Rant on WoW, LOTRO and other nerdy nonsense

Last August I quit playing WoW. I'm finally ready to say why.

#1. I didn't have the money

I didn't like spending money to keep playing a game, I wouldn't mind normally, but my other reasons (below, obviously) made it just not worth it.

#2. Leveling from 70-80 is too freakin' hard

Hardcore WoW fans always complain that Blizzard is making WoW too "simple" and "easy". I say bring it on. Patch 2.4 made it much easier leveling from 20-60, and 3.0 made it much easier getting from 60-70. I was able to get 1-70 in under three months. The problem is that the level of experience required to level drastically increases at 70. It's much more fun questing when you're aiming to level at the end of your play session, instead of maybe gaining a bar of experience.

#3. Death Knights ruined group play

I'm surprised there wasn't more of a negative reaction to Death Knights in the game. First of all, everyone and their dog has one. When I was leveling from 60-70 at least 80% of the players I encountered were Death Knights. Second, they're useless in groups. Their DPS is weird, and they can't use shields so they don't make effective tanks, healing is out of the question. Good job, Blizzard, you managed to ruin something great. Introducing a hero class=dumbest decision ever.

#4. Didn't have the time

It's no secret that WoW can eat up lots of time, and I just didn't want that anymore. Especially when I'm paying to inch along towards 80, at which point I wouldn't be able to find groups anyway as a mage, because of all the Death Knights doing DPS. Just not worth it for the admittedly great enjoyment it offers.

Recently, however, I went through a full-on WoW withdrawal. I looked up my old characters and thought about how I would continue the talent trees, looked at various new stuff in the patches and really wanted to play WoW. Instead, I downloaded the 10-day trial for Lord of the Rings Online. WoW never looked so good.

In short, LotRO sucked. The classes are confusing, the design is bland, the quests are pointless and it's an overall boring and mind-numbing experience. So even with the Death Knights, and the insane amount of play-time required to advance, and the upcoming expansion that will only make it even harder to max out, WoW is better than LotRO, and probably everything else on the market.