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

[Weslebear]

I love em so we aren't all haters here.

Although it does depend on the specific ones.

Early game WoW/ Aion I loved just exploring and levelling but once I got into the upper reaches of the games it felt like a fest of dicking over everyone else to make sure you could get the items you needed to continue, it wasn't a community it was dog eat dog and quite a lot of people were dicks when it came to getting gear.

Now Guild Wars, very slow to begin with and it took me a while to really get into it but once I was in there the late game is just so much fun. It's a lot more PvP focused, everything is balanced and the only reward for grinding is money and vanity items.

I think it's the ideology of GW that I prefer, in WoW style MMO's you HAVE to get the newest gears to stay competitive, whereas GW allows anyone to easily access top stat gear. The prestige comes from showing off that with the same gear as everyone you can still outplay them, it's purely skill based. Grinding provides only cool looking gear that is statistically the same, showing off your actual skills in acquiring the rare gear, as everyone has an equal playing field. Also everyone actually has a variety in the armour and weapons used, not every one looking like identical max stat clones.

For the haters I would definitely recommend looking into Guild Wars 2 when it released, no sub fee and it might change your mind.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

And your response was roughly 'oh, if your life sucked it was your fault not World of Warcraft because I have self-control' effectively.

Well, that's true. Is personal responsibility no longer something we can talk about? Everyone is a victim? If I gain 20 lbs, it's not my fault, right? It's the supermarket's fault for selling me hot dogs, and the television's fault for encouraging me to sit still, and the department store's fault for selling me roomy pants. It's not MY fault.

Seriously. The fact that you rain on that guy's parade, when he's made a positive step in his life is despicable.

Oh god, I'm not "raining on his parade". You are being a drama queen. It's great for him that he got into shape doing Karate and feels good about his life. It has nothing to do with the topic at hand, though.

It's like someone making a post asking why people don't like Half Life 2, and I go off on some screaming tangent about how sad and depressed I was during the time I played it, and how now I was doing Pilates and jogging, and I was excellent shape, and no longer sad and depressed, and that's why Half Life 2 sucks.

It's called correlation does not imply causation.

You spent 8 hours, killing rhinos on a hill, multiple times, to "level up" your character and you're saying they're not addictive? Wow, delusion at it's finest. Try not playing MMOs or video games in general for a few weeks, see how easy it is. And when you have a hard time not "getting your fix" you'll learn what the definition of addiction really is.

I've spent much, much more time than that hiking, just to "get to the top of a mountain". Is hiking addictive? I've spent more time than that listening to music. Is music addictive? Maybe I should spend some time not listening to music, to see how easy it is. Maybe I'm addicted! Oh noes!

Guy, I've stopped playing both MMOs and games for long, long periods. Because there were none I was interested in playing. I have no idea why you thought this was a dramatic challenge, because it's not. The fact you think it is says a lot more about you then you it does about games.

But hey, since you were so concerned, I looked up both "addiction" and "video game addiction".

There is no formal diagnosis of video game addiction in current medical or psychological literature. Inclusion of it as a psychological disorder has been proposed and rejected for the next version of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM).

Well, look at that.

Maybe people should stop making up bullshit like "I was addicted" to explain away why they made bad choices. Not everything is "addictive". Sometimes we just make stupid decisions. Shocking, I know.

 

[Jdb]

Good news - 2012 will see an evolution in MMO's beyond the archaic designs many people don't like anymore. Along with Guild Wars 2 comes MMO's branching into first person shooters. Firefall, Tribes Ascend, and Planetside 2 are 2012 MMOFPS's worth a consideration

 

[Jessta]

And your response was roughly 'oh, if your life sucked it was your fault not World of Warcraft because I have self-control' effectively.

Well, that's true. Is personal responsibility no longer something we can talk about? Everyone is a victim? If I gain 20 lbs, it's not my fault, right? It's the supermarket's fault for selling me hot dogs, and the television's fault for encouraging me to sit still, and the department store's fault for selling me roomy pants. It's not MY fault.

Seriously. The fact that you rain on that guy's parade, when he's made a positive step in his life is despicable.

Oh god, I'm not "raining on his parade". You are being a drama queen. It's great for him that he got into shape doing Karate and feels good about his life. It has nothing to do with the topic at hand, though.

