Mischevious guesses could include:

- changing to F2P

- introduction of ingame shop and micro transactions

- a marketing campaign

- server closure as Tasos and crew jump on their yacht and head to Bermuda

- bought out by SOE and renamed VG2 - return of the VG

- addition of wookies as a playable race

Does Final Fantasy have trainable pets?

Aha - sry my bad - too busy across 2 screens to pay attention.

Its EQ2 all the way in my book - no doubts

The difficult is recommending one tat is not fantasy base oterwise I would definatly say EQ2, especially the crafting element. Eve is out I think despite it being a great game, Anarchy Online is good if not a little dated, City of Heroes could be fun to try especially as its quite cheap (and better than Champs online imo),.

Dont know any others that fit the bill that I have personally played but I would urge you to try EQ2 despite the pointy ears

I play this game a lot and enjoy it but there is absolutly nothing here that is innovative or has pushd the genre on. The last game in my mind to do that (from this latest generation of games ) is Eve. Other than that it is all variation on a theme

I personally do not have a problem with grinding in so much as it means completing the same mechanic over and over again - that is whet the vast majority of game mechanics are based on. I would however prefer they devote the energies to the variation of task and environment so the machanics feel random and new rather than repetitive tasks. i think the challenge is in changing from a "kill 10 of" adf "fetch 10 of" to tasks and challenegs that are buried well into an immersive environment. I dont mind grinding if its part of a well developed lore or storyline in a variety of environments. I dont think devs use chain quests or long story arcs enough these days either. The satisfaction from completeing a number of arc quests is more for me than the instant thrill of a one off.

Damn Gamers seem to have shorter memories these days.

VG would not even exist today if SOE had not bailed it out but I guess any credit that was due them, especially for those that got to keep their jobs, is long past its sel;l by date?

If SOE drops VG who on earth would pick it up? Who would want to buy a non-established I.P. with no additional merchandise revenue coming in and in an industry where the first couple of months normally decide the long term appeal of a new game (or not). The best VG players can hope for is that SOE keep spending server space on this game because no one else is going to.

This whole SOE is evil stuff is boring and shows how shallow some people are.

Choose WOW. VG is still a tech engine demo with a few people running around it (you may even see one of them)

Welcome back. The game has not fundamentally changed from a casual gamer point of view so you will not feel "lost" on your return. My advice would be to not worry about low level zones as my experience is that most servers are very quiet in public chat and at low levels. I would be more focussed on finding a good guild to join as soon as possible and they will give you the support you want.

You could either roll a char from the opposite faction to your main so that the quest lines are all new to you ( great way to experience a familiar game as if it was new again) or if you roll the same faction, I would stick to the same server so you can put them both in the same guild and switch as you want to.

Good luck.

Varny - does the long past being funny SOE hating really not feel a little boring to you by now?

EQ1 - broke new gorund and played a major part in estrablishing the whole damn genre that you now want to hate on for fun

Vangaurd - SOE at least had the inclination to pick this dead attempt up and try to make it commercially viable - would be nice to see a little credit for this however the end result truened out

SWG - yep, they well and truly borked this one up but thats a long tired set of threads

EQ2 - fine game and a standard setter.

As for blind people playing MMO's, Im all for it. They would be great for me to get my PvP rank up.

Yawn !!

Same tired old BS thread from an unimaginative OP who wants to hate on the most successful MMO to date.

I am niether a fanboi or hater of AoC - more a disappointed hoper that felt a little let down at how bland the game quickly became - but there is no way you can justify that this game is one of the best out there - just damn ridiculous.

A reduction in subscription is always welcome but without real change to the core mechanics and gameplay no one will resubsctibe, find much different and stay for very long - the competitoin is too great for peoples limited spending / time.

I would be happier if they took the cash and paid for quick development of new alternate starter zones, far more quest content, huge revamps to mid game content and a slew of end game stuff.

Without this, its the same game with a discount sticker stuck to it

Depends on who opinion you listen to.

is it good looking - yes

Is it the usual mix of find 10 of these type quests - yes

Does it suffer in comparison to game with a deep lore - yes

Is it basically a grind - of course, show me a game that is not

Is it full of spammers - a lot less now thanks to recent patch and no worse than others at launch

Is it a good game - to be honest its a great game but does not bring anything new to the party. If you want innovation, dont come here. If you want a good looking game that sticks to a well worn formula - come and have a go

NOt sure what the point is here.

Og course the game is slowly dying - they all are as it is inevitable. But thats hardly news to anyone with a brain. This is why they have a release strategy for expansions and content to revitalise the community.  People were sayng the same thing before WOTLK and it was largest launch day sales game in history - I expect the same with Cataclysm.

Basing your view of the health of game on how many people you see next to you when you log in is ridiculous and about as shallow as study as you can get.

Is it passed its prime? Who knows, it depends on the number fo future expansions and how long they want to keep this model before a full new release overtakes it.

Boycotts and online petitions - its like the almost silent herding of discontented expectations screaming from a few bedrooms into an endless ether of ambivilance - waste of time.

I would venture a guess that given the value of the I.P. and the attractivness of the whole MMO sector as a money generator that the issue behind the difficulty in funding is either the lack or ability of features that investors think would appeal to gamers and generate subs or an inability to communicate what they are by the devs.

You can have the best I.P. and screenshots in the world but if savvy investors think the product is shit, they are not going to put their money anywhere near it.

So here I am reading some very good points the OP makes about improvement activity needed in the game but also concluding that ,whilst things like spammers are indeed annoying, that I can live with it compared to other games I have been subjected to.

I then read the post title again and think I must dream some deliberatly witty and insightful prose as a retort. After much deliberation I settle on...

bollocks!

I kind of agree with both points. Logging in to have to block 3-4 spammers straight away is annoying but not to the extent that it spoils my game experience and to be honest it is far less of an issue than it was for me when WOW and LOTRO launched. I also agree that NCsoft should have better spammer protection and I am sure this will appear in future patches alongside, hopefully, a decent general chat tab rather than the LFG tab that everyone currently uses.

I can see how this gets on peoples nerve but if this is the sole reason you quit the game i'd be surprised and a little disappointed.

Cant answer the trial related question but when I play the population and server chat can be very quiet - you have to remember that the area is huge though and it gets a lot busier at the higher end. The secret to LOTRO imo is to find a good guild. Guild chat is typically very high whlist general is almost dead.

Good luck

Whilst I would never try to do this as it would entirely spoil the game for me I can understand why some people do grind to max on release - its like conquering the mountain just to say you did it.

Well done to them but its not for me personally