Premise

After the many MMO's I've played, which for me are quite a bit since you're suppose to invest much time into one instead of hopping from one boat to another; it eventually started. I kept finding certain things that irritated me after a few days/weeks of play in certain MMO's and since then it has spiralled out of control.

I got my reasons, I'll start with everyones favourite:

World of Warcraft

Out of all the MMO's I've played this one is the most well put together in terms of efficiency, responsiveness, combat and over all look. However, since the latest expansion the seamless world has gone because of the all too-convenient instancing for just about everything. All the number crunching that got involved turned the majority of players into binary game wizards in dungeons; it was no longer about fun just progressing till there's no feasible content left.

But that wasn't the kicker for me, it had bugged me since the last expansion that there was such little character customization, especially for what you're wearing. I was an avid supporter of the "Appearance Tab" till my sub stopped, the devs just don't seem to care.

Really like the game, the devs just don't seem as passionate about this one anymore.

Aion

I enjoy the combat in aion the most out of any MMO to date, but pvp has always been very sporadic, you could never log on and say: "I want to pvp, let's get it on", the majority of the time is spent looking for people to kill, and then even when you do find them it's a huge gamble as to wether on they outgear you by miles. I really enjoyed the character customization, from creating your character to customizing how your amour looks; great stuff.

Even the animation imo is one of the best in the genre atm, you can even customize your animation too! All that customization is delectable but when it comes down to it, you log on and there isn't much player friendly content to do, you have to invest a lot of time to do some of the simplest of things, heck your crafting has an arbitrary chance to fail, what's up with that?

Really like the combat, animation and cutomization, just the rest of gameplay that should drive the world isn't really there.

Lineage 2

There was something strange about this MMO, as simple as it was, it was strangely addictive. All I did was buff up with my clan, go out solo, kill shit and bring back the mats so that one day I could make a piece of armour that wasn't siginificantly better than the one I was wearing. Then going to raids that took absolutely forever. I don't think I'll ever play it again though.

I guess its simplicity was its strong point, I can't comment much on it because I never really did anything else, I wouldn't be surprised if there really wasn't anything else to do in it, it was my first MMO after all.

WARonline

Man I hate mythic for screwing up this IP, still am a big fan of the IP though. I like the way the game plays and how the world is setup (apart from it not being a seamless world) the animation is pretty bad, nothing really works, it's not very responsive and the art directions execution is very unappealing. The engine programmed for this was its doom from the start.

It's crazy how great the concept art is, but then they had really bad texturing for the game, everything looks muddy. I think this game is beyond repair and it's such a shame, I enjoyed the RvR and public quests a lot, it was the first MMO I enjoyed playing as a ranged character instead of melee.

Its strength was in the design but it has such horrible execution. Not sure what they would have to do to fix this shipwreck.

Rift

This is pretty much WARonline Mk2, seriously. I enjoyed the combat and all the frills in the game, apart from the animation and enviroment, oh dear lord it made my eyes bleed. Initially I had a blast, but then I didn't really know what I was doing, most of the time it was just killing mobs and tbh I'll play a korean grinder if I want to do that because the prettyness makes it much more bearable.

I was so focused on figuring out how to maximise my dps from the few talent points I had spent that I was ignoring the aesthetics, once it sunk in I realized the crap that surrounded my avatar.

I don't think I could ever return to rift.

Vindictus

This game is super fun, but only when playing with RL friends, it's such a blast that way, but otherwise it gets boring really fast. It's a very shallow game, and I mean really shallow. Since it's F2P you are barred from most aethetic options, and certain features are there to simply clean you out of pocket. At first I thought it was great how quickly you could set out on a boat, but then I realized, no one communicates in the group, as it's so simple it is not required at all.

It lacks content to be a casual game, as you progress very slowly, even playing with a group or RL friends you get burnt out pretty quick, it becomes same old same old quickly. It's not really an MMO considering how small it is and that there is so much isntancing.

I like vindictus but it needs more depth just about everywhere outside of combat.

I think I'ma stop here because really, if you're a vet of the genre, nothing new and refreshing has been released that is actually executed properly. The current ones we have now, even the very good ones, are simply dated. In my honest opinion, WoW and Aion are the only MMO's where their production value shows.

Maybe I'm too old for games *sigh* this is quite depressing for me.

That's because there aren't any atm D:

I've thought about giving up on the MMO genre for a year or so until the scene improves... might just buy an xbox 360

I stopped playing MMO's a few months ago just because theres nothing unique or interesting out there.

I'm just waiting for tab targeting to die out, and the action oriented combat MMO's to begin

Cant wait for things like Tera, altough i dont expect much more then sore dissapointment, as with every new mmo release...

Seriously, singleplayer or a couple of player co op games are just way better.

You may want to try Everquest 2 Extended.

The exyended service is a free to play service, it's free to start playing it, the downside is that as a free to play player, named bronze, your character is very limited but with one time payment of around 10 dollars or euros you can become silver that is a good enought membership until around level 85.

It's a good game just it has too many load or zoning screens, but apart of that the game is really complete, give it a fair chance and it may be your game.

