Help me with a project? (SOE related)

[CharlieMopps]

Game Title: Everquest 1
When You Played: Until Luclin
Your 'Main' Character: Messa Booggie
Why You Quit: The release of luclin had a new grafix engine that made the game nearly unplayable on my computer. On top of that, I had just really started to get into raiding (never really enjoyed it before then) the graphics update made it nearly impossible for me to raid. I quit in frustration. I could have gotten some new hardware, but the support forums were terrible. They were listing specs that put my computer well within what I had as capable of running the game. They never said what you'd need for a full raid. If there had been a lot better communication in that department I probably wouldn't have quit.

Game Title: Everquest 2
When You Played: From Launch day until the Xchange servers went live.
Your 'Main' Character: Charlie Mopps
Why You Quit: The Xchange servers, the Froglok thing, general dislike for SOE and the direction I perceived they were steering the mmo industry. To this day I am still a seething Smeadly hater, mostly due to the exchange servers.

Game Title: SWG
When You Played: Didn't make it past the trial
Your 'Main' Character: dunno
Why You Quit: The game sucks. I mean, terrible... really terrible.

Game Title: Vanguard
When You Played: Beta, then again a couple months after release
Your 'Main' Character: Charlie Mopps
Why You Quit: The games not done. Nothing to do, no-where to go. Glaring flaws in design.


Game Title: Pirates of the Burning sea
When You Played: For about 1 month at the beginning.
Your 'Main' Character: Charlie Mopps
Why You Quit: The games not done. Nothing to do, no-where to go. Glaring flaws in design. It was fun for the first week or so.

[lamaros]

Non-SOE

Game Title: Guild-Wars
When You Played: Original Beta through to a few months after release.
Your 'Main' Character: War/Mon I think.
Why You Quit: The PvP got boring and the PvE stuff felt empty (like Diablo but even worse, it didn't feel like an online world or community). Was not interested with the focus they took the PvP stuff towards the end of the beta either. WoW was around and I enjoyed playing it more, despite the fact that I had previously been massively preferential to GW.

Game Title: EVE
When You Played: Couple of years ago, 2005? For about 2 weeks.
Your 'Main' Character: No Idea.
Why You Quit: Skill system shitted me up the wall. Pressing a button and afking is not my idea of fun. The awful UI also contributed a lot.

Game Title: WOW
When You Played: Release to 3 months later. A couple of months before TBC to 4 months after TBC. Now to...
Your 'Main' Character: Orc Warlock.
Why You Quit: Originally I quit because there was nothing to do at level 60 that seemed to lead towards anything, or were themselves fun. The things that could be done were an absolute grind (Ony keying) or not at all challenging (zerging UBRS, Strath) and there was nothing else to do, nor remotely near to being implemented.
The second time I quit because I had seen most of the TBC stuff. Many of the changes that were to be implemented in the next patch, which was only weeks away, would have made the game better or so I thought, but I'd just had enough. The barriers to new content were beyond my control, being either restricted by poor implementation or the incompetence of others, and I had no desire to bash my head up against that wall.

One thing that did shit me up the wall about WoW was the fact they wouldn't let me cancel my account unless I told them why I was canceling. Because of that fact I never gave an honest answer either time. Fuckwits. Never force a paying customer to give you feedback, if I want to quit and you fuck me about you're only making it worse for yourself.

[Murgos]

Game Title:  EQ1
When You Played:  Launch to Kunark or possibly the next expansion after
Your 'Main' Character: Warrior
Why you quit:  Hit lvl 54, took me MONTHS and still didn't appreciably advance.  Sold the character.

Game Title: SWG
When You Played:  Beta + Launch 30 day incl
Your 'Main' Character: A Rifleman/Something
Why you quit:  Lost interest, bored.

Game: EQ2
When You Played:  Beta + Launch trial; several resubs
Your 'Main' Character: Assassin
Why you quit:  It's always been lack of advancement when I quit.  Usually, when I return things at the level I was at have become easier due to mudflation and wimping from group to single player style.  I play until I again get caught up to the excessive time investment to advance point and then unsub again.  This last time I unsubbed it was because I COULD NOT BUY KUNARK without paying for, again, everything I already owned.  To which I still feel I should add a hearty 'fuck you SOE'.

[CharlieMopps]

This last time I unsubbed it was because I COULD NOT BUY KUNARK without paying for, again, everything I already owned.  To which I still feel I should add a hearty 'fuck you SOE'.

But they use that money to buy fantastic games like Vanguard.

[Phred]

I'll limit my response to SoE.  This is like when an ex-girlfriend calls two years later and asks why she was dumped.  Sorry.
 For example, there was no way that I could cast a spell on someone who wasn't in my group.  This may sound like nothing more than a 'game mechanic' to whoever made the decision, but in Antonica, this meant that I would no long be solicited for and could no longer aid others with a buff.

Off topic:

This sounds like a reaction to forum whiners basically. A lot of forum trolls used to hate the whole buff selling/giving thing and cried for it to be nerfed in EQ1.

[Engels]

This last time I unsubbed it was because I COULD NOT BUY KUNARK without paying for, again, everything I already owned.  To which I still feel I should add a hearty 'fuck you SOE'.

Hmm, I used the new Sony launcher, and they have a record of all I have purchased, so all I needed to do was download my previous purchases. http://launcher.station.sony.com/

[Rasix]

SOE only to save some time, my non SOE list is longer with more  .  Time lines are fuzzy.

Game Title: Everquest
When You Played:  Launch for 2 or so months.  Later rejoined the game with my roommate and his brother for Kunark. Quit late in Luclin.  Rejoined a third time during PoP time frame.  Lasted a few months.
Your 'Main' Character:  Tellan - shortie druid.  Rasix - Iksar monk. Last time I can't remember the name of my "main".
Why You Quit:  The first time?  Game's punitive nature and lack of a social desire to stay in the game made it expendable.  Yantis offered me cash for my account to use for farming (I was a charter acquisition). Having a monetary incentive to not play a game I was bored with was good enough for me.  Second time I quit: I wasn't happy with my guild basically dissolving, realized I was playing a game I didn't like very much (raiding in a 3rd tier guild was like paying to be virtually bullied), and I wanted to get away. Plus, I knew I could Ebay and make the sting lighter.  Third time I quit, I just realized I wasn't having fun after "owning" the bazaar and making twinks for a few months.  Monetary reward was waiting, and I ebayed again.

