The revenge of casual gaming!

City of $character is different. It appears to have taken out the crap. And considering its the same age as many of the current 'mainstream' games, eg WoW and EQ2, I don't know where the latter went wrong.

There's very little worry about downtime, maybe I'll have to rest every few fights. No need for assist trains, just target the tank and your offensive abilities hit eir target. No fighting over loot, you just get it. Everyone is unique, both in looks and abilities. The equivilent of potions drop like candy, you lose out if you don't use them every fight. No serious messing around requiring 'class balance', people do a bit of everything; besides everyone has more 'health potions' and 'defense potions' than they know what to do with, and possibly an awaken or two if it all goes horribly wrong.

Above all: its fun!

Wait wait wait, did I just insinuate that other MMOs aren't fun? Well, I challenge you to find me one that lets me throw lamp-posts and photocopiers and hospital beds at my enemies. Where else can you fly at level 6? (yay, flight!)

I'm probably about halfway through my trial now, and I'm very seriously considering subscribing. I logged onto WoW last night, saw that there was hardly anyone on my guild online and logged off again — there's not much fun to be had without a bunch of other people, just grinding gold, gear or reagents.

Another difference is the lack of numbers. There aren't any numbers to say 'you are this tough', or 'you hit this hard'. I figure I have about 100hp, based on the numbers that pop up above my head when I take a hit for about half my health. I don't have a clue how much endurance (aka mana) I have, but it doesn't matter because I don't know how much my abilities cost either. One upshot of this is that, although it can be done, there's not much point in trying to optimise everything; sure pick stuff thats good, but might as well get the fun stuff thats good as well.

Maybe it changes nearer the endgame, but I've already got a villain lined up to play, and I'm sure it wouldn't take 5 minutes to create a different hero. Maybe a melee class or a healer, not something I usually do. Oh, I could have a fire themed dude with robot parts! Actually, I wonder if there's some kind of fire-like mutation I could use. Ah, plant parts! I wonder what I could do with them...

Maybe this'll take a bit longer than 5 minutes...