Toasty on MMORPGs

by

The Decline

One of the more interesting trends that I have picked up on, has to do with my own blog.  It feels like the more I talk about Destiny, the lower my reader numbers dip.  I guess it makes sense, as I started this blog out with World of Warcraft and moved towards other MMORPGs as well.  Destiny has a slightly different audience and not necessarily the sort of one that really reads blogs.  The Destiny community is largely contained within a combination of Reddit, Twitch and YouTube.  I don’t have a lot to say about this, but I just found it interesting.  On one hand I hate that I am alienating a bunch of readers, and on the other hand in order for me to keep doing this daily blogging thing… I have to be writing about what is interesting me.  At this very moment that is Destiny and Diablo, and nothing much in the traditional MMO camp.  Now I have logged into a bunch of MMOs in the last few months, but none of them really seemed to hold my attention past that initial login.  Each time there was something that would ultimately cause me to log out.  It might be that my bags were a mess, or that I couldn’t remember what I was last doing.  Ultimately I found a ready excuse and used it to “nope” the hell out of the game.  The problem however I think is somewhere in me.

Right now I am finding myself enjoying games that shower me in loot, and games that allow me to have engaging solo experiences.  Granted I have been spending a lot of time mooching off of folks as they run high end content in Diablo 3, but when I log into that game I can go off and do something by myself that feels like I am moving towards some goal.  In Destiny no matter what I do I can always be working on getting that next faction package, or even spending time in the crucible hoping for that next 335 item.  These two games specifically play extremely well by myself or with friends, and that is just something that I can’t say for MMORPGs right now.  In most cases the only real way to get good gear is through raiding, and that takes a time commitment I am just not willing to do right now.  There is no path for me to piddle my way to victory, and at the moment I don’t want to commit to much more than that.  Raiding in Destiny has felt far more “à la carte” and I think the small six player raid size helps that.  It seems easy to pull together a raid group, and even easier to pull together a three player team.  For example we spent last night doing Challenge of Elders and it honestly felt just as engaging and rewarding as doing an MMORPG raid group.

Burnt Out Genre

For awhile now I have kept thinking that sooner or later I will get over this funk.  That I will get that drive to go off and play an MMORPG.  For example I really want to have the desire to play Final Fantasy XIV and to “get the band back together”.  However there is just some wall keeping me from getting back into it and enjoying it.  I’ve patched up the client a few times, but I know when I do log in… someone is going to do the “Bels Back!” thing and I will feel guilty when I log out a few minutes later because I and confused as to what to do.  It is not a time issue, because I still have the same amount of time I ever did… it seems to be an attention span issue.  Diablo 3 and Destiny both reward me for spending ANY time with them…  and there is always an explosion of shiny colored loot just waiting on me around the corner.  The grind of an MMO is a much more slow burn, with large gaps of time between those moments of excitement.  For years I played MMORPGs as a way to hang out with friends, but thanks to tools like Slack, Discord, and Band… I can take my group of friends with me wherever I happen to go.  I no longer need to rely on the MMO as a chat client, and when that happened I guess the games lost a part of their hold on me.

I guess it hit me last night when technically I was scheduled to be raiding in World of Warcraft, and I didn’t even remember that it was a thing I was supposed to be doing.  The leader said over chat that I was just burnt out on WoW, which is a bit true…  but its more than that.  I feel like I am burnt out on MMOs in general.  I’ve been rabidly playing this one genre since 2000, and I feel like maybe I just need other types of games in my life.  The parts of the MMO that I really liked, which were the acquisition of new stuff and the feeling of constantly evolving your persistent character…  those things have been exported to pretty much every single genre out there.  I guess I realized this was happening when nothing that was coming out, that actually excited me… was an MMO.  There are plenty of things to be excited for out there, and I think Black Desert is one of those games that I would have loved…  were I not over-saturated on MMORPGs.  I am not really sure if I have a point this morning.  It sucks that I am driving away readers, but I just don’t think I can write with the same love and excitement that I used to about MMORPGs right now.  I keep hoping at some point I will climb out of this hole, and be able to log into Final Fantasy XIV and be excited again for story and world building,  However in the meantime… you are probably going to see a lot more talk of Diablo 3 and Destiny because that is where my attention and excitement has landed.

