The Psychology of Playing MMOs
- Thread starter Greg Tito
- Start date
...Greg Tito said:
You know, you could just practise some restraint. I like cider and beer, but it doesn't mean I drink it for breakfast, and if I have a job to do, I'm not going to put it off to down a pint.
But it really is the subscription that's the problem. I understand you need to pay to keep the server running, and pay for the GMs and mods, but it does seem a bit off putting.
I have a solution though... multiple game subs. One monthly subscription that covers a few games. One payment gets you access to WoW, and some other MMOs, or perhaps even cloud access to single player games.
I'm basing this idea off the cable or Sky TV principle. People are quite happy to pay monthly for a load of channels that it's physically impossible to watch all at the same time. I just wonder if maybe a similar model could be applied to downloadable games, and MMOs in particular.
Probably a bad idea, but millions justify the principle to themselves just to watch the occasional football match or movie on TV.
Your first note seems to be correct unfortunately.CapitalistPig said:
I almost got sucked into WoW myself, I played the 7 day trial and then really considered to buy it, fortunately I did not. I'm ver happy, that I didn't bought it, who knows what my life would look like now.
Ive found that just like with alcohol and other vices you learn to control your MMO consumption with time. Of course it usually involves you consuming too much and puking up everywhere first 
Oh and the subscription fee has nothing to do with it. If that amount of money is a lot to you you really shouldnt be playing any expensive games and doign some study or something.
Regarding the time spent. Getting a gold medal at a sport isn't considered a waste even though it consumes a persons life. Each person can waste their life how they see fit. In the end its only they who can decide whats worthy.
Oh and the subscription fee has nothing to do with it. If that amount of money is a lot to you you really shouldnt be playing any expensive games and doign some study or something.
Regarding the time spent. Getting a gold medal at a sport isn't considered a waste even though it consumes a persons life. Each person can waste their life how they see fit. In the end its only they who can decide whats worthy.
i bet you dont think like that about the money (more of them) you spent on alcohol or smokes do you? well games give you more fun and is less harmless, so how is that a bad investment?
It will. All mmos are timesinks. they are fun, but the amount of time it takes form you is amazing. if you enjoy playing other variuos games now dont go into mmo world. variety is fun, albeit much more expensive. MMO is like a hobby, to each his own, but it will take a lot of time to be taken seriuosly.
As for the rest of your story, i can tell you exact same thing with me and Tibia (the oldes mmorpg out there, yes it predates ultima by 2 months). I did cut the cord with tibia multiple times, but it always drags me back in. however now its been 2 years and i dont regret it. However i must admit, im sucked into Eve Online now, however far less than tibia had me.
i wouldnt recommend starting old republic for anyone. its not a good game to begin with.
Your problem seems to be that you like me are trying to push out the best for your money. The key is not to. you paid, consider the money lost. and if you have other game that brings more fun, then thats the way to go. Biggest sucked in mmo isnt the monthly subscriptions, its the friends you make in game.
Yeah you're a sucker. I know games, like many other pleasures, can possess inherently addictive qualities that make you want to come back for more and more in a rather uncontrollable manner but ultimately the problem isn't so much in the game as it is in you. I should know as I far too often let myself get wrapped up in a particular game, especially around its release, and devote an absurd amount of my time to it when I could probably be doing more fulfilling things with most of that time. Gaming, like any form of escapism, should not be experienced at the expense of experiencing the 'real world' to the point were virtual reality becomes more real than actual reality as otherwise one can become too desensitised to the world at large.
I began playing WoW back in 2004 at launch when I was a junior in high school. I had always been the socially awkward type and had been a huge fan of Blizzard games. I played the WoW beta and was floored with how amazing it felt to walk around the vast open world and see real people playing characters everywhere. The sense of scale and community is what made WoW so intriguing. By a few months in, I had friends and was starting to raid Molten Core. What an experience those 40 mans were back in the day. I had never played another game like it.
The community focus is exactly what made WoW so great. I put hours into the game, even tho I was already geared in level 60 Naxx epics. Why? So I could run around Orgrimmar killing Horde to show off my sweet armor and weapons. I made some very tight nit friends playing WoW, some of which I have met IRL. Many of my ex-guildies and I still hop on for a game of League of Legends or other gaming endeavor every now and then. Even if we haven't gamed together in months, its always fun talking with them and just enjoying time with them.
I think what killed WoW for me was advancing to college. I lived with roommates that I liked and was pushed to socialize constantly. I quit WoW after my guild (Impervious of Stormreaver) snagged a top 30 world wide kill of Illidan in Black Temple. After reaching that goal, the game just lost it's luster. Why raid BT again next week when you have new REAL LIFE friends right next door who want to play and open you up to new hobbies outside gold farming and daily quests?
