How Old Are You in MMO Years?

[SaltyJim]

I started playing MMOs when they were called Graphical MUDs and players were called mudder's. My first ever online MMO type game was Ultima Online, just after it launched. From there I beta tested several MMOs including Asheron's Call and 4th Coming. I eventually played Asheron's Call until I was told about a little known SOE game called Vanguard: Saga of Heroes, which is the best ever MMORPG I have ever been involved with. Sadly, SOE treats it as a red headed step child so to speak (nothing against red heads) and keeps VG out of sight/out of mind.

I'm not sure how many MMO years its been. definitely 15 plus and counting.

[Pharone]

I just realized I had not posted my MMO Age here yet. How did I miss that?

1. Everquest
2. Everquest 2 (beta)
3. Anarchy Online
4. Asheron's Call 2 (beta)
5. Archlord (beta)
6. City of Heroes
7. City of Villains
8. Dark Age of Camelot
9. Dark and Light (beta)
10. Dungeons of Dragons Online (beta)
11. Final Fantasy XI
12. Guild Wars
13. Horizons
14. Knight Online
15. Lineage 2 (beta)
16. Puzzle Pirates
17. Ragnarok Online
18. Regnum Online (beta)
19. ROSE Online
20. Rubies of Eventide (beta)
21. Second Life
22. Shadowbane (beta)
23. Silkroad Online
24. Starwars Galaxies (beta)
25. Toontown Online
26. Ultima Online
27. Vanguard: Saga of Heroes (beta)
28. World of Warcraft (beta)
29. Lord of the Rings Online (beta)
30. Tabula Rosa
31. Champions Online
32. StarTrek Online (Beta)
33. Age of Conan (Beta)

Out of all the MMORPGs I have played over the past decade, the ones I have played the most are Everquest, Everquest 2, and World of Warcraft.

I guess that makes me 10 in MMO years. Although, I played multiple MMOs at the same time many times, so does that make me even older in MMO years?

[Jorev]

I would be twelve in MMOG years. I have not subscribed to a MMOG in over three years as I can't find a challenging MMOG. Will Rift be the one?

Games I subscribed to and played regularly:

The Realm - my first MMOG which I started playing in spring 98 for a year
Everquest - started on day one and played for four years
EVE Online - started at launch and played for six months
Horizons aka Istaria - started at launch and played for one year
WoW - started at launch and quit after a couple months, too easy with lowbrow mechanics
Saga of Ryzom - started playing spring 05 for two years
Dawntide -beta currently

Games I played briefly but did not hold my interest, no particular order:

Asheron's Call-trial
Anarchy Online-trial
Dark Age of Camelot-trial
Everquest 2-trial
Shaiya, my first and only cash shop MMOG experience- never again, the attraction was a permadeath feature which turned out to be false since they started selling potions to protect players from permadeath
City of Heroes-trial
Lord of the Rings Online-beta
Wizard 101-trial
Darkfall-beta
Gods and Heroes-beta
Mortal Online-beta
The Chronicles of Spellborn-beta
A Tale in the Desert-trial

[Kaegyn]

Just found out about this game... looks like something I can look forward to.

My MMO history is a long one... have tried just about every promising one under the sun, but here are the 1year+ MMOS I've played..

Ultima Online - 12 years (tested Alpha/Beta back when they had to mail the game...)
Time of Darkness MUD - 10 years
DAOC - 5 years
WoW - 4 years
CoH - 1 year
AoC - 1 year
WAR - 1 year

Pretty obvious I haven't been able to fall in love again since UO/DAOC, but here's to hoping someone can pull off another innovative and fun MMO. Tired of being sucked back into the same crap with WoW due to not having any other good options.

[Blimie]

Oooooh don't rightly know if I can remember them all...there were so many... EQ of course got me started
EQ2
AO
City of heros
starwars
WoW
Warcraft
DDO
I'm pretty sure there was another, but I can't recall the name for the life of me...must be old age setting in O.o

[aborath]

Ultima Online (Lake Superior, Great Lakes)
Everquest (Veeshan)
Anarchy Online
Dark Age of Camelot (Morgan Le Fey)
City of Heroes
Everquest 2
World of Warcraft (Hyjal)
Age of Conan
Warhammer Online

Lots of betas.

[UncleMonster]

I cut my teeth for RPGs way back in the day of Dungeons & Dragons (P&P) when there were two books and a boardgame. Played tons of fantasy based PC games (Ultima series, D&D Pools of Radiance... I think that is what it was called, a couple Japanese influenced games) and then got involved in MUDs in college where I played and helped write content. When MMORPGs hit the scene, I was right on board with UO. I played UO for years until Trammel, then started playing EQ. From EQ I moved on to Vanguard until SOE bought it to kill it and then got into WoW. I spent some time playing Aion and CoH/CoV, and now am back to WoW to play with friends until Rifts is released.

