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Why do we play these games again?
metalhead980
Member Posts: 2,658
Why do you play MMOs?
I ask myself this every once in a while. Why do I play these games and what do they offer me that other genres don't?
I don't even know anymore to be honest. I went from liking all mmos to hating linear and loving sandbox to basically replacing sandbox games with free roam Rpgs on my PC or 360.
Let me break it down a bit on a gameplay level.
Is combat better in MMOs? Graphics? Story? pvp? What about the social shit? With social networking,voice chat, achievements do MMOs still have the upper hand even in the good old social category? I don't think so anymore.
So why do we play them?
A few years ago if someone asked me this question I would say my guild keeps me playing, my character keeps me playing or the freedom of playing a game that never ends keeps me playing.
But now we have people that play together over gaming networks and Games that could virtually give hundreds if not thousands of hours of gameplay. Certain ones could even continue after you complete the main storylines. Games that even have better character progression skill systems than UO and games that have even better gear/reward mechanics than even WoW.
We have Rpgs that no longer offer just a single player experience and games that even evolve and change through DLC just like MMOs.
Rpgs used to be somewhat simple on consoles now we have a few that are deeper and more complex than even the best sandbox MMOs, dare I say more sandbox than the real sandbox MMOs lol.
As I struggle with this maybe you could tell me why you still play?
PLaying: EvE, Ryzom
Waiting For: Earthrise, Perpetuum
Comments
I would have said something similar a few years ago but now What long term experience? most people are game jumpers. this is what Ive seen the last five years, You get into a guild and people leave a game within two months for the new game on the block. Noone has a long term commitment with MMos anymore like they did in the old days.
What social interaction? from my experience people want to play solo and keep to themselves. The only reason I even have conversations in my guild is due to use moving to different MMOs together.
In other games that I;ve tried I had more social interaction over Xbox Live and thats sad lol!
PLaying: EvE, Ryzom
Waiting For: Earthrise, Perpetuum
because a sand box is no fun without other kids to play with.
and there really isn't any good single player sand box with (good) multiplayer functionality.
Hmm, all of the above, but what is most interesting to me is building a character that is unique to me. I'm an old-school pen and paper roleplayer, so I really like character appearance and skill customization during creation, and then the skill and level progression that continues throughout the MMO and into expansions.
In a rather silly way, it feels like a major accomplishment.
What kids to play with? Sorry bro I love Sandbox games but lets be honest noone really plays them.
the activity level in todays sandbox games is at most around 500-2k people at any time playing in a massive world where if your lucky you will see one or two other people outside a city. Unless of course your talking about Eve and even that game is more of a solo thing to over 80% of the people playing.
Shit dude we had more player interaction in a game like Diablo than we have in todays sandbox games its the age of themepark.
To the above poster that said something about liking old character development in D&D TT I feel bad for you because not one of these themepark games come close to matching that amazing TT game. you must be suffering in the MMO market.
PLaying: EvE, Ryzom
Waiting For: Earthrise, Perpetuum
Social category has not changed much at all sure it might be new to consoles and such playing nazi zombies with 4 people online but for pc no.... take CS for example.
Not really, I play Fallen Earth.
This basically reinforces what I'm saying. MMOs never really had an advantage in the social aspects in Game.
Shit, my CS clan was just as tight and played together just as much as any MMO guild or alliance did.
PLaying: EvE, Ryzom
Waiting For: Earthrise, Perpetuum
Not really, I play Fallen Earth.
Fallen earth's a great game but the character skill system is capped (limited customization and growth) and the games devs hope for at least a 50k player base meaning in such a big world you will be playing alone.
With single player Rpgs having just as robust skill systems now and fully functional Co-rpg play, big empty sandbox games don't seem that great anymore to me.
PLaying: EvE, Ryzom
Waiting For: Earthrise, Perpetuum
I feel you op, I used to do it for my friends and people but these days it seems the rift between players is growing and growing. I remember when I was a social mmo butterfly, knew nearly every GM and player on my server back in the day. I would say lfg and have twenty offers to join people. People asked a question on how to do things and as a group we would all stop playing and offer suggestions or ask where that person was and help them. These days instead you see STFU noob, or looser go play another game. The rudeness, the lack of feeling anything more than a cog in a machine is insufferable. I find myself playing muds these days cause the comunities are better, cause most of the aholes are graphic ho's.
I feel like the rock bitter from the neverending story, looking down at his hands and remembering his friends and the world he once loved. "They look like big strong hands, don't they." When we first started mmo's we all felt like that to some degree, we felt like we were a warrior strong enough to defy a god, a wizard whoes dizzying intellect could fathome the secrets of the cosmos. A druid, intune with nature to the point that it bowed to our whims, aiding us and defeating our foes. A noble cleric, so intune with the devine magics that a single whisper could revive our fallen foes, duty bound to aid any who needed us.
