WoW is Still THE Fun MMO Out There

I blogged a few weeks ago about how I was trying some new things and some old things in the MMO world. After trying out a lot of different games, I've come to the conclusion that for replayability, content, gameplay, and plain old FUN, World Of Warcraft continues to be the best option out there.

I resubbed to WoW a month or so ago, and I've been leveling a Warlock. The lock himself isn't as nuanced or complex as say, an EQ Necromancer, but he's still got that same vibe to him and he's a ton of fun to play. I haven't really played him in PVP yet, but I'm looking forward to that. I think that's based on the frustration that Locks created for me when I was playing my Shaman a lot. The cool thing is that when I go back to instances now, I have had to learn and adapt to a completely different playstyle then I had been used to before. For reference, most of my playtime is spent in a Duo with my wife and her Fire Mage. The two make a surprisingly effective duo. We don't have much healing (health stones) but we can burn stuff down, my VW can tank, and we have CC in a couple of different forms.

Our trip back to EQ was ruined for me when we got through with the noob stuff and at around level 20, all the sudden it was duo or nothing. We rarely saw others around in the areas we would hunt, and I suspect that most of the people still playing are either max level or their twinks. Not conducive for reinsertion into the world.

LOTRO just failed to hold my attention. It was like WoW with a different art style. I did like a few things about the game, but overall I hold to my contention that if you want to be like WoW, you had damn well better BE WoW.

I have been testing Warhammer Online, and I can't really comment on that at this time. I can tell you that I like it and it's different from the other games out there, but you already know that or have figured that out for yourself. I can't play that at the moment because of what is reported here at Slashdot.

CoX games feel like a grind for the grind's sake. Lineage ][ is awesome, as long as you don't mind competing with gold farmers for every spawn and being practically compelled to buy Adena (Gold.) EQ II always made me feel claustrophobic, and the population that was never what I had hoped it would become. Branyanu and I were talking last night about how much we missed the old SWG, warts and all. Sure it shipped incomplete, and sure there were some content problems, but it was a world, and you could do almost whatever you wanted to in there.

One of these days I would love to talk with you guys about which (oversimplified) side of the design argument you come down on; Sandbox or Amusement Park. I find myself enjoying the Amusement Park (WoW) a lot right now and longing for a Sandbox like Star Wars: Galaxies of old.

I'm not sure how much longer WoW will hold sway over me, but just in the last few weeks we've had Brewfest and Hallow's End and their attendant quests. No one else has done as good a job as Blizzard in keeping things changing in the world on a week-to-week basis. When my Lock gets to raiding levels and we start into that world again, I will be interested to see if it continues to hold my interest. For now, I'd challenge you guys to convince me that there is something out there that is more FUN to play right now than WoW.

MMO Development Reaches it's Stale Phase

One month.

That's how long it's been (to the day) since I felt moved to write here. That's a long time. Now, I have been busy with work, so that means travel. Travel takes it out of you once you have done it for a while, but I digress.

The reason that I haven't been writing is that I haven't found much to be writing about. Sure I could do all kinds of theoretical babbling about games and what people want in game design. I'm probably not qualified to do that and so I'll leave that to the Ryan Schwaders (it's not babbling when he does it) of the world (Nerfbat.) I can speak with authority from the user's viewpoint. That is where the wicket gets sticky.

Here is where I am right now, and I have to believe that some of you are here with me. I currently have 4 MMO's installed on my gaming rig. Five if you include a particular beta which I can't talk about so for the sake of this discussion doesn't exist. The other 4 are EQ (yeah, yeah, I know,) WoW, LOTRO, and Vanguard. I have let my EQ2 sub lapse, but it's still installed.

Branyanu has been missing EQ so we reinstalled it and started playing it again. We quit not too long after the level cap was raised above 60, so I had a barely 61 Druid (Genda) and she has her 58 'chanter. After an evening wrestling with the damn game to get it to run without CTD on her system, we sat down to play. Our 2 hours resulted in a level change. Genda is now 60. It was also a stark reminder for me that you can't go home again. As much as we loved EQ at the time, everywhere we could hunt at that level was a ghost town, and there isn't much going on that we could see.

I'd probably enjoy getting going with WoW again. Once again, we had quit soon after the level cap was raised, so my 60 Orc Resto Shaman (Akhan) and her 60 Troll Hunter (Tarkheena) are behind the times. She's had enough of WoW, and I've learned not to press my duo partner too hard, lest I not have one. It's still just another fantasy MMO, although I do appreciate the "amusement park" style of design.

Vanguard. It's problems are well-documented. Programming-wise, it's still a mess. Maybe the server merges (from 13 servers down to 4) will help spur the community there and make it easier to find a group.

LOTRO. See WoW.

I've seen a little on the upcoming games in the pipeline, and there isn't anything revolutionary out there. Tabula Rasa looks like Guild Wars or DDO. AOC looks like a refined version of Lineage ][. WAR is like a cross between WoW (questing) and DAOC RvR.)

I am starting to think that the genre is at a standstill, and really has been since WoW. As a matter of fact, I am starting to believe that WoW killed PC gaming. Just go have a look at the PC games out there on the shelves, and tell me 10 good titles that have shipped since WoW that aren't ports to or from consoles. I rest my case.

I'm hoping that we see some new developments soon, although with what it costs to fund and develop one of these monsters, the irony may be that no one is willing to take a risk that big. And by not taking a risk, we aren't getting the benefit as gamers.

Hmm, I hear that UO just got a graphical face lift.

Naaaaa.