Why do you play an MMO?

I think you can play an mmo for several reasons.

One is exploration and adventure. The thrill of finding new places and things that you'd never see in real life.

The second is community. I've made a lot of real friends in mmo's, and still keep in contact with many of them

The last, which a lot of people won't admit to, is the fact that mmo's replace achievement and progress in real life. They give the illusion of power, riches, and achievement with very little hard work required. If you don't have any of these things in real life, an mmo will give you a sense of having accomplished something. Then one day you realise it is actually an illusion, and you're neglecting your life and the people in it, and either go cold turkey or scale back massively.
 
I played both for escapism, and because I was always striving for the next best item/pet/etc.

For some reason I was a completely different person in mmo's.. ever-freindly, helping newbs, polite and gracious. Usually I'm just drunk and slightly abrasive :p
 
8igdave said:
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?
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Well my other half is disabled and I'm her carer so I'm home pretty much all day. In between caring I've got time to kill and try to fill it with things that keep my brain ticking over rather than just vegetating in front of the TV so finding time isn't really an issue. I just go on it as and when. At the moment I'm getting satisfaction just from completing quests, whether I get anything worthwhile at the end of them doesn't really matter to me.

We've actually got 2 kids with access to computers so they tend to keep themselves busy and aren't craving for attention like they used to when younger. I'm not addicted (yet) and have no problem logging off to do real life things. :)
 
For me, it's the social aspect 100%. If my RL mates all gave up MMOs, I would as well. We all went from competitive FPSers (ie playing for money) to MMOs as we all wanted to have that large scale social interactions (raids/guilds etc). The social aspect, in being able to communicate with all my mates at the same time was a huge draw for me

Since starting online gaming in general, I've met a load of people and become friends with them that would not have happened otherwise. Last month, we had a guild meetup in London with people coming from Newcastle, Holland and elsewhere.

In terms of personal reason to play MMOs, I'm very target focused - be it clearing a raid instance, seeing particular content or collecting such and such for achievements. I'll probably keep on that vein in WoW until something better comes out *cough KOTR* or until my social group stops playing them.
 
Just generally like gaming but got fed up of paying out £40 for a game then end up complete it after a few days which made me look into MMO's due to can take a lot longer to finish and theres allways the pvp option on them , know not a lot of people like rf online but i really enjoyed it due to its built around pvp
 
i have always avoided MMO's because they have taken over a couple of friends lives. One was sucked in for about 4-6 months were no one really saw him, then his girlfriend came back from Uni and managed to stop him playing it and get him back out and about. The other just seems to have replaced any real socialising with it. He is fine if he sees you, or sometimes if you catch him on the way home from work he will pop to the pub for a quick pint. Once he is in the house though that is it. His girlfriend has asked us to keep trying to drag him out, but he clearly would rather be a dark overlord, raiding fairy cakes or whatever.

I know that when I have played games like Fallout 3, I have got a bit too into them and have squeezed 100hrs gaming into a couple of months when I would normally only do about an hour a week. Hate to think what would happen if the game didn't end as once I am going in a game I feel compelled to carry on till I have finished.
 
original.wood said:
i played WoW for over 2 years, used to play it with friends in RL, my cousin and some work collegues (used to work in a games retailer) it becomes very addictive, and when i settled down with my girlfriend she didnt like how much i played it so i litteraly came off it, it was hard whenever i wasnt with her i would have a couple of hours here and there, trying to do as much as possible in as little as time (raiding, grinding for materials, crafting etc) i was at the highest level i could be in the game, doing the 'end game' boss' and raids with the guild i was in (luckily the guild wasnt a hardcore raiding guild, just 1 that did what it could when it could)

as soon as i moved in with my gf who is now my fiance i didnt have the time for WoW or any games for that matter, i didnt have a PS3 or Xbox 360, i sold my old PC for some money as we both were heavily interested in reptiles (snakes, lizards etc) and started breeding them for hobby in our spare time.

a lot has happened and i have only just found the money to build myself a new computer, but one that if for everyone as there are no games on it, and we each have our own laptops, i have installed some older games (max payne, farenheit, Red Alert 3) and it can play these better than my PC could when i sold it 2 years ago lol.

i still miss WoW, i miss the community and sense of competition more than anything, i still regularly check up on the WoW armoury to see how people are doing.
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Sounds like a big thumb is ruling in your house :D

Ok so your fiance doesnt like you playing games but to get rid of your consols and pc is a bit harsh.

My wife thinks games are childish (but she knows i am childish too ;) ) but she wouldnt suggest or order me to get rid of the computer or any games related consoles (i dont own a console, pc purist). She realises that i get enjoyment out of them and as long as I limit my time on them she doesnt have a problem.

Get out from underneath that giant thumb boy! :D
 
Essentially I play MMOs as my primary gaming genre for 2 reasons. Firstly the social side of them, in particular the inter-cultural social side and secondly for value for money. Simply put I find most games these days to be FAR too short, usually I stump up £30 for a game on Friday and by Sunday its finished. With MMOs, I get so much content that it can take years to fully see it all.
 
Its cheap entertainment. A few quid a month for hours and hours of playtime (the vast majority of which I enjoy)? Sounds like a good deal to me! :D

I also find single player games don't interest me as much anymore, I much prefer the aspect of helping others out, and working together to complete things.
 
For me it was a good way to save a bit of money.

For £9 a month and I could play every night if I wished or I could go to the pub a couple of nights a week and spend £15-20 each night, do that for 4 weeks and that's £120 at least.

Also playing with friends is still good social interaction without the cost of going out and doing something.

Note: This doesn't mean I didn't ever go to the pub or where ever just not as much as I would have done if I hadn't have played wow.
 
I used to play WoW since Vanilla, and i stopped playing a month ago.

It got to the point where i'm just logging in, doing dailys then logging out.

I just thought, why am i playing this? I get nothing out of it at the end of the day and its just the same crap over and over again.
 
silvercut said:
Yeah I got this MMO called 12Sky2 recently and I got bored after 3 days when I got to level 40. Boring.
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Haha,

When i stopped playing wow about 2 weeks after i needed an MMO fix so started playing AoC again, after 2 weeks with that stopped playing. Now i won't be playing an MMO till that Star Wars one is out
 
Been playing WoW since March 08, as much as I enjoy the game due to being a bit "credit crunched" I find it's a great money saver also. I stil go out Friday/Saturday but not 7 days a week!
 
Played it to have fun with other people in a game I enjoy, after my guild fell apart I've hardly touched it and cannot be bothered to play solo.

So it's the team-play aspect for me.
 
Having a laugh and meeting some really nice people was what kept me going. I don't think i've ever come close to feeling so disconnected with the outside world. But there was a big problem to get the best out of it it meant giving up everything and i'm glad I realised before it was too late, so quit just before the 1st expansion.

I still miss it and think about it, and its probably the closest i've been to an addict.
 
I have been addicted to a few but it doesn't last forever. But I tend to have an addictive personality. I will be obsessed with a hobby for a few months. With MMOs it was a bit longer. You just need to get addicted, have a break, then it is much harder around the second time unless the game actually offers something new.


They can be a grind, and because they are long term the grind / reward ratio can be too much for some. but that is life in a way, as long as you have a laugh while doing it. If it isn't fun then sometimes the fact that your friends are playing helps but sometimes you need to know when to quit.

Looking forward to Aion.
 
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