Glorious Alpha Two Testers!
Phase I of Alpha Two testing will occur on weekends. Each weekend is scheduled to start on Fridays at 10 AM PT and end on Sundays at 10 PM PT. Find out more here.
Check out Alpha Two Announcements here to see the latest Alpha Two news and update notes.
Our quickest Alpha Two updates are in Discord. Testers with Alpha Two access can chat in Alpha Two channels by connecting your Discord and Intrepid accounts here.
Phase I of Alpha Two testing will occur on weekends. Each weekend is scheduled to start on Fridays at 10 AM PT and end on Sundays at 10 PM PT. Find out more here.
Check out Alpha Two Announcements here to see the latest Alpha Two news and update notes.
Our quickest Alpha Two updates are in Discord. Testers with Alpha Two access can chat in Alpha Two channels by connecting your Discord and Intrepid accounts here.
Comments
My reasons for leaving wow was the rinse and repeat, the aged graphics, and the main reason is the loss of community with LFG and LFR.
What leaves me from mmo to mmo could be anything... Difficulty spikes, bad massive favor of RNG and the path of grinding is not rewarding for me, the blockage of rng preventing me from doing the good things such as raiding, and doing dungeons... etc etc...
I don't care much for destiny when I can't get good gear, and if I don't get good gear, I can't raid, I can't do strikes, I'm locked out of the good shit because I have horrible RNG luck on the strikes I do, and it doesn't help when your strikes end up being people that are not that good or co-operative... I left Destiny for good... and hope destiny 2 don't be a repeat of that.
I think that mmo's something of a personal lifespan for people, once you have done everything, what's the purpose of sticking around? why be forced to grind and block content when that too can also prevent me from enjoying the game? Why be at the mercy of RNG and rely on your own luck to get that right item you need to progress to do one single raid or dungeon? What can I do besides just gaining money, doing old content, and after beating the main storyline, what is there left to keep me playing?
If there is nothing left for me to applease me and keep me playing, then I just go ahead and move on to the next game to play till the mmo get updated with more content to do, that if the content is enough to keep me playing (yeah I'm looking at you World of Warcraft, Warframe, Path of Exiles, etc).
-Pay to Win was becoming a thing in wow. Unsure if there is more than one item in the game, but the most famous one is the WoW Tokens, where people can buy the token and put it on the AH to get a huge gold reward. To me that was just unfair to an already broken economy. Instead of throwing out a ban-hammer or reworking how the economy works, they just took the easy route and broke the system even more. Which leads me to my next point
- The economy in wow was horrible. If it wasn't over priced is was vastly underpriced with the flood of items ranging from raid pots to single stacks of ore and herbs. The system made it easy for people to play the AH, especially if they knew how to work Auctioneer, Auctionator and TSM addons.
-There was no love for crafters. Part of my fantasy immersion including crafting. I loved the idea of being an alchemist or a weapon smith, but the items that could be made in the game were a joke. Blacksmiths and other armor making classes become useless. The only thing you could sell were buckles to add gem slots, or if you were a tailor you could make bags... which was hardly worth it because the economy was so bad you would barely break even with selling one, or worse: lose money. And the poor engineers who once made ammo for guns and bows, were stuck with making toys and a couple of mounts. As for my favorite, alchemy, if you wanted to make gold with it, you better have a private supplier of herbs. Otherwise, you would have to wait for prices to fall due to the huge influx of the AH. Bad. Bad. Bad!
- The game became an easy ride instead of a grind. Grinding can be irritating at times, but it is what separates the hardcore from the casual. Why would someone who wanted to play hardcore and show off their achievements do anything, if they only needed to wait a few months until it became a handout. First thing that comes to my mind is the achievement [Ahead of the Curb] which comes at the end of each patch and the end raid boss for that patch typically has a rare, limited mount. Hardcore raiders would spend weeks clearing a raid to get the achievement and the mount, only to find out two or three weeks before the next patch other guilds were doing runs for gold, so if you had a big enough bank you could get the achievement and mount. The only reason this was allowed as because Blizz decided to change the lockout rules. Before, if you did a raid you were locked out and couldn't kill the boss a second time, you had to wait a week. Now, you can clear the raid as many times as you like, just no loot.
