Are we having fun yet?

Kyleran

Conversation I had on r/MMORPG

Random Reddit poster #65,436

>I will say I don’t think the game is actually fun, it’s just SUPER good at making you feel like you accomplished something 

Kyle

I'm thinking this might well describe almost all successful MMORPGs. 😁

I've often stated I don't equate the activities found in MMORPGS to be what I would term as "fun."

I "enjoy" accomplishing things in life, be it at work, maintaining my lawn, excercising, or playing "violent" video games yet often it is achieved via activities which are not very fun.

So, for you are MMORPGS really "fun" or is it the fact many are very good at making the player believe they are achieving something?

Cactus_LFRez

A lot of MMO mechanics seem to be built around, time investment = periodic reward.

And they don't tend to ask anything from the players other than time investment, advancement is more a product of your time rather than effort or ability.

In a way it is a lot like work, except you get rewarded more frequently and are guaranteed to advance.

Getting on that skinner box grind set.

I think that is why a lot of MMOs feel like work to me, I work 8+ hours a day already, I don't want to come home to a second job I have to pay for.

For a certain portion of the population MMOs can function as a second but more rewarding life.
The hook of these games is very much about reward schedules, the actual actions you perform tend to be pretty dull.

Personally, I am really over that at this point, I just want something actually fun I can play regularly, I don't care about being rewarded and actually having a lot of things to work toward in a game is more a turn off.

olepi

For me, MMORPG's are virtual worlds to live in. Just standing around in the Shire in LoTRO watching a sunset is fun. I like to see what kind of fireworks shows I can put on. Seeing Rivendell for the first time was fun. I can usually tell within the first 10 minutes if the game world is something I want to spend time in.

Accomplishments come in various forms. I enjoy decorating my house and grounds in games. I also enjoy finishing a story arc. Beating that big boss is also fun. Wiping out mass hordes of enemies with impressive fireball explosions is always fun

In NMS I was happy to set up a full industrial capacity, including mining , farming, and manufacturing. However, once I did all that I kind of lost interest. Not being a completionist, I tend to have more fun figuring out something and lose interest after that.

I also used to enjoy grouping up. For years I regularly ran pickup groups in CoH. Grinding mobs with a bunch of friends is also fun. Alas, most MMO's have lost that appeal for me; too often the team just wants to run through the dungeon at full speed and I'll usually be left behind because I saw something interesting. 

Crafting is fun too, especially if there is some skill involved. Supplying people with needed stuff like ammunition, weapons, potions, etc, is fun for me.

PvP can be fun too. I still remember the first keep we took in DAOC over 20 years ago. Streaking through a PvP zone in PoTBS hoping I can outrun the enemy and get to port before they sink me. Setting up siege equipment in ESO. But PvP frequently breeds a toxic playerbase, especially mandatory PvP with full loot. No enjoyment there.

So "fun" is a lot more than just accomplishing tasks. Repetitive tasks like dailies are usually not fun for me.

Scot

Oh crikey I just saw Olepi's signature, 2023 is 20 years on MMORPG.com for me.

Fun as opposed to achievement is a fine MMO balance, definitely the more you are achieving the less fun you need to motivate you. The fun is as Kyleran said rather relative to the individual, I have more "fun" collecting resources for my guilds than I ever had for myself. The guild built keeps and crafters rose in levels, I got a keep to go to and stuff from crafters.

Where (I think) I disagree with Cactus is that there must be some big time sinks in MMOs. So sure some endeavours can be casual, let them achieve substantial rewards for little work. My problem with such players is they expect everything in the MMO to be like that; raids must be soloable, you should be able to skip content and so on.

So if you want casual PvE, casual hobbies and casual housing, but have to put your time in for raids and PvP that would be fine by me. But casuals just seem to want everything their way.

[Deleted User]

The user and all related content has been deleted.

Cactus_LFRez

Scot said:

Oh crikey I just saw Olepi's signature, 2023 is 20 years on MMORPG.com for me.

Fun as opposed to achievement is a fine MMO balance, definitely the more you are achieving the less fun you need to motivate you. The fun is as Kyleran said rather relative to the individual, I have more "fun" collecting resources for my guilds than I ever had for myself. The guild built keeps and crafters rose in levels, I got a keep to go to and stuff from crafters.

Where (I think) I disagree with Cactus is that there must be some big time sinks in MMOs. So sure some endeavours can be casual, let them achieve substantial rewards for little work. My problem with such players is they expect everything in the MMO to be like that; raids must be soloable, you should be able to skip content and so on.

