Why do we jump from MMO to MMO?

[Isra]

I've been doing a little bit of gamer introspection lately. For the past ten years, I've been closely following and briefly playing almost every major MMO title that has come along since Final Fantasy XI. Like so many others, I've been 'MMO hopping' for a very long time.

The thing that really bakes my noodle is that since FFXI, I haven't actually liked a single one of the dozens of MMOs I've delved into, but I feel a very strong attachment to the genre for reasons I cannot explain.

It's this most recent Elder Scrolls Online beta weekend that has forced me to realize that I actually really dislike MMO gameplay. Never before have I had a chance to compare two very closely related single and multiplayer titles of a franchise which I know and love, and while this is not a review of the TESO beta, let's just sum it up by saying I find the online version sorely lacking, albeit in ways I suppose you could expect an MMO to be lacking when compared to a single player game.

These games inherently sacrifice dynamism and so many other things. You can't cut off the quest giver's head or find an item of great power at a low level. You can't steal the merchant's entire inventory or have quests which truly impact the game. In many ways your experience is restricted so as to not disturb the experience of others playing around you. In many ways your entire existence in the game feels like a shoe in.

So, while playing TESO, I could not help but feel detached, like none of my actions really mattered. But more importantly, I simply felt like playing Skyrim instead. That was when I had an epiphany - during all of these MMOs I've gone through, it was exactly the same feeling of vacuousness in the experience. The only difference is I didn't have a Skyrim to draw the comparison to and realize exactly why. I felt the games themselves were lacking, but really it was the limitations of the genre and the necessary restrictions of playing with others. I realized at that moment I just prefer single player games for so many reasons.

So why the hell do I keep coming back to MMOs after so many cycles of hype and disappointment? I know I'm not the only one who jumps from game to game, never quite satisfied. Perhaps some of you can give your experiences and your opinions, I would love to know why for over a decade I've been addicted to a genre that I don't even like.

 

[Yuuki]

I'm attracted to MMO's and online games in general because I enjoy playing & interacting with real people instead of predictable old AI. In an MMO you never know what kind of player(s) you'll run into and therefore that keeps my experience feel more "alive" than what any singleplayer game can offer. You can build your character in an MMO, track your accomplishments and those will stay with you forever...well, as long as you don't delete your character. That is a very attractive feature for me.

I still have my Runescape account from 2006 as proof of where I invested hundreds of hours into...my WoW character got put into "deep freeze" (or whatever they call it) but if I re-subscribed then I would still be able to continue where I left off with all my achievements. Currently I'm having a blast with GW2, a game that REALLY suits my playstyle of casually spending only a few hours a week playing it.

Meanwhile in singleplayer land, I couldn't play Skyrim for more than few hours without that niggling feeling at the back of my mind that everyone I meet/kill is AI and therefore I'm not having an impact on anyone/anything...it's all meaningless, utterly meaningless! Aaaaargh!

I'm like the polar opposite of Yahtzee (still a huge fan of his stuff though ), only a true multiplayer/PvP addict will understand

 

[Yali]

I have been playing mmos for 5 years now. The first 4 years were basically a test phase.

First of all I found out that subscription-based is not for me. I prefer non-subscription with microtransactions. It feels like less of a commitment. And then it`s a matter of how well the publisher handles that buisness model. Too much greed and too many items that resemble gambling ("random" chances to receive a specific item from a gasha, chest or box) and I`m gone again. Screw that.

 

[VanQ]

I've been playing MMOs since 1998 when I discovered Ultima Online and Tibia. So about 16 years. I've played every major MMO release to come out in that time and the only ones I've ever truly loved were Ultima Online, Tibia and to a lesser extent Eve Online and World of Warcraft.

Why I keep playing MMOs after all this time? Really, that's simple. Out of all other genres that exist, I think that MMOs have the most untapped potential. And that comes down to the human element. Something that many MMOs in the last 10 years have forgotten about is Emergent Gameplay [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergent_gameplay]. I'm aware of the irony of having WoW on my list when Emergent Gameplay is what I love the most.

