/vr/ - Retro Games

[Anonymous No.9796853]

What was PC gaming like in 2003?

[Anonymous No.9796857]

kys zoomer

[Anonymous No.9796861]

>>9796853
Are you just here for (you)'s or are you actually curious about what it was like to grow up in an age that is objectively better than what you've been given?

[Anonymous No.9796871]

>>9796853
good

[Anonymous No.9796872]

First PC - Pentium 4 2.4ghz, 512mb ram, nvidia FX5600. 80gb hard drive. Pretty beastly pc for the time.

Spent the next year or so going through Max Payne, Ghost Recon, Morrowind, a lot of Counter Strike versus bots, NFSU1, GTA3/VC, Freedom Fighters, Warcraft 3,, Project IGI 2, Medal of Honor AA, RTCW, COD1 and expansion pack... Off the top of my mind.

Better time.

[Anonymous No.9796875]

>>9796857
>>9796861
Why are you guys so fucking jaded?

[Anonymous No.9796880]

>>9796875
Because there's been a million threads lately that are just

>why is x like y?

And it gets old very quickly. Either it's trolling or there's a bunch of dummies running around, both are equally likely.

[Anonymous No.9796882]

>>9796875
i cant speak for them but i have crippling depression

[Anonymous No.9796887]

>>9796853
It was based. Loads of amazing game already out, and it seemed like the good ones would just keep coming forever. It also meant that you had access to online play, Xfire (etc) years before consoles got similar stuff. If you knew how to pirate as well, the world was absolutely your oyster. I miss those days and I still mostly play games from around then.

[Anonymous No.9796889]

>>9796875
Because this same thread has been posted half a dozen times in the last week or two. If you're not just you farming or looking to pick a fight (which by responding this way and not just answering my question it would seem you are) I can answer that it was bliss for the following two reasons:
>Warcraft 3
>Diablo 2: Lord of Destruction

[Anonymous No.9796893]

>>9796853
It wasn't too bad. Moore's Law was starting to slow down a bit so you could get buy on an older Pentium 4 or a nice AMD CPU for several years as-opposed to everything becoming hopelessly-obsolete within a year like in the Win95 era, most online and modding communities were thriving, toaster friendly games were pretty common, console ports were dogshit but the amount of exclusives on PC meant that didn't really matter.

[Anonymous No.9796895]

For me? it was emulators

[Anonymous No.9796897]

>>9796875
Because there's no point to this thread?
It's basically just you announcing that you're a zoomer.
Go watch a docummentary on PC gaming if you really wanna know about it

[Anonymous No.9796904]

>>9796875
I too want to get groomed by passable ladyboys instead of dying alone

[Anonymous No.9796910]

>>9796887
>It also meant that you had access to online play, Xfire (etc) years before consoles got similar stuff
6th gen consoles were online capable. It became widespread in the 7th, but the "access" was there already.

[Anonymous No.9797103]

>>9796853
>2 weeks downloading deus ex 2 through emule
it was slow

[Anonymous No.9797127]

>>9796853
It was pretty sick. I was just a kid back then, but I started gaming on Windows XP in 2001. The Sims already had a million expansions out at that point, Age of Empires II and Age of Mythology were out, Warcraft III, Diablo II, all of those Humongous Entertainment games... it was certainly a very exciting time to be a kid getting into video games. And that's just PC games I was aware of at the time. I didn't start playing RPGs and FPS games from that time until probably like 2008.

>>9796897
Hey man. The entire point of this website is being able to talk to other people. Just about every thread on this website could be replaced with just using a search engine or watching a YouTube video. People don't use forums just to get information and then get out. You're a dumb asshole that should just get the fuck out of this website already if you hate it so much.

[Anonymous No.9797129]

>>9796882
crippling autist here

[Anonymous No.9797130]

>>9796857
fpbp

[Anonymous No.9797154]

>>9797127
go back to r3ddit

[Anonymous No.9797162]

>>9796897
Most threads on /vr/ are lame though
>What's your favourite game with a toothbrush in it
i'm starting to think someone made a huge list of extremely low quality questions and has a bot creating them one after the other

[Anonymous No.9797169]

>>9797154
You first. I really only lurk on reddit for answers to tech support questions, honestly. I've been using this website off and on since 2006.

[Anonymous No.9797178]

>>9796853
Full of CDs with demo, shareware and freeware games.
One could try out many incoming games before deciding to get their full versions.

[Anonymous No.9797414]

>>9796853
the golden age was almost over and dissapointment was setting in. most of the cult classics came out unplayable (like vtmb which was just around the corner). diablo 2 and counterstrike dominated pc gaming, dwindling the remaining grey cell count. looking glass games was dead. westwood was over. EA was looming large.

