The Great MMO Purge of 2009

That time has come again, to free my overloaded hard drive of games (MMO and otherwise) and software that I’m not playing, and won’t be, for the foreseeable future. Here’s the rundown, of what I’m ditching, what I’m keeping, and one new (re)addition:

Age of Conan: Uninstalled. I love the gameplay of AoC, but Champions, for me, has a similar appeal, despite the different genre. I may get back to this one eventually, but in the meantime, out the door it goes in the name of saving space.

Champions Online: Stays. Obviously, it being my main title right now.

City of Heroes: Uninstalled. I have a 30-day timecard for CoH siting around, and I intend to use it, although not right away. It’ll be interesting, I think, to give it a run in six months or a year and see how it compares to a Champions Online that has some seasoning.

D&D Online: Stays. It’s now free, and I plan to play it. It’s my hope that as a free-to-play title it’ll earn some of the attention I think it deserves.

EVE Online: RE-installed. I’m getting the itch again, and if I can’t drop a subscription fee right now, I may do a trial in the near future to get it scratched.

EverQuest: Uninstalled. My interest in EQ was more a lark than anything else, and didn’t last long. I don’t see myself re-installing it.

EverQuest II: Uninstalled. Probably the best game I will not be playing. I may come back to it, but not soon; I think it lacks the same spark that the lack of is felt in LotRO and WAR, despite being a very full-featured game in most other respects. I do not foresee reinstalling it at this time… but if any of the decisions I’m making here are going to get reversed, it’ll be this one.

Guild Wars: Uninstalled. I’m not sure why I re-installed it in the first place, to be honest. Guild Wars is a good game for what it is, but it doesn’t really tickle any itches of mine. A probably permanent deletion. On the other hand, I’m very interested in seeing what Guild Wars 2 amounts to.

Lord of the Rings Online: Uninstalled. I think LotRO is a decent game, although it took me several cracks at it to form that opinion. At some point, I would like to actually buy the new expansion, subscribe and give it a solid shakedown for a couple of months, but I’m waiting for the Mirkwood expansion, if not for the Riders of Rohan expansion that it should have been. Besides, uninstalling it freed up a titanic 21.6 GB on by hard drive; it was the bulkiest MMO I had.

Star Wars Galaxies: Uninstalled. Like EQ, my interest in it was something of a lark, and I never got into it. Fallen Earth (which I might eventually try) seems to approximate the old, pre-NGE SWG mechanically, and SWTOR should replace it thematically. Can’t see ever reinstalling it.

Vanguard: Uninstalled. This one pained me the most, as I saw myself, for a long while, as a champion of Vanguard. I was one of the people who spoke out in favor of the game when it wasn’t popular to do so. Nevertheless, my last crack at Vanguard didn’t leave me with a warm fuzzy, and I suspect I may have played my last of it.

Warhammer Online: Uninstalled. The Disappointment of 2008 really didn’t get much better in 2009. The populations issues were addressed, too little too late, and even then, it’s still about half of an MMO. My contempt for it is so complete that I still have about 3 weeks left on my subscription.

World of Warcraft: Stays. I will get back to WoW sooner rather than later. Besides, it’s a big headache to re-install and patch, to the extent that it’s worth keeping around for that alone.

So that’s it. Four MMOs remain: WoW, EVE, DDO and Champions. That’ll be it for a while, I think.