>>15603174
Don't listen to >>15603144, they were always shit. Largely because the only way to get the most out of the experience was to put up with other people's bullshit. You must play a community approved class in the community approved way, with the community approved gear, or you're forever in the hub town LFG. Part of this is because MMO content was geared towards turbo-autists who made up the player-bases largest guilds and subsequently - provided the most word of mouth advertising and wrote most of the supplementary material (guides and shit). Corporate sponsored e-celebs. And because these faggots are hyper-NEETs who will sink to pooping in their socks so they don't have to go AFK during a several hour long fight, it makes any sort of play less than basically working a second job and paying for the privileged of it, unmanageable.
And lets not forget, that MMOs are the originators of the "Games as a Service" model that everything is going towards now. Artificial obnoxious grind injected at every possible junction just to pad out the time required to get anything done for the sole purpose of culturing a belief that you're actually building and investing into something worthwhile and keeping you on the hook for a few more months of subscription fees. The free-to-play/pay-to-win model was originated with MMOs which couldn't compete with the few titans, like WoW, who got their addicts hopelessly hooked on their digital narcotics - and even the "in-game currency for real money exchange" that's endemic now originated as a black-market off-shoot of the old auction houses where Chinese Gil/Gold/whatever farmers would run digital sweatshops of people just grinding out money to sell to westerners who couldn't invest the time necessary to buy what they needed from the grossly inflated market.
Just to remind everyone. Buying stuff in-game with real-world cash used to be a bannable offense. Now it's encouraged as the status quo.
I won't say MMOs were always shit, but from Everquest onward - they've been unsalvagable.