was somebody who was likely cheating. Nobody ever found proof that he did but there were a lot of things that indicated that he had been AP trading. It took 3 whole days of 18 hrs a day grinding to achieve this. It was glorious.
My second would have to have been the first time I ever completed the vMA in ESO. Which is a single person arena. For those of you not aware this arena is a stepping stone for DPS in ESO. It is the type of content that is either very difficult to complete without a good understanding of your build and the mechanics. It is one of the first steps people take before they start to take on Veteran Trials.
My third was when I first got into group pvp. Getting sucked into that rabbit hole. Really trying to push the limits to see what you can do. It's a lot of fun to see what a group of dedicated and experience players can do. My raid leader is also a streamer and it's always fun going back and watching highlights. This is a recent one that stands out in my mind. https://clips.twitch.tv/EagerBrightKittenNinjaGrumpy
If I was to say what made these moments stand out to me was the fact that through hard work and dedication I was rewarded with ingame achievements and successes. What I want form Ashes is a similar sense of reward. From what I have heard I will likely be getting that with this game. I like being able to fully immerse myself in a game. I hope there is a lot of depth to the skill level that a player can play at and I hope combat is dynamic. As long as that is the case I am sure I will find my place.
That is not dead which can eternal lie. And with strange aeons even death may die.
Easily my first major/favorite moment. Early Lineage 2. Sieghardt server. Cant remember exact expansion/chronicle. C1? Maybe Pre-chronicles?
Dominant alliance on the server was the CBA, a mega-alliance of 3-5 super huge zerg clans. InnerCircle, DefendersOfOrder, KnightsofShadow....and 1-2 others. Really straining my memory here. My alliance (Darkstorm) after months of build up, in an epic upset took Giran castle (at the time, the largest "Main/Top" castle in the game, all the prestige, etc). Was literally months of planning and contributions by hundereds of people fighting many more hundreds than that. Was kind of the "Crowning" moment from some of my early MMO gaming. Got nostalgic a few years ago after a looooong break from L2. Went back, did the same thing (though not even 1/50th as many people, game was dead/dying) Joined a guild, allied with some other guilds, over threw the dominant guild on the server, took the big castle (Kind of the barometer of whos the top dog on the server at the time). Still felt great.
The countless large fighting-over-nothing battles that would just occur sporadically, some of the more epic ones lasting for literal hours and hours (ToI and Antharas Lair fights were the besssttttt) . Finding a very tight core group of people that I game(d) with to this day.
Playing wow classic as my first wow experience and getting to basically "binge watch" the game was a lot of fun too, having never played previously.
I remember searching for a npc in the Karanas in EQ for hours. Quests were sometime vague, the zones huge and no in-game map, and without Allakhazam things could be difficult. I decided to give it up for the moment and just moved to another zone. And then the npc poped on my tracking list
Still in EQ. I remember being stranded on the top of a mountain, at night, in heavy rain, on a character with no night vision. Every mobs that passed in tagging distance /con red.
From vanilla WoW. I remember the end of a long Alterac Valley battle. We Horde had pushed the Alliance to their last cemetery but we were not able to take it from them and beat the general because of their respawn. After 30-40 minutes of this I had enough and announced I was casting Inferno (the Infernal summon spell of warlocks, on a 1 hour timer). Targeted a priest in the back and call the infernal. What makes it memorable was that not long after my huge pet had landed, the other warlocks did the same and then 3-5 Infernal were wrecking chaos in the cemetery. The cemetery was ours a few minutes later
Stun-lock rotations from WowTBC were glorious if you were nerd enough.
It was like playing King, from Tekken, on a Mmorpg.
Or perhaps the first time I killed Ragnaros with that character. These are all incredibly memories.
But, as bosses come and go, with ever increasing complexity of mechanics. I think otherwise.
My answer now would be all the little details that enrich the world. A painting of a zone in a house. Tents made from human faces which is never mentioned, except there's a dispute between humans and gnolls. Spells and abilities with no use, other then class fantasy. Being a starter character, or a character with almost the best gear in-game. Zones still being dangerous. All those times I had to drink, or eat for mana/health. Especially in groups. At the time I found it annoying. But it's little things like that. That cemented my love for the genre. Those little moments of respite, as if you're all sitting near a fire, getting that well earned rest.
I really started appreciating these things which were mostly invisible, until such details are gone and missing.
Sadly, I do not know if I'll ever get that back. I am cautiously optimistic, still. I hope once nda lifts for Alphas for Ashes. I can ascertain these things for myself.