If they leave early it's because the game was really low quality or just not their cup of tea, usually the former(DFOUW, Wizardry, Warhammer, the first FFXIV, etc)
If they leave at max level it's because the endgame is shallow and/or nonexistant.
Every MMO since WoW has made one of these two mistakes.
Agreed! There hasn't been an MMO with something new to offer in years. After a while you have played them all.
Still try to play football and love it just as much, if not more,
Oh my god i know they are so bad for me but i still love a Doner Kebab haha!
But i do get your point. we are different people and not only we have changed but also our spare time has changed dramatically.
Well U2 yeah they are timeless. If I tried to play football now I would be carted off during warmups.
I think a lot of us refuse to believe we are different and that the devs are just not getting it. My friend still plays EQ1. The game is vastly different from what I played but when I saw him playing it (He only logs on to chat with friends) I was stunned at how poor it is compared to what we got now.
I think the publishers want a game that can encompass 1st gen to current gen players and they spend hundreds of millions of dollars trying and they make a great attempt but it just not going to happen. Games like Darkfall I think have the right idea. make a game that you know has a solid core of niche players and milk it and repeat.
Totally agree. I hope that a few developers have the balls to make a solid game that will attract and hold a niche market.
I am one of those niche players. damn i am not even playing a game at the moment and have been searching the last few days and wandering if i should download EQ again, but then hold out because i know its all changed so much now.
bring on the next round i suppose and ill try again.
adino32 i hear that point a lot about we only remember the good points. So i tried the eq1999 free server for a bit to see. I joined with a group of friends for a blast from the past planning to stay for a week or so. We all ended up playing for months and absolutely loved it again. How so haha?
Well it had challenge and depth, no group finders so people had to actually comunicate, remember years ago when if you want to speak to a mate you had to knock on the door? W ealso loved the fact that we couldnt just run blindly into a fight without worrying about losing our stuff or facing a long corpse run... remember that guy in the pub with all his mates that you wish you would have smacked, but really knew you would get your head kicked in. then there was the fact that we soon forgot about levelling as it wasnt so important. it was more important to explore what felt like a huge living world. every now and again we would hear this "ding" and it would be a momentuous occasion!
Wedont all wear those rose tinted glasses and some of still want to play a risk v reward game with no fast travel and instances where we all get the same loot as a reward and all look and feel the same.
How many people play WOW and play 90% content rather than sit in a city and dugeon hop while never speaking?
How many people play SWOR and actually complete all available quests while they are yellow rather than just constantly queue for battlegrounds?
these are the reasons i usually leave a game while i would prefer to go back to the old style. Walking and exploring a world that feels full of adventure and risk. focus is not on levelling but just playing in a world where i can have seperation from my usual day to day life.
Well I think the variable here is the community. You had a set community. I do remember those days. All my "nerd" friends would call each and log on and go adventuring. It was like playing DnD with graphics. If I could get my friends to all log on, I would not mind playing Pong. As it is we have trouble all getting together to chat on FB for a few minutes. I think you miss your friends and no game is going to bring that back.
Instead of saying why I leave BAD MMOs, I will talk about why I left good ones. So ,this post is for you Matt.
Meridian 59.
This was my first true MMORPG. It was more novelty for me than anything else. I was thinking, hey I am playing an RPG ONLINE WITH OTHER ACTUAL PEOPLE! WOW!
After a little more than of playing, I was basically just using it as a chat room with graphics and I did that for MONTHS! I think during the last 2-3 months of playing the game I may have only spent perhaps 4 or 5 hours actually doing anything in the game other than talking and it was worth the investment because I met a bunch of people and we were all talking about the same thing, Ultima Online and when it was coming out, and how we were going to play together. Needless to say, leaving the game was easy since it was just a chat room at that point.
Ultima Online.
Well, I went into this game knowing what it was going to be, an Ultima game with other players where you can kill or be killed at any time. This was the draw for me first and foremost because it felt like it should be that way after playing Ultima 8, dark and bloody. I stayed through the horrible horrible launch right up until they released the carebear expansion that change the base game. That is why I left. They made a game one way and completely changed it to something else.
Asherons Call 1
I played this game for 3 straight years, off and on for another 2. The reason this game held me for so long was the amount of things to do, it wasn't gated, free to do mostly anything, complete open world and felt NO need at all to level up as it wasn't end game based. It received monthly updates, many of them large and there was basically always something to do. And when I say something to do, I mean by choice. No daily quests or tasks. There reason for leaving was it was dated, received no expansions at that point that upgraded the graphics and over all systems........and my guild was leaving for other games, which was another good part of it though I would have stayed longer if it had more expansion support.
Star Wars Galaxies
I was with this game from launch right up until the CU and dropped it quick. I could probably still be playing this game today if it wasn't for their altering the base game by trying to make it more like WoW. Sandbox game, endless content, endlessly replayable.
