A friend and I were discussing this earlier. With most games, if you spent $60 on the game, and then played the game for three hours a day, five days a week for a month, it would be a ridiculously good deal regarding money spent and time spent playing. If players buy a game (Dragon Age 2) and it blows, players don't spend weeks on forums complaining about the game incessantly. If they happen to like the game, they don't spend weeks on forums declaring the virtues of the games either.

All of this changes with MMORPG. If you spend $60 (or a lot less in some cases) and spend three hours a day, five days a week playing the game and are done a month later, it's horrible. The game lacks content and the developers are obviously lazy morons. Forum ranting ensues. It's even worse if the player just doesn't like the game. For weeks players will rant about the game. If the player likes the game it's often just as bad in the opposite direction. The game can do no wrong and the people ranting against it are 'haters'. The forum ranting and proselytizing can happen even with players who haven't purchased the game. Would anyone on these forums fanboi or hate on a game like Alice: Madness Returns when they haven't purchased it?

Why is this? It's not people who have been playing MMORPG since UO either. New MMORPG players seem to exhibit a lot of this behavior too. Why?

I can't speak for others, but I've spent too long GMing a pencil and paper world of my own to ever be fully content sitting back and just wandering around someone else's world like a common mortal :)

( also, an MMO isn't just a game, it's a world - you don't play it, you inhabit it, you are a citizen of it; so when it itches it creates a sense of civic outrage rather than consumer regret )

The reason is not cost, the reason is other options.

Its pretty much these three MMOS that are all the same or having to go outside and talk to people which kinda su*cks.

I have wondered the same thing, OP. The standards seem to be raised in MMOs, compared to console or single player games. I have some theories, but none that are worked out enough to post just yet.

Originally posted by JohnnyBravol

I have wondered the same thing, OP. The standards seem to be raised in MMOs, compared to console or single player games. I have some theories, but none that are worked out enough to post just yet.

I think its basically this

1. there are more options in single player games. In other words if one game s8cks no worries you can go to the store and try another one. In the MMO world there are far fewer options and even less so that are any different from one another.

2. MMOs players treat it like a hobby rather than a casual pastime. So when your soon to be hobby for the next few years ends up being terrible your options of replacement for that time become a much bigger deal

Originally posted by lizardbones

A friend and I were discussing this earlier. With most games, if you spent $60 on the game, and then played the game for three hours a day, five days a week for a month, it would be a ridiculously good deal regarding money spent and time spent playing. If players buy a game (Dragon Age 2) and it blows, players don't spend weeks on forums complaining about the game incessantly. If they happen to like the game, they don't spend weeks on forums declaring the virtues of the games either.

All of this changes with MMORPG. If you spend $60 (or a lot less in some cases) and spend three hours a day, five days a week playing the game and are done a month later, it's horrible. The game lacks content and the developers are obviously lazy morons. Forum ranting ensues. It's even worse if the player just doesn't like the game. For weeks players will rant about the game. If the player likes the game it's often just as bad in the opposite direction. The game can do no wrong and the people ranting against it are 'haters'. The forum ranting and proselytizing can happen even with players who haven't purchased the game. Would anyone on these forums fanboi or hate on a game like Alice: Madness Returns when they haven't purchased it?

Why is this? It's not people who have been playing MMORPG since UO either. New MMORPG players seem to exhibit a lot of this behavior too. Why?

Actually you find similar behaviour in pretty much any game that has an online component be it competitive or co-operative. The forums of most multiplayer FPS games are full of similar posts to your average MMO forum particularly post launch. The Usual "this game sucks because" type threads you see in fresh launched MMO forums are found in freshly launched Multiplayer FPS forums too.

Because there isn't one worth playing right now god damnit.

Originally posted by TheCrow2k

Originally posted by lizardbones

<snip>

Actually you find similar behaviour in pretty much any game that has an online component be it competitive or co-operative. The forums of most multiplayer FPS games are full of similar posts to your average MMO forum particularly post launch. The Usual "this game sucks because" type threads you see in fresh launched MMO forums are found in freshly launched Multiplayer FPS forums too.

I think the very facts that these games are online, and that players are already online socially discussing them, have a lot to do with how outspoken opinions become.  Forums then become the natural medium for sharing these opinions. 

