If You Are Bored Playing MMO's

Community General Discussion
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It’s not the game designs fault. It’s yours really.

Having finally dived into TBCC I realized 14 years ago I didn’t notice or care about having all the long distance traveling to do quests and content in vanilla. Because like most players I had a wonderful guild that kept me company. 40+ people actually talking and not splintered into clique-ish circles. Without that, this game is unbearable.

But you know it’s not a Blizz “thing”. So many people blame boring game play on Blizz but it wasn’t boring at all in those days. It’s an “us” thing. Society just really sucks today when it comes to being social. Playing TBCC has hammered this home to me.

This isn’t game design or bad content that makes it boring, it’s lack of human interaction. And that is squarely on the player. Most players today need to be entertained and bedazzled by the game mechanics to cover up for a lack of player ability to be social and create entertaining interactions with themselves.

I think this generation is severely lacking in social skills and it shows in their inability to fill “down time” in game with social engagement/entertainment. So when faced with a 10 minute cross zone run, the player gets bored and blames it on bad game design all the while wondering why the player base is declining in mmo’s today.

I was never bored in Vanilla through Wrath. I was always guilded with at least 40 other players and we honestly enjoyed being in Ventrillo and Teamspeak talking and laughing and grouping up in game.

In Everquest before that, when we were forced at levels 34 and below to sit and stare at the pages of our spellbooks while we sat for minutes at a time regaining mana, we were never bored for the same reason.

This is whats wrong with WoW, and every other game today and it has nothing to do with game design. WoW, as with other games, have tried to adapt unsuccessfully to this new player. I say unsuccessfully because I don’t think a traditional mmo can remain viable with that type of player.

So maybe it is time to just say good-bye to the traditional mmorpg genre as it tries to adapt to this new style of less than social player base?

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It’s funny. Here I thought I play mmos because I want to play with other people. It’s just unfortunate for me there isn’t another mmo with wows gameplay. Otherwise, yes, I’d quit and let you have your mundane RuneScape adventures.

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i am sorry that my social skills have atrophied since 2007. i know it is a bad thing.

chrisp/gotnov

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Is this post really a long and subtle way of saying you think classic players are awesome and retail players are awful?

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She’s just looking for a reason to blame retail players for retail’s failure.

Yeah, right.

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It’s a part of the mix, but only one part.

Yes, the way people socialize in and around games changed, probably permanently. Back in the 1999 - ~2010 timeframe, socializing in games themselves was still a novelty. People would meet people in the game itself, join a guild, hop into its vent, and so on – these people were not typically RL friends (although may have included a few) but people met in the game itself, or in extensions like forums and websites and the like.

A few things were at play in changing that. One is that social media became a massive thing, and online socialization became concentrated on the social media platforms. When people were playing games, they were socializing with RL friends in social media and therefore much less interested in socializing with people in the games themselves. Around the same time, gaming-specific social media began to rise as well, especially Discord, and people began to carry their “game friendships” between games, which also decreased their interest in meeting people in the game itself. People arrived in the MMO game with a premade set of friends, often a premade guild, which effectively was a closed social group. Only very few did this in 2006. A large proportion did it by 2015. It was a massive shift.

At the same time, apart from the changes in the way socialization itself happened around MMOs, the MMO genre was constantly changing to adapt to the then current experience of players in this game – which was becoming every year more streamlined, faster-paced, more competitive, and with more QOL functions to facilitate ease and speed of accessing group content without socialization being required. These changes came about in part for QOL reasons in an established game, and in part to accommodate the kinds of changes in socialization that were already happening in the gaming world at the same time, but they also themselves sped up and catalyzed the de-socialization of the in-game experience to a large degree.

Other games had to be designed more or less to accommodate this because, as with other design features, because WoW was the million-pound gorilla in the MMO space, it formed expectations of MMO players, and so new MMOs which were designed with th expectation that players would socialize in the game like they did in 2005 failed, mostly, unless they quickly adopted the same kinds of changes WoW had done … because their players expected this, based on their time in this game.

