As for WoW, I still like the game. I get tired of the Instancing for gear all the time, sure, but if I take it in moderation, I find that I truly enjoy hitting a few PvP battles and a dungeon in my spare time. As long as I don’t make it my job, I’m doing okay and can see the appeal.

I know how much I was looking forward to Northrend/WOTLK in TBC, and then I was bored and quite done with it in one month and quit.

I doubt Cataclysm is going to change that. You will level up a new alt in a world with revamped zones and let’s assume all quests got totally changed. Then you are back again to run the dungeon set of this expansion.

There are other MMOs out there, we just need to give them a chance. The bad thing is many simply suck. Maybe my MMO time is over somehow, I am not keen on getting to know new friends and interestingly most of my gaming buddies who became friends came from Ultima Online and Guild Wars.

If you don’t insist on having real humans around, Dragon Age looks and feels a lot like a MMO. The world of Ferelden (it probably has another name, but right now I am in the Kingdom of Ferelden) has a rich lore and history, and I am a sucker for such things.

You could also try Allods Online; it looks a lot like WoW and plays a lot like it, plus the Astral Ships are an awesome endgame concept. My beef with it is that I know the system behind the games by far too good by now. It felt so much like WoW to me that I got this “been there, done that” feeling and when a game is a lot like WoW, so far WoW has always been the better choice in the long run.

This is also the reason why I am still in the STO Beta. This is a bug-ridden game with ground missions that suck incredibly hard, but the space combat is really good. And it plays differently from other MMOs – you can play it in short sessions and chain together as many of them as you want. The new “open” or “public” quests and grouping mechanisms are really cool. Is the game an alternative to WoW? No, it cannot compete at all. The appeal is that it is so totally not like WoW!

Let’s see if the next MMO world to suck in players for years comes from Blizzard again or maybe Bioware can set a new standard for the genre.

And I think you’re absolutely right about just enjoying the game for what it is and not focusing too much on the leveling or acquisition side of it. I think sometimes we’re so busy trying to get somewhere, we don’t enjoy the ride.
.-= We Fly Spitfires´s last blog ..Do Console MMORPGs Work? =-.

Oh, I can’t help but notice all your wonderful pictures are of the, ugh, Alliance.

FOR THE HORDE!!!
.-= Real Big Kitty´s last blog ..Is This Raining or Pouring? =-.

World of Warcraft is nothing like it was 5 years ago, we will all agree. It has gotten easier, but also immense, and to accomplish many things you will have to dedicate a time I (a married, with kid, man) can’t afford. And I feel at lost; I don’t know what to do.

I hate achievements (because many are unobtainable for me), I hate impossible to get reputations (because they are part of a now dying –or dead– world, or because they can only be achieved raiding, which is forbidden for me) . I hate professions, which do not grow with the current level cap. The game has similitudes to real life, and, well, I have one real life already, which the game was supposed to take me away from, from time to time.

I don’t think leveling up yet another character will change any of the above. I had had them all: all classes, all races. The bottom line is the same.

I have no much hopes on Cataclysm, but, like everyone else, I will wait for it, and see if it brings that which I long. Not keeping my hopes high though.
.-= David Collantes´s last blog ..Glad I am not in North Korea =-.