I'm on the fence as to which to commit to. Mentally. If I get sunk into WAR, and it's good, I'll most likely not get the WoW expansion (I have 2 level 70s so not starting from scratch). There's of course the likely chance that I'll be disappointed (again) by another MMO hopeful. In which case I should not tempt fate and just wait for the Wrath expansion.

Gah.

So which are you choosing?

Most likely, neither.

I burned out on WoW at level 45. I like being able to play solo when I want to, and beyond 40 it became too much of an exercise in frustration. Wrath of the Lich King seems to be more stuff at the top end of the game that I'd never get to see.

I'll probably try the Warhammer beta when it starts opening up - this weekend supposedly - but I don't have exceptionally high hopes. I canceled my preorder for it already, but I'll still give it a try. The most recent screenshots I've seen, from players in the beta, make the game seem disjointed, and with the relatively frequent reports of content being cut, I'm concerned that the game is going to feel unfinished. Plus, I'm more of a PvE person, and while I know that a PvP focus is great for some people, it's probably not going to be for me.

I will, on the other hand, be picking up LOTRO: Mines of Moria as soon as it's released - I sprung for the lifetime subscription back when the game was released and recently started playing again, and have been very impressed with the state of the game.

MMOs are the bane of gaming as we know it. They are vampires, feeding on the lives of their subscribers and then discarding them when they have nothing left. Blizzard is a company of geniuses but rather then use that genius to make games that are fun they have made the most habit forming, the most devastating, the most addicting game yet.

So to answer your question neither, MMOs are horrible creations, and more people need to know about their destructive properties. If you are considering picking up either one do not, if you do, some day you will wonder why you didn't take my advice before it was too late.

@Virgil - I too am heavily PvE-oriented, hence I'm worried the best parts of Warhammer will cater to the PvP crowd too much. Not that there's anything wrong with those mentally retarded PvP fruitcakes. Kidding. Anyway, time will tell. I'll be interested also in the Mines of Moria expansion actually, LOTRO remains the most immersive environment in an MMO I've ever encountered. Plus I want to check out the dwarves in their DX10 glory.

I'm on the fence on this one. I'm a little afraid to get back into an mmo. I got really into end game raiding in WoW the burning crusade which took alot of time. But Wrath of the Lich King looks way sweet.and incidentaly warhammer looks pretty cool too. I can't decide to if i just wanna walk away from them both or committ to one. and if i commit to one which should i decide? /shrug

I'll say WotLK just because its an expansion pack and there'll be no time needed for working out start-game bugs. I just play it casually and I might switch over to WAR after a couple months after its released.

Also Talorat MMO's are NOT destructive the people who are SELF-destructive if they get too far in. The game isn't forcing you to do anything its all up to the player and the player alone. If they want to sabotage their own lives thats their buisiness, the game isn't making people blow off friends to play it, as I said before it's the player and the player alone.

Talorat:
So to answer your question neither, MMOs are horrible creations, and more people need to know about their destructive properties. If you are considering picking up either one do not, if you do, some day you will wonder why you didn't take my advice before it was too late.

That's really a very ignorant thing to say. Playing an MMO was the catalyst that led me into web development (working on a site about MMOs), meeting a lot of very intelligent people, and directly into the career I have today. In the time since I started playing these "terrible" online games, I've landed in an amazing job working with kindred spirits and have had a long and wildly successful relationship with my soon-to-be wife.

There is nothing more innately "horrible" about MMOs than there is in other games, sports, guns, the lottery, casinos, parties or any other hobby or habit that a person with no self control can lose themselves in. Millions of people enjoy these games, and other similar hobbies, without any negative side effects. If anything, the social experiences these games create have the potential to be far more positive influences than virtually any other.

...gotta say wow...well to b fair iv neaver played wow...i play fake wanna b wow..u no all the privet servers so iv neaver really had to experience all the hassles of getting to 70..i mean there r serveres were its as hard but its always more fun to just hop on to the server wer u can get to 70 in a day and go raid poorly scrpted instences or jump around with the awsomely bugged mage blink thingy that acts more like a huge longjump that counteracts falling damedge then a teleporty thing...

I want to play WOTLK because im actually pretty impressed and interested by what ive seen about the death knight and i don't want to play because i will probably get hooked on it again.

It's like having your favourite food sitting right in front of you, if you eat it you get fat, if you avoid it you are disappointed.

Bloody Blizzard..

Just so to let everyone know about WAR the content has not been cut! It has been re-arranged to make it better.... trust me.. I have friends in closed beta.. they say it will be amazing... and I shall be in open beta and also WOW by the time I got to level 30 or so... the interest had died.

In my opinion.. I say give WAR chance... You have nothing to lose and I think you shall enjoy it..

dib_dib_9@hotmail.co.uk:
Just so to let everyone know about WAR the content has not been cut! It has been re-arranged to make it better.... trust me.. I have friends in closed beta.. they say it will be amazing... and I shall be in open beta and also WOW by the time I got to level 30 or so... the interest had died.

