Why I Am Quitting MMORPGs & Playing Single-Player Forever

WHY I AM QUITTING MMOs & PLAYING SINGLE-PLAYER FOREVERMORE

I have decided NOT to get Vanguard: Saga of Heroes. In fact, I have decided to QUIT all MMOs forever. My reasons: 1) money and my time invested, 2) having to put up with jerks (gankers, griefers, powerlevelers, morons, insulters, jackasses, chinese farmers, bots, cheaters, et cetera). I am NOT a social person, so this new development was bound to happen sooner or later. Unfortunately I wasted 5 years playing MMOs before coming to these conclusions. I just wish I had woke up 4 years ago and stopped playing all MMOs back then. The situation will never improve, in my opinion.

I am a soloer in those games anyway and now I doubt I will ever play MMORPGs ever again. Although they are usually bigger games with larger funding than single-player games, I have found that having so many other players in the gamespace, factors into the actual designs of those games, and very much ruins the gameplay that could have been had if the game was otherwise a single-player game.

I have come to the conclusion, after so many freaken hard-knocks over 5+ years of playing MMORPGs like a slave-grinder, that single-player computer games are much better in the long run, both in the fun-factor and considerably cheaper money-wise.

Instead of paying numerous subscriptions to online games every month (sucking up all my money just to keep playing a few certain games), INSTEAD I can buy two or three BRAND NEW single-player games every freaken month and play ACTUAL FUN GAMES without any ties to personal time restrictions, guild duties, without internet connection worries, and without any risk of being griefed or yelled at (usually with profanity or likewise insulting behavior) by obnoxious players.

If I want to PvP (kill other players) I will simply play a game like Battlefield 2 where I can kill them quickly in an online match without the fuss and time-sink dedication required by an MMORPG. And I can do it without paying an expensive subscription. Yes, I know $15.00 per month might seem cheap, but believe me, if you play more than a single MMO, it adds up. If you play three MMORPGs, you are spending enough to buy a whole single-player game every month! Thats a rip-off, in my opinion. And yes, I know that subscriptions are mandated for world servers and ongoing costs. To me personally, however, it just isnt worth it anymore.

These online MMO games never improve enough to warrant the continual subscription fee, despite patches & expansions; and in addition they force me to socialize with too many idiots, obvious children, and vile people such as griefers, among which are to be found just a few genuinely nice people that do not roleplay their characters at all even though they are nice. So I am paying a subscription to get into contact online with people that generally are rude and entirely self-interested? Uh... Why should I pay for that? I am not going to do that anymore. I HEREBY QUIT MMOs!

Even the nice players arent interested in anything other than advancing to the "glorious mythical endgame," which is supposed to be the darned funnest area of the game and usually is NOT. Sometimes the endgame is "time-played"-determined PvP, or sometimes it is dreadfully gruelling raiding that is not fun. My opinion is that the "glorious endgame" is a popular myth that is perpetuated by game companies that cannot admit that their ENDGAME simply SUCKS since they dont know how to make it any better other than to keep releasing expansions to enable its continuance. If they had a decent endgame in the first place, they wouldnt have to perpetuate the illusion: it wouldve been there in the first place.

Sorry, I am not playing MMOs anymore. And I do not advise any of my friends to do so either.

sincerely, Ammon.

Oh forgot to add:

SINGLE PLAYER GAMES, HERE I COME !!!

DON"T DO IT AMMON777!!!! AZEROTH NEEDS YOU!!!!



I also solo MMO's. But I don't have much time to play them. And I've never played more than one at once. What helps me not play MMO's too much is other people in the games, they just take it too seriously. Wow is good because the people can't talk to you after you gank them.

Now if there only would be good sinlge player games nowadays...

I play WoW simply because I can't find another interesting Game... and from time to time there is interesting role-playing... so once a month or so... (and because my NWN-Group has "upgraded" to WoW and I'm appearantly the only one who is bored of the Endgame-Content),

Ammon, try Minions of Mirth, you get the best of both worlds!!

Playing MMOs, for me, are actually a bit stressful. Because sometimes you have to maintain a quota of levelling up with time factored in.

With single-player RPGs you can play whenever you like and continue from where you left off with no problems whatsover. With MMOs, you have to keep up with your buddies so you do not unbalance the party when you go on raids together

Considering all you feel about MMOs, I'm strongly supporting your decission to quit playing them completely.

Some of the gamer kids at work have tried to talk me into WoW--your post makes me glad I listened to my inner voice--whatever my psychiatrist says.

