You know, I use to be very enthusiastic at the idea of playing with hundreds of other players across the globe, MMOs felt like the ultimate gaming experience.

But now, I don't seem to care anymore. MMOs feel like nothing more than giant chat rooms where players can compare epeens, kill simple AI minded mobs 5millions times over and over and call them selves hardcore gamers for doing so (grind>skill=hardcore..>>).

Another words....MMOs aren't fun anymore, hell maybe I should take back the indirect suggestion they were fun to begin with. Much of the draw in these types of games was the immersion factor and being able to play with hundreds of others.

But since it  seems the full concept of all that can be done with multi-player games doesn't seem to be fully grasped yet by developers (just have this feeling there's so much more that can be done with MMOs that just hasn't been realized yet). All MMOs seem to me now is watered down RPG games designed for repetition and every thing you can think of that would epically fail as a single player game.

-grind

-retarded AI

(any other game would actually require you to think how to defeat your enemies...in MMOs it's all about taking turns whacking each other until one keels over...and it always relies on the one with the biggest stick)

These two issues would spell certain doom for any other single player game but for an MMO it is it's core elements on what they're built on.

And finally there's the variety issue, there isn't a lot of good MMOs out there, just one giant MMO that's dominated all and monopolized the industry.

Take FPS for instance, as many fanbois as there are for an overly hyped game like Halo. It's not the only FPS in the market that counts. Because there are tons of other great games in the FPS genre that can hold there own and give it's audience some thing MMOs have flat out failed to do...and it's give it's audience variety.

Now this is not an argument over FPS>MMOs...not by a long shot so don't think of going there, FPS games were an example. And Halo is pretty much the equivalent of WoW in the FPS market.

So I guess the question I'm left asking is....what reason is there left to play MMOs anymore....how many more times are we going to have to deal with one failed attempt to bring variety into the market from another before we call quits...?

interresting topic choice for mmorpg.com lol

well good question.

Sadly, I'm starting to agree.  I'm starting to realize that, for the most part, I don't really like most of the people that play MMOs.  Most of my RL friends don't play them, so I'm usually paying a monthly fee to subject myself to huge groups of random strangers that are, for lack of a better term, huge douchebags, all playing games that like you said, would be a joke if they were single-player. 

Then again, you have a Max Headroom avatar, so I'm guessing you're around my age.  Maybe we're just getting older, and this junk just doesn't hold the same appeal that it once did? 

I consider myself pretty open minded on most posts that I read., but I have to say you must live on a different planet than I do. In no way is there on GIANT MMO that has monopolized the genre. Yes WOW has been a phenomena in the MMO industry but that doesnt make the other MMOs on the market unsuccessful. It doesnt take Millions of players to make a game successful or fun for that matter.

Now I will say that more more MMOs out there are trying to follow the path of that ONE MEGA MMO, but not all of them are even doing that.

If you cant find a PVE oriented MMO that you can get into maybe its time to switch to one that has a combination of PVE and PVP or PVP oriented. Or if you cant get into MMOs just change genres all together.

I will say that the current trend is to make MMOs more solo friendly which I feel is the wrong way to go with MMOs.. Sure I am all for some Solo content but these are supposed to be group oriented game IMHO... its the friendships that you make that keep you wanting to play. WOW instancing has also created a ME ME ME ME and MY GEAR society.. IN older games like EQ1.. Players actually teamed up to help people other than themselves..

Me I am anxiously awaiting Awakened (the shadowrun MMO) thats currently indevelopment. An MMO with Perma Death Characters so you really have to think out your actions instead of just running in all the time guns blazing.. Should prove pretty interesting.

A well written post by the OP. And I cant say that I agree with all of his opinions but they do stuck

I feel ya brother...

I've played since the early EQ days...I'm having a hard hard time finding something to play that doesn't give me a headache as soon as I pop into the world and get a "go kill x and bring back y" or "go talk to this guy, and here I'll give you an arrow to tell you exactly where to go because we MMO developers think you are retarded"

Veteran MMO players are still out there, I see their messages all the time, and there is absolutely a market.  But every developer wants to be WoW....they go for the gusto and fizzle out.  They probably go to a group of ignorant investors and say "Look at what WoW did!  We can make a game too!"  And the ignorant investors say "Oooh yeah lets do one too, here's some money...get it done QUICK!"

And another thing, I'm tired of hearing about an MMO and they say "This is going to be different from all the other MMO's you've ever played"...yeah like Tabula Rasa?  It sure was different...it was the most boring mmo experience of my life.

It's time for us MMO vets who puke when trying to play WoW to stand up!  Be heard!  Can I get an AMEN?

But seriously, I feel ya brother.  I wonder if I'm just too old for MMO's or if MMO's are just too ignorant for me.

Check out Mortal Online

Originally posted by LostMK

Check out Mortal Online

from what i see this does seem promising

Been playing MMOs steady since UO launch day... have a library of MMO boxes that will never see my HD again... get invited to pretty much every beta I join... umm ya there are days where I am burnt out of MMOs.  I always hope the next shiny new MMO will deliver what others have and the last couple fo years have been pretty dry with LotRO being about the only MMO since '05 to hold my interest for long.  One day I hope an MMO comes around to bump a game out of my top 5 rotation and who knows Aion might but the rest looks bleak.

Top 5 being EQ2, CoX, LotRO, AoC... huh guess its only four and really just EQ2, CoX except for when AoC and LotRO put out content to plough through.  And I love the concept of the dark templar in AoC can't think of any other MMO that does the shadow knight character type as well.

