I just want to add myself to the list of underwhelmed triallers.
When I tried the game it had the issue that you had to do a lot of tedious walking. To the extent that I, like others that played, would tape the forward cursor key down and then go make myself a coffee or whatever.
I hear that that’s no longer necessary, even when starting out.
It got messed up too bad to use in your battle with it 
Ultimately, I feel the same meh when it comes to City of Heroes, and there is one aspect of WoW that I came back for, and that was the Death Knights, and especially their opening storyline. When I heard they could be created on any server now I had to go back and play the Death Knight storyline again and pick up on the parts of it I had missed before. It was so awesome and fun (unfortunately, I arrived at just the wrong time so I didn’t get to fight in the final battle. so now I may have to go through it a third time to get that part in, and figure some more of it out.)
I think the missions and storyline continuity are the weak point in COH, there are so few interesting ones. If all of City of Heroes was like the Rikti War Zone missions, I’d still be playing. On my blaster, I played through all the Vanguard story arcs because they actually told a story that evolved over time, and most of the time when I had to face Elite Bosses, there were npcs helping me out.
Otherwise its just another bland radio mission, or another bland contact mission. Or another bank run. Once in a blue moon there’s a good mission, but mostly its just a group of XP points.
Ultimately the questing in World of Warcraft can feel like that sometimes, but you’re almost always making some kind of progress in a bigger storyline. I did Deadmines and then Stockades on my priest back during the 10s and 20s, and then I got to do some storyline missions inside Stormwind, and then I got a ring from Anduin Wrynn. And then later I got a ring from the lady who rules in Dustwallow Marsh. And I kept those rings cause they were cool. And then I progressed through Stranglethorn vale, and so on. In City of Heroes, missions only progress within a short cycle of empty to full detective bar level, or they go through the arc of x missions, and then you start over with some other contact.
That and there are way too many snake missions Villainside.
Plus, the other parts that keep bringing me back to WoW are the side activities and the holidays. I had a blast at the last Dwarf Brewfest. I had a Dwarf Paladin I was playing a lot at the time, and it was fun running around with a racing ram and doing all these other things. Then there is fishing. When I discovered that you could fish from crates to get neat stuff, the game got a lot neater.
But I have become bored of the alliance storylines on the Eastern Continent in Wow, because I’ve played through them so many times on my gnomes, dwarves and humans. The Kalimdor stuff I could try again, but I’ve moved over to Blood Elves for my new characters, to try a whole bunch of new stuff.
I’ve always wondered how people got the formulae for this anyhow. MMORPG game designers are not known for being forthcoming on this aspect.
Extensive testing and reverse engineering. And depending on the game, they certainly can be forthcoming. EVE throws so many numbers at you it’s easy to get overwhelmed by them. City of Heroes used to be incredibly close-mouthed on the numbers until NCSoft took over from Cryptic, and now you have access to many of the numbers that influence your character. From there, it’s easy enough to, say, add a 25% recharge rate enhancement to a power that normally takes 10 seconds to recharge, see that it recharges in 8 seconds, and work out that the formula used for recharge rates is <recharge time>/(1+<enhancement>). That’s one of the simpler formulae used in these games, of course, but I was able to work that out by myself and I don’t have a tenth the perseverance or knowledge the theorycrafters do.
This is one area where Blizzard is doing themselves no favors by not bundling up base WoW and the first expansion. I was going to say, “Make a Dranei or a Blood Elf, their starting areas feel a lot more story-like”, but then I remembered that you couldn’t.
In another word: Science! The (game) world works in a way governed by (programmed) rules and application of the scientific method can let you discover them. On certain forums (official CoH, or for WoW, the Elitist Jerks), there’s a strong evidence-based show-me-the-data mentality that would make any real-world scientist proud.
Sorry for the slight hijack.
I enjoy both CoH and WoW, but ultimately I grew bored of CoH. I love the customization of CoH, but the gameplay just couldn’t keep me engrossed the way WoW does. I’m looking forward to trying Champions Online–they promising even more customization, and if the gameplay is decent, I may be hooked.
I tried Coh as well didn’t care for that either. Beating up x of y although more fun with super-powers than swords i also got bored with fairly quickly.
My main complaint however is that you couldn’t interact with the enviroment. I want to be able to blast holes through walls, throw cars at people, rip up lamp-posts and use them as bats. Now before anyone jumps on me, yes i do realise what i ask is impossible. That level of interaction and changes to the city model would be impossible for servers to maintain and update on the fly for what could be hundreds of users in an area. Still it breaks the 4th wall for me so hard i just couldn’t get into it.
Man i loved the Freedom Force Games. We need more single-player superhero games.
In the preview videos, Champions looks like a dumbed down CoX. Mobs just standing around until you to hit 'em!
Well lets see.
Queues to log in, sorry that is not a function of the game, that is a function of the game provider not having enough servers…
Crafting, you need to do a lot of crafting to get up until you can make stuff that is usable. Sometimes what you make isnt for you but to be sold in the auction hosue to lower level characters. That being said, you can make useful items and cash in tailoring and alchemy. Not being able to carry stuff, you need to get more bags. I would sugggest that you ditch mining/blacksmithing [or enginnering] for tailoring for a few levels simply to make yourself some bags. Then change out to a different set of professions.