Originally posted by Homitu

Originally posted by TheCrow2k

Originally posted by lizardbones

Actually you find similar behaviour in pretty much any game that has an online component be it competitive or co-operative. The forums of most multiplayer FPS games are full of similar posts to your average MMO forum particularly post launch. The Usual "this game sucks because" type threads you see in fresh launched MMO forums are found in freshly launched Multiplayer FPS forums too.

I think the very facts that these games are online, and that players are already online socially discussing them, have a lot to do with how outspoken opinions become.  Forums then become the natural medium for sharing these opinions. 

This. In any game community where you talk about a genre online you get haters and fanbois. But online games, like MMOs or online multiplayer have more of a chance to have online communities cause the forum is linked to in the client for support and such.

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Originally posted by lizardbones
A friend and I were discussing this earlier. With most games, if you spent $60 on the game, and then played the game for three hours a day, five days a week for a month, it would be a ridiculously good deal regarding money spent and time spent playing. If players buy a game (Dragon Age 2) and it blows, players don't spend weeks on forums complaining about the game incessantly. If they happen to like the game, they don't spend weeks on forums declaring the virtues of the games either.

All of this changes with MMORPG. If you spend $60 (or a lot less in some cases) and spend three hours a day, five days a week playing the game and are done a month later, it's horrible. The game lacks content and the developers are obviously lazy morons. Forum ranting ensues. It's even worse if the player just doesn't like the game. For weeks players will rant about the game. If the player likes the game it's often just as bad in the opposite direction. The game can do no wrong and the people ranting against it are 'haters'. The forum ranting and proselytizing can happen even with players who haven't purchased the game. Would anyone on these forums fanboi or hate on a game like Alice: Madness Returns when they haven't purchased it?

Why is this? It's not people who have been playing MMORPG since UO either. New MMORPG players seem to exhibit a lot of this behavior too. Why?

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Another thing I have noticed is that somewhere along the way, MMO players decided their voices count and devs must listen to us. I think somewhere a dev or two did listen to us :)

Be that as it may, I think most MMO players on message boards feel we can either help change the game in a positive way (to us) or warn off others who may share the same thoughts as us.

Do regular people really get that upset?

Here ae are huge MMO fans on a MMO forum so of course we take MMOs more serious than any other type of game.

I think that people do get more upset when a patch changes a MMO compared to other games. After all have you put a lot of work into your character and when you find out that the devs suddenly NGEd the game so you lostthat and hardly recognize the game you will get upset.

But over a newly released game? I think that is just on this forum, I am sure FPS forums gets as upset when a bad FPS sequal releases as we do.

The problem is we're spoiled by other MMOs we've played in the past.

I got 2 years out of Anarchy Online, 4 years out of Neocron, 2 years out of SW:G, then everything I tried afterwards was a pile of crap in comparison to any of those games. 

Neocron got everything right; people just didn't give it the chance it deserved. Crafting, economy, player apartments, territory wars, loot from players, mostly open PvP (with safe zones), great clan system with ranks/responsibilities and all the wars that go along with it. 

Perfect MMO, broken by a lack of players and a lack of dev support. 

I think one major aspect to this is to the way MMOs are structured content-wise compared to single player games.

The vast, vast majority of the time, single player games have a definite concrete end. I.e., kill the final boss, lead your people to safety, find the ultimate rare artifact, whatever. You work to get to that goal, finally get it, watch the ending credits and say "I win! Yay!", and that's the end of it. Even if you can beat the game somewhat quickly, as long as the content was good enough to keep you engrossed and entertained along the way it's still a good game, and you get the sense of achievement from having that ultimate end victory.

MMOs, on the other hand, the vast majority of the time have no set end-point. The companies that run the game servers want to keep as many people as possible playing (and paying) for as long as possible, so putting an end point where when a player reaches it they go "Okay, I won, bye bye" would put them out of business. Therefore, a good MMO has to have enough complexity of content to keep a player interested for much longer than a single player game to be considered good, and ideally a decent set of stuff in it that makes it unique in some way which does NOT include graphics or a simply different flavor of storyline. If a new MMO has the exact same core content and logistical challenges as an already existing popular one, just with a different visual appearance, people who have played the first one won't really see anything new other than the visuals in the new one and can get bored quickly. The new one needs brand new gameplay mechanics and core activities for the player to get interested in, and sadly these days a very large number of new MMOs either have very little of that or none at all.

