This week we're wondering what keeps you coming back to a specific MMORPG?

Champions Online, despite having utterly failed me as a game, keeps me coming back to hang out with friends who still play and RP on occasion becuase of its hands down best customization available.

If it wasn't for the absurd levels of character customization I would never have grown so attached to my characters there and wouldn't even bother to log on.

So definitely for me what draws me back the most is probably the level of customization, in both visual and functional aspects.

I will throw my 2 cents in here, to get the ball rolling.

There are many things that will keep me in a MMO. One reason is more personal. I have to like the setting. Meaning it has to be a setting I am compelled to stay in because it speaks to my personal enjoyment. Sci-fi, Dark Fantasy, tend to nab me the most. Now, that's not something that really can be quantified or forced. Something either is or isn't my taste.

The other reasons can be, and can be effected by game companies. Friends keep me in game, so anything that can be done to promote social experiences, or at the least not get in the way of the social experience are good. When my level or the level of my friend gets in the way of us playing together that stinks. Things that become hurdles from enjoying the game with whom I wish too is a problem that will push me away from a game.

A game that is fun and easy to pick up, even after I had to put it aside for a time. Increasingly this fact has become more important to me. My life is busy, there are lots games on the market, and my friends lives are just as complicated. Games that don't punish me for life happening, and I can jump back into with ease are huge factor in games that draw me back in. (COH did this well, it was always super easy just jump back in the saddle)

Lastly, treating customers old and new with equal gravity is really important. When you start sacrificing old customers or ignoring them to move to a business model of the revolving door quick cash type it's disheartening. Generally it the surest way to make me leave and never look back.

Q

First and foremost - customization. The closer I'm able to create and tweak a character to fit the concept that inspired me to create it, the more I'll keep coming back to play it.

Secondly, an easily accessible wide range of missions. Logging into a favorite character gets frustrating if I can't quickly jump into some action, whether its a quick run when I've only got a short time to play, a longer mission when I have more time, or even something requiring a strong team when I've got time plus fellow players to team up with.

Thats my 2c worth.

There's actually a few games I return to really frequently, and here's my reasons for all:


1). Until recently, I've always returned to WoW, because I like the setting--it's one I've literally known since I was a wee babe playing WC2. Much like Ladysteel said, this cannot be forced, but maybe to help those interested get lost into this universe, it may be a good idea to make the lore easily accessible, which should also help the RP community to prosper, as well. Maybe some points being vaguer than others, but most of it should be there, nevertheless.

2). Another MMO I usually return to whenever possible, as well as where I draw my username from, is SWTOR. The reason I've returned to SWTOR, and even sunk a fair bit of money into it when my circumstances have allowed me to, is my guild. I found an amazeballs, small community of dedicated RPers who were almost as tight-knit as a second family. Unfortunately, we have since disbanded. I hope to try my luck to run into atleast a couple when this launches, if my half-eaten potato can run it.

3). I used to return to DDO every once in awhile, because of the sheer number of possibilities for how I could play my character. However, Daybreak has since "partnered" with the now-independent developers, aaand I make a point of avoiding them at every turn I can, as they are the bane of MMOs and MMO players everywhere.

4). Lastly, there's Champions Online and STO, which I still find myself returning to often enough. I like the sheer levels of customization in both. The former makes it relatively easy for me to recreate my characters, "dead" or otherwise, while the latter makes me truly feel like it's my character's story unfolding. Both also have me happy with their biography function, but both mildly anger me with their lack of working /roll and /e functions, which effectively screws the RP crowd.

When I was in High School, MMORPGs were my favorite genre. I didn't have a lot of money, so paying a little each month was a good deal for me to play all year round. As I got older, it took a special MMO for me to continue to pay that monthly. City of Heroes was really the only one I stayed with.

What keeps me coming back is not anything to do with the game itself, but rather the players that play. My friends were always the #1 reason I came back to an MMO. Playing with a buddy, doing patrols and high level missions and what not - that was what made it fun. As long as there is something to do that isn't too monotonous, it will be good.

As a player of mid-age it´s very hard for me to go back to a game. I remember some MMOs I played during the last 20 years.
As mentioned before Champions Online has a extremly good character creator. Seeing my creations in action or in cut scenes is very cool. Creating your own nemesis is a nice feature, too.
After some brain storming I found some features that would make me come back again and again...

