I think, as much as I am an altoholic, I’m also a server hobo. There are days when I sit and honestly wonder whether or not I’ll ever happen upon a server I like and want to make a permanent home. It’s funny, because I only seem to really have this problem in World of Warcraft. In LotRO, Landroval has been my home for years. Admittedly, yes, I started on a different server than I play on now. However, I’ve never actually moved off of it. My relationship with the game might be heavily on again, off again, but I’ve contemplated moving servers all of once. I played for a little bit on another one after that, but I immediately came back to Landroval. With SWTOR, it’s a bit too early to tell, as the game has only really been out for about a month. However, with World of Warcraft… oh my.
Believe it or not, I wasn’t always a roleplayer in WoW. No, I got my start in WoW on a normal, everyday PvE server with one of my college roommates who was showing me the ropes. From there, I discovered RP servers, and, well, the rest was history. I hung out for a little while on Argent Dawn, then somehow wound up on The Venture Co server for a bit to play with a friend (where I learned RP-PvP was not as bad as I had thought), stopped briefly on Thorium Brotherhood, and then went to Moon Guard. Before Moon Guard, I didn’t really have friends or know anything about a stable RP community. Before then, the concept was kind of foreign to me, as the RPers everywhere else were well-established and, being a noob to the community, I was too nervous to even approach them. But one thing led to another on Moon Guard, and I wound up with a guild and had a good old time on the server. But when the guild started to fragment a year or two later, I realized staying was only contributing to my mental distress, so… off I went to Thorium Brotherhood.
Thorium Brotherhood’s been my “home” for almost three years now. Three years. I honestly can’t believe it’s been that long. Now, I love (most) of the people. The friends I’ve made there have been absolutely wonderful. One would think that, after three years of being on a server, I’d be ready to call it home, right?
Apparently not.
To be honest, I have yet to really get a “home” feeling from any of the servers I’ve been on lately. They’re all wonderful, mind. They’re all great places to go back to, but none of them have felt like “home”. I say differently to other people, but the truth of the matter is that I haven’t actually found a server like that yet. What would it take for me to call one as such in World of Warcraft? I don’t know. I haven’t found it yet. I feel like just as I’m about to start setting down some sort of roots, something happens to completely dig all of those out and then I’m right back to square one. I start setting down a nice rapport with a guild or a group of people, and then suddenly all of that’s gone and then I honestly don’t know what to do. And at that point, when you don’t really have any ties left any more, you pack up and move on again to another server. Sometimes you take your things with you. Other times, you can’t afford to. But you move on, just looking for somewhere you can call home.
I’m jealous of all the people who have stayed on a server for longer than I have. You all have something I’d love to have, but can never seem to find.