My Crusade is on Fire

A few months ago I did a free trial of World of Warcraft. It was fun, although I didn't really get the appeal that much. I did end up picking up a boxed copy for ten bucks for the activation code, and proceeded to not play that much during the free month they gave me. Still, that gave me the right to a similar trial for the expansion, and I decided to test it during my break.

I'm not really much of an authority on the game, as my strongest character is level 13. A lot of what The Burning Crusade added was higher level stuff, and I'm not even close to that. I have to imagine that's where a lot of the appeal is, because I don't find repetitive quests revolving around killing something a bunch of times compelling, but that's what you have to do to get to the good stuff. I did play as a Dranei, so it was content new to the expansion. It's hard to get too far playing an hour or two at a time for 10 days, but I enjoyed it while it lasted and I'm actually a little disappointed the trial's already over. It might have been time though, as I was already getting a little tired of the quests.

The problem with World of Warcraft to me is that the setting and lore are much more interesting that the game itself. They put a lot of effort into developing the world and history, but I think I liked discovering new areas more than the combat. There is some strategy to fighting, and I'm sure there's a lot more at higher levels, but it's mostly just right-clicking, using a few spells or buffs, and waiting until the other guy is dead. The same universe with more action-oriented, direct gameplay would be great. Having other people around is cool, but if someone made an MMO with gameplay more like Oblivion, that could be really cool.