-Rollercoaster Zones. What I mean by this is after you finish a questline in a Zone, you were done and never returned unless you made an alt. Pre-Legion, or Pre-Warlords, I forget which, you would have to revisit these Zones to farm the ore and herbs to build up a gathering profession. Now, however, you can do end content and level up without leaving the end game Zone.This also goes for crafting. You don't have to learn how to make a basic bronze sword anymore before you move to the higher craftable things, just buy a bunch of bars or ore and make it yourself to level up. I hated this. It got very boring to spend my time in one Zone, or even a handful of Zones, when there was a whole world to play in.
-AAA Bottom Lines. I think this killed the game for me more than the other reasons, though the economy and professions were right there with it. The devs never gave true content to the players. We would ask for things like guild housing, player housing, custom mounts, etc. What we got instead were stories ((I will give it to Blizz, their stories are some of the best in the industry)) that did nothing for the player except give us another chapter in the book. There is a disconnect between the devs and the community. It's almost like the devs are parents and the players are just little kids ((The little kid part can be true for those toxic players)) instead of it being service provider for subscribers. Watch any of the Q&As for WoW and you will see what I mean. When a question comes up about an idea, or what players would like to see the answer is typically "No, we're not doing that... *Inserts BS reason*". They no longer care about their community about what they would like to see, or how things can change. It all comes down to the bottom line "What can we do to keep the max amount of players with the minimal effort?".
This game has become nothing more than a cash grab. The sad thing is, due to the state of the entire MMO genre, people would prefer to stay in this game, because it's the best they are gonna get. And this could be said about other popular MMOs.
To quote Steven, loosely: When I think back to my years in the game, I don't think about the raid that I did, or event I was apart of. I think of who I spent it with, my friends and community. I remember Cataclysm well, not because it was good or bad ((Much arguing over this)) but because I met some true life long friends in that xpac that I still play with to this day. You can't have a true community when the game has turned into a MSORPG ((Massive Single-player Online Role Playing Game))instead of an MMORPG.
I'm optimistic and hoping that Intrepid Studios sticks to their guns and makes a game for gamers, not a game for players with bank accounts. I am so ready for a game I can immerse myself into and know that the devs are listening to what players want, without catering to every little baby that cries because they find something unfair and to finally have a community that doesn't have the mindset of "Don't talk to me until the event starts. I just want to pretend this is skyrim and everyone else is an NPC"
Wildstar had a fresh spin on combat, very fun raid encounters, and fast paced, competitive pvp. The game had a great community. There were so many things that the game got right. The game is now dead, and 98 percent of the guilds have left, last time I talked to some friends still playing.
What killed the MMO? Poor choices on the developers that caused loss of trust with the community they had build. The development team was terrible at communicating issues when they arsed, staying very hush-hush for several days. Not even a little "Were aware of it and working on it" would be given on many occasions until several days and countless forum posts later.
In 2 years the team changed project lead 3 times, changed community managers 3 times, and promoted people into lead class positions that were widely petitioned against by the community for lack of knowledge/competence.
Cheaters were almost given passes to cheat. While there were a few bans here and there when an exploit was found, often the response from the dev team was too little too late and exploiters made off with millions in currency and items.
My last point, and one of the bigger ones in my book, was that the game was left half finished and never completed. "But they kept releasing expansions!!" You may say, and that would be true. However, the particular race I played was NEVER given character sounds or meshes for most footwear, making your outfit look ridiculous. Every other race enjoyed both privileges. Bugs stayed in the game for weeks at a time, and were plentiful. A patch to fix said bug would cause NEW bugs. I know that all MMO games have bugs, but Wildstar was rampant with them. There were always zones that were in game that were empty and inaccessible, and even the faction city for the Dominion looked like too much empty space that was planned but not used, while the Exile city had plenty of "flavor" too it.
