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[Alligatorjandro]

Spent $100 on 2 pokemon cards when i was 10.

 

[SillyEskimo]

Everquest 1

So many stories, it makes me sick. When AA's were introduced, I camped a spawn for 24 hours straight. I was the first lvl 80 of any class on my server when the level cap was raised. However, the best (by best, I mean worst) qualifier for this thread was a 4 week long guild effort to camp Ragefire for cleric epics. Our guild leader had the telephone numbers of every guild member and if you were not online, you would get a phone call to log in. Everyone was camped at the spawn. I was getting phone calls at 4am prior to work. It was insane. Tis went on for a month.

We also had crazy recruitment rules. Such as you had to be online at least 40 hours per week. I missed the entire PS2 generation of gaming because I was playing Everquest at the highest level possible. I made the correct decision.

I always kind of chuckle when I hear anyone say that they're in a hardcore raiding guild in WoW. Contested content, random rare spawns, raids with 120 people (we used to combine raids) with no voice communication, and every guild guarding it's boss kill strategies with utter secrecy are some of the many things that will forever be a part of the past. Now you can log onto YouTube and get step by step instructions on the latest content.

Son, you don't have a fucking clue what hardcore is.

 

[magichans]

Everquest 1

So many stories, it makes me sick. When AA's were introduced, I camped a spawn for 24 hours straight. I was the first lvl 80 of any class on my server when the level cap was raised. However, the best (by best, I mean worst) qualifier for this thread was a 4 week long guild effort to camp Ragefire for cleric epics. Our guild leader had the telephone numbers of every guild member and if you were not online, you would get a phone call to log in. Everyone was camped at the spawn. I was getting phone calls at 4am prior to work. It was insane. Tis went on for a month.

We also had crazy recruitment rules. Such as you had to be online at least 40 hours per week. I missed the entire PS2 generation of gaming because I was playing Everquest at the highest level possible. I made the correct decision.

I always kind of chuckle when I hear anyone say that they're in a hardcore raiding guild in WoW. Contested content, random rare spawns, raids with 120 people (we used to combine raids) with no voice communication, and every guild guarding it's boss kill strategies with utter secrecy are some of the many things that will forever be a part of the past. Now you can log onto YouTube and get step by step instructions on the latest content.

Son, you don't have a fucking clue what hardcore is.

Everquest scares me

 

[Adam Prime]

Madden '05 for Gamecube.

IGN used to release the player stats each year leading up to the next installment. Maybe they still do, haven't given a flying turd about the series in 3+ years. Anyway, I would copy the data into a spread sheet. Sort it, and then edit the rosters in '05 to match the upcoming season. I would move players around for most teams, and go so far as to edit all of the stats on my home team. Creating all of the rookies from stats on some NFL site.

Do I win, or am I clinically insane?

I liked this one! Haha man there are some crazy stories in this thread already. Good thread OP!

Mine's pretty tame: I was at work one evening and I called up every Wal-Mart in my area to see if they had FFXI with the HDD. Only one did and it was about an hour away, I went after work and bought it.

I'm glad to say that's the most out-of-my-way I've ever gone for a video game.

 

[Frost_Ace]

what is this?

reminds me of a friend i had in college who was a computer science major. he wrote a program to track his wins and losses with each race and on each map in warcraft 3.

It's a program that let you exploit the pseudo random number generator of the pokemon games to get "perfect" pokemon. It's headache-inducing at first but once you get into it's kinda fun in a nerdy way .

 

[Ledsen]

Maxed out my credit card from September - November 2006 buying a Japanese 360, Japanese Wii, US Wii, Japanese PS3, a load of launch games and games for other formats that were out at the time.

I'm still up to my neck in that debt almost 5 years later.

Add to that neglecting friends, family, ex-girlfriends, work etc to play games over the years too. Also spending £50+ on a regular basis on imports I can't understand.

All worth it though.

Sorry but this is sad, man.

 

[cj_iwakura]

I took a week off of work the week Persona 3 came out.



Then it got pushed back.

 

[geeko]

October 17, 1989

When I was six, my dad worked for HP and he would bring home random PC games for me to play with. I was playing some game similar to Donkey Kong when the 89' earthquake hit. There were pictures falling all around, and glasses breaking in the kitchen. I looked back and both my mom and sister under the kitchen table; My sister was screaming. I turned back to continue playing. I didn't get under the computer desk until the power went out 10 to 20 seconds after the earthquake started.

