Sometime when I wasn't looking, I started disliking MMOs. I don't know when it happened, and it came as a bit of a shock when I finally came to this realization. But now I've moved beyond that initial surprise and mild sadness and onto some state of rage about the genre as a whole. This was made clear in a recent conversation about the upcoming Elder Scrolls Online MMO, where my rage was prolific enough to take list form. Now, I want to preface this, saying that I haven't played every MMO that exists, and these are just my perceptions of the ones I have played, so if your favorite MMO defies my words, I hope you two are very happy together. So without further ado, 10 reasons MMOs piss me off:
1: Shitty Story
The main goal of an MMO is to have a huge world with stuff to do littered evenly among the various zones. Quests are merely a means to move you from one place to the other, not because you're needed over there or because it's particularly interesting in that neck of the woods. That place exists, and you haven't visited it yet, so here's some bullshit delivery quest to goad you into heading toward the next town. I guess lots of games might be subject to this when you start thinking about it, but other games generally have a main overarching story that connects the tent pole plot points. Side quests exist, but they are deemed just that...side quests. With an MMO, I feel like I'm just constantly hopping from side quest to side quest. This is largely because of my second gripe...
2: I Can't Win...Ever
It's hard to craft a compelling story that has no climax or ultimate goal. But MMOs can't have an ultimate goal because once you have completed it, you'll get that lovely feeling of accomplishment and feel like you can leave. That just won't do. MMOs, whether subscription based or microtransaction based, rely on the user coming back month after month (or at least forgetting about their active subscription month after month). I have a backlog of 153 games according to "How Long to Beat.com". I'm sorry MMOs. I don't have time for your just play forever bullshit.
3. I'm Not Accomplishing Anything
No, this one isn't about "wasting" time playing games making me less productive in the real world. I'm talking about in-game. Nothing I do creates lasting change in the game world. Everything in an MMO has to be designed to reset so that the next person that comes along can do what you just did. These assholes aren't in any better shape after I completed their quest. Whatever I did will reset within a few moments, and it will be like I had never been there. This brings me to my next two quibbles...
4. The World Is Full of Fucking Liars
All the quest-givers will whisper sweet nothings in your ear, tell you you're somehow special, it's a miracle you arrived when you did, you're the only hope to save them, etc. etc. Horseshit. If I do what you ask, you're going to say I saved the day, but some asshole's going to come up behind me and re-save you. You sit on a throne of lies!
5. Helpless Motherfuckers
Are none of these NPCs self-sufficient? How could every town I come across be full of lazy, helpless motherfuckers that need me to fix their rat problem, or gather some potatoes for their stew, or deliver their mail. Aren't I supposed to be a hero or some shit? The necessity of a boatload of quests in any one hub inevitably creates this glut of mundane quests. Quantity over quality is definitely at work here.
6. This Is Not How I Play RPGs
This is mostly a result of my earlier qualms, but I'm going to call it out specifically. I am soooo slow when clearing enemies from an area in any single-player RPGs. I send out my thief to look for traps, I pull one baddie at a time if possible, and check every single room thoroughly. This method is bizarrely something I enjoy, but it is impossible to play this way in an MMO due to how quickly things respawn. I like to take time to smell the roses...or carcasses, I guess in this situation. Gross. You're gross.
7. Worthless Ass Set Decorations
It saddens me a bit that all these little bits and bobs decorating a house/dungeon/general area are just there to be pretty and don't really function in any capacity. In a standard RPG, I check every chest, drawer, jar, and pile of debris for items. This search for loot leads me to canvasing every inch of a room before moving on. The fact that no storage containers contain anything unless it's a part of a quest results in me blowing through areas without really taking in the scenery. If it's not glowing, it's just background fluff that my brain can afford to ignore. You made me this way!
8. Constant Change
I am a creature of habit. Change scares me, and on some occasions, infuriates me. New content is all well and good, but when they start nerfing my shit, I get a little upset. Constant tinkering with the balance usually goes hand in hand with them resetting my abilities too. That always drives me crazy because I have to spend my first half hour back reading tooltips to respec. Change in the form of giving new players previously hard to attain things earlier is also a source of frustration. Yeah, I'm thinking about when WoW started allowing mounts at Level 20. Sonsofbitches... Also, as player numbers start to fade, there's generally changes to make a grab for a wider, yet possibly dumber, audience. They call it making it "more accessible"; I call it dumbing it down. I don't exactly like things being super easy, and a once enjoyable game can be ruined in this redesign for the masses. Being able to fix bugs post-launch and adding new content is fabulous, but sometimes I miss the days where patching wasn't a thing.
9. Judgey Assholes
This is probably the biggest problem I have with MMOs. I can get over a lot of these things, but this one leaves a bad taste in my mouth. I've had good experiences, at times, but the ratio leans more toward the negative side. Pick-up groups are usually death. From the merely annoying jerks going AFK when you're ready to go, to the unforgivable asshole in the group that insists on aggroing every fucking beastie in creation, wiping your group over and over. Then there's the random bigotry and bile you encounter in chats or the random stranger that feels the need to examine your gear and chastise you for not having the optimum gear that's available for my exact level and class. These online games allow us to connect with one another like never before, but sometimes...I just don't wanna.
10. Déjà vu
The details may differ, but all MMOs feel very much the same to me. They may be in a different setting and have different races and classes, but the core gameplay is very much the same. Big world, lots of little quest hubs, level up, talent tree, kill 10 of this, collect 20 of that... I'm just bored of them. It costs so much money to create one of these behemoths, and you're just fighting over the same customer base of people that like MMOs. It hardly seems worth it.
Even though I bitch and moan about these things, when a new MMO comes out, I'll usually give it a go. I'm not sure whether that makes me an idiot or an optimist. Maybe that's a fine line...