I briefly played Lich King at launch after missing all of Sunwell in BC. Racing to 80 was fun and my roommies cheered me on, and its launch timed out well with winter break. After returning to college in Spring however, I had no interest in leaving my new friends just so I could raid the next teir of 25 mans. I picked up Cata about a month after launch to check out the new content, but quickly fell out of it again as I had come into my own socially. Drinking, chilling with new people, kissing ladies, that sort of thing. I have no plans of purchasing Mists of Pandaria at this point. If I was to game with my close internet buddies, I'll stick to something that doesn't require a 4 day a week commitment.
The community focus is exactly what made WoW so great. I put hours into the game, even tho I was already geared in level 60 Naxx epics. Why? So I could run around Orgrimmar killing Horde to show off my sweet armor and weapons. I made some very tight nit friends playing WoW, some of which I have met IRL. Many of my ex-guildies and I still hop on for a game of League of Legends or other gaming endeavor every now and then. Even if we haven't gamed together in months, its always fun talking with them and just enjoying time with them.
I think what killed WoW for me was advancing to college. I lived with roommates that I liked and was pushed to socialize constantly. I quit WoW after my guild (Impervious of Stormreaver) snagged a top 30 world wide kill of Illidan in Black Temple. After reaching that goal, the game just lost it's luster. Why raid BT again next week when you have new REAL LIFE friends right next door who want to play and open you up to new hobbies outside gold farming and daily quests?
I briefly played Lich King at launch after missing all of Sunwell in BC. Racing to 80 was fun and my roommies cheered me on, and its launch timed out well with winter break. After returning to college in Spring however, I had no interest in leaving my new friends just so I could raid the next teir of 25 mans. I picked up Cata about a month after launch to check out the new content, but quickly fell out of it again as I had come into my own socially. Drinking, chilling with new people, kissing ladies, that sort of thing. I have no plans of purchasing Mists of Pandaria at this point. If I was to game with my close internet buddies, I'll stick to something that doesn't require a 4 day a week commitment.
I used to really be into mmorpgs. Mainly Maplestory, Ragnarok, Gunz, and the like. I know how the grinding and repetativeness can wear down the value, turn it into work, etc ...
[Typical mmo=zombiefactory post]
I finally gave most of them up due to the constant add-ons being more than my pc could take.
I found an alternative though, that seems to be working well for me.
Social games. I know, the usual IMVU, Secondlife, flamewar stuff, but just listen for a sec.
After you get used to working in a rp fashion, you'd be surprised at some of the stuff that you can get into. Last week a few friends and me had a 7hr long zombie-apocalype thing, kind of like what some of the forum games go with. Just look for what you're into and there's probably a whole group of people with similar interests just having trouble to find a place to fit in. I've met a few of my friends on some of these sites. We exchange skype info and have had meetings in other online games to mess around when we just want to play the regular way but can always fall back to the chatrooms when we get bored. For example, after messing around at a bar scene, me and a few linked up on skype and had our own tournament on Halo. I can't get that many people irl to come over for a lan party so it was a pretty big thing for me. Who knows, maybe it'll work for some of you also.
[Typical mmo=zombiefactory post]
I finally gave most of them up due to the constant add-ons being more than my pc could take.
I found an alternative though, that seems to be working well for me.
Social games. I know, the usual IMVU, Secondlife, flamewar stuff, but just listen for a sec.
After you get used to working in a rp fashion, you'd be surprised at some of the stuff that you can get into. Last week a few friends and me had a 7hr long zombie-apocalype thing, kind of like what some of the forum games go with. Just look for what you're into and there's probably a whole group of people with similar interests just having trouble to find a place to fit in. I've met a few of my friends on some of these sites. We exchange skype info and have had meetings in other online games to mess around when we just want to play the regular way but can always fall back to the chatrooms when we get bored. For example, after messing around at a bar scene, me and a few linked up on skype and had our own tournament on Halo. I can't get that many people irl to come over for a lan party so it was a pretty big thing for me. Who knows, maybe it'll work for some of you also.
I never liked WoW, or EQ, or other autoattack & press a few buttons repeat games.
Why?
'cos they are shit games and I don't like shit games
From what I've seen & heard (no, I'm not about to import TOR to australia and put up with overseas lag), the story in TOR is quite nice, but the combat is ASS.
I played a bit of DC universe online, 'cos active blocking, active dodging, active combos.
A bit as in I have 6 level 30s, but I'm done with it .. it's mildly amusing, but there are more impressive games around.
And by impressive I don't mean Skyrim.
I mean it's a great game for the exploring, but anyone who thinks skyrim's combat is actually good needs to get their head examined.
