Falling out of love with gaming

For the last couple of months I've been back on the EQ progressions server, now that it's reached stuff I've never done before. I don't play for that nostalgia shit, that just bores me. Of course I use my button-smash macro that I used in Rift EQ2 etc so I don't have to play whack-a-mole. Sometimes I wonder though if I'm enjoying it or if I'm just playing to stay busy.

I can't even remember what new games I enjoyed in the last six months to a year. Dark Souls was the best. Skyrim was good in spite of the same shit combat. BF3 was good until the new wore off. HOTS campaign I'm playing now and Blizz RTS are always good. Uh... occasional BLOPS2 (only COD I've played online so it's new to me). Legend of Grimrock was fantastic.. I haven't played Bioshock 3 or Dead Space 3 yet.

I'll have to do this at home where I can look up what even came out last year but it's pretty pathetic that I can't remember any other new titles that I liked.

Adebisi_sl said:

Maybe we need to start a "new hobbies" thread.

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If gaming companies don't stop appealing to the lowest common denominator, this is going to go from the most popular gaming site on the internet to the most popular new hobbies site on the internet faster than you can say Planes of Power.

I'm on the same boat. I stopped playing swtor a few weeks ago and I've been playing p99 Everquest casually (something I thought I would never be able to do).

I guess we are all growing old together.

Hold me

Gaming is a hobby, not a relationship.

I don't expect a hobby to define myself, and I don't expect a SINGLE hobby to have the breadth to satisfy my fun quotient.

That being said, I don't get hyped for games wholesale anymore. I don't buy games at midnight releases or go 'round in mental circles about pre-order bonuses, head starts or any other game-centric activities. But, I also don't do midnight releases for movies, buy GA tickets to concerts or give a 1/3 of a shit to be the FIRST bro to see/do/know the latest "thing."

For me, I just do whatever I like now, bollocks to the why. If I really wanted to like something, and it ends up being shit, then it's shit, and that's that. The side effect of this mentality is that I think pretty much everything is shit now.

Get more enjoyment out these forums and random bouts of furious masterbation with 100 grit sandpaper glove to gay porn. Then I do gaming now days. Most the shit I buy is half finished not because I don't have the time just no desire. MMO are now designed for 3 month commitments. Sad really now I been able to put together rigs for the last few years I could only dream bout back in the day.

Put me down for another one of those who seems to have fallen away from gaming.

I've gamed for most of my life. Started with NES and owned consoles like SNES, Gamecube, Wii, Sega Megadrive, PS1, PS2, PS3 and multiple gaming PCs throughout my life. However, once I hit my late 20s (I am 33 now) my interest and patience in games nosedived. For the first time in my life, I don't plan to buy any of the next generation consoles (I hardly touched my PS3).

I boot up a game, configure my controls and graphics, look at the title screen..... and then log off. I think I have got 30+ games on my steam account that I have played like 10 mins max each. They are not bad games too (Batman AA and AC, Bioshock 1-2, Mass Effect 1-2-3, Civ 5, Borderlands 1-2, Skyrim etc) it's just that I no longer have the patience to sit in front of a screen and play through it anymore. I estimated that if I played all of my games which I haven't finished yet to completion, it would take me approximately 2 or more years at around 2hrs gaming a day. Last game I've really enjoyed was POE and that held me casually for around 3-4 weeks but haven't logged in for over 2 weeks now.

I think I've given up on MMOs. Nothing seems even remotely interesting on the horizon and too much of a time commitment even if it is.

Funnily enough, I've gone full circle. When I started gaming, I gave the argument that it was better than spending time watching the television. Now, I rather watch TV series and movies rather than game. Also, spending so much time sitting down playing games throughout my years made me very unfit. I am now finding more enjoyment spending time working out at the gym and getting into shape than playing computer games.

I would put it down to work commitments, family life and in general getting older and having more responsibilies. Maybe it will change in the future and I will enjoy playing games again with my kid (if and when I start a family) but I kind of doubt it.

The only games that totally consume me these days are when I load up a new 4X game. Then I'm only playing for a week before I'm bored.

However, I have been playing Neverwinter a lot lately. When I say a lot, I mean about 8 hours a week due to having a newborn at home.

gaming holding pattern: Emulated EverQuest solo servers (they're silly fun), Project Reality and Minecraft.

Asherah_sl said:

Yeah, I think WoW pretty much killed the genre with it's success. Simply put, no one is willing to invest serious money in something that deviates too much from the WoW formula. This means that anything original will be made on a shoe string budget and will be unlikely to have the kind of polish that players expect today.

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Which is retarded, ain't it? You have one example of money-hat success, and like a dozen attempted clones that failed and either ended up as shark-bait, or floating around on the F2P life-raft. How many more failures will it take? What's the definition of insanity again?

In my opinion, making a WoW clone is actuallymorerisky than trying something new, wish the money men would figure that shit out.

I'm to the point where I can only find time to game during the winter months when I can't be outside. Too many things that keep me busy at this point in my life during the summer months.

Raes_sl said:

In my opinion, making a WoW clone is actuallymorerisky than trying something new, wish the money men would figure that shit out.

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Yeah, even if you somehow manage to sell a lot of boxes it's going to be extremely hard to retain the players considering the majority of the player base will already have played WoW for a bunch of years. On the other hand, given the long development cycles of big budget MMOs I guess that some companies already were committed by the time it became obvious that making big budget WoW-clones was a bad idea.

Last good one was XCOM for me and it was still good despite less sand box appeal than the original and I think campaign should have gone as far as the original

Nirgon_sl said:

Last good one was XCOM for me and it was still good despite less sand box appeal than the original and I think campaign should have gone as far as the original

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Agreed. The new XCOM was brutal. I loved it for that.

There are many good games out there, but if you're looking for games that suck up hundreds of days played ala EQ or WoW, there isn't a fresh game capturing a ton of people getting that kind of result. The only games currently played like MMOS by any gamers are competitive multiplayer titles only and Minecraft. Things Like Dota 2, League of Legends, CS, Starcraft 2 etc. These games get played at mmo level of time investment by people who really like them. It really depends on what kind of games you play.

In the past year, I've played and enjoyed a good 10-12 titles, but I've also played a ton of dota 2. I would suggest that vague threads like this get watered down by putting the whole industry in a giant tub. When really it comes down to peoples tastes, I have mmo playing friends who would be gamers, but they don't really game. The genres they play the types they like are narrow. Plenty of amazing gaming experiences I've had, they have no interest in. This board has a great many mmo types, and mmo's have not really had another mover or shaker in nearing 10 years, WoW is still the benchmark, its not retired and ancient and nostalgic yet like EQ. WoW 2004 is different than Wow 2013, but not that different.

TLDR; if you don't have a narrow taste in games, there are a lot of very good games out their to fill up your time. If you have narrow tastes, hope you like the genre that's having a good time of it currently.

I need to figure out a way to enjoy Minecraft more. I think it could hook me in, but I haven't figured out how to have it do so yet.

Nothing new. Theres only been 2 games that have been good in mmo history of all time. EQ/WOW. High hopes for EQN!