Oh man, I’ll put you in my prayers from now on 
And we will finally break the cycle.
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You know it. I have it as part of a rebalanced mod. Titan Quest devs somehow forgot you need to put mobs in the game, luckily the mod scene fixed that for us
I sent @SolidMetalKnight a mod pack with 3 up to date mods for tq (rebalanced, shadowchampions, svaera lemme know if you want it also!
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Ha, sounds like me. One of my all-time favorite games is Legacy of the Ancients, for my old C64. Then got into Wasteland on my aunt/uncles IBM. The spent too much time on BBSes, and got into MUDs when I was in college (played the shit out of EoTL and Tsunami MUDs). That led me into PC gaming in general – Heros of Might and Magic. Then Diablo 1. That eventually turned into games like Fallout and Fallout 2.
Then Everquest hit, and my gaming would no longer be the same. EQ->DAoC->Shadowbane->WoW->Guild Wars 2->LoTRO, etc etc etc. Alway had ARPGs as a fallback, and tried them all… Diablo series, TQ, Grim Dawn, Torchlight 1/2, Loki, Dungeon Siege 1/2, Sacred 1/2, blah blah blah. Always looking for new games, and got sick of AAA titles, so started hitting up kickstarters and found this one…
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Started with an A600 back in the early 90s before moving on to a pc (486sx 25) played a lot of Civilisation & UFO:Enemy Unknown (& the sequels), Doom 1 & 2, various platformers, Dune 2, Syndicate, Civ2 & SMAC/Call to Power, Master of Orion 1, 2 & 3 (a massive disappointment) & Master of Magic, C&C/Red Alert. Played a lot of Quake and D1 at uni, D2 after uni (actually got fired from one job because of it!), then I found Sacred 1 & 2 and played them for an ungodly amount of time, even becoming a moderator on the International forum & closed tester. Enjoyed TQ/IT & GD, played GW1 & 2, a lot of SWTOR (I have issues with not spending money on the Star Wars and 40K franchises). Got into the D3 closed beta (such as it was) & played D3 quite a bit. More recently I’ve been playing Elite Dangerous, Vermintide 2, Dyson Sphere Programme WWZ, Cyberpunk (I liked it & didn’t have issues on launch but then i don’t have a prior-gen console, nor was I expecting it to be the Second Coming).
And Dawn of War 1 & 2 'cause 40k. Didn’t enjoy Inquisitor Martyr.
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Of the earlier games you played, which one do you think has held up the best and/or is your favorite of them? I didn’t get to play that generation of games except retroactively, so I’m really curious which one you really appreciated back then.
Not a clue. The ones I played & probably enjoyed the most were Civ1, UFO:EU & MOO/MOM. And SMAC, that was easily the best of the Civ-like games IMO (in part due to the sci-fi setting & the unit customisation/building).
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Of the early PC games, I also think the Civ games have probably held up the best. That or the simpler games, like the shoot 'em ups. Sid Meier / Microprose seemed to have been thinking harder about what makes a good game / simulation than most of the other developers back then. At least it seems that way from what I’ve played of them.
I LOVE SMAC. MOO2 also holds up well. I have to break both of them out at least once a year and binge-play them for a couple of weeks.
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When I was a kid my parents never got a console, so I was just playing PC games in the 90s- Commander Keen, King’s Quest, War Craft (back when it was an RTS). Somehow my brother and I became aware of Diablo and convinced our dad to get us it. It was awesome; we loved it. Looking back, I’m kind of surprised my parents let us play that one considering how dark it was. When Diablo 2 came out we once again persuaded our father to get it. We loved that one even more (my Dad one time when he watched us playing it commented it might be a game he’d like; years later he started playing it himself).
War Craft 3 then probably became my next main game and some others. I didn’t play any other ARPG’s for years until the first Torchlight came out while I was in college. I enjoyed it, but didn’t love it as much as I had the Diablo’s. Diablo 3 finally came out. My Dad got it, and I played it a little while visiting his house, but, again, I didn’t love it as much as the earlier Diablos (I really didn’t like that you just unlocked all the skills without having to invest points to build your character in specific ways).