It's like someone making a post asking why people don't like Half Life 2, and I go off on some screaming tangent about how sad and depressed I was during the time I played it, and how now I was doing Pilates and jogging, and I was excellent shape, and no longer sad and depressed, and that's why Half Life 2 sucks.

It's called correlation does not imply causation.

You spent 8 hours, killing rhinos on a hill, multiple times, to "level up" your character and you're saying they're not addictive? Wow, delusion at it's finest. Try not playing MMOs or video games in general for a few weeks, see how easy it is. And when you have a hard time not "getting your fix" you'll learn what the definition of addiction really is.

I've spent much, much more time than that hiking, just to "get to the top of a mountain". Is hiking addictive? I've spent more time than that listening to music. Is music addictive? Maybe I should spend some time not listening to music, to see how easy it is. Maybe I'm addicted! Oh noes!

Guy, I've stopped playing both MMOs and games for long, long periods. Because there were none I was interested in playing. I have no idea why you thought this was a dramatic challenge, because it's not. The fact you think it is says a lot more about you then you it does about games.

But hey, since you were so concerned, I looked up both "addiction" and "video game addiction".

There is no formal diagnosis of video game addiction in current medical or psychological literature. Inclusion of it as a psychological disorder has been proposed and rejected for the next version of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM).

Well, look at that.

Maybe people should stop making up bullshit like "I was addicted" to explain away why they made bad choices. Not everything is "addictive". Sometimes we just make stupid decisions. Shocking, I know.

I don't know how to do the fancy multiple qoute thing with dividers because I don't spend a lot of time on this forum but it looks like the message I was getting at became a bit skewed
For starters, The Karate thing was just an example of something that I PERSONALLY found more effective than MMOs in my free time. There are plenty of programs out there that do the whole socialization, relaxation, and feeling of self improvment better than WoW and thats what I was trying to get at. Karate is just what I personally found, someone else might pick up an instrument, learn a language, or even just hang out with their friends and get drunk, I don't care, my point was that MMOs don't do a very good job at what they are supposed to do, and in the end they don't really do anything but devour time and create an excuse not to do other things.
Second, Ya it was an attack against me dirrectly when you said things like "Because YOU couldn't moderate yourself" If you had said "because some people can't moderate themselves" then it wouldn't have been a personal assault against my personal opinions, thats the difference, you DIRECTLY said I was to fault for that and me alone like it was some sort of personal problem that only applied to me, and ya that made me a little peeved but whatever its just some strangers opinion of me.

And YES I was discussing the topic at hand, you seem to be the one that took a little piece of my post out of context, you ignored all the other facts and decided to attack my example without bothering to care about what the example was OF.
the topic being why do people hate MMOs and the people who play them, the short quick and dirty answer being, because the way they are designed. I WAS NOT making some big statement about how Karate is great or we should all take up Karate or anything, KARATE WAS PURELY A PERSONAL EXAMPLE TAKEN FROM PERSONAL EXPERIENCE. It was something I decided to redirect a small portion of the money and time I had spent on MMOs towards that has improved my life for the better. Hell even in my example I didn't divert all of the money and time I had been spending on MMOs to Karate, I divided that up to hanging out with friends, improving my grades, and getting a little more sleep each night.

On the final part of the discussion, Video games ARE NOT addictive nor was I trying to say video games are addictive. To quote extra credits, "Addiction refers to the fundamental altering of brain chemistry, something video games have never been shown to do. What gaming IS, is compelling." What I was saying is that MMOs are DEMANDING if you even want to squeeze that bare minimum amount of fun out of MMOs you have to spend an absurd amount of time doing things that aren't fun and feel more like work, and if you DON'T spend your time doing that, then you are wasting money because you are paying for the time that you can play MMOs in the first place. As you might have said earlier it's the Skinners box part of the game design which IS IN FACT fundamentally wrong and a huge core mechanic in how mainstream MMOs run.

And ya, you might be able to say, I have a lot of fun banging me head into a brick wall repetitively, doesn't mean you should get mad when someone else comes along and says they don't like creating indentations in their skull. You asked why we didn't like MMOS, I delivered, I guess I could see why you would be mad if I just randomly logged onto WoW and started dissing this, but you went out of your way to get our attention and have your hobbies judged.