I feel like developers spend too much time creating a pathway through their world that the players must follow in order to progress There was once a time where MMOs didn't have "zones," they simply had a world. And the players created their own path through it. Exploration was fun because it was extraordinarily difficult to map an entire area and map data was a valuable resource. You certainly didn't explore unmapped dungeons 30+ floors beneath Kazordoon without an experienced and prepared party because that would be suicide.

This dependence on experience and organization led to social interactions that were outside of the normal kind you see in the real world. Hiring an experienced player to guide you through dangerous territory was common. Forming guilds around fellow adventurers meant that communities flourished. Competition between players for control over the most efficient leveling areas or most profitable hunting grounds was exciting. Bidding against other players for control of a guild hall to display your trophies in and to act as a safe house in the wilderness. The lack of a level cap and exponential leveling curve making levels far more valuable.

All things that modern MMOs have forgotten for the sake of convenience. For the sake of the casual players that want a single player campaign with a bad multiplayer mod stitched on. My dream MMO will never be created. Because somewhere along the line MMOs stopped being another world and became just another game.

 

[Savagezion]

The thing that really bakes my noodle is that since FFXI, I haven't actually liked a single one of the dozens of MMOs I've delved into, but I feel a very strong attachment to the genre for reasons I cannot explain.

---

So why the hell do I keep coming back to MMOs after so many cycles of hype and disappointment? I know I'm not the only one who jumps from game to game, never quite satisfied. Perhaps some of you can give your experiences and your opinions, I would love to know why for over a decade I've been addicted to a genre that I don't even like.

Your first MMO is like a first love. There really isn't anything like it you have experienced before and it romanticizes the experience. Allow me to tell you a rose tinted version of mine. Her name was Anarchy Online. Max level from the get go was level 200. However reaching 200 wasn't like MMOs today where maxing a character was just something on a checklist. It would take serious time and effort to reach it. Nowadays it would be called a "grindfest" but there were so many missions, quests, raids, etc. to do that it didn't really matter. I remember going into shops in the major cities and seeing someone level 120 and just staring at them in awe. I never saw a level 200 until the Shadowlands expansion came out post-WoW where the game needed a way for people to hit max level to try to compete with WoW's "hit lvl 60 in a month if you grind" gameplay. Suddenly there were level 200's everywhere that didn't know what a lockpick was used for. Seriously.

Man, that game had such a huge item database too. I always think back to an item I had found that was a container. I didn't know what it was but like so many things in that game I wasn't going to get rid of it until I knew. Nobody I talked to knew what it was either and I kept toying with it on occassion. One day I used a lockpick on it toying around and opened it. This revealed a contraption inside that once again nobody knew what it was. Toying around again I learned it could be disarmed if you had like 465 in trap disarm skill. I didn't have that and it was rare for anyone to have that so I started looking for someone who could. Luckily a friend of a friend had a fixer friend who actually had that if he got the right buffs so we got together and disarmed the thing. Doing so revealed a box. The box needed something like 800 in breaking & entering which was crazy high even for a fixer or engineer. I ended up leaving the game before I ever got the box open and I always wondered what was inside. Understand I had a bank full of items I didn't know what they were. Half were probably junk worth nothing but in that game, you never knew.

I have a buddy that enjoys MMOs and primarily focuses on them. He played Anarchy Online with me and it was our first MMO. I know no game will ever offer me what AO did because WoW has became the new standard. and before Shadowlands expansion AO was the opposite of what WoW is. Post Shadowlands it is a game that has no idea what the hell it is trying to be and Funcom probably doesn't have the vision needed to do AO2 proper assuming they ever would do an AO2, which they won't.