But Torchlight 2 came out and I bought that, and that scratched the itch I’d been looking for. Still one of my all-time favorite games. In the 2010s I played some other games, did a little POE, played a fair amount of Grim Dawn. The late 2010s solidified for me that my favorite genre is Diablo-like ARPGs.
I think I became aware of LE probably not too long after its kickstarter and launch through a couple of Youtubers who’d cover it- Thyworm and Vulkan. What really intrigued me was the concept of every skill having its own tree to invest in. But $35 was more than I’d spend on games, and the early reviews were pretty mixed. But I kept tabs on it through the youtubers for a couple of years and could see that the game kept getting better and better and more polished. And in spite of some negative reviews, what I saw always looked appealing to me.
I finally bought it in 2021, I think. Absolutely love it, and the huge content updates they did (before the long drought leading up to 9.0) got me really excited. Probably my favorite ARPG ever and possibly the most happy I’ve ever been with a game purchase, though I’ve been taking a little break from it again to make sure I don’t burn myself out on it.
Besides LE I’ve still been grabbing various ARPGs over the years-
Titan Quest- good game, but a little too slow in progression for my taste, and I’ve never actually completed the campaign; Grim Dawn took all its mechanics and improved on them and the feeling of progression.
The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing Final Cut- underrated in my opinion; really fun. I wish the progression was a little faster and it had more interesting itemization, but the writing and voice acting make it an enjoyable ride.
Torchlight 3- I know the popular opinion seems to be that this game is worthless trash, but I really like it. It’s not as good as Torchlight 2, but I still think the classes and items are creative and fun. I wish the devs had been able to keep polishing it further and add that 4th act that was clearly being set up.
Undecember- I know there’s all these complaints about it being P2W, but I actually really enjoyed it, though I only played through Act 5, I think. I might return to it eventually. Really cool, challenging boss fights- I think it might be the best ARPG I’ve played in that regard.
Chronicon- Those who’ve played this indie rave about it, but I admit I’ve been kind of disappointed with it. I had some fun with it, but as shallow as it makes me feel to say it, I do think the ugly graphics hurt the experience for me, and I think this game goes overboard with how much loot drops with tons of modifiers to read through.
Diablo 3- I finally got it and played through the campaign. I think the Reaper of Souls expansion did improve the game. It’s fun, but still feels too easy (I don’t like the experience of being able to kill a boss before they even finish their opening monologue) and doesn’t hold my interest as long as other ARPGs.
Wolcen- was wary of this one because of all the negative reviews and reports of bugs, but now that it’s price has gone way down during sales I picked it up a few months ago. Have had a good bit of fun with it, but have not completed the campaign yet. Something about the controls in combat feels a bit off to me, and I’m not a big fan of the rage-willpower resource management and having every skilled tied to specific weapon types. But the graphics and sound effects are gorgeous and I appreciate all the effort they put into the presentation.
Diablo 2 Resurrected- playing it again after almost 2 decades away. I do wish some of its mechanics and pacing were brought more in line with modern ARPG’s, but it’s still a great game and Vicarious Visions did a beautiful job updating the visuals while still keeping it true to the design and atmosphere of the original game (well, except for the character faces).
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I had forgotten about this but I think Commander Keen might have been the first computer game I ever played. That or Chip’s Challenge, I forget. The computer lab at the Boy’s and Girl’s Club I went to had Windows 95 computers and we used to go into the command line and run games we weren’t supposed to have. We even played games like One Must Fall, Battle Chess and Gravity Well. (I’m amazed retroactively that those machines could even run those.) That was a great time. When I was supposed to be making friends and playing in the gym, I was getting an education on hijacking computer equipment, haha.
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Dude! I’m not familiar with Gravity Well but One Must Fall and Battle Chess- that brings back some memories. Good times. Did you ever play Scorched Earth or Jill of the Jungle?
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Yeah! I had a friend who had Scorched Earth. That was a great game. I haven’t thought about that in nearly 30 years until you mentioned that just now. We killed more than a couple of hours of our lives playing that on our parent’s computers after school, haha.
Jill of the Jungle no, though. I do remember a lot of odd platformers from back then. Those tile-based sidescrollers where you’re always trying to get a diamond or a key were ubiquitous. Somehow, I never managed to play Out of This World or Prince of Persia, despite all those games kinda existing in that same time period / technology.
