by Cody Bye on Jan 15, 2009
Since the dawning of the modern MMO era, players have constantly been
vying to see who was the best. Either through direct competitions like EverQuest's
"Best of the Best" tournaments to Final Fantasy XI's
constant grind for the best loot, players have constantly wanted to be
the king of the hill. With so many upcoming MMOs accepting this
competitive spirit, Executive Editor Cody "Micajah" Bye thought it was
time to start up his own commentary on competition in MMOs and has
dubbed his newly penned series "In the Trenches". If you're a
competitive MMO player or simply are looking for the next great thrill,
come and check out his brand new article, "The Competitive Edge".
So
when I eventually found myself playing massively multiplayer online
games, I was caught between a rock and a hard place. In the earliest
MMOs, trying to “win” meant that you were the
hardest of the hardcore.
To win at an MMO like href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/taxonomy/term/38"
target="_blank">EverQuest or href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/taxonomy/term/154"
target="_blank">Ultima Online
or target="_blank">Final Fantasy XI,
you might need to raid fifteen hours a day, go to work to pay your rent
and/or subscription fees, get an hour of sleep, then be at it again.
Between my family, social, and job-related activities, I’ve
never had
an extremely open schedule, so being an elite member of the MMO
community was never an option. Ultimately, my competitive spirit was
quashed by the very nature of MMO design.