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Are MMO's fun or a job?
Bendoverz
Member Posts: 6
How can one make such a topic I here you ask, of cause MMO's ain't know job I here you say.
Well I had been telling myself this very thing over the past few years of playing MMO's. I at the end of the FPS buzz was looking for a new genre to play and I picked up two games back in 2005, Everquest2 and Warcraft out of those two I shelved Everquest2 and have played Warcraft for the past 6 years.
Having 10 characters, 4 of which are at the current highest level of 85 I asked myself am I having fun playing this, or has it just become a habbit and something I have to do on a daily basis.
Over the past 6 years I am tried on numerous occasions to play other MMO's, ranging from the likes of EVE online, Darkfall to Vangaurd and AOC. basically any new MMO that has been released has in some way attracted my attention. Having purchased alot of these games, even subbed to many of them, I always came back to Warcraft. I always thought to myself that the time I had already invested would be wasted. Then one day Someone either banged me on the head or I simply couldn't take this habbit anymore I realised that in fact all the time I played Warcraft was fun and nothing more. To prove this to myself, I decided to delete all my characters, give away all the items I had collected and cancel my account once and for all, saying to myself, "that was a good game I had lots of fun and nothing more". Lets just try another game now!
Now with that context above, how do you see MMO's and the time you play them, do you see it as a investment of your time or as entertainment. fun and nothing more.?
Cheers
Comments
I used to play MMOs pretty extensively, competing for stuff, trying to "achieve things", dedication, time investment yadda yadda.
Then I was forced to take a 2 year brake, and when I came back, it kind of became obvious: if it isn't fun the instant I log on, it's just not worth spending my time. That made for a really interesting change in dynamics. So many of the things MMO players tell you the games are about turn out to be completely meaningless once you apply the measurement of "how much fun is it minute to minute"
Once you change your perspective from "what do I want to achieve" to "is it fun", you quickly start seeing the differences in the design of several MMOs.
Some completely fall apart once you no longer follow the carrot on the stick, others give you something fun to do even though you achieve nothing with it.
Ultimately, making this shift in perspective improved my MMO experience considerably, mostly by giving me back the freedom to just play how I want instead of how the game requires me to play.
if i dont get money from doing something... i dont consider it a job to do on a daily basis (unless im having fun with it like playing tennis or sk8 or listening to music).... and if i dont have fun with a game anymore then i quit it right away.... however, after having payed all that money for years of subscription theres no way in hell im giving away my items and deleting all my chars lol..... i rather sell my full account for some money to a trusty person that knows i will not scam... and just retire and move to other game (or just save my account for someday i feel nostalgia and come back)
are mmogs fun or a job? well, it depends on how deep a player is involved in his/her game of choice. if you see playing mmogs as a hobby, it can be work, especially when you are in a leadershipposition of a guild or if you have high goals you want to reach in a game. but most players spend maybe approx. 2 hrs per day, seeking for a small opportunity to socialize and to relax. also it depends on which game you are playing. to reach goals in f.e. eve online is mostly work, even for the 'casual gamers'. to be a ceo of a corporation or even in an alliance leadershipposition, is a lot like running a real world company and does need a similiar amount of time. but work can also make fun. in the end it comes to the individual point of view of a player.
MMO's are fun. I think anything can become a job if you make it a job. As a person who only works if I am forced to, and often makes a job a game, it is very easy for me to avoid ever making something meant to be fun (like an MMO) a job. Maybe people that make it a job are people that are much more job oriented than me, just a theory.
-I want a Platformer MMO
Haha Rojo, you say if you don't get money for it you don't consider it a job, yet you say you would not delete your characters and probebly sell them, which in fact you could class this as having a job!. I was told the very same, "I should sell me account and get something from it" (I know all about this area having sold and bought accounts previously), but this time, I felt the need to accept to myself that I did not want anything more from my time played to have being fun.
My friends always playing mmo games and im always with them. Thats why I consider mmo fun, I don't play like others like hardcore. I just wanted to enjoy every minute of playing mmo with my friends.
An MMO is a game. A game is supposed to be fun. If, for some reason, it is no longer fun, then I consider it a chore. That is when I stop playing.
It depends how you see the game when you hit the level cap. When I hit the level cap I usually go to pvp arena or other chalenges well its fun. If I want some gold or in game money I make it a habit to grind for it everyday to attain what I want. Thats a job for me when I see through it.
It all depends on how you play.
When you have to force yourself to logg on it is a work. It is common for raiders and people in top PvP guilds, but also with real addicts.
If you log on only when you feel for it playing is just fun.
I think many players are a bit in between, They sometimes feel forced to log on to better their gear while othertimes log on just because they feel for it.
For me, about 50-50.
I spend a lot of time working on my characters, in order to be ready to have fun playing... usually in group dungeons.
This^
Second to that^ why play if your doing it againts your fun space?
Thats easy. You dont get paid to play one.
Unless you like to compare it to charity work, but that would just scare me.
IMHO games are supposed to be fun and to be a gritty chore. why play is your finding yourself a hardtime playing it? well that my opinion on that subject.
