An odd habit that I've noticed people do when playing an MMORPG - particularly amongst the haters.

[ElArabDeMagnifico]

They play it like a single player game.

Why do people do this? People always say "WoW sucks all you do is kill wolves" when they don't join up with parties or interact with the community - or "EVE is boring, you fly places and shoot things" - but never join up with a corp and try raiding a planet or taking down an opposing factions Titan (yeah yeah, easier said than done, as long as you get my point then stay with me here). Hell EVE takes out the grind by letting you just click "train skill" when you want, and then go out and do the fun stuff with your friends.

So, I ask this - do the MMO Haters USUALLY hate MMO's because "they didn't do it right?" I'm trying to see if I'm onto something, or I'm just overthinking.

 

[alloneword]

You, sir are indeed on to something.

But I would like to add something to your notification. Its bad enough that people do this in games like WoW or Eve.. or back in the day: Everquest. But there are MMO's that ENCOURAGE this from the beginning of the game. Two prime examples of this are Guild Wars and Age of Conan.

While the second of the two is much much worse for this, it doesn't help the problem presented above. The players are started off in a single player environment, which for purposes of learning the game I personally think is great. But they they are taken by the seat of their pants and thrown into a huge community of other chosen ones and expected to not play the same way.

This I think is maybe even unfair to the player at this point, not to mention the hundreds of thousands of other players that may miss out.

I think the overall point here is that, for so long, gamers have been groomed for single player, even in games where the WHOLE POINT is to play with other people. That's why Rock Band has a single players mode. Its why they groom you in Age of Conan and Guild Wars. Its logical that people want to learn to play the game. But people are stupid, and conceited and usually forget that they are not the center of the multiverse, thus your problem.

 

[DeadlyFred]

It could possibly just be a simple (though enormously large) rift between people who want to play the game for the experience and fun of it and those who want to make a job out of it. The vast majority of people who play MMORPGs seem to be more interested in the grind, farm, etc aspects of the game than playing through it for simple fun. Though in all honestly I'm beginning to believe that is the sole reason MMORPGs exist and that people who just want to play and enjoy the game in a casual, non crack-junkie fashion are doing it wrong. :/

 

[Fire Daemon]

Mybe people don't like MMO's because they don't want to play a game with other people. That's why I don't play them, I can't stand spending all my time with other people in a videogame.

 

[Iblis]

Why do people do this? People always say "WoW sucks all you do is kill wolves" when they don't join up with parties or interact with the community - or "EVE is boring, you fly places and shoot things" - but never join up with a corp and try raiding a planet or taking down an opposing factions Titan (yeah yeah, easier said than done, as long as you get my point then stay with me here). Hell EVE takes out the grind by letting you just click "train skill" when you want, and then go out and do the fun stuff with your friends.

So, I ask this - do the MMO Haters USUALLY hate MMO's because "they didn't do it right?" I'm trying to see if I'm onto something, or I'm just overthinking.

I was in the most successful guild on Bris server (epic cleric and epic necro). I was in the most successful guild on Saryrn when the server split. I truly loathe MMORPGs now after three years of EQ. Would never touch another. Timesinks with social interactivity, and the grind to keep levelling as the bar was raised and each new expansion was introduced... Still in touch with most of the old guild though. So hardly asocial tendencies.

Does that answer the OP?

 

[GenericWit]

*inserts true story of self*

When I originally started playing WoW when it came out, I *hated* it. I started as a gnome warlock, and I played for about 15 levels (which as a young nub on a PVP server took me roughly 2 hours or so to get to), and I hated it. I hatttteeeddd it because it literally was killing wolves, murlocks, boars, running errands, etc. I stopped playing it. A year later, I started playing it again and *forced* myself to get to level 20 on a human mage in which I experienced VC which is when I became addicted to it.

Obviously, after VC, you have your stocks, SM, etc., and that's when it starts getting fun, IMO. Then again, I'm a person who hates to level from 1-20, and always ends up leveling 60-70 via dungeons alone. It's not that people don't do it right. It's because they don't realize that there's life after "You no take candle!"