Archeage
I have been playing the Japanese client for just over a year now(5 months of the closed beta included in that). I can say right now that I will be playing this until its released in the US, and then starting over again with it just so I can read the actual content lol. There are as many sandbox features as SWG had with so much more added on as to be expected with a newer game. I can see myself playing this for another 3-4 years even with Shroud of the Avatar on the top of my wanted list, I will play both, perhaps even with Landmark thrown in if the building options are good enough in that game.
Now, that is my list of "good" MMOs I have played. All the "bad" MMOs had the same thing in common with each other. They had GATED content leading to end game grind.
When you make a gated themepark game that is around 95% getting to end game, it makes 95% of the game WORTHLESS once you have done it. It limits the amount of things you can do as a player after a short amount of time and nothing drives me away from a game faster than a game that is leaving me with little to do, and having to do that little over and over and over again.
Want to hold me as a player? Create content that is dynamic, and doesn't lose its meaning. Hard to do with a themepark, especially one that is gear grind based.
"People who tell you youre awesome are useless. No, dangerous.
They are worse than useless because you want to believe them. They will defend you against critiques that are valid. They will seduce you into believing you are done learning, or into thinking that your work is better than it actually is." ~Raph Koster http://www.raphkoster.com/2013/10/14/on-getting-criticism/
I've always enjoyed the story and leveling characters. I'm pretty sick of raid/pvp or do dailies. I can be happy in just about any mmo while leveling a character because that type of progression always appeals to me. Logging in and "getting something accomplished " is the core of what I like to do in games.
Very few games even offer this type of game play once you reach max level. It's like it becomes a whole new game that is just a massive grindy time sink.
Every mmo I quit is because of end game. The very few exceptions I quit because I didn't like the game right away and didn't even make it to level 10 or the typical 50-60 levels.
GW2 is probably the only mmo I've ever played where I made it to 25ish twice and then quit. But it's a very different type of mmo....and not for me.
I agree with what most people said and I will sum it up as immersion factor. Yes, I'm 33yro and I played UO, EQ, DAoC and AC and miss those days, but it's not because my free time has changed or that I have changed. Although my free time has changed and I have changed but I am still missing those nights/days of sitting in a corner of Lake of Ill Omen farming in a full group. Not doing anything other then pulling and killing and holding a conversation with my group mates at the time.
I even tested this as well when I recently went back to EQ1 for about 6 months- year playing on one of the f2p servers. I had a blast to be honest. It's still A LOT different then the 90's but the first 50 levels were just like old school. There werent as many groups but there were still some to be had and I had a absolute blast playing it again. What made me leave was once I was 80, in come the dailies grinding and then not enough people to actually do a full raid or the raids were so much easier. It felt like the later levels were a return to wow with eq interface and graphics.
So many people here love to point out that times have changed and that those of us that started in the 90's and want a return to those types of games are fooling ourselves or need to stop crying about the state of the genre now. First of all, the state of the genre is cause of us, the people from the 90's are the people that made this genre in the first place, so all of the children who have been playing these games for the past 10 years can thank us for supporting the first games to make this genre huge. In the end, Wow was made for the EQ and DAoC players because we wanted something new and to a point something more intuitive/easier and it wasn't made for all the teens that hopped on after it was a huge hit.
One can make a point that in this instance, the people that complain about what MMO's have turned into are because of themselves, at least in part. At the time, at least everyone I know, had at one time said they wished the games were more intuitive and certain systems easier, so thats what WoW developers admittedly did. They listened to the current communities of the time and made it easier and then proceeded to make it easier and easier so the children could compete.
Personally, after all this ranting and raving, immersiveness I think is really the main reason for many people and definitely the reason for myself. If I don't feel that the world is huge and living and I dont feel that I'm a part of it and can have an affect on it, then it doesnt matter how much content, rewards, or zones they put in, I'm gonna put it down. Although the more of the content/rewards etc they put in, the longer my stay most likely will be, but I will never put in the years I did with DAoC or eq because the immersions not there. In all honesty, Wow is the one MMO I spent the most time in and that was more because of the people rather than the game. Once TBC was 6 months in, I was ready to quit but all my friends still played, so I stayed, just put in less time per day.
Anymore what keeps me in the games is the immersiveness and the people I'm playing with. Like one gentleman said, I'm not in my 20's anymore and I don't have a 4 man group in my apartment any longer. I live away from my gaming friends with a wife and son and I play with whoever is playing what I'm playing at the time.
I'm giving AoC a shot right now cause I always loved the Conan movies and never tried an "Adult" MMO, so far it's fun, time will tell if it has the staying power to keep me busy till a new mmo grabs me or maybe this will be my last hurrah, time will tell. Not likely with games like Archage, EQ:N, Pantheon and some others I could mention.
