Howdy, Stranger!
It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
Quick Links
MMOs aren't fun, and they never truly were
MisterSr
Member UncommonPosts: 928
I've recently come to the conclusion after a day of self-reflection that I've squandered the last six years of my life on MMOs. Games in general are a gargantuan waste of time, but they're fun, right? Generally that is true, but I believe in the case of MMOs that statement is hardly correct.
MMOs initially were loads of "fun" because people were finally given the opportunity to live and thrive in a world with other people--exist in a world that wasn't their own. But it never occurred to the average MMO gamer in 2004 that the game they were playing lacked substance, because they were so caught up in the moment of the MMO. But it's no longer 2004, it's 2010, and games nowadays need more than just interaction with other people in a game. The video game industry in general has made great leaps and strides since it's beginning, and yet it seems MMO developers nowadays are still stuck in the same mindset as those from back in 2004. Where is that something new, fun, and most importantly innovative? I remember in 2007 all the hype surrounding the new line of "next-gen" MMOs; Warhammer, AoC, Huxley (which seems long gone and forgotten), Gods and Heroes, Star Trek, ect. And each of those games failed terribly in one way or another, but I think a general consensus can be made on the fact that none of those games were truly fun. And it seems year after year this same problem arises. In 2008 a second new line of "next-gen" MMOs was announced, and players once again were excited to see something new, and were yet again thrown trash the next year. And AGAIN in 2009 we were promised the next greatest thing, and were given some load of dooky to eat up. This is a sad cycle which has been set.
MMO players are finally having their eyes opened, MMOs aren't fun, and they never were. Yes, you may have had some good moments that stood out while finally downing every boss in ZG, or reaching the largest level city in SWG, ect. But I honestly think the only reason those moments seemed so fun was because amongst all the monotonous crap that you were exposed to while playing mmos, something good finally happened, something to justify those hundreds of hours of toil. But really all you are left with after you've accomplished that goal of yours is a memory of a slight moment, and a hundred other hours lost. When I play real games, like Mass Effect, Red Dead Redemption, Final Fantasy 7, Kingdom Hearts, Call of Duty, Half-Life 2, ect. I'm given something much greater, something much more; I'm given a grand story delivered with a plethora of fun. Yes, that statement may sound a tad ridiculous, but it's true. I would never call any of those games a gargantuan waste of time because I had fun all the way through, and that is something single-player games have on MMOs; having fun all the way through.
I think developers need to seriously re-evaluate their strategies, because honestly, I don't come home to play an MMO and work more. I play games to relieve stress and to enjoy myself, and MMOs haven't ever done this for me. Every MMO feels like a job, and not a fun job, more like the job where you sit there doing the same thing over and over and over again. MMOs are a monotonous job. I want a game that leaves me with something, and MMOs don't do that. I'm not saying there isn't potential in the industry, it just seems that all developers want nowadays is to give you less for more money. It's time for someone to step up and make something worthwhile, and I hope they do it soon, because honestly, I can't take the ennui of MMOs anymore, it's time for change.
Comments
The bottom line here is to each their own. After several years in WoW, I had to give it up because I was allowing it to affect my personal life and relationships. I found a "hated" game several years later in CO that allows me to have fun AND interact with people in an MMO setting. I can jump in for an hour, jump out and no one is pissed. I think not all the blame should be put on devs but also on PLAYERS who demand a game that can entertain them 24/7.
Yet oddly enough single player games, especially shooters, follow the same pattern as MMOs. First you get a plot point setting up a level. Then you bash your way, in one form or another, to another plot point. Rinse repeat. Honestly the main problem with a lot of games is the players. They expect something more rewarding from games, but games don't exist except on your screen. There won't be anything but those little moments because those are those plot points, whether it's a plot twist or killing that big baddie. Beyond that you will never get anything material from a game. Really though, if it's fun it means that you don't notice all the malarky in between. So lighten up and have fun. They're games remember? They aren't rewarding. They fill up time with some giggles. If you want a rewarding experience read a book or go live life.
EDIT: FLAME ON! Not really. I didn't mean this to be a flame post so please try to keep your cool if you want to respond to this.
I wondered if I should replay considering your appearent attachment to FFXIV and making a thread about MMO's aren't fun. I have a far greater amount of good memories of fun times while playing MMO's, or a single MMO, than I do of playing countless console singleplayer RPGs.
Bad MMO's are not fun and by 'bad' I mean completely based on the players preferences. WoW, AoC, EVE, Aion are all bad MMO's and at the same time WoW, AoC, EVE, Aion are all good MMO's because different people enjoy different things...
There are honestly so many types of MMO's out there that there has to be at least one for everyone. New and more interesting ones pop up very couple years it seems so there is no slowing down either.