I know that he chases MMOs looking for that sense of awe AO gave us both but MMOs have just became to formulaic. Everyone wants a checklist, and god forbid they have to figure something out for themselves. I could tell you a lot more stories like that about AO, like times I went notum hunting in 4 holes (especially my first time) or even some funny tower battle stories or the Temple of Three Winds... man, I got tons of temple stories. I got some fun Ark stories too which were like volunteer in-game GMs. (Some were actual Funcom people I think) All because in the early stages of that game nobody could know everything even with the internet. It's like the devs were trying to confuse the players by rewarding you for figuring something out (that was actually cryptic and I ain't talking about the pud stuff in TSW) or having you figure that cryptic something out and it is worthless and you wasted your time. There was just too much stuff to know everything. People get furious about that nowadays but it makes for good stories IMO.

I honestly believe many people chase MMOs wanting what their first MMO gave them. It's just a theory but your first MMO you sink time into makes an impact and sets a bar. You go looking to recapture that experience and often times you will never find it because everything comes into play. Not just the game, but where you were in your life when you found MMO gaming, what that game provided for your life at the time, and probably a whole lot more than that.


Sure, there is some truth to skinner box stuff but I think that is a very generalized answer - or it is in my case at least. AO wasn't about the grind for us, it was about what you did outside of the grind. When you knew that it would take years to hit max level even non-stop grinding you didn't stress on the grind. The grind was something you did here and there, the game was everything in between. With Shadowlands the grind became the game and I soon left because 'the game' weakened. Every time I step into a new MMO where you can max level in a month casually, I see no game being presented. GW2 has nice potential and is doing some interesting things but its very fenced off in atmosphere and you are still being guided through the 'living world' stuff. I have since given up on MMOs and now all I judge them by is what I see as their only advantage, how fun is it to explore and roam around their huge world. BTW GW2's world is great up until lvl 70. But it gets dull at times because (due to AO) I want PvP to be a threat to the PvE world. It can be a controlled threat (via AO) but I like it to be a threat. There is no greater feeling in an MMO tome than trying to accomplish a goal in a PvP area.

 

[KingsGambit_v1legacy]

So, while playing TESO, I could not help but feel detached, like none of my actions really mattered. But more importantly, I simply felt like playing Skyrim instead. That was when I had an epiphany - during all of these MMOs I've gone through, it was exactly the same feeling of vacuousness in the experience. The only difference is I didn't have a Skyrim to draw the comparison to and realize exactly why. I felt the games themselves were lacking, but really it was the limitations of the genre and the necessary restrictions of playing with others. I realized at that moment I just prefer single player games for so many reasons.

So why the hell do I keep coming back to MMOs after so many cycles of hype and disappointment? I know I'm not the only one who jumps from game to game, never quite satisfied. Perhaps some of you can give your experiences and your opinions, I would love to know why for over a decade I've been addicted to a genre that I don't even like.

I know precisely what you mean since I came to about the same conclusion myself in the last beta. As such, I didn't fancy bothering with this one. I feel bad in a way since I adore both Bethesda and TES games and should love the MMO. It's well made and promising, even in its Beta state. But it was ultimately an MMO with TES dressing and let it be felt.

In my short-lived thread here [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/9.843195-Now-that-the-TESO-NDA-is-lifted], I wrote "My biggest gripe however is one that cannot be only levelled at TESO since most MMOs do it, but in TESO's case is much more apparent...the fact everything happens in the open-world with other players. Missions should've been instanced and separate for each player. What I found was almost every quest, there was quite literally a queue waiting for a boss or quest stage, for their chance to fight him and proceed out. Before the first player even left the room the boss would respawn out of thin air for the second player to have his turn before the third, the fourth then my turn."

That truly broke immersion for me. Not to mention the inability to steal any of the things lying around, making the world lifeless and un-interactable. My gear was decided by level/zone progression, not ability to steal it, buy it or take it from my dead foes. Everything that makes TES special (not to mention mods) is stripped out and in its place, polished, well voice-acted, excellent looking grind.

