Do you remember - 10 years ago POE started free for all

10 years ago GGG started POE free for all.
Do you remember what happens on this day ?

GGG only had server capacity for about 50k players, they thought this is enough...
When they started that you can download the game, about 75k players wanted to download at the same time. So about the first 2 weeks GGG only works on to get more server capacitiy :-))

I started downloading and after 2 hours i go to bed (download to slow), so can i say i'am plying now 10 years or tomorrow becuase i could start playing at 24th...

If you have any other story from the first days, tell us :-)

Oh I remember when PoE went Open Beta.

Moderating that in-game chat was a fucking nightmare. There was only one global chat, no instances, and it went from roughly a few hundred people at a time to thousands. It was literally a blur. At that point there was no report function, so for a few days there the chat was entirely unmoderated.

And it was probably still more civil then than it is now.

There are always server problems at the start of a league. I wonder why this is the case. A "small" company can't afford enough space at launch so most players must always wait for 10 to 60 minutes?

Not even close to the same thing, but since you joined almost 3 months after those very bad early days of Open Beta, I can understand you not realising that. GGG truly was indie in January 2013 and they still had NO IDEA how big the game was going to get, and how quickly. Not even a few months before Open Beta, you could type /online and get a return of triple or sometimes even just double digits.

That's the difference between a beta you have to pay $10 just to play and one you can download and play for free. 'Leagues' have nothing to do with it.

Oh I remember 20 fps, walking 2 screens and desyncing back. Its incredible how far weve come performance wise. Also finally getting fiber was such a drastic improvement.

Remember having to run acts 3 times and hoarding skill gems as we couldnt buy them from vendors. Also a random guy joining our docks farming and dropping like 50 maps on the ground like candy.

My personal favourite moment was a bit later when I was alch n go mapping all day without getting any good loot. Then let my brother test my build in blood aqueducts and the first pack he kills drops a 6 link rare body armour. My first 6link drop.

Ggg announcing 10 acts was the biggest jaw drop.

I remember typing "Did they even beta test this game?" in global chat. I loved the replies I got lol.

I think one of the devs even had to stand trial in an public execution in the forums after it was discovered that a "certain individual" received a Beta-key through the RNG-generator while they already had a sign under their name mentioning this individual is already owner of betaaccess, a one in a bazillion chance to happen.

All the glorious threads from before that time most likely are shreddered already. But i hope they had a good impact on the game.

I miss that chat. Now you get muted left n right by trigger happy mods who didnt like what you said.


hoho.

Community was way less toxic back then. Friendly and helpful people mostly.