Between all the vitriol seething around stupid (IMO, obviously) issues with modern games, and just the fact that I’ve been away from PC gaming for a long time, I’ve been revisiting some old favorites lately. It’s good timing since it seems like plenty of folks are on a nostalgia kick when it comes to games, and MMOs in particular.
In the last months I’ve at least dipped my toe into WoW, LOTRO, Guild Wars 2, Age of Conan, Star Trek Online, Secret World Legends, Neverwinter, DC Universe Online, EVE Online, Anarchy Online and Everquest 2. Mind you in some cases it was a single login (looking at you, Age of Conan and Anarchy Online).
In a couple of cases (LOTRO and EQ2) I’ve decided to roll on the progression servers (or as LOTRO calls them, Legendary Servers). My thinking was “Hey, it’s a nostalgia trip, might as well go all-in.” Further thinking was that the games ought to be simpler to get back into on these older builds that don’t have years of expansions layered onto the foundations.
Well it turns out that while it was simpler to get back into the games in this way, these servers are not for me. In my heart they are, but in my real world having slower than normal progression doesn’t pair well with my “OK I think I can sneak in an hour of gaming tonight” lifestyle. I just don’t get anywhere.
This might not be a big deal if not for the fact that I never hit cap on these games back when I played them live. I’m a notorious game grazer, so getting through half the content, then coming back years later and starting all over rather than picking up where I left off and seeing new content…it just doesn’t make that much sense for me.
All that said, though, these servers ARE a great way to re-acclimate myself. In both LOTRO and EQ2 I started a new character on the special server and played for a couple of hours. I felt dusty old neural pathways flicker back into life as I remembered the various systems (I’d totally forgotten about the existence of Fellowship Maneuvers and Heroic Opportunities). But once I was feeling comfortable again, I abandoned these half-formed virtual lives to go pick up some old character from years ago, armed with a least some familiarity with the game again.
Ironic, really. I spent a bunch of money for a PC that can handle all the modern games on high graphics settings, and now I’m playing games that I could’ve played on one of the old PCs that it collecting dust in the closet!
Still, I’m having fun and that’s what matters.