I’ve been a hardcore WoW fan since NA launch in 04′ and since then I’ve popped in and out of other MMO’s in the market (LOTRO, AoC, FFXI, EQ2). There is something about WoW that most companies just can’t compete with… be it the level of polish, the sound design, art direction; there’s something there that makes Wow still stand up to the test of time.

I really do want another MMO game to come along and have that same level of creativity and fun that WoW has. It’s not that i’m getting bored of playing WoW (especially with Wrath just coming out a month ago), but there are some things that WoW has done recently that has kind of diminshed my initial love for it.

For starters, I was listening to HowIWow the other day, and i can’t remember which episode it was, but you were mentioning to Shawn how you weren’t a fan of 5-man heroics being really dumbed down to the level of AoE tanking, AoE spanking that they are now. This was the first thing I noticed as soon as my RL friends and I noticed when we hit 80. I really dislike how they ‘casualized’ many aspects of WoW’s difficulty to reward those that have less time to play.

I’m not trying to sound like an elitistjerk, but I was kind of disappointed when everyone first started hitting 80 and I would be seeing people in my guild run into 5 man’s in quest greens and blues and knock the place down on their first try. It even escalated into some of my more hardcore RL friends (who were ahead of me in the leveling curve, i’m playing a DK), running into a PUG 10-man NAXX (whodathunk?), and wiping the place clean.

I remember when I first dinged 70 in TBC, and had to work at questing and gearing up for entry into Karazhan. You couldn’t just walk into the place and pwnface. Anyways, I understand that Blizzard has commented that they wanted the process to be less difficult than it was before for more of the casual crowd to come in and experience the end-game content.

Anyways, I’m babbling too much. This comment is about WAR anyhow right? The above example is just one thing that I’ve kind of been disappointed with in the new expansion; patch 3.0.4 (although overall, the rest of it is VERY VERY nice).

For another MMO to come out with the same level of polish, design and wow factor (no pun intended) as World of Warcraft would be very nice. One of my most favorite things about starting up a new MMO is getting past the character creation screen for the first time, entering the world, being a total noob to the surrounding area(s), and just feeling your way around for the first couple levels or so.

The trick is to hold that same awestruck feeling over the next however many levels the MMO boasts till level cap. I feel that WoW did that for me from 1-60, and from 60-70 and now from 70-80. I’m probably just a little biased and see the world through Blizzard-colored glasses, but I really do hope that another MMO comes soon (even if it’s from Blizzard themselves) that can give me that new experience once again.

But for now, I guess it’s going to be WoW until that time.

It’s not taken me away from WoW though. I still log on and raid, do dailies, etc… The launch comes at a perfect time between the expansion and the associated downtime. So it’s been fun to do something else. And the PvP side of things is really good.

The one thing that really irks me though (and this applies to AoC as well) is that nobody seems to learn from other projects. Take the mail system for example. I know WoW started off with sending one item at a time and only recently upped the anty. But why would developers decide to not learn from that experience or how people play the game? Trading/selling is integral part of the MMOs (well in my limited experience anyway). Furthermore why aggrevate it by introducing a 20 second delay before you can send another message with a single attachment? Ok I know they have “fixed” it – somewhere between 0 and 5 seconds for sending now – but the mail server is still too frequently busy for my liking. There were a few things like that, which made me just wonder what they were thinking and made me seriously wonder about what was coming my way. I am not saying create a WoW clone but there are surely some lessons to be learned/ideas to be borrowed!

As for AoC the first 20 levels were great, the narrative was great. However thereafter, you became something akin to a FedEx service, pick this up – deliver it here type of quests. Which in the end made me give up.

Another thing that I struggle with, and you mentioned this, in WAR (and this is especially true of AoC as well) is the zone continuity, it doesn’t make it seem like a world if you have to portal from one place to another. Yes spending ages on a bird is probably a waste of time (cup of tea anyone?), but is more immersive and you get a sense of how things are tied together. In AoC I felt completely lost in the end, more so because I lost complete interest in the story line : which I think involved my becoming a delivery boy.

Anyway enough of my rambling. I’d say this though: if you enjoy PvP and you consider WoW PvP to be (seriously?) broken, then I do recommend you try WAR out – Scenarios and RvR can be a lot of fun. If PvE is your thing, then you might find the game lacking, but I’ll second this: the Public Quests are an awesome addition to the genre.

I would say that WAR far outshines Wow from levels 1 to 4 (roughly 1 to 6 in Wow playtime). It’s a lot more fun at first, no question about it. But it really slows down after that in PVE. Levels 5 to 7 were really really boring for me. From 8 to 10 I switched to PVP and it was a lot better, but still not good enough for me to want to keep playing.

On a side note, I have to say I don’t subscribe to the argument that “it’s only two weeks old”. I’m reviewing it now, not 3 patches from now. Maybe I will love what WAR will become in a year, but I’m reporting on my current impressions.

I’m also a bit surprised that most people responding here seem to be deciding not to give WAR a try after reading this though. But after thinking about it, I have to say that I do stand by my review. It accurately describes my experience in the game. And the fact is that I would be very hesitant to recommend it to a friend.
I’m not giving a completely negative verdict though. If I thought the game was complete garbage, I would have no problem saying so in a very explicit manner, believe me!
But the bottom line is that I can’t disagree with people who decide not to buy it: my impression is that for most people it wouldn’t be worth the money.

Ok, here’s my real advice though. Take your notepads out people, this is a life lesson right here. Just like for anything else, don’t take one guy’s word for it. Go out and read up on this game, try getting different opinions from different people, get different sources of information. Some people do love it, maybe it’s worth hearing why. Try to form your own opinion to make an informed decision. One source is NEVER enough…

I will admit, I’m having a blast in WAR. But I never enjoyed PvP in WoW, now I actually do. WAR makes it so easy to try it. That said I agree with the majority of what you said. Animations could be better on the Humans and Elves. Greenies Rock though! /Pauses to beat his snotling.

@Greg: Again, in complete agreement… I think it’s one of the first times that I don’t see people divided in the lovers / haters entrenched camps with a new game. People who like it know it’s not for everyone, and people who don’t like it admit it could have an audience.

In general, I think that most of us also agree that while it will most probably be a “commercial” success, it has nowhere near as broad an appeal as Wow does. It’s so obvious when you’ve tried the game that I’m almost wondering why they tried to sell it as a Wow killer in the first place. It was obviously never their intention to build something that ambitious. Marketing, I guess…