After quite a lot of setup and tinkering I finally got to play Phantasy Star Online on Dreamcast last night, 25 years (and a few days) after it was first released.
It was the first time I've been excited to use the Internet in around 20 years. I was a day-one Dreamcast owner, and bought most of its major releases except for PSO - the family business still used the home landline too much.
It was actually a profound experience. It felt like living the dream of what the Internet was supposed to be. The idyllic one they showed you in AOL and NetScape commercials.
Everyone was SO NICE.
I walked up to the first player I saw:
"hello?"
"hi! 😊"
"oh, hey! i just got this set up. youre the first person ive talked to!"
"yay! welcome! here, take this"
They dropped 10,000 meseta for me to take, just like that. I couldn't believe it. As I thanked them profusely a group joined in and welcomed me. We all talked about our setups, all playing on various configurations of devices and emulators. It was interesting to everyone what the others were using to access this virtual place, and the fact that we had all gone through the effort to come here - specifically here, of all places - gave us a sort of immediate kinship.
Everyone was just so kind, helping me power level in a place I had no business being in at Level 1. They were so patient with me as they explained the less-obvious mechanics, and so forgiving of my mistakes. Everything we did together, from clearing out rooms of monsters to simply stepping on buttons to open doorways, came with a celebration. They had all been playing for years, so they seemed to have a great time seeing me react to experiencing it all for the first time.
After we (THEY) defeated the boss we all exchanged guild cards and went our separate ways. I'm sure it was just another Saturday night for them, but as a huge fan of the Dreamcast who like so many people was heartbroken by its sudden cancellation - never quite could let it go, always wanted more - it meant so much to experience this quarter-century-old dream of the future Internet as it was intended with friendly, enthusiastic people many miles away.
The feeling, though hard to describe in words, is very similar to the one I get from many of the countless abstract images I've found and reblogged here over the years. Nostalgia for a different kind of future than the one we got. A better one, a more interesting one... one that against all odds might still happen - or at least show up in just a tiny little piece of it like this from time to time.
Thank you everyone, it just made me so happy.
