Since I've started playing Rift I've noticed this same issue I have many of the other MMOs I've played in the past (like Warhammer).  It feels like the combats lacks fluidity, or that I'm not directly connected to my actions in the game.  I realize this sounds vague and I'm having trouble explaining exactly what I mean, but I did not experience this problem when I played WoW.  I figured since I haven't played WoW in many months that this feeling would go away, but it hasn't.  I'm a PvPer and I want to enjoy PvP, in fact it could be said that I stayed with WoW for years longer than I would have otherwise if it weren't for the arenas.   PvP in WoW feels vibrant, fast paced, easy to learn but difficult to master, like you are actually connected character on the screen and controlling him.

I can't really explain it better than that, if you have any idea what I'm talking about or think I'm just loony feel free to say so.  Maybe it has something to do with the cartoony graphics, or that WoW is just more polished than anything else, or that I've played it for so many years.  With Rift the combat just feels agrivating: I don't like the spell effects, there are times when I can't distinguish enemies attacking me from the environment (like during fire rifts), the Warfronts just aren't interesting, and everyone looks roughly the same.

I see these terms used a lot when refering to gaming and I don't think I understand quite what they mean.

Can someone explain?

I was wondering if there is a website which shows up-to-date subscription numbers (AKA # of players) for each MMO?  Yes I know WoW owns most of the market and I don't care.

What are warfronts?  And what are the pvp instances like?  Are they objective based like BGs in WoW?

I won't be able to try it out this weekend because I won't have my new computer which will actually be able to run a game like Rift for another week :(

Random question, are there mounts/flying mounts in Rift?

I've been watching some videos, reading reviews, etc and it looks like fun. However, I'm being rather cautious because 1) I'm a poor college student 2) I've tried a couple other MMOs that have come out in the past few years, which have bored me after 1-2 months (like Warhammer Online), despite receiving solid reviews. The only MMO I've ever stuck with is World of Warcraft, which I have finally quit after 6 years. From what I've seen, I have two concerns so far which are:

1) Lackluster questing: Will I become so bored I quit before I even get to the fun stuff?

2) PvP: Unbalanced/uncompetitive? PvP is my main interest, and is what kept me playing WoW so long, having a large pool of competitive players and competing with other top tier players in the arenas. I've heard that with so many class customization options balance is out of control from a PvP perspective and I haven't heard anything about an arena system in the game.

Thanks for your input.

Who said anything about setting a trend?  I realize a lot of people will play it, obviously, since the subscriber rate is higher than ever.

...

I'm posting about it because I feel like it, and yes I'm really doing it.

First, a bit about me.  I've played WoW for 6 years on and off since 2004, started in the beta, usually quitting for a few months near the end of every expansion.  I've played all classes, with a Warlock main and I've leveled a couple alts to 80, but I prefer to focus on one character.  Here's my list of why Cataclysm will suck for me and why I won't play it:

Outdated Graphics

My largest issue, the graphics in the game are still ~2004.  Sure, they can and have added new models and textures, and now a new water mechanic (which my computer can't display even though it's rather overqualified for the job).  But the game engine can only be modified so much before you have to start over from scratch to see some major improvements.  I was never a huge fan of the cartoony models, and now I'm extremely tired of the way this game looks; especially the character models.

No New Classes

No new classes to level up, this is really lame if you've played them all.  New races might be cool if you want to level a class you haven't played before, but if you've played them all it's still going to be a borefest.  The only reason to play a new race for me would be to check out the starting zones.

Oversimplification of Class Mechanics

This started in WotLK and is really ramping up in Cata.  Talent Trees, stats, etc. all being dumbed down to easy-to-gauge formats, making class knowledge less important when making talent and gear/stat choices.  It will be more difficult to distinguish between strong and weak players at a glance.

The Old World Revisited

If you aren't leveling a new toon, this really is a lot of wasted effort on behalf of Blizzard trying to cater to newer players.  Instead they could have focused on more endgame content to keep veteran players from being bored and quitting.

Only 5 New Levels/No new talent tier

This one isn't really a big deal, since it's going to take more time to level and some talents have been changed or added to lower tiers.  However, I predict it will still be faster leveling than 70-80 since there are fewer new zones as well.

