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MMOs a Retrospective and a hope for a new one coming out (Aion).
*warning, Novella commencing*
Okay so I am a long time MMO’er (relatively speaking). I’m not sure if you can classify Diablo II as an MMO, but it was the first game I TRULY got into. It was pretty enough, I could play online with friends, it wasn’t exceedingly hard to level, and the cows completely had me hooked. Moo moomomooomoo moooooooooooo! If you played D2, you completely know what I mean. After awhile though there are only so many bovine with poleaxes you can stand (though that number is exceedingly high).
That being said a friend drug me into EverQuest (EQ). Again a social game set in a fantasy world. I made a froggie priest as a joke and gg look at me go! Soon I was in a heavy raiding guild and spending all (yes all) of my free time raiding. We were on server rotations for certain mobs and ONE person screwing up their heal or pulling agro could fork over an entire raid for a month. And that was AFTER you spent something crazy like 3 hours clearing TO the mob. And then since you fail, * POOF * mob despawns and you S, O, freaking L. But yeah I pretty much loved it for years. Then I got out of college and had to join the real world, damn it! Suddenly working all the time, and coming home to spend another 8+ hours on the computer and never seeing my friends seemed like a drag and half. I was tired of the huge grind and the fact that you had to be in a group to do ANYTHING worthwhile past like level 5 (or so).
Then I heard about World of Warcraft (wow). OH YAY OH YAY OH YAY! Something new! Fantasy setting, check; magic, check; revolutionary new play style catering to SOLO play, OMG OMG OMG Check! SIGN ME UP! Pre-ordered wow, canceled EQ, took a 6 month siesta from gaming (much needed) and got ready to play my beautiful night elf. Then I found out that my friend who almost never complains about anything his wife and I drag him into wanted to switch sides. SO the night elf became A TROLL! FOR THE HORDE! *waves red flag enthusiastically*. I quickly fell in love with the Horde & WOW. I could play all by myself! I got a pet! I could group! I suddenly didn’t get groups because hunters pretty much sucked. Damn it! Okay, get bored of not getting groups RIGHT after getting my most fabulous WHITE RAPTOR MOUNT! (Yes it must be said in caps). Then realize I don’t like grouping by myself all the time by myself. *sniffle* I want to group and achieve things! Isn’t the point of gaming to win?! OF COURSE IT IS! So….. I was really tired of healing in EQ…. but I’m damn good at it…. And the only other class they need is tanks… and that means I have to do more than watch health bars. SO, WHACK A MOLE WITH HEALTH BARS IT IS! HUZAH. Tsunaca is born. Look at her sexah troll self. I leveled exceptionally quickly thanks to a lot of help from my at the time guild. (Thank you Bhu & Colin). But realized that I wanted to RAID. And unfortunately for me the only way to raid the big instances was to join a big guild. I knew I had two choices. So I get myself into a group with Wartorn (it had been a long day and I’d been running UBRS all day). So now that I’m playing with the big boys, on what they consider a throwaway instance, I proceed to fear a bunch of dragons, fall to my death…twice, get locked out of the arena because I thought a party member had gone the wrong way and was dying (he was really just eating himself for mana) and then die spectacularly on the last boss…… yeah… wow… some things you kinda wish you could just forget. But, I totally got an invite. Why? (Trust me I wouldn’t have invited me) I WAS A GIRL! Sweet being female does have its pros. Fortunately I’m not generally that much of an idiot & quickly got myself into the main raiding schedule. I LOVED THAT GUILD! They weren’t the nicest group of people, in fact it’s very possible they were the most hated guild on the server. Elitist jerks I think it was referenced.
