[DISCUSSION] - What has been your 'gamer journey' until ED?

[Arkronis]

So yeah, very curious as to what everyone gaming journey has been from the point of your first exposure to Space Sims, perhaps originating from the original Elite in '84 until what will be Eliteangerous. See where the influences of previous games have led you through to this point.

So in my case; A very breif go of Elite in 1984... look I was 4, didn't have a fricken clue ... From here I moved on to consoles (NES, SNES, MEGADRIVE) until coming over to the Amiga at the age of 12 in '92.

In '92 I rediscovered 'elite' in the form of its sequel Frontier Elite 2. And I fell in love. Spending an entire summer hols playing that one until I had achieved my then goal of the Puma Clipper, and all the trimmings - glorious!! I had also played an extensive amount of Microproses f117a flight sim. Pretty much all I played for any length of time on the Amiga. FFE was in development at this point, but by the time it had released I had sold my Amiga 500 (don't think it could run FFE either even if I hadn't). I followed FFE so much; every Magazine that featured it, I bought. Didn't have the internet at this point so couldn't really follow it any other way

By '97 I had started to earn my own cash and this is when my PC gaming 'career' (if you like) took off. I was very late to the internet so I again missed out on getting clued up on FFE on PC or FE2 for it... (my mother didn't want it in the house, in fear it would affect my studies!! *Faceplam!* :O ) I was hungry for a space game, and for me this was temporarily filled by a RTS called Homeworld - fantastic game at the time (still is imo). Once that was over, I was on the prowel for something else, something bigger and more expansive - something multiplayer.

Whats that!? MMO - what is this "M-M-O" you speak of!? - 2001. I read about and saw some in game video of some of EVE: ONLINES ships being demonstrated; I had to know more... (SPACE - CHECK!, MULTIPLAYER - CHECK!, EXPANSIVE 'UNIVERSE' - CHECK!)... Played that for a year, but up until its release, I got curious of these 'other' MMOs (having built up a 'Corp' with others pre and post-release).. DAOC. From here on out, it was a heavy diet of MMOs, with a sprinkling of RTS and FPSs in the middle somewhere (Half Life 1, 2, UT, and so on forward). One year of EVE: Online and I had had enough and moved on to Saga of Ryzom. Got pulled back in to EVE after a year's hiatus, and spent another year with old corp-mates -until losing interest (it just didn't grab me for long (my definition of 'long' changed btw in 2007).

Beta Testing MMOs was what snagged much of my time during EVE in part to start with, but becoming a bigger aspect as time went on post. Quite a few, including the ill fated Dark and Light (a missed opportunity here!).

2007 saw my introduction in to LOTRO (Lord of the Rings: Online). With the then intent not to lead a group again.. pfft, that didn't last too long. No sooner had I started playing, the "Kin" I was a member of began to die out (leader inactivity) - and with no real drive or community tools (a crappy website that was as inactive and unusable) saw me taking the reigns - building a meaningful website, and reforming the kin. LOTRO and the KIN I built along with supporting Officers started in July of 2007 and still exists now. Peaking in 2012. My own interest in playing LOTRO daily began to wane toward the Mid End of 2012 (5 years as the mainstay game, madness right?!) - which saw myself and a chunk of the KIN move on to newer pastures within Guild Wars 2 - still playing now, along with other MP games with the kin/group haveing played together in other games along the way during our time in LOTRO (CIV5, and L4D2 to name a couple - peppering the landscape with some other SP titles over the years)).

Has to be said, I heard of the cries for a new Elite from Frontier, 'Elite IV'. But, I admit, my checking was growing somewhat relaxed as it seemed to be increasingly unlikely - like every couple of years or so I would get that 'PANG'/'INKLING' to see what's rumbling. So my infrequency of checking meant I missed the Kickstarter for ED kicking off, and wasn't really until earlier this year that I actually heard about ED being in development and becoming a reality, and... well... I was just ecstatic. A modern day ELITE with all the processing and graphical prowess of modern hardware and an online option too!!! I just HAD to support it in the way I could and be a part of it's development in any way I can (well, testing).

So this, in final, has been my 'breif' history. In my mind, I have come full circle; Sort of 'come home' to what I fell in love with about games, to what I love (science, space exploration) - and what this franchise enabled me to do; and what I have been hungry for again since FE2 (as it was what I played most of in the series), an itch that had gone un-scratched for well over 20 years...