Why do we keep going back? Not sure, but good question. Maybe because our friends convince us too, or because we hope for something that can capture the best parts of the MMO but without the worst ones. We keep looking but it doesn't turn up so we look elsewhere. So far, I think Eve, SWTOR and City of Heroes/Villains are/were the best we've had and don't think we'll see them bettered for a long time.

 

[Colt47]

The primary reason people are jumping from MMO to MMO these days is due to the poor quest design and non-existent AI resulting in largely the same kind of long term game-play. Most quests are designed to lead players to what they are supposed to be grinding or fighting, to other quest hubs, or to get the player to explore the zone. Couple this with monsters that run off of a brain dead script that 100% relies on human interaction to function and we got the "World of Warcraft" generation of MMORPG summed up in a nutshell. Seriously, Bot pathing in Unreal Tournament had more realistic behavior than some monsters do in MMO-RPGs, and they are basically just running a decision routine of...

1. Is there an enemy team member in my view? Yes = shoot. No = do nothing.
2. Am I being shot? Yes = turn towards source of damage. No = do nothing.
3. Can I dodge attack? Yes = attempt to dodge. No = do nothing.
3. Is there a path? Yes = follow path. No = stand in place until a path is available.

Monsters in most MMOs have this...

If Hostile...
1. Is there a player of x level within y yards? Yes = attack using pattern. No = wonder around.

It's like, no kidding you feel like you are playing the same game after a while: With quest design and AI like that I'm surprised people don't think they are suffering an eternity of that crazy nightmare tunnel from Willy Wonka.

 

[Foolery]

I never manage to stick with any MMO more than a couple months. I just get bored. Final Fantasy XIV reminded me of this. Once I hit the mid forties in level, it just became a huge grind, and the story came to a halt because I was always waiting over an hour to queue up for dungeons. I realized I have a hard time with MMOs and the reliance they require on other people to complete tasks. Long story made short, I'm a single-player person at heart and would rather do things at my own pace. Also the amount of time required is far too much.

 

[Rob Robson]

TESO has made me realize how good Warhammer Online really was.

Going into Cyrodiil and seeing a completely symmetrical, gamey, objective-based zone completely removed from the actual PvE of the game.

I want what Cyrodiil has, merged with leveling zones, but not so symmetrical and sterile. Then we can talk.

 

[wulfy42]

I started playing MMOs with muds mainly (text based MMO's before any other options where available). I did play multiplayer rpg games online through BBS's before that (Lands I/II/III, crossroads etc)but that wasn't exactly the same as an MMO.

Because I started so early, I have had a chance to play TONS of MMO's...since there where quite a few (and still are) muds to choose from. There was also quite a range of muds to play, and, since they where text based...alot more to do often in them.

The most addicted I have ever been to a game was a Mud called 3 kingdoms. I played that for 14 1/2 hours on average in 1999 (for the full year..that was my average). I stopped playing online games cold turkey for awhile after that, meeting my wife during that time, and then eventually started playing graphic based MMO's (Pretty much all of them starting with everquest) once they became available.

Graphic MMO's though, have always followed a very similar theme. I really enjoyed Anarchy Online, City of heroes/villians and...my longest played MMO of them all, Dungeons and Dragons Online (didn't ever reach as many hours played as 3 kingdoms (Cause I didn't just play in 1999, I belive all together I had about 1 1/2 years of actually game time with 95%+ in combat in that game).

I loved dungeons and dragons online because of the deep character generation/customization, and the action combat. It originally followed the DnD rules fairly consistently, but sadly in the last few years it has taken a turn for the worse (in my opinion) and made itself more WoW like.

Most other recent MMO's have been a let down, and so I have only played them long enough to "get the new out" of the game. Basically playing it long enough till the new things about it wear off (new classes/power etc) and then it just starts to be like all the rest of the (in most cases) WoW clones lately.

Even games that are different, like Guild wars 2, and FFXIV....often end up losing my interest once I get past a certain point where it takes more then X hours for advancement in the game.

