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MMO's are all about interaction with other players, right?

Yet, many players enjoy them for PvE content. Obviously, a good MMO will keep churning out content to retain subscribers, but when you get down to it aren't all MMORPG's just watered down versions of single player RPG's?

Take World of Warcraft. Sure, it has it's appeal, but is the gameplay anywhere near as good as Diablo 2 or Zelda: OOT? If you packed it's PvE elements into a single player package, and kept updating the content as people do the MMO counterpart, would anyone really want to play it, or would they stick with the normal WoW even though all they're doing is playing the same game, but with a million other players sharing a server?

So what is it about playing PvE content with other gamers that enhances the experience vs playing it by yourself?

1. People like gaming

2. People like to be social

3. Not all people like to be competitive

Those three steps give you a huge reservoir of demand. Co-op elements in MMOs fill that demand. You can go into more detail about the strategy of teamplay against AI challenges but it really comes down to being social.

Personally, because I find PvE fun and PvP too much of a hassle 99% of the time.

I play MMOs to grief, so I generally lean towards PVP combat. estahuh

PvE is just used to acquire skills or abilities to make griefing easier. 131

Originally posted by NemeBro
I play MMOs to grief, so I generally lean towards PVP combat. estahuh

PvE is just used to acquire skills or abilities to make griefing easier. 131 This.

PvE is much better for leveling and such, although provides limits once you've reached the level cap. I ideal is to power level on a PvE server then move your character to PvP.

I haven't played an MMORPG in ages though.

You're also making one of the same mistakes I did about MMRPG's: that their content is inferior to non-MMO's and their primary draw is the sociability. Plenty of MMO's don't have content, and yet they have excellent sociability. Those games die. You need quality regardless of your genre to succeed long-term.

To use your example: Would WoW be less popular without the social aspect? Absolutely, but it's because playing with other people adds new layers to games, not because it's lacking in other departments.

Besides, it's designed to be MMO. Asking what would happen if you took the same game and made it single player is ridiculous...the game would be designed for that format, and many elements would change. Of course it would make a crappy single-player experience, because that's not what it was intended for. Your criticism, framed this way, seems self-fulfilling, and unfair from a design perspective.

I dunno, I find WoW lacking in pretty much everything and the social aspect really isn't that important to me.

And the only MMO I play would be perfectly playable as a single-player game

While I do enjoy PVP, I more often seek cooperative play with my friends on an MMO. It's an experience not easily replicated in other genres.

I satiate my competitive hunger with fighting games. Although, it would be fun as hell to take Nu into an MMO. I'd party with Nemebro just to piss him off.

I never really went into battlegrounds and the arena when I played WoW... I also never reached the level cap so didn't get to go on any proper raids. The best times I had on the game were doing instances though. The cooperative "whole is greater than the sum of it's parts" thing... fun stuff.

yeah, teaming up with friends (and strangers) to take on a powerful foe is always a great thrill....it unless they nurf everything and make it entirely too easy....

I only play MMO's to meet hot bitches.

So, yeah.

Most people spend most of their time leveling in WoW soloing, so yeah, it would work. WoW has some of the better storylines as far as MMORPG's go. The quests actually have plots and arcs, and now they're all being improved with the release of the new expansion.

I am tempted to give WoW another go when Cataclysm comes out.

^ This.

Originally posted by BackFire
Most people spend most of their time leveling in WoW soloing, so yeah, it would work. WoW has some of the better storylines as far as MMORPG's go. The quests actually have plots and arcs, and now they're all being improved with the release of the new expansion.

How far in do you have to get into the game before you reach that point? Because (and I always read all of the quest text so that's not the problem) I never encountered anything more than "go kill ten goblins. Go save the fields from bandits. Kill ten bandits".

I hate grind. Hate it. And I've been talked into trying that game far too many times.

I was able to level a Mage to 40 and completed a number of story arcs the game had to offer as well as maxing out the quests of entire zones and I can't say I experienced anything much beyond that either. Not to mention I genuinely find the quest box text info a very uncompelling way to tell a story. In FFXI you actually get cutscenes where characters interact with eachother with music in the background that's made to fit the scene, and aside from having a silent protagonist instead of a scripted one and the less personal, world changing stories of the main Final Fantasy games, its story is as fine as any other in the series, and in many ways surpasses them in its incredible scope (sadly a lot of people don't really get to experience it and get put off by the considerable difficulty). However it wouldn't really work as a single player game either as the creators purposefully made it so that you needed to cooperate with other players to get through a large portion of content. It'd be ridiculously hard to solo beyond level 30, and near impossible from 40 onwards.