I love playing video games.

 

[Sober]

Hmm, well here's one I'm not to proud of:

I dropped an immunology course because the test was the day of the Wrath of the King release. Probably should've checked to see that I was way past the due date for dropping it and getting money back from the uni.

 

[dakkumauji]

I went running around to quite a number of different stores to try and find Disgaea 1 on the PS2 before Atlus decided to reprint it.

Of course, I ended up just ordering it from Atlus directly, so that was a waste of time.

 

[Jive Turkey]

Everquest 1

...

Son, you don't have a fucking clue what hardcore is.

Hell yeah to all that. Everquest was amazing like that. Fortunately on my server the top guilds all had a rotation for boss kills so there was very little raiding done at inconvenient hours.

 

[(._.)]

Everquest 1

So many stories, it makes me sick. When AA's were introduced, I camped a spawn for 24 hours straight. I was the first lvl 80 of any class on my server when the level cap was raised. However, the best (by best, I mean worst) qualifier for this thread was a 4 week long guild effort to camp Ragefire for cleric epics. Our guild leader had the telephone numbers of every guild member and if you were not online, you would get a phone call to log in. Everyone was camped at the spawn. I was getting phone calls at 4am prior to work. It was insane. Tis went on for a month.

We also had crazy recruitment rules. Such as you had to be online at least 40 hours per week. I missed the entire PS2 generation of gaming because I was playing Everquest at the highest level possible. I made the correct decision.

I always kind of chuckle when I hear anyone say that they're in a hardcore raiding guild in WoW. Contested content, random rare spawns, raids with 120 people (we used to combine raids) with no voice communication, and every guild guarding it's boss kill strategies with utter secrecy are some of the many things that will forever be a part of the past. Now you can log onto YouTube and get step by step instructions on the latest content.

Son, you don't have a fucking clue what hardcore is.

GODDAMN

 

[Owlowiscious]

UPHILL! BOTH WAYS! THROUGH A SLOW DEBUFF

 

[Nix]

I dropped by the FFXIII midnight release; pushed a little kid to get nearer in line, and when he complained, I told him and his father to fuck off. Needless to say, I was on an RPG binge, and after FFXII, I had thought this was going to be the greatest thing since sliced bread. Yeah...

 

[NullPointer]

I called in a sick day once to play some Dark Age of Camelot - hey, it was my first real MMO.

Yeah, that's about it ;P

 

[LProtag]

Probably the Wii launch.

I got to Best Buy at 2 or so in the morning, was around 40th or so in line and got a ticket to get a system. Sat in a chair and read. Store opened, I got my stuff, I went to the Borders in that complex and bought some sort of breakfast sandwich, then went to Linens 'n Things where I worked at the time and clocked in for my 9-5 shift.

 

[tekumseh]

Was in Indianapolis, 50 miles from home, looking for a 360 during the launch window, and in the middle of a snowstorm. Did not find one, drove home. Saw that some folks had been lucky at a Costco in Indy I had not checked. Called the store, CSR could not confirm they had any left, nor hold one for me if they did. Took the chance, and drove BACK to Indy, during the snowstorm, made it there in less than an hour, and got the next to last system they had left. I've done stupid things before, but that was the worst.

I also stood in line for a Wii during the launch window in about -15 F, temps for over an hour to get a system at a Target that wasn't even for me, or one of my own children. I don't have good sense...

 

[Undubbed]

All of my hardcoreness is manifested in Final Fantasy XI. Before that, when I first played Final Fantasy X, I thought playing 8 hours straight was outrageous. 'Til FFXI that is...

Every waking moment I played that game and I'm damn sure that because of this game, my interest in playing(other) video games took a nose dive. Before FFXI it was super rare for me to skip a single day of playing some video game and I played at least 2 hours a day, usually 4 to 6 hours though; after FFXI I usually only play a few times a week with playthoughs consisting of maybe 10 to 30 minutes per play; 2 hours+ per play when I find a game that I'm really interested in, which is rare. FFXI really, really overheated me as gamer. Not that I regret it.