On a side note, I'm assuming you were talking about Mainstream MMOs like World of warcraft, Everquest, and Rift and not games like League of Legends, Starcraft, and the such which technically are Massively multiplayer online games as well in the same way that Halo is technically a role playing game because you play the role of Master Chief. Also I think it important to note there are a few MMOs out there that fix a few of these problems by being free to play or making it so you don't have to do shitty farming quests and the such but the main post was clearly talking about the MMOs everyone hates and not the MMOs that no one pays attention to.

 

[Jessta]

The only real problem I had with your original post was that you blamed your personal problems on a game.

And that is no different than the people who says Video games causes school shootings

You Pulled your life together. Good for you, and more power to you. But the MMO didn't fuck you up mate.

I wasn't blaming my 'problems' on a game and I'd hardly say losing a few pounds and relieving some stress is pulling my life together nor would I say being 10 pounds over weight and a little bit stressed out is exactly terms 'fucked up your life'. The main reason I said the fat grumpy bit is because that's what a lot of MMO players become eventually because if you do get to the point where you are into enough to be near the end game playing with the vast majority which MMOs like WoW are centered on, then you have to deal with a lot of stress and pressure from the game while not actually taking anything away from the game except maybe some eye strain.
where as there are other activities in just about EVERY community I've lived in that are much more effective ways to relieve stress, have fun, and socialize and don't come with the negative side effect of your body slowly degrading as you part take in them (unless you count social drinking parties in which case, ya your body and mind kind of do waste away over time buuuuut that's another story)
And also, I would say a basic thing that your body is actually doing WHILE you play the video games is QUITE different than school shootings, Your body is ACTUALLY degrading AS you play the video game, that's like a thing, that's happening, at the time, while you're doing it. I'm a killing considerably less children as I sit on my couch and play Final fantasy than I am digesting food and storing it as fat due to lack of physical activity.
Like the ratio of children I am shooting in the face compared to the amount of fat I am generating as I sit there staring at a screen is pretty much a 0:100.
In fact I'd say its pretty sound logic to be like, oh if I play this video game until completion I will spend a considerably large amount of time sitting down and not performing any physical activities which will result in the degrading of my muscles and the development of fat on my body. I don't know how that couldn't really make sense to you, but ya, if you are sitting there twiddling your fingers for two to three hours a day, you will get fat, and if you are fat, people will not find you attractive, and if you are one to get angry at not having lover or the such, then you will be angry, and if you act angry, people will dislike you, and possibly hate you. That's pretty much common sense.
Also, I understand the MMO didn't MAKE me play it, Its my choice to buy and play the game if I want to, ya I bought it, and I played it, and that's what came of it, so I stopped. AND THAT is the reason why I HATE MMOs, AS PER THE ORIGINAL TOPIC OF DISCUSSION
Again, the banging your head into a brick wall analogy, ya I understand that its not the brick walls fault that I banged my head into it, thats my own stupid choice, but I'd say the pain I felt from banging my head into the brick wall is a pretty damn good reason to no longer like headbutting inanimate objects.
The REASON I gave my own personal life as an EXAMPLE of what I had said was to show that I knew what I was talking about and I wasn't just some asshole who read up on the topic and decided to call himself a genius, I've had personal experience with this stuff, I gave the games a chance before saying that the quests continuously feel like work or saying that the game doesn't really get off the ground till later levels, I was NOT giving some sort of AAA style speech of how it fucked up my life, I was giving an example of how the game interacted with my life while playing it at a moderate pace over the course of several months while giving my own personal thoughts and feelings about the game along side addressing real problem with their core designs.

 

[Verzin]

I'm one of the biggest MMO 'haters', but not just because I think they have no merits other than their 'social aspect' if it can indeed be called that, but also because I think they're causing great harm to other games and game studios.


now before you start claiming I don't understand MMOs, you should know that I've played WoW a lot, and two 85s equipped with raiding and PVP gear later, I've had enough. The only aspect of WoW that has staying power and TRUE long term appeal is the social aspect and the achievements, though I've never seen the appeal of the achievements. most of them seem rather...OCD. (this is coming from someone who's put probably 400 hours into each of his characters... sooo...yeah.)

the following is MY OPINION, though I believe it to be true, it isn't necessarily true.

