If you hate the game you're playing, why play it?

Perpetuum

I am seeing a big stream of forum posts equivalent to "I hate XXXX game, but i'm forced / still playing it". I don't understand it. If you hate a game, why are you still playing it (in b4 the whole "there are no other MMORPGs)?

Would you continuously nut yourself with a hammer, even if you really REALLY hated it, just because there was nothing better to do?

How would you feel if a dev was reading forum posts for their game and saw that you were spewing all this hatred about X or Y game, and still logging 6 hours a day on it, and they just decided to pull the plug on your account?

uquipu

People who hate the game they are currently playing have to be a small minority, like zero percent.
.
People say things like 'hate' when what they mean is: i've been playing this for years and wish there was an alternative but there isn't.

VirusDancer

They wish the game was better.  They wish there was a better alternative.  They are settling for the game they are in, feeling it is the least worst scenario for their entertainment value...

Czzarre

Yea the term 'Hate' in MMOs are thrown around so much in so many ways with so many definitions that the term loses its meaning.

Kinda like the terms "End Game", "Grinding" and 'WoW-Clone"

VirusDancer

Originally posted by Czzarre

Yea the term 'Hate' in MMOs are thrown around so much in so many ways with so many definitions that the term loses its meaning.

Kinda like 'WoW-Clone"

It is funny, cause I was reading an old article talking about WoW and other games being EQ-Clones... but as has been mentioned ad nauseum, so many people played WoW as their first game and simply do not know any better.

spankybus

Because it might get better at end-game!!! If I can just get through the first 300 boring hours..this game will sing!!

VirusDancer

I thought about this a little more, and it made me think about the sub hopping that I and many do over the years.  It does grow to a point of hate of the game at times, so you jump to another game... as you jump games, eventually you forget how much you hated the other game - and as you end up hating your current game, you go back to one that you have forgotten how much you hate it.

I just resubbed to CoH, and I'm wondering why...lol, how could I have forgotten?  Then again, I had just gone through the demos for STO, CO - played some more in the endless trial of WAR - gave up at 42% downloading the trial of DF - and had quit WoW again last month...

...I needz 2 gamez, u see!

Face it, MMORPGs still tend to be cheaper than single player games, movies, books, etc for their entertainment:dollar ratio.

Aison2

Originally posted by VirusDancer

Face it, MMORPGs still tend to be cheaper than single player games, movies, books, etc for their entertainment:dollar ratio.

 If you take in entertainment value and not hours spend ingame they tend to end up pretty expensive.

Tardcore

Originally posted by Perpetuum

I am seeing a big stream of forum posts equivalent to "I hate XXXX game, but i'm forced / still playing it". I don't understand it. If you hate a game, why are you still playing it (in b4 the whole "there are no other MMORPGs)?

Would you continuously nut yourself with a hammer, even if you really REALLY hated it, just because there was nothing better to do?

How would you feel if a dev was reading forum posts for their game and saw that you were spewing all this hatred about X or Y game, and still logging 6 hours a day on it, and they just decided to pull the plug on your account?

Because these people have been conditioned by the Pavlovian Response of instant self gratifcation from these games, it is the only real pleasure they can find in a life that is otherwise bleak and desolate?

atomtan

My friends and I were having this same discussion not too long ago.  We found ourselves saying that we hated some game or another, and then later would go home and play those same games.  In our cases it seemed to come down to being similar to our jobs.  We say that we hate our jobs, but in reality we love our jobs and some can't even believe that people will pay them for doing what they enjoy.  It's just the people we work with that can make our jobs unbearable at times.

Many of the "I hate..." threads I've read have come down to holes in game mechanics that others exploit, members of the community taking the games too seriously (raid group elitism, new players feeling not welcome, etc.), general harassment and immaturity, and countless other aspects that the game's code cannot control.  The game may be what the player has been looking for but the other people playing the game ruin that fun nearly every day they log in.

