Overly Positive

Syp has a notion regarding returning to an MMO, with LOTRO being the most recent foray back from other shores. Syp talks a bit about his experiences logging on, what’s changed, and how the community reacted to his need to accomplish game tasks.

I’m seeing this trend more and more among my fellow bloggers and MMO players in general – this thing about going back to a game you previously played for various reasons. Some go back because others are in the mix that they miss gaming with. Some go back because something else in another game has turned them off. And yet others go back because of a sense of nostalgia, a fond remembrance of good times and many hours spent in a favorite game.

Pessimists among us would say the mass return of players to various MMOs is a reflection of poor quality on the market’s current offerings and their staying power. But you know me – I’m always a sunny person with these things, and going back to MMOs you like is not necessarily a doom and gloom notion about the market as a whole. Really, I think that current MMOs, if they don’t satisfy someone, speak to a desire that he or she wants out of a game – one that can only sometimes be found in a game they played before. Leaving an MMO for the “new and shiny” and then coming back, also known as the “MMO Tourism” syndrome, is not terribly awful because people learn more keenly what they want and desire out of a game. General notions of “fun” and “cool” turn into more specific things such as “balanced, fast-paced PvP” or “dungeon crawls with bosses that aren’t just a tank-and-spank affair”.

Putting the tourism argument aside, there’s nothing wrong with nostalgia, either. In our general culture, “nostalgia” and its revival today is met many times with positive reaction. Sure, there are some movie remakes or TV show “reimaginings” that have flopped, but for every failure there is at least 1 or 2 successes that are successful at bringing back old feelings. Such as it is with MMOs, with Blizzard being the most visible of examples with the upcoming Cataclysm. This kind of re-visitation is not a weakening of the current market but a strengthening of the core things that make MMOs a success, and trust me – developers are watching what tweaks a player’s sense of good times.

I myself have forayed back into WAR for a bit. Mythic may have had its challenges, but the greeting of a returning player is certainly not one of them. You get pop-up entries of what’s changed, a new user experience that gives you a tutorial of game controls both new and old, and a real easy way to get back into the game with things like a limited, but endless, free trial. Along with the instant gratification PvP and casual nature of the game, it’s nice to come back to a title that doesn’t demand my attention in hours-long raids or a grind that would make Greek rock-pusher Sisyphus cry. I’d have never found out what I really wanted in an MMO had I not tried others to find out – and I suspect some of the rest of you have the same experience. Viva la Old School!