For me why i leave a MMo is because i have finished all the content in the 1st month. After i finish the content why should i pay for a game that has no more content.
Games like what a lot of people have brought up like DAOC or SWG all would take months or longer to get through all the content. If a new MMo comes out with content like that then i will be playing it more then just 1 or 2 months.
Again its all about having more then 1 month worth of content.
I leave MMO's for a variety of reasons. Last one I left was for two, no interesting "end game" content and the game going so-called "f2p". The most common for me, no interesting end game content....which seems to be the case for 99.9% of the MMOs out there.
My reason always boils down to the same thing: It starts to feel like a grind. As long as the grind is obscured by other interesting things (i.e. single player games like Dragon Age Origins, Witcher, Mass Effect are nothing but fedex and kill X quests that are cleverly designed to feel as if you're progressing through a story).
First of all, the state of the genre is cause of us, the people from the 90's are the people that made this genre in the first place, so all of the children who have been playing these games for the past 10 years can thank us for supporting the first games to make this genre huge. In the end, Wow was made for the EQ and DAoC players because we wanted something new and to a point something more intuitive/easier and it wasn't made for all the teens that hopped on after it was a huge hit.
I disagree, the reason isn't us, it's those making the games. They are no longer making MMORPG's. They're trying to cater to everyone, kids,teens,adults,pvp players,pve players, console players, etc. They're not trying to focus on a specific audience, they're no longer working on mmorpg's with originality, they're no longer making mmorpg's that push the boundaries, come up with new ideas. That's why so called "mmorpg's" of today are failing to keep players.
I've enjoyed reading people's responses so far. I usually don't stay with a single MMO for years at a time. It's usually not because I consumed all the content a game offers or reached all the objectives I set out for myself when I begin playing a game. Quite often it's because I feel like a game or game community is dictating what activities I should participate in when I don't necessarily want to participate in that activity.
I want to be immersed when I play. Doing dailies is NOT immersive for me. Repeating dungeons more than a handful of times is not immersive for me. Repeating PvP or PvPvE instances for months at a time is not immersive for me. Listening to other players endlessly brag about their vanity items is not immersive for me. Grinding to keep up with the Joneses is NOT immersive for me.
Life is short and there is a universe of other games to immerse oneself in. That's the primary reason I leave an MMO.
If I am a low level, on a free to play type game, and my warehouse is full, and my current bag is full also and I have no where to use or put my new items, I tend to quit games. F2P companies purposefully starting with a very small inventory amount and having to pay to add 8-12 spots at a time is a big negative for me. I am a huge crafter and will gladly craft for hours in multiple class if I can have more than one, but I get obsessive compulsive about refusing to continue leveling without any free inventory space and losing important items. I REFUSE to junk crafting ingredients because some games give us very small inventory space.
Other times I don't have the money for a subscription, other times I game hop to the next big MMO that is in beta, or offline solo player RPG on the PS3/360. I was spoiled as a kid and my dad bought me a new Atari, Intellivision, Colecovision, NES, SNES, N64, Saturn, Ps1, Ps2 game every 2 weeks so I had a habit of not finishing games and moving on as well.
Redundant Battlegrounds - Sorry excuse for PvP. There is nothing "open" or "massive" about 6v6 or even 20v20 PvP. These "dedicated" PvP zones and childish gimmicks are both boring and immersion breaking, e.g., Capture the Flag, TDM, Huttball, etc. Sigh.
I can't be myself. I feel like I'm simply going through the motions between each cut-scene. It feels more like I'm just watching a movie as opposed to being my character.
Quest hub to quest hub progression.
It's all about combat. Social hubs have been destroyed. There is no economy to manipulate or player city to populate.
Absolutely zero player-driven/created content.
Small and funneled worlds. Zero Exploration
I'm not asking for some blank and empty void of a sandbox. I'm also not asking for a "hold my hand" Theme Park. I want a blend of both.
Amen Brother.....
I couldn't agree with you more. I have saying this forever.... The lack of open world play, coupled with the over-use of instanced content has destroyed the mmorpg genre. The proof is in the pudding. Most mmorpg players are bored and looking for the next great game.
What shocks me the most is that the mmorpg community constantly speaks about what we want in a mmorpg, but the recent gaming companies just keep making the same mistakes. It looks like Archage may be the answer. From what I have "seen", Archage is an open world sandbox game, where the developers listened to their fans. Everquest Next hasn't shown enough for me to see if what they say and what the game will be are the same. FFX14 ARR will lost subs soon enough with all the instancing and lack of end game content.
I am keeping my fingers crossed that ESO has enough to keep me interested. Wildstar seems like a WOW clone, but I hope for its success. There are a lot of big name MMORPG's coming out this year. I hope their devs continue to listen to their fans.
