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What Makes You Decide To Give An MMO A Second Chance? | MMORPG.com
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What Makes You Decide To Give An MMO A Second Chance? | MMORPG.com
Around this time of year companies in the MMORPG world are typically holding welcome back weekends or free trials to entice new and old players alike into their game worlds during the holidays. But oftentimes when someone leaves an MMO, it's for a reason. So what makes you decide to come back to give one a second chance?
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For games that I dropped DROPPED, they had their chance.
SWG (pre-cu) - AoC (pre-f2p) - PotBS (pre-boarder) - DDO - LotRO (pre-f2p) - STO (pre-f2p) - GnH (beta tester) - SWTOR - Neverwinter
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2024: 47 years on the Net.
There are many MMOs that I've played once and would never go back to regardless of what they add or change because the game never clicked with me. I'd put Neverwinter, BDO, Archeage, and even FFXIV in that category. My experience was overall negative.
There are others that I have played extensively and generally liked where I may or may not go back to depending on what they're offering. WOW, LOTRO, GW2, and others fit that bill for me.
New World was a special case for me because there are some things about it that I like a lot, some to the point that I think of them as the best ever in an MMO (world-building and soundscape) but it has other features that I find puzzling like their restrictive anti-alt policy, amateurishly mismanaged economy that heavily favors territory owners and crafters, quest and overland content that is good because it's harder than average but also bad because that gets tiresome having to focus and be at your very best too much to accomplish even trivial tasks at higher levels - especially after 60.
There's enough to like there for me that I will keep checking it out periodically because there seems to be a lot of developmental trial and error going on and they seem to be heading in the right direction overall, but they have a ways to go.
Currently, NW is like 2 different games in one. The 1-25 zones as well as the brand new zone, Brimstone Sands, are very well done with good quest loops, great storytelling, and QOL improvements for getting around the zones, but the other zones are exactly like they were a year ago with all of their faults and quirks. Once they revamp those middle zones to their new standards it will be an even better game still.
So yeah, returning to things I generally like I will do often when significant new things happen but second chances for those I never liked much, to begin with, is not something I do.
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?”
― CD PROJEKT RED
Otherwise, pretty much nothing has ever gotten me to go back.
Most MMOs I've quit because there was something fundamentally wrong with the game that is ruining my enjoyment. In theory, I'd go back if they fixed those things, but they never, ever fix those things. For example, I'd have gone back to SWTOR if they were able to add some depth to the combat mechanics.....but they didn't even see it as a problem, they were proud of how shallow the mechanics were!
Some MMOs I have quit in order to go searching for greener pastures, or simply due to real life pressures. I have only ever once returned to an MMO I quit for these reasons (lotro), and it was because the greener pastures were not greener. However, other MMOs I quit ended up changing so much whilst I was away that I didn't want to return. E.g. I quit SWG when I went to uni, but by the time I was able to play it again the NGE had come along and ruined the game.
In games I am driven by figuring things out. Grinding the final stages of a game doesn't catch me, honing skills in pvp neither, achievements I shrug off as unnecessary. Daylies I dispise. I am much of an explorer with some dashes of being a Power game, and don't mind grinding as long as it unlocks new doors in a game, the final doors I usual leave closed.
Being able to do a most of full game journey in new way can catch me. Playing alts to experience new skills and abilities can get me back. New ways to juggle economics can involve me. Path of Exile is the game I keep coming back to. Haven't found an mmo that could give me that.
But New world I would have revisited this month if Alts was a thing there.
Games I thought were mediocre. There is a slight chance I can give it 1 last look if they make signficant improvements. Also friends can get me to try 1 more time. If I am already considering possibly jumping in, a good deal could be enough to make it happen. Especially when other friends are getting in because of the same reason. Also a good deal makes it easier to sell an idea to other friends to jump in together.
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Beyond the shadows there's always light
Few examples:
- ESO - if the combat is remade into more visceral and impacting, optional difficulty is added for the overworld, like Hardcore mode in Diablo 2, except you don't die permanently, you are just weaker, mobs are stronger and you get better loot and more XP
- LOTRO - currently I'm level 128 on my first character, just 12 levels to go and I'm done, but I won't be starting a new character, instead I will be uninstalling LOTRO, unless they fix the lag, the game client performance and modernize the game by improving combat, making it less floaty, improving melee sounds and overall combat sounds, dropping outdated game systems and streamlining some of the leveling content, I would return, especially Rohan, Gondor, Mordor and Minas Morgul - those places need to be revamped completely, Rohan needs to have mounted combat removed, Mordor needs to be made brighter so I don't have to use external ways to boost my gamma just to be able to see sh*t
- WoW - since I like Vanilla and Vanilla only, and there are private Vanilla servers of all flavors, I'm content
- BDO - I haven't played the game for more than 1-2 hours, but what stopped me is that they made leveling really fast - I reached level 21 in like 30 minutes of playing, that, by my standards is worse than trash mobile MMOs
I haven't played other MMOs as extensively as the first three, although I've tried more than 120 MMOs between 2007 and 2022.
Fishing on Gilgamesh since 2013
Fishing on Bronzebeard since 2005
Fishing in RL since 1992
Born with a fishing rod in my hand in 1979
I think that is it with almost every MMO I have played....At some point I get bored and quit...and then at some point I get bored and try it again.....Often though, the second time doesnt last very long.....Usually the reason I got bored with the game in the first place is why I leave the second time also.
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