Game Title: SWG
When You Played:  Launch + 6 months? 2-3 months I believe when player cities were put in the game.
Your 'Main' Character: Rasix - Dosh Droid Engineer and later Smugger, Creature Handler and finally Commando.
Why You Quit:  The first time it was because there were too many broken things in the game.  Droid engineer was never working properly at any time.  The second time I quit, it was just due to not having any fun at the moment. For SWG it was just too many "this will work" some day promises. 


Game Title: Everquest 2
When You Played: Mid - Late 2007 for less than a month.
Your 'Main' Character:  Never got past the newbie experience long enough to consider any character a main.
Why You Quit:  Honestly, I was so sick of DIKU mechanics I just couldn't stomach leveling at the time. It was really just a wrong place/wrong time for EQ2 as I thought the game was pretty solid.  Also, I did not care for the art direction but that didn't factor into me quitting.

[HaemishM]

Game Title: Everquest
When You Played: Release-2001
Your 'Main' Character: Haemish (Barbarian Warrior)
Why You Quit: Lewt whorez, lack of guild management features that made a guild leader's life a living fucking hell, lack of support by SOE for the most basic of community interaction between the world and community, lewt whorez and the rewarding of lewt whoring by the game system, assinine and fucktarded requirement that everyone raid or stagnate thus creating lewt whorez, timed epic spawns, lewt whorez, the holy trinity, lewt whorez, kill-stealing lewt whorez, manipulative cunts and the people lewt whorez who followed them, Dark Age of Camelot and its PVP

Game Title: Everquest 2
When You Played: March 2006 - May 2006
Your 'Main' Character: Marcus (Assassin)
Why You Quit: Solo play cut me off from too much content

[Kail]

I only remember ever playing one SOE title:
Game Title: Star Wars Galaxies
When You Played: Mid 2004 or so?  I think?  For about a month... before JTL, sometime.
Your 'Main' Character: Absolutely no idea... some kind of submachinegun combat guy (marksman?  One of the base classes, I think)
Why You Quit: Couldn't find anything to do.  The towns I found were all mostly empty.  I could run missions from the mission terminals, and they'd give me money, but I couldn't find anything to spend it on.  Nothing fun or cool, just endless running and shooting womp rat nests and crap.

Non SOE stuff:
Game Title: Guild Wars
When You Played: Sporadically since release
Your 'Main' Character: Kel Makabe (Monk/Warrior)
Why You Quit: Levelling hit a blockade; can't advance solo, and failed the same mission four times with PUGs.  Just killed my interest.  Also, combat spells have these bizarre sound effects that bug the hell out of me (sound like someone playing ping-pong in an echo chamber).

Game Title: Anarchy Online
When You Played: 2006?  I think...?  Pretty late.
Your 'Main' Character: No idea
Why You Quit: Logged in, created a character, futzed around, logged out, never came back.  Nothing grabbed me. 

Game Title: EVE Online
When You Played: 2006-2007
Your 'Main' Character: Kel Makabe (combat pilot)
Why You Quit: Nothing to do in high sec but run missions over and over again for money to buy a slightly bigger ship.  Nothing to do in low sec but get destroyed by the guy who has already bought the slightly bigger ship.  Combat wasn't interesting enough to keep me there on it's own merits.

Game Title: A bunch of KMMOs (Lineage, Ragnarok Online, a bunch of free betas, etc.)
When You Played: Various times
Your 'Main' Character: No idea
Why You Quit: Nothing to do but grind.  Fun for maybe a week.

Game Title: World of Warcraft
When You Played: Since launch (though I did unsub two or three times)
Your 'Main' Character: Lender (Blood Elf Paladin)
Why I Still Play: The game runs well, there's stuff for me to do.  Not so much "THIS IS AN AWESOME GAME" as "this is the MMO that has sucked the least".  The graphics I really like, though.

[CharlieMopps]

Game Title: Everquest 2
When You Played: March 2006 - May 2006
Your 'Main' Character: Marcus (Assassin)
Why You Quit: Solo play cut me off from too much content

As much as I hate to defend SOE, they actually fixed this. You can solo pretty much to your level cap now. You can't do raid content... and there's always a mob at the end of the zone that needs at least a full group to kill. But there is definitely a lot of solo content now.

[Surlyboi]

Game Title: Everquest
When You Played: 1999 - 2005
Your 'Main' Character: Half-elf Ranger
Why You Quit: My guild fell apart, some for WoW, some for EQ2, I chose to sink myself fully into the jedi grind in SWG

Game Title: SWG
When You Played: From beta to shortly after the NGE
Your 'Main' Character: First a carbineer/ranger, then a bio-engineer/ranger, ranger/smuggler, smuggler/musician, musician/smuggler/bounty hunter and finally jedi
Why You Quit: The NG-fucking-E. You dance with the ones that brung ya, and yeah, you left that crowd hanging like Duckie at the end of "Pretty in Pink" I really tried to like it, tried to come back to it a year later when the bugs had been ironed out, still leaves a bad taste.

Game Title: Matrix Online
When You Played: Beta to a little after SOE acquired it.
Your 'Main' Character: No real main, just a bunch of alts.
Why You Quit: Really wanted it to be fun, it wasn't.

Game Title: Planetside
When You Played: Beta to about a year ago.
Your 'Main' Character: Cheradenine and later Diziet (my girlfriend's sniper)
Why You Quit: Nobody to play with most of the time anymore.

Game Title: PotBS
When You Played: Launch to about a month.
Your 'Main' Character: Spanish priavteer
Why You Quit: Couldn't get into it. Wanted to, couldn't.

