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(warning: long) Extreme burnout, or is there no MMOG for me?
Negative71
Member Posts: 162
(warning: this will be quite long by the time I'm done. Sorry for the length.. I'm partially venting, partially trying to spark some thought processes)
I had hoped coming here and seeing a list of everything available, and all the comments on each game, (all taken with a grain of salt, of course.. knowing that the majority of people are more likely to post something negative about whatever than they are to post positively) would get me out of my current funk. On the contrary, it's made my funk worse.
First of all, due to my likes and dislikes, probably 2/3rd to 3/4th of the MMOs are on my do-not-try list. I am SO sick of the fantasy-genre, swords-and-sorcery bit.. did the pen-and-paper bit since the days of regular D&D, (the one that came in boxes of softcover books) then AD&D 1st Edition, then AD&D games on the PC, then Dragon Swords MUD, then things like Warcraft 1 & 2 and Diablo 1 & 2.. so all those like EQ and DaoC and AC are eliminated. I also loathe anime and anime-like games.. so FF MCMLXXXIV or whatever it's up to now and stuff like Ragnarok Online are also eliminated from the list of possibilities.
All that leaves me with are the sci-fi games, which is a genre I definitely like, and the real-life-like/historical stuff. I started out in Earth and Beyond. I burned out on that after taking two characters over L135.. but I still pay for one of my accounts (the one with my L150 JE) so I don't lose the character.
For a break from that, I went to The Sims Online.. UGH.. what a dump. I got a bit of good out of it that wasn't expected, (like a girlfriend IRL) but all the perverts that infest the game pretty much disgusted me out of my subscriptions. (that, and there's not much to do unless you're a hardcore socialite)
Since my g/f is pretty deeply into the history of ancient Egypt, we both went to A Tale In The Desert. I have no real gripe with ATITD, which is one of the reasons I keep my account active even though I don't visit it much, but it just doesn't pull me in anymore. Somewhere around the time we amassed two upgraded flax gins and four of the huge ore processors, I lost the urge to keep trying to get new stuff.
OK, so this makes the second game my g/f will have influenced my decisions on, but we both decided to get into SWG from there. We picked it up on the first day of release, and we've been playing that steadily ever since.. I'm not ready to depart it yet, but I am severely burned out right now and this isn't the first time it has happened. We own a player city on each of two different servers, and we're both trying to get master-level crafting skills on as many servers as we can. It's a goal that both keeps us playing and adds to the burnout.
The first episode of burnout led me to try AO. Not a bad game, really.. something I might go back to someday.. but it also doesn't do it for me at present. Doesn't compel me to keep coming back. I let my account expire there. I'm also not wild about them apparently hedging their bets by including a quasi-fantasy setting with the Shadowlands. It seems to me like they don't truly think their pure sci-fi world can stand on its own. (not saying that's the case, it's just the impression I get)
OK, now I'm up to the present. I did some poking around between different forums/websites. Places like Penny Arcade's forum.. the occasional Stratics (bleh) link.. and then I ended up here. Seeing the Game List gave me a little bit of hope at first but now leaves me rather less than confident about finding something.
- Thought about Neocron several times in the past.. but from what I see of their player base, I'm now a bit disgusted with 'em. (fixing user ratings on here to make their game look better? If I wanted to deal with that mentality of player, I'd install Counter-Suck)
- I really wouldn't mind trying Jumpgate, but it seems US players are shafted there. I can't even tell if their expansion has been installed on the US server, and even if it was, I never see more than like 73 pilots on their server info. Hell, E&B has that many pilots in some SECTORS. I'm not one who needs to socialize a lot, but seeing numbers that low doesn't exactly fill me with confidence.
- I've tried installing and running Project Entropia.. but after taking over 2 hours just to get the install updated, I can't even get onto their server to actually PLAY it.
- Maybe it's just my E&B player bias, but I can't get enthused for EVE. Too many people did the grass-is-greener routine when EVE was in beta and claimed it would be the end of E&B.. (they said the same of SWG ending E&B.. neither did.. they also said in SWG that FFXI would be the end of SWG.. it hasn't been.. even when you know that kind of talk is false, doesn't mean that it isn't annoying) Most people who talk of EVE say it's boring.. but they say the same about Jumpgate and I wouldn't mind playing that.. so who knows?
