Quit: I quit RuneScape because, after playing that game for so many hours, I felt I had experienced most of what the game had to offer at the time. I believe the principle reason for me leaving, however, was the fact that my friends from middle school stopped playing it.
Why I Won't Go Back: The game was a lot better when I had my friends to play with. Also, today it feels archaic, with old graphics and a clumsy movement system.
MU Online
Quit: I started playing MU Online right after RuneScape and had a blast. However, the game became far too grindy and it would take forever to level and get decent items.
Why I Won't Go Back: They changed the game for the worse. Now it has "quests" that basically makes leveling an effort to kill several of the same monster type specified by the quest. There is no longer a point in exploring the map and killing different monsters when doing these quests allows for the most efficient leveling path. Also, it feels a lot older now.
Dungeons & Dragons Online
Quit: I absolutely loved DDO and had a great time building my characters and doing all the different dungeons and quests. However, the game became extremely grindy when they introducing several completely unrelated systems that had some form of progression tied into them like Greensteel crafting, Dragontouched crafting, epic items, reincarnation, etc.
Why I Won't Go Back: DDO lost its charm when it embraced the gear and progression treadmill in radical fashion. Before, I had fun running the dungeons and experiencing the stories and quests while developing my character reasonably. Now, everything is a grind for better gear and to get to cap just to go back to lvl 1 and restart the grind.
Vanguard: Saga of Heroes
Quit: Vanguard has many remarkable qualities, especially the scope of its entirety and the feeling of being part of an actual world. However, the game had many bugs, like constantly falling through the world, and the crafting, while engaging, was extremely infuriating when several complications appeared during the process of making items and you would end up losing your materials.
Why I Won't Go Back: Since SOE has taken over the game, the quality of the content produced has been below what I expected. SOE simply does not share the same design philosophy as Sigil did. The entire concept of the Isle of Dawn is terrible, since it takes players away from the amazing starting zones of the original game. Also, the game is dying, the developer's plans for the future are not at all enticing, and the community is minuscule.
Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning
Quit: I quit because, while the RvR was very fun, it had many flaws. First of all, one realm would usually vastly outnumber the opposite realm, leading to one-sided battles. Furthermore, players would more often than not avoid entering combat and disputing keeps because it was far easier to simply attack an undefended keep then move on to other undefended keeps. Not only that, scenarios with random players was terrible since parties many times had no healers and the enemy teams were pre-mades that would absolutely annihilate other players. Finally, the PvE portion of the game was quite lackluster and not many participated in it.
Why I Won't Go Back: The game doesn't exist anymore, lol.
Star Wars: The Old Republic
Quit: I was extremely excited for this game, yet after completing the quests of so many planets, even with the voice-overs the stories felt very repetitive in their essence. Also, the game was incredibly linear and the planets felt small and restrictive. Furthermore, the game does not run silky smooth on my system, even though it has an ATi 7970 and an i5 @ 4.5Ghz. Finally, while the Flashpoints were really cool, most of the time the others in my group would whine about watching the cutscenes and demanded everyone to spacebar the entire sequence. With this, the quests lost context and devolved into a zerg to reach the end-boss.
Why I Won't Go Back: The core of the game hasn't change one bit, so I see no point in going back considering the above.
World of Warcraft
Quit: World of Warcraft is extremely fluid and easy to play. However, the game feels very repetitive after a while, as you progress from quest hub to quest hub. The stories in the quests are quite boring, there is absolutely no challenge when leveling in PvE as characters are too powerful, PvP is extremely unbalanced in the lower levels because of Heirlooms, and the gameplay itself feels quite generic.
Why I Won't Go Back: I haven't ruled WoW out just yet, as Warlords of Draenor seems like an interesting expansion, but I do not have too many hopes for it. I'll wait and see.
Basically this thread gives the change to those nostalgics players to explain themselves, why praise a certain game yet they don't play it themselves.
Once the devs screw up a game with an expansion, it's permanent. The only way to go back is cheating the system (if one is lucky enough to play a game that has functional ******* servers available).
Just pick an old game and ask which expansion pack screwed it up. That will answer why they (some at least) don't go back.
I can think of very few people I've talked with who left a game for any reason other than the devs screwing things up. NGE anyone? *grin*
Ken Fisher - Semi retired old fart Network Administrator, now working in Network Security. I don't Forum PVP. If you feel I've attacked you, it was probably by accident. When I don't understand, I ask. Such is not intended as criticism.
Any MMO I have ever quit, I quit for the same reason, I wasn't having fun. I will never go back to any MMO that I have quit because I wasn't having fun. That means all of the begging and pleading by old MMOs I've played to come back fall on deaf ears. I'm never going back. Ever.
If SoE would overhaul EQ UI and would update the graphics, I would go back and play it...
...for a little while. Eventually, maybe take an honest assessment, and depart as so many others have done in the various other titles "classic" servers?
I think a lot of people like to believe that they're immune to 'same old-ness' just catching up with them eventually. Denial that what happened to all of their former guildies could ever happen to themselves.
I'd like to sell them lifetime subs to one of these 'classic' server deals. Get the big cash, upfront, while the getting is still good.
Darkfall - I quit because they made a "new version" which I completely disliked. I will not go back because it simply is not the same quality of game play as it's previous version and lacks the content if the old. I have moved on to a new game and am loving gaming again.
I have played more games than I care to list here, but I left all of them for the same reason - I became bored that I could not permanently affect the world and my frustration level grew so high my health was affected. Hope is good to have but hoping each new game will allow me to affect the world and then being disappointed... (sigh).
Sorry, that simply is not a realistic expectation in an MMO. It's not just you, but you have 50,000+ people who want to permanently change the world and it becomes obvious that it's just not going to happen. You can never have a game when that many people, who often want to make mutually contradictory changes, get to do what they want and impose their desires on others. It's impossible.
