Taking a page out of Evizaer's book, here is a quick run down of the MMOs that I played during this calendar year. The list is awfully long, however there are only a small handful of games that I paid money for - the rest simply failed to sell me during their free period. In roughly chronological order, here they are:

World of Warcraft: I came into 2009 riding high on WoW. Wrath of the Lich King had just been released, and although my guild tore through Naxxramas startlingly quickly, Ulduar held a lot of promise in our minds. By May I was disenchanted with the changes to the game, and quit.

Warhammer Online: While struggling with Warcraft, I took Mythic up on their offer of a 10-day WAR trial in March. While I had a generally decent time in tier one, I did not feel that the game was worth the (at the time) $50 up front investment (plus recurring subscription fee).

Guild Wars: Early in the year I tried out a free Guild Wars trial, and after a few nights of play decided to abandon it. The game's instancing was too much for me, and since I didn't have a static group to play with I always felt alone in the world. Perhaps I'd like it more now, but at the time it was not what I was looking for.

Free Realms: I participated in the closed beta of Free Realms, and transitioned smoothly into the full game when it launched. I had a tonne of fun, paid $5 for a subscription, and played the heck out of the game..... for two or three weeks until it all started feeling old hat.

EVE Online: A couple weeks after dropping WoW I started a 14-day trial of EVE, largely due to the fact that my best friend is an avid player. While I started out having a good time with the game, I quickly learned to loathe the "click-and-wait" nature of the game's mechanics. Although the long game in EVE is fascinating to contemplate, the minute-to-minute game play feels like a chore, and is the worst I've experienced in any MMO to date.

Aion: I picked up a key to the first closed beta weekend, and put a fair amount of time into the game. It was obvious from the start that this was simply a pretty WoW clone, with very little inspiration behind it.

Metaplace: While Metaplace was not an MMO, it was an attempt at creating a virtual world builder. I was worried about the game early on, and sadly my initial fears came true just recently. There was no real game here.... just some user designed SNES-era sites to see.

Ryzom: I jumped into Ryzom and quickly fell in love with the world and the game's unique skill system; I even ponied up $10 for a one month subscription. Unfortunately as I got deeper into the game I started needing a group to progress safely, and there was no population to support it.

Fallen Earth: When the Fallen Earth beta came out I jumped all over it - finally, an MMO that was not set in a high fantasy world- excellent! I loved the tutorial, but once I finished that and got out into the open world I lost all interest in the title. I found the game to be a pointless grind with awkward feeling (although innovative) combat and some downright irritating jump animations. I only have so much patience for picking up random bits of junk and pasting them together.

Spellborn: After hearing mention of the Chronicles of Spellborn a few times, I downloaded the game and invested a good twenty hours into it. I was having a blast. Sadly, I got sucked into DDO and had to choose between the two games..... Spellborn lost. I enjoyed the combat, thought the questing structure was good, and think that I might have to fire this up again in the new year.

Dungeons & Dragons Online: As previously mentioned, DDO roared into my consciousness late in the year, mostly due to the allure of permadeath play. I played for two months (and bought $50 of Turbine points) before hitting a wall in early December, and haven't logged on since. With the busy holidays out of the way I'll probably make my way back to Eberron soon enough.

Wizard 101: Wizard 101 has been the only constant all year. I started playing the game in early 2009 and have played once a week with my 10 year old godson since then. I let him control our activities (for the most part), and we've worked our way up to level 20. I love the micropayment model that KingsIsle offers, and really enjoy my time in this game.