Is a bad MMO still bad when it's free?

[Alaris]

I'll say it again, it's not the 15$ a month that bothers me, it's all the wasted time. Time wasted traveling. Time wasted fighting copy-pasted foes just so I can get to endgame. Even spells cast slow, combat is boring and repetitive. I'm speaking of all the MMOs I played so far, if Aion is different then fine.

[Zalis]

I'll say it again, it's not the 15$ a month that bothers me, it's all the wasted time. Time wasted traveling. Time wasted fighting copy-pasted foes just so I can get to endgame. Even spells cast slow, combat is boring and repetitive. I'm speaking of all the MMOs I played so far, if Aion is different then fine.

Yeah. I feel that paying monthly fees to do that kind of thing is just adding insult to injury.

[Alaris]

Yeah. I feel that paying monthly fees to do that kind of thing is just adding insult to injury.

I don't even do it for free. I played HG:L for as long as I enjoyed it, but the moment it started wasting my time by slowing down the XP so that I had to level up by repeating content, I quit.

[Zalis]

Yep. I had the same experience with Silkroad a few years ago. I enjoyed the setting and trading at first, but the poor UI left my wrist sore from hunting tiger claws, teeth, hides, whatever...

Not every MMO has that issue, but I've never looked back at my time in an MMO and thought: "Boy, that time was really well-spent!" Even in games that I really enjoyed at the time I was playing them, like GW or Asheron's Call, I didn't (and don't) like to see the results of the /age command. MMOs also have a habit of infecting a person's playing style to the point where they just play more of them. So, you go from MMO to MMO, sinking more and more (massive amounts of) time. I guarantee you I'd be wasting more time doing that than if I were playing individual games. But this is verging on what waste of time games can be, despite our enjoyment. So, I'll stop there.

Somebody's bound to be offended by that, but I'm not afraid to say it. Most MMOs are on the crack-end of gaming.

[Alaris]

If I am entertained, then I am not wasting time. Not anymore than watching a movie, or reading a book anyways.

A good way to evaluate a game is to judge how much entertainment you get per unit of time spent. I did waste some time in GW, but even as an average it's doing pretty well. HM pushed me to learn to play better in a team. Playing different professions was fun. And I really enjoyed hybrid builds that I don't normally find in other MMOs... I often played as half-healer, half-something-else.

The problem with crack-gaming is that it makes you lose perspective, so you are fooled into thinking that you are enjoying yourself. If you can't get yourself to stop playing when you are bored, and you end up being cranky from a playing session when you should feel refreshed, then it's sign that you have drained the entertainment value and are now running on pure addiction.

[raspberry jam]

Aion sure sucks ***.

[Giggles]

I download and played Aion today for about an hour, hour and a half. I'm going to uninstall. Not too impressed. wtb an mmo that isn't single player.

[Vana]

I download and played Aion today for about an hour, hour and a half. I'm going to uninstall. Not too impressed. wtb an mmo that isn't single player.

That's not my experience. It's worth taking into account that the first area you are in, is a starting/tutorial area - once you reach lvl9 you'll ascend and move on. But even in the starting area, I find it very easy to find groups to play with. Just go to where you need to go to do the quest and anyone already there will usually gladly take you in. Actually, the end of the tutorial is incredibly fast to do with a group and painfully slow solo - just like many areas in the game.

[Giggles]

I decided to tough it out until after level 9 after reading a little bit on wiki about it. I'm seeing no grouping going on at all where I am. All I'm seeing is people competing for kill X of X quests and pick up X of X. There's a lot of people and badguys around to. There's also a lot of really, really ugly looking characters. I've heard and seen some of the wtf characters you can create in Aion but, when I got my hands on the character creator... holy ****. What where they thinking when they did this? I almost want to make one myself just because they look so bad and are so easy to make.

[Manwithtwohands]

I'll say it again, it's not the 15$ a month that bothers me, it's all the wasted time. Time wasted traveling. Time wasted fighting copy-pasted foes just so I can get to endgame. Even spells cast slow, combat is boring and repetitive. I'm speaking of all the MMOs I played so far, if Aion is different then fine.

I hate relying too much on slow casting spells. I played EQ2 and WoW, and I got really sick of fighting with my spell user characters after playing for so long. It like playing a fps shooter where before every shot you take, you have to load your gun.