Day 1 - Purchase

So I finally buckle under pressure and make a feeble excuse to go to the shops on Saturday morning.

'Just off out to the shops,' I call to the wife as I leave.

Oh, and then, 20 mins later I'm handling the object in the shop. It looks so lovely. Oh, yes it does. Then I'm heading for the till before I can talk myself out of it, whilst I repeat reasons justifying the expense to myself. No, really, I made some up.

The walk home seems long indeed. I resist the urge to tear the pack open and read the booklet on the way back. I wait. I even make tea when I get back before beginning the install.

Woah. 5 CDs? What the?

I begin, it takes forever. It's a good job that the guide book is so long - gives you someting to do whilst it installs.

CD2, watch TV...

CD3, reading book...

Crash, error, sorry, this program has performed an illegal operation and will terminate. have a nice day.

Oh, this had taken over an hour to get to this point. I ended every process not really needed on the PC and polished CD3. Start again - note, no continue install option, oh no, you must delete and re-start...

CD1, make more tea...

CD2, watch TV...

CD3, bite nails...

CD4, pace around the lounge, annoying wife...

CD5, yes, finally, it finishes.

I now think, foolish me, that I'll be playing within minutes. Ah, no. Load, get excited, am informed that I have to download and apply a few patches. A few? Ha! More like two damned hours of downloading.

One long walk along the beach later...

Apply the patches. Another 20 minutes.

By now it's edging towards suppertime. Sigh.

Then, it loads. Oh joy. It works. It lets me in.

Character creation. Hmm, I've had hours and hours of time to research all the classes and muse the advantages and disadvatages of each. I want to play hoard as I have friends there, and want to play a shaman, so am limited to Troll, Orc or Taurean. It looks like half the world is playing Taurean shamen, so I go for Troll.

Nice, gangly, green, bald. I didn't like any of the hairstyles, so chose bald.

In Game

Finally. I appear in a desert-like region, lots of trolls around (of course), near a big circle. I assume that every troll appears here. There are a lot of people wandering around. I'm not sure what to do.

A nasty looking troll runs up to me and stares at me. He says, 'Hey baldy, baldy! Fight me!'

Then a dialog box appears:

Ocylatryx chanllenges you to a duel. Decline or Accept.

I panic at this, click decline and run away. I have no idea if I'm at risk in this area and what the consequences would be for losing (none, it turns out later).

Ocylatryx runs after me, insulting my lack of hair and repeatedly challenging me to duels. I run inside a tunnel to escape and am confronted by large creatures. Are they trolls?

One has a quest for me (the glowing ! is familiar from similar genre of games), so I click on him and so begins the killing and misery for the critters of the valley of trials...

It's a familiar and comfortable pattern - go and kill x of these then come back and I'll give you a dirty, ripped and smelly vest as a reward. So, after an hour I'm still dressed in rags thumping things with a big stick and trying to look pleased when handed a pair of shabby, stained gloves.

Still, I find a shop, trade all the crap I've looted from corpses and steadily progress. I ignore all the other people, and they ignore me. It seems that Ocylatryx was out of the ordinary and most other people are polite and friendly. They even help out if that boar looks like it is going to overcome you as they pass by.

A few hours later and I'm level 5. Oh yes, and I leave the valley.