 

[ubermick]

Ooof. Well, I didn't have a computer or access to computer games beyond going to the arcade, and pumping 10p pieces into coinops. Until I finally convinced my dad to get me an Amiga 500 when I was 15 (1988) on the premise that I'd use it for schoolwork. While I did mess about with Deluxe Paint II (and actually ended up now as a graphic designer as a result) I fell in love with a lot of the games - Kick Off 2, anything by the Bitmap Brothers, and of course, Frontier. I absolutely LOVED Frontier, and spent far too much time on there.

Later on I decided I outgrew things like games when I could go out with the lads, snag some cans from the off license, chase girls, and the like. Didn't play another game until I got a Playstation for Christmas from my then girlfriend in 1999 I think it was, after I'd moved to the USA. Replaced it with a PS2, and now have a PS3, will probably harass the wife for a PS4 for Christmas. All I ever play on consoles have been FIFA, various Grand Theft Auto games, and the Assassins Creed series. I tried Call of Duty and a couple of the other big names, but never got into them.

I use Macs exclusively for work, but my current computer is a hackintosh. Couldn't afford a Mac Pro (well, suppose I could, but was unwilling to lash out over four grand on one) so built a PC that I could run the Mac OS on. So that sort of introduced me to the notion of playing games on the PC, but never really did it. So my ear wasn't really to the ground in the gaming world, so it wasn't until I saw something in passing that an old mate of mine back home in Ireland posted on my Facebook page, talking about Elite Dangerous. Had a peek, but had already missed the Kickstarter at that point but it definitely got my attention.

Ironically, a few months before I even heard of ED, I picked up a beautiful Amiga 1200 in great condition… PAL but with an American keyboard and power supply, because I wanted to play Frontier again. That got put up for sale the second - literally the SECOND - I saw the capital ship battle video on Youtube, and I started ordering parts for a gaming PC. (Similar build to Arkonis' there, actually!)

Sat on the fence for a month toying with the idea of getting the beta, but saw that it just kept getting more and more delayed, so decided to just preorder the game at some point, and get in for the gamma stage. But as soon as the initial Alpha was released to Premium Betans, I caved and bought the Premium Beta. And an X52 Pro. And a gaming headset. And probably a TrackIR. And maybe another monitor or two.

 

[gazzareth]

After Elite on the Acorn Electron, came Elite on the C64 followed by Silent Service.

Nothing significant after that until I switched to PC and then Carrier Command and Elite Plus, then Frontier. Spent a whole heap of time on GTA (the whole series) and even more time and masses of cash on Flight Sim 2000 up to FSX. In between messing around with X-Beyond, X-2 & X-3....

After that got into Assassins Creed and the very badly run beta for Carrier Command, now very much into Elite .. .. ..

Lots of other stuff missed out, but they're the "main" ones.

G

 

[Asp Explorer]

the very badly run beta for Carrier Command, now very much into Elite .. .. ..

That was such a travesty - enormous potential completely wasted, the Beta was entirely one-way as the devs paid essentially no attention to any criticism or suggestion from their testers.

At one point it was on sale on Steam for $3

It was a complete mess, and died a death accordingly. A real pity, and I hope FD can learn from BI's mistakes.

 

[Hellhawk666]

My introduction to space games was playing Star Trek on the Cyber mainframe at university in 1976. I shouldn't have had access to the computer but a friend who was studying computer science let me use his timeshare account, and I was hooked on computer games from that moment. Over the next couple of years I and several friends bought TRS80s, PET Commodores, Acorns & Sinclairs, and eventually Apple and IBM PCs. The first thing we always did was create a Star Trek program in whatever flavour of Basic was used.

In the 80s I discovered the original Elite and was overcome with joy that someone had finally created the game I'd always wanted to play. At that time I couldn't imagine anything ever being more sophisticated. How little I knew. I eventually settled on the IBM PC clone as my computer of choice, after a brief flirtation with Amstrad, and played the Frontier games on it. Through the 80s and 90s I think I tried just about every game that came out that had a picture of a spaceship on the box. I remember playing a lot of the Wing Commander franchise games. None really captured the sense of enormity and freedom that the Elite/Frontier games had, although the storylines of some were OK.

