What was a profound moment that a video game caused you to experience, and why?
The moment that inspired this question:
A long time ago I was playing an MMO called Voyage of the Century Online. A major part of the game was sailing around on a galleon ship and having naval battles in the 1600s.
The game basically allowed you to sail around all of the oceans of the 1600s world and explore. The game was populated with a lot of NPC ships that you could raid and pick up its cargo for loot.
One time, I was sailing around the western coast of Africa and I came across some slavers. This was shocking to me at the time, and I was like “oh, I’m gonna fuck these racist slavers up!”
I proceed to engage the slave ship in battle and win. As I approach the wreckage, I’m bummed out because there wasn’t any loot. Like every ship up until this point had at least some spare cannon balls or treasure, but this one had nothing.
… then it hit me. A slave ship’s cargo would be… people. I sunk this ship and the reason there wasn’t any loot was because I killed the cargo. I felt so bad.
I just sat there for a little while and felt guilty, but I always appreciated that the developers included that detail so I could be humbled in my own self-righteousness. Not all issues can be solved with force.
I played diablo 1 when I was 6 years old. And you already know where this is going, but that butcher room caused me some intense fear.
That moment in fallout 3 when you first leave the vault and there’s a semi cinematic experience. I was in complete awe at how beautiful the post apocalyptic wasteland looked.
That first time logging into WoW original back when it first released. So much to explore and experience it felt absolutely amazing to be a part of
Man that Butcher fight gave teen me the sweats every time. Diablo 1 did such amazing things with atmosphere, I still hear the environmental guitar music from the demo every time I think about that game.