Compared to the others in this thread, my experiences are very limited.
For me it began with WoW. Back in February 2005 Dehn announced on a strat-game forum he has begun to play WoW, asking if anybody else have. Eventually I bought it too, and I seem to have registered my game on 5th of March in 2005.
With my short attention span and tendency of losing interest (until it suddenly bursts back) in tasks I regard dull, I did during "classic" game play on several different servers (Alliance on PvP server Deatwhing from where we transfered to Tarren Mill, Horde on PvP servers Sunstrider and later on Dentarg, RPing on Argent Dawn). I got in all two hunters and a warlock to 60, plus a few toons to 40-50 range.
With TBC I noticed how Gorillas got screwed as hunter pets, so I basically stopped playing them, altough I did get my horde hunter to 66 before I realised it is a no go with a Gorilla pet. Why play a hunter if you can't properly use your Gorilla? Instead I leveled up the warlock to 70, and also a druid and rogue to 70, plus a paladin to IIRC 64 (and a plethora of other toons to around 50). During my last couple months in WoW I didn't level much about anything, only joined for PvP sessions and played my RP toons on AD.
I thought I would be super interested in WotLK. I did follow the beta intensively. But somehow the burn is not there anymore. I don't like the PvP in WoW. I don't like how warlocks got nerfed. I don't like the fact that Gorillas are now the "Gorilladins" and every hunter apparently are running with one (goddammit, Gorillas are *my* pets, seen on all servers over the past years only *twice* some othe hunter using gorillas, and now everybody have them
).
I've played LOTRO on and off. I did like a lot how the game was playing until about level 20 or so, then it suddenly lost much of its shine. I got a burglar to ~30 and the other classes to various levels between 12-20. What I did like in LOTRO was the MPvP concept, and I spent most of my time in LOTRO in the MPvP area on my spider. I guess it takes a very special sort of person to dig themselves down a hole and sit there for minutes waiting for an un-suspecting "freep" to wander by, but I did love it. I could do that for hours on, running the game in windowed mode and reading forums or chatting in IRC while my Lukki was waiting for prey (or, as it often ended up, running back to the hunting ground after the prey had refused to be prey and became the hunter instead :p).
Possibly the reason why I got eventually bored with LOTRO was the fact that I seemed to always end playing alone. There always seemed to be too many burglars around to get to do instance runs, and all my guild-mates seemed to level so much faster (as I was spending so much time in MPvP), and in MPvP I happened to fall in love with a class that is at its best when hunting alone (altough I did love to take part in the keep fights after the server-reset every week).
Been playin Anarchy Online as a froob quite a bit. Again, I like the starter areas, but the importance of grinding gear to have any chance to be successfull in PvP is quite frustrating. Instead I end up rolling new characters every now and then and play them until I get bored to death.
I became a beta-tester for Age of Conan last year, and it was pretty clear for me from the start the game was in serious time-schedule problems. The launch date was pushed back, but it was still launched way too early. Yet I did buy the game, in the hopes that the money would allow FunCom to make AoC the superb game it has the potential for, but sadly that seems to not happen. Still, I am not sad for the ~40 euro spent on the game, Tortage is by far the most excellent starting area I have seen in any game: Good stories, marvelous music, very thematic. I played Tortage through with all arche-types and leveled a Tempest to IIRC 42, seeing the first "proper" instance etc. I indend to re-activate my AoC account eventually.
I became a beta tester for WAR last February. Spent a lot of my time doing quests on my witch-hunter, trying all the possible professions etc. For PvP I joined with my DoK (early on) and Ironbreaker (for the T4 battles later on). I like the PvP system a lot. I like the general "maturity" of the players on Order side (have you tried Destro on live? I have, and it reminds me soooo much of how WoW is on Alliance side...), where people in general co-operate for a common goal. I also like the poeple and the spirit in HoJ a lot
I've been a tester for for a couple months for another MMO game. Can't tell much about it because of the NDA, but it is very different from what I have played so far.
Other than MMO's I am strategy-game geek. I play only MP games, and only *real* strategy games (so don't come and tell me about your experiences with "Total War" series or "Red Alert" or whatever those are told; if you do I shall just snort in your general direction). Which is odd, because the games need heavy thinking, and usually I am quite light in that department. Then again, I like to be in the company of smart people, it makes me too feel a bit smarter (and when I don't open my mouth, others might believe I am quite smart too!)
