MMO's anyone?

[cannon_fodder]

Generalization is never gonna do you any well.

But I've hated every MMO I've played. It's horribly unlikely that I'll ever like one. By the way, I meant to say "MMORPGs", not "MMOs". Lucjan expressed the essence of why I don't like MMORPGs, and rarely get into any online games.

[Crandaeolon]

Crand's comments about the skill required for Guild Wars in PVP are 100% spot-on, although as stated it's not a MMO.

Having said all that, I personally still don't like Guild Wars PVP that much because to me it is not inherently fun due to the boring atmosphere (it doesn't "feel" like an RPG at all)

Yep, it's not at all like a traditional RPG. But then again, competitive games usually don't strive for realism or atmosphere. Accurate simulators have their own inherent problems with game balance; usually some technique, strategy or piece of equipment dominates over others and need to be limited artificially, for example snipers in many shooters. The real world has some serious balance issues too!

For competitive playing I much prefer games that achieve a good balance and have sufficient mechanics to distinguish skill, even at the cost of feeling "gamey." But I guess it all depends on what one is looking for.

amount of time it takes to make a full team of good players (typically 1 - 3 hours of waiting around for a 20 - 30 minute run of actual play time)

This is indeed a problem with Guild Wars, but that's where organisational skills come into play. For my guild, wait times are something like 10-20 mins or even less before a guild battle run that lasts for a couple of hours or however long people can play. But yes, with pick-up groups or less well organised guilds wait times can be a lot longer.

and very poor rewards for being successful.

Haha, I've got a shiny silver lining on my cape now!

But seriously, I'd rather keep the playing field level than reward players with gameplay advantages. There could be more purely cosmetic rewards of course, but I don't really care. In-game gold or item rewards would translate into cosmetic stuff anyways. Something that has been talked about and will probably be implemented is different coloured guild tags based on guild rank, or guild rank titles.

[Mikeus Caesar]

MMO's bore me to death.

Where's the fun in levelling up for hours and hours? Where's the reward in it?

I personally prefer RTS's and FPS's. At least playing them you feel you've achieved something.

At least with FPS's there's a cool, if rather interactive storyline. With MMO's, the only objective is to level up. What do you do once you've done that?

And when i say interactive storylines, i mean it.

"OH GOD, I'M COVERED IN BLOOD. GET ME SOME CILLIT BANG, STAT!"

[cannon_fodder]

^ Yep. One individual winning out due to a statistical advantage that itself was not even earned is completely bunk. MMORPGs are terrible.

[Sir Moody]

You should try EVE - its one of the few MMORPG's which actually relies more on skill than stats (since there arnt really any stats just ships) only porblem is because of that yo ucant get anything done alone and you need to have friends..... lots of friends with big ships - at least that was true when i played it i hear its better now for those who dont want to get involved in the massive battles on the rim