Forums » Off-Topic and Casual Chatter

Why did you leave which MMO?

    • 16 posts
    March 14, 2019 6:17 PM PDT

    I was thinking of the reasons that caused me to leave certain MMos in the past and how some of them have to do with game design.

     

    First I'll simply list them off and the I'll summarize which I think may be relevant to pitfalls which the Pantheon team might want to look out for.

    Everquest and WoW I left because of things happening in the respective guilds I was in. Not much a developer could have done there.

    Shadowbane, Warhammer Online and Vanguard SOH I left because of lack of content and dwindling player communities. The fact that these games messed up their launches is something we can hope that Pantheon avoids but I'm also quite certain that they're already aware of these issues as they're well known.

    Guild Wars I left simply because Vanguard Launched.

    FFXI and Project99 I left because of their respective ingame economies. The reason that I was more acutely aware of the economy may be that I joined both games late, in the case of FFXI because they simply dropped players into preexisting Asian servers when launching in the west and P99 because I decided to try it many years after it was old.

    In the case of FFXI and P99 I think that there were problems with the experience for more casual players or players who join later because of veteran players being incentivized to interfere in more low level areas to get easy profits. There were bottle necks for certain items because they would simply be permanently camped by either a veteran player in P99 or a gold selling third party bot in FFXI. To me as someone more casual or later joining player in those games this was the primary frustration which made me choose other genres of games after a while.

    There's also the more direct issue of accumulating items on the market removing the use of dropped items on the lower levels. Trade does of course to some extent mean interaction between players but I feel that there needs to be a balance between the items you can buy from other players and the items you can get for yourself. Perhaps some sort of item sink such as destroying them for magic dust or giving them to an NPC for faction would be in order, taking good care that this does not incentivize higher level players to farm the low level areas to get these items.

    It would also be nice if there was some sort of currency gained throughout leveling that would remain relevant to higher level players so that the value of what a new player can do doesn't completely disappear from hyperinflation.

     

    Do you guys have any ideas of mechanisms that could help with these economic issues?

     

    Do you have some reason which made you quit a game that you'd like Pantheon to avoid?


    This post was edited by DonRight at March 14, 2019 7:56 PM PDT
    • 1785 posts
    March 14, 2019 7:03 PM PDT

    This is a good topic for a thread :)  Thanks for bringing it up!

    Here's why I've left a bunch of different games.  (Note:  These aren't really in order and at least in the early 2000s I was playing some of them simultaneously.  Also note, with the exception of LOTRO, almost all of these were titles I picked up when they launched or shortly after.)

    - I left UO because I just wanted to craft, not run from red names.  Plus the isometric view has never really worked for me in multiplayer games.

    - I left EQ after 5 years because it was just becoming too focused on big raids, and I didn't have the time to commit.

    - I left Earth and Beyond after a year because life got busy and by the time I had time again to play it, things had started to get pretty bad.

    - I left SWG after about 3 years because, well....the NGE just killed it

    - I left EQ2 after about 5 years for a number of reasons, but in retrospect I think it was mostly caused by the game starting to become top-heavy.  I'm more sensitive to those sorts of issues than others, it seems.

    - I really tried to like AO when it launched.... but, it was just so buggy and unstable that I gave up after a few weeks.

    - I left WoW (after giving it a solid 6 months) because the community on the server I had joined was just terrible.  I literally could not find any other players that I respected.

    - I left Vanguard after 3 years because I lost faith in SOE's ability to continue development on the game.

    - I left LOTRO after 3 years because of top-heaviness (and, in fairness, because I got into a relationship with someone else who played, but our playstyles were NOT compatible)

    - I left SWTOR after about 18 months because my relationship with that same person didn't end well.  In hindsight, I probably would have burned out on the game shortly after anyway.

    - I left RIFT after about 9 months because it just started to feel like none of the lore actually mattered, and I lost investment in the world.

    - I left GW2 after about 6 months because the friends I was playing with were just not reliable enough or invested enough to allow us to explore the game's group content together.

    - I left EVE after a whopping 11 years because I had run out of things I could really do without substantially altering my playstyle.

    - I left Wildstar after a little over a year because I simply ran out of things to do, and had nothing left but trying to grind out raid gear.

    - I left ESO after about six months when I realized that their crafting system is more or less pointless, and as pretty as the world is, I need an economy that works.

