How old is everyone and how long have you played Descent

[Proton]

I can't believe that after all this time there are so many still playing...

I began when it hit the shelves somewhere around '94. I got it on CD...yes, a CD. Still have the original.

Let's see...I was 19 then, and had to buy a 486 system just to play it.

I haven't played in two years now, since the company where I work shut us down...

I am going to see if I can get on kali again.

PROTON flies again!

I can't believe koolbear is still into this stuff...good to see you are still around.

[Riot]

Wow, this thread is still alive?

lol

I'm playing D2X-XL now and I'm 25 this year

[Duper]

heh..\"alive\" is a bit of a stretch as the last post was in August of 07'. Stickied, sure.

[CDN_Merlin]

I played the D1 demo but it sucked on my 486/66, so I left it behind, then I got a Pentium around the D3 demo time, I became obsessed.
I am 49 now.

I played D1 demo and D1 on my 486dx2-66 with 8megs ram and a ATI 512KB video card. It didn't sucka t all. So what, 12FPS rocked.

[Foil]

I played the D1 demo but it sucked on my 486/66...

You gotta be kidding. I would have loved to have a 486 when I first got the original Descent(1) demo.

I played the original demo on a 386SX-16MHz with 2Mb of RAM. On the level 7 boss, I had to use the "-" key to shrink the screen size down (yes, down from 320x200) to make it even remotely playable.

Back in the day, Descent on any 486 was blazing-fast, as far as I'm concerned.

[VonVulcan]

Well, it was my first computer and I had no clue about settings and optimizing and so forth.

[Mr. Necktie]

Shareware D1 in 1995~
Shareware D2 in 1996~
Shareware D3 = No. Six hour waits were crap to me back then.

D2 -- 2002~3, still play Vanilla and D2X-XL today.
D1 -- Whenever I found the \"d1conv.zip\" file on Pooterman's repository.
D3 -- Summer '07.

I play on and off, which is why it took me so long to get them all. I have no expansions besides Mercenary, and the only multi-player experience I have is from the D1 demo on the occasional 2-man-LAN. Hard-core.

-Mr. Necktie

EDIT: Ahh crap. Thread necro. I hate those. Delete as necessary, moderators.

[Duper]

EDIT: Ahh crap. Thread necro. I hate those. Delete as necessary, moderators.

This thread is allowed. There are a couple we don't flinch at... much...


Welcome to the board!

[Circlestrafe]

Played 'em all from the beginning, what a helluva long time it's been! I remember being dragged away from my ship kicking and screaming 'cause my brother wanted me to join him in the Quake1 Test, but every so often I came back to the mines.

I haven't played for years...so many I've lost count, and when I did try jumping back in, I seemed to have lost my touch, everyone who I was playing against were just TOO damn good! That was a while ago, but I thought I'd check in and see if people are still playing again. Unfortunately, my old Sidewinder 3dpro bit the dust years ago, so for now I'll have to make do with a Saitek Cyborg Evo.

...ah the memories...just a shame this series didn't take off like Quake or Unreal Tournament.

[AlumiuN]

Strangely, I've never played any of the sharewares. My father bought Descent when it came out, at which point I was 3, and I was hooked. I couldn't beat the level 7 boss until I was 11, though. Then I got Descent II for my 8th birthday in 2000. Finally, I got Descent 3 about 2 years ago and still haven't finished it. I got distracted by MechWarrior 4 and UT 2004. Anyway, I'm 16 now so it looks like I've being playing Descent for 13 years. Whoa - 81.25% of my life. It doesn't feel like that long. And to think that the Lupis Outposts kept me happy for half of that...

[Sirius]

MW4 was an interesting game. It's more or less what I was doing from 2002-7, with the occasional break. Team play makes multiplayer so much better; it's a pity Descent wasn't as strong there (though it had fantastic 1 on 1 multiplayer that hasn't really been matched since).

Neither series is likely to see any more sequels, though. PC gaming isn't getting any stronger, and people are often taking less risks.

[CDN_Merlin]

MW4 is bascially my 3rd favorite series. Descent and Formula 1 racing being 1 and 2.

Maybe we should all email Microsoft and ask them about a MW sequel for the PC and not console????

[Sirius]

It's been done. :/ The problem is the development studio shut down a year or so back, which leaves the entire franchise up in the air. Microsoft still retains the rights to the video-game part of that, from what I know, which means they could hand the torch to another studio if they wanted to.

[Duper]

Didn't you guys hear? MS sold off the MechWarrior title about a month or two ago. Can't remember to whom, but i'll check when I get home.

