[Nix]

I think MaxPC was called "boot" back then, and on thier monthly demo disc, FS1's demo was on it.  I was hooked immediately, though at the time I was looking forward more to Descent 3, cause I was a major Descent 1/2 junkie.  Once I played "small deadly space" I was thrilled, which is still my favorite mission in both games.  One of my friends bought it the first day it went retail and I got a copy of it, soon after that I bought a copy, played it start to finish over and over again.  Then, I sorta went into a lapse of gaming and didnt realize FS2 was released untill someone mentioned to me that it was out there.  I got a copy from him and got to be thrilled all over again.  FS2 took me about six months to complete when I started playing it but it was good the entire time.  I used to be a visitor of Volition Watch when it was active, not an active poster though.  I remember getting the BWO demo, and playing standalone Derelict missions way back when they first hit the net.  I had never played silent threat before, and found a copy of FS1/Silent threat on ebay for 5 bucks, about two years ago.  I played through the missions at a LAN party one night, it was pretty cool.  I came over to HLP as a lurker when Volition Watch decided to close down, and stop lurking when I needed help setting up FSO on my system.  Since then, I've been a nuisance on these boards for some time, while still playing FS2/FSO a lot, new missions here and there, doing voiceacting for some of Blaise Russel's campaigns, and other stuff too that I'm working on now.

[Deepstar]

Uh... it's a difficult question *trytoremember*

I think my first contact with PCs was very late, i think it was 1997. To this time we've (My Dad and I) still used our Amiga 500.

Our first games were Civilization II and Archimedean Dynasty.

But okay... in this years, we heard that Wing Commander reach it's fifth part (Prophecy). Because we played WCI at the A500, we look to it.. but don't find it, but we're able to organize WC IV, after that we find Prophecy and Privateer 2 and after some time we find WCIII, too.

But okay, this post should be Freespace related, right?

Then Conflict:Freespace comes out, i saw it in multiple stores and was highlighted with "Better than Wing Commander!", but we don't buy it. I was 12 in 1998 so i don't have money and my father haven't a big interest to it.

But on a PC-Gaming Magazine i found a Demo of this game, and played it, when i remember correct it was a two mission demo, with the first FS1 Mission and another, with the GTC Orff, too. (When i look into the FSPort Forum, it should be the "Eve of Destruction" Demo )

I must say, i don't understand very much, my english was not very good at this time and it was only a english demo. But i like the effect, with this sparks in my viewfield, after my ship is heavily damaged. (This effect was removed in the full-version and get a little comeback in FS2 with the Lightning in the Nebula, the sparks in the FS1 Demo looks like this blue lightning there)
When i'm remember correct, i died multiple times and was unable to complete this first mission, the Vasudans kill me everytime. And when i survived the GTC Orff was destroyed.

So i delete it and forget it for a year.

My real contact with Freespace i have with Freespace 2.
A PC/Console Games Shop has opened in my city and we visited it.
In this shop you can rent games, too.

When we visited this shop, there we many current games. We find Freespace 2 and Star Wars: X-Wing Alliance which we want to test it, we rent both games.

Both games pleased us very well, we ordered them in the shop.

So, my first Freespace was Freespace 2.

We all know it, in Game they said in nearly every command brief.
The great war was 32 years ago, the explosion of the lucifer cut off the jump node in delta serpentis. No beam weapons, no shields, no flak in the great war (okay, this was a pilot conversation in "the great hunt" ) and all such things and of course the impressive Freespace 2 Intro

This makes us interested... we want to play the great war... but in germany, Freespace 1 simply disappeared...

Only after further two years, we found it. In 2001!
A PC-Game Magazine has a included 2 CD-Full Version of Conflict: Freespace - The Great War.
So we bought it.
And after further one year, we found Silent Threat on a table with Low-Budget Products... we bought this, too.


But how i found the SCP?
This is another difficult question...

When i'm remember correct, i search for new missions. I found Volitionwatch before and play all downloadable campaigns from there, both for FS1 and FS2.