Ill stop ranting before I take up the entire page here, but just to recap:
TL;DR -- Good game + Poor dev choices = 1 dead MMO
MMORPGs should literally be an ever quest of new content.
Edit: I still check back from time to time and sadly nothing has changed, at least not for the better. Since then they essentially eliminated all the side quests (taking away even more from the game), basically rushing you to level cap.
1. Setting up an auto-path so that my horse could run to gain exp, so I could progress. This meant that I would literally just set up the auto-pathing and go away from the computer, so I wasn't even really playing.
2. Breeding reset tokens were put into the cash shop and that was the only way to gain them.
Point nr. 2 was what made me really salty and was the main reason I quit. In my eyes, that was a large P2W factor.
Also, I know breeding is a thing in Ashes, and I really hope they make it more than an AFK task..
I've watched so many people reduce themselves to "BIG NUMBERS, MAN!" because that's all that seems to count anymore. Gone are the days when one could spend days hours learning a dungeon/raid boss encounter; now, if you go into a raid or dungeon and you don't know it right off the bat, you're scrub, noob, get outta my group!
Additionally, I'm so tired of speed runs. I mean, dungeons for gear. Ok. But what happened to the dungeons that you had to strive for success in? What happened to that love, that joy, of overcoming obstacles? I know, this kinda ties back into my above paragraph, but ... still.
I miss when an MMO meant that there was community. That there were people who said, "We won't tolerate your being an arse, so straighten up or go find somewhere else to be, as you'll be ignored here." I miss players who took pride in being a part of their in-game community.
What drove me away from all MMOs, for this time? I guess it's the above. Currently, I'm not playing any. I'm sure I'll dive back into something before Ashes launches, but in the meantime? Still playin' through Andromeda, and y'know? I can always go build more houses in Sims! Yes, that's my guilty secret, lol!
Another reason is the content drought. i will use the raiding scene for SWTOR as another example. For 2 expansions, all the players has was all the old raids releveled up to current max level, which is all find and dandy but let me remind you, 2 EXPANSIONS. We finally got a new raid in the last 2 months with only 1 boss that you can beat in 20 minutes, and the last time we got a new raid was in 2014! And the rest of the content was half dungeons and single player content. Yea, content drought much?
Finally the shop system. If I remember correctly IS promised one for cosmetics (not sure about that) but let me tell you, SWTOR did a cosmetic only shop and let me tell you how it strangles the game despite being pretty awesome. Ranked arenas and pvp is the only places to get rare items that no one else can get, mounts, titles, weapons you name it. But the shop will reskin EVERY mount, lightsaber, blaster, outfit, everything! There is nothing unique you can get in the game because a month after it comes out the store will just have the same object in a different color! There is no...reward I guess I want to say for doing hard content anymore since what you will get will just be sold to everyone, with the exception of like 2 mounts from the highest raiding content. Atleast SWTOR allows you free shop money per month for being a sub.
P2W need I say more? I will also add going F2P which ruined so many games because of toxic players and it also fueled P2W with cash shops for things I believe should be earned in game by playing.
Bugs, when things don't get fixed and bottlenecks game play.
This may sound odd, but leveling too fast. I had capped 5 characters in GW2 in a few months; while in some games it took me years to do one or two. I have to admit to being a journey type person, and not an end game type. Now every game is rush to cap. Rush to cap to get bored...I just don't get it.
O, well wall of text <gets off soapbox>
Too much meaning that the bug/exploits go unchecked for too long and the developers do nothing to rectify the situation.
This, in my case of losing interest in a game, is more likely to happen in games that involve mainly pvp. In pve games I probably wouldn't notice it as much and be more forgiving. Heh.