Originally posted by Whibbo

I feel ya brother...

I've played since the early EQ days...I'm having a hard hard time finding something to play that doesn't give me a headache as soon as I pop into the world and get a "go kill x and bring back y" or "go talk to this guy, and here I'll give you an arrow to tell you exactly where to go because we MMO developers think you are retarded"

Veteran MMO players are still out there, I see their messages all the time, and there is absolutely a market.  But every developer wants to be WoW....they go for the gusto and fizzle out.  They probably go to a group of ignorant investors and say "Look at what WoW did!  We can make a game too!"  And the ignorant investors say "Oooh yeah lets do one too, here's some money...get it done QUICK!"

And another thing, I'm tired of hearing about an MMO and they say "This is going to be different from all the other MMO's you've ever played"...yeah like Tabula Rasa?  It sure was different...it was the most boring mmo experience of my life.

It's time for us MMO vets who puke when trying to play WoW to stand up!  Be heard!  Can I get an AMEN?

But seriously, I feel ya brother.  I wonder if I'm just too old for MMO's or if MMO's are just too ignorant for me.

WoW is not a bad game, and neither is Halo for that matter. But like I said, imagine if Halo was the only FPS that counted....no CoD4, no Half-LIfe, no Bioshock or System Shock, no Crysis, TF3, CCS, Quake, Doom, L4D....etc etc etc.

Just Halo......a couple of easily forgotten FPS games like that Chronicles of Riddick game....and the false hopes of Duke Nukem Forever eventually coming out....0o

I have played MMOs that the only reason they have driven me away were because of the in game players. Most of my RL freinds dont play the MMO games but i do have a group of friends that I met 4 years ago online playing Star Wars Battlefront 2. We eventually moved on to Guild Wars and then WoW. Playing with a group of people and talking to them on a TS server makes all the difference. A boring game can be a lot more fun when your with other people that are doing it with you.

So pretty much all I am saying is that your right the gaming community can be harsh but if you love the mmo for its other aspects, find some people that have the same passion and enjoy it. Most of the high standard games for computers now are MMO games so we just have to deal with it.

Yes and yes and yes. By the way I love the MAx Headroom avatar. Been gaming since pre internet BBS days and have played MMo's since their inception. Today they are a dime a dozen and void of character and anything worthy of MMORPG. Change the forum to MMOG because that is what they are today.

I think what caused alot of this mess was WoW becoming such a huge success, before MMO gaming was a very niche hobby, all of us got on to play our online game between sessions of D&D or Shadowrun.  Now there is a whole new group of people who play the genre, and most of them are not used to having to share. They came from one player console games, and they are not used to killing something and not getting loot.

I really think some of them think that the other people in their party are just AI's

To be frank, I'll probably give a couple more MMOs a try than take a really long break from them til I feel that market has finally reached adulthood.

I'll bring FPS games again for an example....right now I fee like I'm stuck in 95 when every FPS was a Doom clone and games like Deus Ex, System Shock 2 or Half Life hadn't come out yet to redefine the genre.

Another words, I'm feeling like if ToR doesn't work out, if MO turns into another DF.....I'll take a break til I feel a new direction has been found by the developers and players into what MMOs can be in the future....

here's hoping...=/

to quote a Wise old Hobbit, MMO's are starting to make me "feel... thin. Sort of stretched, like... butter scraped over too much bread. I need a holiday. A very long holiday."

Every Month more MMO's spew out of the Release tube and it is nothing new, same old concept and mechanics with even new bugs and bad implementation.

At the core of MMO's is the cycle of time vs reward,  put in enough time and your rewarded and the ever fancier carrot dangling on the horizon.    Most people work in their lives for happiness and or a sense of accomplishment,   MMO companies create a false environment for players to feel false accomplishment,   one major reason that accomplishment has such a strong effect vs say beating a single player game is the simple fact is that there are other People to measure your false accomplishments against.  

These aren't games,  they have no end, no story,  no meaningful character impact as time is frozen and all you do is undone in a moment.    It is a Machine, built for one reason,  to make you feel like you got something for the time you put in so you put more time into it.     

All that's happened with your disenchantment with the machine is that you no longer value the false objects or milestones that you've accomplished and or the carrot they are dangling is no longer as shiney as it was.     Congratulations your on your first step to curing an addiction,  good luck.

The games honestly have always been terrible, but in early 2000s MMO worlds were still a new frontier, 3D worlds unlike anything before. Like the Wild West, communities needed to form just to survive and prosper. Now a days it's all been there done that. Community doesn't need to rely on each other to get by and everyone can live in their very own tiny little world, just like in RL. In essence MMOs have been tamed and domesticated.

Yeah the past year or two I've been pretty tired of the MMOs out there. Though with the announcement of FFXIV I'm very excited for what's to come. I'm also interested in Guild Wars 2 and Aion ... but FFXIV is huge for me so while I've grown tired I'm hopefull for what's to come.

For the first time in 5 years I'm not subscribed to any mmos. So... yes.  For me, they seem to have given up on the world/community building games that offered the kind of freedom from the stand-alone rpg experience. Now they seem to be more like stand alone rpg's with multiplayer, rather than mmo's.

Still interested in the genre and excited by some future games, but I've learned my lesson: Gotta be at least 6 mos old, and have a free trial before I'll sub to anything.

I'm kinda gettin tired of playing the same game with a different name and skin with a few new things thrown in. I'm waiting for someone to really innovate with something in the MMO genre. SWTOR looks like it's at least heading in the right direction. RPGs NEED captivating stories, otherwise it's just a MMO*** not a MMORPG.