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9 Reasons Why MMOs Look Silly

Even if you are a hard-core MMO fan, you still noticed some silly aspects that most games of the genre tend to reproduce en masse. These elements have proven to be irritating over time, but they became part of the gaming system that is more of a tradition than a drag.

#9 Killing defenseless animals

Most of the times when you start a normal MMO, you are tasked to kill a poor defenseless little creature to test you combat skills. Maybe it will try to fight back, but what chance will a little mob, with the characteristics of a fluffy bunny, have against a hero who is armed to the teeth!?

#8 Elves, elves and more elves

For a dying breed, elves are in overwhelming numbers when it comes to associated MMOs. You can’t follow a questing path without meeting at least 10 elves on the way, every 2 minutes. Even NPC elves are keeping their population healthy. Perhaps this is a result from the fact that male or female elves kind of look alike and have that sexy appeal to them.

#7 Skimpy armors

I have no clue where game developers come up with these ideas, but more exposed flesh won’t help you that much when a dragon spits fire all over you. I understand that they are trying very hard to keep gamers attached to their characters, but I haven’t seen skimpy outfits for any male versions in MMOs.

#6 Irrelevant potions

Did this ever happen: you finish a quest and you are rewarded a free potion of endurance that gives +2 to your stat. So what do you do with it? Best case scenario you use it once and never buy that stuff again or you can sell it for a few coins at a vendor. Don’t get me wrong, all MMO potions have a purpose, but unless you are a pro-player that is obsess of max-ing his stats, in order to terrorize the world, I have no clue why anyone would bother constantly consuming all sorts of potions that are not HP, XP and Mana related.

#5 Wimpy town defenders

Every time you reach an outpost or small village, there is a respected defender who usually roams a small area like a boss. The sole purpose of his existence is to give you quests to solve the town’s problems and that makes you wonder how he even became the defender of that settlement, since he is so lazy to take care of a few naughty critters!? It is one thing for him to ask for your assistance to get his tasks done and another to just be a slave and run errands in his place.

#4 Disposable vendors

Vendors come in all shape and sizes, but that doesn’t mean they are all useful. Take an armor or weapon smith/vendor for example. They always have low quality items, most of the times they are out of stock and everything sells at steep prices to begin with. You have a better chance to get good quality gear from loot drops or just craft it yourself if you have the ingredients.

#3 The magical spacebar

How many people did you see using Spacebar to jump while walking or even in combat? The sad truth about this mobility action is that most MMOs use a targeted combat system, which makes hopping obsolete since you can’t avoid any of the hits or travel faster over a short distance.

#2 Female characters after 10 years

A decade ago MMOs were focusing on developing new play styles and better graphics, but no one envisioned that female character aesthetics will be one of the prime focuses for marketing purposes. If we analyze the historical time span over the last 10 years we will see that female chest enlargement has evolved with each passing game. This makes me wonder for who these games are intended to anymore. We have to understand that gamers include underage kids as well, so this type of exposer might not be the brightest idea developers came up with.

#1 Bigger isn’t better

If you find yourself in a raid or doing a dungeon, you will most likely discover that depending on a monsters power attack and HP, they will tend to get bigger and bigger until they go through the world’s ruff. While this is not necessarily a bad thing, it does tend to get very generic for an MMO. Epic Boss fights can also be conducted with a small scale mob that has clever attacks and more mobility.

I am sure that any on-line gamer can add many other silly aspects that make MMOs look bizarre and sloppy. In my opinion, all existing MMOs should try to ameliorate this little design and mechanic flaws and try to find a balance between quality content and a fun game-play.

andrei

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