Well lets see, I started playing massively multi-player online role playing games way back in 1999 with UO (Ultima Online), I played that for about a year, its still one of the best white knuckle PvP experience I have ever played, (when you died you lost all your stuff), but no quests, everything was player made (which is a good or bad thing, depending on your point of view).

It looks primitive by todays standards (even back then it didn’t look that great), but its still got a loyal following.

Then in 1999 I moved to EQ1 (Everquest), well what can I say, talk about crack, I played this on and off for 4 years, its the template to which I compare all massive online RPGs, I ate, slept, drank EQ for a long long time.

I started playing right when the Kunark expansion was launched (the first expansion), back then the game had hell levels, every ten levels, because of a bug with the exp code that doubled the time it took to level. Corpse runs, <ghasp> losing exp, level 50 cap, 8 hour camps on the AC for +3 wis legs, Quests?, no question marks, just vague indicators of where to go next, ah the good old days.

Well actually Im glad the EQ1 quest system is dead (or lack of quest system), but by todays standards EQ1 was hard core, and its still going strong (more or less), I still play sometimes, surely the mark of a great game

After EQ I went to DaoC (Dark age of Camelot), played that for about 2 years (Enchanter and a skald), I think I was not 100% sold on it in the beginning but once you played RvR, then you’re hooked, In fact I was never interested in PvP prior to playing DaoC. Im hoping Mythic take what they have learned from DaoC and apply it to Warhammer Online.

At some point at this time, I played AO (Anarchy online) for about 6 months, I say played, what I mean to say was, tried to play, AC was one of the worst game launches of all time, (yes worse the Vanguard), it was just broken from day one, but eventually it became a great little game with excellent blade runner music, and a really good futuristic cyber punk feel to it.

Shadowbane, currently on life support, its future in grave doubt, I actually quite liked Shadowbane, it was a big idea, total PVP, player controlled and built cities, unfortunately even for its time it looked dated, quite bugged, it did have a strong hard core following, but it very difficult to get into and did not appeal to the wider gaming populace. Fatally flawed but a great idea.

I BETA tested AC2 (Asheron’s call 2), Microsofst still born MMO effort, a total disaster, nice Graphics, but an empty world, who’s idea was it to have NO NPCs in the game?, and it was completly dumned down from AC1, thank you MS. Check out this article about the last days of AC2, so sad!

Then Myth of Soma, an addictive top down Korean MMO, very similar to Diablo, played that for about two months, was in Liniage 2 BETA but I didnt much like the grind so I never bothered with it.

Now we move on to SWG (Star wars Galaxies), oh SWG, I was tracking the forums for this one, for ooh, a year and a half prior to its release, I had it pre ordered 8 months before launch, and I read every article and watched every movie and promo shot obsessively), oh and I paid SOE to be in the BETA, supposedly for the cost of the disk postage, even though I then downloaded it anyway.

Well let me say it was one of the biggest disappointments of my game playing life, so so dull just un-fun bugged shit. I never even opened the pre-orders in the end, I don’t want to think about it. Suffice to say fuck you Sony!.

Then at some point I played City of heroes, on paper I was not that interested in CoH, there was no looting, no inventory really, I didn’t see the point, but when I actually played it I was impressed at how well made the game was (is), very polished, just a solid game, still the best toon creator bar none.

SOE redeemed themselves with EQ2, very polished and smoothly launched game, but as good as it was it felt dumbed down compared to EQ1, with some disastrous gaming decisions which ruined the immersion for me, for example circles showing what Ads would come with a pull, (they later removed this). I didn’t like the classes as much as EQ1, and after level 30 they were untested and missing spells, the spell progressions didn’t make sense also.

Still the work they have done since, and the quality of the expansions is a shining example to all others on how to handle post launch content and upgrades. Well done SOE.

Shortly after the EQ2 launched (around Xmas) WoW (World of Warcraft) was unleashed, well obviously that was the end of EQ2 for me, not since EQ1 have I been so utterly addicted to a game, WoW was flawless from day one, ran smoothly on my PC (unlike EQ2), no bugs, great music, fun, simple to learn game mechanics, a tour de force in game design, a class act all the way.

It was a year into WoW when I started reading about Vanguard, here was a game that professed to be harking back to the good old days of EQ1, take all the best bits from that, add some challenge, but with modern graphics, I got into the BETA about a year from launch, and oh what an eye opener.

At the time the game engine and GFX just looked wrong, it actually looked like they just didnt know what they were doing, everything that is to say nothing fit together, and it ran at about 2 frames a second.

Unfortunately even a vastly better game on launch could not hide its many many problems, to me even though it had all these special effects and high end GFX it looked worse then WoW. And it ran like shit. Hopefully SOE can turn it around (they bought it).

I cant remember if it was before or after WoW, I played DDO (Im sure it was after), Dungeons & Dragons online. Here is would seem was a cant lose IP for an MMO RPG. A solid game with nice GFX, but somehow it was all very meh, I think they made some very poor design decisions, like for example making everything instanced,

I understand the rational for this given the discrete dungeon crawl nature of the original D&D game, however this did not go down well online, and it felt like it was not massive. The city & pub was just like a lobby, then everything else was instanced, LAME. having said all that the dungeons instance quest were intense, (assuming you didnt have to repeat them), <!– @page { size: 8.5in 11in; margin: 0.79in } P { margin-bottom: 0.08in } –>but definitely a missed opportunity. Turbine redeemed themselves brilliantly with their next effort LoTRO .

Most recently I have been playing LoTRO (Lord of the Rings Online), In my opinion it was the best MMORPG launched last year, it has the best graphics and in my opinion it really immersed you into the world of Lord of the rings, with excellent use of instances to drive the story elements.

My main gripe is the pointless PVP and the lack of pure caster classes, the caster class issue being more a design issue because of the constraints from the book, so I cant blame them I suppose. Fantastic game with reqular free updates, I cant wait for the new mines of Moria expansion, plus 2 new classes, sweet!.

Well Im currently playing Runes of magic free to play, its really really good, kind of like a mashup between WoW and EQ1, and Im also playing EQ2 Pree to play which is an excellent old school MMO RPG.