So if you want casual PvE, casual hobbies and casual housing, but have to put your time in for raids and PvP that would be fine by me. But casuals just seem to want everything their way.

I meant more that if the action isn't fun then I don't want to play anymore.

When I was younger I would slog away at some frankly boring games or play them beyond the point I got bored, to progress through the reward scheme

Now if I am not having fun I quit, I am not going to stick with a game just for a promised reward. And no ammount of loot or levels makes up for dull gameplay.

Long term goals can be a good way to extend an already fun game.
Too many games though seem to rely entirely of reward schemes to carry the game (mostly MMOs and live service games)

Ungood

This is why I will never grasp why some people feel the need to make playing a video game feel more like "work", it's like, "what the hell is wrong with you people?"

olepi

Scot said:

Oh crikey I just saw Olepi's signature, 2023 is 20 years on MMORPG.com for me.

My MMORPG join date was 2007. I was a UNIX kernel programmer/sysadmin for the ARPANET in 1977, so I've been doing email, etc, for 46 years now. My how the time flies.

I played single-player games for a long while, until the first MMO's came out. What a blast to play with other people! Now I'm just jaded, most of the "other people" aren't interesting to me anymore.

Sovrath

In Lineage 2, I had the best time repeating these kill quests with my guild leader as we needed  money for our D grade gear. Very social and it was a blast.  

I just loved that  game because the entire thing was more like a "world' with people and guilds just doing stuff to work toward all sorts of goals.

The_Korrigan

olepi said:

For me, MMORPG's are virtual worlds to live in. Just standing around in the Shire in LoTRO watching a sunset is fun. I like to see what kind of fireworks shows I can put on. Seeing Rivendell for the first time was fun. I can usually tell within the first 10 minutes if the game world is something I want to spend time in.

That little paragraph describes perfectly why I'm enjoying MMORPGs.
I can stay 10 minutes at a spot in New World just to see a sunset or sunrise.
Why am I still playing that game which, for most people here, is bad ? They totally NAILED their WORLD. Unlike other games, which are "gamy", they created a believable world in which one can immerse himself.
The amusing part is that it's not just about graphics. Minecraft, with it's cubes, is impressively immersive too.

Kyleran

Ungood said:

This is why I will never grasp why some people feel the need to make playing a video game feel more like "work", it's like, "what the hell is wrong with you people?"

I often ask that of myself these days, which makes me question why I bother to play these games at all.

Good to see you are back btw.

Kyleran

olepi said:

For me, MMORPG's are virtual worlds to live in. Just standing around in the Shire in LoTRO watching a sunset is fun. I like to see what kind of fireworks shows I can put on. Seeing Rivendell for the first time was fun. I can usually tell within the first 10 minutes if the game world is something I want to spend time in.

Accomplishments come in various forms. I enjoy decorating my house and grounds in games. I also enjoy finishing a story arc. Beating that big boss is also fun. Wiping out mass hordes of enemies with impressive fireball explosions is always fun

In NMS I was happy to set up a full industrial capacity, including mining , farming, and manufacturing. However, once I did all that I kind of lost interest. Not being a completionist, I tend to have more fun figuring out something and lose interest after that.

I also used to enjoy grouping up. For years I regularly ran pickup groups in CoH. Grinding mobs with a bunch of friends is also fun. Alas, most MMO's have lost that appeal for me; too often the team just wants to run through the dungeon at full speed and I'll usually be left behind because I saw something interesting. 

Crafting is fun too, especially if there is some skill involved. Supplying people with needed stuff like ammunition, weapons, potions, etc, is fun for me.

PvP can be fun too. I still remember the first keep we took in DAOC over 20 years ago. Streaking through a PvP zone in PoTBS hoping I can outrun the enemy and get to port before they sink me. Setting up siege equipment in ESO. But PvP frequently breeds a toxic playerbase, especially mandatory PvP with full loot. No enjoyment there.

So "fun" is a lot more than just accomplishing tasks. Repetitive tasks like dailies are usually not fun for me.

Every response in this thread has been great, but yours really impacted me most.

 I too had many good moments over the past 20 years but like in your recap, was mostly in older games of years gone by, nothing really modern has grabbed me since leaving EVE almost 7 years ago.

I enjoyed my time in New World, but I was already feeling the daily grind in Burning Sands to level up my gear and the new seasonal passes totally burned me out in their first go around.

I didn't even bother to collect most of the rewards as they didn't seem worth the bother.

I don't even care that I lost them all, I know my time in New World is over and I am very unlikely to ever come back.

