I read an article over at the Daedalus Project the other day titled Player Life-Cycle. It was an interesting article looking at how players play throughout the time they spend in an MMO, and it got me thinking about why I play MMO’s, and what keeps me coming back night after night.

At the moment I find myself at the “Mastery” stage for Everquest 2 as it was defined in the article. I think this could probably be just as easily defined as the end game. It is the point where I would turn the game off and play something new if it was a single player game. I have reached max level, and I have all of my achievement points. I do raid on a regular schedule, and I enjoy the challenge that raiding brings, but it isn’t what keeps me playing.

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