Re: A Nostalgic Ramble: Online gaming services of yore

On Fri, 16 May 2025 02:03:37 -0000 (UTC), ant@zimage.comANT (Ant)
wrote:

I bought and still have Kali game. I remember a local MajorBBS tried
running Kali (http://kali.net still works and you can get a free full
code for its outdated software) on dial-up and it actually worked like
with Descent 1 shareware. And then, SirDOOM for DOOM based games. I also
tried MPlayer briefly for a game (can't remember -- it was like Star
Control but with multiplayer). I avoided those subscription based
services.
>

Yeah, I didn't stick with the subs long either. They just weren't
worth the money; a lot of the benefits were easily replicated by email
and IRC. Plus, the people who frequented them were the younger set; it
wasn't quite the era of the foul-mouthed twelve-year old yet, but it
was moving in that direction. But I had to give it a try.

Still, its one of those forgotten parts of gaming history; a time when
we had to PAY for services we all take for granted now. According to
some magazine reviews, it was actually a cause of complaint for some
gamers, this additional cost and I don't think anyone was sad to see
them go. But the ephemeral nature of these online services means that
they're easily forgotten; there's no real archive of what went on in
those siloed-off services. All the chats are gone and none of the
software works anymore. It's a lost time only remembered by the aging
gamer.