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There were a lot of things in Marvel Heroes I wish LE would use. The XP boost for each max level character so you could level alts faster blew my mind. Although I would want LE to break it down more than just level 100’s since it is a lot harder to do in LE.
I started gaming with Oregon Trail on the old green/orange screens in my grade school in the 80’s. Got an Atari for Christmas one year and played the heck out of Space Invaders and Asteroids. Stayed with consoles for a long time. NES, SNES, Playstation 1. Roleplaying games and side-scrolling action games were my style. Dragon Warrior, Final Fantasy, Zelda, Metroid, Castlevania, Breath of Fire, Chrono Trigger, Secret of Mana, Double Dragon, Contra, River City Ransom and many many others.
When I finally moved to PC gaming, I got into Ultima Online and RTS games. Age of Empires 2 was my life for awhile (Aztecs forever!) That went into Starcraft and Warcraft 3. Warcraft 3 got me obsessed with the custom maps. The tower defense maps and the birth of Dota. Also loved Sim City and Civ.
I got into Diablo 1 and 2. Eventually I got into WoW but that didn’t last long. Barely got into Lich King exp and quit the game. Jumped around a lot after that looking for MMO’s/aRPGs that might pull me in. Did Ragnarok Online, Maple Story, Guild Wars 2, Grim Dawn, Wolcen, Diablo 3, Minecraft, Path of Exile, Terraria, Last Epoch.
I now mostly don’t have time to invest into games long term so I play games that I can have fun in short bursts and build meta progression. Chronicon and lots of different bullet heaven type games. Rogue Genesia, Scarlet Tower, Death must Die, Bio-Prototype, Spirit Hunters, Nordic Ashes, Halls of Torment, Spellbook Demonslayers, Soulstone Survivors.
That’s where I am at now.
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Have you played Hades? That would really be up your alley, by the sound of it. One of my favorite roguelite / action RPG’s. Borders on a bullet hell at times. Extremely good story and voice acting, also, if you’re into that.
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I need to play it. I bought on sale on Epic a year or two ago but still haven’t gotten around to it yet. I played a couple of Super Giant’s earlier games- Bastion and Transistor- and really liked those.
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I had forgotten all about this little gem. I didn’t play it a lot but I do remember firing it up every now and then. Always reminded me of old school TT DnD game traps like from Ghost Tower Of Inverness.
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Love your list of games., sounds very close to mine.
Red Alert was so good!
No Warcraft, though?
I spent so much time on Warcraft 2… Campaign, co-op, then creating maps and bringing the floppy disc to friends to challenge them.
Aahhh, floppy discs. I miss them.
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No, I’d kinda gone off rts by then. I did play it a bit at uni but not much.
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I started playing in an Atari 800, then a 486. I played a lot of MUDs at college and many turn based strategy games. Played a lot of Civ , MOO , MOM, RR Tycoon , HoMM , Star Control , and lots of stuff I don’t remember now.
Then it was MMORPGs mainly WoW (still play it on and off) and City of Heroes/Villains.
Lots of RPGs like BG , PS Torment , Wizardry , etc.
Then I don’t know why I started having less patience in games , and moved to things I could play in shorter or longer time chunks as needed , mainly ARPGs and MOBAs.
I played most of the better known ARPGs , D1, D2, TQ , GD, D3 , POE , Chaosbane, Inquisitor Martyr , Wolcen , TL, TL2 , TL3 , D4, etc and have been playing more and more of the genre , found LE in steam on early access some time ago , and added it to the ARPG list.
Today its mainly WoW, POE, D4 and LE what I play most , and would be really happy if someday I could have seasons or patches with new content of all of them , to have some fun .
Also non related , I read a lot of sci-fi , fantasy and litrpg , and I’m still waiting for that promised VR MMORPG where the game is indistinguishable from the real world , a man can dream 
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As many of you guys played MUD’s, I’m surprised nobody has mentioned MUME as of yet. I can’t imagine it was after everyone’s time here. I touched it briefly in high school but never really took an interest just because I didn’t appreciate older-style games back then.
Come to think of it, nobody has said Rogue either yet, have they? Seems like several of the folks here would’ve had to have played that at some point.