I’ve been playing WoW off and on since it was released, I don’t even have 1 level 70 character. I’ve bounced between servers following my friends around, gone back and forth between alliance and horde. Most of the stuff I do is just player vs. environment and a little instancing, but no raiding. Overall I find Warcraft fun, with a good overarching story, but some of the subquests are pretty bland. Aka go kill 10 bugnosed bears or collect 6 fiery sapplings. I do get a little perturbed that my casual gaming puts me at a severe disadvantage to the people who get all the raid gear, because no matter how much I focus as a non raider my gear will never be as good as theirs. But then again I know that an expansion is going to come out and make all their stuff worthless.
Mostly I just run around in groups of my friends on Ventrillo as a time waster. The only things I can compare Warcraft to is Star Wars Galaxies and Dark Age of Camelot, both of which I found extremely boring. The pvp in Dark Age kept me around for a while, but Star Wars Galaxies was so redundant I just had to quit within my first month. I did play DDO for about 3 days before I was so dissapointed that I cancelled my pre-order so I actually didn’t have to pay anything to play it, which is the only good thing I can remember about that game.
I did play DDO for about 3 days before I was so dissapointed that I cancelled my pre-order so I actually didn’t have to pay anything to play it, which is the only good thing I can remember about that game.
I got in on the closed beta and was sufficiently scared away.
I played wow for about 11 months now, and won’t be renewing my subscription. I just got tired of the Grind. I have a 70, and about 12 other characters ranging from 11-50 and have done every about every horde side quest three times(helping my friends level).
I love the Battlegrounds but even they have now become boring. I raided everything except Hyjal, Black temple and SSC. I really got tired of the 5 mans after grinding to get revered reputation to play the slightly more difficult “heroic” setting(imo should have been the way the dungeon was to begin with).
With each new Arena season they make gear that is equal to the highest current Teir Set out there. The Arena gear is basically grind 10 games each week and get your points and eventually you will get the set. Which for most people this new arena season will be providing them with Teir 6 equivalent gear at the same pace as they were are getting the Teir 5 equivalent pvp gear now. This means that most people on my server of Eredar haven’t even done the raid areas that drop teir 5 and aren’t close to thinking about doing the raids that drop Teir 6. with arena they will be able to get that superiour gear in a few weeks of grinding. Good for the casual player that can’t get in raids but they are basically killing any need to raid.
Add the fact that a new expansion is coming and they drops are supposed to be on par with Teir 4 gear will make any raiding done pointless. To me it just seems that they code the grind in the game just to make you feel like you need to keep playing. Most of the grind becomes pointless as Arena is a lot less time consuming to get better gear than raiding the end game content.
I might give LOTRO a shot, because hell i did the grind in wow for 11 months might as well try another game since i am in the market now. Though this time next year my buddy has made me promise to play his Star Trek Online game at least for the first month.
I play WoW, and have played nearly all the other games people have mentioned so far. Star Wars Galaxies, both before and after the New Game Experience (which I hated), DDO: Stormreach, EQ1, EQ2 (though only for a week or so), and Lord of the Rings Online at that open beta period right before the launch.
EQ taught me how to be a better MMO player the way a torturer teaches a prisoner to be a tougher person—through agonizing pain. I could never go back to anything remotely like the grind EQ was. That’s the main reason I haven’t even tried Final Fantasy. I hate games that force you to group for everything—I like how WoW has solo content and then party/raid stuff to do. I liked the sandboxy nature of the pre-NGE Galaxies, but it made PVP a bit of a “flavor of the month” deal. Anyway, regarding LotRO I enjoyed it. I played it for about a week during that beta period right before the game was released. I solo’d a Loremaster up to level 10, thought the system of Deeds as a sort of “equipment” was interesting and quite a refreshing change, and was left wanting to try more. Unfortunately I haven’t bought an account yet. I really like the Hope and Dred screen effect, the flash of light and screen edges getting dark and wispy was a nice touch.
I don’t see it as better or worse than WoW, personally, though. The MMO landscape is so large that anyone can probably find the right game for them. WoW just happens to be easier enough and cute enough to get peoples girlfriends involved. I enjoy the cartoony style of WoW, it’s both serious and not so serious at the same time. One thing you’ll have to admit is that the art direction is really something else and it seems to be setting a standard that the other MMO games seriously contending for top spot are matching. Competition between business means that the consumer wins out in the end.
One thing I’d like to see in WoW that came late to EQ, and is in a few other MMO’s to date (City of Heroes springs to mind) is a global chat system. Global chat channels, global friends lists, etc.
As a girlfriend who was persuaded over time (a year) to try MMOs, LotRO appealed to me way more than WOW. I hated the cartoony look. But then again, I’ve been playing D&D since childhood, so perhaps I’m a different audience.