Conclusions

I feel WoW and MMOs in general are overdeveloped to keep a healthy subscriber pool to make money.  For example, Blizzard has never made more than one expansion for any of their other games.  In a nutshell, I don't think I can ever come back to this game.  Starcraft 2, however, really has me hooked so I will probably be playing it in the years to come, in addition to Diablo 3.

Also, I am extremely eager for the announcement of Blizzard's new MMO supposedly set in a new game world.  I was hoping to hear about it at Blizzcon this year but it seems we will have to wait yet another year before we even know what it's called.

Originally posted by neodavie

is there any need for one to kill the other?

 

What's the fun in it if no blood is being spilt and outlandish claims aren't being made?

Originally posted by pixeldogmeat

"who cares?"

I wouldn't imagine anyone would care, its a gaming forum for !@#$s sake.

btw, if you couldn't see through the sarcasm, or can't read english I basically said "I'm a troll, thanks for feeding me!"

http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=12065276937&sid=1

NOT!  I thoroughly enjoyed all of the speculation this year that AoC and WAR might stand up to WoW, because I believed they wouldn't stand a chance.  Secretly, I was kind of rooting for the underdog, which is why I went out and bought WAR, cancelling my WoW account.  But now I'm back where I expected to be... cancelling WAR after a month and reactivating my WoW account.  I think Blizzard has just had too much time to polish their game and make a bunch of money to pump out new content that just keeps getting better and better.  Graphics aren't everything, especially in MMOs.  Hell, look at this game I used to enjoy back in the 90s and maybe you'll see why:

http://www.mmorpg.com/gamelist.cfm/game/49

If WAR ever becomes better than WoW, I estimate it would take at least a year for the developers to polish WAR up enough to stand a chance.  Even then, they wouldn't have the financial resources and WoW would just be that far ahead of them again.

Originally posted by DuraheLL

Hahaha the OP is still here? I thought he'd be off making 10 identical posts in other forums by now. Hmm

Why would I do that?

Originally posted by Omega3

- REMOVE SCENARIOS COMPLETELY;

I think I can dig your other points, but this one makes absolutely no sense.  Scenarios are the only thing that makes this game somewhat interesting for me.

Well thought-out review.  I would like to add that cross-realming the scenarios might sort the queue times out.  I agree with most of your points here.  I also find it amusing that I made a rather unclear and undeveloped thread titled "This Game Is Crappy" which got 40+ replies, while this one is much better and has none, until now.  I guess people are more attracted to trolling than constructive reviews.

Originally posted by mrnutz1065

On an unrelated note, you have 3 chars on wow....All with brutal gladiator gear!? Holy crap, its tedious enough getting one char, whatever floats ya boat i guess.

Not really.  I would just make sure to get 10 games a week on all 3 of my characters, and do the daily battleground as often as possible.  The leveling took more time than the gearing.  While gearing these characters I put in less than 10 hours a week.  I'm not playing WoW anymore though.

To all of you idiots:  It's spelled fanboy.

I've queue'd during all hours of the day, from the middle of the afternoon to the wee hours of the morning.  It's either a low pop server or a full one which takes so long to get into it's not even funny.  I'm not switching servers either, I've leveled my toon now Mythic should have combined my server with another, but they didn't.  This is a monumental failure, and cancelled accounts will be the response of many.

WoW has been out for almost 4 years, not 10.

WAR: Online has been in development for at least 3 years.  WoW has been in development for a bit longer, but that still doesn't excuse this pathetic attempt at a game.

We expected a sweet game to carry on the legacy of WoW and other solid MMOs, but this game sucks.  That's why we're upset.

I bought the game expecting a lot of PvP fun, but I've decided to cancel my account after the first free month.  The gameplay is blocky and unpolished, and it takes forever to get a scenario queue on my server, not to mention only one of the three scenarios at tier 2+ even have enough players queue to get something going.  The world PvP is incredibley lame, the seige system sucks.  I won't be returning until this they smooth most of the issues out, but as bad as they are in the current state, I'm expecting this to take at least a year.

Dear Mythic,

Don't release games that still feel like they're in the early stages of beta testing.  I hope you'll learn your lesson when half of your subscribers cancel their accounts in November for a game that's succeeded in most aspects where you have failed.  I may come back in a year if you get your sh*t together, but by that time I'll probably be too occupied with much better games.

We're not talking about hype.  We're talking about the ratings for games that have already been released.