Last week, MOP’s Chris and I were discussing his husband’s obsession with Sea of Thieves; he runs with a set crew that generally leaves people alone until provoked. I remarked that that state of “tense peace” is fairly common in gankboxes, though it takes just one jerk to ruin that peace and all your plans, but that having a crew usually made up for it.
The convo got me thinking about how I left my PvP days behind me. Part of it was that my friends started fading from MMOs and PvP wasn’t fun without them, but part of it was that I started realizing I could get that same thrill just as easily from intense RP or econ PvP without the massive frustrations and time sinks of open PvP.
For this week’s Massively Overthinking, let’s talk about the MMOs or the game types you loved and maybe even still miss but have left behind you. What made you move on? Was it something in the game or something out of the game – or something a different game had that appealed to you more? What precisely broke you from an old beloved MMORPG?
Ben Griggs (@braxwolf): For me it was LOTRO. As Bree mentioned, kin members slowly stopped logging in, and those who still showed up found ourselves running the same end-game content over and over. Even new zones only offered the same content with a glossed-over veneer. One day I realized that the only reason I logged in every day was to chat with an ever-diminishing group, and the obligation (along with the expectation that comes along with content creation) had begun to overwhelm me. That’s when I knew it was time to stop.
UPDATE: I just created a new LOTRO character for the first time in over a decade. [Gottem. -Eds]
Brianna Royce (@nbrianna.bsky.social, blog): I have another example! I have slipped away from Ultima Online a whole bunch of times because I found other games that could give me the same experience and gameloop. First it was Dark Age of Camelot. Then it was Glitch. And the last time I left, it was because I realized SWG Legends was offering me the same content, that loop of housing and crafting and hunting and vendoring and exploring – but I really didn’t have time for both. But even now, I’m thinking about the things that made UO unique and am considering going back yet again. [Gottem again! -Eds]
Chris Neal (@wolfyseyes.bsky.social, blog): I’m a roleplayer first and foremost, so the thing that has pushed me out of a game the fastest has been some poor roleplay and roleplayer interactions. The most egregious of these types are those who can’t separate IC and OOC interactions very well, though there are others who have made me walk from a game like those who write sad sacks or people who put writing an “edgy” character as a thin veneer to be unrepentant a-holes.
Of course that does mean that I’ve landed in other communities as a result of the bad ones shoving me away. WildStar had an awesome RP base that I had a great time with, and while Final Fantasy XIV does have some of the issues I mentioned earlier, I’ve also landed with a pretty good group of folks that keep me around – especially when game content or other poor RP interactions would have seen me walk.
Mia DeSanzo (@neschria): I left gaming grind culture and the raiding scene behind because I reached a point in my life when putting in the time, or even the thought, was just a chore. And then I felt like others looked down on me a bit for not making the game a priority, which was a huge turn-off. And to the point, some games I loved seem to mainly be about that endgame.
Sam Kash (@samkash@mastodon.social): I’m going to get in first with the easy answer: time. Maybe it’s cheating, but I’ll start there at least. Before adulting took over, there was so much time to play and get fully engrossed in a game. Nowadays, with marriage, kids, family, and work, those end-of-the-day hours are fewer and much more precious, so they have to be thoughtfully spent.
Now, what I think my editor was really looking for was something more tangible like her examples. Going that way, I’d say that I started to make new friends and discover some new hobbies. I might find a guild in a specific game and play a lot with them in that game, but I didn’t really join up to the point of going to other games. Instead, I would do that with my SO. Together we would duo various games. Then, we got new careers and met new friends who didn’t play MMOs as much as we did, but they did like to get together for movies and board games.
So I started playing a bit less of the MMOs and a bit more of the tabletops. Obviously I can’t turn away from MMOs totally, but I haven’t been able to find a home, and I bet it’s largely because of where my friends are now. And it’s a lot more offline.
Tyler Edwards (blog): I’ll just run down the list of MMOs I used to play heavily but no longer.
Guild Wars 2 I’ve already written about a fair bit here and elsewhere. I loved it at launch, and I still think it does a lot well, but I never liked the story, the class design is too samey, and the mobs in endgame zones are too dense and spam too much CC. I’ve tried to come back to it a few times over the years, but I can never get it to stick long term.
Elder Scrolls Online should on paper be my ideal MMO — story-driven, solo friendly, horizontal progression, good crafting, classless — and I did put a fair bit of time into it, but after a while I started to realize that every zone played pretty much the same. The gameplay of content never really changes, and even the stories are incredibly formulaic. I started to feel like if you’ve played one zone in that game, you’ve played them all. Even playing different characters doesn’t really help because every build basically just boils down to spamming your nuke and not much else.
I haven’t really enjoyed the story updates (what little there have been) in Star Wars: The Old Republic post-KOTET, and the story was the only thing that kept me in that game. I never liked the combat or graphics, and they feel more painfully dated with each passing year.
Neverwinter… again, I don’t think the story really grabbed me. I mostly played player-made Foundry quests, and while I left before those got removed, their removal drastically reduced the appeal of giving it another go.
Finally, there’s Star Trek Online. I just got burnt out, and the end of the Iconian War arc felt like a natural place to leave it. I did try playing it again relatively recently, but the gameplay and graphics are starting to feel too dated. Maybe one day.
Every week, join the Massively OP staff for Massively Overthinking column, a multi-writer roundtable in which we discuss the MMO industry topics du jour – and then invite you to join the fray in the comments. Overthinking it is literally the whole point. Your turn!
