Which online RPG?

I'd like to know opinions about LOTRO, Guild Wars, and CoH/CoV.

I have finished playing WoW after 11 months. Hit 60 on one character
and lost all interest in levelling the alts and no desire to buy an
enhancement for just another couple of months. I have no interest
in raiding or the endless grind of trying to find another piece of
gear,
or grouping with uber players in other instances. Zero PVP interest
(the odds of finding someone worse than me are slim). But there
were a lot of things I liked about WoW; graphics were ok, the
world seemed cohesive (voice acting, NPCs who talked to you,
hidden things to find, lots of varied areas, interesting quests, etc).
Casual play was encouraged. The endless grind for uber gear was
lousy though, and the difference between a twink and a casual
player was immense (not to mention the ruthless condescension
towards players who didn't measure up).

Have been doing CoH/CoV for nearly a month, and it's not quite
what I expected, so want to see what else might be good.
CoV is better than CoH, but still lacking in something.
Both seem to encourage/require doing random missions;
even the non-random ones often feel like Daggerfall style.
The graphics are bland (CoV is better though) and the
landscapes feel too "tiled". Despite it bringing my gfx
card to its knees and WoW being criticized for being too
cartoony, WoW looks much nicer.
The nice things are that it doesn't have gear (I still suspect
there's a casual vs hardcore divide at high levels). Character
creation is nice. Very good for casual play as missions are
very short.

I want to try out LOTRO, since now it finally has a free trial.
I think the setting will discourage all the idiots out there with
the silly names and net speak. I hope I'm not up against
Tolkien fanatics who've memorized all character and place
names though... Slightly worried that it'll require too much
of my computer perhaps. The "fellowship maneuvres" just
sound too silly, but if I don't group much I guess I won't
have to worry (I can just imagine someone yelling at me
for not pushing the right color). Never heard of a game with
that sort of thing, but maybe it's a console thingy.

Guild Wars has started to sound good, because of the
lack of a monthly fee. I always felt like I had to play
WoW to get my money's worth instead of taking just
a week off here and there. It also seems like it might
have an actual story, and that even casual players can
get to be the hero. The big fault of many online games
is that you can never be the hero and "win" the game;
only the hardcore players at the top can do that,
the rest are just in a level grind to try and get a glimpse
of end-game content before an expansion comes out
that raises the bar again. Ie, in Wow I have no hope
of ever seeing the inside of the major dungeon. I'm
glad just to be considered mediocre. But if GW lets me
finish a plot at my own pace without grinding for uber
gear or having to suck up to get in an end-game guild,
that's a big plus.
I am a bit worried because I see reviews that compare
skills and combat to both magic the gathering and
diablo 2; which just happen to be the top two games on
my least-likely-to-ever-play list.

What other online games are there that might be good?

--
Darin Johnson

.

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