Originally posted by Peach
How far in do you have to get into the game before you reach that point? Because (and I always read all of the quest text so that's not the problem) I never encountered anything more than "go kill ten goblins. Go save the fields from bandits. Kill ten bandits".

I hate grind. Hate it. And I've been talked into trying that game far too many times. You obviously just failed in the reading department. There is usually a reason you have to go and kill 10 goblins. Especially in quest chains.

I fail to see how "go kill some arbitrary number of goblins (even though it will have zero effect whatsoever) because they're annoying some farmers" is at all some sort of plot-based reason.

Because agriculture is the backbone of society of course.

Originally posted by Peach
I fail to see how "go kill some arbitrary number of goblins (even though it will have zero effect whatsoever) because they're annoying some farmers" is at all some sort of plot-based reason. Not every quest can be integral to a storyline in an MMO, there are just too many of them. I don't know what you expect from WoW but it is pretty much the best out there in terms of MMOs... Numbers don't lie.

In terms of its story its as bad as any other that at least makes some attempt to include one, and Final Fantasy XI has it beaten in every single area there is with the exception of its PVP combat which the developers purposefully put minimal emphasis on as they wanted FFXI to be about helping each other out rather than acting in competition with one another.

Can't say I've ever played FFXI... I will probably get FFXIV on PS3 though.

Originally posted by Peach
How far in do you have to get into the game before you reach that point? Because (and I always read all of the quest text so that's not the problem) I never encountered anything more than "go kill ten goblins. Go save the fields from bandits. Kill ten bandits".

I hate grind. Hate it. And I've been talked into trying that game far too many times.

Takes a while. The current early world quests are definitely dated compared to the later quests that came with the expansions, which are much more varied and have stronger plots. But compared to other MMO's that were released before WoW, and even most that have come since, the early quests are stronger as far as the lore goes. Some zones are better than others. For instance I love the lore of Duskwood, it's creepy and there are some fun quests to read and some good stories. Other zones are total garbage and boring.

Also it depends on the race you play. All the races have different types of plotting and some are stronger than others in that respect. For instance I like the Human and Undead early level storylines best. Others might like other races' better.

But like I said, with Cataclysm the quests are all being overhauled very deeply. The ones I've played are much more varied and they flow better. The feeling of a grind is all gone from what I've tried in Beta.

You can actually do all of the starter quests for each race with any single race provided its part of the same alliance (as in alliance or horde). For instance I did all of the night elf and shaman starter area quests with my human character (which also happen to be considered some of the best as far as I know; the shaman quests in particular which were part of the Burning Thought expansion), and they did absolutely nothing for me.

Originally posted by BackFire
Takes a while. The current early world quests are definitely dated compared to the later quests that came with the expansions, which are much more varied and have stronger plots. But compared to other MMO's that were released before WoW, and even most that have come since, the early quests are stronger as far as the lore goes. Some zones are better than others. For instance I love the lore of Duskwood, it's creepy and there are some fun quests to read and some good stories. Other zones are total garbage and boring.

Also it depends on the race you play. All the races have different types of plotting and some are stronger than others in that respect. For instance I like the Human and Undead early level storylines best. Others might like other races' better.

But like I said, with Cataclysm the quests are all being overhauled very deeply. The ones I've played are much more varied and they flow better. The feeling of a grind is all gone from what I've tried in Beta.

Hmmm. Well, see, I find it a big problem that the content isn't engaging from the start. I don't think I ever made it past like...level 10, if even that, just because I was so damn bored with what I was doing. I don't think it should be that difficult to make the game engaging right away and make it so it immediately draws you in.

Originally posted by Peach
Hmmm. Well, see, I find it a big problem that the content isn't engaging from the start. I don't think I ever made it past like...level 10, if even that, just because I was so damn bored with what I was doing. I don't think it should be that difficult to make the game engaging right away and make it so it immediately draws you in.

That's what they are fixing.

Also they purposefully make the early levels easy because up to level 10 it's basically acting as a tutorial. Every MMO I have ever played does something similar, Guild Wars included - very simple and generic kill and fetch quests early on to avoid overwhelming complete newbies. Wow's early quests are really no worse than that game.

It's not that it's easy - it's that it's boring and not at all fun. I want to get into the plot, not grind mindlessly for hours before having anything interesting to do.

