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All of the latest Mists of Pandaria newsBreakfast Topic: Do you play other games besides WoW?
by Brandon Cox 
Mar 7th 2011 at 8:00AM
2011 looks to be a great year for gamers. The return of Duke Nukem. Portal 2. BioWare's trifecta of Dragon Age 2, Mass Effect 3 and The Old Republic. A new Final Fantasy. A new Legend of Zelda (and a remake of the greatest game ever made, Ocarina of Time -- flame on, but you know it's true). The return of Kid Icarus. The already-released Dead Space 2. There is no shortage of great stuff to play. And all the while, sitting smugly on my desktop and the desktop of 12 million others worldwide, is that little golden "W."
When the Steam holiday sales rolled around, I found myself drowning in a sea of backlogged games. The past five years that I've played WoW, I have seen very little of games outside of it. So when I should get sucked into Mass Effect, I realized there was a massive (no pun intended) collection of great games out there I had missed! I must play them all. The challenge then was playing these other games and still playing WoW -- a balancing act I have yet to master.
With the smorgasbord of excellence awaiting gamers in 2011, how will you find yourself sneaking time outside of Azeroth? Will you succumb to the deluge of games and break away from Azeroth entirely for a time, or will you find ways to incorporate WoW and other games into your gaming schedule?
Filed under: Breakfast Topics, Guest Posts
Reader Comments (Page 2 of 9)
Celeane Mar 7th 2011 10:41AM
My husband and his best friend both quit WoW (leaving me in charge of our raiding guild!?!) and have devoted themselves fully to Rift. He is a level 43 Chloromancer/Warlock/Elemental Summoner. A healing mage, basically. He. Heals. As. A. Mage! Apparently Chloromancers are some of the strongest healers in the game right now.
He is loving it and refuses to even consider coming back to WoW. He says when Wow has mages that can heal, warriors who have pets, and rogues who can tank or heal, and massive zone wide invasion raids he might think about it, lol.
Glaras Mar 7th 2011 11:43AM
I'd love to try Rift out. But the don't have a Mac version yet, and I am not willing to spend the time need to set up dual-booting on my iMac. And yes, I'm familiar with Bootcamp, and no, I don't want to have to go get a copy of Win7 to lay on it. I'll just wait the 6 months or so. I'm sure Trion will want to get as many of us as possible, so they'll invest some dev time in a native Mac variant.
Elmouth Mar 7th 2011 12:10PM
I'm purchasing Rift in about a week, not because it's awesome (which it is) but because I'm so bored of the WoW lore & devs (been playing since the start of BC) that anything solid enough will do.
I tried almost all MMOs on the market (RO, WH, AoC, RoM, PW, Aion, Atlantica) but always came back to WoW in the end simply because it's such a polished game, but with cataclysm, it feels like the devs purposedly made the game un-fun (tanks have to mark, plan CCs, know encounters by heart on their FIRST run just like in BC, dps have to sit in queue for nearly an hour just get a chance at finishing their daily, healing is simply a chore now) so yeah, I've been looking for anything that was new, strong AND still had the fun factor.
Tried DCUO for over a month, it's a great game but the company doesn't give a damn about the PC version so its a game that will always remain handicapped because of its PS3 counterpart.
Rift looks like it's taken a lot from everybody else on the market, stuck it in a WoW setting and the result looks quite promising. I was put off by their offensive add at first, but honestly after being treated like dirt by Blizz for months now I don't mind it so much anymore.
Noyou Mar 7th 2011 1:37PM
Hmm. As someone who has played RPG's since paper and pencil D&D I would say the fundamentalist in me would never want to play a game with classes like that. I'm not saying WoW is perfect. I'm sure RIFT is a lot of fun. The idea of having a Mage be a healer or a Rogue doing much other than slashing/backstabbing etc. Doesn't sound right. There are many things I don't like about WoW that have gotten away from what basic RPGs were like. I'm going to try and stick to my guns so to speak. WoW is and will be the only MMO I play. When I am done I am done (I hope) and will go back to playing console games :)
Bob Mar 7th 2011 7:39PM
I'm with Noyou on the balance issue. Things may seem cool when everyone is everything they'd ever want to be NOW, but it simply can't last. Either the nerf bat will come down hard, everyone will be the same uber-spec, or the game will just die. Humans tend to screw this kind of thing up pretty good. It's basic game theory that there have to be some sort of limits, and the classic ones have 30+ years of tradition behind them. There's a reason they've survived three generations of gamers with very little change...
Also I fear CoH-syndrome with end game RIFT. If there's everything when you're level 1, what's the point of hitting max level? Once you have, your sense of accomplishment will likely suffer. It isn't like you're suddenly going to go raiding, you're already raiding and have been since the newbie area.
Time will tell, I suppose, but I worry.
xenite46383 Mar 7th 2011 10:50PM
We quit WoW for Rift and have never been happier. It's the most polished MMO at launch that I have ever seen. The talent system is revolutionary and has never been done before and it's graphics make WoW look like a steaming pile.
Neuropox Mar 8th 2011 4:47AM
Im scared of RIFT.... ive lost almost 1/2 my raid team to it, and am afraid that if i try, il be the next one.... nope not gonna do it.....
nieboh Mar 7th 2011 8:14AM
I play other games but not with the same devotion or intensity of WoW. I play Civilization 5, Bad Company 2, Medal of Honor, even online poker. But WoW is my only MMORPG.
