Dial-Up Dragons: My Journey into Early Online Gaming

From Dial-Up to Dragons: My Journey into Early Online Gaming

Before America Online was snail-mailing CD-ROMs of their software around 1994, a friend and I were already logging into the World Wide Web. Our gateway was not the shiny, mass-produced software of AOL, but something far more personal and a little mysterious: the Bulletin Board System, or BBS.

To access a BBS, you needed three things: a home-built PC (this was before Dell was a household name), a dial-up modem, and a landline phone. We would fire up a terminal program like QModem, type in a phone number, and wait for the distinctive screeching and static of the modem to connect. It was the sound of possibility. Unlike the flat monthly fee for today's internet, this used our home's landline, which had its own monthly cost, similar to a mobile phone plan nowadays.

As a kid, I was obsessed with fantasy role-playing games, whether they were played with pen and paper or on a video screen. The BBS was a magical place because it was where I first experienced online gaming. These weren't the graphics-heavy games we know today. Instead, they were text-based adventures that sparked the imagination.

I spent countless hours playing games that felt like they were mine alone. The names still stick with me:

• Lord of the Red Dragon: This was a true classic. You were a knight or wizard, and your goal was to level up, acquire better gear, and ultimately defeat a powerful red dragon. It was a single-player journey within a shared, persistent world.

• MajorMUD: A multi-user dungeon that let you team up with other players on the same BBS. You'd explore dungeons, fight monsters, and collect loot together, all through a text-based interface. This was my first taste of multiplayer gaming.

• Tele-Arena: A battle-focused game where you could fight other players in the virtual arena. The thrill of outsmarting an opponent, even through simple text commands, was something I'd never experienced before.

• Farwest Trivia: While not a role-playing game, this was a legendary time-waster. It was a trivia game where you could compete against others in real time. Winning a round felt like a major accomplishment.

Looking back, it's easy to see these games as primitive, but they were anything but. The limited technology forced you to use your imagination, and the slow, deliberate pace of the games made every action feel meaningful. You were a part of a small, local community connected by a single phone line, and the people you played with felt more like friends than anonymous users. It was a different kind of connection, one that was built on shared experience and the hiss and crackle of a 14.4K modem.