Basically, I look on WOW as a chat room with graphics. I hung out and chatted with friends while forraging for herbs, and doing quests. Find a good guild and people to chat and run quests with, makes a seriously big difference.
With the new Death Knight, you can probably make decent gold selling lowlevel ingredients like herbs and metals and gems, so tehy can send their baby DK gold from their level 80 character to level up a tradeskill…
That’s all they do in CoX or WoW, for the most part. 
Anyway, I don’t judge a MMO until I play it. As this thread demonstrates, so much of what makes one fun is due to the personal tastes of the each player.
If I can’t craft anything useful until I’ve been doing it for ages, then I’m not really keen on it. I went through the crafting grind with Star Wars: Galaxies and I learned that I don’t enjoy it. WoW’s crafting is somewhat easier: the interface isn’t so clicky and there is no chance (yet) of failure.
But since it’s a trial, I can’t use the auction house. I can’t trade. If that is the upside to crafting, then the trial account is designed to make crafting look as dull as possible, no? I can either destroy the copper ore, or I can sit for a few minutes trying to turn it into slightly more money than the raw materials.
Can’t make a Death Knight, either. Trial account.
I haven’t found this to be at all true. In every craft skill I’ve tried (and I’ve done all of 'em except for Inscription, at this point) I was making useful low-level items right off the bat. Alchemy’s probably the best for that, because you can always use a few more healing potions, but even stuff like blacksmithing, there’s usually at least one sword or armor piece that’s better than what I’ve currently got equipped.
I actually had the opposite experience with the trial account. The restrictions made me want to buy the game. I strongly suspect, though, the difference was I started playing the game with friends, and I was collecting a ton of stuff they could use but I couldn’t trade to them. Not being able to initiate a group hurt, too, so I was eager to get the full version to have it all unlocked. Different situation, of course, but it’s interesting how different the reactions can be.
You can craft useful stuff at early levels depending on your profession, but you really have to stay on top of crafting so that your available recipes don’t lag behind. Blacksmithing has notoriously bad low-level recipes, but Leatherworking and Tailoring aren’t too bad. Jewelcrafting is excellent, because you get so few rings and necklaces in the early levels, so any at all is better than none. It’s horrendously expensive, though, either the direct cost from buying the materials or the opportunity cost in using gathered materials that you could otherwise sell.
ETA: Engineering- highly useful for gun users. The guns and ammo I can make are always better than the available options.
Yeah, but they’re also moving around and will attack if they see you first. The videos I’ve seen of Champions made it look like a player can walk right up to a mob and they won’t even twitch until they get hit. It’s as if the mobs in there are statues that come alive when something hits 'em! 'Course, maybe there’s a “statue” class for mobs in Champions.
Brainiac4 and I went from CoX to WoW for about three months a year or so ago. And went back to CoX. Travel times were a huge issue - as was the customization - we were used to near complete control over how our characters looked. Looking like every other level six female night elf in my bike shorts and boyscout kerchief was depressing. The quests on WoW were lengthier and more grindy - not condusive to our play style which is to log in for 45 minutes at night and knock off a few missions after the kids go to bed and before we do.
Loved rested XP, which CoX just added. And loved the mailbox. But for us, everything else about CoX was a better game experience. WoW is a much “ditzier” game - you just take more time to do things - move around, having some skills that aren’t “hit people with my broadsword” are pretty necessary to get GP and those take time to develop and engage in - which I think helps if you are looking for an immersive experience - but isn’t great if your “escape” period is an hour or less. No one wants to spend half an hour getting somewhere if they only have forty five minutes to spend in the game.
To the OP:
I’m in a similar situation. I had been playing City of Heroes for 2 months before I recently decided to reinstall WoW with the first expansion pack. I had palyed WoW exclusively two years ago and felt nostalgic for those times.
When I started playing, however, it seemed unnecessarily complicated and time consuming, most of the players are level 70 or 80 (my highest is 52) which makes the population in the mid levels almost non existent which in turn means no one to play with. It also seems now to be more geared to players that spend 4+ hours playing everyday than more casual ones like myself.
I’m sticking to CoH/V for now.
Never, ever play A Tale in the Desert.
To give you an idea of prices on my server’s Horde side auction house:
A stack of 20 copper ore or bars will fetch 4g to 6g. Maybe 10g if you post them at the right time.
A netherweave bag, which is a 16-slot all-purpose bag, is about 9g30s.
Most pieces of green-quality gear of early levels are around 1g to 3g.
Furthermore, you don’t really need money while leveling, except to get a few key things like bags and a mount.
Crafting at capped level was very good last expansion, but it’s not all that great now. I’d advise new players to pick up herbalism or mining as well as skinning for their professions. There’s never a chance of failure when crafting, but it’s certainly possible to make a lot of items worth less than their materials just for the chance of skill-ups.
Your choice of class may be a factor, too. Paladins are probably the least engaging and most tedious class when questing and leveling. You may want to try out a warrior, hunter, or mage for a different play style before you write the game off entirely.
This is important! I’m surprised no one else mentioned it earlier. Do you like playing all the archetypes in CoX equally well? If not, you really should try multiple classes in WoW. The playing experience of the classes are different.