MusedMoose Mar 7th 2011 8:14AM
The games I'm looking forward to this year are Portal 2 and The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. The former because, well, it's Portal 2. ^_^ The latter because what I've read suggests they've fixed the things that annoyed me so much about Oblivion, though I'm still going to wait and read reviews before purchasing it.
As for where I'll find the time, well, I'm not sure yet. I'll likely end up playing WoW less, as unless my guild starts raiding, I'll eventually run out of things to do between patches. But with other games and other projects, I'll have no lack of other things to do.
Also: normally I refrain from critiquing the guest post articles, but stating an opinion that others will surely differ with and then saying "flame on, but you know it's true"? Bad form. That's pretty much the equivalent of when people say "downvote me but you know I'm right" in the comments on this site, and those comments are almost always voted down. People don't seem to like being told that someone's opinion is a fact. -_-
Noyou Mar 7th 2011 1:37PM
Did not know there was another elder scrolls game in the works. I loved oblivion and will have to check it out. :) Not sure if I can sneak another game in now. I might pick up Fallout new vegas if it's at a discounted price someday :p
Chapmanistan Mar 7th 2011 8:15AM
Besides WoW, I just started Rift. Also this never ending game called shovel my driveway.
Kurtis Mar 7th 2011 8:40AM
Oh, yeah... that game got mixed reviews, but I've found that some microtransactions (like the snowblower add-on) can really help.
dodgeballer2005 Mar 7th 2011 9:11AM
I recently purchased an extremely cheap bot to play that game for me while I continue playing WoW. All you have to do is go onto www.2lazy2shovel.com and enter in the promo code: IH8CHORES. It will then give you a list of bots ranging from ChildYouPaid to FamilyMemberYouTricked. The latter requires some hacking but it's just as efficient as the former.
Chetti Mar 7th 2011 9:41AM
Bonus points if you've considered shooting Puxy, who told us spring was coming.. yet we've gotten 2 bouts of snow since then. Thanks. Puxy. (the groundhog)
Debesun Mar 7th 2011 8:15AM
I'm mainly playing Starcraft 2 / Battlefield: Bad Company 2 and haven't been playing much WoW at all lately. I don't have a problem with Cata but since I'm juggling full-time uni and part-time work, the timing of the expansion with full gear reset and the time commitment to get into heroics, heroics into raids, and the pace of casual raid progression, I'd much rather play games where I can go right into (and leave) the action and don't have to feel too commited to a group or activity with my restricted play schedule without bringing others down.
I still like to stay up to date with what's going on though :P
MikeLive Mar 7th 2011 8:17AM
I'm looking for other games to play until my guild realizes that Rift can't have a competitive aspect* and comes back to WoW. Currently it's a lot of Minecraft.
*Not downing the game at all, quite the opposite I did enjoy the game when I played, just it's talent system has 224 possible combinations to balance - historically, Blizzard has had many issues with WoW's 30, and even Valve has had to balance TF2's 9 on occasion - and as a result I very much doubt competitive (PvE or PvP) play, like raiding and arenas, will get very far off the ground due to extreme fad-of-the-month tendencies.
Wodinn Mar 7th 2011 8:18AM
I had the same epiphany the other day. As luck would have it, I was bored with WoW and friends were quitting, so it was rather painless to cancel my sub. I've already logged too many hours on Civ5, have a level 38 Avenger in Torchlight, and have been eyeballing some 'older' games that I never played - kotor, red alert 3, the witcher, to name a few.
It's sad, realizing that I stuck with WoW for so longer, even when I was no longer having fun just because there was so much left to do. I hope that I can game in the future without that feeling of necessary completion sucking the fun out of them all.
nieboh Mar 7th 2011 8:23AM
"so much left to do". This is keeping me from all other games right now. I need a new wand for my mage. I've been logging in almost daily just to queue up for Deadmines and Blackrock Caverns, and then if I still have time, the random heroic for valor. But since I'm dps and the queues take 40 minutes or so, I really don't have time for anything else. If not for that damn wand I'd be leveling my other toons or even playing a different game.
Strawder Mar 7th 2011 8:29AM
KOTOR was an awesome game. The combat system was crap, but that's not what everyone played it for. The voice acting, dialogue choices and the sheer "what can you do with your character?" options are staggering.
It's the best Star Wars story since the original trilogy, possibly even better.
But don't bother much with KOTOR II. It's god awful, and has an ending that will make you literally hurl your controller across the room whilst screaming "WHAT THE BLOODY F___!" Seriously, I hate KOTOR II. It's like a girlfriend who invites you over for some sexy fun, and when you get there, there's another guy there and they have late night Skinemax.
Parrin Mar 7th 2011 9:09AM
I was surprised to find that I enjoyed KOTOR II more than the first. The story was garbage compared to the first game, but the freedom to play was increased tenfold. It was really the option to increase influence with all of your secondary characters, and then to train about half of them in the ways of the force, that salvaged the terrible plot (which was sacrificed due to Bioware pulling out, and the new company forced to concede to unrealistic deadlines).