     

    - I'm still playing FFXIV after more than 4 years, currently.  I've considered leaving several times as I am just running out of stuff to explore and do in that game, but without another game/world catching my attention, all that's happened is that I've cut my playtime way back and still log in 2-3 times a week.

    Obviously I would like to avoid these problems with Pantheon, although some of them are beyond the control of any game designers :)

     

    As far as the potential for economic problems - there's been lots of discussion about how best to handle that and the truth is that it's going to take a combination of things to try and make Pantheon's economy work, and work well.  That said, there is a lot that we simply don't know yet.  We'll probably find out more around the time the team starts really talking about Alpha.  At least, that's my hope.

    I will say that I am generally against alternate currencies but I share your concern about keeping the economy friendly for new players.  We'll have to see what happens there.


    This post was edited by Nephele at March 15, 2019 1:11 AM PDT
    • 11 posts
    March 14, 2019 7:13 PM PDT

    All were droped becouse of cash store inclusions, all But Vangard left (see Nephele re Vangard same here). Aswell as mechanics like GF DF and RF being instituted. 

    • 5 posts
    March 14, 2019 7:43 PM PDT

    Since beginning my MMORPG experience with the release of Lineage II,  I have played most every significant release since then.  Some I played for years (EQ2 and Star Wars: The Old Republic).  Others I played for little more than a month or so (Guild Wars, Age of Conan and too many others to list).  I left them all for a variety of reasons.  But there are two reasons that have and will drive me away without exception; 1) A lack of positive community 2) Pay to Win mechanics.

    With that being said, I have a high hopes for Pantheon.


    This post was edited by Angelus at March 14, 2019 7:43 PM PDT
    • 9 posts
    March 14, 2019 8:00 PM PDT

    Great thread!
    I started on EQ and left to head off to college and was not enjoying the new stuff being implemented (instancing in LDON) and i was always kind of a solo player so i ran out of content.  I Played WoW for like 10 years on and off.  I found it kept getting dumbed down and diluted to appease people and the expacs felt kind of ridiculous after wotlk.  for years after I tried many MMOs: blade and soul, rift, SWTOR, GW2, BDO, Revelation, Archeage, Tera, Neverwinter etc.  None ever held my attention. Everything seemed easy and the combat a mash of buttons. Also all the cash shop stuff.  Finally I got to FFXIV which i liked for a few years but left recently after realizing i don't really enjoy what it's offering. i've just been conditioned to think that's how an MMO is now and i just need to accept it.  After learning Pantheon will be bringing things back to the roots of what made MMOs be great in the first place, I can't really bring myself to play anything available so I have been mucking about on P99.  I can't not have an MMO in my life but it's made me a believer in Pantheon.  I'm with Bazgrim: Trust in Pantheon.

    • 1479 posts
    March 14, 2019 11:59 PM PDT

    Heh, good question :

     

    - I left EQ after a few years for IRL reasons mixed with the GoD expansion. I just fel back that, like during velious release, the game was going fast forward and I would not be able to keep pace at all. My friends were telling me dungeons in GoD required them two healers to maintain a maintank alive, gear was totally out of control and It didn't seem to stop focusing on top geared raider. I had to take a forced pause and the moment I could come back I didn't feel like it was worth the shot.

    -I left UO because I came, like many others, years after it's pinnacle. With housing beeing crowded, felucca/trammel beeing done, I simply never felt like playing a month or two every few months, until I just gave up completely.

    -I left Wow several times to try out new MMO, including EQ2, Rift, GW2, Swtor, but most of the time I didn't feel like I was gaining something substancially and came back. I however began to feel less and less appealed by the game since MoP started, and took longer and longer break including a whole WoD/Legion break. I'm now back in the game but withouth much  expectation and by defaut more than anything, and I just wait for something either beeing classic servers, pantheon or anything unexpected.

    -I left EQ2 twice, once when the game released because it just didn't appeal to me (two factions game, 25+ abilities with boring cooldowns, graphisms beeing strange and too much for my video card, heritage quests reward lost because I took a level while farming it...), the second time I think I played until the kunark expansion (again ! ), and stopped because I was simply alone in maps and bored to solo all the time. The world was empty outside of guild halls and current expansion and it didn't feel MMO at all.

