Lack of a conclusion. Given that the idea behind these things is that people have to keep paying to keep playing, the developers make games that people can never really finish. In FFXI you were to go on countless god-killing runs, and in Warcraft…oh, whatever it is that you do. Get purple items, do PVP, and instances or whatnot.
2 - 1 The need for other people. At one point or another, sadly, you MUST play a MMORPG with other people. It’s nice to have an option, but not when it means you have to put up with stuff like having a fucking shaman steal your fucking Corpsereaper Axe that you’re on your fifth attempt to get that day. Asshole axe shamans, my ass.
2 - 2 And then there’s sitting around waiting for a party while your poor Mithra Red Mage gets molested by chipmunks, and you put up with it because there’s simply no way to get experience except when you’re in a party. This is one of my biggest pet peeves. I actually LIKE the battle systems of FFXI and WoW, but after a while your XP gain is so slow that it’s a chore to play.
2 - 3 Nor do I have time to try to put together a group of 6 to 60 people to accomplish the few tasks that drive these type of games storylines. Scale the difficulty of the quest down for the fewer people who do it, or something. Not everyone has time to stare at the screen for two hours waiting for a decent group to form.
Now all this adds up to why I’m looking forward to FFXII so much - it looks to have a combat system vaguely similar to FFXI’s, but I won’t have to put up with any of the online bullshit to have fun with it. And I’ll actually get to see the end of the story.
I actually like #1. Lack of a conclusion means they can keep advancing the storyline. This is especially appealing for World of Warcraft, where there is a host of story and characters prior to the game just waiting to be killed off. And in the case of WoW, there is a conclusion - when Arthas is killed.
Also, blizzard is trying to sort of fix your 2-3 thing. Epic raids are going from 40 members to 25 members. Blizzard is trying to help the casuals/secretly admitting that their servers simply can’t handle that many people.
Agreed there. Also lack of conclusion tends to have a deteriorating effect on gameplay. It’s easier to slow down the game than constantly creating new quests.
Ultima Online had a good solution to this. PKers would attack you while you were lagged, kill you, mug you and make you insta-resurrect losing EXP.
usually the only thing I find that I hate about MMORPG’s are if people are being idiots. KSing, Stalking, random flaming, etc. It’s just really annoying when you go to play a game to relax and have fun, and then people start to stress you out. >=|
There actually are conclusions. Instead of doing those countless god runs, do the nation missions or the Zilart missions, or the CoP missions. I’ve been playing the game for slightly over two years, and I’m only just starting into the end-game grind, because I took my time and finished off two nations + CoP. Even little sidequests have story behind them, and the artifact armor quests often tie into other parts of the game.
2 - 1. True. Some people are morons. That’s why you gravitate towards the people who aren’t.
2 - 2. I can’t imagine a Red Mage sitting around for hours on end trying to find a party, sorry. Also, it’s not the fact that XP gain changes, it’s the fact you need so much more XP to level up the next time. However, that has improved with the new expansion, considering it’s stupidly easy to break 8k/hr in the new areas, and even higher.
2 - 3. Again, there are things to do that don’t necessarily require a ton of people. And don’t do things with pick-up groups. Find some friends and plan to do something on a specific day/time. Frequently, that’s what I end up doing for various things.
I don’t like my games to conclude, for one, and I just avoid assholes and group with my friends. It works just fine on my WoW server and we never really are at a shortage for people.
I believe I failed to mention it, but in XI I did have a static party for quite some time (Rd/bl (me), Mnk/Fgt, Wht/Sum, Pal/fght/nin, and Drk/whatever teh hell that guy was). The problem is, I hate being locked into a schedule where I can only enjoy the game at a certain time of the day, and if something comes up that I absolutely must take care of, there goes my chance for recreation for the time.
I’m with you, RPT, but our opinion is unpopular these days. We simply have to wait a few years for the MMO fad to pass… if it passes. Most of my old gaming friends have all become MMO addicts to the highest degree; I never see them anymore. If I wait for them to call me, it’s because they want me to loan them my laptop for a raid. If I call them because I want to see a movie or get food or whatnot, they can’t because they have a scheduled raid that night (btw, they have either a raid or a scheduled PVP session 7 nights a week now). If I hang out at their place while they’re playing (they often invite me to do such when they realize how long it’s been since they last saw me), they don’t hear me anyway, since they’re all on Ventrillo talking to their teammates.
So, yes, I dislike MMOs for the same reasons you do, and a few others. Of note, I prefer to take games at my own pace. In an offline game, I can pause, get a drink or answer the phone right in the middle of a battle, and not die. What’s more, I can play my little game without having to explain to someone what the hell I’m doing, and not worry that someone else’s stupidity is going to get me killed.
To be honest, I don’t play any games online now. I tried PSO for a while, I spent a couple of years on StarCraft, and I tried CvS2 (Xbox) for a while, but I simply don’t like playing games with people I don’t know. I know enough people that I can play games with (well, I used to…) that I don’t have to get online and play with strangers just to satisfy my need for human interaction.
Since I lost my friends to their crippling MMO addiction, I’ve started to become better friends with the people in my <A HREF=“http://www.losbastardos.com/”>theater troupe</A>. Sure, we don’t all have the exact same interests, but they’re mostly good people, and it gives me someone to talk to about something <I>other</I> than Warcraft… -_-
Eh, fair enough. :\ I try not to make too many commitments in-game anymore, because then I get locked out of doing things because I want to, not because I have to. :\
World of Warcraft can get nearly unplayable once you hit level 60, unless you manage to get a good guild. Without people you know you can count on, you’ll either be unable to get groups for endgame instances, or you’ll be stuck with a bunch of lamers who’ll make the run a living hell.
I’m an idiot for always trying new MMOs because I always end up quitting. WoW, Guild Wars, Dark Age of Camelot…
My problems:
Like Saturn said, they require too much planning (WoW more so than Guild Wars). Unless you’re playing with a hardcore guild, it’s impossible to do high-level runs with a pick up ground. Though I think Guild Wars or WoW would be sorta fun if you had real-life friends to play with (assuming that no one got addicted).
Too slow. I love my FPS, insta-respawn, kill stuff, no level grind games. I’m utterly amazed at how devs WON’T BREAK THE MMO MOLD. It’s not like God Himself ordained that all MMOs shall be a time sink, level grind, borefest; try something new!
Sick and tired of fantasy la-la land. Granted, WoW has a solid storyline, but c’mon. Not every MMO has to be about elves and stuff. I’m excited about Warhammer Online because it’s more war-oriented and grittier than most other MMOs…
There are only 2 MMOs I’ve ever liked:
PlanetSide. This was really fun, especially with my outfit (read: guild). We met 2 or 3 times a week for training, organized entire platoons of 30 people, and did awesome shit like coordinated airdrops. But then Sony ruined the game and we all quit.
Ultima Online. There was something fun about the open-ended nature of the game; no quests, no real story to follow. Just kill stuff and earn money. Plus leveling up was easy because of macros and other “lite” exploits, if you will.
Ultimately every MMO degenerates into a chore. There’s no conclusion and plots tend to be half assed, so once the novelty of the game wears off you eventually realize you’re just leveling so you can get the next weapon of +100 damage, so you can level more and get the next weapon of +103 damage. There’s simply not enough of a real plot to keep them going, and at some point devs stop trying to breathe life into a game because someone with a full tier 2 armor set in WoW and a legendary weapon isn’t going to quit after GOD KNOWS how many hours they spent in BWL.
