The Old Republic - Why I Stopped Playing It.

I've been reflecting a bit on my time with The Old Republic.  This is a just a copy/paste from my The Old Republic guild's member forums.  Not exactly very topical, considering I wrote it a year ago.  Maybe all these issues were addressed when the game went free to play.  I doubt it, though.  Anyway, without further ado:

WHY I CANCELLED MY SUBSCRIPTION TO STAR WARS: THE OLD REPUBLIC 

Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn - First Impressions

Square-Enix finally partially dropped their nondisclosure agreement regarding the ongoing beta for Final Fantasy XIV:  A Realm Reborn, which means that I can finally talk about it (though I'm still not allowed to post video footage... for some reason).  As per the usual, this was a work in progress, and things I talk about may not end up in the retail version.

Neverwinter Beta Weekend 3 - First Impressions

            Last weekend I was able to get myself a beta key for weekend three of the upcoming free to play MMO, Neverwinter.  Before I get started, it needs be said that the build I played was very much a work in progress, and anything I talk about here could end up entirely reworked before the game's release.

            So then!  I have to confess that I entered into this beta with very low expectations.  I've spent a substantial amount of time playing both the pen and paper Dungeons and Dragons edition 3.5, and its MMO spawn, Dungeon and Dragons Online.  Additionally, I'm less than a fan of the most recent iteration of D&D, 4th edition, so I didn't have very high hopes for an MMO based on that ruleset.  Did last weekend's beta prove me wrong?  Well, yes and no.

The Next Big Thing

I claimed that this blog will used to cover all manner of topics, but here's another one about MMOs anyway.

            So I mentioned in my previous post that for years now, different upcoming games have been touted as "the next big thing," and by that, of course, I mean that game that will supplant wow as the go to MMO.  It's a given that eventually something will come along and unseat WoW... eventually.  During a bout of insomnia the other night, I embarked upon a brainstorming session, reflecting upon what exactly this hypothetical wow-killer will actually do that other would-be challengers haven't.  I came up with the following list of thing that I think a next gen, big name MMO will have to successfully pull off.  So first on my list of things that I feel the next great MMO will have to address is...

The Panda Grind or: What Finally Made Me Cancel My World of Warcraft Subscription

Panda!

         I had planned a piece that would be more interesting to a general audience for my first post here, but for the last couple weeks something has been really bugging me.  I apologize in advance for the barely-coherent rant that's about to come.  Now, with that out of the way:

            For years now people have been heralding the coming of the wow killer.  They claimed that Warhammer Online would knock WoW off its throne.  It didn't.  People were SURE that Age of Conan would finish WoW off , it had BOOBS in it!  That wasn't enough.   All the cool kids were looking forward to Guild Wars 2 finishing WoW off as it limped away from its drop in subscriptions over the Cataclysm expansion.  I mean, come on!  Guild Wars 2  DIDN'T HAVE SUBSCRIPTION COSTS (it also didn't have robust endgame content, who knew people liked that sort of thing in their games?).  This is the point where I should also mention Star Wars:  The Old Republic...   but I'm not going to, as I'm doing my best to repress those memories.  All those games failed to knock WoW off its throne, though Recently I've started to think that maybe the true WoW killer has already descended upon us, but we're just not aware of it yet.