The only game I’ve played is LOTRO, which has the huge advantage of a superb storyline.
Also you can play for free; you can play Solo throughout; the atmosphere is generally helpful.
I’ve become averse to these games but only because I want a specific experience. The first for me was DAOC and it had this higher order of pvp that people just naturally congealed around. It was there a bit in WAR but the class I spent my time on didn’t quite have the combat/healing mechanic working the way I had hoped. If a game is more like WOW I avoid it because of the sheer number of hours spent on shit I don’t care about.
I really hope warhammer 40k has that element I need to enjoy these games. I could tell SWG didn’t have it.
Most the best parts of these games have been distilled out in online FPS anyway these days.
Also if you find a mmorpg getting boring, try leading. People appreciate it and its fun.
That’s why I stayed away as well, but I did start playing D&D Online last year (almost exactly: Feb 3) because it’s totally free to play. I do occasionally splurge, dropping $20 here and $20 there, and so far I’m just shy of $100 in for a year’s worth of play. I would feel much differently if I were paying $8 a month on a recurring billing scheme; I’d totally hate that. But only paying when I feel like it? That’s more palatable.
I soloed virtually the entire game, except for the single raid that everyone runs all the time. But that’s easy to just jump into whatever random group and sleepwalk through by its nature of being the single raid that everyone runs all the time.
Yeah, MMOs are everything I hate about video games, so no thanks. I endure stuff I don’t like, like combat, for the stuff I do like in other games. It doesn’t seem to me that there is any of my stuff in a MMO.
I got sick of grinding and plastic storylines in middle school playing paper D+D. I’m not about to start that again.
Which is ironic, because my dad discouraged his other sons from playing RPGs because he thought they’d stunt their social growth. And it did stunt mine. Ironically. Because if I hadn’t worn out on lowest-common-denominator fantasy gaming when I was young, I might enjoy MMOs, and thus meet more people. 