And interacting at all in those first ten or twenty levels is hard because the second most people get into a city trade chat, they go running, and if you're on the horde... oh my GOD Barrens... Those first levels pretty much *have* to be solo grinding if it's your first time leveling.

I think before you judge whether you like MMORPGs, you've got to give it a few hours worth of time. Worst case scenario, you wasted a few hours you probably would've otherwise wasted on video games anyway. *shrugs*

 

[babyblues]

Or maybe some people just don't like MMO's. Personally, they just don't float my boat.

 

[DoomBunny]

I find them boring sometimes cause I don't progress, because I'm talking to otherp layers too much

 

[LordCraigus]

For the short amount of time I played it was with my older brother and a few friends, sure we'd do stuff on our own but when we were all online we'd always quest together and stuff. I'm the sort of person who loves it when teamwork comes together in an online game, nevertheless I still got bored of it around Level 20 and none of what I've heard and read about what the game is like at later levels makes me want to try it again.

 

[insectoid]

Some people don't like MMO's because they are scared. I have an addictive personality, and I don't want to get hooked. I have tried WoW, but I didn't really like it (mainly because I couldn't find a good group of people, and couldn't be bothered looking all that hard - yes I know, lazy).

 

[LordBag]

I played WoW from day-1 and joined up with a close friend. I only logged on to play when he was around and we leveled from 1-60 (and then to 70 with release of expansion) always in a group. This is what made it so much fun for me. We would sometimes join up with others for things we couldn't take on our own but mostly was just us two. It was kind of relaxing just sitting back killing some mobs and having a chat.

I don't play anymore though as every time I take up an MMO I never have time to play other games that have just come out.

 

[insectoid]

I don't play anymore though as every time I take up an MMO I never have time to play other games that have just come out.

I think that's one of the other things deterring people from MMO's. When you pay a subscription you feel obliged to play, even if you don't really want to, or if there's a new game you bought you could be playing. Byt the time you need to renew your subscription, it's likely that you will have forgotten about the way the game stopped you doing something else, and the cycle begins again.

 

[Flour]

They play it like a single player game.

Why do people do this? People always say "WoW sucks all you do is kill wolves" when they don't join up with parties or interact with the community - or "EVE is boring, you fly places and shoot things" - but never join up with a corp and try raiding a planet or taking down an opposing factions Titan (yeah yeah, easier said than done, as long as you get my point then stay with me here). Hell EVE takes out the grind by letting you just click "train skill" when you want, and then go out and do the fun stuff with your friends.

So, I ask this - do the MMO Haters USUALLY hate MMO's because "they didn't do it right?" I'm trying to see if I'm onto something, or I'm just overthinking.

Try finding people to play with if you're playing on an old server or are a slow leveler.
In the few MMO's I've played, people always raced to get to max level as fast as possible and then only played to PvP, MVP/Raid or turn the game in some chatroom you have to pay for.
I joined a few guilds in WoW and most of the time I was one of the lower leveled players so most of the conversations were:

Guild: "Flour, hurry up and level so we can do "
Me: "Sure, I'll hurry if you tell me where to level"
Guild: ""
[One hour later]
Guild: "Hey, Flour, still not leveled?"
Me: "As I said before, leveling goes slow when you don't know where to level"

I understand it doesn't always go like this, I have had it better, but it appears as if there's some magical 20 level barrier in WoW, break that and nobody wants to help you anymore. Only once, in the night after some event at 4am after playing for nearly 8 months did I find a group of level 60's that agreed to help my poor level 24 Tauren druid get some equips in Gnomeregan.(it's rare that a level 60 would actually help me, even rarer that it were 3 people that agreed to help me, but it's almost unthinkable that they would ride for nearly 40 minutes through human and dwarven lands, extremely close to the dwarven capital to help me kill the bosses in that instance).

I nearly forgot the point I was trying to make.. Oh yeah, even the most motivated player would quit when he's trying to talk to people and those people just ignore him because his level isn't high enough, or he chose the wrong class.