1. Content - Even if you are out of a game, you stil want to check the new content and play it.

2. Replay Value - If a mission has 2 or 3 different endings, even if they are just minimal, it´s still worth to play again to see them all or to show your friends the different endings.

3. Exploration - The big point. If you haven´t seen the whole "Universe" of a game, you will come back and explore. Even if it would be highly unusual for a MMO RPG (or in other word revolutionary) a big world with lot of places to explore makes the game interesting. I remember some of the younger Champions Online players who didn´t know that there is a south-western desert and Canada. This was because Cryptic ruined the questing with the alerts. Everyone played in Millennium City and leveled fast. I think such kind of "power leveling missions" should be avoided.

4. Serve all the play styles. Hardcore players who want to play on a harder difficulty to get better loot. Casual gamers who just want to have fun. RPers of course (they are very loyal) who need places and hotspots to RP with each other. Groups: Content for groups so that they can easyly play together no matter what level or player skill.

5. Mysteries - I think this is one reason why GTA online is still populated. There are secrets and easter eggs, mysteries and strange things in the game world. Even if it takes years to solve them, I think they always make a game more exiting and makes it easyer to go back to it.

But still, I think the most important reason is exploration. To discover new places is a basic instict of humanity.

There are a lot of really good comments in this thread.

FWIW, I kind of differentiate between getting hooked and coming back. The main thing that gets me hooked is the novelty of the play experience plus how fun it is. But if the content gets stale, or my friends don't spend as much time in-game, then the interest wanes a bit. For really long-running MMOs, sometimes I take a break for a few months--keep paying my subscriptions, or whatever, but just not play.

The thing that brings me back is almost like nostalgia. Like, "Man, that sure was an awesome game, I wonder what's going on these days." So I think a nontrivial factor for me is that it has to be *really* fun to play for a memorable stretch--not constantly, which would be hard to sustain, but for a long enough period that it fixes in my memory. I think also there's more staying power if the game evolves with the player base. People's interests change, so the game has to adapt to the community. CoX did a good job of this when they introduced AE, and then with Praetoria and the incarnate system.

So for me maybe the most important criterion is that the game be the most fun around for a while. I mean, I'll still bust out Ultima 7 or Skies of Arcadia 20-25 years later on a whim just because they were so insanely awesome when I first encountered those games.

My introduction into MMORPG was via City of Heroes. I joined fairly late and for that I regret it. I miss the players. They were funny, creative, witty and awesome to play with. I also loved the character generation, customization, special events and the 3D-ish game environment. I played CO and was disappointed. ALthough the customization was cool, I just could not get into the artwork and environment. I play STO but not as often. I like their generation and ship combat portions, but the character play was missing something. I miss COH. I was late to join the VO pre-alpha and alpha but it appears that you are on a similar, improved path along COH lines. I look forward to participating in it from its start. Cheers!!!!

Regards,

Sessair

For me the most important part is the uniqueness that you feel as a player.

One thing that CoX had going for it was its large character customization tool. There was so much to choose from, that you would never end up seeing two characters that were alike. In this way, the player feels a connection to the unique design of their character. It's a massive turn-off to have a generic looking character start out in plain clothing and gain the same appearance, relative to the next player, based on finding new gear (similar or same to other's around the same level).

You want to feel that there are enough power selections available so that you don't end up w/ the same few sets as every other player you encounter.

I want to feel needed in order to complete game content. This is a big one for me, because more often than not I feel like "questing" is boring and nothing more than a bunch of solo players running their quests side by side w/ little need for one another. Open world questing imo is boring and stale. There is nothing fun about "gather x amount of x" and return to contact. CoX may have leaned heavily on instance based missions but it created a desire for teaming up. You didn't have to, but it was more efficient and fun to do so w/ increased mob size and xp share.

I like being locked in to a specific powerset from the start as well. It creates a reason to make alt characters. They all feel different to play and it isn't just a character that can become anything it wants as it advances by adding points in to some tree while leveling.

Instances > open world questing. Imo it makes teaming up more fun and strategic.

