Oh, you have no idea. Well, just a little bit of an idea.

The thing is, how often can you be online with your friends? I may be the exception, but if 4 of my friends can be online at a game at the same time twice per week, that would be an achievement. And for the little time we would have, I'd like to make every minute count. The feeling MMOs give is wasting your time, why would I chose to play it over any other multiplayer game?

And anyway, I did try playing it with the one friend that invited me (pyramidal scams of invites are a different matter and will let it go now). Twice, for a few hours each. The first was when I just started, going around the initial town killing stuff, doing some story quests and making fun of the game while talking through skype. I didn't have a bad time, but it would have been as good (or better) on a bar over a couple of beers. The game itself did nothing, as during the beginning it was at its simplest. The second time, we did a dungeon together and were then going to fight Titan, but I had to do 2+hours of busywork before unlocking the fight. He even disconnected and played something else in the meantime, because the busywork was busywork with or without him and his presence didn't help at all. How is that not a waste of time? Why play this game that actively blocks me from playing with my friend, when there are others that will readily offer me the fun experience from minute 1? If the answer is that we should both have been on max level before trying to play together, then why does the rest of the game exist?

Pineapples are awesome, han is the annoying kid trying to hang out with the cool crowd.

Uhm, i haven't played a lot of mmo's, my pc buddies where always pestering me to download free mmo's x, y, z... and in the end it was all the same, it was repetitive and it didn't fell like accomplish anything. Oh, you need to kill 15 crabs and 20 pigs as a tutorial, you will get 20 ruby stones, collect them so that you can add to other materials and build a piece of equipment... Oh, this finally ends your tutorial phase, now you're ready to do the same thing you have been doing in the tutorial but harder....

It's the same with some of the rpg's nowadays, it's more of a chore simulator, go there and kill that, go there and collect that, go there and... But then again it's a mmorpg so i guess it's one of those things that it's supposed to last months therefore having a lot of chore quests to do.

But, as it was said on this thread, it's about playing something coop with friends, i think the main problem is (for me) that it doesn't feel like you matter, sure, you're doing damage thus making the enemies die quicker but it doesn't feel like there's some strategy to it.
Ok, you have a healer with you, other applying buffs, ranged damage dealer, tank, etc, but it doesn't feel amazing when you do your role...
What i enjoy from mobas is that moment when you made something amazing happen, either killed your adversary against all odds or you saved a teamate, i don't feel that on mmorpgs (and similar games, like coop rpgs), it's just mowing down horde of enemies until you reach the last boss.

I think that age also comes into play, i remember enjoying playing Phantasy Star Online (i know, not a "real" mmorpg) but when i played it recently on PC (and PSO 2 jap) it had the same problems that i was pointing out, granted, the "magic" of discovery that world was gone but the gameplay was exactly what i'm complaining... Uhm... Perhaps that's why i didn't really like playing Destiny or The Division...

I don't like or "get" MMOs either. Boring, repetative, shallow and filled with people I don not want to be playing my game with.

I get that it's supposed to be fun because you play with friends, but I don't think that makes sens either. Why play MMO to play with friends? Can't we play something, anything else? Something with more interesting gameplay and without a ton of other assholes around?

You see, I played WOW with friends soime years ago. And yes, it was fun. But the game sucked. We had fun despite of the game, not thanks to it. You can have have with almost anything with good friends. We had fun watching Prometheus, but at the end of the day it's still a shitty movie.

Relevant...

ps. You were playing the game wrong!

I only spent about a sum total of 6 or so months total playing WoW and a bit of EQ2, and I do think that both are great games. In the very least both were great. I'm not up to date with the various changes that's been made, and it certainly has happened before that an mmo was totally ruined with an update. Here's what I think (sorry for the length) :

I think that the initial lure for many players is the massive game world filled with scores of other players, where you have to really prove yourself to get to the top. The other lure is the game world itself, which I'll admit was a big factor for me getting into WoW. It buids upon the style of WC3, and I've always been a total sucker for it.

The staying power of an mmo I think is a combination of the fun to be had exploring the dangerous world, overcoming difficult instances, the quest for awesome gear, and the community intertwined in it all.
The solo content in wow and eq2 is dead boring for the most part, especially for the former. But it's there if you want to progress the story or want to gain some xp at a more leisurely pace than duking it out in hectic dungeons.
Where both games really started to get wicked fun for me was in the dungeons themselves, which is a whole different ballgame. Some dungeons are run of the mill, but most are really tricky where it's easy to screw up and get everyone killed. Several fights in most dungeons actually require some nontrivial tactics, and these are fun to do with other players. Then you see the boss didn't drop that one piece of gear you're after so you think "Heck, that was fun, let's do it again!". Naturally this is all the much better with actual friends, perhaps some you made ingame.

Raids are fun for the same reason that dungeons are fun, only multiplied by ten. In some cases raids are so difficult that it takes guilds weeks of coordinated expeditions to overcome one. In fact, a lot of gametime goes towards preparing for raid level gameplay, by doing difficult dungeons and hunting for better gear. That idea that you're slowly building yourself up for the really tough endgame stuff is fun in of itself.

And then there is pvp, which at least in WoW is a really big thing which requires a totally different skill set than solo raiding. I never really got into that, but I think it's probably great fun to wipe the floor with other actual players by understanding and exploiting the strengths/weaknesses of the various classes.

Finally, there is the depth that permeates pretty much everything. At no point did it feel like I was at risk of exhausting any of the game components, be it crafting, trading, exploring or simply seeing everything a zone has to offer. And even if you feel close to exhausting any of it, a massive expansion inevitable releases which throws you in the deep end all over again.

As for the story? Yeah, I found it weak and very poorly told in mmo format. But it didn't bother me. It's the world and the players which made it fun for me while it lasted. Work pressure and a increasingly shitty internet connection got the better of me in the end.

I said it before, but my favorite MMO was one I played in uni for a bit called fairyland. The combat was turn based, kinda like the old FFs, and as such the game didn't require that much attention and I could focus talking to my party members and chatting with friends. It was cool, kinda like what you say. Problem is, most MMOs try to have an "engaging combat" that ends up being neither better than a full on "proper" single player game nor tame enough to chat while playing. So I don't see the point.

As for why we wanted to play Titan, it seems the primal fights were supposed to be awesome, and it's multiplayer content. But to reach that content, you have to jump through the hoops. And jumping through hoops is not fun, so while we kept skype open to chat, he preferred to play something else.

As for GOG as the MMO, when I come to the forums I come to chat. Reading and writing takes all my attention. When I go to an MMO, I neither chat well nor play well.

And I appreciate the explanation. I already reached the conclusion that I don't like ham, but I'm still curious about why others do, which is the point of the thread (besides venting). I just hope nobody takes it personally when I so openly question the validity of a genre they enjoy.

And with cheese!A lot of CHEESE!!! :P

Yes, that too. Of course.

Have wanted to try The secret World, it's apparently a little different to other MMO's which I don't like

Don't like cream, but love ice cream and pineapples.

Is this going to turn into another "Pineapple on pizza?" thread?

O.o

http://www.hercampus.com/sites/default/files/2015/09/19/hawaiian%20pizza.jpg

I'm cool with that. Getting a little tired of all the tension with politics and gamersgate and forum decorum; a nice food fight sounds fun! :D

Oh, I hope so! I love pineapple pizza!

What the hell do you have on your pizza then? Just tomato sauce?