And I wasn't even all THAT hardcore with FFXI. I was halfway between hardcore and casual.

Some notable things I did/didn't do:

- Getting to Sea and helping to beat up the giant tortoise and tiger in Sky
- Got 3/5 on Summoner Relic Armor;
- lvl 96 alchemy, which I was never able to make any signifcant amount of gil with
- Most money I ever had on me was 1.3 mil, I think and that's not a lot for the much more hardcore but to the not too hardcore player like me, that was a shit ton of gil to work with
- Never got to fight one of the more infamous of mobs like the Jailers, Absolute Virtue, Odin, (King)Behemoth, Vrtra, KSNMs, 99 orb BCNMs(except one, but we wiped to it)
- Level 75 SMN with the next highest was a lvl 60(or somewhere 'round there) Bard. A bard that I've never used outside of level grinding.
- One time I had a HUGE marathon(I think about 16 hours) doing various things, the most of which consisted of trying to kill the lvl 75 summons so I can get Fenrir.

I really miss this game. I mean REALLY miss it.

Actually, not really. I don't ever want to go back, but I think I don't so much miss FFXI as I miss just how utterly challenging that game was and it really demanded me to be at the top of my game. That's probably why I have a hard time getting into games these days cause they don't provide the ball crushing challenge like FFXI did. I like the fact that the game is punishing at death. It gives the game a sense of weight and danger when you're adventuring. And that's what I look for, a sense of adventure. It's hard to have a sense of adventure though when the game is not ballz hard.

That's why I have my eyes on Lineage 2, but unfortunately I rung the 14-day trial dry before I actually tried to play it(don't ask) and I don't have any money right now.

Other than other tough MMORPGs, I've been looking for super challenging single player ones, like Wizardry, Etrian Odyssey and the like. Right now I'm playing Wizardry: Labyrinth of Lost Souls and I'm loving it. Which is funny cause I didn't exactly enjoy Wizardry on the NES, but that was due to some unfair mechanics that, at least as far as I've played, LoLS doesn't have. I loved that the game was ballz hard and you had to make your own map, but I hated the random shit that was out of your control. Maybe I'll give the original another shot when I'm done with Labyrinth of Lost Souls though; perhaps Lost Souls is made to butter me up for the original 5.

 

[Laughing Banana]

The most 'hardcore' thing I've ever done related to gaming is purchasing Xbox360, PS3, Wii, DS, plus PSP and collecting them all in my small, cramped room with a 24' LCD TV.

Nothing fancy.

 

[Paprikka]

I used to be in a raiding guild in Wow. While that isn't too bad, it was in an Oceanic guild on an Oceanic server. I live in Ohio.

This meant raids would start anywhere from midnight to 4 AM for me, depending on daylight savings and the guild's preference. Part of the time I would just go to bed early and get up early, the other part I would just stay up the whole night then sleep till 1 or 2 in the afternoon.

Eventually I stopped raiding as I couldn't spend my mornings like that anymore, and my poor laptop couldn't handle much more than me playing solo. I don't really regret it though as I had tons of fun, especially back in the BC era, and I met some amazing people.

 

[RiccochetJ]

I guess mine is when arcades were still popular.

Eventually I could get through Virtua Cop 2 without losing a health bar and triple shooting all enemies on the screen for max points (where possible). The leaderboard on that machine was nothing but my name.

Edit: My name was also on the machine at the Circus Circus in Vegas. They even had a small TV above the machine so people could watch from a distance. Wound up having a crowd watch me.

 

[Servizio]

I beat Ninja Gaiden on the Xbox on normal.

True story.

 

[Gucci Messiah]

- Faked sick for a week to stay home from school and play Halo 3 when it launched
- Skipped school to stay home and play Pokemon Diamond when it came out
- Walked to meijer at 8AM to buy Soul Calibur IV
- Sold my PS2, GCN, and all my games to afford a PSP and SOCOM Fireteam Bravo. Well worth it

 

[Gucci Messiah]

I moved to Japan and lived there for three years.

How did that work out?

 

[ScionOfTheRisingSun]

Wait, wait I have a better one. For all of my 5 years at University I would only eat one meal a day, no breakfeast, no supper, just a anemic dinner and would basically eat the same cheap and foul tasting unhealthy rubbish just so I could instead use all of my student money to buy games.

