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How many mmos have you actually completed?
FomaldehydeJim
Member UncommonPosts: 673
I define "completed" for the purposes of this thread as "reached level cap". I am excluding endgame, rinse and repeat, gear grinds; however, I would include a continuing story post level-cap (eg. GW1) as part of the pre-end-game experience.
I was thinking of all the mmo's I have tried over the years and how few of them I have actually completed (and by "complete" I mean "reached level cap"). As a bit of background I spend probably an hour or so most days gaming and I have tried the vast majority of AAA mmos (and several sub-AAAs) released since 2004, and I have reached cap in the following (in no particular order): -
- WOW vanilla and TBC with one character,
- GW1 many times with many characters plus a lot of time spent capping and in pvp,
- SWTOR with two characters,
- Neverwinter with one character,
- Rift with one character (pre-expansion),
- AOC with one character,
- Defiance (at least I have completed the rather short story several times).
- Pirate 101 with one character.
And despite all the mmos I have played for varying periods of time, that is the full list of mmos in which I have reached level cap (I may have forgotten a couple). That is eight out of a very conservative estimate of thirty- a hit rate of less than one in three.
As for end game I have only played it in vanilla WOW and GW1 (in the latter, end game was essentially capping skills, aesthetic items, achievements, and pvp). This is at least in part due to having more free-time when these games were in their prime.
This realisation led me to wonder whether I just have an incredibly short attention span, but then I thought of all the single player games I have happily completed over the same period. They are far, far too numerous to list, but the list would contain all the usual suspects and a lot of smaller indie games. On top of this I have spent many hours in online pvp shooters, pvp racing and the like.
The mmos I have played to cap generally have the following in common: They either have/had a strong solo story element and/or a strong community at the time I played and/or a very swift levelling curve. I can discount the latter (swift levelling curve) as it is not something that would compel me to play but it is something that would deliver me swiftly to level cap even without any intention to commit to the game.
When I consider my reasons for leaving mmos they are several, but I would list the top three as:
- Weak/ rude/ selfish/ disinterested communities,
- Anti-social gameplay mechanics and particularly solo-centric levelling and hub-towns where you queue for zerg-dungeons. I would caveat this point to the effect that anti-social gameplay can often be tempered by a strong solo story. i.e. I can play an anti-social mmo if the story is strong enough to distract from the fact it is a poor "mmo".
- A lack of immersion created by invasive cash shops, excessive fast travel, limited character customization etc.
The problem with an anti-social mmo is that if you are essentially completing it as a solo game- well- single-player games tend to have a better solo experience so I am likely to shut down the mmo and go play one of those instead.
Alternatively, if I am playing it as a hub-town based dungeon zerg or pvp arena... well I generally find that those experiences are also better served by online co-op modes or online arena shooters (which importantly tend not to have the unfair gear advantage which turn me off any mmo pvp). So, again, I shut down the mmo and go play those instead.
I am not intending to reach any particular conclusion here, I am just sharing my experience of mmos and the reason why I am inclined to walk away from them rather swiftly if they do not meet my expectations.
TL:DR I have played significantly less than 1/3 of the, mostly AAA, mmos I have tried through to level cap; I go on to muse as to why and meander about a bit before failing to reach a conclusion.
Anyway, I am wondering if this is the norm, are other people as quick to discard a game that does not suit them. What is your hit rate with reaching level cap in mmos?
Comments
I don't think ive ever hit level cap on any MMO (I don't play any the game starts at level cap theme parks)
I just build a PVP character and I'm good to go.
Waiting for:
The Repopulation
Albion Online
Only a fraction of the ones I've played. But with those where I did hit level cap, I usually did it several times over.
I had a ton of 50's on City of Heroes, several 90's last time I played WoW during MoP, a good bunch of sixties on Swtor, etc...
On the other hand there are plenty of MMOs where I barely made it past level ten before leaving, or lost interest somewhere in the mid range.
So you're definitely not the only one.
My SWTOR referral link for those wanting to give the game a try. (Newbies get a welcome package while returning players get a few account upgrades to help with their preferred status.)
https://www.ashesofcreation.com/ref/Callaron/
WoW (TBC) multiple times
GW1 multiple times - Doesn't mean much, it's fast. But GF and I both enjoyed it (our post-WoW game)
Honestly, the rest of the list of games I've played, none even got close to cap. A few maybe halfway.
EDIT: hit rate? 2 in 10 and then pretty much gave up. Watch the reviews, read the info, games drop off my radar for various reasons and I eventually got tired of looking (found something else to play).
Reached level cap or equivalent (total characters)
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
Mission in life: Vanquish all MMORPG.com trolls - especially TESO, WOW and GW2 trolls.
That was the very first point in my post.
Would you beleive me if I said Lineage II? Well, Im alive so you know its not possible.
Played WoW, and swtor to lvl cap even with expansions for both. Played some other mmos came close to cap but stopped.
Warhammer online I stopped just before lvl cap. Just wasnt epic enough for me, and I also was not happy with the class I selected when other classes had clear advantages.