    -I left AoC after a month at most, because the game was released unfinished and barely I hit the wall of "We didn't do more than that" around lvl 40. Walking alone in non scripted dungeons, going throught doors and beeing unable to continue progression in a game where levelling was fast and ephemereal.

    -I left Rift after a  Month sub because I felt the game was pointless. With maps beeing complete patchworks of setups and lore, invasion beeing repetitive "pseudo random" events that forces you participating constantly and the class system beeing too flexible to favor rerolls,  I didn't feel like doing cookie cutter specs for each dungeon and bosses, and avoiding completely melee when it was necessary.

    -I left GW2 after a month and came back twice for a month at most, because even if I  convinced myself the game was great it was just like any asian games out there : Great graphisms and that's all. The gameplay sucks, the bottleneck of choices sucks and everyone just clean everything in full DPS parties using buffs to avoid mechanics and alternate gears. No long term interest, and the first xpac also revamped the talent system and broke several of my character designs. (Where are you my ranger tank ?! )

    -I left Wildstar after a Month, because the game was easy to level and then hits you with a wall of "now it's all super competitive". They forced you to follow at level cap (which was easy to reach) a heroic scenario > heroic dungeons (timed, deathless and secondary objectives done for max rewards) > Attunement keying > 20 / 40 man raids as a progression method and it just didn't feel right or something else than a non enjoyable timesink based on gear progression. The gameplay was great, but the performance was bad as they cattered around "an old school vibe" while releasing instanced timed content.

    -I left FFXIV after 3 years because the game follows the same formula since it's relaunch, and it makes every gear step worthless after three months. The whole game, (like wow currently) revolves around making your last 3 months having no value because catch ups are constant, the cash shop is growing bigger and bigger while ingame cosmetics are low as hell. The community as well, especially on the roleplay side, is more focused about myspace roles with cute pullovers and tights than actually playing in the world setup and adventuring.  I could continue long and long but that would be annoying and I'm getting late for work. Invested a lot of time in that game and got in truce, little back.

     

    I forgot a lot of titles, hat sometimes I played only for a week or so, and could only clearly remember the biggest titles or thoses I had hope in the could be major and sustain me for years.

    • 124 posts
    March 15, 2019 1:34 AM PDT

    Great thread!

    Everquest i played for 5 years, and left mainly because of EQ2 launched (and the AA grind was just too much). I didn't go to WoW as i found it too cartooney. When i came back a few years later, the game had 'evolved', mercenary's were introduced and except for a few area's you were basically boxing your way thru the content.

    Vanguard i didn't play for very long, can't remember the exact reason, but i remember it being fairly buggy near launch and never felt the need to return.

    SW:TOR i didn't play for very long either, got a beta / early acces key iirc and thats about it. Found it illogical, didn't really like the playstyle either.

    EQ2 i left for a number of reasons, the personal things aside, the main thing was dwindling community, friends leaving and getting a life and the likes. As i'm a gamer that enjoys the social aspect much not having any communication kills a game quickly for me. Later i had returned, found a new home, but due to lack of players i felt forced to look for other means to progress, which in turn killed interaction and thus the need to play.

    Aion was a little too easy for my likings and too much focussed on PvP. Also the imbalance that a level 35 ranger could win solo from a level 50 caused a big grief with me.

    Rift was fun, but quite fast and repetitive. And with the auto port feature for instanced groups, you were pretty much standing still in an non threathening area waiting for the next group. Eventually the lack of interaction killed it for me. When i returned a few years later i had fun again, but couldn't resist the cash shops and at some point just quit cold turkey to prevent myself from spending money (even tho i wasn't spending money on subscriptions as i was a master in all tradeskills and made enough money to pay the subscription that way).

    This about sums up 15 years of gaming, with some solo / co-op plays in between.

    Life is feudal: The MMO i did for about 2 - 3 months. The aspect is great, but the 'extreme' focus on PvP was a killer for me combined with the lack of PvE content, aside of the occasional wolf, made me quit.

    Ark, Outpost zero, Empyrion, Conan Exiles,  The Forest, essentially survival games. At some point, since they are semi sandbox, there isn't much left to do after you have your base build. Aside of the 'grind' in Ark to level up your dino's to beat the end bosses, the other games didn't have much of that.

    Dark and Light, Citadel forged with fire, i played these looking for an MMO to spend some time on. Couldn't get used to their way of playing to be honest, just didn't have enough MMO factor for me. They more felt like the sandbox survival games mentioned above, but in a fantasy setting than they felt like an MMO.

