I don't browse other computer forums, so I don't know this for sure, but it seems like no computer game genre is so passionately debated as MMOs, especially by its players.  Why is that?  Other games get reviewed, they are liked or disliked, but there doesn't seem to be this longing for such realism or addictiveness (is that a word?) as there is in MMORGPs.

Again, I can't say for certain, but I would bet you don't see many threads on RTS game forums or turn-based game forums with subjects such as, "Why do they suck" all of a sudden, when at one time we loved them or "I've given up" on them now because they don't do it for me anymore.

If I play one of those games and don't enjoy it, it's not that big of a deal.  I just stop playing it and move on to the next one.  But if I am looking forward to playing an MMO, wait anxiously for it to be released, and when it finally is, I don't enjoy it, it is a huge disappointment.  Because I want to become engrossed in the game.  Something about me wants to exist in that world.  And I think I know a big reason why that is.  Those other games take place from the omniscient point of view.  Your looking down on the world and seeing everything that happening.  In other words, your seeing the action from a distance.  But in an MMO, you get up close and personal.  Your in the first or third person perspective and you see the action up close.  You stare into the enemies beady little eyes and smell his bad breath.  You can see his weapon coming down upon you attempting to slice you in half.

Many action games played on a console are viewed ftrom the same perspective as MMOs, but they are also not as multi-dimensional.  Basically you march through the world killing everything in your path.  Generally, there is no crafting, no economy, no faction building and no community.  I don't play a lot of console games, so there may be more to them than I am aware, but my sense is its similiar to non-MMO computer games.  You play one for awhile, eventually lose interest and move on to the next one.

Am I onto anything here or am I way off?

In my personal view it's more to do with the quantity eg

If a FPS fails, you can almost guarantee there will be another one soon enough to fill the void.

But if an MMO fails, I would have likely a) Waited for it for along time and b) Have to wait a long time for another one.

If decent MMO's were released every couple of weeks then 'I' wouldn't be so 'passionate' about their failures/success/features etc...

Not only that, but everyone seems to have a different view on what a MMO should be, or what it should focus on - eg PVP (if so what type), PVE, raiding, items, level or skill based, questing etc etc etc, which leads to often heated debates. But I think even this problem stems back to the fact that good MMO's are few and far between and there are a lot of markets not catered for.

Part of the appeal of any RPG is the development of a character. That becomes a very personal thing, and involves a good deal of time. People bond with the character and thus the game.

The flaws of the game become intensely magnified by the personal affinity people feel for the world they're trying to live in through their character. It's entirely understandable, after all the appeal of these games is to immerse yourself into another reality.

Yes. It is absolutely more intense than almost any other type of gaming out there. MMOGs don't have to be that way, but MMORPGs are.

You are totally wrong about the camera view having anything to do with it.

UO has an "above the head" view, Eve has nothing but a ship view, and some cheap MMOs have side scrolling view.

What makes MMOs so hotly debated is that people invest hundreds if not thousands of hours of playtime into the game.

Investing hundreds of hours into things tends to create powerful emotions.

I would think "yes" they do simply because other genres make up the bulk of the market.

The main difference (IMHO) is quality. Shooters and RTS games deliver while MMOs are...well you know what the issues are. Every year other genres break through and take gaming to another level while MMOs keep at the same old thing, kill 10 rats in fantasy land.

You don't see a whole lot of "All RTS games suck", threads mainly because they don't. Play World in Conflict and you will see what I mean. Bioshock, Call of Duty 4, whatever...meanwhile MMO's limp along putting out Vanguards and WoW copies and dozens of other derivative titles that break zero ground, flop around for a few months and die off.

Other genres also don't require the time investment MMOs do. You can pretty much hop into a game of CoD4 online and have a blast in under an hour. MMO's you need to whack rats and pigs for hundreds of hours before the game gets interesting.

The time investment thing alone opens MMOs up to a lot of criticism.

OP, I'm going to have to disagree with you here.  The most vocal game I've ever seen was with NWN2.  The hype was huge. That was going to be thee game because of player created content and all.  People were so excited about that game and when it arrived, imho it was the biggest let down ever in computer games.

I wonder if we had the scenario where the older RTS games no longer worked on our latest version of Windows, so we all had to choose from the latest releases, but all new RTS games, while looking really impressive, had been significantly dumbed down for mass appeal.

Say, you no longer had to choose in what order to build things, or work out the best strategy for defending the resource spots. The AI decided your formations and attack roots and all you need to do is select keys 1-10 to send your troops out in slightly different ways. One RTS had done this and had significant success and all the other now copied it.

I would then expect to see forums with thousands of posts talking about the good old days of the RTS and longing for one company to break the mold.

Torak I agree with you about them not sucking but they also have more polish releases. Also mmo can change and takes a lot of investment by the player. So you don't want to see something in the patch that  ruin the gameplay for ya. Oddly enough it only a few who stand up and easily done more on the internet.

Edit: Torak I disagree with you that mmo don't change. you believe the grind of killing 10 rats would stay. I see mmo changeing, trying new ideas, and widing the market. You can see this in EvE, Potbs, War, and other new mmos.

The time a game will receive in scrutiny is proportional to the time I will spent playing it/consider playing it...and to the raw cost of playing such a game.  2 years = 24 X 15 = $360 + the box + taxes...

MMORPG doesn't compare much to any other game, nor by their cost, nor by the time players are in, nor by the amount of $ a player pays.

Instead of playing 1 MMORPG, I can play 7 games.  Which get the most scrutinity, 7 games or 1 MMO, well, the MMO usually...but it also depend on the games.

So, I guess it is usually exponential, since for a game you will play 2 weeks, if you spent 2 hours observing it prior trying it, this is a lot...for a game you will play 2 years...when you don't know what to do, you read about it.