And, finally, the rise of other game genres in the online gaming space – MOBAs and then later team shooters and royales – provided even more pressure on making the MMO experience something that could be consumed by players in bite-sized chunks of time, which, as a practical matter, means with very limited required social interaction (i.e., everything is automated). This was a competitive issue in the online gaming world at the time, and it has continued to be that way … MMOs were no longer the only, and frankly quickly no longer the predominant, online gaming form as the market moved to these other, newer forms of online game. People still wanted to play MMOs (albeit probably fewer than during the “peak MMO craze” of ~2010), but they wanted top be able to play them in bite sized chunks, the way they played LOL or Overwatch or Fortnite. And that also means pretty much zero emphasis on in-game socialization beyond the bare minimum needed to facilitate the gameplay taking place (i.e., communication with other players is “strictly business” and not socializing).

I don’t think these changes are going away, because there are multiple reasons for them. MMOs can be done which accommodate these changes to how people socialize, but they are going to be very different from “traditional MMOs”, because people now play the games for different reasons than they did when the traditional MMOs were being made, and, in particular, they do not look at the game itself as a socialization venue, but as “strictly business”.

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Things can always be better. That’s what we should strive for/demand. Nothing wrong with a bit of squeak to get that oil. Directing this at whomever, not really, you, per-se.

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Sounds like it.

Some mmo’s like FF and now NW do fun and interesting things.

YOu need 10 items hero. Go kill for em.

10 dead enemies later…10 items. This confused me at first in NW. Really? I am done? No rng? no killing 50 mobs?

Meanwhile in TBCC release week I literally leveled a pet 1 whole level killing the 50+ mobs to get like 12 medallions off orcs for 1 quest. 50 to get 12…not sure who signed off on that.

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yawn.
Im a SOLO player these days guy…and I LOVE old content and HATE the last two expansions. lmao…flies in the face of your illogic, Id say, lol

lmao…literally NOT. MANY players who quit…friend…WERE guildies and raiders, lmao.
get a clue

DUH…THAT was GOOD content…THIS crap today…ISNT…

from now on any threads I see like this attacking players and shilling for blizzard are being muted…
That said…thread muted

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No.

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Me either (BC to Wrath though) but I didn’t have human interaction to fill the gaps I just found the game interesting because it was new to me.

You know your entire posts argument is based on people needing social interaction to not be bored but not everyone needs that.

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I’ve been saying it for years, most people currently playing WoW have no business in an MMORPG. This is the Candy Crush generation of gamer and they need a 15 minute “fix” with little to no effort while they suck on a juice box.

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basic filler content should not need a half butted attempt at 5 man dungeon crew to run. As when enough people aren’t on you get the issue the content is not really able to be run.

Even 2 weeks in TBCC redo was showing issues if making new chars. Issue was barring some classes who can solo you were kind of screwed for 3 man quests in BE start/ghost ring.

As all the blood elves that flooded it day 1 or week 1 (and blood elves were legion day 1 lol) are now in 30+ zones.

Need old boy’s head at the top of the tower? can’t solo? well then…fire up youtube. Make the wait more fun. Got progressively harder as you party in the ghost ring.

Retail got easier because in legion (when I came in) the dream of social questing had an issue. Issue was not enough people to be social with. Even gathering farmers don’t come to blood elf land. They can’t fly there you see. ideally in a gathering loop you swoop down, pick/mine, and fly off.

I made new night elves after the rush. /who was showing 2 people in my hood. I was both of them. As at the time I had a dual account setup for a month. I had to have my 62 swing by to help clear out the 3 man quests.

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This seems like the ultimate “ok boomer” thread. Just sayin’

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The concept of a “traditional mmorpg” is a half-step away from a gimmick stemming from the era of internet they were thought up in, IMO.

“Look Ma! I can play with thousands of other players in the same world at the same time online! Wow!”

Obviously the genre has its own mechanics and types of content and such, it’s not like there’s nothing to it, but at the end of the day, the design decisions going into a traditional MMORPG basically feel like a series of “oh god we have players how do we keep them here for more than a week” decisions.

