A few years later, an early and geeky boyfriend of mine became fascinated at the prospect of a female gamer---heretofore a complete unknown---and promptly installed Duke Nukem 3D (now with one more D) on my family's very swanky computer, which (I believe) was a Pentium II (now with one more pentium).
I was then initiated in the process of dialing into his family's PC across town via TCP/IP, allowing us to play Duke Nukem competitively against one another, usually in the wee hours of the morning. Every time I got fragged, I would screech and wake up my parents who were sleeping in the next room. Mother thought it inappropriate and even alarming for a girl of 15 to be "fragged." Duke Nukem 3D was the first online game I experienced that featured cutting edge concepts like graphics (also strippers).
A few more years ushered in the release of the epochal EverQuest. It was not merely online and multiplayer, but massively multiplayer in addition to online, and had graphics. Except for these major advances, EverQuest was just like the text-based MUDs of yesteryear. The MOBs, races, and job classes were familiar, and some of the commands such as "/con" were carried over as well.
EverQuest also introduced us to the archetypal concepts that would remain forever etched in our collective MMORPGing psyche in myriad forms---like "KoS" ("Look out---that monster is aggressive"), "SoW PLZ" ("Kindly cast a spell or use an ability to help me run faster"), and "Rogues are nerfed" ("My job class has the effectiveness of a bullet made from foam and fired out of a neon orange tube by a highly excitable five-year-old"). I played EQ for quite some time, both pre- and immediately post-Kunark, before leaving for what were promised to be broader, bloodier pastures.
EQ's addictiveness was also featured centrally in one of my earliest gaming haikus:
EverQuest is not
A good game for us to get
If we are busy.
(to be concluded)
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