17 thoughts on “Toasty on MMORPGs”

  1. Pingback: Cycles – Tales of the Aggronaut

  2. I know the burnt feeling man. The most I can do on WoW or Rift, is log in to check garrison missions, or my followers in Rift. I started up on Destiny recently also, and I am having more fun playing that, than I’ve had on other MMOs in a long long time.
    I agree, I do think that it’s the instant rewards, and not having to wait, and grind out endless raids, and time. I’m hoping when Legion comes out, it’ll respark my interest in WoW.
    Dave aka Gweninu

  3. I have you in my feedly so I don’t know how ir if that shows up in your site stats when I see your articles.

    But yeah, lately i’ve been just glancing at your posts to see if they’re featuring Diablo or Destiny and if they are I just mark it read and move on. I have absolutely zero interest in either of those games. The post about your backyard was fun, though.

    Still, you’re in my feedly, so whenever you post, I do see it….

    For my own blogging… I’m not really playing much of anything right now. I’m in maintenance mode in FFXIV and will get the last piece of gear in my set (except my weapon) upgraded to i230 this week, and then what? More lore grinding to my tank jobs, I guess….. And it all comes from the same 2 dungeons, so what’s exciting to write about for that?

    But I also have got a big “you can’t go home again” syndrome, so while a part of me wants to try out Rift again and go back to TSW, I just can’t really bring myself to do it. So I’m not really gaming and don’t even have anything to blog about, so…. there you go. You at least have somethign to post about each day, even if it’s not something *I* care about, you obviously do, so more power to you!

  4. Readership dropped way down for me from March (when I had a lot posted on Black Desert and TSW) to April (when it became mostly about Tree of Savior.) Not that I’m going to adjust my gaming to fit the audience, but it was a noticeable change. I think whenever you’re blogging about a game few people are playing or are even interested in playing, there’s bound to be a drop in readers.

    I’m also in a similar situation in that I am looking for something different and find traditional MMOs difficult to get into right now. If I had a console I would love to try Destiny, but instead I’ve been looking for MMOs I’ve never tried before and that are different in playstyle from the norm. Most of the ones I’ve enjoyed lately have been made by Korean developers.

  5. I’m actually going through something very similar with FFXIV vs Destiny. I’m starting to go back to FFXIV a bit (I got Destiny over xmas and played the heck out of it for the last 3-4 months) but I don’t think I spent 10 hours in FFXIV in the last month.

    And I realized that the main issue was not so much the loot/rewards (which were plentiful for a bit, then totally dried up until the April Update), but the minute to minute gameplay more than anything. I really enjoy just running/jumping about shooting things and doing bounties and crucible matches. Even before the April update, when I was capped out at around 300 light (I don’t raid), I’d still enjoy knocking out bounties and trying different guns.

    Which has been good for me because it’s let me realize that I’d made myself a “chore list” in ffxiv. Things I didn’t enjoy doing, but would be very rewarding in the long term. So I’ve changed my goals there to align with what I like doing (dungeon running and tanking) instead of what is more grindy/annoying (gathering favors for millions of gil…so profitable…so boring) and I find that my time there has been way more fun/enjoyable since.

  7. I think most blogs see the same sort of thing. When I was playing and blogging about WoW those got a lot of attention. Lots of people get it.

    Destiny is hard to explain – it’s not just a loot shower, it’s visually amazing and a slick gameplay experience. The teamwork is important and hectic and it is just a great gaming experience overall. There are walls you hit against but nothing any MMO player isn’t familar with.

    The big downside is that there is no easy way to take and share screenshots or I would show off a lot more of it. I have to plug a thumb drive into my PS4 (I think?) to get anything off of it. I was hoping the PS4 app would house access to your media but it doesn’t.

    How do you get your great pictures?

  8. I guess I’m an odd duck, I actually slow down to read your Destiny posts.

    Three reasons: the armor and guns you show off look neat, you sound enthusiastic describing what you’ve been up to and your next plans in that game, and it all reads like it’s a completely foreign language that I need to slow down to attempt to piece together because of all the game specific jargon.

    I wish more blog posts would actually show off what one does in the game, or some of its scenery, because I don’t own a console that can try it out. I tried watching one or two Twitch streams, but couldn’t make head or tail of what was going on in a supposed “Destiny raid.”

  9. The problem with Destiny, from the point of view of a non-player, is it’s just really dull to read about. That’s not a criticism of your posts about the game – I have yet to read a single post from anyone about it that I have found even slightly engaging. Diablo is also not particularly interesting to read about – even bloggers that I read and enjoy on most other subjects struggle to hold my attention on that one too.

