I'm an MMO Junkie. I've been playing them for years now. I never found one that I could play for more than a couple of months until I tried WoW in early 2005.

I've since drafted many of my friends into playing as well. Although we now find ourselves getting tired. I think the reason WoW is the ruling MMO is because, to be honest, it's the easiest.

No death penalty (debt, loss of xp, etc.)

Experience bonus when you're logged off.

Easy to learn, great tutorial.

All one needs is time to get the best gear, skill is not that much of an issue.

I've tried almost every MMO on the market and I have narrowed down the successes of WoW to just plain difficulty level. Casual gamers are where the biggest market is for making money in an MMO, so naturally if an MMO markets itself to the elitists and is challenging or difficult, those casual gamers are going to move on.

They're not going to call or mail you, if that's your worry. Most sites want to know basic, general info. In the case of the free trial from WoW, if you end up liking the game and buying it, your trial account converts into your actual game account. So they get that info from you now instead of waiting till you buy the game.

There's still hope. Do what I did. Add the following site to your favorites and keep checking it every day or so. I did this and surprise, they were handing out codes.

Site:

http://community.godsandheroes.com/closedbetacodes/

Best of luck to you.

Originally posted by Flyte27

Another big difference is TV cost compared to Monitor cost.  For some strange reason LCD TVs cost a lot more money then LCD Monitors.  Strangely enough these monitors generally have a lower resolution for their size.  For instance I have a 17 inch Computer Monitor and it's capable of 1280x1024.  A monitor that is 26 inch + would have a much higher resolution.  On the other hand TVs have max resolutions of 720p and 1080i.  720p is like 1024x 768 on a PC monitor.  1080i is similar to 1280x1024 on a monitor.  Generally TVs with 1080i are 30 inch + and cost around 1000+ dollars.  20 inch + 720p TVs are around 500 dollars+.  Getting a monitor of the same size for a PC with a higher resolution will be a lot cheaper.  Basically it seems they are charging you a bundle for the HDTV tuner.  It boggles the mind.

1) For $40 you can buy a VGA Adapter that runs from your 360 to your LCD Monitor.

2) The new Xbox Elite edition comes with an HDMI port.

3) As others have said you can get a LCD TV for low prices nowadays. I work at Sears (boo) and we sell 1080p LCD Tv's that are 42" for $1200, and Sears is OVERPRICED.

4) It's been said already, but I'm just summarizing. There are USB Ports on the 360. ANY USB Keyboard works with it. Also, with Windows Messenger added to Xbox Live, they put out an awesome little keyboard attachment for controllers. Seen here:

http://www.liveside.net/Images/kip/xboxkbd.png

Anyone who text messages (most of the population these days) can use this little keyboard exceptionally well.

On a side note, I'm mostly looking forward to Age of Conan because one of the earliest Dev Pictures I saw of it had a Dev playing the game using a 360 controller. 

No matter what MMO it is, I almost always play as the tall and skinny race, because that's what I am IRL. It varies from game to game. If there is not a tall AND skinny race, I just settle for the tallest.