I’ve got four games on my plate lately, and I can’t help thinking about what each one adds to my over all ‘wants’ out of an MMO.
First, I’m still playing Wurm Online. Sandbox game where you can shape the world around you, but the game requires a LOT of time and dedication and that time only rises if you incorporate things like animals into game play. See, animals need food. Grass eventually becomes packed, and thus animals can starve. Also everything in-game aside from your personal inventory can decay. If you take off for a week it’s not that big of a deal, but any longer and your virtual items in game are going to suffer. Lately this has been more and more of an issue for me, feeling ‘tied’ to a game is a good way to make me not want to play it. I shouldn’t feel like I’m going to lose my time investment if I have to step back from playing for a little while. Still, this game just reaches out to me and it’s held my attention far longer than I would have thought when I first started playing.
Second I’ve been playing Guild Wars 2. I think this game is fantastic, especially since it has no subscription in order to enjoy it. Buy the box, and play it like a single player game if that’s your preference. Of course then you get to level 80 and realize that there’s no way for you to do dungeons unless a mass of your friends are playing OR you PUG them. Plus these are not your typical dungeon where everyone has a role and can act on it. There are no tanks no healers you’re all just bodies and it can be a whole mass of confusion and a lot of deaths. It’s a game where (imo) there’s a lot of ‘go go go’ constantly happening. There’s very little relaxing I can do, if I want to harvest I’m going to have to engage in combat, there’s typically always a mob or event going on by every node I come across. Beautiful lands, with a lot of puzzles and vistas, and yes I could work on zone completion in the cities, but it’s still not the quiet I look for.
I’ve recently resubscribed to EVE Online using some plex I had stored up. EVE scratches my sandbox urges as well as the quiet time I look forward to, or exciting ‘go go go’ time if I feel like it via PvP and missions. It’s almost the perfect game for me, except as much as I love EVE I’m not a giant fan of science fiction – so I still prefer to have a fantasy genre game on my plate. Today I’m making a run out to my PI planets to collect all the goods I’ve been stock piling, and then I’m going to put a few more manufacturing jobs active before I begin doing some missions. I’m almost able to finally fit the heavy missiles on the Tengu that I want to use, but in the mean time it’s back to my old ship until those are ready.
Finally I’ve decided to resubscribe to World or Warcraft. I know, an odd choice when I’m playing two sandbox games and a non-subscription game, but WoW is like a comfortable sweater to me. It’s ultra causal and you’d never wear it out of the house, but it’s great for those sleepy cold days where you’re huddled down not doing much of anything. In other words it fits the ‘relaxed’ bill that I was looking for above. I can solo some dungeons if I feel inclined to do so, I can PUG dungeons and raids (which I frequently do), work on alts, craft or harvest, etc. It’s not new or innovative, but some times that’s just not what I want. Plus pet battles are just plain fun.
There are other games I still dive into here and there, like Vanguard, but I’m not currently playing them on a steady basis, so I didn’t count them in this post. There’s also a bunch of single player games I’ve been enjoying such as Sim City (March 5th can’t get here fast enough!), The Sims 3, Triple Town (a cute puzzle game from Steam), and Skyrim. Of course there are always a handful of games I wish I were devoting more time to, too. Those include The Secret World, Pirate 101, and Lord of the Rings Online. Sadly, there are just not enough hours in the day to play them all.
What games are you playing lately? Share below in comments! As always, happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself.
Currently I’m playing Rift. I actually still have my sub to TSW, but I haven’t played it in long enough that I got a “we miss you!” email from Funcom last week. And that’s it for me. I’m about to start a 2nd job, so my time will be more limited and thus I’ll be dropping that sub as soon as I can access my account again. . . .