Multiplayer video games played a major role in my childhood and adolescence.

The first one I delved into was Rainbow Six: Lockdown, which I started playing at age 11.

I have yet to find a gaming community that is as friendly and enriching as that of Rainbow Six: Lockdown.

(I must say that the players of the game Worms: Reloaded come very close. It might have to do with the fact that it’s an old game, and that the players are probably older on average. Or it could simply be because of the nature of the game itself: eccentric, humorous, and not to be taken too seriously.)

Everything began when I downloaded a demo version of the game on the Internet.

The single-player campaign wasn’t of much interest to me. The multiplayer mode, however, was a completely different thing.

In the demo version, the multiplayer mode only allowed for one map, fittingly named “Prison”.

After buying the full version of the game, I continued playing with the same players as in the demo, and before long I knew the better part of R6L’s small online community.

The reason it fossilized so quickly was that the game didn’t turn out to be a huge commercial success. As a result, there were quite few new players joining the game.

Because I was playing day in, day out with the same players, I quickly got on good terms with many of them. We also shared memories of playing together in the demo version, which made for an even tighter bond. All in all, the game was a lot of fun to play, and the ambiance was always top-notch.

We all knew about the different aliases of most players, their country of origin, age, and so on. We all knew about the various exploits of the game, for example how to send a message in the name of somebody else. We all knew about the rumours concerning the identity of the members of the “xmAn” clan — their nicknames consisting of the clan name and a number.

Everything was for the best in the best of all possible worlds.

Or so it seemed.

In reality, players often indiscriminately accused each other of using the infamous “speedhack” — not to mention terrible latency problems and the notorious “host advantage”.

Yet, the game remained fun to play… and the long waits in game lobbies often meant extended discussions.

Fast-forward a couple of years, and a prominent Czech member of the community decides to move these discussions to a user-created forum dedicated to the game, or, rather, to its community. A user initiative to keep the game alive.

He also appointed me as administrator, and that’s how I got to be in charge of moderating a forum at age 13.

The entire online community of the game gathered on this forum, and, in spite of its size, it was quite active in its prime, accumulating 20,000 posts from 150 members.

Players from Sweden, Germany, France, Russia, Holland, or America would engage in friendly banter about various aspects of the game and its players.

On the forum, people treated each other with respect and camaraderie, mostly because of the moments shared. Similarly, players always talked to me like I was a grown-up. That surely gave me a nice boost of self-confidence at the time.

Eight years later, I am still in contact with some players — among them two 40-year-old American brothers — and I come back to the forum now and again to have my fill of good memories. As for the game itself, nobody’s playing it any longer, although we could probably schedule a reunion date to relive good times and inject the game a final spasm of life.

That was my first ever experience with online multiplayer games, and there couldn’t be a better one. On top of all the good things I’ve said about the game, it also made me practice my English daily and subconsciously bolstered my love for the language.

I also wrote an article on my experience with Counter-Strike: Source and its online community, in my eyes the complete opposite of Rainbow Six: Lockdown.