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Can You Only Love an MMOG Once?

By Cody “Micajah” Bye and Jeff “Ethec” Woleslagle

Stepping out onto the frozen tundra, a gust of chill wind tickles your legs. Your wooden club is held tightly in your right hand and a cracked wooden shield is in your left. The battle cries of your kindred echo off the glacial walls of your icy homeland, and you eagerly wade out into the maze-like white-blue corridors. The tundra is your homeland, and you’re ready to defend it. You do not fear death.

For many of you, the initial narrative passage may remind you of your first steps in the original Everquest, wading into battle with your Barbarian Shaman. It was a journey many of us took; you began leveling your character in the frozen wastes surrounding the Barbarian home city in order to eventually delve into the depths of Blackburrow and climb back up and out again. Everquest was the first MMORPG for many of you and it still holds a nostalgic piece of hearts across the world. This was a magical world that many of us entered into, and it caught us by the heart-strings, dragging us along into its lore and adventure as we tried our best to enhance our own worth in the eyes of our online friends.

By exploring the lands of Norrath, many of us may have found our one and only true MMOG love.

However, there seems to be no going back to that original journey that we took in Everquest, when jumping online to adventure in Norrath was what our thoughts were concerned with throughout the day. Whatever love we once had for Everquest remains squarely in the past, nestled against our other fond memories of times we can no longer experience. I’ve personally tried reinserting my avatar back into Norrath time and time again, but I find that my time spent in that online world is generally apathetic and I quickly move on to other realms.

Throughout our travels, Jeff “Ethec” Woleslagle and I have had many discussions concerning MMOGs and the way they affect our lives. While both of us have differing viewpoints on a number of subjects, our experience with MMOGs has been very similar. We both played the original Everquest, and we’ve never quite found anything else like it. According to Jeff, the French have a saying, “You can only love once.” Is the same true for the games we play? Can you only love an MMOG once?

Falling in love with an MMOG is an easy thing to do, especially when you’re young enough to still have the excitement and anticipation of delving into a new computer game and the inexperience of many years of playing these sort of titles. Like Jeff and I, you may have fallen in love with your first MMOG that you ever played, spending hours upon hours going adventuring in the untamed wilderness and learning how to do quests and defeat the monsters found within the dungeons you crawl into. Or perhaps it was the second MMOG you tried. Or the third. But you probably have at least one massively multiplayer title that you truly loved.

When you leave your MMOG, expect some changes to occur while you're away, like what happened with the NGE and Star Wars Galaxies.

Like love in the real world, it often doesn’t work exactly as we planned. People – and games – change over time, developing new tendencies or habits that we may or may not appreciate. Games offer a very serious conundrum, however, in that there’s always something newer, fresher, and sexier lurking on the horizon. Initially, you may leave your game world because you’ve found a different game; or perhaps your life outside of gaming needs more of your attention. Whichever is the case, once you leave a game, it’s often impossible to find that “loving” relationship back again.

Due to the ever-changing nature of MMOGs, you’ll find that the game isn’t the same as when you left it. Your character class may be different, with different abilities (for better or worse) and the landscape around the areas you inhabit may have changed as well. If any expansions were released while you were away, there could be a whole new race living in your world! These changes often come as striking blows to most gamers who expect their world to stay the same.

Even the players you left may be different. Perhaps a few other gamers left with you as well, looking for new games to try their luck on. Characters that were of your level may have advanced even higher, and now can’t even level with you very well. Your guild may have expanded or disbanded, leaving you to be a “new guy” again or as an orphan.

When you do decide to return to your old "flame", make sure you aren't expecting the same sort of experiences you had when you left.

But, in the end, none of these things impact us as much as any bitterness that you harbored towards the game before you left. Often, games don’t leave us; we leave games. Although a game may have some nostalgic qualities, there’s often a reason behind leaving a game in the first place. It could have been that you were subconsciously getting tired of the grind, thus you allowed your “real life issues” to bring you back to reality. Or maybe it was that nerf put on your class that broke your back, and you went looking for a game that would allow you to play a truly balanced character. Whatever these issues are, it’s often ignored when you look back at the game. Nostalgia is an incredibly strong emotion, and it’s something that easily pushes all our other logical thoughts aside.

With this clearly on the table, again the question comes up: Can you only love an MMOG once?

Honestly, there is no “concrete” answer to this question, because each individual player is different. There probably are players out there that have successfully returned to the games of their choice, finding new life in them with new guilds and new friends. By looking across Internet forums, including our own, you’ll find multiple examples of gamers that have quit their favorite games only to want to play them again. 

Before you attempt to return to the game you love – or loved – make sure you steel yourself. The game will be different than when you left it. Things probably changed. It’ll take some getting used to, but – like any real life relationship – if you put work into it, you may be able to find your true love once again.

As readers, consider your own MMOG story. Which MMOG did you first fall in love with? Why did you leave? Did you ever go back, or try to go back? Let us know by emailing us or talking about it in the forums!

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