Catching up - My 2014 MMO Look-Back

2014 was pretty much the year of Star Trek Online. I started out with it as my main game. I ended the year with it as my main game.

After being back into the game for a year (after a long break) I knew the systems well and had a bunch of max level characters. Then late in the year the Delta Rising expansion came along, turned a bunch of systems upside down, added a new ship tier, and raised the level cap. It was a crazy time.

With multiple characters, raising them all to 60 was the goal but it turned into a serious grind, far more so than it had been up to that point. By the end of the year, only my main had hit 60, with the rest scattered around from 55-58. Many of them had not even started the Delta Quadrant missions - they were finishing out the higher level content and reputation grind in the main game.

This was also the year I started a Romulan character having ignored them in the Romulan expansion as I caught up on leveling my Feds and Klingons. He was only in the 40's by the end of the year.

The jump to Tier 6 was a negative, frankly, after years of Tier 5 ships being the top end and after many people spent many dollars on multiple ships. The "T5U" upgrade option helped, but even then the knowledge that there was a full T6 still left them just a tiny bit ... less.

In between missions for and against Starfleet I dipped my toe back in Lord of the Rings Online and found it still not something I wanted to "main".  I looked at Everquest 2 again and ... well, I had tried it in 2010 and played a while and enjoyed it but not enough to leave City of Heroes. The same thing happened here too - it's a cool game and a nice "not-Warcraft" option but it's just not going to replace my main game.

I did still jump into Neverwinter on occasion but it was just the change of pace game, never the main, though it is fun.

The year ended Trek! Trek! Trek! with characters advancing through various storylines and getting in time on their shiny new Tier 6 ships and all seemed well.

Catching Up - My 2013 MMO Look-Back

After the shutdown of City of Heroes I did very little online for the rest of the year. No game really felt great and I was not terribly interested in learning a new game. So 2012 ended with nothing really new.

In 2013 though I dove back in. First I stepped back into Champions Online, a game I had played at launch, though it just never really grabbed me enough to stick with it. I discovered that was still true a few years later.  I appreciate what it does, but what it does just isn't enough of the right thing for me.

After that I jumped back into Star Trek Online and something clicked. I was a lot more interested in the universe, and the game was ... fun. It quickly became my main computer game and by the end of the year I had multiple max-level characters. I decided to look around at what else was out there too.

That summer I dove into Neverwinter Online when it launched and I had a lot of fun with it. I only have the one main character as it's not enough to really reel me in full time but it is fun when I'm tired of phasers and starships and just want to whack something with a greatsword.

I also tried out Star Wars: The Old Republic for the first time and had a pretty good time with it too. I did not stick with it as I was not willing to pay the subscription fee and the free to play restrictions seemed very limiting. It did make a positive impression overall though.


So as far as new online games went. 2013 ended with STO as my main game and occasional side visits to Neverwinter.