On MMOs, And Why I Play Them Then Forget Them

I've never been good at sticking with playing MMORPGs. I've tried tons. WoW, LoTRO, Rift, WildStar, The Old Republic, Star Trek Online...but I never stick with them, no matter how much I keep trying. And, yet, I keep trying. Something keeps compelling me.

When I was 6 or 7 I found Gemstone 3 on Prodigy. Gemstone 3 was a MUD, the text-based precursor to MMOs. I was enthralled. I was always a nerdy kid, I loved the Chronicles of Prydain and The Hobbit, and I took to the opportunity to explore a fantasy world with other people like a fish to water. Simutronics, the creator of the game, at one point was creating a game called Archmage, which was supposed to be a graphical version of their MUDs. The idea was mindboggling, that you could have that many people playing the same game and actually see the world instead of reading it. It never came to fruition, though, and my video game interests turned console-ward with Final Fantasy 3 and Earthbound spurring the charge, though I always maintained a love of MUDs.

Fast forward a decade and a half and I'm on WoW. Initially, I get the same thrill as those old days. So many people to talk to. So many places to explore.

Unfortunately, something began to creep around the corners of my mind. I wasn't competing with the other players directly, like PvP so often does even (especially?) in MUDs. I was competing to beat the game first. Suddenly it just snapped from exploring to a rich world full of interesting people to "I'm playing a video game that I have to deal with other people in." People who troll and harass you. People who you have to rely on to complete tasks but we're merely playing a game together.

It killed the magic. It was just a game. A game with a win condition. Sure, the win condition was updated every so often, but then I thought back to the MUDs I loved. There was never a win condition. There was no such thing as "endgame". You made what you wanted out of the game. You decided what your character's journey was, the life you wanted to live, and you strove for it. In that sense, you were always exploring new territory. You were always reading new stories and you weren't playing a game with people, you were genuine collaborators, doing something new and special every time.

From beginning to end, every character has pretty much the same story in any MMO. Best case scenario, you're devoting huge amounts of time in your life to be one of the first ones to finish the story. There's no magic there, there's just achievement chasing.

But I keep chasing that thrill of exploring a new world. And I keep running into the same game. The same goals. The same disappointment.