Now we need a thread on 10 reasons to love mmo x. I bet it reads similarly enough that we could say what we have here is not a hate list as much as a fairly good definition of the mmorpg genre..

Good article. It's impossible to do the perfect list, however here some major points that could be added.

• Locked/unavailble functionalities and key bindings (Play the way I want you to not the way you like it)
• Painful inventory management, quest, loot and resources mixed all together and sharing items with alts (Supposedly managing the mess is part of the gameplay so the FUN...)
• Gear based games that makes you choose between playing either a good looking wimp or an uber walking clown. (/drools at NPCs)
• Over priced items that make you consider buying game credit instead of playing the game to get them.
• BOP that promotes grind and prevent you to give/trade items to your family and friends.

Originally posted by Remianen

Originally posted by girlgeek 

Meh...forgive me.  I suppose it is all really about preference, huh?

You make this admission and then still try to belittle someone for their preference. Nice. I  happen to prefer some of EQ1's models to WoW's as well (especially since I'd never want to play a cow or a corpse).

The only issue I  have with the list is #5:

#5 It's in Direct Competition with MMO Y, Which is Much More Awesome

This is one of the reasons on this list that doesn't actually get said very often. That's why I didn't provide a made-up quote for it. You really don't get many people saying, "I hate MMO X because I'm afraid it'll somehow make MMO Y a worse game," but those people, with that exact same reasoning, always seem to crop up around the newest MMO launch.

I don't know why it is that there seems to be the illusion out there that if one MMO does well, then it will obviously seriously negatively impact whatever game it is what we happen to be playing and enjoying at the time. Most times, that's not going to be the case, but that doesn't stop people from hating one game out of loyalty to another.

 

The problem with this is, it's true in many cases. Not competing against games per se, but competing for development resources. Anyone who played Lineage 2 while Aion was being developed (or is playing Champions now) can tell you that. It was openly admitted by SOE that during FreeRealms' development, people from EQ1's dev team were shifted to that project (though one of them was the item designer - good riddance Merloc!). Those are the types of concerns that players of 'MMO  Y' might have that could very well be valid. For many, their favorite game having to operate with a virtual skeleton crew so the rest can work on 'New Game Y' is negatively impacting them.

Thank you.  I take pride in admitting my own biases and yet still freely expressing them.  Just like EVERY OTHER member of these forums.  Glad you were able to point out how well I fit in.  Oh wait...actually, most people here don't even ADMIT they have biases, so I guess that still puts me one ahead on the "poster honesty" meter.  Now...where is that poster rating scale?  I need to remember to give myself a "thumbs up."

/end sarcasm

By the way....you'll notice if you re-read what I actually said (and I do type AS I am thinking, I don't "pre-plan" my posts)....that I didn't "belittle" them AFTER I realized that we were really talking about a matter of taste. So to say I "made that admission" and THEN belittled them....would be inaccurate. I just typed out the literal things I was thinking AS I was thinking them. 

I dislike some games for having UIs that I find difficult, being too twitchy, having the wrong setting for my tastes or just not keeping my attention. I am all about letting every title stand on its own merits, now that I've come out of my jaded gamer phase.

Maybe there's hope for everyone, if I can manage to become less cynical. 

As far as graphics like 1999, even the major players on the market in 1999 don't look like they did in 1999. Perhaps people have forgotten exactly what games looked like back then. For a return to what that era  looked like, go take a trial tour of Asheron's Call.

Originally posted by bamdorf

Originally posted by Lasastard

 People who hate games need to sort out their priorities in life, seriously. 

Dislike? Ok, sure - but hate is a word way too strong to be wasted on something as trivial as a computer game. 

 

Computer games live or die by the flow of coin.   Don't like it, just stop paying time or money for it.   Spending personal energy to "hate" a game is a bit of a waste, no?  

OTOH, the phrase "trivial as a computer game" struck me.

I wonder if the poster has ever experienced "immersion" another standard that might have made the list...

"It's not immersive."

