I remember trying to get Phantasmagoria 2 back in 2006 or so. GOG/Steam and digital distribution wasn't really a thing back then, so the only chance you had to replay a game was to find a copy online. Back then I had no means of ordering online, so I had to go through more piratey ways.
Anyway, I remember finding this one torrent that had maybe a couple of seeders. Phantasmagoria 2 comes on 5 CDs AFAIR, so it was certainly not a small game in size. I was usually downloading at 5 KB/s, sometimes it would rise to 20 KB/s or even 50 KB/s. I remember it taking a little over a month, but it certainly was worth it, I had a lot of fun with that game. The build-up was something else 🤣 .
Another interesting story, I first got a broadband connection back in late 2005. Up until that point, I had to use 56 Kbps Dial-Up, but then 512Kbps became quite affordable. I was so happy that I would finally be able to download a ton of old games that came on CD and I really wanted to play (remember, I had practically 0 means of acquiring said games, unless I happened to run across them on some select stores I had on my list). First thing I ever downloaded with my broadband connection was a demo of The Dig off of the ScummVM website. I think it was roughly 40MB and I was practically awestruck when I saw just how blazingly fast it was done! That game had always fascinated me, ever since I first laid eyes upon it on a friend's computer back in 2001-2002.
I also grabbed the then latest version of ScummVM and played the demo and loved it.
But, this is a thread about torrenting so I should make my story a little more relevant. My first experience of using torrents was just a few days later when I grabbed Azureus (anyone remember that? It later became Vuze) and found a torrent of The Dig and another one of a Bee Gees live performance of all things 😖. A few hours later, I was playing The Dig 😀. I will never forget what big of a change going broadband was.
