Poll: Just how much do you guys like MMOs?

[kelevra]

So, I've been watching the rise in multiplayer centric games for a while now, and I must say... I am deeply disturbed. I love socialising as much as any guy... but with other people in the room. I game in the same way that I read, that's to say to escape somewhere for a while not inhabited by people- whom I deal alot with every day at varsity and at work.

Its not to say that story driven (well written, engaging) single player games are going to die out, it just seems like they're going to become more rare over time. That makes me sad, because I love gaming- have since I first played Rogue Squadron on the N64. But I wont be playing SW:TOR, even though I loved KOTOR 1 & 2 because I hate having people break into my little escape world. There's no getting away from it even on roleplaying servers, so I think I'm going to probably wind up drifting away from one of my (ex) passions.

Dont get me wrong Escapist, there's a time and play for Online Deathmatch Shooty Game or World of Wallcraft, for sure. Just not all the damn time, and especially not when I've had clients shout at me for an entire afternoon.

Thoughts? Anyone else miss games like Arcanum?

On the other hand, the success of Fallout 3 and NV has given me hope for a little corner of Non Online wankery still.

 

[Valagetti]

well it all demends on the people your interacting with. If their dicks... If their friendly etc, then yes it is better. I guess some things are better when you do it with other people.

 

[DJDarque]

I'm guessing you're talking about more than just MMORPGs. You're talking online multiplayer on games like CoD, too, right?

If so, you need to have a little more middle ground in your poll. I like to play online sometimes, but not all the time.

 

[TriggerHappyAngel]

Other: I used to like MMO's, but I'm tired of that lame point-and-click combat.

[sub]ps, Guild Wars ftw[/sub]

 

[iLikeHippos]

Multiplayer is but yet another selling point, like the game smelling coconut when you open the cartridge.

Don't worry. Some games just won't be able to use it properly, fail, and kill its own title for it.
Than remake the game without multi-player options. And others learn and follow.

Besides, when did you get tortured and forced to sign up?
It happened to me at... a-at.. M-may 3;rd, 1999...

 

[NathLines]

I love MMORPGs, however not for any of the reasons in the poll. I love RPGs, I love experience, levels, skills, equipment and so on. I also like having the option of playing with others. MMORPGs is really the only genre that allows that.

 

[The Almighty Grigard]

Erh no, not much at all.

Probably comes from my initial love of WoW which then turned to hate when I realized I had wasted several months of my life and alienated a friend, for what? Being shouted at by some Estonian guy that I needed to "throw moar dots". I had also spent a lot of money on said shouting since I have to pay every month.

I'm slightly interested in the upcoming Guild Wars 2, but I will remain very cautious.

 

[Rokusi666]

Honestly, no. They much around too long with grinding and uninteresting fetch quests for unlikable NPCs. Killing enemies is fun, of course, but when it gets routine there's a serious problem. And, unfortunatly, this is how MMOs hold onto their user base.

 

[tharglet]

Well, for some of us, it's nicer to grow our social circle a bit, and find more like-minded people.
Some points in my life, MMOs helped me not go totally insane.

I do enjoy the social aspect, but if I'm not enjoying the game, I'm not going to play it - so I voted for the "all of the above".

I am tired of WoW (quit some months ago), but currently I'm playing LOTRO.

I don't see singleplayer games getting rare any time soon. More games may allow co-op (and other similar modes) and there's certainly more multiplayer stuff out there, but I can't see the single-player games dying out.

 

[Feylynn]

I can't really vote without a middle ground.
A - Story and immersion is ruined by people and there is a lot of people I'd rather just not play with.

B - Guilds, raids, and social can be fun if you find the right people to play with. Also, social is compound by real life friends making some games playable at all.

Sooo, final answer is somewhere along the lines of: "I like games."
But to inflate that to a real response: "I am massively bothered by the sheer level of online movement lately, nothing is local multiplayer anymore and it seems fewer and fewer great single player games are being released (Though this could be hysteria).
But the flip-side needs mentioning in multiplayer games being bloody amazing, there is just to much to be gained from Alien Swarm, WoW, All Points Bulliten, League of Legends, etc.
I love mmo, but can't sacrifice my single players and local-multi for it."

Edit: Assuming of course the mention of death match shooty and exclusion of the letters RP and G means you meant online MP in general.

 

[Jordi]

No, I think MMOs are a time and money sink that aren't really that rewarding. I don't really like playing with random strangers, and the rest of the gameplay seems to mostly consist of grinding.

 

[SillyBear]

MMMOs leave a bad taste in my mouth. I don't particularly like the type of person (or rather the stereotypical type of person) who plays them and I don't like the feeling of pointlessness they create.

 

[WolfLordAndy]

I enjoy MMOs greatly, but then I've always been one for co-op, team based gameplay. The earliest game I probably played with decent co-op being perfect dark!

But since those fun times on the N64 I discovered games like Planetside, and most that have experience that struggles to cope with going back to single player or small scale multiplayer.

When I played Fallout 3 a bit, my first major thought upon wondering out of the vault was "now this would be such a cool MMOFPS world!", sure other people might ruin some of your fun, but in a desert that big its less likely you'll run into people except on major routes and cities, which adds to immersion and makes the whole thing more realistic.

