Well I have bought quite a few MMO's at release in my time.  I always seem to buy into media hype that surrounds these games and in the end most often then I end up unsubscribing at the end of a few months.   The games while progressing and advancing graphically don't seem to hold my interest as much as earlier MMO's.  The early games I actually subscribed for 2+ years on some

I started out with Ultima Online and I have fond memories of that game but I moved to Everquest when that came out.  I had a long gaming experience there, then moved to DAOC for a shortwhile then I started to play Everquest 2.  In there was also Asheron's Call for a short time.  After  a few years of playing EQ2 and also Star Wars Galaxies (got my Jedi on holocron 16) I decided to move on again. 

Lately, the last few MMO's I have played I only played months at a time.  Age of Conan is surrounded by solid (initial) reviews but that game still doesnt have a great player base like original EQ.  I played AOC on/off for 12 months.  I tried Warhammer, another recent entry into MMO's and bought into all the player and media hype only to be left feeling empty and bored.  Definitely some good features in Warhammer but overall too repetitive.  Speaking of repeptition, I tried DDO on release and no with F2P and its very repetitive...enter an instance and smash crates and kill mobs and collect reward and do it over and over. 

Vanguard is another clunky feeling game that some praise but still feels very unpolished and plastic.

So tonight I did it, I downloaded Aion /shrug

No huge expectations on my part anymore but hopefully it will tide me over till SW:TOR or STO

I think you are just expecting too much.

Any mmorpg that will get me hook for more than a month and I'm happy.

 The MMOs I enjoyed most were the ones where all I hoped for was that they wouldn't suck as badly as the last few I tried.

Originally posted by laokoko

I think you are just expecting too much.

Any mmorpg that will get me hook for more than a month and I'm happy.

What can you possibly get done in two months in an MMO?

Perhaps you are expecting too little?

Originally posted by laokoko

I think you are just expecting too much.

Any mmorpg that will get me hook for more than a month and I'm happy.

I agree.

Op, here is the ultimate advice. Do you research before you buy a game and take things for what they are, not for what you want them to be.

I have never been taken by hype. I have always known what the game was that I was buying before I purchased it and had accepted the bad and looked forward to the good.

Players are their own worst enemies. You essentially take the surface info, mix in what you want and then complain endlessly when these games are released and they don't match what is in your head.

I can't tell you how many times I've read some persons "personal review" that complained about something that was so evident or known prior to release.

If you have not done your research on Aion then do it. Know what players say and then enter with an open mind based upon what you like. Quite frankly though op, given what you say, you aren't going to like it. It's like you've already set yourself up to fail.

yeah honestly, some of these new MMO's coming out are just hyped up junk. But I won't turn this into a flame post by mentioning names. I'll leave that to the other thousand posts dedicated to the subject.

So let me ask instead, what server are you on on Aion? I have a few friends on the "ocean" something server.

I realized long ago that I'm just not going to like every game that comes out.  And I'm ok with that.  I don't have to blame it on hype.

If I don't like a game, then I can just try another, no big deal.

I used to do this as well.  I'd also read all the rave by people on forum sites including this one, see all the media attention, I'd buy it and toss it a side a week later due to sheer boredom and a lot of the times the game just being pure garbage, despite what all the scrubs on the forums said.

 I've learned that most media reviews and hype have no idea what they are talking about anyways, I mean they are paid to write about a game, they are good at writing, however usually really bad at playing games.  Marketing is paid to hype a game, it's what they do.  It just so happens that the marketing strategy is often times better than the MMO these days.

You gotta break yourself of buying into what people say about games now.  You really have to narrow down what you like and dart for it and ignore the people.  It's not hard to make a game sound good to other people if you like it.  One mans garbage is another mans treasure etc. 

I dont' think the problem is with the recent MMO hype.

The problem is people are expecting more and more. 

Originally posted by laokoko

I dont' think the problem is with the recent MMO hype.

The problem is people are expecting more and more. 

I agree.
 

People expect lots from a  game even before it is released, and this is evidenced by the amount of pre-orders. Seriously why do people buy a game before it is released? It doesn't make sense. People are thinking the game is the next best thing through hype and high expectations then finding out it is just like half of the rest of what is already on the market

Personally I like to wait 6-12 months after release to play an MMO, this allows a good variety of reviews, a reduction in bugs, some new instances, and less nutters. If you plyed Tabula Rasa, WoW, Age of Conan, and numerous other examples you will find that 6-12 months after release the game was far better than when it started (ironically all dropped in rating too).

I think it has nothing to do with mmo's.

I gt lucky, I expect nothing from a game and now I own a lifetime subscription :)

Majority of modern day MMOs are only designed to keep you playing for 3 months.

Originally posted by solareus

I gt lucky, I expect nothing from a game and now I own a lifetime subscription :)

To which game may I ask?

And to OP, yeah I've had the same problem lately. Since DAoC and then CoH nothing seems to stick anymore.  Not sure if I've changed or MMOs today have, but bought and regretted AoC, WAR, and Aion to name a few.  Thinking of taking a second look at either Champions Online or Fallen Earth. meh.

It's not the games, it's you :)

When I first got a computer I would play pretty much any game for untold hours, even if I wasn't 100% 'in to' them. Now, if a game fails to impress me within 5 minutes I quit it. I used to love FPS and RTS, but of the former I have only played Far Cry 2 the last couple years and can't remember when last playing the latter. I know I have become jaded, and I am sure the same goes for you.

Originally posted by Palebane

Originally posted by laokoko

I think you are just expecting too much.

Any mmorpg that will get me hook for more than a month and I'm happy.

 

What can you possibly get done in two months in an MMO?

Perhaps you are expecting too little?

