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General : List: You're Just Not That Into It
Posted Nov 24, 2009 by Jon Wood
MMORPG.com's Jon Wood uses this week's list to explore five ways that a player can tell whether or not they're really "into" their current MMO, encouraging players who just aren't that into it anymore to find greener pastures elsewhere.
Sometimes when you're in a relationship, it's hard to let go. It's comfortable, it's safe and whenever you think of letting go all you can think about are all of the good times that you've had together. This is perfectly understandable and it's only human nature, but while it may seem like the right thing to do at the time, the most common mistake that people make is to try and hang on, not because it's good for them, or because they're still having fun, but because it's all they really know.
The bond between gamer and MMO can be a strong one, and it can be difficult to know when enough is enough and it's time to throw in the towel. Stay too long and you risk pain and frustration that could keep you from enjoying another MMO that comes after it. We here at MMORPG.com have been there before, and we offer the following five pieces of advice to help you know when you're just not that into it anymore:
A good read. I laughed at a few of the items, laughed because they are so true
i lol'd so hard at the "eyes wandering" section. forget mmos, maybe its time i get a new girlfriend? <.< >.>
Very clever article. It feels kind of sad how true the relationships to MMO's and significant others is close, but awesome at the same time.
I let my eye wonder to other MMO's all the time. Been looking at WoW again and wondering what Cataclysm will do for it.
=O im tellingz joor girlfriend!
#4 definitely explains my situation as of late, especially with my purchase of Aion.
I'm convinced after reading your article that I should leave my wife. Her graphics are dated and the grind just isn't what it used to be. I'm also suspicious that down the road she might even be going free2play. Wouldn't it just figure that I bought the lifetime subscription too... I really wish now that I had just gone with the month to month plan.
One of the better articles. I bet a lot of peeps here go looking at dark and broody guys mainly. Since you mentioned the social aspects so well in the beginning I'd add that to your closing remarks... that one of the most challenging aspects to switching games is getting your buddies to switch also from said game (wow), or having the pain of going solo in a harsh environment.
Try getting all 11 million to come to their senses ?
Its definitely time to move on but the problem is there is nothing to move on to ATM. I sure there are many people like me that have burned through the end games of the good MMOs. I'm waiting for STO and TOR and praying they have some good content that will feel new.
Ultimately waiting for the next MMO in the D&D/EQ mold or DAOC2 that has been rumored
LMAO!!!! Thats gotta be the funniest thing i've read in quite a while!
Well played!
Awesome article...actually describes my switch from DAOC to EQ2 (*cough* ToA). I am now playing WoW as I lost interest in Warhammer, which was what I switched to from EQ2. Heh, go figure I end up playing WoW as nothing else seems to cut it right now, for me at least. Oh well...only time will tell if the other MMOs do the trick or not.
INN/Sierra Network -> UO -> EQ -> DAOC -> EQ2/WoW/EVE -> Warhammer -> WoW
...I actually took a moment to think the chain through...*sigh* I need a life.
Very good article and dead on true. I was complaining recently about the scumbag Bobby who's running Activision now who owns Blizzard now. Another of the long time members here told me I shouldn't give my money to any of these companies because they were all thieves. I thought about it and decided he was right. I have quit all my online games. I am so sick of grind, grind, grind. Till they can come of with something new, I'm done with playing online mmo's. Seems the only thing they can come up with now is go kill X amount of something/someone. It's either kill something, blow up something or steal something. Boring.
So I'm now waiting for the next best thing like everyone else is. Except I'm not giving any of them my money, lol. I'm currently back to playing my single player games and having fun. :) I think a lot more people need to read this article and wake up to reality. It's time to wake up and smell the coffee cuz the toast is on fire. :) Thanks for a good article.
I thoroughly enjoyed your writing, made me giggle quite a bit. Especially the last picture, it made my afternoon. I've been so burnt out on MMO's recently, jumping ship more and more every day.
Funniest post I've read in ages. Samatman, I bow to your humor and wit.
Yes im a sexy FEMALE *WINK WINK NUDGE NUDGE* night elf, no you can't have me.
That was hilarious! Choked on my subway sammich.
As for MMOs, I'm a Polygomist myself. I have a harem of games that I like to tap from time to time, depending on whim.
Good article!
If I was to reference WOW in a relationship was I would say its like finding out your girlfriend got pregant. You rub her tummy, talk to the baby, cuddle with your lady only to find out the baby isnt yours. then you leave discgusted and angry. Thats what i felt like when BC came out for WOW. LOL
(AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH dances with hot troll priestess)
Well I hate to be repetitive, but THAT ^^^^ was the funniest post I have EVER seen on these forums. LOL!!!