[d0ggY]

I started with D1 I got off a friend in '95 and then got Kali95 that year as well. One of my first online games I ever played was against Scoundrl in Total Chaos 1. He spanked me 10-0 and once I figured out how to type messages, I called him a cheater ...haha!

I stopped playing as \"griffin\" when the 1-tier IDL went down and then unretired about 2 years later as d0ggY and played until 2001. Haven't played since.

p.s. I'm 25 now, so I guess I started when I was about 13 which sounds about right ...

[JRock]

28. Started in early '96 with D1 demo/shareware playing modem-to-modem with a high school friend.

[Gold Leader]

Hi I'm 31 years old and I have been playing Descent 1 since it's release back in 1994 and it's still my favorite part as favorite game ever made it even helps me from my depressions, it's the best buy I have ever done, traveling @ 3000mph aka Mach 5 underground, blasting all the bots in the levels , finding all the secrets blowing up the reactor and getting the hell out, I just adore it.

So I vote for Descent 1, after 14 years since it's release it still remains the best part ever!

@ CDN_Merlin

That's a fantastic idea! [/quote]

[Gold Leader]

heh sorry I quoted myself instead of editted it heh, had a few whickey cola's and beers sorry for this and yes I have been playing D1X-Rebirth all night, sorry for this heh

[krayzkrok]

I can't remember where I first heard about Descent, but I think it was mentioned in a magazine article just before the shareware was released. I probably got shareware D1 as soon as it was downloadable, and I was hooked. I remember getting kali95 working and having a blast with multiplayer. I used to be pretty darn good, but occasionally got my arse handed to me! Then D2 came out and I remember everyone whinging about how it wasn't as pure! :p But suddenly we were all playing D2 multi anyway! Trichording to dodge megas - ah, the memories.

Then I moved to Australia and lost my net connection and basically stopped playing games for nearly a year. D3 came along and I loved it, Mercenary too. Now finally the addiction has ravaged too long inside me and I've got D1 working again through D1X-Rebirth. I love it, even though I haven't got my joystick working again yet.

So thanks to those who put D1X and Rebirth together. Descent always was better than everything else, and 14 years on it's still fantastic.

[broodyspider]

Been playing since I was about 11 or 12, when the friends in the neighborhood each had their copy and we'd all play together. (I'll be 24 later this year.)

Still love the game. The music for the Uranus levels in D1 is my favorite bunch; lovelove Miranda's music. Hopefully some crafty people out there will and can find the time to make remixes of the level songs.

[Nihilist]

Lessee...

Am 35 now.

Started playing with D1DEMO.EXE back in '94. Oddly, it was my nephew that got me into the game back then (I was around 21ish at the time). I did the whole \"look up a neighbor and play with them\" thing with direct-dial gaming, but got bored with it until Descent 2 came around. More fun, more action, and Kali DOS 1.2u was released as shareware in a PC mag at the time. I used that, got hooked up with the Wildcards back in early '95, and the rest was murder-mayhem-madness.

ALL HAIL THE WILDCARDS EMPIRE! (...wow, I can't salute like that anymore, nearly threw my back out...)

[twoisms]

I'm 20 right now, but I was first introduced to the awesome Descent universe when I was about 8 or 9(?), wayyy back in the fourth grade. I was more of a console gamer back then, but once I played Descent 1, it was a big change. My best times with the series have to be with Descent 2, I spent hours playing that game. There was something so unique and endearing about the Descent games. They had(and still have) this quality that no other games have.

It always brings back awesome memories whenever I pop in Descent 2 nowadays. I think the Descent 2 soundtrack actually got me into music as well(so awesome..), so I owe the game even more for that. I never had the luck of playing it online(back then I didn't have any internet at all), but It'd be awesome to find a game one of these days!

[Andy]

I am currently 16 years old, and I've been playing D3 online for about half a year. My dad actually got the Descent 1, 2, and D2 Vertigo collection a little before descent 3 came out. I remember it came with the d3 demo and said it was coming out in winter of '98. I played descent 1 and 2 all the way through, and then didn't play again for several years. Sometime around '00 I showed the game to my friend who went out and bought the descent 3 pack with mercenary. I burned the cds, and installed the game on my computer. After playing through several levels on my computer (which could barely run it), there was a power surge that blew the psu on the computer. No problem, I replaced the unit, but when I powered up the computer, the hard drive burst into flames. Bye bye saved games.
I tried to reinstall the game, but the original burned discs were too thrashed to use. I just forgot about it. In summer of 2007, we were going through all of our game cds and I found the Descent: Definitive collection case. Just for fun, I installed it and played a few levels of D1. That brought back some great memories, so I emailed my friend and asked him to burn me another copy of the d3 install disks. I installed it, and beat the game, then I tried to figure out how to play online. I found Vortex, and the rest is history.
I've currently beat descent 1, 2, and 3 on hotshot, and I'm working through d2 Vertigo.

