Originally posted by Beatnik59

The fact that RL age matters so much to so many shows me that the promise of this genre is unfulfilled.  Because if we played the games in the way they were originally intended to be played, the character is the thing that should matter, not the player who plays it.

>>>>>SNIP because it didn't relate to what I wanted to say>>>>>

But to all of us in our 20's and 30's, do we really have anything in common with people in their 50's and 60's, or beyond?  Retired folks have even less ambition than teenagers, and are probably even less interesting to talk with than the kids.

in 30 years, I predict that many of us are going to be playing MMOs.  After all, you have a lot of time when you retire, and a lot of time that can be devoted to MMOs.  And if the guilds really aren't interested in hanging with the teenage crowd, think about how stone cold uninterested they'd be with the prospect of hanging with your old geriatric ass?

Something to think about.

You might be surprised.  My guild in LoTRO doesn't mind that I'm 53 and two steps away from filing for disability which makes me a pretty bad player.  But I carefully stay away from WoW and I explained the entire situation to them before I joined (being carefull to look at a 'casual player' guild.)

That site drives me crazy.  I signed up about 2 weeks ago for closed betta.  It won't verify my account, there's no hook on the site to email anyone for help, there's no hook when your login fails to try and reach anyone and you can't post on the forum if you can't sign in. So I COULD be in closed beta but don't know it because I forgot the password, or I remembered the password but the verifrication didn't work properly.  Who knows?  How would anyone find out?  Looks like I'm not playing the game.

Oh cool, this sounds great!  A friend and I watched several youtube vids of Rohan Online because we enjoyed the engine behind the graphics - the clothing moves with the character instead of being stiff and lifeless.  That's also one of the things I like about Cabal.  But when we checked it out, Rohan Online wasn't available in an English version.  I am SO going to look this up!

THANKS for bringing it up!!!!!!!!   

Lord of the Rings Online was absolutely the BEST game for someone to be introduced to MMORPGs.  Thier tutorial was fantastic, without it I would never have figured out how to play.  I still have problems with other games because I'm not as familiar with MMORPGs as the creators of the average game figure I should be - but then I'm the wrong generation and sex to catch on quickly. (53 and female)

Its still one of my personal favs, but I can understand that those that are into PvP, etc wouldn't like it.  Thankfully, that wasn't what the game was developed for and that's why it got such high reviews.  The Reviewers recognize it as being a non-standard MMORPG and I think, graded it as such.

I am not positive, but I THINK I remember them (LoTRO employees) calling casual players people who averaged 10 hours a week.  But I am not certain about this.

I was playing about 2 hours a day five days a week when I first started but because of playing ability (well, actually LACK of playing ability) I only managed to get  5 characters with one at 33, one at 24, one at 22 and the other two in the high teens.  I'm one of those people who will leave (LoTRO was my first MMORPG so I'm now having a ton of fun with the free ones) and then come back.  Playing others just reinforces my "WOW" when I get back into LoTRO and see how immersive the graphics are.  I'm thrilled that they don't have a lot of PvP, I hate it.  So I guess I'm their target customer, they wanted people who were casual and even those who hadn't played before, and with me, that's what they got.

30 years ago a guy in Junior college that wanted to impress me asked me over to a friend's house for a game of D&D.  He didn't get to first base but we became a solid D&D group for about 18 months until jobs became too time consuming.  That D&D group though, led to a large group of friends.  Since then I've left Florida, Traveled al over the US and then returned just 8 years ago to Florida again.  I've picked up with two of the people from the original group (the rest have moved out of state) and I now hold role-playing games in my home every Saturday night.  They aren't D&D games anymore but there's no doubt in my mind that without D&D we wouldn't have the role-playing games we play.  We also wouldn't have the same type of MMORPGs we have.  If anything, they would be more military and science fiction oriented (created by people who played war miniatures) and everyone would be longing for a fantasy game.

Millions of people around the world owe Gary Gygax more than they will ever know.  His life changed the world.

For a free MMORPG - I like Perfect World.

I don't get a lot of lag in the cities.  I've noticed a lot of people getting lag when I don't though.  I suspect it may have something to do with how your ram is set up?  Or maybe your server connection?  I have a cable connection in a neighborhood with view other cable computer users.

Try checking the comments on the start up page - I think a few days ago they had something about some of the fire walls erroneously reporting a worm in the start up.  Other than that - check the forums.  Fraid that's all I can suggest.  I'm playing okay.