Therefore, I'm sorry to say, that if you want to change the world, MMOs are not the place for you.
Originally posted by traheI have played more games than I care to list here, but I left all of them for the same reason - I became bored that I could not permanently affect the world and my frustration level grew so high my health was affected. Hope is good to have but hoping each new game will allow me to affect the world and then being disappointed... (sigh).
Sorry, that simply is not a realistic expectation in an MMO. It's not just you, but you have 50,000+ people who want to permanently change the world and it becomes obvious that it's just not going to happen. You can never have a game when that many people, who often want to make mutually contradictory changes, get to do what they want and impose their desires on others. It's impossible.
Therefore, I'm sorry to say, that if you want to change the world, MMOs are not the place for you.
Mostly true, but not totally true. In Eve you can lead an effort to place a new base station in the 0.0 space, and once created it can never be destroyed, just change hands between players. One of the few examples of player immortality that i know of.
Oh yes, one more example from EVE, if you build a Titan and gets destroyed the wreck stays in the universe forever as well, an ongoing monument the epic battle that occurred there.
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
If SoE would overhaul EQ UI and would update the graphics, I would go back and play it...
...for a little while. Eventually, maybe take an honest assessment, and depart as so many others have done in the various other titles "classic" servers?
Look I played EQ2 for 4 years straight (taking few months break) and if it wasn't for RoK I would still playing it.
So I would play EQ if it had a decent UI and sligtly better graphics, I am serious.
I am not kidding by saying that if I like a MMO I could stay for life............... I don't enjoy hopping from game to game every month, that's not what MMOs are all about (for me).
I know that I don't talk for the majority, but I am not the only one that think about MMOs as a long term commitment.
Love to do quests and 5 mans dungeons but end game is just raiding if want top gear.
Also dislike asian style and MOP just made WoW awfull childish. warcraft just dont feel warcraft when there is pandas around.
sure new expansion looks very good but pandas are still in game...
FF reborn
leveling first time with main class was fun but end game just feeled boring. doing same 1 instance for points to buy better gear. mobs dint drop money/trash/gear, made killing extremely boring.
EQ2
Great game but all classes and races had same animations and dint had open world, dislike to see loading screen all time.
game engine had its proplems too...
Dint had group finder, guess its have now.
Dont really remember all reasons so well. its been while when i played thouse games. some reason i feel sympathy for EQ2...
Most if not all mmorpgs in end game are just raid or play pointless pvp. i enjoy more 5 man dungeons and public quest/raid where u can join when u want, no need ask in guild chat or city chat channels more members. some ppl like it but group finder/raid finder is just must have todays imo.
Well my favorite MMO of all time is probably still WoW, vanilla through Wrath of the Lich King. GW2 is rapidly on track to surpass it though. Needless to say, I'm still playing GW2, so that's disqualified from this discussion.
As for WoW, it changed over time; I changed over time; and I just got burnt out on all the things I used to love. Other than that, the best way I can explain what I loved about WoW and a little bit of why I don't play any more is to give a brief run down of some of the things I liked and disliked about each of the expansions I played. So here goes:
Vanilla
What I loved: Dungeons were *massive* labyrinths that required some serious navigation skills to complete.
They were so big that players would often specify which *part* of the dungeon they intended to run when LFG. A *full* clear of BRD could take hours, and rarely ever happened. Dungeon groups - just the standard, casual, PUG dungeon groups - felt like real adventures.
What I disliked: homogenized classes.
If you were a druid, paladin, shaman or priest, you were specced to heal. If you were specced to heal, you were probably only casting 3 or so spells during any given raid encounter, two of which are just different ranks of the same spell (looking at you, rank 4 healing touch). The other was likely a support spell to help your priests heal better while you afk mana regened.
Burning Crusade
What I loved: Raid progression.
BC released with so much dungeon and raid content that players were busy progressing for the better part of an entire year before any content had finally been relegated to "farm mode." In fact, at over 5 months in, before any guild in the entire world had completed the Kael and Vashj encounters of the tier 5 content, Blizzard released the 6th tier of content in the Hyjal and Black Temple raids! There were just endless goals to pursue, and endless amounts of gear to be looted.
I also loved the new viability of every spec. Even though moonkins and elemental shamans weren't yet staples of many raiding guilds because they weren't quite optimal, they weren't exactly un-viable. Also, many other side specs, such as shadow priests, ret paladins or enhance shamans, did become staples of raid groups.
What I disliked: The increased linearity of the dungeons compared to the huge, open, multi-path dungeons I described in vanilla.
Wrath of the Lich King
What I loved: The new zones.
Many of the zones of Northrend are my very favorites in the entire game, perhaps just behind Ashenvale and Duskwood. Howling Fjord, Grizzly Hills and Dragonblight were just so darn beautiful. I loved how open they all felt too. You could often cross from one to the other at several points. It felt more natural. I also greatly appreciated the verticality of it all. WotlK made sure to make full use of the previous expansion's introduction of flying mounts. Lastly, the geographical landmarks just felt more prominent than ever before. The architecture of Utgarde Keep, and the Val'kyr, and the dragon temples...it all just felt like a huge does of massive had been injected back into the game.
I also loved the legitimization of 10 man raids. Karazhan and Zul'Aman proved to be phenominal. As great as all the 25 man content of BC was, I really had the most fun in these two 10 man raid experiences. I just felt that WoW's combat, particularly the healing, was flat out better in a 10 man setting. The healing was so much more intense than anything a 25 or 40 man raid could throw at you.
What I disliked: the end of CC and threat management, and the beginning of tank and spank everything.
I'll never forget my first heroic of WotlK. We went into it wearing our leveling greens and blues. We expected to get obliterated. We didn't. In fact, it was easy. Every tank could now effortlessly hold aoe aggro on everything. Healers could easily keep them up without worrying about pulling aggro. DPS no longer had to CC anything. Literally every single dungeon, except Occulus - which people grew to hate for this exact reason - felt exactly the same. This is one huge part of the "dumbing down" of the game that many players always refer to.
