i feel you, mmo's are terrible. ive also given up on most, and im currently only awaiting GW2.

games like ME series, Deus EX, and the upcoming BF3, batman, and Skyrim are vastly superior.

Back in the day I remember people announcing that they were done with EQ.     For example, they had played for a couple of years, but the new expansion were disappointing, they were burned out, etc.      And the overriding sentiment was that the games just weren't any good.   And then there were the people who said they were going back to single player games, etc.

OK.   But I like to think I have a  bit of perspective on this.    A very good single player game might occupy one's attention for a few weeks.    I have to admit every once in a while I come back to Civ.    But compare.    A top notch single player game works for what...50-100 hours maybe?      If you play an MMO for a couple of years, a few hours (maybe more!) a day, that works out to around 2000+ hours.    If you work it out even with a 15$ a  month fee  it's damn cheap compared to single player games, but that is not my point here.    A genre that moves the "attention span" from 50-100 hrs to 2000+ is absolutely amazing.    People are disappointed because the glow didn't last FOREVER.

There are strategy games that seem to have held people's attention for a long time.   Like Chess, or Go, or Bridge.    Some computer strategy games have held people's attention for a few years, like Civilization.    But a role-playing game?   They were just born a few years ago.     And online 3D worlds have about 12  years so far.

My feeling is that the nearly infinitely replayable, enjoyable, social roleplaying online game is yet to be built.   I don't know what it will even look like.   I know my jaw dropped when I loaded up EQ in 98.    And I played for a few years.   Should I be discouraged yet?     Isn't it inevitable that when something really new is a hit, that  there will be a mass of knockoffs, a few more polished perhaps, but that taking another quantum level jump will not come easily?

I think WoW  was a cul-de-sac for the genre.   Will GW2 perhaps make a big step forward?   Probably not.    The odds are very poor for any particular effort - no one knows how something new will work until it is live.  But here is where I retain some optimism.    (Or show my age, perhaps).    People are trying.    Lots of money and talent are being thrown at it, and at TOR.   If companies were no longer trying, I would be pessimistic.   

Look at it this way, the vast majority of you are a lot younger than I, I have to believe you have a lot to look forward to.

i sympathize with the op

mmos have sucked for the last few years

there are some interesting ones in development
gw2 and wildstar and firefall
but those are not out yet

this year i have gotten back into playing non mmos
like sims 3 and more recently deus ex human revolution
im going to order dead island this week
and this november ill be getting skyrim and saints row the third

there are a lot of good cheap and free indie games worth checking out too
you can find them on sites like tig source and indie games
nothing wrong with quitting mmos for a while and playing magic

In my opinion that loss of immersion we all seek could be remedied to a degree by doing a few things. I am also referring to a mostly PVE format for this example. Granted I also want to say I know this has been said a million times and my references are to EQ and NWN. Namely the first thing to do is have a really harsh death penalty. Corpse retrievals, xp loss, item loss etc... A few minutes of lowered stats that really dont matter or a few gold pieces for a death penalty = a player that does not care if their characters live or die = you are not longer immersed in your character. You are literally fighting to live. That has been my experience since the original EQ. (This also was new and amazing to all of those at the beginning so there was a special something that we all experienced.) Games not geared towards soloing. (I know hate me, I love to solo to 50 as well.) When players literally need each other to survive it makes the whole experience more immersive, we are social creatures as much as we believe in illusions of independence.

As far as new and innovative there will always be a feature or 3 in a game that seems to be great; why no one compiles most and tries for a sandbox dream I still dont know why exists. Death, xp, loot, dungeon system from EQ, fatalities from AoC, harvesting and crafting from  Horizons + a few others... These are just a couple of opinionated examples but you get what I mean.

Also maybe not catering to masses and not putting profit first as well. Make the game for the games' sake.  A gamer's game. And the money will come tenfold.

And when will monsters level up, and AI learn new strats? Jeez end game raids get routine, maybe if there were 3 or 4 different "moods and ways" bosses fight would make raiding harder and more immersive once you get neck deep into it. Maybe if regular mobs levelled when they killed players and got new ranks and skills it would make players interact less routinely as well.

Just becouse you have no ideea what MMO means doesn`t mean those games should not be here.

While World of Tanks is no RPG, it is an mmo, and a cool one at that if you are into driving tanks. 

It`s one the very few F2P games that let you experience all the game for free.

Sure it has "Gold" ammo, that you pay for, HOWEVER it`s so expensive nobody uses it in random games. 