Why?
'cos they are shit games and I don't like shit games
From what I've seen & heard (no, I'm not about to import TOR to australia and put up with overseas lag), the story in TOR is quite nice, but the combat is ASS.
I played a bit of DC universe online, 'cos active blocking, active dodging, active combos.
A bit as in I have 6 level 30s, but I'm done with it .. it's mildly amusing, but there are more impressive games around.
And by impressive I don't mean Skyrim.
I mean it's a great game for the exploring, but anyone who thinks skyrim's combat is actually good needs to get their head examined.
I played the D&D MMO for probably for or five months before I stopped pay for my subscription. I realized that I was getting home from work and going directly to the computer, still wearing work clothes. I was a bike messenger at the time, so I'd be sitting their in sweaty clothes, eating at the computer, playing until midnight or one or two then going to bed, back to work and right back to the computer aftewards.
I realized that I was missing a ton of real life shit and I quit.
As an aside, my friend who was big into WoW gave me a month free trial thingy and I thought WoW was the most boring shit I every played. I guess when you get to higher levels it gets "fun", but I couldn't be arsed to spend the time grinding fetch quests and kill x number of x quests to get there. Personally I don't get the appeal of WoW. I found it pretty banal.
I realized that I was missing a ton of real life shit and I quit.
As an aside, my friend who was big into WoW gave me a month free trial thingy and I thought WoW was the most boring shit I every played. I guess when you get to higher levels it gets "fun", but I couldn't be arsed to spend the time grinding fetch quests and kill x number of x quests to get there. Personally I don't get the appeal of WoW. I found it pretty banal.
I don't know what it is about my thought patterns, but I just cannot get into MMO's, at all. I genuinely couldn't say why, but in the end I just get bored. I've tried EVE Online, WAR and a couple of Korean WoW clones but I've all eventually come away from all of them; not decisively, but because I literally just forgot to play them because of all other games I play.
So MMO's (in their current form) and I just don't mix. I guess I don't have any money worries on this front then.
So MMO's (in their current form) and I just don't mix. I guess I don't have any money worries on this front then.
So sad. This is why I stave-off of the MMO lands, as compelling as they sound. I cannot but feel as though I'd be wasting my life, on something that was completely worthless, and cannot supply me with any sort of achievement outside of itself. This is one of the many reasons, I chose to become an actor. Playing different roles IRL is a lot more fun and, most importantly, rewarding, then playing one in the digital world. I'm very confident about this notion; yet I fear that, if, by chance, a Naruto-based, sub. MMO comes out, I won't be able to withold myself any longer! Hopefuly, it won't, or if it does, at least I hope it's shitty.
I've been a MMO player for going on 15 years now. I started with the classic, Ultima Online, then moved to Star War Galaxies, then to WoW, and now TOR. The two key works in MMO: Massive and Multiplayer are the reasons I play MMOs. The problem I have with TOR, it doesn't feel like a MMO to me, the story is to much singleplayer, don't get me wrong it is a great story based driven game, but that not what I look for in a MMO. The game makes it even harder to play with friends when you choose two different classes on different starting planets. It is a pain in the ass, then again WoW did the same thing in Cataclysm with the Worgen and Goblins having their own separated starting areas. TOR you also loose a lot of choice at the beginning. You have to do the quests in the planets assigned. If you don't like a particular planet, to bad. To me Massive means big enough for choice, which quests you want to do. It takes several hours in TOR before that opens up. I think TOR is a step backward from an MMO game unless they plan to open the game more up.
Stories like yours keep convincing me that avoiding subscription based MMO's was one of the better decisions I made as a gamer. The feeling of being "obligation to play" as opposed to "playing for fun" doesn't seem like an improvement. That and my finances wouldn't really allow for another monthly bill.Dastardly said:
In earlier games, it was actually great. You were part of a virtual world, there was a lot to do, and you paid, in part, to keep the "riff-raff" out. But this was when subscriptions were young, and developers had to try much harder in order to convince people to continually pay for a game. We were getting their best effort, because they had a lot to prove.Redlin5 said:
After early MMOs desensitized people to the subscription idea, that's when WoW popped in and offered a mass-appeal, stay-in-the-lines game. It was new, it was acceptable, and we were "over" the whole $15/month shock. WoW's success owes a great deal to lucky timing.
But it was WoW, and its imitators, that really dug into the "loot treadmill" model. Raid to get loot, get loot so you can do the next raid. No more housing, no more personalized appearance, no more personalized skill set, no more crafting beyond "insert two wimples, get a widget." And when folks saw that you could get away with charging a subscription fee for a quarter of an MMO? That was it.