I also disliked the pace of the release of raid content, especially compared to TBC. Players cleared all initial content within mere weeks (if not days) this time around, compared to the half year it took them in TBC. And there was just so much less content this time around. Just 1 main raid, which was just a rerelease of an old raid, and two single boss side raids. The dungeon count was much less than that of TBC as well, and all significantly easier. Players were constantly left with a lot of down time, waiting for new stuff to do in wotlk. This caused a spurt in leveling alts, but also eventually the permanent quitting of many.
The major problem with most MMOS are the unrealistic expectations of the player base. Its a game - there is a limited scope to what the developers can do. They cannont provide never ending engaging content - all engaging content has to be hand designed right now. They can provide never ending grind or long lasting extremely difficult content but there is little interest in this.
So I switch around MMOs but never claim that I would 'never' go back. If WoW introduces some awesome stuff I would go back in a heartbeat. My #1 gripe with WoW is the UI. The default UI is to far behind the add on ones and forces any serious player to screw around with add ons for hours on end to be competitive.
1. My account was hacked (first time in my 12+ years of playing MMOs) and I received poor generic response from support staff. I say generic because several other players also had their accounts broken into around the same time and received the same response. I did not lose anything of tremendous value, but I did lose several items that I spent over a month collecting. The cash shop currency that I purchased for renewing my subscription was also missing/stolen/deleted, and the support refused to reimburse me and instead insisted that it was my fault for having my account compromised. This incident made me lose faith in the support staff and publisher. I felt like my account could be compromised again at any time and without any support.
2. Crappy servers. I'm not sure what the deal is with the servers, but I rarely found myself under 100 ping at any given time. As an open world PVP, poor connectivity made the game very frustrating to play.
3. The group that I played with slowly became occupied by real life priorities (myself included). At the time of the hacking incident, it was just me and one other member of the core group. Combined with loss of faith in the support staff, the absence of the other group members made the game less fun.
I keep wanting to go back to the game because I still feel that it's the best game in the current market (as far as features are concerned), but the population seems to be dying.
I quit EQ2 because SOE is a big turn off right now,cash shop is a 100% no for me,i made a stance to not support it.Anything Founder's packs or kickstarter is also a big turn off.
I quit Vanguard simply because there was not enough players,same reason for AOC.However i recently went back to AOC and unless my eyes went bad seems they really turned the graphics down badly.it actually looks borderline bad.
I stopped FFXI but have a few times for various reasons.I would not say i would never go back but most likely not as i might finally make a move to FFXIV or Archeage or both.Also i don't liek the direction Square has gone with their ideals on game design,matter of fact,don't like it at all,so i might choose AA over FFXIV.
I do however feel like i got kicked in the face when Square changed FFXI so badly and SOE went all out cash shop,then the one game i had high hopes for is being run by Trion a dev i don't have a lot of confidence in.
ArchAge will have a cash shop, so it is not looking to good for you with new MMOs.
The best mmorpg i have ever played, played for almost 9 years straight and it continued to be good until............
reasons i quit:
Abyssea and the generation of lazy mode players/leeching and complete neglecting of old content ( or make what the game was brought out to be for 8+ years and completely trow it out the window. It truly became a completely different game, i understand populations were dropping and etc but they took it to the extreme side of things.
AION
another one of my favorite mmorpg ( specially during first year)
reasons i quit:
became a Easy mode carebear land with pay to win added on top of that. The game was generally a bit challenging and required players to play right in order to progress specially dungeons. After a few years of QQ they removed open world PvP( super restrictions) rifting, and to make it worst they practically made leveling and journey to max level completely pointless as people just gain max level in 1-5 days.
over all I am close to quittign mmorpg in general they are almost all copy and paste versions of each other and community have become worst than ever. people cry and whine about "adventure" and anything that requires them to put some effort into or spend some time. Everything has to be fast as possible with ultra focus on only endgame or the "WoW standard" ( no offense to WoW)
why should developers spend time detailing areas/making quest and missions and trying to make a ............RPG when people hate to adventure and don't care for it, this in general leaves a bad taste in my mouth when i think about it. One of the biggest reasons i loved FFXI was because of all the exploration/adventuring and JOURNEY. it felt like i was part of a bigger world and a conquest filled with lots of memories throughout all levels. It was never about start game..........talk to npc.......hand hold me and treat me like a moron and not give me option to think stuff for myself or do things of my own accord.
Community is broken. We have now the community of fps. The only way is to play with rl friends.
There are a so many good single player games out there, if you have the money you don't need mmos.
I like classic style mmos, with a persistent world, not all instanced. Money is not a problem. I play LoL, Civ IV and other non-mmo games, but my favorite is one that I am not playing atm. Lobby mmos don't do it for me, I would rather play a real FPS or whatever, over most of them myself.
I also don't get into single player stuff, my wife is a gamer, so it is kind of odd to play a single player game and both talk about how far we are or what we have done etc...Just not the same as a good mmo to me.
Since I began in 1999 I have played a lot of games but a lot of them were only for a few months. I will only mention the ones I spent significant time in.
Everquest
I left to play Anarchy Online and went back a few times but now the game is far too old and I cannot play it anymore because of the running animations yes basically the graphics have kept me away.
City of Heroes
I loved this game but the mission maps got tiresome but no game has come close to the way the powers played out and the classes were so well done with a combination that allowed us to do some amazing things and the fact that you fought literally 20-30 mobs in groups made it chaotic and fun. It shutdown.
WoW
I have played WoW on and off and vanilla WoW was best. I think the game has moved on to a point where I have no interest to go back and I no longer have any friends who play it.