[Anonymous No.9797524]

Remember Xfire?

To answer OP's question: PC Gaming in 2003 was still a period where the idea still existed of "computer games" being a distinctive style, design philosophy, and having a specific target audience. This does not exist anymore.

[Anonymous No.9797565]

>>9796853
zelda classic
starcraft
diablo 2

those game lasted me years, i swear. i didn't get a new laptop until 2008 christmas and the first two games i played then were morrowind and neverwinter nights 2. good times.

[Anonymous No.9797578]

>>9796853
It was paradise compared to today's embarrassing PC gaming scene. Just look at the top played trash on steam for proof.

[Anonymous No.9797621]

How did people fix computer related game problems before the internet? you called the support number? even today i have trouble getting games to run in pc

[Anonymous No.9798225]

>>9797524
There's something that feels fake about these photos.

[Anonymous No.9798241]

>>9798225
to me, the flash and photo quality mark it as legit. there's plenty of photos of modern "retro" set ups that dont look like these.

[Anonymous No.9798350]

>>9796853
You like RTS and FPS?
No?
Get a PS2.

[Anonymous No.9798379]

>>9797621
I think most families had that "friend" or a weird uncle that they would call to fix shit for them, at least mine did. I remember my dad calling up some black woman who was an old friend and she came over and showed us how to do shit on an atari 800xl that I still own to this day.

[Anonymous No.9798385]

>>9797621
Games usually came with a text file with common troubleshooting info.

[Anonymous No.9798732]

I remember pirating a lot of stuff. A lot of games in that period came with pretty fucked-up protection. Starforce and the later versions of SecuROM and SafeDisk were pretty shit.

[Anonymous No.9799603]

>>9797127
>The entire point of this website is being able to talk to other people. Just about every thread on this website could be replaced with just using a search engine or watching a YouTube video. People don't use forums just to get information and then get out. You're a dumb asshole that should just get the fuck out of this website already if you hate it so much.

You’ve made a good point. People get annoyed, though, at posts like OP’s because they have appeared eleventy billion times in just the past few months and often kill other, good threads housing the conversations you’re talking about. Just start a retro pc gaming general thread that will go for weeks and encompass all these kinds of posts without killing good threads.

[Anonymous No.9799623]

>>9796895
this
Back in like 2004 I downloaded that package of every single NES game and had a grand old time over the next few years

[Anonymous No.9799638]

>>9797621
We had a family friend come by, most of the time we reformat if they were not available.

[Anonymous No.9800385]

>>9796895
>>9799623
based

[Anonymous No.9800660]

it was fine, was better to buy expansions than have online microtransactions. same shit diff day

[Anonymous No.9800694]

>>9796853
This is when it started to get good and games were less of a headache to install.

[Anonymous No.9800851]

>>9796853
The year I got my first home PC
I was honestly playing ZSNES more than any proper PC game, other than that I was playing a lot of Simcity 4 and first person shooters.
My dad never paid a cent for software other than Simcity 4, everything was piracy.

[Anonymous No.9800926]

2003 let’s see
Black and white
Prince of Persia sands of time
Medal of Honor allied assault
Simcity 4
Need for speed underground
Beyond good and evil
KOTOR
Vice city

Used to play these all the time with my brother, even just watching because back then you only had “the family computer”. Cable internet and wifi had just gotten more available for everyone, and it was like a dream come true. It felt like magic.

Chatting with friends on AIM, downloading MP3s off kazaa and playing them on Winamp to watch the visualizers, and loading up any of these games felt incredible. Like others posted, PC gaming felt distinct from console world too. Even though I mostly listed ports there was a distinct line between the pc gaming “scene” and the rest of gaming.

My brother passed away 13 years ago and I’d do anything to go back to those days

Picrel my real cat on my keyboard in 2004

[Anonymous No.9801251]

>>9800926
Based. Enjoy your memories.

[Anonymous No.9801296]

Drivers were shit back then. Reverting also wasn't as easy or rare as now either. Devops was hard back then.

[Anonymous No.9801301]

for me its playing aoe2, warcraft 3, nfs underground (from pizza hut), sims, mafia demo, neopets, winamp, like humans do XP track

>>9800926
vale anon's brother

[Anonymous No.9801302]

>>9796872
What kind of wattage was that inputting?

[Anonymous No.9801329]

>>9796853
it was great for me, freshman at uni with my own computer for the first time, access to endless free games on dorm network, first real experience with emulation so playing sega cd and genesis games I'd waited a decade to play, learning about new games like Crimsonland, free games that came with the computer like GunMetal and Battle Engine Aquila, and as mentioned NFSU was a big one too

[Anonymous No.9801342]

>>9801302
You mean power consumption? Cpu and gpu probably around 100w. Power requirements didn't get crazy for pc parts until about a decade later when dual core stuff arrived.