The first time I ever quit a MMO was due to Enhancement Diversification. Yup, that should sound a bit familiar to Matt. Best way to make a superhero who put in hundreds of hours doing group events, etc. feel NOT super.
My exit event these days is pretty much the same for all MMOs that I return to and find lacking....that event is: "I'd really rather be playing Minecraft right now."
Bad class/faction balance, lame stories, bad immersion, no feel of adventure, the "going to work" feel of end game, major changes due to expansions, repetitiveness of content, false/ manufactured diversity.
I've enjoyed reading people's responses so far. I usually don't stay with a single MMO for years at a time. It's usually not because I consumed all the content a game offers or reached all the objectives I set out for myself when I begin playing a game. Quite often it's because I feel like a game or game community is dictating what activities I should participate in when I don't necessarily want to participate in that activity.
I want to be immersed when I play. Doing dailies is NOT immersive for me. Repeating dungeons more than a handful of times is not immersive for me. Repeating PvP or PvPvE instances for months at a time is not immersive for me. Listening to other players endlessly brag about their vanity items is not immersive for me. Grinding to keep up with the Joneses is NOT immersive for me.
Life is short and there is a universe of other games to immerse oneself in. That's the primary reason I leave an MMO.
Well said, and for me it is the immersion as well. However, I select the games I wish to play very carefully because I am hopeful I'll want to play them for at least a couple of years. I like to feel my character is the main character in a movie I'm escaping into.
My list:
Guild Wars 1: Left after attaining my goals ('God Walking Amongst Mere Mortals" and "Champion of the Gods") not to mention GW2 made GW1 into a ghost town. Natural evolution alas.
Guild Wars 2: I was enjoying it until they terminated my account by error (a very wide attempt to stop botting). It took almost a month to get my account back, and the effort was so frustrating I lost the joy of playing the game. In the meantime SWTOR had started, so I devoted my time to it.
The Secret World: Played for awhile, and I still think its a good game but just wasn't my personal cup of tea.
SWTOR: Still playing. I love the cut scenes with my character in them (another reason I liked GW1). This week I'll finish all major classes up to max level, and all companion stories associated with each class. Almost have my legacy level maxed too. So I may be closing in on the end of my interest.
I like story lines, and I'm a bit of a completionist too. Once I've gone through the stories, and accomplishments I've targeted it's usually time to try something new. Likely next on my list - TESO, WS, and Shroud of the Avatar.
I'm slightly surprised that so many of you are concerned about the amount of "content" but rarely mention quality of said "content". And a Lack of Quality Content is my number 1 reason for leaving most MMOs.
Seriously I can no longer count the games where I've participated in an MMO's Beta. And actually filled out loads of detailed bug reports. Only to get into a game and discover at least 50% of those things were still broken. And then they don't even bother to fix things. Because they don't even care enough to have a decent QA staff. And lately they hardly have any Customer Support at all either.
I don't want to support companies like that - I'd far rather see them go out of business.
There are other reason why I quit some MMOs but the rest of you have them really well covered.
I'm slightly surprised that so many of you are concerned about the amount of "content" but rarely mention quality of said "content". And a Lack of Quality Content is my number 1 reason for leaving most MMOs.
Seriously I can no longer count the games where I've participated in an MMO's Beta. And actually filled out loads of detailed bug reports. Only to get into a game and discover at least 50% of those things were still broken. And then they don't even bother to fix things. Because they don't even care enough to have a decent QA staff. And lately they hardly have any Customer Support at all either.
I don't want to support companies like that - I'd far rather see them go out of business.
There are other reason why I quit some MMOs but the rest of you have them really well covered.
I think the reason people are talking about quantity more than quality is that they are focusing more on why they left games they enjoyed than why they left games they didn't enjoy. A game can have the highest quality ever, and when you run out of quantity you will probably still want to leave.
Peace is a lie, there is only passion. Through passion, I gain strength. Through strength, I gain power. Through power, I gain victory. Through victory, my chains are broken. The Force shall free me.
The only MMOes I ever quit were CoH, twice (then had it killed while I was back in for the third time) and Atlantica. Atlantica was basically a game I didn't want to play, but a friend told me to try it. I did. It didn't take. I stopped fairly early. With CoH, I quit twice. The first time, I was fairly sure I just needed a break. I came back in like a few months with almost no real prompting or rules changes needed to reel me back in. The second time, I said "No, THIS time I really mean it, it's over..." and let a friend drive my account, telling him he could do whatever he wanted with it, delete characters, whatever. The reason I left that time was a combination of the game starting to feel very grindy and the fact that my "CoH friends" never seemed to be online much anymore. I think a lot of them fled to other games for the time being and or were spending more of their CoH time on the test server, which I didn't bother to get into. My friend gave me my old account back after the game went F2P and within a day of being back I paid for a year of VIP again. That was ~October of 2011. In November of 2013 the game was killed.