[Ray]

I gave up the game, regrettably, 2 years ago. Got tired of getting repetitive motion injuries and breaking sticks. I was 56 at the time. Moved on to Il-2 Sturmovik, a WW2 air combat sim. A little less twitchy than Descent but easily just as intense. This game is as close to flying as you can get minus g and stick forces of an actual aircraft.

[jshaner]

Age: 15

I started out with Descent 2, as I always watched my father play when I was very little. I moved on up to D3, but didn't like it, so started collecting Descent titles. I currently play D2 Vertigo and sometimes D3 over at http://d3.descent.cx/tracker.d3.

[ePsiLON]

I am 22 years old and was first acquainted with Descent some 12 years ago.

My father installed the 7-level D1 demo from a CD that was bundled with a What PC? magazine. This was on a 66 MHz 486 with 4 MB RAM initially, so the game ran in a memory-saving mode using fewer sounds. I still remember my excitement when another 4 MB were added and the game all of a sudden had “new” sounds. It was topped only by the glee of holding the full game in my hands and studying the intriguing screenshots at the back of the box.

The game left a lasting impression on a kid at an impressionable age. I remember having dreams about discovering new secret levels (which were very similar to the asteroid base of MINIBOSS.DEM), and I practiced playing the MIDI tunes at the family’s piano. Today my cellphone uses those same MIDI files as ringtones, and my music collection is dominated by Grieg and the electronica genre. Go figure.

As this was before the era of widespread Internet access, both the Descent 2 trailer and playable demo were gotten off magazine CDs (the news of which I got through a friend). The full game was immediately acquired when it came out, but unfortunately it didn’t run as smoothly on the old 486 as D1 had. The lagging framerate ruined some of the fun of that game for me.

This was followed by Internet access, Forsaken, and, many years later, Descent 3. For the first time I was able to play against other people (and discover how lacking my skills really were). I played on PXO for a while and eventually reached rank Ensign. Then I had a break from the game, and in the meantime PXO closed down.

Of course, true love never really leaves us. Here I am again, fiddling with D2X-XL/Rebirth and Vortex, and trying to convince friends to give this odd game of mine a chance. Ain’t no cure for the 6DF blues.

(Oh, and you know you’re a true Norwegian Descent player if you say “miner” when you mean “gruver”. That is, the word “miner” only refers to explosives, so the correct translation of English “mines” is “gruver”.)

[NanoDescent2400]

Hi. I'm Nathaniel, and have been on several Descent BB's in the past. I started with D1 shareware which came with my old IBM Aptiva®. The first time I played I was to disoriented and thought it was a little to hard, so I gave it up for a while. Later I played it again and got myself used to it. I was hooked ever since.

Anywho: 31 and 12 years.

[James100111100]

I'm 17 now, been playing Descent since I was five. I didn't get d2 until 2006 as I didn't know about how multiplayer worked I've missed the heyday of D1 gaming and keepin it alive on kali is a chore.

See you in the mines

[MadJoca]

25 years old, Brazil, Curitiba, state of Paraná

I started 10 years ago, in a event of New tecnologys and computers, then I saw a stand with a 3D Glasses, and played descent with this. So 3 months later I download D1 full, and started to play with my neighborhood by modem. in 1998 I found Kali, and started to play with you, descenters !!! yeahoooooooo DESCENT FOREVER !!!

[Praetorian]

This is a long thread.

1995 D1 Demo was the start and I've played all the Descent versions. I'm 49 now and have started playing the Enemy Within D2X-XL which is just as addictive as a new game.

The Descent games are all I play on the computer unless I play the computer in chess which is rare with the guide bot nagging me with the flares.

[twix]

I'm 19 years old, almost 20. I've been playing Descent since age 9, LAN D1 on the school's old Mac computers ... I remember how totally AWESOME the Mac soundtrack was back then ... the industrial metal sound was a huge influence on my musical tastes.

I also remember playing D3 on the school LAN in grade 9 ... one of my teachers was a Descent fan too, and we had the D3 demo, and he destroyed us all pretty easily ...

I have hilarious memories of trying to download that D3 demo at school. Our internet was slow enough that the demo would take at least 4 hours to download. I tried so many times and so many ways, sneaking into computer labs between classes, leaving the download overnight, not logging off my account to keep things running ... I got in trouble more about Descent 3 than I did about ANYTHING else in school. But I finally discovered some exploit in the system that let me log off and still leave a download running ... and the rest is history.