    • 793 posts
    March 15, 2019 3:55 AM PDT

     

    The simple answer to the majority of them was that the small family style guild I was in was beginning to migrate to another game.

    I am not one to play multiple MMOs simultaneously.

    EQ, PoP really ruined the world, it was fun, new content at first, but the pitfalls soon began to show themselves, some went on to try Asherons Call, but that was short lived.

    We then migrated to DAoC, which was fun, but seemed only half the guild stuck around, many were still addicted to EQ. 

    Migration to SWG then came along, and we tried hard to like it but there were to0 many bugs.

    Some of us moved on to City Of Heroes for a bit until EQ2 released.

    Most of the guild came along to EQ2, but we were quickly disappointed in the disconnect from EQ, it was such a castly different game with the same zone names.

    Many did not take a liking to EQ2 immediatley and left within the first month for WoW.

    It took awhile but we all dabbled in different games but most ended up in WoW semi-regularly.

    A large chunk of us jumped at Vanguard, and we played for a little while until the bugs and things became too annoying and some went back to WoW.

    We eventually all ended up back in WoW, where most have been on and off or just disappeared completely.

     One thing this list made me realize is that one of the tings that caused us to begin tio splinter and go our separate ways was faction based games, not like EQ faction, but Good vs Evil hard lines, you needed to be on the same side to play with one another.

    We have some that like to play evil races, some that like to play good, and to play WITH each other, someone had to choose a different path than they wanted, and I think that meant less attachment to the character.

    • 40 posts
    March 15, 2019 4:15 AM PDT

    FFXI was my primary MMO.  I got in around 2003 during the height of the inflated economy.  Fortunately, it was so new and amazing to me that by the time I noticed it had leveled out.  What caused me to leave was Abyssea.  After about 9 years of a fairly consistent playing experience...I had to watch a game I loved morph into something I didn't recognize anymore :/  Players standing around in a single zone, super leveling from 30 to the latest level cap which had long stood at 75, and then changed to 99.  That brilliant horizontal progression where you poke around between harvesting, crafting and party leveling when you can...getting missions done and earning levels over months all condensed into a 1-2 week end game level rush.  Just couldn't stomach it enough to stick around.

     

    After that I was one of those very few people that loved FFXIV original launch...I stuck with it through their rushed release and gave them time to fix it up and I loved it.  Felt closer to an original social MMO experience.  Then I was forced to try and reconcile with the Current FFXIV remake and after 3 expansions of the same exact ****, over and over, new currency, new gear, 3 months, rinse and repeat, I realized it was never going to be anything else but just that.  Loved the story and all that, but it was more fun to just watch someone else play it...

     

    I'm hoping Pantheon will be the next decade or more of what makes a real MMO so brilliant and fascinating :D

     

     

    • 1315 posts
    March 15, 2019 4:18 AM PDT

    EQ: Played for about a total of 6 years.  Ended up fully quitting because of real life exploding and realizing after my guild fell apart during PoP that I turned into a bazaar rat and rarely did anything but trading (did manage to amass more than 200k plat which was cool to me).  I guess the lesson there is if you did not have a guild in PoP era you quit.

    SWG: NGE!!!!!! I knew I was not happy when they dumbed down the game from a complex skill based system to a rubber stamp class based system that never had content to support levels.  What I did not realize was after 15 years we would still not have a single new MMO on a skill tree system and I want one so bad.

    DAoC:  DAoC was only ever my mistress MMO and while we had some good times I never really developed a friend base so once my roommate dropped out of school and off the map I stopped playing. Atlantis also really changed the game formula which didn’t go well.

    WoW: . . . I play WoW A LOT.  From Beta till I went back to college and stopped playing all games while in classes (there is a lesson here kids, MMO raiding has a negative effect on grades).  My guild also went through multiple splits and there may have been a relationship that caused some of the split.  After that I mostly just played with housemates and occasionally raided with an old guild I was friends with.  Mostly the magic died though once Cata came out and the grind just started over yet again.

    DDO:  I started playing DDO after I finally graduated and got a fair amount of enjoyment out of it.  Loved the reincarnation system and the game when it was capped at level 20.  After they added Underdark and beyond they started breaking the math underling the game and it became very much about stacking over powered items that just junked up your inventory.  Again though I think it really was the lack of being tied into a guild that had me wander away from it.

