...but I'm playing them.

As you probably know by now, I don't do that out of masochistic pleasure, no I'm too sadistic for that, rather I want to give "multiplaying" a fair chance to change my quite negative stance.

So these are my experiences so far:

Installed the Free To Play Star Wars The Old Republic MMORPG

First impression:
"MMORPG" this horrible abbreviation already makes me want to puke

Second impression:
Installer failed to find c:/ and thus couldn't install the client. You've got to be kidding me, EA? Only because my main hard drive isn't following mainstream rules and is named e:/ not c:/ I'm not entitled to play your game? You just deserve to burn in hell for twice the eternity - just for that.
Thankfully I know how to use google and google knows what to do to install that shitty client.

Shitty client took hours to install from the internet. Well, I barely keep my rage controlled but this would be a perfect prelude of playing a Sith Lord.

Several hours later…

The game works.
Took me almost 30 minutes to figure out which server I wanted to play on.
Awkward beginnings of an awkwardly designed character on Planet Korriban.
A rather weird experience in general. Quite overwhelming at first.
Got invited in a group, lost the group, got lost in the tombs, got lost outside the tombs, got shortchanged by NPC merchants, misclicked the dialogue options, died several times because blaster fire passes through solid rock apparently.
Felt like a overstrained tourist in a foreign country. Just like holidays gone wrong.

Experiences with this MMO in General:

I took a fat Afro-American Sithlord with a cybernetic eye patch. His name should have been Bubba but that was already taken so he ended up being Bubba-ray.
I hate it when those eMail Name restrictions are passed on to your character's name.
No space or freaky characters are allowed but the NPC all have spaces and Middle names and bullshit. This limit mostly happens to console ports and MMOs sadly.

A couple of days later…

Sometimes I have the urge to buy some stuff with real money to get more content out of the game, but as soon as I see the big fat EA logo I'm healed of any previous temptation. I hope this stays this way.
The really tease you with their mindfuck about Cartel Credits and the advances you get spending them.

Open Questions:
Why are there social points? Why do SITH of all the Bad-Mutha's out there need Social Points?

Experiences with other players:

I didn't like Bubba-ray anymore, so I looked for a Role-Playing server, found a German one and started a new Character named him Bîll-Clînton.
Made his appearance to resemble him as close as possible.
Favourite Character thus far.
I enter the Role-Playing Server Chat, each time saying:
"Vote for me!"

Some started trolling immediately, others understood my humor better.
Not much talk, apart from the usual trolling suspects, I took the least populated servers playing at the most unpopular game time. Some bots wanting me to buy from bestauction.com nothing unusual, picked a good time where most of the idiot where already sleeping. Still I had some chat experience I like to share:

Worst Chat Experience:
As Bîll-Clînton I got into a general discussion with someone claiming that I should be playing for the Republic not for the Empire. I answered that I'm not a Republican thus I fit right in the Empire. Republicans can join the Republic (hence the name!!!) if they want. He then started to troll about being a Democrat isn't the Sith's way and that he personally is a Republican Sith (On a German server talking German and considering that German doesn't really have Republicans this didn't make much sense but well) he even asked if there were any Democrats online and while some answered yes, I had to reply that Bîll-Clînton is a Democrat and a Sith in agenda. He insulted my "juvenile behaviour" and officially announce to ignore me (via chat function)
I somehow felt upset about this, haven't figured out why yet. Guess because I won the argument but no "gentleman" was there to admit defeat - I don't know. Yet it bothers me…

Another Bad Chat Experience: Playing a group mission together with others we had to split loot. You can pick "need","greed" or abstain to roll for the item. Highest roll wins - I got some items I didn't really need but just because I clicked on greed. Considering that I'm an evil Sith Lord on a Sever that especially encourages ROLE-PLAY, I found this the right thing to do. As a Jedi, I should have abstained even if it would be the perfect item for me.

But then someone asked me every time why I got this item. Why did you want item x? Why did you want item y? Why did you want item z? Only because they didn't get it and probably were upset that they didn't win it.
Quite annoying but in the end I could grin sadistically when I sold the Items under-priced to an NPC vendor.

Best Chat Experience:
Back as Bîll Clînton, someone who saw my character whispered to me: "You really look like him!"
Well, that's why it's called Role Playing. I think people still don't understand the meaning of that but that simple line really felt good.

[edit]
Today night I had some help with some difficult quests in StarWars MMO with some random strangers.
Meeting altruistic empire agents is always a sight to behold.
I enjoyed it. I felt a bit under pressure, performing right and being judged by my peers. As a perfectionist this can be rather unnervering but this was a rather pleasant encounter.

[edit 2]
Today I played CO-OP with P1ña from our GOG forums.
We played Orcs Must Die 2
It was really a good experience. Considering that my character had a far lower level it didn't feel unbalanced one bit.
I must say I really enjoyed it and look forward for more CO-OP in the future. Yet P1ña isn't an anonymous stranger (just a semi anonymous pineapple from gog) and I sincerely hope that P1ña enjoyed it as much as I did.

[edit 3]
Well there some factors which really spoil the multiplayer co-op thing.
Bad Internet connection. You try to figure out which side of the connection is bad, then you play for a couple of minutes, the connection resets, no savepoints, nothing gained just time wasted and you have to restart everything just to lose the connection 5 min later again. That's even more frustrating than trolling Sith-Lords...

