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Why we play MMORPGs. An exercise in introspection.
Scottc
Member Posts: 680
So I came up with the idea of making a thread for people to ask why they do certain things in MMORPGs. To literally ask the question "Why?" when presented with any given situation in an MMORPG such as "Why do I kill a monster in an MMORPG?" or "Why do I take a quest in an MMORPG?" in the context of any MMORPG (hell even one that doesn't exist). When you're done with your "Why" question, if you don't like the way you answered, explain why. I wonder if maybe when all is said and done, those of us who play completely different MMORPGs might have something in common, or at least provide some insight as to what players like or dislike in MMORPGs.
Let's keep this thread clean of insults, don't question what someone else posts, just contribute.
Some why questions to ask:
Why do I kill a monster?
Why do I take a quest? (explain the type of quest it is)
Why did I pick the class I picked?
Why am I harvesting resource X?
make up your own if you like. I'll start the thread out with my example. The MMORPG I'll be answering my own Why? questions for is Darkfall Online.
Why did I kill a monster?
I needed gold
Why?
To buy skills and spells with
Why?
So I could be more effective in combat and be able to do more things in the game
Why?
For some reason Darkfall's combat is satisfying to me
I didn't really I like the way I had to answer this one, specifically the fact that I needed to purchase skills as if they were some tangible item. I would've liked it more if to gain a new skill I had to learn it through some training program with an NPC or another player who were masters of the skill. Buying feels artificial. The same goes for spells, I would've rather had to learn it, either through a research system or learning from a master NPC/player.
Why do I explore?
I hope to find interesting and useful things
Why?
to hopefully find something cool or interesting that I can share with other people, and also to find new places to hunt for good loot and money
Why?
I enjoy showing other people interesting things, and I also enjoy finding useful things (good loot and money)
I liked the way I answered this, however Darkfall had no exploration content. There was nothing useful or interesting to find because everything was generic. The loot was all the same, there were never any special items. The monster camps and dungeons were also very generic and copy/pasted all over the world. They existed for the sole purpose of killing for PvP use.
Why am I harvesting wood?
I want to build a boat
Why?
exploration with friends, and showing off to other people.
Why?
see above, I like to explore, doing so with a large vehicle is cool as hell, and more efficient because of its speed
I liked the answer, although I didn't like the fact that it took over 15,000 gold to buy the shipbuilding skill, and then required something like 1 million gold total to have the infrastructure to start building boats. (so much that nobody had boats until 2+ months after launch)
That's all I've got. I'm interested in seeing what everyone else has to say.
Comments
I think this is a joke thread. you keep asking too many whys and you just sound like an annoying little kid. why why why. why did i choose this glass to pour my coke in instead of that glass? who the hell knows, and who the hell cares? why do we play mmos? easy. because. you ask a 5-year-old question, and you get a 5-year-old answer. its fun, its a hobby, whatever. same reason people go to stadiums or watch movies.
I think you're thinking too much into it.
If you stand VERY still, and close your eyes, after a minute you can actually FEEL the universe revolving around PvP.
I'm interested in MMORPG development, and Why? is a good question to ask to players of MMORPGs. Maybe you're the sort of guy who lets God be the explanation for everything, but I quite like to know the real answer behind things. Go threadshit elsewhere.
Heh, for some reason, this reminds me of a session with a psychologist. Though I don't really think playing games actually warrants a session with a psychologist, but when it comes to gaming addictions, yes, I can see why it is relevant.
Main characters:
Jinn Gone Quiet (Guild Wars)
Princess Pudding (Guild Wars)
I'm interested in MMORPG development, and Why? is a good question to ask to players of MMORPGs. Maybe you're the sort of guy who lets God be the explanation for everything, but I quite like to know the real answer behind things. Go threadshit elsewhere.
Science deals with 'hows". god deals with 'whys'. you're the one asking all these meaningless whys. and I dont believe in god, so there. i wasnt trying to "threadshit" (i dont even know what this means), and i wasnt trying to offend you. if i did, im sorry.
If you stand VERY still, and close your eyes, after a minute you can actually FEEL the universe revolving around PvP.
I play MMOs because I have no real life or friends. True story. Because I am a jerk.
Cool story bro.
I'm interested in MMORPG development, and Why? is a good question to ask to players of MMORPGs. Maybe you're the sort of guy who lets God be the explanation for everything, but I quite like to know the real answer behind things. Go threadshit elsewhere.