All the other games I spent mere months the ones I mentioned I played longest.
I have played more games than I care to list here, but I left all of them for the same reason - I became bored that I could not permanently affect the world and my frustration level grew so high my health was affected. Hope is good to have but hoping each new game will allow me to affect the world and then being disappointed... (sigh).
Sorry, that simply is not a realistic expectation in an MMO. It's not just you, but you have 50,000+ people who want to permanently change the world and it becomes obvious that it's just not going to happen. You can never have a game when that many people, who often want to make mutually contradictory changes, get to do what they want and impose their desires on others. It's impossible.
Therefore, I'm sorry to say, that if you want to change the world, MMOs are not the place for you.
Is it not a realistic expectation or has it not been done yet? Let me give you an example of what I mean before "it" becomes a permanent unrealistic expectation. Combine these ideas and tell me if the world is static.
Players are given the ability to affect the terrain
Players are able to build above ground and below ground with available designs. No phallic symbols, sorry.
Player creations may be interacted with by other players
Player characters stay in the world 24-hours a day
Player characters are able to build quests and assign rewards
Player characters have henchmen that may be used as gatherers, craftsmen or quest givers
The game creates unique NPCs that have professions as well as day and night queues
When an NPC is killed it does not respawn. Instead a new NPC is introduced to the world in an appropriate location
MOBs are treated as unique NPCs with their own needs
Death is not the combat default unless lethal attacks are chosen. This allows opponents to be captured, and of course moved. Perhaps even to a Player's personal underground dungeon or theme park
Respectfully, I submit that the status quo is the reason for the word "impossible."
I was young and impatient and didn't want to miss the next best thing.
Would I go back
Nah. I tried once and the act of just getting and staying connected to the game was a chore. Add to that that non of my friends still played it and that as a company I did not agree with some of the business decisions Turbine has made I haven't nor will I give it another try.
Star Wars Galaxies
Why I left
New Game Enhancements. They made my skill based sandbox into a level based themepark. It was no longer the game I enjoyed.
Would I go back
Nope. The deal with selling me Mustafar expansion a week before making NGE changes that nullified much of what was in the Mustafar expansion soured me. Having the plug pulled on the game too kind of prevents it. Would I play a game that is like pre NGE SWG? Quite likely. I'm keeping an eye on The Repopulation and their "business model". If they offer an all inclusive subscription plan in addition to their F2P/cash shop offer I will likely (98%) sub. If not...I dunno.
"Many nights, my friend... Many nights I've put a blade to your throat while you were sleeping. Glad I never killed you, Steve. You're alright..."
My first mmorpg experience jaded me for life it seems. The game sports 44 classes, 24 races, and three distinctly different realms that each have their own 1-50 level continent and massive open world non-instanced castle/tower territory to defend against the other 2 realms. This is like Chinese to most developers and players alike, but my enemy was different than anyone in my faction. The classes weren't just so called classless (for sake of appeasing complainers who feel grass is eternally greener elsewhere)...there was no my warrior and your warrior have the same epic armor look and weapon styles.
That would be seen as nonsense to any self respecting RPG in an mmo type build. Sadly - again, this is just Chinese to the industry. They don't get the value of variance, differentiation, and a chance to feel *drum roll...unique in an environment that was meant to offer escapism.
Here's a simple formula: immersion = escapism. You don't feel much immersion when everyone is just copy paste. The Elder Scrolls Online have as one of their directors, Matt Firor. This guy wrote the book on Realm vs Realm vs Realm in Dark Age of Camelot...yet even he is supporting all three TESO factions as having the same 4 archetypes. How unbelievably lame is that? Anyway, digressing...
Quit: Because the game was built on concepts most here won't understand that was all but forgotten as the game advanced. Realm pride was a huge concept for the game...something that TESO might return to the genre. Realm pride meant we defended our realm against invaders and stuck with our realm for the most part. People rolledon a particular faction because they truly loved the lore and culture of that particular uniquely different world environment (all three realms practically felt like a different mmorpg).
However, people today can literally reload a different realm 6 minutes after logging. It used to be an hour realm timer. This literally killed the game for me and many of my friends. Thirty of a faction would log off and within 6-minutes, thirty of another faction would log in - usually whatever faction was being led the best in open RvR.
Why I won't go back: Ancient UI and the company is no longer investing in the title outside of tiny little events. Warhammer took all of Mythic's intellectual capacity and dropped a giant turd on it. Dark Age got back-burnered to such an extent that after we were promised a new server that would be modeled after the golden days of the game (a much simpler server and a chance to start over)...the project not only canceled but the player base...the loyal community that had stuck it out and those who had left that had begged on forums for years for this, weren't given so much as the tiniest of explanations. To this day this one little server has been ignored by developers and the pre-conditioned interviewers.
Seriously ridiculous that a company cannot offer 1 more server, especially considering they only have one to begin with.
A lot of innovative design, great character creation, game play that remained fun, for me, over years. (I mean I had 20 or 30 max level alts).
Won't go back because NCSoft decided to sacrifice the game for an accounting boost, despite it still making money at its venerable age and status. They then refused all sorts of reasonable deals to buy it out, again probably accounting, and perhaps a bit of not wanting to lose face. Me, I'm not spending another penny on an NCSoft game. So, everything they release is now a 'won't go back' title.
If you are holding out for the perfect game, the only game you play will be the waiting one.
EQ1: Left for City of Heroes because I liked the idea of a superhero theme and I couldn't progress in EQ1 anymore. Because of work I couldn't get up at crazy hours on a moment's notice to raid and sitting at the PC for more than four hours at a time more than once a week took away any chance at having a social life. Plus on top of that eventually the servers just got to a point where one or two superguilds monopolized all upper level content.
I have played more games than I care to list here, but I left all of them for the same reason - I became bored that I could not permanently affect the world and my frustration level grew so high my health was affected. Hope is good to have but hoping each new game will allow me to affect the world and then being disappointed... (sigh).
