In typical Cuppy-fashion, I've found myself wandering away from Everquest 1. I played the one night with Luke, and then logged in the next night and tried to duo with a mercenary with my 70 cleric. I ended up dying, getting mad – and then logging off. Now, I have no interest to log in again, and Luke has already uninstalled it to make way for our next adventure — Everquest 2.
Here's my story with EQII:
- I start playing the game on Antonia Bayle and love it from the moment I start.
- I evangelize the hell out of the game, posting on the boards, taking screenshots, sucking people up into my EQII madness.
- I decide that the game is easily the best MMO on the market, and spend shitloads of time in it.
- One day, I'll just not log in. After that, a year will go by until..
- …I'll log in again a year later and start the process over again.
So that's where we're at. I've started over again as an Arasai Warden named Decembria on Antonia Bayle, and I'm level 10 at the moment. Once again, I'm having a blast. EQII is such a comfortable, familiar home for me. I love most everything about it. I love the classes, the graphics, the questing, the group and solo content, player/guild housing, mentoring, guild system, collections, AA points, you name it. We'll see how long the honeymoon lasts this time around, but I predict it to be a bit longer than usual. I have never gotten to max level in EQII, my highest character was like 34, which is crazy. There is so much left in the game that I haven't experienced yet.
As far as other games goes, I'm subscribed to LotRO but haven't logged in in a few days. The game kind of scares me, because I hear that most of the lower level content needs a group to do the book quests (aka, the good epic storyline). I don't want to have to need a group. Gone are the days where I want a guild and socialization in my MMO – I typically just want to hang out by myself and solo, afking whenever I want. I don't know if the game is right for me.
Wizard 101 is still high on my radar. I love the game, and think it's a lot of fun. I don't have a paid subscription yet, but I do think about it from time to time. Seems like it will be my "go to" free to play game when I am bored with EQII or needing a change.
Runes of Magic is another game I keep saying I'm going to try more. It's free, it looks good, the combat and skill system were fun, and I liked my avatar a lot. I plan to put more hours into this game sometime in the future to give it a fairer review.
World of Warcraft is my game I'll never bother unsubscribing from because I know I'll be back. This week I logged in one evening, did a quick VoA 10 man pickup group, and then logged off. Online for a total of 15 minutes or so. It appears that my guild mostly just logs in to raid nowadays, and I don't really have an interest in that. I love my druid though, so I'm sure I'll come back in not too long. I still having fishing achievements I need to do.
If anyone is playing on Antonia Bayle, feel free to poke me to say hi 
Tami Baribeau is the Associate Producer for Metaplace, Inc, currently working on Island Life. She is also the Lead Editor of feminist gaming blog The Border House, and the National Facebook Games Examiner for Examiner.com. She can be reached on Twitter or by email.
{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
Which newbie experience are you doing? One of mine?
About LoTRO and the book quests – your sources are correct, you would need a group for some of them. I play MMO’s like you do these days. I’m mostly solo, and I don’t usually have a guild around me.
However, even though you can’t complete the group-required ending book quests, you can still start new books, and there’s a ton of other questing available. You’re not going to lack for content. You just can’t finish the books at even-level. I don’t know if you can go back and finish them up solo once you far outlevel them. I’ll probably try it, just to see the story advance, but I’m not really interested in finding pick up groups to run content at the suggested level.
About LoTRO and the book quests – your sources are correct, you would need a group for some of them. I play MMO's like you do these days. I'm mostly solo, and I don't usually have a guild around me.
However, even though you can't complete the group-required ending book quests, you can still start new books, and there's a ton of other questing available. You're not going to lack for content. You just can't finish the books at even-level. I don't know if you can go back and finish them up solo once you far outlevel them. I'll probably try it, just to see the story advance, but I'm not really interested in finding pick up groups to run content at the suggested level.