MMO's; WoW, DDO, others and why I'm burnt out.

I like to reflect on MMO's a lot lately... more than I like to play them recently anyways. What is it that makes them compelling? Why do I want that next level so bad? How is WoW still going so strong when the dev team seems to be intellectually on par with retarded monkeys?!?

*cough*

Anyway, what are the essential ingredients that make an MMO good or bad? How did WoW get to be so big while seemingly better games (from a certain PoV) lag far behind? I think there's several reasons...

1. WoW was made by Blizzard
Let's not ignore this Elephant in the room, I may have overstated this in my Starcraft rant but Blizzard has a rather massive reputation from their early games that may only now be starting to tarnish slightly for those on the fringe only just waking up from their fanboy(girl?)ish haze. Blizzard cashes in on this reputation every time they put look over function, fan service over real innovation in new releases.

But only a little, like a rain slowly eroding a mountain range.

2. WoW was made by Blizzard
I'm not cheating here, WoW was essentially the beginning of the end of my belief in Blizzard as an amazing company in terms of innovation in gaming, but WoW in of itself was a great example of it in some forms. No one can claim a better MMO around that time, and that I place other games over it now could be considered opinion... or attributed to burnout. We had the practically trademarked Blizzard cut scenes, (initially) great story & lore and a fairly friendly support staff (not so much now).

3. WoW is easy to understand
...almost pick up and play, and when the next expansion, Cataclysm, comes out... it'll be even easier. This is something I don't like now, but when I got into WoW it was my first MMO and I'll admit I was noobsauce; this is perhapes the most important thing. Most other games have a steep learning curve, and often the veteren players of these other games; often ex-wow players themselves, can be very negative to WoW players that join their game.

4. Warcraft strategy games
The awesomeness and story of these games built the world for WoW to exist in, while I believe the story has been modified slightly(read: raped) to suit the game mechanics and encounters Blizzard brought in over time, it's still fairly good overall and often the big bosses are compelling threats that you can feel need to die. Sometimes this feeling was dulled after killing a boss a hundred times... sometimes this feeling was amplified when a boss wouldn't drop your loot after said 100 kills.

So... I'm burnt out; why?

I guess the formula is no longer all that engaging, not all that interesting. I'm enjoying DDO though; I think that it's not WoW and has a lot more thought and freedom in defining my character.

Then again; I'm hoping to have a legendary soon, so mebbe I'll stick with WoW long enough to swing it at something! :D

P.S. I apologise to any retarded monkeys that may be reading this blog.