Game Title: Vanguard
When You Played: Beta to about three days after launch.
Your 'Main' Character: Half-elf ranger in Tanvu.
Why You Quit: Ran like crap. Largely uninspired gameplay. Loved the huge vistas, (the city with the huge, keyhole shaped dock still floors me) but the game couldn't keep me occupied.

Game Title: EQ 2
When You Played: About six months after launch to present (off and on)
Your 'Main' Character: Half-elf ranger (notice the pattern?)
Why You Quit: Actually haven't quit this one, though I am on a hiatus while I play AoC.

Non SOE games (Just for shits and giggles and to balance out the other stuff)

Game Title: WoW
When You Played: Launch to about two weeks later.
Your 'Main' Character: Tauren hunter
Why You Quit: Bored the living shit out of me. This was coming off of EQ and it wasn't as deep, as fun or as interesting. If I wanted to play EQ on training wheels, I figured I'd play EQ2. Plus, SWG beckoned.

Game Title: CoX
When You Played: Issue 8 to Issue 10
Your 'Main' Character: Natural blaster
Why You Quit: hit the grindy wall at 30.

Game Title: Tabula Rasa
When You Played: Beta to about a month ago.
Your 'Main' Character: A sniper and a spy.
Why You Quit: Kinda lost interest. I intend to go back in about six months to check on the state of the game though.

Game Title: AO
When You Played: Beta to about a year after launch
Your 'Main' Character: a spy.
Why You Quit: Didn't live up to its promise IMO.

[Ratman_tf]

Holy Shit! I've got a free month of Planetside comin' to me!

... oh yeah. 1.33 hrs of patching. 

[Rendakor]

Game Title: Everquest 1
When You Played: Not exactly sure...2000ish?
Your 'Main' Character: Dark elf Wizard, no idea what his name was
Why You Quit: My computer could barely handle the game; everything ran choppy and having dial up didn't help. Made it to level 2 or so before getting fed up dying to ants because of lag and went back to MUDs.

Game Title: Star Wars Galaxies
When You Played: Late 2003 to Mid 2004, subbed about 6 months
Your 'Main' Character: Started as a crafter trying to make guns, then respecced to Marksman
Why You Quit: The game never really grabbed my interest. Finding good resource areas was nearly impossible, and the community as a whole was less than helpful. When I switched to the combat side of things, hoping that'd be enjoyable, I got bored even faster. Walk to this random spot, to kill these random dudes around a den, then kill the den. Then walk to the next one. More boring and repetitive than CoX's missions, without even a vague hint of variety.

Game Title: Everquest 2
When You Played: From launch til late '05, re subbed a few months ago, still playing.
Your 'Main' Character: Azhala, first 50 Warlock on my server and catass extraordinaire.
Why You Quit: First game to really capture my interest since MUDs. Played really hardcore with a couple RL friends, and because of various other conditions ended up doing little else. Grinded really hard to max level. Raided for a bit. Mostly left due to very poor itemization for casters: finding +int on an item was nearly impossible, and all that did was up power. There was literally no way to increase your damage once you had master spells. Character customization was also virtually nonexistent. Between no meaningful way to advance my character and realizing that the game was taking most of my life, I left. The addition of AAs and more gear options for characters of all classes (between multiple crafted sets and RoK's very well itemized loot) make the game a LOT more enjoyable.

Game Title: Vanguard
When You Played: 2nd wave beta to almost launch
Your 'Main' Character: Played a warrior, necro and druid.
Why You Quit: The game was never really finished, and I didn't like the attitude of most of the community. Everyone was always screaming for everything to be made harder. "WTF!? They added a map!? Omg Vanguard is WoW 2.0! ZOMG no, don't put a GPS dot on the map!! And I want longer corpse runs!!" etc. And those who weren't screaming "harder" were more subtle about it, screaming "EQ1 was like this, so VG should be that way. I want 'feature x' from EQ1 back!!!!" which didn't appeal to me very much either given my limited EQ1 experience. All in all I never felt inclined to spend a dime on it, and by late beta I'd only log in on patch days to see what they broke this time.

That's it for my SOE experience. Might post the non-SOEs later.

[Samwise]

Game Title: SWG
When You Played: July 2003-July 2004
Your 'Main' Character: Weaponsmith/Rifleman
Why You Quit: It became clear that fixing the basic flaws in the crafting game (which was all I was really there for) was not really any sort of priority and that all of the improvements that the community reps kept promising would be in the next publish were being delayed indefinitely in favor of add-ons I had no interest in (JTL and the Jedi trial stuff).  I might have at least stuck around to see JTL had I not been so irritated by the deception.

[Wasted]

Game Title: Everquest 2
When you played: First 6 months after launch, then Nov 07-Jan 08
Your 'Main' Character: First Main Barbarian Mystic, Second time round Barbarian Guardian
Why you quit: First time I quit was because I couldn't find enough people in my timezone to play with, and I got really burnt out harvesting forever for rares.  Really enjoyed the game with all the changes when I tried the game a second time but I didn't have any friends playing and the MMO RL friends I have kept begging me to return to WoW and raid with them.  In the end playing a game I was kinda over but with a bunch of close friends is still a better experience than playing a fresher game you are enjoying but alone.

Game Title: Vanguard
When you played: early 07
Your 'Main' Character: Human Ranger
Why you quit: I think it is pretty much accepted now that no-one now needs to justify/explain their reason for leaving Vanguard.  If you played it you left it.

[Bandit]

Game Title: Everquest 2
When You Played: 3 months after launch - present
Your 'Main' Character: Sumatai - Wood Elf Troub (Crushbone)
Why You Quit: Championed EQ2 for a long time. Just recently canceled - no compelling reason to log in at the moment.  Two characters to 80 (well the other is 78), so an alt is out of the question.  Hard to upgrade characters at this point (without raiding or extensive grouping) - 80 Troub/80 weaponsmith/80 tinkerer/pretty much max AA. I can not upgrade spells at this point, Adept III's cost a frickin fortune for scouts (which I did pick up - but felt like a job grinding cash/rares) and Masters are unobtainable at the moment due to crazy ass prices. Not sure I can pinpoint a problem with EQ2 (besides shitty performance issues). I just mainly solo (90% if the time), and just ran out of solo content.    I have to admit grim, the forums also suck at the moment, pretty much a ghost town - threads usually suck if someone is actually posting (with the same fuckin 5 people commenting in the thread). The alternative at EQ2Flames isn't much better, more active but it seems it is a contest for who can bitch about SOE the hardest, with the most profanities.  Fuckin' idiots.
 
