You Can't Play A Free MMO For Thousands Of Hours And Then Not Recommend It To Others

I saw a post on r/MMORPG about how someone will play a game for thousands of hours and still not recommend it to others. It made me laugh because that is ridiculous. You got thousands of hours of entertainment — without spending a cent, assuming it was a free-to-play title — and your conclusion is that nobody else should try it? Bruh. 

MMOs are not meant to be eternal happiness machines. Despite how fans of the genre may feel, they are still just games. You are supposed to enjoy yourself, stop when the fun stops, and maybe come back later when there is a new update. This applies to RuneScape, Lost Ark, Guild Wars 2, Throne and Liberty, Albion Online, Phantasy Star Online 2: New Genesis, The Lord of the Rings Online, Star Wars: The Old Republic, Dungeons & Dragons Online, MapleStory, EVE Online — all the biggest movers and shakers. That is simply how it works in this genre.

There is no video game that offers infinite novelty. It does not exist. And the price point makes this even funnier. We are talking specifically about games that are free-to-play. Where else can you get thousands of hours of free entertainment? Netflix, Hulu, Disney+, Peacock, HBO Max, Paramount+, every streaming service out there charges you a subscription fee, and none of them can provide thousands of hours of new content without repeating or recycling.

Players also forget how much they contribute to their own misery. They are likely guide-driven and meta-obsessed. People no longer just play casually. They min-max. They rush to the endgame. They try to “beat” a game that is literally designed to never be beaten. Of course, you are going to burn out if you treat the game like a full-time job, or even a part-time one. That is not the developer’s fault.

Whenever I read these kinds of “reviews” from players with four-digit hour counts, it just feels like bitterness. They did not just stop having fun — they stayed well past the point where they were enjoying themselves and now want everyone else to know how betrayed they feel. That is not useful feedback. That is projection.

This does not mean MMOs are perfect. They can be at fault too. Some are mismanaged. Some go too hard on monetization. Some can run out of meaningful content just a dozen hours in. A game provides good memories for hundreds or thousands of hours and eventually reaches a point where I move on. The solution is not to tell new players to stay away; it is to say that you will probably have a blast for the first few hundred hours — just know that the endgame is not for everyone.

This is where the conversation online gets warped. People treat MMOs like they are supposed to last forever. If they cannot keep you occupied for a decade, then they are seen as failures. But to me, getting 500 hours out of a single title is a massive success. That is insane, actually. 400, 300, 200, even 100 hours is more than enough. Most single-player games last between ten and thirty hours these days. If you get hundreds of hours of enjoyment — and you did not even pay for it — you won. You got more than your money’s worth, because you did not spend a cent.

So be wary of those reviews in question. They are not warnings, or even objective assessments. They are baseless rants disguised as friendly advice. If you are new to an MMO and curious, try it yourself. Have fun. Play until you are done. Then put it down. It really is that simple.