What's with the MMO hate, you hateful haters?

[Joccaren]

Generally, they have a subscription fee. Before you say 'Value for money', BF2 was better value for money. I played up until today online on their servers, and got that free with the game. I wouldn't mind if it were a one time payment to get the game, like Guild Wars, and then some in game content you could buy for a boost - ala Star Trek Online where you could spend money to get more ships early, or could just wait until you rank up and requisition one. CoD is apparently the largest entertainment medium in history, and most play online. They will do so for a while, maybe not as long as WoW or W/E, but they don't have to pay a cent to play online, except if their on an Xbox with XBL, or PSN or whichever one charged you for online play.
Then, most have a forced focus on multiplayer at times. Its fine for it to include multiplayer, but to have a story mission designed for multiplayer teams to be the only ones with a chance of getting through whilst not 10 levels higher than they were when given the quest - that just sucks.
I don't have a credit card, but can easily get my money up online to spend. I don't see it as being worth it to play an MMO to put in $100 or more for a year. That's bad value for money, especially when even if CoD is only played for one year by most people, they have more playing it more often for free, and the game only cost them $60 to get most of the time. I'm more inclined to spend small amounts of money to get new races in DDO or something than pay for the whole experience beyond level 20 on WoW.

 

[Kyrian007]

The grind. People don't like to feel their time is being wasted, which is what grinds can do. They would rather play the game instead of preparing to play it.

This is why exactly. Grind is something games need to moderate, because it sucks. MMO's are all grind. There is little else to an MMO. Character creation, Grind and then... well nothing else. Just inventory and character upkeep and more grind. In a good rpg (not mmo) there is story, actual character development (not just pumping skills and stats,) and progression to a victory condition. Those things are impossible to provide in an mmo. An mmo can provide backdrop (SWO is pretty good at this actually) but you can't have a story with millions of "main characters," so it's just backdrop and not an actual story without any kind of progression. Plus, you can every once in a great while find a server and guild with some fairly good people to play with. But most of the time playing an mmo, you are surrounded by a constant bombardment squeakers, idiots, and in general every single variety of asshat imaginable. Social interaction in an mmo is like having a 4 hour long root canal, in which the dentist places a single drop of your favorite schnapps on your tongue randomly 5 times over that 4 hours. "Mmmm tasty" for a second, and then back to the pain.

 

[Simon Pettersson]

It's a pretty observable trend that a sizable portion of this community hates Massively Multiplayer games, or specifically MMORPGS, in the vein of WoW, and TOR, etc. And when I say "hate", I mean ya'll just LOATHE them. As though they were some form of gaming herpes. You can feel the lips curling in disgust through the screen.

What's going on with that?

Is it the subscription fee? You know that most MMOs are designed to be played for hundreds of hours, yeah? On an hour per dollar basis, they're arguably one of the cheapest forms of entertainment in existence. Hating them for being too expensive is like hating Kraft Dinner for being too fancy.

For being a game thhat is made to "be played for hundreds of hours", there is usually very little to do in most of the games. You don´t feel very heroic when you run around in wow killing hundred of wolves or boar to get there 3 tusks and 2 wolf pelts ....

Is it because you're all under the age of 20, and you don't have a credit card, or you do have a credit card, but it's full of charges for Ramen noodles and Eastern European porn?

I don't think I've ever seen such a polarizing genre of games in all my years of gaming. You're all such mean girls about it. I demand your hostile, sneering explanations, post haste.

This is just insulting us....

I like a game that has a good story. Most MMORPG´s has had a very broad story line, with starting quests all over the place. You can´t really change the world either, except some few big events every now and then.

I have started player TOR and yeah I like the game its basicly an continuation of Kotor and I love the game. The class storys are interesting and most of the other quests are very fun to do too. If more MMORPG´s was that fun I would have played more of them.

 

[SL33TBL1ND]

It's because I don't enjoy that style of game for what their asking. It's pretty simple. It's the same reason I don't buy fighting or sports games, because I don't enjoy that genre.

 

[Kyoufuu]

I dislike most MMOs because the quests aren't quests, they're errands. Yeah, I play WoW, but most of that is to do with saving the world in a universe that I'm a big fan of. The reason I say MOST MMOs is because of Runescape, in which quests are: 1) an end, not a means (unfortunately grinding has to be the means, but eh, you pretty much grind quests in other MMOs), 2) require actual thought: most of them involve puzzles and unique boss fights, 3) have decent storylines that make me actually care about the characters, and 4) are overall just fun. My first WoW quest involved killing wolves and bringing back their meat. My first RS quest involved rediscovering how to create runes (long story short, saving civilisation). Sure, there are only around 180 quests, but a new one is released each month, and you can actually make quests unique, instead of re-using three same basic premises on 500,000 quests.

ALSO there is the fact that most MMOs' real gameplay starts at max level. In RS, you stop when you want to, and there's no content whatsoever requiring maxed levels.

 

[Kinguendo]

I dont hate on MMOs, I play MMOs... but not WoW, because I have taste. I play Uncharted Waters Online, Shin Megami Tensei Imagine, LOTRO and Champions Online.