Fast forward a few years, and I'm still playing Descent. I've collected pretty much the whole series and a few related games ... I've got D1, LOTW, D2, Vertigo, Maximum, D3, Mercenary, Freespace, and Freespace 2 ... pretty much only missing Silent Threat. Freespace 2 has to be the best game EVER made, with D1 coming a close second.

And I have the entire Mac D1 soundtrack as mp3s :)

[Drakoz]

Man, I didn't realize so many of you were so young. Some of you have been here for all eternity, and you are still in your twneties today. I haven't been around the Descent scene for years, but I sure miss it, especially Thursday nights at Sickone's Asylum.

I started playing D1 in '94 when I was at AMD designing sound cards for the PC. Back then, the Gravis Ultrasound was _the_ sound card to have for Descent because of the better MIDI samples. At AMD, we were effectively designing the next generation Ultrasound cards in a loose partnership with Gravis.

I'm 41 now. Seems during my active years playing Descent, my computer was underpowered and only a modem for Internet play. Now I have a kick ass computer, great Internet and no time to play. Ah well. What you gonna do.

It's great to see so many of the old Descent players are still here.

[Dtile]

I started playing while a member of Compuserve forums with 14.4 connects, then kali in 95ish. then stopped in 98ish..Xciter, peartman and delcio and I (Descentile) tried to get it going last year at my house 08ish, but we couldnt find a slow pc, get the darn sound card working on the junk pc's we tried to put together, and we scko with mouse, although we did dust off our 3d joysticks...we had fun though...Im 44.

[Jesus Freak]

I'm 20 years old. I first SAW Descent probably in 97-98. I thought it was crappy cause I only saw the single player... and I didn't have much respect for the person who was playing it I got Descent 3 in 99 or 2000, but it wasn't until 2005 that I got into D1/2.

[ix]

52 years young, D1 Demo.

I read the review in one of the computer mags in 94 and got the demo in same magazine. Loaded it up and got everything working, played for about a month solo and then got on the Compuserve Descent Forum and played a few. Some of who kicked my a)) so bad.

Jumped from modem (because of the cost) to Kali. Hated KaliDOS and loved Kali95. (User 9209)
When out and got the Voodoo card when D2 came out. So much better. Broke so many hat switches on many different joysticks I gave up on Descent for a couple of years. I play regularly at home with my kids.

Now I just lurk and give people sh it on kali.

ix

[Bapabooiee]

I can't really say... all I know is that it was on my old Windows 95 machine, and I wasn't even 10 years old at the time--it really was a long time ago.

I got the game on some CD that came with a collection of games, and the shareware version of Descent was one of them. I'd pretty much play this game (along with my brother) almost every day; we just couldn't get enough of the demo. Though, every time we got to level 6, the game would always randomly crash on us, so I never got farther than that.

Until just very recently. I remembered this game from my childhood, and set-out to find it on teh Internetz. Finally made it past level 6, and beat the shareware version for the first time in my life =D

Though, I would also like to note that when I was in grade 6, my brother got Descent 3, but he never let me play it. Or at least, not very much. So now, I'm on a quest to play through all of the Descent games =]

If anyone would be so humble as to answer this question: Is Descent 1 still a commercial product? If so, I must find a way to buy it. If not, busting-out the 'ole Bit Torrent =D

Anyway, I'm 18 now. Good to be back. It's hard to believe this legendary game has held up for so long.

[Sirius]

If anyone would be so humble as to answer this question: Is Descent 1 still a commercial product?

Yeah. http://www.gog.com/

[Bapabooiee]

If anyone would be so humble as to answer this question: Is Descent 1 still a commercial product?

Yeah. http://www.gog.com/

Hey, thanks mate. Guess I'm going to have to kill-off that torrent I've been downloading.

Though, I'm curious, here. Do the profits of the products on that website actually go to the original developers, or am I paying for a "revived" version of the game, whose profits do not go to the original developers? If the former is not the case, would it be "ethical" to just download the exact original software instead(since I'm pretty sure it's vaporware), so I wouldn't have to download from the website?

Many thanks, and apologies for going off-topic.

[Sirius]

I really don't know. Interplay will doubtless be getting some royalties from this, but what their arrangement with Parallax is these days is anyone's guess (they might just have been paid a lump sum in 1995/6 and that's it for all I know).

Ethics, well, I'm not sure I can meaningfully discuss those.

[Bapabooiee]

Alrighty, thanks for the input =] I think I may have used the term \"ethics\" a little broadly, but oh well. Fair enough.