MMOSide Chat: Do You Ever Have A Hard Time Getting Into An MMO Everyone Seemingly Loves? | MMORPG.co

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MMOSide Chat: Do You Ever Have A Hard Time Getting Into An MMO Everyone Seemingly Loves? | MMORPG.com

Bradford has had a hard time getting into some MMOs when they were at their peak. He explores why that might be with the most recent example: Final Fantays XIV.

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Orthelian

Yyyyeah, only every one since 2003. Except LotRO and Vanguard, I suppose.

Wonderwill

I tried playing ff14 in 2020 and after playing single player and games like gw2, I felt this was too fixed and queue up actions instead of mobile and action mmo like mor modern games.

Ungood

Oh yah.

I think of the games that people tried to sell me on, the top were.
ESO.
FFXIV
ArcheAge

My on-line friends network gushed how great these games were to me, and for the life of me, I just could not get into them.

Gorwe

No, that makes almost no sense to me. Whether I like something or not is 100% my call and has very little to do with popularity of that something. In some fringe cases maybe, but you could make a case that I already made my mind and popularity just pulled me in / pushed me away.

But you can't sell me something just based on popularity. That's a mere minor side factor to me.

Scot

It is harder to get into what we don't know, which is why gaming has decided to use one template in each genre and then streamline that. Rather than the risk of a player deciding to bin a game, gaming studios have decided to give us a homogenous offering. This in turn makes games which are different even harder to get into, the more we partake of the same old gameplay and UI, the more we expect the same. The older we get the more that new game everyone likes will seem same old to us.

Gaming needs diversity, not one side fits all; that promotes interest and makes players want to play and play. I finished a solo game last year (which came out in about 2017-18) divided into 6 or 7 chapters, only 15% of steam users had finished chapter seven. Make gameplay more diverse and you can make players want to see a game to the end, play together and enjoy what everyone else is enjoying.

[Deleted User]

The user and all related content has been deleted.

Samhael

I'm willing to try just about any MMO but it's probably been 7 or 8 years that I haven't had good success with finding anything that felt like it was worth sticking with for more than a month or so. Early WoW was interesting but my last more-than-30-day-stint was right before the MoP launch and it just seemed like Blizzard was intent on nerfing character concepts too far.

For ESO, it was the awful combat lag that prevented me from subbing and has always reminded me very shortly why I don't like it when I return every so often. FFXIV was the incomprehensible story and the multiple repeat quests that you'd have to grind over and over to just make basic progress... and then repeat later on with another class/profession/whatever. LotRO's issues were mostly in the aged engine and general server performance. Whenever I try to go back to LotRO now, it just feels like it's going to take forever to "catch up" to any friends that have level capped and going through the nearly-empty zones gets old very soon. DDO is the engine/antique UI... I'd be interested in seeing a DDO2 though! City of Heroes (Homecoming) is still fun but it desperately needs more new content generated (specifically task forces) but the HC "devs" seem more focused on adding costume pieces and altering existing powersets to make them more bland. I've never been in for open world PvP so Black Desert and Archeage didn't fit. Rift was fun for a couple of years but Trion ran it into the ground and I'm sure it's on the Gamigo chopping block soon enough.

Sovrath

Gorwe said:

No, that makes almost no sense to me. Whether I like something or not is 100% my call and has very little to do with popularity of that something. In some fringe cases maybe, but you could make a case that I already made my mind and popularity just pulled me in / pushed me away.

But you can't sell me something just based on popularity. That's a mere minor side factor to me.

So basically you "do" find it hard to get into an mmorpg that everyone loves if you have made the call that it's not for you.

Aeander

Couldn't get into ESO. I don't like Elder Scrolls.

Couldn't get into FFXIV. The global cooldown is stupidly high.

Couldn't get into WoW. I've played so many cheap clones that the real thing just felt like more of the same - for a monthly fee.

Kyleran

Orthelian said:

Yyyyeah, only every one since 2003. Except LotRO and Vanguard, I suppose.