If your doing MMO for money ingame to cash then its a job but if your doing MMO with your friends then its fun, simple as that.
IT depends on the game and its fun level, which is going to vary by person to person. I primarly play eve, and I think its fun, when doing pvp. Grinding isk can be a bit of a chore though.
In most "quest grinder" type games however, it feels like a job, imo. Add to the fact that PVP in themeparks is generally sucky or subpar. see: EQ2
Working on a character even if it takes longtime i don't see as work, its just a part of fun but if you only have fun when you reach end result then this game have serieus problem.
From day one you should have fun even when your day1 newbee then its a good game thats why i play Darkfall from day1 you can have alot fun and kick some other newbee ass.
Games played:AC1-Darktide'99-2000-AC2-Darktide/dawnsong2003-2005,Lineage2-2005-2006 and now Darkfall-2009.....
In between WoW few months AoC few months and some f2p also all very short few weeks.
Sometimes I play games out of sheer boredom, even when the game itself is boring... then it kinda does feel like a job.
its fun as long as you play it because u want to and like playing the game, it becomes work when u play the game to become higher rank then some1 else even though u dont like the game anymore
https://ashesofcreation.com/r/Y4U3PQCASUPJ5SED
Speaking from a Westerns point-of-view, MMO's, if you really look into it, do not have as big a spike or sustained audience as first-person games of most kinds. The market for mmo's really began to take off in the late 90's, then had a resurgence of interest in 2004-2005.
Over the last 5-years not one, for the most-part, ,mainstream mmo has sustained more than about 200,000 to 300,000 sustained subscribership at 6-months to a year-out after selling 1 million + copies.
GuildWars and their buy-to-play model and EVE Online and their pay-to-play organic player-centric model are the mainstream exceptions, I think. FreeRealms-like mmo's are other exceptions but falls into the free-to-play kid-oriented model of adolescent social network games. That is what I read and see aside from the social-network games such as Farmville and World of Warcraft over the last 5-years. Yes WoW is more of a social network as opposed to a mmorpg now. No one is going to kill facebook-esque social network games, if you get the analogy.
So coming full-circle, Developers have turned mmorpg's into static, linear, stale, redundant and plain'ol repetitive borish activities that are completely void of massively-multiplayer community-centric and organic-aligned cooperativeness of player centricity, but chock full of linear number chasing, level running, whiplash activities of starting at Y, running to X and returning to Y to achieve a numerical value. It holds little to no substance, entertainment or purposeful value for $15/month, of which can be similarly gained in a single-player lobby-system game or buy-to-play multiplayer game.
Hence, the vast majority find these types of games as transient entertainment for short-lived involvement, of which they get more return on their investment from other non-monthly-fee based games for far less cash-outlay.
Pick your supposidely defined mmorpg over the last 5 years; LotRO, PotBS, Tabula Rasa, WAR, AoC, Vanguard, EQ2, Champions Online, CrimeCraft, Global Agenda, Star Trek Online, etc. They all fall into my lack-luster massively-multiplayer bucket of games that haven't and wont out-perform the new definition of success, which is mediocrity of 200k-300k sustained subscribership 6-months to a year post-launch.
The fun is fleeting and wears off as quick as any other new gimick when it comes to the past 5-years of mainstream massively-multiplayer Online games while the organic, player-influenced and community-centric nature of what should warrant $15.months to grow within, develop and contribute to a virtual escape of entertainment is completely lacking.
It only becomes a job if one sticks it out for more than 6-months, then relegated to repeating the same content, same maps, same static and repackaged mobs, encounters over and over and over agian.
Fun or job.... some people would consider their MMO's are their careers... well if you play too much that would be...
as for my opinion, MMO's should remain just for fun, a place where you can unwind and interact with fellow players.
For those born to become unruly... well don't bother your self with their clutter. Enjoy what you have and strive to be better.
fun or job? it's entierly up to player.
I think this is the problem with this gen of MMO's. Why do I have to "grind" rep/professions/badges/gear? Why can't I just log in and have fun. Grind doesn't sound fun (except in the sack). "Nose to the grindstone". That sounds like work to me. I'd rather climb a mountain, chat with friends, slay the bad guy etc etc. Maybe the next gen developers will get this. I hope so or this genre may be in big trouble.
that's depressing.. mmos should be about fun. don't force yourselves
"The world's still the same - there's just less in it."
They start out casual, until you join a guild...find that you are having more responsibility since its easy to find it in a game where its just given to you. When obsession turns on and addiction befalls you, it will become a job. Once the addiction clears and you can go home, you will realize that for all your experience you have burned a lot of time and some years of your life...
A prison inmate has a better life interracting with people than people who look like their computers is their life-support system playing a game. I do play an MMORPG called "REAL LIFE" and most often than none I find that people who are advanced in MMORPGs are not as advanced in the real world. It happens
If you put in 40 hours a week or more to play a game, it means you are losing 40 hours a week towards advancing yourself in the real world. Nothing like Virtual-Life within a Virtual Prison....