My Massively Multiplayer Life

In my years as an MMORPG gamer, one thing has survived across all the games that I’ve played. The fact that, at some point, sooner or later, I get itchy feet. And I’m sure I’m not the only one! My first MMORPG was Earth and Beyond. With hindsight it was primitive, and actually quite dull. But at the time it was fantastic. A game in space, with all these other real people! What fun. I remember just after I signed up and was accepted onto the Earth and Beyond beta, I read an article in Edge magazine about a successor to the E’n'B crown. A space game that was so vast and gave you so many opportunities that it couldn’t possibly fail. That game? Eve.

And so before long the time came to move across and start playing Eve. And it was good, very good. It was the game that Earth and Beyond should have been. Where these 2 differ is that Eve is still going from strength to strength, Earth and Beyond is a distant memory. But again, before too long, I wanted something more, something different. And so I moved on again.

Fast forward to 2009 and here I am again. In those intervening years I’ve played (and left) Guild Wars, Horizons, Everquest 2, Star Wars Galaxies, Conan, Lineage 2, Dark Age of Camelot, City of Heroes, D&D Online, Lord of the Rings Online, World of Warcraft and The Matrix Online. For at least half of these, I was also involved in the beta and so saw the game before it was “polished”. But each one of these, in turn, has killed my enthusiasm, and therefore lost my subscription.

And so I look at where I am now. I currently subscribe to both Warhammer Online and Champions Online, both on long term plans. I’ve been with both since day 1, and was a beta tester on both. Warhammer was superb. The idea of Public Quests was a great new thing, the combat was good, the changes introduced made the game better, and it was one of the most polished games at launch that I’ve ever played. Scratch that. It was the most polished game at launch that I’ve ever played. It’s the game where I’ve discovered my hunger for good PvP, and I keep going back to that. You’re immersed in the feeling of being involved in a conflict from Level 1. I got in with a good guild from early on and have been with them ever since. I’ve been with WAR now for over a year, and that’s a long time for me!

Champions is still new. It’s great as it’s like City of Heroes but better. Lots of fun, and allows that child inside who always wanted to be a superhero to come out! I’m still getting used to it but it seems like it’s going to be a lot of fun.

But already I’m yearning for the next thing to come along. Now I can guarantee that I’ll sink a lot of hours into Star Wars The Old Republic. And I quite like the look of both Star Trek Universe, and Stargate. My reason for already looking to the future? Warhammer is becoming a bit samey. WAR is the game that I’ve come closest to the level cap in any game I’ve played (my main is a 39 with a level cap of 40), but progress is now desperately slow. I appreciate that this is due to the kind of things I spend my time doing now (zone captures mainly) and I can accept that. What I can’t accept is the fact that the imbalance that has been in the game since day 1 is still there. If you play for one of the sides, you can build a group of 6 players that is pretty much indestructible due to the combination of skills. That’s all well and good if you can do that on both sides, but you can’t. It’s just not possible. And it’s a game breaker.

My guild in WAR has gone from over 100 members to less than 50 in less than a fortnight. People are flocking away from the game. I’m still with it, but will I renew at the end of my current 3 month subscription? At the moment, I’d say probably not.

So where does that leave me? Perhaps a return to WoW? Perhaps a move to something new (Aion has peaked my interest but I don’t think it’s a long term game for me). Perhaps a move to a different genre (I played the beta of Fallen Earth and didn’t get on with it but I’ve heard so many good things I might have to try it). Maybe I’ll find something else that I’ve not discovered yet that might just tide me over until SWTOR arrives. Who knows. 1 thing I do know is that I’ll find a home somewhere, and when SWTOR arrives, I’ll be packing up wherever I am and moving my MMO time to that…