Tabula Rasa, in its limited run, gave a nice realistic atmosphere by having NPC armies fill in where it would never have had the number of players to make battles suitably impressive. Warhammer Online also had NPCs scheduling attacks on certain hubs, it all added to the atmosphere of war!

I've never understood the need to be THE ONE. That one guy that will save the world, I'm happy being one of the group/army that helps combat whatever threat/takes down the gooddoers!

For the couple of people saying they don't want to play with strangers, they only stay strangers if you don't make friends with them! I've got a few online clans I've been in over the years, and any game I pick up now I know someone who is playing it, I've met a good number of these people in real life now at LANs and honestly they're some of the best friends I've had.

 

[captainwolfos]

I do enjoy MMOs (despite having never, ever played WoW.), but generally free servers of Ragnarok Online... And other free games. Like Fiesta, for example.

The proper server of RO has so many elitists playing, it's like anyone under level 50 is a noob. I hate that. I would imagine it's much the same when playing WoW.

I don't really play MMOs for the socialising, anyway. I much prefer to solo things. Unless I'm playing with people whom I actually know.

 

[SonofaJohannes]

I like some MMO's, I don't like most of them. But some are good.

And while Arcanum was never my favorite game, It was enjoyable and I did like the setting. So yeah, I guess I miss it a bit.

 

[Merkavar]

i like rpgs and mmorpgs are rpgs that last longer than 40 hours and have unpredictable varied human players that make the game unique.

 

[Valdus]

I hate MMO's for a few reasons

1. I feel I shouldn't have to pay repeatedly for a game I've already bought. Besides a lot of problems can come up when you start paying for a service rather than a direct product.

2. Online only play. I hate this with a passion. Some online games feature elegent gameplay, beautiful scenery and a nice story all ruined by dickheads spamming the chat to sell stuff. The internet is full of dickheads and until MMO's become the exception to that rule the gameplay is always going to suffer as a result. What's more many online MMO's are designed with teams in mind so you can't even ignore the dickheads - sooner or later you're gonna have to work with them if you actually want to progress.

3. Lack of imagination. Seriously every MMO is the same. "Go here, kill X creatures, come back, get small amounts of XP, repeat for hours until you gain 1 level out of a possible 100 or so".

How I long for the days when game developers try to make games which are fun and function well on their own rather than some gimmick designed to electronically strap hoover nossils to our wallets and suck everything out.

 

[ThisIsSnake]

I'm ok with them if they don't follow 'the formula'

The formula being:
Leveling system
different classes, all made up of rogue/wizard/warrior archetypes
'Quests', I don't remember watching any fantasy film or reading any fantasy novel where the hero's quest is kill X Blanks, collect X Blanks, Talk to X. Reward: 3000 XP and 6 potions
Fixed dungeons that your character will run again and again and again
90% seeded market
Carebear friendly (no gear dropping or very rare gear dropping with the ability to prevent or lower the chance of that gear dropping, dedicated pvp zones and safe zones)

I really like EVE because it's so different to this crap

No leveling system (skill training happens over time without any input
No classes (1 character can have any role they wish depending on what ship they are flying and how they fit it. Any new player can kill a guy who has been playing for a year in the right situation)
Missions are optional, money can be made through many other channels (scamming, deception, corporate backstabbing and piracy are all fully within the rules)
Complexes (dungeon type places), require you to actively search, they aren't instanced so shit can get real if more than 1 person finds it.
Exploration is a very lucrative and fun way to make money.
Market is 99% generated by the players, prices are always changing
If you lose a fight, respawning is out of the question, you will lose everything inside the ship you were flying as well as the ship, if your pod dies (it's a ship inside the ship that always survives initial destruction) you stand to lose a hell of a lot more.
The developers also have a habit of rebalancing large parts of the game producing an odd flavour of the month enviroment, this can be good or bad depending on how they do it (Rifter, Maller and Abaddon all feel too powerful when I fly them and drakes are annoying to fight)
Everyone is on one server - any action you take has consequences.
Large amounts of money do not give you any significant advantage, an expensive ship with expensive modules is an expensive killmail waiting to happen.
You are fully able to play the game for free (this can be hard work depending on your skill, lawyers and economists are insanely good at playing the market in EVE)
They removed the learning skills so now there are no pointless skills at all.

That said I've taken a break for now from EVE (my characters security status is -3.8 and I can't be bothered grinding it back up).

I really wish a company would have the guts to make a game of the same quality and style as EVE but in a fantasy enviroment.

 

[retterkl]

I find it hard to play single player games after playing multiplayer for such a long time.

Now i'm not that keen on MMORPGs, i've never had a WoW account (hated the free trial), but I did play SWG for 2 years and i've played the F2P Champions Online for a while.

However I do love Global Agenda, an MMOFPS, and WWIIOL is my favorate game of all time which is another MMOFPS (with RTS elements too, but proper RTS because you're actually control brigades against other people). It's just a fantastic game, I purchased a 5 year subscription to it in 2009, but i've been playing since April 2007, and the game has been going since 2001.

I've just pre-ordered SW:TOR too.

So i'd say I love MMOs, as most of my game time is spent playing multiplayer games.