I kicked the MMO habit a while back, but I remember really enjoying Dark-age of Camelot and Everquest.

I never played them in their prime, but my experience playing them solo with a neutered chat and microtransactions was still fun; Wish I could've played them back in the day with proper Realm chats and folks/guilds/groups and without microtransactions/Today's management at EA and Daybreak, But I can dream.

The hamster-wheel I don't miss but the theme, whimsy, and faux-comradery was killer; I feel the spirit of it all even watching old-school WoW videos.

Cut my teeth on Ultima Online. Played for years with real world friends. After that, we moved to Dark Age of Camelot. Never really liked Everquest. Played it just for a little while to say I did try it.
Played a metric fuckton of World of Warcraft. Was in the Blacksky Company guild from RPG.net and had a lot of fun raiding with them. I quit when the game went wonky after Cataclysm.
Got back onboard for Classic, and lost interest when my work schedule interferred with my raiding schedule. I plan to get back in with whatever comes after Wrath if I can.

I still play Anarchy Online. Something in that old, janky game appeals to me. I got my Froob up to level 200 just this year, after literally years of playing off and on.

Many honorable mentions, like Eve Online, Champions Online, Star Wars Galaxies and KOTOR off the top of my head.

I used to be really into them at one point. Ultima was my first but Everquest was the mmo I was "into". I still remember fondly my first descent into the gnoll cave in Surefall Glade.

But... and I hate to be so predictable.. but World of Warcraft was my main MMO, even more than EQ, wich i played a lot. Yes I was one of those guys that took down Ragnaros in Molten Core, Nefarian in Blackwing Lair and all the Naxxramas wings in 40 man raids during classic. I was there at the opening of Ahn Qiraj!

I played that game "hardcore" right through to the end of Wrath of the Litch King. It never got as good as Molten Core again.

I played Cataclysm, but that was when I started to run out of steam and was playing out of a kind of habit rather than enjoying it. Skipped Mists of Pandaria and Warlords of Draenor completely....

But have been playing a month or 2, here and there, in each expansion since Legion.

As a super casual, I have to say that, imo, WoW is in a really good place for a player like me. The inclusion of these "story quest" markers that allow you to play like a single player game with cut scenes and story beats, is actually awesome. It is easy enough that my old man reflexes can handle it, and is full of dopamine rewards. You can just zone out and chill while listening to music.

eq was the first - probably played that one the most.
then wow - it was good in every respect, but at the same time my old gang of mmo nerds all grew apart, so left that one.
played a fair bit of the secret world - liked it a lot conceptually, but the execution by funcom kinda ruined it from within.
playing swtor now - mechanically, it's a good mix of wow and the secret world AND it's star wars, which tickles the fan of the franchise in me in all the special places. joined a small guild of very nice people in this one, so doing good right now.

I was trying every single major MMO when they came out at one point.

Played WOW up until it introduced the honor system, where you could get honor for killing another PC who was up to eight levels lower than you (couldn't play an MMO on Carebear).  Spend the next two weeks getting ganked by 60s because my main was only 52 at the time, uninstalled, and have never looked back.

Mostly played EQ.  There was something charming about the primitive nature of the game and the way it developed its own language and tactics, just based on the jankiness.  I still get nervous reading "TRAIN! TRAIN TO ZONE!"...

Does Hellgate: London count?

In spite of preferring solo games I've tried a number of MMOs over the years. I think the longest I ever played one would've been just a couple of months. The other players don't always play well with others, and rarely meet my expectations, so I soon start running solo. My biggest issues are that I have no patience for whatever penalties they come up with for dying, I hate grinding, and if I get mobbed too many times I just quit. There are less frustrating ways to spend my time.

Anyway, I know I played Kesmai, NWN, Yserbius, The Realm, Meridian, EQ, Asheron, Anarchy Online, LOTRO and Star Trek Timelines. There might've been others.

Quote from: Baron on May 20, 2023, 10:17:52 PMIn spite of preferring solo games I've tried a number of MMOs over the years. I think the longest I ever played one would've been just a couple of months. The other players don't always play well with others, and rarely meet my expectations, so I soon start running solo. My biggest issues are that I have no patience for whatever penalties they come up with for dying, I hate grinding, and if I get mobbed too many times I just quit. There are less frustrating ways to spend my time.

