These fucking things destroy my soul. I have played 2 of them now, WoW and TOR. I played both for the pretty areas and story. I played WoW because it was the pinnacle of the genre and I played TOR because it's Bioware and story-focused.

The entire time I play I see the manipulation. The entire time I see the ways they lengthen my playtime, annoy me and then try and rope me in with loot, progression and a feeling of power of others. The game is so blatantly rigged and there is no attempt to hide it. Playing to enjoy yourself is shunned, you're meant to play it like work.

In every other genre things are getting more accessible, more focused on fun, more focused on streamlining. In MMOs the focus is on making you play as long as possible to achieve little candy pellets. It's fucking terrible! Endless trash mobs, like literally endless. I think I am having nightmares of a valley filled with mobs a level below me and a quest objective in the middle of them. Death penalties, closed off content, endless, ENDLESS nonsense.

And it's a shame, because both WoW and TOR had awesome aspects I appreciated. WoW's design work and production quality was great, I still have that goblin city music in my head since the one month I played. TOR has an excellent story, the imperial agent storyline quests felt as good as something from KotOR 3, had it existed. The punishing and downright soul crushing gameplay of both games kills me though. I honestly feel dirty for having played it for a couple weeks.

So... why do you play these things? What makes it enjoyable for you?

Well, I don't play themepark mmo's anymore so I'm not sure I can answer properly. I don't play themepark mmorpgs for many of the reasons you listed plus other reasons as well. I've never played WOW or SWTOR and I never will.

I do play mmorpg sandboxes though...the only problem is that most of the (presumably) best ones are not out yet. Most of the ones currently released have their own set of problems. So I'm sitting back and waiting for one to come along that is worth my time and money.

I no longer play MMOs or similar for the reasons that you list. If I'm going to be glued to my computer for hours on end I want to be accomplishing something or at least in control of the experience.

Travian was probably the worst offender as they'd encourage you to sit there for hours on end waiting for something to happen.

Why do you play MMOs? You seem to list a thousand reasons why you shouldn't.

In answer to your questions, I don't play MMOs. I remember wasting some time with (I hate to admit this) maple story because it was free. However, I realised all the things you mentioned and will never touch an MMO again.

The multiple people. Playing the same party over and over by yourself isn't fun the hundredth time over. Even the D&D Games got boring.

I used to play a lot of Astro Empires. I hated it even when I played it, there were a lot of assholes, it was a silly game, and I took it far more seriously than I ever should have.

I managed to completely quit just after Kappa server came out, and haven't even checked their forums since then.

I did however make some good friends while playing AE, people I've now known for a couple of years who I chat with daily, so it wasn't a complete waste of time in the end :)

Well I have played 2 of them for about a month total in 15 years, so I don't really think I play them.

Okay, I see where you are coming from now. You are asking those who regularly play MMOs "Why would you when they all suck?"

Yeah. Not just suck, literally hostile and soul crushing.

This precisely describes how I now feel about Astro Empires.

Not with WotLK and Cataclysm. I went to Northrend for the first time a week ago, the quests feel so much better than both vanilla or TBC. Also Cataclysm's quests are even better. Btw, there is so much story in WoW, dunno what makes you think otherwise. :)

As to why I play MMOs, well, I only play WoW ('play', like a week or so every three-four months), because I love Warcraft's universe, and nothing gets me more interested (well, maybe Starcraft's universe).

I played post-Cataclysm.

Which race? Haven't played them all, but Redridge Mountains had a very fun questline (nearly all quests of the zone were connected, leading to a great ending (just an example)). Btw, one needs to read all quests' information, in-game books, and take notice of the things he sees (no voices != no story). Basically, nearly all questlines lead to an ending that takes place in a dungeon or a raid.

For example, pre-Cata, you had the Defias Brotherhood quests right from the beginning, and that storyline ends pretty much at level 80 (with your raiding folks killing Onyxia).

I don't play MMOs precisely - I do play online games with friends, etc. And I mod/follow modding for various games, which gets me fresh content for my favorite engines.

If you keep being drawn back to the social aspects MMOs (as opposed to quests/story/gameplay) have you thought about looking for some really offbeat ones that avoid the irritating parts? I recently saw that Myst Online is up again, and thought about checking it out: http://mystonline.com/en/
The forums are active and everything. It's free to play, so there's less of a commitment if it turns out to be terrible and there isn't any pressure to 'get your money's worth'. YMMV, I haven't actually tried it since my GOG backlog is tremendous right now.

I used to play MMOs due to the communities more than the game itself. Many older MMOs consisted of very player driven worlds, where you were forced to interact with others on a daily basis and your actions could have lasting effects. Sadly, this is gone now. Companies have tried to streamline the MMO market, make them solo friendly, and go to great lengths to help players avoid any interaction whatsoever, focusing instead on the grind.

A few examples of older MMOs I played are Lineage 2 (in the earlier days), Star Wars Galaxies (Pre-CU), and Shadowbane. Lineage 2 had a horrible grind, but the player interaction was always intoxicating. Clans fighting over castles and resources, ongoing wars, politics, and all kinds of madness between players. Each day was a new day. SWG was great because you could literally be one of a hundred professions, rely solely on that, and people would make use of your services (from hairdressers to bounty hunters). Shadowbane was similar to L2 in regards to political fun.

Now days? You log in and can solo from start to finish, instances exist which hinder how often you run into other players and make new friends (or enemies), PvP is virtually non-existent and only found in "arenas" or specially designated areas, etc. The games now are nothing BUT quests and grinding, no matter how much they want you to believe otherwise.