And pretty much everything in GW before hitting the level cap is considered tutorial levels, even though you start missions long before that and are generally pretty involved in the campaign's plot way before level 20

How is doing nothing but killing demons for quests in early Guild Wars content anymore fun than doing the identical thing in WoW? I suppose if you just like the gameplay or the world of GW's more then that's fine, otherwise it wouldn't make much sense.

I don't remember Guild Wars lore being all that special or noticeably better than WoW. It was competent but very standard and generic as far as fantasy MMORPG's go - as is WoW. The major difference is that I felt the early content in Guild Wars was the peak - I liked the lush area you start in and liked some of the storylines, then it simply got worse and boring after the apocalypse that happens at level 6 or whatever - too many zones just looked like desert areas with grey and brown as the main color palette. Where as the plotting and zones in WoW got more intriguing, varied and interesting as you leveled.

How far in did you play, though? Because I've...done everything there is to do in GW now, except for one bit of new content that I cannot beat still and some of the elite missions, but it's most definitely not like that. The only game that really has a lot of desert-type areas is Nightfall, because it's set on a continent based on northern Africa and the Middle East, and even that's not all pure desert. And the plotting definitely gets way more in-depth as you actually play through the game.

And no, the plot isn't something that especially stands out as being amazing, however, I like that the game was heavily focused on playing through a story, more like an offline RPG. And it really doesn't have fetch-and-carry, or "kill ten random things" quests and the few that do exist are directly tied into the plot.

I just don't like anything about WoW. I don't like the gameplay, I don't like the appearance, I don't like persistent areas in games, I despise grind, and I don't like how it takes so long to get even vaguely interesting. It's just not at all fun, and bad in every way to me.

You really didn't give WoW a chance Lana, you can get to level 10 in a couple of hours.

Originally posted by BackFire
Some zones are better than others. For instance I love the lore of Duskwood, it's creepy and there are some fun quests to read and some good stories. Other zones are total garbage and boring.

You said it, Duskwood was a cool zone. The Legend of Stalvan was awesome in particular.

And as it was already said, it's kind of impossible to incorporate every single quest into the plot and still have such an incredible amount of quests like WoW does. It's inevitable that you will end up with quite a few "Kill 10 X and fetch 8 of Y" type of quests that are neither here nor there.

Also, some people here obviously never played EVE Online where they give you literally the same missions(quests) over and over, and over, and over, and over again. At least WoW tries to make them interesting and unique...

Originally posted by Peach
How far in did you play, though? Because I've...done everything there is to do in GW now, except for one bit of new content that I cannot beat still and some of the elite missions, but it's most definitely not like that. The only game that really has a lot of desert-type areas is Nightfall, because it's set on a continent based on northern Africa and the Middle East, and even that's not all pure desert. And the plotting definitely gets way more in-depth as you actually play through the game.

And no, the plot isn't something that especially stands out as being amazing, however, I like that the game was heavily focused on playing through a story, more like an offline RPG. And it really doesn't have fetch-and-carry, or "kill ten random things" quests and the few that do exist are directly tied into the plot.

I just don't like anything about WoW. I don't like the gameplay, I don't like the appearance, I don't like persistent areas in games, I despise grind, and I don't like how it takes so long to get even vaguely interesting. It's just not at all fun, and bad in every way to me.

In GW I believe I got to level 12 or so. I stopped because I wanted to change classes but then never really went through with it. And all the zones I was in after the apocalypse were desert or dry levels with a lame color palette that looked boring. The game was fine, though, just never really got into it because of that. I was already too into WoW at that time I guess.

Something you might like about WoW now is that they've taken the phasing aspects of GW and implemented it into some of the newer zones, and they're going to be implementing it into the lower level zones with the next expansion. Thus the world actively changes for the player based on the actions taken by the player, which was something very cool that Guild Wars did.

Originally posted by Peach
At least it is better than FFXI was in that regard - it took me like a week to get to level 5. That game was just terrible.


To reiterate: FFXI was a bag of ass.

But is the fact that it takes long to level necessarily a bad thing?

Originally posted by Peach
At least it is better than FFXI was in that regard - it took me like a week to get to level 5. That game was just terrible.

But really, if I greatly dislike the way the game itself plays, and it's immensely boring to boot and takes a long while to get started, then why would I want to give it more of a chance? Maybe if things were interesting right away I would have been more willing to stick it out, but it wasn't. I really don't think that expecting a game to be interesting right off is a bad thing.

