Ten Things I've Learned Playing MMOs For Fifteen Years (not a rant)

[DWRoelands]

After logging many hours in Anarchy Online, Earth & Beyond, EVE Online, Dark Age of Camelot, The Matrix Online, City of Heroes, DC Universe, World of Warcraft, Guild Wars, and a few others, here are the things I've learned. Reminding myself of these things helps me to stay content while playing the games I love...

 

1. Different people play for different reasons.

2. People will hate the things you love.

3. People will love the things you hate.

4. You can't convince people to change their minds about #2 or #3.

5. The forums for any MMO are mostly populated by people who are unhappy (some reasonably so, some not).

6. Never spend time in an MMO doing something that you don't want to do (e.g. don't tank because your guild needs a tank - tank because you LOVE tanking).

7. There is nothing wrong with playing an MMO completely solo, if you have fun doing it.

8. Hide or leave your game's "General Chat" channel forever and never look back.

9. If you join a guild, join a guild with people like you (hardcore raider, parent with interruptions, filthy casual, etc.)

10. Games are entertainment; if you're not having fun - stop playing.

 

I'd be interested to hear the things you've learned. Speak up!

[XiamaraSimi]

Ive learned what you like in some MMOs you dont in others due to different game design. I cant stand PvP here, but played it in WoW and RIFTS.

[Keta]

I had completely forgotten about Earth and Beyond.

 

Oh and a good list.

[feylyndiira]

After logging many hours in Anarchy Online, Earth & Beyond, EVE Online, Dark Age of Camelot, The Matrix Online, City of Heroes, DC Universe, World of Warcraft, Guild Wars, and a few others, here are the things I've learned. Reminding myself of these things helps me to stay content while playing the games I love...

 

1. Different people play for different reasons.

2. People will hate the things you love.

3. People will love the things you hate.

4. You can't convince people to change their minds about #2 or #3.

5. The forums for any MMO are mostly populated by people who are unhappy (some reasonably so, some not).

6. Never spend time in an MMO doing something that you don't want to do (e.g. don't tank because your guild needs a tank - tank because you LOVE tanking).

7. There is nothing wrong with playing an MMO completely solo, if you have fun doing it.

8. Hide or leave your game's "General Chat" channel forever and never look back.

9. If you join a guild, join a guild with people like you (hardcore raider, parent with interruptions, filthy casual, etc.)

10. Games are entertainment; if you're not having fun - stop playing.

 

I'd be interested to hear the things you've learned. Speak up!

 

Not much to add because you pretty much said it. Though I do leave General Chat on most of the time just because it can be entertaining and I've had some fun conversations about the game and life in general. Sure, it's only like 10% of the time, but still....

 

And good list of games, I've also played most of those myself, along with DDO, LotRO, Lineage and a few others.

[SteveTheCynic]

OP: good list. It's interesting that you put the one I think is most important *last* in the list.

 

When Allods Online reworked the gear progression system in patch 5.0, the game went from having a straightforward if slow, but even so entertaining, process to get through the first four tiers of end-game gear to having a nightmarish system with mobs I had to kill but could not that would drop upgraders to be applied to base-line gear. The process of applying upgraders was the same as before, but the costs for operating the upgrade machine were increased (times 8), and the magic reagent had a scarcity crisis and jumped in price by a factor of something like 20, while gold became scarcer than before. The game ceased being fun. I gave up and picked up SWTOR to make up for it.

[Sarfux]

Great list and I agree.

[Shipwright]

After logging many hours in Anarchy Online, Earth & Beyond, EVE Online, Dark Age of Camelot, The Matrix Online, City of Heroes, DC Universe, World of Warcraft, Guild Wars, and a few others, here are the things I've learned. Reminding myself of these things helps me to stay content while playing the games I love...