"Well sure, the FrinkiacVII looks impressive - DON'T TOUCH IT - but I predict that within 100 years computers will be TWICE as powerful, ten THOUSAND times larger, and so expensive that only the five richest kings of Europe will own them." -Prof. Frink
I'm slightly surprised that so many of you are concerned about the amount of "content" but rarely mention quality of said "content". And a Lack of Quality Content is my number 1 reason for leaving most MMOs.
Seriously I can no longer count the games where I've participated in an MMO's Beta. And actually filled out loads of detailed bug reports. Only to get into a game and discover at least 50% of those things were still broken. And then they don't even bother to fix things. Because they don't even care enough to have a decent QA staff. And lately they hardly have any Customer Support at all either.
I don't want to support companies like that - I'd far rather see them go out of business.
There are other reason why I quit some MMOs but the rest of you have them really well covered.
Who says they don't care enough to fix it and that it's not something else like budget vrs man hours. Just because you find a bug and they don't fix it the next day doesn't mean the company didn't care that you found it.
First of all, the state of the genre is cause of us, the people from the 90's are the people that made this genre in the first place, so all of the children who have been playing these games for the past 10 years can thank us for supporting the first games to make this genre huge. In the end, Wow was made for the EQ and DAoC players because we wanted something new and to a point something more intuitive/easier and it wasn't made for all the teens that hopped on after it was a huge hit. _______________________________________________________________________________________
Originally posted by Ice-Queen
I disagree, the reason isn't us, it's those making the games. They are no longer making MMORPG's. They're trying to cater to everyone, kids,teens,adults,pvp players,pve players, console players, etc. They're not trying to focus on a specific audience, they're no longer working on mmorpg's with originality, they're no longer making mmorpg's that push the boundaries, come up with new ideas. That's why so called "mmorpg's" of today are failing to keep players.
I understand where your coming from and actually agree. I don't think that there is one specific reason that we all leave them but I feel my previous statement is one of the bigger ones. Your reasoning here is very sound and I completely agree. In all actuality I think we are kinda seeing that now.
Since the f2p isn't keeping people an extremely long time, I think some companies are now going sandbox and if that can't gather the amount of subs or f2p transactions that they are looking for or length in time. They will then start creating more targeted mmo's and as you've seen on the forums people are already making posts about not every mmo is a mmorpg. The community is already stating it, so as developers, they always seem 2-3 years behind, so then we'll scream at the wall for awhile and then they may change.
The other point is, even though a lot of people are posting, that doesn't change the fact that the mmo genre is popping right now, they are still doing well making money on these games as they are. So that will always prolong change in the market except for those exceptional developers that love what they do and are amazing at it and of course, have a backer that either has enough time/money to invest and will give them the reins.
Basically stating the innovation is what some of us crave and that is part of what makes us leave these games. And it will unfortunately take time for that to come whether we like it or not
"You see, in MMO development there is something called an “exit event”. This is a definable point at which a player no longer wanted to play your game."
Totally wrong reasoning. As there is and "exit event" usually there is also "reenter event". Simple as that. No matter how much I love pizza I can not eat pizza for years, every day, 5 times per day. Variating food is a MUST. Something completely natural.
1. Researched the game and didn't have interest to start. (Not an exit event, but they didn't get my business)
2. I made a mistake starting the game. I don't like the game. Not sticking around.
3. I did like the game. Expansion pack screwed it up.
Never have I played a game to cap and left because of being out of content. *sigh* I can't make it to cap without quitting if the game isn't something I enjoy.
Comments
Agreed! There hasn't been an MMO with something new to offer in years. After a while you have played them all.
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Totally agree. I hope that a few developers have the balls to make a solid game that will attract and hold a niche market.
I am one of those niche players. damn i am not even playing a game at the moment and have been searching the last few days and wandering if i should download EQ again, but then hold out because i know its all changed so much now.
bring on the next round i suppose and ill try again.
Well I think the variable here is the community. You had a set community. I do remember those days. All my "nerd" friends would call each and log on and go adventuring. It was like playing DnD with graphics. If I could get my friends to all log on, I would not mind playing Pong. As it is we have trouble all getting together to chat on FB for a few minutes. I think you miss your friends and no game is going to bring that back.
Instead of saying why I leave BAD MMOs, I will talk about why I left good ones. So ,this post is for you Matt.
Meridian 59.
This was my first true MMORPG. It was more novelty for me than anything else. I was thinking, hey I am playing an RPG ONLINE WITH OTHER ACTUAL PEOPLE! WOW!
After a little more than of playing, I was basically just using it as a chat room with graphics and I did that for MONTHS! I think during the last 2-3 months of playing the game I may have only spent perhaps 4 or 5 hours actually doing anything in the game other than talking and it was worth the investment because I met a bunch of people and we were all talking about the same thing, Ultima Online and when it was coming out, and how we were going to play together. Needless to say, leaving the game was easy since it was just a chat room at that point.
