I wish I could combine the two MMOs I play
And not because it would save me $15 dollars every month (which would also be nice). There are aspects of both games that I really, really like, and aspects that I dislike, but a game with the best of both would be the most awesome MMO ever. Well, in my opinion, anyway.
I play City of Heroes/Villains and World of Warcraft. CoH/V wins for character customization, but WoW wins for world design and crafting/professions. Game play is a tough call, since both games have rather a lot of kill X missions (or, in WoW loot X missions, which amount to the same thing), though both games also give you some missions that don't necessarily involve fighting and both occasional give you talk to so-and-so missions (though WoW gives you far more of those - I sometimes think half the world's populous must be engaged in grade school style feuds). Over all, though, I think CoH/V characters are slightly higher powered compared to their enemies, which means it's much easier to take on multiple foes without face-planting, but, at the same time, it has more of a death penalty than WoW (which is mainly a corpse run). If given a choice, though, I'd take CoH/V's slightly higher power and WoW's death penalty - mainly because I solo a lot and would rather not have to out-level missions or find help. (That would go in the category of why really shy people shouldn't play MMOs.) But the game play isn't the issue - I wouldn't play either game if I didn't enjoy it - it's the color, the extras, the stuff that turns people into addicts that the two games need to learn from each other on.
In CoH/V, you design your character's looks in pretty damn good detail. You not only pick their face (and adjust it with facial feature sliders if you so choose), their build, and, of course, their gender, but design their costume as well. You can create a superhero (or villain) who looks like you, or who looks like your idea of an alien from some other dimension. You also have a space to write a brief biography or description of your character, which other players can read. You even have a fair amount of choice when it comes to your powers - sure there are "classes," each of which gives you access to a different list of powersets, but with each class having primary and secondary powersets to choose from, you end up with a lot of variety. You also can add other powers (travel powers, for example) as you level up, and the powers in your powerset aren't dependent on one another, so you can skip one's you aren't interested in without effecting your later choices. This means that you end up with a character that seems very much like your own creation. Yes, there are limits, and, of course, players long to create things the game won't allow, but my CoH/V characters feel like my characters in a way that my WoW characters do not.
WoW feels a bit more like fantasy Barbie. I dress up the dolls and play with them, but they aren't mine. I still role play them (in my head - I'm far too shy to do so with other people), but not to the degree that I do my CoH/V characters. Fantasy Barbie (or GI Joe or other pre-made story doll) is still fun, but it's a far cry from having computer equivalents to pen and paper RPG characters. And, yes, I know there are people who role play in WoW and who do create back-stories and all of that for their characters. I'm not saying it's impossible, just that the game doesn't make that kind of thing as easy as CoH/V does.
On the other hand, WoW offers a beautiful, varied world to explore. Oh, sure, it's a cartoony world, but that doesn't keep it from being a very, very pretty world (at least to me). Sure, the zones in CoH/V are different, too, but only a few of them aren't simply different takes on "city." The names of the games pretty much sum up the difference here - World of Warcraft, City of Heroes/Villains. And, at least for me, a world is automatically more interesting to explore than a mere city. WoW also did a better job with its crafting and professions, probably because they weren't tacked onto the game the way they have been in CoH/V. If I'm going to engage in crafting, I would rather run around picking different flowers, mining veins, skinning the wildlife I kill, or disenchanting items I have no use for than hoping what I need drops at random. (Yes, yes, there's some random dropping of items for crafting in WoW, but in CoH/V it's all random. Not fun.) WoW also did a better job with their crafting by naming everything you craft - not having non-rare crafted items simply be "crafted item." Sure, the basic crafted enhancements in CoH/V are better than the dropped enhancements, but I'm not going to replace neat looking and neat named items with boring looking "invention damage" or whatever. It ruins the flavor and look of the enhancement screen. (Yeah, I'm picky. :P)
While I long for a game that really does have the best of both worlds, I guess I'll have to just keep playing the games I have, even if I long for World of Heroes/Villains (or something).
I play City of Heroes/Villains and World of Warcraft. CoH/V wins for character customization, but WoW wins for world design and crafting/professions. Game play is a tough call, since both games have rather a lot of kill X missions (or, in WoW loot X missions, which amount to the same thing), though both games also give you some missions that don't necessarily involve fighting and both occasional give you talk to so-and-so missions (though WoW gives you far more of those - I sometimes think half the world's populous must be engaged in grade school style feuds). Over all, though, I think CoH/V characters are slightly higher powered compared to their enemies, which means it's much easier to take on multiple foes without face-planting, but, at the same time, it has more of a death penalty than WoW (which is mainly a corpse run). If given a choice, though, I'd take CoH/V's slightly higher power and WoW's death penalty - mainly because I solo a lot and would rather not have to out-level missions or find help. (That would go in the category of why really shy people shouldn't play MMOs.) But the game play isn't the issue - I wouldn't play either game if I didn't enjoy it - it's the color, the extras, the stuff that turns people into addicts that the two games need to learn from each other on.
In CoH/V, you design your character's looks in pretty damn good detail. You not only pick their face (and adjust it with facial feature sliders if you so choose), their build, and, of course, their gender, but design their costume as well. You can create a superhero (or villain) who looks like you, or who looks like your idea of an alien from some other dimension. You also have a space to write a brief biography or description of your character, which other players can read. You even have a fair amount of choice when it comes to your powers - sure there are "classes," each of which gives you access to a different list of powersets, but with each class having primary and secondary powersets to choose from, you end up with a lot of variety. You also can add other powers (travel powers, for example) as you level up, and the powers in your powerset aren't dependent on one another, so you can skip one's you aren't interested in without effecting your later choices. This means that you end up with a character that seems very much like your own creation. Yes, there are limits, and, of course, players long to create things the game won't allow, but my CoH/V characters feel like my characters in a way that my WoW characters do not.
WoW feels a bit more like fantasy Barbie. I dress up the dolls and play with them, but they aren't mine. I still role play them (in my head - I'm far too shy to do so with other people), but not to the degree that I do my CoH/V characters. Fantasy Barbie (or GI Joe or other pre-made story doll) is still fun, but it's a far cry from having computer equivalents to pen and paper RPG characters. And, yes, I know there are people who role play in WoW and who do create back-stories and all of that for their characters. I'm not saying it's impossible, just that the game doesn't make that kind of thing as easy as CoH/V does.
On the other hand, WoW offers a beautiful, varied world to explore. Oh, sure, it's a cartoony world, but that doesn't keep it from being a very, very pretty world (at least to me). Sure, the zones in CoH/V are different, too, but only a few of them aren't simply different takes on "city." The names of the games pretty much sum up the difference here - World of Warcraft, City of Heroes/Villains. And, at least for me, a world is automatically more interesting to explore than a mere city. WoW also did a better job with its crafting and professions, probably because they weren't tacked onto the game the way they have been in CoH/V. If I'm going to engage in crafting, I would rather run around picking different flowers, mining veins, skinning the wildlife I kill, or disenchanting items I have no use for than hoping what I need drops at random. (Yes, yes, there's some random dropping of items for crafting in WoW, but in CoH/V it's all random. Not fun.) WoW also did a better job with their crafting by naming everything you craft - not having non-rare crafted items simply be "crafted item." Sure, the basic crafted enhancements in CoH/V are better than the dropped enhancements, but I'm not going to replace neat looking and neat named items with boring looking "invention damage" or whatever. It ruins the flavor and look of the enhancement screen. (Yeah, I'm picky. :P)
While I long for a game that really does have the best of both worlds, I guess I'll have to just keep playing the games I have, even if I long for World of Heroes/Villains (or something).