 

1. Different people play for different reasons.

2. People will hate the things you love.

3. People will love the things you hate.

4. You can't convince people to change their minds about #2 or #3.

5. The forums for any MMO are mostly populated by people who are unhappy (some reasonably so, some not).

6. Never spend time in an MMO doing something that you don't want to do (e.g. don't tank because your guild needs a tank - tank because you LOVE tanking).

7. There is nothing wrong with playing an MMO completely solo, if you have fun doing it.

8. Hide or leave your game's "General Chat" channel forever and never look back.

9. If you join a guild, join a guild with people like you (hardcore raider, parent with interruptions, filthy casual, etc.)

10. Games are entertainment; if you're not having fun - stop playing.

 

I'd be interested to hear the things you've learned. Speak up!

 

I feel the same

[Master-Nala]

After logging many hours in Anarchy Online, Earth & Beyond, EVE Online, Dark Age of Camelot, The Matrix Online, City of Heroes, DC Universe, World of Warcraft, Guild Wars, and a few others, here are the things I've learned. Reminding myself of these things helps me to stay content while playing the games I love...

 

1. Different people play for different reasons.

2. People will hate the things you love.

3. People will love the things you hate.

4. You can't convince people to change their minds about #2 or #3.

5. The forums for any MMO are mostly populated by people who are unhappy (some reasonably so, some not).

6. Never spend time in an MMO doing something that you don't want to do (e.g. don't tank because your guild needs a tank - tank because you LOVE tanking).

7. There is nothing wrong with playing an MMO completely solo, if you have fun doing it.

8. Hide or leave your game's "General Chat" channel forever and never look back.

9. If you join a guild, join a guild with people like you (hardcore raider, parent with interruptions, filthy casual, etc.)

10. Games are entertainment; if you're not having fun - stop playing.

 

I'd be interested to hear the things you've learned. Speak up!

 

Agreed, but especially #6. That's the most important thing I think. To many MMO players convince themselves that they should do something they don't want to do. Usually for some reward that they will forget about soon after receiving it.

 

I used to say "Don't play for shiny things". Just because you want something, it's not worth making yourself miserable to get it.

[Psychopyro]

I had completely forgotten about Earth and Beyond.

 

The biggest reason I hate EA... I used to live right across the street (literally) from Westwood. I used to take those guys pizza and BS with the QA people all the time... I actually got my game from them for free. I loved that game... It had great potential (as EVE online proved) for the type of game it was... EA screwed the pooch so to speak and I will never forgive them for that. EA failed to support it, advertise it, or really do anything with it...

[GalacticKegger]

Great stuff OP. Special props for remembering Earth & Beyond. It's a shame what EA did to Westwood though. That game was way ahead of its time, and the real-time updates to faction politics, positioning and confrontations was amazing. I love the game & still play the emu, though being just an emu has it lacking the political scope of the original.

 

[edit] LOL @Psychopyro ... well met.

Edited December 3, 2015 by GalacticKegger

[branmakmuffin]

I hope it didn't take you 15 years to learn all that.

[Malastare]

8. Hide or leave your game's "General Chat" channel forever and never look back.

 

But... I like to leave it open to answer questions and help out new players.

 

(I know... I'm doing it wrong. I'm supposed to insult them and make them feel like sub-humans....)

[Katahn]

Buffs and Nerfs will happen, count on it. Never pick a class/race/pet/whatever because it is the 'flavor of the month' - that generally means a nerf is incoming sooner rather than later.

 

Don't announce you're going to quit because of "X" - you won't. Well ok, you might but the odds are very good you don't actually mean it. People who really do quit tend to just disappear. By complaining and threatening to quit you just come off as throwing a temper tantrum.

 

Don't believe that just because you're on the faction that dominates in pvp that you are somehow super-skilled and amazing and the other side sucks. Yeah sure the winning side might have better PvPers, or maybe they just work together better, but your side winning a lot has precisely jack to do with you and if you doubt that go play on the other side and see how well you do. "Winning factions" can carry a lot of bad players you'll find. Keep your head screwed on straight.

