1999: Myself and the other EQJunkies were brought into the world of Norrath (EQ1) when we were merely sophomores in high school. I’ll list our current game names to make things easier…

1. Xailia - Wizard
2. Greldor - SK
3. Landuran - Druid
4. Myclawz - Monk

We slowly played more and more (I remember going from level 14-16 in a week and thinking it was a big deal) until we were all addicted.  We continued to play for about two years.

2001: We took a break to play this awesome new game one of our friends was talking about, DAoC.  Holy Crap - what a waste of our time.  I think we all tried that for maybe a month or so.  When we jumped ship, we fell right back into EQ1.  Eventually we needed another break from EQ1.

2002: We took yet another EQ1 vacation and tried out Final Fantasy Online.  In all honestly, I actually liked a lot about the game, although it had one major flaw: most of the player base was foreign.  MMOs at this time were hard enough, we didn’t need a language barrier in between us.

2003: We came back to EQ1 and started getting into raiding (Order of the White Dragon on Bristlebane).  We changed guilds a couple times before settling on one (Dozekar).  We raided for a few years until the release of EQ2.

2004: We all bought EQ2, played it for awhile, but it just didn’t stick.  For me, there really wasn’t that much wrong with it other than the fact it wasn’t EQ1.

Late 2004: Landuran jumped ship for WoW, the rest of us gave it a shot.

2005 - 2007: All of us except Landuran went back to EQ1….we eventually got Landuran back into EQ1.  We started a guild (Meiyo) and began raiding again.  As we progressed through GoD we eventually lost our desire to play and gave WoW a serious try.

2007 - 2008: Most of us played WoW for about a year, until about a month ago when it got boring and repetitive (and to easy).  We jokingly got Landurn a copy of EQ2 for his bachelor party, and so here we are…playing EQ2 again.

Ultimately, nothing will top EQ1 in my mind.  It was a hard, challenging, fun game.  In its heyday nothing could top it.  The MMOs now are built for mass appeal - they are easy with quick rewards.  EQ rewarded those who put in the time and suffered through things.  Hopefully EQ2 isn’t as easy as WoW; luckily - I don’t think is possible.

So, what is your story?  Have you moved around from game to game or stayed with the same one all the way through?