It's mostly my own issues of course, but it's good to read how everyone finds and defines having fun in MMORPGS.

Hopefully I can find my way to a more balanced approach to them also.

Scot

Kyleran said:

olepi said:

For me, MMORPG's are virtual worlds to live in. Just standing around in the Shire in LoTRO watching a sunset is fun. I like to see what kind of fireworks shows I can put on. Seeing Rivendell for the first time was fun. I can usually tell within the first 10 minutes if the game world is something I want to spend time in.

Accomplishments come in various forms. I enjoy decorating my house and grounds in games. I also enjoy finishing a story arc. Beating that big boss is also fun. Wiping out mass hordes of enemies with impressive fireball explosions is always fun

In NMS I was happy to set up a full industrial capacity, including mining , farming, and manufacturing. However, once I did all that I kind of lost interest. Not being a completionist, I tend to have more fun figuring out something and lose interest after that.

I also used to enjoy grouping up. For years I regularly ran pickup groups in CoH. Grinding mobs with a bunch of friends is also fun. Alas, most MMO's have lost that appeal for me; too often the team just wants to run through the dungeon at full speed and I'll usually be left behind because I saw something interesting. 

Crafting is fun too, especially if there is some skill involved. Supplying people with needed stuff like ammunition, weapons, potions, etc, is fun for me.

PvP can be fun too. I still remember the first keep we took in DAOC over 20 years ago. Streaking through a PvP zone in PoTBS hoping I can outrun the enemy and get to port before they sink me. Setting up siege equipment in ESO. But PvP frequently breeds a toxic playerbase, especially mandatory PvP with full loot. No enjoyment there.

So "fun" is a lot more than just accomplishing tasks. Repetitive tasks like dailies are usually not fun for me.

Every response in this thread has been great, but yours really impacted me most.

 I too had many good moments over the past 20 years but like in your recap, was mostly in older games of years gone by, nothing really modern has grabbed me since leaving EVE almost 7 years ago.

I enjoyed my time in New World, but I was already feeling the daily grind in Burning Sands to level up my gear and the new seasonal passes totally burned me out in their first go around.

I didn't even bother to collect most of the rewards as they didn't seem worth the bother.

I don't even care that I lost them all, I know my time in New World is over and I am very unlikely to ever come back.

It's mostly my own issues of course, but it's good to read how everyone finds and defines having fun in MMORPGS.

Hopefully I can find my way to a more balanced approach to them also.

I am not sure there will ever be a solution to this other than guilds, players trying to play the game their way not the new gameplay style way. But having done this in every MMO since Lotro (which was hardly a big offender!) it only works so far.

We have seen so many on here (and elsewhere) talking about giving up, we have all in one way or an other adjusted our playing away from MMORPG's or changed how dedicated we are to them. The one thing I will never say is I am giving up, because I know that that experience when it is at its best is better than anything else gaming has to offer.

cheyane

Fun nowadays is a more ephemeral thing than it used to be when I first started playing MMORPGs. There are a lot of things that take the fun out of the games we play because of the perceived need to keep doing them or feel you're losing something. Now they are designed to keep you playing but in the past I played because I wanted to be with my friends. I think it's inevitable as time passed and these game became more expensive to make and more difficult to maintain a population.

I have greatly enjoyed decorating my house in EQ2 and raiding in Everquest even at the dreadful threat of losing my corpse for good but such experiences are not so common in the games I play now mainly because I have lost the friends I once played with in Everquest. I find making new friends in the games I play now more difficult so I end up playing alone and with strangers.

I flit from game to game and they are fun for a few months then not so much. The problem is probably me.

Sovrath

Ungood said:

This is why I will never grasp why some people feel the need to make playing a video game feel more like "work", it's like, "what the hell is wrong with you people?"

But that's a "your mileage may vary" thing.

I know a guy who was a crafter in Star Wars Galaxies. At one point he realized he was spending a lot of time gathering, crafting and selling and came to the conclusion he was putting more time into  Star Wars Galaxies than his regular  job. He told me it felt like a second job.

So he moved on to Everquest and was never better.

Yet, I've read so many people say that crafting and having their shop in Star Wars Galaxies was the best gaming time of their lives.

Some people think grinding mobs is the worst thing ever. I think it's awesome and a way better way to spend game time than to run quests which I think, at this point, have become the most dull way to play an mmorpg.

