Putting the 'role' back in role-playing games since 2002.
Donate to Codex
Good Old Games
  • Welcome to rpgcodex.net, a site dedicated to discussing computer based role-playing games in a free and open fashion. We're less strict than other forums, but please refer to the rules.

    "This message is awaiting moderator approval": All new users must pass through our moderation queue before they will be able to post normally. Until your account has "passed" your posts will only be visible to yourself (and moderators) until they are approved. Give us a week to get around to approving / deleting / ignoring your mundane opinion on crap before hassling us about it. Once you have passed the moderation period (think of it as a test), you will be able to post normally, just like all the other retards.

How was your first time?

Alter Sack

Magister
Joined
Dec 22, 2019
Messages
2,201
So what was your first RPG?

Was it love on first sight and established your lifelong infatuation with RPGs? Or was it a disappointment?

I started out my gaming career with a C64 at the end of the 80s. But despite having two boxes of floppy discs (all originals naturally) there was no real RPG among them. So it seems like my friends weren't keen on RPGs or simply too young to hold them in high regard
(I mean what do you expect from 10 year old little shits?).

The only game I owned (I even bought it with my meager pocket money as part of a compilation) that had some rpg elements was
Rings of medusa: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rings_of_Medusa

But I was totally in over my head, didn't know what to do and got my ass handed to me relatively quick.
Nevertheless the game had a certain charm and I fondly remember the manual which included an extensive background story.

My first real RPG was eye of the beholder II after I got my first PC bought with my communion money (a 386 DX40, man pcs were expensive back then).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eye_of_the_Beholder_II:_The_Legend_of_Darkmoon

It must have been 1991 or 92. I fell for the box art and bought it immediately at my local electronics store. The problem was that it was completely in english and I greatly overestimated my english language skills. Well, I only began learning english that year.

So I was again in over my head and didn't advance far in the game. It was a bit frustrating.

It was six years later that I finally really got into rpgs with fallout. It was the first rpg that I played through from start to finsih.

I somehow regret that I never got hold of a rpg in my own language in my younger years. I think that is the main reason that I can't really get into older games like the gold box games . I somehow can't get accustomed to the UI without mouse support.
 
Last edited:

Lady Error

█▓▒░ ░▒▓█
Patron
Vatnik
Joined
Jan 21, 2021
Messages
9,215
Strap Yourselves In
Of course we had threads like this before, but whatever.

Funnily enough, my first RPG was the same as yours. But neither me nor a friend of mine who had Eye of the Beholder II could figure out how to use the weapons. So we threw stuff at the wolves instead. Good times.

I got into RPG's much earlier than Fallout though. There were some great ones: Wizardry 7, Das Schwarze Auge 1-3, Amberstar, etc.

Back then I trusted the judgement of the two RPG connoseurs at the Power Play magazine and they were not wrong. Also created maps for Das Schwarze Auge and Stonekeep, which were published by them.
 

Hobo Elf

Arcane
Joined
Feb 17, 2009
Messages
13,997
Location
Platypus Planet
I had one of those Russian pirate CDs, back before people knew that you actually had to buy your games from the store. I played Dungeon Master on it. I liked the FPP dungeon crawling, but even then the RT combat felt silly to me. I had played D&D on PnP before so it's not like my love for the genre started there, but it did open me up to the possibilities of cRPGs.
 

Galdred

Studio Draconis
Patron
Developer
Joined
May 6, 2011
Messages
4,346
Location
Middle Empire
Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
My first one was Ishar. I had a blast with it, despite its flaws (very repetitive, no direction, and real time blobber combat with a very poor UI, especially for casting spells). The atmosphere was great, and the game was gorgeous (mostly the environments, because some character sprites were not so great).
My playthrough ended with the save floppy disk being reformated when my sister tried saving Lemmings 2 on it.
 

Alter Sack

Magister
Joined
Dec 22, 2019
Messages
2,201
Of course we had threads like this before, but whatever.

Funnily enough, my first RPG was the same as yours. But neither me nor a friend of mine who had Eye of the Beholder II could figure out how to use the weapons. So we threw stuff at the wolves instead. Good times.

I got into RPG's much earlier than Fallout though. There were some great ones: Wizardry 7, Das Schwarze Auge 1-3, Amberstar, etc.

Back then I trusted the judgement of the two RPG connoseurs at the Power Play magazine and they were not wrong. Also created maps for Das Schwarze Auge and Stonekeep, which were published by them.


Seems like there was an ample supply of eye of the beholder II at early 90s german eletronic stores to lure in innocent and unsuspecting kids. At least it seems I wasn't the only one who fell for the box art.

Somehow I totally missed "das schwarze auge" despite being a regular reader of pcgames. I would have loved to play Ultima VIII but my pc wasn't powerful enough. I think you needed a 486dx66 to play it :(.
 