Sorry, that simply is not a realistic expectation in an MMO. It's not just you, but you have 50,000+ people who want to permanently change the world and it becomes obvious that it's just not going to happen. You can never have a game when that many people, who often want to make mutually contradictory changes, get to do what they want and impose their desires on others. It's impossible.
Therefore, I'm sorry to say, that if you want to change the world, MMOs are not the place for you.
Is it not a realistic expectation or has it not been done yet? Let me give you an example of what I mean before "it" becomes a permanent unrealistic expectation. Combine these ideas and tell me if the world is static.
Players are given the ability to affect the terrain
Players are able to build above ground and below ground with available designs. No phallic symbols, sorry.
Player creations may be interacted with by other players
Player characters stay in the world 24-hours a day
Player characters are able to build quests and assign rewards
Player characters have henchmen that may be used as gatherers, craftsmen or quest givers
The game creates unique NPCs that have professions as well as day and night queues
When an NPC is killed it does not respawn. Instead a new NPC is introduced to the world in an appropriate location
MOBs are treated as unique NPCs with their own needs
Death is not the combat default unless lethal attacks are chosen. This allows opponents to be captured, and of course moved. Perhaps even to a Player's personal underground dungeon or theme park
Respectfully, I submit that the status quo is the reason for the word "impossible."
I would put this list in the 'not a realistic expectation' category. It would work for a single player game, but not for a MMO in my opinion.
Comments
RuneScape
Quit: I quit RuneScape because, after playing that game for so many hours, I felt I had experienced most of what the game had to offer at the time. I believe the principle reason for me leaving, however, was the fact that my friends from middle school stopped playing it.
Why I Won't Go Back: The game was a lot better when I had my friends to play with. Also, today it feels archaic, with old graphics and a clumsy movement system.
MU Online
Quit: I started playing MU Online right after RuneScape and had a blast. However, the game became far too grindy and it would take forever to level and get decent items.
Why I Won't Go Back: They changed the game for the worse. Now it has "quests" that basically makes leveling an effort to kill several of the same monster type specified by the quest. There is no longer a point in exploring the map and killing different monsters when doing these quests allows for the most efficient leveling path. Also, it feels a lot older now.
Dungeons & Dragons Online
Quit: I absolutely loved DDO and had a great time building my characters and doing all the different dungeons and quests. However, the game became extremely grindy when they introducing several completely unrelated systems that had some form of progression tied into them like Greensteel crafting, Dragontouched crafting, epic items, reincarnation, etc.
Why I Won't Go Back: DDO lost its charm when it embraced the gear and progression treadmill in radical fashion. Before, I had fun running the dungeons and experiencing the stories and quests while developing my character reasonably. Now, everything is a grind for better gear and to get to cap just to go back to lvl 1 and restart the grind.
Vanguard: Saga of Heroes
Quit: Vanguard has many remarkable qualities, especially the scope of its entirety and the feeling of being part of an actual world. However, the game had many bugs, like constantly falling through the world, and the crafting, while engaging, was extremely infuriating when several complications appeared during the process of making items and you would end up losing your materials.
Why I Won't Go Back: Since SOE has taken over the game, the quality of the content produced has been below what I expected. SOE simply does not share the same design philosophy as Sigil did. The entire concept of the Isle of Dawn is terrible, since it takes players away from the amazing starting zones of the original game. Also, the game is dying, the developer's plans for the future are not at all enticing, and the community is minuscule.
Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning
Quit: I quit because, while the RvR was very fun, it had many flaws. First of all, one realm would usually vastly outnumber the opposite realm, leading to one-sided battles. Furthermore, players would more often than not avoid entering combat and disputing keeps because it was far easier to simply attack an undefended keep then move on to other undefended keeps. Not only that, scenarios with random players was terrible since parties many times had no healers and the enemy teams were pre-mades that would absolutely annihilate other players. Finally, the PvE portion of the game was quite lackluster and not many participated in it.
Why I Won't Go Back: The game doesn't exist anymore, lol.
Star Wars: The Old Republic
Quit: I was extremely excited for this game, yet after completing the quests of so many planets, even with the voice-overs the stories felt very repetitive in their essence. Also, the game was incredibly linear and the planets felt small and restrictive. Furthermore, the game does not run silky smooth on my system, even though it has an ATi 7970 and an i5 @ 4.5Ghz. Finally, while the Flashpoints were really cool, most of the time the others in my group would whine about watching the cutscenes and demanded everyone to spacebar the entire sequence. With this, the quests lost context and devolved into a zerg to reach the end-boss.
Why I Won't Go Back: The core of the game hasn't change one bit, so I see no point in going back considering the above.
World of Warcraft
Quit: World of Warcraft is extremely fluid and easy to play. However, the game feels very repetitive after a while, as you progress from quest hub to quest hub. The stories in the quests are quite boring, there is absolutely no challenge when leveling in PvE as characters are too powerful, PvP is extremely unbalanced in the lower levels because of Heirlooms, and the gameplay itself feels quite generic.
Why I Won't Go Back: I haven't ruled WoW out just yet, as Warlords of Draenor seems like an interesting expansion, but I do not have too many hopes for it. I'll wait and see.
Once the devs screw up a game with an expansion, it's permanent. The only way to go back is cheating the system (if one is lucky enough to play a game that has functional ******* servers available).Just pick an old game and ask which expansion pack screwed it up. That will answer why they (some at least) don't go back.