I suspect that modern 'mmorpg' games are not the 'rpg' games you want them to be. WoD may help with things like this, but given standard human behaviour, I doubt it.

I think Eve almost pulls this off because the role playing is off standard human behaviour.

As a rule you should probably try and avoid any topics or names that will even inspire discussion of politics or religion in a multiplayer game, especially an MMO. All you'll get in the end is brain damaged from reading the channel once a discussion starts.

I also find it funny that someone was having a fit because you were rolling greed on items, I assume they were green quality as well. I haven't had that happen in a long time, there was nothing wrong with what you did. Rolling greed on everything is what's expected by most people unless it's discussed beforehand by the group what the looting should be like.

I don't know what I learned from all of that, but I thought it was funny. I hope that was the right response.

Still no D.I. on sale for 5$, but I did find a nail on the highway driving home from work last night. Paid quite a bit more than 5$ to take it home with me. Kind of wish I could return it now though.

While it is possible to find intelligent life in MMO-land, those folks and people who are pleasant and just play for the fun of it are a minority. It's all about gear and status in the virtual world for many. I did my time and drama in two raiding guilds in EverQuest and do not play the "end game" of any MMO anymore and I haven't grouped in years. I just enjoy being in the populated world playing solo. I find plenty in WoW to occupy me that is fun for me without dealing with a bunch of crazy or mean spirited people. I hate to be negative but MMOs have done zero to boost my faith in humanity generally speaking, even though I do find playing them fun - alone.

I'm not surprised to read it is tough going breaking into a new MMO world, learning a new game in the company of a lot of nutcases, adolescents and bitter people who love to lash out from the safe anonymity of the Internet.

A kind of multiplayer experience I used to enjoy before leveling, perks and imbalance (unfair odds starting out) became the norm was online shooters such as UT2k4 or Q3A. Ah, those were the days! There are dumb asses there too but you can enjoy killing those folks, making the game even more fun. I never responded to any of them in chat - I just killed them. Now, you have to marry yourself to a online shooter to level up in it, gain perks and weapons, etc. so you can even compete. It sucks. So, I am not so keen on those but there are a few I am going to give a try and see if I can tolerate the early game or if it just sucks too badly.

Basically, all that one might find negative about exchanges with people on the Internet, such as on forums, applies and is amplified in online play where poor sportsmanship and self-interest all too frequently can sour the experience. I am not at all surprised you do not enjoy multiplayer games. I can see why.

My suggestions for best experience playing an MMO, especially early on would be to do the solo story mode stuff and turn off the worldwide chat altogether. Most of the time I have found there is no worthwhile discussion to be had in general chat but there is endless trolling and worse there. So I ignore it personally and tune those people right out.

I think when multiplayer can truly be a lot of fun is when it is not with strangers but with friends or family. Otherwise, it is a real crap shoot and some are fine with that, others have a lesser tolerance for the BS. I think I have fallen into the latter camp over the years but I should say that when I played EverQuest constantly for years, I did make friends grouping there and did have a lot of nice times. It wasn't all drama all the time but there definitely was some serious drama some of the time both in guilds and just pickup groups. Every day was a new adventure in that regard but I took that good and the bad because I so enjoyed being in that world and playing that game.

I thank you for your replies, I just need to tell somebody.

Actually I find most of it funny too, some parts of the MMO are just overwhelming, but they way people act or react can be funny, I just find myself irritated from time to time. I have expected worse and story missions aren't that bad, I just find the grinding a bit overstretched...

I don't think I want to abstain mentioning politics in game, it's a role playing experience for me and the plotting, scheming and ursurping power is definitely the Sith lifestyle in the same way as abusing Twi'lek slavegirls/boys in any way the see fit.

I haven't tried the Star Wars MMO, but I did try the Star Trek Online, played for a few hours, got bored, uninstalled and that was it..

MMORPG = Many Men Online Role-Playing Girls

Quoted for TRUTH™

Sure, probably attached to pangea and still forming up a bit but somewhere USA exists and since I'm roleplay Abraham Lincoln, Bill Clinton and Bubba-Ray I have every right to call one of them of Afro-American background ;-)

Ey, YO! Americans! What's the political correct word to say to those non-WASP people. Quite difficult to know that as a foreigner, your're changing and relabeling racial slurs and stereotypes so fast anyone else can't keep up... ;-)
/Sarcasm

The only time I played a girl was with my bank toon. Girls get the best deals and I am all for that. :D

I play as a girl even in Mount & Blade :P

You're such a girly girl Keeveek! lol

A few thoughts from a largely solo-playing MMORPG fan... Shitty client as I recall is >30GB. Not uncommon for modern MMORPGs. Yeah, it's going to take a while. Now that would annoy me. If I saw that I'd /ignore you immediately.

The Role-Playing servers for MMORPGs are generally intended for more dedicated attempts at role-playing within the existing game world. 'Funny' characters named after celebrities, or called things like IKixYoAss, should be kept to the normal servers. Or not done at all, preferably. This I will quite happily say you were in the right on. Need is supposed to out-rank Greed in the rolling for loot stakes. People can get narky if you 'Need' everything (as it is highly unlikely you actually do!) but if no-one takes Need and you happen to win with the highest Greed roll, then that's yours fair and square. If it was that important to them, they should have picked Need.