And then i come to the Campaign Boards at HLP and from there i get to the SCP and that's all. Today i'm still here

[Qwer]

It started when my dad bought game magazine with few CDs including Freespace 2 demo in 2000. I saw him playing it (yeah, he was horrible and threw it ). One day I decided to try it out (of course on Very Easy like all 9-year old children ). Belive me or not, I played it over 50 times. Next year parents finally bought full version of FS1. Year of completing main campaign few times (still on Very Easy ) and FREDding simple missions. Next year turn for FS2 came. Again few times of completion (last one was on Medium ) and more FREDding. However whole situation bored me, there was no FS3 and I hadn't internet. Three years later when I got internet I remined myself about FreeSpace, looked to ModDatabase and downloaded first better campagin (accidently it was Homesick ). Hit on SCP site, then here on HLP, from c914's link to freespace.pl and now I'm here.

[Mongoose]

I actually have no memory whatsoever of when I first heard of/played Freespace. I do vaguely recall seeing the FS1 box at a neighbor's house with whom I used to play Descent II and 3 frequently; since I had no idea what it was about, I just thought it was some sort of spinoff of the Descent series.  I also remember reading the FS2 advertisement in the D3 CD sleeve and pondering such strange names as "Shivan" and "Vasudan." At any rate, I'm just about positive that it was through my activity on Descent forums that I finally learned exactly what Freespace was, and I eventually purchased the first game.  Needless to say, it was love at first sight of the intro movie; a testament to how good the game is is that my younger brother was perfectly content to sit and watch me play, even going so far as to act as co-pilot and call out status updates in-mission. Eventually, I happened to find a copy of the game packaged with Silent Threat and bought that as well; I found myself enjoying the seven-mission Destiny of Peace campaign that was included with the fan-made missions somewhat more than the ST campaign itself.

As far as FS2 went, I must have played the trailer for it dozens of times, and I played through those two demo missions several times; I was completely overwhelmed by the beautiful graphics, nebula, beams, and flak.  I eventually made my way over here, as well, and read everything I could about it; this netted me a few spoilers about the campaign, as well as a distinctly different impression of how a few gameplay elements would turn out. (I vaguely remember having some rather bizarre ideas about Trebuchets and Helios bombs. ) However, at that time, the only way I had of acquiring FS2 was via eBay, and the prices on there were so insanely high, I felt that there was no way I'd ever be able to buy it short of miraculously finding it in a bargain bin somewhere.  Then, wonder of wonders, Interplay released the 20th Anniversary edition, and I snapped it up in a heartbeat; sure, it was $50 for a several-year-old game, but I felt that it was completely worth it, and boy, was I right.  Once again, I was hooked from beginning to end, and my brother returned to watch me play through it.  After learning about the SCP and all of its myriad improvements, I finally decided to take the plunge and attempt to install it; that's where I've been ever since.

[S-99]

I started my search for a space shooter back in late 1999 when i was 14 on an old 400mhz emachine with 64mb ram and an ati rage 2c pro 4mb. I downloaded a bunch of sucky space sim demos. Then on zdnet i found freespace and gave it a try. It wasn't very big in size, and ran in software mode so i was happy. I was able to play with the keyboard and shoot missiles and lasers and accelerate my craft, and move around the way i wanted to. freespace 1 was exactly what i was searching for in a space sim. My older bro tried the demo, the gtc orff was cool as ****. Then i finally built my first computer with a 433celeron 64mb ram and a voodoo3 2000 pci when i found the fs2 demo. The fs2 demo was amazing. My bro was going wild with the fs2 demo on his machine of similar configuration actually using the mouse. I bought fs2 in early 2000, and started playing it with my gravis xterminator gamepad. Then i didn't beat the game until 6 months of neglecting it. A year and a half later i found fs1 with silent threat included for like 10$ at fry's in texas, and started playing and found it a much different experience than fs2 was (playing games out of order has a certain feeling to it). Then i while in highschool i was on pxo a bunch as S-99 a bunch, because fs2 was great for multi on 56k. I even had my computer as a server sometimes.
Then i lost my fs2 cds, purchased game of the year edition, and found the extra user campaign not that great at all, i thought it was made by V(it wasn't), and it was only like 3 missions long.
Then  years later on my freshman year of college i'm downloading fs2 hotu, and was extremely dissappointed with the hotu release. So i torrented fs2 that had the user name prototype24 on each of the files and contained a link to the scp, which then i eventually found hlp in late 2004.
Then i lurked for half a year, registered, lurked 3 months more, than actually became a regular here when i was posting my pics of playing fs2 on a big hi-def
I'm still  the normal S-99, and then my regular status sort of started when i was dominating the 3.6.8vp screenshot thread for several pages on end(i need to do that again)