Also they made it so you can queue with 2 friends, but if you want to roll noobs with a premade.... tough luck. A very cool feature  i never liked PUG vs PREMADE games. :p

Also they are expanding the game clan wars and such, and in clan wars a single province can get your clan 4500 gold per DAY. (a premium account for 1 month for 1 player is 2500 gold) 

So don`t bash what you don`t know. :-) 

oh also, CANT WAIT for World of Planes

Yeah, the pay2win is a horrible thing, but i don't understand the "no more elves" thing. Or dwarves or whatever.

Do you say "OMG not Coca Cola again on this shelf" when you enter a store every time?

If they change the name from elf to karajan and make large nose instead of large ears, will it be all good then?

I've not played anything for more than a few hours since Nov 15th 2005 :( Tried so many but none of them can compared to what SWG offered before SOE killed it off, never buying another one of their games again.

MMO used to be non mainstream and very expensive to play.... The players had to have jobs hence a level of intelligence these days mopst are for people on the dole who don't work or kids without brains.

To the OP i would suggest playing community games where the playerbase may be less massive but communities are great and games are games with difficulty. Lots of muds out and about and some great little worlds around.

The pay to win is an issue as well for me as MMOs to me are about longevity and community. This has changed to insta win and end game these days and for the dumbed down masses.

Have the faith there are games out that are still enjoyable and have some great gameplay.... Sadly that no l;onger includes the mainstream MMOs unless you are brain dead and like whack a mole.

Meh.

Originally posted by Starpower

Originally posted by Kraiser

Originally posted by Kabaal

Originally posted by Phry

well, i can understand the guys viewpoint, and i don't especially disagree.. and.. lately.. its been pretty good spending some time doing a bit of gardening.. who knows.. maybe something will come along before the winter sets in.. TSW might be the one.. maybe.. im keeping fingers crossed.. but im not exactly filled with enthusiasm about it..

TSW won't be the one, it's not out until Arpil next year at the earliest

 

Now seems like an odd time to be giving up on gaming, there is just so much coming out over the next while be it RPG, FPS or MMO's.

What he said. Quitting right now is a silly thing to do. The next wave of MMOs coming out look to be the best we've had in years. I would wait til they come out to see if you like/dislike them then if you still think your done you should quit.

Same thing was said when Warhammer online and AoC was right around the corner. There's always upcoming MMOs that looks great on paper.

Doesent mean it has to be somekind of rule that every mmorpg will be a failure because WAR was or because of AOC. Just dont get hyped to the level where you think when you log in on the new game that it will send you to some other dimension where you can live in your favourite fantasy world, it's not going to happen, they are still "only" games, mmorpg or not.

What comes to quitting, go ahead, you can always check later reviews and stuff about titles as they go live, and if something interesting surprises you, go ahead and try it, the next year, two years later or whatever. I've had long breaks from mmorpgs here and there, does not mean I cant or wont try something that seems fun sometime again :)

Originally posted by DSBHR

Originally posted by Karahandras

can't say i disagree with the sentiment

Sad but true.  Sad but true. 

 

However it is a nice day outside.  I would hope something good comes online before the snows hit though.

All true.  mmorpgs are nothing but overly glorified coop single-player rpg's, heavily instanced moba's, these days, produced by studios and publishers that try to bilk ya for $15/month for redundant content, zero massively-multiplayer, nothing immersive, open-world community-centric, or virtual.

Easy and pandering to the special needs mentality, lowest common denominator entitlement expectant crowd is the new core of mmorpg; has been for some time.

They've transcended the term "Themepark" and are nothing more than special needs themeparks that lack any genre-specific nutrional value that cant be gotten from playing any other lobby-system single-player coop rpg or third-person shooter.

Yeah i'm subbed to Rift and after about 30 mins to an hour after i first login i do afew things and get bored think FML and logoff lol because i've played so many mmo's that feel like the same thing its really killing my love of online gaming. 

I'm waiting for 3 games Guild Wars 2, Star Wars:Tor, Diablo 3, everything else on ps3 :-P

hey all, just wanted to thank everyone for their input..I'm glad this sparked such a good conversation. I peeked my head into everquest 2 extended just for a hot second. made a lowbie brigand on the "bad" side and did enjoy how the world looked and so on. one small thing I got a kick out of, there were there little mini-tornadoes randomly, and, if one hit you, it threw you a fair distance. not sure why I got a kick out of that, but I did.  also looked at world of tanks but that's not really my thing; maybe world of planes when it comes out will hold my interest as I'm a student pilot anyway. I've decided not to completely give up hope, but, I'm also not plunking down another dime unless something really knocks my socks off. thanks again for the conversation.

