I play to have fun with my RL friends who play with me. I rarely group with people I don't know...in fact, I usually despise doing so. But now and then I'll meet someone and become online friends with them. I don't discuss deeply personal things with them, like I would with my RL friends online. I do enjoy levelling, getting good equipment/items, becoming more powerful...but that's not the 'be all, end all' of my reason for gaming. Often, I'm behind my friends in level/experience. I also love exploring or finding that quest that some don't know about. But again, it's not the raison d'etre of my play. It's a combination of all of this. I currently play WoW, instead of CoH, because the majority of my RL friends play it. We move from MMO to MMO with each other. Rarely do we have some playing one and others playing another. We started in EQ. For a small time, many went to DAoC, but they quickly returned to EQ. Many years passed, and then we moved to CoH. We were all in CoH until WoW came out. I hadn't expected to change from CoH to WoW with my friends, mainly because I usually don't like Blizzard products. But w/o my friends, MMOs just aren't as much fun. So I tried WoW and loved it instantly. So, once again, we are all together...in WoW. [WoW, M, 30]

My husband, son and I play. It's a wonderful family experience that we can share all the exciting moments with each other...even if we don't actually group together. Sometimes we play more than we should, but to me it's no different than going out and partying more than you should. I find it nice that I can stay safely at home, with my family and enjoy our time together. [WoW, F, 45]

My girlfriend lives some distance away, and due to flight costs, we do not get to spend a lot of time together. We speak on the phone everyday for hours, and we found an MMORPG is just another great way to spend time together. I think it is much more social than people give credit. Neither of us are adjusting our glasses and are sitting on the edge of our seats when we play, she's normally a swimmer and i'm a bass player--we just enjoy spending time together. [WoW, M, 18]