Ever gotten so caught up in the community, environment, etc. so that something happened that was special?    Happened several times for me  in EQ, but in about the same playing time never in WOW.   And yet I enjoyed WOW.    But for instance, I never experienced a moment in WOW when my group absolutely went berserk, laughing like hell, and couldn't think of it later without   cracking up again.   The game provided a setting where the interaction between people could reach "critical mass".

The first time it happened I realized it might just be a computer game, but the experiences, some times, were not trivial at all.

Come to think of it, one MMO in 10+ years had rare moments of "immersion."   Strictly a personal thing, I am sure.

 

 

Yes this really struck me.  I can never forget the first week I spent outside Oggok as a level 1-8 Ogre shaman.  The game is horrible by current standards, everything from design to UI to ... but it is just plain immersion.  Far far more than anyday in 45 degree vision UO, far far more than any movie.  It is just as if I am that fat lump of meat Ogre.  I can almost feel him.  When he dies, I sigh, naturally.  I am no longer minimaxing, I am inside, feeling and suffering, with him.

I know EQ was not the best, is far outdated when comparing to anything now.  But that first week in EQ is just ... speechless.

In my opinion, "Company Z" would be "Sony Online Entertainment".

Yes, I have been personally burned by this company, but I have also witnessed it's destruction in games.  I'm sure many will agree with me when I say that SOE kills games, but my greatest example is a little game called "Infantry".

For those who remember, "Infantry' was a fantastic top-down shooter game! For those who don't, well..you missed out. It had different classes, some RPG aspects (like skill choosing on diff servers), vehicles of all sorts, and some fun maps that even repetitive were still kick butt and plenty of players. It was also, 100% free-to-play, no premium accts or nothing.

Then, one day, without warning and out of the blue SOE makes an announcement that the game will now cost money to play. Suddenly the population drops from 300 per server to 25, on a good day in the middle of the afternoon.  Or something to that extent but with the same percentage drop. At least 85% of the people who played, left and never came back. Even now that the game is completely free again (although lacks quite a few of the old vehicles) the population and hype of the game is still lower than the used diaper in a trash can.

And, I haven't looked at it for awhile, but I'm sure it's still there, if you goto the website for Infantry it will probably show a little flash video of a tank firing and some minor combat that my friends is what could be referred to as false adveritsing, as that type of epic game play hasn't been in the game for a while now.

You didn't put "MMO X has a bad community." That's another big reason people hate some MMOs. I hear it a bit about WoW for example.

When i hear ppl say that it's a WoW clone i wonder if these chimps ever played anything else before WoW...  It's true that we see those allot, ppl seem to repeat over and over these '' Idiotic" excuses. Now seeing your article i might just refer these chimps to it so that they can see how unoriginal they are...

Thanks for the article...

Originally posted by Wolfzjava

When i hear ppl say that it's a WoW clone i wonder if these chimps ever played anything else before WoW...  It's true that we see those allot, ppl seem to repeat over and over these '' Idiotic" excuses. Now seeing your article i might just refer these chimps to it so that they can see how unoriginal they are...

 

Thanks for the article...

Yes I played EQ and EQ2, when I say wow clone I guess I should realy state making a game that appeals to that player demographic.  Lots of folks love it, good for them. That seams to be the target gamer that most of these game apeal to nowdays.  I have said on many of a post dont try to make wow clones, I don't want to be in that demographic.

Originally posted by Nostromo21

 

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Originally posted by nekollx

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Originally posted by Kruul

 

Size does matter. The game worlds are way to small. 
I have played LOTRO more than any of the current titles and Moria comes to mind. After steamrolling the content I placed a wager with a guildy that I could run (no mount) from the entrance  of Moria to the Lothlorien side in under 15 minutes. It ended up taking me just over 16 minutes. It made the game from there on seem so small.
If a small company like Aventurine can make a persistant world that is many times the size of WOWs,the companys like Blizzard, Turbine, and SOE should be able to  make something truely massive.

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Originally posted by Nostromo21
Travel times. I want to play a mmo game, not an aboriginal walkabout simulation. Cut them the f#$k down & stop wasting our time & money! :)
 
 
 
 
just saying.....