Game Title: Planetside
When You Played:  subbed about 6 months a couple years ago
Your 'Main' Character: Trebler
Why You Quit: Not a bad game, just is obvious that there is little or no future for it.  No lore, very repetitive.

Game Title: Vanguard, waste of time to type out reasons.

I wish SOE would put up more money and development of existing games, instead of adding volume to the stable of suck (Station Access).

[Bunk]

Well, I'm sitting here working on Memorial Day with my thumb up my ass, so:

My MMoG history, as best I remember.

Game Title: UO
When You Played: Beta to one year in to Siege Perilous (never made it to the big split)
Your 'Main' Character: Bunktavious (gimpy bear tamer, golf club weilder)
Why You Quit: Urban Sprawl, losing track of the people I played with, repeated goofy rule changes.

Game Title: Asheron's Call
When You Played: From Day One, for about 2.5 years
Your 'Main' Character: Bunk (unarmed/bow with no Life Magic), Thrudd (mace fighter)
Why You Quit: Left Darktide after about a year, because of the leveling trees and bots. While AC was good for making pvp viable between varying level toons, eventually the spread just got too big for casual players like me. Continued playing on non-pvp for quite a while. Eventually quit becuase most of my guild had moved on.

Game Title: Star Wars Galaxies
When You Played: From about four months in, played probably 8 months
Your 'Main' Character: Kaede (pistoleer/tailor/ranger/entertainer)
Why You Quit: The day I realized that I was logging in everyday to check my factories, and it felt more like a job than a game. I really liked the idea of how the social and trade classes worked, but they needed a better mechanic for advancement than just plain grinding. Once everyone started grinding Holocrons (worst ider ever!) there were suddenly Master tradespeople everywhere who had grinded there way there in days - it took away the sense of accomplishment for the casual player. I tried the game again very briefly after the big change - as soon as I discovered that if I wanted to play an entertainer or tradesman, that I would never be able to kill anything tougher than a beetle, I immeditely dropped it again.

Game Title: Shadowbane
When You Played: For about two months after launch
Your 'Main' Character: Bunk (Shade Scout)
Why You Quit: my original guild was formed on message boards almost two years before the game launched. We were established, built up, and finally self destructed before the game even launched (you may remember this group Grim, you were smart enough to leave earlier). Once the game launched, I ended up playing with a random guild that let me join. Was fun for about two seiges... Just wasn't that great a game.

Game Title: City of Heroes
When You Played: a few months after launch, for maybe 3 months
Your 'Main' Character: Bunk (radiation controller I think)
Why You Quit: GRIND!!! Endless GRIND!!! Just found the combat way too repetitive and the curve over which you gained new powers way too slow. The character creator is all that kept me there for as long as I was.

Game Title: WoW
When You Played: about six months after launch to now
Your 'Main' Character: Bunktavious (dwarf hunter/engineer)
Why You Quit: stopped playing from time to time, but have never quit. Playing another reroll again now. The game works for a casual player like me. I know I'll never be involved in the high end raid stuff, but that's ok - I usually start a new character before the last one hits 30. It's a simple, addictive, and well pollished game, that lets casual soloists play.

Game Title: MEO
When You Played: beta, for about one week a few months back
Your 'Main' Character: can't remember
Why You Quit: hated the combat, hated the animations, wasn't a big fan of the art. Being Middle Earth wasn't enough to make me care.

[Murgos]

This last time I unsubbed it was because I COULD NOT BUY KUNARK without paying for, again, everything I already owned.  To which I still feel I should add a hearty 'fuck you SOE'.

Hmm, I used the new Sony launcher, and they have a record of all I have purchased, so all I needed to do was download my previous purchases. http://launcher.station.sony.com/

Right they have a record of everything I have purchased.  Which is everything except the Kunark expansion.

See if you can find the Kunark expansion that doesn't include everything else.  I would have bought Kunark for 25 or 30 bucks but when the price was 40 and there was no option to get it cheaper with out all the stuff I already own I pretty much said screw it, and decided not to support that business model.

[Mrbloodworth]

Holy Shit! I've got a free month of Planetside comin' to me!

... oh yeah. 1.33 hrs of patching. 

Server merge just happened, Battles are huge again. Good times to be had.

[shiznitz]

Game Title:EQ1
When You Played:1999-2000 / 2001-2002
Your 'Main' Character:Sarlyn / Shiz
Why You Quit:Camping the ranger leggings killed me and 3 guilds collapsed in rapid succession / new baby made raiding impossible

Game Title:PS
When You Played:off and on since launch
Your 'Main' Character:MrJoshua
Why You Quit:Game just gets old after 3 months and taking time off makes me suck again


Game Title:Vanguard
When You Played:launch month plus a little
Your 'Main' Character:Darkmane, Pai
Why You Quit:Travel time sinks, especially to train new spells. Loved group combat but groups were hard to find and dungeons required 2 hours+ committment.

[Ratman_tf]

Holy Shit! I've got a free month of Planetside comin' to me!

... oh yeah. 1.33 hrs of patching. 

Server merge just happened, Battles are huge again. Good times to be had.

I saw that. I got about a days worth, capped some bases and shot some guys, and then they shut me down again. 

If I had the fun money, I'd be temped to sub up again for a little bit.