Ihavenoidea

Educated
Joined
May 12, 2020
Messages
80
Rage of Mages 2 I think, incidentally one of the most annoying games I played and finished
Fucking succubuses leaving the map when they were about to be killed, loot dropped into water with no way to retrieve it, etc.
Good times.
 

Kev Inkline

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Nov 17, 2015
Messages
5,072
A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Kingmaker Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
I played through The Crescen't Hawks Inception (on Amiga, naturally) with a help of a dictionary. The game had even a stock market (three different listed companies) which was cool.
 

Lady Error

█▓▒░ ░▒▓█
Patron
Vatnik
Joined
Jan 21, 2021
Messages
9,215
Strap Yourselves In
Seems like there was an ample supply of eye of the beholder II at early 90s german eletronic stores to lure in innocent and unsuspecting kids. At least it seems I wasn't the only one who fell for the box art.

It was more of a harr harr situation, if you catch my drift.

The first PC game I bought was Wizardry 7 though.
 

JarlFrank

I like Thief THIS much
Patron
Joined
Jan 4, 2007
Messages
33,052
Location
KA.DINGIR.RA.KI
Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
Diablo 1. Loved it, played Diablo 2 soon after, then went on to proper RPGs such as Arcanum and Baldur's Gate 2.

And then the peak of the genre was reached and new releases would only disappoint me.
 

Alter Sack

Magister
Joined
Dec 22, 2019
Messages
2,201
Diablo 1. Loved it, played Diablo 2 soon after, then went on to proper RPGs such as Arcanum and Baldur's Gate 2.

And then the peak of the genre was reached and new releases would only disappoint me.

I also played the shit out of diablo 1. I was literally addicted. My poor mouse didn't survive it. Strangely nowadays I can't get into these kind of games anymore (too much grinding? I don't know).
 
Last edited:

Sigourn

uooh afficionado
Joined
Feb 6, 2016
Messages
5,623
I'm guessing we are talking western RPGs here.
My first RPG was Final Fantasy IX when I was roughly 13 (2005). My first western RPG was Skyrim (2014). My first cRPG was Fallout (2015 I think).

It's hard to believe I first played Fallout the same year Fallout 4 released. As to my experiences with each:
  • Final Fantasy IX was a blast. So much in fact that ever since then, whenever I wanted to play a JRPG (for some reason, at the time I didn't fathom the idea of western RPGs existing, don't ask me why) I wanted something like Final Fantasy.
  • Skryim was great. I got a new PC, and for the first time I was able to play "modern" games. Skyrim, even three years after its release, was still very much THE most popular western RPG ever made, so it came as no surprise that my brother (who never gave a shit about games since the days of Wolfenstein 3D and Doom) told me "you should get it, people say it's great". I played it non-stop for 6 months, after which I moved to Fallout 3. Haven't really replayed it since then. Mostly because mods are a rabbit hole, and Skyrim's coolest mods are script heavy and prone to making the game crash. In the distant future I'll probably replay it. Requiem was a great mod.
  • I hit my head in the wall with Fallout. I remember hating the interface and how obscure some things were, mostly because unlike Morrowind you couldn't ask NPCs for information such as "do you know where can I find any rope?". Having to "pixel hunt" at times sucked too (Tim Cain and Boyarsky ran into similar issues in a recent playthrough of the game). But overall I thought the game was good, if flawed. It made me seek out "similar" cRPGs (isometric/top-down, even though all of them were party-based).
 

Vlajdermen

Arcane
Joined
Nov 19, 2017
Messages
2,039
Location
Catholic Serbia
I technically started with Amalur and Dark Souls in high school, but I don't count those. I started getting into RPGs in 2017 (back when I still called them WRPGs), it took me a while to adjust to them but I was having enough fun for the effort to be worth it.
As for what RPG I was playing - I played a lot of them at the same time: Baldur's Gate 2, Planescape Torment, Diablo 2, Morrowind, Arcanum, and really any RPG that appeared in top 10 lists. I threw shit at the wall to see what sticks. Needless to say, Arcanum stuck the best.
 

Mortmal

Arcane
Joined
Jun 15, 2009
Messages
9,158
So what was your first RPG?

Was it love on first sight and established your lifelong infatuation with RPGs? Or was it a disappointment?

I started out my gaming career with a C64 at the end of the 80s. But despite having two boxes of floppy discs (all originals naturally) there was no real RPG among them. So it seems like my friends weren't keen on RPGs or simply too young to hold them in high regard
(I mean what do you expect from 10 year old little shits?).

The only game I owned (I even bought it with my meager pocket money as part of a compilation) that had some rpg elements was
Rings of medusa: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rings_of_Medusa

But I was totally in over my head, didn't know what to do and got my ass handed to me relatively quick.
Nevertheless the game had a certain charm and I fondly remember the manual which included an extensive background story.

My first real RPG was eye of the beholder II after I got my first PC bought with my communion money (a 386 DX40, man pcs were expensive back then).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eye_of_the_Beholder_II:_The_Legend_of_Darkmoon

It must have been 1991 or 92. I fell for the box art and bought it immediately at my local electronics store. The problem was that it was completely in english and I greatly overestimated my english language skills. Well, I only began learning english that year.

