Everquest II: Sentinel's Fate Expansion Released Today

Is it crazy that I'm this excited about a game?

This is a question I've been asking myself for the past several years, really. I never saw myself as a gamer. Sure, we had the Nintendo when I was little, just like everyone else. And I definitely enjoyed playing it. But once I got a little bit older, then went off to college, there were so many other things I wanted to do with my time. I didn't have a PC in college, or a console, for that matter.

Several years later, however, I met my crazy ex-husband, who then introduced me to the world of gaming. Come to think of it, that may have been the only good thing about that entire relationship. One night when we were browsing through games at a closing CompuServe or some such store that had PC games but was going out of business (50% all games!), he picked up a copy of Everquest and said we should play. Indirectly, that moment changed my life - in ways I never could have imagined at the time.

Everquest - sometimes lovingly referred to in the gaming world as Ever-crack - became an addiction. I never really got that good at the first game, but I certainly had fun and enjoyed meeting people. After a year or two of playing, however, I was at a max level of something small like 40. I quit playing at the time, but by then I was a gamer for life. I moved on to console games and single player games on my PC, but I missed the MMORPG world (for those of you who don't know what that means - it stands for Massive Multi-player Online Role Playing Game).

When Everquest II came out in the fall of 2004, I knew I wanted to play. That was shortly after a house fire had me living in a hotel. True to form, of course, my ex-husband had a top notch laptop and played the game from release, while we couldn't afford for me to get a computer even though mine had been destroyed in the fire. But that's a dead issue at this point. The point is that when I got back on my feet and into my home a few months later, I bought a new computer and a copy of the then brand new EQ2. I fell in love with the game instantly. Little did I know the game would lead to the greatest love of my life - my amazing husband G.

G and I have both been playing Everquest II since about launch time in 2004/2005. Yes, that's a good 5 years of playing this game, with slight breaks in between to try other games. I owe a lot to this game, seeing how I met my husband while playing, and everytime a new expansion comes out, I get excited. Today is such a day. It's been almost a year and a half since the last expansion, The Shadow Odyssey, and this will be the first time in over two years that the level cap has raised - going up to lvl 90 this time. I love new expansions. Shiny new content and lots of new quests and armor and tradeskilling items.

I'm off to a Sony Chat about the expansion and then I'll be off to Gamestop to pick up our copies as soon as they open. Happy Day!