I'll always remember playing EQ, after a GM got insulted in an event and just logged off, leaving everyone there to rez themselves. It was in a remote part of norrath, I was just getting there when it happened, as it was right after luclin was launched I had used the spires and walked. I was a paladin then, I walked there among the dead and dieing, I showed up just as the dragon feel so I refussed to roll on the loot. Then I spent the next two hours rezing the dead, and no one was shocked by this back then, it seemed to normal and right.
This was how I expected mmo's to carry on, after all in an mmo we were able to let ourselves be anything, to be as noble or depraved as we wanted to. To see a world, with rolling hills of wheat dancing like spun gold in the whispering breeze, or to stride across the trackless forzen wastelands, the chill air blasting cold into your very bones. But with all things the golden age fades, and the next one comes on without mercy, without remorse.
To this age we are but the scar sporting heroes of yester year, our time has come and now is gone, yet we linger and remain. A cool jack of ale, or a flagon of wine clutched in our hand as once we clutched at sword hilt and scepter. Clinging to it as once we clinged to the fires of life. Then in turning we go, some to consols to relieve what we lost, among golems that sport faces familar to us. Others try to soldier on, always seeking a new shore, that far western isle where, for a moment that last forever we can be what once we were again. Still the last of us return from wence we came, only to find the native land which in memory was sweeter than the caress of a lover is now long changed. Withered it sits, no longer our beloved home, it is as alien to us as the worlds we left it for, and in sorrow we weep.
Social aspect of a mmo does not mean you have to talk to every person you see, Walking around minding your business killing the mobs you need to finish a quest and seeing other people running around just like you gives you the atmosphere of a mmo that no other rpg can match.
I would have said something similar a few years ago but now What long term experience? most people are game jumpers. this is what Ive seen the last five years, You get into a guild and people leave a game within two months for the new game on the block. Noone has a long term commitment with MMos anymore like they did in the old days.
What social interaction? from my experience people want to play solo and keep to themselves. The only reason I even have conversations in my guild is due to use moving to different MMOs together.
In other games that I;ve tried I had more social interaction over Xbox Live and thats sad lol!
I've been playing with the same guild mostly in the same game for five years. Even when we're playing different games, or no game at all, we keep in touch. People come and go but the core is always there.
I'm sorry for the triple posts guys I don't know how to multi quote here.
To the quoted poster, The way your playing is really the only way anyone could say the social aspects are superior in MMOs over other genres of gaming.
I do something similar to you but now my entire cross game guild just talks on Vent or through the Playstation or Xbox network.
Hopefully someone will touch on gameplay, Right now MMOs feel so behind that I find it hard to play these games. Playing an inferior genre so I could have in game chat?
PLaying: EvE, Ryzom
Waiting For: Earthrise, Perpetuum
Just people you can do pve or pvp with. I just can't do that in single player game.
Crafting, farming, economy.
And mmorpg will always come with new patch. That don't happen in single player game.
You feel like this even with this new Anti-social attitude most players have now? People don't group up, if they do Pug they dont chat. Seriously it would be more immersive for me if npc's hunted along side of you.
PLaying: EvE, Ryzom
Waiting For: Earthrise, Perpetuum
I think we play MMORPGs for a number of reasons but I believe the biggest reason is socialization in a common environment. Social networking sites like facebook and twitter do not put you in another world where you can interact and enjoy common experiences with those around you. Humans are social creatures and we have always used common environments to socialize in. From sunday dinner to movie theaters to music concerts we have always gathered at common places to share common experiences. Some of us who are less socially adept may never feel comfortable at a dance party but the internet and the MMO environment fixes that with anominity and common world rules. MMOs are places where you can escape your reality and enter a world where you are pretty much on the same level as anyone else no matter what you look like, sound like, etc. MMO's are places where the popular kid and the nerd kid can hang out together. Some of this is changing with the wide use of vent and team speak but the basics are all still there if you want to be anonymous and social at the same time.
So I think MMO's will continue to grow and be popular just for our human need to socialize, be with friends, and share common experiences. I think this will continue to be the case until someone invents the Holodeck from Star Trek where you can take your whole body into another world instead of just your eyes, ears and fingers.
PLaying: EvE, Ryzom
Waiting For: Earthrise, Perpetuum
I play so I have something to do while the wife watches Americas Next Top Model or whatever crap show she likes to watch.
I knew this was going to be a tough thread. it's hard to argue with the Social aspects of a MMO. As Sp games have come closer they havent reached the level of MMOs socially.
But heres a biggy. Are we giving up great graphics, stories and gameplay for the option to socialize? Also if Socializing is such a big reason to play MMos why do so many people spend their time solo and shuning group activities like team hunting and open world group pvp.