[CP5670]

I got FS1 as a birthday gift in early 1998 (the box still has the $54.99 price tag ) due to the Descent moniker, as I was known to be a Descent fan. It had nothing to do with Descent but I became hooked anyway. I played the game in software mode in those days and it was one of my main motivations to get a decent video card. I picked up ST near the end of that year. I remember there was an extended power outage at the time and I couldn't play it until a few days after I got it.

As for FS2, I found out about it in 1999 from the trailer on the Descent 3 CDs and ran into the VBB shortly after that. I got it the day it was released and, well, the rest is history.

[AdmiralRalwood]

I got it the day it was released

Wow.

[CP5670]

Actually, you might say I got it the hour it was released. They were stacking up the boxes on a shelf at the local Babbage's (now Gamestop) when I entered the place, although I had actually gone there to get something else and didn't know FS2 had just come out.

[Bob-san]

You lucky bastard...

Today I said screw the bandwidth limit-it must be at least 3GB (i thought it was 2gb but that seems unlikely now)... I have successfully downloaded all 3 disc images off Freespacezone. Right now I'm transfering Disc 2 Part 1 and the reconstruction EXE to my flash drive... I have Disc 2 Part 2 and all of Disc 3 (so far unsplit) on the hard drive... I'll carry those over once this damn-slow 460mb transfer gets done... too bad this computer only has USB 1.1...... my computer has USB 2.0 so it's a 1-minute transfer versus like 20 minutes here...

I'll run the splitter for Disc 3 once I have this transfer done...

Edit: Finished transfer of Disc 2 Part 2, now I'm copying Disc 3 Part 1 and the reconstruction EXE... ETF 7 minutes (i highly doubt that... probably more like 10-15 minutes)

[Dylnuge]

I bought a Logitech Force Feedback joystick. Shiped with it was a game called Freespace 2: Colossus. It is essentially the First Act of FS2 with all music and audio and everything. The game was awesome. I spend hours searching for it. I eventually found HOTU. HOTU linked me to Freespace Oracle, FSO linked me to HLP, and here I am. Downloaded the HOT version. That was a year ago. Then, this summer, got a new PC. My old machine was a very very very old laptop. As in 20GB HDD old. Unfortunatly, I had to make room on my laptop for some other games, and bye bye Freespace. I redowloaded FS2 a week ago. Now my company is making a mod for it. Fun stuff.

[Starkweather]

I don't know where my grandfather got Darkness Rising, but that's how I got addicted to it, I played it about... 30 times (I was in 3rd grade) but eventually forgot about it because I lost the CD, after a year of playing Warcraft, one of my friends mentioned Freespace 2, and it all came back like... "WHOA, I remember that game, holy crap dude, thanks" quit Warcraft, and asked for it for my birthday (it was 5 days away and I was untrained in the art of Shareaza) and I've been playing it ever since, though I'll be playing less once I get the Wii.

[DrewToby]

Played the original at a friend's house, and loved it. I think FS is the reason I'm hooked on all things space combat, now that I ponder it.

That, or the shiny, colorful lights.

ANYWAY! The very first time I booted up FS2 Open (with it working, mind you), I lasted ...hm. A very, very short time, even though I knew how to fly and all that from beating FS1 (I borrowed FS1 as soon as my friend would let me XD). I got OHK'd by a AAA beam from an ally ship. It was strangely reminiscent of the 'Dodge the beams and you won't get hit!' scene, except it involved me dying, not complaining about almost dying.

