Without a ton of new MMOs on the horizon, I tend to just go back to old haunts and try to work on things I always planned to do but never did for one reason or another. Some of these things shame me to admit, but it’s time for a confession.
Never Getting Anywhere in Guild Wars 2
My hype for Guild Wars 2 was at maximum for some time before launch, I even put in the effort to complete the Hall of Monuments in Guild Wars 1 so that I could gain all the rewards in GW2 at launch. But once the game launched and I finally got to play it, something about it just didn’t really click for me. I think I liked ArenaNet’s bold approach to progression and the “holy trinity” in GW2 in concept more than practice. It’s not a dig at the game at all, but I quickly found out that it wasn’t really for me.
I just felt a sort of sinking “Well, now what?” feeling once I unlocked all of my weapon skills for my chosen weapons, which is something that you can accomplish very early into the game. I did a bunch of SPvP, which lets you play with all of the abilities, skills and traits and I just didn’t feel like I had a lot to look forward to in terms of progression.
I recently reinstalled the game since a friend has been playing it and I can see myself playing through it at some point just to enjoy all the story content, but I don’t think it would hold me beyond that.
…or Elder Scrolls Online
Elder Scrolls Online is a sort of similar story to my experience with GW2, only instead of being bummed about a lack of vertical progression, I wasn’t thrilled with some of the game’s mechanics. I love the game world, the quests, the character creation. It’s all great. But I was never able to commit to the game due to my hangups over the fact that animation canceling (blech!) is essential for endgame content and PvP, the need to weapon swap, and the focus on damage-over-time abilities (this may have changed).
Like GW2, I can see myself coming back for the story, but I simply haven’t yet. It may be something I do on the run up to Elder Scrolls VI, whenever that is.
Falling Behind in Final Fantasy XIV
Thankfully, my FFXIV experience isn’t as embarrassing as GW2 or ESO, but I’m arguably more frustrated with myself about FFXIV than either of those games. I have a long history with the Final Fantasy series, they’re some of my favorite games, ever. FFXIV is fun moment to moment, even if it is "too slow" for some, the game is beautiful and the sense of class identity for some of the series’ most iconic Jobs is top notch, but boy does this game not respect your time.
The original campaign is bloated with endless running back and forth and doesn’t actually begin to reveal a coherent story until towards the tail end of the campaign. Once you’ve finished it, you then have to endure the daunting task of completing over 100 quests, many of them also largely having you run around the world or doing other menial and tedious tasks, just to get into the first expansion. It was the original A Realm Reborn campaign and post-game that I was unable to complete for years due to how painfully tedious it was, but a couple of years ago I finally soldiered through it and had a chance to experience the much lauded Heavensward expansion. It was a pure delight and easily one of my favorite Final Fantasy experiences in years. But when it was over? You guessed it, more post-game tedium to get into the next expansion, Stormblood. I stared down that stuff and decided I’d come back at some other time.
Well, now with the release of Shadowbringers I’m two expansions behind. All I’ve been hearing is how Shadowbringers is not only the best expansion FFXIV has ever released, but it’s up there with some of the best games in the main series. I’ve been feeling the pressure to jump back in so I can experience all this for myself, but the mountain of busy work ahead of me in order to get there has held me back from taking the plunge. As someone who doesn’t have a whole lot of time to play, logging in and running back and forth doing tedious tasks and then realizing it’s time to log off is a real motivation killer.
Unfinished Class Stories in Star Wars: The Old Republic
Out of all of my MMO shames, this is my greatest one. I’ve been playing SWTOR on and off since beta in 2010 or 2011. As many of you know, I’ve been writing about it here for just as long, too. But despite my love of the game and how much time I’ve put into it, the Legendary player flair, which is something you unlock for completing all eight class stories, still eludes me. I’ve finished everything but the Consular and Trooper stories and it’s bugged me forever.
Even though I’m evenly split on my love for the Empire and Republic, the stories on the Sith Empire side have been much more compelling to me. I enjoyed all four thoroughly. On the Republic side, I enjoyed the Smuggler story more than I expected to, but I didn’t find the Jedi Knight all that interesting, despite the praise it so often gets. The Trooper is fine, I suppose, but I don’t enjoy playing him as much as his counterpart, the Bounty Hunter. And I do enjoy the Consular, but not so much that I can’t wait to see more.
The lack of motivation to continue has left these class stories unfinished for years now. I just recently picked the Trooper back up (he’s farther along than my Shadow is) and I’m now determined to finally unlock that damned Legendary player flair. We'll see if I can keep it going.
What are some of your biggest MMO shames? Share ‘em with us in the comments below!
