To the OP... Intel is cheaper in actual fps/$.  Wasn't  true in the Core2 days, but today the sandy bridge CPUs just wipe the floor with everything.  I've been AMD for a decade easy... next PC is an Intel though.

10.) Aion

9.) TERA

8.) Age of Conan: Unchained

7.) Lord of the Rings Online

6.) The Secret World

5.) EVE Online

4.) Rift

3.) World of Warcraft

1.) Guild Wars 2

Based on sub numbers by years end.  Though honestly I don't think Aion should be there unless we're talking world wide.

If you liked DA1, have at it.  

Come step out of the 70s with me ;)  Modern SW looks exactly like TOR.  Problem is you probably aren't 12 so you don't watch Sat morning cartoons.

Personally fine with the look and the animations are fine though some are too "soon".  Death seems to come before the shot, and people got out of the Eternity Vault pods awful fast :P

Two things going on here... yes server pops plummetted like ALL SOE games post hack.  Logged into EQ2 recently?

But Mega Server is accurate since there isn't 1 of each zone.  Its more a change to be like AoC or GW.

And for the foo who said free transfers for Rift were from pop drop... crazy.  Rift cleared 1 mill boxes sold a while back and 1 mill active subs a few weeks back.  That's pop increase, not drop.  You thinking of WoW maybe :P

Two separate games really.  GW2 will be in comp with Rift more than TOR.  Love the art direction, not too sure about the class thing but the dynamic thing no matter how many times they say it isn't Rift's... is.  The other side of this is that ArenaNet is slow and despite it being F2P if Trion keeps bringing out content like they are and ArenaNet does the whole once a year thing... it's going to get interesting.

Playing any SOE MMO until EQ:Next launches is silly.  They are all broken empty worlds.  Vanguard was great, but frankly we all moved to Rift so... see you there =)

Nods, its a removal of the filter to seeing NA/EU servers, not a merge.  Ie more servers to choose from not less.

You are behind in the times.  Rift isn't a WoW clone.  WoW is Rift Lite(TM) :D

^ Yes ;)

Maybe just maybe SOE will finally realise launching unpolished MMOs is bad.  Pretty sad that this many years on, CoX is still top dog in the super hero genre.

Love the direction art has gone.  Diablo series has always been a techno dino with limited palettes.

Anyway, SC was in crunch for 2 years if that means anything =P

WoW has 32 classes now?  Cool I should totally come back =P

Most people who liked WoW but are tired of it has nothing to do with gameplay and everything to do with they've played the game.  Frankly I find it kind of retarded for people to play the same content month after month let alone year after year when something similar is available that is completely new.

Now that'll go for Rift too if in a year we're all still running the same dungeons every day.  But given WoW is on 4-6 month cycles and Rift is on 4-6 weeks... oh and do enjoy the completely broken 4.1 =P  Should be nice hold over until they bring class skills down to 4 like GC talks about /facepalm

The joke... WoW is number 2 easy and miles ahead of number 3.

Scott's awesome.  He just gets it.  And no that doesn't mean he gets the whiny vocal minority.  WoW is Rift Lite, not the other way around.  X-Server LFG might be in the plans... who cares other than the 5 people who think I actually give a crap about you and my server "community".  Hasn't been server communities since guilds were introduced oh way back in long bloody time ago.  Reacting to your customers is how you survive.  When you play the whole EQ1 vision thing... well you get entire webcomics dedicated to your silliness.  Trion has said and delivered that they will try things and if they go off... great, if they fail... they get pulled.  They aren't going to force feed the paying community what Trion wants but what the investers err players want.  Who da thunk giving people what they ask for would make them happy, crazy.

As to SW:TOR and GW2?  They have been on the hype train for a long long time.  TOR is pretty much guaranteed to not meet its numbers given dev comments lately... cough swimming cough... see FF XIV cough.  GW2 looks great, reads a little odd and demos like its just going to be a MOB grind.  It handles buffs in an interesting way but interesting can become annoying real fast.  Classes are more hybrids but the trinity is still present and accounted for, just more solo friendly for those typically support classes.

Originally posted by Zippy

  Even a casual player who only plays 40-50 hours a week can hit max level in 7-10 days real time.

Wow just wow.  Thats not casual in any sense of the word.  Thats hardcore.  Casual play times would be closer to 4-10 hours weekly.

On difficulty, Rift group content is much harder and less forgiving than WoW's.

Less playtime != less subs.  As for not having the content of WoW?  It really depends on your vantage point.  WoW has more content 1-85 hands down.  Rift has more content at the end game.  Hardly matters which is better though.  I've played WoW to end game, thats reason enough to jump to anything else.

Trion has been pretty clear that they exceeded their goals and that subs have increased since launch.  At last estimate, subs were pegged at 1.3 million but that was weeks ago.  Would not be surprised if that number was closer to 1.6 million now.  But launch has come and gone so ya hours played will drop.

Its not a show stopper but no swimming is dumb.  If I play, like Aion, and die in water because I couldn't swim up... I'm out.

Nods, Aion was a big letdown.  The zones and combat feel mechanical.  The toons are nice, the animations are nice, they just don't flow.  The UI doesn't help, being the typical functional yet dry UI common to Eastern games.

Flying limits, bad, no swimming, bad.  In other news SW:TOR also has no swimming so... guessing EA hasn't been paying attention to the fallout from FFXIV or Aion.

UO... getting ganked by tank mages ftw =)

Originally posted by Arentas

This sounds exactly iike WoW.

Except Rift has more end game than WoW... so umm ya.  Seriously how long can some people play the same game over and over before its just silly?  I return to WoW for expansions but once I've you know completed them I move on.

Take note, Rift will be no different.  I'm enjoying the ride but once I've completed it... I'll move on.  Good news that might take longer than WoW because of the pace at which Trion releases content.