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

[Casual Shinji]

The only MMO I ever played was the free WoW trail.

I quit playing after the umpteenth "collect 15 whatchamacallits" quest.

I don't hate them, there just not my bag.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

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".

Well, this is partially a design problem, and partially a player perception problem, that "end game" = "raiding" in the minds of many. I've raided, but I'm not a fan of it, and my "end game" very rarely involves it. If I feel that's all a game has on offer for me at the end of the road, the game is essentially over for me once I hit level cap. I enjoy the encounters. I do NOT enjoy having my entertainment gated by the behavior and comportment of 25-40 relative strangers.

It's worth remembering though, that "end game" does not HAVE to mean raiding. One of my favorite MMOs of all time was Dark Age of Camelot, and "end game" there was open world PvP, with keep sieges and realm invasions and a constant back and forth struggle between three factions. Ultima Online HAD no raids, not even anything resembling one. There's hundreds of hours that can be played in TOR just leveling up the different classes and seeing their stories. With some of the design philosophy shifts we've seen over the last few years, the "raid or die" phenomenon is finally starting to fade away, and modern day MMOs are turning into more of a self-serve buffet, where you pick the kind of game play you like best, and just do that.

 

[Korenith]

Honestly and at the risk of sounding anti-social I just can't be bothered to have to organise a load of people to do a few mission so I can advance with the story or get some item. Games are something I tend to play as relaxation, not playing much more than an hour at a time and certainly not at some pre-arranged time so that several people I'll never meet beyond the game space can help me do the thing I was ready to do hours ago. If I have to make that much effort I might as well phone a few mates up and go down the pub. So it's a "patience" vs "reward for patience" issue I guess. No MMO has ever felt like it was worth that much effort when there are plenty of single player games I could get just as much enjoyment out of without the fuss.

 

[Tjebbe]

Way to often have I seen guilt trips brought on people when they leave a guild for another guild or leave the game entirely as if your group owns you. Again I think it is the responsibility of the guildleaders and officers to make an atmosphere where it is ok to set limits. One of the best examples I have was our guildleader who refused to let one of our very good main tanks raid until his exams were over. We cancelled a lot of raid as a result of that, but not a single person was upset about it.

Cool! Good guildleader, too bad that seems to be the exception rather than the rule.

 

[thiosk]

You know, I see about 2 "whats with all the hate" threads per day. Typically related to hating Half Life 2 or hate directed towards haters of half life 2.

I've not encountered any of the hate other than people posting inflammatory things on the intertubes.

MMOs aren't for me (anymore) after sinking in an inordinate amount of time to endgame raiding in WoW. I'm a happier person now without it. I talk about investing 100-200 hours in Skyrim-- I invested 100-200 days into WoW. Ugh.

What I do hate is the way people-- developers and players alike-- demand to shoehorn multiplayer "experiences" into ever single bleedin' game. There was that preliminary mod for multiplayer skyrim-- it lived up to every one of my expectations for a TES MMO: a bunch of naked dudes jumping frantically around whiterun.

lets face it, thats what you get with an MMO.

 

[lRookiel]

I think it's because of the fact that from an "outsiders" perspective, they seem to suck out a persons soul

And their wallet

Mostly their wallet

This. just this.

I mean it's all the same if you played them.

I played WOW for a few months and the questing made me pretty bored, I was like "Where is the best multiplayer experience EVER actually supposed to come into the game?" "at the fucking end you say?! so I just spent 55 levels doing the boring shit and I still have 30 to go?!".

It's a drain on my life and on my wallet. I'd play it only if it became completely free.....

 

[Jak23]

All of them are the same! Fetch this, fetch that, kill 50 of this, collect 100 of that. Not only does it take forever but it's boring! If I'm going to be doing monotonous work for hours, I might as well get a job so I get money from it.

 

[AlotFirst]

It's funny, I look at people's complaints and I instantly think that the people posting those complaints would like, or even love, Firefall and/or Guild Wars 2.