And, in regards to the article. VERY spot on, at least for me. Fantastic analogies all the way around.
I have to say, I've never been a very "monogamous" gamer. I enjoy a lot of different things that no ONE game can usually provide. I just don't think I'm the "marrying kind." However...I am the polyamorous kind! I OFTEN play two or even three games at the same time, and have no problem paying sub fees for all of them, IF....I enjoy them. I spend time with them alternating days. It works pretty well for me, and the games don't usually complain. :)
This made my day, LOL
p.s. Maybe you should wait a bit, Your Wallet Entertainment may release a new expansion for your wife soon with exiting content, graphic boost, more eye kandy, better gameplay perhaps?
I'll add #6 - "It becomes a job"
After several years in WoW, I sat down at my computer to log in for my daily raid when I paused and thought "You know what? They won't miss me, I can miss a day, I'll go watch TV". I posted on our forums I was not feeling well and watched TV that evening....and enjoyed it more than I would have raiding.
I was only logging into WoW to do 1 of 2 things: Raid, or grind dailies/farm to prepare to raid. That's it. My "community" was on my local forums, which I accessed from work, and contained a number of people who weren't in WoW anymore. I would come home from work, log into WoW and begin my 2nd job...a job I was PAYING to do.
This is the most common reason I tend to quit an MMO...when I've done all the content, I'm into the repetitive end-game, when my community has moved on to the real world and no longer requires the game to exist, and logging into the game is done out of a sense of duty to the guild, not because I really enjoy the game.
You know I wonder if it's time for me to move on from LoTRO and CoX. I haven't even logged into them in months, the thing is when i do log in i genuinly enjoy myself, just as much as CO if not more, but all my friends are on CO...but then CO is feeling like a grind on my main....but the RP on my alts is amazing...
Oh man....
My favourite thing with MMOs is to play with friends - friends that I know from outside game and the friends that I have cultivated over 4 years of online gaming - so the first part of the article really did apply to me and MMOs fall from grace in my life. As my friends go so too do I. I started Aion with 8 people all from my same town and we would all log in and do campaigns and pvp together and the grind didn't seem so bad. I didn't mind to craft a gazillion food as I know my friends would eat it and it would help us plow through Ice Claw. But slowly the friends started to drop off, until out of the 8 of us only I am left and I was forced to find a new legion. Even in this legion I am still PUGing all the time. I hate having to PUG...but I do it and pray I meet excellent new people. So many have gone back to WoW (but of course to different servers) so if they finally pick one bloody server to go to I may end up back there. *sigh* I am willing to play a game that is not totally for me so long as they are there as you know what, friends make the game good.
My reason #6 for breaking up with an MMO involves F2P MMOs... I quit the whole genre after playing a game 2 years and realizing that I spent thousands of real money on it and giving my head a shake and saying am I really having that much more fun then I would in a p2p to justify the expenses? Answer no. I still miss the guild I ran there for two years though. But not the money I spent. I just know myself and if I wanted it and worked an extra shift I would 'treat' myself. Now I treated myself to a new house and car recently...much better investments.
- Recovering F2Po'holic
So much subliminal "quit WoW and try other games!" messaging, I got a strong feeling all throughout about that. Thing is, people don't really need to be told "you're not having fun anymore, go do something else." If they notice it on their own, they'll do that. If they don't, they must still be getting -something- out of the game and it's not really for anyone else to tell them to stop hanging on. Same with relationships.
Awsome write-up and following posts. :)
Actually I feel kinda bad because I fit the last section so perfectly and I never knew it. o_O I always quit playing after 30 minutes and take a break to casually looking for a beta testing game to replace it and I never noticed. Thanks for the article btw. :3
Sometimes it's tricky if you still have friends in the game but you've lost interest in playing. Sort of like getting divorced and still wanting to be friends.
Don't be ridiculous, your wife will have an item shop before she goes entirely f2p.
That was a very good reed and a lot of it sums up the way I feel about lotro. Having the lifetime account is just the only reason why I have not punted yet. Your artilce was very good.
Classic!
PS: I hope it works out for you :)
Warhammer online totally ignored #3. Same exact game without any 'little" things added. Really. (there is the failed LOTD, but who can be there while their city is under seige?)
Interesting article, fresh and fun if nothing else. Not entirely as nitty-gritty as I thought it would be, but definitely a new line of thinking for a blog post.