    So I guess the lessons I learned:

    1)      Good guilds really matter in MMOs.  If you don’t have a personal community its just a single player game that you fight with other people for resources.

    2)      Jumping the shark and hamster wheel progression will only take you so far before everything falls apart.

    3)      Only the best of the best can make a skill tree based games and not cave to the OMG Levels!! Crowd.

    • 153 posts
    March 15, 2019 5:16 AM PDT

    I left EQ for lady parts.

    I left Vanguard because of ability chains.

    I left Eq2 for WoW

    Im not sure if ive completely left WoW, But i quit 1 month after every expansion because Its just a shitty game that in my hopes will repair itself, just never does.

    FFXIV is not a MMO so i left that.

    SWG was also not an MMO so i left that.

    Really everquest was the only true RPG and i go back and play it still to this day, but progression servers are just too fast paced to keep one occupied for more than 6 months. All these other games are all solo shows which isnt what im looking for, I play FPS game for my solo arts. I dont believe every class should possess the same or eve minor versions of every ability in the game, No reason warriors should be healing, or hard CCing, you know this is just one example, I like rock paper scissors.

    • 413 posts
    March 15, 2019 6:47 AM PDT

    Hard to say for EQ -  life basically,  left because they started changing the experience - the bazzaar - the killing of the EC tunnel

    Left EQ2 because of no corpse runs,  too many abilties available at once.  too many icons flashing for you to click on.  Housing was a joke.  biggest joke was the group shared XP death penalty.  Could not get my EQ friends to play it.

    • Rlft - removed fall damage and went free to play and added a store
    • SWToR - not a true open world, it's on rails
    • WoW - never played it
    • ESO - the store and the dungeon finder and the poor grouping experience.

    there are more MMOs not worth getting into

    I would have never left if they didn't kill it:

    • SWG - they killed it
    • Vanguard - they killed it

     


    This post was edited by Zevlin at March 15, 2019 6:48 AM PDT
    • 627 posts
    March 15, 2019 7:21 AM PDT
    I have played a lot of mmos all who enden in no content left to try and conquer. After awhile it got to boring with nothing to do.

    EQ actually keept me playing for years because of the alternate adversement system. I hope Pantheon launch with a similar system, for all the hardcore players that want something extra to work on.
    • 1921 posts
    March 15, 2019 7:48 AM PDT

    For some of them, I leave when there's no way to increase my personal player power.
    But most of them it's because grouping is not required to advance.  When I can solo from 1-50, or can solo to acquire everything I need?  I just go back to single player games, because they're free, and offer the same or better gameplay. :)
    In a few, I left because the PvP was pointless or boring, month after month or year after year of the same pointless high-latency no-impact zerging silliness.  If I want PvP, I can play low latency games with far more fun involved.

    I have never left an MMO solely due to crashing or bugs.  But I have left MMOs due to global class balance changes, which left our guild with 2 or 3 out of 30-40 remaining.

    EDIT: Regarding " Do you guys have any ideas of mechanisms that could help with these economic issues? " I have two posts about it, one about enforcing temporal delay for auction houses [ https://www.pantheonmmo.com/content/forums/topic/10144/player-buying-and-selling/view/post_id/194451 ] , and another about proper & sustainable crafting [ https://www.pantheonmmo.com/content/forums/topic/6907/proper-and-sustainable-implementation/view/post_id/127180 ].  Throw in properly implemented sacrifice buffs, and you can encourage the right emergent behavior.  Sorry about the long links, this horrible forum editor doesn't allow links to be added when editing an existing post.


    This post was edited by vjek at March 15, 2019 7:55 AM PDT
    • 3237 posts
    March 15, 2019 8:01 AM PDT

    This isn't exactly on topic but I have to agree with the sentiment from Vjek that a "properly implemented sacrifice buff" system would do wonders for the game.  I would love to see a meaningful deity/altar system that allows players to sacrifice items for some sort of deity favor currency.  Beyond that, I also think it's incredibly important to also ensure that XP is always meaningful.  I think this can be achieved by making a dangerous game where death is costly, and it's possible to de-level, but maybe that isn't enough on it's own.  I would love to see XP used as a resource that can be spent ... if that happens, then the "sting of death" would be even more impactful.  You wouldn't just be losing the "time" or "effort" that went into acquiring the XP ... you would be losing the chance to spend it on something that would be helpful to you.  An AA system is the first thing that comes to mind but I could also see XP being sacrificed for deity favor at the very same altar ... it would just have it's own set of benefits that wouldn't be attached to item sacrifices.  If these things were to happen then replay value would skyrocket and players wouldn't run out of ways to progress their characters ... both extremely important.  It would be a great way to take "trash mobs" and "trash loot" and give them a baseline value.  It sucks when 90% of the game is filler content that people want to bypass because it's just a waste of time.  Everything should have a purpose.