I can think of very few people I've talked with who left a game for any reason other than the devs screwing things up. NGE anyone? *grin*
Played: UO, EQ, WoW, DDO, SWG, AO, CoH, EvE, TR, AoC, GW, GA, Aion, Allods, lots more
Relatively Recently (Re)Played: HL2 (all), Halo (PC, all), Batman:AA; AC, ME, BS, DA, FO3, DS, Doom (all), LFD1&2, KOTOR, Portal 1&2, Blink, Elder Scrolls (all), lots more
Now Playing: None
Hope: None
...for a little while. Eventually, maybe take an honest assessment, and depart as so many others have done in the various other titles "classic" servers?
I think a lot of people like to believe that they're immune to 'same old-ness' just catching up with them eventually. Denial that what happened to all of their former guildies could ever happen to themselves.
I'd like to sell them lifetime subs to one of these 'classic' server deals. Get the big cash, upfront, while the getting is still good.
I quit because they made a "new version" which I completely disliked. I will not go back because it simply is not the same quality of game play as it's previous version and lacks the content if the old. I have moved on to a new game and am loving gaming again.
Sorry, that simply is not a realistic expectation in an MMO. It's not just you, but you have 50,000+ people who want to permanently change the world and it becomes obvious that it's just not going to happen. You can never have a game when that many people, who often want to make mutually contradictory changes, get to do what they want and impose their desires on others. It's impossible.
Therefore, I'm sorry to say, that if you want to change the world, MMOs are not the place for you.
Played: UO, EQ, WoW, DDO, SWG, AO, CoH, EvE, TR, AoC, GW, GA, Aion, Allods, lots more
Relatively Recently (Re)Played: HL2 (all), Halo (PC, all), Batman:AA; AC, ME, BS, DA, FO3, DS, Doom (all), LFD1&2, KOTOR, Portal 1&2, Blink, Elder Scrolls (all), lots more
Now Playing: None
Hope: None
Sorry, that simply is not a realistic expectation in an MMO. It's not just you, but you have 50,000+ people who want to permanently change the world and it becomes obvious that it's just not going to happen. You can never have a game when that many people, who often want to make mutually contradictory changes, get to do what they want and impose their desires on others. It's impossible.
Therefore, I'm sorry to say, that if you want to change the world, MMOs are not the place for you.
Mostly true, but not totally true. In Eve you can lead an effort to place a new base station in the 0.0 space, and once created it can never be destroyed, just change hands between players. One of the few examples of player immortality that i know of.Oh yes, one more example from EVE, if you build a Titan and gets destroyed the wreck stays in the universe forever as well, an ongoing monument the epic battle that occurred there.
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
7 years played - Quit - Ultima Online: Samurai Xpac was not interesting to me and broke my sense of Mid-Evil Lore. Kept going downhill since.
Play now on a classic private server.
1 year played - Quit - Wurm Online: Without friends to play with it can be tedious. Great game though.
Wont be returning though.
6 years played - Quit - WoW: Mists of Pandaria Xpac. Friggin hated pandas and eastern theme tainting once again my high fantasy.
Play on private vanilla server. Probably wont go back unless WoW gets back to it's roots.
4 Months played - Quit - SWTOR: Great single player rpg with real people playing in the same game but just doesn't quite have that mmo feel.
Wont be returning.
1 year played -Quit - Vanguard SoH: Sony got it, did bare minimum. Population never recovered. Beautiful world that you felt a part of.
Star Wars Galaxies
My first mmo and quit because I reached max level and all of a sudden didn't know what to do.
(and I think there wasn't much to do anyway besides getting more credits for no particular reason)
Planetside
Quit because there were not much players left.
(how do I type sentences below each other without space between them. I hate this forum software)
Look I played EQ2 for 4 years straight (taking few months break) and if it wasn't for RoK I would still playing it.
So I would play EQ if it had a decent UI and sligtly better graphics, I am serious.
I am not kidding by saying that if I like a MMO I could stay for life............... I don't enjoy hopping from game to game every month, that's not what MMOs are all about (for me).
I know that I don't talk for the majority, but I am not the only one that think about MMOs as a long term commitment.
WoW
Love to do quests and 5 mans dungeons but end game is just raiding if want top gear.
Also dislike asian style and MOP just made WoW awfull childish. warcraft just dont feel warcraft when there is pandas around.
sure new expansion looks very good but pandas are still in game...
FF reborn
leveling first time with main class was fun but end game just feeled boring. doing same 1 instance for points to buy better gear. mobs dint drop money/trash/gear, made killing extremely boring.
EQ2
Great game but all classes and races had same animations and dint had open world, dislike to see loading screen all time.
game engine had its proplems too...
Dint had group finder, guess its have now.
Dont really remember all reasons so well. its been while when i played thouse games. some reason i feel sympathy for EQ2...
Most if not all mmorpgs in end game are just raid or play pointless pvp. i enjoy more 5 man dungeons and public quest/raid where u can join when u want, no need ask in guild chat or city chat channels more members. some ppl like it but group finder/raid finder is just must have todays imo.
Well my favorite MMO of all time is probably still WoW, vanilla through Wrath of the Lich King. GW2 is rapidly on track to surpass it though. Needless to say, I'm still playing GW2, so that's disqualified from this discussion.
As for WoW, it changed over time; I changed over time; and I just got burnt out on all the things I used to love. Other than that, the best way I can explain what I loved about WoW and a little bit of why I don't play any more is to give a brief run down of some of the things I liked and disliked about each of the expansions I played. So here goes:
Vanilla
What I loved: Dungeons were *massive* labyrinths that required some serious navigation skills to complete.
They were so big that players would often specify which *part* of the dungeon they intended to run when LFG. A *full* clear of BRD could take hours, and rarely ever happened. Dungeon groups - just the standard, casual, PUG dungeon groups - felt like real adventures.
What I disliked: homogenized classes.
If you were a druid, paladin, shaman or priest, you were specced to heal. If you were specced to heal, you were probably only casting 3 or so spells during any given raid encounter, two of which are just different ranks of the same spell (looking at you, rank 4 healing touch). The other was likely a support spell to help your priests heal better while you afk mana regened.
