Square Enix's FINAL FANTASY XI (FFXI) is the first massively multiplayer online role playing game I actually sat down to "play" as opposed to merely "dabble in". After spending 120+ hours of playing since the release of the PS2 version, I'm seriously weighing whether to cancel my account, for a number of factors described herein. The biggest issue seems to be the "massively multiplayer role playing" part.

While gamers have been rolling dice in basements and bedrooms for well over twenty years now, on a relative scale, online role-playing is still many years behind. MUDs and other text based role-playing options began the internet phenomena which has branched out into full fledged 3D games that have years of planning and thousands (sometimes millions) of dollars invested.

I decided to devote this column to showing you all what I do in a typical night of EverQuest. When I sit at the computer to play some EQ, I have 3 roommates periodically peering over my shoulder saying, "What the hell do you do in this game!? You just run around and kill things?!" Well boys and girls, read this column and I'll tell you what I do. Pay attention, take notes.

What has happened to my attention span? When I was 5, I had a Nintendo Entertainment System with a handful of games and those same games could keep me busy for months, maybe even years. I could sit down, pop in Super Mario Bros. and play it over and over again, all day long. At the end of the day my eyes were burning, my head hurt and my thumb felt like it was going to fall off. What a blast... I miss it.

My first computer was an Atari 600XL. It had a keyboard, a cartridge slot, and two joysticks. Really basic joysticks - you know the ones, with the rubbery stick, and the big red button. All you could do was move, and fire. My brother Garth and I had two games: Galaxian and Ms. Pac-Man. I loved Ms. Pac-Man. I played it for hours. But I digress.

In the best of all possible worlds, every gamer and aspiring gamer out there would have a friendly, well-established, long-standing tabletop or LARP group to call their own and attend once a week or more. For most of us down here on Earth, however, this isn't the case. Summer vacations and work conflicts can break up groups for months at a time, and cross-country moves and lifestyle changes can do so permanently.

Few fantasy writers (and computer role-playing game designers) have the time or the patience to create an entire working language for their worlds, and use it to create wholly original, intelligent names. There's nothing wrong with that. Even without an original language, there are still plenty of good ways to create plausible names... yet how do so many people get it so wrong?