I have a rule against playing MMOs. Part of it is that I just can’t justify the cost because they don’t fit my playing habits.
I usually have five or more games installed at any one time. I tend to play one for a few days or weeks, then switch to another for a few days or weeks. If I had an MMO with a monthly fee I’d almost feel guilty for not making it my only game, because otherwise I’m throwing money down a hole since my use of the software would be so intermittent.
Besides, no MMO, or any other game, is good enough to be my only game. I don’t think MMOs would even be worth it to me if I paid up front for a fixed amount of in-game hours rather than paying a monthly or yearly fee.
I did have a brief moment when I contemplated making WoW an exception to my No MMO policy. But I rapidly snapped back to sanity after reading stuff like:
Exitium said:
It's still a long throw away from how good it used to be during the Betas. Getting rid of skills, screwing up Taunt, nerfing the talents of each class in order to churn them out in cookie cutter party roles (e.g. warrior tanks, priest heals) and getting rid of all their 'utility skills' like the Mage's lockpick was all the tip of the iceberg.
If they undo some of that stuff and give the game the variety of character customization it had in the Betas, it'd be worth playing if you can stomach the level grind, the usual shit that comes with MMORPGs and the monthly fee. It's bad enough that housing, player vendors and epic classes aren't implemented as Blizzard promised they would be prior to the game's release.
Also, all the problems with quests and opponents not being properly matched to player level – that was a main issue turning me off to Diablo II after about level 50. It just got impossible quickly without uber gear and so forth. You could never get enough invested skill with the level cap, either. I kept wishing the game design would have just let me max out one of each character class so I can be done with the “chore†portion of the game and then be free play around with the characters.
But I imagine Blizzard’s counter-argument to my main point would be that the game was far too easy for players who both were level 99 and did have uber gear. So the patches needed to make it harder. But I just don’t think the game was fun enough after about level 50 or 60 to treadmill the rest of the way. Even players who did said they wanted to shoot themselves in the head because item runs were so unbearably repetitive.
Basically, D2 + WoW = erosion of my faith in Blizzard.
I am thinking about playing Guild Wars. Its pricing structure mirrors the standard core game + expansion model, which works better for me. I want to exhaust content at my own pace, then pay for more.