World of Warcraft: Forever Beta

I started playing MMOs in late 2008 by which time the genre was clearly established and dominated by one particular title, World of Warcraft. I chose to play The Lord of the Rings Online, mainly because of my love for the intellectual property the game is based upon. I still play LOTRO today. However, I was very aware of popularity and significance of WoW at the time. It pretty much set the rules for how you design a MMO and it did much to move on from the previous gameplay parameters set by such titles as Ultima Online and EverQuest. It was also the MMO that every other developer was trying to beat. Another compelling factor regarding WoW is that everyone I knew at the time was either actively playing it or had done so at some point. It was for many gamers, the go-to title for socialising. Finally around early 2010, I tried a free trail of WoW to “see what all the fuss was about”. Simply put, I felt that it wasn’t for me.