(I don't think GW is perfect in this regard, either - I won't start out characters in Prophecies because I find that game up until about the midway point far too slow, and Ascending and getting your final 30 attribute points is an annoying hassle) There are plenty of games that start off slow. Considering that WoW is a game that lasts for days, weeks, months... I think a person can afford a couple of hours to get it going.

I personally got a 14 day trial of WoW, played it for an hour or two and then put it down for about a week. I, like you, didn't get hooked instantly. But when I got into it I ended up playing it for about 6 months. Only stopped because I moved into a new flat and never got the internet sorted. I only reached the mid 50s in level, never even got to experience BC but I seldom found it boring.

WoW isn'i about reaching the level cap,m there is plenty of game long before you reach that, including great PvP options. There is also a couple of new instances every few levels to keep you busy. And regardless of the story I must have done the Scarlet Monastery about 30 times (conservative estimate, as I also solo'd it for fun), simply because it was really fun.

I think it's silly to think any MMORPG is going to be fun straight off the bat... unless you're playing it with a mate.

I almost never play games with other people, and when I do there's very few people that I am willing to play with. I'm really not much of a social gamer; in GW I prefer to play alone with NPCs (which is why I haven't done much of the elite content, the few experiences I've had with pickup groups have turned me off of that entirely).

And I think it's silly to not expect a game to be fun straight off the bat, no matter what genre it is. Also, PvP does not interest me at all, and, as I've said several times, I do not like the way WoW plays. I dislike the gameplay itself. I do not find it fun at all. All of these have added up into it being a game - and a style of game - that I dislike and find very boring.

For what it's worth, it's not just WoW that I dislike for these reasons. I've tried many a traditional MMO (WoW, FFXI, Aion, Ragnarok, etc.) and disliked all of them for those same reasons.

Seems to me it's the genre you have a problem with.. The whole point of MMO is to play with other people.

It would be awesome if there wasn't a cap to rested XP... I'd probably have enough to get to level 80 by now. :P

I'm so tempted to buy myself a month after this talk.

Play FFXI instead. : )

Its on par with any game in the series short of the very best with more content than the entire rest of the series combined, with the only real differences being the silent protagonist and the greater gameplay emphasis (with a still considerable storyline emphasis) that forces you to cooperate with others to be able to progress.

The computer I'm currently using is too old for FFXI... My laptop broke so I'm using an old one as a replacement. I'm also a decent way through WoW, don't really fancy rolling a new character.

WoW is actually addressing one of the concerns raised here: leveling to 85 in the expansion will be roughly as fast as 1-60 was in original WoW. They've also recently introduced much more intuitive queue systems for instances and battlegrounds to make leveling easier. Early and middle levels are rather clunky, and have suffered at the expense of making endgame fun. But leveling is much easier than it was even 6 months ago, before the new dungeon system and heirloom gear that speeds up alts ridiculously.

Grinding sucks, yes, but the vast, vast majority of time spent on any MMO will be at endgame. Is "I hate fetch quests" really enough reason to discard it, when I've spent the other 99% of my WoW time in endgame endeavors? For me it's "no." But I figure WoW is just the case study here because it's popular. If that's why someone doesn't play WoW, they really shouldn't be playing MMO's in general. It's not a criticism particular to just one game.

Anyway, I leveled through dungeons even before the new system. Questing is boring, so that's justifiable. But slowly learning my class while leveling in dungeons was fun as hell. The game allows you other options. You're not boned if you hate fetch and kill quests. Hell, my healer alt got faster queue times, and probably completed 20 quests from 1-80. I never quested, and it was fine.

Originally posted by Aede Madavan
Play FFXI instead. : )

Its on par with any game in the series short of the very best with more content than the entire rest of the series combined, with the only real differences being the silent protagonist and the greater gameplay emphasis (with a still considerable storyline emphasis) that forces you to cooperate with others to be able to progress.

Or he can try one of the many, many free MMO's.

Lord of the Ring Online just went free, and Runes of Magic or Perfect World International are viable alternatives.. Mabinogi is just plain fun.

As long as you can overlook the "Free to play, pay to win" cash shop perks thing and you're not obsessed with being the top PvP player or something..

I'll also say this, the social aspect of any game is as awesome or worthless as you make it. Find yourself a great guild or group, and it's a lot of fun. There's also a lot of other things to get involved in: world events, PvP, etc. that include a fair amount of teamwork.