An interesting concept that wasn't touched on was 'after you quit, and decide to return, when is it really time to quit again'?
... or perhaps that's the title of the next installment: '5 reasons why you should pick that title back up'.
Good article. Would have liked to see a segment entitled, "Sex with the ex. Why going back to MMO titles feels great for a while, but rarely works out long term."
For point of reference I just cancelled my WoW subscription for the 5th time.
So true, good graphics have lured many people to their mmo doom.
Good read and so true, Im smiling and not at the same time, scarry combination :P
really good article. Point #1 was spot on. It sums up perfectly why I choose not to play ANY mmorpgs anymore. The bottom line, none is worth $15 a month -- not even close. let alone something more valuable then $15 -- my time.
yep -- no sense flipping from game to game -- there are no mmorpgs out there worth the time or the $$$. sad, but very true.
hehe, ace
Great article and so true. I've been feeling all these things ever since Atlantica turned from a glorious unique treasure to an item mall cheat/grind. Many of us there only stay because we spent so much money when it was "Good and fair"...lol The guilt of not logging in because I'm having more fun with a little 2-d sandbox game called Haven and Hearth kind of goes with the feeling of "cheating" on the relationship I've had with ATO for a over a year..lol But after all the abuse from that relationship ...yeah...I'm just not into it anymore and should p[robably follow the other 80% of the player base who have left it now...but I HOLD ON like a romantic dreamer. Lots of truth and logic in this article.
Good article and so true. Got all the 5 feelings :]
When are we going to have this article: “Five ways to write a article which lists five ways about something relevant to MMO’s?”
I liked the way this was written so clearly as a MMO’s are like your girlfriend article but he never actually says that. Some poor darling somewhere might take offence. :)
Samatmanis is probably right about his wife but she will want him to get a cat or two before she goes F2P. Just don’t give her your credit card when the item shop opens and you may be able to bail out with your finances intact.
Thanks Jon,
That has opened my eyes a little to some of the MMO's I play! Totally gonna let a mate take a look at this casue hes constanbtly defending an MMO that just doesnt do it for me anymore!
#5 - I've never met a group of so called friends that I've stuck with in all the years I've played MMO's since Everquest. At best people are merely a loose collective operating under a guild to achieve goals. Main goal being to get better items for themselves. Most of the time when that doesn't happen, the group cannot provide for the people they move on leaving their "friends" for other "friends" to get more for themselves.
Its relatively easy to meet new people in MMO's. Just find someone who needs help and stick with them. But like the previous statement you'll find that once you no longer benefit them these "friends" move elsewhere.
#4 - Having limited time to play makes me extremely frustrated if a game mechanic makes me waste my time. If it takes too long to do something I leave.
#3 - Patches which implement nerfs that directly affect me and the class I play have lead me to quit games. In particular DAOC when they nerfed left axe on berserkers. Other games like EQ when all the hidden stealth nerfs were beginning to get uncovered by players, ignored and denied by dev's only to have them finally admit to the stealth nerfs/penalties and then remove them. Stuff like that, dishonesty and poor testing by dev's = loss of subscription and me bad mouthing them to everyone to not bother buying that game.
#2 - Kind of goes with #4 I haven't bothered with raiding since EQ. It required ridiculous amounts of time to raid and I swore to never do it again. Usually once I get to that level of a game that requires raiding I move on, either creating alts or simply quitting. The one thing I stick by is that I feel people play because they fear missing out on something. Not that they actually like doing what they're doing. They keep plugging away daily because they think that one day they don't show up their Uber Axe of Uberness might've dropped.
#1 - I get bored easily, I often get my RL friend into certain MMO's. Usually I spend time talking about it until my friend gets into the game. Then a week later he asks where I am and I've moved to another. He usually gets frustrated at me having lost interest and moving to another game so fast. This year alone I've played, Requiem, EQ2, LOTRO, WOW, DDO, Alganon, SWG... all for months at a time before quitting.
I haven't been into a mmorpg except for planetside, swg, and guildwars. OK... Maybe WoW too for a while when it first came out O:-) But now its just so obvious to me I am not into a new one, with definite similarities to the article, which I thought was very good! It is almost embarrassingly true how interrelated our relationships with games are to romantic relationships?
