i'm so bored of MMOs

What's a gamer geek like myself to do when MMO's just don't hold my interest anymore?

for a long time now, i've found myself completely turned off by MMO's. i remember the days when I'd spend 8-10 hours a day; much to the chagrin of my husban, playing online gamines—or more specifically MMORPGs (Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games).  But now? I can't bring myself to spend a hour playing one.

Ultima Online

i remember my first gaphical MMO, Ultima Online. Those were the days! I remember starting not long after getting my first internet capable computer somtime in the early 90's, i don't remember when. my older brother, jamie, who at the time was a bit older than i and had a job, picked up this little known game and sat down to play. i remember  sitting by his side despirately wanting to play, but with only one computer and one account and him being older, stronger, and meaner, all i could do was watch. he was mean enough to not allow me to know his account password, so even if he wasn't on the computer, i couldn't access his account. i used to lay awake at night praying he'd quickly tire of the game, get more hours as his job, or i'd come into some money to get my own computer so i could play. i don't quite remember exact when it was, but i remember one night getting a bright idea - what little time i had been allowed to use the computer i recall reading a lot of hacker boards, sites, and dedicating myself to read the entire hackers' handbook. one particular chapter talked about this fancy piece of software called a keylogger. suddenly, i would have access to his account password, and the world of britannia at least! i setup the keylogger to write to a hidden text file and made sure it was running the next time he played the game. at last, i had access.

i played "hookie" from school the next day and sat down to begin my obsession and addiction to online games. i knew i'd have to create my own characters on a different server (shard) than he was playing to try and hide my actions, and that's exactly what i did. for the next eight hours i hardly moved from my chair (except to pee of course). i remember starting a mage character (i think that is what they were called) and was instantly addicted. eventually my brother caught on to my playing and reluctantly allowed it and later stopped playing altogether. i'd spend nearly every waking minute playing. when i wasn't at school, i was playing. when i wasn't sleeping (which i gave up on almost all but 3 hours of sleep a night) i was playing. it was during my gaming that i co-founded and co-ran one of the more powerful PK (player killer) guilds on the server, owned castles on nearly all of my characters, maxed out every skill in the game, ran a crafting town, an rp town, and helped found, run, and assimilate folk into the borg during a role-play gamer invasion of the borg. 

as i eventually graduated high school and moved onto college my gaming time only increased instead of decreased. having far fewer committments, friends, and things to do i was able to scale up my gaming to close to 15-18 hours per-day. as i became more influential in the role-playing community, and helping run player events i attracted the attention of the game-masters and events coordinators. i was invited to join a volunteer group of event planners for the game and spend the next two years orchestrating my own server-wide events. with psuedo-gm powers i was given the ability to spawn armies of monsters to invade any town at any time, script month long campaigns and challenge players in epic battles and storylines. 

those were the years of some of the most enjoyable gaming i've ever experienced. but, as with all things, they come to an end. what do you do when you have collected the rarest items in the game, copius amounts of gold, spawned armies of undead to decimate villages, built, run, and played in player cities, and build castles decked out "to the nines" with decorations? get bored is what.     [ More after the jump... ]