What is the apeal of an MMO?

[y1fella]

The question is in the title. The reason I ask is I've played three relatively major MMO's (Aion, Age of Conan and Eve online) and I didn't enjoy a minute of any of them.
I found them repetitive unengaging, lacking any kind of respectable story and I honestly thought the designers were trying to hold me at arms length and not let me get immersed. I guess Aion was the best and Eve was the worst.
But if all MMO's are like that than what am I missing? Why would I want to play one?
somebody rationally explain to me why I'm an idiot.
Please.

 

[Saelune]

Social interactions and stuff I think is the main appeal. What I would want in an MMO though is role playing, but thats not going to happen in some big MMO server. Id rather just play NWN online.

 

[y1fella]

Social interactions and stuff I think is the main appeal. What I would want in an MMO though is role playing, but thats not going to happen in some big MMO server. Id rather just play NWN online.

NWN online. this requires a Google search. But yeah I guess you make a rationale point. Oh never winter nights. Yeah I love that (not the second so much) game.

 

[Eventidal]

Ideally, you play because of the customization, large game world to explore, community aspects and teamwork built-in to the experience, and the feeling of greater accomplishment from achieving things in a persistent online world shared by others at all times.

But yeah, they all follow similar crappy game structure and are, as games go, very boring to play. Simple quest structures, very simple combat, boring, easily skippable overall story, non-changing game world... it's just terrible, IMO. I've strayed away from the MMO scene myself, because though I like the features in paragraph 1, the bad stuff is just TOO bad and they're too time-consuming in nature.

Check out Guild Wars 2, though, if you're uninterested in what MMOs are delivering now. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xBC_ig73aMs I honestly felt like you and didn't give a damn about GW2 (thinking it to be just a sequel to GW1) but it might as well not have the Guild Wars title considering what the developers are doing with it. I saw this video and I was immediately excited for a game I knew nothing about before. And an MMO at that. I can't say it's going to fix what's wrong with MMOs because it's not out yet, but the developers seem to be putting their A-game into exactly that, and it sounds amazing on paper.

 

[infohippie]

Well, what sort of things are you looking for in games anyway? MMOs have very different strengths and weaknesses to normal single- or multi-player games. If you're looking for good story or deep characterisation, look at single-player games for the most part and stay well away from MMOs. A good MMO relies on social interaction as it's core strength, it's all about what you can do as part of a group.

I understand where you're coming from, though, I don't really like MMOs in general myself, although I did really like Eve Online. The Secret World looks like it'll be very different from more traditional MMOs, I'm really looking forward to that one.

 

[y1fella]

Ideally, you play because of the customization, large game world to explore, community aspects and teamwork built-in to the experience, and the feeling of greater accomplishment from achieving things in a persistent online world shared by others at all times.

But yeah, they all follow similar crappy game structure and are, as games go, very boring to play. Simple quest structures, very simple combat, boring, easily skippable overall story, non-changing game world... it's just terrible, IMO. I've strayed away from the MMO scene myself, because though I like the features in paragraph 1, the bad stuff is just TOO bad and they're too time-consuming in nature.

Check out Guild Wars 2, though, if you're uninterested in what MMOs are delivering now. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xBC_ig73aMs I honestly felt like you and didn't give a damn about GW2 (thinking it to be just a sequel to GW1) but it might as well not have the Guild Wars title considering what the developers are doing with it. I saw this video and I was immediately excited for a game I knew nothing about before. And an MMO at that. I can't say it's going to fix what's wrong with MMOs because it's not out yet, but the developers seem to be putting their A-game into exactly that, and it sounds amazing on paper.

yeah that does look good.

 

[Saelune]

Social interactions and stuff I think is the main appeal. What I would want in an MMO though is role playing, but thats not going to happen in some big MMO server. Id rather just play NWN online.

NWN online. this requires a Google search. But yeah I guess you make a rationale point. Oh never winter nights. Yeah I love that (not the second so much) game.

Neverwinter Nights. A DnD game from Bioware on PC. Its not an MMO, but it has a online componant made of user created content. It has most things of MMOs but more seperated. I mainly played in Role Play servers where everyone took RPing seriously. Like, to have a number or something in your name was to break the rules and have your character removed.

 

[y1fella]

Well, what sort of things are you looking for in games anyway? MMOs have very different strengths and weaknesses to normal single- or multi-player games. If you're looking for good story or deep characterisation, look at single-player games for the most part and stay well away from MMOs. A good MMO relies on social interaction as it's core strength, it's all about what you can do as part of a group.

Yeah alright but if that's the case how come the social interactions felt so... cheap. Like they were tagged on to justify the million dollar price tags.

 

[Liudeius]

Because it's a huge world with a ton of content. I haven't played any of those which you have mentioned, and the good MMO's are rare since they are usually grinding for the sake of grinding with no quests other than fetch, but there are nice ones.
With an MMO you can develop a character and keep it through potentially hundreds of individual quests (with actual plots and non-repetitive content), as well as playing entertaining side games against other players and PVP. Then there is of course the community. Being in a good guild can be the difference between a boring as crap experience and AWESOME.

