[TERA PC & Console] En Masse is closing, but TERA lives on! We will continue to support TERA PC (NA) and TERA Console until service is transferred. Stay tuned for more information.
[TERA Console] The Grotto of Lost Souls update (v85) is now live! Read the patch notes here: https://bit.ly/TERACon_v85
[TERA PC] The 64-bit update (v97) is now live. Check out all the changes delivered on August 11 here: https://bit.ly/tera64_patchnotes
[TERA PC & CONSOLE] Summerfest Part 2: The Beach Bash is on from August 11 until September 1! Participate in event activities to earn tokens redeemable for costumes, consumables, mounts, and more! Details: https://bit.ly/tera_sf20
Comments
My gaming consisted of Load Runner and M.U.L.E. on a Commodore 64. Obviously gaming is light years ahead of what it was then, but I was gaming in the 80s and don't plan on stopping until I am physically unable to faceroll my keyboard anymore.
I started when AOL went unlimited, in '96, though, since before then, you had to pay by the minute to play! No way my parents would pay for that!
But it had a very large player base for the time.
Interestingly, the game is still going strong. Though they changed the name to Gemstone 4 after they did a massive expansion a few years back. I still play it from time to time (text games can do things graphical games can't, so it's still appealing in many ways.).
I believe there was actually another MMO that came out before Gemstone, even. Island of Kesmai, I think it was called?
But it was seriously like $12 an hour to play back then, on CompuServe!
48, wife is a few years younger but plays. Limited more in this game by the CPU (3-year old AMD chip) than reflexes but starting to pick up some of the older people issues however, i'm still not a get off my lawn type person. Cracks me up that we've been married longer than the majority of our guildmates have been on this planet. My niece plays some but she's still a bit young and after a year she finally made it to level 30! Sorta glad she doesn't read chat yet so she calls us when she plays and we help her out on the phone. We ran a guild for 2-years but that burnt us out.
Started on Pong then Telstar Arcade, Atari 2600 (never called it 2600 back in the day), Intellivision, handheld games like Mattel Football and it's competitor which I've forgotten the name, space invader clones, mastered the hell out of arcade versions of Time Pilot, Defender, Missile Command, Galaga and Tempest.
For MMOs there were the MUDs but they were a bit buggy (Fortran days FTW!) and we'd rather just get together and play paper D&D but my first "modern" MMO was EQ (that was a grind!), went to Asheron's Call then called it quits for a bit (FPSs like Unreal Tournament pulled me away) until Tera, which I learned about from a friend who is my age. Can't stand console controllers but I used to log into COD so kids could frag my sorry butt.
Compuserve and QuantumLink! Red Dragon Inn anyone?
i'm only turning 22 next week so definitely not me
Kids these days. No sense of proportion.
While I suspect the core gaming age will always stay somewhere in/near the 20s the gaming world is becoming increasingly diverse, which I think is a really good thing. Although I think it may present game designers with the challenge of creating content that's appealing to such a more diverse gaming community.
I read a few comments about people talking about their reaction times getting slower, I feel that too, but if recent studies are right we should give up playing. Recent studies have shown that action orientated games, where speed and situational awareness are important, are actually very good for our brains, young and old alike. So plenty of reason to keep on playing.
I'm slower, yes. Been always slow at these kinds of things. But doesn't mean I'm right down quitting. Though if they can make me a bullet time version of SSHM I'd appreciate it. XD
There's a dude claiming that he's around 73 years old and still playing tera.
Uh... yeah. Try reading the thread. Geez, what do they teach you kids these days? Obviously they tossed reading comprehension out the window. Probably to make room for memes class or social media networking or whatever passes for education these days.