The Problem/Fix for all MMO games.

You want to know why it's hard to stick to any of these mmo's? The beginning always sucks you in. The drop rate is super high and it feels like the entire game will be like that. You end up getting pk'ed as soon as you join an open area and then have to choose your path wisely because some virgin thinks it's fun to camp you when you don't even have gear or levels yet. Then you start leveling up fairly well and have WAY too many skills to even know when to use each, how to time their cool downs, or you don't even use half your skills because you're too lazy to deal with it. You start to have to compete with others for mobs when questing. Dungeons are either extremely easy solo and don't re-spawn the mobs immediately after leaving or are far too difficult to do multi man ones alone. Eventually you run into a point where you run out of inventory space and the only way to expand your inventory is to buy an expansion off the item mall for $5. Lastly you eventually give up because you see exactly what the game is going to turn into. You waking up to grind all day for the same shit to eventually get something that won't even matter in pvp because the p2w's will always beat you anyways is not a pretty sight.

THE FIX: NO ITEM MALLS EVER AGAIN. ONE TIME BUY AND YOU'RE GOOD. Less character skills so that combat turns into more talent based endeavors other than a skill spamming fest. When gear becomes almost pointless due to character skills ruling the game, then you AREN'T DOING IT RIGHT!! No more stupid ass flying traveling. TELEPORT where ever at a cost and done! REEEEEEEGIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIION LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOCK! I'm sick of south americans and russians in my fucking USA server. JUST STOP!!! This last one will blow you away and it should for good reason! OFFER every single mmo you make as a stand alone single player game as well. Could you imagine the bank they would make doing something like this and the amount of people that it would appeal to? You could even go one further and add tcp/ip support for up to 8-16 players for you and your friends. And for the idiots saying, "well how are they supposed to keep the game updated?" You don't need updates in single player unless the game is super broken. Updates are always for server maintenance, events and PVP, because people bitch about classes non stop it then becomes a standard.

Someone had a bad day....

"OFFER every single mmo you make as a stand alone single player game as well." lol, this made me laugh.

@master1g: Does World of Warcraft count? (well, DUH, it's an MMO you'd say, but people treat it as a kind of a special case)

Anyway, this is from my personal experience:

The first issue you're addressing is the camping of low level players. Yes, it's true that a lot of high-levels camp the newbies, but that's just part of the game - if you don't want to be camped, that's fine - there are PvE realms. Since all PvP is cross-realm, you can still play in the same Arenas and Battlegrounds as the people from the PvP realms, so there shouldn't be player shortage even if you play in a PvE realm.

The next thing is the "too many skills" situation. That is true as well, but that is exactly the idea - you have to spend a lot of time and effort to learn to properly use each and every skill and utilize it in combat - there are websites like IcyVeins which offer guides and such, so reading up on those and doing a LOT of practice is always good. And there's also a good chunk of skills which are just emergency situation skills for when you are in a near-death situation. The rest you just have to learn to use, like I already said.

Dungeons in World of Warcraft are instanced, so mobs don't have to respawn at all - you can just leave the dungeon and reset it and go back in, do it again (or re-queue in the finder). They are not soloable at all, though the point of WoW dungeons is to work in a group to achieve something that you usually wouldn't be able to do yourself. I do admit the Warlords dugeons have been a bit dull, but Legion should fix that.

The next issue does not apply at all for WoW since bank spaces (which are effectively the only extension to your inventory you have aside from bags) only cost ingame gold.

The final issue is also not present in WoW - all PvPers are on equal footing, the only thing separating them being the gear and (as of Legion) PvP talents.

Of course, this only applies to World of Warcraft and not to any other MMOs, but there is a reason why it's the most popular MMO out there. Yes, the game is pricy, but it is totally worth it if you're into MMOs cause, at least for me, it is better than any other MMO and these are only a part of the reasons why I think so.

Edit: About the "you don't need updates" part - updates are sometimes for new content, which is the best type of update in my opinion (most exciting, anyway)

@master1g: If you don't like MMO games then don't play them - simple as that, I'm not sure if you're raging about every single MMO game or just at specific one.

"I'm sick of south americans and russians in my fucking USA server." - some companies that don't have servers in your region will block you from downloading the game at the first place, other servers will kick you if you're ping is too high.

"Eventually you run into a point where you run out of inventory space and the only way to expand your inventory is to buy an expansion off the item mall for $5" this happens mostly on FTP MMORPGs - they need to make money you know because maintaining servers cost the most.

I like your idea of having a offline option and being able to play single player. Theres some mmos i'd want to play this way when im really lagging or just want to wander around and relax and not be bound up by my slow internet. They'd have to keep any items you get while on single player mode just locked on that mode or people could cheat.

@master1g: I think it comes down to one element discussed : An mmo is not a single player game. I played about a month of Final Fantasy XIV a few weeks back, and the game was not bad, but it clearly is build from the ground up to be a group experience. It felt weird playing it on my own. Every system in the game favors groups.