[Rokal]

SOE Titles:

Everquest 2
Played: September-October 2007, March-April 2008
Characters: Rokal (Fey Swashbuckler), Rokal (Sarnak Inquisitor)
Why I Quit: The first time I quit because I didn't like how spammy the Swashbuckler felt to play. I had like 30 spells that all did virtually the same thing. Combat was based on choosing which spell to select based on whether it was ready or not, not based on which spell fit the situation best. Because of this, all combat played out exactly the same where you hit like 8 buttons at the start of combat and then re-cast a few of them when they were up. I had been playing WoW, where less was more and the abilities really stood on their own instead of just seeming like more of the same. There was no excitement in leveling up because whatever spell I got would just be the same exact shit as before only under a new name. I didn't level any other classes high enough to see if they had the same issues, but I could tell they did. Also, me and a few friends tried the Splitpaw Saga dungeons, and we unanimously agreed they were awful. This was add-on content that came out after launch, that we paid extra money for, and it was far worse than even the starter dungeons in WoW.

The second time, I came back because I heard combat had been condensed and the new race looked cool. I got to the exact same level as before (think it was 26) before deciding to quit again. Again, I disliked the combat. It seemed like the number of abilities I had was cut down and condensed somewhat, like I'd wanted. However, once I started grouping I realized that combat in groups was just a cluster-fuck where everyone spammed whatever they had until the enemy was dead. Because the spell effects in EQ2 were so grandiose, you could hardly tell what was going on or make out who was doing what. Playing as a group of 3 in EQ2 felt as chaotic and blunt as a fight with 20 in WoW. The game has seen some really nice improvements over the years (such as not running like shit on decent systems anymore, a problem I recall at launch), but in the end the combat, spells, and classes sucked.

Vanguard
Played: August 2007
Character: Rokal (Kurashasa Psionicist)
Why I Quit: Game ran awful, was completely empty of players. I could play the latest FPS games on my system, or WoW or EQ2, and get at least 30 fps. In Vanguard, I would walk into a small empty town and my computer would hit 2-3 fps trying to load everything. The game didn't have stellar graphics to justify the problems either. Even with medium-low settings the game would look terrible and would play to match it.


Non-SoE

Dark Age of Camelot
Played: May 2003
Character: No idea, was a Reaver
Why I Quit: I joined the game too late in its lifespan to really get hooked on it. Grouping consisted of traveling to a non-instanced dungeon and killing random things inside it for however long you wanted to. I didn't really like that style.

World of Warcraft
Played: Launch-January 2008, April 2008-present
Character: Rokal (Dwarf Priest), Tellus (Tauren Druid)
Why I Quit: I disliked the direction the game was going. I had loved 40-man raids, and 25-man raids didn't live up to those memories. By the time we had killed Illidan I looked back on the raid instances in TBC and asked myself which of them were memorable. I could think of only 2-3 bosses out of 30+ that lived up to even the most basic post-MC bosses of Vanilla WoW. I've returned to play casually with a few friends, so I guess this entry is incomplete.

[Morat20]

Game Title: SWG
When Played: From about 3-6 months prior to JtL to CU
Main Character: Ler Dorrin
Reason for Leaving: Played with wife and friend. CU changes destroyed wife's character (Bioengineer), destroyed my character (TK/Architect), destroyed friend's character (Ranger/CH). I disliked the CU's new style, disliked having to utterly change my character, and disliked having the game entirely rewritten under my feet. Was unwilling to tolerate the game's crushing level of bugs at that point. So -- gameplay changes, bugs, upheaval of game social network.

[sam, an eggplant]

Game: EQ1
Time: 1999-2000, quit a month or two after kunark
Main character: Geez, I can't remember. I think "slant", a shaman.
Why I quit: Abashi, general burnout, wasting entire nights sitting at zonelines trying to find groups, not enough content to consume, glacially slow advancement, clueless designers/developers, and did I mention Abashi? Also, Abashi.

Game: Planetside
Time: don't remember
Main: don't remember
Why I quit: Never grabbed me. No guidance, no community. Didn't last past the trial.

Game: EQ2
Time: 2006?
Main character: don't remember
Why I quit: Took me years to even look at this after EQ1. Also didn't make it past the trial. I thought I'd try it with the new faerie intro area. It was fairly well done, but nothing special. More of the same, so I uninstalled.

Game: SWG
Time: 2005?
Main: don't remember
Why I quit: Again, didn't make it past the trial. I ran around and everything was empty. Also, HAM. Please.

[Ubvman]

Game Title: Everquest
When You Played: 1999 - 2006
'Main' Character: Enchanter (Level 71)
Why You quit: I temporarily "retired" to deal with some family issues in early 2006. By the time I came back a few months later, the level cap was up to 75 (from 70), my old guild had broken and the game had thoroughly palled to me. A lot of the gameplay felt old, tired and unnecessarily punishing. On top of that, since I was a hardcore raider - it was impossible for me to get backflagged for the content and levels (and the new aaxps) that I missed in my absence. Once you quit or take a leave of absence, there are far too many roadblocks in EQ1 for you to come back. Final nail in coffin - started playing WoW soon after.

Game Title: Star Wars Galaxies
When You Played: somewhen 2006 (in the above hiatus)
Your 'Main' Character: I forget - he never lasted beyond the tutorial or thereabouts.
Why You Quit: I was so NOT impressed. NGE? Star Wars experience? blah...

[Salamok]

Game Title: EverQuest I
When You Played: 1999-2004
Your 'Main' Character:Salamok
Why You Quit:I needed to scale back from my 40+ hour a week game fiesta, unfortunately once I scaled back I realized there simply wasn't very much you could do in the game in under a 2 hour session that was fun.  The entire point of playing an MMO for me was to play with friends and after I scaled back it wasn't long before the content they were accessing was beyond me.  9 months after I quit WoW came out and for the 1st year or 2 it actually had a decent amount of fun "trivial" content.

Game Title: WoW
When You Played: 2004?-2007  (can't remember when it came out Nov 04 or 05??)
Your 'Main' Character:Salamok
Why You Quit:Fun stuff but they did the item stat shuffle on me 1 too many times and the game shifted away from what I originally liked, mostly enjoyed top notch/fast paced 5man content and the game definately shifted away from that (until TBC then it was in style for all of 6 more months).

Both EQ and WoW started out with awesome worlds that were a wonder to explore and have fun in, somewhere along the way focus shifted from designing content for people to see to designing ways to deny people from seeing your new content.  flagging and factioning sucks for the casual gamer, it even sucks for the hard core gamer they just put up with it because it helps maintain the equipment gap between them and the casuals.