So I was again in over my head and didn't advance far in the game. It was a bit frustrating.

It was six years later that I finally really got into rpgs with fallout. It was the first rpg that I played through from start to finsih.

I somehow regret that I never got hold of a rpg in my own language in my younger years. I think that is the main reason that I can't really get into older games like the gold box games . I somehow can't get accustomed to the UI without mouse support.

C64 had ton of great rpg, the first goldbox games , the ultima , bard's tale , almost everything and better than on pc. But its not a surprise you dont get any, in those trouble times everyone was pirating , only arcade games and shooters were circulating, rpg were not popular . Then it was hard to even find a shop, not to mention everything was in english. I wanted Pool of radiance as a kid, i was into becmi already, but my father did not want cause it was in english and was worried i bother him to translate...Same thing on the amiga i actually had to buy the rpgs, played eye of the beholder on it as well , great games indeed.
So after this serious trauma , not having pool of radiance as a kid , i end up owning every rpg on every systems, except maybe a few obscure korean ones ....But unlike the rpgaddict i am not making a blog dissecting them , using baldur's gate as standard, but i rather play and enjoy them.Most of the goldbox games have mouse support by the way, only early oens had to memorize spells everyr est and bullshit like that.Also there's some automap sofwares and UI enhancement.
 

JarlFrank

I like Thief THIS much
Patron
Joined
Jan 4, 2007
Messages
33,052
Location
KA.DINGIR.RA.KI
Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
I also played the shit out of diablo 1. I was literally addicted. My poor mouse didn't survive it. Strangely nowadays I can't get into these kind of games anymore (too much grinding? I don't know).

Same. They've grown stale, probably because they're always the same. Diablo clones haven't evolved at all, they all just have the same gameplay loop. You played one, you played them all.
 
Joined
Jan 14, 2018
Messages
50,754
Codex Year of the Donut
I also played the shit out of diablo 1. I was literally addicted. My poor mouse didn't survive it. Strangely nowadays I can't get into these kind of games anymore (too much grinding? I don't know).

Same. They've grown stale, probably because they're always the same. Diablo clones haven't evolved at all, they all just have the same gameplay loop. You played one, you played them all.
To be fair, I feel the same way with blobbers. Wizardry 8 is nearly the only exception and is still far ahead of the rest of the genre.
 

Lady Error

█▓▒░ ░▒▓█
Patron
Vatnik
Joined
Jan 21, 2021
Messages
9,215
Strap Yourselves In
There aren't nearly enough WESTERN TURN-BASED blobbers out there. The real-time and animu crap is over-abundant though.

And to be fair, there are some good real-time Western blobbers too.
 

Alter Sack

Magister
Joined
Dec 22, 2019
Messages
2,201
Seems like there was an ample supply of eye of the beholder II at early 90s german eletronic stores to lure in innocent and unsuspecting kids. At least it seems I wasn't the only one who fell for the box art.

It was more of a harr harr situation, if you catch my drift.

The first PC game I bought was Wizardry 7 though.

It was a real problem to get your hands on the game you wanted, at least for me. No internet where you could download the games and most of my friends were poorfaqs who didn't own a pc. The two or three people I know of who owned a pc (or a least their dad did) hadn't a great game collection either. And if they had a game I wanted I still needed a game they desired in exchange (those greedy bastards ;) ).

So I often had to use my meager pocket money to buy a game I really wanted or I simply had to do without them. Inconceivable nowadays where everything is available on the internet and only a mouseclick away.

But still good times.
 

thesheeep

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Mar 16, 2007
Messages
9,939
Location
Tampere, Finland
Codex 2012 Strap Yourselves In Codex Year of the Donut Codex+ Now Streaming! Serpent in the Staglands Dead State Divinity: Original Sin Torment: Tides of Numenera Codex USB, 2014 Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 BattleTech Bubbles In Memoria A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Kingmaker Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag. Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth
Seiken Densetsu 1, also known as Mystic Quest on the Gameboy.

I still have the music playing in my head every now and again.

Though that does not really qualify as a real RPG.
If we're talking proper ones, this one is likely to be it:
https://rpgcodex.net/forums/threads...rpg-from-the-depths-of-shareware-hell.117527/

That was when I got my first PC, so I don't think there would be many that could have come before it.
 
Last edited:

Disciple

Savant
Joined
Feb 18, 2018
Messages
269
The first RPG I ever played was Castle of the Winds on a cousin's computer. He was into fighting and maze video games mostly, but those ones didn't really grab my attention that much. I played CotW only for a couple of hours, but I remember enjoying that first RPG experience, so I decided I would try to investigate further. Diablo and Fallout were the second and third RPGs I played when I got my own computer.
 

As an Amazon Associate, rpgcodex.net earns from qualifying purchases.
Back
Top Bottom