Old and New

My MMO experience is pretty limited compared to most afficianados out there in terms of variety. I played UO when it was first released in 1997, Everquest when it was first released in 1999 and WoW when it was released in Nov of 2004. For some reason I've also played both Lineage games for a few weeks, although I didn't like either of them.

I only played Everquest for about 4 months, which is a shame because I would have known a lot more about WoW if I had spent more time playing Everquest. There were cetain aspects of WoW that I was unfamiliar with because I had not played Everquest, such as the importance of raiding in the end game, and the basic party dynamic of the holy trinity: tanking, healing, and dps.

The problem with my time spent in Everquest was that having never played a DikuMUD before, and because I was not on a PVP server (I can't remember if Sullon Zek was a release server but I didn't know there was a difference between servers) I approached the game as I would a single player RPG. Because of this, I never cared or found out that I had a gimp class (ranger), only grouped a handful of times, and for the most part flat out missed the point of the entire game. In fact my only goal for most of the time I played was to reach level 17 so I could get dual wield. If memory serves, I got to level 17, traveled by boat to train dual wield, and died somewhere on the other continent and never played the game again.

This is unfortunate since from what I hear it was a really amazing game. On the other hand, I actually got outside that summer after I stopped playing.

In contrast to my experience with Everquest, my experience with Ultima Online was much more fulfilling. I was so absolutely in love with UO that it holds a place in my heart that no other video game ever will (I am aware of how nerdy this sounds but if you love video games I'm sure you can relate). People used to call UO my girlfriend, and for about a year and half it was probably the only thing I cared about. Like many UO vets, the things I loved about the game were the things that I guess most people didn't like. The freedom to do whatever you wanted to the other people playing the game, coupled with the different types of people thrown together made for a unique experience that will proabably never be duplicated in an online game. This was a point brought up by Lum the Mad in response to all the crying UO vets who bitch about the old days and how no game has been able to duplicate the feel of 97-98 Ultima Online. People today have too many choices and if they don't like getting ass raped by pks there's certainly some other game for them to play. For me, the possibility that any time I left town I was fair game is exactly what made the game fun for me. I wasn't even particularly good at it.

So now there's WoW, a game that does so many things right, a game that I enjoy enormously, and also a game that couldn't be more different from UO if it tried. This is also a game that many people think of as just a natural progression of EQ, which is obvious considering how much of WoW's design was done by hardcore EQ players. So what is it about WoW that people, including myself, like so much?