Ultima Online launch day had a similar feel. Servers melted under the load of 1500 (maybe 2,000). After a weekend of reading the booklet and studying the map, I was able to login. Only to find that cave on the map I wanted to explore was between me and a dozen Ogres and Ratmen. Good times.

Steam was the first “online required” for offline play I think. Others like EA and Ubisoft followed shortly after but didn’t have their own stores until many many years later.