Science deals with 'hows". god deals with 'whys'. you're the one asking all these meaningless whys. and I dont believe in god, so there. i wasnt trying to "threadshit" (i dont even know what this means), and i wasnt trying to offend you. if i did, im sorry.
Science in general deals with whys. Engineers deal with hows. God gives the same answer to everything.
Gamer Phsycology 101.
Gamers will always work to obtain the next better item.
Gamers will always work to achieve the next level.
Gamers do all this for the satisfaction of having completed a goal.
The more dings you add along the way, the easier it is to get a gamer hooked and working towards his next ding.
Gamers play to achieve, give them something to achieve and they'll work at it.
Social players play to interact with others. They tend to fall under the casual gamer. They are also more willing to pay for fluff items such as pets that do nothing but look cute. They will work to fill their in game houses with all sorts of cute looking trophies to show off to their other social gamers they play with.
You can also find books on game psychology, and a lot of colleges have courses on it.
I'm interested in MMORPG development, and Why? is a good question to ask to players of MMORPGs. Maybe you're the sort of guy who lets God be the explanation for everything, but I quite like to know the real answer behind things. Go threadshit elsewhere.
Science deals with 'hows". god deals with 'whys'. you're the one asking all these meaningless whys. and I dont believe in god, so there. i wasnt trying to "threadshit" (i dont even know what this means), and i wasnt trying to offend you. if i did, im sorry.
Science in general deals with whys. Engineers deal with hows. God gives the same answer to everything.
engineering falls within science. science doesnt deal with whys at all. ask a physicist why the universe was created and he'll tell you to piss off. ask him how it was created and you have a nice conversation there. and do you think we should start calling nuclear physicists and quantum theorists engineers now? because, you know, they deal with how things work at fundamental levels. yeah they are not building bridges, so what? mathematics is a science, and so is geometry.
If you stand VERY still, and close your eyes, after a minute you can actually FEEL the universe revolving around PvP.
I play to achieve, but I feel no sense of achievement in games like World of Warcraft or Vanguard. Maybe it has to do with the fact that the goals they give you in these games are "kill 5 of monster x". What even makes this shit a goal? I mean you see people wasting tons of time getting "Achievements" in games that aren't even achievements. It must be cognitive dissonance, it has to be.
I play to achieve, but I feel no sense of achievement in games like World of Warcraft or Vanguard. Maybe it has to do with the fact that the goals they give you in these games are "kill 5 of monster x". What even makes this shit a goal? I mean you see people wasting tons of time getting "Achievements" in games that aren't even achievements. It must be cognitive dissonance, it has to be.
the majority of people play games for fun, not as an extension of real life or some kind of achievement. there are no goals, its a video game.
im an engineer, and we deal with the "why" all the time. its called trial and error. when things go wrong, the how isn't enough; you must understand something's conclusion for failure in order to correct its anticedents. if youve met an engineer who only dealt with the "how," he must go to a really crappy university, sorry.
and i think this exercise is extremely useful. we used to do it in my engineering design class for clients all the time to find out what they really wanted out of products as opposed to what they said they wanted. so for anyone who says this exercise is futile, let it be.
edit: i play mmos to distract myself from my engineering work =P i play for immersion.
I hate to say it...but I can answer all of your why questions about an mmorpg like this:
People will play an mmorpg or oRpg over a single player rpg simply because even if they solo in an mmo...the opportunity NEEDs to be there to compare your armor/weapons/items to someone else. Whether you have friends or compete with enemies...sadly mmo players NEED to be able to "Show off" what they've done to someone else (who, in almost all cases, doesn't care).
Does that help with the question? It's the desire to be better than someone else (sometimes this can be considered compensating).
MMO players love ranks, achievements, and feel that if they are to invest their time in something, they need to have their investment be "better" than someone else's investment.
Disclaimer: This is not a troll post and is not here to promote any negative energy. Although this may be a criticism, it is not meant to offend anyone. If a moderator feels the post is inappropriate, please remove it immediately before it is subject to consideration for a warning. Thank you.
So I came up with the idea of making a thread for people to ask why they do certain things in MMORPGs. To literally ask the question "Why?" when presented with any given situation in an MMORPG such as "Why do I kill a monster in an MMORPG?" or "Why do I take a quest in an MMORPG?" in the context of any MMORPG (hell even one that doesn't exist). When you're done with your "Why" question, if you don't like the way you answered, explain why. I wonder if maybe when all is said and done, those of us who play completely different MMORPGs might have something in common, or at least provide some insight as to what players like or dislike in MMORPGs.
