All in all, most of this sounds good to me. The Item Ratings system was a terrible idea, the Fighter Revamp was just a complete mess, performance is MUCH more important than shiny. EQ2 has a horrible history of throwing out huge sweeping changes that have barely been thought through, so it’s very nice to see them NOT doing stuff.

For my money they could leave the whole game alone and just work on expansions. I could easily live without these uneccessary revamps and “improvements”.

Of course, in FTO there are no “graphics”, but so far that hasn’t stopped thousands of people from signing up and having fun. Hopefully someday we’ll see this idea implemented in a triple-A title. To those who say it can’t work, I say they’re wrong. I’ve proven it can.

See my website link for more information.

This is just a great question that I don’t think enough people answer, but I’ll try to avoid being long winded.

I first started with EQ:Planes of Power when I was amazingly young, and didn’t really grasp the concept of an MMO. Suffice to say, since this was one of the games where you desperately needed a manual to read it. My first death in the game was from drowning because I didn’t know how to swim correctly.

Anyway, this happened again (Trying EQ, though I figured out how the controls worked that time) and I was always awe-inspired by the idea that so many people could all be playing the same game together, ever since I first saw my uncle play one. I got bored of EQ2, and eventually moved onto SWG, where I finally got it, and everything clicked in my head. I met some guys that I really jived with, and we essentially went on adventures together every day after that for near the entire summer. After there was a falling out between us, I left. But I stayed in contact with a couple of them, and I knew after that there was a sweet spot that could be had in those games. I had to find the sensation again, like a junkie needing his fix (How morbid…) Only, with virtual awesomeness. Thing…

My in-game friends are definitely the best part and they keep me coming back.

I play for total fun. But I am a very imaginative(or unimaginative) person. I don’t roleplay, but I do like to pretend I am in this world(see Beau’s post on “immersion”). That’s all it takes. anything else is a side-effect of that. I have come to love crafting as my favorite part of a lot of MMORPGs. But I’ll do almost anything. As long as the time and place are right, I say “Heck yeah, sounds fun” and do it. That may be helping a person kill a boss, or trying to sneak into a zone that’s way too high level for me, raid the newest dungeon, go dance like an idiot in someones house for 2 hours(In-game), or whatever. There are a few subtle roads I have found that I prefer over others. My one friend wanted nothing but to quest. I am all for that, but not 10 days in a row, and without stopping or breaking for even the smallest diversion. I tend to sometimes choose laid back crafting over raids nowadays, but every once in awhile, I’m like “I’m in!”. If it’s anything involving lower levels, I’ll usually drop what I’m currently doing. to help(I guess it’s just the philanthropist in me).

And I am still always learning about myself and my gaming habits. So nothing is written in stone.