When I was playing those games, I had friends who played them, and me and my friends never did anything just for our own gain/to become more powerful. We did it because it was fun! I think that is what separates my more recent experiences from those past ones. I feel like developers today do not trust us to have fun on our own and instead manipulate the game to make us strive for arbitrary achievements. There has always been grinding and achievements and stuff, but I feel like theres been more pressure (especially in the community) to think self-centeredly ever since the success of WoW, onset of linear mmorpgs, and destruction of swg.
Now all the mmorpgs herd us around and I just cant get that feel for social and world exploration. Oh, plus I am a lot more busy with real life, that is probably part of it :-D
best post ever!
Shit... According to that list I should have stopped playing MMOs in 2005
No truer words spoken by the OP. I'm not into it of late because all mmos look alike and play alike.
this made me lol .... i am sure in the ToS it says something about canceling your sub... might have to find a lawyer to nullify tho...but make sure you cancel your cards if you do.
btw i think its funny how they used pics from WoW for this article....
Why did I feel like this article was talking about my relationship with my current girlfriend and not my current MMO? Lol...*sigh*
anyways...good article but I think it's kind of obvious what Jon Wood is trying to get people to do. And that is to break up with their beloved WoW and try a new game for heavens sake!!
These are all common things to any MMO, I like the article because these things may not be so evident to the massive WoW population.
So in a way I see this article as "Hey guys, you played WoW for long enough...move on!"
Wife/Girlfriend argo sucks haha
#2 is the reason people play games, to achieve and get rewarded for doing so. Let's be truthful there isn't anything magical about any MMO out there. Either it's fun (a lot of which comes from rewards) or it's not. There's not something magical about the world, the lore, or the community. It's just fun or it isn't.
lmao, you get my vote for best reply.
I have to say.... GREAT ARTICLE!!!!!! it was great to read it and not boring for a moment (and that says alot with a dyslectican like me who reads 1 advice in 30 min) and all u wrote was soooo true, i really loved it. I'm gonna let my best friend read it (her acount were she spent 3 years no lifing on just got hacked today) maybe she can be at some ease after she read this.
well, I hope to read more of you again,
greets from a N.L.G.
LoL
if this wasn't such a good rhyme-y joke, I'd be like "Dang, that sucks to be him. Unless you're his wife, then it sucks even more to be her. Either way, glad I'm awesome."
For a MMORPG.com article, I guess it was this good.
Of course, it was still boring, uninteresting, and completely inaccurate. But that's a basis in which all MMORPG articles are written, so it's not a measure of if it was a good/bad article.
I did enjoy this article a lot. I remember when I quit WOW..so I could never go back I sold my account. This kept me from regressing back to it if I felt a game couldn't live up to it. I played WAR then I realized after 5-6 years of MMO's I was burned out. So I stopped playing altogether and played console games. When Aion came out I joumped on it. In retro pec I thiink it was a good idea to take a break. Some times you need time apart then you can enjoy MMO's better instead of trying to find the next WOW in every game then complaining about it not being as good.
Damn would be nice if a new game came out, that had WoW features (even if Unpolished), but with new things as well. Iam tired of WoW, and I just came back after 9 months. Thinking about closing my account now myself.
The saddest days are of course when your like me and your doing #1, but your not even playing an MMO :(
Pretty good article: the person who wrote really DOES understand these MMO phases. I wish I had read this the last 2 out of 4 times that I quit WoW, or rejoined CoX. But I have learned and until something revolutionary comes out (or FF XIV / SW:TOR), I am staying away from rejoining WoW/FFXI/CoX and any other game similar to WoW.
Take notes of these signs if you haven't burned out from a game, because once you burn out from WoW, playing most other games really similar to it (LotR, RoM, etc.) feels like trying to date your girlfriend's twin that has the same core personality inside.
Yup. Those lifetime subs are how they make their money.
It's far smarter to rent than buy.
QFT
Haven't played an MMO in a long while and I also came back to console games for a while. I think I have put my running shoes on now though and im jogging to the 2010/2011 MMO's since I haven't touched my 360 in a bit and have been playing on Battle.net for the past two or so months.
Take a break, you won't regret it :D
I've done all those things with different MMOs. Glad I left WoW. Doesnt excite me anymore. I'm looking forward to SWTOR for now. APB also looks like it could be fun.
QTF especialy the other pourly done clone games with hops of being the new wow.
I got my eye on swtor as well.
Crap post by Jon Wood. Pathetic attemt to degrade WoW.
I'm pretty sure you stick to your Free2play crap games Jon. Cuz in REAL games like wow we have serious players. noob.
Oh btw those free2play chinese games that encourage and promotes micropayments, powerlvling and goldselling. All those things that you guys at mmorpg.com dislike so much(yea right).