MMORPGs are ongoing, so there is always a constant flow of information (aka. crap) surrounding a game. And then take into account that a lot of people truly need their favorite game to be popular or their most hated game to fail. It's a trip down validation lane, then take a left on denial avenue and make sure you don't take a right on logic&reason boulevard.

Originally posted by lizardbones

A friend and I were discussing this earlier. With most games, if you spent $60 on the game, and then played the game for three hours a day, five days a week for a month, it would be a ridiculously good deal regarding money spent and time spent playing. If players buy a game (Dragon Age 2) and it blows, players don't spend weeks on forums complaining about the game incessantly. If they happen to like the game, they don't spend weeks on forums declaring the virtues of the games either.

All of this changes with MMORPG. If you spend $60 (or a lot less in some cases) and spend three hours a day, five days a week playing the game and are done a month later, it's horrible. The game lacks content and the developers are obviously lazy morons. Forum ranting ensues. It's even worse if the player just doesn't like the game. For weeks players will rant about the game. If the player likes the game it's often just as bad in the opposite direction. The game can do no wrong and the people ranting against it are 'haters'. The forum ranting and proselytizing can happen even with players who haven't purchased the game. Would anyone on these forums fanboi or hate on a game like Alice: Madness Returns when they haven't purchased it?

Why is this? It's not people who have been playing MMORPG since UO either. New MMORPG players seem to exhibit a lot of this behavior too. Why?

I am NOT finding enjoyable to switch and hop between mmorpg's all the time.

So that's why I am looking for long-term mmorpg and I am ready to pay subscription in order to have LONG-TERM game world to "dive" into and have fun with.

That's why I am NOT happy if mmorpg turn out boring after few days / weeks.

This is my reasons - don't know about others.

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Edit add:

One more thing.  You may say - why you treat mmorpg diffrently and not finding enjoyable to start new mmorpg every f.e. 3 weeks?

Well if you want me to treat it like single player game or normal multiplayer game ,then get rid of ANY even vanity cash shop or / and subscription and sell it for single box fee without any future cash shop / sub crap.

Then I MIGHT to perceive it diffrently. 

Well another thing I will still look for long-term mmorpg propably anyway - I would just see those one particular one diffrently (maybe).

I can't believe you are asking this and I can't believe nobody answered you.

MMORPGS are not for one month, or three months, MMORPGS are for years, so if you are done in one month that's a failure. This should be obvious to anyone.

Depends on why the game fails. Most people would get pretty angry if they bought a single player game that was downright broken, but often when you stop playing a single player game you do so cause you're just not that into what it's offering. The MMOs that fall into the downright broken category are the ones that get most of the pure rage.

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Originally posted by Cuathon

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Originally posted by Homitu

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Originally posted by TheCrow2k

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Originally posted by lizardbones

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Actually you find similar behaviour in pretty much any game that has an online component be it competitive or co-operative. The forums of most multiplayer FPS games are full of similar posts to your average MMO forum particularly post launch. The Usual "this game sucks because" type threads you see in fresh launched MMO forums are found in freshly launched Multiplayer FPS forums too.

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I think the very facts that these games are online, and that players are already online socially discussing them, have a lot to do with how outspoken opinions become.  Forums then become the natural medium for sharing these opinions. 

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This. In any game community where you talk about a genre online you get haters and fanbois. But online games, like MMOs or online multiplayer have more of a chance to have online communities cause the forum is linked to in the client for support and such.

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Originally posted by Loke666
Do regular people really get that upset?
Here ae are huge MMO fans on a MMO forum so of course we take MMOs more serious than any other type of game.
I think that people do get more upset when a patch changes a MMO compared to other games. After all have you put a lot of work into your character and when you find out that the devs suddenly NGEd the game so you lostthat and hardly recognize the game you will get upset.
But over a newly released game? I think that is just on this forum, I am sure FPS forums gets as upset when a bad FPS sequal releases as we do.

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