Comments on: [MMOs] Relationships and MMOs

By: Shintar

Shintar — Sat, 17 Mar 2012 08:16:21 +0000

My falling out of love with WoW certainly bore a lot of similarities to the way I ended previous romantic relationships in real life. We just weren’t a good fit anymore, but that doesn’t mean that it wasn’t painful. The one big difference is that (sadly) you can’t reason with an MMO. With another person, if you’ve grown apart, you can both give it another try to get closer again, to emphasise shared interests and compromise. An MMO on the other hand is completely uncaring on an individual level, and any efforts on the side of the player to “make things right again” are really kind of wasted because the game will never appreciate it. I’m glad that I was finally able to move on and find “someone new”.

By: Pewter

Pewter — Fri, 16 Mar 2012 13:37:42 +0000

Hehe, no worries. I’m in a pretty good place mentally, but it feels good to get some of my morass of ~feelings~ about my time in WoW out on the page, as it were. I have a similar issue with Rift and SWTOR – the inability to interact with the environment on an rp/casual level really takes a lot of the life out of the world.

By: Lime Cat

Lime Cat — Fri, 16 Mar 2012 13:24:42 +0000

WoW was a good partner to us, but its changed since we met it. For me at least, my relationship with WoW is just an empty shell compared to what it used to be. They’d be mystery, fun and excitement 3 or 4 years ago, now I am just staying with it simply because i’m worried to let go, or that I won’t find something better. I suppose that is how a lot of marriages turn out huh?

The sad fact though, is that there really *isn’t* anything better out there. I still cannot believe that someone made a Starwars MMO and completely failed to consider roleplay at all. How can a team miss an opportunity so badly? They had the entire Starwars Galaxy at their disposal, and the best social area they managed to include was a broom cupboard of a cantina that you could stand in and play midi quality music on a jukebox. You can’t even sit on the damn chairs. Sorry to go off topic somewhat there, but I just wanted to make the point that perhaps its normal to get bored of a game – there just hasn’t been anything good enough to replace it.

In effect, we are stuck married to something we really don’t love anymore, but know theres nothing else out there for us.

And now I realise how negative and depressing this post sounds, but have it anyway

By: Pewter

Pewter — Fri, 16 Mar 2012 12:51:44 +0000

Thanks O.

To be honest it was reading your and Soph’s more cathartic posts that pushed me to get this out. It’s an emotional post, for me, even though it’s not heavy on detail.

Rift as a rebound game – I get very keen to play it every now and then, but the lack of personal connection with it – I guess makes it more of a fuck buddy for me. To use a crude term

It’s one of those topics, the comparison, that is very far reaching because you’ve got the ‘relationship with the game’, ‘romantic relationships in general,and ‘relationships within the game’ and it can be hard to make the necessary distinctions between those.

Thanks for sharing in the first place

By: Oestrus

Oestrus — Fri, 16 Mar 2012 12:42:50 +0000

Great post, Pewter.

I relate a lot to much of what you posted here – particularly the feeling of cheating on a game that you really enjoy and have devoted a large chunk of your game time to.

I tend to think of Rift as the mistress that I cheated on WoW with, but that helped me realize how much I missed WoW, and now our relationship couldn’t be better. There was nothing “wrong” with Rift, but it wasn’t WoW. I didn’t learn to appreciate the game for what it was until I didn’t have it anymore.

I think Rift may have also been my rebound game, where I was reeling from the feeling of burnout and detachment from WoW, and Rift was right there. I didn’t think before I got involved with it. It was shiny, and new, and it looked good. That was all I needed at the time.

You really could compare so many things, both in game and out of game to how relationships work. I’m glad to see that you highlighted some of them here.