Let's keep this thread clean of insults, don't question what someone else posts, just contribute.
Some why questions to ask:
Why do I kill a monster?
One of three things are usually present when I kill a monster. One, some NPC has asked my character to help him/her with the beast which leads to the advancement of my character. Two, I know the monster has something of value to my character that could potentially drop, which leads to more advancement. Three, the monster has the right amount of difficulty, xp, item drops, ect for me to advance my character on without any reasons beyond items/xp.
The only issue I have with this answer is every MMO is about just advancement of your character. What happens a game has a quest that advances everyone in your party except yourself? Would a player do it then in hopes others would do the same for you? What happens if the quest is done to advance NPCs of the world and give you nothing? Would players do that?
Why do I take a quest? (explain the type of quest it is)
A quest (anything, fedex, kill x, talking) are usually taken to not only learn a bit about whats going on in the world, only if it is interesting, but also supplement my advancement of the character.
Now this is a big issue to me. There needs to be more variety. Maybe there isn't more when it comes to RPGs. Maybe the presentation needs to change or something. But I really do not like this.
Why did I pick the class I picked?
I take a class dependent first on how often you see it in a game (low popularity) then if the class is fun to play. I tend to favor pet classes and spellcasting classes over melee and tank classes. But I do enjoy hybrid spellcasting/melee classes.
Not much to be said here. I like the answer.
Why am I harvesting resource X?
I only harvest a resource to advance my character either by some crafting calls for it or an item that I can craft sells well for which I will sell to others. I never gather resources to just sell to other people directly.
I really do not see any issues with this answer. I just like to craft items. It feels like I am not contributing anything when I only just sell materials instead of finished products.
make up your own if you like. I'll start the thread out with my example. The MMORPG I'll be answering my own Why? questions for is Darkfall Online.
...
That's all I've got. I'm interested in seeing what everyone else has to say.
MMOs Played: I can no longer list them all in the 500 character limit.
Even though I am not a role player I enjoy having a back story as well as attributing life goals for my character. In a sense I'm an internal role player. This is a carry over from role playing games as it would always make sense for me to only have my character do things that fit with it's personality.
So, in oblvion, it's much too easy to just run through the main storyline as a good part of it is "omg, this has to be done soon". Granted the game gives one all sorts of "breaks" so you can run off to do what you want but I've always found it hard to just do that when it wouldn' make sense to run off had it been a real crisis.
I suppose I did this when I was a kid and jokingly proclaimed to my friends that I was one of the first (to my knowledge) 7 year olds to create the graphic user interface and plug and play functionality as I gave my micronauts both of these things in order to explain why you could take a robot claw from one thing and stick it on a car and still have it work and be controlled.
Same thing with video games. In the end I do so because by doing so it stimulates my happy place. *cough*Between my ears.
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
I play to achieve, but I feel no sense of achievement in games like World of Warcraft or Vanguard. Maybe it has to do with the fact that the goals they give you in these games are "kill 5 of monster x". What even makes this shit a goal? I mean you see people wasting tons of time getting "Achievements" in games that aren't even achievements. It must be cognitive dissonance, it has to be.
the majority of people play games for fun, not as an extension of real life or some kind of achievement. there are no goals, its a video game.
That is a naive as it gets. You almost seem offended that you play games to achieve, but guess what you do.
The feeling of fun comes from the achievements and that is why people play. You can try and spin it anyway you want but my answer is as true as it gets. The "fun" comes from the dings, so you play to achieve those dings. The more dings along the way (another skill credit, a cool looking weapon/armor etc., new spell, new ability, new title, etc.) keep you playing longer. It's also why when they release an expansion they make the previous sets of loot inferior and add new levels, new titles etc. So now you get to go out and achieve it all over again. You get exicted when you get the new items and strive to go get more of them.
The formula for succesfull video games is pretty well set, and it is used time and time again and it makes money. It isn't that each game is discovering a new formula for fun. It's that the human mind is fairly simple to please.
If that's the case, why are we always so dissatisfied with the vast majority of games, movies, cars, etc, etc?
people like to complain.. that is why we are not allways happy.
Playing daoc and loving it totally..
have Played
Eq,Eq2,WoW,Coh,Cov,
and other..
which i have forgotten..
Cool story bro.
yea youre definitely from darkfall.
how stereotypical.