In this century I discovered MMOs and spent a lot of time playing EVE and Vendetta, as well as solo games like Homeworld (still one of the best games i've ever played) and Freelancer, for both of which I wrote mods. I could never understand why some of the big games developers like Bethesda didn't make a solo RPG based in space instead of rolling out endless fantasy world games. I guess that was just what the market wanted. ED is something I've anticipated for 30 years, even if I didn't realize it back then. A freeform space-based game that I can share with friends online. The fact that there are so many good games of this nature coming out now is fantastic. Finally I'm spoiled for choice instead of starving.

 

[Erik Marcaigh]

I'll try to keep mine short so it's easier to read!

C64 w/ Elite.. I was 17 or so. (Before that was the Atari 2600, of course!)

Then I built an Amiga 2000, bought Frontier, but couldn't get into it. The flight model was throwing me off, and I was more into MechWarrior and some of the other RPG games.

Then I went FPS when I got my first PC. Tribes was fun and took up a lot of my time. Eventually went to Baldur's Gate and Icewind Dale during my RPG phase. Played through Freelancer twice. Played a bit of Tie Fighter too.

Eventually bought Neverwinter Nights and got into the multiplayer/persistent world aspect, and then with 2 new found friends on one server, we built our own PW. I hosted it here for a bit over 3 years. Lots of fans and it was all I did on the computer.

Went through a divorce and gaming went to the wayside. I've been busy building up my own business, so I focus more on that. But I've enjoyed The Witcher (1 & 2), Battlefield, XCom, Far Cry, and Bioshock. I have a PS3 too, but don't really game on it.. the kids do.

And here I am, alpha testing ED and waiting to explore the universe like I used to do so many, many years ago!

 

[Kettle]

Too many to name but I'll start a little from beginning!. at 7 years old played Kaboom on Atari VCS 1977, Space Invader Arcade Machine 1978, Lunar Lander 1979, Pac Man 1980 then Spectrum 48k in 1981 with Pssst, Atic Atac, Sabre Wulf, Manic Miner etc then C64 somewhere in 1982/3. Mate had BBC Micro and we played it, then I had Amiga then PC 386 till this day PC 686 me think..

 

[Gelbrock]

ZX Spectrum 1984 - Elite, Football manager, Football Director, Commando, Bomb Jack, Attic attack, Samantha Fox strip poker,

Atari 1990 - Lotus esprit

Nintendo - 1993 - Mario carts, Super Tennis

Playstation 1 - Constructor

Playstation 2 - Time splitters, Grand theft

PC - 2008 - Trophy manager, Runescape, Utopia, Anno online, heros and Villagers, World of tanks, Elite 4

 

[Zarkon]

Wow. Just the flight sims? Here's a list of all the ones I remember playing. I was good at most of them but only finish or completed a few (of the ones that had endgames). I'm always looking for new things to discover in any gaming world I play in. I just love VR flight.

C64
Elite * / MS Flight Sim * / Space Rogue *
Amiga500
F/A-18 Interceptor / Wing Commander * / A10 Tank Killer / Elite II: Frontier * / Mercenary II: Damocles * / F-19 Stealth Fighter / Killing Cloud / Epic *
SNES
Star Trek Starfleet Academy *
N64
Pilotwings 64 * / Shadows of the Empire * / Rogue Squadron * / Star Fox 64 * / Diddy Kong Racing *
PlayStation
Colony Wars I and II *
PCs
MS Flight Sim 2000 / The Universal / Jump Gate * / Black Prophecy / X3: Terran Conflict * / Elite: Dangerous Alpha *

< * = games I completed and/or liked a lot. >

 

[Oculus]

c64 raid over moscow; elite

big break in gaming
doom got me back in to pc than another break

quake 2 ctf was my first online multiplayer. I was living in the UK then and used wireplay to connect.

I then played quake 3 then a big break again

quake live which I still play.....

And now Elite Dangerous.....

 

[Jason S]

Console, cannot remember but had very basic basket ball and pong like games.

Atari console - space invaders, asteroids, adventure etc

Atari 800 - Shamus, super sprint, alternate reality etc. I programmed games in this in 6502 assembler and basic

Spectrum - Elite, jet set willy, manic miner, jet PAC, etc + programmed games in this

MSX - not many games + programmed this

Dragon 32 - not many games

Atari ST - many games

Amiga - many games

N64 - many games most I got bored with quickly

Xbox - Halo was cool

PS3 - good machine but annoyed now that PS4 is not backwards compatible, will not be buying yet another console...