Write bad things that are done to you in sand, but write the good things that happen to you on a piece of marble
I actually kind of liked Warhammer when it first came out, but the appeal was limited. That really was a bit of a disaster... so much so I had actually forgotten about its existence until you reminded me.
Earth & Beyond - One Character
SWG - 2 characters
City of Heroes - 2 characters
Pirates of the Burning Sea - 3 characters
Fallen Earth - One Character
Age of Conan - One Character
STO - 2 Characters
SWTOR - One Character
TSW - One character
Played: E&B, SWG, Eve, WoW, COH, WAR, POTBS, AOC, LOTRO, AUTO.A, AO, FE, TR, WWII, MWO, TSW, SWTOR, GW2, NWO, WoP, RUST, LIF, SOA, MORTAL, DFUW, AA, TF, PFO, ALBO, and many many others....
Couldn't take reading past this.
Yes, this probably is the "norm" which is why today's games suck so very, very much.
Calling max level "completion" is a laughably bad definition.
If you haven't completed a game (done everything) then how can you claim you completed the game?
Why are people so fixated on level? ...many of whom are the same people accusing modern gamers of being fixated on the destination instead of the journey (while they're ironically the ones fixating on one destination (max level) while being blind to the rest of the journey.)
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Max level or main story is enough to weed out a lot of people for many different titles, I support using "completed" for the purpose of this thread.
AOC - 6 characters +endgame completion
Aion - 2 characters up to the latest expansion + endgame completion
Tera - 5 Chracters up to the latest expansion + endgame completion
Rift - 2 characters
GW2 - 2 characters
For the purpose of this thread and why it is kinda relevant.
ArcheAge - did not complete
ESO - did not complete
Eve - well this one just isn't fair
Age of Wushu - did not complete
Black Gold online - did not complete
Archlord 2 - did not complete
Fiirefall - did not complete
FF XIV - did not complete
Skyforge - did not complete
Wildstar - did not complete
Echo of Soul - did not complete
Maybe a thread titles "how many games have you walked away from" would be better though.
Real completion, as done everything in it... NONE.
I self identify as a monkey.
I am using the word "completion" as shorthand for "reaching level cap"; you can replace the word with "aardvark" for all I care. I do not care if people have "done everything" in an mmo; it is really of no interest to me. Frankly I would find it incredibly odd if anyone other than a rather obsessive and tiny minority of mmo players had "done everything".
I am merely using level cap as a measure of how much of the content people actually play in MMOs, and since level cap is an easily identifiable target it make far more sense to use this than some airy reference to gaining some silly sparkly gear or repeating some endgame dungeon x number of times.
You are getting a little pointlessly hung up on semantics.
However, if referring to just MMO games in general, beyond MMORPG's... Couldn't even tell you a for sure number. But guessing since my start of pc gaming? Perhaps 60 or so.
Reaching level cap is not the same, you can do that and still have relatively little knowledge of the game, and certainly does not give any indication of how much of the games content has been explored, and gives absolutely not indication of anything the character in the game might have achieved, assuming achieved anything other than reached level cap.
In short, reaching level cap means that they reached max level, it does not mean they experienced the game in any meaningful fashion nor mean that they have even played the game that much, not these days, that much is certain.
A more 'meaningful' statement would have been, they had played x amount of hours or days etc playing a game, as it would give more of an indication as to what they had actually done, far more so in an MMO than whether they had reached max level or not, just as an example you could easily reach max levels in WoW, SW;TOR, FFXIV;ARR etc, and have barely touched the game, levelling is that easy, doesn't mean they played much of the game though, and this really is not a matter of semantics.
Assuming two things: 1. The game was designed for strong appeal to a specific demographic (type of player, age group, etc), and 2. The game released in finished condition as intended.
Then the conclusion I come to, when I play a game and can't force myself past low level content is: I'm not in the game's target market.
When applied that most games are ones I feel this way about, my conclusion: I'm not in the genre's target market.
Levelcap do I hit all in games I play for more than a short test.(but I was a bit below it back in Meridian 59).
The only MMO/CORPG I completed is Guildwars though, it actually have an endscene for each campaign and the expansion. Just getting to levelcap today in a MMO is hardly an achivement and it far from completes the game. Right now I have 8 max level chars in the game I play (GW2).
Of all the MMOs I've played, Wizard 101 is the only one I've completed. It was a pretty great feeling too, knowing I had beaten every dungeon in the game. Most MMOs I've played, I ended up quitting when I was 2/3 or 3/4 of the way up the level curve, at that point where you start getting disgusting quests like "Kill 50 of these and 50 of those." On top of that, if you die a few times you lose almost as much XP as you are gaining.
Ok lets see,
DaoC: 3 lvl 50 characters
Wow: Only 1 capped Character have a couple at 60
AoC: 1 capped character
Aion: 2 capped characters
Warhammer: 1 capped character RIP
ESO: 1 capped character.
GW2 : 1 capped character.
I played quite a few other games but never got my toon to lvl cap. Cheers.
How many games have you completed all available content, and then seen closed?
Two.
How many games have you completed all available content, and are still up and running?
Five.
How many multiplayer online RPGs did you devote multiple years to, pre-graphics/1997?
Three.
Oldskoolcred established? Of course not.