Your First Time

[princess]

Just got wondering about the first time I played NS....

I was a total CS addict but some people I was friends with kept playing this new alien and marine game and told me I HAD to try it. It would've been around Summer 2003 as I started uni in 2002 and there was no internet (yes, there was a time when university accommodation had no internet). I tried it and I had no clue what was going on. But because people I liked played it, I persevered and ended up loving it.

I think one of the first maps I played was origin, or was it hera??!? I can remember biodome hive SO well! It was a shit hive room tbh. I seem to remember being told to go gorge and just heal spraying the hive constantly. I didn't know what I was doing, but think I spent the whole game doing that, even when the marines were confined to their spawn and about to lose. For some weird reason, I thought that was great and so my great gorge career began.

I found the YO servers, and kept playing cus the people were friendly and helpful and ended up as a total addict.

When NS2 first came out and I started PTing it in 2010 I was really disappointed because I didn't think it would live up to expectation and my PC couldn't cope, at all. So I was a pap PT and hardly turned up but now the game is released and all my favourite NS people are coming out of the woodwork and the game runs okay(ish) and it's fun again. Yay.

Tell me about your first time. Was it in Biodome hive in 2003? If so, we might've lost our NS virginity together. How fabulous.

[Vlad]

I remember Scotteh and another friend of ours (FamousWhenDead) who was in the same Counter-Strike clan talking about a new HL1 mod being released on Halloween.

They both tried it and wouldn't shut up about how good it was. I had to wait until 2nd November 2002 (the Saturday after release) to try it as I was on 56k and 90MB was a lot to download!

I vaguely remember playing marines on eclipse I think it was and being pinned back in marine start. I've suppressed what happened after that as I think it was a lot of dying over and over as everyone had 2 days head-start on me.

We ended up getting 2 other clan member of ours (Braindead and Anomaly) who ran a server provider, Warp-Core (RIP ) to put up a server \o/
They weren't impressed as it took up an entire CPU and even then all those LPBs (remember that term? ) had pings over 300. Being on 56k I had a ping closer to 450 but I was hooked!


Not long after that, a few chumps in some n00b clan who already rented a Counter-Strike server from Warp-Core asked about getting an NS server running. This bunch of losers was CBX.

[Mr Banks]

I remember how on launch the servers were still lacking optimizations and pings were high. Some Finnish dudes put up 2 NS servers up on some monster rigs. We even had some US players joining on them because the pings were so good (relatively). I remember playing the same round for hours. I remember joining YO server with one of Cheesys(?) custom maps where skulks rained down on the marine base and people having a good laugh with it. I found my NS home =)

As for the first time... no, can't remember it

[snb]

I don't remember anything specific about my first time, but I started playing the very first released version with a bunch of german friends. We were kind of a team and played some pcws, then all stopped stopped playing when 1.04 came out because they blocked r_drawviewmodel and we couldn't see anything as skulks.

Years later, I was jobless and bored and for some reason picked up playing again with version 3.x. I must have randomly joined YO and decided to stick to it since the people seemed fairly intelligent. I was playing with a different fake nick every day for a while until I settled for one. Some time went past until I actually played as snb, and even more time passed until I turned voicetalk on and was amazed at the communication. The first thing I ever heard anyone say was prinny screaming at me to let her out of a vent with a jetpacker chasing her. Years later, she's still just as rude.

[Thorondor123]

It was 1.03 or 1.04... I have a feeling that my first map was Eclipse. With the old marine start room <3

Back then I used to play on The Badlands of Fek'lyrs and the ns.fi server. In 2005 or 2006 I found the YO server and after that I didn't touch other servers.

[Ninja Canyon Monkey]

3rd Marine Corps server, can't remember the version although I'm fairly sure I remember the release of NS v2.0.

Can't even remember the map name, which map had the two little 's' shaped corridors leading into Marine Start? The Comm Chair was raised on a platform on the back.

I remember feeling like I was in the movie Aliens and couldn't get enough of it. It was actually the first PC shooter I'd played since Doom (on my 486sx 25!!