Run to a NPC, read quest though the writing for many have become very dull, run to quest marker, do something a few times (kill a few mobs, collect a thing etc.) and then turn in quest. Rinse and repeat. No real thinking because your just going through the motions indicated by the quest markers. Not enough combat because you're just killing 3 or 4 mobs.

I'd rather clean toilets.

ValdemarJ

Cactus mostly sums up my feelings, which is why I'm not really playing online gaas games that much anymore.

I do like rewards, but I hate when that's all it's about and the loop becomes tedious. A friend and I were talking about this and I mentioned to them that I don't need a game to respect my time. The game needs to fool me into thinking my time is productively spent.

MMO gameplay offers tedium in spades while not even trying to fool players into liking it. It's more like they try and shame people instead. I stopped playing them because, after a while, it feels more like a dysfunctional codependent relationship than a healthy creative hobby outlet.

Single player games can be just as bad when they change gears half way through where they drop the content effort, ramp up the difficulty, and crank up the grind to 11. That isn't enjoyable to me. Unfortunately many single player games seem to be following this path now.

Cactus_LFRez

ValdemarJ said:

Cactus mostly sums up my feelings, which is why I'm not really playing online gaas games that much anymore.

I do like rewards, but I hate when that's all it's about and the loop becomes tedious. A friend and I were talking about this and I mentioned to them that I don't need a game to respect my time. The game needs to fool me into thinking my time is productively spent.

MMO gameplay offers tedium in spades while not even trying to fool players into liking it. It's more like they try and shame people instead. I stopped playing them because, after a while, it feels more like a dysfunctional codependent relationship than a healthy creative hobby outlet.

Single player games can be just as bad when they change gears half way through where they drop the content effort, ramp up the difficulty, and crank up the grind to 11. That isn't enjoyable to me. Unfortunately many single player games seem to be following this path now.

I think there is a time when you can realize that "this isn't made for me anymore"

I realized that a while ago about marvel movies and "nerd culture".
As a teen I had the same epiphany about pop rock
And I think it is the same way with AAA games.

Search YouTube for "why are games not fun anymore" you will get tons of video essays, all bemoaning what gaming has become.
What they all have in common is that they are talking about AAA games.

Either I changed or AAA games did, or both, but I am not their target audience anymore, they are not making games for people like me.

Ungood

Kyleran said:

Ungood said:

This is why I will never grasp why some people feel the need to make playing a video game feel more like "work", it's like, "what the hell is wrong with you people?"

I often ask that of myself these days, which makes me question why I bother to play these games at all.

Good to see you are back btw.

I'm mostly on Reddit these days, getting banned from various subs there, given my sparkling personality and love of saying the word fuck.

 

Sovrath said:

Ungood said:

This is why I will never grasp why some people feel the need to make playing a video game feel more like "work", it's like, "what the hell is wrong with you people?"

But that's a "your mileage may vary" thing.

I know a guy who was a crafter in Star Wars Galaxies. At one point he realized he was spending a lot of time gathering, crafting and selling and came to the conclusion he was putting more time into  Star Wars Galaxies than his regular  job. He told me it felt like a second job.

So he moved on to Everquest and was never better.

Yet, I've read so many people say that crafting and having their shop in Star Wars Galaxies was the best gaming time of their lives.

Some people think grinding mobs is the worst thing ever. I think it's awesome and a way better way to spend game time than to run quests which I think, at this point, have become the most dull way to play an mmorpg.

Run to a NPC, read quest though the writing for many have become very dull, run to quest marker, do something a few times (kill a few mobs, collect a thing etc.) and then turn in quest. Rinse and repeat. No real thinking because your just going through the motions indicated by the quest markers. Not enough combat because you're just killing 3 or 4 mobs.

I'd rather clean toilets.

This is why I am still playing GW2, after 9-ish? Years (with a lot of breaks)

I returned thanks to SOTO, and on my revisit, I sometimes stop and enjoy a vistas that I saw years ago, just to enjoy what it looks like today, and with every update to my gaming rig, it looks better each time.

Not to mention GW2 is full of a legion of shall we say 1-time quests, like getting mounts, getting achievements, etc.

You can, depending on what you want from the game, play it however you like, as much or a little as you like, and still, feel like you are making progress.

So, while my stand has not changed that they were dumbest fucks ever to have put Raids into GW2, the rest of the game is really a great break from what the traditional MMO experience offers, and finally, with SOTO, they fixing the fuckup they made during HOT with putting legendary armor behind raids, so these days, I have felt better about returning

OG_Solareus

I think good game exist, I'm just reluctent to put time in them because of losing my lotro life time account. I never want tp put that much time into something that can be taken away because antifa works at the company.

