The WAR is over for me

I canceled my WAR subscription just before the renewal kicked in today. I'd actually stopped playing over a week ago mainly because I was no longer having fun. The game has a slew of issues, which I'm not going to re-iterate over here. Keen covers them off nicely. I might go back to it when Mythic fixes up a bunch of the existing problems, but I can't see that happening for at least a year.

On reflection, what did I like most about WAR and what did WAR really bring to the MMO table?

I loved the fact that the game was designed from the bottom up for PvP with some PvE thrown in for good measure. Although I love my PvP, it's just not as fun without the PvE around. When talking about what new things WAR introduced to the MMO-a-sphere, many people would say Public Quests, Tome of Knowledge and Open RvR. Honestly I thought these were all pretty crap. PQs sucked when there was no one around, ToK could have been better (I barely used mine) and Open RvR had issues a mile long. If you ask me the best thing that WAR introduced was Tactics, Morale skills and the ability to level up via PvP. I've never seen interchangeable passive skills (Tactics) used in an MMORPG before. I thought it worked very well. Moral skills provided the player with a a sort of bonus super skill when the battle started heating up (very cool), and leveling via PvP made it much more enjoyable for PvP players like myself. It provided an alternative to questing and the hopeless PQs.

So where to now?

My mates at work have been bugging me for a very long time to download the Orange Box from Steam, so I did. I've never been a huge fan of FPS, but I don't mind it if the game is well built. I completed Portal over the weekend, which is the coolest puzzle game ever. Although it only took four hours to complete, I highly recommend checking it out. Well worth it's weight in gold. I wasn't sure which part of Portal was better, the game play or the story line - both brilliant. Team Fortress 2 is awesome fun, but I really need to level up my FPS skills again to play competitively. Half-Life 2 is insanely well built, but I can't see it entertaining me for more than a few weeks. I do like how the NPCs interactive with you. RPGs could definitely learn a thing or two from that game. OpenEdge has convinced me that The Witcher is worth a look. I'll probably check that out after I finish with my little FPS binge.

I'm not sure when the next 'big thing' in the MMO space will occur, but I'm welcoming the single player break for a while. Mind you, if Guild Wars 2 got released tomorrow, I'd say: "to hell with these noob single player games" ;)