Single player rules. I've played Diablo 2 and taken chars to Guardian with uniques, sets & awesome runeword armor that I never had to pay for, just DL'ed a good muler(no cheats, just lots of Hell Meph runs). God knows how many times I would have been fragged to atoms on the Realms. And best of all, the only rude idiot I have to put up with is myself!

You just need a break, Ammon.

I for one will be very suprised if this is truly the end of your MMO career. I wish you wouldnt have typed all that out. Not that I dont believe youre sincerely bummed, it's just that youre the MMO guru!

It's not really that I am bummed out. It is rather that I have come to those conclusions after much experience (over five years) playing MMOs. It isnt an emotional reaction of being bored or frustrated, rather its an intellectual realization of my personal needs as a gamer. So I am pretty sure its the end for me concerning MMOs. I am playing some great single-player games right now and am having an absolute blast (for the first time in years), plus I've planned what to buy next for like the next year (over 24 different games in all genres except MMO)... At this rate, I really doubt I will go back to MMOs, because I have found my true "fun place." I find single-player games just too much fun and satisfying. Of course I will also play the new Battlefield game online a bit, that will meet my needs to frag other players just fine, without the months of preparation that would be required by an MMO, nor the monthly fee requirement. Single-player > MMO. The greatest thing about all this is that I thoroughly enjoy games from every PC genre, not just RPGs. I love deep role-playing games, action RPGs, strategy games of all kinds, action/shooters, adventure games, tactical, simulations, and more. That gives me many, many choices of what I can play.

Currently playing:

-- X3 Reunion 2.0 (freakin awesome space sim game)
-- Star Wars: Empire at War
-- Earth 2160
-- Sacred Underworld (actually called Sacred Gold version)
-- Vampire Bloodlines (omg this game just sucked me in, haha)
-- Elder Scrolls: Oblivion (like... wow!)
-- Battle for Middle-Earth I
-- Etherlords 2
-- Silent Storm
-- Doom 3

Buying/playing soon:

-- Empire Earth II Platinum
-- Call of Duty war chest (1 + expansion + 2)
-- Act of War: Direct Action
-- Caesar IV
-- Space Empires V (make sure to patch)
-- Oblivion: Knights of the Nine (expansion)
-- SW: Empire at War expansion called Forces of Corruption
-- Galactic Civilizations 2: Dread Lords + Dark Avatar
-- Warhammer 40k: Dawn of War Gold + Dark Crusade
-- Warmhammer: Mark of Chaos
-- Gothic III (woohoo! I am excited to play this after it gets patched)
-- Supreme Commander
-- Heroes of Might and Magic V + Hammers of Fate expansion
-- Titan Quest + Immortal Throne expansion
-- Europa Universalis III
-- Battlefield 2142 (will probably play this online)
-- Medieval II: Total War
-- Battle for Middle Earth II + Witch King expansion
-- Company of Heroes
-- Heroes of Annihilated Empires
-- FEAR + Extraction Point expansion
-- Dark Messiah of Might and Magic
-- Hellgate: London
-- UFO Extraterrestrials (similar to X-Com game)
-- Sid Meier's Civilization IV + Warlords expansion
-- Age of Empires III + Warchiefs expansion
-- Hegemonia: Legions of Iron
-- STALKER: Shadows of Chernobyl
-- Fate (RPG)
-- Fable: the Lost Chapters (for PC)
-- BioShock
-- Lord of the Rings: the White Council
-- Disciples III: Renaissance
-- Dragon Age (Bioware)
-- Assassin's Creed
-- Maelstrom (Codemasters)
-- Call of Cthulhu: Destiny's End
-- Silverfall (Action RPG)
-- Two Worlds (RPG)
-- Mage Knight Apocalypse
-- Command & Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars
-- Jade Empire (Special Edition)
-- Legend: Hand of God
-- Call of Cthulu: Dark Corners of the Earth
-- Immortal Cities: Children of the Nile
-- Shattered Union

Woohoo! Its not like my decision is causing me to miss out on anything.

EDIT -- Oh and I will buy Neverwinter Nights 2 when it gets fixed and modules come out.

xSamhainx said:

I for one will be very suprised if this is truly the end of your MMO career.

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Jeff Vogel did one of his articles and say 'if you need to walk away, DO IT'. And it is very true. Personally, I never last beyond the 7 / 10 / 14 day trials, but I do try them out Just not my thing ...

