What Makes a Veteran? or How Far Back Can You See?

I wasn't sure what to title this “skills on a bar” or maybe “/attack <t>” maybe “ the die never stops rolling”



I don’t exactly consider myself an MMO vet ( in a past post I might have said it but no I do not) however I feel I have played my fair share of mmorpgs. A lot of posters toss around that Veteran status like a badge of honor but how far do they go back or rather where did they start.



When I was in high school before I ever knew what an mmo was a friend of mine called me to his table with a couple of other guys. He (knowing I played FF series games and the like) suggested that we played D&D. I laughed it off but eventually he got the guys to give it a try. I sh*t you not we rolled the 8 sided for stats and went at it. It wasn't long before school admin stopped us from playing but that's beside the point. This was my introduction to cooperative play and set my basis for understanding mmos.



After that i moved states lost those friends but my cousin suggested when I finally got Internet access a text multi user dungeon. I laughed at her telling her my mom played text based games back in the commodore 64 era. However I gave it a shot. 2 weeks later I was hooked. This wasn't only my first mmorpg but my first sand box game. You could attack anyone I looted my one mage trainer the guards the market master even my own mother when she started playing and it was a rush only provided with words and /attack <t>.



When I went to college I wanted to try a real mmo so I bought Everquest and gave it a shot. It was kind of a rush bringing what I verbally described in D&D and what i read in text to a visual aspect. To this day I don't think any game has come to the complexity and detail of Everquest and it was a wonderful place to start.



Not long after i started EQ I finally got dsl and a better computer. Now final fantasy 11 had been out a year and I really wanted to try it. My trying it turned out to be a year of play I probably judge all other mmos by. Its the only game I ever left over issues with guild/legion/linkshell. The game forced me into a level of cooperative play that I haven't been forced into before. From that game I learned heavy party play what a grind is and macros (though the MUDs use the same basic commands so it wasn't that completely to understand.) This game was the first one that provided me what i guess most call immersion I had my own house I chatted a lot there was very close with my linkshell. I guess it game me my measurement for community.A mmo good enough that the only thing that could get me to leave was a falling out.



After I left FFXI teary eyed donating all my gear to the linkshell for new players I headed to WoW. WoW was addictive, fast paced, quest based leveling, trash talking, quick leveling, modded to death, vent using, wonderful simple yet complex madness and I loved it. For nearly 2 years it was like crack to me crack addict. I loved it and hated it. Compared ot EQ and FFXI it felt like easy mode but was almost twice as addictive. No fancy story of leaving WoW vanilla WoW was going bye bye and my maxed toons were shaman and rogue.



I went from mmo to mmo from here on with the only good mention being Guild Wars which I still log into from time to time I would say 7-10 between all them from 3 months-1 year stints.



I will apologize for the long post from now.



I am not posting this to prove my credential or anything like that.



the one thing I noticed from D&D to now is that the 8sided die (Random Number Generator) is still going and the battle logs and commands are just the same as text from a MUD. And that from EQ to now all I see is skills on bar. To me at least the core of mmos never really change. From what I have seen the core of these the RNG never goes away. In this sometimes painful times for our community I often find peace in the fact that no matter what game comes out no matter how good it is I can always see the die rolling in the background reminding me that none of this is truly new. Its funny i saw a screen shot for SWTOR and some video for GW2 and while this is no comment on the quality of the game the one thing I noticed was that every game I have played since EQ have skills on a bar,



I apologize in advance I seriously couldn't figure out exactly how to frame this perspective it doesn't mean I believe we should accept some of the cr*p we are handed and told to play but I judge titles from this history. Innovation, new features, graphics, some times I look past all this and link it all right back to the D&D, the MUDs, and EQ. I look at the community judging it by FFXI and judge the fun to vanilla WoW.



Like I said I really didn’t know exactly how to share this but I know I have always wanted to so I did. Read hate rip on it flame it love it that is all good. The only discussion point I have is maybe if you come from the same place you can discuss it.  



the title is slightly misleading but it has to do with this.