Uncharted Waters Online because UW2 is easily one of top 5 games and UWO is insane.

Shin Megami Tensei Imagine because you capture demons and fuse them and its in a post-apocalyptic world, its crazy.

LOTRO is a good game, with the classic Fantasy setting but based on a story you can get into before playing and explores that world more in-depth.

Champions Online because... who doesnt want to be a super hero?!

 

[Redweaver]

My main issue with MMOs, and one of the reasons I don't like them as much as I used to, is similar to my main issue with sports titles and FPSs.

They've found the formula that safely sells and they're copying it ad nauseum.

I'm keeping my eyes open for a good MMO that isn't basically a reskinned WoW.

 

[Mr Pantomime]

Is it the subscription fee? You know that most MMOs are designed to be played for hundreds of hours, yeah? On an hour per dollar basis, they're arguably one of the cheapest forms of entertainment in existence. Hating them for being too expensive is like hating Kraft Dinner for being too fancy.

Price per hour isnt a very good argument. These days its more common for people to get bogged down from their backlogs than it is for them to not have anything to play. Even if it was, MMOs would still have to compete with other online multiplayer games from the FPS, TBS, RTS genres, as well as games like Minecraft and Terreria , all of which I would argue provide a better gameplay experiance than any MMO ive played.

 

[Provident]

MMO player here. I'm a big RPG fan, so I tend to like games with long-term gratification and MMOs are pretty much the epitome of that.

I do, however, have some issues with most MMOs.

In my opinion, the #1 biggest flaw of most MMOs is that they propagate competition and elitism. Many other games do this too, expecially FPS's, but MMOs with their addiction factor and gargantuan player base, is the bigger culprit.

Obviously the most predominant example is WoW. Like I'm sure some of you have done, I've raided at high level in most WoW expansions. Those of you that have been through this should be able to back me up - it's a fairly major commitment. To raid 5 hours a night, 4-5 nights a week, plus the time to farm mats for consumables - it's pretty much a full time job on top of your current job. This is what creates the addiction factor once you get into raiding.

Once you're addicted, you're held to a very high standard of skill level by your guild/raid leader. This needs to be sustained constantly by spending additional time theorycrafting and farming. You need to constantly be competitive on the damage/healing meters, otherwise your place in the raid group might become endangered.

Generally, it feels as if you're fighting against your own team instead of against the boss. Your job as a raider is to try to be better than anyone else out there - not necessarily to be able to beat the next boss.

Until only a couple years ago I too was entrenched in the gross elitism that raid-based MMOs are built upon. I was yelled at for standing 2 feet too far to the left, and I yelled at other people for the same thing. Now I'm over it. I don't want to play a game to try to put others to shame. I don't want to need to have all the best gear in the game. I don't want to have to care about being the best 100% of the time. I want to log on, work /with/ people to achieve a goal, and just have some fun. It's a game!

With that in mind, I'm eagerly awaiting Guild Wars 2. What appears to be the first in a (hopefully) new generation of MMOs, pioneering the first (but far from last) nail in the coffin of 'competitive MMOs'.

TL/DR: MMOs are addictive and unfun when played 'hardcore'. When approached casually, like we used to do back in the EQ1 days, and will hopefully soon do again in GW2, MMOs are awesome fun. They really are cheap, too.

 

[Aeshi]

Because MMOs are mainstream and therefor cool to bash, so you get people parroting the same few arguments of "SKINNER BOX HURR (only know the term from that one Extra Credits video)" and "MMOS ARE ALL KILL X OF Y FOR Z OMG (brb need to go kill 20 dragons on Skyrim to get bones to make new armour)" Honestly the only argument against them that holds any water is the Subscription Fee thing (and given how many MMOs are F2P they only barely even have that.)


They do what dozens of others have done but they are the only ones who are bashed for it. They're essentially the Tablets of the gaming industry.

 

[Farotsu]

Eh. Don't really have time to get sucked into an MMO right now. But if I did I wouldn't have a problem with them. There's still plenty of stuff good in WoW, the gameplay especially and some of the raids are still most fun I've ever had, the hectic fights and all. Even some of the grinding and farming was kinda relaxing fun that you were able to click through while talking with friends on Vent. I don't understand the hate towards them. While I get it that it might not be your thing, I don't see a real reason to bash them or the players that play them.

That said, I am having hard time trying to get myself excited with any of the other genres currently. Dark Souls was good, Skyrim a bit meh but it worked for a while but none of the other new games that have come out have really given me the same kind of kicks that I was able to get out from WoW.

 

[Alade]

It's the fact that the things are heroin, or at least wow is. I played it for 5-6 years, poured over 6000 hours into the damn thing, and except for the last year the whole thing was nothing but time wasted. I still consider WoW the biggest mistake of my life, I hate myself and the game for ever playing it and I refuse to touch an MMO ever again.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

I used to play WoW, and I would spend about two-three hours every other night on it, combined with 50$ for the initial game, 115$ on expansions and over 200$ on subscription fees.

