The article is from MMOsite Writer Club member royallush.

How to Make a Waste of Time: The Don'ts of MMO's

With the increasing number of horrible free and pay to play MMO's out there, you would think that companies that are just so eager to copy the next guy would stop to filter out the bad habits. Unfortunately, since they don't, we (the players) keep getting announcements and advertisements that are for games that would be great if they weren't so terrible. I've complied a list of the top five worst things that can be done to an MMO. Things bad enough that will make you want to wish that you could get that hour you wasted to download the game back. Since I'm not good with ranking, they aren't in any particular order.

1: Broken Translation

As much as we love games from other countries, and as grateful we are that someone decided to make a version in our native tongues, a broken translation can make you ready to slit your wrist. It's hard enough getting one's self to read all of the dialog in a quest/mission, but if you find yourself reading the broken language of a half-done translation, it makes it all worse. One of the most common complaints I've seen for most F2P games is that the translation is incomplete, such as the help menu is still in a different language, and that the grammar for the translation is so poor, it's as if it was done by 5 year olds.

2: Un-User-Friendly

The dynamics of a game range in difficulty. While some games have a very basic point-click-kill system, other games such as Lineage, WoW, and FFXI are more complex with the heavy use of macros. Still, these games keep the user-interface and controls easy to pick up. Other games, such as NeoSteam or Corum, add unnecessary complications to the controls for no real reason. Though, the idea behind it is to make the game more interesting and different, it falls short of being fun. Instead, the button mashing turns more into being just plain annoying. Complex controls, just for the sake of being complex, is a bad idea for any game. That is unless, of course, you're Street Fighter : Down, Diagonal, Right, Punch!

3: Poor Character Creation

As gamers, we constantly strive to be a little bit different from the next guy. That's why character creation is so important to us. It expresses our taste and individuality as an Online-Gamer. While some of us express outside the game with forum avatars, signatures, and custom wallpaper for our profile pages, the best way to do it in-game is with your personal avatar. Nothing turns me off more from game where I can't customize how my avatar looks, be it pre-made avatars as in Wonderland Online, or not being able to chose a different sex as in Neo-Steam. Not saying that every game has to have a in-depth creation that goes as far as Perfect World, but being to able to chose simple things such as sex, hair color, facials, and job class makes game play more enjoyable on a personal level.

4: Choppy Graphics

I have to say that the quality of games have been going down instead of up. Some games, such as Maple Story or Wind Slayer, have a specific design that is part of their trademark. Fair enough. But games that try to copy the big name MMO's with little effort end up with fuzzy graphics, laggy game play, and horrible character models. For example, DOMO is one of the cleanest MMO games I've seen that uses an anime-like, cell-shaded design for the game, while Pi Story also used the -drawn- look, it's graphics are no where near the same quality. Same for games that copy the looks of WoW or Lineage such as Rapplez or Rohan. Not that these games are not visually horrible, but by comparison, they are visually lacking.

5: Cash Shops

Welcome to the hell of any F2P game. The cash shop has been hated by many players since introduction. The concept of the cash shop is to make money off of players who otherwise don't play for usage. Ideally, it's not a bad concept since the games are free to play to begin with, but the negative points come to play when the cash shop become a necessity. Since most F2P games are done with half the effort of a P2P game to begin with, to make items/skills/and other creations that will only come with a high price tag in the cash shop hits players on a sore nerve.