I'll assume you've played Oblivion?
Well when you first opened the map, did you say "cool, can I go to all those other countries too?" Were you sad when you found out you could only explore Cyrodil? Well an MMO is so big that you can also check out everything else.
Was I the only person who wanted to go to the other provinces as well? Am I the only person crazy enough for that? I think there was a mod for Elsweyr, but that's getting a bit too much off topic.

 

[Pat728]

I understand what you're saying. I really can't stand most MMOs but I have been able to enjoy a few of them. I don't think it's the genre that is bad. There are just a lot of boring mmos copying off of each other.

 

[Sixcess]

3 things for me:

The world feels alive. Whether or not I'm grouped up, just seeing other players going about their business makes the world feel alive. I sometimes find single player RPGs in particular feel very empty when I go back to them after a long stint in an MMO.

Depth of character building. Assuming you avoid the cookie cutter, flavor of the month, min-max builds you can build a lot of different characters. City of Heroes, for example, has over 500 unique combinations of class and powerset - all of which play differently, and all of which are valid.

Exploration. For me this is the big one. I find MMO worlds fascinating, in part due to the sheer size of them, and in part due to the fact you'll often find little details in out of the way locations. Single player games just can't match that - a part of me died when I started playing Dragon Age when that tiny little map popped up.

 

[y1fella]

Because it's a huge world with a ton of content. I haven't played any of those which you have mentioned, and the good MMO's are rare since they are usually grinding for the sake of grinding with no quests other than fetch, but there are nice ones.
With an MMO you can develop a character and keep it through potentially hundreds of individual quests (with actual plots and non-repetitive content), as well as playing entertaining side games against other players and PVP. Then there is of course the community. Being in a good guild can be the difference between a boring as crap experience and AWESOME.

I'll assume you've played Oblivion?
Well when you first opened the map, did you say "cool, can I go to all those other countries too?" Were you sad when you found out you could only explore Cyrodil? Well an MMO is so big that you can also check out everything else.
Was I the only person who wanted to go to the other provinces as well? Am I the only person crazy enough for that? I think there was a mod for Elsweyr, but that's getting a bit too much off topic.

Yeah I felt that too but back on topic.

 

[Thaluikhain]

You don't have to worry about questionable AI for NPCs if you've got loads of other PCs instead. Also, the social aspect, you always get people wanting to talk to people over the net for some reason, but I can't really see the appeal, personally.

 

[Fishyash]

For me it was the social interaction and the teamwork based gameplay at the endgame. Well, that's what it was like for WoW.

The main problem with MMOs at the moment is the terrible gameplay by non-mmo standards. Will the next lot of MMOs change that? (SWtOR and GW2 come to mind)

 

[Bobbity]

The communal aspect is what really pulled me in. Join a guild, and you can literally just spend hours chatting to each other, and almost totally disregard the gameplay. The stories are generally shitty, admittedly, although WoW had a couple of pretty impressive story arcs, but the appeal of having a totally open world in which I could go anywhere and explore anything was the main draw, made especially more interesting by the complete lineararity of most games out these days.

TL;DR: The community and the exploration are the two things really unique to an MMO, and the two things I found really special. To the OP: Give WoW a go. I hear that you can get up to level twenty for free now, and, while I quit a while ago, I can assure you that it's a really wonderful game.

 

[Lawnmooer]

The main attraction to MMO's for me is the never-ending content.

I played WoW for 4 years usually 6+ hours a day, thats about 8760 hours of entertainment. Can I get that much entertainment out of another game? Probably not (Especially since some of the better time-sinks that arn't MMO's seem to peak out at around 300ish hours on average) also comparing the price to entertainment ratio spending £8 a month on subscription (An average amount) means for £30 I get about 900 hours of entertainment, compared to the 100 I get at most from single player games (I tend to speed through single player games... )

Building a character in MMO's is also very rewarding, choosing how you look when you first make your character then building yourself up in-game via getting good rewards and also making friends in guilds and such and find yourself chatting away as you play.

 

[Nomanslander]

(Aion, Age of Conan and Eve online)

Haven't played WoW, well there's your reason for not getting it. Just play WoW and you'll find all your answers...

 

[Scarim Coral]

To me it's the feeling that you are part of something bigger as in your not the only one playing the game at that moment. It is also that the people work you are playing with are real people (unless they're bots) and not some AI in some games. This in turn create the sense of teamwork workng alongside other people to ahieve the same goal.
Ok this is the same with FPS but MMO is longer and more engaging to the story.
Also with MMO you feel more like an individual (well to me) with the customize stuff you are given although you still part of the mass like if the game tell you are the "chosen one" there are many more "chosen one" with the other players.

 

[Zhukov]

- The social aspect. Playing in a living world and/or belonging to a club.

- The sense of progression and accomplishment. That is to say, watching your numbers get bigger.

 

[infohippie]

Yeah alright but if that's the case how come the social interactions felt so... cheap. Like they were tagged on to justify the million dollar price tags.

I'm not quite sure what you mean there, but I would suggest it's probably because people, online with anonymity, tend to be dicks to each other.
The social interactions depend very much on the kinds of people you encounter and interact with. Joining a guild full of awesome people is very different to a guild full of twats, or not joining a guild at all and just trying to solo most of the content.