[FatuousTwat]

I think I've at least beta-tested every big western mmo to come out since DAoC. Here are some I actually remember playing.

Game Title: EQ1
When You Played: For about 2 days when I stayed over at a friends house for spring break I think in 2000?
Why You Quit: I had some fun playing it, but I promptly forgot about it as soon as I left the friends house.

Game Title: Dark Age of Camelot
When You Played: Release - Early 2005 off and on.
Why You Quit: Mainly it was the fact that by the time I got to level 50 (final level and time to pvp) they had changed the class balances and made the character I played (Sword/Board Champion) pretty much useless... Then they added the whole artifact system, and that just killed it for me.

Game Title: ShadowBane
When You Played: Beta, then for about 6 months after that.
Why You Quit: The biggest alliance became overwhelmingly powerful and would crush any opposing city before it could gain more than a toe-hold (my guild was part of said alliance). Something happened that very few people seem to think about when they think of an open PvP world. Instead of an overabundance of chaos, where people are grave camping and high levels are wtf-pwning newbs, there was an overabundance of law, and people could only fight in the “Arena”. I'm sure they were overthrown eventually, but I didn't want to start gaining new guild-ties on a different server.

As a friend put it: "In the begining only a handful could own cities. They were such a huge investments, people got greedy and were fearful of losing their cities, so each server essentially had 3-5 guilds that allied and owned the server."

I actually had a lot of fun in PvP (before the whole arena fiasco at least), but the PvE seemed to be a pointless time-sink. People in my guild were asking to power-level me within a week of release.

Game Title: Lineage 2
When You Played: Not sure, sometime around release for about 2 months.
Why You Quit: At times it felt like me and the 4 friends I played with were the only people on other than bots, limited character customization, I'm not too fond of grindy bullshit.

Game Title: WoW
When You Played: Mid 2006
Why You Quit: I got to the point where I could start raiding with my guild, and hated it. When I asked if this was the only option for end game, I got a yes.

Game Title: Lotro
When You Played: Beta for about 6 months.
Why You Quit: It was pretty much WoW with a few cool bits tacked on.

Game Title: Tabula Rasa
When You Played: Again, beta for about 6 months, could have been more.
Why You Quit: Early on in the beta, it was a ton of fun. They made it 2x more grindy by lowering PC damage while lowering xp rates and increasing mob damage. If they could have had some meaningful end game content, it might have been great.

Game Title: EvE online
When You Played: 2004 - Early 2008 off and on.
Why You Quit: I couldn't find a corp I liked playing with, or one that pvped enough for my liking. I wasn't satisfied with the character progression.

Game Title: Age of Conan
When You Played: For about a month in beta.
Why You Quit: It seemed like they were releasing the game about 6 months too early, but I've chosen to withhold judgement for a few months to see if it turns out to have half of the things they offered working right.

In between these I beta tested EQ2, PotBS, Vanguard, EQ2, The Matrix Online, and a bunch of others I can't even remember the names of. Either they were all buggy messes, or I just didn't have fun playing them. To go along with those, I played quite a few kmmos, pretty much read the Lineage 2 review above for my views on them.

Just for shits and giggles, I tried to tally up the number of mmos I've played and I think it is around 15, including betas, but not kmmos.

Sorry for the TL:DR post. 

Edit: I almost forgot PlanetSide! I had some good times with some Bat Country people in that game. I think ultimately I quit because half the time I couldn't find a battle (that and I got my shit pushed in all the time... Must have been because I was limited to br6 or whatever  ).

[Sky]

Game Title: UO
When You Played: Beta - 2000 or 2001
Your 'Main' Character: Sky
Why You Quit: Trammel. Came back and played Siege Perilous for about a year until they lifted a lot of the restrictions that made it a good server.

Game Title: EQ
When You Played: Beta - A couple months after launch
Why You Quit: Loot whoring, training, kill stealing. Broken players.

Game Title: EQ
When You Played: Kunark - Luclin
Why You Quit: Got tired of group-focused game design. Actual straw was while exploring Luclin. Saw a blue, dropped invis and conned it indifferent. Went to hail it and it attacked and wiped me instantly. Logged off and canceled.

Game Title: PS
When You Played: Beta - on and off for a few years.
Your 'Main' Character: Komoto-K
Why You Quit: Odd dev decisions. Weird code changes for balancing, garbage cave expansion, cave expansion reqs for the battle bots. Finally just got to be a dated product with too many years of dev changes (See: UO). Would love to have a modern PS.

Game Title: EQ2
When You Played: Launch on and off until a couple months ago
Your 'Main' Character: Vith (SK)
Why You Quit: Bought a house. Middlingly discontent with the amount of group content, but there was enough solo content to keep me around, I'd still be playing if I hadn't bought the house, I will play in the future when things settle down. Would like to get the Station Access stuff moved to the normal sub price, it's like holding my characters hostage. $30/mo is too much, so the price increases are a part of it, I guess. Maybe moving the guild and web perks to the Access Pass would make it more attractive.

Game Title: WoW
When You Played: Launch for about six months
Your 'Main' Character: Grukla (Hunter)
Why You Quit: Endgame blows. Raids, meh. Elite mobs. Group-only dungeons (also a peeve in EQ2).

Game Title: CoH/V
When You Played: Beta on and off until last year
Why You Quit: Even trying to ignore the grind the game gets a little grindy. Still a lot of fun and I often get the urge to play.



Leaving out a bunch that I don't really have any constructive comments for. DAoC was kinda meh for me, just didn't click. AO...well, was AO. Ok, in AO I think it was the fucking shopping. AC also just didn't click. SWG hologrind, but mostly just not clicking, either. If you had the time and dedication it was probably a great game (like early UO). I ran out of both. Also, HAM. And clueless devs who ignored the community despite having community reps. I remember trying to explain the whole rifleman fiasco and getting the internet equivalent of a blank stare. Dev: "Doing unhealable mind damage is your strength!" Me: "But it damages OUR mind pool to deal it!?!" Or the whole 'pistols are better ranged weapons than rifles' thing. What a mess.