[Anonymous No.9801348]

>>9796875
Because their country was stolen/is being stolen and sold by bankers and billionaires

Everyone is pissed about it. You're just not being honest about this

[Anonymous No.9801349]

It's interesting but not sure it's worth paying $500-$800 for the hardware to repeat it. Especially when consoles are cheaper and can do most of it

[Anonymous No.9801401]

>>9796853
>Play HL:OP4
>Clubbed to Death plays in the main menu
>Join a server
>The Bad Touch plays as loading music
>Map is a well made house set on a beach
It was pretty fun, same went for HL1 MP

[Anonymous No.9801821]

>>9797621
1. Live with it.
2. Wing it and make things worse, leading to one or more of the following steps.
3. RTFM and the README.TXT that shipped with the game.
4. Have a friend, coworker, or family member that's good with computers help you.
5. Do it yourself armed with the combined knowledge of your computer's manuals, DOS for Dummies, and Scott Mueller's Upgrading and Repairing PCs.
6. Call the publisher's support line or dial into their BBS to look for help.
7. Pay the folks at your local PC repair shop to fix it for you.

[Anonymous No.9801832]

>>9796853

played a lot of counterstrike and warcraft 3.

[Anonymous No.9801861]

>>9796853
I was still playing Asheron's Call
Tribes 2
Team Fortress Classic
Counter-Strike
Day Of Defeat
Warcraft 3

2004 was really the YEAR with Half-Life 2, Halo 2 for PC, World Of Warcraft

[Anonymous No.9802091]

>>9801861
No Halo 2 was 2007 vista exclusive or something like that. 2004 did have Far cry and Doom 3

[Anonymous No.9802328]

>>9800926
>playing them on Winamp to watch the visualizers
Hell yeah, I used to have them in a small corner window while I was doing other stuff. iTunes had a pretty good one back in the day. Very fun to just let yourself be mesmerized and get lost in thought to the patterns.

>Chatting with friends on AIM
Fun times. For a few years there, everyone lived for those late-night group chats in middle school. I don’t think any IM service before group chats took off post-2010 had as big an influence on my gen than aim.

Sorry about your brother, and very cool kitty.

[Anonymous No.9802438]

>>9801821

...Or occasionally wait for common problems to be solved in a monthly PC magazine.

[Anonymous No.9802574]

Diablo 2 LOD mostly

[Anonymous No.9802818]

AoM, Lineage2, Warcraft3, CS1.6, GTAVC

[Anonymous No.9802843]

P4 make great 98 machines

[Anonymous No.9803789]

Putting up with shit framerates or not being able to play at all
CD drives getting stuck
No internet outside school and internet cafes
Emulation but only the most popular titles
Knowing someone who could burn CDs if you paid them and brought a blank disc
Harrassing other kids in the neighbourhood into lending you games (I bet some fuckers got a kick out of scratching discs on purpose)
Helping dumb fucks who couldn't figure out using a keygen and copying a crack into the right folder
Having to play uncracked games with cloned images and all that software to avoid daemon tools detection

[Anonymous No.9805381]

>>9801296
At least they had good games back then

Even the new gta is stupid now

Only ok games now is sports shit everything else blows cuz some wegro tranny made it

[Anonymous No.9805481]

>>9796853

[Anonymous No.9807096]

>>9796853
>Turn pc on
>Get snacks and drinks while it is booting
>Turn on MSN
>Turn on Xfire
>Turn on ICQ
>Nobody is online
>Play Elastomania
>Play some WC3TFT maps that i found
>Play UT99
>Play CS1.6
>Turn off PC, go outside

[Anonymous No.9807194]

>>9805481
My friend and i were very superstitious a out degaussing and would only do it when we were stuck on a boss or area we couldn't beat. Like it was our secret weapon with limited ammo. Only to be brought out in desperate times.

[Anonymous No.9807212]

>>9798241
>>9798225
>>9797524
why do they never use mouse mats? mouse input is awful on a flat wood desk

[Anonymous No.9807392]

>>9807212
I remember when laser mice were a "new" thing and considered an upgrade over ball mice (as opposed to being standard). People often did not buy mouse pads because they thought they didn't need them anymore. And there was some truth to it in that a laser mouse can work on surfaces a ball mouse can't. But yes, there are shortcomings to that.

[Anonymous No.9807403]

I was having a blast playing emulators.

[Anonymous No.9807852]

>>9807096
>Elastomania
Mon Nigeur