I have played tons of mmo's and been in tons of betas for them. I think one of things they all lack is familiarity. I mean you can spot hundreds of recognizable names, places, titles and concepts. like The Deadmines is based off the Goonies. In Thunderbluff there is an Undead named Clarisse Foster. There is even a Castle Althalax in South Shore. I'm waiting on them to place a big texan plant boss named GW Shrub in the game.

I played PoTBS, Vaguard: SoH, EQ2, AA, Archlord, RFO, Guild Wars, LoTRO and several more. Pirates, Vanguard, and LoTR all had the most potential. Pirates was too small, LoTR didn't have 1/4 of the player base of it's beta at launch, and Vanguard was ahead of it's time in graphics and was screwed over by SOE.
If Sony would have let the devs finish that game, it would have been released sometime this year and it would have been a solid MMO.

One of the major problems here is the insane rush to shove MMO's down our throats to get money. They look cool, have an interesting concept, but end up a korean grindfest with no plot, and nothing to laugh at or make the game FUN. AoC looks like fun and is well scripted. I got to play to lvl 13 and had a blast in the beta. Except the game was running on the lowest settings so it looked like crap and now I'm leveling a rogue and a druid in WoW. Perhaps soon I can get another 2 gigs of ram and a new CPU and a new GeForce 9600 GT.

I had never played an MMO before, and resisted WoW for as long as I could because I was afraid of addiction, then I downloaded it and played it for the free 10 days after hearing everyone in my office talk about it obsessively for 2 years. It was a bit confusing for the first 3 levels, then it all came natural. That is the key to a god game. When you are brand new to it, and can learn easily. The more I got into it, the more I noticed the little things, the humor, attention Bliz took to make the game FUN like the holiday events. I still have never played another MMO, probably never will, and I may be the last person on WoW. The patch updates that are a $40 expansion for other games, diversity of play, the classes, it all makes the most perfect game ever made. Nothing will be able to touch it, they shouldn't try. It is Mario, Pac-man, Doom, and Masterchief. It defines the genre and sets the bar. Maybe WoW 2 will reach the lofty standards, but it would be difficult. May not be the prettiest, may not be the most "hardcore", but when you can play in a party with a 33 year old in Indiana, a 18 year old at USC, and a 50 year old in Australia, and have FUN, maybe it doesn't have to be. The epic flying mount grind could be made a bit easier tho... (150 more gold and it's mine!!!)

FOR THE HORDE!!!!