So, I never subscribed to Warhammer Online, despite my initial enthusiasm on the game. Here’s the reasons I’ve been able to identify, in no particular order:

1) The apparently last minute decision to reduce XP gains slowed leveling so much that the XP grinding felt painful. Being able to level with PvP didn’t help since my Squig Herder just wasn’t an effective class for PvP.

2) None of my friends started to play the game, part simply due to lack of a Mac client. Also myself playing on a Mac, I totally hated having to reboot to XP and hence not having access to my regular browser bookmarks and IM buddies etc while playing. Starting each game session grinding my teeth on seeing the XP logo wasn’t doing much good to the game’s immersion.

3) The pre-Wrath mega-update came out roughly at the critical decision point, and suddenly made WoW fun again.

4) Having used to having a mount in WoW, the movement speed in WAR felt pretty darn slow. I missed a few quests in some places and running back between places took too much time, considering I’m a fairly casual player.

5) I’m a rules and numbers junkie, and part of my MMO experience is trying to optimize my character to my play style. I couldn’t see the rules in WAR through the dressing and had access to very limited amount of equipment to try out, so I was missing this part of the game entirely. This combined with the fact that some of the Squig Herder abilities felt utterly pointless (such as the Squid Armor) just made me feel like a monkey triggering abilities with too little strategy. Jumping back to WoW being able to survive accidental pulls of seven mobs alone felt very liberating after spending hours very carefully pulling mobs one by one.

6) Last but definitely not least, GOA only put the credit card subscription capability live at the last minute before people had to subscribe to continue playing. Had it been there when I activated my account, I’d have entered my credit card number without hesitation. When they put it live later on, I didn’t bother to go there to enter my details, and when I got an email saying my account is frozen, I just didn’t bother. Whomever was responsible for the account system at GOA messed this up seriously, and probably cost them a ton of subscriptions.

The part of WAR I liked the most was the humor. The world is just brilliant. WoW’s torture crap makes me queasy, while most of the content in WAR made me chuckle.

I supposed if Mythic put out a Mac client, I’d subscribe immediately. The rules have now been documented much better by the players, so I suppose I’d get the hang of the game much better at this point. And or course, Wrath has been out for long enough that the honeymoon is over.