Maintenance Tuesday "I have a Real-Life": MMO Games I Want to Play

ActiveNick — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 16:44:00 GMT

It's Maintenance Tuesday again. For us MMO players, it usually means our servers are down for maintenance, restarts or patches. This is certainly true for WoW, and Star Wars Galaxies (which I used to play, and still do on occasions) also has its maintenance on Tuesdays. I guess it's a standard deal in the MMO business, kinda like how all main TV networks have their ads/commercials in sync to prevent viewers from jumping to another show in progress on another channel.

Maintenance Day means "I have a real life" for many of us. You get to do other things when the death grip of your favorite MMO loosens for a few hours. So what do you do on Tuesdays? Me, it usually does not change much since I'm at work all day and the servers are usually back on by the time I get home, and even then I'll cook dinner with my wife and spend the early evening with her, even if I'm raiding later.

Still, if you have the day off or don't work on Tuesdays, Maintenance Day can be an opportunity. If you're like me, your primary MMO is not the only game you play, or want to play at least. Check out other MMOs that are not under maintenance today, or indulge yourself into a single-player PC or console game. It's sad the number of games I have on my shelf that are sitting there unplayed, or even still in the shrinkwrap.

If I was home, here are some of the MMO games I own that I'd like to play on maintenance day since I have barely touched them or not at all:

Guild Wars: Back when the infamous NGE hit Star Wars Galaxies in late 2005, I picked up Guild Wars in consolation (many SWG guildies went there too). I played SWG for another 8-9 months on and off, but I also played Guild Wars in parallel. To this day, this game is still one fo the most beautiful out there. However I always deplored the lack of true social gameplay mechanisms. It felt too much like a single player game despite being online, and I found it very hard to meet people in this game. The PvP endgame with the "1, 2, 3, SPIKE!" routines in vent are also a turn-off.
EVE Online: I started playing EVE in 2007 when I was in a WoW slump, played for a few months, loved it, but then realized I would have to dedicate MUCH more time to it. Gorgeous game, hugely complex, very niche but definitely calls to me. My skills have been training in the background for 2 years and I have almost 25 million skill points now. I hope to get back into it someday. That game deserves it.
Free Realms: I tried it last Spring during another WoW slump after patch 3.1. Since I have a SOE Station Access for SWG that gave me full access to Free Realms, and I was curious. The game is so well made, beautiful and engaging, even for adults. With all the mini-games, it's the perfect MMO to play if you know you have less than an hour to spend online. But do not be fooled, you can easily sink 8 hours straight into this baby if you do not pull yourself away.
EverQuest II: WoW owes a lot of its roots to EverQuest, and while I only logged into the original for about 40 seconds, only to log out in disgust at the graphics, I do own EverQuest II and my SOE Station Access account also gives me access to it. I tried it twice, made a character, but the bad-pseudo-realism was too creepy (like Tom Hanks in the "Polar Express" to quote Frank in "30 Rock"). The animations were also not natural. i played for less than 1 hour and logged off. I still want to try it someday since it's supposed to be a decent game and the franchise has a solid history in the MMO world.
Lord of the Rings Online: I bought LOTRO a few months after it launched but never activated or played it. I'm not a big LOTR zealot, I loved the movies, partially read the books but the game seemed nice enough to grab. However it seems to have a LOT of content and I fear I would have to sacrifice WoW for a while to truly appreciate LOTRO and I'm not ready for that yet. Maybe someday I will be.
DDO Unlimited: I was a huge AD&D 2nd Edition fan back in high school and also in college. I loved the Baldur's Gate, Icewind Dale, Planescape Torment and Neverwinter Nights PC games. I was really happy when I heard that D&D was gonna have its own MMO, but the "Eberron" setting was a huge turn off. True D&D = Forgotten Realms, and they really should have built the MMO there. Now that DDO Unlimited is Free-to-Play, I figured I should at least check it out. I downloaded it and installed it at home. Now I need to find some time away from WoW holidays and achievements to play it.

There are more MMOs intriguing me, like Aion, Champions Online and Fallen Earth, but I did not buy them yet. So let me ask you dear readers, which of these games should I kick myself to play? Why? And which games or MMOs are on your shelf or hard drive that you wish you found the time to play?

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The Shapeshifter : Champions Online, Maintenance Tuesday

Maintenance Tuesday "I have a Real-Life": MMO Games I Want to Play