[IcyScythe]

Descent: Freespace came with a new computer my dad bought in 98 or so. I started playing it, not expecting much (I was fairly suspicious of any game that was "free") but it turned out to be one of the coolest games I've ever played, even though I'm not really into flight sims. I played the campaign probably 5 or 6 times every few months, and then eventually heard about the HOTU version of Freespace 2. Not wanting to play some crappy stripped down version, I held off on playing till some guy gave me a link to some ISOs. I played for maybe 2 weeks - a month and then developed tendonitis in both my hands (I thought it was caused by guitar practice, but actually it was something else... long story)... Anyways I stopped playing without even getting through more than a few missions in the campaign and then after a year and half of looking for a cure that worked for tendonitis I finally found one and started not only playing guitar again but playing games again. I just now FS2 again, and also d/led FS2 open. Can't wait for my joystick to arrive tommorow

[Kon]

An OEM DVD version of FS1 came with my IBM Aptiva in 1998.  It was a one disc DVD version that has slightly better graphics than FS1 retail (in fact, this was closer to FS2 retail graphics).  It was my first game, along with Age of Empires II at about the same time.  I played it nonstop for several years, when I discovered ST and FS2 by randomly searching "Freespace" one day on Amazon in 2001.  I bought both the FS1/ST bundle and FS2: Game of the year edition for $15.

In 2002 I finally decided to go online, and I joined the SSC.  In 2004, Lightspeed finally dragged me over here to check out this cool new thing called the SCP.

[Centrixo]

my first encounter with this game came in 1998 in a disc with aload of other demo version games. i was well interested in it. at the time since 2004 ive been playing demo versions since but i went onto amazon and i knew there were games there so i bought it and ive played the game everytime since.
ive also played others but thats secondary.

[IcyScythe]

An OEM DVD version of FS1 came with my IBM Aptiva in 1998.  It was a one disc DVD version that has slightly better graphics than FS1 retail (in fact, this was closer to FS2 retail graphics).  It was my first game, along with Age of Empires II at about the same time.  I played it nonstop for several years, when I discovered ST and FS2 by randomly searching "Freespace" one day on Amazon in 2001.  I bought both the FS1/ST bundle and FS2: Game of the year edition for $15.

In 2002 I finally decided to go online, and I joined the SSC.  In 2004, Lightspeed finally dragged me over here to check out this cool new thing called the SCP.

Yep, that's exactly what I got. Same computer, same DVD version.

[Turey]

An OEM DVD version of FS1 came with my IBM Aptiva in 1998.  It was a one disc DVD version that has slightly better graphics than FS1 retail (in fact, this was closer to FS2 retail graphics).  It was my first game, along with Age of Empires II at about the same time.  I played it nonstop for several years, when I discovered ST and FS2 by randomly searching "Freespace" one day on Amazon in 2001.  I bought both the FS1/ST bundle and FS2: Game of the year edition for $15.

In 2002 I finally decided to go online, and I joined the SSC.  In 2004, Lightspeed finally dragged me over here to check out this cool new thing called the SCP.

Yep, that's exactly what I got. Same computer, same DVD version.

ditto.

[Goober5000]

The DVD version of Descent: FreeSpace came with my DVD drive.

[nissan350z]

Descent: FreeSpace came with the IBM computer we bought in 1998.  The first time I played the game, I tore through the training missions, but when I reached the fifth level- the one with the Vasudan wings in the asteroid field- I had no idea what to do.  After something like twenty-three fruitless attempts, I gave up and stopped playing the game.

Six years later, my thoughts randomly drifted to the game (don't ask), and I suddenly realized how to beat the level (center the clustered blips on the radar).  Since then, FreeSpace and FS2 have been my favorite video games by a long shot.

I only encountered Hard Light and FS2 Open recently.  School has consumed my life for the past few months, but now that we're on winter break I finally have time to take a crack at installing Open.