My first online gaming experience was Everquest in the year 1999 or 2000. My last online gaming experience was Everquest II, last Friday night. In between, I have played many games, some for a few months and some just in Beta.
Other than Everquest I and II, I am not an avid role playing gamer. I have greatly enjoyed, for many hours, playing Planetside 2, an online FPS owned by Sony Online Entertainment until last week when the division was sold to a Management Investment Company called Daybreak Games. Everquest I and II have also been sold as part of the SOE sale to Daybreak. This matters because Everquest Next was in development and I planned to play that when released in a couple of years, so now time will tell if the game ever sees the light of day given the layoffs and management restructuring at Daybreak Games within of a week of the sale, including the layoff of Dave Georgeson, the Executive Producer.
I have played, for short periods of time, the FPSs Call of Duty, Battlefield and America's Army online. RPGs include Vanguard: Saga of Heros from Brad McQuaid's Sigil, RIFT by Trion, and Aion, though only for short periods of time. Also, in the RPG genre I have played Everquest I and II for about 15 years. I have Beta tested a large number of good and bad games over the years, too numerous to name or remember. I played Eve Online for a few days, as well.
The first few years of Everquest were truly magical, and although I spent way too much time in that game, I would never trade the experience for anything. I still have friends from those days and to this day, I can, honestly, say that those few years were some of the best memories of my entire life. The reason it is possible to lump entire years under the category of the Everquest I Years, is because other than working and minimal amounts of sleep needed for survival, that was all I did - thank god for the folly of youth.
Today, my online gaming is extremely limited, and sadly, the magic is gone. Much of it, especially in Everquest II just feel robotic, and I am bored far more often than not. This makes me sad, but life moves on, and I am pursuing far bigger and harder challenges. I still remember overcoming my social anxiety issues by grouping in EQ I, whereas today I could comfortably lead a room of people, in real life. Everquest was an important part of my life that I will never forget, and maybe someday a game will come out that will recapture that magic, but today, I prefer to be out in the world mixing with people, and my online gaming is for short periods of time when I am bored, usually just before bed.
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