One of the things that can be sort of a bummer about long running game series is that you can get behind on the lore.  If you care about the story of the universe that you are inhabiting then this can be a fairly significant issue.  Yes you can play the game and while it's something that many good gamers will do, sometimes you just don't have the time.  Between all the homework and creating my own games, sometimes I barely have time to play the newest games that come out let alone getting through old games.  To put that into perspective this is coming from a guy who will frequently stay up until 4-5am on days I need to be awake at 7:30am.  When I want to play a game I will make time!  However, there really is only so much time in a day.  So one of the cool new things I've found are these fine folks over at Shoddycast on youtube.  They make videos chronically the lore of various universes and I can often listen to it while I'm doing other things.  I would highly recommend it.  It's a lot of fun and keeps you update on most details in your favorite universes.

https://www.youtube.com/user/ShoddyCast