[5150]

You can absolutely 100% quote me in an internal document

Game Title: SWG
When You Played: 1 week after US launch until NGE
Your 'Main' Character: Akanseh (Eclipse)
Why You Quit: NGE (I was able to put up with the CSRs, the CU and being a Droid Engineer but the NGE finally killed the game and SOE for me)

Game Title: Planetside
When You Played: No idea, initially only the free month and then another month when Core Combat was released, then alongside SWG (Station Access) + free account I used occasionally occasionally after I cancelled Station Access
Your 'Main' Character: Warlock (Werner)
Why You Quit: Pre Station Access: Fun for short periods but not worth a monthly fee, faction inbalances; Station Access: SWG NGE

Game Title: Everquest
When You Played: No idea
Your 'Main' Character: No idea + Alongside SWG (Station Access)
Why You Quit: Pre Station Access: Graphics too dated, Station Access: SWG NGE

Game Title: Everquest 2
When You Played: Alongside SWG (Station Access)
Your 'Main' Character: Zaraza (which I discovered while playing EQ2 is apparently something offensive in Russian)
Why You Quit: SWG NGE

Game Title: Everquest Online Adventures
When You Played: Alongside SWG (Station Access)
Your 'Main' Character: No idea (didn't really play, Graphics too dated)
Why You Quit: SWG NGE

Game Title: Matrix Online
When You Played: Beta + Alonside SWG (Station Access)
Your 'Main' Character: Crash Dump (I think)
Why You Quit: SWG NGE

Game Title: Pirates of the Burning Sea
When You Played: Beta
Your 'Main' Character: No idea
Why You Won't Pay For It: SWG NGE

It's probably also worth noting that since unsubscribing from Station Access I have purchased Vanguard and Pirates of the Burning Sea, but on principle (see SWG NGE) I will not pay SOE to play these games (i.e. I'll play the free time only) - its also worth mentioning I bought both brand new on eBay for ~$5 each (<£10 actually)

Non-SOE

Game Title: Anarchy Online
When You Played: ~6 months after launch for 12 months + when free account went live (don't really play the free one though)
Your 'Main' Character: Technoman (Rubika 1)
Why You Quit: Lack of story, Grindy treadmill, difficult to solo, borked economy, spawn timers, drop rates, loot level ranges

Game Title: Neocron/Neocron 2
When You Played: Open Beta & Launch + 12 months, Neocron 2 launch for 1 month + 2 free activations IIRC
Your 'Main' Character: Rafe Zetter (English, 4 slot server)
Why You Quit: The only reason I played for a year was I was awarded a free years subscription from the developer (long story) I would have quit due to bugs/lack of patching/story long before then otherwise

Game Title: Dark Age Of Camelot
When You Played: No idea, 1 month initially, 1 month on release of first expansion.
Your 'Main' Character: No idea
Why You Quit: Grindy Treadmill

Game Title: Eve Online
When You Played: Launch for a few months, 1 year + off, back for a month, 1+ year off, back for over a year now (since quitting SWG)
Your 'Main' Character: Sol Basso
Why You Quit/Are Still Playing: Mining/missions very boring, only playing now because of PvP really and lack of anything else worth playing

Game Title: City Of Heroes
When You Played: A few months prior to Euro launch for 1 month, Euro Beta + a couple of free activations
Your 'Main' Character: Red Megaman (on the first server in the list)
Why You Quit: Turned into a boring grind around level 10, difficult to solo in places, no depth.

Game Title: Guild Wars
When You Played: No idea
Your 'Main' Character: No idea
Why You Don't Play It: I was never really able to get into it.

Game Title: World Of Warraft
When You Played: No idea, 10 day buddy key
Your 'Main' Character: No idea
Why You Didn't Buy It: Graphics too cartoon-like, grindy treadmill

Game Title: RF Online
When You Played: Since it went free
Your 'Main' Character: No idea
Why You Don't Play: Grindy treadmill

Game Title: Archlord
When You Played: Since it went free
Your 'Main' Character: No idea
Why You Don't Play: Grindy treadmill, Lag

Game Title: Dungeons & Dragons Online
When You Played: Beta
Your 'Main' Character: None
Why You didn't play: Didn't work on XP 64 bit IIRC

Game Title: Earth & Beyond
When You Played: Beta
Your 'Main' Character: No idea
Why You Didn't Buy It: Didn't like it enough to buy it (Monsters in space for example)

Game Title: Auto Assault
When You Played: Beta
Your 'Main' Character: No idea
Why You Quit: Wasn't worth the monthly fee

Game Title: Seed
When You Played: Beta
Your 'Main' Character: None
Why You didn't play: Didn't work on XP 64 bit IIRC

Game Title: Lord Of The Rings Online
When You Played: Beta
Your 'Main' Character: No Idea
Why You Didn't Buy It: Grindy treadmill

Game Title: Pirates of the Carribean Online
When You Played: Beta
Your 'Main' Character: No Idea (but I remember they wouldnt let me have Captain Yellowbeard)
Why You Didn't Buy It: Shallow, boring, disney

Game Title: Bounty Bay
When You Played: Beta
Your 'Main' Character: None
Why You Didn't Buy It: Didn't work on XP 64 bit IIRC

[Bregor]

Game Title: SWG
When You Played: US Launch until ~6 months after
Your Main Character: Cleetos Cicano (Radiant)
Why You Quit: Bored, unbalanced PvP due to Mind damage being >>>>>>> anything else.

Game Title: Planetside
When You Played: Open Beta until 1yr after release, off and on next few years
Your Main Character: Macharius, TR/Markov
Why You Quit: Lag.

Game Title: Pirates of the Burning Sea
When You Played: Pre-release to 1 month after
Your Main Character: Scarlett Wood, Pirate/Antigua?
Why You Quit: Firewall/connection issues with my ISP (could not connect)

[Xanthippe]

Game Title: DAOC
When You Played: from open beta to ToA
Your Main Character: Shaman
Why You Quit: ToA expansion - pve sucked, pvp was great, but having to level equipment in order to pvp was ludicrous.

