Redwolf's Journal (continued)

I made a comment last night about having high hopes for both Guild Wars 2 and Star Wars: The Old Republic. I edited off a doubtful qualifier because... well, anyone who knows me will already know I'm skeptical at this stage. ;) But really, any MMO that wants a notable slice of the pie is facing a huge uphill battle. WoW is undeniably the big target everyone points to as "success" in the industry, though there are certainly a number of games that manage a lesser degree and remain in the realm of happily profitable. Every new game wants to be a "WoW-killer," but that's almost impossible for a number of reasons. From the standpoint of design, any new game walks a fine line. Copy things too closely and your game is derided as a clone. Stray too far and you lose people who are familiar with the current standards in how to do things. Just hope you please more people than you annoy. From a content standpoint, WoW has a ridiculous lead. If a stand-alone game...

Champions Online did another free weekend over the "four day" weekend. I updated early and popped on a few times. And... it just didn't grab me. Last time, I just got a character to level 14. I'd finished the intro, done most of the desert (all that was available, anyway), some of the Canadian wilderness (which seemed to have a lot fewer quests) and has just really set foot in the main city. I played some solo, and some with friends. Progress was steady and even quick. Once I found out about builds, I set up a DPS build and was defeating small groups of enemies that much faster. This time, I didn't get to it while anyone I knew was on, so it was just solo. I found my DPS build generally getting crushed by the last one or two enemies in a pack, so had to switch back to a balanced build while survived, but was slower. I only saw a couple things I hadn't finished in Canada, so flew around the city, but the missions there started feeling dull. In the end, I ga...