 

[Cab00se206]

The fact that all the haters do this is *probably* not a huge coincidence. I'm one of the haters, and my 2 chief complaints are the lack of any sort of narrative to draw you into the game (aside from backstory, which fills up 90% of the manual) and the motherfucking grind.

I think that the market for single-player story driven games and MMORPGs are rather exclusive, and this probably contributes to this phenomenon.

 

[Brett Alex]

I understand it doesn't always go like this, I have had it better, but it appears as if there's some magical 20 level barrier in WoW, break that and nobody wants to help you anymore. Only once, in the night after some event at 4am after playing for nearly 8 months did I find a group of level 60's that agreed to help my poor level 24 Tauren druid get some equips in Gnomeregan.(it's rare that a level 60 would actually help me, even rarer that it were 3 people that agreed to help me, but it's almost unthinkable that they would ride for nearly 40 minutes through human and dwarven lands, extremely close to the dwarven capital to help me kill the bosses in that instance).

I nearly forgot the point I was trying to make.. Oh yeah, even the most motivated player would quit when he's trying to talk to people and those people just ignore him because his level isn't high enough, or he chose the wrong class.

While I agree there is some prejudice in terms of class, well more spec (try getting in a group as a feral DPS druid or pre-raiding endgame instances as spriest, or just about anything as a survival hunter) the brilliant thing about WoW is that leveling doesn't require a guild or high level help. It can be easier if you have some class or profession based quests that you cant find people of the same level to do (Blood Elf pally lvl 20 quest) but if you just wanna go straight to 70 you can use people the same level as you.

Most quests don't need more than one person. In fact even if you are a druid, warlock, hunter or pally you can even do group quests with great ease. If you need gear upgrades from instances then just Pug. Pug pug pug and then pug again. The pugging system, while it does have its flaws, is really really great for quickly finding people to run instances or even do some large group quests. The more instances you run, the more people you meet and more chance you have of joining a guild, or even just finding mates that'll be able to help you.

if there were people not talking to you cause you were too low then chances are their cocks, but if you still wanna know stuff, go online. There is literal tons of information about just about everything online. Start with this [http://thottbot.com/] as its the most reliable, but also check out here [http://thottbot.com/] if you want more strategy and player opinion. For example, you would be able to find out that just about no-one on the horde runs Gnomer, its too far away, to painfully long, too close to Ally territory, too much effort etc. If you were still keen you would be able to find the lvl 20ish quest that takes 5 minutes and gives you a re-usable direct teleport into Gnomer. If you kept reading you'd find you could get more appropriate gear for a 24 Druid from Wailing Caverns or Razorfen Kraul.

If you didn't do instances cause the people you spoke to ignored you (I can't see why, if you were a druid and your guild cared at all about arena they should have been clamoring to get you to go Dreamstate at 70), then you missed out on the some of the most fun and rewarding parts of the game, cause instances are where you feel like you've accomplished something and are also where you meet other players.

 

[DeadlyFred]

It's not even so much just the lack of a decent story, though those are always nice. The current "stock" MMORPG design just seems incredibly geared towards people who want to spend as much time on the game as humanly possible. It's like a paradox, with mainstream console games tending to clock in under 10 hours of game time, to PC MMORPGs which are essentially endless and require more and more time to be put into "playing" them.

I don't hate people (haha, did I just say that?!), I don't hate games with lots of people. I just wish MMORPGs were geared towards actually playing rather than pointless, menial repetition that ultimately amounts to nothing but nerd bragging rights. Though again-- maybe that IS the point. For as much as new and "innovative" MMORPGs promise to eliminate grind and make the gameplay more meaningful,it never seems to materialize.

 

[videot76]

And of course, in the case of Age of Conan the PvP element has been broken since launch four months ago and is still not fixed, and for the rest of the game I can only say it's hard to be a team player when you are the only one currently connected to the server...

 

[Aurora219]

I played WoW for 2 and a half years. As soon as I put the game online for the first time, friends were there helping me, teaching me the game, aiding my internal knowledge of the game and generally making it an enjoyable experience.

