What will make you hate a MMO?(Part 2)

We have listed 5 reasons before, so go on the rest.
#5 It's in Direct Competition with MMO Y, Which is Much More Awesome

This is one of the reasons on this list that doesn't actually get said very often. That's why I didn't provide a made-up quote for it. You really don't get many people saying, "I hate MMO X because I'm afraid it'll somehow make MMO Y a worse game," but those people, with that exact same reasoning, always seem to crop up around the newest MMO launch.

I don't know why it is that there seems to be the illusion out there that if one MMO does well, then it will obviously seriously negatively impact whatever game it is what we happen to be playing and enjoying at the time. Most times, that's not going to be the case, but that doesn't stop people from hating one game out of loyalty to another.

#4 It's Made by Company Z, It Must Suck

"This game sounds like it would be good, but if company Z is involved, I don't want any part of it."

We've all head this particular complaint before, and really, we've probably heard it about almost every MMO company out there. Everyone, it seems, has an axe to grind with one MMO studio or another. Maybe it was over a personal dispute, maybe over a perceived honesty issue, or maybe it's just because that studio's aion kinah last game happened to be a dud.

This particular complaint, I think, has a lot of merit on a personal level. I think that if someone feels burnt by a particular company, then not purchasing their products in the future is a good way of expressing that. I get confused though when some people feel as though their own personal bad experience should be a reason for others to boycott. On a personal level, it works fine, but on a larger, more public level, it's usually the quality of the product that's going to win out.

#3 It's a Grindfest

"This game is a waste of money, it's nothing but a typical grindfest."

First of all, doesn't the term grindfest sound like some kind of heavy metal outdoor concert, or is that just me?

In all seriousness, listening to the litany of people who list too grindy as a reason to hate any given MMO, it seems like this might be the number one problem facing our genre. Why then is it listed at number three? Well, it's because there doesn't seem to be any consensus on what the grind actually is. Is it questing? Is it killing for XP? Is it anything that isn't the endgame?

Grind is another of those MMO terms that gets used to cover a lot of bases, and it means something different to almost everyone. In general though, it means: this game gets tedious, which is never, ever a positive sign.

#2 Microtransactions are the Devil

"MMO X is Just a Scam to get People to Spend Money in the Item Shop."

If you were to ask me, and you didn't but I'm telling you anyway, the word of the last year was microtransactions. 2009 was the year when complaints began to flood in about games and their item shops. Whether it was F2P games in general, or P2P games doing a little bit of extra dipping by way of item shops, Micortransactions became the MMO thing we loved to hate.

While I think it's silly to judge a game solely on the way that it monetizes itself, in the end this one speaks directly to each player and their money. I completely respect people's rights to use their wallets in any way they see fit. cheap aion kinah I use mine as a paperweight.

#1 WoW Clone

"MMO X is nothing but another WoW clone."

That's right folks, our #1 reason to hate MMO X is your favorite complaint and mine: It's a WoW clone.

World of Warcraft, being the biggest thing to happen in the MMO industry and possibly the video game industry as a whole, was bound to start setting trends in the way that these games are made. Still, that doesn't excuse the games out there that set out to make their games as much like WoW as possible without getting sued. It's lazy and isn't going to fool anyone.

That being said, there's a flip side to this coin, as WoW clone has started to be used not just to describe games that genuinely rip off WoW, but also to describe the traditional theme park MMO which, despite WoW's massive popularity, Blizzard did not invent.