I am a MMORPG addict without a game to be addicted to. Still. It's getting depressing. My time playing Asheron's Call was easily one of the most entertaining game experiences I've had and though I quit a year or two ago (mainly because my main ingame friends had moved on) I've been waiting for the next "big thing"....yeah, so when the hell is that gonna arrive?

AC2 and Galaxies were a collosal disappointment. EVE sounded great on paper and was utterly boring in practice. Horizons got progressively less innovative as it approached release and came out with a fizzle. The less said about Shadowbane the better..... and now one of the few remaining projects I had hope in, Dragon Empires, has been cancelled. Wonderful. That leaves me World of Warcraft, which whilst it does look good lacks the innovative PvP I was after (and DE had!). Still, it is my only hope...and yes I'm aware of CoH, but I'm not a superhero person and it sounds limited in it's long term appeal.

This genre is really in a gigantic rut.

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Cantina Cloud | BCF | The Massassian 1, 2 & 3 | Gonk WoW Petition <- SIGN!
Corrupting the kiddies since '97

Absolutely agreed (although I am watching Guild Wars closely).

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You could no more evade my wrath than you could your own shadow.

You should get CoH just to tide you over for a few months

I am thinking we are going to have to have a Guild Wars phase. I'm not really leaning towards getting WoW anymore. I know Juz will back me! (and gonk will bitch)

CoH is proving a very nice gap-filler till WoW comes along.

The next patch is due out soon and it looks very sweet. 3 or 4 new areas, 2 new villain groups, power respecification trial, and best of all, capes!

D&D online should be awesome. I just spent a whole day downloading the damned WoW stress beta, and what do you know, its corrupt

Also there is Ryzom, I downloaded the beta for that, didn't really grasp my attention though. The ad they had in PC Gamer made it look much cooler than it seems in game. And with the lack of a normal leveling and class system, I dont see much hope for it.

Did you try Lineage 2? I loved it.

You're right about WoW.
From day one, they have made it perfectly clear that this is a game that will specifically cater for 'casual' gamers. People that play only two or three hours every few days. And PvP will not appeal to those people. They will want to either solo some quests, or group with some friends and take on the more challenging quests. There's guarenteed fun, whether you beat the mobs, or whether you have to run like a little girl, or whether you have to have your friends rez you, you're going to have fun.
But with PvP, it's not so much "fun" but rather fierce competition. Yes, it's fun if you beat them, but getting thrashed isn't any fun, so there's that gamble.

As a recovering Evercrack addict, I share that sentiment. I played up to level 45 as an Enchanter, a class that really did need a group, soloing was pretty much out of the question. I would form a group, often a twosome with a Shadow Knight, and we'd take on mobs. Occassionally, we'd PvP eachother when we were bored, but it was always first-to-5% health. The only occassion I did kill someone was when I was duelling another Enchanter, and I had my pet beating on him. Chanters don't actually have any control over their pets, so while I had stopped casting spells, my sword-and-shield pet was still whacking him and ended up killing him.

(well, and also the time in GFay when I killed various low levels because they wanted to see how many of them I could take. but they didn't lose any XP or anything, so that didn't count)