The MMO FAQ

13. February, 2012Tags: MMO Blog

The MMO FAQ

It’s difficult to know, sometimes, what you’re getting into when you boot up a new MMO and start creating a character. I know as well as anybody that sometimes looks can be deceiving; the best MMOs aren’t always the ones that look adult-friendly, but knowing what you should be looking for is incredibly important when deciding what your next time-sink is going to be.

Should you be going for something with a more mature feel – 1100AD, perhaps? – or should you be playing every World of Warcraft clone that comes your way? Below I’ve tried to write up some of the questions I’ve had about MMOs, or questions that I’ve seen while out and about on the internet, and the way that I’ve looked at it.

What’s the RIGHT sort of MMO?

This is a question that I’ve seen asked more than once; it’s not really a fair question but it’s one that I see pop up quite often. “Is there a sort of MMO I just shouldn’t play?” Was the Lego MMO just for kids and, if you were older than 14 was it bad that you wanted to play? To a more battle-hardened MMO player, being worried about the different sorts of content out there might seem silly – just try it out and see if you like it – but like everything else in life, some people worry about demographic or even wasting their time doing something they might not enjoy.

It’s a corny answer, but there’s no such thing as the RIGHT sort of MMO, it’s all about what you enjoy and how much you’re willing to learn. The majority of MMO gamers are probably playing World of Warcraft or things influenced by World of Warcraft – if you’re happy by that, don’t let anything stop you. On the other hand, there’s a wealth of new experiences out there and with a little time and effort, you could be enjoying something totally different.

Is there life after World of Warcraft?

If you read the mainstream media and nothing but, you’d be forgiven for thinking that MMOs are addictive soul crushers that will take your money and, in the end, take your life after some 48-hour binge of computer games, Mountain Dew and Pop Tarts. What they don’t report is that most people leave Azeroth and live normal, long and productive lives: some of them even manage human interaction again.

The idea that MMOs, and video games on the whole, are addictive is somewhat misleading. They’re a popular pastime and when you have 200 hours of entertainment in a single package, playing that game for 200 hours over a few months isn’t exactly addicted, it’s just enjoying that piece of entertainment.

I know people who spend their lives watching soap operas time and time again – during the week and then again the omnibus edition at the weekend – or when they can’t get soap operas: endless reality TV. I have no doubt in my mind that they easily watch fifty to eighty hours of soap operas and reality TV every month – a huge amount. That’s not counting bad one-shot dramas and dry documentaries, which probably push the amount up past the hundred-hour mark. They’re not addicted to TV, I imagine that’s about average for any hobby, they’re just enjoying a certain hobby.

The same could be said for an MMO player. They’re enjoying their hobby and, unless you have an addictive personality to begin with, it seems unlikely that you’re going to become addicted to an MMO anymore than you’ll become addicted to reality TV or soap operas.

Are MMOs expensive?

MMOs are like any other hobby – you can spend as little or as much as you’d like. With a recent trend towards free to play, you can now play almost any sort of game you like for absolutely nothing. Some games give you a taster – you can play World of Warcraft for quite some time before needing to put in even a penny – while others are entirely free from start to finish. These games usually have some payment options, granting you faster levelling up, extra item slots or some other advantage over free players, but it’s an advantage that’s not exactly necessary.

In the early Nineties, online games were tens of dollars an hour and people happily paid that much for the joy of online social interaction. Now you can expect to pay significantly less for significantly more: the average I believe is around £10/$15 a month for things like The Old Republic or World of Warcraft, although I’ve played many, many great games and haven’t ever been forced to pay a penny. Simply download and go.

There are some rather cynical people who say that you get what you pay for in the MMO world, that’s certainly true to some extent. If you don’t pay, some developers will try to force the option down your throats at every turn, even offering quests that you need to buy special items for in order to complete. Ultimately, however, the choice is yours and you could have quite the MMO career without ever shelling out at all.

MMOs are just repetitive – aren’t they just for people with nothing better to do?

This question ties in with the first answer above: there are many, many different kinds of MMO. I can’t say I’ve played each and every genre in my free time, nor do I have any interest in doing so, but if you only like a certain sort of game, chances are that somebody has built a game around that genre. Sports, action, strategy; the goal of an MMO isn’t always to perform as many meaningless quests as is possible in order to get experience, sometimes you can perform a set of actions – less than 10 – and leave the game to play itself. You can put in as much or as little time as you see fit.

Isn’t the MMO genre stagnant and on the way out?

There will always be a certain sort of MMO for the people that want to play it – sure you’ve heard rumours of a mass-exodus from World of Warcraft, millions of people have apparently just stopped playing. The fact that it coincided with the release and beta of The Old Republic is important to remember, what’s also important to remember is that a new expansion for WoW is coming this year and a lot of those people are going to find themselves getting back into it.

There’s also a slight evolution to the genre that people often overlook when asking questions like this: social gaming. When your mom logs into Facebook and asks all her friends to help provide materials for her barn, she’s playing a very MMO, with millions of users and very healthy support from people who don’t even realize they’re playing an MMO.