I managed to convince my Mum to upgrade to 512k broadband to improve my ping, although I had to make some excuse about needing it for my Computer Science degree.

[Chris3h]

My first time was the around 1st or 2nd November just after it released. I was on 56k at the time so I had to wait for a friend on 512k to download it for me (it was around 90Mb iirc about 4 hours worth of downloading!). Being an avid CS player at the time I was quite closed minded about other half life mods but I thought i'd give it a go anyway.

I jumped straight in on the first lowish ping server I could find and went marines. Absolutely no idea what was going on I ran off with delusions of granduer in my mind that my amazing CS skills would automatically make me awesome at this game. I was about to learn just how incredibly wrong I was.

About 2 minutes later I came across a strange looking structure. It was rather large and I figured it was probably something to do with the alien team. I emptied all my rounds into it however to no avail, this thing just didn't die so I got bored and wandered off only to moments later mysteriously die to what appeared to be a chuckling sound. I learnt later that it was an alien hive (Cargo Hold from ns_nothing I think) and a cloaked silenced skulk which cheekily picked me off. This went on for 2 more deaths before I realised that this just wasn't working.

I decided to follow another team member through a shiny looking portal (phase gate) where I was instantly transported to the thick of the action. Again I had absolutely no idea what was going on but stuff was leaping about everywhere, green clouds were exploding and some insanely quick black alien was teleporting in and laying waste to any marines that dared venture too far from the protective turrets. I started shooting at stuff but the insanely fast aliens were too quick for me and the instant I had to reload death swiftly followed! After 3 or 4 deaths the shiny portal went dark and the outpost was lost.

Five minutes later the game was over but not before I got to play with a HMG which scored me a couple of kills before I died for the last time.

Anyway that was a quick story of my first time in NS1. NS2 happened a few days ago and it was like playing a brand new game as it had been so long (since about 2007) that I had played NS1. Was great to see some old faces and i'll be back on a fair bit to say hello

[a_lost_hero]

I've read someone here using the term 'core gamer', meaning i'm a gamer at heart but don't have the time for it these days...because i'm old and decrepid. I used to be hardcore...running my own CS clan and server [clan TO] that was mostly casual and on the odd ocassion played matches against people far superior to us... but we had fun trying! (And my 'twitch' enabled brother (Ice^) and his friend had fun pwning).

This was all during my Uni days, again from 2002-2005, and was my primary means of keeping in contact with my school buddies. One of these friends (Neko) was involved in map making for mods for HL and, during his mod travels came across this one called Natural Selection. I think he gave it a whirl and encouraged me and another close friend (Artemis) to give it a go...and we pretty much fell in love with it.

I don't remember the first time verbatim, but I do remember how different it felt from, say, CS or HL or DoD or TF etc. The atmosphere it created was great, making me really feel vulnerable and kinda frightened as a marine, and as an alien skulk it brought back memories of the first AvP game, running along the walls and ceilings (but without the changing POV )

We spent many many days playing NS, either working together as 3 Gorges or a little crack squad of marines, some of us venturing out to learn comming or these other aliens that were just too hard to use effectively for us (requires alien thinking!). But the base building element of the game really struck a chord with us, especially as Gorges.

I do regret not being able to afford the original 'pre-order' funding of NS2, due to life situation problems in what must have been 2006/7 or something... because the Black Armor looks sweet! For a while I was worried NS2 was going to suck, because all of the times i tried the beta there were just things that really annoyed me. Even though some of those things remain, it feels much more polished and i've gotten used to the differences and i'm having a tonne of fun!

It's great to see servers i frequented back up and running, but if i'm honest i was always partial to the Americans over at I-AM clan or that other one... 182.com? or something. Still, seeing YO-clan, a name i remember, and a ping of 15, means i'm definitely looking to stick around and have some epic games (like 2 sundays ago!)

If anyone can let me know how to join in the regs night fun, let me know, because this past sunday was locked and packed... so i ended up exploring the new combat mod maps xD

Jeeze, hope this wasn't boring, haha.

