When/Where did you play?

[Faza]

Came back from college in the autumn of 1999 to find my best friend playing a DE cleric in a group on the orc highway. Told me he was going to take a dump, made me sit in and taught me quickly how to cast heals and that was all. Thought it was the stupidest thing I ever did.

Flash foward 3 months, I'd met some random stranger at school who told me about a new game he was saving up to buy, EQ, and talked my ear off for days. I bought it, found out it was the same game, and had no idea why my friend was a dark elf cleric. Because I was a wood elf ranger!

My friend dropped out of college to play in his parent's basement until luclin came out, then quit because the game seemed ridiculous (for in-game reasons, though he spent years explaining why the mechanics of the game were the true dealbreakers for him - he wanted dynamic, world-changing content).

I accelerated my courses and took my bachelor's and THEN sat in my parents' basement playing. For years!

Then i got a great job, moved out, and kept playing! Then i went to law school! And kept playing! Then stopped. Bought a ps3 to scratch the itch (unsuccessfully). Now i'm finishing law school, and playing again! With my wife! Ha!

My favorite was always my enchanter. Also had:
75 war, wiz, cleric, ranger, zerk
70 beast, rogue
60 SK
58 monk

and every race/class combo you can think of under lvl 20 spread across 6 servers

I lead a guild through the PoP era, I threw my first character (that ranger) down The Hole, i saved whole raids as an enchanter, i camped the goblin skull earring for 40 hours FOR FUN, i must have earned over 3k AA's spread across the toons, and i learned over a dozen pieces on the piano IRL while LFG.

Yes, that's pride mixed in with the abject shame of having spent so much of my late teens and early twenties in a video game.