Lord of the Rings Online

So, one of my good friends from WoW (World of Warcraft), an Aussie... we won't hold that against him, got fed up with the game and left to go try Lord of the Rings Online, based on, gee, can you guess? I decided to try it as well. I tried EverQuest2, why not. Going to try StarGate Words when it comes out. But ultimately decided against making LotR another addiction.
Here's some reasons why. And maybe it's just because it's hard to switch from something you are familiar with.

1. It's too beautiful. - I know this might seem funny but the more realistic a game, the more I get sucked in and the harder it is to come out of it. People who play and like LotR say WoW is too "cartoony". But that is why I like WoW. Easier to get out of when getting lost in it.

2. The crafting is very expensive. - Not to say that WoW crafting (making in-game items for use or sale in-game) isn't a time hog, that you have to go collect crazy amounts of stuff, but it seemed to be very monetarily expensive in LotR. And if you wanted certain materials (mats) to use, you had to ask another player who could collect those particular mats. Meaning, you actually had to socialize, and of course, pay for said mats. I know these games are set up to try and get you to socialize, but sometimes you just don't want to. But it also plays into my next beef with the game.

3. The mail system sucks. - The mail system really does suck. It is hugely expensive to send one item and it costs more the more it weighs. More realistic, but please. Because what ends up happening is that you make more than one character so that you have all the crafting professions. And then of course, you have to send items back and forth to other characters of yours that need the particular crafting mats. And you can only send one item or one stack at a time. Very annoying. Mail, no matter the weight, costs 30 copper in WoW. For one item but you can send a ton of items all at once to someone. Very nice and doesn't break the bank. Plus you can send your other alts (other characters) the needed mats for professions without running to zero money.

4. Driving your "toon", your graphic representation of your character around is like driving a Pinto. - For some reason, negotiating movement in LotR is like trying to drive a lumbersome car around. Either the mouse is too sensitive or something just isn't gelled correctly with the "I move my mouse this way, the character moves or looks this way" interface. So I always felt like the world was spinning around me and I was always getting the "You must face your target." when attacking something. Extremely annoying. Another annoying part of movement was when I tried to pick up something, I constantly got the "You are too far away." message even though it seemed I was near enough. WoW feels very smooth in both these aspects.

5. When you die you have to work your way back through. - To me, this is the most egregious aspect of the game. In WoW, when you die, you become a ghost at the nearest graveyard and you have to run back to corpse and "resurrect" there. There is a pretty broad range from your corpse to where you can't "rez" anymore, too far. So you can get close, see if there is anything to attack you, get to a safer spot and then pop, you're alive again. In LotR, you die and arise, whole and alive (with a "debuff" of badness, taking off stamina and such) at a nearby graveyard. And guess what. You have to fight your way back into where you were. You might have already taken an hour to get to that spot. Well, the respawn rate (meaning how fast things pop back up after you kill it) is terribly fast in LotR, so you can be sure everything you killed is alive again and in your way of your objective (that you previously spent an hour trying to get to). So, you have to kill everything again in your path. I think that was the biggest deal breaker to me. I don't have enough time, thank you.

So, I'm sticking with WoW for now. When StarGate Worlds comes out in the fall, I will check it out as I am a big fan of the movie and show. We'll see if it can knock WoW out of the water.