And so the days turn to weeks, and the weeks roll over and over and become churning months and weary years, and WTF??? Q2 2007 already? zOMG! Ultima Online is 10, Everquest and Asheron's Call are 8 and Anarchy Online is 6, and I've played them all, for approximately as long. In spite of this, I'm seem to be showing no signs of growing up, getting a life and transferring my obsessive addictive compulsive tendencies to something more respectable like Playing Golf, Watching Television, or Solitary and Determined Alcohol Abuse.

Idle chatting one night in the EVE Corp recently, ended up in one of those 'I'll tell you mine you you tell me yours' moments, during which many RL Ages were revealed. While most were in their mid 20s to late 30s, one member turned out to be in their mid 50s, which turned out to be a lot less shocking than one would expect, and somewhat hopeful too - there's no reason I should expect to suddenly stop gaming, and more specifically PC MMO gaming, any time in the next twenty-five years, or more, save sudden accident (Eyes gouged out by Raw Spaghetti, etc) or radical change of circumstance. (RL Fallout-style Apocalypse, etc)

Mind you, I can't see myself being interested in any of the current titles I'm playing that long. Imagine, logging into receive a 25 year Veteran Reward in Guild Wars, EVE Online, Planetside, or similar. A more stark reminder of a life-time squandered, I can't imagine, and very few people stay in the same job that long these days. But these games don't seem to have a life expectancy in the classical sense. I can only think of two that have actually died outright; Earth and Beyond, and Asheron's Call 2, and in both cases, those were killed, rather than died of old age, both being well under the age of the Elder Statesmen of the genre, Meridian 59, UO and EQ, all still merrily bobbling along today, shaking their sticks at the disrespectful youngsters and pretending they can't hear us properly.

Hardware costs permitting, these games are potentially immortal, and I bet it doesn't take that many subscriptions to keep an MMO going. Net Devil's veteran 2001 twitch-based Elite-variant, Jumpgate still exists today, and last I looked  had about 50 Concurrency, which is evidently enough $9,95s a month to pay the ISP. My previous gloom about Planetside will probably be proven wrong, if Jumpgate is anything to go by, especially as SOE are unlikely to want the public humiliation of having a game vanish on them. Planetside probably passed under EA or Turbine's 'Kill It' threshold long ago.

So a 25 year veteran reward isn't so unlikely, but I'll be damned if I'm going to stick around for one! To the Future! Here's a list of upcoming titles that I'm personally quite looking forward to in some degree. (All dates taken from MMORPG.com's Master List)

Pirates of the Burning Sea - 1st June 2007
Aside from the fact that Pirates are Cool, this has a lot riding for it in my view. Gameplay is most likely to resemble EVE Online, on the sea, but promises to be almost entirely unlike anything we've seen so far, including most notably, a time-period completely outside the experience of most us MMO scrubs. I'm pretty much done firing my magic missile at the darkness these days, so a decent bit of Historical Re-enactment is sounding very appealing.

Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning - Q4 2007
No The Lord of the Rings Online: Shadows of Angmar or Age of Conan? Am I mad? Nope, just bored of Orcs and Wizards. Having said that, this Games Workshop take on the genre is likely to be my one concession in the coming months and years, as me and GW go way back. I've always loved the lavish grim slant they'd given their High Fantasy World, but could never afford, or justify, the cost of all the table top miniatures, so having it all on the PC for $10 a month (or whatever) sounds good.

Huxley - '2007'
I don't know a lot about this one to be honest, but what I do know, is that it's going to be a toss-up between this, and Tabula Rasa, (below) as to which gets to satisfy the MMOFPS urges that I'll be having soon enough, now Planetside and I have gone our separate ways. Huxley looks a damn sight better than PS does at any rate, but how it'll actually play, is anyone's guess.

Tabula Rasa - Unknown
Says unknown, but probably this year some time, as they're taking closed beta apps on the website. Another MMOFPS type of thing, like Huxley. I've no idea which I like best at this point, given my minimal research. I doubt I'll be playing and paying both though, so some tough competition coming up here I think. Probably it'll be whichever gets to me first - I'm not that fussy!

Star Gate: Worlds - Unknown
I choose this over Star Trek: Online anyday, as although the latter is going to be a hotbed of gleefully ironic 'Anti-RP' from the word go, that novelty will fade, and out of the two TV Shows, I always thought the basic premise of Stargate would make for a better game experience than modern Star Trek's usual high-handed sanctimonious moralising. (Unless Star Trek is going all Kirk, (which I doubt) in which case it'll be Awesome. KHAAAAAAAN!) Again, no goblins here!

Atriarch - Unknown
Hard to explain this oddball sci-fi MMO, or why I'm so fascinated by it, but they've been in development for the best part of the last eight years, and are still not beta ready. It's either the longest running hoax in the MMO world, or something truly special, and I'm quite curious to find out which.

In the more remote future, there's a Warhammer 40k game looming, which I'm quite up for, but apart form that, the rest of the list, the various 'DarkRuin MageHero of The Dragon War Online: The Coming of Quests for Dominion of Fire' type offerings of the MMO Coming Soon list, all seem the same to me. Also no mention of Multiverse, or Areae - I think my foray in Second Life, while instructive has rather brought home to me the need for actual games in my games. Too much freedom can be a bad thing, I think, and I can only spend so long just sitting about chatting, no matter how swanky-looking my avatar is.

A bold future ahead, mostly involving Lazerguns, by the look of it. Pew pew! Mind you, I typically have the backbone of a jellyfish, so there's bound to be all manner of relapses and revisits in the months and years ahead, but the above list is pretty much what I'm 'looking forward to' these days...