Why do you play an MMO?

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Hello there, now this is a potential flame war coming here so lets keep it civil and none of the usual WOW bashing etc please.


SO why do you play an MMO? Honnestly, we are all annomylous after all.

a lot of people play MMO's but dont enjoy them. Why do they have this addiction and thus play it?

Id be intrested to see how many people when honestly thinking can say they truthfuly have no feelig of compelling that they must go on so much a week. Or that they fully enjoy just playing the game but could stop whenever. But remeber you likely have a guild to attend too. They want to see you leveling, being active. You (or i) feel compelled not to be seen as a guy who's barely on. You dont want to miss out on things either. This in its self could also be seen as being compelled, or feeling forced to play.

I know there will be those that claim it and those that generaly can of course. I understand some people just genearly enjoy them but whats to debate there?

My reasoning behind it is possibly that in a way it gives them a chance to be someone else. Do you play an MMO to be in a differnt world as someone else? With people who you possibly like more then those in your college/school/work place. No one can see who you are and you can thus create the impression you want with out more like minded people. Rather then genearl society who oftern dont share the same opinions. I mean, how many of you openly tell your friends who don't play MMO's that you do? Epsecialy the sterotypical WOW.

Or perhaps they suffer my problem and simply play it to be better then those around you. I had a subscription to WAR for a month and i did open beta. I started getting really tired of the game about 2 weeks into launch. But i kept playing, i had to keep playing i couldn't not be one of the top ranks in my guild. Needless to say it started to grate on me so fast, i dare say the way the game came out at launch and the emptyness in T3 due to being one of the first didn't aid my bordum of the game. Yet i played all but the last few days of my subscription dispite starting to really hate the game.

I tryed to go back to the game about 6 weeks ago to see what had changed and i was once again dissapointed. But this time i was in no guild and felt no need to beat anyone so i stoped playing in a few weeks without a compelling feeling. Is it possibly this the reason why people feel they HAVE to play MMO's?

I felt so much better once i quit. The first time round, was a relief. It was my first MMO i ever played and it gave me a short term addiction to something i really hated. However i still find my self looking for another one i might enjoy. They have something other games cant give you, but i gues ill give it a miss due to uni coming up soon.

Anyway im just curious for honest views on it really. And yes i am very bored

 

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I think a lot of people are bored and have little interest in anything else in life, combined with the fact that it's relatively effortless to come home/wake up switch your pc on and away you go compared with the effort needed to go outside and organise something to do.

As for me, the only thing that drives me is end game pvp ... not that there's anything worth playing at the moment.

You know tbh i think i have to agree with you on that on both points. I think a lot of people just dont have anything else that they see intresting enough to do really. Its also quite possible if they work then they dont have the time to do other things. But for people my age at 18 (tomorrow btw... when i ahve 2 exams and 3 teh day after NOOOOOOOOOOO) should be out and about a lot moer i think really. I mean causualy playing an MMO is no differnt to any other game. But as i discovered for my self, causual really doesn't work so well. Especialy when you do have that huge chunk of free time when your not working that you could play an MMO if you wanted. It just takes it all away.

I gota agree, end game PVP on war was a big pusher for me. But i think being through beta id already established where the game was going and then after release where everyone droped out before tehir subs ended. It was quite clear the game was going down. GOA especialy being a big cause of the EU problems. But also genearly the game is just done wrong.

 

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Escapism. MMO's are one of the easiest games to get sucked into and forget about everything else, mainly because they take so long and they don't "end".

At least thats why I used to play them.

Yeah i touched on that a bit in my post. I wonder is it an escape as in to just relax. Or an escape to be someone else though? Its not too hard to imagin that some people might potentialy have more friends in an MMO then out of one. Especialy if your in a big friendly guild.

 

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Iv met quite a lot of cool people in mmo's over the past few years who I have become very friendly with and would consider them good friends.

In fact since leaving school I made more mates online than I have in the real world.

That's not saying I don't have an active social life. I have quite a few very good mates but none of them game apart from one.

Yeah ive made a few good friends online in other games too. Not MMO's though, i didn't stay around long enough in WAR.

But its quite possible they are good friends to you because youi haev a different connection not knowing them. You can more freely open up to someone you know you will never meet. Further more you dont really know someone till you meet them and as you meet a lot of people in day to day life in person taht as a result you dont like. Where as online you dont meet them and thus effectively you are allowed to make assumptions on them which aid to the building of a relationship because a great deal of them and their character is open to your own interpretation if that makes sence.

