What were your first few moments in-game as a newbie?

I'd been watching Serversmash long before I started playing, so when I did finally get my hands on PS2, I pretty well knew what I was doing.

I made my character, logged in, opened map, grabbed a Sundie and started trucking towards a decent fight. Took me a bit to get a handle on the gunplay (to this day I still loathe the Trac-5) but after that it was pretty much smooth sailing.

Started playing way back in beta. My first half hour was me and my brother trying to figure out what the hell the infiltrator's recon tool did. We thought it might be a healing dart or something. After giving up on figuring it out, we drove a sunderer in a big vanu convoy all the way to Vanu Archives, where we and pretty much every other Vanu player at the time set up on rocks and hills outside the base with sniper rifles and tried to shoot people inside the base.

I was flag hungry when I first started, I figured that was the point of the game. Just kept slamming my head against walls defending bases until I figured out what a sundy could do.
Killable spawn points what is this madness.
So then I became a suicide machine with tank mines.
Then I figured out the crazy amount of exp you can get from a sundy in a big fight, so I'd pull a sundy to the crown and throw some ammo around and laugh in glee at all dem exp's.
Still do that once in a while

"Blueberries" is usually a term used for your own side, to refer to the mob of leaderless players who are not in your squad/platoon. They're called "blueberries" because in a blue/red friend/enemy minimap, all friendly forces not in your squad/platoon appear as blue dots. This applies to all three factions.

Naturally the application changes if you make the VS purple, TR red, and NC blue on your minimap, but at least that's the origins of the term.

It's a term that predates PS2 I think... as in many games friendly units appear as blue dots.

I know. I know. I did. It's used both ways.

Heard different people use the term differently, sometimes even the same term to mean two different things simultaneously.

"NC just took over the bio-lab, damn blueberries. Our blueberries there had 60% pop too."

NC are blueberries, VS are barneys, haven't heard a good one for TR yet. Heard us called strawberries once, but it didn't sound as good as the other 2.

Being thrown into a sh_t fest and trying to figure out how the hell to get into a bio lab. My brother in law was over and I was trying to teach him what I knew about PS1 but it was totally different and HUGE! But after a couple days and getting into a group it became second nature again. But, then the GU's came out. After 13 the game became unplayable on the ol' laptop and I had to take a break. Now with the new desktop it business as usually. Still a good game

This was one of the last videos on the laptop right after a patch........ can't believe I played on it for so long.

I don't use those in a derogatory way by the way. I have cross faction friends with either individuals who helped me improve my game or squad/outfit leads I find myself fighting often. Just a goofy way of referring to my fellow planetmans.

Just to clarify.

The NC are "Smurfs", while the TR are sometimes called "Elmos". Not actually sure how you write the plural of "Elmo". With an "oes"?

This sentence is usually taken (by itself) to mean that the NC managed to take over the Biolab because your own TR players (outside your squad/platoon) were unable to mount an effective defence. Sort of like saying, "Ugh, we can't rely on anyone anymore."

I heard smurfs before but never heard us called elmos. Pretty good one, I like it.

I drop podded into some random base on Esamir getting overpopped, this was back when the game just threw you in without even getting a chance to change your settings properly.

I think I got immediately insta-gibbed.

It was on launch day. I made an NC and got dropped podded somewhere on Esamir, was wandering around on a road looking for things to shoot at when I died to a TR infil somewhere on a hill (semi-auto sniper).

I remember mine

First day of release. I made my character and then started while thinking that I'd have a chance to adjust graphics, controls, etc. before ending up in the action. Instead I was dropped at the back of a tech plant, and got annihilated by a Lightning while I was working my way through the settings screens.

Loaded in game as a medic, dropped on beta crown, tried to revive someone, couldn't figure out how, lit myself and all nearby allies glowing green in beta (very dark) night, got myself and all allies near me killed.

At least that's my recollection.

May? June? 2012, SOE held a public preview at their offices in San Diego. We queued out in the sun for an hour or so and then we went inside and spent a few minutes wandering around Zurvan. Spawns were at the outposts, I didn't know where I was going, so I spent most of the time looking for someone to shoot. A quiet intro compared to most!