Re: Anybody still playing WOW?
 

It's not. We've kind of morphed it into a "So what's good out there now?"

I can be ferociously addicted to pretty much anything I take up, too.

Re: Anybody still playing WOW?
 

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Anyone gonna try City of Villians? I thought about it. I haven't been addicted to an MMORPG in 4 or 5 years.

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MMORPGs are the devil.

/former DAoC addict

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I myself am a recovering UO-a-holic. I still miss pwning n00bs though.

No game will ever match UO's PvP system. This game http://www.darkfallonline.com/ looks like it could be close. I am definitely trying it.

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I cried when they ruined PvP in UO. What a sad sad time. What was it like 5 years ago now that you could run around PKing everything. Oh those were the days. I RoXXoR j00!

Re: Anybody still playing WOW?
 

[ QUOTE ]
It's not. We've kind of morphed it into a "So what's good out there now?"

I can be ferociously addicted to pretty much anything I take up, too.

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I was told Resident Evil 4 was the greatest game ever by a friend of mine who I would trust in this subject area (big-time game player).

Re: Anybody still playing WOW?
 

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MMORPGs are the devil.

/former DAoC addict

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What server?

<---former rr8 mentalist on merlin

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bezerker on nimue...left right before all of the realm ranks got all heated up.

Re: Anybody still playing WOW?
 

The reviews of Rise of Nations on Gamespot.com are really starting to turn my head around on this game. There's an excellent video tour of it that gives a long look at it, and it looks pretty darn good.

Civ 4 does sound good, but I don't know if I have it in me to play more 40 and 70 hour games. Apparently it's quite possible to play Rise of Nations for just an hour.

EverCrack
 

Sony sent out emails a couple months ago offering free 3 weeks' worth of EQ play to people with closed accounts. I've logged in my two lvl 65 toons, and it's kind of good, and kind of awful. Awful, because it's depressing to see how much the user base has passed me by via mudflation, and how impossible it would be for me to catch up on all that content, all those spells to farm, those AA to earn. I didn't intend to really get back into the game, because MMORPGs require such a ridiculous amount of time investment, and I don't have that kind of time now that I have kids. But nevertheless I compulsively purchased $40 worth of new expansions and $20 worth of EQ-related website premium subscritions, and spending all day at work trying to figure out what trinket to camp instead of reading OOT. I'm wondering why I do this. In fact, I'm wondering why play computer games at all. What's the point point of developing skills in 'New RTS 3.0', or of completeing the storyline of 'New RPG 4.0'? I haven't played [censored] in a couple weeks, but really, it seems stupid to play anything else, because [censored] is the only game where you can make a non-trivial amount of money doing so.

Re: Anybody still playing WOW?
 

I've played Rise of Nations and I enjoyed it for awhile. Went the same as with other RTS for me though--become addicted and play a ton after I first buy it, learn the game, have a ton of fun. Then as I progress I start to recognize the point in the game where the build up and strategizing transitions into the rather tedious endgame where you must simply play out all the combat and hope your earlier estimations were on. After a few full games I start to break off at this transition point once I become pretty certain that I will either definitely win or definitely not win (occasionally you get a gray area game, those are more interesting). And from that point I tire of the entire game fairly quickly as the work/reward ratio gets thrown off and I'm no longer hooked.

This is probably more of an issue that I have with the genre though, not RoN specifically.

Re: Anybody still playing WOW?
 

Sounds like. I love rubbing someone's face in the mud as I win.

I usually play RTS's by far the most online, rather than stand-alone, though. Playing a computer in general is such a huge step down from playing devious, thinking people that you might as well just be playing an entirely different game.

Re: EverCrack
 

That's a very sensible way to look at it, but more importantly as far as I'm concerned, I agree with it. I'm not willing to invest tremendous amounts of time in a game anymore.

But I wouldn't mind knocking out the occasional half hour, hour, or even two hour session. That leaves MMORPG's pretty much out, and even limits what I can do with my favorite genre, RTS's. The ability to play a whole Rise of Nations game in an hour, though, kind of piqued my interest. That's about the kind of time investment I'm interested in. After playing a session of [cardgame], even if it's late, I usually take a good while to wind down, but don't necessarily want to stay up another hour and a half or two hours for a movie, and have already blown out my concentration from playing [cardgame], so I don't really want to read. And I'm going to sleep soon so I don't want to work out or do anything energetic.

Just something short, sweet, and upbeat is what I'm looking for now.

Re: EverCrack
 

Yeah... I have never been a "powergamer" in any games. When I quit EQ I had one 59, one 52, and a couple other twinks, and I played for like 2 years. I wasn't in any serious guilds. Mostly just had a lot of fun doing dungeon crawls and exploring zones that had fallen by the wayside with groups of 1-5 RL friends who also played.

Something I've always realized, though, is how important it is in these types of games to have "elite" and high level areas and items that require immense amounts of time and effort to access. Because even though it was impossible for me to ever get to any of those things, they acted as a carrot on the stick for my imagination, allowing me to dream that that might be me someday (even though there's no way I'd ever commit that sort of time). It gave a direction to my in-game achievements. I think the main thing that killed EQ was ruining the distinction of "elite" players, zones, and items by dumbing down the game and making it way too easy to reach the top. Once it became no big deal to level to 65 or whatever the cap was in a month and get all the best stuff, it trivialized all my earlier progress and made me think, "why am I playing towards a meaningless goal?" As if it wasn't enough of a time waster already.