    • 668 posts
    March 15, 2019 8:01 AM PDT

    I played Everquest from 1999 to 2010 exclusively, yes that is 11 years.  Why 11 years, what kept me around that long?  Community, friends, the guild I was in, the fact that my character was powerful and much needed in the guild or groups in general (maxxed out Monk, Enchanter, Druid & Cleric)...  The Alternate Advancement system kept you working on new imporovements, something I call horizontal leveling.  New content was new and exciting with huge upgrades, was difficult content, you had to be on your game.  Why did i leave?  It came down to repitition, we started doing the same things over and over each week because that is all the new content offered.  I was too high and powerful to do anything previously with any challenge.  I wanted to get lost in a new world...  But what was out there?

     

    I then played World of Warcraft for 6 years...  I did it all, even PvP, which to be honest was fun but extremely unbalanced at times, only raged me over time (healing in PvP became a joke).  Then it started to feel way too ”cartoony” to me.  I could not ultimately get into the game like I did EQ.  It passed the time, we did cool stuff, the raids were quite challenging, but I do not always want hardcore challenge to progress.  I think there needs to be a balance where some things are hardcore, but others are simply RNG based or skill based, each requiring time devoted inside the game.  I loved that in EQ, you had to work areas for a rare mob, for a rare chance of an item drop.  That to me is valuable time, but makes you really feel a world is dynamic and you certainly feel awarded when you get those loots.  In EQ, there was a LOT of this, much absent in any other game since...

     

    The rest has been hopping from game to game, literally not playing anything longer than a few years.  Archeage was probably my longest and it was a GREAT game, only to be ruined by a cash shop.  Path of Exile was a blast to play, but I still rage at how difficult it gets past Act 10...  i simply do not understand what developers think when they build a game, and Incursions?  Dumbest design ever, got me to quit the game and NEVER give it another chance.  

     

    So now i play Elite Dangerous, a spaceship simulation game and damn it is good.  Lots of reasons i love this game.  You can really sink a lot of time into this game and i love what I have accomplished.  The land exploration in the SRV along with the asteroid core mining are so damn well done, it blows me away.  The land exploration in the SRV, this alone makes me never want to delete the game just so I can go back and do this every now and then.  For those that have played this game, I recently got my Federal Corvette, which is a high ranking combat ship, probably one of the longest grinds I have ever done.  But damn is it worth it, this ship kicks butt.  I can now do things in the game that were untouchable before.  Anyway, this is where I get lost now and enjoy it very much.  I highly suggest some of you give this a shot if you like this kind of thing, can be found on Steam.  Great way to pass the time for Pantheon to progress.

    • 3852 posts
    March 15, 2019 8:07 AM PDT

    This  *is* a good question (nods).

    I have left quite a few MMOs for the obvious reason - I tried them and didn't like them. Some I tried very hard to like but just couldn't. Elder Scrolls Onlime (I just couldn't tolerate the interface - though I had no problem with it in a single player game). Wizardry Online (though saying I had loved the single player games over decades might be an understatement). Dungeons and Dragons Online (too much dungeon not enough open world for me). Asherons Call (too much botting - far too much botting).

    Far more relevant to this question are the MMOs I played for longer periods and then left.

    Dark Age of Camelot - there were 18 character slots on the cooperative server. I filled each one with a character at maximum level. Each one a different class. Took years. Declared success and left. SWTOR - got all 8 classes to maximum level and finished with the storyline. Declared success and left. LOTRO - got every class to maximum level (50 at the time) declared success and left. Though I later went back. Age of Conan, EQ2, Rift, a few others similar stories though not necessarily every class.

    All of this has a few things in common. When it is too quick and easy to hit the maximum level, even if I like the game I will leave. Because what I like is the exploration of the world, the learning of the lore, and the fleshing out of the characters. What I do *not* like especially is the so-called endgame. Doing dailies over and over. Doing the same dungeons over and over. Doing the same raids over and over. 

