On the Outside Looking In - Convincing Myself to Get Into an MMO

The genre of massively multiplayer online games, MMOs for short, has been around long enough that even gamers who don't play them know the meaning of the abbreviation without giving it a second thought. And in this day and age, games such as World of Warcraft and Final Fantasy XIV have proven that MMOs still have a place despite the rapid change in gaming trends and demands. Back then, MMOs could only be found on PC. And while the PC is still the home for most of them, technology has come to a point where the genre has made its way to the likes of home consoles and even mobile phones. Some players an MMO as their main form of gaming entertainment and others see them as a comfort game they can return to after they've beaten the latest triple-A title and want to wind down. But what is it like to jump into an MMO today for players who aren't familiar or haven't touched the genre?

MMOs were something I never really got to experience growing up. During the boom of the Ragnarok Online days here in the Philippines, I didn’t have access to a lot of money during my early years in high school to justify purchasing those prepaid cards required to play the game. Not to mention having to rent a PC in net shops in addition to buying said cards. Playing at home wasn’t much of an option either. Our dial-up internet just wasn't up to the task.

Screenshot taken from Well-Played.com.au

While I was always curious to try out MMOs because of their interactive nature, wide player base, and immense popularity, they never visually appealed to me. Seeing characters target a monster and for the most part, standstill while waiting for their attack cycle to happen after every few seconds and having the majority of the player interaction be to press a button to activate a skill every now and then, all of this didn't look very fun. I've always been more attuned to action games that are more reactive. Another detail that I didn't find appealing was seeing how enemies don't flinch or react when hit. To me, this didn't make the world feel alive. Enemies looked like unfeeling damage sponges. And for the longest time, this is what MMOs looked to me. Still, I didn't want to judge an entire genre without properly experiencing it. I didn't want to tell people that I disliked MMOs without playing one myself.

Not to say that I've never touched an MMO before. I’ve checked out a few games such as RAN Online and Drakensang for a little bit. But I either ran into connectivity issues or found the gameplay too dull to continue. I played 9Dragons, during the days when it was under Acclaim's wing, and played long enough until I got the Lightfoot skill which lets you traverse areas faster on foot. At that point, I saw how grindy the game became and eventually dropped it entirely.

My next MMO was Tree of Savior as I was given the impression that it had the type of action combat I was looking for. I clocked in around 20 or so hours into Tree of Savior and I did not enjoy a single minute of it. You hit the grind wall pretty quick but what really irked me was the mission structure. It was so mundane and filled with a ton of mindless back and forth fetch quests. The story didn't interest me in the slightest. It honestly felt like a chore to continue playing it but I held on to the words of friends that kept saying that "it gets good after a while". Looking back, I don't regret putting what I consider to be a substantial amount of game time to Tree of Savior. I just wish I dropped it sooner.

At this point, you'd think that I would stave off MMOs forever. But I still couldn't definitively say that I disliked the genre. My main dislike for Tree of Savior stemmed from what could be looked at as an older style of MMO mission structure, and that a lot of more modern MMOs don't follow that trend. Or at least not as hardbound. The apparent best example is Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn.

Being a fan of the series might hook my interest in FF14 as the game pays a ton of homage to various other Final Fantasy titles in many different aspects. From its music, character and enemy designs, even certain gimmicks from other games featured in boss patterns along with new ones that you wouldn't expect to see in a game of its type. Another interesting bit was hearing about the lore of the original FF14 canonically nuking itself and taking a new shape in the form of A Realm Reborn.

In addition, hearing about how ARR was reworked to slingshot newer players past it as fast as possible to reach the better-built expansions that followed, this all sounded interesting. And yet, when I see gameplay of FF14, it still didn't look appealing. I was seeing the same thing - Target an enemy, stand and do skill. Wait for the cooldown, rinse and repeat. And again, I was hammered with similar sentiments of "the story gets good after a bit".  So, why play a game that I might've already convinced myself that I won't enjoy?

I like to give things a fair shake to form a proper opinion of it. And if I could help it, with little to no outside influence. I want to experience and judge the medium by my own volition. I wanted to know if my impressions held true or if there really is something to the game that can pull me in. But to answer the earlier question that I've imposed onto myself as to "why play a game that I might've already convinced myself that I won't enjoy?" is Overwatch.

First Person Shooters were not my favorite genre. I didn't outright dislike them but chose not to play a vast majority of them throughout my gaming career. Being primarily a console gamer throughout most of my early years, I didn't like the sluggish controls of FPS' on a gamepad. During the few times I could properly play them on PC, my aim was terrible and I had trouble identifying what was an enemy and what was foliage in a lot of the modern-day brown military shooters out there at the time. I could enjoy the campaign or a weekend multiplayer session of a Call of Duty game that I borrowed from a friend every now and then but wouldn't go out of my way to pick any up for myself. I was convinced that FPS' just wasn't my thing.

When Overwatch was having open beta weekends before release, and remembering how neat and Pixar-esque the initial CG animated short of it was, I thought to give it a shot to see what all the hubbub was about. Since then I've clocked in over 800 hours into Overwatch and can easily put it on a list of my favorite games of all time. From barely touching the genre to suddenly falling in love with a game that I otherwise had a passing interest in simply after playing it over a weekend has changed the way I think when it comes to looking at games. That maybe.. it's not that I don't like the genre but instead have yet to find the right game from said genre.

With the latest patch of FF14 making the base game and first expansion unlocked as well as increasing the level cap for free trial users from level 35 to 60, now may be the perfect time to check it out. I've already paid a visit to the realm of Eorzea and will be collecting my thoughts on it on a future post.

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