I think it’s pretty normal that the genre has lost steam over time.

It still has its own stuff going for it, but it’s become more niche, because the big draw of “haha lots of people all at once” doesn’t mean anything at all anymore. The very concept hinged on social interaction back in the day and it was a new experience from online gaming for a lot of people, but that draw is mostly dead these days.

Hell, from the same time period as early WoW, even something like Halo 2 on Xbox Live was used as a literal chatroom by people. I had a friend who would just load up a lobby and play guitar into the mic, for example.

We’re past the age of being so connected being a novelty now though.

Yes, there might be some merit to the idea of people being less social these days. But I don’t think its fair to pin the whole thing on that trend. I don’t think MMORPGs were ever going to blow up and stick around as a huge thing. Even WoW was an anomaly. I figure they go the way of the RTS before too long.

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This is… a really good point. I feel like I get most of my online interaction through forums and discord that I value my alone time in games more now.

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Yeah, some genre’s eventually die out.

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Sorry, this has actually always a thing for the past 16 years. Fortunately my circle still plays and we’ve plenty of fun, though we could use some new content.

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Retail has some of the worst, most pointless grinds since WoW’s inception. The PvP disparity is some of the worst it has ever been as well.

To blame players for these trash designs is insanity. You are either delusional or ignorant.

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Agreed, in much the same way as “if fast food makes you fat, its your fault not the fast food”… It is still perfectly acceptable to say the food tastes bad and/or does not measure to a certain standard of quality.

Don’t you think a successful designer would try to implement systems and designs to try to foster these types of social structures to maximize player enjoyment? instead of “heres LFR and we hate all our LFR players for making us do this” - paraphrasing but thats the message from many blue posts.

Correct its not, its a shame they choose not to address it though… its what known as a “value add”.

Kid… I am 38 years old you have no idea what you are talking about here (or just lack perspective). Society is INSANELY!!! connected, you literally have a book of faces comprised of close connections of family and friends and communitys that collaborate and congregate that share their similar interests… with in ~3 button clicks or touches, at any time, you can find people who think like you and share some of your interests. Society has never been so social - wow hasnt kept pace… think about Discord, its no way near as old as wow but it has usurped wow as the “gaming hub”/the way I keep in touch with my gaming friends across many titles, characters and online interactions… blizzard had a chance to own that space but missed the opportunity. They lacked the vision. Bnet was a pioneer social platform once upon a time, heck I would argue it was a pre-cursor to the entire social media space.

Its both, the game requires someone a guild leader, officers whatever structure in place to be able to “play” it optimally, that is how it is designed - the design of the game hasnt changed to keep pace with society. If you are Ion in a mythic raiding game, the games probably as good as its ever been.
The fundamental social fabric of the game requires a person to manage the logistics and is very very inflexible for alterations of those rigid structures… miss a raid night, you cant just log on by yourself and catch up… you can PUG with a lot of effort but that will be a very different experience (and usually very painful)… also I cannot log in with 1 or 2 friends and do any meaningful content in the game. There are systems and designs to the game that funnel you down tracks… I just don’t think you see them.

I think this generation has soo many competing demands on their attention, that to “waste” or “under utilize it” with substandard content or processes that are inherently unsatisfying is not going to be successful anymore.

What happens on that 10 minute cross zone run… I have an objective and a goal I want to reach… am I constantly being engaged along the way to the objective - i.e do I have to reassess if I want to pursue a different objective because a rare spawn popped up or a random event took place, maybe a queue popped, a rare resource node, a random quest giver… a vista with some fantastic view or interesting terrain quirk/gag/bit of treasure. These elements are all a part of game design… the entire flow of that quest you are on, you “10 minute journey” has an architect. Also what have you done in the previous 10 minutes, is it a pacing thing, are you supposed to think about what is going on or solve any puzzles.

Having a 10 minute run in the absence of all of the above is bad game design.

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