That was the real killer for muds. You cold always be advancing in them, especially the best ones. Unlike many current MMO's where you literally gain almost nothing from playing for 10 hours, at least after your first week or two. Muds would give you both direct control over how your character advanced (with stats when you leveled up, spell/skill choices and in 3 kingdoms case, guild powers (kinda like classes) and skills etc. The guild I was in, even after all that time playing, still let you improve abilities every hour or so, in direct ways that where easily observable (more hp or sp regen, higher damage per attack, better defenses, larger power point pools, more power points from corpses etc etc).

It was so addictive because you always had a goal. Both in how your progressing your character, and in actual hunting for equipment, doing quests etc.

Most MMO's lately have basically just been on rails. Yes, how you get the experience can vary a bit, but in almost all MMO's since everquest (with only a few exceptions sadly)....you advance in a set pattern, with only VERY minor changes to your character through talent points (when WoW even had them) etc.

Dungeons and dragons online still gives you some control over how your character advances at least, and it's still a more action like combat system. I could probably still really enjoy it (I paid for a subscription until about a year ago...which is my longest (by far) subscription for a game ever) if I started off under the new system, it's just very hard to still enjoy it compared to the old one for me.

City of heroes/villians was also fun, but I didn't play it nearly as long as DDO. Games like Star Wars KOTOR and all the other ones (just too many)..and sadly...even Wild Star...are just too similar. I don't really feel like I have any control over how my character plays, levels up etc, and all of them eventually start to take forever between even the very minor advances in your character that you do get.

So yeah, there is a good reason you are probably jumping from MMO to MMO. They are all snacks for the most part, with very little depth or difference in gameplay. If there isn't enough to differentiate them from each other, then your quickly going to tire of the taste again, and move on....still searching for something new to stimulate your senses.

 

[Colt47]

I never manage to stick with any MMO more than a couple months. I just get bored. Final Fantasy XIV reminded me of this. Once I hit the mid forties in level, it just became a huge grind, and the story came to a halt because I was always waiting over an hour to queue up for dungeons. I realized I have a hard time with MMOs and the reliance they require on other people to complete tasks. Long story made short, I'm a single-player person at heart and would rather do things at my own pace. Also the amount of time required is far too much.

Yeah, the reliance on others to complete tasks that are individually focused is a problem in current MMO RPG design. Especially since the designers seemed to have lost track of what a "quest" is supposed to be and got it mixed up with a "task". Looking back, I blame the poor transition from the MUD / Ultima / EQ quests to the World of Warcraft quest structure.

************************************************************************************************

Also, as many people have already beaten to death, massive multiplayer games do not work with "you are the chosen hero" style storylines. It conflicts with the elements of the type of game being developed, where interaction with a large population of players is expected who may be better or worse than the existing player. What Massive Multiplayer games excel at are stories of finding ones place in the world.

 

[Padwolf]

Why? Because I can't very well help myself! I need to play all of them. I see one of those free little cutsie anime ones? I have to try it. I can't afford WoW and there's a WoW clone? I must try it. I need to see what they all do. How their systems work. I can't help myself. I get disappointed each and every time, never quite settling down on any free to play mmo. But I keep coming back to WoW each and everytime. I love that game, and it's had such a positive impact on me through the years I've played it. Now I'm playing Realm Reborn and I love that just as much. I tried Guild Wars 2 and overall it felt like a lonely experience and never got any better and I deplored how it would have to update EVERY damn time I wanted to play it. Let alone it's identification system where even if I tick the "remember this place and network" box, it will still tell me someone is trying to hack into me.

I love MMO's. I just love having a character that I built, building her personality in my mind as I go along on our journey together. It's like pokemon almost, I come to care for the characters I make and train up. I go through the endless cycles of disappointment because I think "maybe one of these could be the one that fills the void when I can't afford WoW time." I get annoyed with the annoying amount of crap that fills up the bag and then it's called "crafting equipment" so I don't know whether to sell it or keep it so I end up keeping it and then my bag is full and then I don't know what do. At least WoW didn't fill you up with crafting equipment, you had to get the training to get bags full of leather or ores. I'm sorry, I've probably run off the question and into this kind of rant.

