“Oh, well I felt like playing LOTRO tonight, but I noticed you were doing something else, so I’ll just roll an alt since we agreed not to level our mains without one another.”
…
“Oh, I noticed you’ve been having fun on your alt – what is that? A [healer]? Well, I just rolled up a [tank] while you were doing something else so that your [healer] has someone to run around with later.”
…
“Oh, I noticed you were playing your alt and I logged on to join you, but my inventory’s full of crafting goodies and the superior [implement]’s leagues away from you; I’ll catch up with you when I’m done.”
…
“Oh, I noticed you were online crafting and I’m leagues away from the superior [implement], so I logged off and killed some time doing something else; let me know when you’re done.”
…
And this is how given a game we have fun playing together, set in a world we adore, with a price tag we can’t refuse, we have two level 35s, two level 28s, and two level 26s between us, we forgot to log in to pay our housing upkeep last month, I’m playing Champions Online, and Mr. Randomessa is playing Skyrim.
Casual Is As Casual Does 
I wish I had that good an excuse for why I made another alt on Pirates of the Burning Sea. Unfortunately, I have to go with my old standby of “because I didn’t have a(n) X yet.”
And I should probably log into LOTRO and pay my housing upkeep.
How is POTBS these days? I tried it many moons ago (shortly after it went F2P) but wound up sort of hopelessly lost in the sandbox features.
It’s been quite awhile now since I’ve played any of the currently available MMOs, and this post brought forth a type of melancholy nostalgia… somewhat akin to the feeling I always used to get when the PSA commercial would play that had the Native American standing in the middle of a trash heap along side a roadway, with a single tear falling down his cheek, imploring folks to not litter.
This post fully illustrates that, for me at least, there is no going back, only forward… and hopefully GW2 will be a new beautiful land, with proper caretakers… and no extremely sad old men tugging at my heart strings.
Imagine an MMO where not only the content will scale to try to accomodate your charater’s level, but the actual characters in group together will scale to be on somewhat more of even footing… and the only time you create an “alt” is because you’re curious about different class or race.
Honestly, arguments about whether or not ANet can pull this off are completely moot at this point to me. The simple fact that they are TRYING is more than enough to get my full and unfettered approval above all others.
Personally, I can’t bring myself to suffer through any of the “old” MMOs any longer… not with the knowledge that something else is on the relatively near horizon, but I have the “benefit” (if you can call it that) of old age. The relative percentage of “time” that 1 year represents changes significantly depending on if you are 5 years old, or 10, 25, or over 50.
Imagine an MMO where not only the content will scale to try to accomodate your charater’s level, but the actual characters in group together will scale to be on somewhat more of even footing… and the only time you create an “alt” is because you’re curious about different class or race.
Sounds positively dreamy, indeed. *sigh*
Oddly enough, I can find the fun in hopping from game to game for whatever percentage of “playing an MMO” itch they each satisfy until GW2 comes out; the disappointing bit is when Mr. Randomessa and I are trying to enjoy the game together and the game seems determined to make it difficult for us to do so.
Now that LOTRO has become largely a solo affair with each of us (albeit a fun one, just not the one we thought we were signing up for), we’re wondering “to what end?”
Looking forward to Star Trek Online going F2P, at least!