I have and still do play, although to lesser extent now, MMO's of various themes. I'm not big on the old escapism idea or the fact im a friendless loser for me the main plus point is the cost efective nature of them. Handy when you spent so much on booze at the weekend and with gym/squash/football fees going through the roof.

WoW is £9 a month and if you want you can put 100+ hours into it and not really complete anything, in the old fashioned game sense. You can pretty much chose to do whatever you like, even fishing if you so inclined. There are not many games like that.

Hahaha This is true there is definitly a huge amount of gameplay there for 9 quid a month. If anything id say youve hit on a pritty good thing here. People play MMO's because you can essentialy spend hours of time without achiving anything, but its your want to improve/achive that drives you to continue putting the hours in. Effectively a briliant time waster. However in a sence the fact that there is always moer to achive and you can effectively achive nothing in hours also brings about the hate/love thing really which appear to be quite distint in MMO's. Is it really so good to end up with a hate/love relationship to a game? There are others out there. Maybe not so effective, but they dont build this feeling.

And its not really fishing is it. Its clicking a button to get a fishy to come out the water. Nothing like the real thing, which i gues many might say why dont you actually do the real thing then pretending to do it in an MMO. Of course its not always that simple really is it

I played WoW quite solidly since vanilla right up until Lich King. the reasons that I was playing changed over the course of my career I belive.

When I first started it was just sheer enjoyment that kept me logging in. Seeing all this new stuff, areas, spells etc really wow'd me (pun intended) and I couldnt wait to log in again and see what else the game had to offer.

As time went on it was the raiding aspect that I enjoyed. Putting down new bosses after weeks of attempting with 40 other players on vent was a rush. Same through TBC my Guild was one of tne best on my realm so there was always the desire and competetive element to it.

Later I ended up just logging in for the social aspect of it, some of the people I was playing with i had now played with for years. I made some good friends and enjoyed the crack on vent way more than the actual game itself. The game just became a common denominator for me logging in to get a laugh with my online mates.

By the end I was just logging in out of loyalty to the guild as I was a senior member and didnt want to let the others down and probaly just habit. This was when i quit.

Looking back on it I cant actually belive I spent so much time on a game and dont think i ever will again.

well until SW:KotoR.............

That is a long time scale to be playing the game on just enjoyment. When you look back now do you really see it as something you just enjoyed doing or something you felt you had to do though?

 

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I'm playing the WoW trial (the game + expansions are in the post). I started playing it to see what I was apparently missing out on (I'd put it off for years) and got hooked. I like how you're free to explore and pretty much do what you like and the fact that it could go on forever. I'm not left thinking this is great but I'll have completed it in a few days time.

Making friends in game isn't something I've thought of. I've had the odd person following me around asking to be friends but I figure they must be kids as that's exactly what my 9 year old daughter does when she plays the odd free online game and I'm 29 so I just say "no thanks" and carry on.

Yeah its a great experiance starting an MMO i found. You start to wonder what else is there. Unfortunetly my experiance was a hollow one. Ive not played WOW though.

Do you not feel however being 29 with a daugther, as you progress it will become more time consuming because without putting tyhe hours in your progression will begin to really slow down where it could take you many days to level. Thus giving a sence of not achiving. This would therefore drive you to play untill you have achived somethingm, which could take up many hours and take away from your family time or time to do other things. I know life can be pritty frantic with small children.

I think this is is a big thing about MMO's. At the start they are casual, you can play a few hours and rank up many differnt things. But as you progress you need to put more and more time in to feel the sence of achivement and progression. To the point where your grinding for gear that you could play hours and not get and thus you must put more time in. The thought of playing 5 hours and getting no gear feels like a waste of time. The thought of playing 5 and ahalf hours and getting some amazing gear suddenly makes it more worth while.

Would you people not agree?

I play WoW instead of playing/completing one game this month, another game next month etc etc.

A load of mates all play WoW, we're all on the same server, so we can chat whilst playing, play together, help each other out etc, making it a much more sociable experience than just playing the latest single player game offline.

Yeah i very much enjoy playing other games with my friends like FPS. I only knew one guy who played WAR though.

But i really feel nothing can beat having some mates round, some drinks and maybe a takeaway and playing some 360/wii games. The environment, the jokes and banter,. They cant be matched online i dont find.