Also, did I mention that I would hardly ever go to classes and the only time I opened a text book was a few days before an exam? Also, of course, I wouldn't spend money on text books either, they cost so much and I had plans for those funds, I would just "borrow" the teacher text books from the Uni library a few days before the exam and the put them back afterwards.

Good times, those, or rather they must have been as I hardly remember anything about the games I played in that period. I blame it on malnutrition and a very bad sleeping habit.

 

[SillyEskimo]

UPHILL! BOTH WAYS! THROUGH A SLOW DEBUFF

My first reaction to this was wanting to yell "You weren't there, maaaan!", like a Vietnam Vet. However, I know there are people who will read what I typed and just look off into the distance with the thousand-yard stare and whisper to no one in particular "You're goddamn right".

Want more Everquest 1 reflections? Too bad. You're getting them anyway.


Guilds in EQ were like nothing before or since. Due to the competitive nature of the game, you were forced to always be ready to raid in an instant. When a Raid Boss spawned, it was a race against the other top guilds to assemble, prep, and defeat the encounter. As your guild was assembling and prepping, you were staring right at another guild (and sometimes two) doing the exact same thing. If you pulled too early, you would wipe and the next guild would just steal your kill. If you waited too long, the other guild might pull first and even with less people be able to kill it. You were always weighing the pros and cons of every single encounter in that game. It was always a race against everyone else. Sometimes you would have people steamroll right through your guild and steal the spawn. Sometimes people would lose, you would step in to take it, and the guild would get pissed and pull down the entire zone on top of your raid. There was always a wild card to every single encounter.

This level of competition and high stakes brought out the best and worst in people. When you made enemies with another guild, it was some Bloods vs Crips level of rivalry and hatred. But that hatred fueled some amazing emotional ups and downs. Now you weren't just trying to kill a digital monster for some loot. You were trying to beat those fuckers that steamrolled your raid last weekend. You want to kill this particular dragon because it only spawns once every 2 weeks and your rival guild needs a drop off of him before they can progress. You have the drop already so you just want to kill the dragon for the simple fact that you can cock block your rival. Then, something strange happens. Along the way, you earn a level of respect and admiration for some of your rivals. People will leave their guilds and jump to a rivals just to drive the screws in to their old guildmates. Rivals were often accepted because they would know the strategies for encounters that they would share with the new guild. The enemy of my enemy is my friend, after all.

Everquest forged some RL Heroes and Villains. You may recognize the name Furor. He was the guild leader of The Fires of Heaven from the Veeshan server. He's now the lead designer for WoW. Or perhaps the name Tigole, another lead designer and former leader of The Legacy of Steel. Do you know who was the guild leader of The Legacy of Steel before Tigole? None other than Rob Pardoe, Executive Vice President of Game Design for Blizzard.

 

[Ridli]

So me and my buddy basically stole a car to go to E3. We also created a fake business in order to get press credentials for the show.

It sounds a lot more criminal in summary than in detail.

I believe at the time you had to present a business license, masthead, and business cards, and an article with a byline to confirm your position with some kind of press outlet. So we went to city hall, registered a business, registered a domain and officially became a videogame news site for about as long as it took to get our press passes in the mail.

We were both broke as hell though an had incredibly crappy cars. Both of us had rides that were older than we were and could not make the drive out to Cali. I had a friend in LA we could crash with while we were at the show, but we still had to get there. So my buddy noticed that his roomie was out of town for the week and we grabbed his keys and took his car along the way.

It was 2001, so this was a pretty crazy E3 to go to. This was the first stateside playables of the XBox and Gamecube, we sat in on Peter Molyneux's fable announcement

Spoiler

THE LIES BEGAN THAT DAY!

, and I remember being completely blown away by the live Rogue Leader demo. I saw the future that day. Also some poor russian dev pitched us his RPG about dragons for like 20 minutes, probably because we were the only ones who'd listen. Couldn't quite score any passes for the after-parties though.

Pretty freaking amazing trip overall. Even though I've done stupid/difficult things in games before and since, that was definately the craziest thing I ever did because I loved videogames.

