yeah, that article was really well written, and it made you think whether you were the one playing a game or if it was the game playing you, so to say.

really though, i'm glad i'm not addicted to/spending money on MMOs, while i have nothing against people who like it, it's not something that i'd really want to get into.

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Legend Of Zelda-Ocarina Of Time
God I love emulators and this game.

David Wong has some other articles on gaming but those aren't very good, they're full of dumb generalization, inaccuracies and ridiciulous misconceptions about the video game industry, he really knows nothing about that stuff and comes off as confused, raging fanboy.

This article is informative because it's about the psychological aspects, David Wong is one of the less retarded members of cracked, unfortunately he doesn't even try to be funny and that's a big negative for what's supposed to be a humor site.

My best gaming moments have all been in MMOs :) You have to remember everything gets a little more personal and a little more important. It elevates the game to a higher level of importance which means the personal gain for reaching goals in itis so much higher. Getting new stuff becomes a bigger reward .. Beating people in PVP becomes a bigger reward - and so on.

I've spent most of my MMORPG time in the norwegian game Anarchy Online which launched in 2001. It was my first MMORPG and playing it after release was just incredible. It was tough as hell, it really beat us up and it took about a year to really get into the game mechanics as it's ridiculously advanced and there's so much to learn. It's easier now that there's money in the system and people know their way around, but back then, everyone was piss poor starting out in a horribly hard game.

Although there are plenty of people who play more than I do, I really had a life in there - or rather, a few. At first, I approached it very much like a pen and paper roleplaying game and so did my friends.

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That's the city Tir in the screenshot. When we started out, we had a beggar's guild in this city and our aim was to know everything about everyone, including intelligence. We would actually spend hours running and dodging dangerous wilderness to get down to omni-1, the enemy city (although there was a fragile sort of peace between the two factions back then). We reported back to other guild leaders and actually had a longer running mission about finding out about this omnitek employee who was creating something of a cult .. hm!

Sometime later, we had made some money and started the Tir City Watch. We had red uniforms, patrolled the streets and helped out newbies. We had quite a few recruits that we put through training, like finding eachother by coordinates out in the wilderness or crossing the Mort desert, which was full of dangerous monsters, on foot.

After an expansion which allowed for land control, we started a new guild, Clan Imperialist Army where we played warmongers who tried to unite the clans against the omnitek faction. Every week, a whole bunch of clan leaders came together and discussed to figure out how to best beat our enemy. I've had more political speeches in that game than I have spoken or presented anything in real life which is actually quite a bit.


There's plenty more to tell about all the time spent in other guilds and other friends, but my point is Anarchy Online was more than just a game to me and my friends, for better or worse. We had lives in there and playing it was incredibly rewarding. It's just a bit sad and perhaps a bit spooky that none of those rewards really last. :p:

edit :

I don't play MMORPGs at the moment by the way. It's still fun, but the pioneering spirit and the marvel of playing in a world which was incredibly huge like you could never explore it all, was just magnificent and I haven't really felt it since 2001/2002. Anarchy Online had a lot of computer generated landscape - tons of it. It is much bigger than any other MMORPG I've played, including World of Warcraft. The quality of the nature is less, but it gave it a great sense of realness. Playing in such a world for the first time was really special to me.

I've never bothered delving into an MMORPG. I think with that sort of thing, unless you're in there from the very beginning, you're going to have a very lonely and tiresome climb to the top. Plus, I'm not a fan of buddying up with random players online - my Live account is only comprised of people I know in reality. Though I might purchase Star Wars The Old Republic when it is released, only because I am quite the Star Wars geek.

is this still active? i played for a few months in 2005. they offered a full free year of basic service if you started up in January of that year. it was good for a bit but like all the others, once the grinding in the middle levels started my interest waned and i just stopped. think my main character was somewhere around level 50-60.

my favourite MMO is still City of Heroes though, haven't tried anything else that really clicked that well for me. Champions Online was close, i'd have to try it a few more times though.

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Way. Too. Fucking. Hard.

Don't get me wrong, it's a pretty fun game but I can't even make it past the first part of the first level. That's kind of frustrating and I have to say frustrating games tend to lose my interest after a while.

Don't worry, you just really suck at that game.

The first two levels are easy, the third level is really when it gets fustrating. There's only 4 main stages and 3 bonus stages (which IMO are the most fun part of the game) so to compensate for the lack of stages it does get pretty challenging. Not as bad of a game as people make out.

If you want to get pissed try playing the GG version, it's terrible. :laughing:

Have you ever played Knight Online?

One of my biggest complaints about it is, as far as I can tell, if you die you have to completely start the level over. So, for example, I was playing just a few minutes ago and actually did better than I had ever done. I made to a couple different sections I hadn't been to yet, collected a crystal, the whole nine yards, then I died and it's like none of that ever happened. Grrr.