Why MMOs Fails to Entice Me

The announcement for an Elder Scrolls MMO got a lot of people excited. I can understand why, since Bethesda and their games have a high regard in the community and the chance to play with others in their expansive universe seems a great opportunity. Unfortunately for me, it is another game I have no interest in playing.

I played lots of MMOs before, trying to fin what is interesting about them and failed. It is not about the games' quality or their communities. It is that those kind of games fail on me because of what kind of player I am. I am a story and objective driven player. I need to be pointed at an objective by the game's story. I need to believe that my actions is moving the story forward (even knowing that this is rarely true).

I played for a few hours and got bored quick.

Most of those games don't have a true story to be played. it is you finding quests with your friends, leveling up and getting stronger. If you defeat a powerful enemy, this enemy will respawn for other players to beat it after some time. You don't really have an impact in the worlds story. You are just one more player.

Also, the only 'objective' here is getting stronger to fight stronger enemies to get stronger to... You got the idea. I find this tedious. It is not that I want diversity of gameplay, most games use this scheme, but I want a reason to get more levels other than that. I want to know that, for example, if I defeat the demon dragon I will free an area of its influence and make an impact in the game world.

I know most traditional games aren't like the event was made by me, but something that was bound to happen as you play. But yet I miss the fact that i have an relevance on it. In games like Skyrim or Amalur, where you basically play an single-player MMO, I feel like I am the most important character in the world. In MMOs, I am just another player.

And another problem I have with those games is that they are made with parties in mind. You will hardly be effective you are alone. I get that it is one of the points of those games are to socialize, but when you are alone and starting, the lack of a party to be with have a negative effect in me.

I always said that the moment a game stop being entertaining and become a chore is the moment I stop playing them. And to this day, no MMO have proved to be more than a chore to me.