PLaying: EvE, Ryzom
Waiting For: Earthrise, Perpetuum
LOL awesome. I 've been firing up the 360 to play Mass Effect recently it's been keeping me busy. UI wish MMOs had the gameplay and storyline of a game like that. Maybe one day.
PLaying: EvE, Ryzom
Waiting For: Earthrise, Perpetuum
Perhaps it's all about comparison. The proverbial E-Peen, if you will. Mine's bigger than yours. Mine has tattoos. Mine can do jumping jacks. I'm not paying a monthly sub just to see another sucker logged in doing his own thing. Multiplayer shooters are free to play, and you are always playing with and against other players. There is no incentive to play but to get better at the game and have fun doing it. As the OP stated, if I want a good story or character progression, the single-player games such as Fallout3, Mass Effect, and Bioshock are brilliant. I've heard The Witcher and Crysis are pretty good too.
Vault-Tec analysts have concluded that the odds of worldwide nuclear armaggeddon this decade are 17,143,762... to 1.
Why do I play MMOs?
I don't like MMOs for what they are, but rather for what they could be.
I enjoy being a productive member of a guild. Doing so is a work yields reward situation. The reason many guilds I've seen are failures, is they are simply "Welfare for Noobs" and attract the gimme gimme gimme crowd.
I enjoy working with a party as a team. Know your job, do your job, don't lose your cool when a situation gets hairy, and we'll all get out of this mess together. Reminds me a lot of US Army squads. With all the solo play, nobody gives a crap about jobs anymore. Everyone's a freakin' Leroy Jenkins.
I think the games could be better, BUT the real problem lies between the keyboard and the chair. Can't blame that on the devs.
Ken
www.ActionMMORPG.com
One man, a small pile of money, and the screwball idea of a DIY Indie MMORPG? Yep, that's him. ~sigh~
Wow, another poster here that's on the same page as I am.
Oh and to answer your question, there isn't any reason anymore, playing with hundreds of others has always been an MMOs major selling point since the rest of the game is nothing more than a watered down RPG with grind, grind, grind and some dancing spiders.
But players don't even do that anymore so now MMOs are practically worthless.
I see your point but I think people solo for the same reason people go to a restaurant by themselves or prefer to drive to work alone instead of car pool. It's usually more fun with friends along but there's also something to say for the freedom of being solo and advancing without the help of others. Part of being in a social world is the having the freedom to be with others or alone. Being solo or in a group wouldn't be something special unless both options are available. For example, If I climb Mt. Everest with a team of people like everyone always does that's cool but not necessarily special. If I climb Mt. Everest solo and there's no one else in the world to see my great achievement then who's there to care? You need both options in the world. MMO worlds mirror this world because you have the option to choose.
Now since it's a game there's usually incentices to team instead of solo. If your particular MMO caters to soloing then that needs to be improved upon in my opinion - these are social games that should reward social behavior. Also, you have to consider in MMO's the group experience. Sometimes it's better to solo because of all the nubs or jerks you encounter that ruin your gameplay. The social aspect isn't the only one but I think it's one of the most basic reasons to play in a fantasy world. And one of the things that makes it realistic is the freedom to socialize or not in the world. Even people who love to solo still team from time to time - it's their choice.
masochism
SWG Refugee
Bloodfin Server - Starke
I play them because they provide the most interesting teamplay mechanics of any genre, and because they involve permanent accumulation of power. There's a lot of little reasons too, like combat genuinely being enjoyable in the better MMORPGs.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
There is a ghost of a chance it will be diferent this time. MMOs have potential... We know better but still... Consoles are never going to give you that, not the feeling of being somehow a part of something better than just a game, the mythos of a persistent world. Yea, the good old days were never that good, deep down we know that. You become jaded and maybe start wondering if youre not just wasting your time, but the funny thing is to remember that the real highs came at moments at which we had no real expectations, just a vague notion of what it could be. The party wipes that were fun, the big pvp fights, the guildies you shared a part of your life with that was entirely your choice, what you had made of yourself. Its just a game, sure, but it can be more fun than that and only persons whose faces youve never seen can understand that.
Its kind of a thing born of stuborness, only someone whos been grinding for hours to sudenly stop and wonder why youre doing it in the first place can understand MMO players are made of the people who kept on for no aparent good reason.
None of us know what the carrot is, or what it looks like, but we keep going after it. Maybe cuz we are junkies or just obsesive. We are smart enough to know better but we keep going. Why? Its what people do...
Just to make things clear...
I speak for myself and no one else, unless i state otherwise mine is just an opinion. A fact is something that can be independently verified, you may challenge such but with proof. You have every right to disagree with me through sound argument, i believe in constructive debate, but baseless aggression will warrant an unkind response.