Slipstream

Thank you, Jef, for saying what I could not.

I am saving up for the next expansion.

Many of the comments so far address things that are largely out of the control of the gamers themselves. Like most things, I think the answer to this question lies in achieving balance in your own life.

While it will never be possible to recapture the exact sense of wonder you experienced when you first encountered an MMO, you can reinvigorate your enthusiasm for them by dropping them entirely for a while. Pretend they don't exist for a while. Rekindle your love for the other activities that used to occupy your free time. Or better yet, find something new to explore. Not only will you likely find that you missed doing those old activities, or you found something new to love, but when you finally do decide to come back to MMOs, you will be viewing them through a fresh set of eyes.

Seems to me that a lot of people were pretty foolish to be placing their trust in someone named Bad Bobby. What exactly were they expecting to happen?

Agreed.

Here are some key points to remember when trying to cut through the telecoms' misinformation campaign:

Network Neutrality protections have existed for the entire history of the
Internet.

Network discrimination through a “tiered Internet” will severely curtail
consumer choice, giving consumer control over the Internet to the network owners.

Network discrimination through a “tiered Internet” will undermine
innovation, investment, and competition.

Network discrimination through a “tiered Internet” will fundamentally
alter the consumer’s online experience by creating fast and slow lanes for Internet content.

No one has a “free ride” on the Internet. Network operators have the
revenue streams to support infrastructure development.

Telephone companies have received billions of dollars in public subsidies
over the years to support network build-out.

There is little competition in the broadband market, certainly not enough to
punish anti-competitive behavior.

Consumers will bear the costs for network infrastructure regardless of
whether there is Network Neutrality or not.

Investing in increased bandwidth is the most efficient way to solve network
congestion problems; discrimination creates an incentive to maintain scarcity.

Network owners have explicitly stated their intent to scrap Network
Neutrality guarantees and build business models based on network discrimination.

The House and Senate telecom bills will not deter discrimination, and even
tie the hands of the FCC from ever preventing it.

The organizations supporting Network Neutrality represent a broad,
nonpartisan, coalition that joins right and left, commercial and noncommercial.

Regulation is not socialism. Regulation exists to prevent the most egregious corporate abuses from destroying society. Calling for too many regulations is extremism, but calling for no regulations is also extremist. We don't need more extremism. We need common sense and common decency to prevail.

Here is a good explanation of net neutrality in a nutshell, and why it is important.

"Net Neutrality has been part of the Internet since its inception. Pioneers like Vint Cerf and Sir Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the World Wide Web, always intended the Internet to be a neutral network. And non-discrimination provisions like Net Neutrality have governed the nation's communications networks since the 1920s.

But as a consequence of a 2005 decision by the Federal Communications Commission, Net Neutrality -- the foundation of the free and open Internet -- was put in jeopardy. Now, cable and phone company lobbyists are pushing to block legislation that would reinstate Net Neutrality.

Writing Net Neutrality into law would preserve the freedoms we currently enjoy on the Internet. For all their talk about "deregulation," the cable and phone giants don't want real competition. They want special rules written in their favor."

There's a lot of misinformation being spread by well-funded opponents of net neutrality-i.e.the telecom giants who will benefit the most from killing it. Fortunately, millions of people from across the political spectrum have banded together to clarify the confusion. You can read more at http://www.savetheinternet.com/

I started SWG on the very first day as a crafter, and never picked up a weapon from that point on. The options offered in the pre-NGE made it possible to have a rich and fully developed game experience without ever having to resort to combat. Crafting, running a business, and being part of a city community were all I needed. The only other game I can think of that made this possible is A Tale in the Desert.

At the same time, even though I did not participate in combat, it added to my enjoyment greatly, knowing that there was a full-fledged galactic civil war going on all around me. Other players were doing things completely different than I was, yet were having just as much fun doing it. To me, that defines a good game world, the option to be your own person, not fit into some pre-defined role.

Ideally, both. Developer-created content would serve as the foundation upon which to set the tone and setting for the world, and enable newcomers to get into it quickly without feeling lost. They could occasionally add more to develop an overarching through-story.

But the heart of the game should be player-generated. The developer would provide the tools necessary that make that possible, and perhaps discretely guide it in the right direction if necessary. By content, I don't just mean quests and stories that people follow, and then turn in for points and gold. Players should be able to impact the economy, politics, social structures, the environment, the goods sold etc. to a certain degree. That is where the best stories will come from.

Yes, there will be more junk to sift through, but you would also have the joy of discovering something truly wonderful. It would be a living, changing world, not just an amusement park attraction that runs on a defined track, triggering stimuli on cue.