Burning Crusade
What I loved: Raid progression.
BC released with so much dungeon and raid content that players were busy progressing for the better part of an entire year before any content had finally been relegated to "farm mode." In fact, at over 5 months in, before any guild in the entire world had completed the Kael and Vashj encounters of the tier 5 content, Blizzard released the 6th tier of content in the Hyjal and Black Temple raids! There were just endless goals to pursue, and endless amounts of gear to be looted.
I also loved the new viability of every spec. Even though moonkins and elemental shamans weren't yet staples of many raiding guilds because they weren't quite optimal, they weren't exactly un-viable. Also, many other side specs, such as shadow priests, ret paladins or enhance shamans, did become staples of raid groups.
What I disliked: The increased linearity of the dungeons compared to the huge, open, multi-path dungeons I described in vanilla.
Wrath of the Lich King
What I loved: The new zones.
Many of the zones of Northrend are my very favorites in the entire game, perhaps just behind Ashenvale and Duskwood. Howling Fjord, Grizzly Hills and Dragonblight were just so darn beautiful. I loved how open they all felt too. You could often cross from one to the other at several points. It felt more natural. I also greatly appreciated the verticality of it all. WotlK made sure to make full use of the previous expansion's introduction of flying mounts. Lastly, the geographical landmarks just felt more prominent than ever before. The architecture of Utgarde Keep, and the Val'kyr, and the dragon temples...it all just felt like a huge does of massive had been injected back into the game.
I also loved the legitimization of 10 man raids. Karazhan and Zul'Aman proved to be phenominal. As great as all the 25 man content of BC was, I really had the most fun in these two 10 man raid experiences. I just felt that WoW's combat, particularly the healing, was flat out better in a 10 man setting. The healing was so much more intense than anything a 25 or 40 man raid could throw at you.
What I disliked: the end of CC and threat management, and the beginning of tank and spank everything.
I'll never forget my first heroic of WotlK. We went into it wearing our leveling greens and blues. We expected to get obliterated. We didn't. In fact, it was easy. Every tank could now effortlessly hold aoe aggro on everything. Healers could easily keep them up without worrying about pulling aggro. DPS no longer had to CC anything. Literally every single dungeon, except Occulus - which people grew to hate for this exact reason - felt exactly the same. This is one huge part of the "dumbing down" of the game that many players always refer to.
I also disliked the pace of the release of raid content, especially compared to TBC. Players cleared all initial content within mere weeks (if not days) this time around, compared to the half year it took them in TBC. And there was just so much less content this time around. Just 1 main raid, which was just a rerelease of an old raid, and two single boss side raids. The dungeon count was much less than that of TBC as well, and all significantly easier. Players were constantly left with a lot of down time, waiting for new stuff to do in wotlk. This caused a spurt in leveling alts, but also eventually the permanent quitting of many.
The major problem with most MMOS are the unrealistic expectations of the player base. Its a game - there is a limited scope to what the developers can do. They cannont provide never ending engaging content - all engaging content has to be hand designed right now. They can provide never ending grind or long lasting extremely difficult content but there is little interest in this.
So I switch around MMOs but never claim that I would 'never' go back. If WoW introduces some awesome stuff I would go back in a heartbeat. My #1 gripe with WoW is the UI. The default UI is to far behind the add on ones and forces any serious player to screw around with add ons for hours on end to be competitive.
Age of Wushu
1. My account was hacked (first time in my 12+ years of playing MMOs) and I received poor generic response from support staff. I say generic because several other players also had their accounts broken into around the same time and received the same response. I did not lose anything of tremendous value, but I did lose several items that I spent over a month collecting. The cash shop currency that I purchased for renewing my subscription was also missing/stolen/deleted, and the support refused to reimburse me and instead insisted that it was my fault for having my account compromised. This incident made me lose faith in the support staff and publisher. I felt like my account could be compromised again at any time and without any support.
2. Crappy servers. I'm not sure what the deal is with the servers, but I rarely found myself under 100 ping at any given time. As an open world PVP, poor connectivity made the game very frustrating to play.
3. The group that I played with slowly became occupied by real life priorities (myself included). At the time of the hacking incident, it was just me and one other member of the core group. Combined with loss of faith in the support staff, the absence of the other group members made the game less fun.
I keep wanting to go back to the game because I still feel that it's the best game in the current market (as far as features are concerned), but the population seems to be dying.
ArchAge will have a cash shop, so it is not looking to good for you with new MMOs.
Final Fantasy XI:
The best mmorpg i have ever played, played for almost 9 years straight and it continued to be good until............
reasons i quit:
Abyssea and the generation of lazy mode players/leeching and complete neglecting of old content ( or make what the game was brought out to be for 8+ years and completely trow it out the window. It truly became a completely different game, i understand populations were dropping and etc but they took it to the extreme side of things.
AION
another one of my favorite mmorpg ( specially during first year)
reasons i quit:
became a Easy mode carebear land with pay to win added on top of that. The game was generally a bit challenging and required players to play right in order to progress specially dungeons. After a few years of QQ they removed open world PvP( super restrictions) rifting, and to make it worst they practically made leveling and journey to max level completely pointless as people just gain max level in 1-5 days.
over all I am close to quittign mmorpg in general they are almost all copy and paste versions of each other and community have become worst than ever. people cry and whine about "adventure" and anything that requires them to put some effort into or spend some time. Everything has to be fast as possible with ultra focus on only endgame or the "WoW standard" ( no offense to WoW)
why should developers spend time detailing areas/making quest and missions and trying to make a ............RPG when people hate to adventure and don't care for it, this in general leaves a bad taste in my mouth when i think about it. One of the biggest reasons i loved FFXI was because of all the exploration/adventuring and JOURNEY. it felt like i was part of a bigger world and a conquest filled with lots of memories throughout all levels. It was never about start game..........talk to npc.......hand hold me and treat me like a moron and not give me option to think stuff for myself or do things of my own accord.
