How do you make an MMO keep your interest?

Comments

• LordSlater Member Posts: 2,087

  November 2006

  Well in eve im currently part of a large manufacturing conglomerate producing high grade ships and soon to introduce the tier 3 ships comming out in EvE so i have plenty to do.

  Occasionally i go out into lawless space to find the odd pilot to kill or be killed by.

  
• brutotal Member Posts: 276

  November 2006

  Community keeps me playing. When you log on and help a dozen people,
  advance your clan or work as part of an organized group you want to
  come back because you don't want to abandon anyone.
  
  
  
  Of course continued rp interactions keep my attention as well.
  
  
  
  
  
• kordrial Member Posts: 160

  November 2006

  MMO's are THE crappiest, terrible, and all around-bad games, until you add the hundreds of people to play with. KOTOR owns (WoW in my opinion, but to not compare apples to oranges) SWG:C, bauldurs gates and neverwinter nights both kicked (SWG, but to not compare apples to oranges) WoWs butt.

  The point is, every MMO has a grind that just isn't fun, and isn't something i can't imagen ever be doing unless it was with hundreds of other people. Offline games build much more, if not entirely on stories and plots, and since this is an unrelistic attribute to expect from an MMO, the (good) devs and games will not only allow, but encourage you to make friends, and create your own story with them.

  That's what keeps me going, MMO is my favorite genre next to FPS (though imho all the MMOFPS blow...) just because of the intricate and complex communities that are made and broken while playing them, i would never think that killing 20 harpies for a staff of righteous fury was awesome, unless i was doing it with a friend.
• govedoto Member Posts: 11

  January 2007

  only pvp can keep my interest in some MMO for long time .

  2Fast4you
• aznddrj307 Member Posts: 27

  January 2007

  what keep me interest?

   

  ummm, i guess its the community, for ragnarok as an example, i log in there, and someone ask me to party immediately, and every wednesday, we can go Emperium War, which you can call PvP, to capture your castle and stuff, which was really fun lol
• Anofalye Member, Newbie CommonPosts: 7,433

  January 2007

  No secret here:  Content and hardwork.  It could be repetitive and tedius to some, but it has to remain what I enjoy, aka grouping mostly.  Could cope with some soloing, tradeskilling and other non-erosive gameplays.

  - "If I understand you well, you are telling me until next time. " - Ren
• Rehmes Member Posts: 600

  January 2007

  Let me just say that in EVE big isnt always better. Titans arent solo ships anyway and u wont be flying one on a regular basis anyway. Yes u need a long time to get it but even then u need the manpower to make it a reality. I can fly anything Up to battleships and ill tell you the most fun i have is flying frigs. Going out in gangs made of frigs is a fun experience, if u need more firepower try out the Assault ships. In all the game isnt for everyone but dont get caught up in the wheel where you must get the bigger ships cuz it seems like it better. I used to think like that, as soon as i started i wanted a battleship soo badly, then i realized my favorite class overall was battlecruisers. 

  I think to me the one things that keeps me palying for such a long times in games is the possibility of what i could do in the game and the end-game offering. I played lineage for over a year, and i had fun w my friend and such. I will however advice against playing the game altogether. Simply because if u said u hate grinds ull have lineage 2 even more (that game owns xp grinding titles) specially once you pass 40. The game has a total class inbalance so even though it has 32 classes to play it only has 8 that are worth playing at all. The sieges are fun as hell though but again you will see the same 8 classes over and over again cuz everything else sux. If after that your not convinced then simply look at the games economy. Everything d grade and above is ridiculously overpriced to the point were finding a true honest player who doesnt ebay his adena is a miracle in itslef. If you enjoy wasting rl money for virtual stuff on a game you wont play for the rest of your life then go for it.

  L2s concept is great and i cant deny i had my fun, i was lucky to have good friend play with me but in the end the drawbacks were too many. Just hit lv 62 and see hwo its like to grind up to 70, then you realize going from 75-78 is about the same time it took you to lv from 65-75 anyway. Botters/farmers own the game and will take all the good hunting spots.