Well I believe that if you are marketing a game like this, which requires you to play for hours, that it should offer variety. On top of that, something that you can take with you long after you've quit; possibly a worthwhile, non-disjointed story. MMOs have the potential to be fun, but just aren't because they lack diversity. An MMO in essence needs to be multiple games, a conglomeration of things to do, all combined into one glorious medley. Why? Because you are playing the game for hours on end, in most cases, and after several hours of one thing you are going to want to shift to another. Maybe MMOs aren't fun because they all are the same premise with a new face. And maybe they aren't fun because they are so constricted. And maybe they aren't fun for both those reasons.
I played WoW for four years straight, and the only thing that kept me on was the fact that my guild forced me to partake in end-game, once again the job issue. I wasn't getting paid for this job, instead I was paying for this job. How messed up is that? All I'm asking for is one solid game.
Suspending fun is a byproduct of the grinding for that carrot on a stick mentality. If you can enjoy exploring, pvping, doing other non end game stuff, sure it can be fun.
its just this kind of sedentary sit at the pc for 8-23 hours a day making mom bring you hot pockits and empty your poop bucket gameplay that has made america the fattest nation on earth.
get up, go outside, get some exercise.
game devs, do like the nintendo wii did, make a controller that requires people not sit still all day getting fat playing!
world of widecraft will be the undoing of 12 million fatties soon, be warned!
So many types of MMOs.... really the way I see it is in three categories, cause I've played about 40 different MMOs, the majority of them P2P and some F2P scattered in there. And really one of those third categories should be a sub-category. My three categories are; The general cookie cutter layout mmo, the lobby mmo, and EVE. Pretty much... And I really have no attachment to FFXIV, I haven't bothered to change my avatar and whatnot. FFXIV like every other mmo lost it's luster quickly, and I once again came to the realization that it was the same thing with a different face. In all honesty I think the majority of the mmo communities players are so lost in their obsession that they haven't bothered to play anything but MMOs. If you got the best single player game you know and the best mmo you know and compared them, I can guarantee the single player game would seem a heck of a lot more fun than the MMO. I just feel mmos in general are lacking.
Haha, well said. MMOs are more an obsession than they are fun. And yes, there is a world outside. That's the best mmo there is. :P
I'll get yelled at for saying this, but making a character into what you want it to be is work. You start with Joe Farmboy, you want to be a beefy warrior, you go through the effort of doing this. That's work, not play. Play is throwing rocks in the water because it's fun. Work is setting a goal and achieving it through events that aren't fun.
Problem #1. Leveling isn't fun if the community sucks. People make the play fun.
Problem #2. After the work, what do you get? MORE WORK. That bites. They don't design "fun" things to do at endgame. I think the reason MMO developers give you "MORE WORK" is because there is one flawed concept in themepark games. Eventually you run out of content, but there is no way to "WIN" the game.
Ask yourself, who is the last person you know of who BEAT any MMO? Until you can say "WooHoo, I beat it" all there will ever be is more work.
Solution? Better communities (tough one to do) and a beatable game with a "FUN" end game.
In the end I agree with the OP. Most MMOs I've played have not been fun. A few moments here and there, but for the most part it was only work.
Would say that you are trying to compare apples to oranges. Which in a way you are, and not.
True the single player games and MMO's are both games, but with differences. You can do alot in a single player game that MMO's can not get away with. What will be fun for a single player changes drasticly if you make it for hundreds of people.
Trying to scale a encounter to 1 single person, is easy in single player games, you know what lvl the player will be and generaly the type and power of equipment you are scaling too. Try to then scale that in code and AI for 10 or 100 people. How do you make it work? That is just one of the challenges.
Throw in PVP on top and you start to see how each thing that you would add to a single player game can add hundreds if not thousands of different things you need to try to code for and anticipate for MMO's.
Which circles right back around to where you started at.
If all you need to do was take a great single player game (name your favorite) and make it into a great MMO was to add the multiplayer aspect, we would be flooded with great MMO's :P
Guess, in the end ,i am starting to think that how we play MMO's and what we expect from them is the real problem. We are talking about a game after all, and games are made to entertain us. We all have favorite single player games that we love, but we can not play them for years straight can we? Why then do we expect to be able to do so with MMO's? What makes MMO's last so long is friends that you play with, more of the social aspect of them. Not the game play in the end.
That's really a complicated stretch. MMO's are (were) fun, but you can only do something once. A lot of people want to find a game that can continuously provide that kind of fun for 2 years or more, but that's unrealistic. All good things must end, and you have to move on.
