I very much have a love-hate relationship with MMOs, and I’ve had one for well … far, far, far too long. It seems, typically, to be based around winding up feeling incredibly bored and then trying to find something to relieve that boredom (which typically involves all sorts of time-wasting – as MMOs tend to cause).

Normalizing Terminology

In general, almost all MMOs have common “concepts”, although usually different names for them. Where possible (and I remember or find it), I’ll provide the in-game term and reference the “normalized” one. [This is using the term “normalized” in the statistical sense of making the data common.]

• Guild – This is the group of people in your “friend-circle”, or basically, the main set of people you game with on a regular basis. Typically, everyone in the guild has “small” common goals and you usually form friendships with them (which may even have started outside of the game, but you want to game together). There is usually a single Guild Leader (who probably has the assistance of Guild Officers) in managing the Guild.
• Alliance – This is a collective of Guilds. Often, there are activities which can only be done at an Alliance level and an individual guild may either be too small or there’s an in-game limitation on what Guilds are capable of. These then provide a clear distinction and segregation between what activities are available to whom. Similarly, there are usually Alliance Leaders and Alliance Officers – at the very least, these are typically drawn from the Guild Leaders and Officers.
• Server – As part of the back-end technical side of a company running and maintaining an MMO, they aren’t able to have everyone all playing at the same time on the same back-end hardware. So, the “stupid” solution to this (not implying that it’s stupid, necessarily, just that it’s the easiest approach) is to separate out one “world” from another. Generally, you are not able to communicate or trade or travel between different servers. Some times, the MMO game company will provide a service to allow transferring your player (and assets) to a different server. In these cases, they usually charge for this.
• Toon – Often used to refer to an individual character instance in a game. So, a player (person), may very well have multiple accounts (subscriptions, whatever), each account might have multiple character instances within that account “umbrella”. When you speak of a “toon”, though, you mean the character, regardless of who the player is. So, for example, a player may have multiple toons, each with different sorts of specializations / capabilities, etc.

[Note – I’ll be providing links to the games I list. This is not intended as me “shilling” for them, and I’ll not speak as to your experiences with any of these, nor your regard (or lack thereof) for them. This is my story, not yours. 😝]

Where It Started – Puzzle Pirates

When I started to write this, I honestly didn’t remember “when” it started, but I did recall the game. It was a small one known, at the time, as Yohoho! Puzzle Pirates (now just known as “Puzzle Pirates” apparently). I didn’t recall which Ocean (Server) I was on, but knew it was one of the very early ones.

From looking at their wiki, though – I, somehow, managed to find all the details (and wow, was that a shock) and it reminded me of everthing.

Unearthing the Past

With those details in hand, I can provide a lot of them here. I started playing in early 2004, found I liked the puzzles and then joined a Crew (Guild). Specifically, I joined the crew Punintended Consequences. To the best of my memory, my pirate name was “Sharvin”.

While just generally hanging out and chatting with people in game, I (somehow?) made a bit of a name for myself during cross-island travel. In the game, to travel, you’re on a ship and you need to play puzzles to help the ship sail (and move faster). At times, you may be intercepted by NPC pirates and need to fight a battle with them. This was a different game for the captain to play, plotting moves and firing cannons and hoping to get lucky and hit / damage / sink the enemy ship(s).

Victories

During some of these trips with my Crew, based on my general concepts of strategy and tactics, as well as some basic understanding of how ships actually fought during the age of Wooden Ships and Iron Men. This led to us having more successful encounters (and fewer unsuccessful ones).

The Ocean was still “opening up” and so not all areas were available for travel, etc., just yet. The Flag (Alliance) we were in was Water Sleeps (as I say – it’s weird to have the names pop back up in my head when I see them in a wiki). We were interested in grabbing (“colonizing” / claiming) one of the new islands when it was available. This process was a several-hours long battle between multiple player ships (remember that “battle board” above) and, basically, you needed to win enough times. I did not get a lot of sleep those few times. But, at long last, with me providing a bunch of verbal guidance to “our side”, we were able to claim Beta Island on 2004-10-09. (Like … no shit … I was seriously surprised to find this there.)

As part of that victory (and in recognition of my contributions), I was gifted a War Brig. [For some reason, in game, I’d chosen my personal “game colors” to be blue and orange. Orange, however, was incredibly rare, expensive, and difficult to produce – for cloth, paint, etc. I, of course, hadn’t realized this when I chose this color-scheme.] The ship was given to me, already painted, in orange and blue.

And Dissolution

Around then, both World of Warcraft and Guild Wars were starting up, and Punintented Consequences was bleeding people. The captain (Kestrel) was also, if memory serves, having a bit of a falling out with others (in real-life). Ultimately, she left the game, and passed leadership on to me. Unfortunately, there were almost none of us left, and of the few who were, they were actively encouraging me to try WoW or GW.

With almost no one active in the Crew at any of the times I was on (and no desire on my part to try and rebuild the crew), I, too, decided it was time to hang up my pirate hat.

Next – World of Warcraft (the original one) and Guild Wars

Continued in My Love-Hate Feelings For MMOs – Part II.