I want to write down what I am currently interested in as far as gaming goes. After posting about the death of Blizzard, I had to sit down and try to figure out what am I going to do for a MMORPG type game. There are many options out there. A lot of them are too new age for me. I tried a couple different ones and found them to be single player games with no real incentive to be massive or multiplayer. It was very disappointing to see how much of an influence the current World of Warcraft(WoW) has had on the MMO landscape. The really crappy part is that the games that tried to be different are either dead or on their way to being dead. That maybe a very depressing outlook, but that’s just how I feel.
So I started looking at old MMORPGs that I can play. There are a few options available, games like Everquest(EQ), Everquest (EQ2), Dark Age of Camelot(DAOC), The Lord of the Rings(LOTRO), Lineage 2(L2). Then there are the emulators or private servers of games that are dead, because of WoW, like: Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning(WAR), Star Wars Galaxies(SWG), and a couple others I can’t remember.
I have always leaned towards playing games that are current, or live with companies supporting them even if it’s just maintenance mode. But what I came to realize is that the games that are currently live are no more stable or a sure thing than those that are being emulated. And those companies that do have more or less solid track record, have games that don’t attract me, like DAOC or LOTRO.
So with that realization, I decided to see what games I would like to play if I stopped separating those two categories, and treated them as one: Old MMOs.
I went with WAR, on a private server called Warhammer Online: Return of Reckoning. Couple of reason for that, I loved the game when it came out. Don’t get me wrong it had problems… still has problems. There is reason it didn’t survive, More on that some other time. That being as it may, I still wanted to go back to that world, I still wanted to play the PVP that the game offered, I wanted to eventually start doing Keep Sieges.
The game is old enough to be considered Old School, and is attractive enough to me to start playing it. So I did. And I am happy to report I am enjoying the game very much. It’s not perfect, not even close, but man it feels good to jump into a game that is frozen in time and just remember all the things that made it fun or not fun. Private servers tend to act as a time capsule for a lot of these games, and I love that aspect of it.
I started streaming the game on twitch.tv/kronicktv, and I have had a steady stream of viewers popping in and talking about the game and enjoying the experience themselves. It’s so strange that a game this good didn’t last longer or find a way to go into maintenance mode. I mean if you look at what WAR brought to the MMORPG landscape, games that are successful and are alive right now are using those systems, like public quests, like the tome of knowledge, like open groups. I mean there was a ton of innovation. But because of the way it was published and rushed out of the gate, most of the game lacked the polish that its competitors had and as such was its own biggest obstacle.
All of that said it’s just a fun game, I very much enjoy it so far. My goal with it, is to get max level and participate in the end game pvp. That’s all I want. If you are interested at all in the game, pop into my stream and see if it clicks with you.
There are other games I want to try and maybe play as well, like the EQ private server Project 99 I believe its called, as well as the Classic WoW that’s going to come out later this year. But I don’t know if those are going to be that interesting to me. I don’t really know any of the lore in EQ and WoW I know too much about the lore and the company that now runs the game… And I am jaded and I don’t want to be a part of that. However I will probably try it anyways.
Expect more on my adventures in WAR in the upcoming blog posts.
Till next time!
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