Syp’s recent post on his Bio Break blog alerted me to a topic that’s doing the rounds apparently: MMO Regrets. Here’s my shortlist.
1) Slow to join the genre
Like Syp I missed out on some early online gaming experiences. Personally I wish I’d tried Dark Sun Online back in the late 1990s. The game started in 1996 but I wasn’t online till 1998 and had to pay per minute until 2000 by which time this short lived MMO had been shutdown. I was even later to the genre, I tried Mankind and SWG briefly at some point but it wasn’t until 2007 that WoW dragged me into the online gaming era.
2) Missing out on a game’s early/popular era
I wish I’d tried EQ2 early in its life, most MMOs are poor gaming experiences for a ‘latecomer’, but I especially feel EQ2 concentrates very heavily on endgame players only now.
Joining a small posse of adventurers
3) Not reaching endgame
For a couple of MMOs I’ve invested a good amount of time in my main character but never reached the end game to see what the majority of the playerbase is actually doing. I loved much of the levelling I did in LOTRO but just got bored with the later direction of the story. Still it would have been nice during one expansion to have caught up. Same issue with Rift, being behind really hurt my enthusiasm for the game.
4) Regretting level boosts
Although this kind of contradicts my last regret a little I actually think boosting a character too many levels just makes me feel disconnected from the lore and the character also. I boosted a Shadowknight in EQ2 but ultimately feel more of a connection with my old Inquisitor that’s half his level!
Half-forgotten inquisitor
Levelling alts was a big focus of my years of WoW gaming, so skipping levelling in any significant scale is probably not a good idea for me personally. Upon hearing the WoW: Legion announcement my first thought was: “great a free level 100 so I can skip Draenor”. Thinking it through more though I think that would be a mistake; if I return to Azeroth in time for Legion it should be to a cherished and much played character not some newly-made insta 100. Even boosting an established character 10 or 15 levels might be too far as they’ll have missed a significant segment of the journey that leads to the new content.
GamingSF 