An MMO Tale - Part 2

If you read my previous blog, you’ll have read about my failed adventures in Azeroth, and what my new MMO-goal was: The Old Republic. It looked to offer me everything I wanted in one of these massive-world-filled-with-loads-of-real-people-type games. For one, it’s Star Wars. That was pretty much enough to sell it to me. Two, it was based in the time period of my beloved Knights of the Old Republic series, the original game still remaining high in my all-time favourites list. Third, I’d be there from the start. My biggest problem with Warcraft wouldn’t be an issue this time around. Of course it didn’t turn out quite so rosy when the game landed, but that’s for another day.

The wait was a long one, with the announcement literally years before the game was to be released. I needed something in the meantime. Another MMO, just one to use in the interim, nothing too serious. That knocked WoW out, as from what I had read it was the biggest time-sink of a game there was outside of Civilization. The Korean games? I do like grinding in RPG’s... but they’re probably too difficult for me. Rift? Yeah, Rift. It seemed like as good a game as any, a fantasy world, the usual races and landscapes. It would be perfect to kill the time; but I wouldn’t make the same mistake I made with Warcraft, no. I wouldn’t be buying this one right away, I got the trial account, which let me play for 7 days. If I was enjoying myself after those 7 days were up, I’d just buy it. Simple, but effective plan, and so, I went ahead and downloaded it.

In the end it took two days - or rather, two nights - to download, and I was ready to go. It was when I had created my character and done the first couple of quests I realised what my problem was; something I never noticed in Warcraft thanks to my man-child excitement at the time - I had no idea what anything meant. I was overrun with stats and abilities and different menus and options. Hotbars? Why would I want more of those? They just make my screen messy. Why would I bind things to awkwardly placed keys instead of just clicking on the icons at the bottom of my screen? Why were people running around on horses when I was just gently jogging along? I wanted a horse. I wanted to understand why all these hotbars and key bindings were things that needed to be done. I did something I never should have; I went to an MMO forum to ask for help.

Now I don’t know if any of you have been new to a genre as, for lack of a better word, elitist, as the MMO is, but they don’t take too kindly to people asking easily answered questions. The problem is, I didn’t know they were easily answered as I had literally only had interest in MMO’s for about a year, playing less than casually. I was bombarded with abuse and abbreviations I didn’t understand, but one very kind soul messaged me privately. This fine fellow or lady had taken the time to write a small beginners guide for me, as well as linking me to various online guides for hotbar set ups and keybindings. I thanked the person and never went back to that particular forum.

Back to Rift. I played, and I played well, given my lack of knowledge on the overall genre. I leveled, I gained abilities which I used with my new key bindings, now understanding how helpful they could be, I had healing items and less-used abilities bound to my newly shown hotbars, I was on a roll. There was one thing I was missing though, in this large world; the same thing I was missing in Azeroth: people. As the useless new person I was, I didn’t know how to join a guild in that particular game, nor was I going back to those forsaken forums to ask, so I thought, eh, I’ll just play on my own and find out how to find others if I buy the game. Solid advice, myself, solid advice. I got bored playing on my own on the third day and uninstalled the game.

Honestly, on the MMO front, until the release of The Old Republic there isn’t much to tell. I read lots of guides on things ranging from Warcraft in particular, to general MMO things such as ‘Need or Greed’ systems and raiding. I slowly increased my knowledge without actually playing any of the games. I dabbled with WoW very occasionally during this time, but never lasting more than a few days before the inevitable uninstall. Star Wars Galaxies was my first true MMO love, but I was too late for that, too. It had gone through a game-changing update which caused a lot of the players to leave, and the large open planets were all but deserted. I managed to drag a friend along one day though, and that’s where I discovered what I would love doing in MMO’s; exploring. We quested until we got our speeders, then we set off over the Dune Sea on Tatooine for four hours, just looking around. There wasn’t much to see, it was a desert after all, but we loved it. Unfortunately the lack of players meant these sprawling areas were empty except for enemies, draining some fun out. The game unfortunately doesn’t exist anymore, with the official servers being closed down shortly after The Old Republic’s release, but I loved the short time I had with it.

Of course this was all leading up to that magical point. I was minding my own business, messing around on my PC when I get an email notification. More spam? Bah, I’ll check later. I forget to check. The next day I see it; it was an invite into the closed beta for The Old Republic. It was happening, I was finally going to get to play it, with other people, from that start, from before the start! I would be a part of this thing.