 

[Mileena]

pull chain 400+ in FFXI on my BRD with a sick burn party. I was stealing everyone's mobs in the thickets getting hate /tells the whole time. I didn't care.

 

[Gaspode_T]

I have spent more than $50 on Game Room and have more fun with it than many modern games I play. I'm still battling away at games like Trick Trap that I can't even get to the end in (it's got a rewind enabled mode but I avoid using it because it doesn't earn you 'medal time'), or Megamania and Spider Fighter from 2600 that I used to play at a kid (and swear that I was much better at those then).

...but that's nothing, one Japanese girl in my friend list has bought over 100 Game Room games. Her arcade is full, she apparently ran out of space and was asking if they will add ability to buy extra floors. She also has higher scores than you in most XBLA games that are out there.

 

[Fine Ham Abounds]

My first reaction to this was wanting to yell "You weren't there, maaaan!", like a Vietnam Vet. However, I know there are people who will read what I typed and just look off into the distance with the thousand-yard stare and whisper to no one in particular "You're goddamn right".

Want more Everquest 1 reflections? Too bad. You're getting them anyway.

----

Everquest forged some RL Heroes and Villains. You may recognize the name Furor. He was the guild leader of The Fires of Heaven from the Veeshan server. He's now the lead designer for WoW. Or perhaps the name Tigole, another lead designer and former leader of The Legacy of Steel. Do you know who was the guild leader of The Legacy of Steel before Tigole? None other than Rob Pardoe, Executive Vice President of Game Design for Blizzard.

Preach it brother.

I always remember the Legacy of Steel blog entry about the ghetto AE runs in Charasis. Always wondered if that was the inspiration for the pacing of most of the dungeons in WoW.

 

[bone_and_sinew]

When I was in outpatient rehab (for drugs not games lol) I skipped a counseling session so I could stay home and watch a stream of the MGS3 trailer from TGS 2004.

 

[Acrylic7]

lol

I was so into Pokemon when I was a kid.
I would walk into CVS and open the packs of cards just for the Holographics.

Poliwrath, Muk, Vileplum...... so....... shiny!

I went hard for those Fossil Packs. Never could find Moltres

 

[AllenShrz]

My first reaction to this was wanting to yell "You weren't there, maaaan!", like a Vietnam Vet. ....

It sounds cool but at the same time don't.

I still have good memories when my guild first kill Ragnaros in WoW but is nothing compared to your story.

 

[cj_iwakura]

I beat Ninja Gaiden on the Xbox on normal.

True story.

I finished Devil Summoner: Raidou Kuzunoha on Devil Mode.

It was probably the hardest 'expert' difficulty game I have ever played. Enemies do seven times normal damage, you inflict half, and everything costs times five.

 

[arglebargle]

I finished Devil Summoner: Raidou Kuzunoha on Devil Mode.

It was probably the hardest 'expert' difficulty game I have ever played. Enemies do seven times normal damage, you inflict half, and everything costs times five.

i dont think i have any hardcore stories in this sense. i am dedicated to games but i suck at them.

i did beat mario 2 jp when it came out on VC; i think demons souls is overrated in terms of difficulty; and i didnt really notice the meat circus difficulty spike that everyone complains about in psychonauts.

 

[Nemesis121]

Summer 2002, played Halo System link with a bunch of friends for 19 hours straight....some of the weak bastard fell asleep but when we were down to 6 people awake we switch to 6v6 on xbox connect, destroyed every team we face.... great times back then, now can't even stomach more than 20mins of Halo franchise....

 

[acheron_xl]

I took money I collected from customers on my paper route (that was to be given to my employers) and walked to Kmart and got a Game Boy and a couple games for it.

Not my proudest moment. The Game Boy was really fun, trying to explain where the money went, not as much.

 

[Damaged]

Did a 24 hour race in Gran Turismo 3 with a friend, we did it in three hour stints while the other person slept on the sofa. Set my fastest lap at three in the morning barely awake. Never doing it again....

 

[Hayvic]

She said she was home alone and invited me to come 'watch a movie or something'. I said 'No, I have a clan war tonight'. We won that evening.

 

[Jaxter09]

Me and a friend spent 60 hours completing Lost Odyssey... in 4 days

 

[Ribbon]

It's a program that let you exploit the pseudo random number generator of the pokemon games to get "perfect" pokemon. It's headache-inducing at first but once you get into it's kinda fun in a nerdy way .

