My biggest gripes/annoyances about MMORPG's

[Hey Joe]

My main problems with most MMORPG's are just the people playing the game. If they're just cool people who are going to show you what to do and where to go, then I don't mind, but it's the arseholes that make me steer clear.

You know, the ones that yell "n00b!" while casting spells you have no chance of counteracting because your level 1 paladin is sitting there with a stupid grin on his face. The people you meet in the particular world make or break the game.

I don't mind an endless grind if there are some cool people to hang out with while you're doing it. I also think that there should be a compulsory IQ test issued with each copy of the game, and if you fall below 105, you get booted. Also, not running into a rat and being killed instantly would be nice for once...

 

[Terramax]

The only problem I have with MMORPGs is none bar FFXI have I been able to make friends on them.

I've played World of Warcraft, Uru Online, RF Online and a few of those free ones and the first thing I tried to do on all of them was to talk to some people. But no one wanted to.

I would use the /shout or whatever the equivilant was to ask for help or for some friends and still no-one would reply.

For me, that destroys the whole point of going online. Even on FPS games, I'll get bored after a while if there's not at least one person to meet up with.

 

[Melaisis]

Customer to Developer communication:There is no direct communication between the two, instead players post thier concerns on the Forums, which is then read by the CM of each respective forum, abridged to highlight the main points and then sent to the developer. Its understandable, and saves the Developer reading through long walls of text, yet it's not exactly the same in practice. Most structured threads are seemingly ignored (there is no confirmation as to whether the post has been read or not unless the CM actually posts)while other 'whine threads' are acknowledged.

This is actually an issue for many online-based games (and some offline, as the lurking Bethesda manager will kindly inform us also). We're all smart enough to realise that, out of every aspect of the community, the developers have the most contact with the leaders of the game's main fansites. This is for obvious reasons, of course, as the fansites provide good, free promotion for the game and every time a developer/CM talks to the manager of one, they don't get their head bitten off. Sadly for the rest of us, an immense amount of brown-nosing seems to occur. Unless we're talking about WoW-Radio here; which is more critical of the game than most of the forums.

The latter part of that sentence also signifies why developers employ CMs in the first place. I know everyone here at the Escapist forums are literate and nice and are willing to compromise when it comes to playing a lot of games. But guess what: People like us are the minority. If the developers were to trawl through the mass of trash talk and whining about 'imbalance' which makes up four fifths of their own forums (or even allow themselves to be contacted by said morons directly), then none of us would ever be listened to because of the irrational pressure put on by the majority of the fanbase. CMs are there to edit the best, most popular and sane points and forward them for consideration.

'Most popular' is also key here. Whilst CMs do a great job at focusing on the main, positive parts of what the fanbase has to say (constructive-wise, at least) there are parts where just the mass of obvious idiocy has snowballed to the point around a certain issue where it simply cannot be ignored and the CM in charge still be deemed 'sane'. Which is where whine threads are acknowledged, I suppose.

Any CM will tell you that they do try and focus on the more constructive and coherent arguments, but sometimes the large percentage of idiocy just takes priority. They are paying customers too, you know.

 

[PhoenixFlame]

This is actually an issue for many online-based games (and some offline, as the lurking Bethesda manager will kindly inform us also). We're all smart enough to realise that, out of every aspect of the community, the developers have the most contact with the leaders of the game's main fansites. This is for obvious reasons, of course, as the fansites provide good, free promotion for the game and every time a developer/CM talks to the manager of one, they don't get their head bitten off. Sadly for the rest of us, an immense amount of brown-nosing seems to occur. Unless we're talking about WoW-Radio here; which is more critical of the game than most of the forums.

With some very few exceptions, official forums for MMO games are awful cesspools. Because the company lacks the resources or desire to properly guide the discussion, all it turns into is a TV with two channels: Whine and LOL, and the volume stuck all the way up. I'm interested in games like the upcoming Warhammer Online, as EA Mythic's stance is not to have forums, relying on fansites instead to provide them with the community feedback they need. This appears to have worked out well for them in DAoC so with a potentially bigger community with WAR we will see.

To the topic, I dislike two things about MMO's - as mentioned before, the people is one big thing. I am very selective with the friends I make in MMO's, mostly because most of them are socially inept or annoying. That's not elitism - that's just me commenting on the typical behavior of many MMO players. But the people who I do play with are great folks and that's a big part of why I keep playing them. The people can piss you off in an MMO - you just have to learn to pick who you choose to grind away with.

The second thing I find annoying is the whole "second job" mentality, and how infuriating some game designs make it so as to necessitate spending hours in the game to get somewhere. Now, I understand the business appeal of such a design but I really would hope that MMO's in the future will not be a matter of who can sit in front of a computer screen the longest but how they have built their characters. Multiple paths to the same goal of ideal character development can and should be viable, but the mentality of some MMO's is the carrot on a stick, 20-40 hour a week marathon, which is awful when you consider how the time could be better spent. MMO's sometimes prey on people's inability to discipline their own playtime and I think that there just could be a better way of designing them so it wasn't a requirement.

 

[Cooper42]

Gah. The entire lack of RP in mmoRPgs?

RPG seems to have more meaning in line with JRPG grinding, clicking mouse pointers or crosshairs on other characters/players until they 'die', vast but boring NPC talk trees and the ability to swap icons for one another...

Nothing to do with actual roleplay - few communities really support this. EVE had some potential - especially given that vast swathes of the game area were entirely under the control of player factions. But the RP was always pretty weak.

Seed (which the escapist did a great post-mortem on: http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/issues/issue_70/407-Seed-on-the-Road ) Was /really/ promising for an RP-centric game - non-combat, political RP as central to the game. Objects were always more than icons, the game society entirely structured by the players (very little forced background story) and it looked so damned good too.
I still mourn it.