That must've been a pretty rare magnet (or a suicidal HDD looking for an excuse...). ;) I'm surprised the shredder next to one of my desktops hasn't permanently killed anything (although, all the USB devices hooked up to the external hub lose their connection every time it turns on).

Many years ago, I had an NEC MultiSync (max res was 800x560, but if you squeezed down the vertical size, it could display 800x600). It was awesome for its time (even though it had an odd glitch -- it had to be turned on before the computer was turned on, otherwise it displayed in B&W). I had my computer (and peripherals) hooked up to one of those powerstrips with a power button per socket that sat under the monitor. One afternoon after school I turned the switch to the monitor on, and accidentally rocked it back off and on again, quickly... Pause. Longer pause. Uh oh. Dead monitor. And without much money I ended up having to wait a couple months before I got a new one. That would be like an eternity these days... :)

The last question on the application is bugged (as of this writing anyway). Unless they only meant to invite people who run game fan-sites?

Color me another "Top 40" player. Before MMO's, RTS's was probably my biggest genre, though (C&C/Red Alert, Warcraft, Starcraft).

I'm not really surprised by all the embarrassing FFXI deaths. Fortunately, I can only remember ones I did talk about (including my first level-down, in Sarutabaruta). In LotRO, I do feel particularly stupid about some of my misadventure deaths in Moria (wait, there weren't stairs at the end of that ledge?). :-|

I don't think Diablo I or II count, so for me it's Asheron's Call 2. I had a relative that was playing it (and the first one). I only played for 3 months, though.

^^^ This. I'd love to see Quest for Glory influences.

FFXI wasn't as bad as GW at feeling like it's on rails. But I still hate it. People would intentionally die and get tractored (spell to move corpses to the caster) to get over ledges you should have been able to jump over.

They've changed the icons (including the overlays) several times. Many times they improve, but just as many times they get worse. Many now look too cartoony (odd for an otherwise not-very-cartoony looking game). I think it's also a bad move that "vendor fodder", lv50 class quest, and certain "quality" level inventory items all share similar purple backgrounds for their icons.

It's also true that the gfx do not scale well on low end machines. Without high/very high level textures, anisotropic 4x (or better) filtering, and post-processing effects, the game is a blurry mess. On high end machines, it's quite gorgeous, though :-)

Long session time was one of my biggest complaints with FFXI (at least until you were lv70+ and could farm decent mobs). The average maturity level of players was another big problem (on my server anyway). I will be trying it out at launch, though. :)

No campaign would bring me back. A sequel that's more solo/have-a-social-life friendly would get me to try it. It would have to put up a good fight against Moria, though. :P