What's the benefit of using this over pokesav?

 

[danmaku]

I guess I'm not.too hardcore, but I boughy a japanese 360 so that I could play the region locked cave co. Ltd. Danmaku shmups. Theres maybe 5 that I own that are region locked, and the console is about 160 more dollars to import including cross seas shipping rather than just buying it locally.

I still think it was worth it.

This, and I own multiple copies of some of those games just because. Not very hardcore, but it depends on how much money you have.

 

[arglebargle]

She said she was home alone and invited me to come 'watch a movie or something'. I said 'No, I have a clan war tonight'. We won that evening.

this reminds me of college. i lived in a suite with a few other guys and we were played a lot of lan age of kings. one night i went to go sleep at my girlfriends place (walking distance), and eventually got a call in the middle of the night, from a guy who didnt even live with us, calling on behalf of my friends to ask me to come home for more age of kings. of course, i went. dont recall whether that was a win or a loss though.

 

[bone_and_sinew]

She said she was home alone and invited me to come 'watch a movie or something'. I said 'No, I have a clan war tonight'. We won that evening.

Friends: "dude, we're going to the club/bars/party tonight, join us."
Me: "nah I'm tired/I have a cold/my car is at the shop/I have to get up early tomorrow."

*turns off phone and plays videogame by himself until 7 am*

I'm kind of embarassed at the amount of times I've done that.

 

[ScionOfTheRisingSun]

We are counting difficult game completions now? Well in that case, I did beat Resident Evil Remake for the Gamecube on invisible mode in under 1:20, prolly the most notable thing I've ever done in a game, but it was worth it to see the secret message from the director, Shinji Mikami.

 

[Ourobolus]

Every day during lunch during my sophomore/junior years of high school, a friend and I would go to the arcade at the nearby hotel and play WAR: The Final Assault. We eventually were the first two to make the top rank, and I held onto the top spot for another year, playing and destroying all comers in multiplayer. So much fun back then, I remember people lining up just to try taking him and I down.

 

[Zerokku]

What's the benefit of using this over pokesav?

One is blatantly cheating, the other is taking advantage of the games own programming. Its a moral thing I guess.

 

[gar3]

-Dated a very unattractive girl for a little while because she worked at K*B Toys and got a discount. This was early 1997 and Turok had just come out for $79.99, but I got it for $63.99. The relationship ended though as the Nintendo 64 software drought continued, heh.


-Was very interested in another girl later that same year and she invited me over to her house to "visit" while her parents were on vacation. Of course I agreed. Later in the evening a very good friend of mine showed up at my house un-expectantly. He had just driven home from college (2.5 hour trip) cause he was "bored." Since I hadn't yet experienced two-player Saturn Bomberman story mode I suggested we do that. Played it the rest of the evening, ignoring my prior commitment to the girl (and likely other "stuff" that would have gone along with that).


-As soon as I found out a female student (now wife) at the college library I worked at was a professional Japanese translator I actively pursued her to help me translate various Saturn and Dreamcast games. At our second "meeting" together at the library I brought a small portable TV, a JPN Dreamcast and a copy of Golem no Maigo. I set it all up there on a table where she was studying and had her help me with some kanji I didn't understand. Later when we were translating Wachenroder I bought a professional S-VHS recorder so we could better read the recorded text.


-I keep very meticulous "lists" of the amounts I spend on various systems, game and hardware lists including the names and totals of persons and shops I buy the junk from. I've done this for every system I've ever owned expect the NES.


-I currently have 11 PSone Combo Units in boxes stacked in my one daughter's closet. I'm not even a particularly big fan of the PlaySta brand.


-My first daughter is named Sumire. My second daughter is named Sakura. Neither of course were named after a certain Red/SEGA game series >_>


-When cut, I bleed pixels, heh.

 

[bobbychalkers]

I went through the Rock Tunnel in the original Pokemon games without flash.....

Spoiler

I got nothing

 

[kodt]

I guess the most hardcore thing I have done is carrying my 19" CRT + full tower metal case down 3 flights of stairs twice a week and bringing it over to a friends place where I got better pings so I could scrim and play CS 1.5 matches.