8. The Living World But Not So Much
MMOs often boast these living and breathing worlds where anything and everything can happen, which is true in the sense that a monster can be dropped into the game by a dev at random. However, when considering how most MMOs work, the player has zero impact on the actual world. Going into an instance (see dungeon) places the player in an environment that is vacuum like in its scope, nothing that happens in the instance effects the world despite the results of the mission. For example, in the now shut down MMO City of Heroes, several instances started by going into an office building to complete a mission, which would end in the buildings destruction. However, upon escaping the towering inferno to the safety of the street, one would expect the building to be burning. Nothing. The world, that is supposed to be alive, only seems to grow when the devs step in and program a change. Aside from that the world is magically resistant to the awesome powers it contains, including the giant monster the devs spawned to wreck havoc, where havoc apparently means to be extremely careful not to actually break anything.
Shock Value: This is another example of a pointless lie that by definition is just unnecessary. Promoting a game to do or even be one thing and then doing something else is an insult to the intelligence of just about everyone involved. Plus its an example of a company that literally cant control itself.