 

Open-world PvP will never be fair and balanced. Ganking will happen and it will interfere with your gameplay experience. Just accept it or move to a non-PvP server.

 

People will play the auction house/GTN/whatever and will make a ridiculous amount of money doing it. That is almost certainly not an exploit, just where they spend their time in the game.

 

Buying in-game money from a third-party vendor is never a good idea and will almost always get you banned or your account hacked eventually.

 

Being good in PvP doesn't make you good in PvE (or vice versa).

 

PvE nerfs will happen for PvP reasons (and vice versa).

 

Some bugs are easy to fix, some aren't. Asserting that bug "X" taking a long time to fix means all bugs will take that long is ignorant.

[Kalfear]

After logging many hours in Anarchy Online, Earth & Beyond, EVE Online, Dark Age of Camelot, The Matrix Online, City of Heroes, DC Universe, World of Warcraft, Guild Wars, and a few others, here are the things I've learned. Reminding myself of these things helps me to stay content while playing the games I love...

 

Well I been at it for 25 years now so lets see what you learned

 

1. Different people play for different reasons.

 

True but there is massive overlap of certain play styles and to be honest PVP and Raid players make up the smallest percentages normally in MMORPGs (even in games with good PVP content)

 

2. People will hate the things you love.

Its becoming worse and worse as time goes on. Back in 1991 when the genre launched it wasnt like this but developers (really since WOW to now) have played such a nasty trick of pitting one play style against the other that the seperation gaps have grown considerably and created much more toxic enviroments in MMORPGs then there was back in day.

 

3. People will love the things you hate.

 

See answer to #2

 

4. You can't convince people to change their minds about #2 or #3.

 

See #2 answer

 

5. The forums for any MMO are mostly populated by people who are unhappy (some reasonably so, some not).

 

See this is what Blizzard brought to the table with WOW and its just magnified since then.

The earlier forums of MMORPGs were not a hot bed of ignorance and anger (well SWG had its moments to be sure if being honest, maybe its a Star wars thing in that regard)

If you go back and read what ever was being used as official forums back in day, the anger and obnoxiousness and mean spirited nonsense was not there.

And the forums were more about love of any one game then anything else.

There really nasty and unhappy forum thing never really started in earnest until WOW entered the picture.

And WOW didnt just create bad eviroments on their forems, the wow kiddies would goto all the other game forums and spread the ignorance and bad behaviour there.

What you see here now a days can be DIRECTLY followed back to creation of WOW population and posters.

It wasnt nearly as bad in game that came before WOW

 

6. Never spend time in an MMO doing something that you don't want to do (e.g. don't tank because your guild needs a tank - tank because you LOVE tanking).

 

Completely and utterly false

Helping out your guild (depending on guild of course) will always have advantages and benefits and if they need a tank, roll atank and help out. A few hours helping them will normally be returned with 100s of hours in enjoyment and them helping you.

And if thats not the case

Find a better guild

In layman terms, you get out of the product what you put in

As in Life

So if you join a guild thinking its up to them to entertain you at all times and you are not willing to put anything back in, chances are you are going to end up ostrasized or even removed from that guild activities.

 

7. There is nothing wrong with playing an MMO completely solo, if you have fun doing it.

 

Nothing wrong with it unless you thing the entire game needs to be designed for you to solo

MMORPG are normally group orientated content and when you sign up you need to be prepared that normally half the game content will require groups.

If you not prepared to accept that, then there most definately is stuff wrong with only soloing

And that comes from a player that solos most everything in Post WOW MMORPGs

 

8. Hide or leave your game's "General Chat" channel forever and never look back.

 

Sadly true in SWTOR, true in WOW.

General not as bad in Rift or Defience or Aion

Truth is it depends on the game and the "community of players" playing the game

But yes in sW:TOR, hide general and never look back

 

9. If you join a guild, join a guild with people like you (hardcore raider, parent with interruptions, filthy casual, etc.)