Most MMOs I've tried, I barely made it halfway to the level cap.  Even the ones I liked, I get bored of before making my way through all that grind.  Gone are the days where I'll play the same MMO for a year or two.  Most single-player games, I only play for two weeks. 

I feel like it takes such a huge investment, to develop that much of a connection to a game, and I miss out on so many other good games, not to mention, real life.

The only way I'd consider sticking with a game for longer, were if it were a really casual sandbox MMO, that was more about being social, and less about devoting major chunks of my life to grinding out levels, raiding, and whatever else.

There are reasons I refuse to play a game before it's been "in the wild" for 3-6 months.  I don't believe hype, I want to see how it actually works before I give them any of my money and that means having thousands of players testing the game, plus giving developers time to fix all of the inevitable bugs because they rushed the game out the door.  There is no game out there that I will play earlier, I refuse to play inherently buggy, incomplete, untested, unworkable games.  I let everyone else do that, I'll come along later and pick up the good games and enjoy something that's at least better put together than it would have been at launch.

Originally posted by Grafbenda

Well I have bought quite a few MMO's at release in my time.  I always seem to buy into media hype that surrounds these games and in the end most often then I end up unsubscribing at the end of a few months.   The games while progressing and advancing graphically don't seem to hold my interest as much as earlier MMO's.  The early games I actually subscribed for 2+ years on some

I started out with Ultima Online and I have fond memories of that game but I moved to Everquest when that came out.  I had a long gaming experience there, then moved to DAOC for a shortwhile then I started to play Everquest 2.  In there was also Asheron's Call for a short time.  After  a few years of playing EQ2 and also Star Wars Galaxies (got my Jedi on holocron 16) I decided to move on again. 

Lately, the last few MMO's I have played I only played months at a time.  Age of Conan is surrounded by solid (initial) reviews but that game still doesnt have a great player base like original EQ.  I played AOC on/off for 12 months.  I tried Warhammer, another recent entry into MMO's and bought into all the player and media hype only to be left feeling empty and bored.  Definitely some good features in Warhammer but overall too repetitive.  Speaking of repeptition, I tried DDO on release and no with F2P and its very repetitive...enter an instance and smash crates and kill mobs and collect reward and do it over and over. 

Vanguard is another clunky feeling game that some praise but still feels very unpolished and plastic.

So tonight I did it, I downloaded Aion /shrug

No huge expectations on my part anymore but hopefully it will tide me over till SW:TOR or STO

I am with you. Same here. :/

Sorry, but the advise to lower the expectations is bollocks. Those newer MMOs just are so lacking.

Its because it feels like you have already played the game before....

Nobody is offering anything new to the genre.

Back in the old days it was all about INNOVATION!

Build your own city, intense crafting systems... etc.

What we need *is a new UO.

Remember when you got your first drivers license? How cool is that, you can drive anywhere you want to go. After awhile its not cool anymore just something you can do when you need to. Your first MMO, no matter what game, was the same. You will never get the old magic back. Like your first sex, your first deer (if your a hunter) etc. After the first time, there is no more first times.

Peoples expectations are exceeding what the designers can deliver.  People want best graphics, no lag along with massive PvP for example.  Guess what it just can't be done with todays technology.  We all want the game to be bug free,  fully developed with no down time, fast leveling and a fully developed end game.  Again not happening!  Think back to your first or second MMO you played, none of them had those qualities to start.  The early MMO's at least had a year or better to develope the high end stuff as it took us that long to get up to that level, today most of us won't play a game we can't level up in less than 6 months!  Plus we want it all in a game great PVE, PVP, RVR, EPIC Raids, Solo/Grouping Dungeons, Instants/no instants, sand box/ theme park etc.  Once again not happening. :(  if the game we were waiting for comes out and fails in any of these areas we abondon it and move on to the next disaster waiting to happen.  I would suggest if the game you really wanted is not quite up to your expectations at release that instead of dumping it, you might want to stick around and help the designers with ideas on how to make it better and a bit of patience.  One example of this was Vanguard.  Here the fans of EQ type game play involving group play were very excited someone was catering to their desires.  The game opens prematurely and with plenty of bugs, the fans of that type of play abandon it and as result SOE goes in another direction to attract a crowd.  Now who is going to make their type of game in the future after seeing what happened to Vanguard?  Being fickle and impatient cost them their nitch market game. 

If you hang around this site and it's forums, tust me you'll never be hyped about anything lol. here,  we hate games before they even make it out in beta at times lol.

The very good games do get recongnized. EVE, WOW, AION and etc...

Originally posted by Palebane

Originally posted by laokoko

I think you are just expecting too much.

Any mmorpg that will get me hook for more than a month and I'm happy.

 

What can you possibly get done in two months in an MMO?

Perhaps you are expecting too little?

It doesn't matter what you can get done in two months. You shouldn't have to play a MMO for 6 months before it becomes fun. Usually you should find the fun and magic of the game within the first few weeks.

I really am annoyed with all this "oh you hafta play for a few months before you really can enjoy the game" or " You gotta get past level 20, 30, 50 before the game really becomes fun." Why should I need to grind and be bored for months before the game is fun? It should be as exciting at the beginning as the end.

I have have tried to lower my standards. I will now try anything that doesn't try and emulate WoW...tho those games are too few.

The key to this thread is the responsibility... I don't blame the developers at all.  I put all of the responsibility on the end user.  If you choose to let yourself get so excited over something that doesn't exist, in the end it's really your fault.

Originally posted by grandpagamer

Like your first sex

Disagree. Sex is the one exception. The hard part is finding different women to do it with every time.

Back on topic. Hype is a silly thing. Don't buy into hype and you won't have unreasonable expectations. Hype is only defined by how much you believe a company's marketing anyway. Its their JOB to get you hyped. Take it all with a grain of salt and a fair amount of skepticism.