Ultima Online.
Well, I went into this game knowing what it was going to be, an Ultima game with other players where you can kill or be killed at any time. This was the draw for me first and foremost because it felt like it should be that way after playing Ultima 8, dark and bloody. I stayed through the horrible horrible launch right up until they released the carebear expansion that change the base game. That is why I left. They made a game one way and completely changed it to something else.
Asherons Call 1
I played this game for 3 straight years, off and on for another 2. The reason this game held me for so long was the amount of things to do, it wasn't gated, free to do mostly anything, complete open world and felt NO need at all to level up as it wasn't end game based. It received monthly updates, many of them large and there was basically always something to do. And when I say something to do, I mean by choice. No daily quests or tasks. There reason for leaving was it was dated, received no expansions at that point that upgraded the graphics and over all systems........and my guild was leaving for other games, which was another good part of it though I would have stayed longer if it had more expansion support.
Star Wars Galaxies
I was with this game from launch right up until the CU and dropped it quick. I could probably still be playing this game today if it wasn't for their altering the base game by trying to make it more like WoW. Sandbox game, endless content, endlessly replayable.
Archeage
I have been playing the Japanese client for just over a year now(5 months of the closed beta included in that). I can say right now that I will be playing this until its released in the US, and then starting over again with it just so I can read the actual content lol. There are as many sandbox features as SWG had with so much more added on as to be expected with a newer game. I can see myself playing this for another 3-4 years even with Shroud of the Avatar on the top of my wanted list, I will play both, perhaps even with Landmark thrown in if the building options are good enough in that game.
Now, that is my list of "good" MMOs I have played. All the "bad" MMOs had the same thing in common with each other. They had GATED content leading to end game grind.
When you make a gated themepark game that is around 95% getting to end game, it makes 95% of the game WORTHLESS once you have done it. It limits the amount of things you can do as a player after a short amount of time and nothing drives me away from a game faster than a game that is leaving me with little to do, and having to do that little over and over and over again.
Want to hold me as a player? Create content that is dynamic, and doesn't lose its meaning. Hard to do with a themepark, especially one that is gear grind based.
"People who tell you youre awesome are useless. No, dangerous.
They are worse than useless because you want to believe them. They will defend you against critiques that are valid. They will seduce you into believing you are done learning, or into thinking that your work is better than it actually is." ~Raph Koster
http://www.raphkoster.com/2013/10/14/on-getting-criticism/
I've always enjoyed the story and leveling characters. I'm pretty sick of raid/pvp or do dailies. I can be happy in just about any mmo while leveling a character because that type of progression always appeals to me. Logging in and "getting something accomplished " is the core of what I like to do in games.
Very few games even offer this type of game play once you reach max level. It's like it becomes a whole new game that is just a massive grindy time sink.
Every mmo I quit is because of end game. The very few exceptions I quit because I didn't like the game right away and didn't even make it to level 10 or the typical 50-60 levels.
GW2 is probably the only mmo I've ever played where I made it to 25ish twice and then quit. But it's a very different type of mmo....and not for me.
I agree with what most people said and I will sum it up as immersion factor. Yes, I'm 33yro and I played UO, EQ, DAoC and AC and miss those days, but it's not because my free time has changed or that I have changed. Although my free time has changed and I have changed but I am still missing those nights/days of sitting in a corner of Lake of Ill Omen farming in a full group. Not doing anything other then pulling and killing and holding a conversation with my group mates at the time.
I even tested this as well when I recently went back to EQ1 for about 6 months- year playing on one of the f2p servers. I had a blast to be honest. It's still A LOT different then the 90's but the first 50 levels were just like old school. There werent as many groups but there were still some to be had and I had a absolute blast playing it again. What made me leave was once I was 80, in come the dailies grinding and then not enough people to actually do a full raid or the raids were so much easier. It felt like the later levels were a return to wow with eq interface and graphics.
So many people here love to point out that times have changed and that those of us that started in the 90's and want a return to those types of games are fooling ourselves or need to stop crying about the state of the genre now. First of all, the state of the genre is cause of us, the people from the 90's are the people that made this genre in the first place, so all of the children who have been playing these games for the past 10 years can thank us for supporting the first games to make this genre huge. In the end, Wow was made for the EQ and DAoC players because we wanted something new and to a point something more intuitive/easier and it wasn't made for all the teens that hopped on after it was a huge hit.
One can make a point that in this instance, the people that complain about what MMO's have turned into are because of themselves, at least in part. At the time, at least everyone I know, had at one time said they wished the games were more intuitive and certain systems easier, so thats what WoW developers admittedly did. They listened to the current communities of the time and made it easier and then proceeded to make it easier and easier so the children could compete.