Play wow then... it has a completely solo play focused "story mode" where you play though the saga of the expansion... it is designed for solo and you to never need to group ever. Also, there is zero penalty in wow for dying. I mean you need to run to your body or resurrect at the graveyard. There is a legacy item damage mechanism but you earn so much gold nowadays it is completely trivial, you will not even notice it. The entire game's dungeons, including raids, is now handled by a group finder. Just click, in a few seconds (depending on popularity of the patch) you will be in a raid or dungeon. No need to ever even speak to other people. Getting "mobbed" is just a "learn to play issue". As for grinding... well they is still a thing. The Story Quests are not grinders though. They are just quest chains. All the grinding is for collectables and mounts and rep and stuff and that is all optional.

Wow is basically a solo game now. With an option to gropup with mates if you want. The only people in big groups are the guilds that focus on PvP or Raiding. Most players I run into are not even in guilds anymore.

Quote from: Summon666 on May 21, 2023, 01:43:37 AM

Quote from: Baron on May 20, 2023, 10:17:52 PMIn spite of preferring solo games I've tried a number of MMOs over the years. I think the longest I ever played one would've been just a couple of months. The other players don't always play well with others, and rarely meet my expectations, so I soon start running solo. My biggest issues are that I have no patience for whatever penalties they come up with for dying, I hate grinding, and if I get mobbed too many times I just quit. There are less frustrating ways to spend my time.

Play wow then... it has a completely solo play focused "story mode" where you play though the saga of the expansion... it is designed for solo and you to never need to group ever.

same goes for swtor. it's completely free to play through its eight whole story lines and twelve character classes to try. it's not, unfortunately, a follow-up to kotor worthy of the name it was hyped up to be, but it's okay imo.

City of Heroes. Even today, it's still a testament to how to make a game fun. You start out punching street gangers and cultists, and work your way up to slugging it out with demigods and invading aliens. Good times.

I started with World of Warcraft.  I played it for about 12 years.  During that time I fell in love with the gnome race in that game, (hence my avatar) and began looking for other games that had similar.  Although I tried many others, I never stuck with them for long.  Then there were two things that happened that made me stop playing WoW.  First was the increasing wokeness of Blizzard that kept creeping into the game.  Second, I bought a gaming PC.  All the years prior I was gaming on a Macintosh. 

Once I got the PC, I was overwhelmed by the never ending tsunami of games available. After a while I couldn't justify paying a monthly fee to play a game when there were, and still are, so many wonderful games that DON'T have a monthly fee. 

Quote from: Greg Bruni on May 26, 2023, 08:25:49 PM
I started with World of Warcraft.  I played it for about 12 years.  During that time I fell in love with the gnome race in that game, (hence my avatar) and began looking for other games that had similar.  Although I tried many others, I never stuck with them for long.  Then there were two things that happened that made me stop playing WoW.  First was the increasing wokeness of Blizzard that kept creeping into the game.  Second, I bought a gaming PC.  All the years prior I was gaming on a Macintosh. 

Once I got the PC, I was overwhelmed by the never ending tsunami of games available. After a while I couldn't justify paying a monthly fee to play a game when there were, and still are, so many wonderful games that DON'T have a monthly fee.

Greetings!

OOH RAH!

"FOR THE ALLIANCE!"

I played WOW for more than a decade, as well. I more or less unplugged it and quit in the waning days of Battle for Azeroth. Blizzard became too WOKE and, even from a game-pay perspective, narrative--it all sadly became to annoying and stupid. I could write many, many paragraphs about my frustration, and love for the game. The whole glorification of Sylvannas, how stupid the Horde was, as well as how pathetic the Night Elves are, as well as the Alliance. Sylvannas BURNING TELDRASSIL DOWN. AARRGGHH.

Game-play issues with raiding, raid drops, grinding, grinding, grinding. Yeah. Eventually, it all ads up to too much stupidity. Then tack on the WOKE BS, and yeah. I'm done with them. Sad.

Like some famous gamer once said,
"WOW died when the Lich King died. Remember, Arthas. NO KING RULES FOREVER."

I'm paraphrasing, but I always go back to that early quotation. The game declined after Wrath and never really recovered. Such days, man! The GLORIES! The epic raiding, the guilds,the awesome people and friends. It really was an epic, magical time.

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

There was a time when I was playing many text-based MMORPGs on Valherru engine. They were more like forums with some RPG elements in fact.

Quote from: Adeptus on June 27, 2023, 10:24:32 AM
There was a time when I was playing many text-based MMORPGs on Valherru engine. They were more like forums with some RPG elements in fact.

Ah, the halcyon days of MUDs and MUSHes. Which are, interestingly, still around -- though the codebases are old enough to vote at this point.

There has been a new innovation, though: AresMUSH code, which kind of combines web and client functionality in intriguing ways. Fascinating stuff.