I never had the chance to play Daoc.
WoW I enjoyed the competition of levelling and grabbing rare items. I think mainly its how the world has no zones for the main levelling areas and it was always busy.
Lotr is very true to the books/films imo and I do enjoy the questing. Shame there is no pvp or opposing faction, Only played till lvl 25 I think.
Aion looks like it has the competition but its the style thats bothering me. Not a fan of eastern art styles and as far as I know there is no lore backing it up. Just a lot of anime style characters running around making high pitch noises.
Wish there was a demo and I could decide!
/edit whats the standard of the PVP like? Will have to read through this epic thread to get a better idea.
Yup, I dont particularly like asian style artwork either. When I got into the closed beta I didnt even bother to download it because I really didnt think it would be my thing. Only did because I was bored one weekend, thank god I did though as I discovered it was more like Daoc than I could have imagined and I just learned to not notice the style of graphics.
The PvP is a lot like Daocs, decent array of CC, decent counters. Good array of skills for the various classes. 9 keeps to capture in the Abyss (basically the same as Daocs frontiers). Plus rifts (portals) that open to the enemy lands very regularly so that you can be attacked while trying to level. Little 1 on 1 or "equal" pvp, its generally larger scale and/or un-even numbers.
There is plenty of Lore in various cutscenes and ingame books if you read them, though its a brand new lore so its not one that anyone would be familiar with. On the plus side I guess thats better for the devs as they can write the lore to whatever they want rather than having to follow a story thats pre-existing.
Not really sure there is much of a competition of levelling...at least not that I have noticed. Mind you I am not particularly competitive so I wouldnt really notice it anyway. The levelling is much much slower than WoW or Lotro though, its much closer to the kinds of levelling speeds in earlier MMOs. Also its pretty much impossible to solo level to any decent level, by about the late 20s you really do find that running about solo tends to be slower for xp and makes you very prone to be jumped by enemy players as easy cannon fodder.
(I know I referenced Daoc a few times there even though you said you hadnt played it, but its really difficult to explain what its like without constantly get Daoc in my head, its quite a different experience to WoW and Lotro)
I think overall, if you arent sure, I would suggest waiting for a trial to come out. Though I suppose that could be quite some time. Unless you dont mind spending the money and maybe finding that its really not to your tastes. Above all, if you do try it, enter it with an open mind. Its not the next WoW, it isnt WoW 2.0 (as I fear many people have found out to their disappointment), so you have to be prepared to absorb those differences.
Been playing Batman and TF2 recently but have completed Batman so mainly just TF2