PC - civilization, Elite Dangerous Alpha, use it for programming games and work

Honestly I played so many games I cannot remember them all.

I also played most the early space sims like frontier and freelancer and others that I cannot remember names to and cannot remember on which platform but I think it was Amiga or Atari ST. Elite Dangerous is the first of my modern space sims as I did not try Eve or the X series games.

 

[Bumvelcrow]

Okay, this turning quite rubbish in my head and will probably deteriorate further in the journey to the screen, but:

Pong Clone: Age 5.

Spectrum: Didn't have it long enough to play any games other than type-ins.

Philips G7000: Horrible machine!

BBC: Elite (tape and disk versions) - still remember the C&VG review which gave it 7/10 , struggling to remember anything else. Oh, Mr Ee and Space Pilot (two shameless Program Power ripoffs!).

C64: Elite and Ultima 4 took up the best part of two years between them, by which time I'd moved on to:

Amiga: I loved the machine, but I can't really remember that many games I liked on it. Carrier Command has been previously mentioned, plus Midwinter and Elite of course (worst version ever... ). Lots of Infocom games.

PC: Elite CGA (decent conversion), Elite Plus (Grrr.... I got to Elite in about a week so something's wrong there. I don't count this in my great list of Elite version rankings). Frontier Elite 2, FFE (pre-patch ), lots of Ultimas (culminating in the one that shall not be mentioned), Morrowind (best game ever?). Many RPGs since my reflexes have deteriorated to the point I have to plan ahead to make it through doors. Lots of kickstarter backing of sequels to classics.

B

 

[kilvenny]

Bought Spectrum when it first came out with my grant while doing my degree. Best investment ever. Then came Lords of Midnight and Doomdarks Revenge and of course Elite as the highlights and there were plenty of other great games.
Went PC gaming Indy and Monkey island - those wonderful Lucas Arts games.
Took a long break changing nappies from the early nineties.
Discovered GT3 and played that series. Got into Lord of Ultima and basically lived on that for several years.
Then ED
So I feel like I have gone full circle.

 

[Yaffle]

<pre Elite was a selection of BBC games, Snowball being chief>

Elite 1984 - nearly cost me my O levels. Was a Deadly for ages. Then I think I discovered girls as that was the last BBC game I recall playing until 1989 and the arrival of the Amiga.

The Amiga had so many great games, but few space sims. Big time wasters were Dino Dini's Player Manager, Millennium 2.2, Carrier Command (I preferred the ST version), Colonial Conquest (on my mate's ST), Lemmings (2 player version still one of my favourite multiplayer games), Monkey Island, Ports of Call, Midwinter, then the real time killers of Railroad Tycoon and Civilization, Dune II, Deuteros, and eventually Frontier. In 1999 I had a small tumour form on my left cochlea nerves. This manifested as persistent vertigo, and I remember clearly playing Frontier when it first happened. After that I stepped away from the Amiga for a while. I lost my hearing and a balance organ.

In 2000 I built my first PC. I was still looking for the Elite-esque fix and I tried the first X game. It felt empty. Pretty, but empty and constrictive. I lost a lot of time in Black & White, Command & Conquer (several iterations), Railroad Tycoon II, and then Homeworld. The latter I really enjoyed. There is a section with Barber's Adagio for Strings (Agnus Dei) which I still recall with clarity.

I searched for a Star Wars game I enjoyed, but never really found one. For some reason X-Wing passed me by. Possibly because it wasn't Elite.

The problem with Homeworld was that it had an end, there was a story.

Then came many hours with the fairly simplistic but amusing C&C Generals, the vast and difficult Mediaeval Total War (then Rome).

About this time I moved to Bermuda, where software was expensive to buy and Steam was very limited/non existent. So I kept to old games until on a business trip to NY bought Civilization IV, which consumed a vast amount of time. I stumbled across the Realms Beyond forums and took to undertaking their challenges alone (very badly as it happens) but it really stretched the game out.

Back in the UK I stumbled across Fallout in a second hand games shop. Never tried Fallout 2, but 3 and then NV arrived. Despite thousands of hours playing both I don't think I have seen all of either

I remember searching for Elite from time to time, and getting the version from Ian Bell's web-page. I missed FFE in its entirety. Never even heard of it until I found Oolite quite by accident and the alioth wiki mentioned it. So Oolite and a tonne of oxp later has consumed a lot of time.