    I am not trying to make any points here - other players are my opposite and love the things I do not and hate the time and effort spent to get to maximum level and their way is as good for them as mine is for me. Just answering a good question honestly.

    • 200 posts
    March 15, 2019 9:59 AM PDT
    I think the tipping point for me to leave EQ was when I experienced The Bazaar (Luclin I think with all the characters turned into shops). The game and all it's wonder just seemed to disappear.

    To be completely fair, it could have been coincidence. I could have just been tired or bored of the game. But I left shortly after that release.
    • 209 posts
    March 15, 2019 10:21 AM PDT

    The two MMOs that I played the longest were EQOA and WoW. I left EQOA because there wasn't much group content at max level and I didn't really like the raid guilds. It was also starting to get too dumbed-down. I started WoW not long after, and at first I actually felt that it had recaptured the magic that EQOA was starting to lose. But by the Cataclysm expansion it had lost it as well (quest hubs, group finder, gated daily quests, tokens to buy weapons and armor, etc.). All the other games I played I eventually lost interest in because they were too themeparky.


    This post was edited by Gyldervane at March 15, 2019 10:21 AM PDT
    • 2419 posts
    March 15, 2019 12:00 PM PDT

    I left UO due to the horrible bugs, exploits and the unrelentling ganking.  I went to EQ1.

    I had left EQ because I ran out of new things to do.  After leveling 7 classes up through the mid 70s, getting several of them epic 2.0s, etc there wasn't a zone, mob or raid from vanilla through Secrets of Faydwer that I hadn't done dozens upon dozens of times.  With the developers just reusing old NPCs modelsa and instancing everything it was just time to leave.  So I went to DAoC.

    I left DAoC because Mythic couldn't seem to balance the realms.  When released, Midgard didn't even have the high end dungeons itemized so while Albion/Hibernia enjoyed level 50 loot, we were still wearing level 30 stuff.  Several PvP classes were stupidly OP, like rogues able to disappear right in front of your face in a sun lit open field..then promptly backstab you for 80% of your health.  GG Mythic.  So I went to EQ2.

    I left EQ2 because it was a game on rails and was stupidly easy.  The game held your hand at every step.  Boring.  So I went to Vanguard.

    I left Vanguard for many of the same reasons others left.  Game was a buggy pile of excrement, basically.  While it had some good ideas, it was let down by bad programming by the developers.  Even very powerful computers struggled.  One thing that stood out was standing right next to chunk line and seeing nothing in front of you but you took one step forward and suddenly that red con elite mob that was standing on the other side of that chunk line would become visible and %&*#@% murder you.  So I went to EVE Online

    I left EVE Online because I was tired of the one-sided nature of nearly every fight.  You either totally overwhelmed your opponent or vice versa.  Few fightsI found were ever even close to even matches.  Few alliance would truly defend their space 'to the last', instead giving up and evacuting after losing just 1 or 2 big fights.  Claims of 'we didn't want that space anyway' or 'well just get it back later' were common.  Often losing alliances would disband and the individual corporations would just join whichever alliance(s) took over the very space they just lost.  RMT was rampant.

    Scattered amongst these were short stints in Anarchy Online, City of Heroes, Rift, Warhammer Online..all of whicih were so terrible I quickly bailed on each.

     

    • 31 posts
    March 15, 2019 12:25 PM PDT

    Other than leaving MMO's to try different ones, for me it comes down to community. I take WoW as a perfect example of what not to do, at least IMO. The introduction of Dungeon Finder was a guild killer and killed any socialization that had existed. People stopped talking in groups and in chat. There were rarely player interactions outside of the capitol cities. Instead players would just stand around waiting to queue up. Really this is all just rehashing stuff that people know, so I won't extend this rant further.

