Just browsing around looking for information on EQ2 (still a bit of a newbee on it) and saw this, nice pod casts by the way folk, been enjoying them listening in at work.
As a longterm WoW player (gotten into the raiding scene) I'm seeing a lot I like the look of in Wrath of the Lick King, the achievements look like fun to me and should add in a bit more purpose to the game. The new class (deathknight) looks fun, but since I like to stick to a storyline and a bit of roleplay with my characters (only loosely, for example I just don't like guns in a fantasy setting so refuse to use them) I'm unlikely to role one since my characters are all undead.
But on the downside...
On the downsides with the game though is the pvp, when I first started playing it pvp it was a fun thing I'd do for fun even it was a whole day battling backwards and forth in Alterac Valley (40 vs 40 combat). Then they added in Arena's as they want to target WoW as a "E-sport", not a problem in themselves but they decided that high level raiders shouldn't be the ones with the best gear for pvp, instead a new stat was created (resilience) that allowed you to take a lot more damage.
The result though is you can play for days, get to the max level cap of 70, walk into a battleground and get 1-2 shotted by most people there while you can barely scratch other players, the solution is to grind out honour points which allows you to buy the basic pvp gear that gives you a chance to compete. If you play arena though you get access to better gear which of course gives you an advantage, I could deal with glass cannon raiders that would kill people with godlike damage, but at least you could kill them.
I think the bottom line was actions speak louder then words, as someone who plays WoW way too much I still couldn't be bothered to go through the painful process of acquiring enough honour to be able to have fun on my other characters. So for me the pvp side isn't much fun anymore, so bang goes half the game.
On the other side too is the storyline, its all based on books which have a good story to follow, and while there have always been engineers that can make some un-fantasy like things like flying machines, they just didn't look like they could fly - hence felt magical, now apparently they're adding these
So I'm kind of backing away from the WotLK and looking for a more fantasy MMO, so far I've been enjoying EQ2 on and off, although either I suck or its way harder then WoW :D
WoW has its problems as people know with the younger age of players (on Alliance the average age is supposed to be 14, Horde its 24 from memory), and has its good side with some well thought out areas, questing, dungeons and classes, but if it leaves its fantasy magic roots behind it loses the whole charm that makes me enjoy playing it.
Will be interesting to see how it evolves here.
