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What kinds of experiences do players find the most memorable in an MMO? What is it that brings back the most salient memories once the game experience itself has past and the dust settles? In this article, we'll take a look through what players described to be their most memorable MMO experiences. As we will see, these experiences are almost always social experiences. Even in the cases where achievement is a strong component of the experience, it is the social aspect of achievement that players emphasize.
Achievements
Goal-oriented or achievement-oriented experiences were the primary category that most of the narratives fell under.
Team Achievements
Within this category, most players described an achievement in a social context. The "against all odds" scenario was one that was recounted by players across a wide variety of games.
While playing EverQuest (the original) my constant group had just moved into a new territory. We were engaged in fighting some regular mobs when suddenly the baddest mob in that territory attacked us. Now we had already been killed once or twice by that mob, so our natural reaction was to run. But, one of our members had been rooted in the previous engagement. I was the tank, so I engaged to give time to my companion for the root to break. My group returned and we fought the baddest mob in the region and beat it. My heart still picks up a beat when I remember that fight. [WoW, M, 45]
After playing WoW for about a year, my friends and I joined up with another small guild and headed into The Core. We all worked hard as hell to succeed, and put in many hours out of game in order to advance the group in MC. On about our sixth attempt on Lucifron we killed him. I've never felt so elated. I've competed on sports teams, worked hard academically, and played many another video game, but I've never felt so elated, such a sense of accomplishment. [WoW, M, 20]
My most memorable experience is with my guild, Team Spirit, in The Saga of Ryzom. We trekked across the World of Ryzom to reach an Outpost War. We were helping to defend the outpost from it's attackers and there were supposedly many people going to the war. Upon arriving at the outpost we found that many who had pledge their support to the defense of the outpost had not arrived. We were 30 minutes into a two hour battle and the outpost was almost lost. We fought long and hard and coordinated our healing and attacks and manage to barely pull off a victory. It was a great experience having entered into a battle where all hope was lost and pull out a victory. It felt like we were the cavalry from the old westerns that arrives just in the nick of time! [Saga of Ryzom, M, 40]
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