I totaly agree with 42 on CoH, the combat is boreing (actualy more boreing then FFXI) and probaly the worst in any game (MMO or not) that I've ever played, missions are all the same and tedious, too long to level (though all MMO's except WoW have that problem) and is only fun with groups. The character creations is fun, but I got bored with it after a few days since it's not that extensive. It's cool, especialy for a MMO, but there are so many things missing, and I don't like standard "tights" costumes so there were even less for me to play with.
FFXI was a great looking game, better than WoW in terms of actualy grahpical level, and the world/zones were realy cool. I loved how the cities actualy felt like cities. It's biggest downfall was the combat system and how it forced you to group after lvl 15. Though the fights were intense, meaning if you were fighting mobs your level you had a good chance og dieing if people weren't paying attention. The skill chains and magic bursts were the only thing I thing other systems should "borrow" from that combat. Those are basicaly linking special attacks and magic togethor for realy cool combos that do massive damage. Also the classes in the game were realy well done (except for theif).
WoW has lots of advantages, which are also considered a dubble edged sword in standard MMO thinking, and I hope they don't turn into that. It's fast to level, crafting is easy and simple and combat is quick. Someone hit lvl 60 a week and a half after the game was released, I played FFXI for 6 months and never got past 50s (that games max was 75 at the time), and DAoC for about 8 and got 42 out of 50. I'm allready 36 and riseing. Am I complaneing? No, though I know there isn't anything for me to do once I hit 60 (and yes, I don't consider instance runs anything to since there's no real point after haveing done them a few times) until battlegrounds come out in a few months. The fact that Battle grounds wont be out till probaly Febuary, though I hope one comes out earlier, will hurt Blizz since so many people are max level and have nothing to do. Crafting is the same way, it takes little effort to hit 300. Again I'm not complaneing since I did crafting in DAoC and it was tedious (got to 800 in leatherworking). Though the downside is there's nothing special about being a highlevl crafter in WoW like it is in other games, also the things you can make aren't quite as good, or in demand as in other games. Art wise I agree with Fell, WoW has got some great art direction (though I don't care for lots of the armor for PCs), and Blizz made a great looking game that isn't as graphics intensive as it might seem. I actualy like the cartoony feal and look to some things (I commented months ago before beta it look kinda fairytailish, or mother gooseish). Though I am dissapointed in how bland some of the zones are on Kalimar, half the zones there are basicaly Utah.