Personally, after all this ranting and raving, immersiveness I think is really the main reason for many people and definitely the reason for myself. If I don't feel that the world is huge and living and I dont feel that I'm a part of it and can have an affect on it, then it doesnt matter how much content, rewards, or zones they put in, I'm gonna put it down. Although the more of the content/rewards etc they put in, the longer my stay most likely will be, but I will never put in the years I did with DAoC or eq because the immersions not there. In all honesty, Wow is the one MMO I spent the most time in and that was more because of the people rather than the game. Once TBC was 6 months in, I was ready to quit but all my friends still played, so I stayed, just put in less time per day.
Anymore what keeps me in the games is the immersiveness and the people I'm playing with. Like one gentleman said, I'm not in my 20's anymore and I don't have a 4 man group in my apartment any longer. I live away from my gaming friends with a wife and son and I play with whoever is playing what I'm playing at the time.
I'm giving AoC a shot right now cause I always loved the Conan movies and never tried an "Adult" MMO, so far it's fun, time will tell if it has the staying power to keep me busy till a new mmo grabs me or maybe this will be my last hurrah, time will tell. Not likely with games like Archage, EQ:N, Pantheon and some others I could mention.
For me why i leave a MMo is because i have finished all the content in the 1st month. After i finish the content why should i pay for a game that has no more content.
Games like what a lot of people have brought up like DAOC or SWG all would take months or longer to get through all the content. If a new MMo comes out with content like that then i will be playing it more then just 1 or 2 months.
Again its all about having more then 1 month worth of content.
Let's party like it is 1863!
I disagree, the reason isn't us, it's those making the games. They are no longer making MMORPG's. They're trying to cater to everyone, kids,teens,adults,pvp players,pve players, console players, etc. They're not trying to focus on a specific audience, they're no longer working on mmorpg's with originality, they're no longer making mmorpg's that push the boundaries, come up with new ideas. That's why so called "mmorpg's" of today are failing to keep players.
What happens when you log off your characters????.....
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GFQhfhnjYMk
Dark Age of Camelot
I've enjoyed reading people's responses so far. I usually don't stay with a single MMO for years at a time. It's usually not because I consumed all the content a game offers or reached all the objectives I set out for myself when I begin playing a game. Quite often it's because I feel like a game or game community is dictating what activities I should participate in when I don't necessarily want to participate in that activity.
I want to be immersed when I play. Doing dailies is NOT immersive for me. Repeating dungeons more than a handful of times is not immersive for me. Repeating PvP or PvPvE instances for months at a time is not immersive for me. Listening to other players endlessly brag about their vanity items is not immersive for me. Grinding to keep up with the Joneses is NOT immersive for me.
Life is short and there is a universe of other games to immerse oneself in. That's the primary reason I leave an MMO.
Other times I don't have the money for a subscription, other times I game hop to the next big MMO that is in beta, or offline solo player RPG on the PS3/360. I was spoiled as a kid and my dad bought me a new Atari, Intellivision, Colecovision, NES, SNES, N64, Saturn, Ps1, Ps2 game every 2 weeks so I had a habit of not finishing games and moving on as well.
Amen Brother.....
I couldn't agree with you more. I have saying this forever.... The lack of open world play, coupled with the over-use of instanced content has destroyed the mmorpg genre. The proof is in the pudding. Most mmorpg players are bored and looking for the next great game.
What shocks me the most is that the mmorpg community constantly speaks about what we want in a mmorpg, but the recent gaming companies just keep making the same mistakes. It looks like Archage may be the answer. From what I have "seen", Archage is an open world sandbox game, where the developers listened to their fans. Everquest Next hasn't shown enough for me to see if what they say and what the game will be are the same. FFX14 ARR will lost subs soon enough with all the instancing and lack of end game content.
I am keeping my fingers crossed that ESO has enough to keep me interested. Wildstar seems like a WOW clone, but I hope for its success. There are a lot of big name MMORPG's coming out this year. I hope their devs continue to listen to their fans.
Wow, popular topic!
The first time I ever quit a MMO was due to Enhancement Diversification. Yup, that should sound a bit familiar to Matt. Best way to make a superhero who put in hundreds of hours doing group events, etc. feel NOT super.
Bored or something significant got taken away/lost
8 words
Bad class/faction balance, lame stories, bad immersion, no feel of adventure, the "going to work" feel of end game, major changes due to expansions, repetitiveness of content, false/ manufactured diversity.
Well said, and for me it is the immersion as well. However, I select the games I wish to play very carefully because I am hopeful I'll want to play them for at least a couple of years. I like to feel my character is the main character in a movie I'm escaping into.
My list:
Guild Wars 1: Left after attaining my goals ('God Walking Amongst Mere Mortals" and "Champion of the Gods") not to mention GW2 made GW1 into a ghost town. Natural evolution alas.
