Looking for Fun in all the Wrong Places... part 1

This is the first part of a series of short articles I submitted to a possible MMORPG magazine writing job. Technically, they say this belongs to them now. But hell, if they aren't going to publish it, I may as well make use of it. The series is about different MMORPGs I have played and how, for the most part, they have severely sucked. I also try to examine why and how the suckage occurred, and to point out any gems of non-suckage from each game. Game-Tripper: One Player’s Quest for Fun Across Multiple Worlds At the mere age of ten, I created my first dungeon for Dungeons & Dragons, and ran my little sister’s elf through five hours of absurd traps, motley monsters and fabulous treasure, all in the comfort of my grandmother’s living room. Things just went downhill from there. The following nine years found me involved in role-playing groups, Live Action Role Playing, and MUDs. And then, one day, Everquest came along. My role-playing friends, one by one, started showing up less and less often to our role-playing sessions. And when I DID see them, all they could do was babble incessantly about this game which was clearly taking over their lives. It was through these friends that I found myself pulled into a series of worlds, one after another, becoming ever more obsessed with the potential for this kind of game. I undertook a grand quest to explore the genre and to find a game that would fulfill the promise of the medium: pure, addictive, unadulterated fun. This is an account of that continuing journey, and of what I have discovered along the way. Dereth My first adventure was not with Everquest, though I would find my way to Norrath soon enough. Instead, I began as a humble beta-tester on Asheron’s Call. I was able to “borrow” a friend’s beta account and soon found myself in my very first graphical online world. I knew about Everquest’s class-based characters and was thrilled that Asheron's Call pitched this in favor of a system where you could combine different combinations of skills to design a character the way you desired. Born was Kelrynn: archer, tracker, chef. Enthralled with moving through beautiful 3D spaces, I spent a great deal of time just exploring on my own, shooting endless bunnies and running from endless monsters. Wherever I went, it seemed some baleful creature wanted to devour me. At first, this was fairly exciting. And then, as I found myself eaten again and again, it started becoming a little tedious. I also found myself feeling a bit listless. Sure, my character was getting a bit tougher, able to take on more monsters, but the endless murder of Dereth’s creatures was not overly fulfilling. I needed a greater challenge. One of the truly great elements of Asheron’s Call was the magic system, where the player combined different components to produce different magic spells. You could experiment with the components to discover what sort of spell you could create. (This was great fun until the spells were all over the internet.) But the game also had a similar system for cooking. You would take different ingredients, throw them together and hope for the best. Sometimes you would make a yummy new treat. Other times you would just waste the ingredients. So I found a mission for the young Kelrynn -- to become Dereth’s first master chef. I made a grand announcement in one of the larger towns, and set off on my quest. Unfortunately, this required an awful lot of running over hill and dale alone. Which resulted in the endless devouring of the neophyte chef by things with sharp teeth. Next chapter: On to Norrath!