 

Id go a step further and say if a guild is advertising on fleet for memebers (or over any chat) DONT JOIN

They only interested in numbers

Join guilds that you meet in play and have fun with their memebers (course this requires you to actually interact with other players).

Worst thing ever regarding guilds is to join a guild that has no community with in it.

 

10. Games are entertainment; if you're not having fun - stop playing.

 

Duh

Edited December 2, 2015 by Kalfear

[TikkyLightmaker]

I'd be interested to hear the things you've learned. Speak up!

 

Never buy into company hype about announcements. No, really. The PR group is payed to over-hype; it's just what companies do, and we're not gonna change that. If there's an announcement to be made, just listen/read it. It's just going to be a regular announcement, anyways. And if, by chance, it actually does match they hype they put in it, then you'll get a really cool surprise - and that's far better than continuous disappointment.

 

And it's not an issue of "those darn filthy companies" - it's what they do, it kinda sucks, but life goes on. Adapt. Set expectations accordingly. Much less bad blood generated, that way.

[LogunOne]

After logging many hours in Anarchy Online, Earth & Beyond, EVE Online, Dark Age of Camelot, The Matrix Online, City of Heroes, DC Universe, World of Warcraft, Guild Wars, and a few others, here are the things I've learned. Reminding myself of these things helps me to stay content while playing the games I love...

 

1. Different people play for different reasons.

2. People will hate the things you love.

3. People will love the things you hate.

4. You can't convince people to change their minds about #2 or #3.

5. The forums for any MMO are mostly populated by people who are unhappy (some reasonably so, some not).

6. Never spend time in an MMO doing something that you don't want to do (e.g. don't tank because your guild needs a tank - tank because you LOVE tanking).

7. There is nothing wrong with playing an MMO completely solo, if you have fun doing it.

8. Hide or leave your game's "General Chat" channel forever and never look back.

9. If you join a guild, join a guild with people like you (hardcore raider, parent with interruptions, filthy casual, etc.)

10. Games are entertainment; if you're not having fun - stop playing.

 

I'd be interested to hear the things you've learned. Speak up!

 

I've learned that if you read enough MMO forums every now and again you stubble on a nugget of wisdom .... like this one

[Hebruixe]

After logging many hours in Anarchy Online, Earth & Beyond, EVE Online, Dark Age of Camelot, The Matrix Online, City of Heroes, DC Universe, World of Warcraft, Guild Wars, and a few others, here are the things I've learned. Reminding myself of these things helps me to stay content while playing the games I love...

 

1. Different people play for different reasons.

2. People will hate the things you love.

3. People will love the things you hate.

4. You can't convince people to change their minds about #2 or #3.

5. The forums for any MMO are mostly populated by people who are unhappy (some reasonably so, some not).

6. Never spend time in an MMO doing something that you don't want to do (e.g. don't tank because your guild needs a tank - tank because you LOVE tanking).

7. There is nothing wrong with playing an MMO completely solo, if you have fun doing it.

8. Hide or leave your game's "General Chat" channel forever and never look back.

9. If you join a guild, join a guild with people like you (hardcore raider, parent with interruptions, filthy casual, etc.)

10. Games are entertainment; if you're not having fun - stop playing.

 

I'd be interested to hear the things you've learned. Speak up!

 

Great list, full of nerd wisdom! Thanks for posting this.

[AlienEyeTX]

After logging many hours in Anarchy Online, Earth & Beyond, EVE Online, Dark Age of Camelot, The Matrix Online, City of Heroes, DC Universe, World of Warcraft, Guild Wars, and a few others, here are the things I've learned. Reminding myself of these things helps me to stay content while playing the games I love...

 

1. Different people play for different reasons.

2. People will hate the things you love.

3. People will love the things you hate.

4. You can't convince people to change their minds about #2 or #3.

5. The forums for any MMO are mostly populated by people who are unhappy (some reasonably so, some not).

6. Never spend time in an MMO doing something that you don't want to do (e.g. don't tank because your guild needs a tank - tank because you LOVE tanking).

