[synkr0nized]

WoW is easier then ever now. You can get your phat lewts* and cheevos without ever being in a hardcore raiding guild. Grouping is as easy as clicking an interface button and waiting a few minutes, and questing makes you feel strong as most of the leveling experience is completely open for any class to solo. The talent system changes have also made it more straightforward once you get to level 10 and choose a tree, as the options presented are often really straightforward when there is a possible fork.

* aside from raid gear, of course


GW requires you, no matter what you are doing (aside from solo farming using particular builds), to be in a party. This has always been able to include AI henchmen, and after the third chapter included up to 3 heroes per human player max (obviously less if more of the max party size slots are held by actual people), customizable AI characters (so you can choose armor bonuses, weapons, skills, and attributes instead of it being the non-mutable ones of the other AI) that give you more means to choose how your party is set up (as there are multiple per class so you can use whatever combo you need or want). The upside is that you can do a lot more without waiting for a group of actual people. The downside is that most people do not party with other players anymore (in honesty, it's only in rare cases in PvE that I cannot do something quicker with hero/hench than I can with a PUG) and expect everyone to have heroes and all the skills unlocked. New players have a lot of work to not only advance through the stories but also unlock all of their class's skills (or at least the most useful ones) to better provide their characters and, thus, heroes with the skills needed for the many bars/builds you could take. Oh and the population, while still large enough and viable, isn't close to what it used to be. Interest has been renewed with the Hall of Monuments and GW Beyond content prepping for GW2, but it's still rare to find people in large groups doing random quests or many of the "older" missions (though Zaishen Bounties/Missions have helped -- daily quests that have you revisit content and bosses/elites all over the three chapters and expansion content).

And then you get mesmers. Mesmers are amazing. I don't know of a comparable class in any other MMO right now. Many have rangers/archers, all have a warrior of some kind, and most have priests/monks. But mesmers are another beast entirely, and so fun. And necromancers that raise minions; not unique, but certainly fun (though I prefer Curses usually). But then WoW has druids <3 and shaman and shit and is in the Warcraft lore universe, which is kind of fun. Well, I think it's neat stuff -- that's why I even started playing years back. But these class name differences and layout difference are just the tip of the iceberg that is the difference in mechanics between the two games. There are reasons why I like one better than the other in both directions, and I'd be happy to get into any of that.



However, I am not going to recommend one over the others, at least not yet. Instead, I am going to ask you what you enjoy in games, what assumptions you have about MMOs (as in what you think they should be for them to be fun), and why the three you did try didn't last for you.


I can go off at great length about Guild Wars and World of Warcraft, but I cannot offer you any info about Rift (other than it looks pretty darn neat). I have experience with every class (perhaps quite a lot more in GW) and most if not all aspects of the games. I have been meaning to write a "comparison" of the two -- in quotes because they aren't really directly comparable and I would write it more as a presentation of the two within several broad categories to highlight how they tackle things differently and where they actually are similar.