I like classic style mmos, with a persistent world, not all instanced. Money is not a problem. I play LoL, Civ IV and other non-mmo games, but my favorite is one that I am not playing atm. Lobby mmos don't do it for me, I would rather play a real FPS or whatever, over most of them myself.
I also don't get into single player stuff, my wife is a gamer, so it is kind of odd to play a single player game and both talk about how far we are or what we have done etc...Just not the same as a good mmo to me.
Since I began in 1999 I have played a lot of games but a lot of them were only for a few months. I will only mention the ones I spent significant time in.
Everquest
I left to play Anarchy Online and went back a few times but now the game is far too old and I cannot play it anymore because of the running animations yes basically the graphics have kept me away.
City of Heroes
I loved this game but the mission maps got tiresome but no game has come close to the way the powers played out and the classes were so well done with a combination that allowed us to do some amazing things and the fact that you fought literally 20-30 mobs in groups made it chaotic and fun. It shutdown.
WoW
I have played WoW on and off and vanilla WoW was best. I think the game has moved on to a point where I have no interest to go back and I no longer have any friends who play it.
All the other games I spent mere months the ones I mentioned I played longest.
Is it not a realistic expectation or has it not been done yet? Let me give you an example of what I mean before "it" becomes a permanent unrealistic expectation. Combine these ideas and tell me if the world is static.
Hmm, good topic.
Asheron's Call
Why I left
I was young and impatient and didn't want to miss the next best thing.
Would I go back
Nah. I tried once and the act of just getting and staying connected to the game was a chore. Add to that that non of my friends still played it and that as a company I did not agree with some of the business decisions Turbine has made I haven't nor will I give it another try.
Star Wars Galaxies
Why I left
New Game Enhancements. They made my skill based sandbox into a level based themepark. It was no longer the game I enjoyed.
Would I go back
Nope. The deal with selling me Mustafar expansion a week before making NGE changes that nullified much of what was in the Mustafar expansion soured me. Having the plug pulled on the game too kind of prevents it. Would I play a game that is like pre NGE SWG? Quite likely. I'm keeping an eye on The Repopulation and their "business model". If they offer an all inclusive subscription plan in addition to their F2P/cash shop offer I will likely (98%) sub. If not...I dunno.
"Many nights, my friend... Many nights I've put a blade to your throat while you were sleeping. Glad I never killed you, Steve. You're alright..."
Chavez y Chavez
Dark Age of Camelot:
My first mmorpg experience jaded me for life it seems. The game sports 44 classes, 24 races, and three distinctly different realms that each have their own 1-50 level continent and massive open world non-instanced castle/tower territory to defend against the other 2 realms. This is like Chinese to most developers and players alike, but my enemy was different than anyone in my faction. The classes weren't just so called classless (for sake of appeasing complainers who feel grass is eternally greener elsewhere)...there was no my warrior and your warrior have the same epic armor look and weapon styles.
That would be seen as nonsense to any self respecting RPG in an mmo type build. Sadly - again, this is just Chinese to the industry. They don't get the value of variance, differentiation, and a chance to feel *drum roll...unique in an environment that was meant to offer escapism.
Here's a simple formula: immersion = escapism. You don't feel much immersion when everyone is just copy paste. The Elder Scrolls Online have as one of their directors, Matt Firor. This guy wrote the book on Realm vs Realm vs Realm in Dark Age of Camelot...yet even he is supporting all three TESO factions as having the same 4 archetypes. How unbelievably lame is that? Anyway, digressing...
Quit: Because the game was built on concepts most here won't understand that was all but forgotten as the game advanced. Realm pride was a huge concept for the game...something that TESO might return to the genre. Realm pride meant we defended our realm against invaders and stuck with our realm for the most part. People rolledon a particular faction because they truly loved the lore and culture of that particular uniquely different world environment (all three realms practically felt like a different mmorpg).
However, people today can literally reload a different realm 6 minutes after logging. It used to be an hour realm timer. This literally killed the game for me and many of my friends. Thirty of a faction would log off and within 6-minutes, thirty of another faction would log in - usually whatever faction was being led the best in open RvR.
Why I won't go back: Ancient UI and the company is no longer investing in the title outside of tiny little events. Warhammer took all of Mythic's intellectual capacity and dropped a giant turd on it. Dark Age got back-burnered to such an extent that after we were promised a new server that would be modeled after the golden days of the game (a much simpler server and a chance to start over)...the project not only canceled but the player base...the loyal community that had stuck it out and those who had left that had begged on forums for years for this, weren't given so much as the tiniest of explanations. To this day this one little server has been ignored by developers and the pre-conditioned interviewers.
Seriously ridiculous that a company cannot offer 1 more server, especially considering they only have one to begin with.
City of Heroes:
A lot of innovative design, great character creation, game play that remained fun, for me, over years. (I mean I had 20 or 30 max level alts).
Won't go back because NCSoft decided to sacrifice the game for an accounting boost, despite it still making money at its venerable age and status. They then refused all sorts of reasonable deals to buy it out, again probably accounting, and perhaps a bit of not wanting to lose face. Me, I'm not spending another penny on an NCSoft game. So, everything they release is now a 'won't go back' title.
If you are holding out for the perfect game, the only game you play will be the waiting one.
EQ1: Left for City of Heroes because I liked the idea of a superhero theme and I couldn't progress in EQ1 anymore. Because of work I couldn't get up at crazy hours on a moment's notice to raid and sitting at the PC for more than four hours at a time more than once a week took away any chance at having a social life. Plus on top of that eventually the servers just got to a point where one or two superguilds monopolized all upper level content.
I would put this list in the 'not a realistic expectation' category. It would work for a single player game, but not for a MMO in my opinion.