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It's not how long you played the game. It's how much fun you had along the way.
Quizzical
Member LegendaryPosts: 25,499
Sometimes I see people around here say that they played a game for a few weeks and then quit, as though this makes the game a failure. But how long you played a game is the wrong question to ask.
What's more important is, did you have fun playing the game for those few weeks? If you had a blast for a few weeks, but then decided to move on, then what are you complaining about? You just had a great few weeks.
If the game was boring right from the start, and you finally gave up after a few weeks, then the problem is that the game was boring. If you had slogged through it for an entire year in hope of the ever-unfulfilled promise that there was something better just around the corner, would that really make it better? Hardly; that would waste an entire year of your gaming time rather than only a few weeks.
Now, these do tend to be correlated. You tend to keep playing a game if you're having fun and quit if you aren't. But the correlation is imperfect, and that matters.
To take an example from my own history, I played WoW for somewhat over a year. For most of that time, it wasn't really bad enough to quit, but wasn't really good enough to justify continuing to play. It was kind of okay, and I mostly kept playing out of inertia and the lack of a better idea.
When I quit WoW, I wasn't sure if I'd later return. Two weeks later, it was abundantly obvious that I could never go back to WoW. I was having fun again, this time in A Tale in the Desert, and it had been quite a while since I had enjoyed WoW like that.
In contrast, I played Spiral Knights for about four months. But that was a great four months. I was aware at the time that it was something special, and to this day, Spiral Knights has the best combat I've seen in an online game--and there isn't a close second.
But while Spiral Knights is a fun game, it's not a long game. It doesn't have anywhere near as much hand-crafted content as WoW. Once I had played through what I cared to do quite enough times, I moved on.
I had a lot more fun in my four months of Spiral Knights than a year+ of WoW. And I say that matters. To this day, I'll recommend Spiral Knights to people under suitable circumstances, but rarely WoW.
What's more important is, did you have fun playing the game for those few weeks? If you had a blast for a few weeks, but then decided to move on, then what are you complaining about? You just had a great few weeks.
If the game was boring right from the start, and you finally gave up after a few weeks, then the problem is that the game was boring. If you had slogged through it for an entire year in hope of the ever-unfulfilled promise that there was something better just around the corner, would that really make it better? Hardly; that would waste an entire year of your gaming time rather than only a few weeks.
Now, these do tend to be correlated. You tend to keep playing a game if you're having fun and quit if you aren't. But the correlation is imperfect, and that matters.
To take an example from my own history, I played WoW for somewhat over a year. For most of that time, it wasn't really bad enough to quit, but wasn't really good enough to justify continuing to play. It was kind of okay, and I mostly kept playing out of inertia and the lack of a better idea.
When I quit WoW, I wasn't sure if I'd later return. Two weeks later, it was abundantly obvious that I could never go back to WoW. I was having fun again, this time in A Tale in the Desert, and it had been quite a while since I had enjoyed WoW like that.
In contrast, I played Spiral Knights for about four months. But that was a great four months. I was aware at the time that it was something special, and to this day, Spiral Knights has the best combat I've seen in an online game--and there isn't a close second.
But while Spiral Knights is a fun game, it's not a long game. It doesn't have anywhere near as much hand-crafted content as WoW. Once I had played through what I cared to do quite enough times, I moved on.
I had a lot more fun in my four months of Spiral Knights than a year+ of WoW. And I say that matters. To this day, I'll recommend Spiral Knights to people under suitable circumstances, but rarely WoW.
Comments
Some of my best gaming experiences (Portal 2, Dishonored, The Room ....) are short but sweet.
That doesn't mean every game should be long, just that it would be good to have one game that you can play for years with the same group of friends.
It is about having fun with the gameplay. Other players are just AI. Now that is just me ... but given how many here decry the lack of community, i have a feeling that I am not the only one.
But that's an MMO. Lots of players coming together doing their own thing sometimes together and sometimes solo. So it's all good.
I agree with the op as there are some games in which I only enjoy certain parts or zones in the game. So my goal is not to max a character but to enjoy the game. So, some games I have played off an on for years and have several characters, none of which are maxed.
Some games I come back to, create a starting character and play through the starting zones because that was the best part of the game for me.
Games That have given me the most fun I end up with every class maxed. Because I enjoyed playing the game just that much, and still play it.
"We all do the best we can based on life experience, point of view, and our ability to believe in ourselves." - Naropa "We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are." SR Covey
In an mmorpg setting, longevity I would say has just as much weight. Since a mmos traditionally are sorta suppose to be an endless game that you journey through with others. Although that is not true in many of the newer games.
Without longevity you cannot build a solid community, a guild, work towards longterm goals with your team. That is at its core what a mmo is about. It is not about a solo journey and simple story line. That is what an offline rpg is designed for.
Honestly without longevity you remove what makes mmos different then game with a simple online multiplayer feature.
Not to say there is anything wrong with not having games with longevity that designed for short burst of fun gameplay, but they should not be MMOs.
I had fun in some MMOs without zero longevity .... for example .. i enjoy warframe as a 3rd person shooter for a while. I don't need friends or community to do that.
Why play something you dislike or find tedious? Likewise, why quit something that may seem to require countless hours if one is having a blast playing it?