Fresh Start or Hold on to the Past?

I got a bit nostalgic for the WoW days last night. Started looking up who was still playing out of the players I spent so much time with. I looked at the couple of videos of my old guild that are still knocking about on youtube etc. I didn't go as far as contemplating pre-ordering MoP, although it's possible I may if GW2 doesn't turn out to be what I hope it will...

Why was I Ginger in Caverns of Time?

So today I sent an e-mail to one of my closest ex-WoW guildies (whom I did dabble in SWTOR with earlier this year) asking if he is considering GW2. After I sent the e-mail I started to wonder is that the sensible thing to do. I'll try and tell you why.

The reason I am worried are the answers to these questions;
What do I hope GW2 will mean to me?
What experience do I want?
Who do I want to meet?
How do I want to play GW2, and for how long?

So here are the brief version of the conclusions I came to;
I want GW2 to be an exciting voyage of discovery.
The experience I want is the same as it was playing WoW for the first time.
I want to meet a new version of the interesting and intelligent people I met in WoW and join a guild of friendly, like-minded players.
I want to play GW2 casually but with commitment when I have the time, and for a few years if possible, anything less than 3 months would be dissapointing (again).

Now, I think the answers to the above, for me, are that Ideally all my memories and experience of WoW (and the others that came after Rift, Aion, SWTOR) could be deleted so that it's all new and I would be much more likely to achieve all of those goals. I know, it's not going to happen, but perhaps I can help my self by not carrying over all the preconceived idea from the last 5 years of MMO gaming and should that mean the people as too?

Don't get me wrong, I would love to play with my old WoW guild mates again but am I worsening the likelihood of GW2 being the scratch to me itch?

The WoW Hangover

We have all played it, well, almost all of us. It’s why many of us are currently feeling in an unfortunate state of prolonged limbo and experiencing various levels of disappointment and disillusion with the MMO genre.

I’d like to think that there will be game to come along with the ability to “turn back time” and give me that 2007 feeling (when I started playing WoW). I’m starting to realize that is not likely, but I have not given up just yet.

Is it the genre that has changed or is it me that has different expectations from this type of game? Is it my demograph moving on or another one moving in? Is it the designers and publishers doing it all wrong, or the players playing it all wrong? Was it a one in a million all the stars aligned sort of luck thing with WoW that cannot happen again? All of these questions have been asked and answered on the fine blogs linked on my blog roll, but I suspect it’s a bit of all of the above. I’d like to discuss those questions over the next few posts.

I’m playing SW:TOR at the moment, but my significant other isn’t, she has moved on from the whole shebang and happily pursues other interests that don’t require an internet connection. Maybe that’s why it’s doesn’t feel quite the same to me any more. I enjoyed playing with her immensely. I would tank and she would heal, we would shout at each other a lot and on occasion really not speak to each other for a day or so. Do I really miss that? .....Yup, sure do.

I think it’s because it was the excitement we shared when either of us discovered something new. The very first healing spell or green quest reward all the way up to running around all powerful at level cap and finishing current raid content when its valid, exactly how it was supposed to be played. Great senses of discovery and achievement are hard to come by IRL for less than a tenner a month.

Lots of virtual “friends” whom I genuinely believe are good and honest people and I miss them dearly (except one who is playing SW:TOR with me at the moment, I don’t miss him at all). I think you naturally find the people you are supposed to play with, it worked in the playground, works in MMOs.

It feels to me like a prolonged hangover from the mother of all parties that lasted several years. I hope the hangover doesn’t last quite a long as the party did. Anyone found a miracle cure for this hangover, Hair of the dog doesn’t seem to be working, or is it the wrong dog?