I want my character to feel unique and appreciated, whether it's speeding up a slow moving stone tank as a kinetic defender, having a team pull mobs back to utilize a Device player's set up, or being recruited as a radiation controller because your team needs to kill some epic monster's health regen.

Having to buy a respec token to change powers is ok, but being forever stuck with the powers I chose at the beginning would be a deal breaker for me and I likely wouldn't play the game.

ZeeHero wrote: Are you thinking respec = powers within the originally selected primary/secondary; or powersets within the original archetype/origin; or repick everything from scratch?

I hadn't thought about it, but CoX's respecs were the first type. Not sure that makes sense still in 2017. I agree that inability to change powers is a deal-breaker.

I mean re pick everything or at least almost from scratch.

For me it's a lot of things already posted...Customization, Community and Content (hey the three C's) and for me there is really nothing out there to draw me back like CoH did. I do have a couple games I log into but that's just out of wanting to get lost for a couple hours online. There was something about CoH I'm not sure will ever be duplicated and that for me was the community, it didn't matter if it was someone you saw from the forums or someone you would see that was always on when you were or you would maybe run paper missions, TF, RP or AE it was soooooooooo freaking easy to make friends to do things with. It almost seems like a different time for me with CoH because these games now most of the communities' if that's what you want to call them just aint got it. But anywho Keep up the great work VO!!!

I guess I will go over the few that I went back to after some time.

First, CoH was the only MMORPG that I would say really kept me coming back. It was a solid game with consistent updates. It was really the only super-hero game for a few years too. There was a lot of different activities to do too between PvP, mission architect, raids, Hamidon, war-zones... etc.

Second, Neverwinter had me hooked a few times. It also had the consistent updates and solid game play. I also liked the wide variety of activities. The incentives to log on each day kept me engaged. The spam bots, cash shop, over crowded servers made it not so fun.

Third, Eve online. The uniqueness and openness of this game gave me a lot of hope and anticipation. Unfortunately the game almost never lives up to this. The only two kinds of players I found were miners that just wanted to farm resources all day or space trolls that wanted to ruin everyone's fun.

There were others, but none that lasted long or took any significant amount of my money. The things all of these have in common is solid mechanics, a cool theme, and consistent updates.

Depth. A game with a deep and engrossing story, multiple build paths to drool and theorycraft over, and PvP not being an after thought. The Secret World kept me coming back to it because of the ability wheel and awesome atmosphere you couldn't find in another mmorpg. Path of Exile (arpg) keeps me playing for the character build depth of their passives grid. Swtor because I love huttball. Giving us something that no other game has or simply doing it better would keep me coming back.

Sessair wrote:
I'll jump in and echo this sentiment. It wasn't about the respecs or memorizing the quests/missions. It certainly wasn't the hellbent need to level up like a monkey on speed. I loved playing with my friends, family, and perfectly fantastic strangers. Sure, I ended up seeming like a noob to the ones glued to the story content or arcs, but I was with CoH since beta. And I loved not freaking out because I was leveled out.

I play for fun. Period. I mean, I taught my spawn to read with CoH. You gotta be chill about letting your character die as they sound out the sentences word by word.

To all of you above: Well said!!!

For me it is some of the same things mentioned. The community of players and friends i made in CoH and the challenge i had creating different power sets with toons and trying some of the missions and trials. I still play SWTOR and am a subscriber, what keeps me going back to that game is something similar but also the content, they frequently add content and in the past year or two have added new chapters and levels going far beyond the story line of the original game. So even though I am still an avid SWTOR player my heart will always be with CoH/CoV, I missed days of work to play that game especially on double xp weekend.

I want to feel like I am doing something important, and actually making a difference in the game. So the story, and the missions should reflect that.

Ever play WoW, and show up to some town intending to save the day(as usual) and the big dilemma is some guy needs 10 [Bear Rump] to make his stew? Ya...good thing I showed up... They could have made that quest entirely the same, just change the text to something like the bears are preying on the children or something, and need to be stopped. Bring 10 bear hides as proof you have culled the population etc. I would be down for it. But...you need bear rumps to make your stew. Wow. Well good luck with that, I am out of here. Get your own groceries!

*slams door*