Lord of the Rings online isn't bad. At first glance, it's not exactly a zillion miles different from the standard kill and collect MMOs and, ok, instead of a punctuation mark over the quest givers heads you have a ring (clever that...). But, it has a very nice story line threaded through the game parallelling the events in the books that gives it an edge over warcraft imo. I was surprised how engaging this is because it makes doing things feel like it has an overall purpose and you care about the outcome (I wonder how this added ingredient will fare for the otherwise saminess of Old Republic?). There's also some novelty to be found in the classes where there's a lot of subtlety in terms of group roles moving away from the standard rogue/wizard/fighter piffle of everything else around.

Oh and if you plan to give it a try, at least get out of the starting area (level 10ish). A lot of people are turned off the game due to the fact that they don't play past the starting zone which is not exactly overwhealming. However, once you get to Bree and the Old forest, barrow downs, it starts feeling like it's own world. Many of the zones are a beauty to behold, for example Moria actually feels like a massive laberynthine nightmare that nicely captures the books description.  

Oh, did I mention it's free to play and you'll enver have to spend a penny as store points are accumulated from merely levelling your character?  

When all else fails, Starwars Galaxies is the way to go.

I don't think i will play any mmo this summer either. And its not bad, you can always try some single player games, they are most like the tissue you use and throw away, but this recycling isn't bad either. If you like riddles play Portal2, its really a very nice game to play these days. Sometime its just better to not play them, really they are no good mmo now apart maybe from Eve, and the game by itself is a bit special, or you like it or not. I wanted to try vindictus but i'm from europe and i don't want to bother with ip masking, i have other thing to do in life than losing my time with poeple that don't want me to play their games.

You might want to concider guild wars, ts a great mmo which combines simplicity and cooperation. And now with all the expansions theres plently to do depending on what you like most, between dungeons, Missions, Quests, special areas, etc. and the best part is you dont need to grind 900 hours to reach the level cap. Another option is that Guild wars 2 is coming out in novemberish, also Firefall (a F2P mmo) is coming out in beta soon, and looks awesome and worth trying

I know how the OP feels ( although just a word to the wise "super fun" isn't a term I would use ) . If I were you I would try one of the freemium games . lotro is proberbly the best I play it because its got a decent community and is the only mmo that reminds me of what i enjoyed about mmos in the first place. Either that or try EQ2, DDO , Champions and soon you'll be able to play Age of Conan , City of Heroes and Fallen Earth . I would imagine by the time you've played through all the free content in those Tera , StarsWars the Old Repblic and Guild Wars 2 will be out .

Just play Starcraft 2 and LoL with a mix of an FPS game. I stopped bothering playing mmo's after finally calling it quits with WoW about a year ago. I played it for 5 + years and tried almost every single mmo to try and replace it. I realized finally for my taste there wasn't anything better, and there wouldn't be anything better, or I just finally got bored of the mmo genre. 

Anyways right now i'm waiting for diablo 3 and the new starcraft 2 expansion. All the "new" mmo's coming out look pretty much rinse repeat of everything we've had with a few gimicks here and there. 

The only new mmo i'd actually consider open beta testing would be ArcheAge, the whole open world explore build a house/town, actually sail waters to different lands just seems pretty epic to me. But i've learned my leasons about puting to much hype on an mmo before it actually releases. 

i think ur last words fit best - just too old...add fed up from mmo's and u have ur reasons

i stopped mmoing 1,5 yrs ago and im fine with it although i sometimes would like to play one again. i maybe take a look at sw, but not sure for now.

go out, meet friends and drink a beer, u wont miss any mmo!

greets

I hear ya peedei been there and done that over and over again only i didnt buy into rift because i already knew from the betas that it was just more of the same to me, even though it was well done..

I dont buy games or sub to them anymore just because i can im very selective now and a game needs to do something that warrants my wallet to open and that does not happen much now..

I am currently revisiting EQ1 for nostalgic reasons and dabbling around in a couple of open beta f2p grindfest games, EQ1 is all but empty and playing solo in that game just isnt fun..

I miss WoW and my old guildies but have done everything there is to do many times and with every class and i am forever burned at least until the next expansion..

This summer will be one of light dabbling around in betas and nostalgic revisits unless something springs up and renews my fading interest in this stagnated genre..

I rotate the MMOs I play as no single one can hold my attention more than two or three months at a time.

I pay Wow, Aoc, War, Rift, Eve and now G&H. 

I have a loads of alts across these games, the moment I don't feel like logging on anymore i canel my sub and try something else. There are a few games I have not tried like Aion which i would like to try.

I think I'm at the same point as you.. just reactivated my old EQ account yesterday...

didn't buy the new expansion but made a character on the progression server so my account is fine since i had kunark and velious updates before i stopped playing.

Figure if eq catches my interest again then i'll buy the new updates.

Hit me up on vulak'aerr if you're bored.. lvl 2 cleric >_>

I was at the same ponit until  i went back to Darkfall in december,have not been able to put it down since..

