And yes, I can believe that WAR stays fresh due to the ever evolving nature of tactics and such in PvP; I’m very much hoping the Slayer is released soon, and that it’s enjoyable enough to be worth sticking through the rough edges that WAR still has. I’m still not sure whether I would stick it out at T4 for long though; again it comes down to lack of character advancement in any way shape or form.

I’ll be examining this phenomenon more closely in the coming months.

At least in WAR, no matter what rank I am, I always feel like I’m making a difference in scenarios and keep sieges. And so I’ll be with WAR, especially since the lore and setting is so good.

And LotRO is lovely, but it’s not the perfect panacea to MMO ills, partly I think because it’s vastly enhanced when experienced as part of a group, more so than many other MMOs.

For now, however, it is a place to adventure and to invest in character, and that’s good enough for me.

Oddly enough I’m rediscovering the fluff in WoW. The gear-centricity drove me away the first time (for I am negatively gear-centric and couldn’t give a rat’s arse about acquiring more armour), but coming back to it I’ve decided that only needs to affect me if I let it. Course it helps that I don’t raid nor feel the need to raid (why? for more gear I didn’t want in the first place, so I can raid for MORE gear… etc).

There’s a lot of fluff in WoW that’s quite enjoyable. Now if only they had player housing… I’d go back to LOTRO but there was something about it that didn’t hold me back in beta, and I’m not sure that something will be there now when it was absent before. (And oh god, MORE slow running, though the landscapes are stunning.)

Well I guess I’d better stick to real life, where I can at least develop my myself some more through my dead-end job… aaaand, uh, my inability to tear myself away from my computer for more than a minute to do something constructive…

Oh dear.

Where once feats and skills allowed players to improvise and develop, now it is all written for you.

I’m going to go upstairs and read my DnD 4e boxed set from start to finish whilst crying into a box of Maltesers.

I suspect the proportion of clever, witty, older (well me anyway) ex-tabletop gamers who really have seen this over, and over, and over… is rather smaller than that of people who’d never touched a game before WoW and for whom, therefore, all this stuff is like, better! than! sliced! bread!

I’ve just really depressed myself.

[Common Class Spell XVXMXCCI] 20g
[Common Class Ability XVCMII] 20g

as character development by now.