Guild Wars 2: I was enjoying it until they terminated my account by error (a very wide attempt to stop botting). It took almost a month to get my account back, and the effort was so frustrating I lost the joy of playing the game. In the meantime SWTOR had started, so I devoted my time to it.
The Secret World: Played for awhile, and I still think its a good game but just wasn't my personal cup of tea.
SWTOR: Still playing. I love the cut scenes with my character in them (another reason I liked GW1). This week I'll finish all major classes up to max level, and all companion stories associated with each class. Almost have my legacy level maxed too. So I may be closing in on the end of my interest.
I like story lines, and I'm a bit of a completionist too. Once I've gone through the stories, and accomplishments I've targeted it's usually time to try something new. Likely next on my list - TESO, WS, and Shroud of the Avatar.
I'm slightly surprised that so many of you are concerned about the amount of "content" but rarely mention quality of said "content". And a Lack of Quality Content is my number 1 reason for leaving most MMOs.
Seriously I can no longer count the games where I've participated in an MMO's Beta. And actually filled out loads of detailed bug reports. Only to get into a game and discover at least 50% of those things were still broken. And then they don't even bother to fix things. Because they don't even care enough to have a decent QA staff. And lately they hardly have any Customer Support at all either.
I don't want to support companies like that - I'd far rather see them go out of business.
There are other reason why I quit some MMOs but the rest of you have them really well covered.
I think the reason people are talking about quantity more than quality is that they are focusing more on why they left games they enjoyed than why they left games they didn't enjoy. A game can have the highest quality ever, and when you run out of quantity you will probably still want to leave.
Peace is a lie, there is only passion.
Through passion, I gain strength.
Through strength, I gain power.
Through power, I gain victory.
Through victory, my chains are broken.
The Force shall free me.
"Well sure, the FrinkiacVII looks impressive - DON'T TOUCH IT - but I predict that within 100 years computers will be TWICE as powerful, ten THOUSAND times larger, and so expensive that only the five richest kings of Europe will own them." -Prof. Frink
Who says they don't care enough to fix it and that it's not something else like budget vrs man hours. Just because you find a bug and they don't fix it the next day doesn't mean the company didn't care that you found it.
Originally posted by Cramit845
First of all, the state of the genre is cause of us, the people from the 90's are the people that made this genre in the first place, so all of the children who have been playing these games for the past 10 years can thank us for supporting the first games to make this genre huge. In the end, Wow was made for the EQ and DAoC players because we wanted something new and to a point something more intuitive/easier and it wasn't made for all the teens that hopped on after it was a huge hit. _______________________________________________________________________________________
Originally posted by Ice-Queen
I disagree, the reason isn't us, it's those making the games. They are no longer making MMORPG's. They're trying to cater to everyone, kids,teens,adults,pvp players,pve players, console players, etc. They're not trying to focus on a specific audience, they're no longer working on mmorpg's with originality, they're no longer making mmorpg's that push the boundaries, come up with new ideas. That's why so called "mmorpg's" of today are failing to keep players.
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I understand where your coming from and actually agree. I don't think that there is one specific reason that we all leave them but I feel my previous statement is one of the bigger ones. Your reasoning here is very sound and I completely agree. In all actuality I think we are kinda seeing that now.
Since the f2p isn't keeping people an extremely long time, I think some companies are now going sandbox and if that can't gather the amount of subs or f2p transactions that they are looking for or length in time. They will then start creating more targeted mmo's and as you've seen on the forums people are already making posts about not every mmo is a mmorpg. The community is already stating it, so as developers, they always seem 2-3 years behind, so then we'll scream at the wall for awhile and then they may change.
The other point is, even though a lot of people are posting, that doesn't change the fact that the mmo genre is popping right now, they are still doing well making money on these games as they are. So that will always prolong change in the market except for those exceptional developers that love what they do and are amazing at it and of course, have a backer that either has enough time/money to invest and will give them the reins.
Basically stating the innovation is what some of us crave and that is part of what makes us leave these games. And it will unfortunately take time for that to come whether we like it or not
"You see, in MMO development there is something called an “exit event”. This is a definable point at which a player no longer wanted to play your game."
Totally wrong reasoning. As there is and "exit event" usually there is also "reenter event". Simple as that. No matter how much I love pizza I can not eat pizza for years, every day, 5 times per day. Variating food is a MUST. Something completely natural.
Exit events for me:
1. Researched the game and didn't have interest to start. (Not an exit event, but they didn't get my business)
2. I made a mistake starting the game. I don't like the game. Not sticking around.
3. I did like the game. Expansion pack screwed it up.
Never have I played a game to cap and left because of being out of content. *sigh* I can't make it to cap without quitting if the game isn't something I enjoy.