A Love Affair with MMOs

 

I’ve been MMOing since 2004. While I would really like day that my first experience with online games was with Runescape or World of Warcraft, it just isn’t so. See while all my friends were playing Runescape, I was playing Club Penguin. If you’re not sure what that is, it was basically a heavily moderated chat room with some mini games and a penguin avatars to dress up. For the life of me I can’t remember why I was so entranced by it, maybe because it was the first time I was playing a game that had any kind of chat feature at all. It took about a year for my friends to convince me to try this Runescape thing.

I like to think of Runescape as the gateway MMO. It wasn’t flashy, it ran in a browser, and it was pretty easy to learn  to play. It was one of the first open world games I played and even as a free account, where 50% of the content was locked off, the map felt huge. I never could convince my parents to pay for a membership. It was in Runescape that I fell in love with watching numbers go up and there were so many skills to level! I played with friends almost every day for a year and a half before we all lost interest and moved on.

My parents never understood video games, nor could they see why they should spend $15 a month for me to play them. I missed out on playing World of Warcraft and other pay to play games. Guild Wars on the other hand was something I could buy from the store myself. I played Guild Wars and all of its expansions religiously for 4 years. . I had a menagerie of alts, I ran a guild, and I must have completed each campaign at least five times. Though I couldn’t tell you what the story was about now if you asked. I haven’t been able to sink my teeth into a game like that since.

Once I graduated high school, I didn’t have a lot of time for MMOs anymore.  I experimented with League of Legends in college but ultimately gave up  when no one else wanted to play. I patiently waited for Guild Wars 2 to launch but when it can out my laptop couldn’t run it. I was devastated. By the time I got a semi capable PC, no one I knew was playing it anymore.

Since graduating from college I have rekindled the old flame once again. While I haven’t found an MMO to stick with yet, I’ve fooled around with a lot. I bought The Secret World, I played FFXIV for 3 months, and I finally got a character to level 80 in Guild Wars 2. When I discovered what use to be Massively (now Massively OP), I realized I didn’t just enjoy the playing the genre but I enjoyed learning  about the industry as well. Unfortunately my computer still isn’t ideal for gaming, making it impossible to play the newer, prettier titles out there. But I have enjoyed trying games out that it can run.

For the past few months some friends and I have been playing Trove. Most of them aren’t really into MMOs but like building and the super easy game play. For me it’s  a little too simple, but it’s enjoyable in a group. Unfortunately, after the last few updates, my interest in Trove is dwindling.  Once again I’m setting out to find my next MMO to settle down with. Maybe I’ll give Guild Wars 2 another try.

I’ve been wanting to start a blog for a while now, but never had the motivation to just sit down and write.I just learned about the Newbie Blogger Initiative a few days ago. I’m really excited to participate in the events and talk with other bloggers. I’m aiming to post at least twice a week, maybe more if time allows. It’s been a blast so far.