This is me in the years after 2004, trying MMORPG after MMORPG but never really enjoying any except EVE which I discovered in 2006 playing off and on for the next 10 years. (Paid subs the entire time, up to 6 the last three years.)

I confess to following the crowd to try new games, but never stayed just because others were playing, not even with my circle of gaming "friends."

I'm now trying ESO again after a 7 year hiatus, this time with a few friends who are looking for a break from FO76.

We'll see how things go.

Tiller

FFXIV. A few years ago they were giving away the base game, so I nabbed it. Before that I had been playing the trial and stopped at the first dungeon, and just decided to focus on fishing since I didn't need to group up to do that.

It took me a year to get enough motivation to actually subscribe to it. Once I subbed I though "well, what does this game have to offer? Lets see." I decided to focus on the MSQ to advance my character and once I finally got past the first dungeon roadblock I actually found the game enjoyable, even though the MSQ was long and boring at times. I just kept the expansions in my sights as a focus. The expansions stories and locations made the game for me. I'm not a huge Final Fantasy fan, but FFXIV made me one.

Fast forward to today and I mostly play update to update and finishing leveling my DoH. I can see how this game can be over whelming to get into, it's not easy and I can see how you really have to force yourself to get into it at the beginning.

Nebless

I could care less what the popular kids do.  I decide what I want to play and could care less what the hype train has to say about it.

---

I'm of the opinion that in the early days WoW took off only because of the hype train and the whole 'it's what all the cool kids are doing' thing, more of a social thing than anything else.

I had a guy I worked with that got into WoW the same way the OP did; all his friends were playing it and if he still wanted to be part of the group, he had to play it too.   He told me he really didn't care for the game, but stayed with it just because his friends were playing it.

Grym

World of Warcraft. The art style killed it for me. I stuck with Everquest until it became nothing more than a social chat room for which I paid a monthly fee. Just got bored with them all. Vanguard caught my interest for a little while once SOE bought Smedley out and they fixed a lot of the early bugs. But even that wore thin after awhile. These days I stick to RPGs mostly. The only MMO I play is in perma-alpha phase and I'm seriously casual there.

skurk81

FFXIV. The game is great for the most part (though combat is a bit boring). But the MSQ is SO DAMN LONG. I think I am half way through Heavensward and I couldn't go on. Especially now when you outlevel it to the point where it feels pointless.

Albatroes

Unfortunately, its just the sign of the times coupled with mmorpgs being advertised to single-player audiences for the past decade or so. MMORPGs used to be about heavy grouping in order to do any endgame related content, which of course would consume massive amounts of time and often getting 'nothing' in return. The east started pumping out mmos that dumbed down the genre as a whole, like they usually do to collapse any kind of market (so yes, I will blame the eastern market for the fall of pretty much everything since they always over-saturate any market with knock-offs and the like), resulting in 'big' companies essentially doing the same thing to remain 'competitive,' thus is why most big mmorpgs today have login rewards/daily dumb quests for big rewards/etc. I mean, even my 15 yr old nephew thinks every game has always has micro-transactions and bait systems, so its normal....

cameltosis

The question assumes that I am motivated to play MMORPGs because of their popularity.

That's not the case for me, I play (or not) based on my own criteria, popularity only becomes a factor when it affects the server population.

In the spirit of others peoples answers, there are certainly plenty of popular MMORPGs that I couldn't get into. Everything post 2012 falls into that category, the combination of action combat (which i hate) and F2P (which diminishes the community) has kept me from enjoying any of them. Before 2012, I was simply too busy with the MMOs I was playing to worry about whether or not I would like the other ones.

Gorwe

Sovrath said:

Gorwe said:

No, that makes almost no sense to me. Whether I like something or not is 100% my call and has very little to do with popularity of that something. In some fringe cases maybe, but you could make a case that I already made my mind and popularity just pulled me in / pushed me away.

But you can't sell me something just based on popularity. That's a mere minor side factor to me.