I came out of that with bad eyesight, bad skin, and a short temper.

Now adays I do Karate twice a week for 4 hours, I made one initial payment of 10$ for membership and another payment of 40$ for the outfit, In the two months I've been doing it I went from tripping over my own feet and weighing 205 lbs to being able to easily perform 3 Katas, weighing 190 pounds, having decent skin, and a shit ton of patience. Also I can say each time I went to Karate I had a lot more fun than each time I played World of Warcraft and the friends I made in Karate are a lot closer than the friends I made online.

Despite this the classes I attend only have three students and are struggling to stay in existence where as World of Warcraft has millions of players and generates enough money to fix the United States economical issues.

Sooooo those are some reasons I think MMO players don't get as much respect as you think they deserve.

This is a little ridiculous though. You can do anything to the point where you have bad eyesight, bad skin, and a short temper. I'm a gamer. I've been a gamer for almost 30 years. Recently I decided I was getting a little thick around the middle. I lost over 30 pounds in a couple of months. I ride the bike, I go for hikes, I do pilates. I supplement and eat right. My skin is fine, my weight is fine. I manage to do this while remaining a gamer. It's not a one or the other scenario. I know some fat, sad, unhealthy non-gamers, and some fat, sad, unhealthy gamers. Their general levels of fatness and sadness have everything to do with them, their diet, their attitude, and their activity level, and nothing to do with whether or not they played video games.

There doesn't need to be a warning on the box of a given MMO that says "May make you fat, sad, and give you bad skin and eyesight" because it wasn't the fault of the MMO that happened, it was the fault of the player.

You can say "I don't like MMOs because I can't personally handle them, I get addicted, and my life goes to hell". You can't say "This is why MMO players don't get the respect they think they deserve", as if your experience represents the experience of everyone alive. Presumably if I spent 5 hours playing Portal I'd be lean and happy, but if I spent 5 hours playing a MMO, I'd be fat and miserable.

It's ridiculous.

Price per hour isnt a very good argument. These days its more common for people to get bogged down from their backlogs than it is for them to not have anything to play.

You've got me there. My own backlog is terrifying.

Until only a couple years ago I too was entrenched in the gross elitism that raid-based MMOs are built upon. I was yelled at for standing 2 feet too far to the left, and I yelled at other people for the same thing. Now I'm over it. I don't want to play a game to try to put others to shame. I don't want to need to have all the best gear in the game. I don't want to have to care about being the best 100% of the time. I want to log on, work /with/ people to achieve a goal, and just have some fun. It's a game!

You'll never hear me arguing for raid culture. I love MMOs, but I despise raid culture. Those idiots do not speak for the genre at large.

 

[The Abhorrent]

Until only a couple years ago I too was entrenched in the gross elitism that raid-based MMOs are built upon. I was yelled at for standing 2 feet too far to the left, and I yelled at other people for the same thing. Now I'm over it. I don't want to play a game to try to put others to shame. I don't want to need to have all the best gear in the game. I don't want to have to care about being the best 100% of the time. I want to log on, work /with/ people to achieve a goal, and just have some fun. It's a game!

You'll never hear me arguing for raid culture. I love MMOs, but I despise raid culture. Those idiots do not speak for the genre at large.

I suppose it's worth clarifying, but my earlier statements were predominantly directed towards the endgame; or as you're referring to it, "raid culture". The vast majority of the time new content is added to an MMORPG, it's exclusively endgame; other content comes around far less often, usually only as a part of an expansion rather than a patch. And the "Carrot-on-a-Stick" techniques mentioned earlier are at their worst at this stage of the game. Pre-endgame content doesn't really induce a dependency despite the fact it still uses some of those techniques. I actually don't have a lot against the non-endgame parts of the genre.

I suppose it might be a bit unfair to condemn the entire genre based on only one aspect of it, but there's still two key reasons for doing so: most of the non-endgame content is only there to prepare for the endgame, not to be entertaining on it's own merits; and most of the non-endgame content is that interesting to me. One of the reasons I actually ended up quitting was that I found out that the endgame wasn't actually any "better" than all the mediocre content I was doing to get ready for it; if anything, it was less entertaining.... and punctuated by having no real way to avoid grouping with a bunch of whiny elitist morons.

The other reason I criticize the genre as much as I do is that it seems there's no avoiding the inevitable focus on endgame content, mostly because that's what the playerbase always seems to demand and focus on. This probably isn't aided by the fact the rest of the content is seldom outstanding, single-player games provide better experiences in that regard (and without having to pay a monthly subscription on top of the initial price). I guess some may look at that part of the game more fondly than I, but my reaction is predominantly "meh".

 

[Tjebbe]

I have seen people that wanted to stop playing them, but still spent more day after day logged in, because they felt they were letting down their friends and guild members when they were offline. You could say they are weak and this could be a valuable life-lesson for them, but turning it into a base of profit is going way too far.

I have no problems with things that take up a lot of time (even with cheap tricks like grinding), and I have no problems with membership fees or expensive games.

I do have problems with games that actively promote peer pressure into play- (and pay-) time.