Why no MMO?

[Ducimus]

And how is that different in an MMO?

Because MMO's tend to be groupcentric. Grouping, unfortunatly is one of the best "tools" of social engineering to encourage players to interact. The whole thing about Massive Mulitplayer Online is player interaction. Everything you do, your whole reason for being, is ultimatly about player interaction.

The problem comes that, with that interaction often comes a social obligation. LFG? Nobody wants you around if your just going to be in for 15 minute and bail. Theres sort of an unwritten rule to stick it out for some undertmined lenght of time - otherwise you wont get invited again. Particuarlly in any sort of large or *cough* "epic" encounter. Then, heavan forbid if your of a class or skill subset crucial to the groups survival. And if the group is working something, you can't just go AFK in the middle of the fight - or rather you shouldn't. In group centric games, people who go afk alot, leave early, and are otherwise not focused, do not get invited back very often, and participating in said groups, is crucial to your own advancement. Kind of a bummer huh?