With one computer nearly a decade old and crippled and the other on its last legs, we decided to buy a new computer. With my last rig, I was pretty much constricted to World of Warcraft because it was the only game with simple enough graphics that I could run it on its lowest settings and not experience much in the way of lag. Kera was fond of City of Heroes, but towards the end of my computer's lifespan, it turned into a lagging mess that disconnected her every few minutes--the last update to the game upped things to the point that it shut down my computer the moment she logged into the game. Boredom stole away my interest in Guild Wars, which I played for years, but even the occasional moment of curiosity prompting me to log back in was crushed by the amount of lag I encountered. The new computer, while not the greatest--it being a cheap rig from the depths of Wal-Mart--is significantly better than the computers we were using before. Given my lack current lack of subscription to WoW and a desire to try new things, this means I can finally try out some of the mumorpugers that I have been missing out on over the last few years... well, as long as they have free trials.
Hence this thread, which I will be using to talk about the games that I try out. Beyond adding to the discussion, you can help by providing suggestions for which game to try next (remember though, this is for free trials only) and, if you are interested, joining me in trying the game.
So far, I only have one game slated for trial:
- Rift
I still had a subscription to WoW when the hype started flying for this game, but I never paid all that much attention to it because it was labeled a WoW Killer. It is hard to take these sorts of games seriously because they come and go with a quick ease that is almost frightening to behold. In the cartoonish byways of WoW's capital cities, these games spawn an obnoxious breed of rot-brained layabouts that do nothing more than shout more than just the usual profanity and racism from the rooftops. No, the promise of this unreleased game is so great that they will be canceling their WoW account with haste and moving over to the new shiny. The claims, like the games, are usually short-lived.
My lack of current subscription lets me look at the game in a more favorable light and what I see is an impressive display of mimicry. The screenshots and videos of Rift lead me to believe that Blizzard designed and released the game under a different company just to screw with people--it is WoW with updated, less cartoony graphics, a complex talent tree, and more classes (but fewer races) to choose from. And you know what? It would not surprise me if the game turned out to be successful, to actually compete with the other mumorpugers on the market (granted, unless Blizzard releases World of Diablo, I doubt anything will be killing WoW anytime soon). Why? Because you are catering to the market of WoW fans that have grown bored of the game by offering them something new wrapped up in more of the same. Most of the reviews that I have seen have called it unoriginal, but solid and if that is the case, then I am curious as to how well it is doing six months down the line.
In any case, I look forward to trying it out for myself and just hope that this rig will be able to run it without much trouble. If not, then this one will be ending early as I move on to the next game on the list, which was going to be Aion before I read a little too much about it and decided that it isn't the sort of game that I want anything to do with.