More recently I've been enjoying (okay, this is a bit sad) both Farm Simulator and Train Simulator. I tried Civ V but it's not as good as IV. Can't quite work out why.

Now here we are, back at the beginning. A new Elite where my imagination thinking some of the other ships were my mates (or school bullies when I shot them up) is a reality. It's odd; a lot of it is how I'd made those wire frames appear in my head. Some of it is much better - the station for example. The first game I'll actually play online with random strangers. I can't wait.

 

[Stormprooter]

1978 - Binatone TV Game (Pong: Tennis, Squash, 'Football' and some shooting games with a lightgun!)
1983 - CBS Coleco Vision Console (Donkey Kong, Smurf, Turbo, Zaxxon, Cosmic Avenger, Bezerk! and quite a few more...)
1985 - ZX Spectrum (Elite [of course], Jetpac, Manic Miner, Jet Set Willy, Lunar Jetman, Pssst, Cookie, Sabre Wulf, Underworld, Knight Lore, Alien8, Atic Atac, Trans Am, The Hobbit, Starglider and many more)
1990 - Sega Megadrive (Sonic the Hedgehog, Echo the Dolphin, Road Rash 2, Streets of Rage 2, Desert Strike)
1993 - PC (Frontier: Elite II, Doom, X-Wing Series, Starlancer, Freelancer, CoD series, Battlefield series and far too many more to list, and now full circle back to Elite: Dangerous)

 

[Susimetsa]

To put it as succinctly as possible:

1985 - Commodore 64 and Elite, Ultima IV, Civilization I were my first loves

late 80's early 90's -Amiga 500/1200 continued with Elite, Frontier: Elite II, Ultima IV/V, Pirates!, and Civilization II

Discontinued gaming sometime in early 90's.

late 90's - Purchased by first PC in 1996/7 and played a little bit of Civilization III and Frontier First Encounters. Got excited enough to write the Marcan Rayger fanfic novellas before the turn of the century.

mid-2000's - Got back in to gaming more fully with Sid Meier's Pirates! remake in 2004 or so. Started working at Hookedgamers.com.

I've mainly played Elder Scrolls games, Far Cry series, Mass Effect I&II, Civilization IV (not V)...

 

[Patrick_68000]

I discovered ED by chance. I was not a player. I had an Atari St and I looked for a game. I played between one and two years on FE2. Then years later, a few games on Nintendo 64 and PS2. For ten years I did not play

 

[Vulcan24v]

Early in the 80's I was working as a caretaker in the schools and went on relief to a small primary school over the summer break. After shining the whole place to within an inch of it's life I had 4 weeks to kill so I fired up some old BBC in the computer room and messed with "Frogger" and the like. Got me hooked on computers.

Moved to a secondary school and got the job as Audio Visual technician, when the first computers hit the schools in earnest it was part of my remit (IT techs didn't exist) to set up the computers.

I was given a "broken" BBC B by the teacher in charge of the IT section as it was just heading to the skip, managed to fix it and then bought myself Spitfire40 and Elite and the minutest joystick to play them.

Elite hooked me in good and proper and played it to death, I bought an Amiga a bit later on to play Frontier but only had the set up a couple of months before a burglary deprived me of all of my miggy stuff.

The school I worked at went Apple bonkers and I had a top of the range (for the time) AppleMac in my room for software evaluation, I bought Marathon (Bungie FPS) for me and the Techs to mess with during down time and we got the next two (I think) releases of it.

School moved into networked PCs and again I got a top of the range machine to take home for evaluation purposes, at this point I re-kindled my love for aircraft a bit and bought F22 Lightning 3, formed a Squad and played this for nearly 2 years. Squad became more like the air force than the real airforce with members being Court Martialed for offences done in game etc... got a bit stupid for me so I dropped it.

Tried all the FPS as they came along in the Call of Duty, Medal Of Honour type vein but never got hooked enough... then Blizzard came along with World Of Warcraft.
Started playing in about 2005 and spent about 7 years in there (I literally mean IN THERE) until they decide to release The Mists Of Panderia... kung fu pandas? really? I left sharpish as it had all got a bit silly.