Attention is both a blessing and a curse.  Try to put some of the nonsense there is in the MMOs in regular games and see them been unable to sell.  Regular games are nearly always FUN.  Are MMOs fun?  That is a good question, especially when you look at tons of weird concepts and features.  Most MMOs devs couldn't developp a non-MMO game without re-learning MUCH!

Originally posted by Devalon

 

Edit: Torak I disagree with you that mmo don't change. you believe the grind of killing 10 rats would stay. I see mmo changeing, trying new ideas, and widing the market. You can see this in EvE, Potbs, War, and other new mmos.

Originally posted by Torak

 

Originally posted by Devalon

 

Edit: Torak I disagree with you that mmo don't change. you believe the grind of killing 10 rats would stay. I see mmo changeing, trying new ideas, and widing the market. You can see this in EvE, Potbs, War, and other new mmos.

I agree with you there. Its a long slow road though. MMOs are just now starting to turn around.
 Thats why I haven't given up on them Is it as fast or dynamic as I would like? Not yet but thats my problem.

 

Why do you think it to slow? What other genra are you comparing it to? If you take a look at mmos you can see improvment from basic walking/running to interface just over 7years. This seems fast when you compare development time takes 4-5years.

Originally posted by Devalon

 

Originally posted by Torak

 

Originally posted by Devalon

 

Edit: Torak I disagree with you that mmo don't change. you believe the grind of killing 10 rats would stay. I see mmo changeing, trying new ideas, and widing the market. You can see this in EvE, Potbs, War, and other new mmos.

I agree with you there. Its a long slow road though. MMOs are just now starting to turn around.
 Thats why I haven't given up on them Is it as fast or dynamic as I would like? Not yet but thats my problem.

 

 

Why do you think it to slow? What other genra are you comparing it to? If you take a look at mmos you can see improvment from basic walking/running to interface just over 7years. This seems fast when you compare development time takes 4-5years.

Yeah, that and the progress for other genre's is just as slow.  Take FPS games for example.  It took more than 4 years for things like deploybales, vehicles, large maps, classes, to become a standard.  Hell the FPS games with depth were probably a niche (till BF42) compared to the ever popular deathmatch fragfest types.

Originally posted by Zindaihas

I don't browse other computer forums, so I don't know this for sure, but it seems like no computer game genre is so passionately debated as MMOs, especially by its players.  Why is that?  Other games get reviewed, they are liked or disliked, but there doesn't seem to be this longing for such realism or addictiveness (is that a word?) as there is in MMORGPs.

Again, I can't say for certain, but I would bet you don't see many threads on RTS game forums or turn-based game forums with subjects such as, "Why do they suck" all of a sudden, when at one time we loved them or "I've given up" on them now because they don't do it for me anymore.

If I play one of those games and don't enjoy it, it's not that big of a deal.  I just stop playing it and move on to the next one.  But if I am looking forward to playing an MMO, wait anxiously for it to be released, and when it finally is, I don't enjoy it, it is a huge disappointment.  Because I want to become engrossed in the game.  Something about me wants to exist in that world.  And I think I know a big reason why that is.  Those other games take place from the omniscient point of view.  Your looking down on the world and seeing everything that happening.  In other words, your seeing the action from a distance.  But in an MMO, you get up close and personal.  Your in the first or third person perspective and you see the action up close.  You stare into the enemies beady little eyes and smell his bad breath.  You can see his weapon coming down upon you attempting to slice you in half.

Many action games played on a console are viewed ftrom the same perspective as MMOs, but they are also not as multi-dimensional.  Basically you march through the world killing everything in your path.  Generally, there is no crafting, no economy, no faction building and no community.  I don't play a lot of console games, so there may be more to them than I am aware, but my sense is its similiar to non-MMO computer games.  You play one for awhile, eventually lose interest and move on to the next one.

Am I onto anything here or am I way off?

YES, mmo's get more scrutiny. My theory though would be it's a function of the MONEY. If I go to BurgerKing and spend 5 bucks and the meal was cold, I'm kinda tiffed. If I go to a steak house and spend 50 bucks and it's crap, then I'm really pissed.

MMO is 50 for the game, then another 50ish for 3-4 months of playing, which is generally a rough minimum time span to max a toon and see 90+ percent of the content for average player. Regular games are half that, and 1/4 of that if they are older.

Even if you buy the game and cancel almost immediately, you were probably prepared to spend 100+ bucks, and after commiting half, you might still be a little pissed off. And of course there is the time played you've committed.... probably 10 times the amount of a regular game.

IMO, no other CPU games don't receive as much scrutiny.  This is probably because they are cheaper, involve less time played, and have lower expectations do to less time and money spent on development.  People expect a lot from MMORPGS because they have to invest so much time and money into the game.  It is understandable that when you are paying a monthly fee for a particular game that one would want it to be a great game.

One reason might be the amount of money we spend on MMO's in relation to other games.  For instance, I bought Halo and paid 60 bucks for it as I recall.  SWG on the other hand I bought two retail boxes, one being a collectors addition.  I believe that was $125 total.  Then I played a little over two years for approximately $300.  So in total, I spent about $425 on SWG.  That does not include the extra ram and two videocard upgrades that I installed to better enjoy the game....add another $400 minimum for those components.  So that brings my grand total to about $825 over two years.  Oh yeah, and then their were the two expansions I paid for each account.  I think that adds another $200.

$1025>$60.   With increased cost to play comes additional scrutiny. 

Then there is the aspect of depth of play.  In Halo you kill things.  You have different ways of killing, but you kill.  That's pretty one dimensional.    A good MMO is multidimensional, thus requiring cooperation among it's participants, which in turn fosters a community.  And in a community of players there will be differences of opinion, and some of those opinions may be very vocal.