smudgedragon

Amy, doesn't that break the time line?

I can finally talk about this - as the NDA has been lifted.

I have been having problems with WoW. I know the fate of all MMORPG's is to get simpler over time, and it took WoW longer than most (generally it's a 5 year cycle, wow took over 6). I was not too happy, but fond it livable with the talent changes that came into Cata. I know my roommate Rindis was very unhappy with the changes in Lich King (when they killed X-specing). But with the complete talent redesign coming in Mists, it left both of us with a really bad taste in our mouths.

To be honest- I have not been having fun in WoW for over a year now. This is due partly to the game itself and party due to DRAMA that centered around me. I don't really wanna go into what's happened. It's done and I want to move on. But it really kills playing when you feel like you have to avoid your own guild. It's extremely hard not to let the entire situation color the view of the game as a whole.

This has led to more aggressively check the other MMORPG options out there.

Age of Conan; is buggy and a resource hog, but the beginning section is awesomely written. The combat for a melee type is extremely twitchy, but I found that after a while I had real fun with it. Alas, the mid/endgame bogged down for me, being, I feel, less thought out writing wise. Also I was not too found of their group mechanic and found it a much funner experience to solo.

Dungeons and Dragons Online; I did not care for the art sytle. the Animation seemed clunky. The storylines were weak. The dungeons and group mechanics were awesome and is where DDO shines. But the combat engine drove me up the wall since it's so mouse dependent (I am a keyboarder and becoming more so as time goes on).

City of Heroes; shows it's age. The combat engine is sluggish. Leveling is slow. Storyline writing is extremely variable and at both ends of the spectrum. I do *really* like there system of Sidekicking, letting players in a group play together, as if they were the same level, despite great level differences.

Rifts; This game nearly won my heart, based on the engine alone. Which says a lot since the story and writing were lacking, the questing was ho-hum, and the art/modeling/animation looked like someone threw up their lunch and said, "Wow- that's a neat creature design, let's run with it!" But the combat engine, the talent tree engine and the public group system, which pretty much eliminated mob-ganking, was so strong that it just about overshadowed all the other faults. The talent tree that helped me fall in love with WoW in the first place that they've been trying to Nerf and eliminate is in Rifts, embraced and expanded upon. It was a close call, but ultimately the need for story and immersion won out over a truly awesome engine.

And then I was invited to take part of Star Wars: the Old Republic beta...

ZOMG! This game is awesome! Despite it not being fantasy (though it's hard to call it science fiction), this game have everything - it's combat engine is not bad, it's art style is nice though it's animation does tend to hit the uncanny valley due to all the mo-cap, the stories are strongly written, and they've really paid attention to immersion into the whole Star Wars universe.

While the classes seem limited (4 on each side that actually play differently than their opposites), they quickly break into 2 sub-classes each. And those subclasses have three talent trees each. Alas I did not get a chance as of this writing to see how well you can cross-spec between the different talent trees is, but it looked pretty easy on my glance-over.

My biggest quibble is that with character creation - despite how varied the Star Wars Universe is, you can play a human, an augmented human, a human with a lobster on their foreheads, and a human with different colored skin. Not even a Wookie. SW without Wookies is like Rocky Road ice cream without any nuts.

But they have added something to the whole MMORPG genre - RPing as a game dynamic. And it works wonderfully. Just about every in-game conversation allows you to choose how you will respond. If you are in a group, all characters roll off against each other to see how the situation will resolve itself, including inside of a Flash-Point (dungeon). Lets just say if a group isn't seeing eye-to-eye, it get's hilariously fun.

All in all - even with my low-end machine and beta bugs - I had more fun in SW:TOR than any other MMORPG for the past year+, despite it being a franchise I care little for.

While this was a hard and painful decision to make, but I will be canceling my WoW subscription in favor of SW:TOR. I do have a guild forming up and if you'd like to join me, shoot me a note with your email and I'll send you a pre-launch guild invite. ^.^