[viper]

Almost a carbon copy prin...

I was addicted to CS (actually still play this in CS:GO form).

Someone told me about NS - another mod for half-life. After being bought into the online gaming world with Battlezone (1998 RTS/FPS hybrid, reboot of the 70's wireframe original and AWESOME) I had to try it, as it was a nearly identical genre. (RTS and FPS being my two favourite genres).

Gotta say, I loved it. The atmosphere took me to a place I never thought I'd get to, playing a game online with others. The game was everything I wanted it to be. My fondest and earliest memories are of ns_bast (I know most people hated that map, but for some reason I loved it). Hooked up with the YO guys shortly after, as they had the busiest and friendliest servers, joined up a few weeks later and the rest is history....

...a bloody long ass history. That was when I was like 17/18!

Then I became the server guy, nursing our old box back to health when she wasnt well and setting stuff up. Then I lost my way a little with YO, since NS had effectively died with the announcement of NS2 and I had just discovered Planetside. I left, and only occasionally popped back to say hi. Work and life then got in the way and my hardcore gaming days almost seemed over.

Now, I'm an old git. I think I'll be back for a while now, but will definitely be balancing my time between NS2 and PS2! My hardcore gaming days are long gone, but I still try my best to game where possible!

I am honestly pleased that you guys kept YO alive. It pleases me greatly. I still have photos from our first meet!

[CheesyPeteza]

YO were CS mad, but we had been playing it for a long time now, even had a meet up at i15 where my fan fell out of my PC in the plane on the way over and destroyed my PC, I ended up playing on Dinks spare PC he'd brought as a server. We all hanged out on IRC and talked about this new mod NS. TBH I was not that bothered, pretty much every HL mod that came out apart from CS was never really a big hit despite having massive hype, maybe 2 or 3 servers with people in them max, remember HL Rally?

But then I checked out NS and it was different, the game play sounded cool, but more than that it was professionally done. Proper voice actors, the graphics were pretty damn good.

We really got into it with NS1.01 I think, boy did it crash a lot. It was totally unbalanced and games would go on for 4 hours at a time. It should be terrible but instead it was brilliant fun. I was hooked.

Dink and a few others enjoyed it, unfortunately Muzza & Phelan (YO Founder & co founder) never really got into it, and over time they went their own ways. The same happened with others who left when it was no longer a CS clan.

But here we are still having fun years later, after all that's what YO was formed for, just a place for friends to hang out and have fun games.

[Flamez]

I went to a friends house and he showed me "this cool new hl1 mod." He evolved to Onos and made me sit and play. I promptly walked under a lift and was crushed with my friend laughing hysterically the whole time. Next he put me on marines and shortly thereafter I picked up a jetpack, flew straight up and died to crater. Good times!

[Scant.en]

Haha, nice xD. My first time on NS was about as successful... went round the bast revolving door and straight into a gorge camp... chuckling bastard... The next round was my first full game and lasted about 4 hours. Little did I know that was an average round length xD.

After that I mostly played aliens :p. It was the stealth and trickery that made me love it. Playing with my best mate we'd just run around together and ambush marines, or one would play decoy so the other could drop off the ceiling. Spent ages trying to drop down in unison and insta-kill people.

I also remember my first time as lerk... spent it trudging on the floor spiking because I only seemed able to fly vertically upwards xD.

When NS3 comes around and we look back on NS2 this thread will suck. I got to ready room (most people crashed before this point so their story ends there) but trying to join a team just black screened me =/. No rose tinted windows will change that epic disappointment...

[Lordfoul]

I have no idea what i was playing before Ns1 but i do remember my first time. I forget the name of the map but it was the one where (for a while at least) you could actually siege the alien hive from the marine start point, anyway
i pretty sure i spent the first 15 mins swearing at the game because i could not buy anything and constantly been munched on buy skulks i could never see, youtube and a tutorial video later and everyting was good

[scotteh]

[Scant.en]