Kyleran

Damn those tree hugging elves, hobbits and rangers.

Pretty sure I would have been fighting for the other side.

Theocritus

cheyane said:

Fun nowadays is a more ephemeral thing than it used to be when I first started playing MMORPGs. There are a lot of things that take the fun out of the games we play because of the perceived need to keep doing them or feel you're losing something. Now they are designed to keep you playing but in the past I played because I wanted to be with my friends. I think it's inevitable as time passed and these game became more expensive to make and more difficult to maintain a population.

I have greatly enjoyed decorating my house in EQ2 and raiding in Everquest even at the dreadful threat of losing my corpse for good but such experiences are not so common in the games I play now mainly because I have lost the friends I once played with in Everquest. I find making new friends in the games I play now more difficult so I end up playing alone and with strangers.

I flit from game to game and they are fun for a few months then not so much. The problem is probably me.

What made Everquest work well was that your friends didnt outlevel you quickly...Now MMOs are all about hitting max level in a few days and doing it mostly solo or with strangers youll never see again.

Grymmoire

Well being in my mid 70's, just awaking breathing and unassisted is pure joy and fun, But I digress.

With regard to gaming I feel the saying attributed to Ralph Waldo Emerson, “It's not the destination, it's the journey” applies and I would adden, it is also the friends you find and the memories you make along the way.

Iselin

A wise man once said "Having fun in games is 90% mental. The other half is the game's fault."

Scot

Kyleran said:

Damn those tree hugging elves, hobbits and rangers.

Pretty sure I would have been fighting for the other side.

The bad side in EQ2 might have been for you or if you want to go all out evil bonkers WHO Chaos. I actually enjoined playing a bad guy in EQ2 but in WHO it turned me and many members of the guild off. The one I will unreservedly recommend is the Villains of CoV, not sure the Homecoming game has them though?

cameltosis

Kyleran said:

So, for you are MMORPGS really "fun" or is it the fact many are very good at making the player believe they are achieving something?

I overthink and overanalyse everything, so "fun" is a concept I have spent a lot of time thinking of and reading up on.

I am definitely in Raph Koster's camp, with his theory that fun = learning.

So, a game starts with the core, underlying lessons it is trying to teach. Then the mechanics that teach those lessons. Then with an IP on top of it to motivate us to engage.

For me, I have fun learning the mechanics. I have fun learning the world. I have fun learning recipes and crafting. I have fun learning to play with other people. I have fun learning to lead other people.

Learning is a two stage process. First stage is the theory - like learning a new rotation, or reading a guide for a boss. Then there is application of that knowledge, which is how mastery occurs.

But once I've mastered the bits of the game that I'm interested in, the fun stops and the "work" begins.

I can still take joy in the virtual world (looking at sunsets etc). I can still take comfort in playing through familiar content. There is also still fun to be had in playing with other people, as other people provide a constant source of learning (even if all they teach u is new ways to be idiots!!!).

My issue is that modern MMORPGs tend to be quite shallow in terms of mechanics, so the learning is too quick and easy. I feel I have mastered them (mentally) within a few hours, after which it's just a case of putting in the hours to develop any required reflexes. Additionally, even when the mechanics aren't shallow, I've probably seen them before and so they don't offer much to sink my teeth into.

Ungood

cameltosis said:

My issue is that modern MMORPGs tend to be quite shallow in terms of mechanics, so the learning is too quick and easy. I feel I have mastered them (mentally) within a few hours, after which it's just a case of putting in the hours to develop any required reflexes. Additionally, even when the mechanics aren't shallow, I've probably seen them before and so they don't offer much to sink my teeth into.

Not sure what you expect, I mean, maybe when we have to jiggle our hips to make the avatar move, it might change things up a but, but there is only so much any MMO can do with the interface system it is given.

WASD to move, numbered skills, etc, etc. I mean, the basics are not hard.

However, depth and mechanics happen, when you get into things like Build Theory crafting, crafting, questing, teamwork, etc , etc.

Think of it like this: 

Life is easy. I mean, eat, sleep, walk, climb, the basics of life are super simple

Add in doing something, like make a table, and now you need to get the right tools, wood, patterns, screws, glue, and you need to make sure you have the skills to put this all together.

while some MMO's are inherently shallow, some MMO's can be as complex as you want to make them.

When it comes to the to 5, ESO, GW2, WOW, and 2 others that I forget that are in every fucking list ever made on best mmo's, but I cannot think of wtf they are) That is more on you the player issue.