You didn't, and now you are making the classic mistake. People experience happiness (joy) in two principle ways. On the one hand, the "you" that experiences the moment to moment gameplay must have enjoyed himself, or else you wouldn't have tried to find that happiness again for six years. On the other hand, the "you" that remembers the experience, is unhappy. That's because the remembering self forgets the past and focuses on the present. And in the present, you are really unhappy with the games that you are playing, so you have unconsciously gone back and rewritten your own previous experience with MMOs and diminished them.
How's that for a little psychology?
hmmm, I can't see why you allowed your guild to force you into doing something you didn't want to do? why not just quit?
I mean, where are "you" in this whole process? Were you having any fun over all those years? And if it wasn't fun then why even continue or let others "force" you to continue?
Well, it seem you are now clear that you no longer enjoy these games. That's good. You can now move on to more fulfilling past times. good luck.
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
You're burned out. Take a break from the genre for a while. Happens to everyone and considering chances are you were rather disappointed in your last choice that I think it's safe to say you were rather looking forwad to it isn't surprising.
1. For god's sake mmo gamers, enough with the analogies. They're unnecessary and your comparisons are terrible, dissimilar, and illogical.
2. To posters feeling the need to state how f2p really isn't f2p: Players understand the concept. You aren't privy to some secret the rest are missing. You're embarrassing yourself.
3. Yes, Cpt. Obvious, we're not industry experts. Now run along and let the big people use the forums for their purpose.
A friend and I just had a debate about this and basically we came up with a couple things. First off: "fun" doesn't exist in that it isn't part of anything, and it has no physical reality. There is no "fun" programmed into a game. You're supposed to derive it from the game. Secondly: people don't want to engage in things. We're a passive society that demands instant gratification, and that's what this thread is about. You refuse to engage in the material. They give you a world, and you demand that they provide the fun as well. Sorry, but it doesn't work that way. You need to engage in the game enough to have fun. Grinding for that bit of gear isn't fun because it's not about the game. It's about making you feel good for a few seconds. I'll bet if you found a group of friends that could just casually mess around in WoW with you it could be more fun than a barrel of monkeys. You can't demand that the game provide everything for you. Why play then? Nothing does everything for you. Get off your mental a$$, and enjoy yourself.
I'm an oldie gamer at the grand age of 30. I've been playing MMORPG's since Merdian 59.
WoW is the only one game that's been fun, and mostly because I played it quite a bit with my other half. That was a long time ago when it first came out in the UK. The community was great back then as it was all 'new' to everyone (everyone cheered, even when you had a decent 'green'!).
Since then, the genre hasn't really moved on (WoW is still at No.1!), it's been the same thing in 'different guises' (different graphics/stories but the underlying aspect is the same). I don't know if this is a technical problem of MMORPG's or developers haven't been ambitious enough with their ideas but it's the way it is.
I hardly read any arcticles on this site anymore, there are just so full of fluff and optimism. They never slate a game for being bad, instead they praise it's 'good points'. I guess it's due to their advertising, etc as I would never recommend a crappy free to play game to anyone, ever (or Star Trek online!).
We can only hope forward to better things. Tech is constantly improving, thus removing barriors for fairly complex mmorpgs...
Oh well back to Black Ops..
The fun of MMOs was in the social interaction. The problem is that newer MMOs are trying to focus on Story and Combat, which they will never be able to compare to single player games.
Combat is so spammy that no one has time to talk anymore. Quests are so guided you don't have a chance to explore anymore. Dungeons are so linear you have no options of where to go. Even raids are on rails these days. Instances destroy any sort of competition for bosses.
And yet new MMO players claim to enjoy these new "features". Apparently my type are a dying breed. I'm fine with that though, I still play the newer games for what they are. The MMO days of old are gone though, and I don't think they'll be returning any time soon.
Fun is a relative term. The old MMOs were fun for me because of what they were.
I like your post because it speaks to being proactive and part of the process.
Is a deck of cards inherently fun? Or the tokens and cardboard "board" of a monopoly game?
One has to delve into what any game has to offer. If you like it and find it fun then play. If not then don't play.
I'm not a big card player because I don't really find it fun. No matter the game.
I do find puzzle games fun.
Myst was fun. Riven wasn 't fun.
Neverwinter nights was fun but dungeon siege wasn't fun.
Essentially it came down to me making a decision. I invested in the games and If I didn't enjoy them I moved on.
One has to be part of the process and invested in what one does otherwise it seems like an auto-pilot.
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
All the OP did is re-hash the same old complaints of the loudest voices of the so-called MMO community. "This game fails, that game fails. The genre sucks...blah blah blah." He took his statement beyond his experience, and tried to be the voice of 'the community'...whomever they may be.
MMORPG's are the most fun I've ever had gaming, and many of these "fail" games he's mentioned has given me many more hours of entertainment dollar than any console game ever did. As with any game I play...whether I play a week, a month or a year...I play until it isn't fun. Because I stop playing a game doesn't mean that the game is 'fail'. It means that I'm ready to try something different.
