i religiously played this game so much, I was introduced watching over my uncle’s shoulder while he would play for hours on the MSN zone. He eventually let me play single player games i could set up to until i was proficient enough to join the multiplayer scene! I also remember joining the multiplayer server busting my internet connection trying to host a top4 room! i am so excited for this!!
Seems to me that’s a later version of the Zone; I don’t remember the banner looking like that, but it was a long time ago.
I used to be a volunteer tech support on the Zone; we got a t-shirt and access to all the games (Asheron’s Call beta anyone? :p) I remember getting folks in the support room, which was general, so one person would ask about Bridge, the next Checkers, then Fighter Ace, then AoE, etc. Remember too that it was all ActiveX objects in IE (like, all the board and card games were just ActiveX objects downloaded on the users PC). Didn’t think too much about the security implications at the time, I guess.
The funny thing is that we used newsgroups (actual NNTP) for communication, I think I still used Outlook Express for that, as it knew how to talk NNTP.
@tachoknight It might have been a later version. I really can’t remember, but I have a few others where the banners differ. Ohhh, I will never forget the live chat support rooms. I remember that people used to go in there just to troll the helpers and they would post up screenshots of them doing it on their websites loooool.
I remember I and my friend had no network cards in our PCs. So I bought a parallel port cable for Direct cable connection. It worked! But as it wasn’t that well performing we both bought our first NICs, 5 or 10 bucks each, if I rememeber correctly. Then DHCP fun began… Boy, we played nights and nights…
I still have the original CDs for this game, 2, 3, AOM, and star wars galactic battlegrounds, although i have all these on steam except the first AOE, I’m so ready for this game
I couldn’t play by myself in 1998 as I was only five, so I’d only watch my late grandpa play - then make my own (absolutely unplayable for sure) maps in the editor, and forcing him into playing them :lol: