What's Your MMO Motivation?

As we trade in console games hand over fist and single-player PC games just gather dust, what keeps us loyally (or hopefully) playing MMORPGs year after year? Ethec examines some of the core motivations behind long-term MMO gaming.

Many looked to the casual trend in recent MMOs to make community interaction more palatable, and it's true that the genre really has opened up; you hardly ever hear the word "cannibalizing" used to describe the introduction of a new game into the genre anymore. Sadly, there's a downside of making a game friendly to casual players: casual communities tend to be sizable, but not deep. I hate to say it, but you need frustratingly long periods of downtime between battles (the long, frustrating spawn-camping sessions and the periods between fights to med / heal up of the EQLive days) to want to discover anything substantial about the players around you, that is, beyond that they know their role in the combat encounter. This is why so-called "niche" MMOs are still viable; while their subscriber numbers pale in comparison to WoW, their highly inclusive communities tend to have deep-roots.

Check out our MMO Motivation editorial- as well at our other community site managers' takes on what keeps them playing their particular game- today at TenTonHammer!