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Hey, I got no beef with enormous game worlds - love them in fact! But give us travel powers/mechanics ala CoX, GW or early fast travel vehicles ala the current SWG.
I like to stop & smell the roses more so than most actually, but once I've had to run (usually in quicksand slow-mo mode :) through the same area/place in a mmo for the 50th time, it all gets a bit old & nothing turns me off a game quicker (yes, I'm looking at YOU EQ2, about 5 years back!).

I don't care if portals or teleports or insta-travel is not realistic & breaks immersion for some. They are free to not use them & walk/run everywhere if they like :). OTOH, if the devs want my money, I won't be running around like a hamster for long. I'd rather grind mobs actually, as much as I hate that as well. And mounts you get at high levels are next to useless also - some of us are casual players who may not care about the endgame at all & like to experiment with alts & spend most of our (very limited) time in the low-mid levels. And we pay our $15/mth like everyone else, so there! ;-p
 

no, u shouldnt have what i have becuase you log in far less because of your life, or because you have the game, pay your fee and dont even log in at all, so when it comes time to protest youre right there, but when it comes down to it youre sitting on the sideline.  get it how you live.  if youre not playing, youre not getting that simple.  dont get upset because someone may have put in 5k hours worth of work to reach 6k dps (you sound like a WoW person, so im using WoW terms, no i havent put in 5k hours), whilist you on the other hand put in 10 hours a week, and expect in that week'st ime to get 6k dps, /NO not going to happen.  dont get upset becaue your gear isnt all purple like mine :D, and i didnt ebay my way through life.
 

Bitch and gripe about  Champions online being the way it is. But the game is not entirly soloable. Their are area where you do need to party toget the job done.  And it's not a rip off of City of Hero/Villians. It's in a way a continuation of that series. Without being stuck up NCSoft's boot. I honestly like the way it plays.

The term WOW Clone is thrown around a little to much for my taste. Too many games are considered a WOW Clone when they are actually not. And it's not in anyway a clone the it still considered . Yall honestly need to quit your bitching or go play single player.

Per hating on games with micro transactions, I think it's perfectly reasonable.

Sure, people are free to spend there money however they want, but the point is, when you're in a game, one person purchasing advancements can, and does, effect other players. It creates an environment where to have 'equal' opportunity between players, they all have to pump cash into the game, otherwise they won't stay competitive with everyone else. In other words, even if it's optional, it is still pseudo mandatory to stay competitive because there are inevitably other people who are getting an unfair advantage by swiping their credit card.

Would you play a game of chess where you could pay $10 to get an extra queen on the board? I highly doubt it. So why would you want to play an MMO where you can pay extra to get an advantage? Most people don't, and they don't want to play a game where other people have the option to cheat with their credit cards either.

Originally posted by GTwander

Originally posted by Respit

As someone else touched on, the use of the word "lag" for any problem is one of my pet peeves.

Well, that and the improper use of the words lose/loose.

 

 

Heh, I hate it when people can't spell the word "ridiculous". For how overused it is these days, on top of the built-in spellcheck in most forums, there is absolutely no excuse for misspelling it beyond wanting to look uneducated.

My pet peeve is run-on sentences, just like the one above... 

Don't even get me started on using the word 'for' to begin a sentence.

Well it seems most of those "reasons" are really only personal preferences but blown out of proportion.  I am just going to list some random thoughts to the cynical nature of MMO community.

1)  It is the nature of people to complain more than praise.  Simply try to remember when was the last time you have said or thought "The world is wonderful." and compare it to how many times you said or thought "The world sucks."  It doesn't mean the world actually sucks, but it does show that human nature is simply that way.

2)  People have short attention span. I would like to go in this subject more, but I am already sick of this.

3)  Ego, Ego, Ego.  This particular point is very broad and include alot of elements, but I am just going to simplify it.  People want to be right and want to judge the world with one standard (their own), but the problem is, everyone have different standards and thoughts.  Those that can accept other's thoughts are called adults, those who can't are still children no matter how old they are physiologically.

Plenty more, but stopping here.

Empathy is something taught by oneself, not by others.

it's a themepark