So. I played WoW for a long time, but I kept finding myself stuck in Raiding grinds, felt too much like work so I've never even played the new expansion.

Seriously: I thought I had two jobs for a while, spending six hour a night, after work, in raiding. Fucking job. Fuck that.

I did Eve for a long time, but I'm not a PvPer... seriously, when I play a video game I don't do it for social reasons, thus anti-social reasons are also low on my list. Eve is a lot more fun if you get your kicks out of being a raging asshole all the time.

Been playing Star Wars the last month. I gotta say the storyline missions for the classes, and the built in follower thing seem pretty rocking, and the little PvP I did was actually pretty fun.  Been meaning re-spec my gunslinger for stronger PvP (sharpshooter tree is, apparently, the strongest DPS class, but its static, which is death in PvP matches. But the Dirty Fighter tree, with its massive bleeds is a PvP murder machine, so I read...).

Its weird how races don't actually seem to matter, or if they do its just a tiny, tiny bit.  

Also, the class balances are weird. I like my gunslinger (two gun fighting, but the crouch and cover mechanic, which is unique to the class, is occasionally painful), but the bounty hunter almost seems to be a better skin of the class concept (two guns, but heavily armored, mobile and with a better mechanic to 'limit' powers...), and I had a lot of fun with my Trooper (who is static as I only play that with my leveling buddy, also, oddly, a trooper.).  Compared to WoW and other MMO's I'm familiar with, SW:TOR is odd about healing and tanking and the like. I mean, in groups, you can have a clearly labled Tank and a clearly labeled Healer, but it often doesn't feel like that's what they're doing. My Trooper, for ex, is a 'tank' trooper (with my Levelling Buddy being the healing trooper), but mostly I just do damage with the option to be a little more threatening, and (as I recall) at least one healing power of my own.  The 'healing trooper' with the bigger gun doesn't play as a healer, but as DPS...

At least my gunslinger is consistent. Kills all around, and lots of them.


Now, I do see a lot of Guild Wars 2 (and 1 for that matter) at my house, but I never got into it. And I did play City of Heroes for a while, and was dimly excited by teh idea of champions online, but given that I am prone to twenty hour marathons, I tend to avoid getting sucked in unless I 'have to'.

Spike raises a couple of good points. Wife and I dinged level 90 in WoW some three weeks ago and we're stuck grinding gear for dungeons so we can grind gear for raids... yeah. The scenarios are neat, though.

As for SWTOR, yeah, I'm looking into the classes (fuck, this thing takes forever to download and install) and each class actually branches into two "advanced classes" which in turn feature three talent trees each. Your healer is as likely to be a Jedi Consular Sage with the Seer spec, or a Smuggler Scoundrel with a Sawbones spec. I like this.

Quote from: The Butcher;627511Spike raises a couple of good points. Wife and I dinged level 90 in WoW some three weeks ago and we're stuck grinding gear for dungeons so we can grind gear for raids... yeah. The scenarios are neat, though.

As for SWTOR, yeah, I'm looking into the classes (fuck, this thing takes forever to download and install) and each class actually branches into two "advanced classes" which in turn feature three talent trees each. Your healer is as likely to be a Jedi Consular Sage with the Seer spec, or a Smuggler Scoundrel with a Sawbones spec. I like this.

Yeah, it takes forever and a day to download, and update 1.7 is dropping today as well.  That said, I found it quicker than Aion's download by several hours.

I forgot Aion, damn!

I loved the hell out of it until about level 30, when suddenly I had to chose between playing in the outlands, with lots of flying but only a 30 seconds til death timer, or playing and doing missions in the world, with 30 seconds of flying, period.

Seriously. Thirty seconds of flight at a time? What the fuck was that all about?

Quote from: Spike;628061I forgot Aion, damn!

I loved the hell out of it until about level 30, when suddenly I had to chose between playing in the outlands, with lots of flying but only a 30 seconds til death timer, or playing and doing missions in the world, with 30 seconds of flying, period.

Seriously. Thirty seconds of flight at a time? What the fuck was that all about?

I just could never really get into Aion.  The mouse keys were the reverse of other MMOs, and having to remember that kept throwing me off.  The graphics, while nice, allowed for some really weird combos that threw off the sense of immersion big time.  You're out in a field, and a character with a mushroom head runs by.

Really?  Could you be any more out of step with the rest of the environment?

The story itself was interesting, but the quest dialogue felt too Nintendo for me, and that also kept me from enjoying the game.  Oh, and the 50 million gold farmers drove me nuts too.

I'm still subscribed to WOW, but I pulled back after I finished all the rep grinds in Pandaland on my main.  I'm not raiding, and I don't feel much like logging in until another patch hits.

I also play Guild Wars 2, which I enjoy a lot more due to it being far more solo friendly.  Five characters, all being leveled up, to help with tradeskill grinding; I have one of each playable race (Norn Warrior, Human Guardian, Asura Mesmer, Sylvari Ranger, Charr Engineer) and love the hell out of the game so far.