The income that a MMO can bring to a studio is astronomic compared to a 'Regular' AAA game as well as being a long term source of money, and as a result of ridiculous production costs, more and more studios are trying to get a piece of the proverbial cake.
the problem is not that the cake is a lie, but rather that studios make MMOs at the expense of the games that 'I' want to play: i.e: SWTOR.
While SWTOR had some excellent story, the MMO elements drag for people who came to it PURELY for Bioware's promise that this would be KOTOR III and beyond. I finished my class quest a bit before my free time ran out, and I was terribly disillusioned: all of the bosses were the same. None of your choices mattered beyond the light side/dark side points for the higher tier relics, your companions were static vanity pets compared to the characters of KOTOR I (let's not even MENTION how far they fall short compared to KOTOR II's characters), and everything felt...well, like bioware could have had an excellent MMO or an excellent RPG. instead they merged the two and ended up with a below-average version of both. (the mmo aspects will probably improve in future patches, but they can't fix what they've done to the KOTOR universe with this.)

my verdict: MMOs suck. they are horrific social timesinks that ruined one of my favorite games. I hate them. I'm going to go play through baldur's gate again now. get the taste of MMOs out of my mouth. (ironic because Baldur's Gate might have been the first MMO before they changed it to single player with the potential for multi).....

 

[Jessta]

And again you remove all responsibility from yourself.

McDonalds make you fat, but blaming McDonalds on one being overweight then everyone is a victim. There is personal responsibility. You want to say "WoW ruined your life" when in fact it enabled you to ruin your life, just like EVERYTHING else in the world. Overindulgence is a personal problem.

My kid brother got in a slump because he got into the whole "Fast and the Furious" lifestyle thing. Wasted tons of money on cars and accessories. Would you blame the cars? He overindulged and lived beyond his resources and it nearly cost him his apartment, but is it the fault of the cars or him?

According to your logic its the cars

Same scenario, different medium.

No because as I said before, IT NEVER RUINED MY LIFE, I saw how it was affecting my life and removed it, the scenario here would be more like someone asking, why don't you eat fast food? and someone replying with, because it will make me fat and even then this is if Mcdonalds required that you pay for 15 dollars worth of food every time you went to eat there. Ya, I understand video games can cause these problems but I hate MMOs because these aren't just problems they can cause, these are problems they WILL cause. Either that or sap away my bank account while I'm not looking.
And ya I would blame the cars IF the cars required him to buy a new one each and every month or lose all of his previous cars and they required him to use 50 gallons for the mile and didn't come with lockable doors so he had to buy those as accessories. In that case damn straight I would blame that kind of deal, that's a bullshit deal I think that's a perfectly reasonable kind of deal to hate. You might note I didn't say I hate VIDEO GAMES for these reasons, these are things that are EXCLUSIVE to MMOs, and even then only to the big main stream MMOs because at the end of the day mainstream MMOs will not deliver what you payed for unless you pay more.
And its people like you who are a lot more to blame that people come in with that shitty logic where they super demonize gaming and blame it for things like shoot outs because you are, right now, representing the gaming industry as a regular person who plays games, and you are down right refusing to see they have problems. This is the reason people see it as an addiction and not a compulsion to, if you refuse to admit that they can cause any problems at all then they will think of their own problems they might present rather than try to deal with the problems that are right there in front of you. Pot heads and drug addicts do this same thing where they get all defensive and refuse to admit there's problems caused by their addictions and that's why gaming is commonly falsely associated with addiction.
Also, stop making shitty analogies that only share one or two common factors of the situation and ignore the rest, it would be like if I said, All video games are the same as Crack cocaine because they cost lots of money and have frequently returning customers. They simply ARE NOT the same thing.

 

[Jessta]

No because as I said before, IT NEVER RUINED MY LIFE
Also, stop making shitty analogies that only share one or two common factors of the situation and ignore the rest, it would be like if I said, All video games are like Crack cocaine because they cost lots of money. They simply ARE NOT the same thing.

Screw it.

Fact is WoW isn't crack cocaine.

If you cant get past the barrier of no1 forcing you to play it, then I cant argue with you.

Fine WoW messed up your life.

It didn't mess up mine because I because i dont play more than I have time for. Sorry that you couldn't draw a line. I can. No1 forced me to raid. I raided as much as I could because I wanted to and because I had fun. When I didn't have fun I stopped. When I didn't have time I stopped (job change) and when I got time I began again. Not a single second of anyone or anything forcing me. If something forced you we might be playing a different game.

That moment you realize the guy you've been having a debate with the last couple of days isn't completely retarded but just isn't listening to you and is trolling, people like you are real cause of school shoots outs >_> annnnd now I remember why I don't visit this forums.