Neither of the two cater to geargrinders, they haven't got a subscription fee and both use an alternative combat system. And I don't think you need to invest enormous amnounts of time in either of the two to actually acquire the ability to enjoy the game.

But I think the real reason people don't like MMORPGs is because there is a game called World of Warcraft. It dominates the genre and everything about it is outdated. And because it is such a popular game people assume that it is the standard for all MMORPGs. And that simply is no longer true.

 

[Soods]

Well, I hate people and I like my RPGs' story well written. That's why I don't like MMOs. Though I played WoW for a good 3 years, just to get the best numbers on the server, I never got them, but I got bigger numbers on the scale and smaller numbers on my bank account atleast.

 

[go-10]

in MMO's nobody complains about grinding but put it on a console RPG and its the end of the world!
so that's why I seldom play them, too much grinding and endless amount of fetch quest. Get 30 of that, kill 20 of those, etc.

also crafting/repairing/mining I hate doing those regardless of genre

 

[BloatedGuppy]

in MMO's nobody complains about grinding

If by "nobody" you mean "everybody", all the time, even when it doesn't make any sense.

Look...grinding crowd. Back in day, playing EverQuest, when it was you and 5 guys sitting on the side of a hill, killing Rhinos for 8 hours to get one bubble out of many needed to hit your next level, and someone said "Oh god, this is a grind", everyone understood. We all got it. Hard not to be sympathetic about that shit.

Now, when you level up every hour, and you need to run 10 feet to turn in a quest, or kill 5 gnolls or something, and someone is moaning "Oh god, this is a grind"...I really don't know what to say to that person. Except "No it's not, you big baby".

Seriously, EVERYTHING is called a grind now. I hear people talk about grinding in their FPS games. The word has lost all meaning. You have ruined the word "grind". Now it's only good for sexual references. You should all be ashamed of yourselves.

"Grinding".

PAH.

 

[Jessta]

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.

You either didn't read my whole post or are taking bits and pieces out of context sir, I said I don't like MMOs because they are designed in such a way as to REQUIRE an obsessive level of attention to get to any of the fun bits. Even WITH all that time and money I put into the game I still never got to the point of doing the higher tier raids in that game, which either require you have a devoted raiding guild or are able to find 10 people who are willing to play for 10+ hours straight.
Its not that I can't handle MMOs without getting addicted, its that MMOs are DESIGNED specifically to eat all your time and money, you have to spend a little over 500 hours grinding before you are to the point of being able to participate in the game with others for reals and all the while the game is encouraging you to put those hours as close together with a subscription fee. The weight/skin/personality comparison was a statement saying why people who spend their time doing things like WoW aren't as liked as people who spend their time doing other things like Karate and THAT IS ALL IT WAS MEANT TO BE. I DO enjoy other games, I have nothing against a couple good games of league of legends or halo at friends house and I certainly enjoy playing a bit of final fantasy or kingdom hearts before bed, but all of those games are games that I can devote however much time I want, when I want into without it eating my wallet or making my character fall behind in items to the point of uselessness.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

You either didn't read my whole post or are taking bits and pieces out of context sir, I said I don't like MMOs because they designed in such a way as to REQUIRE an obsessive level of attention to get to any of the fun bits. Even WITH all that time and money I put into the game I still never got to the point of doing the higher tier raids in that game, which either require you have a devoted raiding guild or are able to find 10 people who are willing to play for 10+ hours straight.

Its not that I can't handle MMOs without getting addicted, its that MMOs are DESIGNED specifically to eat all your time and money, you have to spend a little over 500 hours grinding before you are to the point of being able to participate in the game with others for reals and all the while the game is encouraging you to put those hours as close together with a subscription fee. The weight/skin/personality comparison was a statement saying why people who spend their time doing things like WoW aren't as liked as people who spend their time doing other things like Karate and THAT IS ALL IT WAS MEANT TO BE. I DO enjoy other games, I have nothing against a couple good games of league of legends or halo at friends house and I certainly enjoy playing a bit of final fantasy or kingdom hearts before bed, but all of those games are games that I can devote however much time I want, when I want into without it eating my wallet or making my character fall behind in items to the point of uselessness.