MMO's would be awesome if it weren't for the massive amounts of players.

arieste

Originally posted by uquipu

People say things like 'hate' when what they mean is: i've been playing this for years and wish there was an alternative but there isn't.

This.

 

I don't really see games in black and white.  I may hate certain features of game and love the others.  I may dislike what the game represents, but still enjoy some of the gameplay or people in it.   MMOs are social games after, it's entirely possible to play a game you hate entirely because you like the people that play it with you.  Like hating Sex and the City but taking your wife to see it anyway.

Ggameftw

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Originally posted by atomtan
...
Many of the "I hate..." threads I've read have come down to holes in game mechanics that others exploit, members of the community taking the games too seriously (raid group elitism, new players feeling not welcome, etc.), general harassment and immaturity, and countless other aspects that the game's code cannot control.  The game may be what the player has been looking for but the other people playing the game ruin that fun nearly every day they log in.
MMO's would be awesome if it weren't for the massive amounts of players.

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This is what seems to get me. A lot of the older generation gamers I think get burned out faster these days do to the community. As society progresses, the gamers play styles do also. The developer adaptation seems to not progress with community. Not saying that it would be easy, but I do not see games trying to change. Just a new game comes out based on something already done and same rinse repeat type style.

This is not old gamer vs. new gamer. These days it feels that games are compromising to much in their original ideas to make everyone happy. So you get one group happy and the other not. Then goes the re-balancing again. So some just stick with things saying "well they changed this so maybe it can get better" at some point.

ScalperOne

I never understood the "You need to get to end game for it to be fun."

If a game feels like work with some seeminglt fun at the end after a few months I won't play it for long. I am already sick working my job why would I make myself suffer a job playing a game. A game needs to be fun the whole time playing. If most the time it's boring it should be a game not played.

I do not understand those playing games they don't like in hope it might get better.

ZoeMcCloskey

Just enjoy the journey, endgame is where most games fall apart to me.

Also if you hate the game you play yet keep playing it(something I am guilty of)it is because it is just so darn fun to bitch, whine and moan about how much it sucks

Ceridith

Some people still play games they no longer like for various reasons, such as friends they've made in those games, and attachment to their characters.

This is actually why some players are so rabid in spewing "hatred" for the MMO they're playing, because they want to like the game again. They don't want to give up their characters they've invested a lot of time in, or lose the friendships with other players they've made in the game.

So really, it's not necessarily that they're very angry or negative people in general. Rather, they're simply just passionate about the game, and they want to enjoy it like they once did.

This happens a lot for older MMOs, as game mechanics are changed over time. This is particularly why there is so much WoW 'hate', because the game is drastically different than what it was years ago.

Ibster

Its already been said but its your character. You invest time in something and you can end up hating it for whatever reason, but because of the time you have spent with that character developing it you dont wanna just let all that go, and maybe things will get better if you just stick with it.

 

Makes you think of women really doesnt it...back to the vodka for me.

astoria

For a lot of people who hate in fora, myself included, we get into an MMO, it is new and shiny, and we get into a good community (clan guild corp) and have some great times.

Things change and we loose part of the social structure that made the game great. We tend to start looking for answers to why 'the community went to hell,'; why 'NGE/Trammel/etc. ruined the game; why the new lfg system destroyed open quest hubs; why the XP system change made it more solo-friendly; why the server merge did xyz; and I could go on.

With some of these, these answers are substantially significant, some may not be. Most of the times I've left a game it was really more to do with competition from other games, RL, or simply a couple bad apples in my formerly beloved clan. A lot of these are strwas breaking camel backs as much as crucial snafus.

TL;DR version = Don't know what you got til its go-o-o-on.

"I can't tell ya baby what went wrong

I can't make you feel what you felt so long ago

I'll let it show

I can't give you back what's been hurt

Heartaches come and go and all that's left are the words

I can't let go

If we take some time to think it over baby

Take some time, let me know

If you really want to go



Don't know what you got till it's gone

Don't know what it is I did so wrong

Now I know what I got

It's just this song

And it ain't easy to get back

Takes so long"

-Cinderella