I really enjoyed BDO a lot though! I had tons of fun playing it and made so many friends. The combat was amazing, the graphics are great, and there is so much to do in BDO. However, some design/business decision kind of take away from it. The RNG gear progress feels too punishing when you get to a certain point, there are too many pay for convenience items that make it kind of P2W, and you have to buy $30 costumes if you don't want to look like a noob because you basically only get a few different variations of the same base outfit while leveling. Grinding is literally the best thing to do in the game so when you want to do non-grind related things in the game you feel bad because you know you would be better off just sucking it up and continuing to grind. I'm not trying to completely bash the game because I have spent over 200+ hours on it and I think it has a lot of great aspects to it. It's just that there are a few problems that are making me step away from BDO for now. However, I love that BDO does its own thing and is unlike any mmo I have ever played. I really hope more mmos try to do their own thing like BDO and AoC are doing then just being another soulless wow clone.
As for the other mmos I have played I left mostly because I felt that I was kind of late to the party because I tend to join mmos after they have been out for years. So I start the game as a new player and have to catch up to the people who have been playing these mmos for years. I know I can catch up to everyone else but I personally don't really like playing catch up and it feels like a chore. So that's why I am excited for new mmos like Ashes of Creation and other upcoming mmos because it will be a fresh start for everyone and I don't have to feel like there is so much I need to do just to be competitive with everyone else.
2) not enough personal storage
With BDO, I just got bored, the uninspiring dailies, the constant grind, for what, so you could blow a million silver downgrading an item.
I get that, I really do. It's part and parcel of today's society; we have so many different types of information coming at us, all the time, that quite often, we spread our attention around many things, and never really focus down on one thing. So like I said, I think this is part and parcel of that.
But then you look at people still playing LOTRO. Or the people who've never stepped away from WoW. Why, you ask? What keeps them there?
*clears throat, then steps on soapbox*
Community, my friends. Community, a group of people with shared interests, and that group keeps them involved in a world that isn't updated every fifth day/hour/whatever.
*steps off soapbox*
I think that's what I miss, most, in today's MMORPGs. And it's what I really find myself hoping for, with Ashes.
I stopped playing EQII for a couple of reasons that led to burn out. The beginnings of burn out started when they introduced the class weapon, and the only way to get it was by raiding which became insanely difficult. Changes were made to getting the class weapon and raiding, but by then the guild I was in imploded because too many members left to be in raid guilds so they could get their class weapon.
I was never really happy with EQII after that, so when Landmark came along with the promise of EQ Next I jumped ship to play Landmark. We know how that worked out lol
A second thing is trivialization of raid content. I don't mean this in the sense of a new expansion comes out and all the sudden you can go back through and solo all content. I'm talking various tiers of raids. WoW did this, and while I can understand why it appeals to people, to me it detracts from what a raid zone is and should be. Mechanics should be punishing if you fail to understand them, and the loot should be worth that time invested. Doing a zone of "easy mode" just to gear up for the next difficulty of the raid feels like it's trying to recycle the content, rather than provide new content. This also goes into rehashing assets by just changing colors or adding particle effects too, but that's going down a bit of a different rabbit hole.
Unplayable for me.
2. End game = dailies.
It it just awful. Who wants to repeat the same over and over again? Not, 9-10 raids and 15-20 dungeons but 3 daily quests. Every day.
3. Limited build options.
Like cleric HAS to be healbot and can't be dps. Why? Or rogue HAS to be dps, can't be evansion tank, cant use bow etc. I hate when they do this.
Also 1 supreme end game build for each class is just sad. There should be at least 3 with similiar power and different playstyles.
4. No challenge.
When PVE is too easy, I have nothing to do, because nothing feels exciting or like an achievement.
5. Bad support experience.
After doing 4h raid, ending boss bugged and you couldn't finish? In DDO support responded in max 30 mins and offered you raid end chest for your work. In many other games all you get (after 24h of waiting for response) is "Sorry fo inconvenience, sadly we cannot help you blablabla" every time something happens.I have no desire to play games with no help from support at all.
It makes me feel like if one day something serious bugged or my account was stolen I would get no help at all too.
I didin't say exact names of most games. Bad support experience = Neverwinter Online. It was just awful. Others happened in too many games to mention.