- Planetside is more than likely out for me. I just can't get past the fact that I have two valid CD-keys for Tribes 2 that would seem to give me the same gameplay without the monthly fee.
The rest of them on the list are either MMO-RTS or just look kinda cheesy.
Sorry again for the length of this.. I'm just trying to figure out if it's either extreme burnout or if I'm really S.O.L. when it comes to MMOGs. If it colors any possible feedback to read this, I just took the Bartle test today and got this breakdown:
Explorer 86%
Achiever 53%
Killer 33%
Socializer 26%
If you made it this far, thanks for taking the time to read. I hope, in return for the torturous length of this post, that maybe all this will spark some thoughts in you as to what you want out of these games.
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-- Death to picture-sigs. --
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Comments
I read it all! woot! Wow, it's dark outside....
Well it seems you've tried almost every game there is. Sadly to say the most recent game out is FFXI but you said in your post you didn't like it.
On a lighter note, a whole batch of MMORPG's are coming out in 2004, i suggest you keep your eyes peeled for some in the near future.
The core question becomes:
What is it you want from a MMOG?
I realize that's a simple question with a complicated answer, but you have to start there.
I'm in my 8th year of hardcore MMO gaming. I've found that every once in a while I have to step back and ask myself what it is I'm really looking for. The engines of the games you play often dictate how you play the game, and in my opinion that's often times a bad thing. Once you stop playing the way you want to play and start playing the way you "have to" play you start to not have fun.
Perhaps if you reevaluate your goals you might find some of the games you've tried to be fun again. You certainly gave them a fair shake and you sounded pretty objective in your subjectivity (ick, that sounded lame). If nothing else, try some single player gaming for a while and see what really floats your boat and try to look for that again in a MMOG.
http://www.andreasen.org/bartle/stats.cgi
You might try looking this over for EAK type games.
And what Ianubisi said.
-=-=-=-=-
"elimination of any downtime and you don't have a chance to really talk. The result is no one gives a crap who you are. It's so incredibly anti-community building." - Brad McQuid (sigil games, maker of EQ)
A: 93% E: 55% S:3% K: 50%
Games and players have a type. What type are you? click here learn what it means here.
-=-=-=-=-
Achievers realise that killers as a concept are necessary in order to make achievement meaningful and worthwhile (there being no way to "lose" the game if any fool can "win" just by plodding slowly unchallenged). -bartle
Bartle: A: 93% E: 55% S:3% K: 50% The Test. Learn what it means here.
Quick update.. well, quicker than the behemoth post at the top. *snicker*
I went ahead and signed up for the 10-day free trial of Jumpgate, after finding the answers I was looking for regarding it. Don't know that I'll stay.. don't know that I'll leave.. but it's added perspective.
As for single-player gaming.. I've done that off and on all during the time in question. (the jump from MUDs, etc. to MMOGs) SimCity 4, plus expansion.. Red Alert 2.. Tropico, plus expansion.. Giants: Citizen Kabuto.. old emulator games.. (NES and arcade, mainly) even dug up things like Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri (plus expansion) and also Transport Tycoon Deluxe. Also some multiplayer (non-MMOG) with Battlefield: 1942 (plus both expansions) and Tribes 2. As you can see, quite a bit of the single-player/multi-player-non-MMO stuff has been covered already. Hell, I've even been playing Mahjongg again.. on places like Popcap.
What I want out of a MMOG.. well that's going to take much more time than I have tonight.. and I'm not even 100% sure at all times what all of that is. If I had to give a quick answer, I'd say a MMOG set in the Babylon 5 universe.. with roughly equal attention given to on-foot and in-space activities. Note that this is not meant to be a final answer, just something that I'd blurt out if asked to sum it up quickly.
I'll try to return to this more in detail later. I realize that the "what do you want" question is more than likely a rhetorical one.. but fleshing it out a bit may get more thoughts going. If not for myself, or the others responding here, then hopefully for someone who might be looking to make or alter a MMOG.
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-- Death to picture-sigs. --
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