And then there's things like this:
iOFaxzYXnvg

...which is just the latest among a series of gigantic events that the hunter community has put on. I've helped organize and run a few of them, and this is the video I took from our most recent one. Granted, not everyone gets a chance to be a part of something like this, but it also represents the kind of collaborative awesomeness that isn't possible in a single player game.

P.S. set the vid to 480p under the screen. Much better quality.

Peach you saying that you don't like the gameplay of wow is like me saying saying I don't like a particular book after only reading the first few pages. The gameplay in wow first of all is much more then just killing NPC's that barely hurt you and using 4 different spells that are at your disposal.

Endgame wow cannot in anyway be compared to the first parts of the game.

For me personally the story which is quite decent in wow was never what kept me playing that game. It was all about the competition and rush of PVP. Arena and WSG (Capture the flag) and sometimes AB.

That was wow for me, Now for me the gameplay was the selling point. Having a team of good players that liked PvP as much as I did was just fantastic, when I liked wow and played it I dare say that was the most fun I've had in gaming ever. In that sense the game was also a strategy game. We would meet other teams in say WSG and no team played exactly the same, so you had to change tactic everytime, ofc we had our basic tactic which we started with, but then had to adapt if it did not work, or even if 2 people died at start because of a good opponent team.

And having 2 enemy flag captures when they had 2 captures of ours and both teams had enemy flag in their base, and the attack waves started. wow... THAT was fun, infact that specific sceneario was the best and most thrilling experiance I've ever had in a game.
Who would die first, Win or loose! Happily for us we won 99% of the games. But some were VERY hard, and those were the most fun, specially the feeling of winning such teams. That was what it was all about for me, gathering my super good team of players and winning all the other teams.

And the early seasons of arena wow. That was good gameplay no matter which way you turn it, as long as you like a competiton. And after awhile you know all the other good players on the server, and at that point it was really fun, everyone wanted to join my team, and I'd take the best players that were online and we would play against other people, some which we've met in arena and if it was a good rival arena team, the WSG game sometimes lasted over an hour.

Our server was just great I am very thankful for that, so many good players, and sometimes I'd be lucky and I could make that perfect team of players and we would all be excited to see how good we would do, sometimes we would win better geared teams in only a matter of minutes and then we would laugh about it.
We had a great battlegroup aswell with 18 servers in it, so the competition in arena was very good. season 1 we got to top 5 in all 3 brackets, that took hard work, infact it felt more like a sport then a game, thats how serious we took that first season hehe.

hehe I get carried away sometimes when I talk about those fun times in wow. But as with most games they do get boring after awhile... But it was fun.


I had it like Peach aswell when I got the game in May 2005. played a little stopped, played a little more, and then stopped. It took me 8 months or so to finally get level 60. And that only happened because I met people in the game that were fun and I enjoyed playing with, without the sosial aspect of the game, getting to level 60 would have been impossible for me.

1) Peach, play City of heroes/villains with me

2) I played my way till outland on WoW and then it became epically boring

You really don't need to get far into a game to decide that you dislike the way it plays and the way the mechanics work.

And no thanks. A game has to seriously wow me for me to consider paying a monthly fee, and as I'm not a superhero fan anyway, CoH/V/R has never interested me at all.

Originally posted by Peach
You really don't need to get far into a game to decide that you dislike the way it plays and the way the mechanics work.

And no thanks. A game has to seriously wow me for me to consider paying a monthly fee, and as I'm not a superhero fan anyway, CoH/V/R has never interested me at all. Your first point is a silly one. Every game has different learning and appreciation curves If you don't like a game instantly there is always the chance that if you give it a real go you will. You just strike me as stubborn and impatient.

I'm not saying that you should like WoW (although if you like GW there is no reason not to) but to judge and bash it without actually giving it a fair whack is just lazy.

Anticipated answer: No, I just know what type of games I like.

I played WoW for a day, don't see what the hubub is about it, however I hate most stat based RPG's, so, yeah.

I tried out the game four different times. I gave it far more chances than I wanted to, but I have several friends that play and wanted me to try it. It is not remotely the style of game that I enjoy, or have ever enjoyed. And I have tried (more in-depth) other games that are functionally identical and greatly disliked them, so when I started WoW and saw that it was just like the other ones I tried out and didn't like...yeah. Traditional MMOs are simply not a style of game that I enjoy.

GW plays completely differently (it's not even considered an actual MMO by the developers) so yes, there are reasons why I'd enjoy that while not liking WoW.