I'm so frigging there!

http://www.wowinsider.com/2008/09/15/wrath-release-date-announced/

I see the see some light from my creepy dungeon...WoW awakens!

They did that to validate EBs Die rolls!!!!!!

I've marked the date on my calendar. Epic date.

Man, after so long I probably will start playing again. Can't stay 70 forever.

Ouch, right in the middle of all the new releases! Oh well time to put my raiding shoes back on.

November 12th: the last day I get anything done.

I cared about this a few months ago. Then I got into the War beta and haven't thought much about WoW since (other then in the context of "man the PvP and questing system is so much better in this game then it was in WoW, not having to grind faction/everything else is such a relief).

You can level from PVP, there are over 20 battlegrounds (instead of 4 after 4 years), there are both open PVP areas that have meaning for the makeup of the world and PVE areas where you only have to PVP if you flag PVP. There are public quests where the first part is relatively easy (read you can solo kill the enemies), the middle parts are mid range difficult (a group of 2-3 can do it easy, can even solo it if over the lv of the PQ) but then there are epic finalies against things like dragons and hero bosses with a posse of bad ass friends designed for a group or even more.

It's great since you start out alone and kind of build towards a final fight with the group thats coalesced around the area by the time you get to the end.

I played WoW from release, did almost everything (raiding, doing arena and getting a top .5% gladiator 5v5, maxing rep with all the battlegrounds ect) and can say from experience with both that Warhammer Online is superior in every way. If you liked aspects of WoW you owe it to yourself to give warhammer a try, its everything thats good about WoW and so much more. Warcraft is simply a rip off of the Warhammer Universe (they tried to licence Warcraft with Games Workshop originally, and only changed a handful of things once they were turned down), and the epic feel of constant war is captured much much better in Warhammer then Warcraft has managed thus far.

As a final thing, the end game raid for Warhammer? Epic city seiges and combat with the enemy king to take control of the opposing factions town! Yes, city seiges include seige weapons, huge PVP battles to unlock parts of the town and then epic PVE confrontations with the cities final guardians including the king and his retinue. I know I for one wished that WoW had actually integrated a meaningful city attack framework, so the idea of being able to raid cities and have it matter is incredibly appealing.

I own no stock in Mythic and have no real reason to say any of the above other then my play experiences in beta and the head start I'm in right now with the release version of the game. You have 2 months to try it before being confronted with the WOTLK/Warhammer choice, might as well :D I guarantee you won't regret it.

Did you get to experience the end game of Warhammer? Because WoW's grinds only start when you reach the level cap, befpre that it is a very enjoyable non-grind game. I loved gong thorugh all the quests and stuff. You are basically comparing Endgame of WoW with the beginning of Warhammer. Also here's how the end game of WoW sounds from someone who hasn't experienced but only heard about it:

You get 20-40 of your buddies and you call kill huge Fire gods and Dragons. You remember Illidan from WC3? Yeah, you get to fight him too along with Vashj and Kael'Thas. And in the up coming expansion you get to kill Arthas!!!

You get my point. I'm not on comiission from Blizzard, but the comparisons you make are like comparng oranges and apples when it comes to comparing MMOs.

As far as the endgame of Warhammer (which I did mention) there are tons of dungeons some of which take 24 person wargroups to finish, there is alternate advancement of a sort since you have two levels. Your first level is rank, which is a traditional XP level.

The second level is renown which you get by contributing to your factions victory by doing everything from turning in quests which gives victory points so your faction can take over a region, to taking contested PVP points to getting kills in realm vs realm combat. That renown is capped at twice your level and gives you a large amount of talents you can trade renown points in for (one per renown level, there are up to 80 you can use on at least 70 talents).

Another big part of the end game besides epic battles (which start at lv 3 with huge groups fighting giant PQ bosses on par with the best 60-70 raid content I found in WoW and only gets better) is building to confrontations with the enemy king which takes place in huge groups. There are many epic guardians of the cities, many of them from Warhammer lore, and it culminates in having a real effect on the world.

If you Kill a king they lose their city, they have to sit on the outside in hovels and use a black market until they succeed in taking it back. The world is dynamic and what you do actually matters in terms of taking territory and forts as a group (forts are also held by raid encounters, some of which take 24 or more people to take over at higher tiers with epic loot).

As someone who killed Illidian it was honestly kind of a letdown. It was just another fight, killing him really had no major effect on anything (except a few pieces of slightly better loot dropping) and was closely followed by farming him 30 times, a big part of the grindfest that is WoW.

I bet you anything A) Arthas will not be killable for at least 2 years as they stretch out the expansion as long as humanly possible just like this last time and B) there will just be new factions to grind, new very similar boss encounters to do over and over and PvP that has no consequenses in the world outside the instanced battle grounds.

I mean wouldn't it be exciting to attack Ironforge or defend it and have that defense/attack actually matter? Wouldn't it be great to lay siege to the undercity and force the Undead out of their capital after a huge raid encounter with their banshee leader? Sure beats the hell out of another by the book, find the strat online then grind it forever set of raids.

That idea that the game should be boring until you hit the cap is exactly what is wrong with WoW. Warhammer is fun from lv 2 on with tons of stuff to do. Lets grind quests for 2 weeks of gameplay so that we can actually start having fun doesn't seem too appealing anymore after trying something different/better.

To show that I'm not just some troll lying about WoW who never played it look up Athena on Aggramar, thats my character (though I haven't played it since halfway through last arena season when I maxed on rep, so it might not show up, here's hoping!)

I really did play WoW a long time, which is why I'm so surprised how much better things can be without all the things that made WoW seem more like a job then a fun hobby. I think anyone who didn't feel like WoW was a job at least a few times when they were grinding faction to get keys to do heroics or get that one last CE epic item or those AV rewards is lying.

I have done a lot of the higher lv dungeons and other mid to late game stuff in beta, the only thing I have not really done is a king killing city seige.  It's difficult to get to that point since you need to hold forts across the high lv portion of the world and take over parts of the city before you get to it with the other faction fighting you tooth and nail.  The fort bosses and fort seiges were really great though, so I can only assume the king attacks will be even better.

You keep refering to WoW's end game, yet you have failed to mention anything leading up to it. The quest system in WoW was quite the experience and the grind didn't start until you hit 60, 70 now, 80 in the near future. I mean yes it would be cool to take over cities and evrything, but my point in the last post was that WoW's end game sounded just as good if not better before everyone got to it as well. I mean hell, I wanted to kill Illidan myself, then it was sort of a letdown and yeah... Do you really think that taking over a city will be that different than Killing a faction leader, it would be easier I think, in WoW? You get a guild and you walk in and kill him, difference is that you get to keep the city. I'm sure there will be guilds who will just farm Kings. Since it seems to be such a big part they will reduce the difficulty so that it would be actually plausible to take over and then retake cities. What if the server imbalances? That just means that one faction will constantly have all the cities and the other will have nothing to do, imagine the bitching and moaning on the forums.

I haven't played WoW in over a year, but when I did play I enjoyed getting to the level cap a lot more than the endgame. I hear that with WOTLK the road to 80 will be even more interesting than the road to 60 or 70 and that's what I'm most excited about.