[SaltyJim]

I cut my teeth for RPGs way back in the day of Dungeons & Dragons (P&P) when there were two books and a boardgame. Played tons of fantasy based PC games (Ultima series, D&D Pools of Radiance... I think that is what it was called, a couple Japanese influenced games) and then got involved in MUDs in college where I played and helped write content. When MMORPGs hit the scene, I was right on board with UO. I played UO for years until Trammel, then started playing EQ. From EQ I moved on to Vanguard until SOE bought it to kill it and then got into WoW. I spent some time playing Aion and CoH/CoV, and now am back to WoW to play with friends until Rifts is released.

Looks like we followed similar paths. I started playing with dice, graph paper and friends and family around a table in D&D. Played all kinds of rpgs like Ultima series. Ultima Online was the natural next step. Then followed Asherons Call and 4th Coming and a string of beta test games. Returned to UO and Asheron's Call with a visit in Everquest. I had played the console game Champions of Norath so much that it turned me off to Everquest when I tried it. Then came Vanguard: Saga of Heroes which I dearly love the game and despise SOE for making it a premature launch - 4 year pay to play beta test that now is ready for launch but Sony seems intent on killing it off. Vanguard is an awesome game now. Nothing else compares to it that I've been able to find so far. Rift is looking very close though at this point.

[Dizey]

This is my first post here so I'll just start by saying 'HI." As for my MMO age, well here it goes:

D&D - My first experience in the RPG world was D&D. I played and enjoyed it as a kid for a short while, which is probably why EQ appealed to me such much when it was first introduced to me by a friend.

EverQuest (Vallon Zek) - I started playing EQ shortly after the VZ server went live, up until somewhere around Omens of War. I loved EQ. If they remade the original game to be up-to-date with current MMORPG's, along with some innovation, I would play it in a heartbeat. I heard there are plans to make EQ III (EQ "NEXT"), but given the name, I doubt it will be like the original Norrath. One can only hope.

Everquest II - I played EQ2 for a bit when it was released, but just didn't enjoy it. I tried to play it again recently with some of my EQ friends, but I just cant enjoy a game where the avatars look like mannequins. Why they ever strayed so far away from the original EQ models boggles me.

Lineage II - I love the game graphically, but to be honest, I was still really hooked on EQ. I never really got into it, and never really went back to try it again.

Star Wars Galaxies - Also played SWG on release. Remember not being able to log in the first day? I just couldn't get into the gameplay style. I just prefer the swords and magic type fantasy MMO's.

GuildWars - Played it for a bit, got bored fast.

World of Warcraft - I've been playing WoW since The Burning Crusade, but I doubt I will play it once the new Cataclysm expansion comes out. I'm not ashamed to say that I love the game, although I don't care for how they've made it too easy.

Aion - I played Aion during all of the closed betas, and once it was released. It's a stunning game with amazing character customization at creation, as well as in game. Unfortunately It just seems like the eastern developers at NCSoft just don't get it when it comes to western audiences.

In total, I guess I have about a decade of years playing in the MMORPG world.

[Serith]

Let me see here. I dont think I have ever actually listed my MMOs so Ill go ahead and do that.
I wonder how much of my time Ive actually wasted.

1) Everquest - Ah my maiden voyage out into that big MMO sea. I was relatively young when I started with the "Ruins of Kunark" expansion. Kept with it for quite a few years. Many good memories and it rubbed in me some standards I want my mmos to have.

On and off I have another gaming love FPS. So for random bouts I would take to that rather than play MMOs.

2) Asheron's Call 2
3) Anarchy Online
4) World of Warcraft
5) Guild Wars

Those are the only ones I spent any substantial amount of time on recently Ive been running a gauntlet of MMOs. Although I must say I am disappointed. Some of these games suffer only because the lack of population.

6) Aion
7) Vanguard
8) EQ2
9) Warhammer
10) LOTRO
11) DDO

[monte]

I am a MMO junky, but here is what I played in no order.

Ultima Online
Everquest
Everquest 2
Anarchy Online
Asheron's Call 2 - betay only
City of Heroes
Dark Age of Camelot
Dungeons of Dragons Online - trial only
Guild Wars
Horizons
Shadowbane
Vanguard: Saga of Heroes
World of Warcraft
Lord of the Rings Online
Tabula Rosa - beta only
StarTrek Online
Age of Conan - beta only

[Ylvelill]

My first graphic mmo was EQ which I played for 5 years, but before that I played DIKUMUDs for about 5 years. When Wow and EQ2 launched I said goodbye to EQ and ended up getting hooked on WoW. Been playing that ever since but have been looking for a new home for the last 3 years. Tried City of Heros for a while, went back to EQ2 as well and was very ecited for Vanguard but... well lets not bring up that painful memory *sniffs sadly*. Also tried my hand at Lotro, DnD and Star Trek.

Gotta say I am so ready for something new! I mean really... how many times can you do the same content over and over before you wanna poke your eye out....

Oh and Healing FTW!

