yeah Im kind of a cynic.

But it's hard not to be, Im that old guy who has seen " the good old days" only to watch all you kids with your Rock n' Roll H tracks and your Facy Space take over everything.

It has been tough watching the genre that I loved get mainstreamed and  just be ruined almost entirely. But my synisism aside,

What as been the most annoying MMO trend in your opinion?

[EDIT]  Ment to add more to that poll, but hit enter on accident, now it wont let me add more... oh well. time for bed.

-  Insta Porting

-  Dungeon Finders

-  Instancing

was what I meant to add....

  I didn't vote because I feel like the list could have been more inclusive to other trends as well.  But I will touch base about one, in particular.  No holy trinity.  The joy of the trinity is that it defines a group role and creates a team atmosphere to playing with others.  Without it you lose much of that feeling, the joy of working together and doing something well.  Given that this is a core element to the health and success of the genre, I don't see why we have all cast it aside saying that we hate it.  We didn't hate it.  What we hated was the burden of it outside the group.  This is an area where WoW has shined...mostly.  They have a trinity, and also allowed for function outside the group.  Older games were murderously restrictive in that sense.  A tank was not out soloing things, happy as a lark.  Even if they COULD..the process was tedious at best.  Healers without some kind of tank or DD could do nothing but stand around in town in many games. 

  Taking away from function and role in a group setting does not make a MMO game better.  It makes it a hack and slash, and we have enough of those.  MMO space was always about team play, much in the same vein that TF2 is.  Without the Medic and Heavy the game is just call of duty.  Which is fun.  But thats not why people are playing it.  Thats why they are playing CoD.  A game has to be distinctive because being LIKE something is a terrible thing to be.  You should strive to be something new, or something better.

:/  Is it just me or is the OP targetting GW2?  All his recommended 'most annoying features' are in GW2 in particular.  Some of them aren't even really trends.  For instance, do a lot of mmo's really have instant travel or no holy trinity?

Anyways...  I think the most glaringly obvious annoying trend is mmo 'questing'.  You know, the kill 10 rats questing that we have endured for the last 15 years.  Totally out of hand.  I am not a fan of linear quests either, but at least they can sometimes be interesting, as opposed to the questing seen in most mmos today.  IMHO it was wow that really is at fault, although games before it had mundane quests, wow was the first to focus so heavily on it and had delivery quests made particularly to shift players from area to area and 'hubs' with so many mundane quests that you never ran out.  This all would be fine if the quests were more interesting.

Instancing is bad too.  It was the wrong solution to the very real problem of spawn camping.  Loot sharing, dynamic spawn rates, and weighted difficulty are all much better solutions to the problem of spawn camping that instances were first created to fix.  Alas we are stuck with it now...  It has become so ingrained in mmos that I think players would be confused without it.

Originally posted by WellzyC

yeah Im kind of a cynic.

But it's hard not to be, Im that old guy who has seen " the good old days" only to watch all you kids with your Rock n' Roll H tracks and your Facy Space take over everything.

It has been tough watching the genre that I loved get mainstreamed and  just be ruined almost entirely. But my synisism aside,

What as been the most annoying MMO trend in your opinion?

 

 

[EDIT]  Ment to add more to that poll, but hit enter on accident, now it wont let me add more... oh well. time for bed.

 

-  Insta Porting

-  Dungeon Finders

-  Instancing

 

was what I meant to add....

Should of also included OTHER as well, thats what I would of voted.

Not a huge fan of instancing but everything else on your list I love and a few of them are what I consider a must of to be successful (Dungeon Finders, its caused me to quit the last 3 MMO's).

My most annoying trend is linearity.  I hate being led down a path from creation to level cap.  I love me some freedom, thank god several MMO's are coming out in the future to include freedom.  Neverwinter with its Foundry system and ESO with its exploration centric Elder Scrolls style open world.

1.cutt scenes & voice acting  ; waste of time & resources for any MMO's

2 (for mmorpg games ).transforming rpg gameplay in to action/shooter  gameplay

Interactive maps and minimaps with a ton of information on them (quest markers, points of interest, dynamic quests etc). I want to look at the game world, not at your maps all the time. Stop distracting me and breaking my immersion!

Also stop revealing everything on the map the moment I step into a new zone/territory. I want to explore myself, not follow the marks on the map you already explored for me.

everything that gw2 did is the most annoying trend, that includes dumbing down holy trinity.

Hope it does not spread around like a disease

The following: 

1) Cut scenes/ voice acting (waste of resources as said above). 

2) Dungeon finder or any other feature that turns a single town into a hub while you wait for your game to pop.  

3) Over abundance of way-points.  Again the game may as well be entirely instanced is you can just jump around the map on a whim. 

4) Being the hero.  It is just absurd in an mmo. 

5) A lack of defined roles (not necessarily the trinity).  But I don't think this is a trend.  

Good ol days to me is Ultima, and it had porting, something I wish more games have. Mages should be able to inscribe tomes for points in the world freely.

Dungeon finders take away from the community and leave all the room in chat for trolling (actually flamers cuz most trolling isn't good natured) and takes away from community and leads to people caring less about their reputation in the world.

Lack of trinity sucks, only place GW2 failed imo. All you need is the ability to to use classes for different purposes to give variety and customization. MORE combat classes in mmos would be better too.

Originally posted by WhiteLantern
The "my genre has been ruined" hipsters. Definitely the most annoying trend.

+1

Originally posted by WellzyC

yeah Im kind of a cynic.

But it's hard not to be, Im that old guy who has seen " the good old days" only to watch all you kids with your Rock n' Roll H tracks and your Facy Space take over everything.

It has been tough watching the genre that I loved get mainstreamed and  just be ruined almost entirely. But my synisism aside,

What as been the most annoying MMO trend in your opinion?

 

 

[EDIT]  Ment to add more to that poll, but hit enter on accident, now it wont let me add more... oh well. time for bed.

 

-  Insta Porting

-  Dungeon Finders

-  Instancing

 

was what I meant to add....

 for me it's forum negativity and people not trying to see the good in games.

Originally posted by Scarfe

4) Being the hero.  It is just absurd in an mmo. 

In story-driven, level-based, class-restricted MMOs it definitely is absurd.

In a game like UO, ATITD, or EVE, it's not only very within the realm of possibility, but relatively achievable and unique to each player.

Originally posted by boxsnd

Interactive maps and minimaps with a ton of information on them (quest markers, points of interest, dynamic quests etc). I want to look at the game world, not at your maps all the time. Stop distracting me and breaking my immersion!

Also stop revealing everything on the map the moment I step into a new zone/territory. I want to explore myself, not follow the marks on the map you already explored for me.

This ^^^

I would like a really nice way to add markers and points of interest to the map. Having a map with my own personal notes would be tons better then a whole map filled with revealed ... everything. BTW, you can turn off all the map locations in GW2, makes the game very interesting this way.

I didn't see catering to an all inclusive casual crowd that doesn't really exsist.

My guess is this mystical beast was the product of incomplete surveys.

Originally posted by WhiteLantern
The "my genre has been ruined" hipsters. Definitely the most annoying trend.

I don't know about you.. but imho this genre has turned into a mass produced corporate garbage..

- Instances

-instant porting

My two most annoying things in games nowadays