  In either case not all games are for everyone but you must 1st ask yourself what is it that your looking in a game and then look for the game which comes closest, for me it was lineage 2, then i found EvE and thats where ill stay. There is no BEST game out there, that is based on opinion, it is up to you to decide what is fun for you.
• mordacaj Member Posts: 7

  January 2007

  i have played wow for almost 2 years.
  
  
  
  what kept me going? the instances and fun you have with you guild, friends. the grinding indeed can be boring, but it becomes more fun when you are with more than 1 person in a pvp area. you have te be focused every "second". since they can gank you (lvl 60) or challenge you (about your lvl). there are a lot of things to discover in wow.
  
  
  
  played guild wars: not my type. missed 2 much things from wow
  
  
  
  played eve: dont have the patience to go on. the upgrades takes to long
• Poldano Member Posts: 244

  January 2007

  MMO games are very good at replacing entertainment with a sense of obligation and a desire for achievement. This kind of inverts the traditional relationship between an entertainment provider and an entertainment consumer. It is true that in order to experience the vast majority of the entertainment available, there is a certain commitment that is required. However, it is not players' responsibility to ensure that the entertainment provider remains viable if the commitment is not accompanied by an appropriate level of fun.

  To put it another way, why are you worried about keeping up your interest in something that you are not having fun with? Read about some of the other games, especially free-to-play ones, and try those that look most interesting. Unfortunately, most of the startup packs cost a fair amount of money, which is the reason for reading up on what others have to say.

  As for myself, I played SWG for three years before accumulated loathing took its toll. I tried to keep going out of a sense of commitment to a community (rather, communities) that basically dissolved around me not once but several times. I kept hoping it would get better, until physical ailments kept me from playing for an extended period of time. Only after going cold-turkey to avoid serious physical pain did I realize how relieved I felt. It felt like quitting a job that I no longer liked. Indeed, one of the interesting side-effects of the role-inversion I mentioned above is that MMO players are sometimes treated more like employees than customers by MMO providers.

   
• Menawa Member Posts: 22

  January 2007

  I agree that MMO's(most anyway) tend to become job oriented. This can be blamed on the developer and the game's community to an extent. Its hard to get interested in a MMO where guilds start requireing applications and that you be on their schedule and that is when its time to move on to other MMO's. That mentality comes from the raid or die concept which I say die and move on for me. To hold my interest developers would have to develop end game content that allows a casual player to experience better dynamic game flow with tons of alternatives and choices instead of becoming a guild employee. End game gear should be obtainable through quest rewards or crafting instead whacking the same dragons millions of time to get the drops. Expediting end game gear should open other end game content such as maybe conquest on a massive PvP continent (s) where you build cities, fortresses, towns, etc all of which must be defended and attacked. Lots of other end game content could be added as well such as gladiator style combat 1 v 1, 2 v 2 etc to become the top fighter. Maybe even starting a corporation and becoming wealthy and turning into a monopoly which could start competition and conflicts that would be fun. So basically I just want tons of options instead of only having 2 which are raid or die.
• bainster Member Posts: 19

  January 2007

  I don't think the current brand of MMO's are going to change much in how they work. personally I think second life has a right idea in letting the players interact with the world. Maybe it's a  little to much control for the users, but having the players directly affect the world is the way to go. Next to go should be levels. creating a use based skill growth system would be much more effective, but harder to design, esp if you want PvP to work correctly. Another way of handling it would be a demand based alteration system. As soon as a skill or item becomes saught after it's stats start changing. I know it's evil.
  
  
  
  The next generation of MMO's are going to be system rather then games. Systems that allows more freedom in what people can do without forcing them down path's like grinding for xp, farming for items etc etc etc
  
  
  
  creating those system are going to be design nightmare tho
  
  
  
  With I could get involved in that.
  
  
  
  Game design at it's best.
  
  
  
  bain

  --
  bain
  http://foad.za.net
• player321 Member Posts: 28

  January 2007

  Yeah!!!
• microburst Member Posts: 15

  January 2007

  though this is a bad idea.  I try to play another MMO that has a different game interface as to the one i'm playing.  That way if you get bored of the other one, you can come back to the first one.