    On the other hand, as I’ve found when posting about Black Desert, plenty of people enjoy reading about it more than they enjoy playing it. And I have read and enjoyed lots of posts about The Division, EVE or Trove, just to name a few, even though I don’t play and am not likely to play them. I guess some games are just more intrinsically interesting to read about than others.

    As for your declining interest in MMOs I think you have hit the nail on the head with the observations about using them as primarily as a means of social interaction. For a lot of people that was probably the main attraction of the genre and now that the functionality has been superseded by various social media platforms that make a much better job of keeping online friends in touch then there won’t be anything like the impetus or attraction left for logging in to an MMO.

    I never played MMOs for the social interactions. That was a sometimes-welcome, sometimes-offputting byproduct. I have always played MMORPGs first and foremost for the gameplay, in which I include the ambience, atmosphere and settings. I don’t really play any other kinds of video games and don’t have much of a desire to start. I play plenty of MMOs in which I know no-one and enjoy them as much as those in which I have friends. After more than fifteen years I would say I am, if anything, more interested in the genre than ever.

  10. A part of me feels sad reading this post. A part of me understands completely what you are saying.
    Staying committed to an MMO, when you feel like everything is a grind and unrewarding is hard. It’s the reason I dropped World of Warcraft for the time being and am taking my time doing stuff in FFXIV. Even though I feel most at ease in an MMO, I understand how Destiny and Diablo are more rewarding for the moment.
    It helped me a bit to set goals for FFXIV and just slowly work towards them. It may not be endgame related stuff, but it helps me focus and staying engaged with the game. I really had to push myself hard to find the fun in doing other stuff, but it’s nice and comforting to have a game to fall back on with more than enough things to do.

    Maybe you’ll feel the spark with Legion launch. Maybe you just need to enjoy yourself the way you want to right now. Either way is fine. It’s your time to spend and it needs to be happy and fun times. Adulting sucks hard enough already.
    Either way I still enjoy reading your blog, since you focus on some of the games I own but just seems to be that enthusiastic for. Maybe in the same way I blog about FFXIV… Which you’re not just that enthusiastic for at the moment. It helps us stay connected nonetheless.

  11. “Right now I am finding myself enjoying games that shower me in loot”

    Just speaking personally, but that’s why I tune out every time Destiny comes up. It’s just not interesting to read about. Do some grinding to get some loot with some stats. Repeat. That seems to be about it when it comes to that game. Doesn’t exactly make for a captivating blog post (Youtube would work better for that stuff because there’s some action to watch).

    I feel you on MMO burnout, though, although I think we’re there for different reasons.

    • The odd thing is… I am personally ravenous for information on Destiny. I love reading what other people have gotten as drops from what activities and with which item rolls. The problem being there are no other blogs that really talk about the game. The only place I can find it is on Reddit and even there it is lacking in detail. I’ve subscribed to so many youtube channels, but largely I just want the commentary. I want the “this thing started working well for me” type discussion, because the game is constantly shifting and changing the meta. Each patch and micro patch changes the balance every so slightly and it is constantly reinvigorating my interest in old items that I have sitting in the vault. There have been several cases where an item that I thought was dumb… magically got better when they improved just one of the sub item rolls got tweaked. That said I know I am a super minority in my interest. The problem is it is really the only thing that interests me right now with enough desire to actually write about it.

      • Yeah, I can tell that you’re interested in it. 🙂

        Pretty much none of what you said interests me in the slightest. 🙁 They’re tweaking numbers to change gun things, or having some guy drop some gun thing, or whatever. Unless you’re seriously invested in Destiny, stuff changing in the meta is in no way interesting, because it’s insider baseball level talk.

        So, it works great for you as a writer, and doesn’t work at all for me as a reader. When you change topics, I’ll be back. 🙂

        • I am constantly taking screenshots while playing by holding down the share button for a few seconds. Doing that skips the pop up menu and just takes a shot, which is easier to do during the action. Then I tend to use the remote play app on my PC, and capture a screenshot of that window with FRAPS. I used to do the sneakernet thing with a thumb drive, but I am okay with the quality that comes out off of PC remote play. I just open up my screenshots on the console, and then screenshot to my PC via FRAPS. However any full screen capture software should work the same.

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