I read your whole post. Whether you meant to or not, you made a "Why would someone spend X hours playing a MMO, when they could be learning KARATE!" point. Which can easily turn into "Why would anyone spend X hours learning Karate, when they could be studying to become a doctor, and cure sick children!". Recreation time is recreation time. We're not going to get into a debate about whether or not we should all be learning to play the Trombone or joining a political movement or disabling land mines instead. I'm not asking whether or not people should choose between a MMO and a happy marriage. I'm asking why people choose, say, five hours of first person shooter over five hours of MMO, and dismiss the latter as "Not a real game". Why people say things like "This would've been awesome, if it hadn't been a MMO", or "Ugh, not another MMO" in far more volume then they attack any other genre.

You're making some deeply exaggerative claims about MMOs, as well, such as "the game doesn't start for real until you put 500 hours into it". The game, which I am playing for fun, starts the moment I start playing it. I co-op with my girlfriend, and we had as much fun at level 10 as we had at level 50. I know the argument about skinner box design, and we've discussed it in this thread, and I agree with elements of it, but the argument that MMOs are ONLY Skinner Boxes is factually incorrect.

Don't get me wrong...it's cool if you hate the games and don't find them fun. You don't need to feel defensive, I'm not attacking you. But I do disagree with the notion that they are singularly heinous and addictive, and that they lock all the good stuff away behind 500 hours of tedium. Those are hugely subjective statements.

 

[BoogityBoogityMan]

What turned me off of SWTOR and furthered my disdain of mmorpgs was utterly cliched and seemingly endless opening movie sequences. The 'han solo' smuggler guy walking around in an Aussie oilskin coat and hat with the Vin Diesel face made me laugh...ohhh he is so cool. But even after the endless over-the-top boring retreaded star wars battle tropes that made the prequels so dull ended, I thought the game mechanics might still be fun. Besides, the beta was free so why not see what 2-300 million created.

I roll a character and started playing. But as soon as I had completed my first XofY quest, I shut it down and deleted the game files as I knew neither the story nor the gameplay would be worth my time. I wasted a few hours with the free version wow doing that kind of stuff, blah.

I guess, having grown up on pen and paper rpgs, I have high standards for role playing games. I want a game where I affect the world and where I can help shape the story, not a story whose outcome is the same for every player; where my imagination is stimulated, not the adolescent 'center of the universe/all powerful' ego pandering that most games try to stroke.

Maybe in the future there could be a crpg that has some of the good stuff of pen and paper rpgs. Real AI would be needed though, and that's probably not gonna happen anytime soon.

 

[Coldster]

I must not be reading as many threads as you because I honestly almost never see hate or even minor disliking on MMOs. In fact, I think its safe to say that most people here on The Escapist have played or still do play MMOs. Now, I don't currently play any nor have a played one in the last five years, so there's that. That just about sums up my thoughts here.

 

[Atmos Duality]

It's not MMOs specifically that I hate, but their over-reliance on grind and Skinner-Box psychology. The problem lies in that the further one "progresses" in an MMO, the more grind is added to the player's burden.

I cannot fathom how anyone finds grinding "fun", unless they are under the illusion that bigger numbers equal "player progress". Bigger numbers are just changes in scaling and are not necessarily representative of the player's actual skill.

(Most commonly: When your numbers become bigger, you go to a new region and the numbers of everything else become bigger to match or exceed yours, even though everything behaves mostly the same as the previous region. This isn't progress, nor is it genuine difficulty, and without challenge it's boring, and so it just becomes yet more grind...then the player can repeat this silly process all over again for the region after THAT. Hence, the "Illusion of progress".)