Warhammer Online vs. World of Warcraft

GameSpy has published a lengthy article in which a few of their editors compare and contrast Warhammer Online and World of Warcraft on ten important issues, such as soloing viability, PvP entertainment, and crafting. From their closing comments:
Which game will you be playing six months from now?

Gerald: I'm sold on Warhammer Online. I'm completely enamored with the game's focus on RvR, as that sort of gameplay gets me more excited about logging on and playing than more instance runs and questing. I like raiding, but it's too much of a time sink for me, and too much like a second job. I can hop into Warhammer Online and within minutes be participating in large-scale PvP, without the obligation of having to stay on until the wee hours for attempts at the same boss encounter. You never know what will happen in the future, though. Ask me this question a year from now, and BioWare's KotOR MMO may well require me to give a different answer.

Delsyn: That's actually a pretty easy question for me. Assuming no new hotness steals my heart, I'll be hitting the end of the Mines of Moria expansion of The Lord of the Rings Online. I love Warhammer Online. I'll level a character to 40, get some decent gear and participate in a couple of city raids, and then I'll be done until the expansion. I'm a recent convert to PvP gameplay and while I really like it, it's not my preferred playstyle. I'll come back to WoW for a while with Wrath of the Lich King, level my Hunter to 80, finally see the inside of Naxxramas, and be done with that too. My lifestyle simply isn't compatible with that game anymore: I haven't got the time to devote to end-game raiding. LotRO is built around storytelling, exploration, questing and delivering a meaty PvE experience for casual players (they're actually going to three-man dungeons in Mines of Moria). For my personal playstyle and circumstances, LotRO just fits. It's nice to see the genre expand to the point where different groups of gamers can find their niches.

Fargo: Delsyn you cheater, LotRO wasn't even in the face-off. Are we going to have to do another one of these next year? As for me, my love of both RvR and casual dungeon-crawling LAN parties at my house means I have to pull double-duty and keep my subscriptions active for both games. But World of Warcraft has been a fixture at my house for four years, and I don't see that changing in the months to come. It's going to take some serious performance improvements to Warhammer before it can replace WoW as my go-to game.