As I levelled, I started to know this guild who had adopted me since level one. They showed me respect and I showed them that I was a person who knew the social aspects of the game and was not afraid to help anyone with any troubles they were having. Before I hit 60 I was an officer.

Once TBC hit, our guild split, non-raiders and raiders. I went with the raiders, and from there on, the game slowly died. Don't get me wrong, it was fun, but you could notice the rot creeping in from the corners. People cared more about their character than other people. So I carried on being an officer, trying to do what I always did, but realised that as time went by, I was slowly becoming more obsolete in my role.

It got to the point where I concluded that far too many of our fellow raiders couldn't give a damn who they were raiding with. They were just counting the days to their next item like a crack addict. So I quit, just as AoC came out.

Aaand AoC did almost the same thing. Grind grind grind, felt like a second job, I left that too. Even though I had the largest guild on the server as my own, a flourishing town, a forum up and running.. None of it was worth the time put in. Truly sad.

I'm not done with MMOs just yet. But by god, I don't want one as a second job. Anything that requires minimum of 6 hours a day just to get by can go screw itself. I'd rather play tetris.

 

[Flour]

While I agree there is some prejudice in terms of class, well more spec (try getting in a group as a feral DPS druid or pre-raiding endgame instances as spriest, or just about anything as a survival hunter) the brilliant thing about WoW is that leveling doesn't require a guild or high level help. It can be easier if you have some class or profession based quests that you cant find people of the same level to do (Blood Elf pally lvl 20 quest) but if you just wanna go straight to 70 you can use people the same level as you.

Most quests don't need more than one person. In fact even if you are a druid, warlock, hunter or pally you can even do group quests with great ease. If you need gear upgrades from instances then just Pug. Pug pug pug and then pug again. The pugging system, while it does have its flaws, is really really great for quickly finding people to run instances or even do some large group quests. The more instances you run, the more people you meet and more chance you have of joining a guild, or even just finding mates that'll be able to help you.

You just confirmed that the second "M" in "MMO" doesn't apply to WoW until you're level 70(soon 80?)
The whole reason for MMO's is that second "M" and the interaction it gives with other people enjoying the same game.
Remove the "M" and you get a huge reason why most people don't play MMO's

if there were people not talking to you cause you were too low then chances are their cocks, but if you still wanna know stuff, go online. There is literal tons of information about just about everything online. Start with this [http://thottbot.com/] as its the most reliable, but also check out here [http://thottbot.com/] if you want more strategy and player opinion. For example, you would be able to find out that just about no-one on the horde runs Gnomer, its too far away, to painfully long, too close to Ally territory, too much effort etc. If you were still keen you would be able to find the lvl 20ish quest that takes 5 minutes and gives you a re-usable direct teleport into Gnomer. If you kept reading you'd find you could get more appropriate gear for a 24 Druid from Wailing Caverns or Razorfen Kraul.

If you didn't do instances cause the people you spoke to ignored you (I can't see why, if you were a druid and your guild cared at all about arena they should have been clamoring to get you to go Dreamstate at 70), then you missed out on the some of the most fun and rewarding parts of the game, cause instances are where you feel like you've accomplished something and are also where you meet other players.

Already stopped playing, but when I did play, I had all the addons and sites to help me finish quests. That was one of the first things I learned from WoW, nobody will help you and instances are best ignored until a healer asks if you want to go there.
I brought up Gnomeregan because that was the only time I ever had a level 60 that agreed to help a low level not in his or her guild.(they had never seen the inside of Gnomeregan, I and since I was a bit too low level, all drops gave me something to work towards)

I know grouping is the major selling point of any MMO, but once again, almost nobody groups unless it benefits that person and that's the major flaw of almost every MMO.
Heck, I started a priest, got to 20, found out I was too high for deadmines, too low for any other instance and it was impossible to solo(it appeared as if it was a sin to help/talk to a priest outside of an instance) I have made every class multiple times on multiple servers and always as soon as people hit level 20 they ignored everybody unless there was a quest they had to do.