zlatko said:
Having not played since Vanilla launch times and coming back now I am FLOORED by the awesome.
How COULD any other MMO compete at this point? It boggles my mind how much they stuff into every aspect of the game, how much is refined, and the vast scope is incredible. Yes it has a few expansions behind it now, but the way the core game is now after Cata, the bar has been raised for other MMO developers how they have to initially launch a game now.
Battle.net is amazing too with the built in feature to talk to SC2 players while you play WoW. My buddy who I got a trial code for SC2 was chatting with me as he was doing campaign, and we both commented on how awesome that is.
There's so much to praise I think I'd eat up 3 pages worth to gab about and just be happy from. I'm having a lot of fun this Q3/Q4 of 2010 and it's been thanks to Blizzard with SC2 and now WoW. Best developer this year by a long shot.
I'm now playing WoW for the very first time, as I didn't have the time during the last 8+ years when I was playing FFXI. Coming from that community there was always this huge, stupid resentment for WoW and I have a feeling it was like that in many other communities and I never got it. Blizzard has always been a top-tier developer and while FFXI is fit more to my taste (I prefer the more mandatory group play, and still do after being exposed to WoW, to be honest), I really never even considered that WoW could actually be a bad game like people said...though I didn't have any experience with it myself.
After actually getting to sit down and see what it's all about, it's clear that this game is a great number of steps above anything else that's ever been on the MMO market...it really can't be compared with the rest of its genre. While I unfortunately haven't had the pleasure of being a part of the community since the early days and can't fully appreciate that changes that have come recently, I'm really enjoying the game as both an MMO and a
game. It's just a ton of fun much like I enjoyed FFXI as both an MMO and a Final Fantasy RPG. Most other MMOs, FFXIV especially, just don't get it. They feel like a job and all the focus in building the game is put into the stuff that's there to hook you. There's very little I've seen in the rest of the genre that's there just for the sake of being there and enjoyable. There's so much polish and attention that goes into every aspect of those two games...Blizzard is definitely one of the most talented studios that has ever existed and I'm glad to see how much it shows in their flagship product.
Still very eager to get back to FFXI once I get something figured out with their stupid credit card security bullshit but I can see myself casually enjoying both games at this point. Definitely looking forward to seeing what high level WoW play is all about as the game continues to surprise me every day even though it's been out for so long and I thought I'd know what to expect.
