F4NBOY said:
It happened to me when I played diablo 2, after some time (years) playing it, the game is just about pressing the random button to see if I can find that magic item. Like a jackpot machine.
Whilst I still love D2 as a mindless smash 'em up (it's great fun for that if there are still builds to try, and you're no longer obsessed with the items and praying for drops), I've found every time I stop playing WoW (three times, so far) for a while, for whatever reason, I rapidly become deeply sickened by the very idea of playing WoW again (and it takes 6+ months for this to wear off).
I think there's something peculiar to WoW's hothouse atmosphere (esp. in a raiding guild and doubly so if you dare to read/comment the boards) and strange obsessions (even by MMORPG standards), as well as it's extremely limited, repetative PvP and strangely claustrophobic environment (I say strangely, because a lot of it's landscapes are sodding huge and very open), that can really stop one from wanting to play again. For a while.
Jhaelen - Uh, when I think of pressing the same exact skills in the same exact order, I think of Guild Wars - With, for example, a Necro/Monk, that's precisely what you do 90% of the time. Many offensive-oriented characters in GW are similar. So I dunno if it's a good example of a game that's not like that - even in WoW the first few skills I press in an encounter vary more than in GW...
Still, I agree that the small number of "equipped" abilities vs. large number of abilities could work a particularly gamist RPG like D&D (it'd be retarded in a simulationist one).
