World of Warcraft

[Widowmaker]

I was just going to say that, Bribo

I realy see nothing different about CoH than most any other MMORPG I've played. Tradeskills are just another grind to me. And trying to attain loot was the WORST kind of unfun grindfest to me. The difference is I like superhero's and am realy sick of the fantasy games, I think I am done with them entirely. So I choose to stick with the one I find fun.

And to me it realy does not feel like a grind because, and this is key, I choose not to see it that way. I do not play the game to reach the highest level as fast as possible as many do. I play a game to have fun. Since I can only play a game for maybe 2 or 3 hours in a sitting a few times a week CoH fills that niche perfectly BECAUSE all the enhancements can be bought (this is not entirely true, there are combination enhancements you can only get through certain trials) and the fact that it is relatively simple.

And how, exactly, is fighting "the same gangs" (which is far from the truth) different than... lesse.. EQ where I fough goblins, kobalds, orcs and frogloks at level 1 and at level 50 I fought... goblins, kobalds, orcs and froglocks. Oh, the higher level ones were a foot or two taller and a slightly different shade of green. The only difference realy was EQ had "epic" encounters that for me were useless because I never got to do them. I never went on a dragon raid. I went to the plain of hate once, never went to fear. I rarely had the 8 hours in a sitting to do those "epic" sit on your ass fests and when I did I found them the single most boring thing in my experience in the game.

CoH is adding new indoor spaces soon, they have already added outdoor instanced zone missions for higher levels. I'll take the similar indoor missions any day over going into a dungeon and sitting in one spot killing the exact same MOB over and over every 19 minutes. Or the old kill one thing and sit on my ass for 10+ min before being able to take on the next thing.

I also almost exclusively solo so CoH fits me there.

I hate trade skills with a passion. Trade skills are truely what I consider a grind as it is entirely un fun to me in every way. I hear WoW has lots of trade skills and that is actualy a strike against it to me. SWG emphasis on trade skills is what eventualy killed the game for me.

I will be happy if I never have to "farm" for equipment again. Ever.

WoW is not my game, CoH is. And I still fail to see how it is any more monotonus or a grindfest than any other MMORPG. Its just a monotony and grind that I kind of enjoy unlike the other offerings out there.

[[AK]Jackle]

I guess it is simply what you enjoy doing. I enjoyed taking a break from mindless killing every once in a while to sit down and tradeskill or chill out and camp some quest mobs or equipment. Every once in a while, I would even enjoy sitting and medding up my mana for 10 min as it gave me a chance to do other things, like homework for instance, and I still felt like I was getting something accomplished, as virtual as it may be.

The way I see it, I want something to show off to other players. I want to be great, and the way CoH is set up, it doesnt really let me do that. You have a few archtype primary/secondary combos that are unbelievably powerful and as soon as those were found out, everybody played them. There was no way possible for your character be better than character. I blame it on the absence of equipment, because equipment adds variety to characters, it is what makes one character better than any other. With the enhancement system, there is pretty much one great way of making your character, and if you don't gear it towards that, then your character is pretty much garbage, ala DAoC. Again, it might just be a personal preference, but that was the main flaw I found in the game.

For short term gameplay, I don't think MMORPG, I think FPS. However, when I have a ton of time on my hands, I enjoy spending the sometimes 4 or 5 hours to go on a raid, which is not nearly as short in supply as it was back in the day. Maybe whenever City of Villains comes out I might give it a try, as PvP would actually add a purpose to my leveling, but with WoW and EQ2 coming out before then, I very much doubt I will bother.

[[AK]Squidly]

The thing I liked about UO was the ability to buy a house/tower/castle and furnish the heck out of it. I mean really do a full out makeover on it...and there was a ton of stuff you could find/buy/steal/make to equip it with.

There was a depth there beyond the skill tree.

[[AK]Bribo]

I agree. A world where you could really make an impact and change things might have some attraction for me. Also, more personalized quests for individuals and groups, that then effected the world itself. Mass invasions and battles. A story line that changed based on pre-set events and also upon character interaction.

This kind of depth would draw me in.

[Widowmaker]

I never got into player housing and it was HUGE in SWG (SWG was made by Raph Coster who was a UO dev). I found that pretty tedious too.

I never felt the need to show off my character, never cared about those that were showing off either. It did not impress me if you had the uber bed leg club or moss covered twig. I just did not care. To me the rewards are mostly intrinsic, I know what I did and lived. I do not feel any need to show it to others.

All my COH characters are intentionaly NOT the "uber" builds just because that seems silly to me, besides the uber characters are the first to get nerfed.

With the loot systems it is exactly like enhancements to me but more of a pain in the neck. In EQ I could tell what level and class a person was because of their equipment. There realy was no differentiation or it was merely one of scale. There was certain equipment that was best for certain class/race combos. Everything was just a holder till you could get that certain piece of armor or weapon that every other character of your class was trying to get.

I did not see a lot of variety of equipment. All I saw was "haves" and "have nots". THat is not a bad thing, but to me it is no different than "having" lvl 30 SO's slotted and "not having" level 30 SO's slotted. It realy is exactly the same to me but no anoying camps to get it. And going farming for cash was incredibly tedious to buy something.

Everybody likes something different. I don't like trade skills, camping of spawns, or housing and such. I am not a social player so I tend to spend most of my time soloing (CoH is an incredibly solo friendly game, even for my tank character). I am not into big guild events or raids.

That said I have seen some films of EQ2 and that interests me more than I thought it would. I will likely be trying it, and hoping my PC is up to the task as it seems realy graphic intesive.

I never did care for the Warcraft games. When it came to RTS games I prefered Total Annihilation, it rocked! I did enjoy the Diablo games. So I am not a Blizzard fan as most of my friends are that are jumping on the WoW bandwaggon. WoW just does not look terribly interesting to me whatsoever. I don't even like the graphics in it.

But that Star Wars Battlefront (if that is its name, the BF1942 style starwars game) realy interests me. I'll be picking it up the day it releases. The same day the Starwars DVD set is released too... that will be an expensive day.

[Slaughter]

I ended up playing WoW these last 2 days, played a paladin and got up to lvl 7..

Not a bad game, not a lot of down time. Best of all, no zoning.