    • 178 posts
    March 15, 2019 11:42 PM PDT

    Left Runescape ( the original one) because i had nothing to do except in the wilderness and i hated PK even then. (PK is 'old' for open world PVP ganking, stands for Player Killing)

    left Knight online because the cheater/bot population exceeded the player population, you arrived to a grinding spot and you had sitting archers one shotting every respawning mob in a half mile radius.
     so i left .( although i hate open world PVP , Knight online had the best PVP system ever, there were timed castle sieges, wars, invasions- faction who won the war invaded the loosers maps for an hour, and you could run away from PVP by quickly typing /town in chat unless you were one shotted...  ) 

    left wow vanilla because i couldnt reach PVP rank 12 while being a no lifer, I wasnt good enough. and decided to focus on easier goals like hitting the gym and finding a girlfriend.

    left wow TBC, got burned out and wanted to try other MMOS.
    left LOTRO after mirkwood, nice lore and i love Tolkien, but it is not WOW; beneath the peter jackson facade the game is bland.

    left age of conan because the game was crap ( actually half of our WOW TBC guild was hyped for age of connan and moved together and it took us 2 months to go back to wow with our tail between the legs...)

    never left wow WOTLK, but left WOW in middle of cataclysm for ever, i felt like blizzard is insulting its loyal playerbase in order to reach wider markets, so i left. ( the whole guild slowly faded, people just stopped loging in...)

    GW2: good game, interesting world, leveled all classes availible to max level, 5 times world explorer :)  really enjoyed the WvWvW system while it lasted, dropped the game after the first expansion because of the way it was going.
    (instead of trying to fix lag and view distance in WWW and the horrible berzerker meta in PVE, they invested in stupid living world stories and seasonal events,then monetized and it then banned everyone in the forums who complained about it)

    Skyforge: it was fresh breath of air, the dungeons were hard, first game after wow when you had to think and strategize before pulling a group. but the heavy blatant pay to win just killed it, when you realise that you need to pay ~30 euros at each monthly event if you want to get the end reward in order to stay competitive... it was a rage quit.

    Firefall: I never left Firefall, Firefall left me :(  - one of the best game ideas i ever played.

    Secret world legends: nice solo game, at the beginning it was "WOW" best game ever, so rich with everything...  but at max level when i reached transilvania it was just more of the same solo task list... so it faded away... ( if you never played it, you should try it, its free and it will entertain you for until classic wow comes out)

    ESO: finished the story, boring combat, boring crafting, boring game, got morrowind never stepped into it,  still have it, dont play it.

    FFXIV: the most overrated game in history of MMOs,  boring classes, idiotic story, forced dialogues, horrendous art style, invisiwalls everywhere, loading screens everywhere- every street in the city is a loading screen. Just could not take seriously a game where your enemies are sheep, ladybugs and bubble gums.

     

    still playing DDO on and off, running couple of reincarnations-  then give it a rest for a year, rinse and repeat. wonderfull game but not an MMO annymore, more like solo game with auction house.

    there were other games, almost every serious game in the market ( gw1, rift, wildstar, aion, Terra, starwars, archeage, neverwinter, PoE, warframe, albion online ), but usually couldnt get into them to even reach max level.

    • 1033 posts
    March 16, 2019 6:59 AM PDT

    Most of them except for many of the newer ones. I have played too many to really put down since the 90's, but the consistent theme to why I left them was because they went away from being "games" and sought to be "entertainment" (ie they became modern MMOs).


    This post was edited by Tanix at March 16, 2019 6:59 AM PDT
    • 26 posts
    March 16, 2019 1:48 PM PDT

    I've played just about every MMO out there including EQ DAOC Guildwars and so many more, including shadowbane. The single reason I have quit all of them is due to expansions screwing up the game and adding more level grind.

    I am a slow leveler I tend to take pleasure in helping my guilds out to my detriment. It always seems when I hit that upper comfy uber level an add on is released and I can't bear the grind,bugs and nerfing anymore. Or the MMO turns into a FPS ( everyone is on battlefields all the time)

    The fun things about DOAC was the two main playing areas for any one population. RVR. You can quest in the open areas or not go. The raids are a blast but so is the core game quests/storyline.

     


    This post was edited by LeeLoo at March 16, 2019 1:50 PM PDT
    • 26 posts
    March 16, 2019 1:51 PM PDT

    Tekzan said:

    Other than leaving MMO's to try different ones, for me it comes down to community. I take WoW as a perfect example of what not to do, at least IMO. The introduction of Dungeon Finder was a guild killer and killed any socialization that had existed. People stopped talking in groups and in chat. There were rarely player interactions outside of the capitol cities. Instead players would just stand around waiting to queue up. Really this is all just rehashing stuff that people know, so I won't extend this rant further.

     

    BINGO!