Originally posted by seansean it feels like I'm playing the same game over and over, with a different skin.
 

Cause you're playing the same game over and over again with different skins.

Originally posted by Shadowlord10

  It's kind of sad, that no one is willing to step up and make something different.  

Take a look at  Citadel of Sorcery .

By what  I read there it seems it will be different than what was made before and the same crap with different skin ( like GW2 , Terra etc. ) that will come.

This is what MMORPG's have become:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6d4113pVii4

I'm in the same boat.

I was an original EQ player and played that game like it was my job. There was always something to do, and the amount of time things took was significant; when you achieved something, or got a new piece of loot it meant something. This is a complete 180 from the hand-holding feel good genre now that simply has you run the same 4 instances 500 times and eventually every class has exactly the same stuff regardless of anything besides luck/timing.

There are no penalties for death and whereas it used to take months of grinding to ge tto max level, you can solo quest most MMOs now (kind of defeats the entire premise of a MMO) within a few weeks, tops. At this point you reach 'endgame' and are ushered into the same 2 or 3 instanced raids, where once again everyone gets the exact same items or coins or whatever, and rinse/repeat. It's boring, it's redundant and it's predictable. It's not development and it's definetly not immersive  - I had more choices in a Choose Your Own Adventure book when I was 10.

Instancing has run rampent and is misused 100%. Instead of it being a 'side' game like in EQ where you could grab a PUG and run through a LDoN instance because you wanted some of the reward items, or because you didn't have enough playtime that day for other things, it has now turned into the majority of gameplay. Instancing is lazy programming plain and simple and only exponentially kills replay value. There's no community; all you do is LFG for the instance, run it for the 100th time, and disband. RInse/repeat. Real world/real time games offered countless dungeons to go to for certain loot, or often had different 'wings' to go through where multiple parties/raids could literally be in the same dungeon at the same time. Why was this a bad thing?

All in all, someone has to wake up. It's all too obvious that people are bored with this genre of game and continuing this trend is only going to turn more of us off. As for me, I tried everything from EVE to Warhammer, to LOTRO, to Darkfall and many others; combined I haven't put in 1/3 of the time I did in EQ because of the easy mode, handholding, themepark single player, 'everyone gets a trophy' mentality that they push down your throat. I can see how noone feels challenged when you get to the 'end' of the game within a month only to grind the same 3 instances for loot over and over. Yes LOTRO, I'm looking at you.

While TOR is coming out soon, the things I've heard about it from the relased info as well as some people in beta is that its not going to change anything. It's a Star Wars title that will mainly be single-player quest grinding disguised as your 'galactic path' with some pvp tossed in and space on rails ala 1994 Star Fox. I understand that the game is still in development, but unless they decide to scrap everything and pull a total 180 between now and release, we are probably going to add it to the list of games we've tried and still ended up looking for something new. I hope I'm wrong.

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Originally posted by seansean
Well, I've about had it. I've played all kinds of MMORPG's, EVE, EQ2, vanguard, ryzom, AOC, anarchy online, global agenda, beyond protocol, black prophecy, neocron 2(the best of them all, by a wide margin) SWG, matrix online, and many more.
nothing holds my interest. I've spent a lot of time, money and so on. it feels like I'm playing the same game over and over, with a different skin. EVE is a standout; but CCP lost my trust. once you're down to arguing about monocles, I pick up a book, ya know?
I'm the problem; my mind needs to be engaged(EVE did that but it's going down), I like sci-fi, I like flying things, I like virtual open worlds, I like persistence, I like player housing, but(and I can't stress this enough) IF I SEE ONE MORE FUCKING ELF IN MY LIFE I WILL GO ON A  JIHAD. I can't take it anymore. plus MMO's seem to all be going P2W, not just P2P. guess its time to hang it up. hell even SWTOR, with all the money in the world to spend, decided that a STAR WARS game should have space on rails. WTF..
fuck it. I swear to christ imma play magic: the gathering...

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I'm in the same boat. I just dropped my sub to my current MMO. At the moment I can't really say that a "certain" beta is making me want to play or buy it. Only thing left is maybe GW2? But most likely not for me anymore... sigh MMO's have gotten so boring lately.

I really was tempted to open my sub to Darkfall again. Except AV is so bland with the changes upcoming so instead I just downloaded The Witcher, hoping for some actual fun in a game again.

Anyway I got to a point in playing these games that seemed very similar to yours. I just feel overly unimpressed with what's out there (old or new).

Solo questing and instanced dungeons/battlegrounds ultimately ruined it.