I quit EQ just before Christmas. I Loved some aspects of the game, and hated others.

Playing regularly with a group you know, people you actively seek out online, is the best experience going. The reason I quit is that you need to stay together in terms of level, or the group spends too much time trying to protect the weakest members of the group (If you get too far from the main group level you dont even get experience for the kills). As I liked to play several characters I lost touch with any group all my characters were weak compared to their one character they played nearly all the time.

I ended up with 8 characters ranging from level 13 to level 20, where they ended up with one at level 40+ and maybe one or two others they played infrequently.

Playing solo is one of the least enjoyable aspects of playing a mmorpg, I ended up playing too often in groups of strangers, you still feel out of the group even if they are happy for you to join. A lot of interaction will be based on prior shared experiences.

EQ is biased towards people who get pleasure from being the first to reach a high level, complete a difficult quest, etc. When you get to the mid teens and into your twenties the risk / reward that got you hooked on the game, starts to swing too far to the risk side, and consequently I found it frustrating to solo past those levels. In a group you maintain the risk / reward balance, so the addiction continues.

The game is all about risk and reward - you risk losing experience by taking on a monster around the same level as yourself, if you win you get a great big feel good by getting experience and loot. It\'s a guaranteed addiction so long as you get the right balance between risk and reward.

I loved doing quests, but most were impossible solo, or they would give a pathetic reward for the level you needed to be to complete them solo. I quit because you could not get the enjoyment being a solo character, and my inability to decide on a single character to play, I loved the different aspects of the characters. I did not want to sneak around as a rogue all the time, or be an enchanter all the time, or be a Warrior all the time.

The best characters for me were the Necromancers ( I played 3 - Iksar, Human, Dark Elf) and the Beastlord, both of these character types have a good pet the meant that together we could take on some higher level monsters before the risk / reward went too far to risk. My Iksar Necromancer and Vah Shir Beastlord were the only characters that I could get to level 20 to give them a surname.

If I had met a group of people like myself who always wanted to play multiple characters, then I would still be playing EQ now. We would have been able to group regularly and form the in game friendships that really make a mmorpg a fantastic game to play.

My greatest hope for a mmorpg is that any character can learn any skill from any class so you can mold a character to be exactly what you want. My AD&D characters are never single class characters, they are usually comprised of two or three classes, one main, one about 50% of the main and often a third to get access to the base level skills of a third class.

Just my two pennies worth, while desperately waiting to see the next release of Planeshift. Keep up the good work everyone, it\'s looking great so far.

Brian