 

[nomotog_v1legacy]

For me, the reason I keep coming back and trying new mmos is because I see mountains of untapped potential. MMOs are kind of bonk. They all feel rather lazy in design and lean very heavy on the skinner box. (If you want a mental challenge, try thinking of a mmo with zero carrot in a stick features. I know it sounds easy, but it is harder then you think.) I also muse that a good deal of mmos don't embrace the fact they are mmos and might just be better single player games. It's rather common for most players to play mmos practically solo.

 

[Alandoril]

TESO has made me realize how good Warhammer Online really was.

Going into Cyrodiil and seeing a completely symmetrical, gamey, objective-based zone completely removed from the actual PvE of the game.

I want what Cyrodiil has, merged with leveling zones, but not so symmetrical and sterile. Then we can talk.

Yup, that game may have got more than a few things wrong but its integration of pvp into pve from the outset was definitely something it did right.

 

[TheRat13]

MMOs are the absolute worst at delivering anything akin to immersive story or freedom of choice (or at lest the illusion of it) and the further a game delves into mutiplayer the more disconnected it becomes from player actions to the point of feeling like your just a rat in a maze competing with other rats in some contrived social experiment for a reward that you may or may not be given depending on how the experimenter feels on that particular Saturday afternoon.

My most recent experience with this, was playing Guild Wars 2 and it is a game that by no stretch of the imagination can be called "bad" or "poorly made" and the developers even attempted to give the player a more immersive experience in the form of a personal story line. But once you cross the threshold between early and mid level gameplay your story becomes contrived and shoehorned for the sake of emphasizing mutiplayer to the point that the last quest in said story is a mutiplayer dungeon that ends in the most anticlimactic fashion I have ever experianced sense Mass effect 3.

But that example is only one of (and one of the better examples I might add) in the endless stream of MMOs shoved down the collective throats of RPG fans in the past decade.

Recently I was asked what Game I was looking forward to the most in the coming year, Titanfall? Elder Scrolls Online? Daiblo 3 Reaper of Souls? and I responded with

"Why would I want to play any of those games, likely to be filled with to compacity with trolls and dedicated playerkillers when the Squeal to Planescape Torment is on the horizon?"

 

[Muspelheim]

I watched a stream of someone playing The Elder Scrolls Online. It was amusing, but it was not because of the game, to put it nicely. I just felt like playing Skyrim, and the thought of playing ESO instead makes my eyes glaze over. Making such a different and relatively sterile game style wear the skin of the Elder Scrolls was a pretty poor idea, it seems.

Now... Me and WoW had a lovely time together. I fell out of the Skinner-box rather early, though, when I felt the exitement of raiding go off. After that, I just hung around and roleplayed doing whatever I felt like, which I do feel is a point in the game's favour. Even if it couldn't keep me invested with artifical grinding anymore, I still stuck around.

To a point, of course. When MoP came out, I just didn't feel the occasional subscription charge were worth the fun anymore. But I'll be carrying plenty of good memories from that game for the rest of my life.

I'm not really in the market for an MMO anymore... I'm just not involved and "loyal" enough to get very far in a game that require personal investment á la EvE Online, as fascinating as those games are. And playing online pretend with other people just isn't worth one hundred crowns per month to me anymore. Not to mention, I'm rather (dreadfully) picky when it comes to tone and design.

Of course, something could come along and catch my interest again. You never know.

 

[Something Amyss]

I don't play MMOs really, but I spend a lot of time jumping from game to game of the same type looking for what is ostensibly the "best" or "perfect." I could see that applied to MMOs.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

... now that actual competitors (ESO, Wildstar, EQN to name a few) are releasing this year.

You won't see EQN anywhere close to this year. Landmark MAYBE, but I expect it'll stay in alpha/beta throughout 2014. I don't expect EQN prior to 2016 at the earliest.