Game Title: WoW
When You Played: open beta to now
Your Main Character: Hunter
Why You Quit: I have never actually quit, but have taken a couple of breaks due to boredom.  I don't raid, but just battleground and craft. 

Game Title: Pirates of the Burning Sea
When You Played: Pre-release, bought box, it still sits unopened
Your Main Character: Freetrader
Why You Quit: land combat broken, trading broken, too much unfun

Game Title: CoH/V
When You Played: from open beta to now, off and on
Why You Quit: Grindy.  I keep going back to it for casualtastic fun, but after a few months it feels too much the same.

Game Title:  LoTRO
When You Played: beta to few months after launch
Why You Quit:  Pretty, but fundamentally not much fun - combat wasn't much fun.  PvP wasn't much fun.  It was ok but nothing was great.

Tried EQ1, lasted about 4 hours, tried EQ2, lasted a month or two.  Neither of those games engaged me for some reason.

[MisterNoisy]

Game Title:  EverQuest
When You Played:  Launch to about 9 months after; resubbed some time after Kunark for a few months
Your Main Character:  Ranger/Test - got to early 40's before I quit
Why You Quit:  Lack of solo content and generally punitive gameplay

Game Title:  City of Heroes/Villains
When You Played:  I7-I9
Your Main Character:  Mind/Psi Dominator/Infinity - got that one and a few others to mid-20's before I quit
Why You Quit:  More grind; one can only make so many alts

Game Title:  WoW
When You Played:  6 months after launch until 3-4 months before BC; resubbed at BC launch until late last year.
Your Main Character:  Hunter and a couple other alts I ran to 70/Draenor (US)
Why You Quit:  Endgame gear grind and the guild drama that comes with it

[Count Nerfedalot]

Game Title: EQ
When Played: Beta to Jan 2004 (I think)
Main Character: Half-elf Druid
Why I Quit: There are many, many, many straws on that camel's broken back, including but not limited to: bugs (and the way they were or often weren't handled by Sony), tedium, down-time, travel times, corpse recovery times, forced grouping, class unwanted/unneeded in groups, "camp check!", broken quests, broken crafting, broken promises, pointless crafting, crafting as a time and money sink, friends out-leveled me with no way to group, keys/flags & other obnoxious content-gating techniques, Abashi, Aradune & general corporate contempt for customers, unreasonable bannings, corporate doublespeak, foraging for morning dew, alchemy, far too much wasted time between "fun" moments finding group + travelling + buffing + travelling some more + waiting on stragglers + replacing dropouts + rebuffing + finally entering zone only to wipe to a train and have to start all over again, spending 90% of the time not wasted getting a group going sitting on my ass in one spot waiting for mana before the next pull, death penalties, quest lines that abruptly ended and were never updated even years later, camping for the Paw of Opalla, helping my wife camp a stump a week for some Cleric quest, mobs that never stopped chasing you, mobs that attacked you through walls and terrain, mobs that teleported onto you if you managed to outrun them, MONTHS of playing several hours every single night and not gaining a single level.

Game Title: SWG
When Played: Release (or open beta?) to just prior to CU
Main Character: Pistoleer/Artisan/Scout
Why I Quit: broken designs, broken systems, broken servers, broken database, broken professions, broken combat system, broken content, broken crafting, broken game balance, broken combat abilities, broken guild tools, broken promises, broken dreams.  Learning to craft gimped your ability to combat.  Single character per server per account design, so if you wanted to craft AND do combat, you had to buy two accounts (and later, 2-box them in order to survive maintaining your harvesters).  Queues for buffs.  HAM.  Repeated attempts to coerce everyone into PvP without bothering to make it balanced or fun much less meaningful.  Crafting (when it worked) became a chore, and pretty much required an hour or more every single day just to maintain harvesters.  Droid Engineering.  Monsters spawning in your house.  Dieing just trying to get to my house.  Remote planets consisting of nearly impenetrable rings of mobs around the landing sites surrounded by vast swathes of empty land.  Lack of content.  Meaningless combat.  Combat that ignored walls and terrain. Creatures that were way too powerful and droids that were useless.  Holo-grinding.  Trying to get Mind damage healed.  Heh, and all that before the CU much less the NGE!    Oh, did I mention too much broken stuff? 

Game Title: EQ2
When Played: For just a month, around July 2007. Then casually from a few months ago to present.
Main Character: Fae Ranger
Why I Quit: Game ran like a spastic, one-legged, blind dog on my machine. Too many quests for rare drops from rare spawns.
Why I Came Back: Some minor hardware upgrades allowed the game to run like a spastic, THREE-legged, ONE-eyed dog. (yay for progress  )  Lots and lots of things done right (even if it took them two or three tries to get there). I figured out I could dump every quest I didn't like, and STILL never run out of quests that grayed out faster than I could do them, even with combat experience turned off.

[Raguel]

against my better judgment, I'm going to post post this for what seems like the gazillionth time, but the condensed, more sane version:

Game: EQ1
When Played: I forget, but I remember I started during the summer the year in launched, played off and on.
Main Character: Paladin
Why I quit: The grind. Nothing much compelling to do other than the grind. My best and worst experience in the game was the Falchion of the Koada Vie quest. Now, the reason I did this quest was because of the back story: the koada vie were a group that took orders directly from the King of the High Elves.  It turned out the only point of the quest was the sword.

[5150]

Holy Shit! I've got a free month of Planetside comin' to me!

... oh yeah. 1.33 hrs of patching. 

Server merge just happened, Battles are huge again. Good times to be had.

I saw that. I got about a days worth, capped some bases and shot some guys, and then they shut me down again. 

If I had the fun money, I'd be temped to sub up again for a little bit.

It was fun for about a week but reminded me of all the reason I never went beyond the free month initially.

While the merge may have been good news for US players, it didn't help the Euros (TR typically have the lowest pop yet their equipment/tactics are based on having lots of people available to man all those guns)

and there are still some imbalances in the game (just picking one at random the TR AA Max is crap against anything other than aircraft yet the other 2 AA Maxs are much more useful against non-aircraft)