7. There is nothing wrong with playing an MMO completely solo, if you have fun doing it.

8. Hide or leave your game's "General Chat" channel forever and never look back.

9. If you join a guild, join a guild with people like you (hardcore raider, parent with interruptions, filthy casual, etc.)

10. Games are entertainment; if you're not having fun - stop playing.

 

I'd be interested to hear the things you've learned. Speak up!

 

6, 8, and 10 just nail it.

[MWidowmaker]

add to that:

 

-there will always be aholes, dont worry about them, they arent worth your time or energy

- there will always be people who think they are better than they actually are, again not worth wasting time or energy on

-people are greedy, learn who they are and how to spot them so you can avoid them

-dont be a dick

[SteveTheCynic]

6. Never spend time in an MMO doing something that you don't want to do (e.g. don't tank because your guild needs a tank - tank because you LOVE tanking).

 

Completely and utterly false

Helping out your guild (depending on guild of course) will always have advantages and benefits and if they need a tank, roll atank and help out. A few hours helping them will normally be returned with 100s of hours in enjoyment and them helping you.

And if thats not the case

Find a better guild

In layman terms, you get out of the product what you put in

As in Life

So if you join a guild thinking its up to them to entertain you at all times and you are not willing to put anything back in, chances are you are going to end up ostrasized or even removed from that guild activities.

Hmm. I think you and the OP are talking at cross-purposes here. Sure, you *start* tanking to help out your guild, but if you continue, it should be because you like doing it. They aren't, as you say, obliged to provide entertainment, but playing with them shouldn't devolve into a continuous stream of painful experiences because you discover that you don't like tanking. In that way, this item ties in with number 10, Don't do it if it isn't fun.

[Olteron]

I've played everquest 1 and 2, city of heroes, daoc, wow, eve online, DDO, DCUO, neverwinter, anarchy online, and a few more. Raided in most. Pvp in some. I play casual solo in this game because I'm married now with 2 kids. I wish I had the time to be a hard core pvper or ops runner. But I dont. But damn, people complain more about everything in this game than any I've played. If your to the point that you start going on a huge rant, just quit and go do something else with your time.

Never will understand why people stay if they are filled with so much hate.

[SteveTheCynic]

I've played everquest 1 and 2, city of heroes, daoc, wow, eve online, DDO, DCUO, neverwinter, anarchy online, and a few more. Raided in most. Pvp in some. I play casual solo in this game because I'm married now with 2 kids. I wish I had the time to be a hard core pvper or ops runner. But I dont. But damn, people complain more about everything in this game than any I've played. If your to the point that you start going on a huge rant, just quit and go do something else with your time.

Never will understand why people stay if they are filled with so much hate.

I could make some smart-alec remark about turning to the Dark Side, but there's probably a simple explanation. Some people "are only happy when" (== get malicious / malignant(1) satisfaction from) complaining (I wanted to use a certain five letter word beginning b and ending tch, possibly with an i in between) about the thing they do.

 

(1) I'm well aware of the difference, and for some of them it might even be both at once.

[branmakmuffin]

But... I like to leave it open to answer questions and help out new players.

 

(I know... I'm doing it wrong. I'm supposed to insult them and make them feel like sub-humans....)

"Press alt-f4" and "Delete your system32 folder" are your friends.

[HarleysRule]

11. Everything a dev does or doesn't do is a slap in the face aimed personally at you.

[Ruskaeth]

6. Never spend time in an MMO doing something that you don't want to do (e.g. don't tank because your guild needs a tank - tank because you LOVE tanking).

What a salty point for those who have gotten caught in the never ending loop of hunting achievements! I know a few achievement nuts who work through half the achievements like robots, not enjoying actual process of getting the achievement but still unable to stop hunting. All for the changing % and digits on their personal score board. It's a drug for some I tell you.