Best regards
I hate to have to look like I'm trying to derail the thread I'm not really because the story was great thanks so much John it's good to see stories covering this.
i'm posting in the hopes that I can advise anyone who doesn't already know to steer clear of Alganon.
Inserting pasted content here:
These guys are nothing more than a bunch of pissed off developers/gamers that want to recoup some of their losses from having played wow by making a game of their own so similar to wow in order to mock Blizzard, and at the same time screw unsuspecting customers out of prepaid subscriptions on an unplayable game due to all the bugs! Stop buying buggy software from people that are more interested in making money off you and hiding behind copyright law to get away with it, than producing a finished product. They're closing the doors on their own beta testers in two days to go paid launch "release" despite beta testers cautions and advise.
It also has come to the public's attention that reportedly the lead dev and CEO has attempted to phish phone numbers out of prospective customers on his own forums under the pretense of customer service. Be advised this is not a joke this is one to stay away from parents be advised I repeat be advised.
They appear to be a quite happy group of people (not what I would call a community at all). It's rather disturbing IMO that after wow we're starting to see the birth of groups like this, and makes me fearful that weirdo cults like this could actually persuade someone to give them a phone number and the next thing ya know one of these weirdos has abducted someones kid or something. Online predators man it's not a joke not a joke at all.
FYI Holst85 do you think Jon really gives a shit about your insecurities? You're nothing but another webpage hit to him. So save it.
Wow good job hater
Do you really think real gamers give a shit about Jon Wood?
Real gamers(you know peeps that play real games) dont play free2play since its just cash farming. Jon Wood and his mates at mmorpg.com encourage ppl to play these games with for example f2p advertisement on the site and talking shit about real games.
*sign* you msde me sad but in a way happy to go make some coffee and hope some hottie bends over in a skirt at the hardware store today. Sadly the article is pretty true to most people anymore just crap content and nothing to move on to, so you need to keep banging the fat chick til you either give up on mmo's or a new racy redhead offers better content. I mean really.....
RYL= failed
WAR=Failed
EQ= outdated
EVE= Drama what happened to small pew pew fun ( still a ok game just eh skill based 5 years was enough )
AION= Bots, spammers you need to manually block now, my server had the most shitty community ever, and just don't listen to what people want. It had alot of potental but like stated why buy a years sub to a failboat month to month and I am done after the first.
Many more sad sad games have failed so bad, it seems like you are lucky to get 3 months of good times before this article kicks in and makes sense, well unless you are a emo fanboi and cannot face the fact a game is about to fail. ( btw should do a article "fail and you 5 ways to tell you are emo fanbois" )
If a game cannot hold it's fanbase like warhammer failed, makes you wonder who is pulling strings in the PR/DEV puppet room.
So word to the wise for all to consider= Never buy a years sub, pay month to month and avoid the "buy the CE it's got uber gearz cause all you will have is a new shiny box to sit on the desk and sob over....play the game til it's boring then move on.
It does suck trying to get the friends you meet to follow you to a new game , I have lost 100's over the years to them simply not accepting the fact games fail and the new game is not everybodys cup of tea.
Great article
Heh! Love this article, it's so true. Good job.
Another subject which you might fancy.. is leaving because of another player and/or players.. which always must be handled delicately. :)
Or you get another player who thinks they are god and tried to run the entire server like its his personal bussiness. Saw this in SWG this one guy thought he could control several different games at one time. Then would make threats of I will get you banned if you don't fall in line.
He he, I left swg a long time back I still play eq2, I still get tells from him and his 3 stooges of we will get you one day rofl.
Im sure every game/server has somebody like that. I would put them on ignore if I though they were a real threat, instead I just file another ticket and move along.
That reminded me of myself browsing several 'realm' forums on the World of Warcraft forums, especially those of well-established RP realms.....where people praise each other and are superfriends in specially dedicated " I love or Miss person X!"threads, so it seems
It made an impression on me and left me saddened, because the people I meet are either not interested in talking, let alone talking on a personal level and maintaining a friendship is something I never managed to get
Perhaps those RPers are just more sociable and friendly to one another, I dont know...I feel empty and devoid of e-friendship -.-
A lighter and good perspective.
MMOs dont mind quite as much if you have to say "We need to see other people". I've left EvE a few times. Carrying 2 MMOs at a time for a duration is common. STO is on the way. I will give it a go. They dont get my loyalty like EvE does untill they earn it though.