So basically you "do" find it hard to get into an mmorpg that everyone loves if you have made the call that it's not for you.

Of course, but what does this have to do with the question? I simply don't factor population that much, whether something is niche or super popular doesn't matter to me(unless it impedes gameplay).

As for what it's worth, I always had a rough relationship with ESO. It's a beautiful game with awesome RP options and a very, very good IP(I even love that pirate-y part of Ebon.Pact), but...the gameplay and the open world(I really dislike open world ; it often just leads to repeating the same super easy gameplay 1000s of times = borefest)...ugh...I just can't get into it, at all. Me and Armada clicked immediately, I still can't get into ESO even after 5+ tries of getting into(I gave up tbh). It's an interesting thing why and how this happens.

[Deleted User]

The user and all related content has been deleted.

Iselin

FFXIV because I hate chocobos

Wizardry

Keyword >>"Seemingly".

It doesn't matter what i think of a game,ask the gamer WHY and you likely laugh at the reason.
I laugh hearing people complain but then play an even more shallow game doing the same things.

All around,you will get a better game within EQ2 than within Wow but it is not the popularity vote.There several small nuances that will not allow me to play FF14,the class combat design is not good enough but then again other mmorpg's are much worse.Several other little things as well.

I pretty much just play FFXI on private servers and will not invest into another mmorpg because this genre is NOT serious,just look at Wow without any housing.

I can get a better rpg experience within an Indie survival game an that is sad considering how much money these top mmorpg's are making.Perhaps that is the reason,big ccorporations with board members investors,too many hands in the cupboard.

I already pointed out in another thread how much money Blizzard makes from Wow,that game should be paved with golden streets and deliver a 5000% better gaming experience but they choose to put all the money in their pockets.

So for me mmorpg's are DEAD.

Kyleran

blueturtle13 said:

Kyleran said:

Orthelian said:

Yyyyeah, only every one since 2003. Except LotRO and Vanguard, I suppose.

This is me in the years after 2004, trying MMORPG after MMORPG but never really enjoying any except EVE which I discovered in 2006 playing off and on for the next 10 years. (Paid subs the entire time, up to 6 the last three years.)

I confess to following the crowd to try new games, but never stayed just because others were playing, not even with my circle of gaming "friends."

I'm now trying ESO again after a 7 year hiatus, this time with a few friends who are looking for a break from FO76.

We'll see how things go.

ESO is a surprise choice for you in my eyes.
Enjoy! 

I didn't have to pay anything up front to return and I was more looking for a game which might interest my friends.

I've pretty much given up on ever finding a MMORPG that I'd really enjoy playing.

I've learned to be a "Settler." Cue banjo music..

Albatroes

I also wouldn't get my hopes up for Riot's supposed MMORPG. Just look at Amazon and New World alone. They've already shutdown 2 other announced projects and changed New World's direction at least twice while also delaying it by like 2 years? By August, who knows what direction the game will be and it'll probably be delayed again. Money isn't as much the answer as creative direction and guys at the top getting their heads out of their butts long enough for devs to actually make a game they themselves would play. That's honestly the problem with WoW still, bunch of devs making a game they don't really even play.

Tamorand

Grym said:

The only MMO I play is in perma-alpha phase and I'm seriously casual there.

Star Citizen?

eoloe

For me that was WOW. Most of my friends were on it, and I was refusing to pay a subscription. At this time, for me it was not making sense! A game had to be B2P.

This is why I bought GW1 during this time period. One of the best game I ever played.

I tried to go back to WOW with Classic. I recognized the quality of the artistic direction even if it was not my favorite graphic style. However, I still couldn't get into it. I agree here with Aeander: I played to many cheap clones to accept the original.

FoolOfATook39

I’ve tried getting into WoW at least six times over the last decade. I can never stick with it because I absolutely hate the character models, the armor and weapons, and the cartoony art style and cheesy sound fx. I’m very visual and the look of a game is just as important to me as the game play.