In my opinion.. I say give WAR chance... You have nothing to lose and I think you shall enjoy it..

*kaff* Age of Conan was supposed to be amazing too, so was LotRO. It remains to be seen if it will be indeed as awesome as it's hyped to be when it comes out. As for nothing to lose...well, some money of course if you don't like it ^^'

I'll probably give WAR a go anyway, but I'm still looking out for Wrath of the Lich King as my fallback, being that I'm far too invested in WoW anyway, that it makes little sense to me not to get it. And that's only for all the new and interesting places to roleplay in and items and interesting looking gear to roleplay with.

If you compare trailers? Warhammer Online all the way.
But then only gameplay matters so we'll see.

I agree Conan was a let down to me..but LOTRO was pretty awesome..and kept me going for longer than WOW did

After you of course ;p

Well, WotLK will clearly be more of the same, so you have to ask how much you like the current product and how badly you wish that there were more of it.

But really, here's the thing. MMOs aren't hard games. They're usually not very strategy-heavy. They're pretty simple. The reason for this is that, in order for a modern MMO to break even, it has to have hundreds of thousands of subscribers, which means that it has to have very broad appeal and be easy to pick up. It also has to be addictive. In fact, if you consider the two ideas of "fun" and "addictive", I'd say any MMO dev worth his salt would pick addictive first, fun second if they have time for it. Why? Because people have to keep playing it for years or the game will never turn any profit.

Because of this, and the fact that there are a few ways psychology notes as the "best" ways to addict people, many MMOs follow a very standard formula, and the only real difference is in the window-dressing, fine detail, and population. That's why I don't understand why fantasy MMOs keep being made. What we need to realize is that WoW is not the current champion, or anything like that. WoW has won. Period. For fantasy MMOs, WoW is the winner. It has the population to keep new players stimulated, and enough success to churn out regular and often not game-breaking updates. Why would I play a different fantasy MMO with less people to team with, a smaller dev staff, and less regular content? You fight dragons either way.

What I'd like to see is more MMO genres, more superhero, sci-fi, maybe WoD even (my personal hope). Sure, it'd be a smaller subscriber base, but I might jump in there just because I'm sick of looking at elves.

So sure, check out Warhammer, but don't expect anything earth-shaking from it.

- J

Wrath of the Lich King baby! My hubbies been beta testing as i watch over his shoulder and the death knights are super cool. Plus shamans get CC... whoo!

It has to be WAR for me. I've had the pleasure of being in the beta since the middle of last year, and having been a part of plenty of betas in the past, this is the best I've been a part of. Mythic did decently with DAoC and their development attitude carries over into WAR.

Granted, if you're a pve player, you'll probably get less of what you want in WAR, although there are many aspects of the pve content that are great - public quests, the tome of knowledge unlocks, the dungeons, and all that. But I'd give the PvP a try. It's great fun, and it's group-centric, which discourages in part the kind of immaturity you see among hardcore PvP players.

I burned out on WoW due to the high level raiding and carrot on a stick content. No such thing exists in WAR, as you can proceed at your own pace and the gear disparity and differences will not be high. The thing is, WAR isn't looking to topple WoW, just simply create a niche of its own for players. WoW is going to be great with the latest expansion, but in essence, from what I've seen and heard it's more of the same on an aging engine, and that just isn't for me.

Snik you beta WAR? didn't think so.... you need to try both tbh to give a fair opinion.

I'm going with wotlk...mostly because I don't have a whole lot of interest in warhammer and I don't feel like starting ANOTHER mmo...

dib_dib_9@hotmail.co.uk:
Just so to let everyone know about WAR the content has not been cut! It has been re-arranged to make it better.... trust me.. I have friends in closed beta.. they say it will be amazing... and I shall be in open beta and also WOW by the time I got to level 30 or so... the interest had died.

In my opinion.. I say give WAR chance... You have nothing to lose and I think you shall enjoy it..

So what exactly was the Blackguard "re-arranged" into? I kid.

Having been in beta for both I have to say I am excited for each of them, but each for their own reasons. It's great to continue leveleing a character that I have played for so long in WoW and getting to see how he continues to develop( and daggers are finally becoming useful again). However I have been a big Warhammer fan and was quite impressed with a few of the things I saw in preview weekend. A new preview weekended started today by the way. I will at one point need to decide on one, as I don't have the free time to commit to two.

I recently picked up LOTRO again as well. I have heard a lot of great things about the Mines of Moria expansion, so I am thinking I will need to check that beta out as well.

So I am going to continue playing beta for each, and I will likely buy both at the start to play for a month or two. I want to support both companies because I believe they are putting out quality work, and I will put off making a decision until I decided which of the two draws me in more.