If anybody knows a good modern single-player game that I missed in my list, please tell.

I did play Morrowind & Neverwinter Nights 1 so those are accounted. Also played most major releases like Halflife 2 and Diablo 2. I am mostly interested in current and up-and-coming PC games in any genre if they look good.

Next game I am buying at New Year 2007 will be Space Empires V since it got patched again just today and I kinda like deep 4X space strategy games.

Don't get Mage Knight Apocalypse - it is crap.

Prey is quite nice.

I love the Geneforge / Avernum games, so I recommend those.

Fenris said:

Now if there only would be good sinlge player games nowadays...

I play WoW simply because I can't find another interesting Game... ,

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Yup, that sums up my sentiment. Good Single Players games are hard to find, and are getting shorter and shorter. OB didn't do it for me, which left me high and dry for gaming during the summer, and NWN2 is too buggy for me to class as playable at the moment. So that leave me with playing SP RPGs that I have played to death...

I am looking into MMORPGs at the moment because I hope they'll last me longer then most SP RPG. I'd rather spend £15 a month on a subscription for a good RPG then spending three times that on a crappy SP RPG.

But if you feel differently, then by all means quit in the end we play games, which seems to suggest we are supposed to have fun doing so. If mMORPGs aren't fun for you, there is no use in playing them, is there?

"NWN2 is too buggy for me to class as playable at the moment"

Hmm, that's funny - I'm almost through the game at this point and has not encountered *one single crash or bug* (that I noticed at least). The only complaint that I have is that it performs quite poorly, considering the graphics that it provides. To call it unplayable seems a bit harsh too me - have you actually tried it?

I didn't see it in your list and it looks like you have access to steam based on the games that you want or already have; so I must suggest that you add HL2 episode 1 to your account. It's really short but the content is superb, the world is developed, and the optional commentary is fantastic. I just picked it up again last night to play though with the commentary enabled, let me tell you, nothing makes learning more fun than blasting things with a shotgun. The commentary is a great way to gather a bit in insight into the development process and understand why decisions are made to make a game - in this case hl2 ep1 - as it is.

I could go on but I'll let you see what I mean for yourself; just make sure you play it through once without the commentary enabled. You wouldn’t want the commentary to reveal important story elements or other interesting bits of info you would have enjoyed finding yourself. In addition, you must focus most if not all of your attention on the commentary as it is playing; this will undoubtedly cause to you miss many of the subtle nuances and instances of the gaming world that you would have otherwise noticed and appreciated.

As far as your MMO woes go I say do what you want, personally I wouldn't want to pay a monthly subscription fee to jump online and deal with what you were describing. In addition to that I find that the amount to time online games tend to wrest away from their players can be a bit excessive, i.e. it pisses my girlfriend off. So I say dump your time into something that isn't going to frustrate you while draining your bank account.

Other than that it looks like you list is a nearly exhaustive summation of anything worth playing that is or will soon be available. Just tack on Crysis, HL2 EP2, and www.blackmesasource.com (when it's finished) and you'll be in good SP shape.

KasperFauerby said:

"NWN2 is too buggy for me to class as playable at the moment"

Hmm, that's funny - I'm almost through the game at this point and has not encountered *one single crash or bug* (that I noticed at least). The only complaint that I have is that it performs quite poorly, considering the graphics that it provides. To call it unplayable seems a bit harsh too me - have you actually tried it?

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Yes, I have, made it all the way to Neverwinter, fighting controls, lag and AI all the way.
Lag got improved by the latest patch, but I still find the controls awkward and the AI is terrible (healers that won't heal, companions that stay stuck in hallways, ignore commands, etcetera). Combine that with the fact that my PC is at the lower end of the recommended scale, and I found the game a struggle.
I can see the potential, and I can see the storyline and dialog are great, and so I'd rather wait until the game is patched a bit more, and possibly until I upgraded my PC a bit, then to keep playing and being annoyed. If I wait until another patch or two have been released, the game will be a lot more enjoyable for me


Anyway, sorry for going Off Topic...

I am waiting for Neverwinter Nights 2 to get patched before I buy it, also.

txa1265 said:

Don't get Mage Knight Apocalypse - it is crap.

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Then why did you give the game a good review ?

Ammon777, have you played the Icewind Dale series? It's quite old but I found the story and gameworld very interesting. Also check out Temple Of Elemental Evil (oldie but goodie) but only after patching it with the Co8 mod. That game has more bugs than the Starship Troopers movies.