I play to achieve, but I feel no sense of achievement in games like World of Warcraft or Vanguard. Maybe it has to do with the fact that the goals they give you in these games are "kill 5 of monster x". What even makes this shit a goal? I mean you see people wasting tons of time getting "Achievements" in games that aren't even achievements. It must be cognitive dissonance, it has to be.
the majority of people play games for fun, not as an extension of real life or some kind of achievement. there are no goals, its a video game.
How would you define fun?
Cool story bro.
yea youre definitely from darkfall.
how stereotypical.
What are you getting at dear boy?
Also, I can say what isn't fun in an MMO.
Spending 6 hours mining ore so my skill raises a little bit and I make some chump change.
Having open PVP with no skill restriction which leads to everyone being the exact same thing: Mages spamming AOE spells.
Having lame guard towers that zap Player Killers.
The only cool thing about Darkfall is when I got a mount and decided to see what was in the center of the map, and a huge ass Dragon was down in a pit waiting to eat me. Then I unsubscribed. They need to limit the skills more. It's really crappy that everyone uses the same build.
Cool story bro.
yea youre definitely from darkfall.
how stereotypical.
I didn't like Darkfall too much. I much preferred Asheron's Call because it had an awesome story and an evolving living world. Also, big thanks to those of you who actually followed the directions in the original post.
If that's the case, why are we always so dissatisfied with the vast majority of games, movies, cars, etc, etc?
The other truth that forum users forget regularly. People who visit a forum about gaming are in the tiny majority of gamers. The majority of gamers are happy and that's why they keep playing and keep buying games. People (dozens) come to these forums and complain about WoW, but clearly by their numbers the amount of people who are happy with the game are in the millions.
When a company has 11 million people paying subs each month (or a million or several hundred thousand depending on the game) but yet 100 or so people go to forums and say they aren't happy with current games. The majority have already spoken and it is a winning/money making formula for the game companies.
Yes we all like to bitch that all new games are WoW clones, and where is the innovation, and games are too easy etc. etc. etc. But at the same time don't forget to step back and realize the posters on these forums mostly represent a few different niche audiences and are not even close to a representation of the average modern day gamer.
If that's the case, why are we always so dissatisfied with the vast majority of games, movies, cars, etc, etc?
The other truth that forum users forget regularly. People who visit a forum about gaming are in the tiny majority of gamers. The majority of gamers are happy and that's why they keep playing and keep buying games. People (dozens) come to these forums and complain about WoW, but clearly by their numbers the amount of people who are happy with the game are in the millions.
When a company has 11 million people paying subs each month (or a million or several hundred thousand depending on the game) but yet 100 or so people go to forums and say they aren't happy with current games. The majority have already spoken and it is a winning/money making formula for the game companies.
Yes we all like to bitch that all new games are WoW clones, and where is the innovation, and games are too easy etc. etc. etc. But at the same time don't forget to step back and realize the posters on these forums mostly represent a few different niche audiences and are not even close to a representation of the average modern day gamer.
Yes, I know this. Forums allow the exchanging of ideas and debates. It's more intellectually stimulating (for the most part.)
They seriously need a game where things actually matter. Kind of like Wurm Online, but with better functionality.
im an engineer, and we deal with the "why" all the time. its called trial and error. when things go wrong, the how isn't enough; you must understand something's conclusion for failure in order to correct its anticedents. if youve met an engineer who only dealt with the "how," he must go to a really crappy university, sorry.
and i think this exercise is extremely useful. we used to do it in my engineering design class for clients all the time to find out what they really wanted out of products as opposed to what they said they wanted. so for anyone who says this exercise is futile, let it be.
edit: i play mmos to distract myself from my engineering work =P i play for immersion.
Whatever you say, science does not deal with questions like: why was the universe created or what is the goal of the numerous species. Science deals with why nucleons act the way they do, but not with why they exist. Here is where God enters.
To the OP. I guess a lot of your questions can be answered by instant gratification; drops and other goodies from quests along with a story line which scratches your ego by telling you what an exceptional hero you are. Thus we MMO gamers are easy to fool, for why is it such a joy to be an outstanding hero, when the same is said to everybody and his oncle?
The major thing about MMOs is that you play alongside others, whether you prefer solo, grouping, PvP or whatever. Not necessarily to show off, but to socialize while playing, through interaction or through dialogue. The big MMOs are vibrant communities set in a different world than everyday life. I think it's fun to see how other players choose to develop their character and play alongside them when I feel like it and solo when that suits me best. MMOs at best are a diversion from RL at worst an addiction in replacement of RL.