Sure it has its flaws but all mmos do, i just like the rush i get from the PVP but i msut admit you gotta like that type of game it is otherwise there is no point even trying it.

Originally posted by peedei

World of Warcraft

Out of all the MMO's I've played this one is the most well put together in terms of efficiency, responsiveness, combat and over all look. However, since the latest expansion the seamless world has gone because of the all too-convenient instancing for just about everything. All the number crunching that got involved turned the majority of players into binary game wizards in dungeons; it was no longer about fun just progressing till there's no feasible content left.

But that wasn't the kicker for me, it had bugged me since the last expansion that there was such little character customization, especially for what you're wearing. I was an avid supporter of the "Appearance Tab" till my sub stopped, the devs just don't seem to care.

Really like the game, the devs just don't seem as passionate about this one anymore.

Totally agree with you on WoW. Exact same reasons i stopped playing it & also because their content updates take far too long for the amount of money they are making.

Not sure what to tell you. Either wait it out for SWTOR (which could always be held back till next year) or try out some other mmo. Looking at STO or AoC (which is going f2p soon) myself at some point in the near future.

Originally posted by Agoden

I stopped playing MMO's a few months ago just because theres nothing unique or interesting out there.

 

I'm just waiting for tab targeting to die out, and the action oriented combat MMO's to begin

Cant wait for things like Tera, altough i dont expect much more then sore dissapointment, as with every new mmo release...

 

Seriously, singleplayer or a couple of player co op games are just way better.

 And here is the prototypical "New Age" MMORPG gamer.  I'm not hating the player, just the game.  THIS is why we have bland uninspiring games in the MMO space.

Gamers that are looking for tabless targeting, action based combat type of games are playing in the MMORPG space, asking for MMORPGs to resemble RPGs.

So is it any supprise that new MMORPGs (SW:TOR) feel more like an RPG w/ a chat room than a real, and changing virtual world/

Originally posted by RajCaj

Originally posted by Agoden

I stopped playing MMO's a few months ago just because theres nothing unique or interesting out there.

 

I'm just waiting for tab targeting to die out, and the action oriented combat MMO's to begin

Cant wait for things like Tera, altough i dont expect much more then sore dissapointment, as with every new mmo release...

 

Seriously, singleplayer or a couple of player co op games are just way better.

 And here is the prototypical "New Age" MMORPG gamer.  I'm not hating the player, just the game.  THIS is why we have bland uninspiring games in the MMO space.

Gamers that are looking for tabless targeting, action based combat type of games are playing in the MMORPG space, asking for MMORPGs to resemble RPGs.

So is it any supprise that new MMORPGs (SW:TOR) feel more like an RPG w/ a chat room than a real, and changing virtual world/

I have to disagree with you.  Many MMOs, IMO, are vague attempts to cash in on the genre.  Most don't advance anything.  We still see MMOs with cookie cutter classes and races.  They're still making us grind mobs, take up fed-ex quests, and kill 5 rats.  We do this over and over until we hit max level, then we're expected to raid.  

No offense, but this is what I've been doing for the past 7 years.  I'm tired of it.  I want something different and inspiring.  This is why I'm looking forward to Guild Wars 2.  I just cannot play an MMO that puts me through the same paces as WoW, EQ2, etc.  I've done that dance so many times. I don't want to play a game just so I can be placed on a treadmill.

I resub to WoW every few months because my wife plays it and I enjoy spending time with her online. Right now my sub is lapsed and I've been playing alot of The Witcher 2. I tried the Fallen Earth trial recently but did not really enjoy it.

Originally posted by RajCaj

Originally posted by Agoden

I stopped playing MMO's a few months ago just because theres nothing unique or interesting out there.

 

I'm just waiting for tab targeting to die out, and the action oriented combat MMO's to begin

Cant wait for things like Tera, altough i dont expect much more then sore dissapointment, as with every new mmo release...

 

Seriously, singleplayer or a couple of player co op games are just way better.

 And here is the prototypical "New Age" MMORPG gamer.  I'm not hating the player, just the game.  THIS is why we have bland uninspiring games in the MMO space.

Gamers that are looking for tabless targeting, action based combat type of games are playing in the MMORPG space, asking for MMORPGs to resemble RPGs.

So is it any supprise that new MMORPGs (SW:TOR) feel more like an RPG w/ a chat room than a real, and changing virtual world/

I really don't think that changing the combat style from tab-targetting to more action-oriented means that there can't be a dynamic, immersive game world.  Tab targetting is boring and outdated nowadays.  I don't mind it really, as I've been MMO gaming for over a decade and I don't need the combat to be on par with consoles.  At the same time, I definitely would welcome a game that could capture some of the fun of single-player rpg combat.  The problem I see with modern mmos is that they seem to all promote the practic of grinding for gear that everyone else has and running dungeons over and over again.  In my opinion MMOs need to transition to a more sandbox approach where players control the goings-on of the game world.  Politics that affect gameplay, terraforming and unique gameplay additions need to be implemented into the new games that are coming out.  Those are the only ways I can think of to keep games that are coming out interesting for longer without makng them tedious and repetetive.