Then… then… I had money issues (unemployment is a bitch!)… and got tired of again spending 8+ hours a night raiding sometimes 7 days a week. Then the guild started having internal drama. Then the leaders wanted to go to an oceanic server (they were almost all Australian college students), then the guild disbanded, then I quit the game…. The first time. I was back for the first expansion. I leveled up, but just couldn’t get my heart into it. I switched servers and got into a great guild people wise. *nods to Kar and Mag* Then I got a promotion…. If you want to call it that, I’m not so sure I would anymore… and my job became an all encompassing 24 x 7 pile of misery. I’ve managed to get past the miserable part, but it still occasionally becomes a 24 x 7 endeavor. So about 8 months before the next expansion come out I quit the game again. The guild drama was astounding and I had gotten a bf I wanted to keep *gasp*choke*
I started AOC. I was so excited. Purdy, purdy. Purdy! Oh yes, I’m a graphics whore! I drug Car and Arnie & Colin & my fiancé & a whole slew of ppl with me… most of them didn’t even struggle. Then we got into the game and realized WOW it was broken. Nothing worked right, even a few months after it went live, pvp that sounded fun was total crap and when it was pvp it was completely retarded. My warlock was awesome, but … yeah…. Just failsauce. The game sucked. It was darn pretty, but .. yeah. Lets leave it at that. Watch Yahtzee’s review http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/zero-punctuation/138-Age-of-Conan, it’s totally worth it!
Then WAR came out. WOOHOO sorta like WOW, sorta it’s own breed of funny insanity. And funny it was. However, it just never won me over. Too much PVP, not enough PVE, and I think I was still burnt out pretty hard core. I quit after a couple of months.
I go back to WOW for the expansion. Level a warrior to 80. My guild starts falling apart, I realize it’s the same grind. I love my guild it’s a super friendly family type guild. Unfortunately accomplishing things is near impossible. Instance runs end in disaster or I feel like I’m babysitting a bunch of 3 year olds because we had to pug some of the slots. I realize I’m beating a dead horse. I am DONE with wow. It’s not new, it’s not fun, it’s a whole lot of grinding, and not a lot of accomplishing. Sometimes you just can’t beat a dead horse any longer.
I desperately want to get back into an MMO. I miss murdering things, and chatting with friends while doing so. Let’s face it, sometimes the mass murder of critters and baddies is therapeutic. WHAT?! IT IS! Then I see something on Aion. So I go look up some screenshots. It’s angels… really?! WOW. Hmmm okayyyyyy then. I ignore the emails from friends telling me about it. Then one of my co-workers comes over to my desk and starts talking about the closed beta. Then I get an email from a friend talking about the game. THEN I go online, again, and look it up. OOOOOO PRETTY! I like pretty! I am now all excited about it. I pre-order, and decide I’m going to avoid beta testing. No need to wear myself out before hand. So… yeah, that lasted for about a week and a half. Then everything I’m hearing from my friends and co-workers is like yeah totally downloading the client. I get in as far as character customization and I’m completely and totally hooked. I think I spent 3 hours looking at all the different options before finally being able to decide on a look I liked. I didn’t even consider playing Elyos. I’m horde at heart, so Asmodian it is! The logic may not be sound, but it’s mine. I log in and the eye candy is everywhere. It’s pretty, and more importantly IT WORKS! Holey shit bat man! This .. is beta? SWEET! I then recognize some similar features from past MMOs. The Rest ability (that someone had to tell me about) is similar to EQ’s. This means I don’t have to carry around 100’s of food & water items. Umm yay. It also has private stores, kinda like the market area of EQ, only mobile, and no weight restrictions. Saweet. However, there are still tons of wow like features. The setup for movement, emotes, and the UI all are very comfortably wow like. This means I can wander around without lots of cussing at the computer because I can’t possibly do something like watch a tutorial. *scoff* It has quite a few unique features too though. Different quest types (destiny/chain type (yellow)) and blue basic quests). This is intriguing and kind of fun. There are ways to find your quest people or mob kill creatures. There is a see through mini map that will pop up to show you were you need to go. Flight points do NOT need to be found. FREAKING HUZAH! The downside, everything has a cost. EVERYTHING! You also lose xp when you die, like EQ, BUT you can buy it back. THANK YOU GAME GODS! Anyone else remember losing your level in EQ because you died too many times? Wow that gave a whole new meaning to the word suckage. I had some huge concerns about the lag, but they fixed it… in like record developer time. It’s like they want to put out a solid product or something. I don’t know of my version of reality can handle this type of event!
SO far I love the mix of gaming types in the game, the graphics are awesome, and it feels like a truly solid product. It still needs a bit of tweaking, but that’s like a constant thing in any giant alterable product.
So here is me, completely excited about game launch, and about a game I really think I can sink my gaming teeth into.
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