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General: Community Spotlight: Why Do You Play MMOGs?
MikeB
Community ManagerAdministrator RarePosts: 6,555
This week’s Community Spotlight focuses on the thread “Why do you play MMORPGs?” by user Snakes.
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Snakes offers a simple, but important question:
“Why do you play MMORPGS or simply MMOs in general?
Let me explain - this is very open ended and its bound to have a large amount of responses to it. I'm not choosing a specific game here, its just in general - why do you choose to play the MMOs that you play? What brings you back to them and what keeps your attention?Like I said, there's hundreds of answers based on this - choose any game or just speak in general.
Here's a couple of examples. Some people play mmorpgs for the community, others for the pvp, others for other things. Personally a lot of the time I would go back to an MMORPG because I met a number of awesome people, and being an Role-player at heart, I loved anything based around Role-playing. To be something else for example but that wouldn't base everything on my gaming experience, of course content was very important to me to but it was the community that brought me back.”
Read more at Community Spotlight: Why Do You Play MMOGs?
Comments
I play because communities made me realize something extremelly powerfull about mmorpgs. We all play the same game, yet everyone plays it a different way for a different purpose, in fact making it a different way, so we end up playing different games that connect between themselves. And that concept is extremelly powerfull. Of course, this shines best in sandbox styled games, but I've seen it at work in all mmorpgs I've played.
For example, in Ragnarok Online I was part of the Save The Porings movement, just because it was fun, but it meant not hunting several creatures. This added a simple layer of excitement to the normal game. I also loved playing a Merchant as a primary, and hunt on my own, which was quite uncommon, but I did it because I enjoyed it a lot. I even took merchadise from people and sold it with a little margin, paying them if it sold, and because people knew it was my primary, they tend to trust in my merchant in ways they didn't trust other merchants. It was a completelly different kind of game from the one played by other people.
But of course, in my experience, nothing surpases Eve Online in this.
MMO's allowed me to play my ideal self in a setting I dreamed of as a child. To be part of a community in that setting with like minds to have adventures but also earn and contribute to the whole of my chosen faction or clique and character.
Since the death of true MMORPGs to the simpler to play/design MMOG's that experiance is empty and long and hard to find.
In less cryptic words, I am a Star Wars fan and got to live in George's creation through SWG whether awsome or mundane. STO doesn't come close to the philosphies of Roddenberry though I do play it. COH/COV allows me to play out my comic book fantasies while exploring (very casually) the city of Paragon.
Do other games inspire me? I will try TOR but its looks like Lucas Arts second attempt at the NGE formula to maximize profit. I hope with reined in caution, its an incredible game. DCU has great interest to me but again what makes it more a MMORPG than a "game"? I may return to DDO as its free and I would be that casual to it. I have been a devoted PnP role-player and have loved much of DnD.
If I could get excited about another MMO it would be based on Palladium Books: Rifts RPG as long as it had potential to continue to expand much like its multi-verse with every annual expansion. Other wise its pretty much on par to STO, probalby.
What hurt the MMORPG market was not only did WOW show high profit for making a game with basic mechanics and simple enough play, it also did it with lower server maintance and code complexity on the end of developement. It was marketed with incredible effect not only dragging new players to the market but sucking established players out of other games to it. Before WOW, MMORPGs were huge investments and chores into developing fleshed out enviroments with living space. Now they are targeted for the 3 hour a night casual player who doesn't want to be challenged or overwhelmed with tasks. With that demographic firmly defined the "second job" has died off for the hard-core player.
So at this point I end before tl;dr kicks in.
Well for me the MMO's have always been an escape to another reality were I can play and chat with friends. I just love to go around in the online worlds and explore, hunt, questing, farming or just look at a nice view in the game while I chat with guild mates and friends.
MMO's in general have been my kind of short vacations that occur every night I chose to login and play a bit. And it has really been a great way to make new friends from all over the world. So for me it is a way to relax and have some fun with my online friends. And some has become real life friends, that I have visited and some have visited me.
MMO's have added a lot to my real life like friends and adventures. Without the MMO's I think my life would be a bit less fun for sure.
I think I will always keep playing MMO's no matter what.
I been an RPG fan since I was a child. So an mmo is basically a RPG that doesn't end. With alts or extra content, I can continue to play in that virtual world without having to "beat it" after getting to "the end" so to speak.
A second reason is the community. Even if a game is the greatest game Ever Made, if the community is rude or non-existant doubtful I will stick with it.