How about instead of casting more gloom and doom about our favorite genre of gaming, we start focusing on the positive aspects of the games we love. There is no mmo 'Messiah' other than the players that play them. A MMORPG is YOUR story...you have to find it, build it and play it.
So you want a MMO that you spend hundreds, possibly thousands, of hours on to deliver the same fun per hour as CoD single player which takes you five hours to complete, and you want it done in a seamless free-form world instead of CoD scripted gameplay between cutscenes? That begs the question; how naive are you?
In 2004 I was playing Shadowbane while the next generation of average MMO players were still on the horizon. And yes, I find the EQ clone MMOs to be boring. It's only gotten worse over the years as the games have gotten to be complete easymode.
I see your point, I think the problem MMOs have is that no one has perfected the implementation of a real world with a story. They focus so much on one thing that they lose sight of another. The problem is they are creating a world, and when you are creating a world there are a copious amount of activities for one to partake in. In real life, if I wanted to go play ping pong, race horses/cars, cook, ect. I could, but MMOs nowadays focus on one or two general themes. You can fly, combat with physics, you can change classes by changing weapons, you can be a superhero, (once again) ect. In a real world, you can do multiple things, and yet I've never seen an mmo where you could do multiple things (besides SWG pre-NGE, and still that was limiting). If I want to own a business, be a musician, be a thief, a hero, a politician, a pilot, a captain, a racer, then by gosh I should have the opportunity to do it. My theory on why mmos aren't fun is that they focus on one thing too much, lose focus on everything else, and put all their money into that one thing, and then you end up being so limited to that one thing that it quickly becomes tedious. Single player games are so much fun because they have a story that is unbroken and can easily be followed, but also because nowadays single player games are able to give players a lot of variety and options. But MMOs face several big obstacles; they have to keep in mind the large community, they have to make their game function well within the limits of the internet, and most of all, their games has to work on the average computer. I think the solution to this (this is all my opinion and own theorizing here) is that there NEEDs to be options. Options is the key word to the perfect MMO, and this constitutes everything. From player customization to how one plays the game to where they live to the system they choose to play the game on. In my opinion, the perfect MMO would let me play the game on whatever system I want, make my character look however I want, let me be a deluge of races and classes, let me go from being a musician to being a brutal impetuous killer to starting a city. Each would feel like a different game, and yet would all be part of the same world. Just imagine the opportunities one could explore, one would essentially never get bored given the options. And yet I think the greatest obstacle which I haven't mentioned is a limited budget, only bill gates could create a game of such a glorious quality because the budget would be insane. I would gauge between 500 million to 1 billion even, and I think that is where the challenge lies. Making a game that brings in profit while not forgetting to make it quality. And yet if one were to spend that much money and make a game with true options, I am sure they could wrangle the entire market, and the residuals that they would receive would surely make up for the expense.
I dunno, a majority of single player games, especially RPG's were some variant of "kill the floozle".
The few open ended ones, like Oblivion were rather pointless, no reason to live in a virtual world by yourself.
Say what you will, but I had some grand experiences in games such as DAOC, such great times with both the players and living in the Albion enviroment, and it wasn't because I was drown out in the monotony (though there was some to be sure)
Even now, I find most single player games to be smplified, more casual versions of the much better games of the 90's much as has infected the MMORPG world, and are not an improvement.
Heck, if you're not using graph paper to map your RPG, you're not really playing.
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
No, I just want variety, and options, and possibly a story mixed in there.
Look at my WoT post right above your last one.
You're only speaking for yourself, not the community. Probably one of the funnest times I had in any game was leveling my Hunter to 80 on WoW. The only time MMO's ever became a "job" was when I discovered Thottbot, a wow info site, and I suddenly knew all the information in the world, instead of finding an item and seeing if it was better for me, I seeked out better items, I quit wow for a while tried Lotro, warhammer, and Anarchy online. While trying out the first 2 I still had that horrible mentality of needing to know everything, so making the experience suck. When I played Anarchy Online, I lost that mentality and had fun in MMO's again. I made a deal with myself, never seek out the best, just learn and wait for the best in MMO's, just like I did with all games beforehand.
The only thing I agree with is that they need to add more fun to MMO's, however I don't think it will happen for a long time. People beg for change, but when change comes, another group of players complain, and the second group of people scream much louder then the first. I'm sure any WoW player knows what I mean, especially if they are playing right now during the Elemental Invasion stuff, the event isn't new to games or even to wow, but its a little extra to do: this makes me think Guild Wars 2's dynamic events might be changed if the developers give in to all the people that will complain, and there will be people that complain.
-I want a Platformer MMO