[Slacka]

My MMO Life started on 15 November 2003.

A couple of weeks previously i had recieved a demo disk in the post as a result of having recently bought a network adaptor for my PS2. Had glanced at the cover of that demo disc, thought "doesnt look like my sort of thing" and tossed it on the shelf to gather dust. Then one night with nothing on the tv, and waiting for that week's episode of Scrubs to come on i thought "i know, why dont i have a look at that demo to kill an hour or so".

That was the day my addiciton to MMO's, courtesy of EQOA (Everquest Online Adventures for the 99% of people that never even heard of it) began. Never did get to see that episode of scrubs until a year later when the DVD came out.

So anyway, i played EQOA for several months, however things eventually got stale thanks to having only 2 patches in the 8 months i played for, and the fact that Europe never got the Frontiers expansion (although a lot of people did start to exploit by activating a US copy of the expansion on an EU account enabling an extra 10 levels and CM's). Certainly miss the good old Stonewatchers Server though, it was the only MMO where i have ever experienced a community so close that everyone knew everyone else, and there was no such thing as guild raids as it was such a small community, we ran server wide raids on the Isle of Dread where anyone was welcome...

Some point around June 2004 SWG caught my attention. I had recently built a PC and was looking for something new to get hooked into and this was the thing that filled that description. I played fairly solidly up until the launch of EQ2 and casually after that launched managing to unlock Jedi along the way, only completing my template the night before the CU went live. Eventually quit completely when the NGE came along, which was a shame, because even though i wasnt playing regularly, i had stayed subscribed as it was still a fun game to log into and play casually every now and then.

In November 2004 EQ2 came along. i started playing with the same casual guild (Phoenix Legion as im sure there must be a few who know me lurking around here somewhere) i had been with in EQOA.
I played with them and tried to drag the guild kicking and screaming into some raiding with a mixed degree of success (a high point being defeating Darathar for the Prismatic quest line, compared to lower points such as not being able to get organised enough to defeat Vyemm at the end of Labs).

Eventually the last straw came in June 2006 following a bust up with the joint guild leader and his wife over a number of things, including but not exclusive to the direction of the guild which seemed to be getting even more casual by the day, and a lack of desire to progress in the limited amount of raiding that we were still doing.

This was the point i made what i maintain was one of the best moves of my MMO life to date. after a week or so unguilded with a certain degree of pestering from frieinds already in there, i decided to put in an application to Xanadu, the guild and community of which i am still proud to say I am a member of to this day, 4 years on.

I also joined the move over to Vanguard when it launched, with the intention of becoming a part of the raiding faction of Xanadu in the game, although i found myself loosing enthusiasm for the game fairly quickly when the lack of end game became evident and I moved back to EQ2 where i stayed up until the launch of...

Age of Conan which was a really fun game, however it just didnt seem to have the staying power for others, resulting in the decision to call it a day when we got to the point of not even having enough people log in each evening to fill a group. I actually recently took a look at the new expansion, which is great fun and seems to have some really nice new content, but unfortunately it seems to be a case of too little too late, as the community that remains is a bit lacking.

After this i drifted fo a bit, not really playing any main game, until along came Warhammer Online in which i took a forray into guild leadership. unfortunately as everyone is now aware the game prety much took a nosedive off a cliff with the closure of 63 servers and we just werent able to recruit new members as fast as they were quitting the game.

I then ended up back in EQ2 for a while, until the launch of Aion which i have been playing up until now, but as it stands, following the server merges that have turned the game prety much unplayable in the abyss and the almost painfully slow translation speed of NCSoft when trying to push out new updates, i am prety much on the verge of cancelling there.

Also in between the main history as above i have tried a trial month here and there on most other MMO's out there, such as WoW, PotBS, Matrix online, CoH/CoV, LotRO, STO etc.

And that leads me on to now, and i have to honestly say that Rift is truely looking like the next big thing for me, especially with the promise of PVE end game which has been sadly thoroughly lacking in recent releases (as i cant help feeing that most recent mmo's have seemed to think that all you need to do for a successful MMO is tack on a ton of PVP and not bother with the rest).

[Slacka]

To continue, which do you recognize

I have a similar, albeit slightly less impressive shelf. Not got as many boxes as games played though, mainly due to digital distibution becoming more popular in recent years.



*edit*

Oh, and i just dug out that evil item that dropped through my letterbox and started the addiction for me back in 2003...

[aahingenuity]

I haven't played that long, I think I started in 2004. I started to play online games when I played Toontown.

Online games:
Toontown
Dungeons & Dragons Online
World of Warcraft
Guild Wars
Runes of Magic
Warhammer
Atlantica Online
City of Heroes (+Villains)
Lord of the Rings Online
Wizard101
MapleStory
Aion
Star Trek
Champions

I do play multiple online games at once and not all of them have I spent more than a month playing. (Though most of them I have) there are many free to play games I have played but I don't really remember them, just something to do. I think Rift is something I will spend a long time on.