Growing up, I played a few online games. Series like Quake, Diablo, StarCraft and WarCraft made up a lot of my childhood. I conversed in them, but never consistently to a specific person or group of people. It wasn’t until playing Phantasy Star Online and Final Fantasy XI that I would become engrossed in online communities to the point of addiction. But before I experienced them myself, I did get taste of it through Jazz Jackrabbit 2.
The game had an online versus mode that me and my sister played quite often. Looking back, it impresses me that this mode has local split screen support. She used the keyboard and I used a joystick. Obviously, I wasn’t able to communicate. However, my sister could.
She eventually joined a clan known as the “JJs,” and occasionally she would go to in-game meetings. We shared our PC game time, so I always ended up tagging along. Bored with nothing to do in a room only made for chat, I’d harass other members by shooting or kicking them. I was a jerk, but also just being a kid.
It was my first experience seeing a group of people in an online game gather and communicate. I didn’t think anything of it at the time. But occasionally, when thinking about my online own history, I remember the JJs as being my first half-step into online game communities.
(Header Image Source: Moby Games)