Messed with LOTRO as I was hooked on MMORPG games and did play it for a good while but it got a tad lonely in there, dabbled in Warhammer Online but felt it became more of a fashion show for "pretty coloured armour" and got bored.

Star Wars: The Old Republic was in development and I applied to be an Early Beta tester and to my surprise I got in, it was actually a bigger job than I anticipated. I had thought it would be just playing the game early but you had to actually test and report it but I had enormous fun.

I still have Guild in SWTOR and play it all the time with three of my close mates from the WOW days.

Heard the whispers of my old favourite Elite getting a new incarnation and I was impossibly pleased, I just loved Elite in the old days and it was the game that sticks in my mind as the one I have enjoyed playing most.
I was a mid 50s bloke reduced to being a little kid again waiting for christmas...

I have resisted the Alpha and Betas as I want to hit the game fresh on release, my beta testing in SWTOR left me at the "slightly jaded point" on release as everyone was raving about it and I had spent almost 6 months in there already.
Although the idea of getting into the Standard Beta is nagging at me...

 

[Thunderchief]

My gamming experience first started with a 6 in 1 gaming system, that had variations of various bat and ball games. It was not very impressive to me, probably because I'm not a big fan of real bat and ball games.

But then came the Atari VCS, and River Raid! I played that for ages, loving the idea of flying an aircraft, until one Christmas I received Star Raiders and my love affair with all things space started. ;-) I played it loads, in fact I think it was pretty much the only game I played on the VCS after that.

My gameplaying slowed and stopped until when I was 13, I received a Atari 520STfm for Christmas, and I started playing games again, My first game I bought was Gunship by Microprose and that got me into flight simulators, F-19, F29 Retaliator, Fighter Bomber, and B17. I also got my first taste of open world games with Midwinter 2, which I played obsessively (and very badly) until Frontier: Elite 2 showed up.

Elite 2 was the game that made me fall in love with the Elite franchise, I just loved the total freedom to do what I liked, no one telling me how to play. I loved it, it was the only game that kept me coming back to my Atari ST.

In 1995 I bought my first PC, a Pentium 120 16mb machine that was pretty much top end at the time. (I think the 133 was the only thing faster) First game I bought? EF2000 of course! ;-) My first experience of an analogue joystick while flying a simulator was a revelation. Jane's AH-64D Longbow didn't quite live up to my expectations for some reason numerous other simulators followed, I still miss a nice ring bound manual. ;-)

I played various types of games but none took my interest as much as a good flight sim. I enjoyed a few of the Wing Commander games, Civilisation.

I got into civilian flight simulators with Microsoft's Flight Simulator 98, and seriously engaged with them with FS2000, I got them all up to FSX. If the series hadn't ended I would probably still be playing them. But my interest waned about 2007 ish when I started playing Elder Scrolls Oblivion, this sparked my interest in RPGs and I've played Dragon Age Origins, Dragon age 2, Skyrim and the Witcher 1 & 2 since, plus others.

Just lately I've being playing games less, just picking up a few older titles in Steam Sales. I backed the Elite Dangerous Kick-started as soon as I heard about it and I has got me back interested in gaming again.

The Release of the Alpha 1.1 to us Prem Beta players has made me go out and buy a new HOTAS Joystick the CH yoke, I loved in FS just didn't cut it in Space! ;-) I got the Wathog Stick and It has rekindled my interest in Combat Flight Sims again, been playing DCS World for the last week or so. and next month I intend to stump up for the A-10C Sim to go with my shiny flight stick! ;-)

Well that was longer then I expected, I enjoyed that personal trip down memory lane.

Can't wait for the Beta to start!

Cheers

Can't believe I missed out playing EVE for two years of there, I played it as a single player game essentially though, I thought I'd like it but It never really gelled. I was hoping it was going to be my new Elite but the multiplayer aspect of it really put me off.

 

[Uridium]

This will be a cutdown version, but here goes.

ZX81 - first computer
ZX Spectrum - Elite + many other speccy games
Amiga - Elite Frontier (still have the box, manual gamedisk and starmap + a disc with my savegame on it)
PCs - started with games like Doom, C&C, and many others until a friend introduced me to MMOs. Played Everquest for many many years. Spent some time in CityOfHeroes. The last 6 years I've been dabbling in Eve, but its not really holding my attention these days.

Other mentions - The Civilization series. Been a longtime fan, playing since Civ2.